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[Kodots Games]

Hi Everyone!

This is a game I've been working a little over a year and ready to be commercially released in coming June. I have a complete beta build ready and looking for someone who like to try this oddball of a game and give me honest feedback as a player.

About this game:

Wanda - A Beautiful Apocalypse is a short 2D puzzle game with a great emphasis on narrative. It's about two lonely robotic survivors in a ruined world. The game focus on their search for hope, companionship and happiness in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The game is only 2-3 hours long. It has array of some puzzles but all are rather simple. If you found this game interesting and want to give it a try, please PM me and I will gift you a beta key for Steam.

Nevermind that... You can download demo build at :
https://kodots-games.itch.io/wanda-a-beautiful-apocalype

The game is made in old RPG maker so I think it will run even on an old PC. Instructions are in game.

Here is a trailer and some screenshots for the game

[Kodots Games]

No one to try? 
Letting people ask the beta key is a bad move I guess.

So, I've made a DEMO file for Wanda with 30 minutes of gameplay.
You can download the demo at :
https://kodots-games.itch.io/wanda-a-beautiful-apocalypse

Hope this will gimme some feedback 

[Jisan]

It's a bit of a big filesize for a demo, don't you think? =P

I'll try it, but do keep in mind that 220 MB for a demo will probably throw some people off

Tried it out, it's a really cool game, definitely has some interesting features in it.

However I found this game is probably not for me ^.^'

Because actually most of the times you're going through menus that take forever to go through, like the monument, I had to wait like 10 seconds to actually go through it xD (tapping the enter button, come on game! you can do it!)

I guess this game is good for patient people, or especially kids, considering how the main character makes such a big deal of learning such trivial things.

Not my type, cool game though, good luck with it =)

[Kodots Games]

Yay! A feedback!

Thanks! Really appreciated! Sorry about big file size. The Demo is hastily made from the full version so I couldn't remove the unnecessary files to reduce the size.

True enough, Wanda is rather a niche game targeting at very casual folks who like to play at leisure. :>

[buto]

Hey,

I played your game and wrote this while I was playing. I'm simply writing everything down that came to my mind, so please filter out what's not important to you.

• I think may be a good idea to give a hint in the title screen that you can switch to fullscreen using Alt+Enter.
• Music and sound were quite nice in the opening scene. I think fade-in/-out was a little overused in the first 30 seconds. Same for the kling-kling sound (hammer on glass).
• I'm not yet sure what to make of the symbol language. I couldn't guess what they were talking about in the opening sequence. May not be a problem since this may get clear later on.
• Mhm... main character repeated the same question ~9 times after being beamed to the desert (left from first screen, solving puzzle -> beamer). While the ending of that first cut-scene in that area was nice, it was a bit too long for my taste (especially due to the many fades and the repeated question). Couldn't the player walk to the different robots and press the action button?
• There are so many fade-ins and fade outs. They mostly take time without having a real use. Often the character is nearly in the same spot after a fade. I think the pacing would benefit from less fades.
• The sound the robot makes when asking the same question (name? mama?) over and over again is a bit... repetitive... it's always the same sound and thus a bit annoying after a while (maybe I'm a little sensitive in that regard...). Asking the question three times in a row in the same scene without anything in between doesn't help matters. I think that asking it once in each occasion would suffice to make the player understand that this thing is important to the character.
• The icons in the speech-bubble work nicely to transport the feelings of the robot.
• When may I play again? It would be cool to explore the area but it seems all I'm intended to do is to trigger the next cutscene. Since the music is nice and the mood/atmosphere is nice, that's fine for the moment.
• Ok, most scenes are there to connect the puzzles, I guess. Nevertheless, why don't you let the player move on his own in between those puzzles through the connecting areas?
• In the road area after the first boulder puzzle (the one where you are allowed to save) you're not allowed to move to the right but instead you have to check the broken car. It seems a bit strange since there were so many broken cars already. Also there is no indication that you should check that specific car. It wasn't a problem at all, but seemed a bit arbitrary.
• I still think the mood is good. The pacing seems a bit too slow in the moment. And I really didn't play much until now...
• Mhm... Fades are really everywhere... After the car-scene I've been walking down for 2 seconds, then a fade, the rain sets in, fade, I'm somewhere else and the robot asks the ominous question again. Why were I allowed to walk anyways if the control is taken away nearly immediately?
• I had to laugh how the robot loves walking through the puddle. I think you get those bits absolutely right!
• ... this repeating question... and always at least twice in a row!
• I wanted to take a break in the scene where you have to use sonar-search and digging. But I didn't see a save spot nor are manual saves allowed. While problems could arise if you allowed for saves during a puzzle I think you should do some kind of auto-save before each scene and let the player know.
• While trying to find a save or exit button I pressed F6 (after trying F1-F5) and got the following error: "Script 'Tsukihime's Mapscreen shot' line 797: Errno::EACCES occurred. Permission denied - Screenshots". The game terminated afterwards.

Summarizing: I really liked the atmosphere and how you showed some of the child-like joy's and fears of the robot. I would have preferred to have more control, since most of the time I was sitting there watching. Sometimes it even was a bit frustrating to get control just to walk three steps and loosing control again immediately.

Music was really nice and added a lot to the atmosphere. Visuals were nice too!

I think you may have overused fade-outs and fade-ins a bit. They occur often and are quite slow.

I definitely think you overused the main question of the robot a lot. Especially that he repeats it at least twice on each occasion with exactly the same sound makes it a bit annoying.

The two puzzles I played were familiar from other games but nicely presented.

I hope the feedback helps a bit. I really liked the mood and think I'll come back to it to see how the story evolves.

Good luck with your game!

Regards,
Sebastian

[Kodots Games]

Hi Sebastian! Good lord! That's really detailed review!

And a lot of valid points too! Thank you!

Forgot to mentioned that Wanda is actually a story-teller game, like famous To The Moon. To call it a game is a bit overstatement since the "play" part is rather limited. It's an interactive story-teller with puzzles throwing in here and there.

I aimed to make it a story-focus game with a subtle narrative, that will unfold the story to players in kaleidoscopic view. Bits by bits of visual information will lay out before them but all are easy to to connect to form a picture. Those fade in and fade out effect are indeed a tad overused but they will all fall into place when narrative get juicy later on. Same with the blue bot shouting. This robotic symbol aren't going to be explained in game. These repeated shouting/calling is the visual/audio clue for players that it is indeed alone, helpless and lonely.I should, indeed, add a save-point before the puzzle. Oversight :<. Of course, people would like to take break between puzzles and long scene.

The game was released on Steam and other digital stores on June 4th!

Thanks for the feedback, sir!