This is one of the best games I've played on itch.io, the story was amazing, the music is some of the best I've seen in a game, and the third painting was really tense! the only gripe I have about the game is that it is a bit short. If the game was revisited and more paintings were added this game would be perfect, and since there are some unused songs in the soundtrack like Susumu and Circus, I think it would be awesome to have them put to use and added to the game. Overall this game is amazing and I would love to see the story continued and expanded.
Last weekend I streamed your game. Overall, it's...something.
It's certainly a captivating experience as far as the world, CG visuals, and music go, and at times, the writing is really enjoyable.
However, as a game, it's pretty weak. The first level being just a maze with no twist on it. It's kind of like what every game-maker's first game is: a maze. The second level just being a series of riddles is pretty much right behind a maze in that line of "beginner game ideas". So it's a shame that despite all the strengths this game has, it falls short at being a good game.
I'll also admit that it's a little bit strange to have what appears to be a fairly customized game as far as assets go, but the game still occasionally throws in an RTP sound effect and uses the default message window from RPG Maker.
The soundtrack is pretty dang cool. It's a shame that the soundtrack download seems to just be a haphazard collection of songs ripped right out of the game's audio folder, rather than being a proper soundtrack with meta data, in a common format (such as mp3 or flac), with track numbers, and possibly even looping the songs (especially since they are so short) a couple of times before fading out. On a note of the soundtrack, I do really like a lot of the songs, it's really cool. I would advise in the future reducing the amount of reverb. A lot of songs become quite difficult to parse due to messy mixing which is the result of the excess reverb.
Regardless, this game is pretty neat, and for a short experience it's easy to overlook a lot of the flaws.
If you'd like to watch my experience with your game, I've linked the archive below. You can click the timestamps to jump to when I start playing your game.
edit:
One quick update on this: In the past I have often remastered various albums or songs that I really enjoy but find it difficult to add to my library due to their mixing. I wanted to bring the soundtrack with me on my phone, but as the soundtrack is presented now, is totally useless for adding to my music library on my phone. So, I decided to give it the remastering treatment I have done for other songs/soundtracks in the past. The link is below. Normally the songs/soundtracks don't come from an individual creator and are often old forgotten soundtracks so it never felt like I was doing any harm by distributing the soundtrack. However, your case is a little different, so right now this video is unlisted. I would like to include a download link for the remastered soundtrack, however you may prefer something different. Let me know what you'd like to do. If you prefer, I can send you the remastered version of the soundtrack and you can distribute it yourself.
Thank you for all the feedback and making a remastered version of the soundtrack! Feel free to give me a link and I will distribute it so everyone can have the best version of the soundtrack available.
Sorry for the wait! I often include a readme with my remasters that explain in-depth the changes I have made. It took me a little bit of time to prepare that (I also just wanted to actually finish your game and see it through to the end, so I re-downloaded it and completed it.)
It includes an MP3 version of the album which was re-encoded from the original m4a tracks meaning a loss in quality, so I also included WAV files, which should retain the same quality as the original m4a tracks. Let me know once you have a public link for it. I will attach the link to the video and make it public (unless you would prefer to upload a video for the remastered soundtrack on your own youtube channel 🤔)
I am unfortunately getting a headers error when I try and unpack the archive :( Also, I'm planning on writing a blurb on the game page to give you credit and link to your page thanking you for the remaster, replacing the soundtrack download here with your own, and then also adding a link in the description of the YouTube soundtrack to your remastered one. Is that okay?
I was able to unzip it! Just updated the game and the YouTube video-- let me know if all the edits are satisfactory. I also took a look through your readme, and can see how much work you put into this project -- amazing job!
Hey, I'm a professional translator and I'd like to translate this game into Brazilian Portuguese for my localization portfolio (for free). Please let me know if you're interested!
The game is wonderful up to where I managed to get, but on the Html version, every time I open the options menu everything breaks... Maybe on the downloadable version that doesn't happen, but my computer is Linux...
here is the error message the game gives if the devs wanna look into it
from what I read the problem might be that the game is looking for a save file when HTML doesn't support such a thing, and then breaks. Might need to disable saving for the HTML version
I love the soundtrack on this game, and it kept me playing due to the interesting music that I love. Also, the story and artwork are very interesting not knowing that I'm death.
The first painting I love the music!
The only thing I don't like is the riddles on the second painting with no real music that I can listen too. But I would like to come back to this to see what's more in stock.
The sountrack is a perfectly odd blend of classical and psychadelic, which is the exact vibe of the game.
The art is unsual in a way that as with the soundtrack, that also fit the the theme and feel of the game.
The gameplay was quite immersive (not as much for me because of my sibling...), and gives you a perfect feeling of unsettlement, fear, and other feeling's I can't describe. The occasional randomness such as "m o n s t e r t r u c k s" gave the feeling of home, as everyone makes a random joke occasionally or gets less serious.
This game is well made, and I enjoyed it very much to play this. Thank you very much, algebrafalcon for letting us play such a wonderful masterpiece.
Overrall: 10/10, not too long but also not too short for a perfect amount of time spent playing.
brilliant. great storytelling and design, love the surrealism and metaphoric gameplay. healthy mix of lighthearted absurdism and existential dread. very cathartic and emotionally fulfilling, keep it up!
I have been trying to find good games on here and this is the only one that truly immersed me. The music combined with the slightly uncanny visuals were really good! I'm glad that I got to play this game.
I was skeptical about this game at first, but my thoughts changed after playing it. Sure, the art was scary, and so was the third painting, but I made it through with no thoughts of how scary it could be, and a nice warming feeling
SPOILERS
I thought the last painting was gonna be an actual gameplay, but I realized what it was soon, and it broke my heart with joy.
Really compelling story, and walking back through each of the paintings felt very meditative. It gave me time to come to terms with the stories I had just heard and with the people who had moved on. This game was way more chill than I thought it was going to be, and for that I am very glad. It was weird, and scary at times, but it also felt calm and reflective. There was no rush. There was only one part where I had to go really fast (you know the one), but other than that, the story and music, the puzzles and dialogue, really made me feel that time is solid in this place.
!SPOILERS!
By the way, I read one of your previous comments that explained that the character did move on when they went through their painting, so I'm very glad about that. At first, I was horrified because I thought that our character had been sucked into the painting and trapped there. But now that I know for sure that our character got to move on, I feel relieved.
This deserves far more love and attention than what it's gotten so far - a lovely, but often heartbreaking experience about what horrors many ordinary people are forced to go through. Or, often. Become.
I made this game into an assignment for an undergraduate video game studies course. AlgebraFalcon & team have created an intensely creative and thoughtful gaming experience, which in turn provided my students with many prompts and questions to write about.
im on the third painting rn after my first death and holy shit i was surprised by the little monster thing just charging after me... i think the images here are ai generated which i think is super cool
This game is a treasure and needs to be kept alive, archived somewhere forever. It explores so much of humanity in such a short span of time (I completed this for 30 minutes, albeit struggling with the monster in the 3rd part). I think the creators did a phenomenal job at this, with the background, the character designs and the ESPECIALLY the soundtracks. Thank you for this experience.
Dude only 30 min it took me about an hr or 2 just to get past the 3rd painting. Don´t get me wrong I absolutely love this game it is a literal masterpiece.
To be honest, this is a work of damn art. Almost made me cry. I've seen this game so many times on the free web games section, and never clicked on it. Damn, that was a mistake. PLAY THIS GAME OR MISS OUT.
This was really wonderful. I've been looking for something that made me think. The themes here were genuinely unique. Certainly a game I'll be coming back to again and again!
One of the best games I've ever played! No joke. The characters are beautiful, and I've really saw myself as the puzzle-kid. I've got a similar story with my father... Anyway, it's a beautiful game with a wonderful philosophy under all the pixels and the dialogues. Great job!
ok so i downloaded the non windows Zip and played it right through this time.Really excellent game. Deep and thought provoking.It will last in my memory for some time .And great music too.
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
This is one of the best games I've played on itch.io, the story was amazing, the music is some of the best I've seen in a game, and the third painting was really tense! the only gripe I have about the game is that it is a bit short. If the game was revisited and more paintings were added this game would be perfect, and since there are some unused songs in the soundtrack like Susumu and Circus, I think it would be awesome to have them put to use and added to the game. Overall this game is amazing and I would love to see the story continued and expanded.
Hello,
Last weekend I streamed your game. Overall, it's...something.
It's certainly a captivating experience as far as the world, CG visuals, and music go, and at times, the writing is really enjoyable.
However, as a game, it's pretty weak. The first level being just a maze with no twist on it. It's kind of like what every game-maker's first game is: a maze. The second level just being a series of riddles is pretty much right behind a maze in that line of "beginner game ideas". So it's a shame that despite all the strengths this game has, it falls short at being a good game.
I'll also admit that it's a little bit strange to have what appears to be a fairly customized game as far as assets go, but the game still occasionally throws in an RTP sound effect and uses the default message window from RPG Maker.
The soundtrack is pretty dang cool. It's a shame that the soundtrack download seems to just be a haphazard collection of songs ripped right out of the game's audio folder, rather than being a proper soundtrack with meta data, in a common format (such as mp3 or flac), with track numbers, and possibly even looping the songs (especially since they are so short) a couple of times before fading out. On a note of the soundtrack, I do really like a lot of the songs, it's really cool. I would advise in the future reducing the amount of reverb. A lot of songs become quite difficult to parse due to messy mixing which is the result of the excess reverb.
Regardless, this game is pretty neat, and for a short experience it's easy to overlook a lot of the flaws.
If you'd like to watch my experience with your game, I've linked the archive below. You can click the timestamps to jump to when I start playing your game.
edit:
One quick update on this:
In the past I have often remastered various albums or songs that I really enjoy but find it difficult to add to my library due to their mixing. I wanted to bring the soundtrack with me on my phone, but as the soundtrack is presented now, is totally useless for adding to my music library on my phone.
So, I decided to give it the remastering treatment I have done for other songs/soundtracks in the past. The link is below. Normally the songs/soundtracks don't come from an individual creator and are often old forgotten soundtracks so it never felt like I was doing any harm by distributing the soundtrack. However, your case is a little different, so right now this video is unlisted. I would like to include a download link for the remastered soundtrack, however you may prefer something different. Let me know what you'd like to do. If you prefer, I can send you the remastered version of the soundtrack and you can distribute it yourself.
Thank you for all the feedback and making a remastered version of the soundtrack! Feel free to give me a link and I will distribute it so everyone can have the best version of the soundtrack available.
Sorry for the wait! I often include a readme with my remasters that explain in-depth the changes I have made. It took me a little bit of time to prepare that (I also just wanted to actually finish your game and see it through to the end, so I re-downloaded it and completed it.)
Here is the download link to the remastering.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-9feRGlx2l2nicly6ecBxH8sTZxBeel4/view?usp=share...
It includes an MP3 version of the album which was re-encoded from the original m4a tracks meaning a loss in quality, so I also included WAV files, which should retain the same quality as the original m4a tracks.
Let me know once you have a public link for it. I will attach the link to the video and make it public (unless you would prefer to upload a video for the remastered soundtrack on your own youtube channel 🤔)
I am unfortunately getting a headers error when I try and unpack the archive :( Also, I'm planning on writing a blurb on the game page to give you credit and link to your page thanking you for the remaster, replacing the soundtrack download here with your own, and then also adding a link in the description of the YouTube soundtrack to your remastered one. Is that okay?
I repackaged it as a .zip file so hopefully this works for you:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zkJFX2Jygnp11asauO5ySWmPQpece6vF/view?usp=share...
Yeah, all of that is okay. I appreciate you giving credit. For my music stuff, I prefer to be credited as "Nolan Alighieri of the Nephilim Novel".
Let me know if the you are able to unzip the file this time.
I was able to unzip it! Just updated the game and the YouTube video-- let me know if all the edits are satisfactory. I also took a look through your readme, and can see how much work you put into this project -- amazing job!
This has became my favorite game
thank u for ur work
this is such a unique concept and the execution was just MM.
good gob
Hey, I'm a professional translator and I'd like to translate this game into Brazilian Portuguese for my localization portfolio (for free). Please let me know if you're interested!
I am definitely interested! Contact me on discord :)
really cool game!
here is the error message the game gives if the devs wanna look into it
from what I read the problem might be that the game is looking for a save file when HTML doesn't support such a thing, and then breaks. Might need to disable saving for the HTML version
Saving is done through Charon, not the menu, so I worry that disabling saving on this version may not help. I think this issue may be caused by your web browser's cookies. Please check out this page and let me know if it helps. https://growthdot.com/help/failed-to-read-the-localstorage-property/#:~:text=To%20fix%20this%2C%20you%20need,cookies%20into%20the%20address%20bar.
I love the soundtrack on this game, and it kept me playing due to the interesting music that I love. Also, the story and artwork are very interesting not knowing that I'm death.
The first painting I love the music!
The only thing I don't like is the riddles on the second painting with no real music that I can listen too. But I would like to come back to this to see what's more in stock.
My fellow RPG maker let me exchange games of community friendship!: Don't open the door by Dr. standback (itch.io)
A wonderful game.
The sountrack is a perfectly odd blend of classical and psychadelic, which is the exact vibe of the game.
The art is unsual in a way that as with the soundtrack, that also fit the the theme and feel of the game.
The gameplay was quite immersive (not as much for me because of my sibling...), and gives you a perfect feeling of unsettlement, fear, and other feeling's I can't describe. The occasional randomness such as "m o n s t e r t r u c k s" gave the feeling of home, as everyone makes a random joke occasionally or gets less serious.
This game is well made, and I enjoyed it very much to play this. Thank you very much, algebrafalcon for letting us play such a wonderful masterpiece.
Overrall: 10/10, not too long but also not too short for a perfect amount of time spent playing.
Thank you for your kind comment! It means a lot <3
very good game，but i am too timid，so i can't play the chase(cry
THIS WAS SO GOOD OMG i love the art style, EVERYTHING!
Great game !!!
The game is really deep ~ i really love it :)
thanks dev!
Absolutely spellbinding from start to finish. I love the blend of pixel-art and paintings. Great work!!
brilliant. great storytelling and design, love the surrealism and metaphoric gameplay. healthy mix of lighthearted absurdism and existential dread. very cathartic and emotionally fulfilling, keep it up!
THIS WAS AWESOME!
This was AMAZING. Good mix of puzzle, horror, and some other things i can't quite describe. THIS IS AWESOME
this game should actually be a paid indie game on steam. 10 dollars. THIS GAME DESERVES A W A R D S
I have been trying to find good games on here and this is the only one that truly immersed me. The music combined with the slightly uncanny visuals were really good! I'm glad that I got to play this game.
I was skeptical about this game at first, but my thoughts changed after playing it. Sure, the art was scary, and so was the third painting, but I made it through with no thoughts of how scary it could be, and a nice warming feeling
SPOILERS
I thought the last painting was gonna be an actual gameplay, but I realized what it was soon, and it broke my heart with joy.
Really compelling story, and walking back through each of the paintings felt very meditative. It gave me time to come to terms with the stories I had just heard and with the people who had moved on. This game was way more chill than I thought it was going to be, and for that I am very glad. It was weird, and scary at times, but it also felt calm and reflective. There was no rush. There was only one part where I had to go really fast (you know the one), but other than that, the story and music, the puzzles and dialogue, really made me feel that time is solid in this place.
!SPOILERS!
By the way, I read one of your previous comments that explained that the character did move on when they went through their painting, so I'm very glad about that. At first, I was horrified because I thought that our character had been sucked into the painting and trapped there. But now that I know for sure that our character got to move on, I feel relieved.
!END OF SPOILERS!
Anyways, fascinating game. I really enjoyed it.
Thank you <3
This deserves far more love and attention than what it's gotten so far - a lovely, but often heartbreaking experience about what horrors many ordinary people are forced to go through. Or, often. Become.
I made this game into an assignment for an undergraduate video game studies course. AlgebraFalcon & team have created an intensely creative and thoughtful gaming experience, which in turn provided my students with many prompts and questions to write about.
nice game. Cool art
spoilers
im on the third painting rn after my first death and holy shit i was surprised by the little monster thing just charging after me... i think the images here are ai generated which i think is super cool
This game is a treasure and needs to be kept alive, archived somewhere forever. It explores so much of humanity in such a short span of time (I completed this for 30 minutes, albeit struggling with the monster in the 3rd part). I think the creators did a phenomenal job at this, with the background, the character designs and the ESPECIALLY the soundtracks. Thank you for this experience.
Thank you for playing! :)
Dude only 30 min it took me about an hr or 2 just to get past the 3rd painting. Don´t get me wrong I absolutely love this game it is a literal masterpiece.
Really love the character designs wow
To be honest, this is a work of damn art. Almost made me cry. I've seen this game so many times on the free web games section, and never clicked on it. Damn, that was a mistake. PLAY THIS GAME OR MISS OUT.
scratch that, it did make me cry
game was good. story was intresting
Love the art. Great game.
This was really wonderful. I've been looking for something that made me think. The themes here were genuinely unique. Certainly a game I'll be coming back to again and again!
I FINISHED IT
Characters and paintings in this game look like AI painting
One of the best games I've ever played! No joke. The characters are beautiful, and I've really saw myself as the puzzle-kid. I've got a similar story with my father... Anyway, it's a beautiful game with a wonderful philosophy under all the pixels and the dialogues. Great job!
- Viaggy, un viandante a caso
ok so i downloaded the non windows Zip and played it right through this time.Really excellent game. Deep and thought provoking.It will last in my memory for some time .And great music too.
I was going to try your other one too .I hope i can play it.
couldnt finish it .Crashed or something .IT said cant use my profile because its from anewer version.Shame i was really enjoying it
Are you playing on Google Chrome?
yes i am
I played it on google chrome it saves so reload multiple times one will work. Once for me it took 5 times but it eventually worked.