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Die a hero's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Horror | #1 | 4.125 | 4.125 |
| Aesthetics | #4 | 4.250 | 4.250 |
| Enjoyment (Best Game) | #7 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
| Sound Design | #9 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
| Story | #14 | 2.875 | 2.875 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
I enjoyed this game. The doom/duke nukem vibes felt good and the atmosphere was thick with the threat of the zombies making you feel uneasy and constantly on edge.
I have to say I got lost though.. I found like four different codes and when I found the one that was accepted I ran around everywhere looking for what changed to no avail. I'm not sure if it was a bug or just me, haha. I also feel like the enemy spawns added a lot of tension but maybe to the impediment to the exploration. Perhaps linking it to something like the player's progress would've felt better?
It was fun regardless. Nice submission!
Thank you for taking the time to play, I'm glad you had some fun :)
The codes needed to be input into the different keypads that were around the environment. Each keypad is 'hidden' behind a door that is essentially unlocked by killing enemies (killing enough eventually mutates you to a point where the light on your torch corresponds to the new door colour you can walk through). Unfortunately our tutorial was pretty crude so we probably didn't get this concept across very well.
The enemy spawns are tied to player progression in the sense that killing more enemies allows the player to mutate but also mutates the available enemies. It sounds like you may have killed enough that it unlocked an uncomfortable amount of zombies but not enough to unlock all the doors and give you more space to manoeuvre.
We really appreciate the feedback, it's given us some things to work on!
Oh crap! I wish I had known about the mutation because I think it was a really cool idea to make it diagetic.
I was too focused on trying to get the code right and assumed I had to complete the game before getting overrun by zombies. So I ran past all of them until I found the right code but the rooms were full by then, haha.
I appreciate how it feels like you're trying to give players the fun of discovering the mechanics for themselves. If you're taking suggestions I would say that players might be nudged to killing enemies and thus realising their mutation and it's effects if you made the feel of shooting them 'juicier'. Like if the bullets were faster or hitscan, the fire rate was improved, blood splatters on hit and enemies stagger to the shots though I understand how the time limitation could've kept you from doing more. The monsters spawning in the same room I'm in also discouraged combat for me as there was no vantage point I could use and it felt hopeless to try and kill them off.
Went on for a bit there haha, but I really like what you were going for. :)
Yeah we definitely didn't sign post some of the features/gameplay properly, I imagine most people would have missed the mutation side of things.
The zombie spawning still needs balancing - we thought one hit kills for the first set of zombies would be enough to sort out how many there are, but the time between spawns probably needs to be slower as well. I like your idea of nudging the player to kill zombies through more definitive feedback; we kind of assumed that would be the first thing people do, but then the results aren't always clear or satisfying enough to continue with it. We'll definitely be giving it some thought!
Alright. Good luck with it if you're gonna develop it further. :)
I enjoyed the game overall, gave me old-school doom vibes. The lighting was perfect for a horror scene. And the zombie noises were spot on. And every time I turned around and saw a zombie was quite the startle so good tick on the horror element. I also enjoyed the panic you feel when you as the payer have to enter the code before the zombies reach you, gave the game a good ticking-bomb vibe.
A few things I would love to see improved further are the bullet velocity and feedback in the gun it felt quite static when playing. Also, I had no feedback that I was getting damaged by the zombies ( other than the hp bar).
A small bug I noticed was I was unable to clear the code after an incorrect entry or it was unclear as to how I could do it.
Other than that a solid game, enjoyed it quite a lot Kudos!
Thanks for taking the time to play! The bullet is a good point, we struggled a bit with getting it to feel good without being too quick but I don't think we hit the mark. I definitely agree with you on the player feedback; we wanted to add more cues but unfortunately ran out of time so had to cut some polish in favour of bug fixing. As for code clearing, that was more a feature than a bug. We decided not to include a clear button so that the player had to spend a little more time at the keypad with their back unguarded. It might have been more balanced if the keypad auto-entered the code, instead of using an enter button. We really appreciate the detailed feedback :)
omg love the style i wish people would make more of these types
Thanks so much! Just so you know we've recently updated to fix a bug (you can now get through the yellow door, which starts the game properly), so if you'd like to give it another go feel free to :)
Man, that was freaky! Like the Doom-style FPS aesthetic going on. Adding lots of dark areas, limiting vision, and some creepy music really helped create the horror atmosphere.
I’m not sure if it’s just my computer though, but the menu shows up like this to me?
For the game itself though, it’s pretty good!
Thanks for taking a look! shame about how it appeared for you, we did have some scaling issues for the web build :( . Did in-game seem to match or was it just the menu that looked off? Thanks again tho!
Thanks for your response :) We definitely took Doom as inspiration, it's great people are liking that! We've recently updated to fix the camera issues, so if you'd like to try again you should find that the menu shows up normally and you can now get through the yellow door to properly start the game.
This game has an awesome visual and auditory aesthetic: the visuals are very reminiscent of old Doom games while the music takes a turn from usual horror games and almost makes it... solemn. Sad. I don't know if it adds to a horror tone for the game, but I like it, it's nice.
Shooting feels pretty nice, and I think there's a decent balance of how often the monsters spawn and the variation of the monsters themselves. There's just one thing you have to be careful of: when you die and return to the menu, the music starts playing again and layers on top of the original iteration, so now 2 are playing at the same time.
Really nice game. Fun, simple, and sets its tone well.
If you have the time, feel free to play Black Blizzard as well: https://itch.io/jam/screamortality/rate/978095
we started looking at doom and duke nukem, glad to hear we got somewhat close :).
We must've missed the looping audio issue, honestly the music was added later than we would have liked :/ but thanks for the feedback and thanks for taking the time!
Ill check out Black Blizzard :)
Thanks for such detailed feedback, it's really helpful! We recently updated to fix some of the camera issues, so if you find the time to play again you'll be able to get through the yellow door and start hunting for some keycodes :)