A girl went missing on Heliconia Island, a small fishing island far out at sea. Only a few people live there, so the suspect list isn't impossibly long.
Her parents came directly to you, as you have a reputation as a private detective specialized in finding missing children. You've just come back from a similar case in Sinnoh, so you head right back out and go on the journey to Heliconia Island by boat.
Will you find the girl and uncover the events that lead to her disappearance?
About
Just to come right out of the gate with it, I struggled to find a good title for this game, so Smoke and Salt might not be 100% perfect if you think too hard about it.
With the theme of 'Surprise' I thought going for a detective story that's a little twisty and a little spooky would work the best for me and I gotta say I really like how it turned out in the end. I don't wanna say too much about it, except, if you get to 'that' part, yes, there is a flashlight in the game, it's just a little out of the way. (And also there is a move that has been buffed to 80 Accuracy but I figure that you'd notice that.)
Download Link (Original)
Screenshots
Credits
Hello there! I'm currently going back and giving my thoughts/feedback on all of the jam games, so here's my thoughts on Smoke and Salt!
All of the tiles looked very nice and all of the maps were very nicely constructed too.
At the beginning of the game you're TOLD of a lot of different people, but you've never met any of them before which makes it hard to keep all of the information straight as it feels like you're just told a bunch of words, though maybe I was also just tired during that section.
The reveal of the nature of why the person was being "kidnapped" was very interesting in my opinion, and definitely surprised me as it wasn't really what I was expecting.
The Hex Maniac's(blanking on her name) motivations felt a little inconsistent in my opinion, and didn't make entirely too much sense, though there was enough there that did which didn't detract me from the story. If you want to know more about this particular point, we really go into detail in the Hints of Hisui podcast episode talking about this game.
I feel like one of the two Pokémon you are given at the beginning should be a fire type as you deal with a lot of grass types and it took me a bit to find someone good against them, and at that point I wasn't dealing with grass types nearly as much.
I feel like your games are starting to get to a point where there is a sort of "formula" to them, of course not including Family Restaurant, and it'd be interesting to see you try to deviate away from that formula a bit more in the future.
Overall, it was a really interesting experience that had a twist that really surprised me! It also led to a really interesting discussion which is a really good sign when it comes to writing, as only solid writing can lead to discussion in my opinion. I'm glad to see you still working on projects and once again it met that level of polish expected from one of your games though the added nature of the twist with the nature of the kidnappings did make it stand out a bit more in my mind compared to some of your other projects.