Heron's Subway by LDJam user 158571
Sometimes games feel too cramped within the limited space of .exe file.
Goal: You need to figure out soldier's name; Controls: WASD, E;

Extra information:
3 - Light-blue T-shirt;
4 - Suit guy;

From the Author: That is my first experience working with UE5, so I had to deal with limited skill resources. I didn't focus on creating my own assets, which is why no art assets were created by me, yet I made sure that the game looks nice, so please enjoy the graphics.
Hint: As per usual I leave a lot of information in my posts, so you may wanna check my feed if you get stuck.

| Zip with EXE here: | https://mnemosynevl.itch.io/herons-subway |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/herons-subway |
Ratings
| Given | 8🗳️ | 9🗨️ |
7 - Suit lady
Also, in case you aren't aware, in order to get your game promoted to other players for rating, you need to play, rate, and comment on other people's games.
The game indeed looks very pretty, and it's quite an interesting concept. A little mystery on a metro train, very cool and atmospheric.
First off, there are two choices on how to play the game at the moment. You can either try and figure out the order yourself, which (judging from the comments) requires an infuriating amount of trial-and-error as the game gives you zero feedback on how correct you were, or you can simply hunt down the correct order from your comments here and on itch.io, and have the entire game spelled out for you with zero effort required.
I think this is your way of incorporating the theme, but to be brutally honest, the whole "game is too cramped to fit in the .exe file" meta-premise falls flat for me, since the game is already hundreds of MB bigger than every other game I've played this LD. I feel like there has to be a middle ground somewhere.
My biggest problem with the game, though, is that it desperately lacks any sort of context to get you invested in the main goal. We need to figure out this soldier's name, but... why? Why do I *care* what his name is? What's my motive? What's the payoff? Personally, I'm much more interested in finding out why nobody on the train seems to remember anything, or why the medic seems to be unconscious, or why the guy in the light blue shirt is cackling like a madman. Those feel like much more engaging mysteries, with much more story potential behind them, than "what's this guy's name". Maybe you're trying to make a point about getting to know strangers, but if you are, it needs to be communicated more clearly.
(**EDIT:** Having now finished the game, I feel like I was right: the answers to those other questions were much more interesting. The whole thing feels very arbitrary, to be honest. Why do you need to speak to the people in *that specific order* to trigger the thing that happens when you do so?)
One other thing: it's possible to be in talking range of both the lady leaning against the door *and* the lady in the suit at the same time, and the first-person viewpoint means you can't tell. I tried to talk to one and ended up talking to the other, and didn't realise until I got the same dialogue twice and realised I'd messed up the order. For a game that relies entirely on sequencing, that feels like a fairly major error.