Kevin would like to congratulate you on your excellent job here at his Tortoise Sanctuary, and he is very pleased that his tortoise was able to get some sleep thanks to your efforts. I’m also pleased to hear that you enjoyed your time here as well!

Personally I have absolutely zero FNAF experience (Apart from “Five Nights At Friday Night Funkin’”, of course!)

same lol

One things stood out for me: “Yes, you almost definitely will lose the game at first”. Now that sounds like a challenge!

imma be real with you: that is actually a bit of a hyperbole. In response to some feedback received during that playtest livestream, I wanted to reassure players that, yes, trial-and-error would be a relatively important step in the process of conquering the game, and that they should not feel bad if they do feel overwhelmed at first. However, I’ll admit that the game itself is actually pretty easy when you know what you’re doing, but a bit of hyperbole certainly helps to deliver some pride and accomplishment from time to time.

And it turns out my blissful ignorance of the outside world worked perfectly!

Yes, that actually is the optimal strategy (although I wasn’t expecting anyone to instantly work it out lol). In hindsight, I probably should adjust the Intruder’s logic to get it to slowly start moving whilst the door is closed (maybe on a separate timer to its normal timer, with a higher move chance) as a way of penalising this strategy of ‘keeping the door closed constantly’ (as that’ll make Percival a little bit more frequent and everyone else get a little bit faster more consistently, and might even be a bit sp00pier when opening the door).

It seems very well put-together! There is a clear trajectory of people’s movements. It feels hectic and fun, and the characters are well thought out.

That’s a bit of an overstatement 😅. The Intruder was pretty much an afterthought all things considered (all it did in the initial release was just get close and then just stand there menacingly lol), whilst the Testudo’s legit tactical movement strategy was also a bit of an afterthought (and hell, everything about camera 7 was an afterthought, now that I think about it).

And when it comes to the trajectory: well, the layout of the sanctuary (barring camera 7) was actually the first thing I designed. I knew I wanted the map to be Tortoise-shaped (with an unsightly turd (which was always going to be for Bri’ain) right next to it for absurdity points), but, of course, whilst it meant that Tortelvis and the Esiotrot’s paths were very easy to figure out routes for, I genuinely was stuck for what to do with the Testudo. But, thankfully, there was some dead space in the actual scene geometry which corresponds to where camera 7 now is (initially, I had considered putting camera 7 in the “tail” instead and starting the Esiotrot there), without which the game probably would have ended up feeling a bit more shit (and the Testudo would have probably felt a bit redundant).

And, of course, Percival returned even though I tried killing him off last year, which is also mildly concerning in a meta sense (and the only reason why he returned was because I was going to Tesco to do my preparatory food shopping on the Thursday and then I had the terrible realization that Percival would be the perfect character to use for the obligatory exposition dump, seeing as Kevin canonically does not talk but his actions are usually merely referred to in the passive voice, and Ke’in is, well, Ke’in).

Anywho, Percival’s role as the accidental antagonist in this game actually came about from a bit of laziness. I needed some way of forcing the player to leave themselves vulnerable to attack in certain situations; initially, I tried designing the map of the tortoise sanctuary to have multiple doorways into the tortoise room (forcing the player to split their attention between the two), but those maps all looked scuffed in an unironically shit way. However, forcing Percival to shut up was basically the easiest solution I found to that problem, by having a threat that would force the single door in the office to be opened every once in a while.

I should admit that the main gameplay loop of this game (with the camera recharging, the door, and the asleepn’tness meter) was actually shamelessly ripped off from One Night At Flumpty’s 2. Granted, that game does have somewhat more elegant ways of solving the problem of ‘making the player use the cameras and not just sit in a corner and hide’, forcing camera usage (via the owl and the redman). Even though Percival doesn’t quite work as well for forcing the player to expose themselves to danger, I suppose Percival is mildly original in implementation.

I was annoyed that I couldn’t actually hear Percival’s Audio tracks 😅

I am mildly concerned about your music taste

So I decided to go to the github page and just download the audio files! Amazing covers of Sweet Caroline and Good Morning Good Morning. +1 sound for kazoo.

Thanks 😤 (didn’t want to put my voice through the exact same level of torture it went through last year though, hence the relatively paltry quantity of High Quality Covers™ this year). Of course, even if you did want to listen to Percival shouting ‘good night’ at the tortoise over and over again in-game, the tortoise will actually wake up before you reach the end of that song in the first place 😅. Anywho, there is one other bit of kazoo music hidden away in there (which you are probably a bit too good at the game to have heard lol) if that’s of any interest to you.

Overall, I had a fun time trying this out. Well done for putting it all together!

Thanks :)

Kevin asked me to tell you that he is honestly glad that you enjoyed your Unspecified Period Of Time here at his Tortoise Sanctuary (but that he’s still disappointed about you allowing Ke’in to disturb his pet Tortoise).

Now that I’ve let you know what Kevin’s opinion on your opinion was, I probably should admit that I’ve actually never played any FNAF games/FNAF clones myself before either (not a fan of jumpscares tbh) so its somewhat reassuring to hear from someone else that the overall gameplay experience was bearable 😅 (and it’s especially reassuring to hear that the Intruder did have the ̶u̶n̶desired effect on at least one player)

(and tbh the game wouldn’t actually pose a real challenge without the presence of Percival (unless there was some other contrived thing that would force the player into having to leave the door open to do things (such as having a shamelessly unoriginal reskin of the fnaf 2 music box which has already been done to death)), so I’m also relieved to hear that positive feedback on the ‘shut up’ system)

Anywho, a couple of small tidbits of development cycle trivia you may find mildly interesting:

• Tortelvis’s appearance changing when reopening on the same camera isn’t entirely intended. The plan was that, whenever Tortelvis becomes visible, his appearance would get swapped with a random other one (for some more of those subtly unnerving ‘wait Tortelvis didn’t have a Getty Images watermark 5 seconds ago’ vibes). But basically due to some event-driven spaghetti, reopening the same camera again causes the thing that checks if he’s now visible to be done again. In theory, I probably could have rewritten the code that handles the ‘pressed a camera button’ code to fix that particular bug, but cba lol.
• The fully keyboard-based controls (except for shutting up Percival) also weren’t planned at first, but yeah interactable canvases on RenderTextures do be like that sometimes. But the monitor screen pretty much perfectly blocking the view of the hallway was one of those happy little accidents, without which I probably wouldn’t have found myself asking that particular question in the first place lol.
• The small sound effects for the door/cameras were actually afterthoughts more than anything else 😅
• Likewise, the Intruder was also an a̶f̸t̶e̷r̶t̴h̷o̶u̶g̷h̷t̷,̵ ̵n̵o̵t̵ ̵b̶e̸i̵n̵g̵ ̴c̷o̵n̷c̷e̷i̷v̸e̴d̴ ̷u̴n̴t̶i̷l̷ ̶a̷f̷t̵e̶r̷ ̷d̴e̴v̶e̵l̵o̵p̸m̴e̷n̷t̵ ̸h̸a̴d̶ ̶s̷t̵a̵r̷t̶e̴d̷ ̵(̵u̶n̶l̴i̴k̴e̷ ̴e̴v̶e̴r̴y̷o̸n̶e̷ ̴e̵l̸s̷e̴)̶,̵ ̷i̵n̴i̸t̵i̸a̷l̶l̴y̶ ̷s̷e̶r̴v̴i̴n̶g̴ ̵n̶o̵ ̵g̴a̶m̷e̸p̵l̵a̸y̴ ̷p̶u̶r̷p̵o̸s̷e̷ ̴b̵e̷s̶i̵d̷e̵s̸ ̴’̴s̶t̶a̵n̵d̵i̶n̴g̷ ̵t̶h̴e̸r̷e̷ ̷a̵n̴d̷ ̷u̷n̸n̶e̷r̵v̵i̶n̷g̵ ̴t̸h̸e̷ ̵p̸l̶a̷y̷e̶r̴’̵ intended presence who was always planned to be added to the game, and function how it does in the final version of the game

wait what I lost my train of thought there.

Oh well.

Glad you enjoyed it though!

The prerecorded message Percival left you at the start of the game explains most of the gameplay. If you want to know more about how each of the enemies work, there is a field guide right here which you can read for further information.

anywho, I’ve updated the game page to have some more obvious instructions written down on there, if you’re still not entirely sure about how the gameplay works.

Is that Elvis?

No. It’s Tortelvis (from Dread Zeppelin) 😤

A Phalanx?

No. It’s a Testudo 😤😤😤😤

The initial prerecorded message (from Percival) does explain the purpose of cameras (Tortoises are unable to move if something’s looking at them, due to social anxiety) and closing the door (making the other tortoises + bri’ish person get bored and go away before they can wake up Kevin’s pet tortoise), and the ‘only able to look at the cameras when facing the door’ is intentionally ‘clunk’, because ‘facing the door’ is intended to be the default position for the player.

The only reason to turn around (and look away from the door) is to get Percival to shut up when his terrible precorded singing starts (so you don’t wake up Kevin’s pet tortoise), and, due to the regularity of that happening, the player is forced to turn around regularly. If it wasn’t for that, there would be nothing stopping the player from just leaving the door closed constantly and cheesing their way throughout the Unspecified Period Of Time. Giving the player access to the cameras when looking away from the door would go against the intent of making the player feel exposed+vulnerable when shutting up Percival’s terrible singing (as, by having access to their first line of defence (cameras) when looking away, the player wouldn’t have any real reason to look back at the door as quickly as possible, potentially removing the intended sense of panic the player should have when trying to work out where the ‘shut up’ button is and trying to click it.)

I did try to make things a bit more manageable for the player by making everything that does appear outside of the office make distinct noises (different to their ordinary movement noises) so a player can react to them (and close the door on them) even if they’re not currently looking at the door, but I suppose it is the sort of thing that a player might slowly work out from a long enough period of trial and error. Anywho, there is also this guide which attempts to explain how the enemies work in a bit more detail as well.

(And yes, Tortelvis’s appearance changing whenever you look at him is a thing in this game. It’s intended as a mildly-amusing thing that makes a player feel mildly concerned, but it doesn’t have any real gameplay implications)

no he isn’t, he’s a complete idiot smh my head

(don’t let him know that I’ve said that about him, his heart is in the right place, even if his brain is completely AWOL)

In all honesty, ‘totally original’ is a bit of an overstatement (as the core mechanics behind the camera power, the asleepn’tness meter, and the way the door works, were shamelessly borrowed from the core mechanics of One Night At Flumpty’s 2 (and the gameplay logic for Tortelvis and Ke’in are certainly far from original as well (the gimmicks for everyone else are somewhat original though))), but thanks anyway 😅

Kevin asked me to let you know that he truly appreciates your willigness to help out with helping his tortoise to sleep. He also mentioned that he is mildly concerned by how you found Percival likable.