Hey Zack,
Very interesting game, definitely impressive since you made it in only a couple of hours, bravo! The aesthetic style and the text and themes are definitely very artsy, which I like personally. Here were my thoughts on how it might be able to be improved:
While both the art style and the text of the game were very unique, I struggled to find any coherent message the game was trying to convey. It reminds me a lot of
Akrasia - interesting art, but what is the art trying to say? The message seems like it could be more coherent. Was your game about a dream? Something about being afraid? And what were the messages in the back about remembering? As a player I felt like it was asking me 1,000 questions and I had answers for none of them.
It looks like you have some interesting things to say in the game, I just wouldn't want them to get lost. For this game (or future projects) my suggestion would be to pick a coherent theme and then make sure that it's reflected in all aspects of the game: the Base Mechanics, the Aesthetic Layout, everything. The Resident Evil series is a great example of this. They decided to build the game on the theme of "fear", and they reflected that consistently throughout the artwork, the game design, everything. Dark shadows and screams (aesthetics), limited saves and far-away respawn points and limited ammo that make you terrified of dying (mechanics). All of these built on the core experience of fear.
That's my main piece of feedback. I'd love to see what things you have to say through your art, I'd just like them to be clearer throughout all the game's aspects so that players don't miss out on something that could be really great. One clear theme that gets through is better than 10 that don't.
Best of luck!
--Brice
Developer
