Good concept, nice aesthetics. Personally I did like the quiz, I read the story before starting the game because I figured it would be important and was immediately rewarded lol.
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The Evil Clergyman's itch.io pageResults
Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
Story | #137 | 2.846 | 2.846 |
Horror | #193 | 2.654 | 2.654 |
Aesthetics | #238 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Sound Design | #253 | 2.577 | 2.577 |
Enjoyment (Best Game) | #288 | 2.308 | 2.308 |
Ranked from 26 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
WOW.... I've never been more insulted. I'm having flashbacks -reminded I am just a dumb-dumb. he's not wrong.
Hey Fernando and Livobion!
I have vanquished the elder beings and continued on my quest to rate and play more game! Seriously though, great job on adapting a Lovecraft story.
A couple notes after playing:
- Like others have said, it is a bit offputting to start the game with a quiz, but I did appreciate that you added the hints on the game page so people could continue. If you were to expand the game it would be really cool to have some sort of in-world items/books which would have the answers in them and if you have the items it would like highlight the words in the answers.
- Some of the audio was a bit abrupt. I don't mind the choice of sounds at all, but the fact that they cut out so abruptly really is kind of jarring -- something to fix later on though!
- It was somewhat unclear what I was meant to be doing, like others have mentioned, but once I saw the info below I was like AH! (Similar sort of boat to what I dealt with in my game entry. Just not enough time to get useful tips and instructions into the game.) I am not counting this stuff against you because I understand, but definitely something to add if you continue the game!
- The zombie models were a bit out of place in terms of style with the rest of the game. Additionally, the model scale inside the house was a little bit off. Everything felt pretty large compared to the player character and made it seems like they were a child in terms of height.
- I did run into one hard crash that made me have to restart. I was in the house with the UV light after sleeping (and stupidly, despite the warnings) tried to tab out of the game. Everything worked fine right up until I pressed CTRL for some reason and the game crashed.
What I liked:
- Honestly, I kind of loved that this looked like WoW or like some game I used to play when I was a kid. It really brought me back and filled me with nostalgia! Very cool style overall.
- The music and ambience were pretty great! I definitely think the sounds of the piano and cello themselves could have been swapped out with some more realistic sounding samples or VSTs but the composition and mix were spot on for what was in there.
- The dialogue menus were great and the borders/backgrounds of them fit really well with the style of the game and even the story itself.
- The easter eggs were great! Thought at first I was doing something wrong by continuing to fish, but then I was like ah okay hahaha
Thanks for the detailed feedback Otco!
About the quiz, I wanted to make a cutscene with the explanations, but I dropped the idea and added to the main menu fearing the timeline.
I have no excuse for the audios, I should have taken more time looking for some better ones.
I guess it could have a bit more information about the game progression. I'll keep it in mind for the next time.
The zombies are there because I didn't find any kind of spectre asset. I planned on adding some sort of ghost, but didn't manage to find any with animations, so I went to mixamo to get these. About the scallings... I guess I skipped that accidentaly. Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks for reporting the crash, I'll look into it if I decide to keep updating the project!
I love the idea of adapting a Lovecraft story into a game, and the sanity meter is a great touch. As others have mentioned, opening with an quiz based on outside knowledge is pretty off-putting. And once you wake up in the church, it isn't very clear what you need to do next. But I think if you work on sign-posting to the player what their goals are, this could be really great. Nice work!
Good environment, narrative design and atmosphere and the sound design is very unique!
But I have to say that the introductory questions are hard, and probably stopped many from playing the game. You should probably include the solutions in the games page, to help people not knowledgeable on those topics from needing to search them up on the internet (plus when they do, the alt tab doesn't work so they have to refresh the page :) ).
I think the ambient track is really unsettling, which is nice. Some of the more abrupt sound effects sounded a little out of place, but the knocking one sounded great. As for the gameplay, all I really have to say about it is the quiz in the beginning is kinda annoying to get through because it is a rather obscure subject I feel, but I mean, it does relate to your game since it is based on Lovecraft. Overall, not bad, especially since you stated that this was your first solo programming jam. Nice job!
Hey nice job! I think its really interesting to test the players knowledge at the beginning of the game. I really like the environments. Also that baby crying sound is so unsettling!
Nice environment though the sound effects in the background were a bit odd in particular the baby crying didn't seem to have much relevance to the scene. Biggest complaint is the quiz if your going to keep it I suggest having a text book you can click a certain key to look at while in the game and have the important information bold or stand out in some way. Would've liked to seen the graves intractable as well, but nice work inside the church was nicely put together and glad I was able to interact with most everything.
Nice Aesthetics :) My only criticism would be the quiz in the beginning. Why should i be versed in Christian mythology?
it is in the files, since the game is based on a Lovecraft story and concept you would maybe relate if connecting with the original short tale where the story is about a horror of a priest surrounding inquisition and books. The idea is not original, but originates from an story speaking about an Anglican priest locked with forbidden books
It was quite funny to put a quiz at the beginning of the game, I like it :D
I also really liked the overall atmosphere and the idea of the game. The abrupt interruption of sounds (effects) slightly spoiled the horror atmosphere for me personally, and, unfortunately, since I play on a laptop with a small monitor, it was a little uncomfortable because of the resolution of the game :( Maybe I didn't fully understand something, and the game could be expanded to full screen, for me it would improve the atmosphere. Help me please with it, maybe I can expanded it to full screen
In any case, it seems to me that if the project is polished a little, it has a future, I would like to play the updated version without small bugs) Good work!
I set up the game to work on 720p and added a fullscreen button on Itch (Bottom right of the game screen). What's your laptop resolution? I don't know if I'll keep updating this project, but I'll keep the problem in mind if I decide to fix it later. About the interrupting of sounds, I didn't manage to get some nice and short horror sound assets, so I got a few long ones and cut them. I knew it would sound weird but I thought it would be better than not having sound at all. Thanks for the feedback LiquidPixel!
I like the lighting and vibe. Wasn't crazy about the quiz questions, but that's probably my own hang-up of dreading tests! :) Good execution overall!!
I feel like you're trying to teach me things with this game and I don't know if I like it haha!
Seriously, the idea is neat but the execution feels weird. I'll just drop things positive and negative that came to mind while playing:
- I liked the overall look and feel of the game
- Having to restart the game to read the story on the main menu is not quite practital
- Knowing three things really is all we need to enter a haunted graveyard? This keeper is weird...
- It is quite clear that we're looking for a way to enter the church but why would I go fishing when I'm supposed to investigate de GRAVEyard?
- I liked the Goku poster, though
- The UV light is nicely placed so you see it right away and its use is pretty self explanatory (even if I think I expenrienced a bug on my first run where it didn't work)
- The narration works pretty well even though I must be lacking a lot of references to religion ^^'
That's it! Overall you really did a pretty good job, keep going!
Ye I know the feel haha! I think it's essential for a game jam to be conscious of how a scope grows and it does grow hella fast! I'm still learning not to plan to many features so the ones I implement are well polished. I'd say something inspired but I got nothing. Something like doing less but better? Idk.
We did almost everything we agreed on before hands. We dropped some ideas as soon as we had them by questionning their relevance in the final gameplay as different steps sounds depending on the surface or being able to bait the enemy by throwing items. For the rest, we divided task into "core" and "stretch goals" and implemented the stretch goals after we were done with everything. For example the stress level of the character was added 3 hours before the end of the jam ^^ We all think it adds to the "immersiveness" but it was not mandatory for the game to work out.
I gotta mention the fact that we had some bits of code that we reused from other projects (part of the player controller and the AI were pre-existing) and also that the sound designer and I almost worked full time on this for 1 week straight.
most of Lovecraft's work share references from occultism and history of religion, the questions are an addition (I believe if I would change something maybe the info in the story button would be a collectible item, so it wouldn't look something you should guess as a file).
The original story is about an Anglican priest who is forsaken by banished books that were persecuted by the modern inquisition, in the original tale there is this hut, the man becoming the Anglican priest and gazing this apparitions in the mirror, also the weird flashlight with the purple glow.
The ID inside the lake is with the name of a character of another Lovecraft's tale, Asenath Waite which was the former witch wife of Derby Pickman, character that named the Derby Pickman Foundation which is mentioned in another tale called at the mountains of madness.
Her image is a reference of another woman called Lady Frieda Harris, which illustrated the Tarot of Thoth made by Aleister Crowley since Waite is a reference to a family of one of "Crowley's rivals", who else invented one of the most famous tarot decks.
Another references such as the Arkham Advertiser can be found in another short tales from Lovecraft 's works.
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