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The Last Letter's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Community's Voice | #7 | 4.216 | 4.216 |
Ranked from 51 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Creative Vision / Rationale / How Did You Incorporate the Theme
"In The Last Letter, generosity is at the heart of the journey. By writing heartfelt letters based on each villager’s story, you rekindle lost connections and bring warmth back to Kindlehearth. Every act of giving not only restores the village but also expands your own perspective and sense of belonging."
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Comments
I had a lot of fun forging letters for each person! There was one where I would've preferred not using the word twice and using a synonym instead but the game's linear nature became apparent that one time. I did also experience 1 NPC sneaking out ahead of me delivering a letter to her just as I delivered it to her, so she ended up showing up twice haha
There's also a couple inconsistencies in terms of pixel "thickness", which can't be helped for sourced art and it still looks better than if you were forced to just leave a placeholder there. I did also like the disclaimer of the game being developed entirely within the game jam period because this is my first jam and I've come to realise there has been a few sneaky submissions that have been submitted elsewhere before and/or developed outside the period. And TGC didn't even have any rule for this in place so it felt a bit like a grey area that made it unfair to us who only took those 3 weeks of game jam period, so I was thinking we should've added that kind of tidbit as well :')
Overall it showed me again, how I shouldn't be overthinking writing letters and it's better to send something out, even if it's just a couple sentences, because just knowing someone thought of you is enough. Gonna send some post cards next week!
I really enjoyed this :) I love that as a player I had to pay attention to the information about the neighbours to write the letter and address it to their specific troubles. I also like that when I gave my first letter I started to see people walking around. Though I noticed that I talked to someone that I haven't delivered a letter yet but told me that he received it heh (I think it was Omar). I also tried fishing and waited for something to happen but nothing did. And I wish I could pet the animals (but that just me). I love the transitions, and the soothing music. I wish though the music was not interrupted that suddenly when transitioning to the end scene, maybe fading would be better? Also the barriers are a bit annoying in some places. For example for us to reach the trees (to cut) we have to go through the house yard, but not in any other way.
I really had fun playing it and made me smile :)
WOW.
The Last Letter made me tear up. I thoroughly enjoyed this game, especially the letter writing and little quests along the way. I played it multiple times through! This far exceeded what I expected for the limited time we had. The completionism in me wanted to continue and restore all the grey buildings... I REALLY hope that means a full game eventually <3
Small bugs I noticed:
- Character gets stuck on right side of front door when exiting, had to enter and exit again without holding a direction.
- Initially stuck on the letter writing and didn't know to click the letter at first - pressed E then was unable to click anything or exit and had to refresh.
- Letter can be addressed to anyone - I found this funny with the "you are seen" letter when I addressed it with the wrong name xD I did notice on the second playthrough the voice lines explain you need the correct sender and story, I loved that.
- Super picky and not a bug but the borders of the map are jagged
This game is S tier, the depth of stories and satisfying quests created a great experience and the sound effects were well balanced, love the chime "memory rekindled" sound. Creative vision was cohesive and unique, I love the connection to generosity and belonging. This game makes you FEEL. Like all good art, the Last Letter made me think and truly connect to my interpretation of generosity. Incredible job to the whole team!
This is OUTSTANDING! My jaw dropped and I felt good shivers when playing this! Voice acting and music so good in a pixel art game is outstanding in itself. To consider it's for a jam game makes it out of this world!
And the cutscenes at the start of it! And the 90s filter - so tasteful!
Not to mention the general generosity concept of this! Which is so heartwarming! And the name of the city!!
And the mechanics of finding the right words for the letter.
Have to admit, I got stuck after completing the first letter - didn't find a way to continue after the closed book! I will surely try again later!
You really must make this into a full game! I'd be very surprised if you didn't win this jam!
Thank you for playing my game and your kind words about it, and I'm glad you loved it! About the part you stuck, I thought of making a minimap for the player, but it would make the game too easy to complete and lose the gaminess of figuring things out yourself. Give it one more try, maybe you'll figure it out.
The opening really blew me away especially with the mixed media shots of real letters. The love you put in is clearly visible, and it's brimming with passion.
I'm glad you liked the game! About the media shots, I did not have enough game clips to make up that cut scene, so I thought of a creative idea to fill that with real footage with emotions, and boom it fitted perfectly XD. Thanks again for the comment.
hello it's Chris!
Knowing that you did this as a solo dev and a serious take on the theme, this is very high quality. I felt the game's music, writing, juice / pizzazz, and theme are the Last Letter's strongest marks. Given enough time, this experience could flourish into something much bigger.
Lastly, you've already talked about this, but the combination of AI voice and the asset pack threw me off, but ultimately it doesn't detract much from the emotional experiences your vision was trying to convey. Absolutely amazing work for the jammy given your constraints!
Hey Chris! Thanks for playing my game, and I'm glad you liked it. Well, I have a team of 3-4 people that I lead in many jams. They were busy, so I participated solo for this one. My team is working on commercial games, which we're gonna release on Steam soon, and we'd love to collaborate if there's something. And again, thanks for your kind words about the game, it means a lot! :)
I really really loved the story behind this game and had a nice time playing. I liked learning about the characters and exploring the town. The letter writing aspect was a super unique and compelling storytelling mechanic that I don't think I have ever seen before! The movie at the beginning was also a really neat touch. I also thought the final campfire shot was really cute. I think for some improvements, I would love to see unique assets. I think the asset pack used was to the detriment of the game feeling unique and tailored specifically to your purpose. The little quests of chopping wood or fishing didn't make very much sense in order to get these people to open up, because the characters never asked us to do those things and the quest didn't relate to the person's job (besides the gardening one). The limitations of the assets also forced most of the story to be gleaned from text as opposed to visual storytelling. A bakery for the baker, a greenhouse for the gardener, or even gray hair on the "cranky old neighbor" would have gone a long way to really sell the story and help keep the characters visually distinguishable. More character interaction/dialogue from the characters would have also been a great way to help make every character stand out. The Minecraft sound effects also distracted me just because they were from Minecraft and it took me out of the game a little bit (although I think they were utilized well!) Finally, the letter writing process could have been a little clearer. Sometimes multiple words could make sense in the blanks and sometimes the word that was supposed to go in the blank made less sense than some of the others. Overall, I really loved this game and post-game jam would love to see an even more polished version with character interactions and a more cohesive world!
In case you do expand upon this project I also wanted to include a few bugs I encountered:
-Writing the name on the letter doesn't matter for any of the characters as long as you pick the right template. (i.e I gave Mr. Smith his letter but addressed to Lily and he still accepted it)
-if you are moving while you interact with anything, you will continue moving in that direction while completing the interaction (i.e fishing, watering flowers, chopping wood, etc.,) and it will cancel the animation for that interaction
-When writing letters I got softlocked a few times by pressing e after addressing the letter to a character.
-After giving a letter to someone the camera locks on their house but the player does not lose control of the character and can continue walking out of frame
-not necessarily a bug and SUPER nitpicky, but the final campfire scene has the shadow of people standing from head to toe which wouldn't be the case unless they were laying down.
great job again! You have a really cool thing going!
I just loved your feedback on the game! Thank you for taking the time to address everything. Yeah, you are right, the asset pack I bought limited me to work around it, and I wasn't able to do everything with art (I'm a programmer). And I worked on this game part-time as a solo dev, which is why I was not able to add more stuff, so I thought to make the game more polished, then it to buggy with more mechanics because of a lack of time.
And I checked the bug you said about (giving Mr Smith a letter to Lila's address), well, you made the right letter and gave it to Lila, just checked by doing the same, if you give the wrong letter, there is a sound queue for that. Again, thanks for playing my game and feedback! :)
I completely understand! I can definitely see the vision though and I think that the game is still really compelling story wise. Especially as a solo dev the project was super impressive! Fantastic work!
The game is absolutely amazing, it impressed me so much that I couldn't find the words to express my admiration!
I'm glad you liked the game! thankyou for playing :)
This was a really really fun game, The visuals are really appealing and the interaction and narrative is super cute and engaging love itt. love the book puzzle and animations!
I'm glad you liked the game! Thanks for the feedback :)
Fantastic!
Thankyou
Review:
Great game! You worked really well within the concept of the jam and created an engaging game
Improvement:
I would like to see this game on a bigger concept! maybe harder difficulty
I'm glad you liked it. Thank you for the feedback! And I wanted this game to be easy, as it is kind of a cozy game.
I really liked how you incorpored the theme, i just think that will be good if you don't can write letters if you don't see the history of the resident, because if not, you can just create all the letters(also you need to search the letters to write them, would be good if when you go to a house, the letter of this resident show first), but the game is very good, I love the art and voice(idk how you make to AI voice sound so natural).
I'm glad you liked the game. Thank you for the feedback! And yes, you are right, but I wanted it to be like that. And you can create letters without knowing the story of a person. But after that, you will not know whom to send it to, as you didn't look at the story, or you can simply guess, which is not gonna work every time.
I liked the game and the way it utilized the theme. I enjoyed the investigation mechanics!
Thank you for playing my game. Appreciated! :)
I enjoyed playing this game; the music, art, and visual effects are beautiful.
I am glad you liked the game!
If you really made it in a month, man. It is very good. It felt like a fairytale at the beginning and letter mechanic is very good too.
Thank you for playing my game! I worked on it every night to complete it on time, apart from my main work. :)
I loved the art style and theme integration in the game, which is amazing.
thankyou for playing
Wow, it’s like a whole movie at the start! Truly impressive! The game is sublime, reminiscent of Stardew Valley. So poetic and heartfelt!
Yeah, the game pieced together nicely at the end, glad you liked it. Thankyou
Fun! Pretty polished-feeling given the deadline
I'm glad you liked it! Thank you for playing my game! :)
love the animations and ui
I am glad you liked it! thankyou for playing
"The Voice dialogues in the game are generated with an AI voice model."