me and 2 of my friends played this on call! we enjoyed it a lot (excluding for one... he's saying he's going to leave a bad review lolol) we theorized about the story but couldn't really come to a solid solution, either way, this is a really great game! keep up the good work <3
Thanks for entertaining and inspiring me with your game!
Your game was really captivating from the beginning. The reflection game mechanic nicely fits the message I believe you are trying to convey. I must confess that after playing about 80% of the game I slowly started losing interest, maybe because I felt it was dragging a bit, but I kept playing because I was extremely curious about the ending. Then I completed the game, and it was definitely worth it.
Hello, I streamed your game last weekend. Overall, it just wasn't my kind of game.
Vague storytelling is never really my cup of tea to begin with, it more-often-than-not feels more like a scapegoat for not making a real effort to write a story by presenting an air of pomp and poignancy to mask the shallowness of the material; however, that said, this is admittedly very much a matter of opinion as it clearly shows that other folks in the comment section have really enjoyed the vague storytelling. What I do personally feel is more objectively problematic with the game is the actual game play of it. The game at the start presents itself as more of a walking simulator. So when suddenly a game play mechanic was introduced, I was rather confused what was happening. It was hard to determine what was the story being vague and what was me actually failing at the game. The game had trained me to think one way, then later went back on the decision. Once I had figured out the game play mechanic, I realized that with each loop of the game, the game would tutorialize the objects for the game play. Then, just like before, the game had trained me to interact with certain objects but at a certain point it decided to stop tutorializing new objects. The vagueness of the story has interfered with the game play mechanics which leads to a somewhat frustrating experience as far as the game play itself is concerned. Clearly indicating when there is game play and when there is story is important for players understanding your game. I also wonder what purpose the game play serves towards the story. The game play, to me, never felt like it required much thought, skill, or even input. It seemed to serve no story purpose. It only seemed to act as busy work; checking the "this game has game play" checkbox to fullfill minimum requirements. Perhaps this game would have been better as a walking simulator? 🤔 I bring this up because what is actually captivating about this game is the first thing everyone will see: the art. Though some times detail gets lost in the overworld pixel art, the black-and-white stylings are striking, and the "bored-at-school" notebook styled doodle art for the characters is charming and unique. While the animation is pretty limited, it was a treat to see it every time a loop was completed. I hope to see more games by you in the future.
If you'd like to watch my experience with your game, I've linked the archive below. You can click the timestamps to jump to when I start playing your game.
p.s. sorry, I'm usually much quicker to inform devs that I streamed their game, but because of the holidays, I was a little slow this time.
Thank you so so much for such a detailed and thoughtful review and critique of my game! I definitely agree that the abstract nature of the story impedes understanding of the gameplay mechanics in some parts, and the perspective of the game setting itself up as a walking simulator is something that I hadn't really thought about, but definitely makes sense the more I think about it!
I also definitely understand the dislike of vague storytelling, I personally feel a similar way with certain pieces of vague storytelling if I'm honest. In fact, I think the biggest issue with this game in the end was that the story ended up leaning way too far into abstract storytelling, which paired with the gameplay ended up making the game confusing, lack impact, and also made it really hard to connect with. I DID originally go into the game wanting to experiment with more abstract imagery (even having the story be decently ambiguous at parts), but despite this I still originally had a much more defined and understandable story planned out that would (hopefully) come together into something cohesive in the end that most people could understand and relate to in the end, and a bunch of choices (especially the rule I decided on to try and make the game with only visual storytelling and no dialogue, which I ended up having to break at the end in order to try and save the story lol) meant that I struggled to tell the story I planned and therefore leaned on abstract storytelling as a crutch. The inevitability of the problems caused by both relying on visual storytelling as well as wanting to make a game focused around very abstract visuals is a lot more clear now that I think about it, and I really wish I had told the story more clearly (and with dialogue) from the beginning as I think it would've made the game way more engaging and the story I had in mind impact players a lot more ;-;
The gameplay mechanic itself (keeping yourself from fading away by checking reflections) definitely has a very strong importance to the narrative (it was actually the main idea which spawned the rest of the game!) and ties into a lot of the feelings I wanted to convey concerning losing connection with yourself and your identity alongside certain real life habits of mine from my past that I wanted to turn into a gameplay mechanic, but alongside making the story less abstract I probably should have made the gameplay MORE integral from the beginning in order to convey this feeling more effectively (via introducing it earlier to prevent confusion about the main gameplay loop of the game, as well as introducing it in a more understandable way).
Again, thank you so much for this comment, it really means the world! I wish I had been able to tell the story I wanted to tell in a more powerful way and use the visual style I had designed to it's fullest potential with this game, but I definitely learnt a lot (especially thanks to comments and criticism from you and others) and I will keep trying my best to try new things and strive to improve with my future projects :)
I look forward to your next game 😌 and no reason to never use this story again, you could always retool this story for future projects. Regardless of what you do, let me know when you have another project, I'll gladly stream &review more from you if you want.
Love how the player can interpret the story in their own way. My take was that it was about trying to find who you truly are - in order to meet others' expectations you show different faces, almost to the point of erasing part of yourself, however this leads to increasing disconnect to the world and people around you. But eventually you realise you must find peace within yourself.
I especially loved the mechanic of looking at your reflection to not lose yourself completely and to be able to keep going forward! Powerful stuff!!
thank you so much for playing and I'm so glad you enjoyed it!! :D it's so so cool to hear your interpretation and feelings around the story, and i'm glad that you found meaning from my work! this comment really means a lot ;-;
I had no trouble playing the game, and it was PHENOMENAL! I really started getting into the story, and lost in thought throughout my playthrough xD.
Seriously though, you're a very talented dev and artist, so please keep at it TTvTT I love these kind of games.
The way you implemented the art as well; I'm a BIG fan of adding image as texture to things such as the hair of the main character in the thumbnail of the video I made:
Thank you so much for playing, and I'm so glad you enjoyed it, this comment really made my day ;-;-; I also think you're a very skilled content creator and I really hope that you get more attention, your videos are such high quality and I had a blast watching your playthrough!! Again, I'm so glad you liked it and thank you for putting the time into making a video about my humble lil indie game :D
Sorry, if I'm a bit late about the situation, and yep completely works, save for some still few freezing bugs, but at least those ones can be brute forced, which I also of course forgot to tell about it, but mainly because again the major cutscenes are rarely getting the bug. As far as I learned from my friend, who is also a game dev, that RPG Maker has problems on movie function, and another thing they said, is there are differences in playtest build and release build ones, so that's one weird thing I guess, but unless you already did that before, so yeah still weird.
Overall I really enjoyed the game, the looks, and open ended possibilities of story, lore and/or theories. The gradual degradation of music as you progress through the also degrading worlds/environment is really well done. The characters and cutscenes I guess pretty cute, cool and/or conveying as well. It still reminds me of number of games I've previously played. I think this and Nim's are my favorite games so far you've released.
Anyway, thank you so much, and I hope to play more of your games in the future.
Uhh, good game, I can't finish it sadly, despite somebody complaint about the freezing already and this is updated, the game just randomly freezes on the pond checking part/4th walk. Another problem I saw, was I did a save transfer from the old data, and that freezes the game as well, without even the chance of loading. (And yes I played the earlier version before and it's a painful one)
Welp also anyway, I know this will be spoilers, but is it the last walk with timer? If not, maybe I guess just for assurance as well, if not then don't mind it.
Again I'm sorry if this is my comment atm. Maybe I'll reply if a fix is on the way, and it's fixed.
Hi hymeji, I'm so sorry the game has been giving you trouble!! I just edited all the lake events and updated the game with another patch that I think might fix the freezing issue, but this issue is a little difficult to troubleshoot since this bug seems to only happen on certain computers and I can't seem to replicate it on either of mine 😭😭
Yes, the last section is with a timer (the fading out mechanic) :)
If you're not wanting to start the game again trying the new version (which tbh I completely understand GHEHGE) from what I've heard other players have been able to get past the freezing by just trying again from the autosave a few times (since the freezing doesn't seem to happen consistently), so I would either recommend that or if you're still interested in knowing the story of the rest of the game checking out a playthrough (I linked one below that doesn't have commentary!)
Again, I'm so sorry about the freezing and thank you for bringing it to my attention!
Welp, I already downloaded the new update, and sadly yeah it's persistent, you did try. I guess all I can do, is to show how persistent the bug is on my side, or the technical showcase. It's a shame I'll never complete the game. I would watch a playthrough or the playthrough you gave instead, but I refuse.
I did progress, but there's no way for me to continue, especially with the next street part, and even just entering the next mirror bugs out.
All I can say, the bug seems to be the drowning/bubbles. I can't say for sure if the bug was also in during the third walk/mirror. It really hurts for me to say this, and I don't want to, and it's not a good fix/thing either, since I know you want to convey something on those parts, but like making the fading out long instead or remove the animation, or have a skip instead in the animation (tho I'm unsure if that's possible).. I'm unsure if you'll still try, but it's understandable if not, just of course don't push too hard about it, and besides there were others who were able to play the game so it might not matter for me, as the game is still good, just I cannot finish it.
Welp, again, I'm really sorry so much. Maybe I'll give it another chance, if there will be still update on this one. Also don't mind whatever I say on some parts, like I say this is a game jam submission, where that's I whoops, my bad. I probably misremember that for another game of yours, that I was successfully able to LP.
Hi hymeji, thank you so much for recording that video, it really helped me diagnose the issue!! I've tried a bunch of fixes but in the end I've just uploaded a new patch that gets rid of the bubble animation for all the reflections and replaces it with just a sound effect as it seems like the 'play movie' function inside RPGmaker seems to not like playing small animations frequently like what was being done with the bubble animation in-game
I really appreciate you taking the time to help me with this, I want everyone to be able to play the game no matter what computer they have so I think removing the animation is worth it as long as everyone can enjoy the game without freezing
i just finished playing it! i love the way it was represented, at the beginning without words it was easy to interpret the plot in your own way and come up with your own ideas, but i also loved the few texts and dialogues there were towards the end! i also find this story.. somewhat relatable? i love the characters and the design as well!! truly a masterpiece, i recommended this to my friends right after finishing it :)
also, question : am i allowed to use your art as a pfp? i'll credit you if i do!
thank you for such a thoughtful comment, and i'm so glad you enjoyed it!! it means a lot coming from another ghost enjoyer >:DD and you can definitely use my art as a pfp! :) thank you for checking with me first
and on top of it you have great music tastes!! i'll be even more glad to recommend your game >:)
i had left a comment under your tiktok saying i'd play it but didn't get to until now, so i thought commenting on here would be better + i can write more (because i tend to write a lot sometimes :') too much for a tiktok comment anyway)
and thank you for letting me use your art as a pfp! i'll also do some fanart as soon as i can! idk when though because i'm in a bit of an art block but i definitely will :)
This was literally so good!! The best way I can describe it is -- melancholy? Overall, super nice. I can see just how much effort and feeling was put into this game!! Aaaa love it love it <3
A short and wonderful game! This gave me Yume Nikki vibes when playing through it! The pixel art was amazing, I loved it all the way through! Everything was a bit ambiguous for me, which isn't a bad thing! Thinking about what exactly happened is a great thing! Since it seems like the story is open up for more than on interpretation!
One thing, my game would freeze at certain ponds and one of the cars later in the game when looking at your reflections (I think there's three in total?) I'm not sure if it's just something on my end, but if someone comes across this issue, you can just run by those and reach the next ones!
Thank you for making and sharing this amazing game!
Thank you so much!! I really appreciate you letting me know about the freezing issue, I've had one or two other people deal with it so I'll definitely try and patch it out ASAP :] Again, thank you for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
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me and 2 of my friends played this on call! we enjoyed it a lot (excluding for one... he's saying he's going to leave a bad review lolol) we theorized about the story but couldn't really come to a solid solution, either way, this is a really great game! keep up the good work <3
Thanks for entertaining and inspiring me with your game!
Your game was really captivating from the beginning. The reflection game mechanic nicely fits the message I believe you are trying to convey. I must confess that after playing about 80% of the game I slowly started losing interest, maybe because I felt it was dragging a bit, but I kept playing because I was extremely curious about the ending. Then I completed the game, and it was definitely worth it.
I also really enjoyed the art and the music.
This was for sure a confusing game but I loved every second of it! Truly a work of art
Could I volunteer to translate the game into Spanish?
Hello,
I streamed your game last weekend. Overall, it just wasn't my kind of game.
Vague storytelling is never really my cup of tea to begin with, it more-often-than-not feels more like a scapegoat for not making a real effort to write a story by presenting an air of pomp and poignancy to mask the shallowness of the material; however, that said, this is admittedly very much a matter of opinion as it clearly shows that other folks in the comment section have really enjoyed the vague storytelling.
What I do personally feel is more objectively problematic with the game is the actual game play of it. The game at the start presents itself as more of a walking simulator. So when suddenly a game play mechanic was introduced, I was rather confused what was happening. It was hard to determine what was the story being vague and what was me actually failing at the game. The game had trained me to think one way, then later went back on the decision.
Once I had figured out the game play mechanic, I realized that with each loop of the game, the game would tutorialize the objects for the game play. Then, just like before, the game had trained me to interact with certain objects but at a certain point it decided to stop tutorializing new objects.
The vagueness of the story has interfered with the game play mechanics which leads to a somewhat frustrating experience as far as the game play itself is concerned. Clearly indicating when there is game play and when there is story is important for players understanding your game. I also wonder what purpose the game play serves towards the story. The game play, to me, never felt like it required much thought, skill, or even input. It seemed to serve no story purpose. It only seemed to act as busy work; checking the "this game has game play" checkbox to fullfill minimum requirements. Perhaps this game would have been better as a walking simulator? 🤔
I bring this up because what is actually captivating about this game is the first thing everyone will see: the art. Though some times detail gets lost in the overworld pixel art, the black-and-white stylings are striking, and the "bored-at-school" notebook styled doodle art for the characters is charming and unique. While the animation is pretty limited, it was a treat to see it every time a loop was completed. I hope to see more games by you in the future.
If you'd like to watch my experience with your game, I've linked the archive below. You can click the timestamps to jump to when I start playing your game.
p.s. sorry, I'm usually much quicker to inform devs that I streamed their game, but because of the holidays, I was a little slow this time.
Thank you so so much for such a detailed and thoughtful review and critique of my game!
I definitely agree that the abstract nature of the story impedes understanding of the gameplay mechanics in some parts, and the perspective of the game setting itself up as a walking simulator is something that I hadn't really thought about, but definitely makes sense the more I think about it!
I also definitely understand the dislike of vague storytelling, I personally feel a similar way with certain pieces of vague storytelling if I'm honest.
In fact, I think the biggest issue with this game in the end was that the story ended up leaning way too far into abstract storytelling, which paired with the gameplay ended up making the game confusing, lack impact, and also made it really hard to connect with.
I DID originally go into the game wanting to experiment with more abstract imagery (even having the story be decently ambiguous at parts), but despite this I still originally had a much more defined and understandable story planned out that would (hopefully) come together into something cohesive in the end that most people could understand and relate to in the end, and a bunch of choices (especially the rule I decided on to try and make the game with only visual storytelling and no dialogue, which I ended up having to break at the end in order to try and save the story lol) meant that I struggled to tell the story I planned and therefore leaned on abstract storytelling as a crutch. The inevitability of the problems caused by both relying on visual storytelling as well as wanting to make a game focused around very abstract visuals is a lot more clear now that I think about it, and I really wish I had told the story more clearly (and with dialogue) from the beginning as I think it would've made the game way more engaging and the story I had in mind impact players a lot more ;-;
The gameplay mechanic itself (keeping yourself from fading away by checking reflections) definitely has a very strong importance to the narrative (it was actually the main idea which spawned the rest of the game!) and ties into a lot of the feelings I wanted to convey concerning losing connection with yourself and your identity alongside certain real life habits of mine from my past that I wanted to turn into a gameplay mechanic, but alongside making the story less abstract I probably should have made the gameplay MORE integral from the beginning in order to convey this feeling more effectively (via introducing it earlier to prevent confusion about the main gameplay loop of the game, as well as introducing it in a more understandable way).
Again, thank you so much for this comment, it really means the world!
I wish I had been able to tell the story I wanted to tell in a more powerful way and use the visual style I had designed to it's fullest potential with this game, but I definitely learnt a lot (especially thanks to comments and criticism from you and others) and I will keep trying my best to try new things and strive to improve with my future projects :)
I look forward to your next game 😌 and no reason to never use this story again, you could always retool this story for future projects. Regardless of what you do, let me know when you have another project, I'll gladly stream &review more from you if you want.
wow the vibes of this game are immaculate!!!
Love how the player can interpret the story in their own way. My take was that it was about trying to find who you truly are - in order to meet others' expectations you show different faces, almost to the point of erasing part of yourself, however this leads to increasing disconnect to the world and people around you. But eventually you realise you must find peace within yourself.
I especially loved the mechanic of looking at your reflection to not lose yourself completely and to be able to keep going forward! Powerful stuff!!
thank you so much for playing and I'm so glad you enjoyed it!! :D it's so so cool to hear your interpretation and feelings around the story, and i'm glad that you found meaning from my work! this comment really means a lot ;-;
I was confused at first with the story but the more I dived deep I started to relate to it. Looking forward to more of your work.
I got my gameplay of this here
I had no trouble playing the game, and it was PHENOMENAL! I really started getting into the story, and lost in thought throughout my playthrough xD.
Seriously though, you're a very talented dev and artist, so please keep at it TTvTT I love these kind of games.
The way you implemented the art as well; I'm a BIG fan of adding image as texture to things such as the hair of the main character in the thumbnail of the video I made:
I will keep an eye on your work :)))Thank you so much for playing, and I'm so glad you enjoyed it, this comment really made my day ;-;-;
I also think you're a very skilled content creator and I really hope that you get more attention, your videos are such high quality and I had a blast watching your playthrough!!
Again, I'm so glad you liked it and thank you for putting the time into making a video about my humble lil indie game :D
min game so good
Sorry, if I'm a bit late about the situation, and yep completely works, save for some still few freezing bugs, but at least those ones can be brute forced, which I also of course forgot to tell about it, but mainly because again the major cutscenes are rarely getting the bug. As far as I learned from my friend, who is also a game dev, that RPG Maker has problems on movie function, and another thing they said, is there are differences in playtest build and release build ones, so that's one weird thing I guess, but unless you already did that before, so yeah still weird.
Overall I really enjoyed the game, the looks, and open ended possibilities of story, lore and/or theories. The gradual degradation of music as you progress through the also degrading worlds/environment is really well done. The characters and cutscenes I guess pretty cute, cool and/or conveying as well. It still reminds me of number of games I've previously played. I think this and Nim's are my favorite games so far you've released.
Anyway, thank you so much, and I hope to play more of your games in the future.
Uhh, good game, I can't finish it sadly, despite somebody complaint about the freezing already and this is updated, the game just randomly freezes on the pond checking part/4th walk. Another problem I saw, was I did a save transfer from the old data, and that freezes the game as well, without even the chance of loading. (And yes I played the earlier version before and it's a painful one)
Welp also anyway, I know this will be spoilers, but is it the last walk with timer? If not, maybe I guess just for assurance as well, if not then don't mind it.Again I'm sorry if this is my comment atm. Maybe I'll reply if a fix is on the way, and it's fixed.
Hi hymeji, I'm so sorry the game has been giving you trouble!! I just edited all the lake events and updated the game with another patch that I think might fix the freezing issue, but this issue is a little difficult to troubleshoot since this bug seems to only happen on certain computers and I can't seem to replicate it on either of mine 😭😭
Yes, the last section is with a timer (the fading out mechanic) :)
If you're not wanting to start the game again trying the new version (which tbh I completely understand GHEHGE) from what I've heard other players have been able to get past the freezing by just trying again from the autosave a few times (since the freezing doesn't seem to happen consistently), so I would either recommend that or if you're still interested in knowing the story of the rest of the game checking out a playthrough (I linked one below that doesn't have commentary!)
Again, I'm so sorry about the freezing and thank you for bringing it to my attention!
Welp, I already downloaded the new update, and sadly yeah it's persistent, you did try. I guess all I can do, is to show how persistent the bug is on my side, or the technical showcase. It's a shame I'll never complete the game. I would watch a playthrough or the playthrough you gave instead, but I refuse.
I did progress, but there's no way for me to continue, especially with the next street part, and even just entering the next mirror bugs out.
All I can say, the bug seems to be the drowning/bubbles. I can't say for sure if the bug was also in during the third walk/mirror. It really hurts for me to say this, and I don't want to, and it's not a good fix/thing either, since I know you want to convey something on those parts, but like making the fading out long instead or remove the animation, or have a skip instead in the animation (tho I'm unsure if that's possible).. I'm unsure if you'll still try, but it's understandable if not, just of course don't push too hard about it, and besides there were others who were able to play the game so it might not matter for me, as the game is still good, just I cannot finish it.
Welp, again, I'm really sorry so much. Maybe I'll give it another chance, if there will be still update on this one.
Also don't mind whatever I say on some parts, like I say this is a game jam submission, where that's I whoops, my bad. I probably misremember that for another game of yours, that I was successfully able to LP.Hi hymeji, thank you so much for recording that video, it really helped me diagnose the issue!! I've tried a bunch of fixes but in the end I've just uploaded a new patch that gets rid of the bubble animation for all the reflections and replaces it with just a sound effect as it seems like the 'play movie' function inside RPGmaker seems to not like playing small animations frequently like what was being done with the bubble animation in-game
I really appreciate you taking the time to help me with this, I want everyone to be able to play the game no matter what computer they have so I think removing the animation is worth it as long as everyone can enjoy the game without freezing
i just finished playing it! i love the way it was represented, at the beginning without words it was easy to interpret the plot in your own way and come up with your own ideas, but i also loved the few texts and dialogues there were towards the end! i also find this story.. somewhat relatable? i love the characters and the design as well!! truly a masterpiece, i recommended this to my friends right after finishing it :)
also, question : am i allowed to use your art as a pfp? i'll credit you if i do!
thank you for such a thoughtful comment, and i'm so glad you enjoyed it!! it means a lot coming from another ghost enjoyer >:DD
and you can definitely use my art as a pfp! :) thank you for checking with me first
and on top of it you have great music tastes!! i'll be even more glad to recommend your game >:)
i had left a comment under your tiktok saying i'd play it but didn't get to until now, so i thought commenting on here would be better + i can write more (because i tend to write a lot sometimes :') too much for a tiktok comment anyway)
and thank you for letting me use your art as a pfp! i'll also do some fanart as soon as i can! idk when though because i'm in a bit of an art block but i definitely will :)
This was literally so good!! The best way I can describe it is -- melancholy? Overall, super nice. I can see just how much effort and feeling was put into this game!! Aaaa love it love it <3
thank you so much!! this seriously made my day <3 i'm so glad u enjoyed it
This game was beautiful. I could tell that a lot of time, effort and love was put into making it.
thank you so much <3 it means a lot
Gave it a Let's Play, very puzzling, got me thinking about what it all meant with many theories.
Thank you so much for playing! I'm glad it intrigued you :D
One thing, my game would freeze at certain ponds and one of the cars later in the game when looking at your reflections (I think there's three in total?) I'm not sure if it's just something on my end, but if someone comes across this issue, you can just run by those and reach the next ones!
Thank you for making and sharing this amazing game!
Thank you so much!! I really appreciate you letting me know about the freezing issue, I've had one or two other people deal with it so I'll definitely try and patch it out ASAP :]
Again, thank you for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
*sobs*