I Wanna Fine-House

Creator: anxKha

Average Rating
8.9 / 10
Average Difficulty
38.4 / 100
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Tags:

Adventure (9) Needle (8) Gimmick (13) Story (5) Puzzle (5) Short (2) Art (2) Beginner_Friendly (1) hub (1) IWannaGameJamVol2 (4)

Screenshots

  • by anxKha
  • by anxKha
  • by anxKha
  • by anxKha
  • by anxKha

Creator's Comments:

anxKha [Creator]
2022/08/24 - the game is done!

a short adventure game about change, made for the 2nd i wanna game jam
it was my first real experience with a game jam, and it was really cool
i felt pushed at every moment, and somehow a game was cobbled together in just 3 days

post-jam changes:
- remade a stage into a treasure hunt
- made the missing stage
- bugfixes, polishing, dialogue tweaking
- you can ride the slide now (kinda)

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[6] Likes
Rating: N/A       Difficulty: N/A
Aug 28, 2022

33 Reviews:

kurath
More games need treasure hunts.

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[5] Likes
Rating: 9.0 90       Difficulty: 38 38
Sep 10, 2022
TheNewDerf
Great atmosphere -- it reminded me of a long-lost RPG maker game at times (in the best way). Particularly loved the feeling the snowlands gave me (and the snowman is amazing).

Sadly, however, I struggled with the gameplay. The central mechanic -- a toggle -- is something I don't find that interesting, and it was often used in ways that felt like busy-work. To foreground what I am about to say: I know this is a jam game, and that comes with severe limitations. In that context, this is a really impressive game. The main reason I'm outlining some of my issues with the wider design is because I would like to see this game fleshed out -- I think it has a lot of potential.

I think the Factory is pretty emblematic of how I felt about the game. In theory, I *really* like the idea of pausing and restarting cycles -- particularly because it lets you have slightly different jumps every time you try a room, and that just feels fresh. However, the issue with the execution for me is that a lot of times the level design essentially amounted to doing a jump, toggling power back and forth until the next jump was lined up, and then repeating that process until the next save. Some obstacles also felt like I was supposed to just randomly toggle until it happened to line up (like the frenetic dick spike). I found the platforming in snowlands awkward and bitty in exactly the same way -- though I appreciate more effort was put into making you toggle mid-air, which maintained a sense of continuing movement must better.

The final screen in the Factory is the exception -- it's really fun and has great flow with minimal stopping+starting. The idea of cycle needle with some level of control over the speed / position of arrangement is really cool (for instance, the ability of the player to hold shoot to slow cycles down is interesting), but I'm not sure the toggle gimmick was the best way to use it.

The Junkyard was sort of my breaking point. I did not enjoy the maze puzzle, billboard puzzle or toggling numbers puzzle; they felt a bit to me like the limits of the toggle as a mechanic. On the other hand, however, I thought the newspaper puzzle was really fun. I'm split on the flowers puzzle -- I think it has the same problem as the puzzles I didn't like (the core premise is quite boring: the information you need is split into two, and you can only see one half at a time), but it felt more puzzly because the solution was in a place I hadn't visited since the start of the game. I think contextually, it works.

My final thought is that I wonder if the toggle would have been more interesting to me if it were more closely tied to the theme of time travel. At the moment, past and present are almost identical, and so it never felt like I was moving through time, just swapping some objects around. This is probably just a product of the inherent limitations of a game jam, though. Most of this issue could have been alleviated with visual cues and those are going to be low priority in a jam -- and, in any case, the visuals are clearly already at such a high quality, I can see why anxKha did not make two sets for each level.

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[4] Likes
Rating: N/A       Difficulty: N/A
Aug 31, 2022
Skuldafn
Nice game, but too short :( and has too much text imo

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[4] Likes
Rating: 7.0 70       Difficulty: 35 35
Aug 30, 2022
shign
How can someone be so based.

After the absolute masterpiece that is heavenly host, anxKha comes back with a short but sweet game. It's honestly as good as his previous game with a melancholic theme, I just wish it was longer because as I said, it's pretty short and really ends abruptly, but what's in the game is a bliss to play with a simple but really cool gimmick that allow you to switch between past and present. Also you can completely skip the junkward by jumping over the portal.

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[4] Likes
Rating: 9.6 96       Difficulty: 40 40
Aug 28, 2022
Jopagu
Fun little melancholic needle-venture game. Fine House uses an interesting gimmick in several ways to create some really fun platforming, and some interesting puzzles. I wish it pushed it a little further in some stages, but that's game jams for you. The bosses in the forest section are probably the best part to me, they use the gimmick for some fun dodges. The story is interesting, and had me emotionally invested, but unfortunately does that "up for interpretation" kind of ending that seems so common these days. It kind of just creates an abrupt end without a satisfying emotional resolution. I wish the story had a proper conclusion, as is it feels wasted.

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Tagged as: Adventure Needle Gimmick Story Puzzle
[3] Likes
Rating: 8.0 80       Difficulty: 40 40
Jan 10, 2023