V.O.L.E. by iCalm

[raw]
made by iCalm for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

V.O.L.E. is a text based game (Like dark room, witch you should play if you haven't) where you play as a spy (or mole) in a government agency called V.O.L.E. The goal is to harvest top secret information and survive! If you experience any bugs, please put them in the comments and we might fix them, and also please ignore the horible speling (Those were examples of some spelling errors). If you don't want spoilers, please play the game before reading the comments. And finally agent, don't screw up!

Ratings

Overall 801th 2.568⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 799th 2.273⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 765th 2.477⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 796th 2.455⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 727th 1.762⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Humor 513th 2.619⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 768th 2.5⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 38🗳️ 23🗨️

Feedback

InitialPosition
11. Jan 2023 · 13:04 UTC
Interesting idea to have a text based game in the jam. I liked the overall setting and never felt overwhelmed by the choices but sometimes it was a bit unclear what the next course of action should be. You never really learn what the different actions do, which cleanup must be done to cover up which information stealing and so on. Still an impressive amount of content for such a short timeframe.
Likirus
12. Jan 2023 · 11:12 UTC
Interesting game. I admit, I'm not too familiar with text based games, but it's nice to see an example of it and it seems like something I could enjoy maybe in bed on my phone or something. I harvested 6 pieces of information, not sure whether that's good or not. Maybe there could have been better feedback what my action did. It sometimes just went back to the main action selection without any feedback and I wasn't sure whether I did something good or not. Another idea could be to have a "suspicion" bar that slowly fills as you and your actions get more and more suspicious and you lose once it fills up and cover your tracks and divert attention could lower it a bit if the action was successful.
Papabirb
12. Jan 2023 · 11:20 UTC
I like games in the style of a Dark Room, but I had a hard time telling that I was harvesting information well or really having any kind of effect on the world, or the differences between 'vole boss' and 'boss'. The meetings were very confusing, lol.

Some kind of stats on information vs suspicion levels would have been great. I had no idea I was doing well until I won, having apparently harvested 7 pieces of information.

Overall I like the concept, I'd love to play a version that was a bit easier to understand :smile_cat:
🎤 iCalm
12. Jan 2023 · 12:51 UTC
I do like the suspicion bar idea! If this hadn’t been a game made in 2 1/2 days by an eleven year old and some dad help, that would have been a really good feature! (Maybe watch out for a 2.0)
🎤 iCalm
12. Jan 2023 · 12:51 UTC
I do like the suspicion bar idea! If this hadn’t been a game made in 2 1/2 days by an eleven year old and some dad help, that would have been a really good feature! (Maybe watch out for a 2.0)
Tappioca
13. Jan 2023 · 03:07 UTC
Holey moley what a game! I'm gonna be honest that I had basically no idea what was happening, but I actually had a great time playing this anyway.
Cnaits
13. Jan 2023 · 09:11 UTC
I won with 12 pieces of information harvested. I have no idea how I was doing but reading the comments that seems to be a good result. It would be nice to have some more feedback during the game though, like a suspicion bar or progress bar how many pieces have been harvested so far. I am going to play it now trying to get caught and then trying to do better!
🎤 iCalm
13. Jan 2023 · 13:03 UTC
About the progress bar @Cnaits, there are 10 days and you can see how many days there are. Also can everyone tell what ending you got? There might be more than one!
Geckoo1337
13. Jan 2023 · 20:55 UTC
Cool little project - a text game -> why not?
SwingBill
14. Jan 2023 · 21:39 UTC
Nice a didn't expect this type of game!
shp
15. Jan 2023 · 21:04 UTC
good concept for a text based game, some proof reading or more careful writing might make it a bit easier to play
Sn4pi
20. Jan 2023 · 00:20 UTC
Didn't really understand what I was doing and simply won with 9 information harvested. It was an interesting story idea and the gameplay was innovative. I think this would have been a much better experience with animated scenes, text voices and clearer writing :smiley: Good job though!
Schmalex
23. Jan 2023 · 22:17 UTC
I must say that in general this is not really my kind of thing since there is hardly any gameplay involved but i did end up playing it more than twice so maybe it was sneakily doing something to me hehe. In any case, if this is the work of an 11 yo well done kid! It's a good start and you should totally be proud of having finished a whole game for the jam. Looking forward to more content if this is even to be continued!
🎤 iCalm
24. Jan 2023 · 20:04 UTC
Since you played it twice, did you see the different endings? I am very proud of this game!