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Fear of the Dark's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Story | #69 | 3.457 | 3.457 |
| Sound | #179 | 3.283 | 3.283 |
| Music | #284 | 3.239 | 3.239 |
| Aesthetics | #285 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Overall | #342 | 3.196 | 3.196 |
| Fun | #437 | 2.826 | 2.826 |
| Mechanics | #458 | 2.652 | 2.652 |
| Theme | #593 | 2.413 | 2.413 |
Ranked from 46 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How many people worked on this game in total?
1
Did you use any existing assets? If so, list them below.
Yes Most of them did not need credits, the rest are in the games credits
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Comments
Ok, you spamming ads was justified, haha! That’s a solid title. Reminds me of resident evil. Looks good on big screen, I wanna play around with GameMaker now.
Game wise, adding map and maybe infinite fuel for super-easy mode would be nice for people like me (I am bad at navigating in general with map or not, and especially bad when there’s a time limit).
I died seeking garage door… i’ll try again later…
not sure about theme “tiny world” here, perhaps visually.
Writing was funny, I’m interested to explore this story further.
Though, the fuel aspect in general - what era is it? nowadays people would use smartphones to light their way.
As the story says its 1989 and plus the garage door does not open, you dont need to open it.. just fuel
hmm i thought i found a garage key in the nursery.
I do skim through too fast when i read instructions…
Ooh yea thats the garage, but i was talking about the other garage door
haha i have two bathroom things myself in my game that are confusing my players…
Lol, yea here i didnt know wich you talked abt lool
ok, i think i finished your game. i get the key to garage and go to the place where i saw the garage door, the game turns to black screen. there’s menu option and sounds, but it is some kind of error or this is how it ends? I took the garage key from nursery room, is there anything else after opening nursery?
Oh lol, didnt you hear, If you stay to much in the darkness, the stalker comes and if so he blinds you for 5 seconds, ( if you find him he dissapears, but when you hear a sudden loud noise, panic and find him
hmm, i see. But i entered a room with full fuel mark, i didn’t go into any dark corners.
Yea i think currently theres a bug were it blinds you for infinity, but if you want to change to easy as there it spawns every 5 minutes so a lot slower
Great update! It has improved! Some more notes for you:
1) I am not a fan of the movement being limited to the key I am holding down. If you can only move in cardinal directions, I feel like it would feel more intuitive if I press a different movement key while already holding one down, the newest pressed key would be the direction my character goes, then when I let go of the new one, it would move in the direction of the first one. Maybe this is a preference thing, but just to add some more thoughts to the game
2) I agree with a few other comments that you run out of fuel too fast and are limited in what you can see, so you are discouraged from reading notes and seeing some lore - maybe pausing the timer while reading notes? and any other small things to not penalize players for exploring?
3) The doors you can walk through - I know you mentioned that is intentional, but visually, it still does not work in my opinion - there needs to be some visual indicator that they can walk through the door - either it opens and there is an audio cue, or the door is already open and stays open.
4) The jump scare waits too long to come. The screen completely fades, so I already expect it.
I hope these notes help you improve your game as I see the potential - great entry and great job!!
Thank you! Yea the doors might need to update them to be open and the direction is quite good, so ill add them once the jam ends, For the fuel, there is a new feature, Difficulty settings open options (not in the game, in the main menu as now if you open options in the game it will reset) Also the game is paused when you read a note
If the game does pause when you read a note, then there is even less time than I thought. But good to know about the difficulty in the main menu, I didn't realize that it effected the fuel. Are the fuel and the light decreasing unrelated?
They are related, i can give you the math, The fuel on easy takes about 2.30 minutes to die normal mode takes 1.30 to 2 minutes to die and hard takes about 0.45-1 minute to die, The light radius is bigger in easy mode around 0.80 size normal is 0.75 and hard is 0.70
Glad it helped
I really like the concept and the vibe of this game. Pixel art doesn't scare me, but I underestimated this one. I absolutely love the mechanic of light slowly fading out as you struggle to find more fuel for it. I really appreciate the horror games which focus on psychological horror than jump scares.
The art stye is good, the main menu music is..... well, let's say I spent more time on the main menu screen than the game itself and now I can't get the tune out of my head XD.
Talking about in game sound:- I was a little disappointed when I realised that there is no background music, but I guess it works in favor of the overall theme. After all, you are in a haunted house, where the only sound you will hear is doors and floors creaking.
Ok so talking about areas of improvement:-
1. Doors are a little buggy, They only allow you to pass after you approach them from a specific angle.
2. As much as I like the game mechanic, I found that the fuel was burning way too fast, even on easy mode. And by fuel, I don't mean the slider on the bottom left, I mean the circle of vision. You are not just collecting keys and opening doors, you are reading all the notes, trying to figure out what happened and exploring the house as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't complete the game because it was impossible for me to explore the house after half of my fuel is depleted, because the circle of vision gets too small.
I will say that this game has potential.
Actually there is Background music but its random sometime you hear it sometimes no, kinda like a ghostly song, also about the fuel yes it does go out but thats the point, without it you wont feel as pressured, also the notes pause the game so take as much time as you want on it! also, In a future update i will add difficulty settings so that you can actually play however you like, There is a bug that i know about wich is if you pause the game you can't unpause it, i will repair that alongside the doors wich dont work alwasy, but it will take some time as im exausted from the gamejam
I am not against the mechanic of fuel depleting and the circle of vision shrinking. This mechanic actually makes the game interesting and puts pressure on you. However, it feels like that the circle of vision shrinks faster than the fuel depletes.
Yea, I know they are quite of put but i just updated it to add difficulty like easy and normal and hard check it out might help!
Ok just fixed that problem, will also launch a mac version and maybe web
Great artstyle and gameplay! The darkness slowly increasing is a nice touch, gives that claustrophobic feeling!
Thank you for the positive feedback! I hope you will play it once again when i release the full version
Look forward to it!
I think the art style is great and menu screen is very cool. Game had some bugs and I don't think that it's best place to have restart key [R] next to use key [E] cuz I pushed it accidentally and was sent back to start. I love how the light is slowly going out and you have to gather candles. The Vibrating red text was nice touch and music was nice also. I think doors could've been bigger because it was hard to step through doorways sometimes. Anyways. a very solid nice game, congrats!
Thank you! Yea the reset key is kinda misplaced but other than that what bugs, could you explain probably so i can fix them, Next version will have Mac version, no more restart key and also repair any bugs you found
So this may not be a bug but the menu music starts from the beginning every time you transfer from options to title screen or back. It would be much nicer for the experience if music would be playing in the background non-stop while you haven't started the game yet (looping menu music).
There was also a problem with the menu screen that pops up below other UI element in game (Interact window) so player may not see "Resume Game" text and it can't be interacted at this point.
If you press ESC while playing and press options and come back - game has restarted.
The door archways are a bit too tiny. I think it would be better if the upper wall (higher in y-axis) collider was higher to also make transferring through door visually logical to the eye.
I hope these help. The game itself has great potential.
Thank you I will repair all these bugs and more!
Finally got the time to play this one. It is a charming game with a lot of potential! I had fun roaming around and trying to figure out the mysteries of the events that happened.
Good job. Berry! You're talented and very enthusiastic, keep up the good work!
Thank you! I hope to update the story and everything, Because right now it's only a prototype
I thought this was a great! Wasn't able to complete it due to a bug, but what I did manage to get through was awesome! The sound effects, general look of the game, music and especially the running out of light intensifying effects was really good. I think I would have preferred the candle to not really "reduce" in size as I ran out of fuel, but instead to just intensify the visual effects on the screen as I ran out. That way I would still be able to maybe find a fuel source even when almost out of fuel. Instead, at a certain point, it becomes more of a situation where I would rather start over than wander around in complete darkness an getting stuck on furniture.
As for the bug, my screen would just go black. I could still play the game and walk around, read notes, etc, but the screen would be black. It happened three separate times at different times and locations so I'm not sure what exactly is causing the issue.
Other than that issue it was an awesome time!
Thank you for your feedback! Also its a good idea to not reduce the visible light level, though in the final version i want to add a difficulty setting, and much more! Also about the bug, could you tell me more, as i have not seen that one until now
I'm not sure what or when causes the bug... I don't have a ton of time this evening, but I'll take a second look and, if I can't reproduce it, I'll look at the game again tomorrow. From what I can remember, I'll be walking around and it will seemingly, at random, have the screen go black. Interaction indicators still show up along with the actual interaction text boxes, but the room/character goes black.
DId you hear any sounds? if so thats a mechanic, once every minute or so, the stalker apears and you got to find him (he is close) else he will blind you
The effect when the light nearly goes out is great. Real cranked the intensity up. Multiple time I got stuck on an open door, walked some other way, tried again and could go through, was pretty annoying.
Yea, the side doors are quite annoying ill fix them up in a new version
Nice entry. I think I am at the end, but I can't open the garage door? What's the gas for otherwise?
Well done!
Well, you don't need to open the door!
Managed to escape :P Got fuel for the vehicle but couldn't open the garage door. Escaped through the front door. Found a bug where I played the whole game while pause menu was on hahaha.
Oh lol you don't need to open the garage door! But that bug is quite strange ill look into it! Hoped you liked it!
The artwork, game design and concept are truly brilliant. Really creepy horror feel. Only had a quick go on the easy version and even on that the candle burn speed is challenging. I really wanted to explore more but the candle really stopped me getting very far on a quick play. Will definitely come back to this to play more as soon as I have time.
I agree with pretty much all christh's comments, so won't repeat what he said.
For a 10 day jam, this is an immense achievement, and brilliant concept, hope you get time to keep developing it, you have amazing talent.
Thank you! The game is made to be played on several runs so you should get some time to play it full, also for the comments, I repaired that thing with the story and also, I will continue developing this game as i would like to add a ingame difficulty settings, and more stuff like another floor, more endings, more light sources like a flashlight, torch and stuff
Ok full marks for story - right now I got as far as the garage and I believe I understand what the alternative ending might be. However I'm struggling a lot with the candle burn speed.
Suggestions: I'd like to finish the story but once your light gets low you're just not going to find any fuel, so the game is a bit of a high-pressure memory game at present. If you could tweak the burn speed I think that'd help a lot (I'd consider this a balance / bug fix so no issue doing it now). I'd even say halving the burn speed would be an idea. Also the time pressure means going and reading the fun stuff (turtles!!) is not really possible.
Other things: ahem, player's flashlight uses candles for fuel? I ignored the candles to begin with :) Oh yeah, a semi-bug - I actually found a candle somehow in the dark but got murdered a second later.
Otherwise very cool and congrats, I can see a lot of work went into this one.
So i see what you are saying, the notes and interaction in general pause the game so you dont need to worry about that also the flashlight, i forgot to replace the name with "Candle"
Ill release a new version with it fixed also with the light cunsomption lowered
Wow, loved this! I didnt realize pixel art games could be scary but to pulled it off, well done. I loved your vfx!
Thank you! I will update it more after the jam! Btw i loved your game! very polished
Loved the creepy vibe and light-based survival i hope you dive deeper into this idea, and i would love to see a fleshed-out game!
I liked the atmosphere and story of the game! Uncovering the mystery is fun, and itfelt very spooky and creepy.! The jump scare worked when I died the first time! lol!
Getting through the doors going left/right was difficult and thought they were blocked off until I kept trying. The light dimming mechanic was fun but I felt it ran out too quickly and shrank down too much to make it possible to see anything.
Yea, the doors can be a little tricky. Also the light should be like that, As it is made to be completed in a few runs
I wasn't expecting to play any horror games this jam, I love a good horror so congrats! The art looks really nice, the sound and music work really well for the genre. And I think you have a pretty decent story tied into the gameplay. I didn't get as far as completing the game before I ran out of fuel but I enjoyed the run I had.
Thank you! I tried to focus a lot on the atmosphere there, Also the game is made to be completed in a few runs, as it's hard
I loved the music, atmosphere and art. I haven't played a lot of horror games but I expected something to happen when the fuel ran out and was ready. I think do the jump scare at an unexpected time. Maybe place a candle in a spot when it's needed the most, to keep the pace. for example I started in the first room, went left to the body, naturally continued in that direction, by the time I made it to the second room I had nothing left. again I'm not much of a horror game player so take it with a grain of salt.
Yea, One of the mechanics is to try and try, because you will die a lot, you can't finish the game in one run anyhow
It's a nice game!!!
Thank you! I will update it as soon as i can!
Promising start!
Good job on setting the mood & tone. Art & Lighting work well to complement the themes.
As mentioned on the main comments page, I encountered a crash to desktop and had a few pain points when exploring.
Overall, it looks like a solid foundation, and I look forward to your future patches/projects.
Have a nice day!
It crashed for you too?! Ok I need to look at this
Great atmosphere, and story. Really nice game. Loved the style and sound effects, great entry. :)