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EctoHunter's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Overall | #47 | 3.861 | 3.861 |
| Overall polish | #62 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Creative use of art assets | #66 | 3.875 | 3.875 |
| Engagement | #88 | 3.792 | 3.792 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Nice game! I was confused at the start as to how the flask worked, which caused me to die a few times. Once I figured it out the game was pretty easy. I liked the creepy atmosphere you built with the music, sound and postprocess effects. It didn't seem necessary to mutate given how OP the flask is, but it was nice to have the escape option. Great work!
Thanks for playing and your feedback! If i expand on the game I'll make sure to make it more of a challenge.
The music was written for this game by tunglith who I've cooperated with for all my games so far.
I actually got stuck at the second door I didn't know what to do but I liked the Camera effect when you get close to a light source overall good game although I feel bad I couldn't finish it..
Thanks for trying. There is a key to the second door in the hallway just opposite that door.
Oh my bad..how couldn't I see it?!
Plus the favorite part is when you turn around and a ghost scares the hell out of you..
I enjoyed the ghost capturing mechanic and the mutation, although I didn't end up finding a use for it. I'd like to see more levels and maybe an extension of the mutation idea. You got me with the hole in the last key room, I fell into the nether while trying to outrun a ghost!
Nice and polished little spooky experience, well done.
Great game! This certainly deserves more attention. I don't know why I wasn't having any sounds.
Thanks for playing! You are missing out if you had no sounds, because there is a lot to hear
I liked this game! I was even frightened a bit. You did a good job on creating atmosphere! I know it wasn't supposed to be a horror, but still to be frightening - and it worked with all these SFX, corridors, darkness and music.
A few things I want to point out:
I also liked the effect you put on brick texture, it adds dept into them without manually making it an actual 3D texture that would suck all my GPU memory.
Overall, you did a great job on working on this project. If there was more content and some story, it could even grow into a real game I'd play with much interest!
Thanks for checking out my game, glad that you could enjoy it that much. To your points:
Really appreciate all the feedback and will see how I can use them to improve the game. Thanks again!
Super cool game, the lighting and sound design was awesome and all the visuals look fantastic. The mechanic for trapping ghosts is super well polished and my only complaint is that there wasn't more of it. Really nice job.
Thanks for playing. I guess the best compliment is when people still want more :)
Wow, this is honestly a very nice and short game! great job! The concept's pretty cool too!
I wish I can make something like this ^^
Thanks for playing. I'm sure you can already :)
Great work! I really liked the sound design and polish (lighting, post processing effects, etc).
There was definitely a mind fuck moment when I first mutated! That effect is so cool.
When it comes to mechanics, there were a couple of nitpicks/observations that I have.
Overall though, I thought the game was awesome! Once again, great work!
Thanks for playing and leaving a lot of notes.
hope that clears most of those. really appreciate the input though, because it shows me where more explaining needs to be done :)
Sucking ghosts into bottles was such a surprising but satisfying mechanic! Overall, I really enjoyed the effects you put into the ghosts. And whatever post-processing effect you had while mutated was wicked! The music you chose felt pretty perfect, too. All in all, this is a fantastic game for a jam!
I also appreciated that you were able to add in a pause menu (something I didn't get time for). Being able to restart once I completely wasted the first mutation was very welcome (see my note below), since many other games I have to reboot/restart. In the final room, I definitely went into the harder of the two doors first :P But that's okay. Overall, I found the level layout to be very pleasing and not a challenge to navigate. Great job!!
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(The rest is moot, since I was typing this up as I played. Eventually I realized what the mutate ability was for: just a nice speed boost and night vision, so you can take my comment however you like!) You did a good job introducing motivation for the mechanics (ghost appears, place the bottle!) at the beginning. So when I finally got that 3rd ghost and discovered the "mutate" ability, I thought it had something to do with the large door in my way. I thought as a ghost I'd be able to: fly? phase through walls? But what that means is that I thought I had wasted my mutation the first couple play-throughs, rather than just continuing to explore (and finding that trick wall!) :(
Personally, I realized how important it can be to introduce new mechanics with the motivation (or explanation) of what to do with them. But with a little experimentation, I was able to figure it out.
Thanks for your great feedback. The music was actually written specifically for the game by Tunglith, who I've cooperated with for all my games so far.
Yeah, there is definitely an easier and a harder room in the end, but I wanted players to choose freely between them. The room with the two ghosts actually gets easier once you get what the mutation is actually doing. It resets ghosts that are chasing after you, the idea is that you mutate into a ghost, so they would not attack you anymore. So effectively it's: night vision, speed boost, ghosts ignore and can't harm you. And you can't really 'waste' it because you can build up your ghost level again with every three new ghosts you drink. I actually want to include the ability to float through crates like the ghosts can as well, but still need to figure out how to handle what happens when you end ghost mode while standing inside an object...
I agree with you though, that it needs to be set up correctly. Initially the setup for the mutation was the second ghost that corners you when you get the key in the dark passage. But the gameplay of drinking and immediately mutating was not fun, because it was really passive and sometimes you would have to get into ghost mod and wait for it to pass, just to empty your flask to get a ghost out of your way. So I changed it to the current system, but didn't have time to change the level design to match it and also didn't get to make a text explanation for it before the deadline. I plan to address this in a future update though.
Thanks for all your notes! They were really helpful
Ahh I didn't notice that the mutation also affects the ghosts' behavior. That does make sense! I agree, too, with your decision to make it invokable instead of automatic.
If you were going to make the player phase through boxes, you might just nudge them to the nearest free spot if they stop on a box when the mutation runs out. Would definitely require some checks, but it would seem natural to me.
(My comment about "wasting" the mutation was only my first thought, before I continued on, so it was eventually clear).
Kudos to Tunglith! Great job on the music, I'll have to see where I can give them a follow!
Hey thank you so much for the kind comments, I'm still new to music producing and have been piggybacking Gypynkt's projects to experiment and improve.
As so I don't have much published but you'll find everything and all the links on my website : https://tunglith.com/ (and shortcut to my proudest track so far here).
Thanks again for the support <3.
Honestly a really good little game. Short but sweet! Love the animations on the ghosts as they get sucked in to the bottle.
I Did run in to a few minor bugs; Ghosts wouldn't cross over open wall doors, and I also couldn't place my bottle down there which made it hard to pass a ghost if it followed me towards one of those doors before and I now had to go back through it. If you replay the game after finishing the bottle counter never goes up so you don't get your ghost form. In the area with the big door one of the crate stacks is high enough that I was able to climb it and jump on top of the walls out of the level (also no collisions on the ceiling, not necesarry, but would prevent this from happening). Last one I found is in the room on the right of the main room (big door one) there is a hole in the floor, I jumped, it was the endless void as I fell to damnation :P Also not sure if these last two were bugs or not; Considering the big door had two keyholes on both sides I imagined I'd need two keys, but after getting the gold one and getting close I heard a clunk, I kept searching for a bronze key to open the door to area on the right of the main hall, but never found it, I approached the door again, heard the key clunk again and won the game. Not sure if I was meant to get two keys or if the two keyholes was just to pull attention to the door. Also on my second go through I went to the right door instead and found the silver key, but I never found a silver door, maybe this was the second key I was supposed to get but because I managed to use the gold key twice (guessing it's a bool that doesn't reset after using the key the first time) it didn't work? Like I said not sure if these last two are bugs or not haha
Personally I would have two small suggestions; the jump feels very floaty to me (although could be intentional because of the ghost form/me being a ghost? Not actually sure if I am a ghost), otherwise movement is pretty slidy but slick in a way that it feels good, usually I like my fps walking very stop and go exactly with when I press the button, but here it seemed velocity based, but didn't feel wrong to me, so props for that! Second suggestion I'd have is a sound (or a different one because I am not sure if one of the sounds the ghosts made was supposed to do this) for when a ghost sees you. I would often round a corner, turn around and there would be a ghost right on me without me having heard that they were following me (I did hear their moans btw, no worries, just one indicator sound of 'hey dumbo you're being chased' would help the hard of hearing like me :P, might genuinly be just me tho since I am partially deaf in one ear so maybe one of the moaning sounds had this purpose and I missed it)
EDIT Reading the comments I see you've already adressed a lot of the stuff I mentioned, great work man! EDIT_END
Honestly though a really great little game, really impressed with the use of lighting and the nice animations including the ghosts and your eyes opening at the start. I honestly think with some polish/expansion of levels/layering on the base mechanics that are there now this could be a great 4-8 hour game concept depending on how many ideas you got to run with ^_^
Really had fun playing your game! One of the most engaging ones I've played so far.
Also sorry for the essay of text >.> I can overexplain stuff, bad habit of mine. Doing it right here <- :P
Wow, really appreciate the in-depth examination. Let's see how long my reply is gonna be, gonna make it as a list so it won't look like an essay haha
but the actual counter in the code still continues works, so if you had it at 1 when you reset it, it will start at 1 in the new game, but the interface will show 0. Will address this in the update.
build. I just used it to get faster through levels for playtesting other areas, but forgot to take it out again when the deadline hit.
I'm on the fence a bit whether to expand the game beyond its current size, because it deviates from my usual style, which could be 'fixed' by swapping assets among other things, I guess. But also my usual style has only been two other gamejam games, so it's not necessarily set in stone either. Hearing though that someone would actually play it for a couple hours will let me at least consider it more. I had a couple of ideas that I didn't add during the jam to keep the scope small enough to finish it in the limited time I had available last week (technically I still have over 10h of working time available).
Thanks again for your input, if you find any more things or play the post jam version eventually don't hold back to write another essay ;)
Sure thing man! Glad to see you're taking feedback to heart! I'll definetly play the post gamejam version one it comes out. Good luck with further development ^_^
I really enjoyed this! Good atmosphere, the ghosts and lighting looked great, drinking the ghosts made me giggle a bit. I really liked the animation for the sliding doors as well. Only thing I would really fix is the mouse cursor. https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Cursor-visible.html Just have it not visible when the game starts, and have it toggle with escape so your menus are still useable! Just a minor thing! Great work! :)
Thanks for playing and leaving your feedback. The cursor has already been fixed for the update. It was actually one of the first things I did right after plugging the hole in the floor and turning off jumping haha
Nice! I really enjoyed this one! I didn't figure out the cursor thing til quite late in development of my submission, and it was driving me crazy!
Man it's really cool. I like the polish of the audio and visuals too, it helps a lot to build atmosphere. Nothing to criticize about this game, awesome!
That's kind to say, but i know there are more than just a couple things to fix ;)
Wow this game is pretty immersive! I got some jumpscares lol. Also I didn't get what the mutation is for, but it's effect is really cool.
Thanks for playing, great that you had fun haha. The mutation basically let's you become a ghost yourself after consuming enough of them, so all the ghosts you triggered will stop chasing after you while it lasts. I planned that you would also be able to move through boxes like them, but didn't get to that before the end of the deadline.
I really liked the look and atmosphere of the game. Very pleasing to look at.
Thanks for looking :)
Really cool game, although short! I love what you did with the lighting and the fog, really sets the game apart from the other doom-likes that slapped the textures onto a 3D world and called it a day. Definitely deserves more attention! My only gripe is that my mouse didn't disappear when I played the game, but other than that really solid entry
Thanks for playing and the kind words. Cursor is gonna disappear in the next update. And who knows, if there is interest I could be convinced into making a longer game :)
Definitely continue with it! Seems like a fun game
I escaped the map by jumping on boxes. Loved the atmosphere!
hope you still completed it the normal way as well ;)
Woah, at first I HATED the mouse controls, but then they totally made sense for what you were going for. Really loved the visual effects as they made sense in context with the game. I'm never a fan of just glowly particles and 3D lights just because, so i'm glad to see yours looking spiffy!
Thanks for playing, also appreciate the feedback you gave on discord
The game has some really nice visual effects with suiting music that really makes me feel the atmosphere of the game. I got stuck when there was a wall that can be opened, it took me like 10 minutes to find the key for the door that's opposite to the first moving wall. I also found a bug where you can put your flask through the big golden gate that requires 2 keys, and then you're basically just stuck without being able to get back your flask :( Other than that, the game is very polished.
Thanks for playing and being persistent with the finding the key :) I'll fix the flask issue at the golden gate for the next update, good catch!
Wow that animation for sucking up a ghost is sooo cute , I didnt really understood what the mutating mechanic was all about , but the game was very fun to complete , well done
Thanks for your feedback. I didn't get around to implement a couple more explanations and backstory that I had in mind. That's why the ghost mutation mechanic might not be clear at the moment. Basically by drinking the ghosts you get the ability to turn into a ghost yourself, so the other ghosts will stop chasing you. It's basically the only way to reset ghosts, because else they will chase you forever.