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A Game about Mansion with Statues

My playtime: 00:52:34 (the gameplay is for my first playthrough, I finished the game thrice to get all endings)

Intro
Memoriam is a short adventure game with some puzzle elements in it. You'll play as Luca who is stuck in a mansion after looking for a place to shield herself from the rain.

Graphics
Despite the good-looking 2D portraits, the characters' eyes are off-putting. It might be caused by exhaustion due to how the story goes, but their dead eyes just make them look weird, especially when they are trying to smile. The character sprites, on the other hand, look very detailed and colorful compared to the background. They look somewhat stiff if you look at them from the front though. Nonetheless, they are all made in such great detail that I wasn't sure that this was made in 7 days.

Story
The first thing that I noticed is that dialogues aren't spaced properly. There are a lot of occasions when there are trailing spaces at the beginning of a new line, words being separated into a new line when there are still a lot of spaces left in the dialogue box, and typos, which can be unpleasant to see to those with OCD. As for the writings, they are good enough, although some might need some work. In all three endings, the good ending feels stale with how everyone is being overly friendly to each other despite only meeting for a few minutes. It feels as if the game was designed around the tragic ending instead.

The Game
Gameplay
The game is pretty straightforward - you'll mostly talk to people and fetch items to proceed. There are also 2 puzzles that you can do, each with two solutions that will affect the ending. I found them all to be easy to solve, except for one part that needs more thinking for the alternative solution.

The hardest part of the game is finding the optional items. There are 3 people that will give you a side quest of sorts where you have to fetch an item. These items are hidden in each corner of the mansion, where you need to find clues to find them. While some are obvious, others are just plain annoying if you don't know what to do. I even found one by accident before I noticed the possibility.



Length and Difficulty
As I said before, the game is very short. It would last around 1h if you want to explore everything, which can be shortened to ~20 minutes if you skip the dialogues and just aim for the endings. The game has 3 endings in total which are obvious to get. As for the difficulty, I had to brute force the solution for one puzzle (clock puzzle) since I didn't know what the clue means, and the other one is pretty straightforward. You might have to spend more time if you want to get the good ending though.

Problems
The game crashed on me twice whenever I wanted to progress the game quickly. The block-pushing puzzle is also a bit bugged. It can move a block randomly whenever you are trying to push it in one direction.

Pros:
- 3 endings
- Great-looking visuals

Cons:
- Random crashes
- Lack of QoL features

Final Rating: 4/5
As a game that was made in 7 days, Memoriam holds pretty well. The visuals are the one that stands out the most to me, although the others are still good enough to hold on their own. If I want to give some feedback, I would comment on the puzzle difficulty since the block-pushing one is just too easy - you can even solve it without thinking. Some buildings are also empty, which doesn't reflect the mansion setting. Lastly, some quality of life fixes is also needed. The game feels rough with the dialogue box that is changing from time to time, both style and position, along with the dialogue placement. Nevertheless, the game is still enjoyable enough to spend some time with.

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Bugs:
- Griff is mimicking your direction after you give him his wallet
- It's hard to walk after you get the plant in griff's area and return to the screen where griff is.
- Collision errors (with some typos): https://imgur.com/a/JgTyian

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Did you enjoy the characters?
Somewhat. The characters' backgrounds are good, but I don't think the game is focused on this. I would suggest creating a game that is more story-oriented if you want to do this. You already do a good job with it though. It's just being overshadowed since it doesn't mesh well with the game's core. If I got it right, the game is more focused on Luca rather than other characters.

Was the writing a bit too wordy?
No, but I could see it being too much when you talk to them the second time (before you give them their items). I had to skip some dialogues by accident when I wanted to read their response on all branches.

Do the tiled assets look good and are the mapping pleasant to look at, and what could be improved making similar titles in the future?
Yes, but some areas of the mansion feel empty. Maybe you can add more decorations or something. The characters' sprite looks a bit stiff on the front view too. Maybe it's the hand or something. I'm not good at noticing which part is wrong though.

General opinions that we could potentially use for improving future offerings would be amazing
Maybe more puzzles. I was a bit disappointed that Griff's area doesn't have puzzles in it. Make them trickier too, but not as vague as the clock puzzle.

Posts

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Hi, thank you for giving a detailed review! (Sorry for the delay in responding, I've had a few things going on.)

Glad you thought things looked good! I can confirm that Chaos (the team's artist) managed to put all the assets together in the weeklong period. Those of use in the writing/design areas were making prompts and requests throughout, and he always came up with the goods. I suspect if you feel anything is 'off' about the bust design it might be a consequence of him trying to minimize the amount of redrawing. Definitely something that can be refined in future projects!

Writing-wise I can see how the development of the narrative in the 'happier' endings might seem a bit abrupt. It's always a bit of a tough balancing act when you have to limit your content but want to retain a decent amount of weight to the conclusion, so it might be a case of going a bit overboard. Of course the best solution would probably be more content, haha. (But we can definitely work on that one!)

Sorry about the text. It's a little unpolished in places. As one person working in the engine I was transferring a lot of google doc script that wasn't necessarily formatted to suit the engine, and editing on the fly. The result is a little messy. It's a good reminder to put that consideration into formatting dialogue.

I feel like the puzzle difficulty might have wound up a bit inconsistent (not just from your own thoughts but a few people who have played it.) It's something for me to think about.

Thank you so much for taking the time to give your thoughts! Critique only helps us do better in future projects. Cheers!

No worries, thanks for making the game too! I didnt notice that the sprites look similar until you mention it. It's good enough for a first game tbh, so i'm glad to see that you are still striving to improve. Good luck eith your future projects!
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