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A jam submission

Cycles of PsychologyView game page

why did you do this?
Submitted by I_Will_Probably_Die? — 19 hours, 59 minutes before the deadline

Play game

Cycles of Psychology's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Presentation#2504.3334.333
Overall#4613.8893.889
Creativity#7213.8753.875
Enjoyment#10073.4583.458

Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

How does your game fit the theme?
the player is the real villain who caused all of these bad events in the game and also the monster "False Identity" will reverse their roles when they find a host (they will steal the host's identity and then corrupt the host into another "False identity"" )

Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?

Yes

We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam

Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?

No

We used pre-existing audio

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

I'm not a huge horror enjoyer so please take this with a grain of salt.

I liked the aesthetic and atmosphere, and the revealing mechanic added some tension to the chase sequence. 

I'd prefer if it had some kind of an ending (or perhaps I missed something?), although restarting the game infinitely would be kinda meta, lol. And, I think, it would be cool to actually see these false identity enemies (unless again, I'm missing something).

Great job!

Developer

the game loops for story reasons and yes you do see the false Identity, the monster the chases you in the final level before looping back is one of the false Identity, of course they do change in appearance do to how they work but in simple terms you do see it just not in its originally form. but also, thanks for the feedback, ya I should have specified to the player that the monster was the false Identity (but idk if you even saw it to begin with)

Submitted(+1)

Yeah, I saw that thing, and tbh I didn't notice the connection

Developer

yeah, no that's my fault, it is the only monster that's talked about so I guess in the moment I was just wishing people would see the connection.

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

So much content packed in this game, the core mechanic is really well done and clear, many paths to choose from so it's not repetitive. I have to agree with some of the comments saying subtitles would be great, I found myself too distracted by the text in the wall or platforming, then I miss what the narrator said lol. Despite that I'd say that this game is very well done for a 48hrs jam, great job!

Submitted(+1)

The aesthetic and presentation is fantastic, especially for 48 hours.  Impressive work.  Subtitles would help in understanding the voice over; I'm sure I missed some things there.

Submitted(+1)

Wow this game looks incredible! The core mechanic is readable and very effective leaving lots of room for different puzzles where you have to search the map or follow a path to continue. Really solid game especially for 48 hours!

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

I really like your game mecanics and the visuals, its so coherent ! Unfortunately, the game crashed 5 times and I was not able to end the second level.
I also didn't quite understand the voices so some subtiles would be appreciated ! Would like to give it a second try if you ever rework it cause it seems really well thought. Really good job for 48 hours :) 

Submitted(+1)

The mechanic of revealing the map is well-made and runs smoothly. On top of that, love the little detail that if u place it on the player, it changes its facial emotion lol. The game was crashing on my side so sadly I can't progress further, but it is ok to have some tech issues for a game jam and from the gradual introduction of the levels design, I can imagine it is well-designed as well later. Good Game. 

Developer

thanks for the feedback, and ya crashing isn't just you or anyone else's computer, a lot of visual stuff is going on behind the scenes and the game just tends to crash, I am sorry about that and will try to not have my games crash as often.

Submitted(+1)

I love the art style and the horror theme of this game; the atmosphere is superbly done. The mechanics are well implemented

The voice lines are somewhat difficult to understand. The game crashed one time when I didn't realize I could double-jump while trying to find a way out of level 1. 

Nevertheless, I think it's an impressive game.

Submitted (2 edits) (+1)

Initially didn't leave a comment, but I do actually want to to expand on why I gave the game the rating I did.

I did really like the gameplay. The physics felt good and the mechanic of using the circle to reveal parts of the level was really fun and creative. If that was the core of the game, I would have rated it higher than 3 across the board (I changed the creativity rating from 2 to three for the circle mechanic) The game also looks and sounds great.


What brought the game down for me was the horror elements and one specific bit in the 2nd level. Starting with the 2nd level, that bit that looks like a level goal but actually restarts the level including the cutscene before the level feels unnecessary. If it just reset the level, it wouldn't be too much of a problem, but forcing the player to wait 45 seconds watching something they've already seen was kinda of frustrating, especially when you don't know that's the actual level goal.

Onto the horror bit, the initial reason I gave on my stream was "this isn't my kind of horror" which isn't a great summary of my critique of the horror elements of this game. A lot of the horror elements felt like they were present for no reason. A lot of the text implying that the "I have done something" feels like it's just present for the sake of being creepy. I didn't get the sense while playing that they meant anything, which led to it feeling more cheesy than creepy. Same goes for the faces and the "these are your victims" at the start of the 2nd level. The lore was presented in a very vague way that doesn't really open the door to any questions deeper than "what actually happened". The exception to that is the between level cutscenes that give pretty direct information about some monsters, but these cutscenes feel very disconnected from the rest of the game and the information they provide doesn't link to the gameplay. The horror and the mechanics of the game feel like 2 disconnected ideas. My main question with the story of this game is "how does it connect to this circle my character can use to see things that are otherwise invisible?" if a gameplay focus had been put on monsters that you need to avoid instead of the circle mechanic, the two major elements of the game would have blended together much better and created a creepier atmosphere, although I do appreciate that this would have been hard to do given the timeframe for development.


tldr: the horror and the gameplay aren't connected enough for the horror to be engaging which kinda brings the whole game down for me


Again, I do want to say that the gameplay itself is very good, it's just that which surrounds the gameplay that I found to be lacking

Developer (1 edit)

Alright I understand what you're saying, sorry that the game did crash on stream which wasn't supposed to happen it's just a problem with the visual effects, so you did miss out on important information, and it does take a little bit of thought to figure out how the gameplay ties in. here the explanation for how it does work together, the inability to see things without the circle was used to represent how you were blinded by grief and desperation after the death of your daughter, so you were blindly doing horribly things to no success and the "false identity" the monster was the creation you made and killed so many people in your attempt to bring her back which explains the "these are your victims" the whole game is about how even when you can't die, reliving the moments of a terrible past is worse the death, I am very sorry for the crashes and also the fact that you couldn't see the deeper meaning of the game, I'll definitely try to make things more clear as I think I was leaning too much into the analog horror side with the whole hidden story stuff.  but thanks for playing and giving me feedback I do appreciate and sorry for originally was a bit upset by your rating, but I do understand what I did wrong and also the people have their opinions I was just tired and not having the best of days. 

Submitted(+1)

hey, no worries. I probably should have checked if the game crashing was actually intentional. The timing of it felt very "ooooo spooky game crashing on purpose," which was just unlucky (also I was kinda rushing to end the stream at that point.)  Having now replayed the game in its entirety, I can pretty confidently say that I wouldn't have picked up on how the "revealing circle" mechanic connected to the story of the game, but the game itself is connected to the story better than I initially thought with the main character trapping themself in it. That part of the story did feel a bit like it came out of nowhere, but I imagine it's something that would be expanded on if this was expanded into a full ARG/analogue horror series. For that bit in the 2nd level that I criticized, I am gonna partially take that back because I realised it plays a different cutscene to the one you see going into the level, but I will say that it shouldn't make you restart the level once you get to it.

Developer

thanks to everyone who as enjoyed that game, I really do appreciate it when people say they had a good time.

Submitted(+2)

Intresting game, I love it:D the atmosphere is amazing

Submitted(+2)

Its a pretty good spooky game for 24 hours

Submitted(+2)

So I think this is a really good game.  I'm not personally into spooky stuff but you kept me curious which had me push through being totally freaked out lol.  I think I understand how this fits the theme?  But this is so good and skilled I wonder how you could have pushed the reverse roles even further.

Submitted(+2)

This game is so polished its shocking how long you were able to make it in just 48 hours while keeping this level of quality. Great submission!

Submitted(+2)

I love the art style, and you did a very good job with the main mechanic

Submitted(+2)

I like the atmosphere of the game, how the visual works. The voice acting is a bit unclear for me.

Developer(+1)

Ya I completely understand with the voice acting, I will say the game does loop for people to find secrets and then also rehear the voice lines I did want the uncanny voice, but it did cost me a little. 

Submitted(+2)

creepy! I like the secret lens mechanic. It reminds me of Majora's Mask!

Submitted(+2)

Very cool and scary game!

Submitted(+2)

This was so creepy! I loved the analog horror vibe, and the presentation was great with excellent shader effects and sound design. Well done!

Submitted(+2)

Interesting and definitely different from most entries. Theme spoke to me and I enjoyed the overall aesthetic. Should you choose to update this game after the jam, I would prefer subtitles for the voices!

(1 edit) (+1)

SPOOPY :000

This was in my dreams