What an addicting game play loop. I really really love your audio work (with Doctor's Orders being the first time I've taken audio editing seriously, I can see I have A LOT to learn) and the visuals are perfectly fitting. Duration was a bit awkward and kind of made playing feel slow in a not good way, but you all have time to tweak that if you plan on going ham on the concept. Y'all got this.
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Mirror Mirror (On Clearance)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Visuals | #1 | 4.667 | 4.667 |
| Overall | #3 | 3.741 | 3.741 |
| Audio | #3 | 3.444 | 3.444 |
| Use of Theme | #4 | 3.889 | 3.889 |
| Gameplay | #4 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Overall Enjoyment | #5 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Creativity | #6 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
what a lovely review ! thank you very very much ! (I'm the one who made the audio and it's like the first time I make my work public so it really means a lot !) and yeah we're gonna work on the durations and we're also most probably gonna add a "finished task" button or something like that :)
again thank you very much and if I remember correctly, the audio work done on your game was really good too !
Sorry it took so long for me to get around to playing this game...I was waiting for my new computer to arrive :)
There's a lot to like about this game! First is the atmosphere. I never really understood the term "cozy horror" until now. It's got a nice cute vibe on the surface, but there's always something that just feels slightly off. And I mean that in a good way. Second, the sound design is done really well! I think it's the biggest contributor to the atmosphere I was just talking about.
However, if I may, I have three suggestions. Number 1 is to maybe add a 'done' button for each task. I found that I would complete a task super quickly and then just sit there waiting. Number 2 is to add an indicator to show how much time is left. Finally number 3 is that there just isn't enough content. However, I understand that this is a jam game so I'll cut you some slack there :)
Overall, I think this game has a ton of potential and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here. Great work :D
Submitted
Half WorldHey ! Sorry for not answering earlier, we were kinda busy with life and all
Glad you liked the atmosphere and the vibe :) (I made the music and sound fx, its one of the first times I share my work in public so I'm really glad you like it)
The "done" button we'll add really soon, we also are not fully done fine-tuning the mini games durations, it might take a while until we find the sweet spot
As for the time left indicator, it should be there in the web and desktop versions (not in the original release at the deadline time tho), I might have messed up with some uploads so maybe you didn't play the right version ?
And yeah for the lack of content I understand you totally but as I think I said in another reply, this was our first game and first experience with godot so we had to learn as we went :) I was pleasantly surprised with how accessible godot is tho so we'll update it regularly (for now I think) until we have everything we have in mind which at least include :
An inventory system that limits how much sand and wood you have, making it necessary to use your gold to buy more and/or a minigame where you go gather those materials. We might add alternative sands and woods that could have some kind of effects on the crafted mirror and then witches request such and such kinds of mirror like beauty spells, aging, strength things like that.
I was thinking also that witches could require a minimum quality for the mirror and thus refuse to buy the mirror you just crafted if it's too badly crafted (then the mirror goes in your inventory and you can sell it later without having to craft another one, or I was also thinking of recycling your mirror in a minigame where you grind the glass to make some sand and break the frame to make firewood), anyways I won't speak too much about the ideas we have because we might not include them all and I don't wanna make promises haha but yeah we'll add more content for sure !
Thank you so much for your feedback and have a nice day :)
What immediately drew me in was the art style. It has a monochrome, almost children's book-like style with an eerie edge to it. It has those little "imperfections" that give it a handmade feel that I also really liked. I also enjoyed the music, especially the tune playing during the mini-games. It almost sounds like a song being played in reverse and that, alongside the occasional evil laughter, really adds to that eerie atmosphere. The presentation overall is coming along great so far with a cozy, yet eerie aesthetic. Very unique!
I saw that this project is being expanded on. One question I had is does how you perform in each mini-game affect how much gold you are given? If so, maybe some kind of indicator at the end of each mini-game to let me know how I performed would be a good addition. That way the player can figure out which places they need to improve to maximize how much gold they are given. And, of course, something to spend with the gold would be ideal as well.
I also wasn't sure what the goal of the painting game was. Am I supposed to just draw whatever I want or is there something specific I'm supposed to paint? Am I supposed to just fill in all the white space?
I think the runes and cutting mini-games were the best ones. Sometimes I had extra time left over on the runes one. Maybe there could be a "Right Click to Erase" mechanic so the player can reattempt part of the retracing if they have time? There was also a small issue where I was retracing one of the swirly symbols and the time ended before I realized and I accidently drew on the next rune where I didn't want to.
Overall, this project seems very promising and I really like the character designs and overall aesthetic. Nice job to everyone involved!
Submitted
Insect ReflectEdit: Oh wow that's a long comment, enjoy the reading ahah
Hi ! First of all thank you for giving us all this feedback, I'm glad you liked the music (I made it and yeah it sound like it's played in reverse because I thought it would also loosely fit the theme or mirrors :) ), Cahdmus will also be glad that you liked her drawings !
" does how you perform in each mini-game affect how much gold you are given?" -> currently "only" three mini-games influence the price/quality of the mirror : the one where you smash glass, the runes and the cutting (those last two are the ones we spent most time developping so we're glad they were your favorites), we plan to either show a recap after each minigame like you said or when the mirror is finished, giving you a rating and more explanation on the quality of the mirror (eg how you performed in minigames)
the first minigame where you cook the sand and make it into a glass blob is just the introduction, I dont think it will ever have an impact on the score, but the one where you paint the glass will or at least we'll try to make it have an impact.
"I also wasn't sure what the goal of the painting game was." : that's entirely on us, as we've been so much inside our heads that we didnt realize people weren't there with us ahah. Sooo when we started making the game we looked up the process IRL to make mirrors, and well you take a glass sheet and you coat it with reflective material, that's our thought behind this mini-game, I think we'll improve that either by stating that in the game hint, or making it visually more obvious, as for the goal of the minigame, it's to fully paint it and not let anything blank. But I agree that it's both not obvious and maybe not really engaging ? idk
As you might know when you playtest something that you developped, you don't always see the things a "normal" player would see, so for example the fact that you can't erase and try to re-draw the shape is something I personnally haven't thought about and I think it's a great idea. Overall the timing on the mini-games is something we'll have to keep fine-tuning because the time needed varies greatly on the dexterity of the player and with feedback like yours we'll be able to find a sweetspot.
"There was also a small issue where I was retracing one of the swirly symbols and the time ended before I realized and I accidently drew on the next rune where I didn't want to." : yeah this I saw and it happened to me a few times and it pissed me off lol, I'll try to fix it in a way that's not too intrusive, maybe put some cooldown time between the runes, I dont really want to add a button "play" before each rune for example as I think that would be too intrusive but know that it will be fixed in at most a few days.
Oh and I forgot about the gold : For now it's just an indicator of how well you performed (but we might need to show the calculation to make it more clear as you said) but we also plan to add different kinds of sand for example that would maybe add a special trait to the mirror.
And to introduce those different materials we're thinking of adding some traveling merchant or maybe a permanent shop to be able to buy those, thus making the gold useful. We have a few ideas for improvements and new features but in 10 days, without any experience with godot before that's the most we could bring to your screens :)
I think I've answered every point you've brought up but if I forgot something or if you have any follow-up questions I'm glad to answer !
When I first played the mirror game, I, for some reason, thought the game wanted me to paint a picture so I just drew a silly smiley face. I was half-expecting a gag where the drawing would appear on the finished mirror, lol. I forgot to mention that in my original comment. As for making the painting game more engaging, maybe you could make it where you can accidently color outside the edges, but you get more coins if you don't do that. That would add some tension as you try to fill the edges in time but you don't want to lose coins by going over the edges. Maybe it could be justified story-wise as wasting the reflective material and having to spend gold to replace what you wasted.
If I were to offer a suggestion for the Runes minigame, perhaps you could add sounds when the last few ticks of the timer are happening? During the last five seconds, each second makes a "tick" sound to signal that time is almost out. Maybe the number could turn red and grow bigger as the timer runs out to really emphasize it. If you implement a cooldown in-between, maybe you could include some sort of animation, such as one rune sliding off screen as another slides on-screen, for example, and this could act as the cooldown period in a way that would feel natural. Maybe that could work?
Good luck on your project!
Really really great suggestions ! We'll think about that and probably implement something like what you suggested :) thank you again for all this feedback !!
(Oh also yes the timer isn't entirely finished, I added it "quickly" yesterday I think because it was really lacking, I'll for sure improve it in the ways you said)
This idea has a lot of potential! For a first jam it’s really impressive!
I really love the foundation of the aesthetic! Especially the art style! The visuals are nearly perfect imo, and if there was more time, I would add some “jitter frames” to some objects to make them feel more alive if possible like UI and the witch customers.
I know this is mentioned in the description that audio would be developed, but this does unfortunately affect my rating. If the audio focused more on user actions, I think this could improve the audio by A LOT!
The main gameplay loop works very well! I think the only thing that could be fine tuned is timing (the mirror painting was too long and the rune carving per rune was too short lol) and being able to see the time left for the mirror. I wouldn’t worry about a mining phase honestly lol.
The only thing I think is missing is a progression system (which does affect my overall enjoyment). I think this is a very good foundation, but it would be nice if there was a way to use our gold for a game jam, even if it is a very simple purchase such as a “skills upgrade” system to buy more.
Overall, this is a really good prototype, and I would really love to see this project grow!
Cheers,
Henderythmix
Submitted
EisotrophobiaThanks dude ! I love the idea of jitter frames ! I was really hoping I would have time to do some animations for the game but man the week flew by. I'm very happy you liked my drawings.
For sure some of the first things we're adding is more sounds, a progression system and overall feedback to player inputs (and a little timer). I think we played the mini games so much that timing them became a bit arduous, thanks for the feedback !
So glad you enjoyed it and thank you for taking the time to write a review :)
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