Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
Tags
(8 edits) (+1)

I definitely found that the artwork and music was nice. The ending (not sure if there are multiple endings) was I guess okay.

Definitely found certain parts annoying, like the chase scenes didn't feel like a huge rush for me. The enemy disappeared by leaving the area then returning, so that felt a bit weird.

There were some passability and layering issues in the game as I demonstrated in my stream.

The dialogue was a bit odd at some points and the forced slowdowns were a bit annoying. 

Other issues I found:

It wasn't really intuitive where to go next except by blindly wandering around, one of the hiding spots ended up being destroyed even though there shouldn't have been an enemy there. Is there a hidden usage limit for hiding spots?

How did the main character already know about the mirror hall when there is nothing that seems to really point out the hall's name?

Why are they expecting the amusement park to work if it has been abandoned for years?

The mirror hall can end up with a hardlock (You can true hardlock yourself there and have to restart the game if you only use autosaves or save after hitting the lock, you can also semi-lock yourself). All purchases are basically useless except the chocolate bar. Buying other items can hardlock you. There is apparently a way around this if you know how or discover how, but this is not apparent in the game unless you happen to discover it. It is apparently supposed to be a puzzle, but lacks any real hints that it is supposed to be a puzzle.

Imagine I gave you:

OO
OO
OO


Then told you: Solve the puzzle. You might ask: That is a puzzle? With what clues?

Now imagine, I don't even tell you it is a puzzle. You might think it is supposed to be a die face of 6. You might think it is just some random thing thrown out there.

Nothing there tells you that you are supposed to turn the Os into + and add a - to the middle column. That means the puzzle is bad because there isn't enough information. I'm partially guilty of this myself (giving extremely obscure clues and very minimal clues), but in my case, it is usually more on purpose because most people aren't supposed to pass (ie. An extreme secret that people aren't supposed to figure out, such as the fact that in a certain map, hitting the top sign, top sign, bottom sign, bottom sign, left sign, right sign, left sign, right sign and then some other actions unlocks the debug key).

Now, what we know from the game is that you can attack enemies to push them back. If you try this on the mirror hall enemies, it gets rid of them. You have vending machines that sell items to recover your health and sanity, which are used when you attack. What do you think the most visible solution is? It is definitely not to move step by step (considering there are forced chase events in the game before reaching the mirror hall).

Imagine with the earlier example if the entire time before that point, your goal was to prop up the image and drop a penny so that it would fall through the empty cells without touching the filled cells when looking at it from the side. You'd think that that image was the same, right? Same issue here. The rest of the game up to that point teaches you that the game expects certain actions, then that one room defies those rules without telling you.

You can use subtle hints to help push the player towards the solution, but not having any hint as to what to do is just not a good way to design a game because it will just unnecessarily frustrate players. Part of good game design is making it so that the solution can be figured out. Take a Kendama for example. You have a stick, a string, and a ball.  The stick has two cups and a long pointy area. The ball has a hole about the size of that long pointy area's base. Very simple, but it is very easy to figure out the intended goal. You want to put the ball on the stick. No instructions really needed, but the player still can easily understand the goal. Look at the early M**** games. Very simple, simple instructions, yet things are fairly intuitive from there. Look at the ghost enemies in Super M**** World. You start off facing them so they are hiding. Then, as soon as you turn around, they start following you. Turn to face them, they hide again. This makes their mechanic very obvious without any real explanation. That first ghost acts as a tutorial without you even realizing it is a tutorial.

Yes, there are multiple endings.

Yes, there's hidden limit how many times you can use same hiding spots.


How does Hall of Mirrors Hardlock you? What do you mean buying stuff hardlocks you? You don't need money to win the game. You don't need to buy anything to beat the game.

(+1)

The dolls after you get the key attack you and you run out of HP and Sanity fighting them if you don't heal, so if you don't have enough HP/Sanity healing items, you are hardlocked.

You don't have to fight them. If you look at their reflections, they turn to your picture.

(+1)

Didn't work for me unless you have to do it on your way to the chest.

You do it whenever you see Momoko's reflection in the mirror.

(1 edit) (+1)

Definitely not clear in the game. Also, if you use up all the hiding spots, do the enemies stop spawning or is there a hiding spot with infinite usage?

(1 edit)

I mean that's literally a puzzle for the player to figure out, lol.  

Enemies can only spawn once in the same location. There's less spawn locations than there are hiding spot usages, so it's impossible to use them all up.


Edit:
I looked at your stream, you never looked at the reflections, you ran like madman through all of them and got attacked repeatedly.

(+1)

I did sort of look after, but looks like you have to look before they spawn, not after. 

It isn't really clear that it is supposed to be a puzzle and initially, I didn't run like a madman, I walked through like I would normally.

(5 edits)

Same. I couldn't figure it out. Not very intuitive. I tried looking at the reflections a few times but nothing happened so obviously I was doing something wrong. I ended up buying multiple health items, running through them, dying a few times. (Sometimes they walk over the mirror's hitbox, not sure if that's a glitch). One time I got lucky and managed to escape. If you try and go back they're still there. Reminded me of Pocket Mirror's mirror maze, which despite how frustrating it was, you had an idea of where to go and do for the most part. I'm just glad it wasn't a huge map.


I agree with you about the chase scenes and the layering issues. Although I do like the different monster designs, that horse was creepy. Also a really nice tile set. I played a similar game a while back that used similar graphics tiles, I have a screenshot if you're interested (I don't think it was ever finished). Also that broken giraffe sprite in the main park though, poor thing. :(

(2 edits)

I'm not really sure what you're proposing  I could even do to address this issue, that I should be  having Asuka go "Huh, my reflection sure looks weird, I suppose I should look at my reflection more" or something in that line? That would be really weird and tacky and completely ruin the thing. I really don't know how else to present something like that other than completely break the immersion of the player or put a tutorial box, which would eliminate the whole point of the room in the first place.


Honestly I feel that part of horror games, especially retro horror games like Clocktower is trying to figure out what to do and what's the sollution to the problem, even when they're vague. This is meant to be a  retro horror game and emulates that unknowing factor of what you can do.