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Reviews for "Dear Edmund"

Hmm, quite the promising management game with tricky balancing of many aspects, including morality! Reminds me a lot of games like Yes Your Grace, Papers Please, Frostpunk and the like. For the most part it has a pretty solid presentation and cool concept, and I was intrigued to play.

At the same time, however, it had a lot of rough aspects that I felt could use some ironing out:

My biggest problem with the game is that it feels rather toothless and unsubtle. Yes, you need to make decisions to try and keep both parties happy lest you run into a game over, so you might need to make some choices you don't like here and there, but the whole crux of this game should be that it's hard to be good and easier to fall into corruption and I just wasn't feeling that. For example, whenever a choice came up where I can earn some coin by being evil, it was incredibly easy to say no, because what the hell do I need money for? I'm a superhuman who doesn't need food to survive, modifications to my house don't provide me any tangible benefits, and I have no attachment to my wife just because the game says I should! Games like Pathologic and Vampyr have strong motivations within gameplay to tempt you towards evil through selfish survival or even the greater good: this doesn't except in very shallow ways. It's so blatantly and cartoonishly black and white instead of having some interesting grey areas.

Dunno what the whole point of the contracts spilling to the ground and needing to be picked up is? Even though you put them on the shelf, they get erased on a save file being loaded, so they don't seem to have any sort of actual importance. I was also disappointed that despite me picking them up beforehand, the guy berated me for not picking them up when he should've recognized that I already had.

The 'accept/refuse' system is a bit awkward at times in how it is handled: for example, when the guy with your wage appears at the end of the shift, it gives you an option to accept or refuse, but either way results in the same thing of you getting your wage, when you'd think refusing would be spitting in their face and not wanting the wage.

Found the money system rather confusing in that you have street budget and personal funds as separate things: don't know why it can't just be one thing and I was confused about how each of them work. For example, I thought, based on the instructions, I was supposed to be not collecting the money in the safe so it goes towards the budget instead of my pockets, but every time I was forced to collect.

Would be nice if there were some quality of life changes, like being able to speed-up or click to complete text being written out. Speaking of text being written out, it seemed silly that it starts to write out the program code for specifying text color before it suddenly transforms back into regular writing. Some of the menu navigation was a bit awkward as well, like I couldn't find the way to go back in the shop menu to the root, being stuck at the end of one of the branches.

Some aspects of the menu and UI were way too tiny, especially when it came to text: could stand to make some things bigger for better readability.

Best of luck in further development!

MindTheGrease responds:

Thank you for the feedback! It’s still in beta so there are many things that need ironing out such as accepting the wage etc. The main mechanics are in place and through feedback I plan on adjusting everything to a release standard.
Cheers mate

i like that the music gets a little bit inspirational, really excited for the full game

cant wait till the full version releases

I love the game, and I had a blast playing it.
Random things to point out:
-The ending stats give me a hint that something very interesting would have happened if I took more night strolls with Jack, I want to try it but I don't want to end up ruining a future playthrough on purpose, haha. Maybe later.
-Helping some civilians give little reward but rejecting them at the very next shift could have pretty bad consequences, I got mad at some of them for being too ungrateful but in the end I still felt pity for them given the situation.
-I don't think I found a "good" choice when it comes to weekly modifiers, most of the choices raise 1% on one thing and lower 2% on the other, I tried to keep the DAC on good terms and still had -18% health with almost every upgrade on me (Maybe I bought too many upgrades in the post office and it did more harm than good?).
Anyways, 10/10, challenging and I will try again for a better ending.

MindTheGrease responds:

I’m glad you enjoyed the game. Thank you for your feedback!

I am enjoying this, not very far into it yet. I do wish there was a text speed adjustment or just hit space and it spits the whole message out. Not sure if its voiced, I don't have volume on. Also, agreeing to a poster or bust seems like a -10% health is a bit harsh.
Maybe somewhere you can access a breakdown of why the health and reputation are changing the way they are? I have all but the last 2 items on the bottom row from the post office yet my health is declining every time I sleep (also my reputation declines every time but I expected that)

MindTheGrease responds:

Thanks for the feedback! A speed adjuster is definitely something I’d like to add in a future update