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The Forbidden Cellar's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Category: Voice Acting | #29 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Category: Music | #88 | 3.700 | 3.700 |
| Story | #98 | 3.800 | 3.800 |
| Overall | #108 | 3.700 | 3.700 |
| Visuals | #109 | 3.900 | 3.900 |
| Category: Cinematography | #131 | 3.100 | 3.100 |
Ranked from 10 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Content Warnings
Family trauma, grief, and guilt. Murder, violence, and death. Psychological horror and disturbing themes.
Log Line
I'll find you Lucy, even if it's the last thing I do.
Team Credits & Cast
Joey - Project Lead/Writer/Programmer (https://joeys-works.itch.io/). Apririnn - Sprite Artist (https://apririnn.itch.io/). Miriam Lopez - UI and Background Artist (https://lopezmrabetmiriam.wixsite.com/homepage). D.ray - Composer/Sound Designer/Voice Director. Ellie Grace - Script Editor/Proofreader (https://itsbumblebear.itch.io/). Soli Adna - Lily's Voice Actress (https://soliadna.carrd.co/). ESHA - Lucy's Voice Actress (https://linktr.ee/esha_vo).
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Comments
Pretty neat game. The forefront of the game really kept me on edge, I was surprised to find actual body remains quite early into the game as well. The sprites and voice acting really add to the experience as well, though there are plenty of white rooms without CGs, could be nice to have more of them to flesh out the locations. Overall solid game, though there are still some small typos here and there, but no big deal.
Storywise, quite an interesting set up, though Lily is a really well-adjusted girl considering how she was raised and how everything happened, considering how other character is marred by the experience. Also I didn't really catch the family drama on the how and why everything happened in the past (I did try to investigate I could, though I did not enter Lily's room), maybe other endings, as well as not respecting Lily's wishes will explore it further.
I did encounter a game crash after the three eating scene so I'm not sure which ending I got.
Glad you enjoyed. The family drama is intentionally left somewhat ambigious, and some details are scattered across endings.
My goal with Lily was to make her subtly lonely but very likeable, but maybe I neglected how socially weird someone in her situation would be. Having her be that way while also following the player around and talking to them is a tough balance.
Sorry about that error, it only happens the first time you launch the game, then it fixes itself the second time. You can use the most recent autosave and it will put you close to the end, then it'll work. And now the latest version doesn't have that issue anymore, thanks for the report!
I wonder how it slipped by this long, maybe nobody played it in one sitting? Who knows.
This is a really cool game! I appreciate that it was especially forgiving when it came to restarting or checking other routes too. It's a smart feature to offer to rollback from the screen, and save some time based on how I think most players are playing a visual novel with high stakes like this (reloading saves and checking what's on the other side of big choices).
At the start of the game I found the tense or point of view of the words switching between the first person "I", third person "He", and the player's name, a bit confusing to follow in the prologue section. Hopefully this isn't too off-putting to other players checking this out though, because after that the mystery story, sprite art, almost point and click type of exploration, and overall sound/voice acting was all solid and really crafted a sense of immersion I didn't expect from just peeking at the screenshots!
Overall, great work, and I hope to see more games from the members of this team in the future as well.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm happy that you felt immersed, that was a top priority, though I should try and convey that better with the game page. I can see 3rd-person narration mixed with 1st-person internal monologues being a little hard to follow. I almost switched the whole game to 1st-person narration to make the player self-insert a bit more, but ultimately chose not to.
Thanks for the feedback!
Got the first ending! But, I played the 1.3 version and encountered bugs in "My Journal" and "Family"
Thanks a lot for pointing that out, It's fixed in the new 1.3.1 version. I'm glad you still finished, hopefully missing that lore section didn't take away from the experience too much.
No worries, I still enjoy it a lot!
I really liked this game! And I think the scene select with the endings it's a nice addition