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A jam submission

The BoysView game page

A short puzzle-horror game where you have nothing but a flashlight and a will to get through the night.
Submitted by Chriq — 2 days, 1 hour before the deadline
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The Boys's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Theme#63.1253.125
Story#63.2503.250
Gameplay#102.8752.875
Overall#112.8332.833
Horror#122.5002.500
Creativity#192.7502.750
Presentation#212.5002.500

Ranked from 8 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 of the game jam in your game?
The monsters chasing you will slow down from burns if you shine your flashlight on them.

Did you implement any of the optional Bonus Challenges, and if so, which ones?
Let there be light: in the final scene, the lights turn on in one of the rooms

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Comments

(+1)

Really liked this. Character design reminded me off the horror game House.
I wish the shadow mimicked player movement and was a puzzle in its own right. 
Amazing entry, awesome job. 

Developer

Thanks so much! Yeah I took a lot of inspiration from House and based the character animation on it. I just love the spaghetti arms lol. That's actually a really cool idea, I've been looking for a way to make enemy encounters more interesting and less frustrating. Might appear in a future version :)

Submitted(+1)

Fun puzzle game!

Developer(+1)

Thanks!

Submitted

You're welcome!

Submitted(+1)

The difficulty level was just right for a game jam, making it accessible to a wide range of players.

What I liked:

  • The puzzle gameplay is really enjoyable and keeps you engaged.
  • The character animation is hilarious , I loved its floppy arms.
  • The game fits the game jam theme very well.

Suggestions / Questions:

  • I'm curious about the decision to have fixed movement instead of free-roam. Was this intentional for gameplay reasons?
  • While the use of the E key to interact with items and doors works, it does take away from the immersion a bit. Especially when running away from the creature. 
  • I encountered a bug where I'd die regardless if I'm being close the the creature or a screen or two away. (I'm just seeing the closet thing, sorry)

It's clear that you put a lot of care into making it, and it shows. Keep up the great work! I can see this becoming a bigger project in the future.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! I did put a lot into making the game, so I'm glad it comes across :) I do agree after all the comments about player movement that free-roam would probably be better. I originally made it grid-based to line up with the movement of the puzzle blocks, but now thinking about it they don't have to be the same. 

I'm also reconsidering the whole hiding in closets mechanic. It seems to be the least intuitive part, and I feel like it takes a bit away from the puzzles which should be the main focus. But I appreciate the comment and I'll try to incorporate the suggestions in future versions!

Submitted(+1)

I played the game during game jam, I liked the puzzles, Keep up your good work.

Developer

Thanks!

Submitted(+1)

Cool game which I enjoyed trying. Had the same issues as Beregon. some more room to move around the enemy and tweaking the speed so you was faster would be nice.

 I found that with the enemy following me into the puzzle room upstairs I just went straight for the auto solve to simplify the room. 

May be nice if they stayed outside banging to build tension and when you leave they was stunned for a small amount of time for you to get passed. 

Developer

Thanks I appreciate the comment! I agree the enemy encounters are the weakest part of the game, and I'll probably redesign them for future versions lol. Glad you enjoyed it!

Host(+1)

I only made it to part where the enemy shows up, the flashlight didn't really help much and I couldn't manage to go up the stairs past them.

The visuals are good, though the light originates from the place your character stood when you turned on the flashlight instead of from the character.

The tile-based movement feels clunky, it's ok in the puzzle segments, but when the enemy shows up it just doesn't work as well as it should. You get a game over even when the enemy is away from you, leading me to believe that collision is based on what tile the enemy is walking to instead of the actual location of the enemy's sprite.

That said, the light-reflecting puzzles were fun while being easy enough to solve. The ability to auto-solve puzzles is an interesting addition. Reset is a great addition too, basically necessary since you can push the mirrors to corners and such and can't get them back out. So without the ability to reset, the game would be very frustrating, great thinking on your part to add this, developers frequently underestimate features such as these, especially in game jam games.

Developer

Thanks for the feedback! My friend ran into that issue while playtesting, and the idea is you're supposed to run back into the room you came from to hide in the closet. I tried to communicate that better by mentioning the closet in the opening dialog, and only having closets in the puzzle rooms, but I guess it's still not clear. I guess the best solution would be to give players enough time to get to the next room and hide there, since that seems to be what most people have wanted to do. I just have to make sure the AI can handle that :)

Glad you liked the puzzles though! I wanted to make sure people didn't get stuck and give up before reaching the end (though I guess the puzzles weren't the only thing in the way of that, haha). So I figured the auto solve button would let people get through the game fast if they wanted for the jam. 

Developer

btw, I just made an update  to fix some of the issues you mentioned. Burning the enemies stops them for a lot longer, so it should be feasible to get around them. I didn't have time to adjust player movement or the light spawning, but hopefully the experience should be a lot smoother.