Alright so I like how this looks a lot, but I sort of hate this sort of tutorial-narrator-story in video games
Unless it's Portal and some evil robot is torturing me with puzzles, I hate being talked to by the game. Navi was annoying enough, and now it's an entire trope for how people structure game information.
But if I take my headphones off and just play the game, that part is great. I like the art. The progression is a little slow, and possibly overly-relying on this narration to "stretch" what's there mechanically.
In the context of jam games where people are just dropping in to check it out, it feels like it's difficult to "get to the meat of the experience" behind all that slow walking. However, if I was looking to buy something on Steam and immerse myself in, this is obviously headed in that direction. But who's even buying games in the modern world?
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Totally legit- my husband play tested it and hated the narrator too, so there is an option to turn her off and skip all her lines in the menu (and other audio controls).
The game is definitely built around the narration- pacing of the VO's was one of the biggest challenges for me. So certain areas can really feel like they drag I bet without it.
I really love narrative games, this one was inspired by Bastion's narration although of course it's no where near the level of perfection that is.
In regards to selling a game, I'm just having fun making games for myself really. I enjoy doing these game jams because they are like writing prompts or art prompts for my creativity, I get to learn new ways to use ai, push my limits, tell stories I find interesting and important. I really appreciate the compliment though. So so so much time and labor went into this game and I did a lot with it that I had never done before. I don't even like platformers, but I wanted to challenge myself to make something different while still preserving the kind of storytelling I wanna do.
Thanks for your feedback and for playing!
I felt bad writing the criticism because I do remember how Bastion felt when I first played it and I do think it worked at a time when one could be expected to really sit down and play something.
If anything I'm really attacking my own attention and wrapping it in a criticism of a design choice. I do think the game is very good, I wish I could get myself to play it. This could be said of many games though.