**Date: 2025-10-30** **Version: Demo v0.4.10** **Time spent: ~3.5h (including writing notes) ## Legend - 🟢 Praise - 🔵 Opinion/suggestion - 🟡 Minor issue - 🟠 Major issue - 🔴 Breaking issue ## Issues and remarks - 🟡 Tiny bit of mouse movement lag in the menu - Seems to be related to the frame rate - At 30fps, when moving the mouse from the left screen edge to a settings option, makes me undershoot the mouse movement - I don't manage to move the cursor where I intend with one smooth motion - At 60fps, it's only slightly noticeable for me - At 120fps or more, it's all good, even though my monitor runs at 60fps - 🟠 Unable to navigate backwards with ESC key - In the settings - In "Are you sure you wish to quit?" dialog, when you choose "Quit" from the intro screen menu. - When you're in-game, hit ESC and attempt to quit, you get a different "Are you sure you wish to quit?" screen and there ESC does work. - 🔵 On mouse-down, the mouse pointer plays a click animation. The click actually happens when you mouse-down and mouse-up on the same clickable element. For example in the menu, you can mouse-down on "Settings", but then move the mouse to "Start" and let go. In that case the click doesn't happen, and that is expected, but the cursor still plays the click animation. I think it would be better to have separate mouse-down and mouse-up animations. - 🔵 In the credits, it would be nice to hold Space or mouse click to make the credits scroll faster. For those who can read faster than the credits are currently rolling. - 🟠 Alt+tab advances dialog text. - I think "Press any key to continue" should ignore modifier keys like Ctrl, Alt and Shift. - Maybe give a settings option to auto-pause the game when the window unfocuses. - 🔵 Expected to be able to break with a hammer...😅 - My car window - Mirror in the toilet - Globe - TV - 🟡 Too many batteries? - Maybe the flash light should run out quicker? Maybe a difficulty option for the player? - Maybe if the flash light is dead, you don't have batteries and you enter a room where the light is out, it could be game over? - I'm not sure what happens when the battery runs out - there's no save system so I don't want to test it and risk starting over - Eventually when the batteries started dying, it didn't completely go out and I was straining my eyes. - Maybe the flash light should start blinking to annoy the user and make them switch batteries. Otherwise it's like boiling a frog alive - I can strain my eyes until I'm blind 😅 - 🟠 When reconfiguring controls, the game always says "That key is already assigned." when attempting to assign the right mouse button, even if "Deselect item" was assigned to something else. - When you hold the RMB and move the mouse, it clicks for every pixel moved, which is a bit funny. - When you bind "Deselect item" to something else, the only way to get it back to RMB is to reset all bindings. - 🟡 Doing certain menu actions for the first time freezes the game for ~1 second. - Happened when I changed the language for the first time - Happened when I reset the controls for the first time - 🟡 When I opened the "Gameplay" settings, I thought "Tutorial tips" and "Speedrun timer" were slider controls. I do like how the checkboxes look, but if I was confused, others might also be. - 🔵 When you spin the globe, some pixels appear on the globe outline on the right side. Not sure if that is a glitch or intentional spin effect. If it was intentional, why not have it on the left side as well? - 🔵 Spent 15 minutes trying to play "happy birthday to you" on the piano, thinking it might unlock the next thing if I played the whole song correctly. - 🔵 Missed the "Safety notice" item when first time in the room - 🔵 Took a long while to understand the TV clue - 🟡 When the power was out, flicking the light switch in the basement threw sparks in the broken light bulb - 🟢 Film grain was a nice touch, especially over the doorway light, when you choose "New game" - 🔵 Instead of "Press any key to continue", it might be better to have a button pressing animation. It would be universally understandable and would apply to keyboard keys as well as mouse buttons. For me "any key" means only a keyboard key. - 🟢 Jump-scare while trying to read was nice! Seeing someone for just a moment, without being able to focus on the details is exciting. - 🔵 Didn't really look at the map. Until I got stuck, but then the map didn't help much. Maybe it would be more useful in the full release. Or when continuing the game after a few days break. It might also show that each room was memorable enough for me that I didn't need a map to navigate. - 🟢 Not knowing if you can die in the game made it more exciting - after all, it's the unknown that scares us. - 🔵 Jump-scares in general didn't startle me. - 🟢 Never mind. I was startled at the end. Good job! - 🔵 Build the scare anticipation. - I really liked the random noises and I wish there were more unexpected sounds. - Ex: You hear some leaves rustling or a bucket falling over with a bang. You think "what was that?", then you hear a cat mew and run away with more of the noise. "Aah, so it was just a cat", you relax, and then maybe a jump-scare! Next time random sounds would prep you for a jump-scare and make it exciting even if there is no actual danger or scare. - I wonder if it would be possible to trigger a scare warning association with sound without making it immediately obvious. Like giving a "my spidy senses are tingling" feeling. - Ex: A subtle and gradual ambient sound distortion before a scare. Maybe like a stretched audio tape effect? Not sure if that goes with the vibe of this game. - Ex: Barely audible glitch or a record skip in the background music. - 🔵 There are certain rooms where the player passes through several times, like the main hall. The player usually inspects the room when entering the first time. Would be fun if something in the room changed when the player was forced to go through the room again, to give a feeling as if someone was just there. Maybe something like that is already in the game and I missed it. Sound effects might help in that case. - There was something similar later when the power went out and lightning flashed with my silhouette on the floor - for a moment I thought someone was behind me in the game. - 🟢 No visual noise! - Clean and simple. So simplistic in fact that it makes my imagination fill the blanks, like when reading a book. You don't get this when playing games with HD graphics. - After playing for a bit, it's obvious which objects are interactive in a scene. I appreciate that the decorative-only objects have a consistent texture. Stops me from clicking on every rock and piece of trash on the ground.