The tone of the game and the artwork were good but the controls were pretty bad.
But that is understandable because it was a 48 hour game.
Reviews for "The Hut in Ayre Forest"
My advice to you: if you don't like a review that somebody gives you (regardless of how poorly written it is), just don't respond to it. This is a media outlet where peoples' works are judged by the public. If you can't handle criticism, you shouldn't be here.
Several things bugged me. The lack of impact animation/sound (a one-frame reaction would have worked), the yellow text in the middle of the screen that did not sync with the atmosphere, and the "mission" to go get the seed to give to the bird to get the egg to give to Baba Yaga to get the-.... yeah. I would have cut out the bird altogether and just had the wolf guard something She wanted instead. It would have given you more time. And an antidote? Was the sister poisoned?
SPOILER ALERT
The strongest part of this game, by far, was the atmosphere. The music and background paintings together provided a sense of immersion that made me smile, and I really appreciate the motif of holding on to childhood. The bit where you have to leave the cave and grow up to deal with a grown-up issue... that was a 5/5 idea right there. And I liked that he was able to return the hat. It seemed symbolic of children oftentimes having to deal with serious responsibility, but not necessarily experiencing that fundamental disconnect between childhood and adulthood as a result of it.
I enjoyed it. It was very sweet, and we get enough sardonic negativism here anyways.
Good work, guys.
4/5 (time constraint earns the last .5)
P.S. People, they -did- give a hint about what to do with the cave. "Some things a child cannot do" or something along those lines, and then there's a large man's hat on a rack in the middle of the woods... It was the friggin' money-shot of the entire game. I wouldn't change it.
Troisnyx responds:
In addressing your first part of the comment: there's a respond button precisely for this reason. We use it. Simple. There's nothing going to stop us from finally justifying ourselves after quite a ton of reviews, a third of them useless.
On the note of that review, thanks for pointing out what you pointed -- especially the things that bugged you. I'll readily admit, there were some things that we couldn't think through during the time, especially with the fact that the collect-and-go mechanic was reduced drastically from three seeds to one seed. Still, we're glad that you enjoyed the story -- we really are. ^_^
Hmmm... I jumped when following the bloop and he leapt off the screen... very odd. The game (as far as I got, which wasn't far) is pretty and quite fun. I'd definitely love to see you guys update it with the bugs fixed in the future.
I loved the game! It is cute!
The only problems is the minor bugs and the fact that I can skip the fighting seen easily !
Very nice guys! The music especially is amazing!