when i first skimmed through the description i thought "oh so this is gonna be like, an escape room where both players need to give each other clues right?" but one player being a witch and the other being the capture she's gonna use for her ritual?? that's so cool! it made the game and story feel really unique, and it's just a really great concept in general :D
the presentation here is really good! the default assets are well utilized and everything feels like it has a purpose, instead of being randomly picked sprites from the tileset (which is hard to do with default rtp imo). i noticed some rooms feeling too big or some parts looking odd, but in general everything's super well designed, nice to the eye, and not too busy or too empty.
i also gotta say, i ADORE the writing. the descriptions are so elegant and the word choice is phenomenal. so many little parts of the text stuck out in my mind from wording alone (the alliteration when picking each animal book made me want to figuratively tip my hat off to you haha). but the highlight here is the story, because like?? for a puzzle/escape room game, it's completely unfair i got so caught up in it??? the little pieces of information i got in the witch's home were ridiculously intriguing. when you interact with the mirror, the discarded letters, the fantasy book description GOD that one was so good- the writing completely took me by surprise, but it probably shouldn't have considering your other stories' quality :>
the puzzles with the first part of the recipe were clever and just the right amount of difficult! really made me feel smart, which is a feat considering i'm usually bad at these kind of games haha. but sadly, i think the second step was a bit too big brained. got stuck at the part where you have to find the important letter on the rabbit card. i think it's kind of a big jump in complexity and it could've been a little simpler to figure out? that's really subjective tho, maybe nobody else had a problem with it.
in terms of issues, i think the fights were somewhat confusing since i couldn't notice what difference using each spell had. and the bunny part was a bit frustrating with all the water that takes you to random directions, and being thrown into a cage from time to time without explanation. and this honestly isn't really a flaw, but i wish tag could've had a bit more story or personality, akin to how the witch's past is alluded to. but tbh i feel kinda bad complaning because i haven't finished the game and for all i know everything i'm saying gets fixed in the next parts lol. might retry the game in the future to see it through to the end (and if it's not a bother, it'd be really appreciated to have a walkthrough available. only if you want to make one, obviously!).
this was really fun and, now that i've finally played all your games, i can confidently say you're an outstanding developer with an equally outstanding skill for writing and storytelling! can't wait to see what you've got in store for the future! :D
Ahh!! I'm glad you liked it haha, I'm high key so embarrassed by this one. I had played some two player games with my friend that were offline but you have to trade information to get through them and I loved the idea behind that kind of puzzle, like how do you even make something where you NEED concrete information from the other player but it's still definitely OFFline?? It was a real fun think/challenge for me. The third task barely works, tbh, so heads up. I doubt I'll come back to this one and clean it up, it really needs reworking from the ground up and the nested conditional branches in this one make my head actually spin 😂
So glad someone noticed the little world building elements! I really wanted to add this element of WANTING to lie to the other person and I wanted to make the witch character (wow I don't remember her name whoops fake fan lol) a little more sympathetic since she's objectively the "bad guy" here lol. I wanted to get across this sense of like "she regrets this but is too scared to stop" type vibe.
For me this was just a project of thinking of the engine differently than I ever had before. Not using it just for writing stories and texts and conversations, but instead trying game game elements and just a little bit of story wedged into the cracks because I lack chill haha. Even tho it wasn't a jam game it was SUPREMELY educational for me haha and I GUESS has a special enough place in my heart I won't be deleting it from my account todayyy. But it's on thin freakin ice lol.
Wildly, this was totally inspired by that so you'd be correct. I loved the idea of how to write that kinda puzzle, from a logistical stand point. It was a fun challenge. Thanks for commenting.
Hey, so gentle reminder that sometimes comments like this can come off as a bit mean!! (the whole joke format kinda revolves around implying that the 'at home' version is an inferior/rip-off version )
Remember that a real person who worked very hard on this project is reading this comment, and that making and releasing any game is a massive accomplishment- making games is hard, and you make yourself very vulnerable when you release your game to the public, so a little bit of positivity can go a long way!!
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oh i just LOVE this concept!!
when i first skimmed through the description i thought "oh so this is gonna be like, an escape room where both players need to give each other clues right?" but one player being a witch and the other being the capture she's gonna use for her ritual?? that's so cool! it made the game and story feel really unique, and it's just a really great concept in general :D
the presentation here is really good! the default assets are well utilized and everything feels like it has a purpose, instead of being randomly picked sprites from the tileset (which is hard to do with default rtp imo). i noticed some rooms feeling too big or some parts looking odd, but in general everything's super well designed, nice to the eye, and not too busy or too empty.
i also gotta say, i ADORE the writing. the descriptions are so elegant and the word choice is phenomenal. so many little parts of the text stuck out in my mind from wording alone (the alliteration when picking each animal book made me want to figuratively tip my hat off to you haha). but the highlight here is the story, because like?? for a puzzle/escape room game, it's completely unfair i got so caught up in it??? the little pieces of information i got in the witch's home were ridiculously intriguing. when you interact with the mirror, the discarded letters, the fantasy book description GOD that one was so good- the writing completely took me by surprise, but it probably shouldn't have considering your other stories' quality :>
the puzzles with the first part of the recipe were clever and just the right amount of difficult! really made me feel smart, which is a feat considering i'm usually bad at these kind of games haha. but sadly, i think the second step was a bit too big brained. got stuck at the part where you have to find the important letter on the rabbit card. i think it's kind of a big jump in complexity and it could've been a little simpler to figure out? that's really subjective tho, maybe nobody else had a problem with it.
in terms of issues, i think the fights were somewhat confusing since i couldn't notice what difference using each spell had. and the bunny part was a bit frustrating with all the water that takes you to random directions, and being thrown into a cage from time to time without explanation. and this honestly isn't really a flaw, but i wish tag could've had a bit more story or personality, akin to how the witch's past is alluded to. but tbh i feel kinda bad complaning because i haven't finished the game and for all i know everything i'm saying gets fixed in the next parts lol. might retry the game in the future to see it through to the end (and if it's not a bother, it'd be really appreciated to have a walkthrough available. only if you want to make one, obviously!).
this was really fun and, now that i've finally played all your games, i can confidently say you're an outstanding developer with an equally outstanding skill for writing and storytelling! can't wait to see what you've got in store for the future! :D
Ahh!! I'm glad you liked it haha, I'm high key so embarrassed by this one. I had played some two player games with my friend that were offline but you have to trade information to get through them and I loved the idea behind that kind of puzzle, like how do you even make something where you NEED concrete information from the other player but it's still definitely OFFline?? It was a real fun think/challenge for me. The third task barely works, tbh, so heads up. I doubt I'll come back to this one and clean it up, it really needs reworking from the ground up and the nested conditional branches in this one make my head actually spin 😂
So glad someone noticed the little world building elements! I really wanted to add this element of WANTING to lie to the other person and I wanted to make the witch character (wow I don't remember her name whoops fake fan lol) a little more sympathetic since she's objectively the "bad guy" here lol. I wanted to get across this sense of like "she regrets this but is too scared to stop" type vibe.
For me this was just a project of thinking of the engine differently than I ever had before. Not using it just for writing stories and texts and conversations, but instead trying game game elements and just a little bit of story wedged into the cracks because I lack chill haha. Even tho it wasn't a jam game it was SUPREMELY educational for me haha and I GUESS has a special enough place in my heart I won't be deleting it from my account todayyy. But it's on thin freakin ice lol.
"Mom, can we buy The Past Within?"
"No, sweetie, we have The Past Within at home."
The Past Within at home:
Wildly, this was totally inspired by that so you'd be correct. I loved the idea of how to write that kinda puzzle, from a logistical stand point. It was a fun challenge. Thanks for commenting.
Sweet, another Rusty Lake fan!
Hey, so gentle reminder that sometimes comments like this can come off as a bit mean!! (the whole joke format kinda revolves around implying that the 'at home' version is an inferior/rip-off version )
Remember that a real person who worked very hard on this project is reading this comment, and that making and releasing any game is a massive accomplishment- making games is hard, and you make yourself very vulnerable when you release your game to the public, so a little bit of positivity can go a long way!!
Oh, I'm so sorry! I just read the description and thought "hey, this reminds me a lot of The Past Within!"
That's okay! I could tell you weren't trying to be mean haha 😄