Lanterns

Hey! Game composer giving feedback here!

Your hand-drawn art really stood out, there should be more devs exploring visual art like that.

The storytelling got me hooked too, it's nice how you blend the real with the unreal with psychological and metaphysical horror aspects (the blurred art with the detuned synth music + lava monster).

The game mechanics were also interesting, specially the social interaction view as combat, I'd never thought something like that. If anything your game helped me with further motivation to explore synth music in more depth. lol. Good job.

From the VERY start, I absolutely HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE the officer. Good writing!

The browser version, on firefox, doesn't fully work though.

EDIT: Okay I understand I hate being gaslit. Amazing game.

Hello there. This game looked the most interesting from all the ones in the jam before playing.

Spoilers.

I really liked to main theme of the main character being interrogated. Gives the game a bit of a undertone. The first part of the game with the lamp lighter was a bit wanky. You could move up making you kinda fly. Wen (Talking) to people there sprites kinda fly in the middle of the screen being cut by nothing most of the time. Dont get me wrong I liked the talk battle thing but the sprites just dont like it. 

Final thoughts

Mostly the game wasnt bad but there were a view things to look at. The battle sprites are a bit wanky and the beginning with the lamp guy should probably not fly wen walking up there. 

Hope this helps. Keep it up.

starting off a new game jam playing marathon with another certified chevie classic (ccc for short. patent pending)

in other, more coherent, words, this was really great!! :D

i've noticed that not only is the atmosphere of your games absolutely fantastic (and this is no exception), but also the storytelling method of each one is conveyed REALLY well. your writing really makes me feel like i'm reading an old fairytale found in the woods; or i'm being told about the story of an endangered creature; or, in this case, i'm listening to the narration of someone who seeks help from the police for a reason i'm trying to uncover. (it's also just a storytelling device i'm really fond of in general, playing through someone's recollection of what happened and reading the game refer in past tense to what i just did? love that sm lol)

(SPOILERS)

the story was super intriguing! i loved every character, they were so charming and memorable. mori (which is a friggin awesome name btw lol) was a really endearing protagonist and i really wanted to see her life improve (ha ha... ha... i'm sad now-). dolly was really sweet and the twist around her was unexpected, i truly believed she was just a normal and nice girl lol, she felt like a beacon of normalcy in this strange apartment so the reveal was pretty effective. i really liked mrs. teneo and how she warmed up to mori compared to her rough first impression, and mr. maneo was a really good addition to the "mysterious-elder-who-doesn't-talk-until-you-mention-that-one-important-plot-device-that-triggers-their-memory" collection! (sorry if that sounded ironic, i did really like him lmao-). and the ex was really effective too; i (fortunately) haven't been in any relationships like the one portrayed here, but i think you did a good job on making her unlikeable and toxic without being too cartoonishly evil, if that makes sense (my first thought with the last choice was to kill her immediately, so good job on making the player hate her! XD). i admit i don't think i understood the full plot, but it felt less like the game was confusing and more like i just didn't choose the correct options for certain plot points to be explained. from what i gathered, two sisters (dollus and follus) are immortal and have been living among humans for centuries. however, at some point in the past, follus was captured by mrs. teneo and mr. maneo, who started using her life energy to live forever themselves. i think since then dollus has been trying to find someone to free her sister, since she needs blood to open the gate she's being kept in, and that's why she needs mori. (you don't have to correct me or anything if you don't want to, i'm just giving my interpretation of everything haha. this story is really interesting and i really want to understand it! :>). i love how unexpected the supernatural elements are. it feels like a coin toss with your games, whether they'll be realistic or be super based on magic elements haha. it's fun!

the art is really really cool!! even though your artstyle is present in all your games, you still manage to make each one look unique. and this game has super nice additions of pencil and WATERCOLORS HECK YEAH WATERCOLOR BROODYGAMING ART WOOOOOOOO!!!!! everything here pops and meshes REALLY well no matter how different the style is from everything else, from the richly textured and slightly moving backgrounds, to the amazing pencil drawings of the police interrogation and mori's eyes looking up at the end, to the character pictures that feel really memorable and convey so much emotion, to the font which is REALLY cool and sketchy (i'm guessing you made it yourself right? it's so so great!!)... honestly part of me wants to see speedpaints of so many pieces of art from this game haha. and of course, i couldn't talk about the art without mentioning the little details that show just how much care was put into the visuals! the way the bobblehead characters (idk how else to call them sorry-) move slightly when they walk, the blood that starts pouring from the portrait at random times, the creepy tiny eyeless sprite of mori when she's in the vents, the abstract slightly moving background parallax also in the vents, the eye that appears in the "arrow" that tells you when you can advance the text (it was legit so creepy when i first noticed it-), the red pictures that show up when you're dying that look like a rose? blood? does it even matter? are you even alive? look up, mori! look up, mori!! LOOK UP, MORI!!!

where was i? oh yeah, the visuals were fantastic! :D

(sorry XD)

the combat system was AWESOME!! i mentioned it on a game from the previous jam, salt in the wound, but i absolutely adore fights that are based on conversations. it's such a cool concept, and this game ranks among the most ingenious implementations of that idea i've seen! i loved how you need to get people to talk about new topics to acquire them (highlighting each new topic with colored text was so clever!), and how you can get more information every time you used them, and then bring up those same topics with other people to learn even more stuff. i loved how the life and skill bars are your shame and energy, at first i thought it was like that because i was having a really heated argument, but it turned out that your shame and energy drain you just with normal conversations, which is... relatable HAHA. and it made mori even more sympathetic! there were some times where the game allowed me to use topics that didn't really fit the situation, like letting me "break up" with people i just met, or using "ask about dolly" with dolly, but since they don't break the game or anything it wasn't a big deal. and in my opinion i think there should've been more ways to regenerate energy, since zoning out gives you so little. i never died so it's not a huge problem but it was frustrating when i ran out of energy and had to zone out a lot just to use a single topic. or when i had to start a new conversation but my stats were too low to win. maybe the player could take naps in mori's apartment to heal or, if that's too op, have a skill that gives you more energy but makes you more ashamed, or something like that? like i said tho, not a huge problem and i was able to finish all conversations! iirc this is the first combat-heavy game you've made since sweet dreams, right? so so cool, and makes this game stand out even more.

last thing i want to compliment is the audio! your ost is once again BEAUTIFUL, and fit every moment absurdly well. so many incredible pieces of music, that feel both nicely simple and very complex. i'd like to ask, did you use beepbox for this game's soundtrack? i'm starting to get into that website and i think it'd be really cool to use it for my future games! :> and not only is the music really friggin good, but the sound effects are REALLY great and effective too. i joked about it but the "look up, mori!" sequence is so dread-inducing partly because of the droning sounds that make the moment feel really tense. the sounds of passing cars and bicycles on the street are you KIDDING me that's so cool?!?! sound effects are something that tends to go overlooked in games but i think they were used excellently here, and made the presentation even better.

i do want to mention some bugs i found. on my first playthrough, right after visiting dolly at the tree and talking to mrs. teneo, there was nothing i could do except enter dolly's room, where mori mentioned that mr. maneo had seemed serious, but i hadn't actually talked to him yet. that was the only way to advance the plot, i don't think i could do anything else. i couldn't enter his room because i didn't choose to talk to mrs. teneo about him, so she never gave me the laundry, and going into dolly's room was the only thing i could do since my stats were too drained to start any conversation. but the dialogue in dolly's room still acted like i talked to him (sorry if i'm not explaining it well or if i'm repeating myself-). and on another playthrough, when i actually started a conversation with mr. maneo, when the battle ended mori talked about a key he had given her, but that hadn't happened. i think i may have "won" the conversation too early and didn't give him time to give me the key? or maybe the universe just hates this man and doesn't want him to talk to me LOL.

oh wow this comment was long HAHAHA. i trust that you'll tell me if i ever make you uncomfortable with such long comments haha, but i just really appreciate the amount of work and care you put into each one of your games, and i want to talk about everything i like about them! :D

good luck on the jam, and thank you for making such a great game!!