Faded Fates

I love the art/animations and I love where this is going overall. The transitions between shifting reality and the puzzles around that is neat. The lore seems like it could get pretty deep too, very well done by the writer.

I had two issues when I played it. The first, I did a reality shift right when I transitioned screens, and I teleported behind the door and got stuck. I could shift again, but my character was just kinda stuck behind the "door" to the next screen and I went every direction in both realities and couldn't go anywhere and got softlocked and had to restart.

Second issue, the first screen where the skeletons show up, I got stuck behind a log in the lower left and got softlocked again. I tried around 5 minutes to get out and couldn't by dashing or moving any direction.

Last minor issue, I brought up the shop right when the game talked about shifting realities with C right at the beginning and I missed that dialog completely. I didn't realize I could shift until I didn't know what I was suppose to be doing and saw the controls below the game window. This can be fixed easily though, so I wouldn't call this a big issue by any means.

Don't take my 2 paragraphs of the softlock issues the wrong way! This is the beginning of a great game and would like to see it continue. Well done and keep going! You guys are doing great! You're off to an amazing start.

I feel like the game is a bit all over the place, which is kind of standing in its way.

First impression was I was completely lost and didn't really know what to do. I saw the controls, but they didn't really seem to do anything or weren't relevant in the beginning.

Next thing I knew, I was wondering around and the fireball now worked, so I just wandered around aimlessly killing slimes and at some point skeletons. The overall goal is stated in the beginning, but it doesn't really mean something to me as the player at that point or give me something to work towards. Places where I would transition between screens were not really clear as well, so in the beginning that felt like stumbling around.

The mechanic I really liked was "Shift Reality". The puzzles around this, for example in the tree stum maze, were really cool, and I felt clever solving them. I feel like maybe a level based approach around solving levels with this mechanic in the center might have been a better choice than what feels like an open world. But take that with a grain of salt, because I really like puzzle games. It's also that the Shift Reality part didn't feel like it was ingrained with the rest of the mechanics, so I feel like this mechanic could very much stand on its own.

If you want to keep things mostly as they are, I would say giving the player a clear direction and sense of progression would help. Like "ok, start by going to the wizard's tower to the east" or something along those lines. A clear visual language also helps to show the player what he can and can't do and what he is supposed to do. For example starting with a small tutorial area and then having a bridge away from it can help show the player that he's meant to leave that area and in which direction to progress.

So, I played for half an hour (fair warning : did not finished the game), and I've gotta say, I'm positively suprised of what I've discovered by getting over some of the initial issues. 

Here are my (very subjective) thoughts : 

- The game needs a better "onboarding". The tutorial is quite slim, you're thrown a bit at random and I would like to get more explanation about it. 

- There's an Azerty/Qwerty keyboard compatibility issue, along with some screen size issues, which can be very difficult to understand. Be careful to test your game on different computers/keyboards !

- The lore seems very good. There's a nice melancholic tone, almost poetic at times. Few writers manage to hit that style. 

- The pixel art is nicely drawn, but the palette of colors are not there yet, in my opinion. I would have loved something a bit less saturated, or in a more limited palette of colors. (A nice reference site : https://lospec.com/palette-list ) 

- Also, maybe a less zoomed camera would've helped to enjoy more and feel less lost. 

-  The main issue of your game is, I think, your level design. And it's probably one of the hardest thing to achieve ! Some parts of your levels feels a bit stretched, some could've been longer. The overall pacing is a bit too slow to make me wanna continue and discover the game. I feel like there's more, but I was repelled by the difficulty of some level parts. It's an iterative process, and a hard one. 

- The game feel was nice in the attacks, but the movement felt a bit "slippy". Something slower and with more control would've felt better. 

- I didn't used the swap reality power that much. I loved the "maze" idea and the river, but I feel like the game didn't wanted me to use the power, and didn't invite me that much. Maybe more links between the two worlds would've make me want to use it more !

In summary, this is a nice small game that is hidden by the level design and user experience issues, with a nice sad tone. I encourage you to keep going ! 

Congratulations on finishing the game and participating to this jam. It's such a difficult challenge and your team made it, you can be very proud !

Koya & Sov, out !  🦝🦝