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DUDE! Such a good horror game. As someone who has worked on and played so many horror games that I thought I could never be scared again you had me genuinely startled by your jumpscare and saying "no no no" outloud throughout the levels. Now let's get into the good and the bad, you said this was your first horror game and I have a lot of notes.

Pros: really awesome concept, atmosphere, and soundscapes, and genuinely terrifying concept

However... (Cons): it completely lost it's magic towards the end becuase you commited the cardinal horror sin of showing your hand. As soon as I had seen the monsters, experienced what happens when they catch you, and realized how easy they are to beat it completely stopped feeling like a horror game to me. By what I can only assume was the last level (since I rage quit after 27 attempts) I had lost al feeling of dread and was instead met with the frustration of feeling like I was playing a first person shooter with insanley slow movement and was left attempting to actively seek out and tactically hunt the enemies, ignoring the coins entirely rather than being the one who's hunted and even then I discovered the true horror of the game... RNG. Every death I experienced was because an enemy spawned somewhere that made it impossible to kill without getting caught. It feels as though it overstayed it's welcome without introducing any new mechanics and for the sake of a jam it could have been two levels shorter and been better for it. Additional smaller notes are that although I know weird perspective is kind of the point as someone who's borderline yellow blue colorblind the specific color scheme was a little hard on my eyes, and the ambiance on the "your time has come" level (I assume the final) was a bit too repetative for how much time the average player is going to be stuck there.

I hope my criticism doesn't come off as too harsh because you let me experience the magic of actually being scared by a game for the first time in years and I thank you for that, this is absolutely phenomenal for a first horror game but there are definitely areas to improve going forward. If I may offer some advice, a single persistent enemy that can only be deterred or evaded but never outright killed + a jumpscare for every death would be much more fitting for your overall vibe. I eagerly await any post jam updates if they come.

Your critiques most welcomed! I also guess that my implicit movement controls didnt really register well enough to the majority of players. You move a lot faster when walking forward (implied by the faster movesteps, >2x movespeed increase and increased camera shake), but i guess peoples first instinct when revealing an enemy was to keep flashing it while moving backwards. You are supposed to be able to easily outrun an enemy when you reveal them, and they die and respawn after a period of chasing you. But you are definitely right, the horror vibes changes into a basic game with bland mechanics once all the spooks are revealed.

ah that does make a lot of sense! I think a big part of the problem is your message of "they don't like to be seen" heavily gives the impression that flashing them to death is the only way to deal with them and since it's stated whereas the fact that you move faster running forward is just something that's shown through context clues it's the solution that sticks out as what you're "supposed" to do