F.O.U.R. by Ava Skoog

[raw]
made by Ava Skoog for LD 43 (JAM)

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What do you do when murders start piling up and you know who the culprit is but there never seems to be enough evidence to hold up in court? You just might orchestrate for yourself to be the next victim and make absolutely sure that no details go missing this time...

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Take a walk around this small island town. Talk to people and look around. Find out what you need for your plan to succeed. Then carry it out.

There is no map in the game but if you get really disoriented I have put one in the comments!


Credits 👒

  • Ava Skoog

The game uses the font Caviar Dreams by Lauren Thompson.


Controllers 🎮

Keyboard only.

  • [walk] arrows / WASD / ZQSD
  • [browse] arrows / WASD / ZQSD
  • [action] enter / space
  • [cancel] escape / alt / alt gr

Coverage 👀


Bloggery ✍️


Fixes 🛠

  • There was an item that was possible to pick up multiple times
  • Could talk through walls (due to activeSelf instead of activeInHierarchy)
  • Updated a text for colourblind accessibility

Links 🔗


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Ratings

Overall 88th 4⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 66th 3.975⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 79th 3.875⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 234th 3.895⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 321th 3.9⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 183th 3.65⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 240th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 72th 4.025⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 13🗳️ 15🗨️

Feedback

designernap
04. Dec 2018 · 20:52 UTC
This was GREAT! I love the audio and presentation. A Very smooth entry indeed.
Also... LOVE the whataryabuying! reference :D Good work stranger!
silkworm_sweatshop
05. Dec 2018 · 21:23 UTC
That was a fun little adventure game, I really want to make one myself one day. I thought it was going to be about sacrificing your morals (which is also is, I guess) but it went a little darker than that :P. Took a little while before I discovered how to use the inventory but other than that it went pretty smooth.
OddballDave
05. Dec 2018 · 22:50 UTC
Wow! Bravo. That was amazing. Loved all of it. In fact I didn't score any of it less than 4.5 :star: This deserves to do really well. Great presentation, great execution, and just the right amount of gameplay for a jam game. :8ball:
🎤 Ava Skoog
07. Dec 2018 · 06:56 UTC
@designernap, @silkworm-sweatshop, @oddballdave:
Thank you all for playing and your kind words! <3 And yay, you got the reference!
Gaming Night
07. Dec 2018 · 09:11 UTC
Super game here, like the dialogues and the little relaxing music
caeonosphere
07. Dec 2018 · 09:46 UTC
Cute, very specifically reminded me of old Flash adventure games. In a good way!
🎤 Ava Skoog
07. Dec 2018 · 10:47 UTC
Thank you, @gaming-night and @caeonosphere! \o/

Some people have said that it would've been nice with a minimap, and I agree. Since I can't update the game, here's the next best thing in case you get really disoriented!

![kart-800-2.png](///raw/4c/z/1f5b7.png)
DBONGames
07. Dec 2018 · 19:00 UTC
Loved the detective vibe going on, although it would have been cool to have more choices to deliberate over! Great take on the theme overall :thumbsup_tone1:

Just a side note, what is the "whataryabuying" reference? haha.
🎤 Ava Skoog
08. Dec 2018 · 10:13 UTC
Thanks, @dbongames! It's from Resident Evil 4! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9l_XYNYczI
F1Krazy
10. Dec 2018 · 20:43 UTC
Finally got round to playing this! It's very good! Plenty of story and gameplay for a Ludum Dare game, and it's a good story too. I like the idea of someone sacrificing themselves to catch a serial killer. Didn't quite work when I tried it, I must have missed something regarding that security camera.

I like the graphics, especially after seeing your blog post about how you manipulated a single texture to paint every model. Very clever. The music got a bit repetitive and the inventory system was a little fiddly, but all in all, a very good entry!
🎤 Ava Skoog
11. Dec 2018 · 08:46 UTC
Thanks for playing and commenting, @f1krazy!

I think you might be on the right track regarding what you missed, not to give away too much here in the comments for all to see, because that was probably the most difficult part. :p

Thanks for reading my blog thingy too! c:
DBONGames
11. Dec 2018 · 18:44 UTC
@ava-skoog Ah, cool! Thanks for clearing that up :)
christina-antoinette-neofotistou
11. Dec 2018 · 22:40 UTC
omg I scored it 5/5 on everything, because it's great. Thank you so much for the map, it was the only thing I was *kinda* (but not seriously) missing.

things I loved:
- the calm pace! I was actually reading an essay on ["cozy games" by Dan C of Lost garden](http://www.lostgarden.com/2018/01/cozy-games.html) . This hit all the right spots!
- the sliiiightly oblique perspective, to show you're in a 3D world, but also arrow directions work 100% intuitively
- the lovely graphics and happy/ unsettling music
- that you play a woman, and she's a woman of color
- that I had a clear goal
- that I managed to beat it!

I hope you're proud Ava! <3
🎤 Ava Skoog
14. Dec 2018 · 17:59 UTC
@christina-antoinette-neofotistou: Thank you so, so, so much! <'33
Haustgeirr
29. Dec 2018 · 18:48 UTC
Wonderful game here. I loved the feel and direction of the game. Nice aesthetic, and clever little puzzle. If anything I feel like the good ending of the game was a bit of a pulled punch and lacked satisfaction. Maybe a short dialogue/cut scene could really elevate it. Overall though one of my favourites! :grinning:
🎤 Ava Skoog
29. Dec 2018 · 21:47 UTC
@haustgeirr: Thanks a lot for playing and commenting! I definitely agree on the ending, but unfortunately it was all I had time for in the final hours. 😅 Appreciate your kind words!
ecmjohnson
30. Dec 2018 · 03:04 UTC
Great game! I really liked the minimalist aesthetic. The story was really interesting and developed given the time constraints. Kudos on a great game!
🎤 Ava Skoog
30. Dec 2018 · 10:26 UTC
@ecmjohnson: Thank you! <3
WFMG
30. Dec 2018 · 11:25 UTC
I really like this! The world is very believeable despite the very simplistic and minimalistic graphics. The character interactions are really interesting, and I got really immersed in this.

I won't complain too much about the tiny flaws given the context, but things that could be improved upon in continued development would be making it a bit more clear that you can enter certain buildings, which took me a while, make it a bit more clear what calling Fourier on the phone does, and perhaps adding a map, but without all that hand-holding that modern AAA games are known for.

I rated this game a 4 overall. Good stuff. I'm impressed and hope to see you make something even better in April!
🎤 Ava Skoog
30. Dec 2018 · 11:29 UTC
@wfmg: Thanks a bunch! 💃 Helpful criticisms! You're the first one to express confusion about entering buildings, so can I ask what was confusing and if you have any suggestions on how it could've been made clearer? e: Thanks!
cheetah
30. Dec 2018 · 13:54 UTC
Very good detective story, graphics also high grade. Really enjoyed playint it.
Hare Software
30. Dec 2018 · 15:02 UTC
Nice consistent style of graphics, love the mood the music adds to it. Controls are intuitive or shown with button prompts, so that works well too. Dialogue could be expanded, but I understand that making a branching dialogue tree takes a lot of time as well. Everything just seems to work really well, the polish just gets you immersed in the game. This concept does fit the theme and I like the self-awareness in the opening dialogue ("I might just have to sacrifice myself..."). Overall a great experience, well done!
🎤 Ava Skoog
30. Dec 2018 · 15:08 UTC
@cheetah & @hare-software: Thank you both! ⭐️
Matank
30. Dec 2018 · 16:04 UTC
Very fun game! Adventure games are my favorite kind of games so it's great seeing this style of game done in the jam. I really liked the simple art style, the dialogs, and the puzzle for completing this game. Would be really happy to play a longer game done with this style!

A few things that bothered me:
1. Probably better not to map ESCAPE to anything important if you have a web version, since on web it's mapped to getting out of full screen. I had to press escape twice and then back to full screen every time I picked up a new inventory item :)
(I made the same mistake in my game by the way)

2. The town was pretty big - would be nice to have some kind of map feature to make it easier to navigate.

3. On my first play-through I somehow managed to get behind some buildings I probably wasn't supposed to, and eventually got stuck there and couldn't get back out (trees were blocking all ways back into the street). I don't remember exactly how I got there and couldn't reproduce this on my second playthough.

In any case, I had a lot of fun with this game, thank you for making it!
🎤 Ava Skoog
30. Dec 2018 · 16:09 UTC
@matank: Thanks for playing and commenting! Ouch, hadn't thought about that with regards to the escape key. You can use alt instead tho, but of course that's not clear from the in-game UI, sorry about that. :(( Definitely agree on the map. And dang, I thought I hadn't placed any trees behind houses for precisely that reason, haha… Mistakes were made. Thanks for telling me! Great to hear you enjoyed it besides these little hiccoughs! \o/