itch.io

Glad you enjoyed! 

Whyms was responsible for the bust sprites and cutscene images, while I was the one who did the pixel sprites. (Oh no.)

Ultimately I wouldn't call myself a great pixel artist and I was also the one doing the in-engine stuff, and so most of it was more in the vein of 'Well that will have to do for now' more than 'this is the best art it can be'. It might come down to the particular palette I was using, it might be that the sprites could ideally use more work, probably a bit of both. 

For some reason it was always the Crash Kit events that ran into problems, I swear. Adding it to the bug fix list for after the jam, thanks for catching that!

I realized reading this comment that I had thought to myself 'I really need to change the answer order in the library' and then promptly forgot to do it. That's something for the post-jam to-do list. Glad you enjoyed! :)

Hey! Long time no see! Nice to see you're still about at the jams, even if things didn't fall into place this time around. :)

Glad you enjoyed it! Ideally I would have liked to make the game longer. There's at least 3 rooms still in the files that wound up as cut content for the sake of meeting the deadline. I might go ahead and add them in a polish update once the jam is over to give the main dungeon a bit more substance. 

The aesthetic for this is so cool, the visuals look great and are really cohesive, especially given the short time. It also seems like a really solid concept. I did have a few strange bugs with the bat locking up, but I could totally imagine myself playing a tuned-up version of this on the regular. Super strong entry, imo. 

Don't worry, you're not missing anything in terms of Ending C, the chest ending is kind of intended to be a little bit confusing! It becomes a little clearer on subsequent loops.

Sorry to hear to got a bug in the lever room! It seems to work okay when I try it, but the whole thing has quite a lot of moving parts so, that is probably the number 1 place I'd expect things to break in unexpected ways. Once the jam is over I'll probably tinker with that room some more.  

Fun! Enjoyed the concept and the humor, and I loved the weird designs for the goofy goobers. That wizard is a menace to society. 

Thank you so much! Both of us on the team are very into writing and were pretty sure that would be our stronger suit here, so we tried to make the plot and characters interesting.

Thanks for the feedback!
Sorry you found the dialogue a bit too much! I'd usually act in an editing capacity but  I was held up on event stuff so a lot of the dialogue went in straight from the writer's doc. Hopefully we can fine-tune things a bit in the updates. :) 

Thank you! Several of us on the team are writers, either a hobby or as work, so we like to lean pretty hard on the narrative side. 

Thank you so much!
Time got away from us so the current build is indeed SUPER broken, but I'm glad you enjoyed the ideas. Hoping to have a fixed-up version out after the judging had finished. :)

You don't actually need to pick up the journal, though there might be some other things in that room that are useful.  :)

Hi folks!
I'm Carcosa, currently acting as in-engine person, sometime writer and sometime organiser of a jam team entering this fine contest. 
We're currently comprised of me, two dedicated writers, one dialogue bust artist and one composer. 

Two of us, (Whyms and I) have entered a few jams and won awards in one (Best Narrative in the GJL Game Parade Fall 2021) , so we're not totally inexperienced in the jam world. We also work pretty much exclusively  in RPG Maker for our jams. (MV if you're curious.) If you're someone who is into pixel art and haven't found a home in a team yet, drop me a line! We're informal, pretty chill and we like making weird narrative-driven stuff. 

A few have gotten stuck on that one, don't  worry!

It's about where you move the statue in Hikari's area. 
It wants out of the spotlight. ;)

There's probably a few bugs left in the game that I didn't find to squash before the polish window closed.   The game wound up pretty big for a jam title, with  rather a lot of moving parts compared to my previous projects. That combined with the short timeframe for testing meant  I'm  not surprised there are still a few ways left that you might be able to softlock in certain circumstances I've not been able to stamp out yet,   so apologies for that one!

Sorry you got stuck!   I know there are a couple of bits people have struggled to figure out,  so don't feel bad. 
Glad you had  a good time with it regardless!
We really tried to nail an eerie atmosphere,  without getting too   into horror cliches.

Thank so much!
Tried to make the puzzles somewhat logically tie into the character they were associated with,  so they didn't just feel like filler.  

Thank you!   Whyms and I  worked very hard on the narrative to try and make  it interesting and  compelling,  and Chaos and Forsaken really  worked hard   to nail  the mood we'd been going for. 

Fun and easy to pick up is my takeaway from this!

It's sumo wrestlingxbumper cards,  so really what's not to like?
The shape randomizing part of the character customization was a cool addition. 

The AI seemed to do a good job,  reminded me a little of the faux-multiplayer on  some    .io games. It killed me a few times when I got too greedy.

Could totally see this working commercially with a little bit of expansion.   

Cool entry, nice job!

So happy to hear to enjoyed it!

Still a few bugs to iron out.  I hope I've caught most of the major ones in my polish updates at this point,  but the game has rather a lot of  moving parts, so to speak so somethings invariably  escape my attention ,  the community have been really helpful in that. 

You got the good ending! (There is also a 'best' ending,  but two is  a generally positive one!)

Thank you!
Great to hear it was interesting and left you wanting to find out more. .. as a very narrative driven game and pretty text-heavy we new grabbing people was going t o  be a big deal.
The re are three endings in all! (Though one of those had minor changes depending on who you save.)

Thank you!

Really nice to hear you liked the game.

I've been doing my best to fix bugs as people ran into them up to the close of the  polish  period. (I thin I fixed the statue glitch a few  minutes after reading it here...direction fix was supposed to be on and it was not, whoops!)

The game probably has more moving parts, so to speak,  than anything I've worked on before, and having it done in a week meant testing wasn't comprehensive,  so  I was pretty sure there'd be a few noticeable bugs.   Nice to know my efforts to fix them up are appreciated though! I've hopefully gotten rid of anything that majorly impacts gameplay. 

As far as the rat puzzle....
..maybe you just need to find something the rat likes?   :)

Thank you!
We had a chat  just after theme reveal and tried to think  of novel ways to handle the theme,  so tried to... basically implement it in multiple ways. 
That it all the characters and the setting are in some way left behin d by society.   And we had fun coming up with different ways  to embody that. Poverty, obsolescence,  the loss of fame,  etc.    Always love how jams restrict you enough to boost creativity. 

Thank you!
It's always really  nice to hear people got invested in playing the game. It's definitely what we were going for!

So pleased you enjoyed it and it was amazing to watch it  being played on  stream.  Those of  us from the team present were really stoked,  and  the member who watched it  afterwards were really excited too!

The characters were something we really focused on,  in art, writing and  music,  so it's very gratifying to know that came through.  
(And I'm pleased my reading a clock repair practice manual at 5am paid off.)

Also very pleased to hear that we are cool.  B)

I didn't expect to find myself playing an owl-based survival horror today,    but I'm  glad it happened!
Honestly running from the cat made me more panicked than a lot of full of horror game have made me feel. 

I love the models and the concept is   a really  neat one.  
I happened down the right path on my second go  purely by accident, so got through it  quite quickly after that,    but it was definitely a  fun ride!

Cute,  fun  game with definite potential to be taken  further. 
I was... not extremely good at this game and generally ended up dead before the second or third island,  but I can  definitely see what you were going for from as far as I've got.

Controls are pretty unwieldy but I'm guess that 's an intentional choice,  along the lines of   Getting Over it or QWOP. 

Visuals are adorable and some of the little details are nice.  The grass getting chopped,  the little  yells on impact.   

It's a fun ride and glad I played it. 
Eventually I might even get past  the start.

UPDATE: Caught the bug!

It's supposed to play certain tracks based on who you save,  and one of the events driving the Nora-and-Griff track was set to autorun rather than parallel    so it locked you in place. 
Will upload the fixed version later today. :)

Really interesting one. 
The kind of grim art direction caught my attention and  it persisted throughout. 
Really dug the  grim, oppressive atmosphere it all conveyed,   it added a real sense of dread and panic to the gameplay.  Keeping whatever  it was advancing on the kingdom vague made it all the more unnerving. Looking at the icon and  wondering what horrible  things were happening in those settlements you leave behind. 
Very dark and   definitely adds to the experience...probably made me panic and make worse choices too. 
The game does a lot with one  screen. 

Like some previous commenters have said, I got a bit lost as far as the objective,  but  that's probably a pretty easy fix and overall I think the game  is very solid.

Really cool entry. 

A lot of our inspiration came from hours of fun drawn  from the old RPG Maker horrors.  
They are an experience all to themselves  and we wanted to try and hit that feel. And  quite a few people seem to have caught that, so I think we were in someway successful.
Thank you!

Sorry you found a bug! 
Going to look into that one before the polish period is up. 
The game has uh...rather a lot of moving parts  so I'm trying to fix any busted switches as I find them. 

Really  nice to hear that you did have fun with the game and  felt engaged with it,  even if you hit an error.

Thanks for playing!

Hopefully tackled some of the audio  balance issues in my latest polish update.  It was just me from the team working in the engine  , and I would   freely admit to audio not being my forte,  so I'm sure it's not   ever going to blow anyone's minds, haha.     
Glad you had a generally positive experience though!

Reall y nice, short puzzle game  with a cute theme  to it.
I am quite bad at switch puzzles but  after a bit of trial and error I got the hang of it. Just hard enough to give you something to  think about,  not so hard  as to feel unfair or purposefully obtuse.  The colour coding of the buttons help it stay a lot less frustrating. 

Really cool project!

While  from the sound of the  description  it seems like the jam didn't go quite to plan for you,  I think the end project is   a fun one!
It's  a interesting example of how a small change   can make a big difference in how a game is played. Asteroids where you fire backwards means you have to approach shooting enemies completely differently. 

I kept getting  tempted to wedge myself in a corner which inevitably got me killed.  Graphics were simple but elegant, and more than got the job done. 

Nice one!

Thank you!

You're not  wrong in seeing the inspiration.

Quite a few of us on the team are fans of some of the old-school RPG-maker horror/mystery games  like Corpse Party, Yume Nikki and The Witch's House,  so it was a tribute to them in many ways.

Well  to be fair,  Luca did not ever get murdered.   

Glad you liked it  and that we managed  to convey a bit of an atmosphere!

Thank you!

We were obviously having to work within our deadline,  so had to try and keep things (relatively)  simple .  Our artist and composer worked really hard creating an environmental tileset and  creating  music tracks     for each of the  characters respectively,  and I'm glad it shows.

Hope we can keep making things people enjoy playing! :)

Thank you!

We all put a ton of work into it over the week so I'm glad it shows.

I  had a ton of fun with this one,  and absolutely plan to play it some more later. 
Morbidly cute and funny. 
I was very much expecting the (spoiler?) umbrella  to  go back to its original place and seeing it just sat there on the body of the previous wanderer made me laugh.   

If I were to make any critique it'd probably be the the camera's zoom is sometimes a bit  wild and I occasionally got a bit disorientated by it,  though I expect that's just a matter of tweaking. 

Really cute entry. Awesome work!

Glad you had fun!

If it makes you feel any better,  I got lost in the clock maze in testing.... and I was the one who designed the clock maze.