Cool game! I got the high witch ending. I want to try using a Gods Bile but haven't got it. I suspect I need to do something with the cube in "spiral mode", the shrine, and the Omen. And I'm still not sure what the mirror scroll is for, he. Any hints?
Thank you, and nice work!
The mirror scroll is a hint towards the high witch ending and the other mirror ending. Seems like you figured it out :) Maybe you can get the wizard to talk with you about in more detail…
The shrine indeed refers to the cube, and the spirals do match. I would try to make it happy and go back to the shrine
I got it! I think so, heh. I got an ending called "Ending", a "House Ending", and "Jumbled Ending" (funny lol). Are there any more endings?
Some little feedback:
I didn't get the "making cube happy" puzzle until you mentioned that it needed to become happy. There's some clue that the wizard says about "not making it upset" or something like that, the shrine does say something about "shape" and "senses", and of course the "didn't like that" is some kind of clue to it, but I think it would've really helped if the cube had some "feedback" on each sense if it had been fulfilled. i.e., first time I played, I accidentally did ear-shell, and the shell became non-interactable, but the cube on the ear side remained the same. Some change would've indicated that I need to change all / more sides.
Unless I missed something, the "go through the mirror" is kind of weird. I discovered it accidentally without using the scroll the first time. And for me, it didn't seem to do anything. It seems that it changes the ending. But does it affect anything else in the world? It's a very weird mechanic.
I liked a lot that you have 2 ways to unlock the books (killing the Wizard and fooling him with the mask), which kind of affects the gameplay - first time I played, I killed him, but he does give valuable information about books and scrolls. That was cool. It would be interesting if there was a way to also move forward with the story without killing your masked friend - maybe there is! and I haven't found it. I'll try that tomorrow.
PS: The virgin with the knife is the best character.
I really appreciate you playing and giving all this feedback, thank you :D To your questions:
- There's a small bug with ending names, "Ending" is supposed to be "Goddess Ending." There are a total of 4, the first you got (High Witch) is a bit of an outlier where the player performs the regular Hearth Ritual but in the mirrored state
- I'm glad you caught on to some of the hints we laid out for Conception (the cube), and I agree there could be some more clear feedback when a sense is finished.
- I severely underestimated point-and-click players, I had supposed no one would find the mirror world, let alone find it accidentally. But now that I've seen it happen a few times, I totally agree, I would like to figure something out there. Maybe "gate" it until the mirror scroll is read / used.
I would have liked to have more mirror interactions, but its only use is for getting the alternate endings. The wizard explains some of the mirror stuff, but most lore I have written for it didn't make it into the game for different reasons. Happy to explain more if you're curious. - It would be nice to have more split paths like that with the Wizard, but time didn't allow, so don't sweat trying with others. The main reasoning for including this specific split path is wanting to reward players who were suspicious of the shadow / or the given "authority" like the creature in the cells, since blindly trusting them leads the player towards a "doomed" ending
Just to add to the "point and click players found mirror accidentally", there's a bit more... To enter the mirror you need to be looking through the fireglass and jumbling, right? I think most players would check most stuff with the fireglass as you know it shows new stuff. And, if you go from the Omen room, you will be jumbling to get through the metal gate. In my experience, as you needed to jumble multiple times, I ended up always being jumbling. So meeting both conditions is fairly easy. In fact, the first time I played I tried to interact with the witch in the mirror and failed, because I was always jumbled. Next time I played I discovered that you can interact (sort of, doesn't say much) with the witch by not-jumbling. That's how it got discovered accidentally.
Great game and good luck with the jam!