.
Play game
Crypt Walker's itch.io pageComments
Played through the whole demo on Linux, didn't encounter any issues, though the mouse felt a bit too sensitive.
The atmosphere of the game is pretty good, but I feel the torch is too bright, and it could also use a flickering effect. On the other hand, I don't like the complete darkness in non-lit areas. You could add just a slight amount of global illumination to make basic navigation in the darkness possible, especially since the game has stealth elements where darkness is your best friend.
I liked the puzzles, though having to throw books on the shelves and hope they stick was a bit annoying. You could have a Thief-like system where you hold the object directly in front of you and can either throw or drop it exactly at the spot it currently is in. Otherwise everything was fun to figure out, throwing the green key through the small slit in the wall to avoid the glow from revealing me in the last level was a nice touch.
You definitely have to change the speed of the enemies. Right now getting spotted is pretty much an instant game over, though you can keep running as long as you don't get cornered since they're just as fast as you. Either slow them down to make escaping possible, or if you actually want getting caught to be an instant failure, make them fast enough to indicate that. I still managed to grab a colored key guarded by an enemy a couple of times and then run to the door to use it before dying to activate the checkpoint, and after reloading the enemy was reset back to its starting point.
From a gameplay point of view, I don't see a reason to have different keys for picking up inventory items vs. carriable items. If you add a key to gently place something down as mentioned before, it won't even be an issue near enemies if it makes no sound.
I noticed a bug with standing up from crouch, there's no checking for whether or not you have enough space to do that. In the last level, near the green key where there's a small tunnel made of crates you can use to douse the embers, you can stand up in the tunnel and clip into the crates.
Overall it's a really nice puzzle/stealth game though. Very interested in seeing where you're gonna bring it in the future.
Spooky game. I like the implicit direction in level design with the light source and also the puzzle aspect. It took me a while to realise the orange panel in the starting area is a door you could unlock with the key and the broken lamp doesn't do anything.
Some technical suggestions:
- It would be to add a mouse sensitivity option, since I use a high DPI setting mouse and the sensitivity is way too high in game.
- Highlight objects in the dark that have been picked up by the player, I threw away some items that ended up in the darkness a bunch of times and couldn't find them again
- Environmental hints (coud be more notes, objects, or writing on the walls)
- Expand the light/dark system to continuous (1-100) rather than discreet (on/off), this could give you more to work with when implementing new systems
Good job!
Submitted
SALVOpls add a sensitivity option i was spinning uncontrolably until i turned my mouse's speed down
sprinting should be a toggle, i was holding it for like 90% of the game
there is too much walking at some parts, especially on the first monster one where u have to walk a lot everytime the monster dies
also the monster just chases u until ur dead idk if thats intentional or not, if it is maybe make the monster faster so that u dont waste your time running away from the inevitable
Not a big fan of puzzle games and too much of a coward for scary games. Only got to the point when you encounter the first enemy. Same feedback as others have said, you definitely got the mood/atmosphere down, but things did feel a bit too spread out relative to movement speed though.
Good luck with the game!
The tone and atmosphere are great as others have said. There is just enough of a distance between light sources that I know where to go, but it requires exploration to find and there's dark space that feels creepy.
I don't play much of this genre of game, so take what I say with a grain of salt. But I wasn't too sure what to do with the old lamp I picked up. To me, I thought that holding it up to the fire would cause it to light. I also couldn't find the second key to open the second door. I explored for a bit and didn't
find anything, I wasn't too sure what to do with rocks and old lamps.
Overall its very clean and very atmospheric. I couldn't make any of these models or make anything in 3D space that even comes close to this, so great job!
Small note -- consider supporting gamepad input if possible. I'm a normie gamer and prefer that to mouse/keyboard.
Submitted
bearcycleThe sound design and the atmosphere is great. The player does feel really slow at times, even when sprinting. Just do what you are doing and keep the tone and atmosphere intact, then you will have a great game when it's done.
Submitted
Evening ParadiseNice work dude. This is cool. My notes:
- Awesome sound design. You nailed that.
- Really love the skeleton with the note. That's the kind of stuff that keeps me wanting to explore this place. I'd lean into that more tbh. Doesn't have to be notes, but just little bits of environmental storytelling. Especially in the intro area, the more the better imo. It's pretty low effort/high reward content to add.
- Puzzles feel good so far. I had a nice "a ha" moment when I figured out the bucket and the library.
- The torch seems too bright to me... It kind of ruins the spooky feeling of the place. Before, it was very atmospheric, even with the simple rectangular walls. After I got the torch, it felt much less interesting of a place.
- Saying "Checkpoint reached" so many times is unnecessary. Especially when I haven't yet had anything happen that would reset me. Saying it at all is not needed imo. If the player gets set back, they will realize there is a checkpoint. Don't break the atmosphere with game related popups.
- The pickup system is excellent. Didn't understand it at first because it said "Pickup list". I thought I was going to pick up a list of something. But once I understood it, I thought "why the fuck didn't every RPG do something like this instead of opening containers". Feels great.
- Way too much walking for the darkness puzzle. Once I figured it out (which was satisfying), I had to trudge through to actually implement my solution. The whole second area feels unnecessarily large.
- Enemy is way too fast. Once I hear him I'm spooked and running away. He really doesn't need to be actually tough, just scary. Once I run away and put my torch out, I should have a good chance of escaping. That's a much more exciting and interesting moment than getting run down and killed.
- Stopped once I died, but I can see myself playing all the way through this. Main takeaway: I can see you put a lot of work into creating a mood. And you do. Now just protect that mood. Little things, like the color keys, break it. Keep things on theme.
Nice work.
P.S. I was only getting ~500 fps. Not enough, please optimize more.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.