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PHOSPHORUS's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sound/Music | #43 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Art / Graphics | #43 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Controls / UI | #52 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Overall Fun | #103 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Genre
Horror
Any Horror
Rating
Family Friendly
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Comments
I've played your game and here is my review. (I'm not recording so no footage sadly. lol)
The feeling and atmosphere of an old school game, you nailed it, felt just like one.
Now issues I had with the game:
Monster noise, stayed on the same side of my ear no matter how I turned my camera, and that just broke immersion of it, made it feel like it's not really there. The entire game, the monster did not feel like a threat, I didn't hear it coming for me, I didn't see anything in the corner of darkness, I didn't feel to be in danger of anything, the monster was not there, it did not exist as far as I could tell. Which was sad.
Matches felt like they were infinite, when I played enough to be satisfied, I decided to sit in a corner and use up my entire stockpile of matches, I did not know how many I had, but for literally 30 minutes, I kept burning more and more and more. Matches did not feel like a finite resource; I was never in danger of running out. So, despite what I wished to happen, I ended the game before I ran out, so I didn't experience death.
Last thought was the text at the top, of what your character is saying, after a point, it just loops, and felt annoying.
My thoughts on what could be changed:
knowing how many matches I have.
A more visual effect of the match burning away, so you could visually tell when that one is burning out.
A more active monster, keep reminding me it's there, somewhere, we never do need to see it, but we need to feel it waiting for when we are swallowed up by darkness.
And you could still have the looping text, but after the character says what they wanted, they stop, and then the text changes to fit the current situation of the player, are we low on matches? they will comment on it. Did we loop back to where we were? comment on it. Is the monster right there? Comment on it. You get the idea, this would also give the text more of a mechanic within the game. But you do what is best for your game, because this system doesn't work for all.
Lastly thank you for sharing, and good luck on gamemaking!
I didn't have a particular great time with this game and I'll admit some of that is on me, either because I hadn't expected I'd need to actually properly map the game out (not a bash on the game) , came in with loaded expectations, or because I hadn't felt that great when I had done so.
But with that having been said, I think what's here is fine enough and with some refinement could be a pretty decent game.
Hey there Zflocco, I would like to thank you for playing and taking the time to give me this amazing list of feedback , I am super thankful for this, and its duly noted for the time I revisit PHOSPHORUS.
And I would like to add that coming in with expectations to art, be it movies or games, is simply human, and we love to imagine, so don’t worry, I too sometimes make games that rely on expectations and then subvert it (like i did for CuteSweeper), in hindsight, I feel PHOSPHORUS has a lot of “friction” in its core identity if you know what i mean, the game can be a lot more “friendly” to the player which i wasn’t able to polish off with my limited time and skillset back then, so feedback and expectations like yours really helps me find where i can improve and how i can polish on my skills, thank you so much and i like the infinite stairwell SCP, thank you, might pull on its idea for a future game!
Incredible atmosphere that had me tense. I had a hard time with the color of the walls, but I am canonically unable to tell colors apart, so that's probably a me thing! Definitely definitely definitely need pen and paper to keep track of where you are!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2554722454
Thank you Neviah for playing PHOSPHORUS! Will start adding colorblind friendly toggles from now on in my games, i’m truly sorry about it! i dont have plans to revisit phosphorus (as a jam game or solo) but if i do revisit it later with a team, i would make sure that phosphorus also has a colorblind mode!
Thanks for playing and i am going to enjoy watching your playthrough!
I thought this game was neat! I like the way it looks and I like the subtle lore that sneaks its way in.
I tried to make a map of the game while I was playing but I was quickly overwhelmed... I understand that a lot of the horror comes from the feeling that you're going in circles and everything looks the same, but a few more landmarks might be nice to help you feel like you aren't just wasting time wandering through the same areas again and again? I also agree with the other review here in that it would be really nice to have a match counter somewhere in the UI.
Other than that, though, I really like the aesthetics of this game! It's a cool little experience. I played it here on stream at around 4:15
I must agree about the landmarks and the not-so-clarified matchstick approach! I was going all in on the idea of multitasking with our minds and in hindsight i realize, its not a fun playstyle for a lot of people!
I’m noting all feedback and feature suggestions for the off-chance i may revisit this game with a team so, this is going to be extremely useful, thanks for being very kind and clarifying on what parts you liked and didn’t, it really makes a world of difference when we get clear feedback like that! I really appreciate it!
Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!
So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.
By Cthul-hen's name, this was hard to get around. I didn't realize that when I ran out of matches that it would reset me entirely, so I spent a while doing what felt like an infinite loop. It wasn't until I began trying to make a map that I realized you only started with a single match and that running out reset you. After that, it suddenly became easier to figure out where to go... at least once I realized the entire area I was trying to map was a giant loop that did me no good. A short time after making all of these realizations, I was able to determine the route to go.
I think my primary feedback would be to give the player more spare matches at the start (as well as to indicate how many they have), and to add a map that gets drawn in as the player explores. The map then resets when the player is out of matches. This would then allow you to expand the gameplay to randomize the map each time the player starts over, giving a new experience.
I also think there needs to be some sort of threat. Throughout the entire playthrough, my chat was expecting a jump scare to happen. This isn't to say you should do a jump scare. Just having some creature wandering around that the player has to avoid would add to the tension when it comes to your match supply.
All in all, a lot of fun. I hope to see more!
oh no! I wanted to push the theme gameplay-wise but not like that! ;-;
This is awesome! That’s the kind of push i would like to add for phosphorus next (if i manage to pull it off), i love the idea of procedurally generated levels (maybe i can reduce the size of the level while still keeping the difficulty at a manageable level too! exciting stuff!)
now, that’s another great idea! Thank you for hosting, playing and taking the time to provide very in-depth feature suggestions, these are truly going to take the game to the next level (pun, hehe)
I really really appreciate this and I hope to use the very valuable feedback i got here to improve my future games and PHOSPHORUS when i get the chance.