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Solitary Ancient Ruins of SPLORR!!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall fun and playability | #68 | 2.958 | 2.958 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme incorporation
NOTE: this game deals in mental health issues. It is not meant to minimize or make light of yours, and in fact has to do with my own journey in dealing with these issues in my own life.
There is a combat tutorial! You may find combat confusing if you don't watch it! You may still find it confusing. Anyway, its at: https://youtu.be/p7HrATtlVzI
I incorporated all of the themes into the title of the game. That was cheesy. But I also incorporated Solitude as a theme, as yer the only being in the maze. The Ancient Ruins are of yer childhood where you experienced complex trauma, and you have to face the Cosmic Horror of yer past Traumas. Its a stretch, but at least I'm not making you set Tea on fire this year.
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Interesting game! I snorted a lot of red pills and managed to become the epitome of mental health :D
I didn't watch the tutorial video and I didn't understand what was happening in the minigame until I started winning them a few times. I still don't know what's going on exactly, but as long as you have at least one X but not too many, things are good. Repeating the process for every past trauma did get a bit repetitive, but the minigame is very fast so that's fine. Poor walls, though :D
There's a lot of button presses involved for picking up and using items, I think that that could be optimized a little more. Like picking up multiple items in one go without having to go through the menu again.
Overall it's a very unique game, and it's charming because of that. I enjoyed my playthrough :D
Cool entry! I wish I had slightly more interesting choices in combat... it seemed very rarely did I have enough information to do anything other than "choose the safest row", or even when I had information, I really had to analyze things closely to find any row that was actually safer than whichever row had the fewest Xs... if it did something like the row patterns were (relatively) fixed so that with a little information you could make a guess about which row might be the one you want (e.g. I remember it had an empty spot in the 4th column) or something like that would make it just a little bit more engaging.
I figured out what everything did (eventually) except for CBT (which, I'm assuming, stands for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy here, and not what it usually stands for on the darker reaches of the internet...). Reading a comment below I guess that's because I also didn't notice there was a map until I had 1 trauma left to deal with =). I would have liked a slightly simpler way to pick up things in a room (maybe have one less menu and then just B = open menu, and A = pick up?), it got a bit cumbersome - same with repeatedly using the same item (maybe just press A on it repeatedly, with a 1-line message about what it did? =).
I like the visuals, nice, simple, clean, and the ending song was nice =).
Well this was a very interesting entry. I like the idea of fighting through a dungeon of your own inner demons and anxieties, and trying to either deal with or avoid troubles to seek help (in this case pickup items).
The combat as you likely expected was confusing at first, though once I got a handle on it I thought it was great! Whether it's intentionally trying to dodge getting hurt by painful memories and thoughts, and soft-avoiding them by clicking on a row with few or no questions marks or X's. Or trying to nail down the last little problem and attempt to heal. It felt very thematic that as you focused in on the memories they got easier to deal with but harder to eliminate.
Graphically I liked the Akalabeth/Ultima throwback wireframe look. And the music and effect felt fittingly retro.
I know its part of the old school aesthetic, but I also found it a bit tedious to have to cycle through a menu multiple times if I wanted to pickup two items in a room. A "pickup all" option might be a nice addition in future games. Just my 2 cents.
I guess FYI for feedback on how much players understood the mechanics, I didn't know mindfulness or CBT did anything until I read another comment here. I also thought Red Pill was going to be harmful like "Oh no you started a podcast and are trapped in the dungeon forever!"
Overall though I liked this one more than I expected, it's a solid entry with unique concept and mechanics that manages to combine the old school graphics and interface with modern mental health discourse. I hope your own journey goes smoothly, thanks for sharing and great work!
Your games usually kick me back to found childhood memories when I played on my C64, trying to understand what the words on the screen could mean (not a native speaker).
This one is different, its more serious.
That doesn't mean that I don't like it, perhaps I expected something else. I just wish dealing with bad memories would work like in your combat system.
And I had hope you would go for a sunny meadows crawler, because I did not, but thats fair, maybe next year.
Thanks for sharing.
A very unique game! I like the old school art style and the music, especially the end theme! Covers a very interesting theme, and I feel the combat does a good job of representing the theme, with how it can be hard to start tackling issues but progressively gets slightly easier as you keep working on it. There aren't many other games where you can say you came out of the experience as the epitome of mental health ;)
I was able to conquer my traumas, even though there was a lot of repeated wall-headbutting involved at the end, when my trauma level was 3 or less and it took a lot of combat to bring it down to zero. I had fun figuring things out by myself and managing the resources by writing down where the sanity pills were. Also, bonus points for the theme implementation, the categories were really relevant and that combat system with partial information is very original.
Great game, thanks for sharing!
It's a very unique game.
By understanding the rules and using items, I was able to complete the game smoothly. But I didn't understand it at first. Ha ha. I could have realized it earlier by carefully looking at the menus, but I still felt that there were not enough explanations in the game.
But it was a very interesting game. The sound is cool too.
One of the big things I'm learning about my game is that my original philosophy of "let them figure it out" is far to old school to continue with.
Modern sensitivities need tutorials, so I need to work my engine to support them.
Thanks for giving it a go.
You Win!
It took me a while to figure out what the goals were, but I think I got it. At least I completed the game.
There is a lot of jumping in the menu, but that is kinda the idea I guess. I started to draw a map until I found the built in one...
Nice touch with ending tune.
Stay Safe!
GamePad control games be like that I guess, but I do have plans to incorporate a couple other buttons. Right now, its just D-Pad, A, B, and I'll be bringing in Back and Start to help with things.
Thanks for giving it a go.
This is a genuinely unique game among the one's I've played! The sort of minesweeper/battleships way of dealing with the combat is pretty inspired, though it took me up until close to the end to figure out how it related to the trigger levels and the room clearing.
The only thing I can really complain about is that the game's objective is really not that clear until you completely clear a trauma for the first time. I was wandering around for a while looking for an exit, not realizing I had to make one in a way, haha.
A minor bug I think is that combat encounters get triggered when exiting the B-menu or when walking into a wall without a doorway.
I also have yet to figure out what mindfulness does.
Either way it's simple and to the point, a good length, and a well executed idea!
There are a few minor bug/glitches/accidental features in how the combat gets triggered.
But that's the thing about recovery... yer never sure when yer gonna get triggered.
So, we'll call it... thematic?
Thanks for giving it a go.
This is an interesting entry. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I it grew on me the more I played. This look is usually a little too old school for me like some of the other entries, but the music was catchy and the unique twist on combat kept me engaged and I was intrigued to explore all the rooms. Although, after the first couple of rooms I had to watch the tutorial because I didn't really understand what was going on. Also, I mostly randomly wandered around until I paid more attention to the menu options and saw there was a map and started exploring with more purpose. I wasn't sure if there was a way to win, except for consistently conquering your memories and exploring all the tiles.
Thanks for giving it a go.
The old school aesthetic isn't for everyone, and dealing with menu-hell is a common bit of feedback.
I also do next to zero tutorializing on how to play the game, other than the combat, which was weird enough to need a video.
But that, too, is old school, I reckon.
The win state is by dealing with all of the traumas.
Thanks for reply. Yeah I can generally go for old-school, but the statement itself can refer to a broad range of games lol. Either way, there's been a few entries on here where the wireframe graphics have worked and were fun enough to keep playing and yours was one of them. Thanks for the entry, I did enjoy it once I figured it all out!
I'm the epitome of mental health!
The game is fun and unique. I really enjoy the combat system, luck partially implemented as hidden information instead of only die rolls with consumables to gain extra information is typically the kind of things I'm very found of and I greatly enjoy an important dose of resource management as well so this really appealed to me. I also have to say I love the music in the areas that you've not cleared yet.
This is a super cool game, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for giving it a go.
The mechanic really resonated with me as well. I was pleased to discover it. I wasn't really sure the mechanics were going to work out until I had them implemented.
Even so, it is clear that more can be done with it. Prolly differing column and row counts, but by the time I thought of that, I didn't want to mess up what I already had that worked.
Your games are always fun and full of personality. I smiled a lot playing this one.
Thanks for giving it a go.
Yeah. Personality. I've got that in spades.
Remember: if you can't compete on graphics or audio, put in personality.
It won't win, but you'll get remembered.
I think I got to grips with your interface a lot better this year.
Head fun filling out the map and getting into a good flow.
Not sure if there was a win-state or not.
Playthrough: Solitary Ancient Ruins of SPLORR!! The Cosmic Horror of Infinity by TheGrumpyGameDev
Thanks for giving it a go.
There is a win state, once you've dealt with all of the traumas.
Good to see my interface improving.
Oh, don´t beat youself up, that you entries are too niche. I dig the Qbasic look and even if the controls are a bit cumbersome, you somehow get into the zone and it clicks. The battle system as a tool to deal with sanity and traumatic memories was a nice touch. I dig it!
Thanks for giving it a go.
It once was a "beat myself up" thing, but no longer.
I make games for me.
I stream for me.
I participate in game jams for me.
Niche is not a badge of shame, but of strength.
Some people chase validation and recognition.
I make quirky little games in a quirky old language with a quirky style that resonates with some, and other people find strange.
Being mainstream can go to hell.
I did watch the combat tutorial and I eventually figured it out, I was able to come to terms with 4 memories I think before I went insane. I think I maybe spammed a bit to hard when brute forcing for gaps.
Interesting approach to the theme!
Thanks for giving it a go.
Yeah, the combat mechanic can break yer heart.
And yer mind.
In a way, it is its own form of trauma.
Thanks for combat tutorial, it was really helpful! After spending some time playing it I kind of understood how it works in terms of risk-reward and started to form strategy on top of that. At first items and dungeon was confusing, but, again, after spending a bit of time I figured out that CBT seems to reveal tile ‘type’ on the map, while avoidance allowed you to skip facing a memory (which is super useful). I didn’t figured out mindfulness though, maybe it was revealing different dungeon tiles?
I had a couple of technical issues with your game though. First is that macOS will block dylib loading, but that can be fixed (if you trust that particular dylib enough) with xattr command. Second one was that I’ve lost control over ‘wasd’ buttons because I’ve accidentally switched my keyboard layout to cyrillic, which was confusing and I had to restart the game for it to work (I figured that out only while writing this review).
Nice touch in the end with a song :)
Another thing I had problems with is that you can accidentally press ‘w’ and ‘s’ after facing a memory and that will move you in the dungeon (maybe I was trying to play too fast?). And having ‘s’ to turn you around was confusing at first, but it was fine after I get used to it.
Overall I might say that your game surprised me quite a lot: plenty to explore, nice risk-reward battle system. I can see myself playing it again :)
Yer review gives me lots of useful information.
One, it DOES work on a mac, with some special steps that I was unaware of.
Two, you figured out CBT, but not Mindfulness.
Three, my game is not compatible with cyrillic keyboards. I won't be fixing this, especially now that I've learned that there are variations on that as well.
I'll have to look back on the notes about movement post-judgement period. The "going too quicky" thing I will definitely take a look at. The "S turns you around" I mainly consider part of the player expectations for dungeon crawler controls, which has a bit of variety to it, and really because I design for D-Pad is why it works the way that it does.
(For example, there is NO value in strafing in my game).
Thanks for playing.
Yeah, I understood that ‘s’ turns around after a couple of times and paying attention to the directions. It might’ve been a bit quicker to understand if I would notice the direction indicator at the top of the screen sooner and payed attention.
That was a really innovative concept. If only dealing with mental issues were as easy!
Thanks for providing the video as it made it all make sense, and much respect for supporting gamepad navigation, too few people do.
The combat as really interesting. It’s almost a reverse bell curve. It’s hard at first because the triggering value is so high, but then it gets easier, and by the end, it’s hard tracking down the last few rogue Xs. (Well, not hard hard, but you get what I’m saying). I this this could be expanded on quite a bit.
A certain anthem playing at the end was a welcome surprise :D
Great job!
I was quite pleased that I managed to come up with the combat mechanic, and especially with the slowly revealed squares v. question marks.
It is more related to "rock scissors paper" that I first realized, but with a greater facilities for mitigating the RNG.
And I've had several thoughts since the original concept in ways to modify it differently.
For example: more rows, more columns, an "advantage/disadvantage".
In any case, this is not the last time I'll be using this combat mechanic.
Thanks for playing.
Interesting battle concept and good use of the narration with its mechanics. That you have to retry many times to do better than guessing.
At first I was very confused about the navigation. It probably was due to the keybindings being called left and right which made me think it was strafe left and right, while it was actually turn left and right. And since the map required a few presses to get into and out it wasn’t at all obvious at start. Once I realized it, navigating became natural.
I also missed the tutorial before I played but I managed to explore a fair share of the map before becoming mad. My strategy was mostly taking rows that showed blanks as much as possible. Not sure if that’s actually smart or not.
I must admit though that when I saw things on the floor I though I could interact with them somehow, but going into the menu system I didn’t understand “Ground…” as being pick up / interact / search that type of thing that I would have expected.
I also forgot to read the prompt about the memory in many rooms simply because my mind saw the puzzle in the middle and zoomed in on it. Perhaps it might have been good to put it a bit more prominently?
I’m guessing with a D-pad the going in and out of menus to map and back especially backing out, must be a lot more natural. It kept me avoiding the menus.
Hopefully this doesn’t read as me being overly critical, it was a nice game and it had interesting ideas in it.
A lot of excellent information about yer approach to the game.
Thanks for more than a one sentence review.
Yer review has caused me to consider how I make use of game pad controls to incorporate more of the buttons.
This game, as many of my games, are designed for an old school NES gamepad, and further more, to only use the D-Pad, A, and B.
I think that had I used Select or Start to bring up the map might have helped here. I will try to keep that in mind.
Thanks for giving it a go.
No puns this year?
You know, I actually respect the tutorial video. An in-game tutorializing process could take a whole other week and I think most people are actually willing to take the extra step to see the games in their best light.
I like the game. I have no idea how you even make something in… Visual Basic? Or whatever this is?… but it’s very unique. The mechanic is a bit too random, but it feels satisfying to slowly improve your odds. Maybe if you could use items in “combat” to affect the results more directly.
Some gripes with there being no hotkeys for the map or items. All those menu key presses are tiring. Items also have unclear purposes. Is CBT and Mindfulness seemingly doing nothing some kind of commentary on your behalf or is it just less obvious?
Well, I eventually lost all my sanity and died, oops.
I acknowledge that I poorly explain items in the game.
And by "poorly explain", I mean "don't explain".
I actually do this on purpose in games that I know will get actually played, like this one.
It gives me information about how a player approaches the game and how intuitive the game is without any explanation.
But then, the combat tutorial doesn't fit in with my "not explaining" thing.
Well, yes it does. The combat was determined by me and my stream viewers who watched me develop it to be far too different from what is expected to be intuitive, and so was deemed to need a tutorial.
Notice, I'm not revealing what CBT or Mindfulness do in this reply. They do something.
Thanks for playing.
i liked this one. my windows installation gave me a lot of guff about downloading, extracting, and running it. XNA be like that I guess. Or maybe it's because the executable doesn't have a digital signature? I'm not sure, don't quote me on this
The gameplay loop gets samey very fast, but the minigame itself is not bad, if you don't mind a bit of RNG. What I didn't like though is that the functionality of items you get is not explained anywhere. Some of them increase your sanity, but the rest don't do anything, or they do something I didn't notice?
Oh and rooms with 24 initial strength/however you call it is a bit much. Its up to your luck when you find and hit the first space, and then it gets significantly easier, but this also means that the variance of how much sanity a 24 room will cost you is extremely high -> basically those rooms decide whether your run is a bust or not.
I liked the oldschool aesthetic of the game, and sound/audio fits it nicely.
nice game/5
oh and FYI the link on the game page is broken, the working link is https://monogame.net/api/Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input.Keys.html