Thank you for giving it a go, and I am happy you enjoyed it! ^^
Well, the intention was like, if collecting quartz out at the extremities of the machine is like pulling out a USB, I wanted to make collecting quartz at the heart of the thing more like pulling out a tooth. But the animation doesn't communicate that very clearly, and the blood looked better in white than the oubliette's black since they have opposite-colored tiles, but that can carry the wrong connotation, of course XD
If I make AGOT into a full game I'd probably make it clearer by:
1) Giving the player sprite an animation closer to something like the hefting animation in like Super Mario 2 or Zelda where like, the player is pulling something up overhead.
2) I want to make it so the player sprite is actually holding the quartz aloft for a bit in all cases, so the action is better communicated and more tangible.
3)The pained noises are supposed to be from Phlogiston, but you don't hear them at any other point in the game, so the effect sort of relies on a very quick inference that is easier to connect to the player character instead because they are visibly performing the action. An audio cue when you get Phlogiston's communications earlier in the game that could be reused / warped here would help a lot, or like a higher effort close up animation in a cut away, something like that.
I suppose the blood would still be white, and that will always have someone reading it a certain way, but that might just be an inescapable reality XD
Anyway anyway, pardon this being partially a note to self for a further release. Thank you very much for playing and I am happy if it entertained you ^^
