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Who Dreams for Us? Episode 1's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Storytelling | #23 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Gameplay | #35 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Overall | #47 | 3.267 | 3.267 |
| Theme interpretation | #72 | 2.800 | 2.800 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Beautiful artwork, stellar atmosphere and presentation. Already feels like a polished end product.
Can't stress enough how much I love "Mitch" and Tsar Genetics. 10/10 would smile beneath a horrible organic face again.
Wonderful hard-boiled writing style, remains evocative and consistent throughout. At points had a slightly non-native-speaker feel to it, but didn't detract from the whole. Worldbuilding was built into the narrative in a really natural way. Visually gorgeous. Easily among the top five jam entries I've played! Really painful when it ended, I hope there will be more parts :3
Strong atmosphere and character voices!
I really like the atmosphere of the game. The visual and audio makes the story even more interesting. Great work :)
We truly appreciate that you liked the atmosphere. We wanted to do our best so that anyone playing could place themselves in the world and imagine being part of it. We really appreciate your feedback.
Oh, very intriguing. I loved how the characters and world were written. So immersive and thought-through. 👍☔
By the way, "ema" means mother in my language (Estonian). But it does make for a great sci-fi name as well, and the pronunciation you had in mind is probably different. All the names were pretty cool. 😊
Okay, we didn’t know about this translation of ‘Ema’ into Estonian since we’re two Brazilian developers, but unironically this might actually work as a hint toward the plot we’ve built lol. We’re really happy that you enjoyed our writing and our mood; we really wanted to create an environment the player could feel part of, and it’s great to know you felt that way.
The best thing about the game is its mood and tone. The way the prose centers on the main character easily sets up that noir vibe and when combined with subtle sound design, like a monotonous tone in the background, adds to the sort of this world that feels oppressive. There's obviously a lot of care that was put into the world building. I just kind of wished I understood a bit more. What may feel fleshed out in your head and taken for granted for the character because this is their world, may be a little harder to grasp for the player. For example, in the beginning, we know you have a job, OSI, but we don't know the acronym, or what they do as an organization, or your role other than doing paperwork. I often felt like I was just taken along for the ride, but sometimes didn't know the stakes, or where I was going or why. But I understand that's a challenge to do without doing expo dumps. One way to hide that is to have an interaction with a character who hates who you are, and explain with contempt about what it is that you actually do or what they think you do.
As for the gameplay, this could be a stylistic choice, but using ellipsis as a dialogue option could be interpreted in so many ways, which made it a bit hard to know the implication of what that choice could mean. Obviously, to not say something is a choice, but if you're only given two choices, and one of them, I didn't know what it meant, that felt a bit limiting or impactful. But some of the dialogue and writing outside of the choices were quite fun to read.
Very impressive how you all were able to breathe life into a fascinating space in such a short amount of time.
Thanks a lot for taking the time to write such a thoughtful breakdown. The mood and tone were things we fought hard to get right, so hearing they landed is huge for us. You’re absolutely right about the clarity issues. A lot of the worldbuilding lives so naturally in the characters' heads that we sometimes forget the player isn’t living there with them. We’ll work on folding that context into the narrative in ways that feel organic, like the kind of friction you suggested with characters who really don’t like the protagonist.
And the note on dialogue options is fair. The ellipsis was meant as a subtle emotional cue, but if it ends up muddying choice clarity, that’s on us. We’ll tune that so choices feel intentionally open, not ambiguous for the wrong reasons.
Really appreciate the insight. Thanks!
We really appreciate the feedback, I do personally. My Jam partner is extremely creative, and because of that we have documents upon documents of worldbuilding. I definitely ended up over-cutting things to streamline the plot, but we’re both genuinely happy that the atmosphere came through. If you have more thoughts to share, please do. We truly want to use this project as a future case study, since iteration is the only path to growth. Our deepest thanks.
I said in the comments on the other page, but I did laugh out loud about the Michigan bit. You did a great job on the atmosphere, and I would love to play a game about detectives deploying dream magic.
We thank you again for the feedback, and I am truly very happy that you enjoyed the atmosphere. My dark circles are filled with tears from the recognition.
Ah, yes, who never had to bathe their fish? LOVED the atmosphere and the whole setting, the aesthetics are on point as well!
Thanks, we really appreciate that.