lycoris;lastwords by robobarbie
(links appear to be busted for me so all links to people/credit are on the itchio page instead)
estimated length of playtime - 15~30 minutes
content warnings - this game is about death and will contain themes surrounding it, including references and words relating to grief, murder, suicide, pandemics, etc. by playing this game you are agreeing to seeing them.
about
deliver three recently departed souls to the afterlife -- and keep their thoughts comforted. as best you can, at least.
known bugs
the web build struggles to play music on time + some SFX (some minigame sfx, a big THUMP in soul 3, and some starting line speaking text). if you want a full sound experience, it's highly recommended you download the game instead of playing the web build.
sometimes if you click the in-game menu, the game will irreparably freeze. i gotta be real i got no idea what causes that so godspeed if you get that
there are so many bugs if u play web version in some sort of incognito mode. probably don't do that LOL
team
saffeine - art
destini - writing
robobarbie - programming
hi-t3c - sfx/sound design
faefield productions - OST
redstormpopcorn, curiousinstigator, basil, selendri - QA
other tools/assets used
falling dust effect - tofurocks
glitch text effect - wattson
THUMP sfx - zapsplat
Ratings
| Overall | 51th | 4.23⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 441th | 3.593⭐ | 61🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 226th | 3.784⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 277th | 4.2⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 13th | 4.762⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 13th | 4.516⭐ | 63🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 743th | 2.826⭐ | 45🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 9th | 4.55⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 33🗳️ | 63🗨️ |
love this theme interpretation!!
im a bit confused on who's speaking when, though i know i myself (my character) pick options, i dont get which character exactly i am, am i the deliverer or the soul
also the moment when picking thoughts is a bit confusing too, but one can get a hang of it
Lovely choices and mood, rated you 5 cuz there is no 6
The dialog display makes the maingame like watching subtitled classic anime movies.
And the antique book-like border decoration & ui animations really reminds me of Shinbo Akiyuki.
### The actual review:
Wow. Wowowowowowowowowowowowowowow. That was not only a perfect game, it was a perfect __jam__ game. The music was great! The art was great! The story was profound and thoughtful. The take on the theme was innovative! But most of all, all of these things suit the game jam format really well! I'd be interested to hear about your development experience, but this game seems like it's 10% setting up systems, and 90% making content with the ever living crap polished out of it.
Congratulations. I think you're a winner!
My only concern is I kept getting this error message:
Graphics and animations are stunning, audio is perfectly atmosheric and all the sfx were on time. And don't get me started on the narrative, I mean, who doesn't like a nice heminguweyan iceberg. Loved the balance between dialogs and gameplay. Catching words had a nice difficulty curve even for a non-english-native-person-with-vocabulary-difficulties like myself.
Although wished that you could restart from gameplaying bit after failure for a jam version, 'cause there are a lot of games to rate and big setbacks can get quite frustrating.
Nonetheless, just a perfect entry!
I was a bit confused at first with the contrast between the dialogue and the artstyle.
I don't really have much to criticise. The only thing that bugged me a bit was the default sound for the text scrolling, I found it a little sharp and too digital. Lowering the volume helped a little, but it still stood out against the warm acoustic music.
Other than that, though, this is absolutely amazing. I'd be thrilled if you decided to expand on this for a larger-scale game! :black_heart:
It's very hard to find anything to criticize, but if I had to, it was a little confusing to understand what to do with bubbles at first. As I understood they tell a part of a character's story. Some bubbles can be derived from the dialogue, some are not. A little too random to my liking, but it's more of a personal preference, than a game's issue.
Also, it reminded me of an anime called "Death Parade", which is one of my favorites. I don't know if it was an inspiration or not, but I find it amazing either way.
Such a great entry!
In between I was slightly confused whether the character in front of you is the other party or yourself, but it becomes obvious as the game goes on.
The gameplay was really pleasant as well and thanks to the minigame not punishing failure too harshly I started failing on purpose to explore all of the dialogue options. The only moment of frustration was getting stuck on the third soul, but it did make it more rewarding to beat.
And finally, I loved that you're lulled into a rhythm only for the game to hit you with something new in the best "oh dang i hadn't even THOUGHT about that but it makes sense" way.