Please note, it's not my intent to make the developer feel bad about his game, but I was very miserable playing it, so much so that I could not take more than 30 minutes - obviously, it's not much of a review of the game, it just got so bad that I had to quit. To give at least some positive vibes, I was kinda interested in the character, even though the voice acting was not great, I would be interested in the story if the game was formatted differently. Just out of respect for indie devs, I am not going to refund it, take my money, but I think I am entitled to at least have some fun talking about my frustration.
I was constantly fighting controls, camera angles, sticky zones, tunnel vision, and puzzle logic; I even hurt my pinky holding the run button the entire time while trying to rotate. The character will often go in the opposite direction, and no my controls are not reversed, I press left and he drifts right, I press right he goes left. On top of it, I am confused all the time, I can't tell if the puzzle is working properly or not, I can't tell if there is a glitch, you zoom in on certain areas and there is no indication of me interacting with it when I hear a sound. Then I pick up an object with the same button that I use to open doors, I clearly need to take it out of the room, but when I open the door he drops the object. And if that wasn't enough, you are given too many areas to explore with bad cameras, it's hard to follow any kind of pattern, there is too much going on, too many things to consider, there is no way I am wasting my time backtracking this game.
I didn't get far enough to evaluate the narrative, and I don't want to critique the voice actings in the indie game too much, but even the volume is a problem, I would have to change my computer sound up and down to properly hear the voice acting.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
So 3 things to consider
The puzzles and clues do not click with me at all. I might click on an object, I hear sounds, but nothing changes, so I don't know how to interpret that. You give me access to a lot of space with a lot of navigation time, I would have to do a lot of backtracking just to test a theory of why something works or not. Like, don't give too much at once, if you making a puzzle game, make sure the player can reasonably put things together, don't make it too convoluted.
The cameras and tunnel vision are pretty bad here. Again, you really have to take into consideration how the player experiences your game, maybe you just need to design it so the view does not change the entire time, focus on simple level design, don't make it complicated if you can't polish the navigation.
For the voice acting, I can't even hear it in some places. I don't mind the voice or anything, whatever, but if you can't keep the volume consistent, just don't do it, many devs make good narratives with text and some mumbles.
[b] Overall Thoughts: [/b]
That was honestly painful. If you want to make an atmospheric narrative game, maybe start small, focus on the story, don't try to do anything crazy with puzzles and exploring, do less backtracking. Do one thing right, instead of doing everything wrong. Maybe with a ton of polish, it could be okay, but it's a big 'IF' right now. Sorry, don't take it personally, I just don't want to be so miserable playing games.
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