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While you sleep I hunt ghosts with the pope's revolver's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall Fun | #10 | 3.625 | 3.625 |
| Sound/Music | #16 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
| Art | #20 | 3.125 | 3.125 |
| UI | #20 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Hi I was one of the streamers participating in the Feedback Quest. The VOD of me playing this on stream is up.
First, I'd like to say, this game gave me a heart attack. Its rare I feel this much intense tension from a game that made me jump at the sound of beeps. I hate you for making me jump in my seat and love you for it. The gameplay feels rough but fun.
Some critiques I need to give are the sounds. The ringing is a bit loud or felt jarring. Especially the scanning. The ghosts could use more of a visual stimuli to it. I feel like something or anything would help boost it up. There's a bunch of things I feel could boost the scary feel of the game like soft ghost breathing sounds or anything to bump it up.
Even as it is, its amazing but I feel like adding more stuff, more ghosts, locations. This game is like a cake, I only got once slice and I want the entire cake. This has so much potential and I hope to see more of it. It got me scared, I love it. Thank you and please keep up the hard work.
Thanks for playing and for the stream!
Yeah, getting the sound for this game was hard, especially since it plays a crucial role in the gameplay. I was going for the "Aliens motion detector" inspired thing, and for the most part I got it ok.
As for the visual stimuli, you are right, but again it's hard to balance it out between giving away the ghost's position completely, and being to subtle. For example the park ghost used to have leaves floating around the area she was in, but that was a dead giveaway. From the other hand- on the parking lot, if the ghost passes under the streetlight it shuts off... but no one ever notices it.
As for this game being a slice instead of entire cake... I can't offer you a cake right now, but I have another slice. This game you played here was the second entry in the Dick Storm series, and while the first one is not as polished, it may be still worth checking out. You can get it here:
https://kkcn.itch.io/dick-storm-ghosthunter
I completely understand. In terms of visual stimuli, it could be something simple like changing the model of the ghost or maybe enhancing the sound it makes when it jumps you. It might be an angle you could take. Rather than change the appearance, make the build up more intense. As suggested, adding like more subtle sounds as they approach, maybe tweak the detection audio. Though I fear if the build up to the scare is more intense than the scare, it could downplay the actual ghosts themselves. So tread this with some caution.
STILL, this is amazing work, I will definitely try your other game(s) when able. Frankly if you made a boxy low poly looking game that made me jump my pants more than a lot of Horror games with astronomical budget that I got bored of within 10 minutes, you've got a formula on your hands. Please keep doin your best and hope to see more.
Hello! I was one of the streamers who took part in Feedback Quest, and I'm here to leave some comments I had while playing.
Normally I start with positive comments and then go into negative. However, I want to switch it here because of an important thing I want to add.
Objects that are already scanned will continue to be picked up by the phone, to the point where it can create confusion with certain parts. I would recommend making it that you have to be in the same physical "room" as the object and have not stopped the ghost tied to it. I would also recommend that when at the circle of ghosts (which is where I first observed the above problem) the phone does something different to inform the player they don't need to scan something.
Now onto the good stuff. I LOVE the drawings in the beginning. They are hilarious and are a fun way to tell story. If you expand on this game, there needs to be more of those. Similarly, the villain at the end and the exchange with them is also funny. These comedic elements help make the game a lot more fun, even when it's trying to scare me.
I am also going to say that I think you and the developer of End the Slend should work together. While your game has a fun mechanic and comedy to it, their game did good with tension in the music and atmosphere. I think the two of you together could make a game that offers a great balance of comedy and tension.
Thanks for playing and for the stream!
Watching a new person play your game is sort of funny. They always find some thing you didn't notice. I had three playtesters, and a bunch of people play the game after the release, and you are the first one to point it out to me, that the phone keeps on locking to the last object. Seeing it right now it seems obvious, and easily fixable!
I pass all the praise of the tutorial graphics to my 2d graphics guy. If you'd like to see more of his (and also mine) work, check out our latest game: https://kkcn.itch.io/i-spent-last-week-dismantling-the-mob It's playable in the browser, so no downloading is required!
As for the general vibe of the game I tried to do less "horror" an more "horror adjacent". Sort of like in the more comedic episodes of the X-files or Jason Pargin novels. From what I've seen in your stream I think I hit it :)
If by any chance you'd like to play something like this one, there is a game that's sort of precursor to "While you sleep...". It's less polished (I made it over just two weekends) but still worth checking out. https://kkcn.itch.io/dick-storm-ghosthunter
I'll have to check it out!
I personally hope that you're able to make a large, multi-hour game out of this concept and character. Dick Storm is too entertaining. :D
Cool concept and I really got jump scared multiple times lol. I think that the core idea for the game is cool and you could def build a nice horror game around it. My feedback is that it was hard to keep track of the ghosts when they appear, maybe adding a sound effect would be helpful. And I think the graphics could use some polishing as well but specifically the memories have a really nice effect on them
Wow, I got scared! Hahaha.
It's a very impressive game. I liked the story at the beginning. I accidently pressed Next during the introduction and missed text, but couldn't find a previous button. Maybe that could be a good addition there. In relation to the gameplay, it's very pleasing to just move around and shoot. Maybe the fire rate could be slightly higher as well. I got curious about the ghosts! Are they configurations of thought forms or disembodied human spirits?
I'd like to leave some suggestions:
Very good work! Keep it up!
I wanted to reply sooner, but then general life happened, so here we are, 10 days later :)
First of all- thanks for playing!
As for the fire rate- I kept it slow on purpose. It made sense for me that Pope's revolver would be a very powerful weapon and shooting it should be deliberate.
Sounds. After almost a year after making my first game I find that sound is a difficult part of game development for me. I totally agree- there should be more to the soundscape.
Ghosts. You are the first one to ask about them! Great, but also not, because it means that the hints I left were bit too invisible. The nature of ghosts is mysterious, but leaning towards "spirits of suddenly departed". That's what the hero of the game would tell you at least. What no one noticed (or at least no one told me if they did) was that all the objects are connected to the cause of demise of the spirit. Seems I have to do some work on my environmental storytelling.
Glad you liked the game, and thanks for the comment!
Interesting concept. The first ghost was a jump in a chair! I just whish for a Run modifier... the sound also helps alot to keep the tension up!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
This game is really unique, I think the movement is a little too slow and the FOV is very low and could be adjustable, but you got here a game that feels very different than the usual "uh oh spooky ghosts in a dark area!!1" kind of game. Good work!
The FOV could have been bigger, and probably would've been if I developed this game more than a week :)
The movement for the other hand was deliberate- I didn't want the player to be able to run away from ghosts easily. The whole Idea was to balance out ghosts being scary, and player being powerful. The main way I went about this was slowing everything down- you move slower than ghosts and you can be able to fire every two seconds (but the revolver animation hopefully sells it as being caused by the gun being hella powerful).
Thanks for playing!