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Derek Deagle - The Case of the Unknowable's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall fun and playability | #7 | 3.865 | 3.865 |
Ranked from 37 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Theme incorporation
Cosmic Horror - There main antagonist is an eldritch horror that slumbered beneath the house
Ancient Ruins - There is a section of the game that contains ancient ruins (both the lair of the Unknowable and the Mirror World)
Solitude - not exactly implemented, unless we consider Derek's job as being a very solitary one
Infinity/The Endless - Represented in the setting of the Mirror World
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Comments
Very good entry to the jam. The graphics were low poly, but consistent and well presented with volumetric fog and particle effects adding to the atmosphere.
The game started well with a nice title and options screen. The entry voice over was extremely good, so good that I thought AI voiceovers had come along massively with perfect pausing and intonation that wasn't present in the text displayed on screen but when delivered as audio added depth and character that I've never heard before in AI. We then had to see what you'd used and found it was a real voice actor, and a great one at that, so AI still isn't quite there. Good choice here.
The in-game user interface was very nicely presented with the inventory (and background image), compass and special item slots for weapons, hat, etc. We only found one of each during our play but that did give us the anticipation that we would find a hat or helmet and we were satisfied when we could put the fancy hat in its slot. All this looked great, although you might want to remove the background embossed version of the slot item when its filled as it looked strange to see the actual dagger and ghost outline of a sword behind it at a different angle. On one of our machines we got a constant flicker from from the UI when the inventory panel was up. It might have been tooltips being shown for a frame and then hidden again, but it was a bit off-putting.
We loved the gun cartridge and reload animations, again making it really satisfying to reload while also giving you all the information needed to know how many bullets you had left and how many were chambered. You also seemed to have a map on load/save/restart (we think). It appeared but we didn't know what we were looking at and couldn't find key to bring it up in-game.
Combat worked OK. We noticed that once you were in combat you couldn't seem to retreat, which avoids the two-step to evade enemies. The health bars were good, but when we did 3/4 damage we weren't sure what the scale was to understand what that meant in relation to how much they had left. It's interesting to be able to see your weapons on front of you. We liked that but a lot of the more classic games and copies don't show any weapons and might only show a slash graphic when you use them. It was good to see you go the other way. Enemy animations were nice to see and you'd put in enough audio and visual feedback on hits to make them have a satisfying feel.
The font choice seemed nice and appropriate but there were times where there might have been up to four different fonts on the screen at once, all from different font families, which made the UI seem less cohesive and more glued together. For example there were different fonts for:
Movement and turning were good for the most part. Free-look would have been nice so you could appreciate your surroundings more, such as the asset for the house, which looked great, with lots of "clutter"/"set dressing". This also added to the feeling of depth and atmosphere in the game. Things like the message in blood on the walls and doors, and the odd cobweb or broken window, were nice touches. The portraits with the dark highlights on the low poly characters looked amazing.
However, parts of the house didn't seem well aligned with the dungeon crawler movement grid, so often you would be a long way away from a wall, but not be able to move as close as you expected to be able to. Or there were doors you couldn't reach, or doors, that you (or enemies) went through, that were off center on the screen which looked a bit janky at times. You did well to try to fit an existing asset into this genre though, all things considered. The fact that the house was different on your return was a great touch too. At first we thought, "nice, the mirror is now broken", and then we realized it was essentially a new level with lots of changes. This worked very well.
The music and sound effects were good and added to the polish of the game a lot. As we've mentioned, we loved the voiceover!
We enjoyed playing Derek Deagle very much. Possibly a few more puzzle type elements, some UI fixes and level layouts, and this would have been a near perfect entry in our opinion. Great job.
Pretty cool! I love the visuals and level design, it had a real nice sense of place and atmosphere. I got stuck for quite a while looking for the crystal ball to add to the shelf - I'd interacted with the girl's body once (and got a note, I think?) but didn't realize I needed to interact again to get something else from her. Combat felt a little clunky, maybe due to very limited feedback about when I was able to attack again? Some sound there maybe would have helped. I got the hang of it though, and managed to make it to the end of the game, with plenty of medkits to spare, once I got in the habit of shooting everything once while it was at a distance. I started to get a little worried when I was donning the madman's top hat and turning these unknown orbs red that I _might_ be the bad guy, but it all worked out in the end =).
At first I thought this game had only partially completed combat mechanics, but from reading the other comments here it seems like I got very very unlucky with bugs. I didn't think the revolver even worked because it NEVER fired for me despite being reloaded several times. So I just used the knife for the entire game and to be honest it was a total slog.
The movement was also kinda weird, not the controls themselves those worked pretty ok, but the map itself. It was like half the time I was clipping into level geometry and I was either too far away from objects or right on top of them. This was mitigated a bit by being able to click on things from several tiles away, but that feels more like a bug than intentional design decision.
The combat also felt kinda awkward. There's very little feedback, I mean I can tell I'm dealing damage from the healthbar (which frankly is more feedback than my game's combat has), but it doesn't seem like enemies react. The sound effects could also stand to be beefed up a bit.
The Synty visuals worked well for creating a cosmic horror game, between the sort of haunted house area and the floating ruins level. I especially liked the ending where the house shifts to being corrupted and destroyed.
The overall presentation of the player being a paranormal investigator felt good and very pulp noirish with the opening and closing narration. Just the name Derek Deagle is equal parts cool and ridiculous.
Overall I think there's some good stuff here and I could see players enjoying it. But with that revolver bug it REALLY impacted how tedious this game was to play, so I definitely suggest getting that fixed first. Aside from that you made a game with various mechanics and multiple levels in a short time period, good work!
For Derek Deagle, it was another day on the job.
Classic.
I liked this entry a lot: The narration, the atmosphere, the music, and the visuals.
It took me several tries to make it to the mirror realm because I kept dying and couldn’t find only one healing item, though, by the time I was done, I had 3 to spare.
Movement felt strange; the mansion didn’t seem to fit your chosen grid size, and I found a spot on the first floor that, if I walked to, would take me through a wall out of the grid.
I was able to cheese the combat a little. I could attack through walls. I discovered this when I inadvertently killed one of the spiders guarding the crystal ball while in the bathroom with the medkit. My knife also seemed to hit two spaces away in the mirror world.
These are minor quibbles, however. I enjoyed my time with it; it was a fun and tense experience.
Great job!
Thank you very much for playing!
I did manage to screw up the difficulty curve quite a lot, especially since the first two first aid kits you find aren't as obvious as they should be. But I did learn a lot from the feedback about UI/UX and difficulty curves so I'm taking all that to heart for the next project.
I encountered a bug with revolver several times :(
The thing that I getting most of the issues with is how different scenes feel in terms of the fov. Oftentimes you see an enemy and it feels like it is still far away, but you already in melee range and can attack with a dagger. And then you explore and sometimes everything is right in your face or again too far away, but they are 'next cell' from you at the same time. It is hard to get used to that.
Also would love some more feedback on being hit. That zombie on the stairs was the worst offender! I didn't understand where I was attacked from at first and then I saw his legs!
Would love fast bluring of the screen on when writting appears after opening the door. Something to 'emphase' it appearance. Not just 'bam! here!' moment. Sound is nice, but some effect on screen would be amazing!
All in all, its shame that gun bug happens and its really feels like impossible just to hack your way without it... But what I saw was quite nice with a lot of potential to be a good scary jorney!
Thank you very much for playing and the feedback! I do have a lot of UI/UX lessons to learn from all the feedback here, especially since a lot of the points keep repeating and I thank you all for that.
I really enjoyed the environments and atmosphere of the game! You really did a great job creating a solid noir detective vibe. I also appreciate the use of voice acting. Great game!
Thank you very much for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it!
The low-poly graphics are nice and I was amazed at how well each of the abundant locations were built. The puzzles were not difficult and I was able to complete the game smoothly. The combat system is also an interesting idea.
The guns could have been a little stronger though. I found the difficulty level to be the most difficult in the early stages until I found the First Aid Kit.
It was a very fun game. Great work!
Thank you very much for playing! Glad you enjoyed it!
Great graphics in this game. Music and story makes it a good experience throughout.
The house and last dungeon was most fun to play, the mirror part a bit less. I see what you got going here, the story is great and should be the driver of the game. Combat felt hard to understand. And I think I broke the revolver at the end. I had bullets but could not shoot.
The game did not really feel like it moved along a grid, its more spots. But I guess that is how it has to be done unless you size everything to fit a grid.
If you get low health and win the game at the same time both sounds play over each other making it hard to hear whats said.
Nice with customizable controls, maybe Backpack isn't the correct heading on the last one ;) Is these settings mechanics from a previous project?
Super nice project with good polish!
Thank you very much for playing! And don't worry, you didn't break the revolver, I did, haha! A few more bugs than anticipated got through, oh well. And yeah, the settings menu were just a quick reskin that I wanted because it made rebinding keys very very easy.
I loved this so much! Playing a paranormal investigator, romping through an old horror-filled mansion, traveling to a cosmic world; it was pure cosmic horror perfection. Your level design was stellar and I was a big fan of the turn-based combat. So far my favorite entry I've played. Well done!
Thank you very much for playing and I'm glad you had fun with it!
I played it through and had a blast! I found myself immersed in your game, it gave me an old "Alone in the dark" vibe that I loved. The corrupted version of the house is a very nice touch when you are back from the mirror world. This amount of settings and polish is commendable.
I found movement very smooth and enjoyable, I had occasional cursor bugs (it would stay "?" for a while), the mini map didn't get updated right after teleporting to a new location, or the gun would sometimes clip through the decor, but nothing major.
Sometimes I had the impression that the grid wasn't always square, for instance when moving from a room to another, it felt like the character took more than one step. That made interacting with some elements a bit more complex, like the spheres you have to stab from just the right angle in the mirror world. It didn't prevent me from enjoying your game a lot, though.
Great work!
Thank you very much for playing! The grid is always square and the same size, but I might have some problems with the camera angle here and there. I kept messing with it and it probably got the point where it's sometimes a bit confusing. Not to mention that the interactable objects were hand placed with free movement so they're not in the same spot on similar tiles. That's also something I need to address.
This was a good classic cosmic horror action game. Great use of assets where it's thoughtful and not too noisy. The lack of a minimap was a bit disorienting at first, but the locations were done in a way that it was easy to navigate using landmarks. The combat was a tad confusing, but I finished the game in the end. :)
Thank you very much for playing! I can certainly improve my UI/UX quite a lot and that's one of the major lessons I took away from this jam.
This entry has excellent environment design and a classic Lovecraftian action game vibe that makes good use of the game jam themes. A minimap or some other indication of which spaces the player can traverse would be nice, but the tight scope and plentiful visual landmarks help the player to navigate the game world. Cooldown indicators might be a good addition to the battle system to let the player know when their attacks are ready.
Thanks a lot for playing! I am definitely adding cooldown indicators to the base framework since I think they are sorely needed indeed.
There is a minimap, but I forgot to mention it anywhere. Pressing TAB (or whatever you wish to rebind it to) will bring up a minimap, but it might not be so useful for the house since it's not representing the floor system too accurately.