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FEAR's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Gameplay | #2 | 4.545 | 4.545 |
| Horror | #2 | 4.455 | 4.455 |
| Theme | #3 | 4.636 | 4.636 |
| Creativity | #3 | 4.727 | 4.727 |
| Overall | #3 | 4.545 | 4.545 |
| Presentation | #3 | 4.727 | 4.727 |
| Story | #6 | 4.182 | 4.182 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How did you choose to implement the Theme: Fear the Devil in your game?
████ is a 1986 horror game developed and published by ███ █████. ██ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ ███████ ██ ██. █████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ██ █ ████ ████ █████ █████ ███ ████ ████, ████ █ ████ ██████ ███ ████ ██ ██. ████ ██ ██ ███ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████.
Did you implement any of the optional Bonus Challenges, and if so, which ones?
Cross of Saint Peter: Saint Peter's Cross is a 1986 survival horror game developed and published by ███ █████.
Hide From His Sight: His Sight is a 1986 puzzle horror game developed and published by ███ █████.
Exorcism: The Exorcism is a 1986 point-and-click horror game developed and published by ███ █████.
Did you create your game in RPG Maker?
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Comments
Wow! I am very impressed by how creative this game was! I didn't expect the RTP look to turn into a game-ception nightmare, and it was super cool throughout! I love the unique mini-games on each "game", and I adore the idea of the devs wanting to do a demonic ritual through these videogames! I was definitely spooked by the atmosphere and enemies that came with 'em (that weird singing was creepy as hell too)! And the fact that this was all made in RPG maker is crazyily impressive! Greatjob for such a unique and well done entry!! <3
thank you for the kind words!! :> the rtp-turning-into-not-rtp, having a game composed of different in-universe games, and even that gramophone song are all things i've really wanted to put into a game for quite some time haha. i'm really happy that i could finally do it, and that it's been received so positively! i tried my best to polish everything and make the game as original as it could be :D
thank you for playing!! <3
Woooaahhh this was insane in how creative and scary it was??? I, too was surprised by the rtp at first, and then I was shocked at the sudden turn of visual events!! I got scared so often, I jumped a few times when I got "caught", haha!
SPOILERS BELOW IF U HAVEN'T PLAYED!
I lovelovelove the idea of a cult coming together to try and summon a demon through a video game- especially so with the retro gameplay and soundfonts- I really felt like I was playing an old DOS game! Each time the game would change, I was on the edge of my seat thinking 'oh man something's going to jump out at meee'
One tiny thing I'd say was how the flashing part in the end made things sort of difficult to see till the very last moment (for me, anyway), but I was so relieved when I was able to get the code in the end ;w;/ The glitchy colors and effects were a great touch with this all being a whole "computer game", especially those from the 80s with it's limited colors and play-style.
Super unique gameplay, super scary "enemies", everything was very spooky indeed!! I also liked how the "devs" talked to eachother with notes within the game. I felt so bad for Ashley ; _ ; but I hope everyone can be at ease with the "happy"(?) ending! I still cant believe this was made with MV- fantastic presentation!! Thanks for sharing this cool entry!!!
thank you so much for the kind words!! really wanted to focus on uniqueness (as in, stuff that i haven't really seen before in other games) and horror for this game, so i'm glad you thought it was creative and scary haha. seems i struck gold with the rtp opening, i'll keep in mind that people like some good ol' shock factor :>
i'll admit "cult trying to resurrect a demon" isn't the most creative plot ever lmao, but i thought having playing games be a key part of the ritual was a fun way to tie together the jam's theme and the meta "playing games within games" concept. i also 100% wanted to make the player feel uneasy, like the game could corrupt or something could come out and jumpscare them at any point, so it's great to hear it worked haha >:D
i totally get what you mean, i tried to make that sequence give you as much time as possible but yeah even in the testing phase i thought it'd be a bit hard to read (some people did fail it in their first try). i thought it'd be kind of cheap to make that part skippable too so if you fail, it just restarts pretty quickly haha. and i had a lot of fun working on the aesthetic and gameplay! really wanted to capture the "old 80s atari game" vibe and making gameplay mechanics simple enough for you to believe they could be from old ass games.
you're very right in not calling this a completely happy ending XD but hey, i don't like writing completely happy endings anyway haha. it's funny cuz earlier in my story-making journey, i was all for sad endings and everybody dying lol, but now i find those endings to be kinda... unsatisfying? like what was even the point then (obviously there's stories where it fits well, but i often see it used as a cheap way of making the player/spectator sad). so i prefer making stories with conclusions that feel more bittersweet, with stuff still in the air but some amountl of closure. anyway sorry for going on a tangent, this game isn't even that focused on the story- XD i'm really glad you liked this game! i had a ton of fun making it and i hope to keep making more :D
thank you for playing!! <3
I absolutely can't help but feel impressed! I kept thinking "This can't have been made using RPG Maker...right?...RIGHT?"
Really really loved it!
And that seemingly peaceful, RTP intensive intro...that transformed into an entirely different game!
Such a change was done really really well.
Great job!!
heyy i'm really glad you liked it! :D
making the player think they weren't playing something made with rpg maker was 100% my intention haha, i'm happy to hear it worked for you! it was really fun trying to make an aesthetic that looked nothing like what you'd expect from an rpg maker game. and the rtp intro really seems to have struck a chord with a lot of people, and i'm glad cuz it was one of the more fun parts of the game to make :>
thank you for playing! <3
(p.s. i reallyyyyy want to try retrieval and the purge: desperation, but i don't know if i can handle such dark themes haha. maybe i'll build my confidence up and play them while repeating to myself "this is a game it's not real this is a game it's not real this is a game it's not real" whenever anything dark happens XD)
I'll have you know that TP:D's good ending is the canon one, so the bad stuff (TP:D bad ending and Retrieval) is not canon :)
You can do it :) :)
ohh i see! that actually helps haha. i'll play them when find some free time :D
This one was really cool. Definitely one of my favorite entries so far. Audio and visual design were genuinely unnerving compared to what I've come to expect from a lot of RPG Maker horror games.
The fakeout intro scene really stood out to me. You absolutely paid more attention to detail than most people would for something like that. Not just the default assets, but also the corny, self-referential writing worked wonders to sell me on the fact that this was just someone's awkward first project. It was just the right amount of cheese to lull me into a false sense of security before the actual game started. (Also a very good choice of audience; it would go over a lot of people's heads if not specifically submitted to a jam full of RPG Maker devs.)
It's very hard to make RPG Maker games feel unique, so it's super impressive that so many different play styles were pushed into this one experience. None of them feel too similar, even in their simplicity, yet they all still sell the idea of being made for a very old console/computer. The small details like the restricted color palette even across different rooms were also appreciated.
Most of my criticisms are nitpicks, honestly:
If I accidentally passed over tutorial text before reading it, which I did for the first two games, I had no way of getting it back. The second game was pretty self-explanatory, but it took me a while to figure out what I was doing for St. Peter's Cross. The square-pixel font used for some of these tutorials was also very hard on the eyes, so I'm not sure how much I would have processed regardless.
I like the slow pacing, but some of the cutscenes felt just a biiiiiiit too drawn out. With the game "breaking" in the intro, for example, things took so long to visually fall apart that, even after realizing what was happening, I'd assumed the game just actually froze in the middle of the creepy transition. If just a few seconds were shaved off, the anxiety wouldn't have that time to fade away. The same thing happened towards the last scene of the game, though I forget exactly what transition it was.
I get that the Devil's exposition at the end was kind of a necessity for a jam project—I know planning out a non-linear story is a process that can take months in and of itself—but I would have liked the details to be spread out over the course of the game a little more. It was just a bit obvious that the Devil wasn't talking to me as much as the writing itself was, so it felt a little unnatural to get the information that way. The censored Wikipedia screenshot was a really neat hint at what a subtle build-up could have accomplished, and I really liked starting to piece together what RSR was doing and what the screenshot might have had cut out of it. (On that note, it also frustrated me a little to get the full version of the screenshot later. I'd already gathered the general idea, and the last screen sapped the fun out of putting two and two together.)
My criticisms are always long-winded, but seriously, don't take it as a sign that I disliked this at all. Like I said, this is easily one of my favorite entries. I just tend to give verbose feedback to games I really enjoy because of how much potential I see in them; I like to be detailed since I think micro-adjustments are the only improvements to be made at this point. I'm very excited to see what you come up with in the future.
omg thank you for leaving such a detailed review!! :D
(SPOILERS)
i'm glad you liked the intro sequence! i thought that since the plot was about games-whitin-games already, it'd be cool to screw around with the player in a meta way haha. i tried to mimic how i'd write my first games, where i'd primarily use rtp assets and the writing was a bit corny, and sprinkling everything with jokes i'd actually made in my first projects so it'd feel more realistic. you hit the nail right on the head, i really wanted to capture that "first rpg maker project" vibe lol. i really liked doing the glitching part too, namely because random screen/game glitches can be super unnerving to me haha.
my goal was pretty much to make the players forget that they were playing an rpg maker game, and i'm happy to read that many people who played it think it's unique :> trying to come up with different gameplay and art styles for each game was tricky (especially since i wanted to make each one implement a bonus challenge), but i'm pretty satisfied with the result, and happy to hear you thought they all still fit together! the restricted colors were honestly pretty cool to work with, it was less "aw man how am i gonna make everything look good with such few colors?" and more "wooo there's less decisions to make!" haha (things like the rooms in his sight having randomly colored backgrounds was inspired by old atari games, where sometimes rooms would be a completely different hue than the previous one).
if you restart the game in the first two minigames the instructions show up again, but i admit it's not really intuitive. and i wanted the tutorials to be as simple as possible to both mimic how old games didn't really explain much about the gameplay (and make you feel satisfied when you found out how to play), and to spook the player when they figured out what the game's deal was haha. i get what you mean with saint peter's cross needing more explanation tho, i definitely suffered from tunnel vision with that one and assumed some concepts would be more intuitive than they actually are. partly the reason why i decided to add a walkthrough and an option to skip each game. regarding the fonts, they're the default ones you can use in pixilart (the website i use to make all my pixelart), and i get what you mean, they're not the mooost readable haha.
timing is one of the things i try to get as right as possible in my games; i think it's one of the most important parts of crafting horror in a horror game. sometimes when i'm playing horror games and something spooky happens i think to myself "man that would've scared me a lot more if the wait lasted a bit longer..." so i tend to make the waits a little long just to keep the player on edge haha. the one after the glitch specifically was done to make you think the game actually broke lol. but i do feel that some parts were a bit too stretched out.
thinking back on it, i definitely should've added more hints to the story, especially in the exorcism aaagh why didn't i think of that XD i did try to craft a sense of build-up to the plot with the dev notes in the last game but that's about it lol. and i definitely get what you mean with the devil's monologue being too heavy on exposition, i wanted to frame that sequence as it toying with you and telling you these things just for fun, but yeah i understand it felt more like the game was telling you these things. and the last wikipedia article was just me worrying that i wouldn't have explained the plot clearly enough, and i wanted it to feel like 'if you didn't get the plot, here's the full explanation of what happened. and if you did get it, at least it's a fun way to do worldbuilding' haha.
thank you so much for the feedback! i'm always trying to improve my game making skills and hearing people's opinions on my projects is a great way to do so. i'm really happy to know that even with all the stuff that could be improved, you liked my game that much :>
thank you for playing!! <3
(btw can't wait to try false fruit, it looks really unique! :D)
OXY WTTFFFFF this was so brilliant!! brilliant doesn't even cover it. This was SOOOO breathtakingly original. So scary. So creepy. So immersive.
I'm trying out this new thing where I record me playing it for the first time and you and Egg are my experiments to see if I can pull it off so sorry
*Spoilers*
And *edit* kinda cool I went back and rewatched my own video lol narcissist, and was able to clear up a few details I missed. I'm terrible at names so I didn't connect that Jeremy MADE THE EMULATOR and those emails were his email address at the beginning. GOOTTT IT got it got it got it glad I went back and double checked.
aaaaa thank you sm for the kind words!! <3 and OMG you made a video that's so cool!!! watching gameplays of things i've made is always so unreal haha, like a playthrough?? that a person made?? because they like my game??? haha it's so awesome. and i hope your video idea goes well, you're really good at commenting while playing and i enjoyed your vid a lot! :D
i'm really sorry the first game was laggy for you, it was very much NOT intentional. guess tunnel vision made me think "well if my laptop can run 10 parallel events at the same time, i guess any other can as well!" lol. should really get a playtester instead of trying to do everything myself, i'm definitely bound to miss bugs and stuff (partly why i made the skip mechanic). i'm glad that's the only big glitch you found though haha.
i can't believe you couldn't tell the practically imperceptible difference of 1 pixel between the Hs and Ws in the dev notes, smh! (jk XD) real talk tho, i made that font myself and trying to make recognisable letters in a 3x5 grid is pretty tricky, so i'm not surprised some letters look too similar haha. i'll keep practising though!
your "every game feels completely different and also like a natural next step" comment is so nice omg- one of the most fun things i've discovered in my game devving journey is that i have literally no clue what i'll feel like doing next. making something extremely different which each game has been super fun, and it's really helped me build confidence as a dev :> and at the same time i apparently just really like escalating my ambitions with every project haha (this is the first time i've made a full ost wooo!)
(edit: the sound i used for the gramophone is a recording of "au clair de la lune", i linked the video i took it from in my reply to abra's comment!)
thank you for playing! <3
oh this one is FINGER LICKING GOOD. FREAKY DICKY MARONICKY GOOD. YUM YUM YUM.
The presentation? Fantastic. The gameplay? Unique. The ███████████? ████ ███ ███ ██████. Incredible take on the theme and the bonus challenges, and certain aspect such as the stock RTP and sound effect were used imppecably. This is the best non-RPGMaker RPGMaker game I have played since 1986, and I hope you continue to create bangers as always =)
thank you so much for your comment!! :>
(SPOILERS)
i'm really glad you liked how i intepreted the theme! i don't think i've ever implemented all three bonus challenges in a jam entry, so i thought "hmm, how about i make each into a separate minigame?? hell yeah!!!", and it's also just something i haven't seen before in any rpg maker horror jam game haha. it was a challenge to make each game implement a bonus challenge while also being fun on its own, so i'm glad you liked the gameplay overall!
a "non rpg maker rpg maker game" is exactly what i was going for haha. aside from the beginning part and going back to the start after each game, i wanted to make the player completely forget they were playing something made with rpg maker, down to not even having the pause button available. thought it'd be a unique way to add in to the unsettledness :>
finally, i'm happy to hear you liked the ███████████! at first i wanted to ████ ███ ██████ ████ but i think the way it came out, with ████ ████████ ███████, ended up working better :D
thank you for playing! <3
Hello there. This was a interesting one
(Spoilers)
First off the first look on the game was a bit wanky with the full gray background into standerd rpg maker characters but it did became better after that. The hole pc theme was good and I dont think anyone else in this game jam did it as farr as I know it so your on the right trake with that one. The little minigames that it has were a bit wierd however. By the torch one there wasnt really anyway to tell if the monster would be there. Ofcourse that made it a bit hard but in a good way. The other 2 I dont really have much to say for. Both decent. The final cut sene with the logs was nice and that was my favorite part. (I like stories and thats kinda the point the story is opening up). That also the place you learn that you play as a different person. I thought first that we were still playing as the guy but no not at all. anywho I do like those wiki pages. Make it feel more real in a way. however wen I failed in the last code and tried again the smile didnt show anymore. Sure after I did it he came back but the smile was there in the first try yet not in the re tries? a bit odd.
Final Words.
Personaly Im not the biggest fan of stories that play of in the real world. I like the new world to explore thing a bit more but I do think you did it pretty good with the pc so good job. Only things I would say is that it getting sent back to the title screen thing happend a bit to much at some point and the beginning could use some of your art. Besides that good job.
Keep it up.
ayyy thank you so much for the comment!! :D
(SPOILERS)
i'm glad you liked the pc theme! it's one of the things i wanted to do the most cause i hadn't seen something like it in any rpg maker game, but i was also really scared of how difficult it'd be to make haha. turns out it wasn't that hard! just some common events and changing parallaxes lol. definitely gave me confidence in trying out new things mechanic-wise for my future projects!
i also really wanted to get the different minigames right, and coming up with three gameplay loops that fit each bonus challenge from the jam and also felt distinct from each other was honestly a ton of fun haha. obviously they're not the deepest games ever but i'm happy to hear you liked them overall! i get what you mean with saint peter's cross being hard; i actually kinda based it on freddy fazbear's pizzeria simulator, where you don't know where the monsters are and you basically just have to hear for odd sounds that might give away their location. it was a tricky balancing act of difficulty! (tho after my last gameplay-focused game crushed some people's spirits with how frustrating it was, here i gave in and made all three games skippable XD)
the smile disappearing after you die was very much NOT intentional, i already went back and fixed it so thank you for telling me about it haha! with how many switches and global variables there are i definitely missed some things when testing, i'm honestly glad that's the only big bug you found lol.
i definitely get the "going back to the start too much" feeling, and looking back i would've probably removed a couple of those (maybe i will in a later update, when i feel like playtesting again and don't feel sick when i think about going through the beginning sequence for the 20th time-). guess i was just excited to be using global switches for the first time, and thought that when you press start and something different happens was the coolest thing ever haha. and regarding to the start, the fact that it's all default assets is 100% intentional; i thought it'd be cool to make players think "oh so this is gonna be an rtp game, that's kinda generic..." before doing a 180º and showing how the actual game will look haha. looking back though... yeah maybe i could've used a biiiiit more original art, just so it doesn't look too boring.
thank you for the feedback!! :> (and can't wait to try resonate, hehe)
What an AMAZING concept and interpretation of the theme!😮 It's exactly this kind of games that made me love indie games and made me want to make my own🖤
spoilres
yes, i do, i feel fear lol. at first the game wasnt scary(also after seeing rtp maps and character i was like 🤨... Ok...
but you tricked me! and that gramaphone record was creepy as hell! i still dont know what he was singing tho.
the minigames werent to hard, i think i beat them on 2nd or 3rd try. The scene at the end - i wasnt able to capture the code from the first try too. Overall it's 100/10 game, you should be proud!👍🏻
aaaaa thank you so much!! <3
(SPOILERS)
i'm really glad the fear factor worked for you! definitely one of the things i focused most on (if it wasn't obvious from the game's title lol), and the bait-and-switch with the rtp graphics was honestly one of my favorite parts to make haha. it was just me thinking "hmm what would really creep me tf out in an rpg maker game? oh i know, completely switching the presentation by making it look like the game glitched!" lol. i'm really glad it worked for you! :D
the recording is an audio of someone singing "au clair de la lune", it was recorded over 100 years ago and restored recently. i remember hearing it for the first time in a markiplier video where he played a horror game named "trumpets". it's such a creepy and cool sound and it stuck with me since i first heard it, so it was really awesome to use it in a game of my own haha. here's the video i took the sound from if you wanna check it out!
thank you so much for the comment abra, you're really nice and your compliments mean a lot <3
(also btw, fragile sun is first on my list of jam games i'll play >:D)