The UI design of this is really nice but it was honestly a bit frustrating to play:
Very unintuitive start that unfortunately keeps ups: I don't know how you are supposed to know to search "Diagnosis" to properly begin - did I miss something in the files? I had to have the walkthrough open the whole time just to know where to go next.
The password input feels weird as well: The first password Hidden in the notepad was good but every other one after that seemed to not register on the first attempt - I actually got all of the locked file passwords on my own but for whatever reason I was always told it was incorrect until I either restored the game or refreshed the tab - so I would constantly be checking the walkthrough for information I already had.
The Morse Code section was great, thankfully I was told from the get go to search the guide chart but again how liberal is the search terminology if that bit of information was not provided up front?
The pipe puzzle was a fun little section as well - no complaints about it: I might have just been stupid to not realise I was supposed to search the IP Address rather than using the command prompt.
The picture code puzzle was ok but the 1 looks more like a 7 to me which really tripped me up until yet again I checked the walkthrough to see if I was just going crazy - I naturally wanted to see if combining the windows a certain way was part of it but not really, could be a fun idea for the future?
Lastly the popup attack is the most annoying section mainly due to the length and lack of feedback - I wasn't sure if I was making any actual progress it was that long but I powered through it, would recommend shortening it just a little or provide an indication that you are progressing.
I appreciate you didn't have a lot of time to do the story but honestly it's good enough for me. It was short, simple and open to interpretation.
There's a promising game here if you keep at it - if this was a quick project for a jam then fair play but I did not have a good time playing. I hope to see it improve in the future and I will come back to see at some point :)
Oh. That was the only thing I'd found so far and I very much thought it was a hint or a password to something. Well, back to the drawing board, because now I'm back to having nothing at all.
I admit that the more it veered into horror, the more I bounced off it; eventually I got a little stuck and accepted it as a sign to step away. Not a fault of the game; just not my genre.
I will say that restarting was helpful, because that error box came up and I might have dismissed it too quickly, the way you kind of always just click "yeah whatever" on system warnings. Once you've dismissed it, it's really hard to get anywhere at all. You might want to make that recur every so often, so someone like me can take the hint that it's important.
...ok, one more followup, since I looked at the walkthrough to see where I got stuck.
Re "Archive's Desktop": I certainly saw the word when I zoomed in on the photo. It wasn't clear to me, though, that that was different than the actual wallpaper; I thought it was just clearer, and said, oh, ok, now I know what the wallpaper says. So it didn't totally stand out as important.
Given that, though: I did have the word, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to use it as a password for one of the locked folders. It might just be a difference in perspective--maybe other people have more of a "when I find a potential password, I'll try it everywhere" approach. I was looking for something that would tie what I found to the place I needed to use it.
Different people like different things though. Hope this finds its audience!
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
The UI design of this is really nice but it was honestly a bit frustrating to play:
Very unintuitive start that unfortunately keeps ups: I don't know how you are supposed to know to search "Diagnosis" to properly begin - did I miss something in the files? I had to have the walkthrough open the whole time just to know where to go next.
The password input feels weird as well: The first password Hidden in the notepad was good but every other one after that seemed to not register on the first attempt - I actually got all of the locked file passwords on my own but for whatever reason I was always told it was incorrect until I either restored the game or refreshed the tab - so I would constantly be checking the walkthrough for information I already had.
The Morse Code section was great, thankfully I was told from the get go to search the guide chart but again how liberal is the search terminology if that bit of information was not provided up front?
The pipe puzzle was a fun little section as well - no complaints about it: I might have just been stupid to not realise I was supposed to search the IP Address rather than using the command prompt.
The picture code puzzle was ok but the 1 looks more like a 7 to me which really tripped me up until yet again I checked the walkthrough to see if I was just going crazy - I naturally wanted to see if combining the windows a certain way was part of it but not really, could be a fun idea for the future?
Lastly the popup attack is the most annoying section mainly due to the length and lack of feedback - I wasn't sure if I was making any actual progress it was that long but I powered through it, would recommend shortening it just a little or provide an indication that you are progressing.
I appreciate you didn't have a lot of time to do the story but honestly it's good enough for me. It was short, simple and open to interpretation.
There's a promising game here if you keep at it - if this was a quick project for a jam then fair play but I did not have a good time playing. I hope to see it improve in the future and I will come back to see at some point :)
Early game spoilers!
What does this read?
Actually it's just a watermark image author put there. Now thinking about it, yeah it could be misleading
Oh. That was the only thing I'd found so far and I very much thought it was a hint or a password to something. Well, back to the drawing board, because now I'm back to having nothing at all.
There's a walkthrough now if you need it
I admit that the more it veered into horror, the more I bounced off it; eventually I got a little stuck and accepted it as a sign to step away. Not a fault of the game; just not my genre.
I will say that restarting was helpful, because that error box came up and I might have dismissed it too quickly, the way you kind of always just click "yeah whatever" on system warnings. Once you've dismissed it, it's really hard to get anywhere at all. You might want to make that recur every so often, so someone like me can take the hint that it's important.
...ok, one more followup, since I looked at the walkthrough to see where I got stuck.
Re "Archive's Desktop": I certainly saw the word when I zoomed in on the photo. It wasn't clear to me, though, that that was different than the actual wallpaper; I thought it was just clearer, and said, oh, ok, now I know what the wallpaper says. So it didn't totally stand out as important.
Given that, though: I did have the word, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to use it as a password for one of the locked folders. It might just be a difference in perspective--maybe other people have more of a "when I find a potential password, I'll try it everywhere" approach. I was looking for something that would tie what I found to the place I needed to use it.
Different people like different things though. Hope this finds its audience!