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Until the vacation's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity | #4744 | 3.231 | 3.231 |
| Narrative | #6167 | 2.154 | 2.154 |
| Artwork | #7111 | 2.462 | 2.462 |
| Audio | #8502 | 1.846 | 1.846 |
| Enjoyment | #9684 | 1.692 | 1.692 |
Ranked from 13 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?
Narratively I decided to not make the incoming event a danger neither something grand (end of the world!!!) but something small and pleasant. Mechanically - the dialog tactics are timeline based. There are cooldowns for actions and responses. The progression of the conversation is tracked until completion (4/4). The goal is to score as many points as possible before it runs out.
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
Kenney, Maelle Maryloup. See description for full credits.
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First update is available now. I am going to continue updating it throughout August.
https://beseda.itch.io/gmtk-2026-jam/devlog/1608125/1-post-jam-update
Next jam I'm participating in is Brackeys Game Jam 2026.2. Maybe I'll see you there...
Interesting mechanics. I would've liked the for the tutorial to be more included into the gameplay rather than to have to read it but overall it's a nice concept. Nice game!
Thank you. Do you mean that it would be better if the tutorial was not a separate window? It is integrated into the logic and that is how the timing is just right.
Yes, I think having the player learn the gameplay through intuitive gamedesign is always better than having it in a separate window.
I agree. However there are some other benefits from the approach I've taken. For now I'll stick to it. Thank you for your understanding.
I have never played anything like it ; The idea is very unique ; good game
Thank you! I'm continuing to develop it and updating it after uploading is allowed again.
I found out today that someone has thought about making turn based dialog. Just yesterday Blue Bottle Games released their game "Ostranauts" after 6 years in early access. If you found this game interesting you might want to try their demo.
I like the idea and I do occasionally play some dialog tactics based games like Citizen Sleeper :) I think you got the good amount core game mechanism diensions like and potential depth, like the 4 basic operations based on the reactions. I wish the hints can stay slightly longer than a blink and made more noticeable. Also is there any logic or pattern how each hint pops up or are they completely random? Overall good job guys! Wish to see more.
Thank you, Antares. I saw your entry for GMTK 2025 - awesome, as someone who developed a tactical game what you wrote is that much more meaningful!
Interesting that you mention Citizen Sleeper - I have heard the developer behind it literally state that they don't like dialog. For me dialog is everything - as Disco Elysium aptly demonstrated. Maybe you find some similarity because it's also inspired by tabletop RPGs?
Right, I understand about the hints - I can add how long it stays before disappearing as a setting.
Currently the hints are random. Because they reflect needs they can become semi deterministic.
I am preparing an update after the voting period - fixes, more content, new mechanics. Stay tuned!
The duration of the hints is now part of leveling up.
This seems like an interesting game, unfortunately I kept running into a bug where, after leaving the closet, the interface would stay open (or close and open again? I'm unsure) and then I couldn't click on anything within that boundary. I.e, I could only choose the blue circle every time. Doing that, I could get through the next encounter but it would leave me on an XP screen that I couldn't press continue on and it would be softlocked.
Hey, thank you for sharing your experience. I feel guilty about that bug... I've never hit it during testing otherwise I would have fixed it.
I see that you picked the female protagonist - glad that this option is useful to you.
Please note that the second NPC is the last conversation - you did not miss any content. I prepared a few more maps but kept spending too much time on context and worldbuilding instead of the actual gameplay so in the end I cut them out.
Did you enjoy the turn based tactical dialog gameplay itself?
Ah, I see. Glad to know I saw everything. No worries about the bug, it's hard to catch everything. Especially in a game with so many mechanics such as this one.
Yes, the gameplay was cool. Admittedly, I still don't understand most of it (like the bar and circles at the top, though they were explained, went a bit over my head.) I think I got the gist of balancing the stats, and I liked reacting to the colored circles and symbols. Sometimes multiple symbols would flash, I assume this means you have to act multiple times in one turn? It wasn't very clear on feedback so I ended up inputting the same action twice rather than doing one then switching to the next one. Explaining everything step-by-step through a tutorial is nice, it's just hard to grasp everything in one go, I think it would've taken a few encounters for me before I really understood what I was doing. Not your fault, just the plight of a new player.
Fantastic! That's all I hoped for at this time.
To clear any confusion:
- the circles at the top are a representation of the progression of cognition and by extent - of the conversation. Regardless of the subject matter, understanding as a process operates in a sequence.
- the bar is the turn timeline. In Child of Light the longer part is the wait time and the shorter part is the cast time. The character executes the action at the end of the timeline. However for conversations it is more like the breathing cycle (in/exhale). If I'm the listener the timeline works similarly to wait/cast but if I'm the speaker it's actually the opposite - talking is longer. The timeline is suitable for an interject/interrupt mechanic (probably as a quick time event), to be implemented.
- symbols for the needs flash twice. You need to respond to the most recent one. There are alternative designs for this - in Deus Ex they flash multiple times and you need to select the most frequent. That is because in DE there is voice acting and the duration of the turn is longer. For this game I selected the simpler way.
I think the three minigames stacked on top of each other with a time limit is really interesting. I definitely had a bit of difficulty really understanding what my goal was - what counted as "advancing the conversation" wasn't super clear to me. But playing the minigame and keeping all the numbers afloat was good enough for me to enjoy playing for a while until I died. (Also, my Mood got to 13/5 and then -3/5 at different points - I assume that was a visual bug but I'm not sure about that either!) Great job, and definitely think a longer RPG could be well served by having this mechanic throughout!
Hey, thank you - now that you wrote it I realised I did not do a clear enough explanation so I went back to the Itch page to update it.
I'm glad that you enjoyed the gameplay - that was really the main goal at this point in time.
Yeah, the stats can go over and below the limit - I just haven't figured out what he consequences of that should be...
Thank you for the encouragement - I am committed to developing this into a full blown social simulation. There's a lot more to the system that I've already tested in another application. I started building it from scratch to have a fresh perspective.
It's a fun game :)
Glad that you like it!