Nice game, enjoyed it very much. Keep it up!

Really cool game,i want to see more games from you in the future

Hey looks interesting, though I am running into a bug where I can not select dialog options. I am using firefox and have attached a screenshot where I get stuck.


Hey @julianmh , pressing 1, 2 or 3 doesn't work? I've tested in Firefox too. And is this for every dialogue or just this one?

Hey, the game looks cool and i like the cutscene and story behind the game. I also scored it high on innovation because the idea is very original. I sadly could not use 1, 2, 3 on a few dialogues so i had to basically guess and that kinda ruined it.

"Well Done you Cleaned the Buiding" - I don't know if that means I got every person right or not. I'm going to write the rest of this review assuming I got it right.

With this style of game or detective fiction there tend to be red herrings, convoluted chains of reasoning, and the whole thing gets muddy and confusing enough that any answer could be correct. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, you lay out everything simply enough an idiot could understand it and ruin the puzzle. But this game manages to dodge both those traps, and offers very subtle hints that you can pick up on (which I won't get into so as not to ruin the game for others).

In other words, the writing - if not particularly funny (the jokes fell a bit flat for me) or interesting in its word structure - manages to convey exactly the right information in only a few sentences. This combines with the simple rules of the world I gleaned at the intro and makes for an excellent and tense puzzle. The no-nonsense gunshot and sudden burst of color add so much to the aesthetic that tension creates.

The graphics are cute, and not bad for a hand-drawn sketch. The walking animation is a bit weird, but that's never easy to draw. And the transition animations between the rooms look great. The lack of music almost adds to the atmosphere so I don't think it hurts the game much; it helps lend a gravity to the sound of gunfire.

The one issue I had was that dialogue selection seemed to only work on the numpad. If I was on a smaller keyboard I wouldn't have been able to play the game. Non-numpad number keys seem to be ignored.

This also doesn't fit into the theme all that well in my opinion. You tried to tie it in with the overpopulation aspect but that's only a bit of backstory and could be completely removed without changing the game much.

Out of curiosity, how did you make the gunshot noise?

@julianmh @laytanl I published a fix so that one can use a-b-c if they don't have a numpad.

@amras0000 thanks a lot for your constructive review! The gunshot noise was done with sfxr.

I should have put more application on the writing, but I was so short on time that it ended up being quite flat, following my script closely but without much style. Game jams and me, a long story of love and hatred :)

Also I made a fix for the numpad thingy, because that's blocking players.

I like the art style. It was entertaining to play but as I found myself replaying it, I wish there had been a Restart option on the game over screen as well as a way to skip the initial sequence dialog. Overall nicely done.

I liked the art style.

I wish there was a way to win the game without killing humans. After the first kill I felt so guilty and every person I talked after that fet so real. Goergous art style and storytelling! Also "first law" was smart.

Very nice graphic style, I missed more audio than just shot sound (maybe it was a purpose?). But at least subtle background ambiences like distance shooting or screams would juice the mood up. But overall extra good entry for a compo. The only thing that was not clear to me was that I have neded with "you have cleared the building" message but had no idea if I have killed all the humans or just some of them or even some robots.

Curious game. Maybe it's too ambitious for the LD

@verbante happy to see that somebody got the Asimov reference :)
Sorry for the feeling of guilt, I know it would have been interesting to make a good issue to the game but that would be a game way bigger than a ludum dare compo entry. This game is about oppression and the absurdity of division. I chose to show more the differences between individuals than between groups so killing appears as absurd.

@wolar I'm glad you liked the graphics style. You're right that there should have been some background sounds to contribute to the atmosphere, but I was even too short on time to make the intro as it was planned.
"you have cleared the building" means that you killed all humans and no robot. Killing a robot displays a meessage "game over, you killed a fellow robot".

@gonzalol maybe, but that's the kind of experimental stuff I wouldn't do for a bigger project.

Fascinating game, brings up some interesting issues, especially considering advancements in robotics; perhaps we may have to deal with the problems proposed in this game in the not too distant future? The hand-drawn graphics were superb (must've taken a while!), the dialogue was interesting enough, but I'd agree with some of the previous commenters, in that perhaps (given more time) you could have the ability to make proper moral decisions, such as allowing, or even aiding, some humans to escape.

From a mechanical viewpoint, it was very cool how the apartments are hidden away until you actually step into them; it makes sense, but it's good to see it being implemented on a short timescale, and I think it definitely adds to the game experience. I also enjoyed using the lift far too much, with the little satisfying 'ding', but maybe that's just me (I'm biased towards any game that has a working lift).

I also couldn't use 1, 2, and 3 on Mozilla. 'a', 'b', and 'c' all worked fine, but it was awkward using them, as they are scattered in different locations on the keyboard, maybe using 'a', 's', and 'd' would've worked better, but I do appreciate what you were doing by providing an alternative to the number pad.

Overall however, a short, but fantastic entry!

Thanks for your review @mikethewayne !
Sorry for the a-b-c thing, it was a late hotfix as I was told that the game wasn't playable without numpad. And as I don't use a qwerty keyboard, what makes sense for me doesn't make sense for the others. That's also the reason why I provided the arrows as an alternative to WASD.

As you said the lift and the mechanics to show only the room where you are were a big part of the technical work, along with the dialogue system.

I regret being so bad at animating my drawings but I'll work on that. And next time I'll try to have more audio, too.

Nice entry with a cool theme! good work! I found that numpad works too, but numbers at top of keyboard do not. But I see from other comments that you discovered already :)

Wow... That is interesting take on a game.

Almost was mistaken about one of the occupants. but figured it out eventually.

I really love your game, especially the art and the idea.

Very good arts !

I prefer playing to game "fun", but it's interesting to see a game with a different approach.