Untitled Simulator by Eugenik
TL;DR: Get deeper and deeper into Hitler's mind.
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/heal-hitler |
Ratings
| Overall | 1439th | 3.206⭐ | 272🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1678th | 2.695⭐ | 266🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 517th | 3.562⭐ | 270🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1023th | 3.561⭐ | 271🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1491th | 3.047⭐ | 266🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 864th | 2.728⭐ | 248🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1220th | 3.263⭐ | 270🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 308🗳️ | 389🗨️ |
So, I really liked the game, primarily because I like story based games where you get to talk / interact with character / characters. Some HUD and UI text is hard to read, but the rest is fine. Really cool entry.
It should be a no-brainer that we must not silence historical horrors but we should rather talk about them, study them, make games about them, so that we don't forget and repeat them. Therefore, it feels weird to say it but thank you for your bravery that you did not shy away from such a topic that could lower your ratings in the current world that is sometimes concerned about "correctness" and "not offending anyone" to a fault. :clap:
Two little technical details, one is that the game lagged really bad for me when the text was being written. Second one would be that it'd be great if it was possible to skip some of the dialog if it was already showed or even trim it from the dialog options and go straight to the follow-up questions (although I understand that may not be trivial).
Anyway, great job and thanks!
P.S. The title and dancing Hitler was just a cherry on top :smile:
For me there were too little interaction. I mean...after every 5-6 hitler comment, I wanted to decide on my answer. And i missed that I couldn't speed up if I've already read it.
I think you really should either make repeated talks skippable, or better yet, maybe use knowledge database system (kinda like an RPG inventory system where you can choose a topic to say). Also, I wanted to see the healing portion and how Hitler could slowly heal from his traumas.
This was certainly both a funny and interesting entry for this Ludum Dare. Good job!
It was a pretty enjoyable experience, I don't know how accurate the information is, but it was interesting and revealing nonetheless
Было бы хорошо, если бы диалоги не повторялись. Или хотя бы пропускались.
Спасибо за игру ^_^
Just one thing, sometimes it can be a little bit slow, it would be nice to have a key to speed up the text.
Good pun on the title!
Even with the text and premise being interesting, that one thing really broke the experience for me.
Constructive criticism: the text moves on too slowly. Sometimes there are very long periods without giving the player chance to interact. Maybe some people will get bored when this happens. It takes too long to find the first trauma, so I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing. Maybe make the first one easier to find to encourage people to keep playing.
I didn't mind the 'text message' style - it got the job done. I would have liked some other sound effects, maybe a ticking clock would have added to the atmosphere, as I can see such a clock in the background.
Well done!
Well done!
That's an average of one rating every 15 minutes, without stopping to eat, drink, or sleep (and even more when you consider that most games opt out of one or two categories).
Furthermore, most of your comments seem very generic and not related to the content of the games.
## Are you actually playing the games you're rating?
Edit: and it seems you've rated another 8 games in the last ten minutes.
edit: typo
And it's quite decent actually, how?! x3
Well done
However the title of the game combined with the implication that you just need to find Hitlers "trauma" and "cure" him to prevent something horrible like the 2nd world war is not only clickbait (as you never heal him in the first place) but also tasteless - at best.
Also the therapist does a pretty bad job at condamning antisemitism. "don't be so melodramatic" ? Also having the therapist say "It sounds like you are a spokesman of the collective unconscious of the german people" ??
Full Offense because the things I stated above + your username ("eugenik" really?) makes it really hard for me to give this a good rating.
Maybe I'm also too german for this because at no point of the game I thought of this as somehow remotely funny.
I didn't want the game to be too long, and I am not qualified to really do an objective critique of his anti-semitism, so I just went with a very simplistic response of "melodramatic".
Mentioning collective unconscious was me hinting at a possible path for Jungian therapy, as Carl Jung diagnosed Hitler with being possessed by the archetype of Wotan, germanic god of war and focus (similar to Odin). But again, I wanted to keep the game rather short and I was afraid of reception of Jungian concepts by people that are not familiar with Jung. It may very well sounds like shamanism to them. I fell back to Freudian therapy, even though I don't like it and I think it's shallow and contra-productive. Jungian therapy is the right method.
About my username - yes, that's a name I thought of years ago, back when I was in a dark place. Luckily, I moved on and realized my mistakes. But the name stayed.
funny: as I write in the description of the game, I did not intend the game to be funny. It is NOT a comedy game. I took it very seriously and a lot of what is said are paraphrases of what Hitler actually said. Some of the responses are based on Hitler's psychologist Ott.
- Choose the correct visual medium to convey the story (e.g. not a messenger app)
- Allow skipping text or having it load faster. My experience was not enhanced by waiting.
- You have a notebook on the far right that you can (at any point) open and close to review previous questions asked and answers given. It will have finite info per page, and you'll need to flip through it page by page (instead of scrolling up and down).
- When not viewing the notebook/log, the conversation should be more of a text box + face like a traditional RPG imo. You can see their expression and the accompanying text. Much like a real conversation, once the text has "passed" all you have to go on is your memory of reading it (or in this game, the notebook that automatically writes down notes).
The goal here is to feel like a psychotherapist and not like a BFF texting about WW1. Very interesting concept and overall good work with it!
I understand that you somewhat had to compromise somewhere since it was only 72h, but being simplistic does not really do it for me especially when you compare it to how anticlimatic the response of the therapist was in comparison to the anti-semitism shown in the texts before that. If you don't know how to critique objectively, maybe integrating something like notes of the therapist or thoughts where he does it subjectively might to the trick.
When you explain it like that I can see where you were coming from. However just throwing it into the game without further context does no do your thought process behind it justice. Since you already had in mind that people would maybe take it the wrong way if you explain the context of the theory then why include it at all?
As the topic itself (still) is sensitive and you did a lot of research on it this threw me off a little.
In regard to funny: It was not so much directed to you directly but rather to the comments, as I read that you intended to create a serious game.
All in all thanks for explaining your thoughts and intentions about the game aspects. Also happy to hear that you could move on and are better now. I will adjust my rating somewhat since I probably was too harsh with it. Have a good day :)
Compromises need to be made in 72 hours however, so I understand that might have been the easier route to convey the dialogue. It's a good entry nonetheless, well done!
super creative take on the theme i love it
# PLEASE OPT OUT OF THE GRAPHICS CATEGORY
## You are currently in violation of LD rules
From the LD rule page: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules)


https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/hitler-6c2d5f7934554a5cbce3da4fc519b579
I also agree with what @anonymoose said. **Were you really playing a game once every 15 minutes for 60 hours or were you cheating there too...**
## I encourage everyone to rate him with the above in mind.
#### I will edit this post if as soon as you opt out of graphics
Otherwise, I liked the setting and writing! Again, would be perfect if there was an option to skip text.
There is an overlapping between one of the trauma and chat UI that is a bit bothersome but that's not much of a great deal.
I think that a great addition would be to add a "sources menu" or something like that, referencing the different trauma and psychoterapy notions approached in the game
Also the graphics is impressive!
Also @chriiis88 is right.
# You’re in violation of the license for the model you stole as well as Ludum Dare rules. You need to address this.
The license:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The only purpose of the license is to give the creator attribution - you didn’t even do that.
I’m going to be reporting this game to itch.io and the content creator who’s work you stole if you don’t *opt out graphics and credit the content creator* within 24 hours.
# I always credit authors in my commercial games.
I have put a link+license on the itch.io page.
edit: and in the submission description, for your peace of mind.
Now, for the graphics rating - the jam rules don't TELL you to opt out it, they ASK you to (as seen in the excerpt you posted). It's not mandatory.
I really liked it, it's very interesting and pretty fun, good job.
Hitler's dance and Freud were a nice touches.
The game also felt a little basic. Most conversation simulators have more objectives than simply trying to get to a given topic, such as influencing some stats like getting the character to like you, a limited number of times you can say the wrong thing, etc. At some point I felt like taking a notepad to keep track of what I'd tried, which is when I decided to stop. I feel like I explored all subjects but never got the 2nd trauma...
First, the premise and the game title imply that it's a comedy. Also, the game finale goes the comedy route. But the gameplay and topics discussed are not comedic in any sense. This dissonance is off-putting. Second, the conversation itself is a little bit shallow, it's mostly listing historical facts. It somewhat reflects the usual psychoanalytic's job, but for the sake of gameplay, I think the conversation needs to be readjusted and be more "cinematic" in terms of pivotal points and emotional swing.
Overall, it's a great game with a great premise. The topic is too serious and complex to be fully developed within the game jam timeframe, but you made what you could. I don't think anyone could do it better in a couple of days.
I was definitely not expecting such a serious themed game. Very interesting, you must have had a very deep research work.
The dancing hitler at the end was even more unexpected hahahaha, nice entry!
My only problem is that it got a bit slow, maybe having a button to skip to the next text would fix this. But I understand why it's the way it is now, it feels more like a conversation.
Very nice job, congrats!
Some of the story felt a little like the rattling off a wikipedia article rather than a smooth flow of conversation, but I can't imagine how difficult it would be to write for something like this.
interesting entry!
Finding the 2nd of the three took a while, going back over some dialog loops a few times had me wanting to speed it up.
I really love the point of view with camera control, the choice of setting is great :ok_hand:
Well written, just the "phone interface" is a little cheap I think. Could be better with more feedbacks and more immersive sounds maybe (like pencil or sheets sounds).
But well done !
But overall very creative idea and a nice game! Simple but fun
Sure, there were a few typos and anachronisms, but that's pretty much inevitable when you have just 72 hours to make the game. The only thing that seemed "missing" was a skip ahead button, to zip through repeating text animations.
Great game!
Interesting concept in general but I desire text to be a little faster.
For a post-jam version (or another game with similar mechanics) I'd like to see an abbreviated dialogue option (or at least a fast forward button) for when rethreading the same dialogue path more than once.