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Esoterica's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Sound Design | #19 | 3.880 | 3.880 |
| Horror | #65 | 3.360 | 3.360 |
| Aesthetics | #77 | 3.920 | 3.920 |
| Story | #96 | 3.120 | 3.120 |
| Enjoyment (Best Game) | #159 | 3.000 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 25 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Really well put together setup, I really liked the audio and that ps1 shader was good :)
The only thing is that its unclear how to scan frequencies (a visual help would have been great), and how scans makes you progress or not (if its the case, I've scanned at least 5 times but couldnt check kitchens items)
Hey anoqmous!
Thanks for checking out Esoterica -- I am glad you enjoyed it! Totally agree with you. An indicator was in the works, but just didn't make it in time for the final build. Going to be one of the first things that is added once the Jam concludes and I start updating the game. I will also be sure to include some sort of progress system so there is a bit better player feedback. At the moment this is just the voice line that power levels on the radio amplifier are increasing, which in turn is supposed to be what's causing these anomalies to leak through and effect the room/cause events to happen (... or is the player just going slowly insane being confined to a room listening to weird stuff all day... O.o).
Thanks again for playing!
Very intense atmosphere, and the claustrophobic room definitely give it a vibe.
Submitted the report but nothing happened afterwards, still, pretty cool.
Hey SteelFever! Glad you enjoyed the atmosphere of the game. Definitely trying to make the game as claustrophobic as possible, but obviously there is a lot more work to do to get it to the vision I have for the game.
I didn't have any time to create a feedback system for how many anomalies there are per "level". The first level has two actual anomalies and then there are two stations which are just playing music (made by me, aside from one thing that I like on freesounds.org which was actually made by AI). Once you get past the first level of two reports then things start getting a bit more hectic -- you will actually need the flashlight and will hopefully start to get a bit stressed out.
Definitely give it another try if you get a chance because there is a bit more to the game than what you may have seen, but not necessary at all :) These things will all be addressed after the Jam and progress will be made public on Trello.
Thanks again for playing!
spooky! I liked the setting alot
Glad you enjoyed the game! I will be sure to keep updating the game and bring it closer to the vision I have.
The game is very well made, I didn't run into any bugs (I think) I'd say that the main problem is that the basket is hard to interact with, and, the screen suddenly went black and closed after I sent one report, Is that the end of the game?
Hey Fernando!
Thank you so much for playing! Apologies about the basket -- eeeeee! It's definitely a little too short even when crouching. Once the jam is over I am going to do a complete overhaul of the tasks/items to make them more interactive and not just simple press 'E' to interact sort of things.
It's entirely possible that you ran into a bug! There were some issues that I was ironing out with errant timers causing havoc in the background that would EVENTUALLY cause a hard crash. It's possible that I missed one (whoopsie!) If you have any more info on when exactly the bug occurred I would greatly appreciate it so I can go back and fix it once the Jam is over.
Thanks again for playing!
From what I recall, I have reported more than 10 signals. I don't remember if there was any flickering happening with the lights. After a report was sent to server (I think) the screen faded to black and crashed. (I played the web version)
Hmmmmm interesting! I will be sure to check it out. I know there was a bit more wonkiness with the web version, but that's definitely no excuse for there to be hard crashes like that. I will take a look and see if I can replicate it and get it fixed up!
Very well done for a first attempt. I liked listening for radio anomalies, the sounds to make it sound like tuning through the frequencies were well made. I possibly got a bug. I had turned off all the lights and was doing the scanning in the dark with the flashlight,, when the first event occurred (in the bathroom?). This made all the lights turn on, and the one in the bathroom to flicker. Then there was this loud noise that kept repeating indefinitely. First I thought it was intended, as it stressed me out having a much more difficult time listening to frequencies, which was great. But then as it continued on and on, I started to think it was not intended to continue like that? I think I found two more frequencies, got the voice to instruct me to continue and then tried to find more frequencies and gave up.
Hey Spelmakare,
Thanks for checking out Esoterica! That is definitely a bug and I know exactly where it is in the code -- haha. It happens because I hardcoded each event to dim the other lights gradually and sort of indicate better that something is happening. I will take a look at it once the Jam is over because turning the lights off was a late addition and I didn't consider what would happen if they were off and an event started (whoopsie!)
Also, sorry about that! When the event starts you are meant to do "tasks" which at the moment is basically just pressing 'E' on a couple objects and then flipping the lights back on. This will end the event and the sound/lights will go back to normal. I didn't have a chance to implement any sort of task hint system before the deadline (probably would have been some sort of glowing particle effect or just a task list). I'll make sure to put some more info on the game page so people are aware!
Thanks again!!
Show post...
I couldn't find the windows or web version to play. Could you please link me to it? I really dug into the aesthetics and wanted to play, even went to the devlog
Hey! Sorry about that. I was ironing out some game breaking bugs and then was struggling to get the files in the correct format for web.
Should be all fixed now, but let me know if you run into any issues.
EDIT: I also just realized the devlog did not have the correct files attached. It is now updated with the latest, working game files.