itch.io

This was awesome to play. For something made for a jam, it really has this sense of fullness to it. Initially I thought it would flow like a minigame, but was surprised to see that it progressed with a story and introduced new mechanics along the way. 

The setting and story is awesome, I was immediately invested. The premise of being tortured in an alien fashion gameshow and then being contacted by some government Earth defense agency to save your skin had me really engaged. In such a short period of time, the drama and stakes felt high. The game is simplistic in its visuals but it felt like they really set the tone, along with the eerie but catchy music. The writing is also really great. The body horror was surprising but was also really good, and I really like how it contrasts with the quirkyness of the aliens. It feels sort of macabre.

The UI was quite finnicky, it was a bit frustrating to play at times. It took a lot of patience just to select things normally, like making sure I was clicking items correctly in order to drag them or use them, and sometimes it'd be hard to tell what tools I had equipped or if I was selecting them correctly. Trying to figure out how to use them took a while too. I was also confused as to how to get the X-Ray working, since I didn't realize there was a field to type in numbers. But at the very least I was able to play it all the way to the end. It was also really nice that the game gives you a checkpoint after each "level".  With some adjustments and polish to the UI I think this would be incredibly solid -and if y'all were to expand upon I could totally see this as an indie darling. Overall kind of reminded me of Papers Please. Great work!