You play as a mannequin, dissatisfied with your life in Victoria’s Secret. You decide to explore the mall and talk to other mannequins to see what other opportunities are out there for you.
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jtumarki/Mannekjin-1.0-all.zip
(Note: The music I used is (c) 07th Expansion / Ryukishi07)
I wanted to stay in the mall but I got a good ending with leaving. I did enjoy the aesthetic of the glassy mosaic photo manipulations and the other ‘false people’ were also nicely done. The whole story is good but I feel my dialogue had only a few consequences. There isn’t much character development but I like that style.
Very developed game! The personalities of the mannekjins were very well defined. I also like the choice of music you made.
The amount of dialogue/text really seems to overwhelm the number of choices, which is unfitting for a story in which you’re an typically inanimate object and would want to have as much free will as possible. I think if you toned it down a bit and added more actions, that would be beneficial. Also, after one of the bad endings in which I got my head popped off, there was a black screen, then a series of exchanges between me and another mannequin which preceded a good ending…was that accidental or intentional?
Yikes, looks like I forgot a return statement D: I intended for the game to end after the black screen… apologies. I should have playtested it more thoroughly.
That confused me too 😛 Other than that though it was very well done! I liked the artistic style you used with all the backdrops, though the running mannequin in the middle of the screen detached me from the story a bit, it didn’t fit the perspective. Very interesting dialogue, and well developed characters.
I think you missed a return or jump in one section because after one of the bad endings (where you get stored in back room I think) you continue seeing the dialogue of the other path. Otherwise, I liked the story, but felt that the development moved a little too quickly after you meet another mannequin. The use of filtered pictures was a good choice as you definitely feel like you’re in a mall.
I think the music and graphics works well for your concept. Another direction you could take is to make everything glossy, like a magazine, using the aesthetics of a photoshoot. I agree that some more choices during your conversations with the other mannequins would help, as I didn’t get a sense of dialogue between the two of you, just the other character explaining her POV.
I’m curious as to what happens after you leave the store, it seems like a bit of an abrupt ending. Neat concept, though.
I thought the writing was great, and you definitely learn about the other characters quite a lot. I wish there were a couple more choices though. It seemed like all I could choose was where to go and whether or not to stay. The visuals went really well with the story, but the music felt a lot like the Persona series to me…that is to say, it sounded like what JRPGs think malls sound like, but not what malls actually sound like (except Nordstrom’s, that was spot on).
Also I thought for a second that I found a secret ending but it turns out it was a bug… :[
I liked the scenario and the dialogue you got with the other mannequins and stereotyping what particular store mannequins would be like. I however felt like I got punished for the weirdest things and was in no way expecting it and i was left a bit disappointed. I like that you also have different music for each store and the graphics are interesting but the mannequins felt incomplete in some sections. I eventually got the good ending but it was more of an accident than not.
It looks good. I wish there were more choices and that the story continued a little bit out of the mall. I kept wondering what could a mannequin actually due besides be a mannequin. That was the intriguing part of the story and I still have no idea what happened to the character.
Great idea and great execution. The mannequins could have blended more with the background, maybe even avoiding the background foreground structure. I also stumbled upon the post bad ending bug.
I liked how it went somewhat gradually from freedom to wear different clothes to freedom from the prison/mall. The characterization is very good but it would have benefit from more choices both in the dialogues and in the movements within the mall. The falling apart ending after leaving a store didn’t make too much sense.