The mood is very scary! I didn't succeed to find the exit... Even after spamming the A B C keys :)

Like the art. Good entry.

Hmm, this is the first time I’ve seen such an interesting combination of visual elements (the character we play contrasts with the environment)—I really liked it. The music is well chosen. Well done!

I didn't make it to the exit, but I did get a point for finding a doll. Nice music and atmosphere!

A very strange little game. Lost in a maze with little direction, strange things on the walls, and a spooky background track. I never managed to do much other then get lost, even after restarting and trying to understand the map better, but that did not feel like it detracted from the experience.

I think I can see some of what you were going for with the Tiny Creatures theme, but most of what I can think of is a stretch. Overall well done, your game certainly made me think.

I am confused. I have no idea how to read the map. Also not sure how this fits into the little creatures theme very well. It seems you're playing as a doll, but there's no sense of scale. This might change after the first maze but I could not figure out how to get through.

Definitely got a bit too lost, but wow, the whole "fading away when not under moonlight" mechanic is *so* cool and gave me so much anxiety while trying to figure out how to progress (and how to get back so that I could stop fading away!)

Took a while but I figured out the game and eventually won! I did miss pretty much all dialogue as I was holding down keys to move left and right, so I had to check the console to make sure that I actually won. I'm not sure if I missed any clues showing where to go *within* each maze, so I ended up just checking every room which wore me down a bit. Solving the initial puzzle of how to navigate the maze was satisfying though!

I love the atmosphere in this, it has a very "RPG Maker horror game" vibe to it. The music and visuals are great.

Although, the gameplay was a bit lacking. Once I figured out how to navigate the rooms, it became a bit tedious to search everywhere for the key items. It kinda feels like I missed something, like it was over too soon.

I did enjoy figuring out the navigation though.

I'm usually struggling with your games, the atmosphere is always enjoyable but the logic of movement is hard for my brain, and this one was hardest yet. I returned home and won but this made me feel more lucky than smart. I guess feeling lucky has its merits as well. The biggest sense of achievement was figuring out the place where I can reset the fading (while completely forgetting about "the moon will give you energy" part). I do like that these games exist, they are unique and pretty to look at.

Love the art!

Wow! I like how you consistently make these games about weird navigation. It took me almost exactly an hour but I beat it, and I somehow figured out how it worked so it was very satisfying.

It took me quite a while to figure out that the three initial doors lead into three different mazes that all had the same layout but different contents. I did see the doors on the big map but I was confused by the fact that my marker told me I was in the middle of the maze and not down by the doors. Making the graphics more distinct between mazes or something might've helped too but maybe that would've gone against the whole concept.

Really nice atmosphere and music as always. I liked that I got a different track for a while. Never did figure out what the ping under the moon was for, but as I'm writing this I'm realising that must've been how you recharge! Now I feel silly. I never really understood the fading mechanic while playing because it never seemed to be an issue (I never had to restart due to fading away but I also barely went back to charge up as I only went there after finding something to see if that scene had changed). Now it makes more sense tho!

I like the usual newspaper cutout style for the graphics and I'm wondering about those portraits. Like someone else, I ended up missing the text boxes whenever I found something because I was holding the arrows down, so you should probably have made those disappear only when pressing space. I'll go back and replay later so that I can see.

Another thing that confused me was moving between edges in the maze. Sometimes there seemed to be multiple directions that had the same letter but only one of them actually worked. I'm guessing it had to do with what direction I was coming from. Some arrows on the map would've been nice, I think.

Very cool, enjoyed it a lot, just a few minor things, really well done! :)

For fun, here are the terrible notes I had by the end:


@ava-skoog it was very kind of you to be so determined to complete the game — rarely do I spend an hour on an LD game. I’m glad you found it to your liking.

You are right, the maps are not as clear as they should be. On the final day, when @genie play-tested and gave up in frustration, I tried to make the maps more useful, but I didn't have much time at that point. Hence, I didn't do a very good job. Still, as you implied, the maps add a bit of mystery to the game.

Yes, the moon ping is a result of recharging. The avatar, Sasha, never completely fades away, but she becomes so ghostly that she is hard to see. The moon brings her back to life, one could say.

As for the portraits, they are sketches that @genie made in the early stages of the game as possibilities for the avatar. I added them to the mazes to break up the monotony — too many rooms look the same.

Thank you for sharing your colorful map. It is a work of art unto itself, in a way.

I look forward to seeing you again in LD57.

This game had me breaking out the ol' pencil and paper to write down and annotate the map. :smile: In particular, I wanted to keep track of which edges actually corresponded to which doors--i.e. write down a directed graph instead of an undirected one--but it turns out the labelling in the game is actually unambiguous about this. Nonetheless, it was very useful to be able to refer to the map while actually in the maze, and also to check off each room as I explored them. I also began to internalize the structure of the maze as I wrote it down. I tend to like puzzles that require a bit of working out on paper and such, and so I thought this was enjoyable.

I didn't think the tedium of exploring the maze was too bad. There are only 3 * 9 = 27 rooms to look at, although we do have to look in both directions, but it doesn't take too long. It was fun to see the miscellaneous decorations inside various rooms.

An interesting interaction: The first key I found by accident while just holding down the "left" key. I therefore missed the dialog for it. From then on I carefully crept back and forth through each room instead of holding down the movement keys, which did slow down the exploring but allowed me to see the dialog / key pickup message. It felt more appropriate as well to go slowly than to keep slamming myself into the walls.

I think that the fading mechanic adds a nice bit of tension. I'm not sure what happens if you fade away entirely as I didn't want to find out. From the other comments it sounds like fading away did not end the game, which is probably for the best for a jam game. Still, it's a nice bit of story. I always like the ways your games have these fairytale-like stories and characters.

Very creepy and atmospheric, with a very distinctive visual style. The way the music changed after I collected the first doll had me thinking something terrifying was about to happen but then it changed back again after I collected the second one. Unfortunately I couldn't find the third doll, which I think may have been the result of me forgetting which ones I'd already collected and searching the wrong maze by accident. Some kind of way of tracking which dolls you've collected and which ones you haven't would be helpful, so I don't end up accidentally searching for one I already have. I'm also not entirely sure how this fits the theme.

@honey-pony thank you for your detailed comments, they are very interesting to read, as always. I realize there is an unspoken rule in LD about keeping games simple and short, but I wanted to break that rule this time. In the past, too many of our games were too short — the other extreme. It’s good to see some folks here are patient enough for games like this. If you internalized the structure of the maze, as you stated, you are in tune with the spirit of the game. Glad you liked it.