TRAMPLE_Eldritch Eatery: table for two

Love the lighting and effects! 

The dialogue could use some work insofar as they don't sound like monsters/they talk too much like regular people. In games like The Elder Scrolls when gods talk they have some grandeur to them, but in this game that's more like a "too-good-for-you" kind of vibe, which fits more for petty humans rather than godlike beings who already know how small we are. In the same vein, them being demanding is very fitting, and I like that there's an attempt to make the protagonist seem bumbling/kinda dumb and unprepared for this job.

Gameplay wise, it is difficult to intuit many of the elements. 

-The Timer gives the player a sense of dread, and makes them think they have to do something BEFORE it ends, when in reality nothing happens regardless of whether the bottom meter is filled when the timer ends. 

-It is difficult to understand what the icons above the customers' heads are trying to telegraph -- playing a game where you provide food makes you think that providing food is the MAIN mechanic, and that the other things (popping eyeballs, resetting the alarm meter) are NOT as IMPORTANT to the customers' satisfaction. In other food and service games, these puzzles and "balancing act" gameplay elements such as the alarm serve to take the player AWAY from serving the customers/cooking/delivering the food itself, so it was confusing coming from a perspective of familiarity with games like Overcooked! for example.

-The fish food should either be more clearly labeled for the FISH and not the CUSTOMERS or be put entirely somewhere else that isn't directly adjacent to / behind the main bar. It is confusing that you don't bring ANYTHING to the customers except for the eyeballs in the jar DESPITE there being something that looks like food right next to them (it even has eyeballs in it!). 

-Cooking the eyes was a little unintuitive, it isn't clear that eyes need to "cook" for longer than the first time you put them in the oven. I get that the demands are color coded but it was unclear that even leaving the eyes in the oven "re-cooking them" was what you were supposed to do in the first place. In other cooking games, leaving something to cook for too long leads to it burning, like with a steak turning black. In turn, when the eyeballs change color it reads immediately as them being wrong or spoiled or burnt somehow. I would include something about this in the tutorial.

-Consider making the tutorial consist of pop-ups or tooltips instead of part of the dialogue from the customers. The player has all the tasks available at the beginning of the game, so that's when they need to learn how to actually do them. If I need to wait 5:00 for the food to come out to learn how to feed the fish, then I've been running around with the fish food going "what does this do" for that entire time. Also the hitbox to feed the fish is really difficult to hit.

-The Alarm is too LOOOOUD!!!!

-The Alarm begins FAR too early into the dialogue introducing it, it BLARES in the player's ears while the monsters talk and talk and talk and it encourages the player to skip dialogue (which also includes the instructions for how to fix it).

-Lovecraftian/Eldritch guys are really difficult to write for, maybe they should have just been fish people or magic atlantis people instead, since eldritch entities are far closer to gods than people, its not that intuitive that the player does all these seemingly unrelated things to their experience, such as feeding the fish. These actions COULD work if the framing was slightly altered in my opinion, like "feed the fish for ritual sacrifice" something that couches the action within the fact that they are eldritch beings and they need to get something out of it. Otherwise it's like, why did these people bring their pet to the restaurant? Popping the eyes is a better example of synergizing the elements at play with the gameplay itself, but again why would they be AGAINST the eyes? kind of a nitpick but shouldn't they be the ones creating them? maybe the player should lose a very small amount of meter by popping them but by avoiding looking at them they won't affect you... something that encourages a more analytical playstyle and forces the player to "balance" the acts of pleasing the customers and keeping their sanity up.

-The husband kinda looked like a robot with a squid face, which I get is still kinda eldritch-y but it doesn't evoke much presence or godliness, which if you read any eldritch stuff they need to have. I think the tone of the game obviously is not gonna provide for like this horrifying monster design, but it should be more grandiose. Using a really common example, Asgore from Undertale has an imposing silhouette and he is not even a scary character, but here we've got basically the inverse of that where the silhouette could use some work to be more imposing.

-I love the level design!!! Running around between objectives is a GREAT way to balance them and forces the player to think on their toes more. The distance between the sanity room and the other elements is good and actually leads to the reverse controls kicking in sometimes, which was a nasty surprise!! good stuff.

-The Alarm Room itself could have used maybe a fixed camera angle? Or rearranging the buttons themselves to be grouped closer together. Having to look back at the screen and then swing the camera back around to press the buttons gets tiring. If this is the intended effect, I would recommend still fixing the framing to be tighter, but instead making the puzzle more randomized/complicated. You could color code the icons to account for this extra layer of difficulty.

-The Alarm is too LOOOOUD!!!!

-The Textures and Models were awesome

-Lighting and Color is very pretty, the environment is very moody and the natural blue of the ocean compliments the warm colors of the interior. 

-Animations look lively and have good timing

-2D Art is great!