Retrospective Sparks by kikiriki367
You seem to have forgotten something... Every night before the dream you will have a question that haunts you. Only knowing the answer to it will you become more at ease...
THE MOST HARDCORE CLICKING GAME YOU’LL EVER EXPERIENCE! DONT GET MAD AT US IF YOU CANT FINISH IT! But in case the "git gud" sentance is not something you live by, feel free to enable the assist mode in the settings "Window"!
| Youtube | https://to-hardware.itch.io/retrospectivesparks |
| Youtube | https://to-hardware.itch.io/retrospectivesparks |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/retrospective-sparks |
Ratings
| Overall | 1884th | 3.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 2144th | 2.8⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1984th | 2.875⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 2424th | 2.658⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1750th | 3.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1106th | 3.15⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1452th | 2.632⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1548th | 3.2⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 58🗳️ | 13🗨️ |

I don't want to do spoilers, so I will try not to.
Summary of the following next: The game is cool, the story is great, it can be a little bit hard, but you can solve it (it needs time and thought xD). It would be great if you put some info of the game in the description.
I want to help you in what I can, so this is what I found. First, it would be nice if you had the option to exit the game (I couldn't find it). The options within the scene it's very original, but I would draw a window or someting instead of leaving them in a white rectangle.
The text in red color is not de best option for me, maybe you can put some box to hold the text (not full opacity, maybe 80%, depending of the color of the box you choose). I understand the reason why the text overlaps when you fail, but I strongly recommend put the repeated lines in a slightly different color (for example, if you have the text in black, you can put the rest in different shades of gray), it's ok make it difficult to read, but not unreadable (It happens if you fail a lot, you miss the rest of the story, and I think that this is not the point in a game with story). And, I would look for a typography with more personality instead of the classic sans serif font.
When you have to answer the question, on the submit button it says "button", you can put "Go" or "Try", "buttons" looks like a false text. And to go from one day to the next (if you are successful), you naturally click on the screen, but I found that you have to press "Enter", if you want that the players do that they need to know it, or change it for mouse click instead of using the keyboard. The assist mode helped me in the final moments, so thanks for that, although not at all levels the highlighted elements have new info, but it helps. The last time I clicked in the bed I found the purple screen that said "Here should be the ending screen", so I guess that I finished the game haha.
The art is great, looks simple but nice, I realize that probably you have more than one artist because some of the pictures are as vector art and others look like painting, but they all go the same way so it's nice.
The music is great too! And the story! A very original form to use the theme, congrats :)
PD: Sorry for this long feedback, I hope some of this help to you :)
@darksaytan : Thank you on your feedback it really helps us as we are planing on polishing the game a bit! But we will do it in the post ludum dare release. We really thought the same thing on most of the problems that you have mentioned but we just didn't have enough time, soo if you return in a week well have another download version with many of those fixes!(And the repeated message is just funny so no need to be sorry!)
The graphics are quite nice. The music is quite nice and relaxing, although it goes a bit wobbly in one of the rooms and did I imagine it or does it get louder each time you wake up from sleep.
Apart from that, I didn't get it. I visited the four rooms and clicked on everything that seemed to be clickable, read the text but could not find any semblance of a story or goal. I also didn't get the dream / question / button thing.
Sorry, perhaps I'm dumb, but I didn't get it.
However, even if I am not a fan of this genre at all (sorry :), the rabbit on the picture brought me here and the game looks good, I tried to explore and click on everything, answered the questions... nice work.
The overlapping text wasn't great - I thought it was a bug and reset the game a few times to try and get rid of it.
So far I couldn't finish it, but I'll give it a try for sure :)
What does the assist mode do? It doesn't seem to make a difference.
After finishing it, I had to play through again. Wow, that was nice. You managed to make it really interesting, Liked the level of detail and how things fit in the story.
The problems I would point out have already been solved in the new version. Good job!
@supercool-guy No you're not dumb the problem you were expiriencing is something we had a fair few times but didn't have time to fix it till now! Now the game will tell you the way how to progress which is going to bed...
@denis123 No need to be sorry and thanks to darksaytans, your and @natpat 's comment we have made changes to it and thank you for your great insight!
@bearding8 @amarillion Yeah were having the same problem as many puzzle games in a sence that our logic is a bit off! The first question especially... So we added the downloadable answers aswell now if you wish to speedrun the game or just skip a certain question! Also the assist mode changes the color of the text when you hover over an important objects.
PS. Thank you all for playing and giving us great feedback!
Heyo, pretty cool game, but honestly I had difficulty solving most of the puzzles. I think I got lost in the pronouns of it all, the last question in particular, I thought I was asking the question, but I was a guy and the answer was... Just with how cryptic it was all trying to be, it lost me. I saw the newspaper, but the answer for q2 was the last thing I'd have guessed. Same thing with q4, I didn't see anything indicating that that was a gift. And as the text effects piled up, I gave in trying to reread everything and just went for the answers.
The graphics though are impressive, and the story is pretty cool, I just found the answers a bit obtuse. I like how everything had a sound effect, and the text blurring was a nice effect (even though it made it harder to read). The few questions that I did get (Q1 and Q3) were really well done, it felt good connecting those dots. Overall the game was pretty cool, I just wish there was more stuff in the world pointing you in the right direction. :heart:
Overall the game is very captivating and I wish it was longer, good job!