Earlington Manor by Bart

Time Played: about 9 minutes

Overall Gameplay (5 / 13 points)

Comments: Props for tackling a 3D project for a game jam! The most challenging part of the gameplay for me was just controlling my player properly. The look sensitivity was quite high, and carrying the view's momentum after stopping the mouse was an odd design choice that made it really challenging to control my character. Movement throughout the levels in general was awfully slow and slippery, contributing to my frustrations with the controls. Some of the later levels seemed to have slightly more interesting designs, but with the control problems and the graphics, I had a hard time enjoying them. I got to the end with the guest bed, but nothing happened when I interacted with it? I never had to use either the left or the right mouse buttons to get to this point, so maybe I was missing something, not really sure.

Theme Inclusion (2 / 6 points)

Comments: I have to be honest, I didn't see much of a theme connection here outside of the names of some of the rooms. Maybe the torches/water were a couple of the "elements" that I had to manipulate to move through the levels? That seems like a stretch though.

Overall Presentation (3.5 / 10 points)

Comments: The introduction was pretty nice, but this game had basically no HUD and I thought it really needed one. I would've liked to see some kind of basic inventory that showed me what keys I had. There were a couple of times where I actually went back to a chest I had just visited because I couldn't remember the name of the key it gave me. I appreciate that 3D games make graphics a lot more challenging and complicated, but the lack of variance in the graphics and textures of rooms and certain hallways made it tough to keep track of where I was. Some of the graphics were cool, like the big clock on the ceiling of the main room, but the solid black bookcases/doors only served as big, shapeless voids on my screen that tripped up my perspective as my view panned across them. More visual effects and responses to my actions would've been useful too, such as actually lighting torches or seeing chests physically open. Background music fit the mood nicely, but some other sounds would've been great!

Final comments: There's some nice work done on this entry, but there's also some mechanical and visual problems that are holding it back from being a truly entertaining game.

Total Score: 10.5 / 30