The topic of the secret has even been revealed twice. And there is a secret in the mechanics and in the plot too. Overall, the concept is interesting. However, I quickly got stuck in one place and can't get out))
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Cluedomancer's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme interpretation | #155 | 3.235 | 3.235 |
| Innovation | #155 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
| Overall | #174 | 3.176 | 3.176 |
| Audio | #203 | 2.882 | 2.882 |
| Graphics | #232 | 2.941 | 2.941 |
| Gameplay | #248 | 2.588 | 2.588 |
Ranked from 17 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/gogwilt/secrets-game-jam
Game description
Cluedomancer is a puzzle platformer, where you play as an occult detective. Your job is to solve the case, by entering the minds of your suspects, uncovering their truths and revealing their secrets. Each suspect's mind is a level, and within each level, you must access a secret dimension to find a way through.
Theme interpretation
"Secrets" inspired us to build a story-driven puzzle game, with the idea that each character in the story was a puzzle for you to solve, and the reward for each solved puzzle was the character's secret. The "Speed Run" wildcard reminded us of "Neon White," which led us to building a speed-running platformer as the "puzzle" for each character. Early on, we added a "secret parallel dimension" as the main puzzle element, which lent itself to hiding secret cards within the level (the reward being the fuller story). And of course, we had to add a final twist at the end with a secret level!
Wildcards used (optional)
Speed Run
Make time the enemy
Comments
Thank you so much for the feedback. The AI art definitely elevated the game feel from what it was, but there does seem to be an upper limit to it 😅. And really glad to hear there were parts of the controls that felt rewarding. We definitely want to tighten them up, and it's good to know what parts we might want to preserve!
Thank you for the suggestions! Glad you liked the concept and saw the potential in the storyline. Originally, we planned to integrate the dialogue into the level (as you suggested), but we are still learning Godot, so we opted to keep it separate. We kept the dialogue more linear, because we weren't sure how much people would even read it. But the card-collecting mechanic did seem to work!
Agreed that an actual artist could have done a better job, but I assure you that the two of us couldn't have =). The AI assistance was tremendously helpful, although it required a decent amount of tweaking afterwards by yours truly. Someone with true art skills could have done a lot more
Thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback!
Thanks for the feedback! It's our first game jam and our first platformer, so we're learning a lot.
Yes, many of the key art assets are Gen AI, or we utilized Gen AI to make them. We used LayerAI for the character portraits, level backgrounds, and other backgrounds. We used the PixelLab plugin for Aseprite to help us animate the player character. ChatGPT generated the initial version of the game logo. And Suno for the level music.
The hidden map idea was super creative, I loved it! I did get stuck at first when I had to dash upwards (totally my fault for skipping the instructions) and again later when I needed to use the extra dash from the cards. It took me a moment to figure out, but I really enjoyed the game! Also, I hated having jump on J, but I get why it was mapped there. The game hooked me so much I just had to finish it!
93 days ago(+1)
Oh wow! It means so much to us that you finished the game! Thank you!!
I wish we'd had a bit more time to rework the tutorial. The Up+Dash control felt easy to pick up if you saw someone do it, but difficult to "discover." And definitely hear you on the controls. We had an even worse keyboard set-up until the last-minute, and didn't have time to improve from there.
Thanks again!!
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