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A jam submission

Crypt of the CultView game page

First-Person Dungeon Crawler for #DCJam2024
Submitted by emelie_png, catamandoo (@catamandoo), pa-tan, Johandin — 45 minutes, 17 seconds before the deadline
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Crypt of the Cult's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall fun and playability#183.6383.750

Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Theme incorporation
We incorporated the theme Cosmic Horror and Ancient Ruins, by letting the player explore an old crypt crawling with various haunting horrors.

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Comments

Submitted

Visuals are just lovely, although the pixel-art UI being misaligned by half a pixel in places relative to the pixelated world bugs me a bit =).  I love the lighting and the monsters, it all comes together really nicely.  The reload mechanic was great, I thought I was dead once, but apparently two enemies lined themselves up and politely died to a single shot ^_^.  I would have liked a little audio cue when a tick of the reload completed, as a couple times I thought I was done reloading a segment, so let go, but apparently it had visually finished the segment, but not actually finished it, or something like that.  I made it through to the end and it was very satisfying.

Submitted

That reload mechanic! It created some genuinely tense moments in my playthrough. I graphics have a charm to them and you nailed the oppressive atmosphere you were going for.

I’m thankful the flying monsters had footstep sounds as that saved me a few times :)

Awesome work!

Submitted

Absolutely stunning entry. The graphics was marvelous, the short concise levels were really neat and that slow slow awfully slow reload speed kept me at the edge of my chair.

Before getting to the critique, let’s preface it with saying this is one of the absolute best games in the jam and quite frankly absurd that it’s this good.

Now, speaking of the reload. While there was camera action when performing it, I did not at all understand the UI nor what it meant. The game was so pedagogical about the [Spacebar] so when I pressed [R] and nothing seemed to happen, just me going into what seemed like a crouch. I got the feeling there was some error in key-bindings. And so I died on my first attempt.

I think there were a couple of problems here. Most important, if there had been a reload sound which would have told me to wait. Second, if there had been some animation on the gun/hand sprite. Or just rotating it a bit or such, it would also helped. I also thought that the three dashes might be my ammo before reload. Another trick could be to not have a linear progress on the filling of the reload bars, but let each segment start filling very fast in the beginning and then slow down as it approaches full. That way I’ll see something happening right away and might also work wonders with sunk cost when stressed and feeling like I’ve invested more in filling up a bar than I had.

Once I read up on the game page and tried again it was easy to understand though!

And the drama of a single enemy in those corridors. That was scary. I think it would have been cool if on a levels in there started to appear enemies that needed two hits. And I think those work best in narrow spaces. (I’ll get to the boss-fight later). There was some occurrences of two enemies at the same time, and while it elevated the stress, I feel they were mostly a bit too easily placed. Now I never died after that first attempt, but seeing as each level seems to have started with full health, I’m guessing that death just restarted current level? If so, there might have been a case for at some point driving up the difficulty a bit more.

However, the level where killing enemies opened up passages behind you, it didn’t feel entirely fair or on par with the other levels in design. Primarily because of lack of feedback. If there had been a clear sound of walls shifting or such. And perhaps increase the sounds from enemies moving so I could have heard the one approaching from behind me. In general if there’s one place the game is weaker than the others, it’s sound. The ones that are there are great, some could be made a bit louder, and there could have been so many more sounds! And eerie music.

Now the boss. I think it was a lost chance to do something cool. Because it was in an open area with cover-pillars. And because the room was regular in shape. It was really easy just running around the periphery. It made it one of the easiest fights, and the most boring.

If the area wasn’t as open so you could loose track of the boss, forget where you should go, those type of things. That would have made it better. But perhaps even better since it was a hive mind. Each time you hit it (or every second), perhaps it should have spawned a regular enemy. That… well that would have been scary and a proper climax to what otherwise was a fantastic game!

Well done! Very well done!

Playthrough: https://youtu.be/n4cPWx14Wrw

Submitted

This was fantastic! Well done on the atmosphere, the spatial sounds, the constant feeling of dread, the art. Loved everything here. It actually made me jump a couple of times when those vampire like mobs popped up from around the corner. And the boss was pretty intense.

Submitted

This one is great.

I really liked that distorted effect when things are far away. And how everything felt just right. Long reload? Pfff. Don't you hear - I fire from a hecking cannon! There was a moment with monster coming from behind. Really got a jump out of me :)

Liked how you can hear them moving too. Really nice entry.

Submitted

Wow, that was intense...I was playing with my daugther around and we both jumped a bit at the last monster, which needed multiple shots. The movement was spot on and the graphics and sound were great. I loved the way you implemented the light sources and the powder cloud from the gun. This was on of my favourite entries.

Submitted

"The hivemind lays dead at your feet."

I had ton of fun with the game. Both enemies and environments look amazing and the perspective is perfect. The game sounds great too. Combat feels awesome, everything about it from the enemies themselves, the various visual and sound feedbacks to the reload times, killing enemies in one hit and them killing you quite fast too make you feel like you're fighting strong demons from another world with a powerful gun (possibly infused with magic), you really nailed it, congratulations. Finally difficulty felt right on point and also participate in that.

I guess movement could be slightly better but it's quite alright and 20 seconds into the game I was  already highly immersed and did not think about it aymore, that's really nitpicking.

Amazing game, thanks for sharing !

Submitted(+1)

Yes I did it! Nice setting and feeling to the game. Move, Shoot , Reload, repeat.

Submitted(+2)

One of my favorite entries! The reload being slow really added tension in a few spots.

My biggest critique would be that the movement feels very slow / awkward compared to traditional Dungeon Crawlers. I think the speed may have been intentional to make combat more intense.

Great entry!

You can watch my full playthrough here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2108733841?t=03h11m31s

Developer

Thank you for your comment, we loved watching you play it.
Thanks for the feedback :)

Submitted(+2)

Cool art style and atmosphere.
The reload system is kinda frustrating, but it gets the job done in the boss fight where it suits really well.
I got a couple of jumpscares honestly XD
Good Job on this one!

(+2)

Great atmosphere!

Submitted(+2)

Very nice entry!

Submitted(+2)

I really like the look of this one.  Very well executed from a technical and visual standpoint.  However the reload mechanic seems to be a bit on the painful side...