Halfway

i liked this game a lot! it had an intriguing story, really good writing, and an extremely well crafted atmosphere!! :D

(SPOILERS)

i loved the vibes of everything. wandering through this giant mansion felt super eerie, and the darkness and the mysterious nature of certain parts of the place made it feel even scarier. whenever there was a sound i didn't understand i felt just as confused as the main character haha, but that made it so when there was NO sound i felt 10x as nervous. there's so many little details that add to the atmosphere: the way the lighting works, the room with ocean sounds, the EXTREMELY cool way the ticking fades as you move, allan looking tired in his face pictures, the fact this giant place is completely devoid of people... the way this mansion *feels* is immaculate. when i woke up on the final night, finding out i couldn't interact with anything, and that not even the ocean sounds room had ocean sounds... man that's a level of dread that's VERY hard to pull off. well done.

the story was also really good! you definitely feel what allan's feeling at every moment, be it confusion, sadness, despair... and it was really compelling to hear about the past he had with his sister. and i loved that there's actually no supernatural things happening, it's just normal sounds and his mind playing tricks on him (that's my interpretation at least. and i also think before night 7 starts, he died and what we're seeing is him in the afterlife; that's why he can't hear anything and has hallucinations. the story's really open to theorizing, and that's so cool!). and the writing is really really good. i especially loved enice's diary entries; they're really elegant and well written. her reflections on every topic that came to her mind as she was sick felt so profound that i actually felt dumb while reading them lol. in a good way of course! there were so many little fragments of text that stuck out to me: enice wondering if dying is what makes life matter, allan saying the garden has "nothing except for time and dirt", the sentence "daylight makes such things look foolish", that one's so absurdly good that i'm gonna steal it- (jk, i'm not XD still super good tho) and dude, when i read in the diary "my half is done"... damn that was powerful.

maybe this makes zero sense but the story kinda gives me the vibe of analog horror? like, walking through this empty mansion, trying to find things that aren't there, uncovering the main character and her sister's tragic backstory... it all seems like things i'd see in fake v/h/s youtube videos at 2 AM haha. it's a really unique style!

i like the presentation too! like i said, the lighting and sounds are really well done. and things like the few drawings and pictures you see from time to time are really cool. i really love the way every night starts with a different presentation image! and of course, the custom loading screen is great. the background images in some areas are kind of abstract and i'm not sure it fits with how realistic everything looks. but that's just a nitpick. once again, you use default assets really effectively and end up making the visuals really solid :D and oh! i love how in the hallway outside your room the black squares form an upside down cross!! i noticed that at the very end, that's such an awesome detail haha.

i think the biggest issue i had was the puzzles. they were mostly good but the ticking puzzle was pretty hard to figure out (you said you were gonna remake it tho, so if you do, ignore this lol) and it wasn't really clear that you had to look for the spot with the loudest sound in every floor, neither that the answer was "fireplace". i don't think this puzzle needs to be reworked from the ground up, just a couple more hints towards the solution would've maybe been enough? and the two puzzles that used constant sound (the ticking and the wind/dripping/mouse), while like i said they amplify the tension in parts that are silent, are kind of annoying and made me turn off the sound after a couple minutes. not really sure how to fix that without removing the entire point of the puzzles though. and lastly, i don't think i would've guessed how to get the third ending without looking the walkthrough, since i'm guessing it uses global switches and there's no hint to that in the game. maybe when you get both endings the game could've given some sort of dialogue that alludes to enice's diary before it sends you to the title screen. obviously that's just my opinion tho.

sorry for leaving you such an essay lmao. i genuinely think there's a LOT to talk about with this game, and i honestly couldn't believe that it was your first game!! the narrative and atmosphere feel like they had a lot of experience behind them. color me impressed!

i'm enjoying this series so so much!! they're such fascinating explorations of death and regret, with perspectives that all feel really unique and creative. you said you were working on a spinoff about the detective from pieces, right? looking forward to that! :D

and finally, i must ask................ will we ever know what GANA stands for??? (actually no, don't tell me, i want it to be a surprise-)

loved this game!! <3

i can't get through the ticking puzzle but i don't wanna review the game until i fully finish it cuz i'm invested in the story :(

(SPOILERS FOR THE WALKTHROUGH)

i'm unable to find the fireplace the walkthrough talks about; don't wanna seem like i don't care about beating the game legitimately, but could you share the solution to the puzzle? if not, that's ok lol.

I came back to this game and finished it. The issue I had before did not happen on the downloaded version, which is good.

This game is surprisingly good at getting into your head while playing. Sound is used sparingly, so when there is audio it feels sufficiently out of place. The writing and visuals aren't quite as effective, but they get the job done. The writing is peppered with grammatical issues and misspellings, but looking past that it still contributes to the off-kilter vibe of the game. The visuals being stock RPG Maker assets detracts from the atmosphere a little bit, but the most was made out of them and the pervasive darkness helps to carry the tone. The change in Allan's portrait to convey his insomnia was a nice touch.

The Argane Mansion itself feels like a string of anomalies. A room that swallows sound, a room that bellows sound, gusts of wind penetrate the walls and windows lead to nowhere. It is a building that does not feel like a single place in a world, it's as though it exists in isolation.  The weirdness of the structure is probably the best part of the experience for me, I've always been fond of strange buildings like this.

 Tension builds for the entire run time, and it never goes away. I began to feel a bit like Allan, running throughout the entire house hoping to find a way to progress. I have seen every ending to the game, yet it still feels like it holds more. Another room, another anomaly, answers to the many questions I had. 

Just looking at this Itch page reinforces that feeling. There are three images, and yet two of them are of rooms that do not appear in the game. One looks sort of like the garden. It also looks sort of like the upside-down cross pattern seen at the crypt entrance. I like to imagine the other unexplained image is what is inside the crypt itself.

I have maybe written too much, but Halfway is an experience that asks for discussion.

Although I couldn't get very far, I enjoyed what I played of this. The atmosphere was pretty effective overall.

I got stuck on the ticking puzzle and then the game crashed, which is unfortunate. After reading the walkthrough I can appreciate the larger picture of this work as a whole.

Wow! This was really nicely detailed, and I kinda like that it's a story that picks up a few nights into the narrative, yet it skips over what was probably the hardest part of Allan's life. And I want to thank you for mentioning me here in the game page; it's very flattering, and I dont think I did much to help but I'm glad! <3

 I really liked the puzzles, which made you have to interact with a number of things, but I also liked that there was different things in the descriptions so it didn't feel very repetitive. I played the browser version, and it did feel somewhat more somber since there isn't any music, but I felt that worked in the favor of the more eerie parts of the game, like with the crypt segments and figuring out where the ticking was coming from.

I can really relate to Allan in the feeling of anxiety and nervousness, being in such a large building all by himself- of course many small sounds would make him feel scared or uncomfortable, when he's supposed to be alone- it really felt creepy! 

The grammar and sentence structure was a little hard to follow in the diary segments, and I would've liked to be able to choose to NOT read it if I accidentally clicked on it (which i did a few times haha;;) but it wasn't too bad! I really liked the idea of multiple endings, especially what feels like a final resting place for his sister. I hope Allan can get some rest himself someday ;w; 

Overall, I think I wished there was more! I was eager to know what Allan was going to figure out next, and I was wondering what exactly could be behind the crypt walls as well- I liked finding the secret passages and I liked that there was already hints sprinkled throughout that made a lot of sense in the long run- I think the thing that threw me off was the silent/muffling room with the pond- i expected it to have something to do with a different puzzle, but I think that also works as a way to make the player really think about what makes sense to do next- I really appreciated Allan saying things out loud to give us, the player, a reason to get a specific tool or when it's mentioned that the player's rooms are identical- it all worked well I think!

All in all, this was pretty fun to play through! I think what scared me the most was when everything was completely silent- it really felt like something serious was happening! 

Thank you for sharing this game!! I look forward to playing more from you!