Fantastic stuff. I love the combination of creative freedom and obtuse restriction here. This really feels more like a creative tool than a game in the traditional sense. Lots is obfuscated here, but in a way that I found deliberate and engaging. I liked the combination of the randomly generated world already populated with things and ideas with the amount of liberty the game gives you to make your own. I like the limited inventory and the odd controls. There are plenty of UI and performance nitpicks I could make here, but I think that this work achieved what it set out to do.

Really great stuff.


P.S. The capacity for creative expression and the poetic theming in this kinda reminded me of one of my all-time favorite jam entries; this->https://delivery.madbarron.com/entry from last jam.

I felt like I was inside the mind of a mad genius who has gone off the deep-end and I must figure out all of these poetic puzzles to discover him before he goes too crazy.

It was a bit too much of a hassle for me to create objects, but it's a cool idea. I really liked the effect of the poem being rendered as a billboard material on the geometry. And the ground rendering was really neat as well. I think you've got a real talent for creative programmatic visuals - keep it up!

Thank you both very much for the feedback.
User interaction has been a constant struggle in my games, so I'd really appreciate further tips on this topic from everyone!

Nice work! Very creative theme, the overall is a bit cringey to me but I also find it very artistic.

Wow, incredibly cool and trippy landscape. Evocative of antichamber, but instead of bending space it feels like 2d has invaded 3d.

Was rather disorientating. The instructions were a lot at once and I would have liked to been able to refer to them during the game perhaps in the pause menu.

I didn't really "get" creating my own poems. I have no idea how powerful you made it, like if it's possible to create all of the objects in the game with the tools you give us. If so that's very cool and I could see this being a very neat creativity toy for someone who's more talented than I to play around in.

Some music of some kind could have added to the atmosphere.

I would LOVE to see this as a walking simulation with a story. Maybe some connecting through line for the poems?

Man, I freaking love games like this! As indie devs, we shouldn't restrict ourselves to what the mainstream considers a video game. Art games have been around for a long time and you really delivered a great one here. I really felt compelled to want to write a poem and the objects you create provide further inspiration for that poem. The world itself just stirs up your urge to create something. I love the concept of having letters as a resource and this also drives further creativity. Also, I really don't mind the UI and I think any shortcomings there just plays into the charm of the game. It's one of those games that is so far removed from what we typically see that it's hard to even come up with a critique.

Since you specifically asked for some tips on user interaction I'll give my two cents:
The controls for rotating and scaling are confusing. You're forcing the player to have to break immersion and hunt for the right keys to transform it the way you want. A solution to this could be to keep WASD for rotation and use the scroll wheel for scaling. You'd have to set up different "modes" of interaction but that's pretty common and more intuitive. This wouldn't cover every transformation that you have but it's a start.

That being said, I think what you pulled off with those controls is perfectly acceptable. Fine tuning controls like that is a good bit of work and is not always going to come to fruition in a game jam setting. Especially with what you were trying to achieve.

Needless to say, I really appreciate this entry. Games like this are one of the reasons I love game jams! Great job!

Wow, this is such a cool, immersive and poetic experience. It's very impressive that you managed to make something very cohesive and yet so freeform. The poems are really nice, I kept thinking they tied into some story with the scenery, but if they do I didn't figure it out. The restrictions on creation are very interesting, they really made me think about what I was writing and how I was writing it. I do agree the UX deserved a bit more thought, maybe tying it into the experience a bit more, instead of a separate screen witha bunch of information could be a next step to make it even more immersive, as well as adding some audio might be nice. Overall, congrats on pulling off such a cool concept that's both technically and artistically challenging.

@timidger
Thank you very much for the feedback! I really get your point when you say you "didn’t really “get” creating my own poems". That's actually the reason why this is an extra submition and not a jam one: I spend two days trying figuring out more interesting mechanics, but it didn't really work. Turns out combining exploration and creation and making them engaging simultaneously is quite tricky. I like the idea of a possible walk simulator and will explore it further!

Btw, yes, every object in the game can also be made by the player! The only exceptions are those with shapes like trees or palms, which I decided to be only parts of the scenario.

@dandala88
Thank you so much for the feedback! It's good to know others here also like breaking some rules and going for "non-traditional", artsy games.
When it comes to controls, I considered using WASD for rotation, but didn't use because it would have the tradeoff of limiting player movement. I'll do some research on controls used by other games and software for this kind of stuff

@borabee
Thanks for the feedback-- I'm glad that you enjoyed the poems! I'll try to think of some smart ways of making creationg more immersive

Wow, so creativity idea. Nice work!

This was a cool experience. Very arty and confusing. Liked the blend of text and geometry.

Thats so impressive, I can't believe you use those texture to create 3D enviroment, thats so impressive I love the textures soo much amazing job guys keep it up!

This felt like an art piece in all the best ways. I wasn't able to create much myself, between getting used to the types of items and the inventory limit, but I can see from @untitled-studios comment above how creative you could get with some time! Poetry in such a visually harsh form comes across with extra meaning, so I found this game weirdly profound. Brilliant work, I already know this one is going to stick with me.

I think with the right changes to the interface and toolset this could be a really cool program, but its a really intriguing and stylish proof of concept in this state.

@jamieok and @ionbingo , thank you for the feedback. I just uploaded a video in the itch page showcasing how to create objects. I hope it helps. Thank you all for the feedback!

Very imaginative! I am happy I looked in the extra section, otherwise I would probably never have found this. You can sure create some poetic stuff with this. The user interface is pretty Spartan, but I find the user interfaces of 3D editing programs usually pretty horrible, so I can get used to this. I wonder how you create the procedural poems.

Very interesting

Even though I haven't been able to figure out how to do anything in game (my efforts usually ended up with invalid shape name), the graphics and innovation around that are absolutely breathtaking. Truly a work of art. If the UI could be enhanced to make it a lot easier to interact with the summoning system it would elevate this game immensely. I would strongly suggest doing a post-jam version of this.

This was a very cool experience for me, as I've never really dived into a world like this before. It's amazing how you can glean the 3D form of an object through moving layers over text. An escape-room game in this artistic style and with the use of poetry would be incredible, and a no-brainer purchase for someone like me! This has inspired me to go outside of my comfort zone a bit in the future and try some more experimental games, well done!

Thank you all for the reviews! This was my third Ludum Dare submission. The first one I actually published too late, and the second one was quite uncompleted. Now, I finally got to make I’m happy with (although there’s still a LOT to improve and explore), so thank you all for the support!

I am in love with this. The weirdcore look this game has was an instant hook for me and while at first it seemed daunting to interact with, the amount of freedom the player has is astounding. I only wish the game ran a little bit better, even though one could argue low framerate adds to the experience. Awesome!

Awesome stuff!
I absolutely love the aesthetic of this game,
the art and gameplay are great, and such a strange
experience, I really dig it!
All round, Great work!