Macabre Madhouse

I love the thought of a text-based horror exploration game. The lack of visuals but detailed description allows the player to picture their own environment and make it scary/eerie for themselves. The hidden timer was also a nice touch, but might seem a little too quick especially if you intend to expand the game.

Very nice use of typography and color to give into the game's ambiance, as other comments pointed out! Some aspects of the game kind of reminds me of ARandomRat's "The Life of a Scavengar" in its exploration style.

As many of the other comments have mentioned, I think you hit the aesthetic dead-on! Not only does the Itch page reflect that, but so does your choice in descriptors and font.

The classic red text with black background automatically makes my senses go on alert. The general color theme including red  within the game. However, I wasn't able to read after I woke up due to a timer(?) and there's no way to replay the game after that, at least that I can see. I'm going to try again a few times to see if I can bypass it, but I like the things I read! Maybe make the text bigger?

I think the font used and the plain background really add to the spooky element for this game. The font especially conveys the mood really well and even the itch page gives off scary vibes. I think using the directional keys to more rooms would be really interesting to provide the sense of being in a madhouse (like getting lost). Overall good job!

This game made me very unnerved as I was reading partly because of the vivid descriptions, the use of the creepy font, and the timer. I appreciate how the scene changes with each play through though I do wish the ending would change as well. I also was not sure what the point of the W key during the exploration scene was but I might not have been using it properly.

A very immersive story design~And i would suggest you have some related background or background music to fit with the tone of the story! The text may be designed much bigger since I find myself a little bit hard to read

It reminds me of several games I played before in class. But I really like how you made these texts in different colors. This help you to show important information to players.

The timer causing the police to arrive at the scene before you can make it to one of the endings adds a lot to the urgency of this text-based horror games! The use of the different text sizes and colors also helps a lot in capturing the different feelings both the characters and the player may feel in each given moment.

I felt that the timer was a little to fast and made me really move quickly through the text and not get the context for what was going on. I would suggest raising the timer by 25 seconds so we could spend more time reading.

Because of the timer aspect, I kind of read through the pages a bit too fast and ended up being confused a bit, but I like the multiple endings and how you get a sense of what’s going on after each run. In a lot of games, the design element of forcing the player to restart and try again is cool but often times gets rid of tension in my experience.

I really like the dark and spooky aesthetic here. I think suspense or anxiety could be built up more to emphasize the vibe in addition to the timer. Maybe implementing some audio clips to really put pressure on the player?

Very refreshing to play a timer-based game for this project. It definitely adds to the suspense and helps with the immersion 

this game reminds me of the movie the shining mixed with Halloween or another thriller movie almost. From the background/talk of the hotel to the use of gore, I wonder what your inspiration was. It also feels like it could be from a true story 

I like that you have created a horror game for this project. I think it's fun, and with the many different endings you can get, I think it's a great example of a text-based game. One thing I might change is either that background color or the color of the dark blue text. It's kind of difficult to read, and as this is a timed game, those extra seconds I spent caused me to end up in the early ending.

This is a very interesting story. I didn't realize that some of the prompts change through each play through. In the end when you can either look in the mirror or look away, I think that is a great reflection of someone facing themselves for who they are and their mistakes or running away from them.

I like the concept of a time-based narrative adventure, and I can see that the purpose of this game is perhaps to piece a story together through multiple playthroughs (thus, multiple endings). I think the intention of this would be more clear if there was a "play again" button/key of some sort within the game itself. Similarly, I wonder if there's a way to indicate that this was time-based, as I got spooked when the police showed up

The timer on the game provides a sense of urgency, but also a little frustration without knowing exactly how much time I have left. This game requires a lot of trial and error, which has its pros and it’s cons, but I think this starting versions has a lot of potential

I really like how the gamemaker narrative the story.

The way I played through this game was similar to Anna Anthropy’s Queers in Love at the End of the World. I loved playing that your response to what you did changes depending on your final action. Also see a connection between morality and your bitsy game from Narrative Game Design. Really cool to see!

Playing through, I couldn't finish the endings which really added to the urgency of the situation. It created almost a panic when playing the game which works really well!

Played through all the endings and the timer on the player added to the story. The idea that we will always have the police coming fast adds to the story that is being built!

Happy to find I broke the game first try LOL but I think the time mechanic is very clever for a text-based game, adds a sense of urgency that may be hard to implement otherwise