momin's games

[droqen]

Hello momin! At some point in the future I will probably send you this forum thread. At that point, I hope you will enjoy reading my thoughts which I have not yet written at the time I'm writing this text now :)
love, droqen

[droqen]

p.s. forgive me for quoting you without your permission, but i thought it would be nice to place these games in the context of your own words about them! brief as they were.

https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-cloister - geometric puzzler
https://foolmoron.itch.io/type-traveler - much better godot game, rhythm arcadey
https://foolmoron.itch.io/press-space-to-jump-the-gap - mystery
https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-tipping-point - gladwellcore
https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-consumer - abstract arcadey

[droqen]

MAY 25 - Type Traveler (https://foolmoron.itch.io/type-traveler)

This is a pretty neat control scheme, I think other games try for a similar vibe of improvement of tapping just the right buttons - the game that comes to mind is Ore no Ryomi, the precursor to Cook! Serve! Delicious!

In the case of this game, I would say that it leans into increasing awkwardness rather than a feeling of really comfortable mastery, and I'm not sure I'm all about that, but it definitely does a good job along those lines! I got to five letters before dying a sad death in time.

The 'time travel with multiplier' concept is super interesting. I've never seen anything like it! I don't think it really 'fits' with the mechanic here, they seem like very separate ideas simply put together; they do serve each other of course, but I feel that the relationship between the two lacks some poetry.

[droqen]

????? - Press Space To Jump The Gap (https://foolmoron.itch.io/press-space-to-jump-the-gap)

Oh, I went to play this one today because I felt like a mystery but I actually played it already! I found it quite awkward, it provoked the feeling of debugging a program that just will not do what I want it to! This all feels like exactly the emotion you were going for, and while I find that to be of QUESTIONABLE desirableness I do think this is a whole work that delivers a singular experience very well!

From what I recall there were some good funny moments as well.

[droqen]

JUNE 4 - The Tipping Point (https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-tipping-point)

In theory I kinda get it? There are pieces of a system floating about, and I expect that there either is, or is intended to be, a way to get a huge number of contacts, but something appears broken... Nobody remembers me! Everyone gives me day 1 type conversations. It would be interesting to get someone to lvl 2 or lvl 3 friendship to see if that causes any ripples, but right now the emergent systems seems to not have emerged...

Well, I suppose I have not crossed The titular Tipping Point. But I don't know what more I can do to tip it!

[droqen]

Update: Okay, I figured out that I just need to stand next to one person and make them my best friend lol. I'm at 146/1000 and counting! I think the writing is actually very confusing and unnecessary -- it quickly repeats so it's hard to enjoy from a writing standpoint (i.e. there's no illusion of character whatsoever), and it muddies the feedback about what's really happening in the system.

A cool moment was when someone mentioned that I was XYZ's friend, but I had not even personally met XYZ. Oh, and using the CONTACTS list to find someone specific was very cool. I sought out someone at the top of the list so that I could find them again easily in the future, and they mentioned someone I actually did know! Neat.

[droqen]

Oof, I'm stuck at around 400-500. It's a fun system to see in action but the moment-to-moment is not that fun. I kinda wish there was some kind of lower-level minigame that I could engage with and get better at, but other forms of enjoyment like Animal Crossing's dialogue system (as attempted here) might work for some players!

[droqen]

JUNE 4, later - The Cloister (https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-cloister)

It's a new mechanic, but I feel I need to do a lot of trial&error in order to come up with solutions... That's a pretty common criticism. I mean that I can't hold the solution space for a particular level in my head very well at all, so it doesn't feel very good when I do solve it. Even when I have an idea for what to do which turns out to be correct, it does not feel particularly satisfying! I feel like I stumbled upon the solution. Both before and after, I don't have a meaningful grasp of what makes a solution work.

[droqen]

JUNE 16, too early in the morning - The Consumer (https://foolmoron.itch.io/the-consumer)

Hmm. The text matching mechanic really does not work.
I love the aesthetic of the videos playing here but the basic gameplay of matching text to video is not even very compelling.

On top of that, the tech matching text style to video style is especially not very strong, but I think it's important to note that even if that were fixed, I don't think even in concept that the whole design holds water. The text matching/clicking doesn't have anything to do with the other activity of watching one or more public domain video clips at the same time.

[droqen]

Well, that's everything! Time to send this to you, momin!