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I made a text-heavy parlour game/short story thing for the Nar8 game jam. It's about a bohemian Victorian girl and is kind of experimental in format.

I'm aware that my description is probably not selling it to anyone, but interested parties can check it out here:

http://gamejolt.com/games/puzzle/memoriam/29147/

I will be almost embarrassingly grateful for any feedback.

I love the background art in this game.

-I think the menu needs some visual feedback. I wasn't sure if it was working at first because things my cursor hovered over didn't get highlighted, underlined or anything.

-I'm not a fan of the text style in the game. Italics combined with cursive made some of the words difficult to make out.

-This really looks like a game that should have an amazing piano soundtrack. Any chance of that? I do like the atmospheric sounds you've included, though.

-There should always be a way to quit to the menu, or to get back to the "level select" screen.

-The game really needs a "mute sounds" button, and I would recommend changing the Pastimes background sound. Endless church bells get annoying very, very quickly (at least, in my opinion). I actually quit at that point because of the sound.

-I would recommend mentioning that the cards have to be dragged, not just clicked. If you want an explanation that doesn't mention actual controls, consider "Place one card atop its match" or something like that. I don't like that the Instructions page mentions blank cards, since that element doesn't seem to exist here.

-I found it very strange that the cards reset if you get something wrong. Then you just have to go through the motions again. I didn't find that enjoyable, but I suppose some people would.

-It might be a good idea to shrink the collision boxes on the cards. It seems like it would be too easy to accidentally bump into a card you don't want while dragging one.

-I really like how finishing a level unlocks bits of story.

-The menu doesn't smoothly fade all the way into the Instructions page. I think the fades in general are a bit slow. Also, the initial loading of the menu takes a few seconds for me and it's just grey before the title screen appears. It would be nice if there was an image in place from the beginning.

Thanks so much for that very detailed and useful feedback!


Once again, thanks a heap! This is tremendously helpful feedback, worth its weight in gold.

I'm happy to help.

About the in-game font, my only issue is the italics. I like the font itself and it's easy to read on the title screen, but as soon as a slant is added to the characters the words can become much harder to make out.

Would you believe that was actually the non-italic version! I've changed it now to something slightly easier on the eye although it might still be a bit hard to make out in places. It's tricky finding a decent copperplate font which is always legible.

I've implemented all the other changes you suggested and I think it's a heap better now. Thanks again!

It wasn't italic? Why was the title-screen font not slanted while the "cutscene" font was?

I might give it another go later to see how the changes turned out.

The title screen was actually slanted too but didn't seem as illegible as some later sections (the image at the top of this thread is from another much earlier version altogether). Hopefully it works a bit better now.

Alright, I have played your game and I must say I liked it specially for that type of game. Normally I don't really like these kind of disguised educational games (sorry if it wasn't your intention).

First I have been trying to play the game for the past 2-3 days. However every time I went to GameJolt, the loading screen would stop at 95%. I am glad that you had a download link done that said...

I think I may found a bug with the fonts at the title screen. The first time I played it displayed Ariel font then when I launched the game a second time, it displayed the curved lines one.

I'd say keep the font on all screens the same. I didn't like that the font changed in Credits and then changed in Instructions and you are using a third type of font when telling the story.

I liked the sound effects on the background while playing. However like Quicksand-S has mentioned, I would prefer some music, dependent on the background (seeing your credit list, that maybe hard to achieve, but you may want to ask for collaboration:
- Try using the #indieteamup tag in twitter
- I think this forum has a section for teaming up.
- There is also Newgrounds Collabinate system
- Reddit's Classifieds).

As mentioned before... the font is a bit hard to read when reading the description of the pictures. Some words are really hard to decipher.

The artwork is really nice and the atmosphere you have done works really well... I felt like I was in the Renaissance era.

I really enjoyed the educational part even though some of the information I didn't know anything about and either had to luck it out or search for it on the internet... which actually is a good educational drive. I only know of two games that forced me to know information about a subject I hate (such as History); the first is The Secret World and the second is yours :D.

All in all I enjoyed the game... it was really fun. Great work and well done, sir! :)

Thanks very much!

You're right about the fonts. The cursive one needs to be different for story purposes but there's no reason why all the other text couldn't use the same print font as the cards. I'll change that.

The web fonts are proving problematic and probably explain the difficulty when launching the game. I'll look into it.

I know a couple of people who could come up with something nice in the way of music so I'll pester one of them to make me something for the title screen at least. :)

Once again, thanks for some very helpful feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

Glad to hear that you can resolve the music and you'll continue polishing this. Good luck, sir! You deserve it!