Cool bro. You did a great job with your first game. I played it and got my friends to play it as well. And thoroughly enjoyed their frightened reaction.
But I couldn't overcome my feeling of incompleteness at the end of the game. There are two doors that remained locked. One to the right of the basement door, that you clarified. And second one which is the door on the left when you enter the stairs. Any explanation for that?
Also in the basement, there is a sword holder but the sword was missing, which the character comments about. I was expecting to find a sword by the end of the game, but sadly couldn't. It is part of the special ending, or did I miss anything.
Anyway, I greatly applaud the effort you put into the game. It came out as perfect as it could be. I will replay the game again and try to find the secret ending. All the best, looking forward for your future projects.
You're right, that sounds really weird! These are both technical and artistic choices. I'll explain it to you.
Basically I wanted to make a short game with a simple scenario because it is my very first game. Since there is no inventory or map to find your way around I did not want to make the whole house accessible . However, the player sees in advance the outside of the house.
I wanted to respect a certain architectural logic by putting a few doors that reminded the player that the house is indeed bigger than what he has access to.
Making them inaccessible reinforces the fact that something or someone seems to be pulling you down a specific path.
But in terms of pure gameplay it is true that these 2 doors can be confusing.
As for the empty sword display, this is one of the few foreshadowings that I put in the game. If you don't know that word, this is a process of inserting more or less subtle elements in the heart of a story in order to give the protagonist a clue about his final destiny.
In this case, if the sword is missing, someone is currently using it to slice something.
in the same style, you have the patterns of the 1st enigma which represents a sword, a head without body and a plate.
There are also the three chairs in the reception lounge. 2 are on the ground and only 1 is still standing. it is a metaphor for the guests.
I'm not going to quote them all, but I think it may have helped you understand some of my choices.