Making Connections by PostFrog
Thrown into a Survivor-inspired scenario, you must go back and forth between your fellow (animal) competitors and convince them not to vote you out in the forthcoming elimination round. Make connections (we really hoped this will be the theme yeah) by choosing the right things to say to get your new-found enemies to like you and convince them to vote out another competitor.
Our main addition to the usual text-based genre is the use of a journal, in which you can group together competitors that you suspect are working together. Interacting with the journal opens up new dialog options, and thus adds a detection element, significantly enriching the experience of trying to puzzle your way through dialog trees, circumventing the usual d&d elements of random rolls and numeric attributes.
You have a limited amount of time to talk with the other competitors, but don't feel pressured. The game is designed to be replayed, exploring the different dialogue options and trying to figure out how to get someone else eliminated.
Controls
Access the journal with the J button. use E to interact with the NPC's and the environment. Arrow keys to move. You can choose dialog options with the mouse and keyboard (with the number keys).
Credits
Code: @danielkozlov, @naphe-candle-mme, @guyro
Writing: @elros, @relich, @dialogue-injection
Art: Post-Frog
Music: (Unused in Jam Version): @roie-bar-lev, Post-Frog
Updates
Update - 04/10: Fixed portraits to switch between speaking characters in convos with 2+ more participants (this was bugged and worked only in ~50% of the cases).
Update - 05/10: Fixed the bug causing mouse hover to highlight only part of a dialog option, changed font to a better looking one, fixed a few loose ends in dialogs so the game won't crash
Ratings
| Overall | 1110th | 2.898⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1086th | 2.736⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1023th | 2.787⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 990th | 2.855⭐ | 57🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 473th | 3.028⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1050th | 2.824⭐ | 56🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 84🗳️ | 120🗨️ |
I liked the social aspect of trying to figure things out by talking. Though to that point, the walking around seems like an unnecessary component that essentially just delays getting to the interesting parts (assuming there's no larger element to it later on). I.e. maybe a UI where you can just choose who you want to talk to, or choose your journal might have been better?
A few bugs and controls niggles, but overall a nice game. I enjoyed it.
We indeed planned to stylize the map and add multiple interactions with map elements. (Think hidden food, hidden advantages for the game), but unfortunately just couldn't do that on time... Thank you again for trying it out!
The colorscheme is a bit harsh, and the map is blocky and sparse.
Still, it seems like this game has a lot of content. Well done.
The journal seems unnecessary, it doesn't seem to affect the dialogue options that are available.
Also, the "limited time" mentioned in the description doesn't seem to be true, voting starts after specific dialogue options and there seems to be no timer.
I would like to keep playing the next days if the game gets developed further. Overall, great job!
There is actually a way to vote out lion, and it hinges on this secret dialogue option with chameleon (and a few other characters and some journal choices), it is rather complicated...
Actually few dialogue options open only with journal input, we do not mention where it happens in the game, we will look to add it in the next few so days.
The secret route to vote out lion needs you to mark his entire alliance in the journal.
There is also a "time" limit, this triggers after you have completeed 20 different dialogues, and unless you've done something extraordinary this will result in you getting voted out.
Adding days to the game is something we would definitely like to do in the future!
Thanks a lot for the reply.
Actually, we weren't that interested in the chosen theme this time and decided just not to use it at all for the game. The name "Making Connections" is basically us joking about how we wished this (AKA Making Connections) was the theme that was chosen instead, as it fits our game perfectly lol.
We definitely agree that music is important for this game! We even had a teammate which made amazing music for it (including a unique theme for each character!). However, unfortunately, we didn't got it to run properly in the game on time for submission, so its been omitted from the jam version. You will eventually get to hear all of it though in the upgraded post-jam version we are currently working on!