Pageturner
A downloadable game for Windows
Join Aviena and Borbu on their journey to Harmonia in this adorable interactive narrative with a roguelike twist.
Set in the pages of a book and played through whimsical illustrations, you choose how Aviena and Borbu will tackle their challenges! Aviena and Borbu gain modifiers based on your choices, and those modifiers help you in the minigames that follow. If you succeed or fail, your path branches on your journey to Harmonia.
Epic Megajam 2021
The game was made in 7 days for the Epic Megajam 2021, with the theme “Running out of space”.
Running Out of Space
This game tackles the theme in two ways; the narrative and the reoccurring mechanic.
After you make your choice and the minigame begins, the page slowly fills with the words of the story – giving you less and less space to complete your task, akin to a battle royale arena.
What to expect
This was a game jam game - it is very short and it is more of a demo. Expect 5-10 minutes of gameplay.
In the game demo, you will get an introduction and three minigames; in a single playthrough you will play two minigames, as the result of the first game dictates which path you then take. Even though Pageturner is a small demo with only three minigames, there are actually 18 variations of the game and four endings based on your modifier selections and the minigame outcomes.
Expect bugs! Again, a game jam game has many bugs. Be kind to them!
What's next? Check our Devlog below for updates on what we're up to!
Controls
Play Pageturner with your keyboard using WASD and SPACE.
Credits
Gameplay Design
Cari Watterton & Scott Simpson
Gameplay Programming
Scott Simpson
UI Art, Design & Code:
Cari Watterton
Narration & Writing
James Gardner
Music & Sound Effects
We Love Indies (sponsor of Epic Megajam)
Special Thanks:
James Clayton for Tech Support!
Aviena & Borbu Character Concepts
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Thank you's, mentions & update!Oct 27, 2021
Comments
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The game is so carefully done and well thought. Every detail is beautiful and the voice acting is great!
Thank you! We’re very proud whenever our narrator gets compliments as he did such a great job and it really makes his day to hear people enjoying it!
I hope you keep working on this, the artstyle is really charming and it feels like the kind of game you could really settle into and spend alot of time playing.
Thanks so much for the video!
I'm so sorry - it looks like you had a massive issue with the text printing reeeeallly slowly (in the video on the comment below/the trailer shows it printing at the expected rate).
This is probably just a byproduct of inefficient jam code, no optimisation time, and the spec of our development PCs not showing this issue. Please accept our heartfelt apologies!
We've had an unexpected amount of positive feedback, so we are hoping to sink some more time into developing the game. But hopefully this little (buggy) demo has shown it's potential.
On an additional note, our most requested feature is a skip button, so once that's in it should alleviate any needless waiting!
This was such a enjoyable experience. It was so cute and the voice acting was very well done. I really liked how the choices you make gave you different boosts in the minigames. Can't wait to see more of this!
Thank you so much! We weren’t expecting to get so much positive feedback from our humble little game jam game! Thanks for the gameplay video, sorry about our tree hit boxes. There is a lot we didn’t get to refine in that week, but it looks like we’ll need to release some updates soon!
This game is absolutely adorable. The writing is whimsical and fun and the art and gameplay go really well with it. I would love to read more of Aviena and Borbu's tales!
Thank you so much! We’re so glad you enjoyed it. We had a lot of fun making the game for the jam and we would love to improve and build upon it (free time allowing haha!).