Well that's some serious s\*\*\* after the super happy games i have seen from you before. The mood is great and i like the take on the Theme. Audio did not work and i did not vote in the Fun category, because i would not describe it as fun to play this game, but it kept me playing to the end, so it was 'interesting' and definitely made me uncomfortable.

P.S.: You should post your game in the TIGForums thread. ;)

@zorg Oh no, I feel not having the audio takes a lot away from the game, sadly. Not sure why it isn't working for you :(. Glad you "enjoyed" it either way :P.

*double post*

@silkworm-sweatshop i downloaded it again and now it works. No idea what caused the lack of sound. I'll play it again with sound, but i need a break from the game for a day or two. ;)

@zorg Ah, my condolences. But perhaps next time.. you will make better breakfast choices ;).

This is pretty dark, felt the sound worked well and added to the mood

Wow... That was... Dark... But an awesome story ! I'm not that used to play visual-novel type of games, but I like the way your choices impact the game, going the opposite of what you thought he would do.

I think this concept/type of character should be explored in other types of games ! Really nice work ! Dark, and kinda depressing but REALLY nice !

Good story! The climax gets built up very nicely. I played to the end. I found the final scene was relatively lite compared to the rest though. I wonder how much of an impact your choices make. The story was a bit heavy for my tastes so I won't be replaying to find out. Anyway, great job. The mood was very well crafted. The color, text and sound effects were perfect in that regard.

Wow, you weren't kidding about it being a dark story. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time wondering what was going to happen next. I was getting really annoyed when the character did pretty much completely the opposite of what I intended when the choices came up, but I imagine that's exactly what you were going for with this story. The way you did the music and sounds in this game was incredible. I usually don't really play these types of games, but I really enjoyed this one.

Loved the music and audio bits + the dark story, it got pretty annoying to be clicking constantly, but the story kinda just had you hooked. I did feel like the choices didn't matter, but even so it would have been fun to have some more choice scenes. Great mood!

Very interesting and unique game. As you said, it's uncomfortable, but I was certainly absorbed by the story. The music works well and it's impressive how much the simple visuals add to the mood. It's also quite interesting how the choices often don't do what you expect.

Wow. :scream: That was a really dark ride in the mind of another. Really nailed the thought process narrating, Kudos! Starts out innocently, but damn does it go off the deep end. :smile:

Great use of minimalism, to use what you got. The text effects and sound effects, spot on. And the music at the end was just deliciously... off.
The choices not doing exactly as expected is good - it reveals the dark mind just always going dark.

It might be slightly too long for what does well in LD usually, but I think it is worth it for the payoff here.

My most impactful game this LD: 5/5 :thumbsup:

Amazing!
Your "Mayfly" is the best game I've played this LD so far. The story kept me enganged the whole time and I was surprised by the lenght of it. The visual design was minimalistic, in all the good ways. I'm digging that! I bet with a bit more time you could have visualized the key scenes in the story (the climbing, office, the car etc.).
The sound design also was on point. The effects were definitely fittingly placed with care and intent. The soundtrack was nothing short of amazing, your work alone? Impressive.
I think the depiction of the MCs OCD was pretty accurate, judging from my limited knowledge about it.
You nailed the parts where the MC goes crazy (the jew parts etc.) and the screen effects really contributed to that. The theme was obviously integrated, while not very innovative per se (doesn't matter as the execution was great).
I only have very few "complaints" and they are more or less nitpicking considering all the good parts mentioned above and all of them can be traced back to the limited amount of time you had while making this.
The end felt kinda rushed, with 3 deaths literally happening (or being revealed) in merely 5 minutes. I also had the impression that my choices didn't have much effect on the story (please correct me if I'm wrong, I would love to do another playthrough!).
It's good to see another "story driven" game in this LD contest and I think you did an impressive job!
Keep up your good work Ashley,
I hope I will see more of you in the next Ludum Dare compos.
- NonSans, lowercase_games

@ed3187 @zeantwan @spiria @jasperarmstrong @xephrys @veralos @joror @nonsans

Thank you for all your kind words and critique. There is definitely more I would've wanted to do with more time. For everyone wondering if the choices matter or if it's worth doing another playthrough.. No, not really. I feel this one really is best experienced only once.

While the choices DO change some flavor text (although not even that in some cases), the main story progresses the same no matter what. When I write my post mortum I'll probably go more into how and why I approached choices in the game the way I did and what purpose they serve.

I think I will do a post-jam version updating the graphics and adding more sound effects at the very least. I'm definitely still going very minimalist as I think it's sometimes better to leave stuff up to the readers imagination.


> I think the depiction of the MCs OCD was pretty accurate, judging from my limited knowledge about it

Haha, I would be careful about this. The OCD stuff is pretty shallow honestly and while it's certainly part of it and in my mind pretty much the only thing the MC acknowledges he has, it is pretty apparent that there is so SO much more than that going on. It's one of the reasons I didn't even want to mention any kind of diagnosis in the game.

needs some distinction between the dialogue and the actions. consider pairing with and artist, i like your writing and i think some nice art will get your work the attention it deserves

@oniwaka

> needs some distinction between the dialogue and the actions.

Yes, I agree. I will work something out for the post jam version!

> consider pairing with and artist

I can probably do the art myself, I'd just need time. I still like the idea of a minimalist style, just not as extreme as this version. But we'll see.

I think the system was done very well. The texts, shaking, colors, everything used properly for a narrative game :ok_hand:. I have to admit that I miss seeing graphics like in visual novels, but the minimalist approach has some charm also. I am looking forward to your post-jam version.

Very charmy narrative game ! Waiting for the post jam version with excitement ! I loved the darkness surrounding the game.

I really liked the story and the minimalistic design, but as already mentioned, i was kinda bummed out when my choices didn't have the "right" impact (like doing the opposite). But due to the time limitation, it's really understandable. I enjoyed playing this game!

Wow, sometimes I forget how much can be done with some basic text and effects. Definitely deserving of a high ranking. I do honestly hope nothing in this story has any basis in reality :P

One critique I have is that it kind of took a bit too long for my tastes for the story to 'take off'. But I understand there's also a kind of magic to that... and you don't want to destroy it by revealing things too early. Maybe some days just felt too tedious or something. I don't know.

Well... that happened. Not that you want to give it away in a public post, but I do wonder if there are multiple endings based on choice, or if all choices lead to the exact same conclusion. Normally I include a screen shot or gif, but this is a game that should be experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible, so I will just say good-job.

Are the spelling errors on purpose?

> @sleepygrin: Very charmy narrative game !

Lol, "charmy" was not a word I expected to hear regarding the game. But I get what you're saying, thank you!

> @chuchugeralt: but as already mentioned, i was kinda bummed out when my choices didn’t have the “right” impact

This has been brought up as criticism and I totally get the feeling of perhaps being "tricked" or "cheated". But at the same time this was done very deliberately and your response is one I wanted you to have in a way. One thing to note about the choices is that they never outright lie. They are just VERY misleading and leaves out a whole bunch of context.

> @lieropart One critique I have is that it kind of took a bit too long for my tastes for the story to ‘take off’. But I understand there’s also a kind of magic to that…

I think part of it is that this is a game jam and it's a pretty different kind of submission. I'd say I spend an average of 5-10 minutes when playing a jam game so it's a lot to ask for people to put aside 40 minutes on a single submission (thank you all who did). But as a written story on it's own I'd argue that it's actually very fast paced. Pacing is a science honestly and it's by no means perfect in this story. But you always have to be aware that sometimes you might feel eager to get to the action without realizing what you would lose without proper buildup.

> I do honestly hope nothing in this story has any basis in reality :P

Haha, this was an awkward submission to submit honestly. It might give the impression I have some hidden darkness inside me but I really don't. Most of the stuff I do is very cutsey but I always see ludumdare as a way to challenge myself. When I settled on horror I tried to think of a story that would make me truly uncomfortable and it came surprisingly easy to me when I listed down the elements I wanted to include.

> @jfraser314 Are the spelling errors on purpose?

Nope, I've tried to catch most of them but I'm positive there are still some left. My English is pretty good but it's not my native language. There is a part of the game where proper sentence structure breaks down for narrative reasons but I didn't misspell anything on purpose.

> @joror And the music at the end was just deliciously… off.

Just for fun, bonus points to anyone that can recognize what I based this music track on. It's based on a song from a video that might've scarred you in the past :P.

Enjoyed this well written entry of yours. And liked that we had similar ideas in mind with the choices presented to the player. Nice to see someone else was on my wavelength :) Even though there's a lot of text I found I couldn't stop going along until I got to the end cause the character and situation you built up was an interesting one. Liked that you went through the days but things kept moving forward with changes occurring to the characters. Think the simple art also worked well in leaving it to the players imagination. Especially liked the way you used music at times to build up the scene. Great entry and was fun to see something so different from your usual entries.

I love horror visual novels so this is right up my alley. :) Loved the dialogue and just how dark it is and how it plays with mental disease. The story felt very complete. Very dark and engaging. Congratulations! :D

Now I'm off to wash my hands.

Wow, this is disturbing.
Seriously messed up.

Good writing and fitting sound effects and music. Well done.

I've played it, had a few hours pause in between and the finished it. Reading the other reviews, i realized the pause disabled the music somehow, so i went for another playthrough :D

I must say i really enjoyed it, although it was sooo uncomfortable. The mid section even more so (for me). I also liked the reveals a lot. It was great how the game transports much more than text through the sort of minimal cues you use (also very consistently). The color coding of the "people" was very useful, on the background not so much for me. On the choices i was irritated the first few times, but it quickly made sense to me, as the narrator is unreliable, so why should my choices be reliable. Personally, i can enjoy those kind of games even more when i don't have to overthink each decision. The writing and narration was great, i'm sure i will remember this even years ahead, when i have forgotten most other games. Fantastic!

I really liked the interesting & dark story you've written here. The audio cues and effects were great too, and the graphics although simple, worked really well; the shaky text and flashing colours conveyed a lot. Great work!