Sandbox link:
http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/211840-near-life-exp%C3%A9rienceGamejolt link:http://gamejolt.com/games/puzzle/near-life-experience/12487/
This game is a visual novel. It was made in 72 hours for the GMC Jam.I had already planned on focusing more on the plot than anything else, so when I saw the limitation, I was kinda disappointed at first.Then I thought "humans are not the only ones who can have conversations, I can simply create something that talks and has somewhat of a face"So I decided that my game would be starring Concepts.
From left to right:Love, Mystery, Life, Death, Foresight, Fact.The next thing to come to my mind was the theme, "science gone wrong"So I thought: "what kind of science would concepts do?"The answer was: creating more concepts!And then I thought: "now, how can science go wrong?"And so, while I was busy creating Earf, I decided to make this game an investigation-type game (think Phoenix Wright and professor Layton)I then spent the next days coding, writing, a spriting a little bit.In total, I spent around 7 hours saturday, 10 hours sunday, 8 hours monday to make that game.Unfortunately, I had to stop mid-trial and placed a game_end() instead of dialog at the exact moment where the main character figures everything out.I continnued it the following week, and in the end I realesed it on the end of the voting.I got 4th place out of 78 btw :)Controls:Title screen: enter to start a new gamespace to load game.Storyline phases: press any key to advance the texthold N to skip the text (not recommended on the first playthrough)when you have collected evidence, hover your mouse on the blue evidence box to see its contentGame phases:most of them are played with WASD (or the arrows) to move.whenever you need to use space bar or click, it will be indicated in the game.It is recommended to play with sound, and to actually read all the text.If you skip unread text, you will NOT enjoy this game :)
Some thoughts:
It was weird, and not what I expected. I liked the mysterious/tragic beginning and the separation between upper and lower parts of the screen for thoughts and dialogue, the story is an interesting concept, too, but I didn't really like the game in general.I was expecting gameplay to be also text-based, but here it consists of either short segments of walking forward or unrelated minigames - this completely segregates gameplay and story. The graphics aren't the best, the bright colours and the animated background in particular is distracting. For a game that's primarily text-based, I'd expect the "visual" part to be more minimalistic, and the gameplay to be more… strategic or puzzle-based, I guess.As for the "text" part of the game:This may be me, but I'm a believer in the "Ezra Pound approach" to writing, particularly writing for videogames: if it doesn't serve any point, cut it out. Here, a lot of the dialogue feels like it drags on and on (quips by individual Concepts in particular).I also found it a bit annoying that Concepts/Eternals also refer to one another by name a lot. I can see why it's relevant, but it feels artificial (especially since you already know some of the context from their listed names).And finally, there are some basic issues like misspellings and typos. Also, seriously, using more than three (or even one) exclamation marks is never a good idea in actual written dialogue.I know you were under time constraints, etc, etc, and I admit I didn't get very far (a little bit past the area selection room), but there you have it, my critique :)Critique accepted :)
This game is suposed to be a novel more than a game anyway, so the Ezra Pound approach is not adapted :o I just added minigames so that people wouldn't yell at me for it just being lines and line sof text.Also there IS some text-based gameplay later on (during the trial you use the evidence collected to find the truth)I have heard a lot about this game. I will probably try it tonight. I think the idea of using abstract concepts would be quite… interesting. However, if its like Apocalypse Noah, I will probably just delete it.
lol, 9 months later… :D
Edit:Also, welcome to 64 digits ;)@InsertNameHere
Go post your fanboyisms on the site he's hosting the damned games instead of necro-posting on a site he doesn't even visit. @Spike Do we really need a bunch of <x time later> posts?Burn the necromancer. Burn it!No not really, but I find it amusing :D. How do these new people find these posts anyway? Its like everytime(With a few exceptions of course) a new person(Who actually wants to post) joins, they dig up these old blogs :D.
I doubt this is a new person. I wouldn't be surprised if this is supmaster himself trying to get attention for his games, or some youngster who taken a shine to his games for whatever reason. Joined today, necros three posts all about games from a guy who hasn't posted in ages, but logs in now and again.
Either way, no feeding the lich.I am an old freind of his. I just thought I would review some games for him. Thats all.
He hasn't been here in well over a month. What makes you think he'll come along and see this?
Dude's not a friend of me, he's some kind of stalker :/
Also I don't call what he does "reviewing"