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A jam submission

It Came from the Grave - VIC20 VIC-20 VIC 20View game page

a spooky horror game for the VIC 20
Submitted by Jeffrey Daniels (Denial) — 7 days, 3 hours before the deadline
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It Came from the Grave - VIC20 VIC-20 VIC 20's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Overall#14.1674.167
Interpretation of Theme and Completeness of Game#14.0004.000
Graphics, Sound and Polish#14.3334.333
Creativity#14.5004.500
Gameplay#23.8333.833

Ranked from 6 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Extra Information about your game
Requires VICE emulator to run on Windows.

Which theme did you choose?
Afraid

Which BASIC did you use?
VIC 20 BASIC V2 (unexpanded memory: 3.5 kilobytes)

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Comments

Host

Hi,
Long time no see. Join it if you are interested in it.
https://itch.io/jam/jam-for-all-basic-dialects-2

(+1)

I love this game! You won the jam :D

(+1)

Gameplay: I accidentally spoiled myself by reading the other raters' comments, so I had no problems figuring out how to play. I really like the idea of your game. One minor downside is that if you get distracted in the second the level shows the NPCs, you cannot go back and look again. A prompt at before showing them (Press any key to start...) would be nice. On the first level, you could use it to hint at what the player should do.

Creativity: I think the idea of hidden scary obstacles is creative.

Graphics, Sound and Polish: The graphics are good simple pixel art, the sounds are well done (I have no VIC experience so I cannot really compare).

Interpretation of Theme and Completeness of Game: Scaring me is difficult, but I consider the game extremely interesting at least.

Submitted

In fact, at the beginning it is not known what is going on. I don't like the layout of the keys. And I think I drew such a distribution of obstacles that it was impossible to get through. At least the final map could show up for longer.

Developer

Thank you for playing and giving suggestions. The key layout is WASD or ARROW keys.  Both work, but what keys would you have preferred?

Submitted(+1)

WSHJ, QAOP, QWPL...

Submitted

Gameplay:

Here's how I interpreted how the game was meant to be played: You're shown a playing field with a key, exit and monsters. The monsters briefly appear just long enough for the player to memorize their positions and then the player has to try and get to the key and the exit without touching one of the invisible monsters. This actually took me a while to figure out because initially I thought that the monsters had just ran away and hadn't reappeared again. Only when I kept dying did I slowly figure that part out. But as I remember, there were times where I was pretty sure I had moved onto a tile that had no monsters, and I would still get attacked and die. So although the gameplay appears simple, I appear to be missing some concepts that aren't so obvious.

Creativity: 

The idea of having to memorize where enemies are before navigating the room is really cool! Much more engaging than a card-matching game. Although they all seem to be equally deadly, there is a nice variety of enemies.

Graphics / Sound / Polish:

The title screen is hands down the best in this Game Jam. Very professional looking! Color contrast in the game is good as well -- objects are easy to discern while still keeping a darker, spookier color palette.  Apart from the inexplicable deaths I encountered the game is very well polished. 

Interpretation / Complete:

I wouldn't say that there's anything in this game that will make me genuinely afraid (like a well-placed jump scare), but the title-screen alone definitely informs the player that this is going to be a creepy-themed horror game.

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you for playing and offering such detailed feedback!  I design very small games that reference an era of more intuitive game play.  I was not able to recreate the possible glitch you mentioned.  The death sequence occurs when the player attempts to move into an occupied tile.    The monster occupant should then appear while the player avatar remains in the original position.  From your description, no monster appears at all to indicate what killed the player. Or if it did appear, this could also have been an unintentional input (for example, hitting up twice without realizing it).  Still investigating, but I at the moment I am not sure it is possible for the game to end without demonstrating the culprit. I know you may no longer recall the experience, but I appreciate the observation and am attempting to recreate it.  

Host

Hi....

https://sourceforge.net/projects/vice-emu/files/

I have downloaded the VICE emulator on the above website. I try to look into how to run the PRG file.

Developer

Hi!  Just open the prg file in VICE.  The recommended settings are "unexpanded'" and "NTSC".  Use the WASD keys or arrow keys.  Let me know if you have any problems.  Thanks for checking it out!

Host

Hello...there are many EXE files in the Vice's folder. Only xvic.exe can work with the PRG file.

Your entry is with a simple gameplay but the gameplay is quite interesting and nice. I like this gameplay. Since each level is generated differently each time, this arrangement can make gamers play for longer periods of time. The sound effects are suitable and nostalgic.