Watching by kristinamay
My first Ludum Dare game! Relatedly, the first actual game I've ever made.
A text-based day or few.
Learned a ton about a ton. Protip: don't decide to learn how to use Garage Band 5 hours before the compo deadline.
(Caution: some flashing elements, take care if that affects you at all.)
Enjoy. :)


| HTML5 (web) | https://kristinamay.itch.io/watching |
| Source code | https://github.com/kristinalustig/watching |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/watching |
Ratings
| Overall | 532th | 3.42⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 508th | 3.271⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 901th | 2.646⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 803th | 3.021⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 894th | 2.568⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 401th | 3.25⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 396th | 3.083⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 201th | 3.72⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 21🗳️ | 15🗨️ |
EDIT: nvm, I fixed it I think! I don't think it was reading the transparency of a certain CSS transition correctly. Should be good now.
Admittedly, we don't learn much about what's going on or why, unless I missed some options that give hints to what's going on. Even so, I liked the visual details and the chapter-like structure.
There is, however, a rather odd bug. The aformentioned text that's difficult read does exist -- but only if you try and have the game be full-screen. Keeping it within the window on itch seems to avoid the issue.
The whole experience was pretty smooth and polished, even if the story was seemingly random. Thats not to say it wasn't entertaining, as I found myself pretty enraptured in the game.
I myself didn't experience any bugs. For a first every game, its not bad! Maybe work on it a bit more, make multiple endings and you have yourself a complete game!
Good job overall, very unique.
The whole experience was pretty smooth and polished, even if the story was seemingly random. Thats not to say it wasn't entertaining, as I found myself pretty enraptured in the game.
I myself didn't experience any bugs. For a first every game, its not bad! Maybe work on it a bit more, make multiple endings and you have yourself a complete game!
Good job overall, very unique.
Very funny.
Enjoyed it a few times (always have to see what happens when you click the other choices).
Doesn't seem to work on firefox.
The auto-scrolling makes it very comfortable to navigate. I didn't realize you could click on previous choices to display alternatives pieces of story, so I has stuck like ten minutes on the scene with the japanese cartoon with getting how to progress, but I eventually did.
A minor problem however is the color of the interactable text when the background itseld changes color. The dark blue on the black background makes it really hard to read, maybe changing the color to red would have been softer on the eye (and give more of an uneasy feeling, if you see what I mean).
Other than that, it's a pretty good experience, I really like the silence intalled during the scenes with the TV, but maybe more static noises would have been welcomes. Good contrast with the happy and cheerful music. Good job, and sorry for my little wall of text!
Two bugs:
1) Sometimes the scroll behavior feels a bit weird. This is further complicated by choices occasionally being below the "fold". it might be nice to have a big angry flashy arrow of some kind to remind us that there's more to see. I find myself getting into a "groove" clicking options and not really paying a ton of attention to the scroll bar.
2) The game seems to have ended (or bugged out) at "You turn on the TV. It's showing some sort of Japanese cartoon." followed by the narrator quipping "Is now really the time?". I can't seem to progress from here, but it's not obviously a failure/game over state. After reading some other comments, I realized I had to scroll up and click a different option, which was not obvious.
Quite a bit of writing here for a Jam game, and I love seeing narrative works in LD. Great job!
But this is probably asking too much from a Jam game.
Sounds are really nice. :smile:
Also maybe I did something wrong, but when I started watching TV while being guest, the game just... stopped and offered no continuation. Is this right?
Nice text based game.
Good job!
5/5 Would play again.
It was a fun little text adventure, even if I did lose my free will at the end.
It was quite fun to read the game commenting on my choices (though my choices obviously didn't matter much)
The scene in Jakes house was delightfully uncomfortable. I find it interesting how I got fewer and fewer choices towards the end. Almost like I was remote controlled. That went along with the narrative quite well!
The game is neat. Especially the narrator text is a nice touch.