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GitHub repository URL
https://github.com/conor-wilson/gameoff2024
Game description
The Search for the Secret Sapphire
A point-and-click adventure puzzle game (with a twist)... Lost in a haunted mansion without a hope of escape, the only way out is in. Will you find the Secret Sapphire and cure the curse?
DEV'S NOTE: The above assumes that you are able to start the game. If the start-button breaks, the HELP BOT should be able to assist you. That shouldn't happen though. Probably.
------------------------SPOILERS BELOW------------------------
The point-and-click adventure actually takes place inside of the menu of "The Search for the Secret Sapphire". Your goal is to fix the start button and finally get to play the game.
Theme interpretation
The game is actually a secret game within the menu of another game. Additionally, you need to solve puzzles and find all of the secrets within the menu maze to get the pieces of the START button back together and play the game!
Wildcards used (optional)
Let players break the rules with things like infinite lives or invincibility
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Comments
A wonderful game!
It was challenging, but I managed to figure it out with the hints in the description :)
Hammerman took a lot of effort; the timing was so precise that I had to practice quite a bit.
The graphics and music are very pleasant, and everything fits perfectly within the game jam's requirements.
Definitely a high score from me!
Thanks for playing, glad you thought it was neat :)
I'm currently working on fixing up hammerman including making the actual HammerMan.exe segment a bit easier/fairer. I appreciate you giving it a go and getting to the end!
Now that’s a nice game! I really like the concept and simple gameplay. Couldn’t reach the end, but it was fun. I don’t see why you need a mouse… trackpad was no problem for me.
Glad I played this one. All the best!
Glad you enjoyed!
The trackpad thing is more of an observational thing when I saw people playing it in person. People seemed to have a better experience with the panning mechanic with a mouse rather than trackpad. It still works with both though so I'm glad it didn't damage the experience for you!
Really appreciate you still giving a review even without getting to the end! If you do ever feel compelled to come back and give it another go, there's hints to all the puzzles in the game's description in case you didn't see them :)
Your game was great too, thanks for playing!
This was SUPER challenging and difficult for me, but I love the graphics and sound and your just commitment to the theme lol. I haven't found the Sapphire yet so I'm going to need to keep playing...
Ok Edit: I found the secret saphire. I needed a hint for the password but managed everything else without hints. 5/5 - exceptional game. The best I've played in the jam. I hope everyone gives it a chance because I think for many they might bail at the challenge.
Thanks for the very kind words and I'm so glad that you had a good time!
Thanks also for sticking with it and especially for coming back to finish your review, I think it's pretty clear that the password puzzle is far too tough for it being the first real puzzle that the player comes across. I'll be making it easier in the post-jam version. I seriously appreciate the feedback :)
Got stuck here and there but the hints in the itch page got me out of most of the trouble without giving the solution ouright. Also a few interations were unintuitive for me and not explained (we are prompted how to drop an item and not how to actually use it, I had to look around the source files to find out that you could use the wrench by left clicking it) Overall very nice point and click game!
Thanks so much for playing and reviewing!
Good shout with the item instructions. I'll make sure to improve them and make them more clear in the post-jam version. I also reckon I'm going to make the first couple of puzzles a little easier in that version since they're probably a little too tricky, but for now I'm glad to hear that the hints on the game page are good enough to help people out if they're stuck :)
Glad you enjoyed!
This is fun and very interestingly presented. When you start to forget what the sapphire is, here you go)) Fascinating puzzles. Thanks to the author. I really liked it!
Glad that you had fun and that you liked the puzzles!!! I played your game too and throught it was great :)
Thanks so much for playing and thanks for leaving a review!
This is a wonderful game!! I had so much fun playing this. The concept is great and you executed it perfectly. The artstyle is quite cool and so are the music and sound effects. The dialogue is fun, and the puzzles are refreshing and made me think on top of the box. Did not feel too hard.
Only feedback I have is I'm not sure if I dragged hammer man out of the screen the intended way. I just positioned the hammer man game menu above the settings button and dragged it down till hammerman popped out. He did get stuck for a bit but I just moved with the arrow keys a bit and eventually he popped completely out. After I did this I saw breakable blocks on the top left, so I guess that's the intended way out?
Anyway the game is also very well polished in terms of animation and highlighting items of interest with different colors. Overall really great job.
Keep up the amazing work!
Thank you so much, glad you had some fun :)
Also, thanks for the feedback, you did indeed encounter a bug (or I guess in this case, an exploit) with HammerMan. The intended solution for getting him out of the desktop is to have him break out of his window, onto the desktop, and then jump on top of the various desktop windows to get him up to the top left corner of the desktop screen, where there's a group of breakable blocks through which he can escape into the main menu. HammerMan is a glitchy little fella in his current state but I'll be fixing him up in the post-jam version.
Thanks so much for the review, I really liked your entry as well so I'm sure it'll go far in the jam!
Added Screenshots
Added a few screenshots of the game give people a preview of what to expect in the spooky world of the haunted mansion before they play.
Unfortunately there seems to be a visual glitch going on with the screenshots and you can't see the mansion very well... not sure what's going on there, maybe some other devs might be able to tell me what's happening??
OMG, this is an absolutely perfect game! The concept, the interpretation of the theme, the gameplay, the visuals, the music, the humor — everything is top-notch. A well-deserved 5 stars! I had so much fun solving these puzzles. Amazing job, turtle lover! :)
Thank you so much that's very high praise!
I'm particularly pleased that you found the puzzles engaging. It was pretty tricky to know if I had made things too hard or too easy. I was able to test-run things a few times with friends playtesting but since it's a puzzle game, you only really get one test-run per person which is challenging 😅
Your game looks super cool, I can't wait to play it!
An imaginative and meta take on the theme, it's very fun and well executed! Good job!
Thanks so much for playing, glad you enjoyed the metaness ;)
I found the sapphire, 10/10 would play again. Also you guys said something about a red square? Idk what you are talking about...
Thanks for playing and well done finding the sapphire! It's a huge achievement as it's very well hidden.
And yeah, no idea about the red square character. None of the characters in the mansion match that description so it's very confusing... must it's some weird bug that people are encountering idk. Could be related to an unused feature that I intended on adding but ultimately decided wasn't worth including in the final product...
Great game! I loved that it feels so polished, I don't know if it's a feature but ....
------SPOILERS!!!------
to beat the final boss, I just kept the hammerman inside the window and moved it around with the mouse
Great game overall!
Glad you enjoyed, thanks for giving it a go :)
Thanks for reporting the bug as well. We'll chock that under the "HammerMan is generally a bit buggy" bug. I'll be tidying up his code a lot in the post-jam version so I'll be sure to include this as well!
Love the inspiration from "There Is No Game." Also I have developed a new hatred for hammers now. (I spent 20 minutes trying to beat that damn hammer game)
Overall it was a super game to play, but I did end up glitching hammerman out of the screen accidentally when I was moving the hammer game window around. I got the hammerman out of the hammer game window and got him out of the desktop and then moved the hammer game window but it collided with the hammerman while he was outside the desktop and then he disappeared.
Glad you enjoyed, thanks so much for playing!
Yeah HammerMan is definitely a buggy little guy at the moment. I ended up implementing that part of the game pretty late in development and I think it shows 😂 In the post-jam version I'll be working on fixing him (and the rest of the desktop) a lot more and tightening up the environment interactions. I'll also be improving the actual HammerMan.exe game since the controls could definitely be improved. Should make it a bit more fun and less frustrating to play.
If anyone else has trouble with HammerMan glitching off the screen: Closing the HammerMan.exe window and reopening it should reset him, although you'll have to play through his game again to get him back outside of the game window sorry ;)
Also, I mentioned this in another comment reply, but really bizarrely, I've never actually played "There is No Game". I looked it up after they mentioned it and I definitely recognised it as a game that I must have watched a letsplay of back in the day. It's 100% a core piece of inspiration for my game, but the inspiration seems to have occurred entirely within my subconscious 😂 I'm definitely going to be playing it over Christmas though :)
What a great game. I love games that turn the desktop into a play space. The puzzle with the virus scanner was great probably my favorite. The graphics were cute, clean and simple, sold the story well. The sound effects were all solid and had enough meat to sell the game. I really appreciated the puzzle design, it felt just hard enough that I had to think but nothing felt undiscoverable. The nitpick I could think of was that letter hunting felt a little underwhelming for all the tools you had set up but scope management is key and you look like you kept your scope perfectly. I appreciated all the little QOL features, like the return to home, everything you need having strong color to stand out from the background etc. Overall just a really clean, enjoyable experience.
Thank you so much! Thrilled that you had a good time :)
The feedback is much appreciated. The letter hunting was definitely a bit of a conceptual shortcut for me to be able to easily compartmentalise each individual puzzle during development. For the post-jam version, I think I'll be adding a few more puzzles that'll reuse the existing items in different ways, which will hopefully make it feel a bit more satisfying. Particularly, I had a lot more plans for the final "boss fight" that would get you to think outside of the box to use all the different tools you've acquired in the game so far to defeat HELP BOT.
Anyway glad that you had a bit of fun. Your game is already on my list of ones to play so I'm looking forward to checking it out! :)
Very good! Very jmtb02
What a pull!! Yeah I loved those games. I literally played "This is the Only Level" again for the first time in years while I was making this one
Very creative puzzle designs and theme interpretation! The music selection also nicely complements the atmosphere of the game, well done!
Thanks for playing! Truthfully, the music selection happened only a few hours before submission while I was very sleep deprived so I'm glad it worked out 😂
A very clever game! I really enjoyed the gameplay and thought the puzzles were really well designed. Great job!
Thanks! Glad you had a bit of fun :)
Extremely polished and creative! Well on theme too.
Good difficulty level. I managed to finish the game without needing any hints, although it took me quite a while and lots of thinking. I really liked the variety of puzzles you added. Makes or breaks a game like this.
Art style is simple yet effective. I like that the music volume/track changes depending on where you are looking.
For improvements, mainly just the bug fixing that you've already listed in the comments below.
Awesome submission. Congrats!
Thank you kindly, glad you enjoyed!
Also glad you liked the art style (this was my first time making all the visual assets myself for a game and I'm no artist so I had to learn a lot). I had intended on following the 4-colour wildcard by using different shades of the same colour as placeholders, and then replacing them with dithering later when I was tidying up. I ended up not having time for that which is no biggy, but I'm thinking I'll do it for the post-jam version :)
Amazing game, really fun and with some good puzzles, that are cryptic enough to be challenging but intuitive
Thanks for playing and glad that I gave you a couple of head-scratchers ;)
I've got your one on my list so I'll be getting to it very soon :)
Really interesting Pony Island-esque experience! I love meta-games like these. I found the puzzles well designed and never felt too frustrating or tedious. The final twist stole a chuckle from me. Bravo! 🐢
Thanks for playing!
Glad you had a bit of fun. Pony Island was 100% one of the core inspirations for this one so I'm pleased someone picked up on it ;) 🐢 🐴 🐼
What an incredible little game, I had an amazing time playing it. Super well designed and polished. I only needed a hint for the password, everything else I figured out on my own and felt great.
Thanks for playing and I'm thrilled you liked it!
You're not the only one who had trouble with the password puzzle, it's definitely one of the hardest puzzles in the game which is poor game-design on my part as it's one of the first puzzles in the game. I'll be making the solution to that one a bit more obvious in the post-jam version ;)