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That Abysmal Place's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Progress | #3 | 4.143 | 4.143 |
| Overall | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Overall | #4 | 3.755 | 3.755 |
| Innovation | #7 | 3.571 | 3.571 |
| Polish | #9 | 3.714 | 3.714 |
| Graphics | #10 | 3.857 | 3.857 |
| Fun | #16 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 7 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
(Optional) Changes made to your project since the start of the jam
Please download the "Level Generation demo" package. If you haven't played the previous demo, you can familiarise yourself with the controls and basic mechanics on the itch.io page.
Updates:
- Refactor and fix the level generation.
- Complete enough rooms to allow for a basic level to be generated.
- Dynamically spawn ropes for vertical travel.
- Randomly spawn enemies.
- Randomly spawn items.
- Added entry and exit points to the levels.
- Spawn a "key" item that is required before the level can be exited.
- Setup three demo levels of increasing size, complexity and difficulty.
- Ensure the player's inventory and basic stats carry over between levels.
- Added a basic intro and outro screen.
- Various other fixes.
(Optional) Devlog
https://blackvoidmedia.itch.io/that-abysmal-place/devlog/372929/marathon-jam-april-2022
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Comments
The atmosphere of the game is amazing! Impressed by the generated levels. I think that the game concept is very good, so the game has a great potential.
Thanks so much for playing it!
This game looks really cool! Definitely not your average gamejam game. It has a lot of depth and potential to become a fully fledged commercial game. You can tell there is a lot of work behing this one. The art and sound design makes a really good horror atmosphere. Very nice job!
Thank you for playing! Glad you like the atmosphere :)
Been a while since I played this game. Nice to see the procedural generation, so let's start with discussing it:
It seems to be working fine, the levels are huge and the generation patterns are not obvious (although there are some rooms that may be repeated). However, there's still not much going on there. I know that this is just a demo, but if you want to go procedural, you need to refine the generator to make things interesting. The third level defeated me - I wandered around pointlessly, unable to find the exit. Maybe once you add the story, it will be easier to generate the fun stuff.
Now, besides level generation:
I just love that yelling enemy, that was totally creepy
You have to do something about the crawling corridors, since there's nothing going on while passing through them. You seem to have started improving that experience by adding that shriek, but that's just one, add more! Also maybe some corridor wind sfx? Some camera change?
And finally bugs/features
The BG is sometimes glitchy. Notice the red lines in the top-right part of the screen. Maybe the generator places it incorrectly?
At the start of the levels, the MC often gets stuck in that pose, until I jump (picture below)
Hey, thanks so much for the feedback! You're right, there will be a lot more rooms added in the future (as well as different level types), and a lot more "things" to do hopefully :) This demo was mostly about getting the basics working. The idea will be that the first couple of levels will be smaller, mostly just caves with possibly a few enemies and items. Then later levels will introduce more and more "weird" stuff :)
Thank you for providing the screenshot for the background issue, it's because the back wall is not placed high enough, I'll fix it. And yeah I'm aware of the weird animation bug, it's on the list too!
Thanks again for trying it!
Excellent progress! Love the level generation! Really feels like the dungeons/tunnels are vast and dangerous. I particularly like the complexity of the "deeper" levels as I thought they were more interesting. The visuals and feel of the water was well done. The sound design is satisfying and very unsettling...in a good way (if that makes sense). Keys and exits can be hard to find sometimes. Can't wait for more!
Thank you for playing it, I really appreciate the feedback!
I played the movement and combat demo, and liked how the mechanics were explained one at a time. I got to the part where there were a bunch of monsters to kill, and I did that. Then there was a part where I needed to jump but I couldn't (pressing space didn't do anything). I figured that maybe I needed to stash the sword or something, so I pressed G, and the game closed?
I liked the shadow effect from the flames, and also the blurry effect when swimming underwater! The length of the swimming was just right that I was close to running out of breath, but made it, so that was very well calibrated.
For the level generation demo, it was pretty cool to see a procedurally-generated level, but I wasn't sure where the key was. Maybe an arrow of some sort to point in the general direction might be good?
Thanks so much for playing it! I'm not sure what happened in that Movement and Combat demo, but that one doesn't have an exit confirmation, so maybe you accidentally hit escape? I recall there is also an issue where you cannot jump when an item is "selected" in your inventory - I think it's fixed in the latest demo but I'll double check :D
For the Level Generation, the key was a bit of a last-minute addition so I definitely need to refine that. I'm trying not to add any extra "UI" elements as I don't want to distract from the atmosphere, but I'll have a think about how to improve the key's discoverability. Thank you for the feedback!