what a fun short story in the guise of an adventure/survival game. dialogue perfectly captures the relationship between Murderbot and ART in the books. Thanks for this!
I just really like this one. It relies more on weirdness and a sense of foreboding than any overt "horror," and ends up being a very effective, short experience. I also really liked the visual aesthetic with all the soft glow and blur. Very cool!
Beautiful art, nice exploration of a simple mechanic. The progression in difficulty felt right. I kind of wished the "green light objects" you can hide behind were more obvious (like maybe more brightly lit to set them apart from the rest of the scenery), but I figured it out quickly enough. Overall very cool and polished for a short game jam. Nice!
Thank you! That's definitely the exact feeling I was hoping to create! Thank you for playing. btw I'd love to play your game but only have a mac... any chance of a web build after the jam ends?
Thanks for playing! Yeah balancing the controls was kind of the whole game, for better or worse. You're right, it's very 2-bit. Maybe I should have saved the concept for that jam!
Thank you for playing! I definitely wanted the controls to feel difficult and be the focus of the game, but I don't know if the concept totally worked out. Also I agree, some music would have helped propel the game along. Thanks for the feedback!
So I loved the basic mechanic here. Restricting the view to only a narrow flashlight beam is really interesting, creates tension, and is also visually appealing. I also thought the intro text being part of the environment, so you have to shine the flashlight on it in order to read, was really stylish. Unfortunately I wandered all over and couldn't seem to find the key to get into the lighthouse. I don't mind a challenge, but since the lighthouse itself is where I wanted to be, I lost some interest when simply finding the key turned out to be really difficult. But, a really really cool idea. (Also kinda reminds me of the premise of the musical they put on in the latest season of Only Murders in the Building, lol.)
Thanks for playing! I definitely wanted the controls to be frustrating, but maybe the execution didn't really end up being as fun as it could have been.
I enjoyed switching between 2d and 3d, and the way that the game felt like an homage to many types of games of the past. The meta aspect of the story was fun. I sometimes couldn't tell if certain sprites were glitching by accident or as part of the theme, for example when switching on generators. I died in the maze pretty quickly, which is fine! But unless the maze loops itself, I think it might be a little too large because it's basically featureless and there isn't much to hold my attention there. Overall, impressively ambitious and a great jam game.
You know, I totally agree with you. I actually thought about making it so you can breath while running, because it would be more realistic, but honestly I had this specific concept in mind where you had to juggle it all separately, and I don't think it was ultimately successful. The jumping thing also occurred to me, and if I could do it over again I'd remove a lot of the forward motion from the jumps. But as you say, I do think there's something here, maybe to be developed into a different game at some point. Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.
(BTW I'd love to play your game, but I only have a mac. Any chance of a web build?)
I loved the constrained color palette, retro art, and crt effect. The general mechanic of exploring the house while never knowing when you would need to hide was really effective. I was a little confused once I got to the garage, because I couldn't seem to interact with the car. Also I found two keys to the parents' room, I'm not sure if that was a bug or there's a secret bedroom I'm supposed to find. A really polished entry and impressive for such a short period of time. I had fun!
I had fun! I liked the music quite a bit. And if you can believe it, I've never played Vampire Survivors, so as far as I know this is a totally original concept. ;)
Great creepy art! A little too dark for me, though, and I felt very slow compared to the flashlight guy. I'm sure this would have been more complicated to pull off in the space of the jam, but I kinda wanted to be able to hide behind things to avoid the flashlight beam, like a stealth game. Overall, great vibes and a cool, simple concept.
Yep, I ate the meat dress. lol. An interesting story and fun voice in the writing. I wished I had a clearer sense of what challenges I was facing and winning/losing at based on my stats. As it was, I kind of gave up trying and just went along, but I feel like I missed out on something.
Really like the concept behind this game. The way you have to keep going in circles to advance. Also, with the expanding reticle it's almost as if things change because you pay more attention to them, which is an interesting idea. I did get stuck at one point and found myself wishing for slightly more obvious markers of what had changed and where to go next, since there is such a limited space to explore. But the sound design gave me a legit jump scare at one point. Cool game!
Well, thanks for playing, anyway. I definitely intended for the controls to be difficult so you had to focus on the actual mechanics of running away, and to replicate that feeling of trying to run from something in a nightmare and not being able to. (Hence the inspiration from the game QWOP.) Funnily enough, someone else in the comments said he thought maybe the controls were too easy. It's hard to nail it for everyone.
Definitely creepy to wander through dark woods with all of these sounds around you. From the description on the game page, I'm wondering if the whole point was to realize that sounds are just sounds and can't hurt you? I have to admit I spent the whole time just walking through the trees and never really found anything except a grave at one point, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. I think it would have helped to have just a little more handholding, like a description of something I needed to find, or a compass, or something so I had an idea of what I was aiming for.
I really have a lot of thoughts about this game! At first I was a little frustrated because I felt I was sort of moving through the game at random waiting for interactions to appear, and I wished I had more of a sense of where I was going. But I started to really appreciate the way that I was being led along, and also the way that the house loops so you can go forward endlessly but never turn back. It's as if the space itself is telling a story about being driven forwards to some inevitable conclusion. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but the structure of the game combined with the beautiful monotone pixel art and the steadily deteriorating house created a palpable atmosphere of dread for me. TBH wasn't a big fan of the actual ending, it felt a little cliche. But I really liked the experience otherwise.
Thanks for playing! It shouldn't have worked TOO well, I definitely made it so you move very slowly if you don't alternate legs and wait for the animation for each leg to end. But there's definitely room for refinement. I really enjoyed your game, btw.
I loved this, especially the aesthetic. This particular brand of impressionistic retro pixel art/lighting is my favorite. (How did you get this look? What engine/tools did you use?) I think the interaction with the environment is really impressive, though the accuracy of picking up and dropping stuff was sometimes frustrating, and I'll admit I didn't quite get to the end of the level. Would love to see it developed further!
Of course! To be clear, I liked the warnings and they did create a sense of emergency. I was just confused at first as to whether I was supposed to click on them. I also noticed on second playthrough that I could delete and edit the text boxes. Is that a feature or a bug?
Hmm this one crashes my browser. I'm on a mac, which I know doesn't play well with godot 4 web builds, but fwiw it crashed both firefox and chrome. Chrome gave me an error that the WebGL context was lost, if that's in any way helpful.
Damn fine job, especially for your first ever game! I enjoyed the retro aesthetic and little details like the way the character follows the crosshairs around the screen with their head. I couldn't seem to get the dodge to work for some reason. Obviously some music and SFX would have added a lot, but I know there's always a time crunch. I would have also liked to see a score counter so I could keep track of how many demons I slayed. :)
Thank you! I was definitely trying to nail that feeling of trying to run away from something in a nightmare and just not being able to move fast enough. BTW I just played yours and, even if unfinished, I enjoyed it.
Putting aside that it's unfinished, I enjoyed the terse writing and quick pace, as well as the minimal but effective aesthetic. The color choices created a creepy vibe and also made the text readable. My suggestions are the things you already mention wanting to add -- changes in music from scene to scene, SFX, maybe aesthetic shifts as the story progresses. I enjoyed it!
Impressive! Lol thank you. Also I just played your game, really impressive and ambitious. This is also my first Godot project, but I was nowhere near as ambitious.
Enjoyed the artwork, sound design and music. Bouncy and fun! Like many others, I did not realize there was a score bar. Also, I guess I've never played a match 3 game before, so maybe I'm the problem, but I was confused by the rules and wasn't always sure where to click to get the pieces moving the way I wanted.
The mazes created good tension, was definitely on edge about running into an enemy. On my setup, at least, it was a little too dark and the lookaround mouse controls were too sensitive. But really nice job creating a creepy experience!
Super awesome lofi aesthetics that created a truly creepy atmosphere. Sometimes found it frustrating that you could go for several pages without really making a choice, and it was confusing when there were clickable items on screen (alert buttons, for instance) that didn't seem to do anything. Amazing game page decoration. Apparently there's a Bruce Willis ending? I'll have to go back and try again...
