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[AlexanderOcias]

Edit: Thanks for your help, everyone, I'll be releasing this one soon, and I'll put some links to it here for good measure.

Announcement thread

Cheers,
Alexander

[nikki]

Feedback:

bugs:
'sticky part' before first red vertical moving block, it seemed like it was about to crash, it hung then continued pfoei  

criticism:
very very long/heavy loading time

likes:
music
how the gradient background works (like an old photo)
atmosphere
jump-height variable

i like how the voice-over / commanding writing really got to me after a while, especcialy after i disappointed a few times, i got a bit scared  

edit: nice multi storyline

[ortoslon]

Big Brother doesn't register disobedience on the first point (jump over the pit with spikes) and the last point (do not fail)

[AlexanderOcias]

Feedback:

bugs:
'sticky part' before first red vertical moving block, it seemed like it was about to crash, it hung then continued pfoei  

criticism:
very very long/heavy loading time

likes:
music
how the gradient background works (like an old photo)
atmosphere
jump-height variable

i like how the voice-over / commanding writing really got to me after a while, especcialy after i disappointed a few times, i got a bit scared  

edit: nice multi storyline

Big Brother doesn't register disobedience on the first point (jump over the pit with spikes) and the last point (do not fail)

All of those bugs should now be fixed.

The core game is about 120KB, while the audio is 5MB. I'll look into reducing the size of the music track.

Thank you both for taking the time to respond.

Cheers,
Alexander

[Draknek]

Title screen is a bit abrupt. I would suggest fading it in as an overlay over the game.

Movement is a bit floating and annoying, which is combined with unforgiving spike hitboxes.

Only actual bug I've found is that sometimes when he respawns he has an initial velocity.

[William Broom]

This was really cool! The only thing I would change is, like Draknek said, the abrupt title screen.

[Lurk]

Really good. There was another similar game a while back(I completely forgot the name , I thik it was 'Trust me'), similar yet so different. This game's god is pretty intense- he lost me at 'good girl'. At the end, I thought it was a pretty good 'wife beater' analogy. Well done!

Spoiler warning
Also, I thought it would be a nifty idea at the end, when you choose to go, to have you redo the whole game backward from that angle while the overseer begs and threatens.

[3dpursuit]

I absolutley loved the opening. I loved the creepy Portal like dialogue thing and I love the physics and the player. It immersed me the moment I started playing. The view moving and music/sound fx were terrific.

I.. wow. I beat it but. I'm gonna play it again. This.. was... stunning.

[ThetaGames]

I liked this a lot!  The dialogue was excellent, and the atmosphere was well-done.

In my opinion, the sudden appearance of the title is different, and it is just jarring enough to make it powerful.  I don't think a fade-in would be necessary; in fact, you might lose this effect.

Were the spikes and statues initially supposed to appear as blocks before you collided with them?  I wasn't sure whether this was intended, or whether it might be a bug.

 ~ Theta

[Jonathan Whiting]

I'm not sure if it was just the dissonance between 'story' and hard-platforming, but I'm afraid the message rather fell flat for me.

Frankly, I played it twice and I'm still not really sure what I was meant to be confronted with..  Disobeying orders makes your vision go all pixelated?  Destructive relationships are bad?

Okay, I'm being facetious.  Sorry.  The art style is good, as is the audio, and there might be a clever idea lurking below the surface.. It just isn't really coming through yet.  I realise this stuff is hard though.

Also, landing in the same spike for the 10th time running because the physics are a bit slidey isn't cool.  This may have biased my opinions.

[AlexanderOcias]

Title screen is a bit abrupt. I would suggest fading it in as an overlay over the game.

Movement is a bit floating and annoying, which is combined with unforgiving spike hitboxes.

Only actual bug I've found is that sometimes when he respawns he has an initial velocity.

This was really cool! The only thing I would change is, like Draknek said, the abrupt title screen.

Thanks guys, I'll look into an alternate solution for the title.

Really good. There was another similar game a while back(I completely forgot the name , I thik it was 'Trust me'), similar yet so different. This game's god is pretty intense- he lost me at 'good girl'. At the end, I thought it was a pretty good 'wife beater' analogy. Well done!

Spoiler warning
Also, I thought it would be a nifty idea at the end, when you choose to go, to have you redo the whole game backward from that angle while the overseer begs and threatens.

I absolutley loved the opening. I loved the creepy Portal like dialogue thing and I love the physics and the player. It immersed me the moment I started playing. The view moving and music/sound fx were terrific.

I.. wow. I beat it but. I'm gonna play it again. This.. was... stunning.

I liked this a lot!  The dialogue was excellent, and the atmosphere was well-done.

In my opinion, the sudden appearance of the title is different, and it is just jarring enough to make it powerful.  I don't think a fade-in would be necessary; in fact, you might lose this effect.

Were the spikes and statues initially supposed to appear as blocks before you collided with them?  I wasn't sure whether this was intended, or whether it might be a bug.

 ~ Theta

Thanks, great to know this resonates with people! :D

I'm not sure if it was just the dissonance between 'story' and hard-platforming, but I'm afraid the message rather fell flat for me.

Frankly, I played it twice and I'm still not really sure what I was meant to be confronted with..  Disobeying orders makes your vision go all pixelated?  Destructive relationships are bad?

Okay, I'm being facetious.  Sorry.  The art style is good, as is the audio, and there might be a clever idea lurking below the surface.. It just isn't really coming through yet.  I realise this stuff is hard though.

Also, landing in the same spike for the 10th time running because the physics are a bit slidey isn't cool.  This may have biased my opinions.

Do you feel that the expectation to receive a "message" is derived from the game itself, or the way I phrased the description of it?
Also, regarding the physics, is it just movement on the ground that feels imprecise, or the air, or both?
Thanks for the feedback!

[Jonathan Whiting]

Do you feel that the expectation to receive a "message" is derived from the game itself, or the way I phrased the description of it?

Not entirely one or the other, but mostly the way you framed it here I think.

Also, regarding the physics, is it just movement on the ground that feels imprecise, or the air, or both?

You gain a certain amount of horizontal velocity seemingly immediately, making situations like this:

Code:

P
# W WW
######

P = player, W = spikes

more deadly than they ought to be (it's very difficult to just drop off the ledge into the gap, because you pick up enough velocity to hit the spikes immediately).

So, I guess the acceleration when holding left or right is too high, or the deceleration after releasing the key is too low.

[Noisefever]

I think the movement is just right. it makes it much harder to obey! first I HATED it to obey. then.... i LOVED it...

[gmudskipper]

I suggest adding a "Play Again" button to the ending screen, since it seems the game is meant to be played more than once so you can try different things.

I also expected that the game was trying to convey some sort of message, both from your description and from the game itself:
1. Your description indicated that it should encourage me to give thought to what I was doing outside of the game.
2. The interaction between the player and the god is removed from context - we do not know for certain what sort of relationship they have.  Thus, while playing the game I wondered if one of the endings or dialogue choices would provide this context.

I had expected the message to be more clear, but this did not reduce my enjoyment of the game.  My guess at the message is that it is a metaphor for how we may manipulate others, even those we supposedly love.

It's good that the dialogue options and the choices to obey/disobey are spaced evenly, with only brief play time between each branch, since the game pretty much centers around these branches.  It is also good that the game takes so little time to complete, since the game needs to be replayed to see all the branches, and the different branches do give a more complete picture of the game.

The jumping controls are perhaps a little loose, but I thought this wasn't really a problem since the obstacles didn't require too much precision.

[Sir Raptor]

I suddenly find myself wondering why there are so many online games about abusive relationships, and how come the abuse is always so obvious.
Here, for instance, it was painfully obvious for me that the Overseer here represented an abusive other the moment it asked me to "touch the statue, I will forgive you for it." From that point on, it asked me to do everything it wanted, insulting me every time I disobeyed it.

I'm reminded of another game I played recently, called A Decision Of Paramount Importance, where the object was to find out whether or not a girl's boyfriend was being abusive.
When she got too close to him, he started yelling at her and saying that she always messes things up. I really didn't have to try anymore past that point.

I respect your attempt, but really, I would prefer to see a game where the abusive relationship was not so blatantly obvious.

[Xecutor]

Nice little game. Enjoyed it very much. Finished it 3 times.
Too bad, there is no 'middle' ending. When I obey/disobey 50/50.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i felt the hitbox was too big. often the rectangle around the player would graze a spike, and i'd die, even though the player himself didn't touch the spike. i'd recommend making it so that only the center of the player (perhaps a circle in the center) can die from spikes, not the entire sprite's hitbox rectangle.

[starsrift]

I don't generally enjoy platformers, but I have been entranced by Loved.
It reminded me a lot of the Milgram experiment on obedience and authority figures.
The odd background noise reminded me strangely of Diablo(o.O), but it fit perfectly and helped set the creepy mood. Controls and graphics were good, everything else seemed really tight.

Nice work!