An interesting and dark interpretation of the topic. The story is a bit short, and it would be nice if you could manually dismiss dialogs. A solid submission.

@potti Yes I agree its small and I too wanted to give the ability to manually dismiss dialog. But I did the best I could with the time I had, Thanks for playing :)

I agree with Potti, but was missing the link to the theme a little.

also damn those flies on the food! With headphones on they were too real D:

Gosh, though the story was moderately predictable, the art combined with the tense nature turned this into a game which gave me serious goosebumps (don't know about the rest of them). Now I realize the need for the Mood rating - you're going to get 5 stars for that. Making the player feel something is an achievement, and I think you managed to pull it off! (hope it's not just me, who's easily scared ;))

With a proper BGM and more sounds, this could have been a real killer of a game (pun intended). Also, a more responsive dialog system (more control to cancel dialogs, player movement while dialog is up) would have made the player feel less restricted and more immersed. Theme-wise is a bit of a stretch too.

Great, great work! I'll remember this game. Kudos for doing so much with so little.

Always nice to see a story based adventure game in a ld jam! I love the low res pixel graphics, the rooms just seem a bit empty but I understand you were working under time pressure (duh :grin:) Something you could have fixed in my opinion, is drawing the shovel in a leaning position instead of rotating it and keeping all the charactres resolutions the same, the wife seems a little out of place the way it is now.

The premise of the story is intriguing, I think you gave the ending away too soon though. Maybe you could've made the hints more subtle? I'm sorry that I can't give anything more concrete :/

Sound design does it's job, I see you opted out of sound, you chose the right clips to complement the mood though, so good job!

I like the concept but i don't see how it fits the theme...

@sam-dower Thanks for playing :)
well the way I intended to fit the theme is, as u get clues you figure out whats happening and come to a conclusion. SO the whole fact that the more clues you get, the worse it is - because u unravel a horrifying truth, as you find more clues.

I appreciate this take on the theme, and the visuals are pretty good. The revelation that his son and wife were dead fell flat. Our character seemed to react quite nonchalantly to their lifeless bodies. It didn't help that the bodies were out of frame when the dialog started. Also, a temporary flare in the music would have helped.

Nice game, it's great to see some games with a good plot :).
I also had the problem that the son was out of the screen when I opened the door of his bedroom so I first I didn't really understand what was happening.
(Also the son have a bedroom but... where is her wife's bedroom ?)

Excellent mood ! The music is perfect and story beautifully dark.

However, somehting somehow broke the mood for me at the beginning : I had not understood that it was my character speaking when he saw his son's corpse (which was not in view yet). Also I felt that the character was way to relaxed, peacefully searching clues as if it was a random case. I had some difficulties afterward to come back in the story.

Interesting entry. I think you are giving away the solution way too early. I had most trouble with the timed dialogue boxes (which were open for a too long amount of time). Manual skipable boxes are the way to go. But overall, i enjoyed the game.

I really loved playing your game! Story based games are always great. Sure, the story was predictable, but it's a good building block if you want to keep working on it. Dismissing dialogs is a must! It gets very tedious otherwise, but of course that's an easy addition for later. And great music!

I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the game! Well done! The story was a bit predictable, for me at least. The music is spot on, nice job!

I loved it!

Wow the story is catching and the atmosphere is peasant.
Maybe more environemental sounds like the TV, song of voice throught the phone could be great.
Also i got outside before openning the Anna's door so i couldn't take the shovel. So i had to go upstairs openning the door and go back to the 'cave' take it.
More fluidity in conversations should make it more enjoyable :)
Nice entry ! Good job !:thumbsup:

Man, I want to be honest: your game hooked me up completely. Sound is perfect, story is not so long but the atmosphere is really intense. Congratulations man, good job!

good job didn't really fit the theme but other then that it was a really wellmade game

I like the game, and story is good. The plot is a bit cliche, but I still liked it. The music is really good. The graphics is okay, but it could have been more scary. But overall a good LD game.

good and short game, but "the more you have" = the more personalities?

That was certainly dark. The story is pretty good, and it was one of the better adventure/mystery games I've seen made for an LD.

I couldn't find a way, but there needs to be some way to speed up/close the text boxes. I often found myself waiting for a while after reading the text.

@newton Thanks for playing! Well the way I intended to fit the theme is: As u get clues you figure out whats happening and come to a conclusion. So the whole fact that the more clues you get, the worse it is - because u unravel a horrifying truth, as you find more clues and get a lead on whats happening.
So, nope its not more personalities.

A few little things I need to get say before the start:
It would be nice to put a shortcut so I don't have to go through all the files, and it has no name xd

Sorry for being petty, back to the review:
At the beginning there is a bug where a rectangle appears on the dialogue or something idk

The graphics were reaaallyl good though wow. Everything fit together to make a nice experience, and it was helped by the music, nice and spoooky.

While I agree you could see the ending coming, it still was an enjoyable (if dark) story to play through, and its amazing you finished it! Also, the level design was really well thought out in means of the story.


As someone said before, were you trying to follow the theme as in more personalities, worse it is? I tried doing that, but it didn't turn out well xd

The name fit very well :)

Well done; great job

@move127 Thanks for playing! Yes I agree too. Sadly I couldn't code that feature due to which just to be on the safer side, I kept the text time long, as I believe not everyone has the same reading speed and not everyone's base language is English.

This was a very enjoyable game experience! The graphics were drawn well, and the mood of the game was one of the best I've seen in the game jam. There were a few typos in the dialogue boxes, and it would have been nice if there was a way to advance the dialogue faster (maybe I missed this). Overall, solid submission!

Dark but it got me hooked quickly! I really enjoyed the whole experience and a narrative game surely stands out of all the others :) good times! Just a bit annoying that we could not skip the texts once we had already read it :P
Anyways, good job!

Had fun playing it, but I couldn't pick up the shovel toward the end...so i got no closure lol. Well done though!

Nice game. But it should be rated PG-13. :p

Sad story, yeah.

Even though much different story, reminded me of Max Payne :)

It is quite nice adventure game. Did you mate it as single developer or in team. Style of grathics is very old school ... i like it :)
I have fun to plaing it.
Good luck Steven!

After a bit of a downloading kerfuffle, managed to play the game! I enjoyed the mood and pixel art, and it was great to play a story game! For text, I noticed that some text was on a timer, and with other text, you would press the 'Esc' key to make it disappear. I think the method of removing text should have been consistent (esc key for all) - that way people could control for exactly how long text appears. All in all, nicely done!

At the beginning I was like, how can he be so calm? Then I was like, ok I get it! xD I enjoyed the little mystery very much! Great job!

This short criminalistic adventure gets under your skin. Not knowing what's going to happen next it was pretty bad feeling that I'm playing as the bad guy who's trying to pity myself out of the misery I am stuck with. Nice take on the theme, it was a bit short, so I would love to see more.

Make sure you check out and rate my game as well :)
Thanks !

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/do-ki

:video_game:
@michael-gor @blakemcdeezy @kaisan-games @professor

The minimalistic graphics, mood and music were incredible. As a fan of adventure games I really enjoyed it. The story was nice, but not that much original, but I understand it is hard to make a good story in 72 hours :). Good job.

Haha I loved it! These are my favourite types of games (I made something similar for this gamejam, it's called Althea and the Magical Fruit - you should check it out)

The drawings were fantastic, the game kept me hooked until the end and I loved how the screen narrowed when you entered a cutscene. It gave it a really dramatic effect. I hope you continue to make games like these, because there aren't that many out there! Atmosphere was awesomely creepy, though I think the story was a bit to predictable. Most people would figure it out quite quickly, so if there's any feedback I would give it would to be to try the story more subtle. But that being said you did it all yourself which is absolutely incredible and a massive achievement! You should be proud!

I liked it. It had nice graphics and audio, but i think you could have immersed the player even more if you went for an even darker theme. I figured out the mystery very quickly but that varies from person to person, and I understand that it's very hard to test for things like that when you are doing something on your own. I was a little bit annoyed by the looong dialog boxes, and annoyingless leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to the dark side. So try to provide as many quality of life features that you can ;) I also think that the game did not really follow the theme, but it was fun anyways. I also like that the game wasen't too long. Overall, gj!

You need music. The story was really good, you made me curious. Good job

I am so sad that I don't share the same opinion as other people... it seemed very obvious from the moment he came to the washing machine that the next thing that's going to happen is... not going to spoil it for anybody.

I still hoped there would be a nice plot twist but it was very straight forward. Also, where the hell did he get a gun? :D

About graphics, sounds and design - I liked all of these :) but it did not fit the theme at all

Well done hope could be a full indie one car

The concept of the game was very good, the graphics fits the mood too, but the story could've been a lot better if the dialogue was more emotional and less obvious. I figured out the story pretty quickly because of the obvious clues, it fits the theme of the event and I like your idea of discovering the items one by one. this is a really good game for compo! and you did it by yourself too! so good job!

I really like the creepy graphics and audio of this game. However, I think this game does not really fit the theme well. The story is really predictable and the long time for text to disappear made me think that the game was lagging (you could make it shorter because most of the lines can be re-read anyways). Still, this game will obviously have a good mood rating, because of its really creepy nature.

Great job! really liked it. though it was obvious how it would end, but it was still great!

I think it's ok to "give away" the twist early. Lots of stories do it (hell, Tarantino movies do this on the regular), but it's still interesting to explore the psyche of the characters involved anyways. That's how your game came across to me as rather than a big plot twist game. I did think it dragged a little bit but it kept me til the end regardless.

I really liked the graphics and audio. I'm guessing that the story is what tied into the theme more than the gameplay (more personalities worse it gets), but it could've been cool to do something with the gameplay and theme too. Although, I'll admit I'm not sure what.I liked it a lot, but I would recommend figuring out a way to not accidentally retrigger or skip through the dialogue options. Otherwise, great job!

I am Sorry to say this but your game has strayed far away from given theme. It lacks in game design and seems to be a bit tedious, despite of its mystery like theme there is no puzzle or mystery for the player to solve. The gameplay is boring and the story is poorly narrated. The character seems a bit derivative of Max Payne leaving out his badass demeanor. I really enjoyed your artwork it made up for wht the gameplay lacked. Keep working at it I’m sure you’ll crack it. Good Luck!

Please play my game and give me your honest review. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/greedy-eddy

I liked the cohesiveness of the graphics. The story was a nice touch, it went from 0 to 2,147,483,647 almost instantly, just like a detective game should. I do think it sheds light on split personalities but could be refined to better show a light into why his split personalities were affecting him.

Nice art, good nostalgic feel to the game. I felt the story was very predictable due to some of the script writing though. Nice enough to play through though :) good work

A simple design, but well implemented. Sometimes you could cause the sprite to walk backwards though.

Dense atmosphere and although the story was preditable, I really wanted to know what's inside the grave. So that kept me going but I wished I could have skipped the dialogs. There is a bug where you can pickup the watch multiple times. Good job and see you in LD41 :)

Played it last night and enjoyed it. Yes, you kind of know what's going on almost all the time but somehow you still want to keep playing till the end. So pretty nicely done! I think it has a great atmosphere

Loved the mood of this game. Real scary in a simple way actually! I liked it very much. Controls could be better of course, but very impressive!

Nice 10 min adventure.
Story is interesting, though twist kind a reveal it self maybe bit rematurly.
I would like this polished, and extended a bit, after Ludum dare

I like the graphics a lot and the overall game! You are probably interested to know that your walk animation bugs out when i hold both the left and right key and then release on of the two. Nice game nevertheless!

I really like the graphics and the mood of the game! For the future, what kinda set me off was the difference in pixel size of the pixel graphics, that might've been united. Otherwise pretty solid submission, thanks!

Pretty cool!

Art style wasn't really consistent. Some objects had outlines, some didn't. Some objects objects were probably drawn too small and had to be scaled in the engine, resulting in their pixels being a lot bigger than some others. The font didn't really fit the rest of the style either. The sizes of some objects were also totally wrong. If I remember correctly, the bathroom for example didn't look too good...

The story was ok. Very predictable but the writing was decent. As you said yourself, the skip for the dialog would have been a must. They were always there for too long even for me as a non-native english speaker. And vice versa, there must be someone who doesn't read them fast enough and end up missing a part of it. So yeah, a manual dismiss would be the way to go. Or at least not locking the player to just stand still there while waiting for the message to disapper. And you already kinda had that same functionality with the diary and letter.

The pacing was also a bit off. It was kinda annoying that for example I couldn't pick up the shovel before I found the diary. Even though I had already been on the backyard where the character was wondering what he could dig it up with. I also think it would have been better if that up arrow wasn't there and you could actually examine everything (would require addition of more flavour text like the one in the moldy food). Would have made it a bit more like a game instead of just running on rails.

You kinda have to nail the gameplay mechanics on a story based game or the annoying parts will make you less focused/interested in the story...

I really liked the **moonwalk feature** ;)

Good job!

Great game! Loved the atmosphere and the story, it's really different from everything I played so far.
Sure it could be longer and it could have the option to skip the dialogs, but for the time you had, doing everything alone, I think it turned out pretty great.
I hope you improve the game in the future with the feedback you get in these comments.

Congratulations for the awesome game!

I love the atmosphere in this game! It might not use the theme to its fullest but it's an interesting story and very well done! I had some issues with the menus taking too long, so a way to skip or move during the menus would be helpful :)

Man, this is dark!

I liked the premise and concept, really something different from most games on the jam. Superb job!

nice pixel art and good concept) very :wink: