Nice game! I was confused at the start as to how the flask worked, which caused me to die a few times. Once I figured it out the game was pretty easy. I liked the creepy atmosphere you built with the music, sound and postprocess effects. It didn't seem necessary to mutate given how OP the flask is, but it was nice to have the escape option. Great work!
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EctoHunter's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #47 | 3.861 | 3.861 |
| Overall polish | #62 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Creative use of art assets | #66 | 3.875 | 3.875 |
| Engagement | #88 | 3.792 | 3.792 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
3 years ago(+1)
Thanks for playing and your feedback! If i expand on the game I'll make sure to make it more of a challenge.
The music was written for this game by tunglith who I've cooperated with for all my games so far.
3 years ago(+1)
Thanks for playing! You are missing out if you had no sounds, because there is a lot to hear
Thanks for checking out my game, glad that you could enjoy it that much. To your points:
- As I said the last gate requires a golden and a silver key, so you were still missing the second one. You can find the the room with that key on the right side
- I didn't get around to include introductions for the abilities, mutate turns you into a ghost, so ghosts actually start ignoring you, very useful for the room that you missed ;)
- Cursor was still turned on in the current build. I turned it off now
Really appreciate all the feedback and will see how I can use them to improve the game. Thanks again!
Thanks for playing and leaving a lot of notes.
- jumping is already turned off for the next update, so there won't be that confusion :)
- catching ghosts would be more difficult as soon as you have to encounter more than one ghost at a time, because you have to maneuver away from the ghost that still chases after you while the other one gets sucked in. sometimes ghosts still lash out to you when they get sucked in for the same reason, to keep the player on their toes :)
- mutate mechanic turns you into a ghost, so the other ghosts stop chasing you and you can't get hurt by them. useful when you have more than one ghost chasing like in the last room with the silver key, where you have to go around the crates, but ghosts can move right through
hope that clears most of those. really appreciate the input though, because it shows me where more explaining needs to be done :)
Thanks for your great feedback. The music was actually written specifically for the game by Tunglith, who I've cooperated with for all my games so far.
Yeah, there is definitely an easier and a harder room in the end, but I wanted players to choose freely between them. The room with the two ghosts actually gets easier once you get what the mutation is actually doing. It resets ghosts that are chasing after you, the idea is that you mutate into a ghost, so they would not attack you anymore. So effectively it's: night vision, speed boost, ghosts ignore and can't harm you. And you can't really 'waste' it because you can build up your ghost level again with every three new ghosts you drink. I actually want to include the ability to float through crates like the ghosts can as well, but still need to figure out how to handle what happens when you end ghost mode while standing inside an object...
I agree with you though, that it needs to be set up correctly. Initially the setup for the mutation was the second ghost that corners you when you get the key in the dark passage. But the gameplay of drinking and immediately mutating was not fun, because it was really passive and sometimes you would have to get into ghost mod and wait for it to pass, just to empty your flask to get a ghost out of your way. So I changed it to the current system, but didn't have time to change the level design to match it and also didn't get to make a text explanation for it before the deadline. I plan to address this in a future update though.
Thanks for all your notes! They were really helpful
Ahh I didn't notice that the mutation also affects the ghosts' behavior. That does make sense! I agree, too, with your decision to make it invokable instead of automatic.
If you were going to make the player phase through boxes, you might just nudge them to the nearest free spot if they stop on a box when the mutation runs out. Would definitely require some checks, but it would seem natural to me.
(My comment about "wasting" the mutation was only my first thought, before I continued on, so it was eventually clear).
Kudos to Tunglith! Great job on the music, I'll have to see where I can give them a follow!
3 years ago(+1)
Hey thank you so much for the kind comments, I'm still new to music producing and have been piggybacking Gypynkt's projects to experiment and improve.
As so I don't have much published but you'll find everything and all the links on my website : https://tunglith.com/ (and shortcut to my proudest track so far here).
Thanks again for the support <3.
3 years ago(+1)
Wow, really appreciate the in-depth examination. Let's see how long my reply is gonna be, gonna make it as a list so it won't look like an essay haha
- You are right, ghosts can't cross sliding secret doors. I guess i can make those areas walkable in the navmesh, but then they will corner you which is what the flask is for, so problem solved hehe. In the current public build I couldn't reproduce that you wouldn't be able to put down a flask in an open secret door. I managed to get pretty much in front of a ghost that can't dross the door and put my flask right in front of it, but also on it.
- In the game jam build I forgot to reset the bottle counter upon reset,
but the actual counter in the code still continues works, so if you had it at 1 when you reset it, it will start at 1 in the new game, but the interface will show 0. Will address this in the update. - As you probably read, jumping was supposed to be disabled for the public
build. I just used it to get faster through levels for playtesting other areas, but forgot to take it out again when the deadline hit. - The hole in the room with the silver key is plugged for the post jam version, no more falls to eternal damnation ;)
- The 2 key bug you found is a bit puzzling, because I can't reproduce it. The door needs a golden key and a silver key, indicated by the golden and silver keypad an either side. The golden key is in the maze on the left, the silver one in the room with two ghosts and a lot of crates. Both have normal bronze/copper keys in them as well, so you can approach them in whatever order you like. I tried it out just now and while there is a click when approaching the same keypad again after activating it, because it just checks for the bool on the player whether they have the key or not, but for me it does not open the gate. No clue what causes it for you, because I have it as a condition that both Silver/GoldenKeyActivated bools on the gate need to be true for it to open. Guess need to playtest more to figure out how this could still happen.
- There is actually a sound cue when ghosts discover you, it might be a little subtle and is too similar to their normal moaning, but I DID think of it :) Might have to make it more aggressive though.
- Since you mentioned it, I actually had the intention of the player turning into a ghost at the end of the game if they have been using ghost mode too many times, but didn't have time to flesh that idea out.
I'm on the fence a bit whether to expand the game beyond its current size, because it deviates from my usual style, which could be 'fixed' by swapping assets among other things, I guess. But also my usual style has only been two other gamejam games, so it's not necessarily set in stone either. Hearing though that someone would actually play it for a couple hours will let me at least consider it more. I had a couple of ideas that I didn't add during the jam to keep the scope small enough to finish it in the limited time I had available last week (technically I still have over 10h of working time available).
Thanks again for your input, if you find any more things or play the post jam version eventually don't hold back to write another essay ;)
3 years ago(+1)
Thanks for playing and leaving your feedback. The cursor has already been fixed for the update. It was actually one of the first things I did right after plugging the hole in the floor and turning off jumping haha
Thanks for playing, great that you had fun haha. The mutation basically let's you become a ghost yourself after consuming enough of them, so all the ghosts you triggered will stop chasing after you while it lasts. I planned that you would also be able to move through boxes like them, but didn't get to that before the end of the deadline.
3 years ago(+1)
Thanks for your feedback. I didn't get around to implement a couple more explanations and backstory that I had in mind. That's why the ghost mutation mechanic might not be clear at the moment. Basically by drinking the ghosts you get the ability to turn into a ghost yourself, so the other ghosts will stop chasing you. It's basically the only way to reset ghosts, because else they will chase you forever.
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