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In The Trees's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Presentation | #7 | 3.900 | 3.900 |
| Theme | #13 | 3.400 | 3.400 |
| Overall | #15 | 3.033 | 3.033 |
| Creativity | #16 | 3.200 | 3.200 |
| Gameplay | #16 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
| Horror | #18 | 2.300 | 2.300 |
| Story | #19 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 11 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: Thirst for Blood in your game?
I made the monster an Australian Monster that sucks blood and Blood Draining is the primary gimmick of this game.
Did you implement any of the optional Bonus Challenges, and if so, which ones?
Vampire: The Monster in this game is a Yara Ma Ya Who, an Australian Variant of a Vampire that looks like a Frog and sucks the blood out of its victims by jumping down trees and ambushing people.
Life Drain and Out For Blood: The Primary Gimmick of this game is the Blood Bar. The Main Character is bleeding out and if they run out of blood they die. Sprinting causes the player to lose more blood along with getting attacked, and the player can recover blood by collecting med kits.
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Comments
I found that this game was rather unique. You were really willing to take some risks here. The grass disappearing around your proximity was actually a pretty neat gimmick. Unfortunately, the enemies didn't behave in an interesting way. They just attack when you're close and you're pretty much screwed with no recourse. That made the objective of finding items annoying instead of captivating.
Per my son, "The horror: Make the game scary! Even if the theme, there wasn't much to the theme. Props to them! There was not a lot to the gameplay, so you get a 3. Story: I liked the story. Gotta have a reason why. I think that note told us a little bit about why. Creativity: this game is the odd one out. That's why I think it's very creative."
That's a fair assessment. Glad you liked some parts of it.
Great OST and initial screen. I just envy your UI :D We didn't have time to add one. I tried to fight those little demons at first pressing buttons at random but I realised it was better to run. Good overall experience from beginning to end.
Well I had a little help on Youtube for my UIs, though the extra week gave me a lot of time to decorate since I already established the gameplay loops well in advance . As for the little demons, yeah, you can't fight them. Thought the instructions at the start made it clear that your had no combat mechanics. Glad you enjoyed the game.
I love the music, and I love the silly little creatures. I was not able to beat the game (I kept running out of blood), but this is really well made, great work! I love the menu too, very cool.
Thanks for taking the time to play the game I made. I played your game too and it was pretty neat. Honestly, I don't expect people to beat this game on their first try since I decided I wanted to make it arcade-style difficult.
This game is visually very polished. I really liked the the design of the monsters. Those little guys mean business. I also thought the music was great.
I think the blood bar just reads as an HP bar, though. I don't really get a lot of the "thirst for blood" vibe from it.
The Blood Bar is your HP Bar and your Stamina Bar at once. It was supposed to be a single bar that the player was supposed to keep an eye on and maintain in their attempts to escape the valley. As for the "Thirs for Blood" that mainly focuses on the monsters I selected for this Game Jam: The Yara Ya Ma Ya Who. They're basically frog vampires. It's a little weird unless you read the hidden notes in the game and get a better understanding of the lore.
But I'm glad you liked the game nonetheless
It was good but not my kind of game, and I feel the sprinting making you lose health is a bit cheap
Certain games are just not for some people. I can see how sprinting and losing health can feel cheap, but at the same time, I wanted there to be a risk-and-reward type of system that utilizes blood loss and makes it so that the player simply doesn't blindly run around without thinking of the consequences. Appreciate the feedback though.
Fair enough. For what it's worth the game is good though!
Well presented project that technically and story wise was really good with controls that felt smooth.
I found myself just searching in a grid pattern and hoping for a find so I feel the design could of benefited with some landmarks to head towards. Maybe bring the whole level together in a more linear way connecting the landmarks with stealthier parts for moving past the Yara Ma.
Cool entry though and the Yara ma looked really good.
That's a fair assessment and glad you liked it. Tbh I was initially planning to add some landmarks into the map but I unfortunately didn't have the time to find the right assets to properly place in the game without potentially breaking the AI navigation. If I were to do it again, I think I would've made the jungle bigger and definitely with a lot more variation than what I did with the end product. Thanks for the feedback.
No worries
The game is pretty on theme and has some nice horror elements, but there's no sound that appeared to play during my playthrough which made it feel very odd. Collecting x items and medkits was a fairly simple and workable gameplay method, but felt like it needed something else to really make it rewarding. There was a note I found about the creatures I thought was interesting, as I had never heard of these vampiric monsters before. More little lore bits could have been fun, but I didn't see any others.
The game had nice art and ran pretty smoothly, but did not appear to have a way to turn off the blur effect which made me very nauseous while playing. The game's creation is still really impressive in that it was achieved in such a short time, and it definitely had a unique twist from the unusual monster aspect.
Not sure what went wrong with the SFX. I tested it myself so I know they work.
As for notes, there are actually 5 Notes hidden around the game. They're pretty hard to find but if you look, they're there. As for the blur, that was an accident that happened when I adjusted the lighting. I tried to fix it the best I could but when there was still blur I decided that technically works since the Player is supposed to be bleeding out.
I know this from personal experience after I nearly chopped my thumb off and I was trying not to black out from the pain. I'm honestly not sure how I can fix that problem though, so sorry about that. Glad you stlll liked the end product and glad to see you learned something about the Yara Ma Ya Who. This world is full of unique cryptids and creatures and it's honestly a shame nobody bothered to make a game about them, so I wanted to see if I can do that.
Update on the sound thing: After starting another game and not having sound, I tested a youtube video and it told me my sound rendering was messed up and needed a restart, so it definitely was a technical issue on my end and not the game. My apologies for that part though, but I appreciate you responding and going in-depth about all my points! I do agree though, there's so many cool stories and creatures out there, I always love learning about more.