Note for the dev, I declined your review copy so I could purchase the game instead, it was cheap so I figured I would show my support. It's not my intent to make personal attacks and accusations if this review gives any of those vibes, I am just cautious in general due to recent negative experiences.
I personally felt like some of the art in the game was AI-generated, but the developer said they were compiled manually and just happened to produce a similar result. For the purposes of this review, I will assume the dev is telling the truth. The only reason I bring it up is that I recently played a game that had both AI art and AI writing, undisclosed, and while I am not 100% against it, it impacts my perception and how I want to approach the review, specifically what I want to complement the game on.
I felt like you had 3 different techniques going there for the illustrations, some images looked like photos with filters over it, some looked like manual drawings, and then you also had compiled drawings for the monsters that produced odd artifacting - including a few images that were somewhere in between. I don't think the game looked bad or anything, I personally like the uncanny look, although it felt like you didn't have a consistent art style. Honestly, I thought the images for some of the endings were compelling, it's just that because of that primordial soup effect, I just can't shake that feeling that it's not genuine, it might be a good idea to avoid that technique in the future. I want to give you more credit for the images, but it's hard for me to tell exactly what you made and what is being put together with photos.
Honestly, I felt like the writing in the game was a little strange as well, almost like you were focusing too much on the end result, with little to no detail for the actual character, pretty much all of the routes were very vague and didn't really end in any sense of closure, producing more mystery if anything. Some of the longer endings in the game worked a little better for me, but I think having those abrupt endings that closed the game was completely unnecessary for what you were trying to do, I found myself testing the same routes just to make sure I was not hallucinating and it was actually intentional. Don't get me wrong, I think it's good that you are leaving some space for the player to speculate, I just felt like the story was a little robotic for some reason, the character is pretty much not explored, just the way you react to what is happening. I will say that I liked the ending with the Trees, the description on how it was happening was the highlight of the narrative.
The game is 5 to 12 minutes long with multiple endings, you kind of have to navigate dead ends and strange intentional crashes to find them. You didn't play too much with the cerebral effects on the player, but I liked some of those little interactive elements like clicking on the sign. The game had a relatively good sense of atmosphere, mostly a subtle ambient soundtrack, but it worked well enough for what you were doing.
[h1] Pros: [/h1]
(+) I just thought the experience overall was alright, I didn't like all of the endings, but some of them were interesting. The gloomy atmosphere worked well with the narrative, and aside from a few bumps it was a slightly curious game. Even though pretty much all of the endings were vague, I do like that you kept it open for interpretation.
[h1] Feedback: [/h1]
[u] Abrupt endings [/u] - I think any dead ends where it kicks you out of the game or freezes on the spot do not add much to the experience other than being annoying, I am not impressed by these creative choices, I am just confused if I have a glitch or if you thought it was a cool idea.
[u] Art/Writing [/u] - not to take credit away from your work, but you might want to navigate your art and writing in way so it appears less artificial. Like you have some images that don't look like AI, and some that do, just avoid that RNG texture in the future if that is the case.
[h1] Overall Thoughts: 6/10 [/h1]
Assuming everything in this game is original, I mildly enjoyed my playthrough, aside from those stupid moments when the game would close on me or just end with a fixed image - I assume that was intentional, but I didn't like it at all. I think you doing a bit of a disservice to yourself with those techniques for the art, it might look better if I can see exactly where you put the effort. I mean for $2, maybe it does not sound like the review was very positive, but I actually think you going in the right direction. The experience might benefit if you focused more on a fewer endings and less dead ends.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
