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One last question while I'm polishing my submission up; songs that have ambient noise mixed into them aren't permitted, right? Since that'd be two assets mixed into one.

Just wanted to check how much ambience is allowed in the track, for lack of better phrasing. I was considering using something from this album, but I assume the persistent electric hum would make it a no-go.

Whew, okay! Thought so, but thanks for the clarification regardless. 👍

Heya, me again! Been rereading the rules and just wanted to double-check something related to this.

My game's set in a corridor, and currently the introduction lets them "walk" down it by clicking on an end of the hallway. This then causes the camera to flip 180 degrees, making it seem like they've moved to a new location when they really haven't. Here's the (WIP) asset, and how I'm currently using it.

They're still able to rotate the camera at any time, so the entirety of the asset is always in use. (Except for the ceiling/floor, which is only at relevant points). Is this acceptable, or does this count as changing scenes? (No big deal if that is the case, it's not vital to the story.)

Howdy! I had a quick question regarding faux-3D assets.

I'm considering using the Panorama module for AGS, which renders a single background image as if it was a 3D space. There is no parallax effect, no modelling involved, you cannot walk around, and it is unlikely to be animated, but it would mean I can pan the camera left/right/up/down.

Would this be permissible, or is that not considered a "flat" result? Here's an example of an asset and the in-engine result (from a previous game I never finished - naturally, I'd be drawing everything from scratch).

Have you called Ingrid lately? She has some tips on how to talk to ghosts. Or you could always do what they do in the movies. There should be a catalogue lying around...

I'm not a mod, but if I had to guess, your game doesn't appear to fit the bone or horror themes.

Yes, they're remixes of songs from other games. Using them is still frowned upon in game jams.

At the very least, please credit the website you got them from and the person who made the mix. It's part of their terms of use.

You can right click to clear your inventory! Or just don't use the broom. It's not a necessary item, it just provides hints.

I've patched the issue out for the downloadable version, but AGS's web porting system has changed since I released the game so I haven't managed to fix the browser version yet. Hopefully soon, though...

Aha! Got a decoration now, thank you. (I did think it would be a little anticlimactic, but "slash" was the only verb the game suggested for violence at the time.)

Good to know some things aren't spooky enough. Maybe Wisty's taste in decorations could be a good use of the "think" command?

This rules, dude. Like, I'm struggling to come up with more coherent feedback than that. It's just really good and I want more of it.

Not bad, not bad! Though given the scarcity of ammo, my playthroughs largely felt like a game of "survive until the green ghost decides it's time for you to die."

I like the current blend of procedural generation. There's an even mix of confusing hallways and rooms to loot, and even though escape is impossible it still feels like there's a purpose to exploration.  I like that there's some variety to the ghostly behaviors, too, like ones that get mad if you turn the lights on for too long.

Also suffered the framerate drop issue, but that was easily rectified by turning the graphics settings way down. (For some reason the graphics preset lists don't seem to change anything? So if anyone reading this is confused about how to fix the issue - make sure you manually change the boxes at the bottom.) Other than that, a nice lil exploratory time.

Good fun, this one! (Though I sort of wish I'd got hit with the 1HP glitch the rest of the voters got, too. Feels like that'd add to the "clawing your way back to existence" vibe if done properly, but anywho...)

I won't talk much about the visuals; I'm a RPG Maker user myself and I have to slap my brain away from going hey I recognise that asset. Because it's good asset use. It's clear these scripts were added with a purpose, and stuff like chasing enemies and jumping past hazards do add a suitable amount of variety to each section.

Love the dialog - there's an even balance between dry humor and grim unease. Combat's a bit basic. I played as a Traitor so options boiled down to "click backstab" or "drink hype potion". Will have to try the other classes out some time to see how far it all goes.

If you do ever choose to return to the project, I'd definitely be down to see more. And if not - I look forward to seeing what you work on next!

An intriguing setting - a good blend of surreal setpieces and unsettling ambiance. Did give off a vibe of desperate survival. Never overexplained itself, never underexplained itself, just the right amount of mystery.

But... yeah. I'm afraid I struggled with this one as well. Eventually I lucked out and managed to click on the other city, which sent my little moving base into autopilot and got me back on track. But at the cost of sending my camera angle underground somehow, so I missed a lot of the spooks until suddenly I was dead and restarted from a checkpoint.

With a bit of polish, and maybe a few more red lights for guidance, this could be something pretty special.

Unfortunately there's no way to get the items required to progress, as the tree tiles surrounding the chests are solid. Might want to take another look at the tileset and make sure the top halves of trees are set to "walk behind". (It's been a while since I used RMMV, so I'm afraid I can't be more specific than that.)

Also, using music from existing video games is generally frowned upon. If you need music for your projects, you can find assets right here on itch.

(Edit: It also looks like you've submitted this to multiple jams at once. While some jam runners are cool with that, the Bone Jam specifically requested submissions made for this jam.)

Eyyyy, an Inform user! A beast of an engine but an underrated one for sure.

On a technical level I'm pleased to see all the usual shortcuts are working (it drives me up the wall when "x" and "i" don't work in text parser games). The prose is direct, so it's usually quite clear what parts of the scene can be interacted with.

I like the little variations the town street has as well, both with the bell and the locals. Makes it feel more alive - though I did notice some townspeople continuing to show up there when, er, they're not supposed to. With a bit of tweaking, the town square getting emptier over time could be rather eerie. (Also had a sensible chuckle over some of the townsfolk descriptions. Bob the Contractor sure is good at fixing problems!)

Unfortunately I'm also unclear on how to progress. Wisty doesn't seem to have an interest in decorating with anything (or anyone) I bring back to the house, and if there's a suitable verb for using the baking soda and vinegar I can't think of it. Still, it's clear what the escalation of the story was supposed to be and it gave me a good morbid chuckle.

So my first time playing this was a bit frustrating, as I got this really weird glitch where the pen would refuse to lock on to surfaces. This left me drawing surreal patterns in the air.  Thought I was playing some sort of avante-garde perspective piece like Superliminal, until I took another look at the gif and went "no. wait. I've broken it."

Rebooting the game fixed it, and I haven't been able to replicate the bug since, so the mystery of all that will haunt me. But moving on.

Fun concept! Took a bit to get used to the drawing controls but once I got the hang of it I could do it consistently. Felt good zipping all over town via the hub dimension and there's real potential there for puzzles or speedrunning. Gravity gets weird and nausea-inducing if you open a portal on the ground though.

In terms of visuals - I'm not sure if this project is going to lean more realistic (like the buildings) or stylistic, but I will say I rather like the gradient effect on the particles and the trees. Placeholder or not there's something charming about it.

Good luck with development! I'd love to see more of this!

Mmm, delicious tank controls.

Stylish presentation and a fun concept - I hope all goes well with future development!

Made me go "huh? .....OHHHHH!" out loud.

On a second playthrough I realized I originally managed to stumble into the ending trigger a little too early, but it didn't stop me from understanding what I was looking at. Shame there wasn't more buildup but still genuinely fun to play!

Oddly cozy, oddly eerie! Odd atmosphere in general, which I adore. Cardboard outfit best outfit, don't @ me.

Well that certainly heebied my jeebies.

I may have only known these characters for a few minutes, but I already love 'em. Excited to see where this one goes in the future!

A difficult game to critique given the subject matter, let alone give a number score. Hell, I don't know if I can even leave a proper comment. 

"How spooky or fun is it?" I don't know, Bone Jam. But it made my chest hurt in a good way.

So instead I'll just say thank you for submitting it, and I'll be checking out more of your writing for sure. Keep it up.

A spooky and adorable lil adventure! Excellent 2-bit animation, seriously there's not a single part of the visual presentation that doesn't feel polished. (I hit alt-enter just to see what the original resolution is and I have no idea how you fit that much detail into that few pixels). Seconding the request for a fast-forward button - the gameplay itself is quite snappy, but the text isn't (yet).

WarioWare-style combat is hard to get right, so again, props for managing to make all the microgames both very responsive and with multiple input schemes. Some attacks have very narrow response timers or visual cues that are tricky to notice - the red flashes at the bottom of the boss fight are something I didn't notice until after I died to 'em, for example.

Would absolutely be interested in a chapter two. The notes in the backpack were intriguing and I'd love to learn more about this town o' bones.

also i did not pass a single dice roll in either of my playthroughs. f.

Oh, to be a tourist double-jumping past security in South America.

This was interesting! Unfortunately my laptop is a hunk of junk and that messed with my experience a little (UE pinged me twice about unsupported drivers, lack of mouse sensitivity options threw me off a bit, and the controls are a bit floaty) but I still managed the platforming just fine.

Have listened to the soundtrack both in-game and on bandcamp and love it! Think it'd work well with some ambient noise to vary things up. In terms of level design... yeah, unfortunately it felt more like a game of "spot the level end trigger" instead of "lost in the backrooms". The entrance's design is quite distinct and there's nothing else like it, which makes it useful for navigation. But it also removes a bit of the horror and mystery, if... that makes sense.

It's also tricky to have a moment of "was that there before?" if new hallways are too out of the established path. Maybe move them a bit closer, or turn a light on (so players can see new stuff easier by turning the flashlight off?)

Don't really know how far in I got, unfortunately. Might give it another shot tomorrow and see if I can puzzle it all out. Nevertheless - a solid start, and good luck with the rest of development!

Bah, shit. Stupid complicated game. Thanks for screenshotting the error message! Think I figured out where I went wrong, but in the interest of jamness I won't be patching it out until after voting closes. P:

(Will def. look into the other issues as well! Text is easy to fix, but the card selection'll take a bit to untangle. Don't code at one am folks that's how you get spaghetti.)

Whew, okay. Pushed out a bugfix that hopefully fixes the crash. (Can't replicate it on my end so it's hard to know for sure.)

Let me know if you have any other issues!

Eugh, that's a nasty one. Thank you for letting me know! Just checking I've read the error log correctly - this happens when you try to launch the game, correct?

It looks like the script that handles the game's audio settings is having issues. Normally it creates a file in your computer's AppData or ProgramData folder to store these settings, so whenever you make a change or load a save the volume levels remain consistent. Buuuut it looks like it crashes when it tries to do this, meaning something on your computer is blocking it.

It might be a clash with your computer's security settings, firewall, or operating system. (What version of Windows are you playing this on?)

I might be able to patch in a quick fix when I get home from work, but the volume might not work as intended. It may be easier to play the HTML5 version in the meantime.

Heya! There's three endings - one for finishing all the puzzles, and two for giving up at certain points.

It's a short game that took most testers under 30 minutes, but it depends on how quickly you solve the puzzles and if you try to read all the optional dialog.

Gotcha! You can right-click to clear the item you're holding, but it's odd the broom isn't clearable in any other way.

I'll get on that.

Are you able to scroll down? If you don't have a mousewheel, there should be a down arrow you can click to reveal the other topics.

The last topic in that tree should be "Never Mind", which takes you back.

Hey, thanks for playing! Glad you enjoyed but sorry about the broom - that's a new one.

When you say it got stuck, do you mean the game froze, or that it didn't respawn (after turning the lights back on)?

Which window? The one with the mountain view and two vases? If so - try clicking the handles.

Nothing quite like a phone menu suddenly spouting numbers to make you launch yourself across the room for a piece of paper and a pen. Ten outta ten, did not realise how much I was tensing my muscles until the endcard popped up.

Love the visual style you used for this game! Super cool and effective use of greyscale, as well as Twine itself.

Really? Hmm. Thanks for the heads up, I'll take a look and see if I can figure out the cause!

There's nothing left to do in the forest room once you've gotten the item that was under the carpet. If you're missing the other battery, try taking another look at the stuff on your balcony. If you can't find your way back to the clock, try breaking stuff or moving stuff around (there's two routes back, but one of them is way more obscure than the other).