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the labyrinth of tzhuglerach's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall fun and playability | #51 | 3.153 | 3.250 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme incorporation
Infinity/The Endless:
this was incorporated by creating a pseudo infinite dungeon which you have to solve a puzzle to get out of
Solitude:
The player is left alone with himself and whatever else is lurking in the dungeon
Cosmic Horror:
The main character is confronted by an incomprehensible dungeon that is infinite and is always changing, being a part of a twisted game orchestrated by an unknowable deity.
This game tests your attention to details. You need to figure out when you can proceed further in the dungeon and when you should turn back
SPOILERS---WALKTHROUGH
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QBBxKDpXe8yzXlmcn_gt3MOm-VC_CxfRxQFaGiMWukY/edit?usp=sharing
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Comments
I liked the visual style and the premise seemed really cool, but the even though the game gave me information (very nicely done with the texts that popped up), I felt like I was missing a very key element: a reference point.
I had no clue what direction was continue forward and what direction was was go back. Neither was the delineation of what was the “room” and what was not very clear to me. I’m guessing that the S shaped corridor where there was a blood marking was the not-room but everything else was the room?
I think it would have been great if this part was visually very distinct from the room. Because there were hallway parts that still remained inside the room if that was the case.
It might also have been good to have stairs down versus stairs up as a way to indicate going forward or going back. Or if that connector hall had other visual elements that clearly gave it a forward direction and reverse direction.
I didn’t find anything out of place either, but I think that’s because I was a bit distracted when the game started and missed some prompts.
So since the movement isn’t super fast, after having played and thinking I kind of understand now how it should have been played, I think there might be a benefit och making the “room” a much smaller and concentrated area and giving the player the first anomaly more or less for free. Right next to the exit both lamps are dancing about so you should notice it and go the back-way.
For people like me. It would also be good if the game more or less didn’t allow me to leave the first room before they’d looked about. I know because I watched back how I played it, that there’s a prompt, but I really didn’t connect the dots and then I never really understood when I was reset either.
I think the game could really stress it when you end up back at the start.
Playthrough: https://youtu.be/cM6FiMBHrZw
Pretty interesting idea to mix dungeon crawler mechanics with an anomally game. I like the overall atmosphere and visuality of the game. There are some issues with movement. Rotation speed is too slow and i don't like queued up movement. If i tap w two times by mistake it doesn't stop until the queued up movement is executed. Movement gets especially frustrating when you fight the monster at the last level. There is no feedback when you hit with the sword, there's no sword swing animation either. It doesn't feel like you're using the sword at all. I managed to reach the end of the game but couldn't kill the monster and died, maybe i'll give it another go. Oh and there's a bug when you die and restart the game, there's an invisible wall blocking your into either of the corridors.
My final verdict is, it's a good game but feel like you wanted to make a horror game with gridbased movement. It is not really a dungeon crawler game so i don't think it would be fair to other games if i give this a high rating. I would give it a higher rating if this wasn't a Dungeon Crawler jam. Regardless of this thought i like the idea behind it. Nice job and good luck!
"Fuck you!"
The game took me much more time that I'd like to admit and I could not really say if I enjoyed it or not, I'm not really sure at this point, mostly due to the slow movement (turning is fine) which in this game was a real problem to me. It was always satisfying to finally figure out this one more difference (as it's super likely I already stumbled into it and missed it), in the end I don't know if I had eventually got most of these or if I was just super lucky with this one more second half run, more likely the latter ;) . The game looks good, sound effects are appropriate and the atmosphere, greatly helped by the gameplay loop, is scary and really super oppressive, you really nailed it. The fight at the end is a bit confusing, I did not really know when I hit the enemy, but maybe it was actually a good thing, I guess it kind of fits, it makes it feel much stronger than you and it's probably all the more satisfying to finally defeat it.
At first I would have said I liked the movement. However first as I spent a lot of time on the game I ended up hating getting sticked to a wall for a second when I run into it and having to time my movement super precisely if only to avoid that. Secondly the process of moving like 100 times, and probably half of that due to slow movement as there was no way I would do it twice to doublecheck, around the same small dungeon without instant movement or at least fast movement became uninteresting after a while.
I think this is a quite ambitious game in the context, and with a mechanical implementation of one of the theme on top of that, which is pretty cool, thanks for sharing.
Thanks for playing and finishing our game.
Thanks for the criticism as well. Yeah its becoming clearer that movement is something we need to improve on. Even though we think it looks good, it doesn't feel good in the context of what the game requires from you.
Hey,
really nice and well polished game you got there. The Art and Style are very coherent and fitting. The idea was pretty neat incl the ideas for the changes and it took me a little to beat, but meanly because of the fight at the end (I am not shure if it was necessary to beat it, but I did not wanted to take any chances. :D) There is also my only critic. The fight was not so cool with all the running and this also showed some flaws in the movement with the queueing and snappiness. You would not always stop, when releasing the button but move one more tile, which was annoying during the fight. The length was on the edge for me. As I was killed the first time at the end. And I needed to do it all over after solving it. (Also there was a bug for me, after I got killed I could not leave the room. I needed to restart the game.)
Great entry. Very good work!
Thank you for playing.
Glad you enjoyed the art, makes me feel like those sleepless nights of modelling/texturing/animating weren't a complete waste.
A shame that you ran into a bug, we will try to do another pass and squash some bugs after the voting period is over.
Finally made it out. Nice eerie feeling of the game right from the start menu. Great sound environment.
Took me forever to figure out what to do and even when I knew what to do I couldn't always make out the changes.
Thanks for the option to remove head bob, I got nauseous
Movement is kinda good, but has a few minor issues. If you move forward and the to the side it links correctly, but if you press forward and hold so you go two steps forward and right before reaching second tile you press to the side this input is ignored.
Menu - Scratch foot asset is mentioned twice in credits ;) I double clicked back to main menu and hit the quit to desktop since its in the same spot.
Great game!
Thank you for playing!
I also noticed double mention in credits after submission XD. We added main menu and credits at the last moment. So yeah, there's might be some UX issues as you mentioned (double click to exit).
About movement, i also noticed awakward buffering when holding forward and turning at the end, but didn't have time to fix this :(.
Yooooooooo i think you're the first person to beat it! nice!
thanks for playing!
I really enjoyed this entry until it became too frustrating to continue :P
I am a huge fan of puzzle games and cryptic puzzles are a classic trope in dungeon crawlers. However, the game did make me feel a bit dumb. I couldn’t figure out what all the differences were and the game didn’t seem to lend any help aside from the vague mention that there is something different. Perhaps a clear example of each difference somewhere in each room to really show how things can be different. For example, you did a great job with the lights. Maybe when the player passes through a second time it might say, “Hmmm… these rocks seem bigger than before” or “Did the lights always shine like this?”
It is obvious a lot of effort went into this game and I’m sad I didn’t get to fight the boss at the end. That said, I did have fun drawing out the map and trying to find the differences! Thanks for making it :D
Here is a video of my playthrough: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2109694847?t=02h46m00s
Thanks for taking the time to play our game and on stream no less.
Yeah we should have really made it more straight forward. Even if you get past the puzzles a lot of people seem to have problems with the boss as well. Well, we got things to improve on for sure.
I think this has to be one of the cleanst movement mechanics I've seen on the jam. Puts mine to shame!
The game itself. Yep, like many here, I'm too dumb to work out! I did start spotting the differences, and that eery noise. But I just couldn't figure out when to go back and when to go forward!
But the atmosphere... GREAT! I think maybe I'm seeing some particle effects? Or maybe I'm going mad?
Regardless, putting this together in a week is superb. Well done.
Thanks for playing!
Glad you enjoyed the atmosphere and the movement. Yes, there are particles but I tried to limit them so that they don't add too much visual noise.
Well, I am too dumb for this one. I just can´t figure out the puzzles. I love, that you have those in, but I think I need more hints. The graphics are very nice and I appreciate, that you can turn of the head bobbing. While there was not that much in terms of sound, I really found the foot steps sound to be very plesant. The movement was pretts smooth, but you could try to add some buffering, so the next input like a turn afer a forward works better. I will come back to this on, as I need to figure the puzzles out.
Thanks for review!
There's input buffering, but the queue for inputs is not very big i guess.
About puzzles, there's link to walkthrough which contains a little description that tells what you supposed to do.
Damn this game was a blast, I really loved the looping rooms and the moment of realization, and after that the monster just coming out of nowhere that legit scared me ahha, every thing is also so damn polished and well put together, the only thing that bugged me was the last fight, I mean, I hit him so many times with the sword but couldn't kill him, and the thing is that I wasn't even sure I was supposed to kill him even after finding the sword, I mean you train me all game to find the differences and avoid the monster and the last challenge is about timing and attacking and all, should have made the sword just a one hit kill weapon but I mean this is just a small nitpick cause I really like the whole game!
"I mean you train me all game to find the differences and avoid the monster and the last challenge is about timing and attacking and all"
Damm, this actually oversight that we didn't provide any info about what you should do against him.
Yes, you should kill him with a sword, i guess we should increase damage output. He will be dead with 12 hits.
The tactic against him is pretty easy, but i guess if only other people played Legend of Grimrock.... i mostly was inspired by it when created this combat loop. You should constantly change your position to make him rotate, hit him when he comes to you and just step left or right.
I had a hard time figuring out the puzzles. I got up to 3 and then it just kept going back to 1 (maybe a glitch?) or I'm just bad at finding the difference. I wish the movement was a little faster to get around the rooms to find the differences, Cool implementation of infinite
Yeah i think we made some of the anomalies a bit hard to notice, sorry. Also running into a bug is also very possible =). We had very little time to do any actual play testing .
Anyway, thanks for playing dude.
Hot damn, that thing scared me. Quite hard to determine what is where when it runs after you, at least for me. But glad I was able to understand basic of the puzzle myself. Seen quite a few odities and I clearly don't know all of them, since couple of times I thought I got it right... Reached 7 marks and then made loads of mistakes while running for my life :D
Forgot to add. The atmosphere is top notch. Even though I didn't finish it - its the atmosphere that made me as scared to keep going in the first place. That suspense. Its awesome.
Thanks for playing
"Quite hard to determine what is where when it runs after you"
Because of the level structure, many odities is pretty easy to spot if you just calmly walk around, so that was the main point of the enemy - to make you haste and make mistakes.
But as we noticed, the "monster" might be too harsh and aggresive if you don't know tactic against him(
Actually, forgot to mention - hints in game were spot on. Guessed puzzle relatively quickly. And that he slows down when you hit him kind of.. I just got spooked too much - that one on me :D
A nice Dungeon Crawler on the latest horror fad: Exit8. I got to the boss fight, got the sword, but didn't really get how to fight him very well, so I lost. I'll still consider it a win since I got that far. Was a surprisingly nice entry that brought a popular idea to the genre.
thanks for playing.
Yeah i think our balancing was a bit too harsh as in too punishing, well live and learn i guess