* would be nice if autio and text were in sync
* would be nice to be able to skip the text write out
* for a jam game, it would have been nice for the world to be smaller, I spent _a lot_ of time just wandering trying to find stuff.
*the graphics are really nice
* music was nice
* voice overs are really good
* the mazes were some what frustrating
* the narrative was interesting and what kept me going to the end (else the long time wondering whould have had me quit early)

@adroitconceptions
- I agree, unfortunately I did voice-over about 15 minutes before submission hour started so I didn't have time.
- See above.
- It definitely is big, that's to reduce the amount of things in close proximity to each other. Walking speed could definitely have changed though.
- Thank you.
- Thank you again.
- See the previous 2 points.
- Yeah, hitboxes are a little weird and as such the mazes aren't as smooth as they could be. May change in a post-jam, should I decide to do one.
- That was my main goal, this is the first story-based game I've done and so to hear that it was well done is very encouraging.

First, a really nice idea, fits the theme. Could have used more testing for some niggling little things, though, that would probably be easy to fix:

- arrow keys still work for movement, but there's no walking animations when doing so;
cut the arrow keys, or better: keep them but get the animations working. I found myself
constantly going back to the arrow keys because they felt more comfortable. Having the
option either way wouldn't hurt anything, imo

- Speed up the text display, or slow down the audio. Former probably easier.

- at the start of the game, I could click through the journal text to exit it, as the
audio had already finished well prior to the text display. Later, though, I could do
neither, and had to wait. And then it was space to continue. Consistent controls would be +1.

- At game end, there was more than a screen's worth of text, and no prompts to click
or space through to see the rest. Was left kinda hanging.

- A few hitbox collision issues in places. Player hitbox too tall; can't walk in front of
trees/etc like you'd expect. Hitboxes too tall for the larger trees, too, imo. At least one
location set piece had no collision box at all, apparently, and I could walk all over it (being
vague here to avoid spoilers).

- Related to the hitboxes, part of the woods are suuuuper-hard to navigate through, despite not
appearing that difficult. Some hitbox adjustments would fix this, I think!

- At end of game, the walk/step audio continued to play.

- You look like you eat one of the items as you collect it. It's funny, maybe just leave it. ;)

- For item collection, the audio that plays could play right away when it pops, instead of waiting
for it to finally "enter" the player sprite.

Several positives, btw!

- Really like the art in general.

- Audio is pretty good. Feels complete--like everything that should have audio pretty much has audio.

- Music is really, really good. All of it. I noticed some of the tracks didn't loop smoothly, but
overall really well done, fitting of the various locations/situations.

- The game mood is well-complemented with some additional effects besides the audio/music.

- The overall story idea is pretty good. I wanted more, and I am intrigued by the ending.

In summary:

I think the overall idea could be fleshed out more (of course, like every LD game ever)... there could be a lot more story to tell, a lot more twists and reveals, etc. Also intrigued by bits at the end...

There might be some benefit to a little more structure to the game to reduce the wandering, although if the hitbox situation was better, the wandering might have felt easier and more fun.

I wouldn't mind having a way to measure my progress, what I've done, or partially done and need to complete.

There wasn't much in the way of interacting with the world, and I think it would be fun to include more interactive elements, both as part of the gameplay and maybe just for fun. Wandering around and seeing things you can mess with makes it a fun toy when you're not otherwise working toward completing the game.

As a bite-sized adventure, I really enjoyed it. The story in particular kept me playing; I wanted to know what happened next. I hope you can do some tweaking and maybe a fuller version of this idea at some point. Good luck with the competition!

I really loved this game. Background music and audio create a wonderful ambience. I am intrigued by the story and the content is too much for a two-day jam game. 5 points for storytelling. The narrative style kept my attention for all gameplay. These are pros.

In my opinion, technical problems (except for the one related to hit boxes) are not that disturbing. As cons, I can say that I always wondered if I missed something and I thought about my progress. The exterior environment is huge (I don't know if this hugeness is necessary) and a little dead.

Good job :ok_hand:

Got stuck in the sword stone :'(
But really good game! I loved the voice over the text!

Lovely game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 45 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/-U44UyPCEiM

@alexfalkenberg Wow, that's... a lot of text. Lots of good information though! Thanks for leaving all that feedback, it's super helpful. Most of the stuff you mentioned, I definitely noticed and just didn't have time to fix.

@aycan Thanks for the comment! I really appreciate the comments on the story, this was my first story-based game, so while it was a huge risk, I'm glad to see it's paying off. As for your cons:
- Hitboxes are definitely messed up, I tried to make them work properly, but my engine decided no. They'll definitely get reworked.
- I thought about some sort of progress indicator a lot as I was making the game, and ultimately decided against it, the clock aiding my decision. I thought that I should keep the idea of not knowing what was going on, and transferred it to the player. Maybe there should be some sort of exit that mentions how many more items you have to collect? Something to think about.
- The reason the map is so big is to minimize the amount of things in close proximity to each other, though I agree that it definitely needs to be more populated if I decide to keep the large scale.

@los Thank you! May I ask what you mean by "I got stuck"? Do you mean you got the text that you couldn't pick it up? If so, that means that you haven't gotten something else yet.

@jupiter-hadley Thanks for taking the time to record my game! Seeing someone play your game live is always more helpful than just a comment, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

@mathstr0fficial I mean that my character couldn't move away from it! It was somehow stuck there

the narration makes the mood sad and interesting, the music and character makes it remind me of a five minute game about life and death which i am having trouble remembering the name

the passage is the name of the game i mentioned

This was pretty interesting. The story kept me engaged and the world was pleasant to explore, but there was a lot of it. I think some directions or landmarks could've done wonders here, as I kept turning down the same stretches of road over and over again without realizing it. My only other criticism is that I would've liked to have been able to skip the voice-over / text crawl and just see the completed page. Outside of a skip feature, speeding up the text crawl might have helped with that a bit.

On the whole though this was nice entry. Good work!

So to begin with, I want to say the audio was really good; I found myself realizing that halfway through playing. Secondly I love the simple story you tell with a very small place, and it feels like the player isn't rushed for anything, so it creates a scenario which you can truly wonder who your player is without worrying about any threats.


Now there are some things which were a little frustrating:
- Of course, mazes are guesswork, however in this maze, it felt frustrating to head down a long corridor at a not-so-fast sprint speed. So I think it would be better to increase speed perhaps, or maybe allow the player to return to the main path without backtracking (though, I know that you had limited time, so you're excused ;))

- The collision on the trees, rocks, and the other things were a little wonky, and made the *spoiler warning* amulet a nightmare to search for. I kept thinking "hey, I can walk there," but then it turned out that a tree was blocking me from moving, even though it shouldn't. A good way to do that is just putting the collider where the base of the trunk is, as in life no one collides with the top of a tree, unless they are climbing.

- There were some bugs which, but every game has them

- Lastly, I love that the paths were subtle ways of guiding the player, but I often found myself getting lost. Adding a few landmarks in the middle would help orienting players.


All in all, though, I liked your game quite a lot, and it really has potential. The concept of isolation and amnesia go very well with the theme, and I think you implemented it really nicely. Well done!

@Los I'm sorry that happened! I haven't been able to recreate it on my end, that's very odd.

@velvetlobster Thanks for the feedback!

@morrilet I agree that some form of landmark would do it good, but unfortunately I ran out of time considering the massive scope of this game. Skipping the text is, again, a QoL thing that I wish I could've added, but alas I wanted to enter for the compo. But I'm certainly glad you enjoyed it!

@jordanvang Thanks for all your feedback! Audio was the one thing I really wanted to step up this time, alongside it being my first story-based game ever, so I'm glad it worked well. As for your criticisms:
- I was debating back and forth for a very, very long time whether or not I wanted to speed up the player. Ultimately, I decided against it to make it feel more like he was walking around a place he didn't know, but I understand why it could be a struggle.
- Yeah, that section certainly is more of a pain than I intended. I attempted to remove colliders for the tops of trees, but apparently my engine didn't agree with me. I'll definitely try to fix that up.
- If you wouldn't mind, what bugs did you find? I wasn't aware of anything major, so I'd appreciate if you let me know what problems you had.
- Landmarks would definitely be a huge help, but I was scoped large already, and, well, compo time limit happened. I would love to have them, maybe I'll add some in post-jam.

@mathstr0fficial It was one bug in particular which I was particularly affected by. When you go to retrieve the shield, apparently there is a hidden collider in that area which stops you from leaving, and every time you touch it, it triggers the "firework" animation (for lack of better words). I thought I was going to have to restart the entire game, but thankfully, I was able to get out!

I loved how the theme works in the different levels, both memories and items. The audio and the story are nice too!

It's amazing that you have voice acting for the text, I just wish that they were more in sync. Also the text was showing up a bit too slowly, so maybe it would have worked better for me if I had the full text from the beginning, and the voice reading it.

The maze was a cool surprise, but the way back felt a bit long/slow. It would be nice if at the end a shortcut could be open to continue.

Overall, nice job!

@jordanvang I have noticed this before, it seems to be a problem with the shield having a collision box. Hopefully will be fixed in the near future.

@yomissmar Thanks! I didn't even realize collecting the items fit the theme, haha. I agree with the fact that the text crawl moves way slow compared to the voices, but I did finished the voices literally 2 minutes before the deadline and didn't have time to test them. I also agree with a faster exit for the maze, just not exactly sure how I would go about doing that. Thanks for all the feedback though!

Lots of nice things about the entry have already been said above, and I agree with most of them! Good voice over, nice artwork! My biggest concern was the "scribble" noise when the text was writing was too loud in comparison with the voiceover volume. Great job, though!

I enjoyed the game for a few minutes, the voice narrative is a nice touch. While it's nice to be able to move faster by holding shift, I never found a situation where moving at the default speed was beneficial at all. So I played through the game holding down Shift the entire time.

The mazes were a bit much. It's frustrating walking to a dead end and having to backtrack constantly. But I did enjoy it overall. Keep up the good work! :V:

English is not my first language. So it was a little hard to understand as a whole. But the voice explanation is wonderful. However, I want to be able to see all of the text at once. It was time delay to see the text. The game was interesting. I had a wonderful time.

I enjoyed the concept and the simple graphics and sounds. It however is too much of a walking simulator. To me it lacked some enemies on the way, or puzzles, or traps, or something.

Anywya, congrats for voice acting. I just think that the sound of writing kinda overlap the voice acting. I guess it would be better if it only has voice acting in this case.

Good job on your game!

Music was good. There was no need to not hold shift and sprint everywhere I'd say. I sorta got stuck in the end, as there were rocks blocking me from retrieving the Shield even after I got the Blade and checked the mines with the ores. Other than that, it's a lot of walking around and numbning exploration.

The woods did give me a spook when it started, but the bug from @jordanvang happens to me as well, but even when collecting the blade, and ring.

@rubixnoob13 Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it! I have to agree with you about the noise, wish it could be fixed, but alas audio was done in the last 2 hours and I had no time to tweak it.

@almighty-games Thanks for the feedback! I have noticed from a lot of people that the walking speed, and even the sprinting speed are way slow, and while I agree now it didn't bother me enough during testing to make me change it. I see how mazes could be a bit much, especially considering the hitboxes and walking speeds, but that was mainly to make up for a lack of other obstacles in the main overworld.

@gamefive Thanks, I really appreciate it! The text scrolls to make it seem like he's writing in a journal, but I see where you're coming from. Maybe it would've been better if I had just added an option to skip to the end.

@derek-volker Thanks for taking the time to play it! I wish I could have something to make the overworld more interesting, but I was definitely overscoped from the start and wanted to get at least the bare minimum story in there. I see how the writing sound could get annoying, but there was nothing I could do in the little time I had left.

@itsdanidre Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked the music, that was my biggest goal this jam and I'm glad it payed off. Wow, I've gotten a lot of comments about walking speed. See my response to @almighty-games. The shield is a bit confusing, but some of the rocks can be pushed out of the way to get to the shield. There's no way to tell just by playing unfortunately, but they can be moved. That bug is likely something to do with the items having a hitbox, not ideal but not anything I can do about it at this current time.

I liked the storyline..dont wanna give out any spoilers but i do have something to mention..everything was good only that i felt that the typing should be a little faster along with the voice ...and also the speed of the player could be even faster you know...or maybe add more to it like a particle effect if its at that pace..to keep it convincing.. Overall GG.

well done,the voice was so good,and the story is cool~

Thank you for your maze.

Absorbing idea. It drew me in and compelled me to keep exploring. Not sure the ending was a satisfying enough payoff for what had gone before, but I know how jam games go. This would be a good hook/intro to a bigger game.

Good stuff :8ball: