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Four Ether's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Narrative | #728 | 3.467 | 3.467 |
| Creativity | #2520 | 3.600 | 3.600 |
| Enjoyment | #3799 | 2.933 | 2.933 |
| Artwork | #5585 | 2.600 | 2.600 |
| Audio | #9128 | 1.067 | 1.067 |
Ranked from 15 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
You reincarnate on loop into 4 different worlds
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Comments
Really unique idea, it was difficult to get the hang of at first but once I realised how it worked I really enjoyed it. Good submission!
Thanks! I agree, the start is a bit rough, both because of the lack of tutorials and resource scarcity, but I'm glad you managed to progress nontheless!
I played this for a long time! I found the narrative drawing me in. I was happy to get my skill tree growing - it might be nice to get some cheap energy buys on there :)
Thanks a lot! =D
Energy was supposed to have more uses like converting to Endurance/resources, but I had to cut it because time :c
But I'm glad the skill tree feels rewarding: that's one of the main things to get right with skill trees ^^
Great narrative! You can tell you put a lot into this project. I like the board game hex layout. I read up on some of your previous comments, and it's not fully balanced. I played a few times, and the narration really kept me engaged. I could see this being expanded more and even more immersive with music and art. Good job regardless, thanks for sharing!
Thanks a lot!
Indeed, balancing had to be thrown under the bus, unfortunately :c
I know my strenghts and weaknesses well, so I chose to go all in on the Narrative and Creativity scores. I plan one day to remake all my GMTK GJ entries into full games (without any time limit) so I definitly will work on expanding it with more engaging visuals, a proper and balanced gameplay loop (heh) and sound design ^^
Interesting game, definitely very complex to think about. In the beginning I was a little confused but I got the hang of it quite quickly! good job!
Thanks! One day I'll manage to submit a Jam entry with a working tutorial I swear! ^^'
Glad you liked it! =)
Wow it looks like you spent a lot of time on this! I'm very impressed!
Good narrative. A lot of content in such small time.
Well done! :D
Believe it or not, I only spent 4 days on it! Crazy right? :o
Jokes aside, thanks a lot! Since I'm not really good with coding/design, I put all I got all on the narrative, glad to see people noticing it! ^^
I really like the vibe. Wasn't sure at first but ended up playing for a long time! Good job!
wow, i like how mysterious it is. though i couldnt make myself finish the game, it becomes very repetetive
Thanks! No worries ahah, the game's economy couldn't be balanced in time, so I know the exploration can unfortunately become repetitive fast (I even left a dev command in that gives player free Endurance/resources/map revelation to allow them to reach the ending cutscenes without the grind). Coding is not my strong suit, so I had to put it all in the story and concept.
I liked the graphics.
The mystery of the game got me hooked, and the "loop" theme was incorporated amazingly. This game has a great amount of content with things to unlock and places to explore. The worldbuilding expressed with the limited visuals made me visualise the worlds being discovered which helped with the mysterious nature of the story. Really impressive submission, I would highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good adventure!
Wow, thanks a lot! I am very aware of the flaws of my game, so it means a lot to me that some people find it really enjoyable! :o
From the start, I knew graphics could not be on the priority list, since I am not an illustrator at all, so I went for a mystery-narrative approach with some hints in the dialogues about the character's appearance, in order for the player to have more freedom to imagine what they wanted, and I'm glad it worked! The story needed to do all the heavy lifting to compensate the coding/visuals ahah! ^^
Pretty enjoyable, I think the world building/narrative adds a lot to keep the game engaging. The progression through skills is nice, starting with no endurance and then being able to worry about it less later feels good.
Thanks a lot!
I'm glad the story keeps the game engaging, since I'm much more of a concept/story creator than a developer.
Since I couldn't balance the game's economy in time, I was worried it would be impossible to even progress pass a 3-tile radius, but it seems that people don't let themselves be demotivated by the simple design and gameplay, haha! ^^
Very glad to see that the Endurance progress works as intended!
I love the game! It's very unique and gives sort of d&d vibes! It's super simple, super cozy, and very satisfying!
Thanks a lot, I'm super glad you liked it! =D
It is indeed very inspired by boardgames and the 4X genre (especially the eXploration part).
I wanted to create a "detached but still caring" feeling, hence the cozy vibes, since the protagonist is a being that transcends beyond mortal realms but still has affection for these abandonned worlds ^^
It isn't the game that'll win this year's Jam, but it's honest work.
I'd like the game and the concept, but one thing I don't understand. The goal is to get energy, isn't it - but what exactly gives energy? Is food, influence etc. only as a currency for the events? Or are they converted to energy in the end? What exactly is my goal in the game?^^
Well. I wondered when posting the final version of the game if I had made the goal clear enough in the intro, but now I fear I won't like the realistic answer °^°
The end goal is actually to solve each of the four different problems in each world ; Energy and Etherial skills are a means to achieve the four victory conditions. (three because Oceanic world's events could not make it in on time)
All currencies are only used for event, indeed ; Energy is earned simply by exploring.
Although now that you bring it up, I really like the idea of converting unused physical currency after exhaustion: that would work well to encourage the player to spend more endurance for better rewards, at the cost of possibly less progress for the current incarnation. At first, endurance is really precious since the player doesn't know anything on the map, but the more you learn, the more endurance you can spend in events without worry, creating a natural exploring first into skill later transition. Thanks for the idea!
I played it again for quite some time.^^ Its fun. I like the idea and the concept a lot! Sadly at some point I had a bug, that Events where already used after respawn, so not giving 3 Endurance or other stuff, but only 2 Endurance anymore. When the bug happened, when entering a map it would say that I rest at the start point, although I were just entering the map.
If you want to update the game after the gamejam, I have some improvement ideas, which mostly where smaller annoyances:
Despite my suggestions, I really liked the the game.
Oh thank you very much! I love getting constructive feedback like this!
Thanks a lot for all of this, it reassures me that people are seeing the same problems as I do, and coming up with similar solutions, that way I know I'm on the right track for improvement.
I have a project of coming back to all my GMTK Game Jams entries since I first participated to try to rework them into complete games, so I will one day update this one, but I'm not sure when exacly it will happen. ^^
Yes, sounds like you had already planned most things.^^ Yes finishing everything in the game jam time is pretty hard, I had also to cut stuff.
Great idea to remake the ideas later with more experience.