Play game
Speluncaphobia's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Innovation | #3 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Spooky Level | #3 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Overall | #4 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Style | #4 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Audio | #6 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 4 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Leave a comment
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Comments
This one was pretty creepy, perhaps more so for me because I spent the Covid-19 days watching cave rescue videos! I enjoyed the concept and the art was unsettling, especially the gruesome scene of the guy and the monster. The atmosphere was pretty good, too. I liked the cold blue tone everything had, and the lighting was pretty solid, too. The game actually started feeling tense, with the platforming and the strange discoveries you find throughout the cave get you psychologically and linger in your mind. Touche, my friend! Overall pretty balanced, too.
Some suggestions for you if you were to continue with this project: I would consider adding an oxygen meter to sort of make the player pushed into pressing forward, might add some anxiety. Plus, it would be cool to have a death animation of running out of oxygen. It would also be really cool to have different paths with different scenes/scares, etc. So you could have different endings and some replayability.
I was having issues running your game at first (I was using Linux and I was getting crashing at first, but I figured it out!) Though, I meant to play this one sooner because it looked nifty!
Oh, and looks like you might forgot to add some collision to this section! hehe
Wow, thank you for all the great feedback! The theme idea was definitely inspired by cave videos I had seen, particularly this one by Jacob Geller. If you haven't seen it, its worth the watch.
I hadn't tested with Linux either, although it was in my original plan. So I'm glad you got it to work somehow!
I'm not personally a fan of oxygen mechanics, but it definitely fits the atmosphere and I would like to have more scares like you mentioned. Likely to push the player forward/mess up their platforming (making it more difficult under pressure). A close example i'm thinking of is the cat ghost from Animal Well if you've played it.
It looks like you found my easter egg too! There's no collision on those tiles because I wanted players to be able to walk inside the hole. I went back and forth on making the black section transparent, but it just looked too goofy to me. The holes are a reference to Junji Ito's manga "The Enigma of Amigara Fault", where people are inexplicably drawn to holes in their exact shape that get more narrow as it goes, causing people to get stuck.
Thank you again for playing, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! Having even one person play or have a good time was my goal for a first game :)
I had a fun time playing your game! The way you built suspense with the music was great! I am a big fan of the art and style as well! Very cool! I hope to see more of your work in the future.
Thank you for trying it out! I’m glad people are enjoying the art style bc I’ve never done pixel art before lol. Definitely planning to reuse some assets and make more games going forward :)
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 OMG. I was waiting for something to chase me. I even kept back tracking to see if i could find something. then the music started, and you know. You know something's coming. But when it happens? *screams out loud*. I wish there was some way to escape (or, perhaps, that I as clever enough to figure out *what* to do, lol). That as a great experience.
Nope it’s a trap hahaha. Escaping would be a good idea for sure if I implemented more game mechanics. Thanks for playing! I’m glad you enjoyed it 😇
I would think that if you made a few platforms to jump to, while the creature can keep chasing you, that might be enough. I mean, the panic and adrenaline would make me miss the platform and fall to my death anyway... lol
Very true. I thought about a big centipede, or something wide enough to crawl over the jumping gaps. Or maybe just disabling gravity would be ok with the current monster. This is my first game so I really appreciate the ideas!
Wow. for a first game it's really polished. My first games were disasters!
I love how it's so simple yet so complex at the same time, you are a genius!
Thank you so much! That's some high praise :)