Play game
Everglow's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Community's Voice | #60 | 3.440 | 3.440 |
Ranked from 25 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
[Recommended to play on a controller!]
We believe the deepest human connections are often formed in vulnerable moments.
You’re a tiny spirit in the space between death and afterlife. No one tells you what to do - you can just float, hop, explore. But if you choose, you can start noticing others. Other souls who are stuck in loops of anger, sadness, or numbness. You might find small ways to help them find peace. Or not. It’s up to you.
The twist? Just before the last soul moves on, a portal appears - one that leads to the truth about who you are. But the soul who once helped you is the last one left behind.
Do you go? Or do you stay?
Curiosity or generosity?
There’s no right answer. But we hope players who choose kindness will feel something real for it.
Post-Publishing Notes: The last few hours, we absolutely did not have a fully-functioning brain. Our game was so big for two of us to handle, that we ourselves kept discovering new things every time we played - but this also mean that...the main play-testers are going to be you.
We have discovered that unfortunately, at some point; the position of a platform; a mere accidental change in the y axis - stops progress. Also, the 'Underground' world - meant to be a conclusive ending ( you can jump to it in the main menu; all scenes are accessible separately) gets cut off before it ends.
However, this is easily the biggest project both of us have embarked so far; so feel free to give us lots of constructive feedback!
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
I think there is an incredible amount of potential here. I feel as though you have all the elements, they just aren't presented in a cohesive way. It was super hard to know what were points of interest and what were able to be specifically accessed. I only got to the second world(?) where the man, woman, and child are. I first talked to the man, and then expected the rest of the characters to follow his story and they did not at all. From what I could tell. After talking to the kid I eventually gave up because there was no instruction on what specifically I should do or why the kid was saying the things he was. I would've also loved a more fleshed out move set for this character we play as. Exploring was fun at first but for me quickly got old with no expansion upon the basic move set we were presented with. Overall this was a super ambitious project. There is a lot to be proud of and a lot of room for growth! If you continue to work on and refine the game I would love to play it!
That was a lovely and considerate comment, this made me smile! I'd love for you to play it too once we work on it further. These are meant to be different souls stuck in loops of regret, anger and sadness. The dry narration in the beginning alludes to it, but I very much realise that's not enough to convey the story. Thank you for showing patience still, we will be making things more intuitive, organic and engaging!
also I'm really sorry I'm traveling rn, I won't be able to play your game before the voting period ends. But I'll be be playing it for sure!
I look forward to It! And that's alright! Have safe travels!
A large, colorful and ambitious world. A character with the ability to explore at high velocity. An open-ended story to discover as time allows it.
These are the ingredients that make a 3D exploration game fun and memorable. However, I found the experience was not very cohesive. The AI voice was rather antagonizing, which felt incongruent with the aesthetics. The humans were stationary holograms unable to show their problems in a natural way. The pacing felt off, and I ended up bouncing around not sure where to go after about 10 minutes. The lack of music also discouraged further exploration, and there was no sense of progression other than surveying the land.
I would look at Vela and Venue from this jam as strong examples of 3D exploration games to take inspiration from. They both do an excellent job presenting cohesive and progressive gameplay elements. Vela has the followers and light charges, while Venue has cubes and artifacts to collect in each area. Both are standout entries.
I hope my feedback has been constructive, and I encourage you to keep working on this! Learn from example and keep practicing your craft!
You might be going through so many submissions at the moment so thank you for taking the time for giving detailed feedback! Your constructive comments are very fair and helpful; this is easily the biggest project we have both worked on so it's very much work-in-progress! Both of us really care about intuitiveness, cohesiveness and progression; so eventually we shall get there for sure. We will always keep focusing on getting better.
Also also let me see if I can play your entry before the deadline, I've been so busyyyy
Rushing to review some more games from my list of interests - This one's is really cute, such a polished art direction as well! I hope you'll implement all the stuff you didn't have time for so I can revisit it :)
you are so kinddd! thank youuuu
Pretty cool and very ambitious - Balduin here :)
There is a lot to talk about I guess and a lot already has been addressed by the other comments.
I really like the style and art direction - your screenshots, trailer and thumbnails look fantastic - the whole branding overall, really helps create an appeal for the game! Getting it to run in browser would be 10/10 so even more people can play (a must have on itch!! and lock the framerate if you make downloads otherwise people's GPUs go crazy rendering ALL the frames per second haha).
I liked the general gameplay and idea, however it should opt into being a bit more floaty or high speed oriented to really play to it's strengths (maybe I missed something crucial?!). I had the feeling I was a bit caged-in after a while and it started to be un-fun to traverse the somewhat large worlds. Also the camera felt janky - I was very amused and surprised that by reading through your comments I realized that it acts as a guide :D
I think a bit more guidance would not have been too bad. I think a smaller teaching level (to be fair your first area does this kinda already) would be nice so that you can really make sure the players do know all the controls and have the necessary information to fully immerse themselves into and enjoy the game.
My last point for now would be the voice acting and general delivery of the story. It is very nice that you have VA, it is kinda clear that it is AI and for me that breaks the immersion a bit but that is only a personal nitpick. I encoundered a bug in the first and second region where the VA just faded away when I moved to far from spawn ^^ There were also some other situations where I stumbled upon some text on screen that immediately disappeared again...
Again you did a very nice job! And your portfolios look awesome, keep it up! I hope this wasn't to unfair or harsh - kinda in a late night game critique mood right now AND you asked for it haha so yeah :) Have a wonderful one mates!
Hey Balduin! Thank you so much for taking the time to play our game and write your feedbacks here, it means a lot!!. Regarding the movement, the character will gain momentum if they hop around without stopping. Dashing and smashing down on the ground will also boost the momentum to a certain level. That was our intent with the core movement, I’m sorry if we didn’t convey that properly. We will definitely add more tutorial sections, fix voice lines and other bugs post game jam! I’m glad you like the overall art style too! thanks!
Nice! Cool that you plan to polish it a bit after the jam :)
Good luck and have fun!
The environment and visual style is breathtaking, though the soulless voices are quite startling and do not fit a lovely and vibrant world such as this.
For those with motion sensitivities, the high speed at which the camera rotates may cause issues, an issue which is amplified by standing completely still. Players may also feel confused by a lack of backwards mobility, and somewhat ironically, how the instruction to “jump” is submerged in the terrains foliage and not visible until after one has jumped… This may be fixed if text appeared above the character, or fixed at the top of the screen instead.
It is also possible to escape the map and sink below it, which can only be fixed by using the “restart” option. However, doing this will cause errors with the main menu.
thank you so much for such an extensive constructive feedback! Since jump is something basic in most games, that was not on our priority list...I actually liked that the user's instinct is to jump then and that's enough to learn. (but yes, maybe it makes sense to do it this way!)
A lot of the movement was simplified to solve camera clipping issues, but we really need to address the fundamentals there - yess, the core movement needs to be smoother and more intuitive, the camera is definitely too sensitive making it difficult to be precise.
And we did not know we could sink below the map - will you be able to tell us how and where; if possible?
You're on point about the voice too!
I'm glad you enjoyed our little environment.
But of course... Here is some footage.
Ahh so you chose Ending 3: Falling into the void! On a serious note, we need to recheck our colliders; thank you for the effortssss damn
Very beautiful game! The controls are a little finicky but that's really the only thing I could say could improve. The experience overall was great and I enjoyed the narrative.
yess the controls need work for sureee - thank you so much for playing!
First of all, the voice acting is phenomenal. Your game has a similar vibe to ours. I really enjoyed the color pallette. I think the tutorial area was a slow start.. It took me a long time to realize, "oh! the camera is moving that way because it wants me to go towards that light!" I got lost a lot but the camera ended up always guiding me to the next person so that was great. The piano sequence was so adorable, the cloud border was cute... I think the controls would have been more intuitive for a controller player here, though.
you seem to have come significantly far in the game so thank you for your patience and kind words! And yes, the experience on controller is smoother for sure. I'll be checking out your game tomorrow, don't worry about being too late to the party!
The visuals reminded me of the Journey and flower. I guess you knew what you dd there cause the creators of these games are hosts of this gamejam. Gameplay is very well made. Good job
Thank youuu!
very interesting but very little is clear : ), I really dig the aesthetic and the concept, my only feedback would be smoother movement and more clear feedback, great job.
veryy fair, we definitely need to make the feedback a lot more intuitive; thank youuu!
Hello it's mee from Discord!
You guys should be proud ^_^ I feel like the early progress pics you posted does do your game justice--they're even prettier in-game. For three weeks with just you two, this is really a nice foundation to build on top of. I read all the comments and feel like you already have a sense of where you can go next with this project. Look forward to seeing what you got!
Hiii Mr. Pachi from discord!
You come across as such a thoughtful and sensitive person! That reflects in your game too. Thank you for your lovely comment! Yes, we do have a good amount of clarity how to take things forward...
This game is very beautiful~ Love the color palette, effects, and overall aesthetic of the world and the tiny spirit. Traversing the game was so fun to do, speeding and bouncing across the sky was a blast! It's a pretty relaxing experience and I can tell you guys put a lot of work into capturing the vision of your game. Kudos to you both!
thank you so much for your warm words, I'm glad you had a blast with the movement mechanic!
I've been quite busy... but I'll definitely be playing the games of all the people who left such thoughtful comments on our page!
Majestic dreamy experience! The movement made me want to just speed run bounce everywhere, but I was struggling a bit with the camera movement. Wish there was also some more guidance on what to do, loaded in and was a bit lost. I would love to see what you guys add given more time to make the world feel more full. I can't believe you guys pulled this off with 2 people, that's something to be proud of!
yess, for people who care so much about intuitiveness; we could not do justice to that part of the game....our dreams ended up being too big for us - a couple more days and we could have made it complete (I am sure a lot of people can relate) Completely understand why you felt lost, and thank you for your gentle words - both of us are proud of ourselves too!
P. S. Will be playing your cat game!
Hey it all starts with big dreams! If you guys add more after the jam, I'll definitely try it out again!
:') I'll definitely let you know... We are actually dreaming really big, planning a steam release with very low expectations after a lot more polish
You made such a beautiful relaxing experience! I wish i had played with a controller reading the other comments but it was still enjoyable with mouse/keyboard. The colors and effects are so well done. You can tell how much thought went into crafting the vibe. I'm also impressed at all the little grass/flower particles.
Little things I wrote down that I liked as I played/noticed them:
Logo is cute
Lighting, bloom, and environment are gorgeous
The way trees hide when you approach them
Grass texture/flowers
Narrative/narration and symbolism
my teammate really loves working with particle systems and shaders... and he paid so much attention to details. I'm touched that you seemed to have noticed just about everything! We had fun with the hiding trees too!
Yours is easily one of the impactful games I've played so far in this jam...it had a strong ring of authenticity; your feedback means a lot! Here, have an iridescent crayon.
thank you again!
As I'm personally an absolute particle/shader novice, those details blew me away. The hours spent polishing or adjusting those tiny floats for the perfect feel all show. You guys did such an awesome job <3.
and the art in your game had so much charm without using any shaders! ;)
As everyone is saying, a really beautiful game. I played with my controller and it was a better experience than playing with my mouse.
I couldnt understand what to do but then in read the description then I started seeing human silhouettes.
A very calming experience overall. Well done!
thank you so much for giving this a shot! i'm glad you used a controller too. And yes, we need to make the narrative part a lot more intuitive...will be playing your game soon!
such a beautiful game !!
thank you so much Lokeshraj!
This game is beautiful – I like the color palette, the grass, the trail effect and the bouncy ball that our character is. The interactive music also amazed me.
I wish I could change the camera rotate sensitivity, sometimes feels a bit hard to land precisely. The game is also a bit heavy on my 2060 laptop sometimes.
Overall, the atmosphere is fantastic and I am looking forward to any potential updates.
yess some of our gameplay elements need precision, and there is a lack of control for sure; especially with mouse and keyboard! i'm so glad you enjoyed the atmosphere...we look forwarding to updating the game and making it as intuitive as possible! also also i'll be trying out your game soon!
Lovely game, I can tell there's so much here that doesn't quite get its chance to shine due to bugs or not having enough time in the jam - whatever the case may be. I played with a keyboard, unfortunately, but I really enjoyed soaring through the air nonetheless. The colors, skyboxes, and shaders all look fantastic (reminded me a bit of that Pixar movie Soul)!
I couldn't figure out where to go in the 2nd level (never saw any platforms or piano keys) so I ended up skipping to the underworld level and that was pretty awesome, first time encountering the bounce orbs and I really liked that they made a musical tone lol, but the voice over cut off mid sentence and sent me to the main menu :<
If you/the two of you end up updating the game after the jam I would be very interested in trying it out again :D !
yesss, this is similar to what I thought the average player experience would be - we struggled so much towards the end; I'm sure you can understand! thank you so much for these kind words. And yes, Soul was one of our visual inspirations - good eye you have got there, mister!
we would be very interested in you trying it out too; after the jam! even though what we we were able to submit was quite flawed, we are proud of ourselves and will be working on it in the future!
I really love the visual and the story! The camera rotation is very sensitive and it was a bit difficult to target a specific way, but I love the concept. I also played your fixed version to see the whole game. But I was stuck at the part which you play the music for the child. Is there an intended way to do that so the story moves forward? I was bouncing on the music balls, and also went to the other people, but the story didn't progress and I didn't know what to do. Can you guide me a little bit ? :) I really want to see the whole game.
i'm soooo touched! thank you for putting this much efforts ; i understand why you feel stuck, too many last-minute rushes made some parts very unintuitive; and camera is a fundamental issue that needs to be resolved.
so the idea is; the big bouncy pads(what you called musical balls) that are right below the piano keys play a lullaby-like string of notes when you bounce on them - THIS IS THE SOLUTION!
for each piano key there is an option between two notes - one is right and one is wrong. so from top to bottom, you are supposed to arrange the 4 notes in the right order. how do you move each piano platform to the right node? get onto the piano platform and smash on it (E on keyboard); then you can move them back and forth using W and S!
thank you again, you have no idea how touched i am!
I finally found time to try your game again. I made the lullaby but it was a bit struggle to target my player to the platforms. I moved on to the next mission to help the person who gives you fabric. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the little piece of fabric, it was so small, I couldn't target it. I don't have a controller to try it with that. :( But very pretty game (the shaders as well)! I love the concept and the world :)) Well done!!
Yess the lullaby gameplay segment did end up being way more difficult than anticipated. And the fabric part even more so...these difficulty curves are not planned and polished enough so please feel free to let go if you feel too frustrated, even with controller... because there is also a major bug that comes after this.
You must be the one player who came the farthest in our game so I'm definitely going to remember you for that (thank youuuuu) Once we release a polished version with smooth gameplay, I'd love for you to try it!
Nothing more satisfying than to be a bunny hoping around beautiful wolrds. Very satisfying game. Colors were so pretty. I wish the camera movement was a little slower but overall so fun!
hehe yesss! the idea of a cute little bunny-like spirit hopping around was something we started off with! and yess, very fair about the camera movement - definitely needs a good amount of polishing!
thank you so, so much!
Really beautiful art style, and I like how you added some voice acting! The platforming is fun, but I would've liked having more control over the camera. Overall still fun to play!
needing more camera control is very fair! we are really new to building a whole world in 3D, and encountered so many camera clipping issues that we deliberately bared it down to the minimum. but we will definitely figure out a way where the player has more agency with it! thank you so much for playing and your kind comments!
p.s. - the voice was ai (and the only thing that was), but we really did care about giving a holistic experience!