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XENOBIOLOGY's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall Impression – This Decides the Winners | #39 | 2.799 | 3.429 |
| Visual Design | #49 | 3.033 | 3.714 |
| Fear Factor | #54 | 2.100 | 2.571 |
| Audio Design | #64 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Pacing | #80 | 1.983 | 2.429 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Idea and visuals were really cool! But I have to agree with the other comments, it was quite difficult to follow the instructions, I understand that your intention was to be a bit cryptic here and player needs to decypher what is required, but I think the tutorial needs more guidance to the player, otherwise it can be frustrating. But nevertheless, idea is original and the art style was really unique. Great job!!
Thanks for the review! Really appreciated. It is quite hard to balance the difficulty to not be frustrating but still be not completely trivial. But I will most likely try to develop this game further after the jam ends, so I will take notes. Thanks a lot!
I showed lack of devotion to the community and got shot.
Good concept and very nice controlls, but the instruction were too hard for me. Would appreciate a full screen support with scaling and a "one click shows whole dialoge" feature. Also nice sounds.
I'll come back to this later trying to solve the manual.
Well done.
Actually you can see whole dialogue by pressing the Z button. It was on the right mouse button but that conflicted with other controls and I didn’t make it in time to change it
Also thanks for the honest review! Sorry that the tutorial is rushed. Sadly lack of time made me kind of just mash a lot of dialogue together in one big block of text. The manual is supposed to be hard to approach, but i will play test it more to see if I can make it more enjoyable
I think I need a phd to play this game, so I can only comment on what I understand. I love the art, it is really good and unique. The worldbuilding is superb, great writing too. My problem was with the onboarding. It is unclear what you're supposed to do once the dialog has ended. In a fairly complex game, It's always a good idea to put the current objective on screen at all times, especially in the tutorial level. If it wasn't for Palin_drome's comment, I wouldn't know what to interact with. I understand that you wanted the player to do certain things in the tutorial in order but disabling the other interactable objects while still showing their sprites is really detrimental to the player's experience. If you don't want the player to interact with certain things, then don't show those things at all. Make them appear gradually.
Anyway, this appears to be a cool game but the onboarding process is hurting the player experience at the moment. Good luck on the jam. I would advise doing playtesting with your friends or people from the discord. It's hard to know which systems are intuitive especially if you're a solo developer.
Thanks for honest review! This truly matters to me. Funnily enough, locking some items was, in fact supposed to keep people on track. I just sadly didn’t have time to properly play test. And also the problem with the game is that it is supposed to be somewhat confusing. That is why the whole gameplay is built around deciphering the manual. But it os hard to balance it so it doesn’t become annoying or frustrating and feels as an intended feature
Grrr this seems so cool but I think only level two works and the tutorial is busted, I wasn't able to open the book in the tutorial or interact with anything. I feel like I was supposed to be given more info than what's in the medpedia to do level two, I was able to open the alien up but I wasn't able to remove any organs. If you made a video guide I could at understand what to do to at least play level two. Still this is a cool jam entry at least just wish I was able to fully enjoy it.
I am not sure but the way I coded it is that at first you can only interact with the PDA (the little computer with a handle). The tutorial tells you what to pick up. After that it gives you access to other tools. Basically it should work good if you follow the tutorial dialogue step by step at first. Thank you so much for the good review! If it will still bve broken I can record a video. At least when I tested it and my friend played it everything worked well
K tried it again and I was able to play through and succeed with the human level, I couldn't get the alien level I thought I got all the steps right but I lost too much blood trying to use the hammer but the "memorial" jumping out of the chest really surprised me glad I came back. Very cool game.
Thanks a lot! Glad that you liked it! And actually level two is quite hard. I even had to nerf it a little
Btw I just tried out the game you guys made and it was a blast! (pun wasnt intended lol). I adore the pacing and how impactful the game is. And everything just looks awesome. I can see it even taking the first place!