itch.io

Enjoyed this a lot!

I just played through this. It has a lot of potential, and far be it from me to overly critique a free game made by one person/a small team. The fact it exists at all, is playable, is solvable, and has a coherent narrative is awesome, genuinely. I'm hoping my comment can help make the game better in the future! I never spend this much time writing a comment for a game I don't care about.

It felt like a lot of writing for not very much mystery. I was able to figure out who people were pretty early, and then I'd be hit with like 4 more clues that just existed to help people identify those particular people (like the gold chain file or the thermos conversation). It's good that more than one piece of evidence can help you figure out the identity of a person, but I think there were more like 5 or 6 for several people, and some things that seemed like they only existed for identification purposes for one person (again like the gold chain file or the fraternity file, etc.)

I'd figured out the main thing that was happening basically halfway through the game. Which is good, because there are clues that led there, but frustrating to feel like I needed to read through everything even when it just told me more of what I already knew.

Also the way everything was written in fragments drove me a little bit crazy. This might be my main critique actually. Look through and just see how many sentences are not complete sentences. It makes things difficult to understand, and it makes everything sound the same/like it was written by the same person. I know some people definitely write that way, but especially for professional memos, reports, and correspondence, it seemed out of place. There were obvious things done to try to differentiate the voice/writing style of some characters, like the writer writing in full sentences, that one guy writing in all caps, etc. but overall I felt like the writing styles of the people in the forums could be more unique (and readable. I couldn't understand half of what people were saying, though I probably just don't know a lot of radio lingo), and the writing in the official documents could be more professional. 

It seems to me that there is really no reason why official documents would be using initials to refer to everyone, or why people would sign off of official correspondence with their initials instead of their name and it didn't do much for the gameplay either except be an annoyance, since I could always go look up who each initials belonged to. I think it wouldn't bug me so much if it wasn't constant. A few intentionally placed initials on documents where figuring out the identity is important would be fine and I wouldn't even notice if they don't quite make sense. But initials everywhere seems out of place.

There were also a lot of things that I (as someone who has worked in a couple different positions in higher ed) found were not very believable, or were just otherwise confusing. Like the player's job for example. This can maybe be excused for the sake of the game, but it contributed to the game being difficult to understand at times, and when paired with jargon and fragmented sentences, made for a frustrating experience that didn't even have to do with solving the mystery really. 

Maybe I'm expected to just skim over some parts, but that's not really how I play these games. I try to read and understand every part. But I was getting snagged on some of the rough edges.

I saw some comments about AI, and while I don't like accusing people of using it when I'm not sure, I will agree that it felt like AI was used in some places, and I hope that future versions of this game/future games will not have AI-generated content. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to checking out some of the songs mentioned in this game! Thanks for making it!

Not sure why these guys are chasing me, but they sure do hate getting smacked with eggs!

When it says it only works on Chrome but you slayed on Firefox 😎 Really cute and clever puzzle game. Great concept, visuals, and writing!

Pretty funny and satisfying. Plus, a unique idea!

I thought the robot was really pretty and I liked how it changed color. One thing that bugged me (playing on browser) was that I had to click after every restart or shop visit to reset my cursor to like.. "fullscreen mode" where I could keep turning in one direction instead of running into an invisible wall at the edges of my screen, if that makes sense. It wasn't a huge issue but it was kind of annoying and cut into my precious energy. Fun game!

Loved the atmosphere in this

Beautiful!!

I drew it in just a little drawing app on my phone. Then I put the zine together with the Electric Zine Maker and the tool that turns zines from the EZM into HTML files that can be played in the browser! Both tools are free so I highly reccomend them! :)

Desperate to know what rainbow cheese tastes like.

This reminds me of Bigtop Burger and now Bigtop Burger will remind me of this! Who knew my favorite genre would be media that contains both clown-themed burger food trucks and food trucks run by creatures from the underworld? 

The art is gorgeous, I love all the lore, and the recipes all look amazing. Makes me wanna try drawing fantasy food like it :)

Hello!! This is super belated but I've been holding your request in the back of my mind for the past five months. Here's the Canva template: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFmA5CYKxs/UXgVMaOU9IH-wDRqFODgeQ/view?utm_content...

If you have a Canva account, you should be able to use that link to make a copy and then edit however you'd like! Let me know if it doesn't work :)

the special effect words are a fun touch! only one I found was jolt. Really solid game! I really enjoyed it except for the couple times I spawned in a two-tile dead end with a monster right next to me. But that just means I get to try again!

Thanks haha!

This was really cool! What a neat intersection of so many different tools and assets! It really works together to create quite a cohesive little game!

Ah one of the people making a Stanley Parable game! (I laughed so hard at that on the discord!) This was really fun and a solid Stanley Experience (tm) Thanks for sharing!

Yaaay! So hyped to mess around with music and blips and blops!! So cool :)

Yay! I was just wondering earlier this week when we might expect this update and I'm thrilled that it's so soon!

Rich backstory and delicious gooseberry bread. Office Duck deserves a work environment where he doesn't have to sneak naps in. Looking forward to the sequel "Office Duck Starts a Union" haha <3

Cute! I really love the animations :)

I was an English major, mostly because I like writing. But the major was like 80% literature courses which meant I had to read a ton of stuff I wasn't interested in. And over a year later I still can't pick up a novel and read again, despite working in a library. Thank heaven for audiobooks and graphic novels honestly

I feel like taking classes about stuff can really dry up the passion for doing something. We'll get over our blocks soon 😤

Thank you hahaha

Thank you! So glad it was comforting :)

Thank you!!

Hey, I would like to report a ccrustacean to the local authorities.

cute game!

walk-em-up is such a funny term! I've never heard it before! This game was such a nice vibe :) you def called me out about bumping into cacti haha

Reminds me of the video game literacy narrative I made for a school project! Except this one is much cuter and less long-winded haha. I liked the art of the beaked lion :)

Thank you! :)

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it despite your fear! :) thanks for playing!

Fun little game! Poor virtual pets :( <3

I love my rock so much we had such a good time together <33333

Very cute! I love Rocky's googly eyes and all his "charm points" haha

Really cute!! The art was really well done!

Man, Gobzilla's appearance hit me like a ton of bricks (in the best way possible). That was excellent.

In the hammock! It's to the right of the door into the sub, and it has a little bobbing dot over it! :)

edit: oh and at the very end you do have to go up one more square than usual and actually touch the bobbing dot. I did this to prevent anyone accidentally ending the game early since the lock I put on the end didn't work. I'll see if I can fix that tomorrow, because it's not very clear!

"finished business" because I ironically didn't have time to finish my submission for last month's "unfinished business" haha

How about Tea?

I found a bug! (It's a huge caterpillar who just cannot get enough to eat!)

This is really cool, I'm excited for v8 to come out!!

This was incredibly lovely and exactly what I needed right now. Thank you so much for the delightful story.

Thank you for the heads up about the fonts! I think they should be fixed now. Glad you enjoyed the game :)

The white tree was a seed from this thread somewhere! Not sure what page though, sorry!

Sorry, I have a LOT I'd like to share <3 This is such a fun game and I love plants and mushrooms!!

These are my favorite mushrooms, in order! The first one is called that because that's what we call asparagus in my family. The fourth one (gray caps with blue stem) isn't done growing yet, but I'm excited for when it is! Can you tell I really love glowing mushrooms? haha

The first one in this next group has nothing special but she's so quintessentially a toadstool. I love her. I love all these mushrooms a lot.

Ok that's it for mushrooms. I was trying really hard to get some interesting Curling vines but it was really hard to get anything worth looking at tbh. Most of them had absolutely no stars. But these are the couple that I liked. Then after that: I have quite a few cave blossoms but I feel like everyone else in this forum has better cave blossoms than I was able to find myself. Here's my one single contribution since this one looks really nice from afar. And finally, I just really like Snail.

This is what my living room looks like, and it's making my computer lag so much! (probably just because chrome has been running so long, but I was afraid to close it before I saved some of the seeds of these plants)

And my bathroom, for good measure.