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A jam submission

Conviction Chronicles (DEMO)View game page

A Murder Mystery Generator
Submitted by Evilous — 2 days, 22 hours before the deadline
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Conviction Chronicles (DEMO)'s itch.io page

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

writing down some thoughts as i play. I dont typically play VNs

  • i like answering the questions at the start it reminds me of pokemon mystery dungeon
  • why not just use the mouse for the camera?
  • the character's walk animation is really swaggy and made me laugh
  • i feel like the text describing the things around the room is a little much and too descriptive. I'm all for purple prose but i really dont need a description about how a box could be used for storing things if it isnt going to matter at all in game
  • the idle animations for some of the characters are kinda funny, dont really fit with the theme
  • a lot of the UI transitions looked great!
  • i found out im in a death game where murder is a-ok, and the first thing i do is take a nap? brave
  • the intro is very long

i dont have a ton of time and i couldnt find a save point so I will come back to this later. its not really my thing so take my opinion with a grain of salt but i wasnt really hooked based on how long it took to introduce characters and explain the setup when it feels like a somewhat standard death game. maybe im just a brainlet who hates words. id be interested to see where this goes. Seems way more stable and sensible than the last time i played it as well. keep up the good work!

Developer(+1)

Thanks for playing and for the feedback. I have to improve the prologue a bit with ironing the game out some more. I might have to rewrite a bit of the prologue to allow more choice/player actions, and I feel that's a major aspect that needs to be improved where there isn't enough action and more reading. The mouse can sort of be used for a camera, but I think I disabled it with how badly it felt to use. I'll have to replace the animations as well.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

In game thoughts

  • 2.5gb is pretty hefty for an indie game. Should look into reducing this for space conscious players
  • File and settings in the top right is distracting
  • Y/N system should have it’s own window and controls. Just selecting Y or N.  Less button presses
  • It does set a good creepy vibe at the end of the interrogation, although I do wonder if this game is spyware haha
  • Main menu music is a Jammer, right until the screamo verses covered up the sick beat. But that is a personal preference (I highly dislike screamo)
  • The text has a strange feel to it, and I think it’s at least partially because you are using Passive Voice instead of Active Voice in a lot of the text.  More info here: https://www.grammarly.com/blog/sentences/active-vs-passive-voice/
    • There’s also some mistranslations, “What did she said to you” and such
  • Ok this is cool.  Why does the girl skip around though?
  • I do not typically player text heavy games, but something that does help me is Bolding key terms or important dialogue so even if I’m spam clicking through I still get the gist of the topics being discussed.
  • I can clip camera through the walls and see other levels
  • If I click at just the right time I can skip multiple dialogues
  • I’m really bummed I didn’t get to make my own choice in the prisoners dilemma.  It seems like the perfect chance to give the player some agency
  • I did not get those minigames at all

Post game thoughts:

I’m really confused by this game.  There’s a lot of dialogue, but very little gameplay. My advice would be to take out like 90% of the dialogue and instead replace it with more clear player choice and dialogue. Think of the TellTale games, it was *very* clear when the player was taking an action and what the result would be.  In this game it’s hard for me to tell when I’m even making an impact.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback. There is a lot I'm going to have to edit/refine and your feedback is helpful.

  • 2.5gb is pretty hefty for an indie game. Should look into reducing this for space conscious players
  • File and settings in the top right is distracting
  • So some of this is due to how the engine compiles 3D models, the project file is 7 GBs, and how game settings are handled by default is done with having it in the top right before the game loads. I might look into having it automatically setup based on the performance of the system for reducing the graphical quality and such.

    >Main menu music is a Jammer, right until the screamo verses covered up the sick beat. But that is a personal preference (I highly dislike screamo)

    I do want to see what more people think, but I do have the project files for the song so I can easily edit it out if it becomes a universal thing people want removed. I think I might make the main menu version be mostly absent in vocals and keep the vocal version for the intro once that is made.

    I thought I got rid of a bunch of the written errors, but I'll review it again. 

    >

    I do not typically player text heavy games, but something that does help me is Bolding key terms or important dialogue so even if I’m spam clicking through I still get the gist of the topics being discussed.

    I'll add this.

    >

    I’m really bummed I didn’t get to make my own choice in the prisoners dilemma.  It seems like the perfect chance to give the player some agency.

    Ok it seems like people don't like the minigames in the prologue since they weren't originally made for it and the prologue needs some more work. I'll add some more choices for the player instead of having the minigames there.

    The animations I need to overhaul sooner than later at this point too.


    The biggest thing I'm getting is the prologue needs more choice and I need to refine a bunch more

    >It does set a good creepy vibe at the end of the interrogation, although I do wonder if this game is spyware haha

    It's not, I hope it's not too much feeling that way.

    (+1)

    Played for roughly 45 Minutes, got through the Prologue and the first Breakfast, then got bored and couldn't continue.

    Why is it 2.5GB? 

    Why is there a File and Settings Tabbar in the Top? Why do I have to click right on the Textfield or close to it to advance, instead of anywhere?

    The Flashing on the Choice Buttons and their overlapping is a bit annoying.

    I can not enter the Name with the Keyboard or the Mouse, but have to use Arrow Keys?

    Why are Y/N Questions answered with a Y/N Keyboard? Why not with Yes/No Buttons like other Stuff?

    Loading Times feel massive. Why is my Profile crafted *before* the actual Game starts?

    The Idea of the Camera moving in the Main Menu is nice, but it happens why tto fast/to lineary, moving through Geometry, and overall not looking as good as it could. Music is horrible.

    Why does the Bonus menu have an additional Option to exit the Game? Why do you just show Cheatcodes in the Menues?  If you're already forcing Arrowkeys/Space/Esc as Controls, why can't I press Escape to return to the previous Menu?

    Starting a new Game was the first Time it was made clear to me that I should be using a Controller. This explains the Keybinds for PC, but I'm not going to plug one in now, it's too late.

    Assuming you have 3D environments and characters that move around etc, you shouldn't write TExt what a Character is doing, but show it instead. Why write that Tina is looking around, scanning the environment, when you could show her doing it?

    Why tell me the Bed is worn and whas been there for Centuries, when you could show it, instead of showing a brand new Bed and telling me what it's supposed to be. Use the Visual Media a Game is, it's not a Book without Pictures.

    Character looks massively out of Place with how bright and clean she is compared to the Environment. Movement feels a bit floaty, character is way to twitchy on its idle animations.

    Why are you jumping from "Tina is doing this and that" to "I am doing this and that" suddenly?

    When in the Bathroom, I can move the Camera out of Bounds to see the Room with the Plage Doctor Girl in it. Overall the Camera isn't blocked by anything it seems.

    If a Character introduces herself as Sam, why do I know she's named Samantha?

    The walking Animation feels horrid, like I'm just casually strolling through a Park or something, not like I'm in some kind of weird Death Game.

    For some Reason Jack and Lily chose to collaborate, even when I'm playing as Tina. So that's a Bug there I guess.

    Also I do not get a Choice to make, why?

    In the Trial everyone seems to be named Tina.

    Minigames are horrid. Controls are bad enough that it frequenlty jumps a Line on the one where Sam is asked to strip for whatever Reason, and on the Car one the Hitboxes for the Pickups are way too small, and the Car moves to slow from left to right. They also have zero Connection to whats actually happening. And they have no Reason to be there in the first Place.

    Why are you telling me who seems trustworthy and who might be a murderer, shouldn't i reach my own conclusions based on what evidence is provided?

    The Prologue had nothing  Gameplay wise. No choices to be made, no mystery to solve, nothing. I was expecting a Murder Mystery, and whatever else is written on your Game Page, instead I just got a, in my opinion, badly written Story to read with bad music blarring at me.

    Decided to play one "actual" round of the Game to see where this is going in a non-tutorial/prologue.

    Why is there a tiny Girl dancing on Top of a giant Throne?

    If we're all Prisoners, why would we just be wearing casual Clothes like normal? There is no immersion in this, I never felt like I was actually in the Game.

    Why does Crows walk animation feel completely broken, why am I massively bent over like that looking at the Ground? Nobody walks like that. Also am I 2.5m high? I tower over every Door.

    I could not go on after reaching the Prison Hall after the first Breakfast. There might be something there, I might be able to listen to what People say, deduce who is going to Betray during the Influencer Game, or who's trying to kill who or whatever, but I just couldn't muster up any interest anymore.

    Dialogue isn't well written I think, it doesn't feel natural, LevelDesign for the Prison is horrible, Camera Location is bad, it doesn't allow you to see properly into the Distance, but there aren't any visual Pointers to which Room is which or anything anyway, it all looks the same. The Story is uninteresting, I know I didn't play long, and didn't get far, but at no Point it seemed any Choice I did was actually meaningfull, apart from maybe eating the Breakfast. Every other Time there would be a Minigame which either was entirely Luck based like Rock, Paper, Scissors, or I had to play some badly controllable Game which leads to an almost automatic Loss, again resulting in a Luck based Decision. 

    I'm sorry, but at least for me personally this Game wasn't enjoyable, there'd have to be a lot of work to be done to improve it. 

    Please be sure to treat this as my Opinion and personal Feedback, not as some kind of Fact or anything, I may very well just not be in your target Crowd with this.

    Developer

    Thanks for playing and for the feedback.

    >Played for roughly 45 Minutes, got through the Prologue and the first Breakfast, then got bored and couldn't continue.

    I big aspect I'm going to go through next is dealing with adding more interesting stuff to the start of the days and for a better easing into the main gameplay. Since going straight into the breakfast eating with almost nothing in between the influence game doesn't give enough of a breather.

    >Why is it 2.5GB? 

    There is a lot in the game files. The project file is 7 GBs.

    >Why is there a File and Settings Tabbar in the Top? Why do I have to click right on the Textfield or close to it to advance, instead of anywhere?

    It's how the engine was made to handle the settings by default. I could change it in the future, but there are many things more important to change/add onto at the moment.

    >The Flashing on the Choice Buttons and their overlapping is a bit annoying.

    I'll change the cursor in the menu, since it's exclusive there.

    >Why are Y/N Questions answered with a Y/N Keyboard? Why not with Yes/No Buttons like other Stuff?

    I'll change it.

    >Loading Times feel massive. Why is my Profile crafted *before* the actual Game starts?

    The game is meant to be played multiple times with the profile being tied to the game itself instead of each save file. The loading times are sadly tied to the engine trying to load all shaders at once before allowing the game through, which I can't change much. I've tried to minimize it's impact but it's still an annoyance. 

    >

    >The Idea of the Camera moving in the Main Menu is nice, but it happens why tto fast/to lineary, moving through Geometry, and overall not looking as good as it could. Music is horrible.

    I'll have to edit it some more. I personally really like how the song came out due to all of the time and money put into it, but I understand why people might not enjoy it due to the background vocals.

    >Why does the Bonus menu have an additional Option to exit the Game? Why do you just show Cheatcodes in the Menues?  If you're already forcing Arrowkeys/Space/Esc as Controls, why can't I press Escape to return to the previous Menu?

    It's how the engine handles the UI, I can't really do much about certain things without it going anal or putting in multiple measures to prevent it going anal. I can remove the exit the game option in the bonus menu at least.

    >Assuming you have 3D environments and characters that move around etc, you shouldn't write TExt what a Character is doing, but show it instead. Why write that Tina is looking around, scanning the environment, when you could show her doing it?

    Animations with the engine are a mess at the moment with importing new ones. Every time they update the skeletons it requires more retargeting with Mixamo animations which breaks other parts of the game. It is something I do plan to add/overhaul with a MOCAP system where I can have much more control over the animations without needing Mixamo and retarget everything. It's why some animations can appear to the broken randomly out of the ass.

    >Why tell me the Bed is worn and whas been there for Centuries, when you could show it, instead of showing a brand new Bed and telling me what it's supposed to be. Use the Visual Media a Game is, it's not a Book without Pictures.

    I changed some of the models around to see what fits better and I replaced the original bed model with a new one, but I can edit the textures to be more gritty

    >When in the Bathroom, I can move the Camera out of Bounds to see the Room with the Plage Doctor Girl in it. Overall the Camera isn't blocked by anything it seems.

    Camera system in the engine doesn't have the ability to be blocked by walls. I could look into it more to see if I missed anything.

    >Minigames are horrid. Controls are bad enough that it frequenlty jumps a Line on the one where Sam is asked to strip for whatever Reason, and on the Car one the Hitboxes for the Pickups are way too small, and the Car moves to slow from left to right. They also have zero Connection to whats actually happening. And they have no Reason to be there in the first Place.

    Engine limitations, I can edit some of the values to make it a little better with the smaller details. But I mostly plopped them into the prologue to showcase how they function.

    >In the Trial everyone seems to be named Tina.

    I am not sure why that happened. I'll look into it.

    >If we're all Prisoners, why would we just be wearing casual Clothes like normal? There is no immersion in this, I never felt like I was actually in the Game.

    So this is something I took more from danganronpa where everybody is more visually distinct, but the ideas of having costumes for the game itself would be interesting even though it would override a bunch of content, including the in game swimsuits. It also skips the fact it's not a real prison, but a game show, which I might have to explain further even though it's already directly told to you and shown, you actively didn't want to pay attention by this point.


    I feel some of the things you listed are more exaggerated due to having a bad opinion on the game by that point of writing all this out, which is something I have to improve on. But I do know about your "personality" which loves to exaggerate everything with everyone's games, so I shouldn't take anything personally and certain nitpicks as serious as you write them. I will focus on the main points that need to be addressed. I might have to delay starting adding more dialogue to make the game more natural like I want it to be to focus on the bigger problems with ironing them out as much as the engine allows. Thanks for the feedback btw, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm not appreciative of it.

    (+1)

    >I feel some of the things you listed are more exaggerated due to having a bad opinion on the game by that point of writing all this out

    I very much think so aswell. It seems most of the Things are Engine Limitations which isn't something you can easily do anything about I suppose. 

    >, which is something I have to improve on. 

    I don't think it's necessarily a Game I'd enjoy regardless, I assume I went into it expecting a different Kind of Game then it is supposed to be. Like you said with the Music of the Title Screen, its not something I personally enjoy, but I'm sure theres enough People out there that like it. Including you, and that's the most important Part after all, since it's your Game, not mine.

    Apart from the Bugs I guess the biggest Thing to focus on would be a more engaging Prologue so People are looking forward to playing the actual Game more, and more clarity in the basic Prison Layout/Design, so you know where you're going more from the get-go instead of having to talk to each Door.

    >Thanks for the feedback btw, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm not appreciative of it.

    Not at all. You're free to not appreciate and disregard any kind of Feedback I give, especially when I'm not in your target Demographic.

    Good Luck on your future Updates.