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A jam submission

Before We GoView game page

A group of animal friends prepare for a journey.
Submitted by VeryElusiveMoose — 1 minute, 2 seconds before the deadline
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Before We Go's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Accessibility#662.9833.444
Audio#703.1753.667
Graphics#813.3683.889
Overall#882.9693.429
Originality#913.0793.556
Theme#1093.0793.556
Fun#1112.5983.000
Controls#1192.5022.889

Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
4.2.2

Wildcards Used
Transfer Takeover, Actions Have Consequences

Game Description
A group of animal friends prepare for a journey.

How does your game tie into the theme?
We tell the prologue of a folktale as it is being written.

Source(s)
No

Discord Username(s)
elusivemoose, rockethammer

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
0

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Comments

Submitted

Well, it's more of a book than of a game. And being a book, it didn't feel like a good story. So you have a few areas to visit. In each area you have some text. For each character. And some decisions to do. The problem is, for many situations, the texts for different characters would be mostly the same, so one text would repeat but now it's not the Moose, but Raccoon. And no matter which choices you went for, nothing really changed. Like you have some stats, but what they are for, you don't understand. Whatever you do, nothing but the stats would change, and probably the only difference would be ending?

That said of a book, there's not too much of a game in the game. You have lots of eloquently worded stories which are not related to each other, and those are only in text format. You have no visual representation of a scene being written in the book, neither you have any gameplay mechanics. You only have loads of text with some choices which don't really matter.

And now about the text, which is like 99% of the game. Maybe I would have loved it much more, but reading it was such a frustration. You see, there's no fullscreen mode in the game. Though settings feature music settings and color blindness mode (which is probably not much of use as there's not much color in the game anyways), there's no fullscreen mode. No resolution. And the text is very small. Very often you wouldn't be able to discern individual characters or even words. So all I could do is just skim over the words grasping some basic ideas while my eyes were getting tired so much. Really a big issue for me.

That's it, I didn't really enjoy the game. I wish there was more visual and actual gameplay representation of all the fuzzy words in the book. Also, a quick tutorial on what each of the stats mean would be good. Maybe an introduction of the characters - who each one of them is and their specialty is.

But as of right now, the game is feeling really meh.

Submitted( 2)

What an absolutely gorgeous game, start to finish!  At first I was sort of saying "great, a visual novel", and slowly realized it's one of the most mellow puzzle games I've played.  Trying to sort out who should be doing what was surprisingly addictive, and made the end super satisfying to read through.  Very, very well done!
Art, music, everything was on point.  I have no complaints on this one, super solid entry!  Thanks for the game!

Submitted( 1)

I loved watching the story unfold, and a great idea to implement the wildcards here this way!  The music is phenomenal and the art style is fantastic. I'd love to see a ^ marker or something in the book to tell me if I have more lines of dialog coming up versus a decision coming...my first time I was tapping the button to match my desired reading speed and accidentally chose an option as soon as it came up!

Developer( 2)

Thanks so much for the kind words <3 The feedback is really appreciated. The new version, which will be published post-jam, now has a slight delay before inputs are accepted when a dialog choice comes up, and a fade-in animation. I've found this helps a lot with the "accidentally picked an option before reading" issue - and it wasn't something I'd considered till I got your feedback, so thanks a ton. Also the text transition of the characters showing on the page can now be skipped, just like how most text in modern games work - so you are now able to go even faster if you are a quick reader :)

Submitted

I really enjoyed this! The story was engaging, and it was fun to have your actions affect stats and the story overall. 

Submitted( 1)

Hey, this is fantastic!! It's always awesome seeing a writing-focused game, especially one with this much heart and care put into it! It reminds me of The Wind in the Willows, a world where there's magic in the mundane and everyone genuinely loves each other.  It's a comforting world of childlike wonder and I love it so much!!

The parallax background and the sound design that changes as you scroll around the world really sell the immersive atmosphere. It genuinely feels like your choices have weight, and they actually do! Seeing how every little thing you did affects the characters' journey in the epilogue is such a great payoff, and really makes me want to go back and figure out the best (and worst) choices each character can make... and I totally intend to :D

This is such a cool way of telling a story, and it's amazing you were able to make something with so many secrets and possible outcomes in such a short time! Writing can really spark your imagination in a way visuals alone can't, and you leveraged that to the fullest. I'd love to see more games like this someday!!  

Submitted (2 edits) ( 1)

Very interesting game. Unfortunately, it broke when I tried to explore the cave in darkness. The text ended in "[/wait]" and never continued. But I won't lie, I got really immersed into the game and stories. The writing was engaging and the atmosphere along with the music was really calming. Great job!

Developer

Dang, sorry to hear about that bug - looking into that now. Glad you liked the game, we are very proud of it!

Developer

Thanks to your feedback, the most recent version of the game (which will be uploaded post-jam) avoids this issue completely, by abandoning the use of RichTextEffects. You're the only person to ever encounter this in all our testing, so I really appreciate you taking the time to let us know, or else it could have flown under the radar for a long time. Have a great day <3

Submitted( 1)

The art is so cute! The music was really soothing as well :)

 I'm not sure if I missed it, but I didn't know how to move the pages until I accidentally pressed space.

Developer( 1)

Glad you liked the look and feel! We put a lot of effort into atmosphere. Updated clarity on controls is coming soon, thanks so much for your feedback :)