Play wish4webven
Wishing 4 Webven's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #149 | 4.042 | 4.042 |
| Narrative | #388 | 3.875 | 3.875 |
| Artwork | #394 | 4.333 | 4.333 |
| Creativity | #1468 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Enjoyment | #2361 | 3.417 | 3.417 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
the core gameplay loop of wishing 4 webven has the player descend through a 2000s era internet browser in search for a site that grants wishes. however, your computer has a parental lock that shuts down after 2 (in-game hours).
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
see what people have wished before you here:
https://webven-wishes.neocities.org/
most animated web sprites you see are from this wonderful archive: https://gifcities.org/
definitely go check it out!
See description for full credits on itch page
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Comments
I wasn't able to complete the game due to getting stuck and falling under time constraints, but wanted to leave a review and comment anyway. I really enjoy the aesthetics of this game! You really nailed the early 2000s web look, and I loved some of the websites that the player gets to visit - getting that down seems especially hard to do in Unity, so kudos! I do notice that some of the touch targets are kind of janky, but I feel like that's to be expected with implementing this in Unity. Narratively, I think it would be great if there was more of like a hook that gets you immediately invested in some sort of mystery - I think a lot of great web ARGs really excel at making you feel like there's something off or something that must be discovered by you once you jump in. Really great job on the game and its presentation - proud of you!
The art style is absolutely amazing and the scope of this game is insane! The sheer amount of content/websites for this project and the fact that they are all very unique is just simply impressive for a game jam! The art style is amazing, and its just a great experience! The puzzles themselves do feel a bit more cryptic in that it does feel like you are just clicking around until you find the thing you were looking for, though that does remind me a fair bit of the old internet long before everything was easily searchable, so that's probably not a bad thing. The hitboxes and text selection could use a bit of polish. Regardless Im very impressed with just the sheer scope and art of this project! This might be my favorite project Ive seen so far, at the very least it is the most impressive!
Really nice UI and art, it felt like a nice trip back to the good old days or the internet back with crt monitors! I really liked discovering all the websites, the dog one was cute but there seems to be an imposter cat pretending to bark like a dog. Cosmo was my favorite and I had to go look at them every time I booted up the computer. My only gripe was that I somehow managed to move the window to a hard to retrieve location when I got to the horse game and had to spend a while trying to get it back to change websites lmao.
thank you for all the nice comments! cosmo is my cat!! glad you liked him, he was a last-minute addition <3
super valid on the windows! I think it would have been better if we had screenlocked their positions as well, so they couldn't go outside the bounds from where you're able to click!
Oh man what a beautiful game I really loved this. I’m going to start off by saying that the music was so good and fitting. Please tell me y’all made it because it was just so good. The computer start up sound fills my complete soul so much. Additionally the sound was amazing apart from certain things that you click being very annoying. I wish when clicking on something that plays a sound it would cut out the previous one instead of adding to the chaos. It got particularly annoying on Carl’s website because the hitbox for the fire overlaps the buttons that refresh the page and take you home.
I also love the immense amount of detail and personality on each and every website, and I also love how the game doesn’t take itself too seriously while still invoking a sense of mystery, suspense, and adventure. I think the sound design and music added much to that as well. I love the default jazzy song so much AAAAAAAA it’s so cozy!
Locky is great. Truly the gigachad of the ages except when he is hovering over whatever I need to be reading.
Okay to anybody who hasn’t beat the game (trust me you’ll know when you beat it), the rest of this will have spoilers. Please beat the game.
Okay I really love the note that thrown away in the trashbin is literally just the MC’s scrapped notes of joining a furry rp fourm. I was so prepared thinking that it was some cryptic puzzle but no this kid is just embarrassed lol.
Also why in the world does Carl have the link to Heaven on his webpage?! WTF?! WHO IS THIS GUY!?
I will say it just felt kinda weird that Carl was the only website that showed up when searching stuff in the bar. It’d be nice if the websites that showed up in the popular section at least could be searched for, or perhaps in the theming of parental controls it could be like “Sorry, but that site’s blocked”. That would honestly be pretty funny.
Additionally, I kinda didn’t like that part of the game required exploring beyond the game. It just felt kinda weird… I know some people enjoy it but it just kinda breaks my immersion for me because I’m reminded that I’m playing a game and that that game is loading something in my browser. The nacho videos were absolutely hilarious though. Just wish they could be played through the game instead…
Final nitpick (and trust me these are nitpicks), is that the prompt for “Seen anything strange?” not doing anything when you haven’t seen anything strange. I kinda wish it had a response like “Liar”. The “we don’t take donations unless they are screened for radiation” line had me in tears man. I love subtle parodies like this.
Back to the good stuff, using the water bucket to put out Carl’s fires was also very cute. That was such an aha moment for me. Like I was so confused and I was like… Wait… Fire… So much fire… Carl Daly’s Car Retail!!!!!
I LOVE THE WRITING IN THIS GAME AAAAAAAAAAA
I hope you get Carl’s voice mails I put a lot of passion into mine.
Edit: If anything y’all should be proud that y’all made a game where when I got stuck I wanted to continue. For hours. And that’s not something I can say really about any of the games I’ve played for this jam.
OMG!! Thank you so much for the lengthy comment. We really appreciate it!
All music was made by our composer, Mikel Dale! Most sound effects were also made by our Sound Designer, Paul Naser! There are a few samples in there, like the Wallace and Gromit CHEESE!!, but otherwise everything was made by us!
Carl's site hitboxes were a known issue that just got overlooked right during submission, unfortunately, but I'd definitely change how some of the sound effects play/hitbox sizes for the images across all sites.
Glad you liked the detail in each site! We really wanted to make each one feel different from the rest, while leaving some sort of tie-in from another site where needed.
> "why in the world does Carl have the link to Heaven on his webpage?!"
This is definitely something we would expand upon when/if we build out the game to a full release! We have some plans to explain more narrative stuff and tie in Carl a bit more, and give reason as to why he's "gatekeeping" the site. <3
> "it just felt kinda weird that Carl was the only website that showed up when searching stuff in the bar."
Absolutely agree! We wanted to add more search results!! but we added that feature honestly a bit late into the jam, and realized if we added other sites that were supposed to be gained through progression, it would allow you to skip a LOT of things. We had a few ideas where you could only search for sites you've been to before, or, if we had more time, we'd create a lot of extra pages that you can search that would be noted in/and across darnells, the wolf board, etc.
> "I kinda didn’t like that part of the game required exploring beyond the game."
Super valid critique! Honestly, the Nacho part was kinda a part of the progression that was put in to save time. It was way easier to incorporate it into this old YouTube channel I had instead of creating a site page in-game with a video player. Ideally, Webven.video would have been an actual domain that you could browse through, and you'd have to find another site by going through channels there.
> "Seen anything strange... 'I kinda wish it had a response like 'Liar.'"
What's funny is that this WAS the original plan for if you pressed yes and hadn't encountered the "strange cryptid" yet. Another last-minute addition that I just added an ALL TOO QUIET error noise when you press Yes and haven't seen anything strange yet.
> "water bucket to put out Carl’s fires was also very cute... aha moment"
Yay!! I'm glad! This was something I had in my head pretty early on. I wanted some idea of you needed to do SOMETHING on Carl's site. When we were continuing to think through different old internet sites and thought of SevenSeas (which is sorta supposed to be a very silly dark web) we thought of what could be done with water. That's when it kinda came together.
> "I hope you get Carl’s voice mails I put a lot of passion into mine."
We did <3
> " If anything y’all should be proud that y’all made a game where when I got stuck I wanted to continue. For hours. And that’s not something I can say really about any of the games I’ve played for this jam."
We're ecstatic that we could keep you engaged/entertained for that long! We're going to see if it's possible to continue development and expand on some things, because realistically there is a LOT of open room and ideas for where this could go. Thank you for playing!
Got stuck after carefully searching through the Wolf-Rp-Board and Carol's Sanctuary, the ambience of this game is absolutely amazing !
The old internet vibes are absolutely nailed on the head, the soundtrack makes the whole thing almost feel dream-like and i really liked reading all of the cheese-related blogposts x)
I wasn't smart enough to find the ✨wish-granting✨ site in the end but i still absolutely loved the experience, i might just start browsing Neocities again like i did a few years ago just because of this game lol
Seriously amazing work!
Thank you so much for playing and for the kind words! Been slacking a bit on replying to comments, but I'm glad that we were able to nail the aesthetic and vibe! We really just wanted to send people back to a nostalgic time of the internet when things were really silly and unconventional in the best way.
okay i like the style so much ,remind a bit of retro , and u nailed the early 2000 era , i m really impressed u managed to do this in 4 days , thou i was lost after the little ai friend got disconnected ,the little npc lock was annoying XD , but GG really
yay!! I'm so glad you enjoyed it. Everyone seems to hate locky in a loving way LOL which is kinda what we were going for so, glad it worked
Very charming game, really perfectly encapsulates the vibes of being part of the old internet and does a decent job of pointing you to the idea there is an actual narrative going on and getting you digging around for your own curiosity. I have a minor gripe with the use of the theme, as it works perfectly narratively but mechanically it might be a bit of a pace stopper, in a proper game where there is something to break the pace between each day browsing the internet, it might feel more meaningful. That being said I loved it and was a very unique experience! Also cheese
VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2831886216
Thank you for playing on stream! It was awesome watching you go through the different sites we created. As we approached the deadline, we realized the timer was getting in the way. I think in the future I would make it so that more things change on consecutive days, and more set events happen at certain times, to really make it feel intentional and not like it's taking you away from the game. CHEESE
genuinely the coolest submission I've played so far!
thank you so much for playing!
interesno kak vigladit osa iz vishni
Well I haven't found anything beyond the wolf site so I have no idea what to do. But I can say it's all very impressive for a 4 day jam. I agree with the others that the timer doesn't add anything, and is even a bit annoying.
Someone recommended your game as on the top underrated and I can see why. Maybe you'll find some time playing my game too? :3
Wow! Thank you so much for the kind words <3
I definitely agree with the feedback we've been getting that the timer can get in the way of gameplay. In the future I would make it so things actually change more than they do each day!
Will check out your game soon!
...they wont open the gates for me here either...
I loved this game so. Much. I haven’t rated it yet though because I haven’t beaten it and I WANT to. I’m just stuck at good ol’ Carl Daly’s website and have no idea how to progress. Perhaps a good nights sleep will help idk. When I beat the game I’ll say more but dang this game is immersive.
omg thank you so much!! if you need any help or guidance, def let me know!! you're in the right place though :)
Yeah I’m totally stuck. My plan at this point was to literally call 928-433-CARL but I doubt that’s the solution. If you could give me a hint or something that’d be nice.
Look through a YouTube video you might have seen before! "You may find what you're looking for." ~
(also try giving carl a call for fun)
Oooo okay!
AMAZING game, genuinely, one of my favorites in the jam!!! solving puzzles was super fun, learning more about characters too, the humor was perfect, i LOVE nacho and the end tugged at my heartstrings a little bit
if i had to nitpick something itd be only that i felt like the countdown didnt add too much to the game, there are also a few bugs related to scrolling like enter not working sometimes or websites restarting when they shouldnt if i clicked outside of the browser, or some images going over browser buttons, but those are super understandable because of the jam length (my game had more and worse bugs haha)
regardless of my nitpicks, i really absolutely loved this and will recommend to everyone that i can!
ahh omg!! This is genuinely so nice, the team and I appreciate your comment so much. I definitely can agree with the few nitpicks you have!! the scrollbars seemed to prove to be a annoying little issue throughout I think because of the way we had the tabs movable as well. Thank you for the feedback and for enjoying It as much as you did!!
Just spied the game thru a stream, and i love the style you came up with Really imersive, and well tought
thank you so much for the kind words <3
Very stylistic game, big fan of all the little images and secrets in there! I was a bit confused on what to do, but the journey was worth it!
Thank you for playing on stream!!
Really creative game, I love the design. In the case that you release the full game I would like to play it!!
Thank you so much for playing! <3