an excellent concept well-executed. i also feel like i should offer thanks for the uplifting message as well - i needed to hear it today, so it was most welcome. very well done, friend.
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i finally gave your game a try and, without reading the comments below, was able to find the 3 endings to an overall great experience. the visuals, sound and "message" contained within are all great.
since reading below, i believe displaying the word as text, perhaps with some static or other appropriate visual fx applied to it, would tie it in perfectly while delivering the message more-clearly. also, i appreciate the wall of thoughts to explore further outside of the game itself :)
otherwise, nice 20s submission and thanks for sharing it all!
Submitted
⚽Volleytile!🧨Thank you for detailing that you found the endings without reading the comments, I was asking myself this question haha. I'm really glad you had a great experience :)
Oh wow I didn't even think about putting a static effect to the text, I'll definitely try that. You're absolutely right, it would fit perfectly and make the text stand out more !
Quite dreamlike, it reminds me of Connie Willis' book Passage.
I didn't manage to get all the endings.
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The Slipery Sage Of Slime ShadyHello Mindream,
Here I am :D
I really enjoyed the concept of this game, which shows the feelings drawn from people’s life experiences (including some thoughts people can’t get away from) and the impact of making different choices within a limited playtime. Excellent work!
I’ve played the television one and the human-shaped one. Is the thoughts room counted as an ending, or am I missing the last one?
I couldn’t tell that the sound effect meant “respect” though. Is it intentionally designed that once this interaction is discovered, the F key can be used in later play rounds? I tried many times using F to interact with the beep sound, but it didn’t seem like anything happened. haha
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Midnight GazeYay ! Thank you so much IsaLand, I'm really happy you enjoyed and understood so well the intent of this game ! The thoughts one is considered the first ending, so you found all of them, congrats !
Yeah I'll definitely have to change the "Respect" sound effect, you're not the first one to give that feedback. With lack of time I sampled it from a famous movie so I modified it (too much) to hide that I did, to avoid potential issues. And I thought that the meme "Press F to pay respects" being a popular reference could have the player expecting that word and make it understandable even though heavily modified :)
The F key is actually never locked, you can use it from the start haha. It's intentional yeah, I thought it could make players laugh to realize they could do that all along !
Thanks a lot for the feedback ! :D
This was an interesting game! I like how surreal it all feels. Like those games based on dreams, which feels like it fits quite well. The music fits, as it also has that surreal/dream quality to it. I especially like how all three endings have something different to say in terms of their messages, but they all feel quite hopeful :> Great job man! (the less serious quotes among the self doubt ones were funny)
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Unfamiliar HomeThanks so much ! I'm glad that it evoked a surreal/dreamlike feeling for you, it's the vibe I was going for. And also happy you liked what the endings had to say. With such a short gameplay time constraint the writing was challenging, wasn't sure if I'd pulled it off :)
(haha glad it made you laugh, I think it's always good to balance dark/serious themes with some humor !)
It feels more like an artistic experience than a game, i don't get what it has to do with the 20 second concept, despite that, I really liked it.
One more thing, what's the sound when you press F in the sky? I'm really triggered. :)
P.S. Did you think nobody would read the "buttassbutt" thought? jajajajajajajjajjajajajaja
P.P.S. I posted the comment with the rating and I don't think it's possible to reply to it.
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Cowboy's VendettaThanks, glad you liked it !
Unless I misunderstood the rules, there can be multiple endings and levels, as long as each can be done in 20s.
For the ending in the sky at the end, the player is teleported to a whole new level so I think it works, and it could all be done in 20s. Even though I'd start counting the 20s at the door with the TV static walls for this one, to reach this room you're also being teleported :)
Ah sorry the F sound is not clear. It says "RESPECT". Press F to pay respects and all that hahaha. I heavily modified it because I sampled that from somewhere, I guess I should record it myself !
Haha I knew people would focus on different thoughts. The "buttassbutt" is actually an obscure reference to the game that inspired me the most for this, called The Beginner's Guide in which you can also find some text saying "buttassbutt" at one point !
This was a super interesting and mysterious game. I really liked the way it looked and it made me ask so many questions which is a great thing. It leaves the player wanting more. Amazing job! :)
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20 Seconds To OblivionThank you very much for playing and for your kind words Jonathan, I'm happy you saw the game as something that encourages questions ! I love that kind of games and was hoping I could achieve that at my own level too.
I was a bit worried about the looks so I'm glad you liked them. The visual style is mostly due to having to work around lacking VFX compatibility between Unreal Engine and web to be honest haha. But maybe those limitations helped in a way !
Since I pushed my last build into the night yesterday after a long day working on it, could you please let me know if you found all 3 endings in the game ? In my initial version this was a big issue and I made this new version hoping to fix this :)
Interesting game! I like the way you implemented the different endings. Only found 3 so far
The music fits the dark theme, great job!
I did get a bug sometimes where my character is stuck running backwards
A small suggestion; perhaps fade out the text when running backwards, as the text will overlap, making it difficult to read
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Spirit TravelsThank you so much, glad you had liked that version and had found the third ending ! Just seeing your comment now, I just uploaded a new build actually haha, thank you for the suggestion also !
drareeg had been so kind to give me feedback and pointed out the exact same problem you did. The running backwards thing was not a bug, basically I wanted to spook the player by having the game take full control of the input. Didn't have the intended effect, and it was indeed making the text difficult to read. I had initially pushed a hotfix to be able to pause while running backwards to read the text but it caused other problems.
Really thought a lot today about how to fix all that and ended up completely changing this ending, as well as the text and music for it :)
In case you were curious, in that initial version you played the true ending was hidden in the keybindings, the ending with the camera was meant to give a hint to press T to be teleported to the true ending. With playtests I saw that the hint was way too obscure, no one found it.
That's a concept I'd like to work on at some point, hiding things in keybindings or cheat codes, but with the 20-second rule for this jam, I didn't find a good way to make player onboarding for it, so I discarded it too, that was kinda trying to cram two game concepts together and it just took both concepts down !
Would really appreciate your feedback on that new version if you can spare me some time :)
Nice to see how quickly you implemented improvements based on first feedback. You succeeded in creating an atmosphere that leaves an impression.
Congrats on your first release!
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