Woah!
A big thanks to everyone who played my game!
My score in Mood is better than I ever could have hoped for. On behalf of Clara and I, thank you all so much!
Shoutout to @alprog for naming Aftermath's protagonist, now the first character I've made to receive a name.
Here are my rankings from last Ludum Dare, a Solo Jam submission that I'm not incredibly proud of Jam version-wise:
And here are my scores for this Ludum Dare's Compo submission:
How do I feel about these rankings?
Considering that Aftermath was made as an experimental game, my first entry into the world of 3D plugins, narratives, and custom apps, the sliiiiight decrease in the "normal" categories is to be expected. Theme took a heavy hit this time around, which is to be expected since after going with the theme possibly too strongly last Ludum Dare, I went for a more psychological and less obvious use of the theme. Not all people were really able to feel the theme strongly since it wasn't really communicated and more of a deeper understanding that is easy to overlook, but what the heck, who cares about ratings.
What really stands out to me are the improvements in Graphics, Audio, and Mood. Graphics went up a whole .6 stars (still not my best work, but the Compo is tough), and Audio went up over a whole star! (Since I actually made a soundtrack instead of just one terrible sound effect.)
And then there's Mood.... 3.61, putting me at 245th, it's so generous for someone who had to create everything, even their own logo, from scratch in only 20 hours! This was my first time doing a narrative game, and my first time trying to communicate a strong atmosphere in a game, so the fact that you reviewers gave me close to 4 stars in Mood makes me so happy I can't put it into words. (And I'm a bit of a writer, so that's something.)
Despite having been a writer and comic drawer ever since the day long ago that I learned to read and write, and having been a game and app developer for 3 years, this was the first time I tried to make an experience rather than a game. "Can I make a good story on the fly?", I asked. "Can I actually do this?", I asked. "What makes me think people won't hate this?", I asked. And then you guys give me the highest rating I've ever received, in the category that basically represents what this game is: the first step in Peace Of Cake Games becoming more than just a creator of half-baked action games.
In fact, the first time I had even ever played a narrative or visual novel was last Ludum Dare, when I came across Anything For You and cried my face off. (Shoutout: @emily-pitcher) I then explored the works of @angela-he (and cried for quite a few), and @gamebuilder's team (one word: ATMOSPHERE), and then as I browsed for games several months ago I cried my face off playing the works of @fullmontis. (Yeah, these visual novels and narratives make me cry a lot.)
Thank you to all of the reviewers, whether you just played the game real fast, left a quick comment, or had the patience to get all of the endings on stream despite the font being garbage and really hard to read (shoutout to @togis for surviving the wrath of the terrible font spacing). I'm glad that my first attempt at making a narrative game was positively received!
Aftermath will not be receiving a full post-Compo game, unlike my game from last Ludum Dare, but I am currently working on v2.1.1 to fix all of the issues and finish the game!
Oh yeah and I'm going to release the art and music apps I made and used.