I was blown away by the quality of this game. The art, tutorialization, story flow, music, and simple but enjoyable execution of this project were stellar. It felt very smooth to play. Even the little hints of what to do next, like the chimes turning green, were a very effective way to tell the player what they should do without feeling clunky or intrusive.
I got hung up on combining runes at times—trying to combine runes I wanted to but couldn't. I'm also not sure if there is long-term feedback on choices, which would be neat. Kind of a coffee-talk feel where your choices end up impacting the characters' lives in some way, leading to multiple results.
Very well done, though! This was impressive for a week.
i'm very intrigued with the game, but i can't even get past the first customer. i don't know if i'm failing some dexterity test or i'm putting the runes in wrong. tried fish, locate fish, and the two examples in the back. i think the carving part would be easier if the carving was only the shadow mark you put down so you only had to get it lined up right. i was hoping that there was some story elements that would flow out of which runes you chose for the customer - like locate fish they come back happy, and lose fish they come back upset, and love fish they come back weird.
Hey there, thank you so much for trying out our game! Really sorry to hear that the rune grading is causing so much trouble - yes, the first customer should be just the fish rune. Want to make sure we understood correctly - for carving mode, you're suggesting having the stencils themselves count as having made the rune(s), right? We'll pass your feedback on to our designer and programmers and discuss solutions as a team :)
Thank you for the suggestions on additional story elements as well. We didn't have time to put in as much branching narrative as we wanted to, but we're happy to see there's interest in having more!
Hey again, our programmers just pushed new web and Windows builds with updated rune grading! Since this is a game about carving, we kept the carving mechanic and made the rune grading more forgiving. Hope this helps and thank you again for your feedback!
it worked! thank you. maybe a hint system could help? the line in the fish rune that says it might act weird if used by itself made me think that i shouldn't just use the fish rune, and locate fish seemed to make the most sense for a fisherman, so the intuitive choice didn't work. as for the controls, i think i meant that the chisel can only move forward in a straight line, so you line it up right and then you just mind the placement and length. i don't know if this would cause trouble with round runes i havent seen yet. i appreciate the update and i'll give it another earnest go. thank you for your time!
You're very welcome, so happy to hear it worked! Yeah, a hint system is a great idea, will put that forward to the team along with your feedback on the rune book pages.
Ahh, thank you for clarifying - just to make sure, you're suggesting having the carving motion stick to the stencil lines, rather than letting carves drift based on mouse position?
Thank you for trying our game again and for your review! :)
*ETA: My trouble was just that I was carving the wrong runes. Once I carved the right rune I didn't have any trouble with the mechanic.*
Now this is really impressive. The interface is so smooth and polished, the art is beautiful, and the premise is unique and appealing. Super professional all over! I really got drawn in.
I just couldn't get the wood carving to work, though. It's tough to draw very precise shapes with a mouse, and I don't have any sense of how precisely I have to trace the line for it to count. I tried it 5 times and he rejected them all, and I don't know whether it was the symbols, the order, or my tracing job.
It would help if you started off with a practice round where you carve just one rune and it tells you exactly which one, so you can practice tracing.
(Possible bug: When you put down "locate + fish + love", "fish" jumps from the middle to the left. Not sure whether that was why he kept rejecting my carvings.)
Thank you so much!! Really sorry to hear the wood carving wasn't working - did you by chance get any popup messages to copy stencils from the rune journal? We'll look into easing the grading curve, adding better signposting that copying the stencil is needed for grading, and/or changing the grading scheme so that stencils aren't needed.
Ooh, thank you also for the practice round suggestion - adding that to our feature request list! We'll look into the possible bug you reported as well.
Apologies the wood carving mechanic was causing you trouble D: Thank you very much for trying out our game regardless and your very kind words!!
(Sorry, I had a couple of screencaps attached but Itch didn't like em. Should have saved em, that's on me.) Yep, I clicked on the runes in the book to place the stencils on the wood, and then I carved over them with the gouge using my tablet, and I thought I did a very careful job. But it's super high praise that I gave it so many tries--I very, very much would not have tried a mechanic 5 times in a row if I didn't think the game was very good overall.
(Out of curiosity, is the answer Locate + Fish or Locate + Fish + Love? And do they need to be that order on the board?)
Tried it with just the Fish rune and it went perfect! Once I knew that a lot of the answers were just going to be single runes I was able to figure them all out, and I didn't have any trouble with the carving.
I'm really liking where this is headed--I like the characters a lot (the character art is so good). I'll be excited to see the whole thing!
Hey, is there any way I could download this to PC rather than play it in browser? The "SUBMISSION TO THIS JAM" button is getting in the way of the game's UI. :(
Hey there, our programmers have gone to bed for now, but we can get a PC build up tomorrow! In the meantime, we recommend clicking the little blue button on the bottom right to full screen the game if the submission button is in the way!
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Looks great, but I think I ran into a bug with 2nd Puck visit. After rejecting my LOSE LOCATE rune, the submit drawer seems to be gone.
I was blown away by the quality of this game. The art, tutorialization, story flow, music, and simple but enjoyable execution of this project were stellar. It felt very smooth to play. Even the little hints of what to do next, like the chimes turning green, were a very effective way to tell the player what they should do without feeling clunky or intrusive.
I got hung up on combining runes at times—trying to combine runes I wanted to but couldn't. I'm also not sure if there is long-term feedback on choices, which would be neat. Kind of a coffee-talk feel where your choices end up impacting the characters' lives in some way, leading to multiple results.
Very well done, though! This was impressive for a week.
i'm very intrigued with the game, but i can't even get past the first customer. i don't know if i'm failing some dexterity test or i'm putting the runes in wrong. tried fish, locate fish, and the two examples in the back. i think the carving part would be easier if the carving was only the shadow mark you put down so you only had to get it lined up right. i was hoping that there was some story elements that would flow out of which runes you chose for the customer - like locate fish they come back happy, and lose fish they come back upset, and love fish they come back weird.
Hey there, thank you so much for trying out our game! Really sorry to hear that the rune grading is causing so much trouble - yes, the first customer should be just the fish rune. Want to make sure we understood correctly - for carving mode, you're suggesting having the stencils themselves count as having made the rune(s), right? We'll pass your feedback on to our designer and programmers and discuss solutions as a team :)
Thank you for the suggestions on additional story elements as well. We didn't have time to put in as much branching narrative as we wanted to, but we're happy to see there's interest in having more!
Hey again, our programmers just pushed new web and Windows builds with updated rune grading! Since this is a game about carving, we kept the carving mechanic and made the rune grading more forgiving. Hope this helps and thank you again for your feedback!
it worked! thank you. maybe a hint system could help? the line in the fish rune that says it might act weird if used by itself made me think that i shouldn't just use the fish rune, and locate fish seemed to make the most sense for a fisherman, so the intuitive choice didn't work. as for the controls, i think i meant that the chisel can only move forward in a straight line, so you line it up right and then you just mind the placement and length. i don't know if this would cause trouble with round runes i havent seen yet. i appreciate the update and i'll give it another earnest go. thank you for your time!
You're very welcome, so happy to hear it worked! Yeah, a hint system is a great idea, will put that forward to the team along with your feedback on the rune book pages.
Ahh, thank you for clarifying - just to make sure, you're suggesting having the carving motion stick to the stencil lines, rather than letting carves drift based on mouse position?
Thank you for trying our game again and for your review! :)
*ETA: My trouble was just that I was carving the wrong runes. Once I carved the right rune I didn't have any trouble with the mechanic.*
Now this is really impressive. The interface is so smooth and polished, the art is beautiful, and the premise is unique and appealing. Super professional all over! I really got drawn in.
I just couldn't get the wood carving to work, though. It's tough to draw very precise shapes with a mouse, and I don't have any sense of how precisely I have to trace the line for it to count. I tried it 5 times and he rejected them all, and I don't know whether it was the symbols, the order, or my tracing job.
It would help if you started off with a practice round where you carve just one rune and it tells you exactly which one, so you can practice tracing.
(Possible bug: When you put down "locate + fish + love", "fish" jumps from the middle to the left. Not sure whether that was why he kept rejecting my carvings.)
Thank you so much!! Really sorry to hear the wood carving wasn't working - did you by chance get any popup messages to copy stencils from the rune journal? We'll look into easing the grading curve, adding better signposting that copying the stencil is needed for grading, and/or changing the grading scheme so that stencils aren't needed.
Ooh, thank you also for the practice round suggestion - adding that to our feature request list! We'll look into the possible bug you reported as well.
Apologies the wood carving mechanic was causing you trouble D: Thank you very much for trying out our game regardless and your very kind words!!
(Sorry, I had a couple of screencaps attached but Itch didn't like em. Should have saved em, that's on me.) Yep, I clicked on the runes in the book to place the stencils on the wood, and then I carved over them with the gouge using my tablet, and I thought I did a very careful job. But it's super high praise that I gave it so many tries--I very, very much would not have tried a mechanic 5 times in a row if I didn't think the game was very good overall.
(Out of curiosity, is the answer Locate + Fish or Locate + Fish + Love? And do they need to be that order on the board?)
Thank you!! The answer to the first puzzle is currently the Fish rune! We're discussing approaches to better signpost this to the player right now :D
Tried it with just the Fish rune and it went perfect! Once I knew that a lot of the answers were just going to be single runes I was able to figure them all out, and I didn't have any trouble with the carving.
I'm really liking where this is headed--I like the characters a lot (the character art is so good). I'll be excited to see the whole thing!
Thank you so much! Your comments made our team's day! :D
Hey, is there any way I could download this to PC rather than play it in browser? The "SUBMISSION TO THIS JAM" button is getting in the way of the game's UI. :(
Hey there, our programmers have gone to bed for now, but we can get a PC build up tomorrow! In the meantime, we recommend clicking the little blue button on the bottom right to full screen the game if the submission button is in the way!
Hey there, we just pushed a Windows build! Let us know if you're still running into UI issues. Thanks for playing our game!