See You Next Christmas

This was fun! I liked the main character, he was sweet and believable. I liked the slow unfurling of the story, it doesn't beat you over the head with it but it also doesn't show its cards right away. Very well balanced there. Similar to Oxymoron I got a sound error, I didn't realize that one door was the cause, good catch on their part there. But redownloading the game did the trick and it didn't pop up again. I also agree I wish there were visual indicators on the doors, but also it felt a part of the challenge to remember where everything was in this sprawling house. Very thematic, fun and a cool twist! Good job! 

that was great!!

what a polished, well-designed and atmospheric game! it's really clear a lot of thought went into this; the level design is really good, the story is intriguing and confusing (in a good way), the main character feels fleshed out and acts like a real person would... it was all so good!

my favorite part was the atmosphere of the mansion. i'm not sure what was programmed by whom, or what was a plugin, but the combination of details like the quiet but noticeable footsteps, the unique and smooth camera pan, the erratic but focused movements of the monsters... that, and the size and design make the mansion feel so empty and menacing. the puzzles were also really well made! they all had pretty understandable clues and none of them made me feel like i had to scour every room or interact with every tile or something like that (my favorite puzzle was definitely the kitchen bit, i mean HOLY CRAP how do you even program that, it was so cool-).

if i had to nitpick anything, the music can get a bit repetitive and i would've liked a couple more quiet moments (like the one where you get out of your room for the first time). also while the mansion ends up being pretty intuitive and i can recall more or less which room is which, it's a bit hard to remember on a first playthrough and it could've done with visual cues outside the doors or something like that. also this isn't a deal breaker or anything, but i got this bug where on my first interaction with the father's door (when you can't open it yet), a sound loading error kept appearing and made it pretty much impossible to keep playing. it's not horrible since i just loaded a previous save, and by the time you can open the door the error doesn't show up, but i thought you'd like to know.

lastly, i'll talk about the story. it was pretty intriguing all the way through, and it made me really want to know what happened to the family and the mansion. there's really subtle but great details all over the place that hint to the ending. and about that ending... i won't spoil it if anyone's reading this and wants to play the game, but wow that was so sad and so hopeful at the same time... a great bittersweet note to end a great game.