NetEscape

What is present - audiologs and images that appear on the desktop - are well made, haunting, and very satisfying to experience. This is a great teaser demo, I'm excited to see how it plays as a full experience & have already wishlisted it. <3 

rip worm guide tho, ouch

really enjoyed the game, i just wish the ending was more climactic lol 

The Last 30 Minutes of a Dying MMO, Innocent Souls Sit & Wait For Their Demise | NetEscape

I liked this. The visuals and vibes were very good. It felt to me less as if it were trying to be accurate to a specific point in time, and more like it was invoking the idea, the feeling of a previous age of online games, which I enjoy. It was short and sweet, and I had fun with it.

I have a few notes for if it ever gets made into a full game though. For one thing, it could have been clearer what you were supposed to be doing: I didn't notice the sticky notes on the computer that I guess were supposed to tell you what to screenshot until after I had taken all photos. The intro also could have introduced the concept in a more interesting way than just white text on a black background - maybe by reading an email or listening to/seeing a conversation about our character's job and assignment? At the very least, the text should not progress without player input. I am a fast reader and could keep up with it, but I can tell without a shadow of a doubt that a lot of people would not be able to finish reading one block of text with how fast it moved to the next one.

I'm also curious as to how a full version of this game would differentiate itself from the many other games with similar premises. The aesthetic is strong and does a lot of the heavy lifting, but from what I could glean of the story, it felt much like things I have seen before in this genre, as well as the means of gaining the information being pretty blunt and simplistic. Oh, btw was I supposed to be able to read those text documents obtained through the screenshots? Because I very much could not; I thought maybe they would be on my computer (actual) to read after playing, but couldn't find them, so maybe I missed some of the juicy details there. Anyway, basically I think the story needs some more substance (a unique twist, compelling characters, more interesting delivery vehicle) and/or the gameplay surrounding it would need to be more engaging/compelling to carry a longer full version of the game.

One more thing: I wasn't really sure what to do at the end of the game. Some spoilers ahead: at first I just sat there a while, going between the computer screen and the desk, not sure what to do. I clicked the NetEscape shortcut a few times, but didn't click it again for a while after I saw I was just getting errors, and therefore didn't notice it was shrinking for multiple minutes. Eventually I saw that, and did click it until it went away, but after that I was unsure if anything else was going to happen or if there was anything else I needed to do. I couldn't figure out the way to exit out of the game, so I ended up quitting through task manager after about ten minutes of nothing happening. Now, if the ending is just supposed to be you just sitting there and realising that NetEscape is gone and you'll never see it again: then I do kind of like that. But since there were no credit or proper way to exit the game that I could see, I was left very unsure if I'd actually seen the ending or not.

I realise I have listed a lot of things I didn't like, but I really did enjoy the game overall, and think it has great potential. I just wanted to share some of my critiques and issues because I think a full version improving on this one could really be something to behold. Also the itch comment box has been acting up like crazy as I've been typing this, so I hope this isn't formatted super weirdly; sorry if it is!

Edit: It is formatted super weirdly and I can't seem to entirely fix it. Oh well!!!

this is probably a really good game but i actually thought it was gonna be a cute little thing where i pretend to be a journalist and then the shadow man kept appearing and it gave me the shivers so i dunno if the game was good bc i stopped playing maybe i play again when its not midnight.

This was a really fun experience, loved the feeling of it all and the looks were great. I am curious if there is actually a way to access the portal that seems to be hidden behind the terminalife disco building? I tried walking against all the surfaces and doing emotes at things, but could not find a way to get to it.

Literally grew up in a 90s MMO (we called them virtual worlds back then) so this is dope

Awesome job to the developer! I feel like this truly captures the liminality and strangeness of the time period where we finally started to learn how the internet works. Not only that, it intertwines a horrific story into it.

Looking forward to more of your works! :)

Made a video

everything is good but just on the moving bc its kinda hard to move around but its a good game elsely

hello, i am playing the game and putting my gameplay on yt; i am really enjoying so far! i am excited for the full release :3

Played the demo and wow, the atmosphere and graphics are everything I had hoped for in a game inspired by older virtual worlds like Worlds.com (and probably some others). Good luck with the project, can't wait to see what the full version will be like !

Here's my full gameplay video :