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The Key's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #9 | 4.188 | 4.188 |
| Mechanics | #25 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #87 | 3.813 | 3.813 |
| Fun | #244 | 3.438 | 3.438 |
| Aesthetics | #290 | 3.563 | 3.563 |
| Theme | #406 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Sound | #691 | 1.750 | 1.750 |
| Music | #710 | 1.688 | 1.688 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game in total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
All assets were created by me except for the badges and the fonts, which were freely available online.
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Comments
The design, mechanics and story really stood out for this one. A great example that text-based games are still fun even today. Great submission!
This is so fun, I absolutely love text adventures!! Great story, and I love the typewriter aesthetic. I haven't reached the ending but I'll definitely be coming back to play this later when I have more time.
Thank you for the encouraging response! It was fun to take the traditional text adventure genre and turn it on its head. Did you try any of the bonus puzzles? They get super hard!
Super cool game! I really like the variety of mechanics. The story was interesting and well written. Great job! :D
I couldn't figure out the sign in the maze, or what to do with it. A very unique and interesting game, though!
Well, also, I couldn't figure out what to pair with thirteen in the bonus section, either... I'm sure it's a more fulfilling experience for people cleverer than I. :)
This was a great game!
Wow this was such a cool experience and very unique compared to all the other games I've played in the jam. I used to play some text adventure games back in the day and I didn't realize how much I've missed them until a few minutes into The Key. I wasn't able to get to the ending yet but I'm going to definitely come back with a fresh brain to tackle the challenge.
Very impressive project!
Nicely done, I usually don't play text adventures, but this one did developed into something more. Liked that eventually you could click on words which gave me extra boost to play :D
I tried it again, I was able to get the ending I think, and it's one of my favorite submissions, it's quite unique and very well done, really nice job on it!
Definitely a cool and creative core mechanic, and I can see even more ways to use it than the variations you show in this demo, which are already impressive. I was a bit discouraged by needing to repeat certain sections so many times as I struggled to hold the whole thing in my head, but it's a neat throwback of a puzzler and I'd be intrigued to see what else you come up with.
Thank you! When I update the game, I will definitely try to make the hedge maze a little easier. I agree that when a puzzle requires a lot of repetition, it can get annoying. I even got a bit annoyed myself trying to get through the maze without getting poisoned - and I made the dang thing! It might actually be more fun without any poison element at all (or at least more moves that can be made before full poison status is reached). :-)
I played your game by the way, and I was blown away by the professionalism and originality of it. I'll keep an eye out for your future projects.
It's refreshing to hear that you were aware of that kind of issue — it's all too easy to get lost in the forest on a project and lose sight of the overall fun to be had. I know this is just a demo, and I'm sure with some iteration and development this could be a really cool and unique puzzle game.
And yeah, thanks! We try our best! We've got a decent-sized team, to be fair, so I'm honestly more impressed overall by the smaller projects, but we really appreciate the kind words :)
Wow, what seemed at first to be just a simple text adventure turned out to be a super unique and clever puzzle game. I LOVE how new mechanics are introduced throughout to change things up, the shift key mechanic was brilliant. I was enjoying myself so much that I even mapped out the poison maze on paper.
I got ending #1, are there more endings? Any hints on how to get them?
Thank you so much for your encouraging comments! And congratulations on getting as far as ending #1 - I was concerned that the maze might be too frustrating for players to get through (i.e., not enough time to do it without getting fully poisoned). I only had time to create one ending, but I have some others planned out. (There has to be at least one happy ending!) If and when an updated version is available, I can let you know for sure. Thanks for playing!
Very cool idea and different from other submissions. I really like the number choosing mechanic and not being able to use the same letter twice. Good job
Thank you! I've always wanted to create a hybrid game with elements from text adventures, point-and-clickers, and puzzle games. It was great fun to finally create one (or at least the genesis of one). I will check out your game!
The submission is very long to play for me compared to others, or there's something about it difficult to play for me specifically or something, but I really like this one a lot. I may hold off on rating it at all until I could try to check more on how I would even rate such a submission. It's really unique and I like it a lot. I don't know the part at littermates so I may have to stop there, but really nice, unique mechanics and really great job.
Hmm maybe it's a bug, but actually, maybe I just don't know it, the game is very hard to play for me so not sure. In case I still somehow kept the game open we could try to discuss over private message to avoid spoilers. Or if you don't care we could just discuss it here.
Thank you for trying out the game! I would be very happy to discuss the game, especially if you're encountering bugs or need hints to get past any puzzles. Do you use Discord?
Yes I have it, my username there is same as the one here, not sure what yours is but you can DM me over there some hint or something like that. I might still have the game left open on that same part somehow, unfortunately I still didn't figure it out.
Thank you! I definitely didn't hold back on the difficulty level, so it's very impressive that you got as far as the littermates part. Good work!
The gameplay and mechanics are awesome and so well done and everything works. I didnt get a chance to play the full story. But I plan to play it completely later. I have it saved.
I'm so glad you liked it! Let me know if you find any bugs. Thanks!
Great puzzle game. Missed some background music, just for "filling". Although I've missed the point about the theme of a "last stand"
Thanks for checking out my game! I'll give yours a try too.
I really like this game, the story is good and the game mechanics are very original and well thought through
Thanks for your comments! I'll check out your game too, but I don't have VR, so I'll see how it goes. :-)