Love the overall vibe! Great graphics. Had a paper please sensation

The vibes and aesthetics are very good. I felt very little agency in the games outcomes. This does fit in with the theme very well, but unfortunately it made it not very fun to play. With better writing, this kind of gameplay would work. The game mentioned multiple endings, but I tried different options in my second playthrough and got identical results. If your boss reacted differently depending on your choices, even if it led to the same ending, would be an improvement. If you had more time to flesh out the characters and world building, there is a solid game here.

@dnp thanks for a feedback! For this version of a game my aim was to actually finish somewhat. I wrote dialogs just from the head what first came to my mind, it was really the worst and hardest for me. What about different endings, I was failing on it because for that moment have been working on a project for 30 hours straight. It actually depends on how many people you find guilty. If you check 3 or less, one ending. 4 or 5 another. 6 - third. It was not implemented to check if person is really in guilty. But intended to be like a morale of the player check. I know that boss reaction is also the same, I could do better :) Anyways, thanks for a review.

Good art style it's look simple, but deep. Transmits office vibe well!

@maxem4ek Thanks for a feedback :)

I like the concept, but there are a few honest concerns I have. To me personally it wasn't really clear what I was supposed to do, so I wound up just spamming the right option (the only one that was doing something). Just in general, if the major part of your game would be focused on text, it might be better to put it straight up the player's field of vision, nice and big, with as much feedback as possible (for example, hover-over the text to make it bigger/pop, or just use buttons there as well). Also, I would increase the font on the main menu buttons as well. The audioloop also seems a bit repetitive, but this is a jam so scope issues are forgivable :) I hope this feedback is valuable to you and in the end, I want to congratulate you personally for making this !

The artwork is interesting, and in my opinion, the colors are very well chosen. Together, they create a very unique atmosphere!

@javasaurus thanks for a feedback, it is more than valuable for me. Yes, indeed, as I have wrote above, my main wish and aim was to make a game, what 70% of devs here fail with. I did that and feel a kind of proud :) Now I will try to do something bigger and probably one day even make a game which will be suitable to push to Steam. Thanks again for a feedback! Appreciate that

@immortalfox Believe it or not, you're over halfway there ;) You developed a game, hence forth, you are a game developer :D

Vibe of this game is kinda interesting, liked it

@k1n glad you enjoyed it!

I like the overall feeling of the game, I think its mainly lacking some user feedback. I often wasn't sure if I was clicking on the right things. So having some sort of highlight/animation/etc on the areas you can interact with would help.
I think it could have gone a bit further of the depth theme, but overall great job.

@sharky3188 Thanks for a feedback :) Glad you played my game

Really nice aesthetic. I felt a bit lost at the begining not understanding that I had to wait for the passage of the day so some sort of guidance (be it written or through indications) would be nice.

Nice submission! :D

@ssiannas Hey! Thanks for a feedback! Actually there are some problems which I realized only after submission finished. Like one you mentioned, I did a notice on the "Day 1 " from Supervisor, that the day goes from 10 to 18 and that is the issue, because I understand it is quite easy to not notice, or skip (small font size etc.). And actually I didn't manage to think how to not make players get bored because they cannot skip the day when everything is read.

Anyways, thanks for feedback :)

@immortalfox you could go full hearthstone and add clickable interactions in the background haha

I like this atmosphere and graphics!

@protzz thanks :) May be done better by me. But still at least I finished the game! :D

I liked that you created a room that feel like a real place, with table, wall, and various people sitting in front of you.
I'm not sure if I understand why I always see 2 dialogs by the other side, but can only click on the right option which is practically just next. I tried to follow through for 10 days, but I wasn't sure how long it would take

BTW I think the fact there was music is actually nice, even if the game disagrees :) And I would put the link to the game before the source code on the page

@atsh thank you! And I caught myself that I didn't state anywhere that the game will last for 14 days. After 14 days you have "A Special Investigation" which will show you your destiny. Sorry for that! What about dialogs, basically I had an array of 2-5 dialogs everyday because had not enough time setting all my ideas (I have realized only 40% of the content which I thought would be in the game). And you can only switch on the right through that Array, should be considered like a bug. Huge thanks for a feedback!:)

real cool remake of "Papers please", also really admirable that you did it just in 48 hours.

If this is really your first game, then I would say you did an amazing job! Very original take on the theme, and while there isn't that much of gameplay, I am sucker for these kinds of stories, so, I enjoyed this! Since you are asking for feedback, then I have these suggestions:

* Color palette is well picked. Since you use Aseprite, I recommend playing a bit with gradients (with dithering). It can make many things look nicer very quickly by adding details on its own. It can also soften the difference between layers. Could add a nice detail to your characters, and buttons, in maybe couple of minutes. But otherwise I think game assets look pretty solid, so, keep on drawing!
* Dialog piece - it gets the job done, but I would add the button below the clickable actions (or make them flash or something), so that it's obvious what you can click on. Plus like one person suggested above, you can make it bigger in general, since it's main focus
* Fonts - well picked and fitting, but texts in the dialog section are a bit smudged. Maybe turning off anti-aliasing would do the job, but perhaps the issue is something else, it's been a while since I used Game Maker

But overall, I think this is pretty great and you should definitely feel proud of yourself!

@d-omino thanks for a feedback! My game could never repeat the success of cult Papers :) However, it is just "Not a bad game", let's say. I wonder how actually I could do that in 48 hours only! I mean, I have been working 30 hours straight, took a 3 hours nap and did every stuff remaining. Thanks again for playing!

@dzejpi You do not even know how helpful you feedback is for me! I have saved it to my list of things to remember. Yes, it is indeed my first big game, "bigger than minesweeper" tier. I had been making different programs so far, like "infinite Discord online status", and decided to try my best in Game Dev. Thanks again VERY much for playing and giving that kind of feedback!!! <3

Making a dialogue system appear quite hard to do to me, well done!

@barnabewild Thanks for a feedback!

Super neat job! Love the aesthetic, seemed super polished for compo. Great job!

@jared-saizdelamora Thanks for your feedback :) There is no limit for polishing and improving, but definitely I think it is a good game to be here :) Thanks for review again!

Really nice take on the papers please format! Had fun!!!

@sayeg I am glad you enjoyed playing it :) I wish I had enough experience in music making so it would be much better!

Ohhhh a paper please like! I like it, graphics are great and simple.
I'll try to give you feedbacks as a UX designer: I struggled to understand what to do, mostly because the interractive part didn't look libe button! I'm pretty sure you could make it clearer just by making the interactive part look more like there are indeed interactive.

Also I struggled to understand who said what, I think it's because I started to read the text and it's written twice "Inspector" for each sentences. But the inspector is me ? So you could maybe write "me".

And also I didn't understand how to end a day. Sometimes it switeched to "is the supspect the murderer" really quick, other time not and I couldn't click on the answer I wanted to click on.

Otherwise, the game is great, and for a first one solo that's pretty cool! Good luck on your adventures on becoming game dev !

@mauzart thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate that! Yes, UX is a bit weird, I confirm that :) What about the day, my bad for not stating it more clear, on the first day "Supervisor" says that the day goes from 10:00 to 18:00. In the left bottom corner there is something like a clock. Also I forgot to add a title "Investigation". There are 6 investigations in the game, plus one special. And after each one you must say if the person is in guilty by basic logic of his answers (I struggled to make it the most obvious way). Although, I didn't realize most of the content, like finding info in the database, calling to other Investigators, promotions, back story and the family. Thanks again for such a warm review :)

Very interesting take on the theme! I really liked the interrogation-style dialogue and the mini story was fun to go through! The timer for each day may have been a little longer than I would've liked but overall the game was well done.

@clare-chan1738 Thanks a lot :)

Oh, I would like to try it. But it doesn't seem to work on my system. I don't know why, but buttons not interactable. For example, on first day, nothing interactable (I just wait for next day). Strange bug :(

@scrawach if it won't bother you, can you please make a recording of the screen if you don't mind and send to me on the email which is in my profile? Would be more than appreciated.

@immortalfox oh, sorry, looks like it's my bad. I clicking only on first word, but it's not button, and document on computer (red circle attracts a lot of attention). So, if clickable only second button, it's working fine.

I retry and after it just agree with previous message about UI\UX. it would be great to highlight the interactive elements explicitly somehow. And add the option to skip the day if you have already reviewed the case.

@scrawach glad you figured out that! What about UX, yea! With my next game I will pay more attention to that. Thanks for time spent playing the game :)

Agree with all the previous comments, primarily that there felt like very little feedback/game to play. I would have much preferred just clicking through the dialogue at my own pace rather than having a timer--sometimes I ran out of time, other times I was waiting for the clock to tick down because I couldn't figure out how to make the day end.
Overall I just felt very confused because it took a bit to realize what was going on, and that the only real decisions or meaningful action on my part is guilty or not guilty but the game didn't seem to respond to those choices at all.
But I'm just saying all that because you asked for feedback as a new dev. I did like the music and art, and for your first real game it's great!

@oter thanks for a feedback, and thanks to others as well! I will use that to build a much better game next time :)

Congratulations on your first game. You asked for honest feedback and I appreciate that attitude, you're going to improve as long as you accept criticism.

As mentioned by others I think the main issue with the game is the confusion, it's not clear what to do from the start, I thought the paper had 2 options and was confused how only 1 was clickable and didn't understand what to do until the timer ran out. I think for now you can improve the player experience with a simple text explanation in the itch.io page.

I think the art style is okay but can be improved, I found that grabbing a palette from Lospec typically helps me with cohesion, you could try that.

The music is fine I guess, it's not annoying or loud which oh boy that's a plus :smile:. I laughed at the "the developer hates the music too", but in all fairness there is only too much you can do at a game jam.

I hope this isn't harsh I'm just trying to be honest with you. This is a lot to improve but I remember my first jam game and how messy it was lol. You'll look back at this game one day and feel pride with how much progress you'll have made since trust me. I hope you had fun messing around with gamemaker.

@0x-void-x0 thanks for a review! I just wonder why all people say that music is okay :P This is basically one line of piano which I made in FL studio in 3 minutes :D All right.

What about other points, thanks a lot for that. I have saved it to my sheet to go through while developing my next game :) And yea, I had to actually add more specific details how to play.. Thanks anyway for feedback!

The game has a great atmosphere and style, with cool graphics and music. However, the controls can be a bit confusing, and it's not always clear what to do next. It would be awesome if player choices influenced the story more. Overall, for a first game — it's great, but there's room for improvement!

Interesting game. I like the concept, but think there is definitely room for improvement. I felt like the time went by too quickly and I wasn't able to really get into the case before it was over. That may be by design to put pressure on the player to answer, but it felt almost like a coin flip to me. I think having some looping idle animations would add more life to the game. Right now it's completely still, which doesn't give much visually to keep me engaged. I do admire the effort though. Good attempt for your first game.

Congrats for your first game. The piano jingles sound nice.

I was also feeling the lack of feedback for my choices. Did I choose correctly or not? Who knows.
Do the actions matter?

The buttons generally were little unresponsive compared to their visual size. If the input area actually matched the size then it would be okay. Also, just an idea but I would probably change the conversation button's visual as well to distinguish from the dialogue itself.


Great job regardless.

I like the aesthetics, the vibe. I do think that for this kind of game to be appealing, you would need better writing and more context. My other suggestion would be to have a speed up time button or have the player just go to next day when they finished reading. A lot of times I'm not sure what else I can do when I already finish the dialogues. Congratulations on your first game! It looks polished.

@ibandurist @clintor24 @coderaurus @thisyc thank you folks for your feedbacks, much appreciated :)

Promising entry! I don't really have anything to add to other people's comments - there was a lack of feedback so I couldn't really tell what I did or if I did good or bad. The UI was a bit confusing; I guess the "left" button wasn't a button at all, but a label for the current view? I was also a bit confused by the multiple, contradicting lines told by the suspects.

Nice theme and aesthetics. I feel the investigation FIVE STARS!

@manabreak @izzqz thanks for your words and feedbacks!

Cool idea and great artstyle :D I could use some more time to read through the papers, though.

Hey! Nice job on your first entry.

Since you ask for honest feedback I'll do my best to help where I can!

My first tip would be to stop being too harsh on yourself. Man, you made a video game, I don't know about your background or anything but for what it is it's already cool. I think you spend a bit too much time justifying yourself about how bad it is and it shows an unnecessarily high level of humility in my opinion. Of course it can be funny, but not if it's in every sentence. Your game is promising, and I hope your are proud enough with what you got, to continue learning and participate next time!

The game concept and your take on the theme are very nice. It could have been pushed a bit further, as to have very distinct endings when you refuse to find anyone guilty vs when you find everyone guilty. But of course it would have required much more time!

At first I didn't really like the fact that reading text was timed. I felt that I was punished with the tutorial skipping itself for me being a slow-reader or not a native english speaker. In the end, on the other side, I wanted to skip because I had read everything but wasn't able to. I think that in general with game design, you want to be careful not to punish the player without them doing anything wrong.

Visually I don't have much to say, there's room for improvement, but I'd say you managed to make a very clear design, bringing the eye where it needs to, and to have enough variety.

Regarding the music, yes I'll say it too: it's okay :smile: To be honest, I think it's better to spend 20 minutes doing the music and getting something, than not including any music, and the whole game feels off. My only tip would be not to use piano sounds (I did the same mistake in my first jams). It has this "aggressive" sound that other instruments don't have, and it can give a non-intended mood to your composition. Of course there are masterpieces at piano, but I mean when you don't know how to make it sound right, it's not the easiest instrument to work with. I would recommend winds or strings. Of course all this is very subjective :D

Anyway, I enjoyed playing your game! Nice job!

@rolly Aww, that is too kind :) I was growing in the very toxic society where the best feedback you can receive is something "that work is trash" with no clarifications :/ So that style is totally some issues from my side. Thanks for that kind of feedback, much much appreciated :)

Alright so first of all, congrats on making your first game! That is a huge feat in and of itself no matter what. You want some harsh effective criticism so I will be as helpful as I can.

I actually think you did quite well overall with the art. The characters, the colors, the UI even, it all looks quite good! The music is also very nice and fits well with the theme. Artistically this is solid, especially for a first game

The gameplay however, has a ton of issues, and kind of fundamentally doesn't make sense. It's extremely unintuitive. Let me go case by case:

* You've gotten feedback on this already, but the whole "Wait till the end of the day" thing makes no sense. You should simply be able to end the day whenever you want. Each day is either a mission briefing, or it's a mission. Sometimes it ends too fast, sometimes too slow. This mechanic causes friction and doesn't really benefit anything
* The actual dialog menu during investigations doesn't make sense to me at all. Every dialog page seems to have two answers/statements at any given time, and I'm not actually understanding what the info is. Are they lying? Am I cross-examining conflicting statements?
* Sometimes the two answers felt like they were statements meant to go together, one after the other.
* Other times they seemed like two different answers that person might be giving, but wouldn't make sense to say both.
* Visually, it very much is supposed to represent "Dialog Choice A" and "B", the only thing that makes sense to me is it was supposed to be clickable but no longer is.
* The text at the bottom of the dialog box is confusing too. It seems like the text on the bottom-left is the name of the current page, while the bottom-right one is the name of the next page, but it reads like it's supposed to either be a dialog choice or two options, or "forward/back" or something.
* If the left one is a title, it should be at the top of the dialog box, not the bottom left.

All in all, this leads to a problem where I'm just unsure of what's going on. It's hard to be sure whether something is intentional, or if clicking things is supposed to work but it's broken for me.

You are coming into this strong for your first game, but this is a UI heavy game, and you have a lot of improvement to make with conveying information through UI.

You should copy the UI layouts of similar games to get an idea. People fall on their biases and assumptions all the time, and your UI unfortunately doesn't follow those biases. (For example, the text at the bottom of the dialog box. Strongly reads like an "Option A vs B" type thing).

And I'm not just dogging on you because of a nitpick with the UI. Unfortunately, even though this is a story based game, the UI problems even extend to making it difficult to follow the plot. I cannot make heads or tails of what any of the suspects are actually telling me because it seems like multiple conflicting answers are displayed all at once, and I am never confident that I'm actually following things correctly.

As others have said, it feels like there's not much agency. I don't think that is actually against what you're going for in this game. I like how you interpreted this theme and it conveys a cool mood. Again, I think you achieved a lot making it look good and thematically cohesive, plot, visuals, and sound. It's very much held back by the UI choices. Every single thing is just a little bit confusing. Like everything else, keep at it and you will improve. I think it's a lot easier to get better at this than to learn how to make cool art, and that is what you did do. So good job there!

If there is something you should take away from my review, it is this.

* In UI, follow what everyone else is doing. Your users depend on it.
* Make things respond to hovering your mouse overtop. It really helps inform the user that "yes you can click that", while also removing ambiguity

@swooty that is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks for that kind of feedback, I have saved it to my papers to keep in mind key details while developing my next game :)

Congrats on making a game! You should be proud of what you accomplished. You asked for honest and critical feedback so I'll give you what you want. (Most of what I'm going to say has already been addressed in other comments.)

Pros: The art and vibe is very good and cohesive. Your UI is good and the game looks nice. I like the use of the theme. Digging into a suspects testimony to get to the depths of the truth is an interesting interpretation.

Cons: Music is too simple and overly repetitive. Listening to it over and over again in a loop really makes this apparent. I also agree with people who have expressed confusion over the UI buttons. It does feel like the two questions at the bottom are supposed to be clickable options, but only one is. I also had issues trying to trigger the end of the interview with the suspect. I'm not sure if I just had to ask questions a set number of times, or if the button to advance to the accusation part was finicky, but felt inconsistent and hard to trigger. But my biggest piece of critical feedback is the lack of player agency. As I mentioned, the idea of digging into a suspects testimony to find the truth is an interesting interpretation of the theme, but I don't think it really plays out in gameplay in any meaningful way. You don't have any options to pick how you interrogate the suspect, or to help you dig for more information. You're just given all the information and then you have to mentally dig into it to figure out the solution, but I'd rather that digging was represented in gameplay. Like if you had more options in terms of questions to ask the suspect, so you can choose what information to dig into, or something like that. Right now it doesn't feel like the player has much to do other than click next until you make a choice at the end.

I might have written more about the cons than the pros, but don't let that dissuade you! You asked for critical feedback and I wanted to give you stuff to work with and think about. You should be super proud of what you accomplished! The game has a lot of charm, a lot of good qualities, and you made it in only 48 hours! That's a major accomplishment!!! Way to go!!!

@the3rdhunter thanks for your feedback! I had made only 40% of all features I wanted to actually develop, and quite overestimated my abilities :P The stuff you describing like ask the suspect about specific topics or the backstory should be implemented, but simply it was not enough time for me :( Audio is a huge problem I think, because the last time I did something in music was in the first year of my school :) Thanks again for that review! It was very helpful

Congrats on your first game. It was a fun little experience.

interesting idea!

@vladimperator @dywanix thanks for kind words towards my project :=)

Congratulations on your first game! I really enjoyed the idea here, music and everything was great. However, I do admit I was a bit lost at first not knowing where to click, haha. Maybe the options I am supposed to interact with should be more visually noticeable, I mean, make them buttons or change colors or however it would work best for design - it's just a minor suggestion regarding UI shenanigans

Played and voted! ♥

@sayomgwtf thank you very much for a review :) Bad sides of the game were taken into consideration to make future projects even better :)

I don't want to hate it, but inputs almost don't work (only menu) On thrid days works only single option (right one) in a dialog.

It's a cool take on the Papers, Please! formula! And I agree with most folks: the color palette was well curated. I did have some trouble with the inputs and UI; I definitely don't want to repeat what other folks have said about the UI, but I think they're on the money. The game has a lot of promise, though, and I hope you continue working on it and implementing those features you wanted to include! Solid work.