Step by Little Step
Thanks for 1k+ Plays, and Playstyle Observations.
Heya! I woke up today to the game having over 1k plays, which is always very mindblowing.
Thank you so much for playing, and also thank you for everyone who rated, commented, shared, or bought the OST pack. A special thanks also to the folks who shared their experiences and stories, I wish you all well, and am sending you all my love <3.
That being said, observing the playstyle of some friends who gave it a try, as well as from some of the comments, I noticed that a lot of people stuck with Eurydice to the very end, or very close to it. I don't think I've seen anyone who got the first ending on first try, or at least they did not talk about it. I find that very interesting.
I also noted that a lot of people don't really backtrack to get the other end if they got the 2nd ending first, though to be fair that was sort of intentionally done through the design of the game overall. I would say that giving people the agency to look back whenever they were ready, (including pressing "and beg..." for as many times as they wanted) helped with leaving them with little to no regret about their choice in this game. Having control over when to look back helps, especially when that's not always the case in real life. This is just speculation on my part of course, I wonder what you all think about it? How did that section make you feel? What made you finally look back?
If there was anyone who did backtrack after getting ending 2, I kind of wonder why you decided to do it, and what did you feel about it? Were you disappointed? Did you regret it?
Anyways, apologies for rambling. If you have any thoughts about the design of the game or your experiences with it, I'd love to hear about it.
Thanks y'all <3
Comments
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Most certainly looped the "last step" for a few good minutes before finally deciding to look back. It was a beautiful capturing of the desperation and helplessness in the experience of loss, in a very simple yet powerful way. At least when coming in having known loss.
I did return back to try to look back early, and the subtle difference in the dialogue adds a nice touch. I would say the piece captures both the gentle and intense resignation when it comes to confronting death, and the options have made very evocative this way. In some ways for me, it's heartening to have such an intimate emotion drawn out so naturally, and I can imagine this piece touches both personal and general experiences of the players. The clean art style, timely screen movement effects and atmosphere were amazingly appropriate too. A part of me is grateful it wasn't a "conventionally" good end because of these.
Definitely holds a special place in heart.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and insights! Your comments about how you felt regarding the last step was what I was hoping it would evoke, and Im glad that it worked ^^
Also interesting to hear that you also went back to get the earlier ending, were you just curious about the different text? or was there another reason?
Once again, thanks for sharing! I really appreciate it ^^
Thank you so much too! It's more of the curiosity of alternative text, and wondering if there would be more interactions with the furball.
That's fair! Thank you so much for sharing! I hope this'll help me with designing future games, so I'm grateful that you responded with your experiences! ^^
The only reason I looked back is because the game seemed to start looping with same text. I felt forced. Would have kept going otherwise.
My initial understanding of the tale is that he was being tricked into looking back even though nothing was wrong with Eurydice. A gotcha. "Haha, you looked!", you didn't keep to your word, you lose. Always felt like he barely tried and fell for it so easily...
So here, I was planning to prove to myself that I'd be better than this. But your take on "does she even want this? Are you being selfish?" gave me doubts. And again, once it seemed like the game was saying "nice try for holding up but you're not getting a good ending" I relented. More metagaming than conviction.
fair enough! Thanks for your insight, thats fair, and the looping bit is kind of designed that way so I'm glad that part of it works.