Play Case File
The Occultist: Old Growth's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Hosts' Choice | #1 | n/a | n/a |
| Story | #9 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Sound Design | #66 | 3.148 | 3.148 |
| Horror | #79 | 2.667 | 2.667 |
| Aesthetics | #79 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
| Enjoyment (Best Game) | #80 | 2.889 | 2.889 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I love old school point and click and this is so good! The amount of time you must have put into all the art and dialogue is frankly INSANE. Sincerely this is fantastic. If I had any notes, the game also crashed on me, but that is probably more of an issue with AGS than anything you did. If you wanted to move forward with this, I would consider some kind of autosaving because it was a bummer to lose that progress when the it crashed.
But I really had fun playing this and you did a great job!
Hm, I could probably figure out an autosave mechanic... I don't think AGS has one built in, but I could set aside a save game slot and save to it every so often, or at key points. I'm making this into a series, so I can export what I do for this and keep it as a template for future games in the series.
I'm glad you appreciate the work I put in! Honestly, the dialogue wasn't much of an issue, and neither were the small animations. The thing that took the most time (almost a whole week) was the background art, then having to go back and define the walkable areas and walk-behinds with pixel-perfect precision. That was annoying!
Thanks so much for your time and feedback!
Absolutely amazing how much custom art you were able to push out for this game jam. It has that feel of a good point and click adventure game in it. Some have mentioned it before, but I also had a crash or two randomly while playing. Click an point adventure games have never been a genre that sang to me, but I am incredibly impressed with what you were able to put out in a short amount of time.
I appreciate that! I really feel like I'd like to get a better artist to redo all the art for me, I'm not a great pixel artist to begin with, but I'm fast at animating, so I did most of the characters petty quickly. All told, the thing that took the most time was the backgrounds... seven straight days of work for those 13 backgrounds (not including the title screen). I would have put a lot more background, character, and object animation in if that hadn't taken so long.
Thanks for playing, and for the feedback!
Wow, now that's something - fully fledged oldskool point-n-click. Unfortunately I wasnt able to finish it because it crashed on me when I clicked on one of the mushrooms that I wanted to present to the doctor guy :( (exception in GlobalScript.asc, line1828, if that's of any help)
Good stuff: graphics, descriptions on everything, including incorrect item usage, there's even saving/loading (which unfortunately i didn't use, to my own demise x_X)
Bad stuff: Ian hero guy walks too slow, on some screens you have to wait a long to get to the next one. Crash :C
Thanks for playing and your feedback! There are some bugs in the inventory system, but I'm working them out. You still should be able to complete the game to both endings even if you can't always click on your inventory properly, but it is annoying and I'm eradicating that issue right now.
As for the speed of the character, there's a "speed" slider under the Settings icon in the bottom right corner. You can jack that up and scoot him about pretty quickly. Believe me, if I'd had to test the game at regular speed, I never would have gotten it finished!
Thanks again, and I hope you get a chance to see it to the end!
This game is fascinating, nostalgic and has a lot of personality. The art is really great!
It has many bugs that I've read you're aware of, but it also has many usability issues. First, I had no idea I could cycle through the actions by right clicking, I only learned that far into the game and it felt so cumbersome. Also in the beginning once I opened the inventory and clicked an item or an action I could not figure out how to move. I was about to give up when I discovered that hitting Esc then Default would allow me to move around.
The story is interesting and keeps you hooked to find out what's going on. The atmosphere is great, tho it could be spookier. However, some parts are confusing (like when I was first presented with the stove and Ian said something about using it I was like "why should I event want to cook something?") and it feels a little slow, but overall it's good. Well done!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! I'll add an "Instructions" tab to the game so it's a little more clear... you weren't the only person who had a problem with that, even though I did it that way because I personally always thought having to go to the top or bottom of the screen every time you wanted to change actions in an adventure game was annoying. I wanted to keep the interface as minimal as I could, and I still feel it's a bit "in the way." I may actually change future entries in The Occultist series to use right click to open the menu and mouse wheel to cycle through options.
I'm working on a fix for the inventory crash bug that's going on (I think I have it figured out), and I'll be doing a post-jam version where I clear some stuff up, add some content and extra endings, and enhance the art a bit. I was pressed for time, and there was a lot of art assets and animations I made which went unused... once things get going, I had ten hands that popped up from the ground and tried to grab you and your the character you're escorting, but I only had a half an hour to turn the game in and didn't get to add them.
I'm going to alter the game's description right now to add instructions. Thanks again!
Oh hi! I love point and click adventures and like the athmosphere! However it looks like the game is crashing when I try some things.<span class="NormalTextRun SpellingErrorV2 SCXW16575943 BCX8" <things<="" span=""> I </span>uploaded the video here :
Do you know by any chance why it's happening? I'd like to keep discovering the game!
It's a bug with the inventory system. Using one item on another item crashes the game, and sometimes clicking randomly in the inventory crashes it. I am working on the problem, but it shouldn't actually hold you back from playing the game all the way through. All the puzzles in the game can be solved by using the inventory items in the outside world, and all items that need to be combined can be done so outside the inventory (for example, when you get a container and want to put something in it, use the container from your inventory on the item in the outside world). Once an inventory item is in your possession, you can't use it on another item in your inventory, but the player will simply discard the old one and put a new one in the container if you click it in-world).
Also, you can switch cursor modes between EXAMINE, INTERACT, and WALK TO simply by right-clicking... no need to use the inventory menu for that (and there's no way to select WALK from the menu).
Good luck! There's a lot more to find and a deep mystery to unravel... and two endings! Neither of which you shouldn't be able to reach given the current bug. Just make sure you save often (which is always good advice in an adventure game anyway), because sometimes any click in the inventory can make it crash. I was able to play it all the way through several times with no crashing at all, and one time in one of the more tense scenes I accidentally missed the item I was reaching for and crashed it.
...now that I said that... I think I've realized what the problem is. Wish me luck, and good luck to you on your investigation!
Thanks for the reply! The use of right click was not evident for me, now it's better!
That was a hell of a ride, I really enjoyed the experience!
Some feedbacks: The base speed is a bit too slow, I would increase it. And there were multiple times where I didn't know whether I should use the "Interact" or "Walk to" action to go from a place to another (get out of the house or go inside the hole for example). Also, there were some times where it was hard to move, I had to click a lot on different pixels to get down of the tower haha
anyway these are small details, I liked the atmosphere, sounds and I actually jumped and had goosebumps at some moments
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. The Interact/Walkto discrepancy is a flaw with the engine, or I wouldn't have made it that way. You can, however, turn the speed up in the settings panel (bottom right).
Thanks again for playing!
This was really good! I usually don't play graphic adventures but the story was really good and made me want to find out more about the mystery. Also, the setting gave me a feeling of solitude that was quite unsettling and creepy in its own way. Really nice game!
Thanks! I appreciate the time you took to play it and reply, and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Like your game, there's multiple endings, but there's also things to discover about the mystery that don't contribute to the ending you get, but give you more info about what's going on that you might never know you missed.