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Mind the rules's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #168 | 3.738 | 3.738 |
| Overall | #240 | 3.587 | 3.587 |
| Visuals | #252 | 3.976 | 3.976 |
| Theme | #300 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Audio | #316 | 3.452 | 3.452 |
| Gameplay | #397 | 3.357 | 3.357 |
| Enjoyment | #493 | 3.429 | 3.429 |
Ranked from 42 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does the game fit the theme?
"Nothing Can Go Wrong.." – A Rule-Based Psychological Horror Game
Mechanics: Rules as Both Limits and Clues
Our game is built on urban legend-style rule-based horror, where strictly following the rules keeps you safe. These rules define what can and cannot be done while also guiding puzzle-solving.
A unique feature is the trait-based rule selection, allowing players to choose rules that shape their experience. Each choice affects their interactions, vulnerabilities, and survival strategies, making every playthrough different.
Psychological Horror and Narrative: The Fragility of Routine
Life feels stable—until it isn’t. The protagonist is commuting as usual to Bankston Station when a small mistake shatters their routine, pulling them into a twisted world.
Every step forward forces them to face their past and guilt. They once believed that as long as they followed the rules, nothing could go wrong—but reality proves otherwise. The game explores how one irreversible mistake can trap you in fate’s grasp.
What code and assets did you not make from scratch during the jam (if any)?
none
How many people worked on the game?3
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Comments
This was an interesting game! Love the subtle horror aspect of it. Only that it felt a bit confusing at the start since i was just exploring about the whole place. But overall the visuals are insane! the atmosphere is really haunting and its just honestly a great visual game in a week!
This is INSANE.
It literally made me speechless. The visuals are incredible, the audio is terrifying, and the environment is unsettling... NAILED the vibes, honestly.
I did encounter a few bugs that made me a bit confused, though - stuff like the weird creatures all gathering up and getting stuck in one spot, every train being valid and ending the game, getting a visual that shows the 2 pieces of the broken card being obtained but then only having half of it in my inventory, the door to the left being unopenable if you're a kid (I think), etc - ended up replaying 3 times and choosing different rules to see what happens and if it changes anything 😅
Either way, the fact that this was made in a week-long jam is MIND BLOWING. It's one of the very few games I've played during this jam that felt almost... complete? Insanely high polish. I can definitely see this going on Steam once some things are fixed and perhaps more content is added!
Incredible job, guys :D
pretty cool game! Nice atmosphere and mysterious :-) Great job!
Really interesting concept! You did a fantastic job on this game's atmosphere, it feels very unsettling! The mystery of the station and everything that's happening was highly intriguing and I really enjoyed piecing everything together. The art was very well made, I really like the mix of 3D and the pixel art. The sound design was spectacular, it really amplified the game's atmosphere. This game is really well made and polished, great job!
Very cool game! I think you nailed the vibe, it's very creepy and I was super intrigued with what on Earth was going on at this platform. I think the puzzles are cool and some took me a bit to figure out, but I managed to get thru the game with some help from twitch chat lol. Great work on the game, it's cool and creepy!
I love horror games! I just died on platform 8, but I'll make sure to complete it later. Overall, I love it—the sound design and pixel art are on point. It really gives off dark vibes!
I loved the game! The psychological aspect of it, the mystery-solving, figuring out which station to go to. I had no idea what to do when we reach the platforms. The visuals were good, the gameplay is really intriguing. Even though for the most bit, narrative felt linear, there were some pauses, and the situation of not knowing what to do. Loved the experience so far, and it has good potential to be a great game with more time.
Nice game! I think the design is good and innovative. I like that you have to follow rules, as it adds to the creepy atmosphere.
Maybe the rules could be easier to understand since there is a lot of information on the screen, making it difficult to grasp everything clearly.
However, I really enjoyed the game. Great submission!
Nice game with good art. The puzzle part was a little difficult to understand for me and I wasn't able to finish it. Overall nice job!
Loved the artstyle, pixel art in a 3D environment looks great! The atmosphere was really great too! I'm not a fan of these types of games usually but this one is great!
This game's atmosphere was exceptional! Definitely one of my favourites of the jam :D
I loved the 2.5D artstyle, and the gameplay did exactly what I wanted it to.
I think I may have encountered a bug, or finished the game? I traveled to platform 5, then a train came, and I wound up back on the title screen.
Everything else, except for that, worked very well! The pysch-horror elements shined through, and I look forward to seeing if this goes further!
With these types of games, there's always the risk of explaining things too much, but I was a little confused when the shadows showed up - the psych horror elements came in a bit suddenly, and I wasn't sure what was happening. Once it clicked, I was able to immerse myself a lot more, but that transition felt a little abrupt to me.
The idea of the puzzles worked well, and I see in other comments that there may have been a bug with this in this build. That's all good, because the idea behind it works well so its an easy fix!
The idea of station rules / your own rules is also really interesting, but I think more fleshing out here would really make the idea of making your own rules to get through the world work well.
Overall, great effort and I look forward to seeing if anything more comes from this idea! :D
(PS - don't know if this comment is formatting weird for you, if so I apologise! I'm not sure what the issue is :') )
Thank you for playing and leaving a comment!
In the intended gameplay, only platform 7 is correct and will lead to the next stage, while choosing any other platform will trigger horror elements and result in death. We'll adjust the game's pacing in the full version and ensure that the psychological horror elements only appear when the player violates the rules. This approach might fit the core mechanic better and enhance the overall coherence.
Additionally, we're planning to add more rules to make the gameplay more engaging . Originally, we design three to four stages with a complete story behind them. We'll keep working hard to bring that vision to life!
This is an underrated game! It is a shame this game stayed behind, but that's the rate for rate logic and webgl games taking over. Well done from all 3 of us :)
We really want to build the webgl version but we ran out of time...
Thank you for playing it!
Hi players!
We just discovered a bug in the game that may make it difficult to solve the puzzle as intended. We sincerely apologize for this.We'll try to fix the bugs, but it seems that we can't upload a new version of the game. So, if you encounter any issues while solving the puzzle, please feel free to refer to this document!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VkMCOZvMO6lfeSD3jdJqjPj27_7UStqbXy37rBIVRQQ/...
Below are the two main bugs:
You really were in point with the phsycological horror! I had this wierd feeling of spook all the time. Nice sfx and visuals! Great Job!
Thank you!
The eerie atmosphere done by the sound and art is great!
It would be good if you can bind "close" button to Esc or any other key, it's much more convenient not to use the mouse
We'll report this to our programmer!
Very nice game with an intense atmosphere and nice visuals/audio! Insane that you have developed such game in only 7 days!
Great submission!
Thank you for your comment!
Great game! Nice story and nice visuals!
Thank you!
Wow, really nice art, everything looks so smooth. I liked atmosphere, it's lile you always under preasure(silent hill like).
Here some bugs and thoughts that poped up while playing. Hope it helps, but think of me as a stupid player that plays your game at 3am. (might no need to read everything next)
windows 11, res: 2560x1440
bug: wall texture snaps or something when you move to the door. You can reproduce it by walking near door up and down
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thoughts: why can't i pick up this information in items? I have a strong feeling that I will need it later and I don't want to remember it or run back and forth for something that makes sense to pick.
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thoughts: Also it seem like there a two items. But it seems there is only one. Also it's brown, but when i open it, it's blue, hmm...
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thoughts: Why can't i open display with platforms again? But I can look at map again
thoughts: Shadows tend to make a party, in that case they drain sanity insanly fast. it gets worse if you are reading at this moment.
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thoughts: Why do I need to pick more rules? 0 is not less than zero I wont pick any then. (why is it shown then on first run)
bug: button disapears here (if too close)
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thoughts: after i pick up badge text starts to appear before i close it. Possible could not read it
Btw, for not I just need to go to right platform and thats it? or i'm missing content?
Thank you for your detailed comment! Sorry for the late reply. We've encountered some bugs recently, and some of them you already mentioned. We also wrote a detailed puzzle walkthrough if you're interested.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VkMCOZvMO6lfeSD3jdJqjPj27_7UStqbXy37rBIVRQQ/...
There are two bugs which may make it difficult to solve the puzzle as intended.
We'll try to fix those bugs, but it seems that we can't upload a new version of the game...
No worries! LoL I solved it accidentally, I was thinking that page 1 and page 2 depict one whole table. So I looked at R-05 and 1002 and solved it somehow :D name and route didn't match, but I explained it by the thing that phone said that there are no bankston, so I thought that maybe I'm in another time and the name of bankston was crowns hill. Path didn't match for me cause I thought that left most point of path is start and pathes that are not walkable are fake.
I discussed it with my wife, she says that all my fault that I did think about table and that I didn't match the route. But she definitely thinks that this asset must be pickable, so you can compare it with map and table in place.
Didn't found second ending :( maybe will find it after release ^^ good luck with you game! Sleep well! The game looks solid already! Thx for making it