Silent Whisper by FireSlash
A narrative game revolving around four soldiers, and their journey back home.
Through various points in the game, you'll be faced with tough decisions. Who to save, who to let die. When to run, when to fight. Ultimately, you'll need to sacrifice some lives if you're going to accomplish your mission.
There are two distinct endings, and multiple ways to die along the way. Most actions will cost you time; something you'll need plenty of if you want to stay ahead of the enemy nation Ulmach's front lines.
Every decision has an impact. Not all outcomes are seen. Such are the realities of war.

Controls
A mouse with a scroll wheel is highly recommended.
If, for some reason, your mouse lacks such fantastical features, you can grab the little black mark on the right of a text box to scroll manually.
How to play/game notes
For the most part it should be self-explanatory. However, your tank requires supplies to run, so if you run out, you'll find yourself stranded.
For short periods this may appear OK, but hostile forces are chasing you. If you sit around too long, they will catch up, and it won't end well for you.
Technology and tools
Written in Haxe, using Heaps.
Credits
- Code / Story: FireSlash
- Art: Kiririn51
- Music: Juneji
Additionally, a few UI sfx were used from artisticdude
| HTML5 (web) | http://comeonandsl.am/dev/LD43/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/43/silent-whisper |
Ratings
| Overall | 153th | 3.882⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 426th | 3.365⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 325th | 3.408⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 421th | 3.605⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 159th | 4.197⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 129th | 3.811⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 753th | 2.344⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 58th | 4.105⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 38🗳️ | 33🗨️ |
It fits the theme nicely.
For me, travelling without events was a bit too long.
Also, maybe you should block an action after the first unsuccessful roll? I get the idea behind this - risk and all. But if you make it possible to try an action only once it will make it even more risky and therefore rewarding.
That said, I did play a bit fast and loose with some of the events.
The game used to play faster, but I slowed it down a lot for atmospheric reasons. I wanted to really dial home the feeling of despair and desolation.
I may have overdone it....
Thanks for the feedback!
@sgergaud I'm not sure what you're talking about. Do you mean the first part where you can name your characters? Simply clicking "next" with no input provides default values. Though I suppose it's not super clear.
P.S The art was awesome :)
I really like this kind of game! I can see myself spending a LONG time playing it just to read the story!
Awesome job!!
I wish I'd named the characters something else than random strings of characters though :D
* Art is amazing - really liked the look of this game
* Events got a bit repetitive after a while - would be nice to have more variety
* Would be nice to get some sort of progress indication - I passed around 400 miles but I don't know if that's a lot. Would be nie to know what distance is "left" in the game.
Cant believe you actually finished the game in so few days.
A really solid entry for gamejam!!
It's really amazing what you've achieved in such a short amount of time.
Overall, a really great visual novel experience! :smiley:
I agree with Matank on all points.
At some point, I just got the same two events over and over again, with no chance to resupply. It really just felt like I was waiting to die.
Nice music and art. Completed in Capital with bargain. Is it right choice?
My only critique was that maybe it was a little long. I felt like I was repeating a lot of content and the game was asking a lot of time for an LD entry, but then as I neared the end I started seeing the arc of change in the towns. So the longer length was utilized for good purpose, but I still wondered if it could be 30% shorter, just personal taste.
I felt like a key design decision that really worked well for you was making me wait. Normally I find that terrible in games, but here it was a strong positive. Watching the tank's travel animation (which was excellent) with the parade of progress-meter dots and the mileage going up while the supplies went down, it was a strong moment. Especially because I was never sure when it would stop and I would face some choice.
Overall I feel like this game had a strong vision of the experience it wanted to create, and all of the aspects were highly focused to that goal. It really works. Great job!
There could also be some simple minigames to increase the user agency and interactivity over the narrative!