A mix of maze exploration, gentle parkour, and puzzle solving gameplay in a world with free travel across more dimensions than you thought you were getting when you opened the box. On top of the 3 spatial dimensions, not only do you need to travel across time to navigate the citadel, but you need to change the past and create alternate timelines.
The gameplay is well executed, given how ambitious the idea was and the tight timeline. It's rough around the edges and there are minor bugs galore, but the core seems to be intact, and the gameplay is well thought out and reasonably balanced. The setting, storytelling, and atmosphere all work together well, and the plot twist fits the jam's "unexpected" theme, as does the surprising depth of mechanics.
To navigate the extra depth and complexity of the game, players will need to bring a measure of patience and keen perception. The deceptively small size of the game world in 3 dimensions hides a maze of surprisingly intricate maze of paths across time and possibility. Expect to spend a lot of time looking for subtly hidden treasures, and trying to fit an image of the citadel superimposed across a handful of different eras in your mind.
Things that aren't obvious bugs but I'd still like to see include reducing immersion breaks (diagetic guidance, and the entire inventory screen is unnecessary), a bit richer in-world sound (footsteps! maybe voice acting...?) and some accessibility improvements (fixes for HUD/GUI and font scaling settings, translations).
I'm excited to hopefully see more developer attention on this game in the future, to clear away annoyances and distractions and add the shine and polish it deserves, and hopefully the community will rise to the occasion with play testing, bug reports, and pull requests.
Thank you for your thorough review; I'm glad you can see the value this game can/will have despite its unpolished state. The idea was ambitious and I worried that it wouldn't work out, expecially considering I had little to no expirence with minetest before the jam. I'm glad it turned out somewhat playable.
Voice acting is an interesting idea...
A mix of maze exploration, gentle parkour, and puzzle solving gameplay in a world with free travel across more dimensions than you thought you were getting when you opened the box. On top of the 3 spatial dimensions, not only do you need to travel across time to navigate the citadel, but you need to change the past and create alternate timelines.
The gameplay is well executed, given how ambitious the idea was and the tight timeline. It's rough around the edges and there are minor bugs galore, but the core seems to be intact, and the gameplay is well thought out and reasonably balanced. The setting, storytelling, and atmosphere all work together well, and the plot twist fits the jam's "unexpected" theme, as does the surprising depth of mechanics.
To navigate the extra depth and complexity of the game, players will need to bring a measure of patience and keen perception. The deceptively small size of the game world in 3 dimensions hides a maze of surprisingly intricate maze of paths across time and possibility. Expect to spend a lot of time looking for subtly hidden treasures, and trying to fit an image of the citadel superimposed across a handful of different eras in your mind.
Things that aren't obvious bugs but I'd still like to see include reducing immersion breaks (diagetic guidance, and the entire inventory screen is unnecessary), a bit richer in-world sound (footsteps! maybe voice acting...?) and some accessibility improvements (fixes for HUD/GUI and font scaling settings, translations).
I'm excited to hopefully see more developer attention on this game in the future, to clear away annoyances and distractions and add the shine and polish it deserves, and hopefully the community will rise to the occasion with play testing, bug reports, and pull requests.
Thank you for your thorough review; I'm glad you can see the value this game can/will have despite its unpolished state. The idea was ambitious and I worried that it wouldn't work out, expecially considering I had little to no expirence with minetest before the jam. I'm glad it turned out somewhat playable.
Voice acting is an interesting idea...