Play cryptid
Wolpertiger's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #1 | 4.615 | 4.615 |
| Audio | #67 | 3.231 | 3.231 |
| Originality | #68 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
| Overall | #68 | 3.209 | 3.209 |
| Graphics | #77 | 3.385 | 3.385 |
| Fun | #86 | 2.846 | 2.846 |
| Accessibility | #116 | 2.462 | 2.462 |
| Controls | #117 | 2.538 | 2.538 |
Ranked from 13 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.2.2
Wildcards Used
None
Game Description
Get lost in the woods, photograph cryptids
How does your game tie into the theme?
The game features creatures from FOLKLORE, as well as a storyteller that will give you a background on the cryptids you hunt as well as the local legends and tales.
Source(s)
No
Discord Username(s)
loewenmaul, aamakuruu
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
4
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Man, this concept is amazing!
The plot twist totally got me, this is definitely one of the games in this jam that best fits the folklore theme. Also, very fun to play.
Congrats on the entry! 🥳
Thank you! It kinda felt like the natural way to end it. It helps that my hometown has some weird tales and practices centered around our forest. So there is some genuine backwater medieval era folktales in there, buried under the tongue in cheek stuff.
Really good concept for the theme and I enjoyed it a lot. A very ominous atmosphere.
Thank you! Despite the overall game being pretty bare-bones (especially gameplay wise), I'm quite proud that I could get the vibe I was going for down.
Absolutely was in love with art of this game! Sound too! I did get mega lost on the first beast as i didnt talk to the eerie woman at first, but once i restarted the game everything made sense. Maybe having some sort of map marker / direction UI component would help with that, but even so great submission. I did get a bit nervous walking around the dark forest lol, that psychological horror factor was present!
Thank you! Glad to hear you enjoyed the graphics!
The original idea was to have a map at the camp and thus force the player to remember the landmarks. Unfortunately, this didn't quite work out so there are now very barebones paths to follow.
I'm currently working on a solution that will hopefully solve those issues. It's basically making the forest work in a quantum, non Euclid way (imagine the forest in the Blair Witch movies and the quantum effects in Outer Wilds). That way no matter where the player goes, they will always eventually end up where they're supposed to be. At the same time, it will add screwy things like the camp disappearing once they let it out of their sight, or no matter where they go always ending back up at the camp until they talk to the NPC. Well, I'll have to see if I have the chops to implement it.
I liked learning about different monsters, but would've loved to have mouse look instead of Q/E. Good job, nevertheless!
Thank you! I will see if I can implement doom-style mouse look in a post jam update. Right now, the graphics are a bit too janky to support proper smooth turning.
I ended up endlessly following the other clues, while searching for the first cryptid. I restarted and read the dialogue again for a clue I might have overlooked. I think it's just not entirely clear where the "clearing" or "path" is, while all the others have such obvious and tightly spaced paths.
Overall I like it, it reminded me of old games, like you'd mentioned in another comment, haha. The writing was pretty good and the ending was cool cause I totally expected it, lol.
For controls though, I may have opted into arrow keys as well, for turning, since Q and E get pretty awkward. But I can totally forgive that on a crunch with lack of time for testing.
Thank you! Yeah, there was supposed to be a more easily recognizable path but that kinda fell through. I had hoped the grass knolls would be enough but they seem to not stick out enough.
The graphical style was mostly inspired by the Forest of Confusion from the Sega Saturn game "Shining The Holy Ark" and the old Might and Magic and Elder Scrolls games.
I'm still having a bit of trouble making menus and similar, so I will look into it. I'll try to always add control remapping and similar options from now on.
I like the music a lot, and really appreciate controller support but wish it was on the thumbstick, my thumb got super tired holding up so much. I also wanted the text to have a background or something to make it a little easier to read. Still had fun learning about the cryptids, nice work!
Thank you! I kinda wanted the text to not too obviously look like Dialogic, but seems like I overdid it. I think the text should have probably been around 20% larger? I'll look into making a shader that adds a background to the text if the underlying area is too bright, or maybe just a subtle box.
Maybe I am bad at the game but I got lost repeatedly and eventually lost my interest partly because of the slow walking speed. I liked the visuals and the concept though!
Oh , that's too bad! A little hint, the game is actually designed that you don't really need to turn much. If you just walk straight ahead to talk to the girl and then keep walking in that direction, you will happen upon the first target. When you then turn around and talk to the girl again, you will already be roughly in the right direction again, just needing to adjust slightly to the left to face the marked trees.
There is also a system where signposts will appear after exactly ten minutes, as a band aid solution. I think that time limit was maybe a bit too long? I considered adding a cheat button that would spawn them in, but I felt a bit wary of screwing around with the code that late in development. Overall, there was supposed to be more graphical distinction like boulders, tombstones, broken fences, posts, mushrooms and similar as well as an actual visible path, but I had significant issue with effectively/efficiently placing assets in Godot, so the level design is very barebones.
I have actually had an idea today on how to solve the navigation issue entirely, with the added benefit of making the player truly feel lost but nevertheless always finding their target. I will see if I have the motivation to implement it in a post jam update.
Thank you for your praise of the visuals, that was definitely where the focus was this time, and I'm glad that I could get it to work.
Fun game, though it made me wish there was an auto-walk button. I don't have a lot of critique for you, other than what others have already mentioned about the controls. Sacrifices must be made in a jam, and I think this is a really solid entry. Good vibe, good exposition, and I loved the ending. Thanks for giving us a game to play!
Thank you! Yeah, I had to cut out a lot of stuff to get the project manageable with my current Godot skillset. In the end, hammering the game into a working, feature complete shape while learning something is the big win to me. Nevertheless, I always hope the finished product is enjoyable to the player and it's is a nice bonus if they do indeed find it enjoyable as well!
Very Interesting game. Really got lost in the woods and found it really challenging to find the creatures. The controls were a lil frustrating to use tho.
Thank you! I assume the frustration comes from turning being on Q/E? The controls were mostly set up that way to disincentivize the player from turning too much. It just kinda doesn't look good with the way the everything being sprites and faked with shaders/multiple cameras. I'll try to prioritize playability and comfort next time.
This game is pretty interesting! I didn't really like the controls, but was able to find all of the creatures without too much trouble. I liked how all of the creatures were cute, and the last one not so much haha.
Nice work!
Thank you! I admit that I tried to prevent the player from turning too much because it broke the graphics, causing dizzying jittering of the BG. I later figured that I could solve that and other graphics issues by limiting the FPS to 30, but by then the control scheme had stuck. I'll just pretend it's supposed to be a throwback to early pseudo 3D games! All my bad choices are intentional!
Finding all the Cryptids, well done! My play-testers tended to get so hopelessly lost and quit in frustration that I had to add a signpost system so they could at least get to the ending. But then again, getting lost in the woods is what this game is all about.