If one of the themes would have been "try and die" this would have been spot-on.

The problem is that you implemented two mechanics that work against each other. The player has to explore but is punished to do so. In this case the punishment is very hard and that makes the experience even worse, If the punishment would not be as hard, it would be much more enjoyable.

Thanks for contributing this! The graphics are impressive; unfortunately I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't realize until I read the other comments that I was losing life (sanity?) every time I took a step.

I completed the game. Ending was abrupt as you get less runes than they are slots available.

I had fun playing the game. I mapped it and went a bit further after each death. I enjoyed how the first sequence does not seem doable at first but then you get to find a button opening a hidden door to a potion, that's cool. The second puzzle is good enough in the context, still my least favourite as the two other ones feature a cool, disturbing twist. I think the last one is pretty good with the rune of the place to the left but the hint to the right instead, I like this twist too. The game looks and sounds atmospheric. I like the cat, the statue and the look of the room of the second sequence, and the lighning effect around the potions is actually the best part of the art. I am really happy you went with instant movement as it's a game you're goint to replay a few times. 

The one thing I don't like is that you can't see what type of tiles are to your left and right.

Overall this was a cool game, thanks for sharing.

Ho boy, I think that's almost the fastest death I've had in this jam. I mean maybe it was the intention, but the difficulty is just too harsh.

Each action draining sanity is really limiting to the player, and it basically becomes trial and error to find a path through the level which quite frankly stops being fun pretty quick. There was another entry that had a timer for losing sanity and dying, until you find an item, and I think even that was a bit hard but preferable to whats used here. The movement and turning is instant, but the corridors are dimly lit, the walls mostly look the same, and theres no compass or map to tell you which direction you're facing. And since there's no strafing movement in the game, the player dies even faster because they have to turn and then move.

The furthest I got was finding two of the runes, picking up 3 sanity potions and encountering one cat. But that was after 3 tries and quite frankly I had given up after that.

A bug I noticed after dying is being unable to move after respawning, which meant I had to fully exit and restart the game. Something I also noticed is the cursor is displayed underneath a lot of the UI elements (maybe all?).

There was clearly a lot of care put into the game, and reading the description it was kinda nice seeing the teams cats being credited! There was some neat little environmental details, and finding the secret sanity potions was a nice surprise. I certainly wish I had been able to implement secrets in my entry lol.

But all the detail and mystery is lost in the frantic rush to navigate the level, so I barely saw much of the game itself.

It seems like there's some solid stuff here, and I'd love to see more of the level but the sanity loss combined with the controls, lack of map and compass make a very potent mix of issues.

I think you should definitely still be proud you submitted though, and from another comment I saw there is at least a win state so good job on that!

Its impossible to play something so harshly tuned without knowledge of the game first. Remember - you know where and what is located, but we have to explore. Each step and turn counts. Can't look around (drains sanity as much as step does), can't take unoptimized route. Most of sanity restorations are hidden behind secret walls. The idea is good, but sanity drain is too much. Either there should be no punishment for turning, so we could look around at least, less drain in general, or more visible sanity restorations there and there to make exploration being not as punishing.

Personally I found 3 runes, a cat, some statue with an eye and  a bunch of 'hidden' restore sanity places. I saw door for 3d rune, but sanity drain killed me before I reached it. Also for some reason after death all movements are locked and the only way to go is to restart the game.

Alright, I see what you were going for here, but it's a bit toooo difficult, especially with no map. The game assumes you'll want to restart multiple multiple times in order to figure it out. I got the first 3 runes, I remember encountering the next door SOMEWHERE, but couldn't remember where and I had already gone through several tries indeed and even mapped a portion of the map. The game could benefit from either a map or some more movement timer or, at the very least, not penalizing you when you turn and only when you move.

Good idea though.

I finished the game! It took me several tried to figure it out, you don't have many steps to spare really. How to place your steps become part of the puzzle. There is no combat in the game but a cat. I had an issue where the restart after death did not let me gain control over the character so I had to restart the application to be able to play again. After completing the game the restart had control though.

Did I loose life because I was standing in the darkness or because of movement? Why did you choose to do it like that? Interesting choice, but makes the game quite hard to play. I think we need more explenation of the mechanics, because else, it looks quite nice.