Short, but sweet! It's a great idea and I like that there weren't any frills. It was very straightforward. The game was a bit dark in some areas and while I didn't mind holding to interact, I do wish I was able to move faster. The space was small enough that speed wasn't a deal breaker though.
I would suggest that any scary moments, you program it so the character is looking at it. I missed a few things because I was looking somewhere else. You did a great job overall, especially with having multiple endings even though I only recorded one, you executed the idea well and made great use of the space, the game looked great, and I definitely think it's worth continuing to tell the story using the same mechanics and style. Good job and good luck!
Fantastic game, my only two issues I had for it was the way you interacted with objects (the click and hold feature) and that the game needed to be longer because I was really enjoying it. Keep up the good work!
Very dark for a pixalated game but had a good atmosphere and a good flow to it. Also made in 15 days makes this an even better achievement. Cool game... :)
I would really love to play this game! However I can't play this game without having some lag issues when using OBS to record my gameplay. I don't get lag when I am not recording ;~; Maybe some optimization can help? Of course I wouldn't know if it would work because my computer is trash from the beginning. (It's not even supposed to be use for gaming in the first place... I hope the developers would at least consider my suggestion. Thank you!
Great game! Wish it had a little more to it, I also thought it was a bit dark but overall I loved it! Had me creeped out through out the whole game play! Check out my video below!
Nice work for a game jam. The atmosphere was pretty moody and the monster animations were surprisingly well done. I particularly liked the glowing eye trails they had. It took me until the end of the game to finally figure out how to pull out the phone, so I definitely missed a bit, but I still got the gist. Staring at things to interact was pretty weird though. Especially not knowing what things were interactable beforehand, it meant I was staring at basically everyone for no reason. I cut most of that out, but I did collect my experience in a small video below.
I know this is off topic but can we complain about chrome os I cant play this game because of this stupid chromebook if I had a actually good computer I could play this but nope
Loved it, just like everyone else! I made ya a Lumps Play jam packed with thoughts & jokes. I hope you like it as much as I liked your game—can't wait until you guys expand more on it, what good news! Keep me posted :D
Played this for a 3 free indie horrors and this was easily the best one of the 3. The only thing i don't like is the holding right click to interact. I think i actually had some context input issues with this anyways. But other than that, really nice short horror game. I give a much better in-depth review in my video below.
Hey, thanks for your video and feeback! Very entertaining!
The hold to interact system takes inspiration from the same interact system of Silent Hills - P.T, which was a huge inspiration overall for our game. The input problem you faced was because you can only interact with the key AFTER placing the package (to stop players from venturing forward in-game without completing the task). We're sorry you had a few issues with it!
There actually is TWO endings, and you got the second one by choosing who to interact with. The other one is actually a bit longer. Hope you enjoyed your playthrough, though!
Our sequel will take in account all the player feedback we're getting, and we are going to make it bigger, better and scarier! If you'd like to keep updated about our progress, please follow us at @fried_games!
Yeah, no problem. Would had, had more fun playing it, but the game before it kinda sucked the life out of me lol. Was a little irritated when i got to New Message. I really did enjoy the game and thought it was really good. I do wish is had a bit higher of an FOV and the visibility was increased a bit as it was VERY dark. But overall. Was the easily the best game in the video.
Thank you for playing! The story is pretty much open for interpretation, but it was great seeing you try and figure it out (you got the closest so far!).
"I want to see everything that this game has" that just killed us right there. We can't describe how happy we feel to know that people are actually enjoying the game! We're already working hard on writing for the sequel. Stay tuned!
I'm glad you enjoyed my video haha that means a lot :) I love different timelines merging together and time travel and all kinds of sci-fi stuff like that! I'm excited for what happens next <3
Loved the design of this game and it utilized the pixelation filter very well. The creatures were unsettling and the ideas were creepy enough on their own. Well done for a game jam, hell well done for any kind of game. Looking forward to your future released.
Hi there, I just recently played through New Message and wanted to share some of my thoughts on it here. With these “mini-reviews” I tend to go over some of the things I liked about the game, some things I didn’t, and any bugs I might have come across throughout my play time.
I’ll first go over some things I liked. The visuals are excellent, at first, I wasn’t too sure about the low-res style with this game, but as it progressed it really started to grow on me, and became a defining feature for the game, it was used in such a way that made things even creepier. An example of this would be when walking down an alleyway, there’s what appears to be a big blob of pixels stuck to a wall and as you approach it you begin to see more details of it, it begins to move really fast, scampering off before you can get a real good look at it, but you know right away that something isn’t right. The sound design was another aspect of the game that was done phenomenally, the buzzing of the phone gave me shudders every time it went off, and there’s a particular scene that actually made me jump in my seat (something that doesn’t happen often), all thanks to the way the sounds and music are used throughout the experience. Both of these key points lead up to the final, and that’s that the game has a wonderful sense of atmosphere to it, the enemies are constantly watching you from the darkness and if you look hard enough at times you can see them, combine that with the sounds, music, and low-res visual style and you have an incredibly atmospheric horror game on your hands. The multiple endings are also a really nice touch, and aren’t blatantly obvious to the player, you have to think about what action could lead to a different outcome.
There’s only one thing I can point to throughout the whole experience and say “I didn’t like that.” And that’s with the interaction mechanic. Having the interactions tied in with the camera zooming in just feels awkward at times, especially with gates and doors. I would consider this to be a very minor gripe, that never really impacted my overall enjoyment of the game, just a minor annoyance at times.
I’m happy to report that I didn’t run into any bugs throughout my play time, the game seems very well polished.
This is definitely a game I would recommend for people to try, and that’s fairly rare for me these days, especially on itchio. The game has a high degree of polish to it, signaling that the developers really care about delivering their game to the players in the best way they possibly can. The game isn’t half-assed by any means, despite being made in roughly two weeks. It looks good, sounds fantastic and has an overall tense and creepy atmosphere to it that drives the player forward. Fantastic job with this game.
I made a short let's play of my time with game, linked above.
Wow. We have no words to express how happy we feel with your review. Thank you a lot for taking the time to do this!
I know exactly how you feel in regards to most horror games these days, and we did our best not to be "just another one". Comments like yours makes us feel immensely accomplished and filled with energy and ideas for more. We're definitely taking note of the feedback on the interaction system, and we're very sorry we couldn't make it work well with the game. Thankfully, it didn't seem to harm the experience too much.
Thank you again for the support! Cheers and best wishes!!
Thank you for taking the time and effort to make a game worthy of such praise, and for responding to me. I just try to provide whatever feedback I can. You definitely succeeded in standing out to me, and I believe you have a really good shot at winning the TV Game Jam. You don't have to apologize for my one and only complaint, what I find as a minor annoyance or inconvenience others might not bat an eyelash at, it's very subjective based. You've caught mine, and I'll assume a lot of others attention with this game, and I'm quite curious to see what project you tackle next.
You definitely have my interest and support.
Thanks again for responding, and for making a game that stands out among the rest, it was a pleasure to play.
Aside from the few little things addressed in other comments, I really enjoyed playing through this one. Multiple endings was a nice bonus I wasn't expecting.
Thank you for covering our game! We watched it yesterday, and it gave us a lot of feedback, needed for the current updated version of the game, and we really enjoyed the video! Very entertaining!
Hope you enjoyed your playtime with New Message! Having someone figure out the second ending was a nice experience.
Thank you for covering our game! The controls scheme follows the same direction as P.T. - Silent Hill game, where you HOLD RMB for a few seconds before interacting, it's not instant.
We updated the game recently, adding a little tutorial for the interaction control scheme and increased the size and height of the Hobo Alley Key, following player feedback. We also added a crosshair when zooming/interacting to let you (the player) know exactly where you are aiming.
If you ever feel like playing this new updated version, there is a second secret ending that you ALMOST achieved, but couldn't because you didn't hold RMB long enough. Hope you enjoyed playing!
Just got done playing this and I actually liked it. I am curious how many endings there are though as I got two endings. Love the design, spoopy music and concept! Thanks for making this.
Thank you for playing! There are only two endings, because we had only two weeks to make this game for a Jam, but the original concept featured 3 or 4 endings.
This game is so close to being awesome but makes a few missteps. Understanding that it's a jam title makes it a little easier to deal with but there's just so little feedback from the game. First off, the HOLD to interact with a lack of any indicator before the action takes place lead to me assuming something couldn't be interacted with due to the delay. Secondly, the low res filter makes it very difficult to see things from a distance. Because of the bench and blood surrounding it, I'm sure a lot of players will never find the key unless they come back to look at the game page like I did and see the screenshot. Overall, this was amazing in terms of its suspense, atmosphere, pacing and effects but those two choices dragged the whole experience down for me.
Thank you for your feedback! We adressed every issue in your video and comment, and we now believe that we achieved both an immersive and fun experience with our new 2.0 version of New Message.
If you'd like to give it a new try, there's a secret ending you may unlock by "enforcing your free will".
← Return to game
Comments
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Short, but sweet! It's a great idea and I like that there weren't any frills. It was very straightforward. The game was a bit dark in some areas and while I didn't mind holding to interact, I do wish I was able to move faster. The space was small enough that speed wasn't a deal breaker though.
I would suggest that any scary moments, you program it so the character is looking at it. I missed a few things because I was looking somewhere else. You did a great job overall, especially with having multiple endings even though I only recorded one, you executed the idea well and made great use of the space, the game looked great, and I definitely think it's worth continuing to tell the story using the same mechanics and style. Good job and good luck!
Fantastic game, my only two issues I had for it was the way you interacted with objects (the click and hold feature) and that the game needed to be longer because I was really enjoying it. Keep up the good work!
me: *on computer on itch.io searching for games*
me: *finds game " new message" * okay, lets gives this game a try
game:
me: it doesn't look scary
me: * at minute 6:39 *
1st game on the videoFun little game!
Link to my channel (opens in new tab) youtube.com/jonathick
Very dark for a pixalated game but had a good atmosphere and a good flow to it. Also made in 15 days makes this an even better achievement. Cool game... :)
Hello do you want test my game ? :D
https://average74.itch.io/green-run-is-back
ayy nice game I had a lot of fun! also I made a video -
Interesting, great atmosphere! It would deserve to be made into some really cool, 10x longer game in my opinion! :)
I would really love to play this game! However I can't play this game without having some lag issues when using OBS to record my gameplay. I don't get lag when I am not recording ;~; Maybe some optimization can help? Of course I wouldn't know if it would work because my computer is trash from the beginning. (It's not even supposed to be use for gaming in the first place... I hope the developers would at least consider my suggestion. Thank you!
awesome game very good wish it was longer and cant wait to see more games from you!!
Great game! Wish it had a little more to it, I also thought it was a bit dark but overall I loved it! Had me creeped out through out the whole game play! Check out my video below!
Nice work for a game jam. The atmosphere was pretty moody and the monster animations were surprisingly well done. I particularly liked the glowing eye trails they had. It took me until the end of the game to finally figure out how to pull out the phone, so I definitely missed a bit, but I still got the gist. Staring at things to interact was pretty weird though. Especially not knowing what things were interactable beforehand, it meant I was staring at basically everyone for no reason. I cut most of that out, but I did collect my experience in a small video below.
I know this is off topic but can we complain about chrome os I cant play this game because of this stupid chromebook if I had a actually good computer I could play this but nope
This little game has bags of potential, would love to see it being added to!
Very atmospheric and it has a compelling and different storyline, even if it is borrowed from Black Mirror.
If you wanna check out gameplay footage before downloading (and to see both endings), my video is below!
Very creepy! Love Black Mirror and really enjoyed this game! Great work! Can't wait to see what's next!
I certainly won't be touching any stanger's phones after this...
As a fan of black mirror this was a surreal play and I enjoyed playing it. You've def got a follow out of me
Yours is the second game I played at the 7 min markBesides the Key issue I really enjoyed playing this, the atmosphere and sound design were fantastic, putting the triple A horrors to shame here :)
Show post...
lol
Loved it, just like everyone else!
I made ya a Lumps Play jam packed with thoughts & jokes. I hope you like it as much as I liked your game—can't wait until you guys expand more on it, what good news! Keep me posted :D
Cheers. 🍻
OMG that was SUPER CREEPY ! btw, RIP HOBO </3
this is my gameplay ! you will see that I TOTALLY enjoyed the game !
Played this for a 3 free indie horrors and this was easily the best one of the 3. The only thing i don't like is the holding right click to interact. I think i actually had some context input issues with this anyways. But other than that, really nice short horror game. I give a much better in-depth review in my video below.
Hey, thanks for your video and feeback! Very entertaining!
The hold to interact system takes inspiration from the same interact system of Silent Hills - P.T, which was a huge inspiration overall for our game. The input problem you faced was because you can only interact with the key AFTER placing the package (to stop players from venturing forward in-game without completing the task). We're sorry you had a few issues with it!
There actually is TWO endings, and you got the second one by choosing who to interact with. The other one is actually a bit longer. Hope you enjoyed your playthrough, though!
Our sequel will take in account all the player feedback we're getting, and we are going to make it bigger, better and scarier! If you'd like to keep updated about our progress, please follow us at @fried_games!
Yeah, no problem. Would had, had more fun playing it, but the game before it kinda sucked the life out of me lol. Was a little irritated when i got to New Message. I really did enjoy the game and thought it was really good. I do wish is had a bit higher of an FOV and the visibility was increased a bit as it was VERY dark. But overall. Was the easily the best game in the video.
This was one hell of a game! Man I was scared the entire trip!!
oh boy! what to say about this... THIS WAS AWESOME!!! :D i want more i want more! XD awesome job on making this game :D
This was A LOT of fun, I played both versions. Good stuff!
I really like the premise of this game, I've not seen black mirror but I want to watch it all of a sudden 😂
I very much enjoyed this game, like I was in an episode of Black Mirror myself <3 Watch me get scared!
Thank you for playing! The story is pretty much open for interpretation, but it was great seeing you try and figure it out (you got the closest so far!).
"I want to see everything that this game has" that just killed us right there. We can't describe how happy we feel to know that people are actually enjoying the game! We're already working hard on writing for the sequel. Stay tuned!
I'm glad you enjoyed my video haha that means a lot :) I love different timelines merging together and time travel and all kinds of sci-fi stuff like that! I'm excited for what happens next <3
Made a mini movie out of this... XD
That was amazing, thank you very much for this. You're very creative and camera work was top notch as well. Congratulations!
Thank you for playing, we loved your video!
Cool game enjoyed this game but I didn't kill that guy xD
Both Endings and all that ! Great job i didnt have any problems with the zoom in or anything, it just worked out! very spooky
Loved the design of this game and it utilized the pixelation filter very well. The creatures were unsettling and the ideas were creepy enough on their own. Well done for a game jam, hell well done for any kind of game. Looking forward to your future released.
I’ll first go over some things I liked. The visuals are excellent, at first, I wasn’t too sure about the low-res style with this game, but as it progressed it really started to grow on me, and became a defining feature for the game, it was used in such a way that made things even creepier. An example of this would be when walking down an alleyway, there’s what appears to be a big blob of pixels stuck to a wall and as you approach it you begin to see more details of it, it begins to move really fast, scampering off before you can get a real good look at it, but you know right away that something isn’t right. The sound design was another aspect of the game that was done phenomenally, the buzzing of the phone gave me shudders every time it went off, and there’s a particular scene that actually made me jump in my seat (something that doesn’t happen often), all thanks to the way the sounds and music are used throughout the experience. Both of these key points lead up to the final, and that’s that the game has a wonderful sense of atmosphere to it, the enemies are constantly watching you from the darkness and if you look hard enough at times you can see them, combine that with the sounds, music, and low-res visual style and you have an incredibly atmospheric horror game on your hands. The multiple endings are also a really nice touch, and aren’t blatantly obvious to the player, you have to think about what action could lead to a different outcome.
There’s only one thing I can point to throughout the whole experience and say “I didn’t like that.” And that’s with the interaction mechanic. Having the interactions tied in with the camera zooming in just feels awkward at times, especially with gates and doors. I would consider this to be a very minor gripe, that never really impacted my overall enjoyment of the game, just a minor annoyance at times.
I’m happy to report that I didn’t run into any bugs throughout my play time, the game seems very well polished.
This is definitely a game I would recommend for people to try, and that’s fairly rare for me these days, especially on itchio. The game has a high degree of polish to it, signaling that the developers really care about delivering their game to the players in the best way they possibly can. The game isn’t half-assed by any means, despite being made in roughly two weeks. It looks good, sounds fantastic and has an overall tense and creepy atmosphere to it that drives the player forward. Fantastic job with this game.
I made a short let's play of my time with game, linked above.
Cheers and best wishes,
Killjoy
Wow. We have no words to express how happy we feel with your review. Thank you a lot for taking the time to do this!
I know exactly how you feel in regards to most horror games these days, and we did our best not to be "just another one". Comments like yours makes us feel immensely accomplished and filled with energy and ideas for more. We're definitely taking note of the feedback on the interaction system, and we're very sorry we couldn't make it work well with the game. Thankfully, it didn't seem to harm the experience too much.
Thank you again for the support! Cheers and best wishes!!
Thank you for taking the time and effort to make a game worthy of such praise, and for responding to me. I just try to provide whatever feedback I can. You definitely succeeded in standing out to me, and I believe you have a really good shot at winning the TV Game Jam. You don't have to apologize for my one and only complaint, what I find as a minor annoyance or inconvenience others might not bat an eyelash at, it's very subjective based. You've caught mine, and I'll assume a lot of others attention with this game, and I'm quite curious to see what project you tackle next.
You definitely have my interest and support.
Thanks again for responding, and for making a game that stands out among the rest, it was a pleasure to play.
Excellent use of a real fear in the game. Props for making me feel paranoid now.
Here's my channel for other games I have played: https://www.youtube.com/c/Levont
Great game. I love the stalking feeling of the monsters.
Thank you for covering our game!! And we absolutely loved the vid, very entertaining!
Thank you for covering our game! We watched it yesterday, and it gave us a lot of feedback, needed for the current updated version of the game, and we really enjoyed the video! Very entertaining!
Hope you enjoyed your playtime with New Message! Having someone figure out the second ending was a nice experience.
SKIP TO 7:45!
Thank you for covering our game! The controls scheme follows the same direction as P.T. - Silent Hill game, where you HOLD RMB for a few seconds before interacting, it's not instant.
We updated the game recently, adding a little tutorial for the interaction control scheme and increased the size and height of the Hobo Alley Key, following player feedback. We also added a crosshair when zooming/interacting to let you (the player) know exactly where you are aiming.
If you ever feel like playing this new updated version, there is a second secret ending that you ALMOST achieved, but couldn't because you didn't hold RMB long enough. Hope you enjoyed playing!
Thanks for getting back to me you guys! I'll be sure to try out the updated version to try and get the secret ending.
Just got done playing this and I actually liked it. I am curious how many endings there are though as I got two endings. Love the design, spoopy music and concept! Thanks for making this.
Thank you for playing! There are only two endings, because we had only two weeks to make this game for a Jam, but the original concept featured 3 or 4 endings.
Hope you enjoyed playing!
That's what I thought I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything.
This game is so close to being awesome but makes a few missteps. Understanding that it's a jam title makes it a little easier to deal with but there's just so little feedback from the game. First off, the HOLD to interact with a lack of any indicator before the action takes place lead to me assuming something couldn't be interacted with due to the delay. Secondly, the low res filter makes it very difficult to see things from a distance. Because of the bench and blood surrounding it, I'm sure a lot of players will never find the key unless they come back to look at the game page like I did and see the screenshot. Overall, this was amazing in terms of its suspense, atmosphere, pacing and effects but those two choices dragged the whole experience down for me.
Thank you for your feedback! We adressed every issue in your video and comment, and we now believe that we achieved both an immersive and fun experience with our new 2.0 version of New Message.
If you'd like to give it a new try, there's a secret ending you may unlock by "enforcing your free will".