GLASS HOUSES

Your game it's awesome. Final it's pretty shocking. Congratulations for you and your team.

I loved this game!!! A simple gameplay with a stunning ending and AWESOME graphics!!!!!! Keep it up! <3

Beautiful game. Not a single world, yet a pretty deep story.

left you a rating in addition to the earlier feedback. Good luck!

I really enjoyed this! Thanks for making it :)
The mood was great, it felt mysterious and always kept me curious what would happen next.

Lovely world, interesting game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation [video series](https://youtu.be/CCYaVM8tRMM), if you’d like to take a look :)

Short but sweet. Love the art and music, not much to do but watch the world go around you, which is ofc nice too. Had a mini hear attack when they tried to go for the girl.

Speaking of snow globes, of you want more games like that, feel free to check my and @quaternius game here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/hibernaculum

The visuals and audio really set the mood! I wasn't if I was missing some actions. Each day I walked to the machine and did the thing and walked back...

Thanks guys!

@cosmic-adventure-squad: You weren't missing any action, it's meant to be mainly a story told around player indifference. There's 4 days in total, with something new happening each day.

Nice little story driven game. Beautiful art and good music. Definitely would love to play a longer version.

Beautiful atmosphere. Even if I knew what was going to happen on the second day the end was still really satisfying/was well presented.

|+ The art and atmosphere built up and the changes to the behavior and appearance of characters helped add impact and a sense of progression until the end.
|+ A strong sense of polish and heart, everything was well presented.

|= Wasn't sure whether to make this a positive or a negative, but walking back and forth to 'progress' felt relatively dull, but it did help add to the impact of the changes within the 'village'. Visual novels at least have dialog but without that here the experience could be shared more broadly which is nice so I think it suits the atmosphere that was made.

Overall it was a nice and sweet story that didn't stretch out the message unnecessarily which could have negatively effected it so great work :)!

The mood of your game was really intense, art and audio well-crafted. The "plot-twist" revealed itself to me really early in the game and from that point, it became a bit tedious to do all that slow walking to get to the end. All in all, solid game!

I really liked the concept, story and feel that you achieved. That said, I felt like I really didn't do anything. Even something simple like getting my tools before going to work and then using the tools to escape at the end would have added some immersion. Great story and presentation, just a little lacking in the "game" department.

I really enjoyed this game. I played it twice to see if I could get a different ending. Fantastic atmosphere and art.

The visual and the music is on point. The mood is perfect. I would have enjoyed a little more interaction, though, as in an adventure game. The ending, although expected, was great to see. Congrats for the team.

I love the art style in this. The music and visuals come together to beautifully get the mood across.

I disagree with a lot of the criticism above about the actual gameplay being boring. I feel like that's the point. You're just getting up, doing your boring job, and going home, while all around you the world just falls apart. And the "only" thing you can do by changing your routine is make a difference to one person.

Great game, very neat.

Thanks for the comments guys! Much appreciated!

@swiftillusion: Well apparently it's both a pro and a con judging by the comments hahah. Depends on what you expected out of this. We wanted to try a purely "show not tell" approach and see if we can get away with it. Thanks for the detailed comment!

@davidthelazar: That was our intention! The lack of interaction was a conscious decision, but it's a fair assumption that it would be a hit and miss with players who went into it expecting a "gamey" game (which is why I described it as an "experience", not a game). Thank you for playing!

You really did a great job at conveying story and atmosphere in this game. It felt mysterious, scary and even oppressive at times.. and the ending felt freeing and bittersweet! Really cool entry! :sparkles:

Wow, congratulations for your game, I found it amazing !

First it's damn beautiful, charismatic and elegant, reminded me a bit of sword & sorcery, especially for the long and thin leg character design, and for the delicate and dreamy atmosphere.
Also your narrative is strong and deeply moving, and I was impressed by the fact you conducted it so fully right to the end. I think It's pretty rare for a jam game to find a real and that polished story combined with a nicely fitting and rich art direction. So once again huge congratulations, we'll follow your good work !

It's rated <3

I do like the graphics, audio and the combined atmosphere very much. I liked the fact that there was no dialogue, and things we're purely conveyed by imagery. You've certainly done a good work on the overall presentation and aesthetics of the game throughout.

There were 3 things you could interact with, and only one of them had any point whatsoever. You could take away all control and it would not change the experience. My existance as a player of the game felt completely, utterly meaningless, and I'd expect that's the sort of indifference you **don't** want to intentionally convey.

Nevertheless, the superb atmosphere alone is worthy of praise. Well done!

PS. I would recommend you to change (or remove) the first screenshot as I was able to practically predict the whole story from that one picture, it's a bit too spoil-ey.

Well made! Nice atmosphere and gfx. Quite the undertaking to make a game like this in a game jam! Although it felt more like a story than a game.

Wonderful story telling and graphics. Nice entry.

Cool story element story element to the game. Wasn't a fan of walking back and forth without much interaction to the home and the machine. Nice graphics and audio! Keep up the good work!

Great game great art! This is definitely one of the best entries! I guess it would be better if there was a button for running? Or maybe it was your intention to have the player have more time to experience the atmosphere..

Great job in telling this story, especially in telling it without words. I enjoyed the pixel art, animations, and atmosphere.

nice job. Cool story telling!

I LOVE the lack of prompts and dialogue. (spoiler alert) that moment of the choice came naturally to me, and it made it all the more satisfying. I'm so glad you didn't include any prompts or direct instructions - that would've lessened the immersion.

Wow, this game had an incredibly well done atmosphere and story.
- The music progression with each day was phenomenal. It really gave the feeling of impending doom and dread. It scaled up the intensity very well.
- I love the fact that, amidst the chaos, the main character just goes back and forth between the machine and his house. It's like it doesn't matter to him.
- The pixel art was great. The muted color palette really set the initial mood.
- SPOILERS: my first time through, I got the bad ending, and I think it's brilliant. I was so conditioned to move from left to right, every day, that when I picked up the girl, I didn't even think "Maybe she's running from something". I just ran to the right like I always do. This ended up getting the girl killed.
- My second playthrough, I decided to break the pattern of indifference to the situation,and ran away when I picked up the girl to save her. This was a really great moment.
- The lack of dialogue made the mood even more sinister. When the religious folk began coming in, and started showing a death-related image (which I now think means "sacrifice" or something), I felt very unnerved.

Fantastic game.

Wow. Very, very eerie - and that's a compliment! You've gone in a really interesting direction with the theme here, so great job. Side note - the characters kind of look like Slenderman to me, which probably contributed to the eeriness haha.

What an awesome game! Great job, can hardly believe you built that for a JAM. So much polish and care! Awesome work!

This is a super great entry, the presentation is really tremendous. Although the current entry is pretty well self-contained, I actually feel like the style and setting would do well being expanded into a longer 'adventure' game - still without any text dialog. I feel like at the end, when the characters are presented with this whole new world they never knew, I want to explore it with them.

Although they're fairly different, this actually reminds me quite a bit of LOOM.

EDIT: To elaborate a little, I feel like an expanded version of this should maintain and expand on the gameplay of this version; not the walking-back-and-forth-a-lot part, mind, but the part at the end, the 'implicit' decision-making, where you choose between two paths by simple interaction, without necessarily realizing you're being presented with a choice.

Wonderful graphics and atmospheric sounds, nice game!

More like a story than a game. However, good job with the audio and mood. I liked the idea and the apocalypse mood you created with a few surprises along the way.

Beautiful. Some entries do explain they are experiences rather than games and to be honest, most experiences are not really good ones. You crafted a really nice, short experience, with a lot of mood. The way of communication was perfect, it conveyed so much without using words, providing a space for itnerpretation - i guess this is what makes an "experience" good, that you as the player are challenged to think about what you experience, what it means and what will happen. I knew i was in a snow globe, still it was really exciting what would happen. It really conveyed the small world theme, i just love those tiny societies and you did a perfect job on this. There are very few entries that i will remember and less that touched me in a way, this one did. Thanks :)

PS: brought here by @tinyworlds blog post.

I really loved the the mood! Was so cool to be on a snowball! Graphics and music also very cool! The only flaw is that it has almost no gameplay! Anyway, good job here! :)

Really enjoyed this game! the whole idea of the snow globes was clever and I really liked the graphics. The audio created a great mood of curiosity and wanting to know what was happening. I got the good ending first but then I wanted to know what would happen in the other ending. Wow.

To improve, the only thing I can say would be to perhaps have a little more deviation from the same tasks. Maybe the player could visit a shop?

Overall, really nice game and I hope I can see more like this in the future!

Actually a very scary game. Nice moody audio and an outstanding visual style.

Truly, this feels like an actual original take on pixelart.

Great entry! Cheers.

I really liked this little narrative. Unlike some of the other comments, I liked that you couldn't do anything most of the time, only go to work and go home, it really helped setting the mood.

I am totally on board for this type of experience.

Great job representing the ground plane with those slopes and ellipses.

Thanks for the comments everyone!

@devastus: I removed the image heh, you were right.
To be fair, all those 3 actions serve a singular purpose - to move the story forward. The "working" action also serves as a hint to what's coming next (it's very subtle and only a few caught on to it, but that is expected). Thanks for the criticism though!

@philomory: That is an interesting suggestion. I have a feeling adding proper "game" elements into something like this would need very careful consideration, since that might tend to break immersion (say, when you're stuck and searching for keys or something - taking your mind off of what's happening around you to a more puzzle-oriented mindset). But it's a great idea to think about.

@rongo-matane: Thank you, that made my day!

@elzach: The art is inspired by titles like Superbrothers and zzzz-zzzz-zzzz.

visually appealing, and a great atmosphere to the story - but there is not much of a game here - top marks for theme, graphics and mood - nice entry

this is was a great experience! wish there was a little more of a game factor to it but, again, might be just my personal opinion. Otherwise the entire thing was awesomely made. music was superb and graphics were very top notch. thank you.

A well crafted depiction of the mudnannity of everyday life; doing your routine day after day seeing that things are slowly falling apart (both socially and quite literally).

I was actually hopeing for this this to be a little longer. But I do on the other hand prefer narrative games to be "to short" than "to long".

Music and scenery are both stellar.

A masterful semi-interactive story you created. The expressiveness of the characters despite the simple graphics is awesome. I love how you told the story of impending doom and human fallacy in attributing guilt. I played it twice to get both endings.

I don't have anything bad to say really. It is short, but encapsulates everything it's trying to say so well that it wouldn't gain anything by being longer.

Full marks.

Hi guys,

loved your game. The music was great, and the game builds a strong story without saying a word.

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

The fact that the game had two endings is great. At first i got the bad ending but I read some comments about the other ending and i played again to get it. It's basically the same, but gives a very different feeling - the scene with the guy and the girl at the end is very powerful.

Good job guys :)

I also included your game in an article of my favorites here: http://fireside.gamejolt.com/post/jam-favorites-ludum-dare-38-vepwgamy

@jupiter-hadley Thank you so much! ^_^