Play game
House of Illusion's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #8 | 4.100 | 4.100 |
| Controls | #21 | 3.450 | 3.450 |
| Accessibility | #22 | 3.100 | 3.100 |
| Overall | #22 | 3.364 | 3.364 |
| Fun | #27 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Audio | #28 | 3.250 | 3.250 |
| Graphics | #41 | 3.350 | 3.350 |
| Originality | #60 | 3.050 | 3.050 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.4 (Stable)
Wildcards Used
Include a thematic way of checking player stats
Include a monster that's helpful to the player
Game Description
Reveal what is concealed. Find what is hidden. Leave behind what is found - before you become a mask yourself...
How does your game tie into the theme?
Your character wears a mask within the house to survive. You use masks to progress in the game, gaining abilities and unlocking new areas. One of the core themes of the game is about how we mask ourselves, or get masked in society. You meet other masked NPCs, and many assets, such as the doors to other levels, icons, and design choices are based on concealment and mask-inspired. Wildcard References: Self-Awareness: A simple stats page behind a - you guessed it - mask! Press C to see it. Friendly Ghost: Clair, the mask you wear from the beginning, as well as the other consciousnesses within your masks, guide and aid you throughout the game.
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
tuile, N/A
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
2nd for Tuile, 1st for Yord!
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
Really liked the limited colour palette and ambient track in the background.
Neat platformer that kept me engrossed. Nice work!
The art and music in this game are very atmospheric and the platforming and movement mechanics are very well done. Changing masks to interact with different parts of the game is a really cool mechanic, and a great way to tell the story. Definitely a game that made me want to know more about the world and characters. Great work!
The style of this game is so cool, very neat platformer. I love the lore, I wanna know more about this cursed place! Very nice and tight package for the jam, very well done!
I enjoyed this one. Not sure how you had the time to implement so many mechanics in a game jam! The controls felt good and snappy, especially the wall jump. I also liked the masks being characters, very good story telling device. Well done.
Thank you! I am saying this to the programmer as well - but they don't believe me. :D I just told them "Seeee!?!" after you posted this comment. We tried to be very careful with the MVP scaling, but there are still things we left out. The monster in the key collection room is actually a completely scope creep monster (I drew it for fun), and that was how it was named in the engine too for a while. Just a fun anecdote for us to share. Thanks for the feedback and for playing our game!
This was fun! The tutorial walkthrough was funny and painless (a rare combo). I almost didnt realize the first door was a door since it blended in with the background. I just kept jumping to my death multiple times (to the right) until I figured it out. I was able to make it to the end, but the story left me curious and wanting to know more! Could have been fun to explore the masks a bit more (what's Claire's story? what are they doing there? what is this world?) but overall this was very interesting. Well done!
Yay for painless tutorials! Since this was a jam game, we didn't want to bloat the gameplay too much with exposition, but there is soo much to the 3 masks story that we have left out in this version. Glad to know that it sparked curiosity for you. Thank you very much for the feedback - the deaths can be very annoying, but it's great that you kept going regardless. :D
I don't do well in these kind of games but I got as far as I could and I loved the graphics, atmosphere and music - the mask swapping was interesting and I enjoyed the parts my awful playing let me see. Thanks.
Thank you for still trying it, and I'm glad you still ended up enjoying bits and pieces of it!
This was sweet! The atmosphere was really pleasing to look at. One little bug I ran into was I could still stand and wall jump on hidden walls, even when I didn't have the Donnel mask on. Other than that though, this was a really fun game :) Great job!
I understand how that may appear to be a bug - honestly a thing that we could have made more obvious as being an intentional part of the gameplay - but you "can" navigate/get blocked by hidden walls (like in the item collection rooms, you get blocked by them and can end up dying if not using the correct mask) - but it was indeed intentional part of the design - just not fully fleshed out due to jam scoping.
Glad you still enjoyed it!
Ohhh gotcha! That's a super cool feature :) There were a few other games I played in which you couldn't stand on things without the mask, so that's a really unique twist. Thanks for correcting me lol
Happy to let you know! We took it as we didn't make it obvious enough that that was intentional - so we'll keep an eye out for that. So your feedback is still valuable. :D
Really snappy and tight controls, loved all the story and mask mechanics too!
Thanks! Happy to hear that!
That was an amazing proof of concept for a metroidvania!!! It was even really polished with this minimalistic look. The dialog box and the concise dialogs were great, most people write texts and texts and it makes dialogs so boring, but yours made the game flow naturally.
The controls are perfect, the wall jump was very natural and well implemented (hardly seen so well implemented in game jams, most people mess up the velocity).
The only problem is the confusing returns. One of the key features of metroidvanias is exploration. Sometimes I went through a door and I came back to a different place from where I left and it was confusing. Doors need to me interconected, you need to always return to the same door or the player will get lost. Also you need to save states between rooms, like the guys guarding the doors, if I lost I had to ask them again to let me through.
Still, those things are easy to fix. Again, amazing proof of concept for a metroidvania. Good job!!
Thank you so much for the constructive criticism! Never attempted a metroidvania before, and it was our programmer's first jam, so this was really fun for us!
I agree that the returns could have been better implemented - returning to the main door rather than to the level - and the environment around the doors could have been more distinguishable as different places - but we ran out of time. Will definitely keep your feedback in mind for next time!
Good job! Very similar concept to what I had come up with, but I like the direction you took it! Got a little lost now and again, but found my way in the end
Glad you tried it, and for the feedback, thank you!