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A jam submission

Establishing A ConnectionView game page

A short visual novel shooter(?) for GameDev.Tv's 2026 Gamejam.
Submitted by Combat lobster, Dawn_fire — 18 hours, 40 minutes before the deadline
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Establishing A Connection's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Story#84.2444.244
Aesthetics#784.0224.022
Overall#903.7783.778
Sound#1163.3783.378
Music#1313.4673.467
Fun#1713.4223.422
Mechanics#1913.3563.356
Theme#2523.5333.533

Ranked from 45 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How many people worked on this game in total?
2: Combat Lobster and Dawn_fire

Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
FilmCow Royalty Free Sound Effects Library Vol. 1 - Filmcow, Truck sounds - evolutiongames103, Footsteps SFX Three - Sound Works 12, Gunfire SFX - GoodSoundForYou, Defeat SFX - Rune, Power Supply - Elektrobear, Respiratory System - Elektrobear, Chiptune Vol. 7 Go On - OVANI, VFX-Hit Impart pack - kiddolink, Mr. JUNKER MSX font - Void, Grandfather Clock ticking 10 hours - Easy Living, Night Ambience on a Barley Field - Child of Nature

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Comments

Viewing comments 35 to 16 of 35 · Next page · Last page
Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

Good storytelling!. I hope there is another ending. I have not found that out but it would be disappointing to know there is only a bad ending. Nice game nonetheless.

Submitted(+1)

That was a fun game! Love the aesthetics! 

Your novel style for some reason reminded me of the Gabriel Knight games! Loved the maid animation as well and how you had inside joke pictures at the wall, haha! The mini game was also a refreshing mechanic to add! Theme was spot on! super fun experience!

Congrats to the team 💪✨😊

Submitted(+1)

Really great game! I loved all the dialogue, and being able to inspect the environment was great. I really enjoyed all the graphics, both the pixel art and the 3D environments. Amazing job to the team!

Submitted(+1)

Really great little self-contained story! Had a lot of fun playing through it. Love the aesthetics and great choice on the music. Digging the Snatcher vibes too. It's always impressive when there's a complete story like this in a game jam game. Great job!

Submitted

Interesting point&click adventure combined with an action mini game.

There could be more stuff to do up to the conclusion, but that's the scope limit of a jam game...

Submitted

Quite interesting, visuals and music are working great together, the players choice are well placed, i wantet to leave the house after seeing the pictures with some man, who is doing experiments in a closed room, but at the same time i wantet to knew the story. The shooting game was a welcomed minigame. Well done, it was really fun to play

Submitted(+1)

Full 5 stars on all accounts from me. I was engaged from start to finish here. Nicely done from both of you

Submitted(+1)

i LOVE this type of game, and absolutely loved this! great writing too! id love a full version of this, maybe with puzzles since youre an electrician?

by the way, is this inspired by umineko in any way? it really reminded me of that!

great job!!!

Developer(+1)

Not particularly, though now that I'm thinking about it, I can see how one could be reminded of Umineko.

Submitted

ahh okay haha, yeah the -SPOILERS- dead wife, portrait of said wife on the staircase, trying to bring her back, mansions aesthetic and stuff all reminded me of it

Submitted(+1)

That was awesome! Had me hook line and sinker. Having the mouse on a grid was a good idea. Nice writing and artwork!

Submitted(+1)

This is a complete adventure game with story, music, action mechanics and everything, a great achievement!

Submitted

Good entry to the jam! Some of the options didn't work throughout the game and some didn't make sense. E.g., I think it was in the basement where one of the options was "talk" and when I clicked it, it said "there is no need to talk", which makes the option irrelevant. 
The game worked fine for me otherwise, but the quit btn in the end did not work at all.
Congrats on the game!

Submitted

Pretty neat game. I liked the mini-game. I'd be curious to see what a non-jam version looked like, but this was a solid entry. Good job!

Submitted

Really cool intro to the game, unfortunately my game froze when I got inside the manor and it got stuck there. I couldn't go in. Would have loved to play some more. I tried reloading it but same issue.

Developer

Okay I need a bit more info from you, I have a feeling I might know what's happening. Problem is that this is only the second time it happened (that I've been made aware of), so it isn't consistent beyond it failing using the interaction menu.

-What way are you playing? (Web, Windows download, Linux download, more than one?)

-I assume you chose to enter manor, screen faded to black and then nothing?

-What kind of CPU does your system have?

Submitted

- Web (I only tried web build)
- Yes after getting the option to enter manor I entered but then dialogue box was still there but dialogue vanished, same for the background, it became black.
- CPU is amd ryzen 5600

Submitted(+1)

Cool art style and interesting take on the theme. The small shooter mini-game was a nice switch-up from the narrative, well done!

Submitted(+1)

This is one of the best games I've played in this jam, great presentation, atmosphere, story, mechanics, music, sound effects. It was a proper game. I'd have liked to be able to choose a better ending for the main character but other than that, top notch work. A lot of work clearly went into making everything that was included in this game!

Submitted(+1)

Really good writing for the intro, unfortunately my game froze when I clicked one of the dialogue options, but I think I'll try downloading it on a Windows PC later to see if that fixes it.

Developer (1 edit) (+1)

I've been trying to figure out where the point of failure happened, cause I doubt it had anything to do with your OS. I tested the game extensively on Linux, granted my only point of reference is based on Fedora derived distros; but I figured that wouldn't be an issue 

So to get a little under the hood, my 'VN_Player' and 'Adventure_Mode' systems share a 'level' resource that contains references to the characters, backgrounds, and dialogue. When clicking on an option in adventure mode, the option signals to the VN player which section of instructions to use and execute them. So my assumption is that vn_player didn't get what was needed and failed. But if that were the case then the point of failure would be much earlier in the chain.

When I get home from work, I'll try to look into things and see if at the very least if I can't identify what issue.


Submitted

I use ubuntu 26 and it has some issues with unreal but not with unity or godot games from what I know, maybe I forgot to update my graphics driver

Submitted

First of all, the writing was absolutely excellent. From the very beginning, the atmosphere and dialogue established a strong sense of mystery that immediately pulled me in and kept me eager to see how the story would unfold.

My one critique is that the ending leaned a bit too heavily on exposition to deliver the plot twist. I know that approach works for some readers, but I personally prefer when those revelations emerge more organically through the narrative itself. That said, considering this was completed in just a week, it’s completely understandable.

Overall, though, the presentation was exceptional.

Submitted

Just like Cliff I felt a bit trapped when after finishing the game I couldn't get out without closing the page :P
Interesting take on the theme. First time I play this genre of game, I enjoyed it, it was quite engaging. I must say that I would have preferred to fix the box as cliff in the form of a puzzle than shooting at the poor spiders :D
Well done overall

Submitted(+1)

You fit a lot into this!

I was going to make a comment about some oddities in the writing, until I found out it had been foreshadowing all along.

Visuals and sounds are very fitting, I especially like the music for combat.

Speaking of combat, it was suitably tense without being too difficult. I liked being able to shoot infinitely without reloading, and the grid system meant I didn't have to be good at aiming either.

The story is well written. The point and click-like style of non-combat gameplay is nicely done as well. Toward the end the options become extremely limited, which I again found odd, but I believe that's also a purposeful, narrative choice.

Submitted(+1)

The psychological twist in the end was good. I found it immersive that the narrative of the game immediately shifts towards the master becoming the player character in the end and cliff becoming the npc. Design reminded me of Resident evil and D (the game). Nice work. 

Viewing comments 35 to 16 of 35 · Next page · Last page