Interesting! As to not spoil for anyone, I liked the feature added midway through the game, it really makes you pay attention more. Cool story, fits theme well and is unique - good job!!

Made me laugh within the first minute of playing :thumbsup: And nice references to a certain Netflix show. Love the writing/humor so much. Great! Spend almost 40 minutes on it. :heart_eyes: AMAZING! Can't say anything negative about it. Perfect. Top score :thumbsup: :thumbsup: WOW!!

@incd021 So glad you enjoyed it! We really enjoyed making it. Thank you for such positive feedback :smile:

Interesting game, how the doors work feel a bit weird to me but since the goal of the game is to show how he is stuck in a loop i guess the moving between two places is less important. I love the background music it is not to happy but a bit forbearing. Graphics are also good

interesting game ! Nice design ! :clap: :thumbsup:

Great air of mystery presented throughout!

Wellll that took long (like half an hour xd). The plot unfolded little by little, which kept my interest. Although at the beginning things got a bit monotonous (lots of clicking on texts to find the special words), I slowly got the hang of it.

The amount of dialog in the game was staggering for a jam game. And nearly all of it was coherent and well done. The little details such as the TV, Scrubby dialog (I think that was his name?) and the references were really interesting. Maybe there could have been more of those intractable elements in the scenes and less basic dialog, but that's just my opinion.

The graphical style was clean and consistent, dialog was well written, idea fit the theme well. Also liked that you also included some settings, a neat and useful addition.

Good job on this one you two! :)

@justmars Thank you for your feedback! We did plan on more interactables - but did not have enough time, as usual in the jam :wink:

Also, you don't need to click to find the words. The special words react when you just hover your mouse over them :smile: And it's Scruffy, the janitor.

This is really cool. Pizza guy need to get tipped more.

Polished adventure, longer than I thought. My only complain is that the music is a bit dark for the cartoony style, but I'm nitpicking here tbh. Great job!

The cartoon art style was really great and unique! Gonna have to tip my pizza delivery guy more next time!

@tylerkealy @aterlamia @zero-ichi @flawed @midorimelody @bauke-regnerus @gentoogames

Thank you for taking the time to comment! I really like reading poeple's thoughts about the game and insight is always appreciated.
And you should alwyas tip your delivery boy :grinning:

@bauke-regnerus Maybe we did go a bit too dark with the music choice. We wanted to foster a bit of a disjointed feeling, like something is not quite right with this world. And we might have overdid it somewhat :wink:

@gentoogames I'm very happy you like the art style. Never in my life have I drawn so many items/characters in such a short time - it was quite a challenge :laughing:

Very nice game, I liked finding the secret words!

I enjoyed the game for sure. You did a lot with a little, and the narrative structure worked for you. I ended up beating the game- for a weekend endeavor, you delivered an interesting story wrapped in a fun mechanic- that was excellently done.

Great art! Lots accomplished here with so little time. That said, there were a lot of interesting items in each scene that were begging to be clicked on, but you couldn't. Again, took "Game Jam" into account

Love the look of the game

Your game is so good, I am in fact really inspired by that, the ideas and the execution is really amazing. The art is great, I don't have any complains!

Fun little jaunt of a game with some really nice artwork.

That sure was interesting! Actually picking out words in order to get more dialogue options is a feature I haven't seen before. I know this was kinda the point, but in general the game felt /too/ repetitive. I liked it though, good job!

Really great job overall! I loved the art and the story. I did get stuck at one point and couldn't figure out what to do next.

Love the art style and cool story. Thank you.

@bellringerquinn I'm glad you like it even though you got stuck :wink: And thank you for your feedback.

You probably missed an essential keyword somewhere. There are a few those you simply have to unlock to be able to finish the game. It's basically impossible to "fail" in this game (I mean, make so it's impossible to finish). The needed keywords never disappear and are always there, loop after loop, after loop. But it's completely possible to simply miss something and not hover over an essential piece of text. Maybe we should make some hidden solution (not in game, it's too late for that - but in some separate document), like a spoiler-helper for those who find themselves stuck and would like a hint. I will think on it :smile:

That was great! The music really helped to set the mood, and the story kept me interested the whole way through. Also loved the addition of Scruffy :laughing: The ending felt a bit abrupt, but still, great job!

Loved the little comments. The old guy at the police station is just tooo good hahahah good job guys ! it was really fun !

Sooo, so many references I understood! :D

Fantastic game principles!
While I really liked the background music, it didn't quite feel right for the game at first... and also at second, but at last I understood!

Another thing that made more sense the more I played: I was about to nitpick why there's no "show dialogue instantly" button, and only later with the newly introduced mechanic did I understand that it was most likely a deliberate choice to make the player actually pay attention to every single word - and I loved it!

The choice at the end of the game was reasonably hard to make. Though it's a question we all ask ourselves at one point in life, deciding on the spot for one thing over the other without a quick-save/ quick-load system gave it a lot of weight!

I wrote down a lot of potential codes while playing, so uh... are those number combinations part of an ARG, more references to series and movies or just random numbers for the sake of atmosphere? :DD

Super interesting entry! Thank you for your phenomenal work! :3

It got much more interesting once the secret mechanic came in. It was a nice touch. Good work.

@preda @iron-leonem @jamster @str8griz @gabriel-dias-oliveira-de-almeida @theseusinabottle @cwazywierdo @wtfree @dxk2294 @noakishere @trexxak @arron-fowler

**Thanks, everyone, for playing and taking the time to comment. We are very excited to hear your thoughts about our little creation. We are also happy that so many people are actually enjoying the game. We know that it is not a type of game everyone will like** :wink:

@trexxak Hoooray, finally somebody who understands the references :grin:. The numbers, oh yes, the numbers are meaningful. Not all, though, the phone number is just of the top of my head (I was plotting to make it meaningful but could not think of any reference with a good meaning to it). But hey, if you came up with any good meaning for that number - I'll take it :D. Apartment numbers, on the other hand, are references - but references chosen a bit for their meaning, not just random ones.

@dxk2294 How can one not love Scruffy? I'm glad you loved to see him there as much as we loved putting him in there :).

@jamster So happy you liked the art! And yeah, more intractable objects was one of the things that got cut because of lack of time. Always so much to do, so little time - that's jamming for you ;).

@cwazywierdo Yeah, repetitiveness was kind of a point. We wanted the player to feel, well, stuck in a loop :). I guess it can indeed get too repetitive (in other words: booooring ;)) - depending how many days you go through till you "break the loop".

@gabriel-dias-oliveira-de-almeida That's very nice to hear! After all, inspiring each other and challenging each other is part of what this jam is all about.

Super fun game!! Love the secret mechanic and all the references!

WOW. That's the best game I played so far on this Ludum. You did an amazing job. It was a bit hard at the beginning, but then I got the point. Amazing story and the soundtrack fitted perfectly!

Lot of work for two peoples !
The dialog system works very well and secrets words is very good idea.

Good job :thumbsup:

Haha I enjoyed this game! The dialogue was amusing and really well implemented. I got to day 4. Lovely graphics and the game looks really polished! COol idea to unlock a feature mid game. Enjoyed the x files reference too :P Great job, looking forward to seeing more from you!

Visuals are nice and consistent. The variations in dialogs are nice - (shower). If there is no option to select, then it would be good to close the dialog window.

@davidpeterworks Thank you for your feedback! When you talk about closing dialogue window, what exactly do you mean? Do you mean the game should close the dialogue window automatically if there are no convo options left to select? That wouldn't work with the system - there may be no options left to select but there may be a word to discover in the text. If the game closed the window, player would not be able to scan the text and discover the word. Or do you mean something else?

@sophiablabla That is very good to hear! I'm glad you enjoyed the game and had a laugh :)

@duck-reaction It was indeed a lot of work. I barely slept during those 72 hours and when I did, I was dreaming of vectors and graphic tablets ;).

@valisse21 Thank you so much! You just made my day :smiley:

@jenny-bourke I'm very glad you enjoyed the game. And it's always nice to hear that somebody understood the references :)

Holy... That game took a dark turn! Love the twist - I need to play it again to see if there are other ways out! It brings me back to the days of Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. Great job, guys!

Beautiful design and visual, good dialogs, good work for 2 peoples, thx for experience! Good luck!

Death Stranding is awesome.

To be serious, cool innovative idea with hidden words in the text.

This game is polished looking, and well done ! Longer than we expect at first, which is nice ! There's a lot to read and that's nice, for a jam, you managed to make apretty good game so congratz !

Neat game mechanic. Overall nice game

Nice story game, even if unfortunately I couldn't finish it.

Here are my feedback:

_Positive points
- Interesting dialog system with secret words
- Fits well the theme
- Good character design

_Negative points
- On the dialog box, it is not too clear who is talking. Suggestion => You should put a grey filter on the character who is not talking, I think that it will improve the UI design for the dialog box
- No auto-exit dialog box
- Missing some animations in order to give more "life" to the ambiance of the game

Overall: Great work!

@edalbung Thank you for playing and for the feedback. I'm glad you liked the characters!

As to animations - you are completely right. We just sadly run out of time to make any. So there is really only the one.

The auto-exit dialogue would not work here because of the word-hunting mechanic. Even when there are no more dialogue options to chose from, there still may be a keyword to discover in the text. So we can't just close the convo window.

In every dialogue there is always a portrait of the speaker on the left and the listener on the right. We thought that would be enough to signify who is talking to whom. But by your feedback I see that it's not and it can be confusing. It's actually very valuable information. So thank you!

Yes always tip! Also felt this game kind of has a GTA-vibe. Great stuff!

I've had the urge to get to the end of the game as soon af I started, the mysetery drags you in, very good job!
also I like the artstyle.

Fantastic writing! the game immediatly sucks you into the story and the humour is great too.
My favourite was the keyword mechanic.
Loved the art as well! you guys are awesome.

Wow, this was incredible! Extremely well done. I played this one all the way to the end, and then some! I really enjoyed how everything seemed perfectly clear in the beginning but slowly dissolved into unexplained confusion. Well done! I loved every minute of this game!

I gave this one 5/5 across the board. I loved it! And I recommended it to all of my friends. I loved this one thing that you did in the end, but I'm guessing I shouldn't give the ending away, lol. Great job!

Great game! The music was really good and the graphics are very clean. Great job!

Got the ending after 6-7th day (was not that focused on the game). Very interesting concept and clean execution on gameplay. The hints were solid and made me finish with 'good' ending :) Job well done!

The story is very compelling! I liked the *bzzt* sound and all of the slow discovery of the plot twist. But I think the end is a little abrupt, I wanted to know if he succeeds or not.

The mechanic of unlocking words is very fun and the audio sets the mood nicely.

Great game!

Wow. This is such a great way to do things. In fact, I've never really played these click-adventure games, and am thinking that I'll have to explore more of that.

This was exceptionally well done, and has a great feel to it all around.

@eduardo-yukio I'm glad you enjoyed the game and thank you for valuable feedback. You are completely right - we should have written additional scenes to show after each of the endings, and probably even implemented a specific success chance of playing "the best" ending. That would give players closure!

@zliebowitz Then we are glad to have a hand in introducing you to a whole new genre of games to explore :). Thank you for playing, thank you even more for feedback and I'm happy you enjoyed the game!

This reminds me too much of real life - in a great yet depressing way. It was really satisfying to find all the shaken words and unlock new conversations. I had a great time playing this game, good job :)

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/767497194?t=5h42m28s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

Nice idea and story, with a twist I didn't expect.
Really liked the mood and graphics as well.
Very nice entry overall.
Cheers

That was a really good point and click game. I loved the graphics and the writing, but the music felt out of place. It reminded me of the game Deus Ex lol, but I get why you picked it since it's mildly depressing and a good fit for the story.

The keyword-based progression was a clever idea, and a good way to make sure players read the dialog.

I unfortunately got stuck, and couldn't find out what to do after I unlocked the 'g-it--' word. I thought I moused over everything, but didn't find any new words. However, I did notice that sometimes the words wouldn't shake when I moused over them. A minor glitch that maybe popped up at the wrong time for me, and kept me from finding the next word. (I was playing the HTML5 version btw)

I had fun with it, but I'm really curious to find out how it ends (and whether I was close to the end or not!). If you ever put up a walkthrough, @ me and I'll give it another go ;)


*EDIT typo

@ale, thanks for playing! If you want, you can check elysiagriffin VOD just a couple comments earlier. She made it to the end.

One of the best games I played this jam. The graphics, the audio, and the narrative all fit nicely. I didn't get most of the references people are talking about in the comments here, but still enjoyed it :)

Oh wow that was awesome! I got stuck a long time before realizing they could be hints in describing texts and not only dialogs aha! By the way it's nice you've added a hint in the game to tell that functionnality did exist otherwise I think I would never have found it and be looping forever!

Super nice idea with really cool graphics, and a fitting music. Spotted some nice references too! Done form as well, at the end it asks if I had a girlfriend, I noticed last day there was a girl in my room but did escape before talking to her so i don't know what she was doing here.
It was a really great experience and I had a lot of fun playing it! I might retry it to see all possible endings now.

I absolutely love the story. Considering I've watched Futurama more times that I can count, the little references everywhere were fantastic! I even recognized scruffy while he was working at the police station! Great job all around, seriously!

Oof, full marks all around!

Man, I was almost getting bored with the game, and I was wondering like "man, why is this music so bleak? why is this game so simple and also bleak?" And then I got it :D And I loved it :purple_heart: Really glad I kept my patience.

Nice character art, nice music, nice dialogue. And I love the [avoiding spoilers] main mechanic. Kinda tripped me out and left me thinking about how our own real lives are probably the same way :upside_down:

Really interesting interpretation of the theme too.

Great job on this game!

P.S thank you for the kind and detailed feedback on OnRail :grin:

That was a lot better than initially anticipated :) Text adventures or visual novels are usually not that good in a jam context, 72h isn't much to really write an interesting, fleshed out short story. I didn't know what to expect at first, it looked alright but the art didn't really fit with the music, so the created mood was a but strange... But in the end, it did kinda fit in a weird way. So, good job on the choice of music! Very good track that fits the main theme of the game well. It was also a greatly satisfying to find out about the hidden mechanics in the game. Trying to to pick the dialog apart to get that next keyword. When the glitching started, I kinda already guesses where the story was going but it still was a nice twist to the mundane daily grind. It kinda left me wanting to know more about the world this was set it. The theme was spot on and I appreciate that you tried to solve it in a more creative way than most other teams. There haven't been man story-driven games as far as I've played this jam.

All in all, a solid entry! After initial scepsis, I was hooked till the credits rolled :) Good job!

Yeah! Such a great game!

Wow, what a game with a deep story! I believed (wrongly) that the story was much simpler ... What a good surprise, that I was wrong hahaha. I liked the graphics and the sound in general. I think the simple gameplay is a good point in your game. The mechanics of finding secret words is very creative, you can do something bigger with your project, as it is a project with a lot of potential! At first I was a little confused, if I was progressing, or if the game was actually ending. But then I made it to the end, and it was really good. Good job.

A very unexpected plot twist after several days, bravo! such a good realisation of the idea, very deep

Liked the Stranger Things reference there! I wish I could have found Will Byers :joy: That was surprisingly in depth well written and well polished, I'm glad I stuck around for it! Good job!

Whoa, this is such a nice game with a great plot! I loved everything about it really! Sometimes it was a bit hard to understand what those options meant (like what the character would say) or even if I'm supposed to be able to just leave without choosing any option (x-ing the window) but that's such a minor thing. Great entry!

This really made me feel smart once I understood what to click on. Every time when I thought the game would repeat again, something changed and kept me at it and I liked the twist at the end, very well done!
Again, here's me playing it on my stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15n2Eq8yeVA
(video will unlock in 18 hrs from now, sorry about that)

Thanks for submitting! 😊