Reviews for 21 Rooms

[GranCaca]

The game itself was rather refreshing in the sense it is an idea not used so much around here. Basically a survival game where you are forced to stay moving to find the food while avoiding the enemy since you can't defend yourself.

It really bugged me the small backpack, as I often times would have it filled with cards and a knife, leaving almost no room for food. I would have to waste the cards or sometimes the just wander heavily around the stairs to have hunger to use the food (I never tried to use food with less than a bar of hunger... felt like a waste...). I would recommend to at least have the cards on a different inventory (seriously, why a small and flat piece of plastic takes as much space as a bunch of food?)

Another thing that kind of annoyed me was the text time. The text appearing gradually is good, nice and fancy, yes. But it is cumbersome when you are fleeing and you have to be frantically clicking to speed it up else the timed events wont start until the text is completely out. I would recommend to either make the text instant or to take then out entirely when you are being chased. It does not make much sense to ask if you want to use the stairs when you are totally positive he is not there (I am saying such things under the assumption the choice is given to begin with to allow you to get more info and make a choice then)

Yes, I want to enter the elevator.
I know he is not there.
He is chewing my shoes.
*DING*
You sure you want to enter?
Yes, he says my shoes taste terrible and prefers me.
*Elevator music*
*DING*
Look, there is a hallway with doors on the side.
*nom nom nom*
Oh, god, I think he rode the elevator with me.
I'M FINE! He says I still got 10 seconds, shoes for him until then.
*This door is closed*
Maybe the next one is fine.
*NOM NOM NOM*
Halp.

*-*- SPOLERS -*-*

I reached the 30 days and for the heck of it, tried to go outside and "won"... but how the hell was I supposed to know I broke the rules? He never said anything about his ID or the basement as far as I remember. My character said he recognized it when I picked it up, but never said anything else, so I had the ID wasting my inventory space as well hoping I would get more of the story, but sadly I was mistaken.
I suppose it is of common sense that the killer would not be happy about it, but it would be common sense to not expose it right in the front door... without knowing where he is... while giving the back to the door... Maybe my character deserved its Darwing Award.

I will try at some point again to see if it has another ending, or to see the lose screen; but for now, the idea of having to wander around for another 30 days is not appealing. The game is fun and interesting once, but I don't feel it has repeatability value.

As a side note: I am not entirely sure of this, since I realized it near the end of my play (around day 24), but I think the game can be easily exploited by entering and leaving rooms once Mr. Stalky finds you. (I really should confirm it before reporting it, but I am not really sure I will do a second run)

By having little to no hunger (seems to give more time to flee), entering and leaving a room seems to reset the timer, allowing me to use the elevator (no food consumption) and trying more doors to hoard food.

BrianPickens53 responds:

Thanks for playing! The backpack does fall into that strange realm of video game physics where a chicken egg takes up as much room as a bazooka, and I could have probably handled that better than I did. The limited inventory was originally intended to keep players from being able to amass a stockpile of items and be able to cruise through the game, though it seems you were able to still stockpile pretty well.

I totally get that clicking the dialogue to finish it when you are being chased can be a pain. Part of the intent with the click to finish text was to cause the player to be more frantic with their clicking when trying to move quickly, but for some it does come off as just being annoying. I'll see if I can revisit this and find something that works better. Your breakdown of how you envision the killer chasing you is pretty great! lol!
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*SPOILERS*
At the beginning of the game you are given 4 rules, and the fourth rule is that you and the killer remain anonymous to each other. By taking his ID you are learning who he is, so you are breaking that rule. One of the notes in the rooms tries to remind you of this rule, and also giving you the option of taking the ID or not was intended to try to help you remember that rule. Though there could be more to forefront that rule. I thought putting the ID in the game at all would be interesting because players would find the ID and think that somehow they were going "beat" this killer and bring him to justice, and that they would also sacrifice an inventory slot to do so, but in reality, their character is just another player in this game that has strict rules and cannot be stopped. Now that I typed that out, it sounds pretty masochistic... lol. Also the character probably does deserve the Darwin Award for not just grabbing the case and running.

You are correct that the games replayability is pretty low once you get to the end. There are two endings if you survive 30 days and it does depend on if you take the ID or not; however, with the ending that you have seen you can probably guess what the other ending is. I would suggest that you try losing though just because the death screen is probably not exactly what you are expecting.

I will check out the exploit you mentioned and see if it works, and see how I can fix it.

[AwkwardSilence777]

survived 21 days and it was a struggle for the last 5 days of having at MAX 2 hunger bars for thoes days with no food.

on the last five days i searched the restaurant 5 times and only got food twice from it. Which was only enough to get me back to 1 bar of food for that day. when i searched the rooms, i got maybe 2 more peices of food out of the 8 i looked in, but i also got a key card and a 2 knifes.

I used up a kinfe each time i got caught because i only had 8 seconds (keep in mind im at 1-2 food bars with no food), and tough luck reaching a floor with ALL locked doors. When i ran out of knifes i used the card key but STILL NO FOOD.

how i lost was with no items, and 0 food bar left emerging from room 101 using the key card, i searched the restaurant and got jewed again by no food. Soon as i hit floor one i got 3 locked doors and the killer found me, i died while in the stair well.

it was a fun game but Im disapointed becuase i got into the basement at one point and i really wanted to see the end and theres no way in hell im grinding all the way back to where i was, its just too repetitive and time consuming. Theres also not a lot of content, just some stock photos, its really more of a text based narrative if you know what i mean. Still had fun playing, if there was more content i would play it again :)

BrianPickens53 responds:

Thanks for playing! It sounds like the game RNG was completely not on your side toward the end of your play-through. I've gotten a lot of similar feedback to this since I put the game out, and I plan on adjusting it to be more friendly towards future players. I appreciate the feedback!

[JXDK]

I enjoyed this game a lot.
Can you give us some hints as to the mechanics of this game? The open doors, the movements of the killer, the food - how much of it is pattern and how much is RNG? There is a note which says the killer has a pattern but I can't figure it out.
For now I give it 4 stars, but not 5 stars because it feels too difficult and luck-dependent. 30 days are maybe too long and I am not sure winning this game is possible...

BrianPickens53 responds:

*SPOILER ALERT* (don't read this if you don't want to know some basics of how the game is working)

I will admit that there is a lot of RNG involved in this game. Here are hints on the mechanics and some explanations.

Doors: At anytime there is a set number of doors unlocked. When you leave a room, another door will open somewhere at random, but there will always be the set number of doors unlocked you have access to, or more if you've found a Cardkey. The idea behind this was to make the player have to search frantically for somewhere to go, but also to make Cardkeys feel really good to have.

Killer Movement: The Killer's movement follows a structure, making him prefer specific places that he might encounter you more than others, but also a hint is that the killer is not in any way magical. He is REQUIRED to travel through the hotel using the same paths that you do. He also hates to stand still somewhere, so if you are checking a lot of doors on the same floor he will always be moving in the background looking.

Food other Items: Inside of rooms, finding items is entirely RNG dependent but it is in favor of the player to find an item vs not finding an item. A hint is that there is a location that has a much higher chance to find food, and this place constantly refills. I plan on revisiting this in an update to make it a little less harsh.

Game Length: I initially thought that 30 days would be too long to survive, but then I gave it to someone to QA and they survived 34 days on their first play-through. They played again and survived 30 days, then they survived 34 days again. I'm curious how long you were able to survive? Since I only had one person doing QA for me, it is totally possible that him surviving the 34 days twice could have totally been a fluke given the heavy RNG element. I want to get more feedback from others about how long they where surviving so that I can make better adjustments. I want the game to be difficult, but not so difficult that people find it impossible.

Thanks for playing and I am happy you enjoyed it! Since you asked for hints, I only gave you very basic info, but if you want a more detailed breakdown of the mechanics with exact numbers and explanations, let me know!

[AmandaJ]

Love the concept but I went to the fourth floor on the elevator and lost for reasons unknown to me. A cat picture came on the screen with text that did not inform me as to what I did wrong. Without an explanation as to why I lost I have no desire to try again.

BrianPickens53 responds:

Thanks for playing! I'm sorry that the game did not go as intended, and that you did not enjoy it. I appreciate the comment because it shows that the game could use some sort of tutorialization other than the little red question mark. A quick explanation of what happened is that as you move through the hotel there is a chance you will run into the Killer. If you run into the Killer a timer starts at the top of the screen which shows the amount of time you have to make it into a hotel room, or else you will lose. You must have unknowingly been being chased by the Killer and it just happened that the timer ran out as you got to the fourth floor. The cat picture was just because most jump scare endings have some scary picture along with a loud noise, so I figured a cat picture would be nice for a change. Thanks again for the comment, and I will see what I can do to make the game more clear for players!

[moshpitbippy]

I played the game and lost, but I loved it. You did a great job of building the tension, and while the overall game feels like it's using some pretty basic mechanics, it still feels like there's a good amount of depth. My only problem was that I had been found by the killer and found a room but was too hungry to rest, which left me no option but to exit the room and meet my fate. I wasn't sure if me reading a note or listening for footsteps made time pass or not, and after several listens to the door, just figured time didn't really pass unless you rested or exited the room. So the only thing I might suggest is maybe a clock to show the passage of time with each move.

BrianPickens53 responds:

Thanks for playing! I am happy that you enjoyed it! You are correct that time does not pass unless you rest in a room. My intention with having the killer wait outside until you rest was to have situations that force the player to rest and lower their hunger; however, that also allows for situations like you ran into where you aren't able to rest and the killer is just hanging outside the door. The only way out of that situation is if you have a knife on hand. I'll look into adding a clock or finding a way to better indicate when time is passing! Thanks for the comment!