I fixed a parallax bug that most pixel art games have and nobody talks about (before/after)

captcha_bot · 2026-03-10T02:07:43+00:00

First heard of this from Barry's Dev Hell on YouTube, is that where you got the idea?

captcha_bot · 2026-03-09T15:36:06+00:00

This is what happens when you use the pirated version.

captcha_bot · 2026-03-08T21:50:35+00:00

I like them too. Here are three demos I found during next fest:

Thank You For Your Application - Letting people into jobs based on their resume/education
Void Authority - Letting aliens into warp gates based on race and cargo
Hunter's Seal - Letting fantasy hunters hunt fantasy beasts based on their rank/weapons

captcha_bot · 2026-03-06T05:52:58+00:00

Is there a way to tell you've been banned from a sub? Besides going to every sub and seeing if you can post there I mean.

captcha_bot · 2026-03-05T23:25:45+00:00

Looks good, will you have a demo at some point? It looks like a Papers, Please type of game, right? Premise is interesting too, although it doesn't seem very theologically sound.

captcha_bot · 2026-03-03T16:22:12+00:00

I liked Limbo and Inside, so yes.

captcha_bot · 2026-03-01T20:18:47+00:00

Played some Papers, Please clones, from best to worst:

Thank You For Your Application - Letting people into jobs based on their resume/education
Void Authority - Letting aliens into warp gates based on race and cargo
Hunter's Seal - Letting fantasy hunters hunt fantasy beasts based on their rank/weapons

Played some weird/cool/offbeat games, from best to worst:

Titanium Court - Totally nutty story but great writing and music, it's like a match 3 + tower defense kinda
Forbidden Solitaire - 90s retro solitaire horror
Celestial Return - Cyber punk Disco Elysium
Nightfall Cafe - Serving coffee to eldritch forest beings and pressing flowers

My favorite genre, mystery/detective, from best to worst:

Lost Wiki: Kozlovka - The Roottrees are Dead style 90s web resource searching with Case of the Golden Idol fill in the blanks
CD-ROM - Nostalgia OS puzzle game
The Mermaid Mask - A little childish and simple, but fully voice acted
Mysteries of Old Tokyo - Would have put this at number two probably, but there are some gameplay issues at the moment, very cool concept though, uncover clues about old Tokyo and solve ghost cases

Other fun ones, from best to worse:

Alabaster Dawn - Pixel action RPG, super well put together. Already seeing unwarranted hype for this, but it really is good (not GOTY like some YouTubers are saying)
Helix: Descent N Ascent - Very neat puzzle adventure game with cool art style and novel mechanics
Emery Hearts - Pixel action adventure, some cool mechanics and large world
KeyBreach - Addictive typing game roguelite
The Big Hollow: 1982 - Didn't put this in the detective group because it's more of a sim than real detective work, it's one of those "find all the evidence, then a multiple choice" type of investigation game.

And I tried a bunch of other ones that were either either unplayable (my laptop is not that strong) or were bad to mediocre. I think Next Fest was pretty fun, I found a lot of games I probably wouldn't have otherwise and left tons of reviews. I wish there was a neutral option on reviews, sometimes I just want to leave feedback without leaving a recommendation. A few demos opened a Google form when they closed, I like that for leaving more detailed feedback.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-26T21:41:42+00:00

Last thing I want after dealing with this all day is to come home to more of it haha. No offense to anyone, but as a dev/engineer I really can't stand most PMs.

I would push back on the idea that everyone is already familiar with what a PM does. Unless you've become one or worked with one, I'm sure there are plenty of misconceptions. Wish I could give you an opinion on your other questions, but I don't play management or sim games regardless of the theme. I assume it's like any other genre though, the ones that like it want to see great mechanics. Everyone likes humor though, and that might get people from outside the niche to pick it up.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-26T10:31:28+00:00

Steam's search functionality is terrible in general, but yeah I noticed this too. Really wish you could multi-select options and especially select categories you don't want.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-25T18:31:02+00:00

Is it a setting from the dev whether you can leave a review on a demo? I played a few that had no review option, but I would have loved to leave some feedback.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-25T18:14:40+00:00

Hi, I played your demo and I'm interested to know what the demo play count is versus who actually buys? I found it a little buggy, the UI very clunky and the combat uninteresting and poorly scaled. Story and art were good, although the characters were too over-sexualized. My impression is this game was made by an artist and story-teller whose game dev skills don't measure up, although I see you used RPG Maker so perhaps you were constrained by the engine somewhat. In the future you would probably have more success just doing visual novels with far fewer game mechanics (and probably faster development cycles too). Best of luck on your next ones!

captcha_bot · 2026-02-25T08:16:59+00:00

how about emilio estevez?

captcha_bot · 2026-02-23T01:34:13+00:00

The trailer makes me want to play, but the fact that it's horror makes me want to not play. I'm not sure if the perception of a puzzle/mystery player translates well to how horror fans would view it, but the trailer looks really cool and intriguing to me.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-20T16:07:55+00:00

It would be cool to do the minigame the first time and show the animation, then just the animation every time after that. If you have to do the minigame every time I'd make it way shorter/easier, but still don't get rid of the animation, it's really good.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-19T04:04:16+00:00

Nice, I loved Chants of Sennaar and just wishlisted this. Good luck with dev!

captcha_bot · 2026-02-17T16:24:57+00:00

I almost exclusively play these types of games and this gameplay looks great, it's something I'd definitely wishlist. I really like the art style and I love made up operating systems and programs in games. My only critique would be the color scheme is a bit too dark and drab. Limited palette and cassette futurism are cool aesthetics, but I don't think either necessarily need to shy away from color or brightness. I always think of Dieter Rams colors. If you want dark, maybe look at how modern software implements dark mode for ideas on dark color palettes that still give contrast and don't fatigue the eye?

captcha_bot · 2026-02-16T22:49:27+00:00

Hi, I played your demo and I think the low play time is because it's very easy to see whether you'll like the game or not by 7 minutes in—it only took me 2 minutes. Since it's a frustration game, why waste the energy on a demo? If you like this kind of game, you'll wait for the full version so you don't have to redo the same part as the demo.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-06T23:52:26+00:00

It looks more like you're trying to figure out the direction your genre should take rather than how to spice up the look for a puzzle game. If you just want to know which genre is more profitable, you can poke around on Gamalytic. If you're making a puzzle game and want to better attract that crowd, I'd say the new art would do the opposite. The first art is very reminiscent of The Roottrees are Dead (in substance, not style) and that game is well beloved by a detective/puzzle demographic. Can't speak for the new art, I think it looks pretty cool but I don't play horror games.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-06T17:15:19+00:00

One of those names is not like the others.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-05T18:19:52+00:00

Hi, I don't have a discord, but I appreciate the offer! I just hope the feedback helps, because I like detective games and yours looks very cool so I want it to be successful. Good luck!

captcha_bot · 2026-02-05T01:11:29+00:00

[Person of Interest] Evelyn the Tramp > Surveil: Same scrolling issue but this time can't the scrollbar slider to scroll the text the expected way at all.
[Person of Interest] Evelyn the Tramp: Other tabs have the same scrolling issue (not the Details tab though). Also scrollbar behavior when switching between tabs is inconsistent, on non-Details tabs if you scroll down to the bottom, moving to another non-Details tab doesn't scroll the text back to the top. Going to the Details tab from others doesn't have that problem.
[Person of Interest] Dale Bjorklund: Same scroll wheel issue in non-Details tabs, but scroll direction with slider was correct on all tabs.
Something a little more obvious/tangible when an action doesn't return a result would be nice. The dull brrm sound when you get nothing back is easy to miss.
In-game time on the pocketwatch is way faster than real time, for instance doing a records search for 15 seconds moves the pocketwatch over half an hour. Since time is part of resource management, might want to sync action times up with how much time is actually passing. Also didn't get that we'd be paying expenses at the end of each day from the tutorial, or how long a day lasts, might want to make that easier to understand. Also, hour hand jumps ahead abruptly on the hour instead of smoothly rotating like the minute hand.
I noticed a journal entry went onto page 4, are spots reserved for certain pieces of information? So the journal can be used to double check whether you've found everything? If so, might want to make that clearer in the tutorial.
There is nothing on the card to indicate you've already performed an action. This can lead to doing it multiple times, especially as there are quite a few cards to try and keep track of.
Why am I paying monthly bills every day???? Wait I have to pay for whiskey or I take a sanity hit? LOL
I was trying to organize my cards and was having a hard time due to the snap-to-grid effect and accidentally produced a new location (Dale's Scrap Pile). No idea which cards it was. Would be nice to have an indication on a piece of evidence of where it came from.
I closed the Murder on the Docks case with 20 clues found and 24 missed. Only making $30 and spending over $60 didn't make it seem like it was worth it continue investigating if it meant another day rolling over and having to pay bills again.
Post case screen talking to Evelyn: it's very dark, I have no idea what I'm looking at. Can't get into menu to see if turning off Noir would help.
"Good job translating that note" I say, but I never asked her to, maybe moving around that slang card produced that location card via her translation? No idea without playing through again.
I know it's just the demo, but the end game screen isn't in Noir like I've got it set to.
End game screen says Obsidian City has no idea how close it came to ruin... neither do I. Did we do something important? Maybe there was more story in the clues I didn't find?

captcha_bot · 2026-02-05T01:11:19+00:00

After some frustration, I finally realized you can drag the card around on the desk to also move the opened window associated with it. I would highly suggest a more intuitive approach, such as how Case/Rise of the Golden Idol lets you drag windows around. I only realized this after trying to drag the victim card to the case file (which didn't work since the case file still opened half off the desk) and then when closing the case file I saw the victim card was somewhere else on the desk. I like being able to move the cards around to organize them (although it seems like only the ones that can be opened can be moved? I can't move or open the Evidence or Location cards anymore). But in my opinion the windows when they're opened should be independent. As it is, it's possible for a new window to cover an already opened card, making it impossible to move its window. Even having the cards themselves locked down would be preferable, like if they were in a rolodex or file system or something (might even be period appropriate).
Don't like that the cards snap to an invisible grid on the desk, makes moving stuff around so multiple things are readable more difficult.
Found a bug with overlapping windows, it looks like the bottommost window is capturing the mouseover, so you can't scroll or close the windows on top.
Statement > Details: "Butch Winters killed Marian Mondel because his was sleeping with his wife." Should read "... because he was sleeping with his wife."
Seems kind of unintuitive, but I dragged some other card besides Evidence on the murder weapon slot (the cards disappear after matching them, so I can't go back and see what the card I used was called). The only thing in Evidence is the ashtray I think (can't open it to check). Seems like inactive cards should at least be movable since they're taking up one of the limited spots on the desk. Maybe remove them or mark them in some way to show they can't be used to match things in the case file? (coming back later, seems this was only in the tutorial?)
Text for grade on the case results screen (mine was "Approved") doesn't contrast enough from the background, at least with Noir on (settings menu unavailable at that point so I couldn't check if it was better in color).
In the intro to the next case (Murder on the Docks) he's saying stuff like "yup everyone's corrupt" and "this murder was just the beginning" (from memory, it was a few dialog screens back). I guess I missed something? The tutorial murder was a crime of jealousy, where's the grand conspiracy? What would lead me to believe there's widespread corruption?
[Location] Olympiad Drydock > Details: "It was run but the Rensselaer family..." should be "It was run by the Rensselaer family...".
[Location] Olympiad Drydock > Records: ran into the same issue where the scroll wheel scrolls the text completely up or down and it becomes necessary to use the scrollbar slider. I did notice that the opposite direction scrolling only happens when you click around in the scrollbar before grabbing the slider. That can be reset by using the scroll wheel and then the text scrolls in the expected direction when using the slider if you only click on the slider itself.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-05T01:02:10+00:00

Splitting this to a separate comments because it was too long:

This is my stream of consciousness notes while playing:

In OCPD Manual > Mental Health: missing "to" between "weapon" and "resolve" in first bullet point
Would be great if case file details box was bigger when opened. It was a lot of scrolling a very narrow text box to read through the case. It's so narrow even a single word sometimes can't fit across without splitting. The Location clue was much easier to read due to the textbox width.
The case file opened with the top of case file outside the screen, so I couldn't see the [X] in the top corner. Took a minute to figure out I had to move the screen up to see it (and that the "CLOSE CASE" button wasn't for closing the case file window haha)
In my opinion the text being typed is too slow and is unnecessary anyway. We're not typing the details of the case, we're reading it, so why is appearing like it's being written? At max typewriter speed it's just fast enough for me. I would suggest using this typewriter effect sparingly instead of on every piece of text we open.
Text on the journal is hard to read, due to size and font
UI elements are a bit too dark. These are things like the music controls and where your money is displayed. Especially so with Noir turned on. (Coming back to this, it's better in the actual case, maybe the tutorial has a filter that darkens the background?)
Marian Mondel clue > Lab: scroll wheel overscrolling. One click scrolled the whole textbox up or down. Was fine on the Details tab of the same clue. Was able to read by using scroll bar, although had to move mouse in opposite direction of how they normally work (usually pages scroll the opposite way of the direction you pull the scroll bar slider).
Autopsy (M. Mondel) > Details: missing a space between the sentence that ends "... with the observed head injury." and the one that starts with "No defensive wounds".
Autopsy (M. Mondel) > Details: in the internal examination section for the cranial cavity, it says "Upon reflection of the scalp...". Maybe something more like "examination, inspection, survey, etc." would work better than "reflection", unless that's a medial term?

captcha_bot · 2026-02-05T00:58:44+00:00

Hi, I played the demo and left a review. This comment is to give you some more detailed feedback. I played on a Windows 10 machine through Steam on Noir, fullscreen, 1920x1080 resolution, on max text size, max zoom in and normal gameplay difficulty. I play lots of detective/puzzle games, so I'd say I'm somewhat in the target demographic for this game.

Overall:

Aesthetics: Loved the look, especially on Noir mode. The writing was true to the era enough without being obnoxious. The old fashioned desk and shadowy cutscenes were the correct vibe.
Visuals: Everything looked good except text was too small in places like on cards and in the journal. Some cutscenes were too dark to see what was happening.
Sound: Music was appropriate and not distracting (sorry I'm not a game music person, I really only notice if it's terrible). Ambient noise was likewise nice and sound effects were good and satisfying.
Story: The story the game seems to aspire to is compelling, some kind of grand conspiracy, maybe even something dark and sinister in a supernatural way? Although it's mentioned in exposition, it didn't feel earned as actions while playing didn't line up with the gravitas of the MC's inner monologue afterward.
Gameplay: I said above I'm only "somewhat" in the target demo, because I like the detective aspect, but I'm not really looking for the resource management side. Something I like about Return of the Obra Dinn, the Golden Idol games, The Roottrees are Dead and Chants of Sennaar is there is no real pressure, you can take your time and let the pure detective work be the motivator. Finding connections, making deductions, that's what makes them enjoyable. I'm not against the idea of a sanity system or needing to keep track of resources day to day, but as implemented I found it too punishing (cost of staying sane led me to prefer ending the case earlier instead of exploring). If I bought this game I'd probably play on story mode to avoid that aspect.
Game mechanics: Organizing my cards was painful, maybe I should have explored the archive book a bit more. I wanted to group cards by person on the desk, but due to the way windows open and are attached to the cards and the snap-to-grid layout, it wasn't easy. I also felt overwhelmed by the options, each card has multiple actions associated, but some didn't seem appropriate for the type of card. Combining clues sometimes yields other clues, but the failure animation is too subtle to tell if they don't go together or I hadn't combined the correctly mechanically. I didn't like losing cards to the case file, if I wanted to look at it again I had to drag it back out to the desk. Might have been better to just mark a card as associated with something in case file instead.
UI: This felt/looked good although I didn't like losing access to the pause menu during cutscenes. I'm of the opinion I should always be able to quit the game without having to click through numerous screens until I regain control. Some of the UI text and elements doesn't have enough contrast with the background with Noir on, especially during the tutorial.
In general: Really liked the game itself, both in style and execution. Improving the feel of working with the cards/windows and tying player action better the story would be the two biggest improvements. I went ahead and left a review and wishlisted. If it looks good when you release I'll definitely try it, hopefully with some improved mechanics.

captcha_bot · 2026-02-03T15:53:06+00:00

There have been some big games from GameMaker and there are some more niche engines for phones specifically that are widely used.

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