This past Ludum Dare, the 27^th of its name, was undeniably our biggest success so far, and feels like a milestone for us. The figures speak for themselves… Our result at the end of the post!

60+ comments on LD website!

We are happy to say more than 50 people left a review on our submission page from LD27 !

Even though this is partly due to the fact we played and reviewed/rated 100+ games ourselves (among which 20+ the very next day of the LD), it’s still feels amazingly good, and is definitely a big improvement on the amount of feedback we got on our previous entries.

The most common complains relate to functionalities we unfortunately didn’t have the time to develop (more lines dialogs, more animations for the monster, sound effects for the monsters and items, textures problems) or which we didn’t even think about even if they seem obvious in hindsight (offering to skip the introduction is a big one). Furthermore, the lack of proper testing made the game quite difficult in the end…

Moreover, people thanked us for having thought about AZERTY keyboards (since I tried several game without success because they only worked on QWERTY, I can only agree), and a big plus was certainly Unity 3D allowing us to propose the game on Linux, Mac and PC (and a web version later).

However, the big successes of our game are that it is regarded as scary (it has been compared to Silent Hill, to Slenderman, which is somewhat of a hyperbole, but flattering nonetheless), that it has a strong introduction, particularly through the addition of good voice acting and, for most reviewers, that the idea of a turn-based survival horror feels fresh.

That latter point is interesting though, as commenters seemed to either like it and find it innovative and suspenseful, or hate it for being contrived and frustrating. In the end, it makes us think that the idea behind it is mostly sound, but it needs to be reworked to better function in the context of our particular game. Pretty exciting though, and to share that excitement, here are some of our favourite comments :

« The introduction is sublime. The artwork.. wow it’s really impressive. I love the idea of 10 seconds for us to move, then its the ennemy turn. Great narration, the cinematic transition add a nice touch.  » (archaeometrician)

« The ambiance is incredibly well done, and I had to play in windowed mode instead of full-screen because it was waaaay too stressful to me :p » (Erhune)

« I love the voice acting, I love the arts during the beginning, nice paintings, I love the inventory look, wow, just wow. Hard to believe you did that in one weekend. So little bugs, nothing gamebreaking. The experience is amazing. I stepped up when I saw the two monsters on the lower floor… I kept coming back because I wanted to know the back story of all this… but also kept dying. Haven’t finished it yet, but I will keep it preciously and get to the end of it once and for all!  » (LordHellMaX)

And of course there were many, many others, all of them read and appreciated by everyone on the team. Thank you all for playing!

More feedback!

But that is not all, in addition to all the comments we got from reviewers, we also spotted Get Well Soon in a couple of posts from people on the Ludum Dare site, like

• Top 3 out of 50
• Five awesome things
• Short collection of horror/nightmare/creepy themed games

But wait, there is more!

Videos!

We also stumbled upon people playing Get Well Soon and recording themselves. It was thrilling to hear players react to the game as they were experiencing it!

Here you can hear some quick thoughts around the 18:30 mark :

And this one is a longer let’s play which goes into much more detail, by someone apparently not taking part in the Ludum Dare. Awesome!

CreepyGaming.net

And perhaps the biggest piece of unexpected feedback was a humbling piece published on creepygaming.net, which you can find an excerpt of below:

“As the title reads, I’ve had the proof that Ludum Dare is not only a competition against time where all kind of experimentation can be made, in fact, it seems like it can also be the trigger to make way more solid games in all regards, perhaps not optimized in the contest, but polished nonetheless. This, is actually Get Well Soon‘s case, a compelling experience result of the efforts of GSM Productions. Then again, I’m not here to say that it can’t objectively be improved in any way, but I consider myself definitely astounded by the feeling of completeness that I tasted while trying it out.”

(Read more on the website)

Thank you very much kind sir for thinking so highly of Get Well Soon!

Conclusion : our results & a little parting word

Jam had 776 participations… and here are our results:

Coolness 100%

#5 Mood (Jam) : 4.32

#15 Audio (Jam) : 4.01

#27 Overall (Jam) : 3.89

#72 Theme (Jam) : 3.63 (reminder: the theme was “10 seconds”)

#96 Graphics (Jam): 4.04

#98 Innovation (Jam): 3.49

#186 Fun (Jam): 3.19

#339 Humor (Jam): 2.23

So we’re 27e on 776, and in top 5 for the mood! And even though we didn’t end up as high for Graphics, our rating is still above 4/5.

Our other results are all in top 100, except for Fun and Humor (not exactly the main point in a survival horror game). And even for those two points, we are in the best half…

Sounds, music as much as voice acting, certainly played their role in our results: we are in top 20 for those!

We feel a bit euphoric for having done such a finished game during LD and for seeing it so well received!

But what that means is that the road is still ahead of us. For the first time, we feel like we have something really worth polishing and extending into a proper game. All the support we got is only serving to boost our resolve to come back before the next Ludum Dare with a new and improved Get Well Soon to conclude this happy episode in the best way possible!