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A jam submission

Monitors Back OnlineView game page

Submission for Scream Jam 2023
Submitted by Fitzy โ€” 6 days, 8 hours before the deadline
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Monitors Back Online's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Enjoyment (Best Game)#413.6433.643
Horror#1243.0713.071
Aesthetics#1313.5713.571
Story#1332.8572.857
Sound Design#1493.0713.071

Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

  • Excellent concept that subverts some of the horror tropes pioneered by Five Nights At Freddy's to make something more hands on and direct. Using the console commands to manipulate doors and view cameras really brings the player into the world and gets them to understand the logic of the game. The execution could use some tweaking - enemy movement and quality of life in particular - but the core ideas are original and innovative. Definitely a highlight of the jam for me!

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Comments

Submitted

Hey Fitzy!

I managed to escape!! Wow what an absolutely terrifying experience you crafted. So excited if you decide to continue this project because the mechanics of this game are absolutely worth exploring more and stretching out into a full experience.

Some notes after playing:

These are all going to be super nitpicky because I don't really have any notes after playing.

  • The environment sound loop and some of the sounds have weird cutoffs at times. The environment ambience specifically has a strange loop where it will dip down for about half a second and then start the loop over again. Not a huge deal, but the in and out points need to be fixed on that. The door opening sound has some strange cutoffs as well and would click sometimes since it would end on a non-zero point. Not a huge deal, just thought you should know.
  • Already mentioned this, but fullscreen would be an amazing addition. Couldn't get it working since my mouse kept getting locked to the game window. Again, not a huge deal just thought I should mention it.
  • In my playthrough I actually managed to lock the monster in a small room and he didn't break the door. He had broken another door just prior to me doing this, so maybe there is some bug with the logic where it doesn't break down a door directly after another? Not sure, just thought I would mention it.

What I liked:

  • Holy moly this game was terrifying! I have never typed so fast in my life and never been so aware of what I was doing. Every corridor I would have to double check that I actually locked the door and always had a camera mounted on the monster because I needed to double check he was still locked up tight. So scary! I love the gameplay of this and really do hope you continue to expand upon it.
  • The atmosphere of the game's level was incredible. It was a bit barren, but that's totally understandable given the amount of time we had for the Jam. Would love to see this expanded upon as well. Not being able to see what was in front of my face was really scary.
  • The sound (and sometimes lack thereof) was terrifying! When I would open a door I would jump because it was just so jarring in the best possible way.
  • The map and command mechanic is absolutely genius! Already said this, but I just have to reiterate how cool it was. Definitely gave me a similar feeling of dread to the first time I played alien: isolation and just generally has huge Alien vibes. It's such a great mechanic and fits with the visual aesthetic you have gone for -- sort of retro vibes and all.

Fantastic job! 100% following along with your future development of this game and any others you create.

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you liked it!
The door breaking mechanic definitely needs polish and it's definitely not hard to get the monster stuck. I think if I flesh this out in the future the monster pathing will need an overhaul

Submitted

Nice idea- I'd really like to see it spun into a bigger game!

Developer

<3
I'm gonna sit on it for a while before coming back to it, but I may expand it into a longer project

Submitted

Oh man I just pooped my pants. Not often that's a good thing but here we are, it's an asset. I like the feeling of getting lost and controlling the environment. I think a little more hand holding via a deeper tutorial would have helped me get to the enjoyment of what's been created here quicker. I like the look and feel of it and it certainly got tense. I liked it.

Developer(+1)

I'm glad you liked it.
The starting room is meant to be a mini-tutorial, but a more fleshed out one would be better

Submitted

I think you will enjoy this one. The terminal reminded me of it. https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2023/rate/2330669

Submitted

Terminal confused me in the start but it was so fun to use it when I figured it out, fun game, good concept and creepy visuals, good job overall.

Developer

thank you!

Submitted

Hey that was a fun game :D I love me some terminal action >:] I love the athmosphere and the art style it really sets the mood. The only thing that bugged me was the head-bobbing intensity. Overall I loved it! Interesting and well tought game, nice work! :D

Developer (1 edit)

Thank you :)
I appreciate the input on the head-bob, it's hard to tell where the line between "enough to be engaging" and "too much" is

Submitted

Terminal had me a tad bit confused at the beginning, but I kept goin and it paid off! Great style and really had me spooked!

Developer

<3

Submitted

this was really good, love the idea and the execution. it's a bit confusing at first, especially since the help doesn't actually list most of the options, but it was fun to figure it all out. really surprised you got this done in 7 days too, great job!

Developer

Thank you! There's an option to get command-specific options in more detail but in hindsight it's not very well broadcasted. A more "full" release would benefit a lot from more text on the screen and a more fleshed out tutorial section

Submitted (1 edit)

Very cool! This is an impressive amount of work to do in just one week, and the console interface is a cool touch. Especially since you have to stop moving while you open it, very tense.

Thanks for including a Linux build, that's always nice to see.

Developer

Thank you! I'm glad the terminal added to the horror experience
The linux build is not really tested, but I thought I'd include it just in case it worked.

Submitted

Sorry, it's my first video and I realised AFTER the BG noise is very loud and covers my voice a lot. At least you can see the gameplay. I liked the game a lot even if I thought the monster was a just a dude chilling out in the base. :) 

Developer(+1)

Thank you for recording, I really appreciate it :)
Yeah, I think I undertuned how fast he could walk around in an effort to not make the game frustrating, but overcorrected

Submitted

Really like the atmosphere and how everything looked.

Developer

thank you :)

Submitted

Awesome game, had a great time playing it! As others said, the terminal was confusing at first. But as soon as you get the gist of it, it does make fun. For now it is probably too easy to just simply lock the enemy in a room (at least that was what I did). A functionality for the enemy to open doors by itself could help in that regard and also add to the value of the alert system. Overall lovely entry. My favourite so far :)

Developer

Thank you! There is a mechanic where the monster will start breaking doors if it can't get out of a room, but this takes a bit to proc and it probably could have been faster

Submitted

terminal was a little confusing at first but i worked it out, only improvement to the visuals i would suggest is more texturing but still very scary, nice game

Developer

Thank you! I agree, there could have been more texturing to the walls and decorations -- the decorating is where I ran out of time :/

Submitted

Great. It's strange that this game rated only by 1 person (it's also strange that builds for mac and linux are twice bigger but may be not and that's me who simply don't know how godot make builds)

Developer

thank you! Yeah I'm not wildly sure about the Mac and Linux exports, it's something I'll need to dig into for future projects :/. Maybe a compression thing?

Submitted

I dont say that it's critical problem, just pointed out, so don't think about that much (well, if you want)

Submitted(+1)

Great game, I like the retro style :)

Developer

<3

Submitted

The pixel shader looks awesome combined with the old school terminal screen. The terminal mechanic is really cool, got used to it very fast, commands were easy to follow. Love the concept, had a great time playing through this one!

Developer

thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it c:

Submitted

I like visuals (scary pixels!) and audio (anxious ambient), I hope you will have time to finish demo

Developer

Thank you! I managed to get something workable for the jam, may come back to it at a later date