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A jam submission

A Dead Man's GunView game page

Avenge your family or die trying.
Submitted by Sword Fan — 15 days, 16 hours before the deadline
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A Dead Man's Gun's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Audio#34.0774.077
Progress#33.9233.923
Polish#63.5383.538
Overall#63.6673.667
Graphics#73.7693.769
Fun#143.3083.308
Innovation#153.3853.385

Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

pre-jam devlog (optional)
Originally, the game had no graphics, music, or sound effects. This has been remedied, and new flashback sequences have been added as well: https://swordgit.itch.io/a-dead-mans-gun/devlog/890924/v20-released

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Really loved the vibes of this! The music was perfect and the art fit just as well. Also loved the mention of the "after ample therapy". Great job, and thank you for sharing!!

Developer

Happy to share!

Submitted(+1)

Great. I didn't think it was possible to have this kind of atmosphere (sounds and graphics) in a browser game.

Developer

Thank you very much for your kind words.

Submitted(+1)

I love a good revenge story. It really felt like I was living out a Johnny Cash song.

Developer(+1)

Thank you very much!

Submitted(+1)

The music and sound effects go perfect with the game, I think this is the first time I play a choose you adventure game with music, and It really improves the gamefeel

Developer

Glad to hear!

Submitted(+1)

I enjoyed the art stile with the hand drawn images,  you could make the gui a little bit better like a better main menu cause you want the first person for somebody to see while playing your game look good. 

The music was a good choice, the gui could be shown without scrolling down. it should start off showing the chapters and then it tells you what the chapter is about then  you can play. 

The entire choose your own path thing is cool. The sound effects are okay but i enjoy the visual novel aspect with all the text. 

You could make the endings longer though and I was immersed into the story. I think that each ending should take about 20 minutes to get, or even more. You should create a screen for when you unlock a new chapter because I didn't even know I was on the 3rd chapter already. The main menu should have so much more stuff, achievements, and an ending list.

Developer

Thank you! It's true I focused exclusively on the main campaign. I should definitely look into extra features like rereads and a gallery mode, now that you mention it.

Submitted(+1)

Positives:

  • Nice sound design; the situational background music and sound effects really added to the mood and feeling on the story
  • Very competent writing. Good motivation for the main character at the start, sufficient backstory, and the story flowed well and didn't overstay its welcome.
  • Hand-drawn pictures also do well in immersing the player in the story

Potential improvements if you choose to continue working on it:

  • Text formatting could lend to polish (i.e. different font sizes for headers, different styles when characters are speaking, perhaps even animating some text effects for emphasis)
  • There were a few places in the text that sounded anachronistic like talking about "dumbass coworkers", "peanut butter jar", "chocolate cake", "friendly neighborhood cowboy", "first-degree homicide" (some of these visuals are hard to imagine in a wild west setting). Although these things are perfectly fine if you're aiming for more tongue-in-cheek humor
Developer(+1)

Thank you for the extremely in-depth feedback! Everybody seems to be in agreement the presentation really helped sell the short story which makes me happy. You are right about the headers. Maybe red text for game overs would help since I originally wanted to have red blood for black and white illustrations before ditching the idea. Regarding the anachronism, I did not try to make it 1:1 with the era (thus the magnum simply being called an 18XX) and chocolate cake was invented only a few years after the scene took place in our world, so I figured it was close enough. You're absolutely right about things like the peanut butter jar though. To my surprise, it wasn't invented until about a century after this VN takes place! I'll definitely replace that line if I update this. Thank you again.

Submitted(+1)

Loved the sounds and graphics you added, they really tell a story!

Innovation – Unique artstyle and a new story I havent heard before! Very creative, nice visual novel!
Fun – For me personally I don't play a lot of visual novels and found myself skipping through some dialogue. Still had fun with the parts I did read tho!
Graphics –Nice artstyle! Would love to see more!
Audio – The music and sound effects are banging! Don't change them, they really create the atmosphere!
Polish – Smooth ;)

Also thanks for checking out my game as well! 

Developer(+1)

Glad to hear the presentation helped. And no worries, cool game yourself.

Submitted(+1)

Nice, I like the aesthetics.

Developer

Thank you, I like your black and white aesthetics too.

Submitted(+1)

its a short and well written choose your own adventure game that starts with a bang

the visuals are very cool and the audio works well with the story

"We are always connected"

Developer(+1)

"Starts with a bang"

I see what you did there. Thank you so much for playing!

Submitted(+1)

Very cool storyline, I built a similar one but made too many choices yours feels more polished.

You can check mine it's called Crimson Shadows

Developer(+1)

Thanks again for showing me your game.

Submitted(+1)

Very nice visual novel!

  • Innovation – A standard visual novel, but the black background with white sketchy lines is a unique look.
  • Fun – Interesting story, and the ambient sounds and music really helped keep me reading.
  • Graphics – Nice style for sure.  The main menu needs different font and phrase. "NOW LOADED" is an odd way to start. Just show that nice art piece full screen and a nice start button.
  • Audio – Nice sounds indeed!
  • Polish – Very good compared to most game jam visual novels I see.  (most are dead silent or just have a bad music track on loop hehe)

Great job completing a full and fun game!  Please check out my game if you like Metroidvanias or platformers :D

Developer

Thank you! I'm glad you appreciated the pictures and audio design. I'll look into revising the main menu at some point. I gave your demo a play and left a review. Awesome stuff!