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A jam submission

Dead AirView game page

And they say radio is dying . . .
Submitted by FeatherBoy, TheWidget (@thewidget) — 12 minutes, 8 seconds before the deadline
Rated by 26 people so far
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Dead Air's itch.io page

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Content Warnings
This game deals with grief and depression, and features the mild swearing one might expect from a grungy grad student in the early '90s (which is to say, a nice smattering of f-bombs).

Log Line
And they say radio is dying . . .

Team Credits & Cast
Dead Air was developed by the FeatherBoy team & friends! Specifically, Benjamin Feinstein & Eli Hersh directed and wrote the story together, with Hersh as the Head Writer (and notebook doodler) and Feinstein serving as Project Head (along with programming, SFX, backgrounds, and assistance on music, sprites, and voice editing). Caleb Feinstein was Head Sprite Artist, Kiera Rhodes served as head of Voice Direction, and additional voice editing was provided by FeatherPops. The game's cast features: Zoe D. Lee as Kadie Kaolo, Jackson Zappa as Signal 103.1 AM KRPT-IC / John AM Drive, Kiera Rhodes as Signal 832.0 AM KPBLC-RD / Diana Quartz, Allain Armean as Kuo Kaolo, and, in the AM Drive Studio, Marcus Roman as Uncle Vampire, Eli Hersh as Jon, and Benjamin Feinstein as Phone Tap Victim. Music was composed and performed by Marcus Roman, Ellis Piper, and Benjamin Feinstein. The title theme, Supermassive Burnout, was composed by Marcus Roman, with lyrics by Benjamin Feinstein and performance by Marcus Roman. Renditions of the Amis folk song Fangcalay A Dadaya within the game were sung by Zoe D. Lee and Allain Armean.

Work Start Date
Oct 1

Which engines and/or plugins did you use? (NaniNovel, Light.VN, etc.)
TyranoBuilder

University League Participant

No

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

One hell of a story. I couldn't get up from my seat until I finished it. What courage to create that universe in a real and palpable way! I don’t even need to imagine the titanic amount of work behind it, because I occasionally create some DIY projects myself and know how much effort goes into it.

No further praise is needed; you have done a wonderful job!

Submitted(+2)

This game is amazing. I got glued to the characters, story, music and voice acting the entire way through and got emotional at the end. The characters are charming and the visuals are amazing. This is definitely one of the best games on this jam I've seen so far, great job to everybody! OuO

Developer

Thank you so much, so happy you enjoyed it!!!

Submitted(+2)

Woah, this is amazing! Perfect voice acting, interesting visuals, a top-notch story. This is my favorite from the jam so far, and it'll be really hard to top ^_^

Developer

That means so much!! Thank you for playing :)

Submitted(+2)

This was so, so good. I was glued to my screen the whole time. The visuals were so unique and fun to look at, and the voice acting was amazing! This made me emotional and got me to laugh out loud a couple times. What a great story and a wonderful piece of art!

Developer

Thank you so much!! We had so much fun making it, I'm really glad it gave you feelings and laughs :))

Submitted(+2)

Wow.

It really kept me hooked. The visuals and voice acting were so well done. Those radio show sfx were also perfection. 
But the writing was what made sure I stuck around.

I could gush about the little details and design of the character and set too. And the lighting. REALLY GOOD WORK.
Thanks for putting this out into the world

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing!! It really means so much to us :)

Submitted(+1)

I can't exactly describe why but this game gives me What Remains of Edith Finch vibes. Overall, a really beautiful piece of composition! Music, stop motion, voice acting, pacing, air horn sfx (lol)... everything blends together perfectly for impactful storytelling. 

I'm the type of VN enjoyer that instantly clicks the auto button when voice acting is available, but I noticed that some of the longer voice lines cut off towards the end if I'm on auto mode. Not sure if this was due to text speed settings (maybe the default text speed is just a little too high for it to get through the longer voice lines?) or something else but just wanted to let you guys know! 

Developer(+1)

That's high praise of a comparison - thank you so much!!! I'll investigate the auto setting - there' an autospeed adjustment under settings, and I can try to fiddle with what the default values are set to there a bit. We still have a few bugs to clean up, and we'll add that to the list for sure!

Submitted(+1)

Wow, simply, wow. There was absolutely no aspect of this game that was anything less than awesome. You clearly thought everything through and did one heck of a job. If I had to say an aspect that hit the most, though, I'd say the writing, because, as a writer myself, I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE.  

Lastly, I think I encountered a bug. I was playing the web version and, a few minutes after the beginning, I lowered the music and sounds a bit. After that, the background did not change for a while, even though Kadie's image would change, creating some weird effects like her sitting on nothing.

Developer(+2)

Thank you so much!!!! It truly means a ton - the background issue is a known bug we're working on, but thankfully it resolves itself whenever the next background change is triggered.... we'll hopefully iron that out soon!!

Submitted(+2)

Story was surprisingly heartfelt rather than scary but it looks great.
The room set in particular is so cute, did you have a lamp above it to represent the light and times of day? I also really liked the oversized jacket she wears.

Developer(+3)

Tysm!! Multiple lamps, actually - one for general lighting, one for directional sunlight, and then two colored ones outside of each window.

Kadie's jacket is one of my favorite parts of her character design :)

Submitted(+2)

Wow very cool, I used to make stop motion films in my room and this brought back a ton of nostalgic memories, although I don't think my sets were ever as well made as this.
Yes. She's very relatable, especially to us scraggily dressed folk.

Submitted(+3)

"Cast a bottle into the ocean and be sure to put something good in it."

I was already tearing up in the first few minutes because I knew where this was going. You really know how to hit those emotions.

Absolute amazing piece of work. Wonderful art, such fitting music, and hard-hitting prose. And then the voice acting, oh gosh, everyone was absolutely stellar.

Every Spooktober I look forward to playing your entry, and every year you present something new, different, and amazing. 

Thank you for making this game. The whole team did an amazing job!

Developer(+1)

I'm so glad to hear it - it always means a lot to hear. The team really made something hard-hitting this year!

Submitted(+2)

I played the web version! My only small complaint was that the text felt a little too small. (English isn't my first language, so it takes me a little longer to read.)

But this was such a wonderful story and a really great game! I especially loved the art style. It looked like you made the models yourself, which was really impressive. You can really tell how much love and care went into making this game.

Developer

Thank you for the kind words! We are definitely going to do another version coming soon and we'll keep your note about the text in mind and see what we can do!

Submitted(+2)

It would be nice to have an option to adjust the text size, but I’m not sure if that’s something that can be easily implemented programmatically. Please take my advice with a grain of salt! And, once again, it was a really great game. I could really feel the love you put into it!

Submitted(+3)

Painfully beautiful in every regard, and utterly unique...! Grief is one of those emotions that feels both universal and, at the same time, intensely intimate and private. Addressing it through a struggle to connect over (both literal and figurative!) distance feels particularly apt: reconciling the person you knew with the person known by others; the world in which they took active part, and the world in which they are absent, outside of memory; the experience of hearing a familiar voice, and then having it go silent, only remaining in recordings that can no longer reply or provide any answers. 

The decision to go with physical, tactile artwork I think was a brilliant one, and drives home the sense that this story is personal, something that can be touched, almost. The voice acting was superb as well--and I always know I can trust a FeatherBoy game to be a favorite soundtrack. 

This one will linger for a long time. Thank you, team--exceptional work!

Developer(+1)

Wow, completely and totally touched by your words :,) Really happy that this resonated!

Developer(+2)

Thank you so much!!! I'm so thrilled those themes were able to successfully come through. It means a whole bunch to hear, especially from you!

Submitted(+3)

The visuals in this game were amazing! I would love to see an even bigger project with the style here. 

The story has a very unique and interesting concept and wins bonus points from me for referencing Mt.Rainier and The Clash :3

Overall an enjoyable experience~ 

Developer(+1)

Thank you for playing! Glad you liked the referenced :) there was an Elvis Costello reference that didn't quite make the cut...

Developer(+3)

This game was a joy to make! I hope everyone enjoys :D

Developer(+3)

Whoops, the work start date should read Sept. 1 - apologies! 😬