(DISCLAIMER: This review was written for the game jam version, written by a participant.)
The plot of this game caught me by surprise, but I like it. The narration makes the abtract world feel like it has purpose.
The mechanic this game introduces is interesting a great interpretation of the "Line of Sight" theme of the game jam. You can't walk/jump but have to click on attractors to be attracted, while avoiding laser fields. This has potential. "Line of Sight" can be taken literally because you can only click on attractors you can directly see. The controls are weird, having to click somewhere else to stop being attracted feels a bit hacky. I would maybe suggest to allow to press Sneak or Aux1.
There are not a lot of levels atm but the few levels that exist were fun. The end was unsatisfying; it came before the game really began.
The speech is generated with Text-to-speech LLMs (=AI). I would normally STRONGLY disapprove of. However, the theme of this game is the digital and the voice feels uncanny corporate. Which actually makes 100% sense here. IMO this use of AI was appropriate because it is actually using technology to fulfil an already well-defined and thought-out task, rather than to just bypass the creative process. I assume the AI was not used to write the actual texts, right?
I like the music. It's not a masterpiece, but it does its job well enough for this game to give a "digital" feel.
The graphics feel somewhat cheap. I know this game is probably meant to be abstract but something just feels … off. With the color scheme, the shapes, etc. That the "lasers" are a full blocks is very confusing to me. The player model is probably just a dummy.
The game contains cut scenes but moving the mouse causes annoying camera twitching. This is a Luanti limitation, but Artifact One found a clever workaround: opening an invisible non-closable formspec.
Overall, I don't think this game is "there yet". With more levels and especially polish it could be nice.
The controls are weird, having to click somewhere else to stop being attracted feels a bit hacky. I would maybe suggest to allow to press Sneak or Aux1.
Agreed, it was a bad compromise trying to support mobile players, I believe we can detect touch screen users, and specifically mobile users now, so I'll make that change here soon so that there are different control schemes, and a reasonable one selected by default. Thinking left click, right click; any click, aux/sneak click; click on, click release (for mobile); and the current controls (again for mobile or weird desktop users like myself)
The end was unsatisfying; it came before the game really began.
You and me both - I got a grand total of 20 hours this jam and you can see I dropped the ball on total content sadly.
I assume the AI was not used to write the actual texts, right?
Dead on, write the words first myself, play a few times with those words, and then render the voice at the end. Takes a fair amount of time to do, can't simply toss all my text at them and expect even reasonable results haha.
The graphics feel somewhat cheap. That the "lasers" are a full blocks is very confusing to me. The player model is probably just a dummy.
All true - any suggestion for "lasers" name replacement? "heat field?"
opening an invisible non-closable formspec.
Exactly the plan - along with semi-skippable cutscenes.
I don't think this game is "there yet". With more levels and especially polish it could be nice.
Nope, I am surprised ya'll liked it even in it's very bad state. That "game jam" tag is doing some majorly heavy lifting.
Expect this to be a lot better over the coming months, and then go into maintenance mode once the original story I had in mind is done.
(DISCLAIMER: This review was written for the game jam version, written by a participant.)
The plot of this game caught me by surprise, but I like it. The narration makes the abtract world feel like it has purpose.
The mechanic this game introduces is interesting a great interpretation of the "Line of Sight" theme of the game jam. You can't walk/jump but have to click on attractors to be attracted, while avoiding laser fields. This has potential. "Line of Sight" can be taken literally because you can only click on attractors you can directly see. The controls are weird, having to click somewhere else to stop being attracted feels a bit hacky. I would maybe suggest to allow to press Sneak or Aux1.
There are not a lot of levels atm but the few levels that exist were fun. The end was unsatisfying; it came before the game really began.
The speech is generated with Text-to-speech LLMs (=AI). I would normally STRONGLY disapprove of. However, the theme of this game is the digital and the voice feels uncanny corporate. Which actually makes 100% sense here. IMO this use of AI was appropriate because it is actually using technology to fulfil an already well-defined and thought-out task, rather than to just bypass the creative process. I assume the AI was not used to write the actual texts, right?
I like the music. It's not a masterpiece, but it does its job well enough for this game to give a "digital" feel.
The graphics feel somewhat cheap. I know this game is probably meant to be abstract but something just feels … off. With the color scheme, the shapes, etc. That the "lasers" are a full blocks is very confusing to me. The player model is probably just a dummy.
The game contains cut scenes but moving the mouse causes annoying camera twitching. This is a Luanti limitation, but Artifact One found a clever workaround: opening an invisible non-closable formspec.
Overall, I don't think this game is "there yet". With more levels and especially polish it could be nice.
Agreed, it was a bad compromise trying to support mobile players, I believe we can detect touch screen users, and specifically mobile users now, so I'll make that change here soon so that there are different control schemes, and a reasonable one selected by default. Thinking left click, right click; any click, aux/sneak click; click on, click release (for mobile); and the current controls (again for mobile or weird desktop users like myself)
You and me both - I got a grand total of 20 hours this jam and you can see I dropped the ball on total content sadly.
Dead on, write the words first myself, play a few times with those words, and then render the voice at the end. Takes a fair amount of time to do, can't simply toss all my text at them and expect even reasonable results haha.
All true - any suggestion for "lasers" name replacement? "heat field?"
Exactly the plan - along with semi-skippable cutscenes.
Nope, I am surprised ya'll liked it even in it's very bad state. That "game jam" tag is doing some majorly heavy lifting.
Expect this to be a lot better over the coming months, and then go into maintenance mode once the original story I had in mind is done.