This was a fun little game. I found it interesting and well-made, although some mechanics were confusing. For example, if you spend $300 on a vowel and then sell the word for $280, it says 'earned $300' when you actually lost money. It seems like the selling price for the word was set no matter what word you actually spelled, which was counterintuitive. Lastly, you can keep clicking 'auto-proposal' and 'make offer' to have the store make the selling sound (but you only make $0). Great submission.
It's certainly very interesting.
I must admit I think a lot of the deeper meanings are lost of me, but it seems like it will likely be somewhat confusing to the average player. To the extent that's the point I guess that's fine then. (I have not seen the film, so I'm sure that would make a difference)
A few mechanical issues / suggestions:
I would include some indication that the player is hovering over a clickable button, and an indication that the button has been clicked. As it is, it feels awkward to click and not have confirmation that the button press was successful. Also, if it's possible for you to change the cursor, I would. The default cursor breaks the immersion, and the rest of the atmosphere is very immersive.
In the very beginning, I found the music a little too loud to hear the text. Having additional options to adjust the volume of effects or music would be helpful.
All in all, an interesting experience. I think it needs some additional feedback to encourage players to play more and seek more endings.
. . .
One final note - I have no idea what the organizer's stance on the use of AI to generate imagery for these projects is, but hopefully they will clarify that in the future to the extent it becomes relevant.
Thanks for making this. I was really impressed by some of the transitions.
Greetings! I don’t plan to create anything this year, but I’d be happy to play test some submissions and provide some basic feedback.
(Feel free to drop a link to your WIP below, or drop your contact info if you don’t want to post the link publicly).
Good luck to everyone and thanks again to the hosts for continuing this celebration of works entering the public domain!
I did make it through!
I found the experience enjoyable, and although the interface was a little jittery I did not have too much trouble with it.
My only real concern was a page display issue that occurred every time I spoke with a character. Before I had a chance to see it, a page of text flashed and then disappeared. I think it was just showing me a previously loaded page so I wasn't missing anything, but it gave me the impression that I was missing part of the story.
The draw distance for the maze was a little confusing at first (since it looked like there were no rocks before they came into view in some parts), but I think it was about the right size and difficulty to make it feel worthwhile.
All in all not a bad experience, although some additional polish (e.g. making it harder to get caught on trees when wandering around the forest... clearly indicating that there is nothing to explore in certain directions) would improve it.
It was fun.
Fun game with great presentation! I would suggest making the easy difficulty a little easier, and also potentially making the controls a little tighter. I completed the hardest difficulty via keyboard, but I could not complete the easy song with a mouse or on my phone using the virtual controls. At first the 'a' and 'b' notes confused me, but once I understood them I definitely think they added a lot to the game. Great work!
