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Lighting is such a pain. Between that and navmesh setting up/baking, probably the most time sucking part of making a game imo. I spent like a whole day googling trying to find out why my scene was never truly dark. I think the final issue I ran into was that the game was doing a quick bake when I entered playmode, allowing some slight lights and shadows to sneak in. So I had to rig the scene up so that all the lights started turned off (including the point light attached to the player), and then were only activated once the game had started so their lights didn't get baked. I don't know if other engines are this picky with lights, but Unity irritated me with this one.

This is a very well thought out and detailed response that I was not prepared for. I don't have time to respond to every aspect of it, but I'll try to boil down my main thought about it as best I can. First of all, it clearly didn't hurt your rankings since your game did very well it looks. A sincere congratulations.

I think my main sadness in all this is primarily the fact that it just goes against imo the spirit of the entire idea of a "GameJam" in this day and age. Why are we doing this? Why are any of us doing any of this? In 5 years (give or take) what will GameDev even be? Will there be any point? Will it just be a big button you press once and the computer will generate the whole darn thing? Yeah, probably honestly at this rate. 

Ultimately, no I don't judge you, and I'm happy you made a fun game. But one of my favorite games I played in this jam was one where some dude's main music track was a recording of him doodling on his guitar and whistling lol. It was charming, it was silly, it was human. 

I always wanted to make games growing up, I almost chose the field for real, but life had other plans and I'm glad it did. I've accepted that this is a hobby for me, but I worry how much longer there will be a point in even that. 

I know I sound like a grumpy old man shaking his fist at the clouds, but our time to make our silly little human games might realistically be limited here. 

Sounds like you got stuck in the stairwell, and that you got rather lucky that a spooky creature didn't notice you. I did mean to place a few more TVs in places before I ran out of time. So that's a fair frustration. Time was against me

Feedback acquired! Thanks for checking it out!

This is a way for brains to work that just doesn't brain the way my brain works. I got to level 3 I think and my brain was all over the wall. I absolutely love the art and design though. Super fun idea!

Yes! That's amazing

Yeah, instead of a splash screen and/or campy jump scare, I chose to have a slow uncomfortable turn around and then simple restart for this one. 

Thanks for playing!

I have received the mouse sensitivity feedback a few times, and I will definitely make a point to include some sort of options menu for that in my next jam. My mouse must be at a low sensitivity compared to most, so I will take a look at that for the future. Thank you for playing!

I really enjoyed this one and so did my daughter. We will be saving this so we can return to it later! Very well done!

I played this one for longer than I'd like to admit. I was a little frustrated at the start until I saw the tiny numbers going up at the bottom indicating the candy. It would be helpful feedback for the player to have some sort of SFX or more obvious visual that they are receiving candy from the houses. I never did make it back to mom on time though, I'm still a little unsure on how to do that, but perhaps I'll revisit and try again. 

I really enjoyed this, well done!

Ya know what, this made me smile. This game has a strange charm about it. I love the off-kilter music and the quirky dialogue. My main issue was that it didn't feel like I was ever hurting the enemies. I wanted to use the awesome looking shiny purple weapons but I often would just run away from the big thing because it didn't give me any feedback that I was I affecting it. 

As a musician I have to ask, are you the one playing the guitar and whistling? Because if so, I personally absolutely loved  and appreciated that. 

I did make it back home eventually, it was fun!

Ya know what, this made me smile. This game has a strange charm about it. I love the off-kilter music and the quirky dialogue. My main issue was that it didn't feel like I was ever hurting the enemies. I wanted to use the awesome looking shiny purple weapons but I often would just run away from the big thing because it didn't give me any feedback that I was I affecting it. 

I did make it back home though, it was fun!

This was cute and fun, albeit a bit short. I agree that the attack should be bound to a button, imo it doesn't feel as good being a mouse click. Or maybe it was and I just didn't find the other button. 

I liked it! Well done!

I fixed the first outlet, but I couldn't seem to get up the staircase for some reason. With some fixes and more clear directions this could be very fun!

Who knows... maybe you simply woke up from a bad dream

Thanks for playing!

Thanks for the compliment! I wanted to include option for Gamepad controls, but I was using the old input system and didn't feel like taking the time away from other more important things to get that all switched over. I'm glad your experience was smooth!

Oh there was definitely something after you, you must have gotten lucky. If you heard the scratchy sound it was close by.

Thanks for checking it out!

I haven't gotten to try out Godot myself yet, but I am absolutely loving the abundance of Godot games in the jam. This was a fun and clever little platformer.

Without soapboxing too much.. man. I'm glad you were upfront about it, but it did bum me out pretty hard that the music was AI generated. People have opinions and I respect that and try not to judge. The song was a banger. However, as a  music educator and composer myself I'd be lying if I said that knowledge didn't make me a little sad. 

Perhaps my PC is a toaster, but I couldn't get the browser version to work for me. It wouldn't let me interact with the two people in the first area or leave TV mode for some reason. Looks like a fun concept though!

I'm glad I finally get to try out an anomaly game! This was fun! I did seem to run into a similar anomaly many times in a row where the TV was playing the wrong music, but then it changed to a new one. 

Well done with this one, it was fun!

This is very helpful feedback. I am unsure if I will continue work on this game in particular, but I might carry over assets I used and new things I learned over to future projects. It definitely was an exercise for me, a lot of new stuff and not a lot of time to play with all of it. Yeah, I agree there should have been more TVs in various places. 

Thanks for playing my game!

Ooh, this was simple and fun imo. I was surprised very early on by a burly man, and then the second time I made it out, although very narrowly. I do notice, it looks like you may have run into the same issue I did when trying to get Unity to function within a true "pitch black" scene. Unity is a bit irritating in this, it keeps adding little lights and shadows in places that you may not want, sometimes only adding them at the last second when entering playmode. I had to do some research on this to achieve the darkness I really wanted in my game, and it still kept doing it on occasion. It was very irritating. 

Also, I recently acquired and am playing through a free copy of Amnesia: the Bunker from the Epic store. A possible inspiration? A very smart one imo. Well done with this!

Thanks for the immense compliment! The environment was adapted from the apartment asset I used, however, it's interesting that you mention the more realistic-looking aesthetic. My original idea was the use a psx-style filter effect to go for a more old school look. I ended up not going that route, but do you think that would have worked better for this or was I right to leave it the way it is? 

Thank you for checking out my game!

Yeah, I planned to include more UI and narrative elements in the game itself, but had to scrap much of it due to being solo and meeting the deadline. Work/family duties almost kept me from participating at all in this one, so I had to be very selective with my time.

I ended up having to leave most of the narrative and discovery more up to the player and open-ended, which personally is what I as a player much prefer, but I know that's not what most others like. 

Thank you for checking it out though!

Oh, you got lucky then, guess it didn't find you. Although, I deliberately went for a more slow-paced tension. I too kind of hate the typical "force the player to suddenly jerk and have the monster wiggle startlingly in front of the camera for a few seconds" type of jump scare. The player does turn a little, just enough to see that there was something, but if all goes as planned you don't always get a good look at it. 

Thanks for checking it out!

Yes, creeping out was the goal, and this is the first game I've made where that was the goal. So thank you!

The models of the furniture and consoles were part of the apartment asset I used, I can't recall what it is called, but I think it's listed in one of the descriptions. Yeah, I deliberately don't start the creature in the closet, but it likes to get stuck in the closet for some reason. Still working out that bit of behavior, it still is the source of some frustration lol. The open and closing mechanic was built in to the apartment asset, so that's why I added the battery mechanic, to give the player some incentive to explore the drawers and closets. Also, the light remains in whatever state it was in when the remote dies. Meaning, by design, the player isn't fighting to keep the light on, they're fighting to remain in control of the light. The player has to choose whether to be able to clearly see the environment or to see the creature. 

There is a soft goal somewhere in the apartment, but I did leave it pretty ambiguous on purpose. It's supposed to simply feel like a bad dream of sorts.

Thank you for playing, I hope it didn't ruin your day!

Yay! An anomaly game! I've wanted to try one of these! This was fun, and Godot too! Well done

I think my favorite part of this was honestly the main menu. That was pretty neat. I love the use of the free assets, they really fit the fill of your game. The monster seems to be an illusion, though I might be wrong. I never encountered it either visually or physically. It seems to just be a flashlight countdown. My only real complaint is the monster scream. If it didn't happen every 5 seconds, it wouldn't be an issue, but began to grind after a little while. Really enjoyed the game though, well done!

This is probably the heaviest game I've come across yet. The implied story was very gripping and the visual and sound FX of both accepting and refusing the offers were very visceral and effective. Well done!

https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-halloween-jam-2025/rate/3954577#post-14611152

Here ya go!

I'll try yours out as well

https://itch.io/jam/gamedevtv-halloween-jam-2025/rate/3954577#post-14611152

Here's mine, I'd love to check out yours!

I see and appreciate what you were going for here. Hey man, I totally get life getting in the way of stuff. I was in a similar boat, with very little time to devote to this jam. I think there's a really neat idea here. I love the atmosphere and the spooky alternate world hopping thing. My biggest issue I think was the character's walking speed. The animation looks nice, he could move just a little faster and I think it would feel much better.

Wow, a testament to what a truly great full team can do within the time frame. This one was a treat. Simple, but evolved nicely. I unfortunately didn't make it to the end, I've a bunch of other games I have to get to tonight and I got stuck on the one where the mirrors were introduced. Loved the art, the framing story, the light mechanics. Well done all around!

Yes, it is incomplete. It is very much an idea and not a fully fleshed out game. Out of the 10 days, I think I had about 3 to actually work on it, times are busy, but I still wanted to participate in some way. And I tried something very new to me as well. 

The creature does sometimes irritatingly get stuck in the closet, but she definitely is activated, and she will get you if she finds you, visible or not. She got me several times during testing and surprised the crap outta me. 

I'm unsure what <Strg> is, but after some quick Googling I see that it is the equivalent of the "Control" key that I am familiar with. That's strange that it would have mapped to that. I don't believe it mapped to Control on my end, but lemme check real quick.

Thanks for playing!

That's fair. My intent was to leave most of the narrative to the player, and have it just resemble a "bad dream" of sorts. There is somewhat of a goal that ends the game, but I left it pretty ambiguous. This is the first attempt I've made at a true "scary" type of game. So definitely still learning.

Thank you for playing!

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, I had to work for a while to ensure it was actually that dark. Unity kept throwing in sneaky lights and shadows that I wasn't asking for, and it was actually a little tricky to start with true pitch black. Thanks for playing!

Interesting, my mouse might be a little un-sensitive for when I was testing. Ideally, I would include an options menu to adjust that if I'd had more time. Thank you for playing!

There actually is an audio tell that the enemy is nearby. There is a glitchy, creepy noise they make, probably can be heard better with headphones. The items you can pick up are battery packs for your remote control. The yellow bar in the corner. It automatically refills when you get one.

Thank you for playing!

This is really solid game-loop wise and really fun. It does quickly get to a point where the entire floor is covered in enemies that don't go away, which turns the game into a completely different game, which is interesting. Maybe I just wasn't doing enough damage somehow. But I had a lot of fun with this one, well done!

This is super fun and addictive. The 2D take on the Vamp-like formula starts out seeming really simple and easy and then eventually becomes very tricky and challenging. Well done with this!