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Very trippy and cool style! Love the aesthetic, it worked really well :)

Since the ratings period is just about over now I figured it wouldn't hurt to share what the full layout of the cave looks like.


Also, here are what the characters look like with their materials applied:

Hey no worries! I didn't take it as it being harsh or anything haha, just wanted to clarify that it was a bug and not a lack of time/over-scope thing.

There are 9 audio logs in total, so definitely more than 4! It's only necessary to go underwater for 3 of them though. It's a bit difficult to say how many underwater areas there are exactly, as a lot of it is all interconnected. There is one large research chamber that is only able to be reached by swimming, and that one in particular is where I imagine most people got lost and died, as there's one split where it's a dead-end to the left but the right goes to the research area. There's also one long interconnected underwater tunnel segment that is broken up into two areas where you can surface. It connects one of the research chambers you can get to without swimming all the way back to the main central chamber (where you can refill your glowsticks).

Again, no worries about your feedback, it's what the jam comments are for :) Besides, the level design is certainly far from perfect as I'm not really a level designer to begin with. I can completely see where some areas could feel very same-y, especially given the dark lighting. Thanks again for your feedback and playing the game!

Very impressive entry, especially from a solo developer! Really enjoyed the polished aspects of the cutscenes. The arctic winter atmosphere was really well done, and although a pretty short experience there was a lot of different gameplay elements going on, even ones that only got used once. The setting and atmosphere is very reminiscent of The Thing, which I assume was an inspiration, so well done on that! The shooting did feel a little janky, but it's understandable considering everything you had going on. Honestly my only criticism is once the monster broke free the metal music completely took me out of the great atmosphere you had built up. Don't get me wrong, I like the music, but it went from feeling moody and creepy to suddenly feeling like I was playing DOOM 😅 But hey that's just a minor gripe that is easily fixed. All in all you did an amazing job and deserve far more plays and ratings.

Really unique concept! It was fun flying around and although I only managed to find one person to hook into I got them to go to the pier and dive off the edge, which seems to have ended the game. Not entirely sure if that was all or if there were other endings, but still pretty cool regardless. Only minor criticisms I have would be that the sky and bloom are super bright and make it difficult to see the directional keys and text when hooking into a person, and that the post-process effects felt a bit too strong to the point where it made it somewhat hard to focus/see. Great job though overall, super interesting!

Really liked the idea for this one, but unfortunately I struggled to make any progress. I tried like 7 different monsters using all different potion mixes but nothing had any kind of success. I desperately wanted to look at the witches handbook to try and figure out what I could use but I couldn't get it to work. Not sure if it wasn't implemented or if I needed to use a specific key to bring it up?

Very interesting story! I had a chuckle at the beginning considering the deep nature of the discussion the school girls were having. But it definitely got serious in tone as I progressed. I found it more creepy once the piano music stopped playing, and the girl all twisted up like a pretzel was definitely unsettling! In the end I got the bad ending (Ending B). Nice work overall though!

I love escape room and puzzle games so I was really excited to try this out, but it seems like no matter what I tried I wasn't able to advance past putting the gun into the computer. I saw the equation pop up but could not figure out a way to input an answer. It seems like from other comments you didn't have time to finish, which is understandable. Just wondering if there was a way past where I got stuck or not.

Overall it's a good start though, and I hope you find the time to complete it. I would just suggest removing the time for the game over, or at least extending it quite a bit. The first time I saw it I was literally reading the rules XD

Wow, thank you for the very detailed response! Very happy to hear that overall you found it to be a good experience.

A couple small things to note - so the untextured body was actually a bug in the build process. The character models were fully textured and worked in editor, but somewhere in the build process it had an issue compiling the material shader. The fix turned out to be simply re-saving the material and it worked just fine on a subsequent build, however I only noticed the bug right after submitting so nothing could really be done since we didn't feel like it was in the spirit of the jam to upload a new build with the fix even though it would have only been slightly after the deadline and the option was still there. We will be uploading a build with a lot of small bugs and frustration fixes post-rating period though!

As for the level design I will certainly take your critiques to heart. Originally our team had a dedicated level designer and I was just the environment/props artist, however that team member unfortunately went AWOL within the first few days so my workload effectively doubled by having to not only create all the environment assets, but also create the level - something I have very little experience in. I think with more time I could have made certain parts of the level more uniquely identifiable, but sadly I just didn't have as much time to work on that aspect of it with all the other things on my plate. I understand with the low lighting it might seem like some tunnel sections were copy/pasted, but truthfully not one area of the cave is identical to another. I hand placed every one of the over-1,500 environment meshes that comprise the environment 😅

The next time I end up having to do level design within the confines of a jam though I'll definitely focus on trying to make key areas more visually distinct! Thanks again for the detailed response!

Hey thanks for playing, and the detailed response! Yeah in hindsight the death going back to the main menu instead of reloading in the cave was definitely an oversight. We're going to be releasing an update in the next day or so that fixes some frustration points like that as well as some minor bugs. Still, we definitely appreciate you sticking through it as much as you did. Unfortunately the time-frame of the jam didn't allow for the scope of a full fledged save/checkpoint system, but if it were a larger project it would definitely be a top priority!

I wouldn't say irritating, just the intensity of the effect was a little distracting at times. Not a big deal though!

Thanks for the kind words! I was able to watch a replay of your stream where you played it, which was very nice to see. Much appreciated!

Nicely done. Took me a couple attempts to get to the end of the story, but at least there weren't a ton of false/bad paths to navigate. The artwork was very well done and the writing left me interested in learning more about the world. I imagine you wrote a lot more that you simply didn't have time to implement.

Very nice work! Great visuals, narrative, and overall atmosphere! 

My only minor criticism is the CRT effect felt a bit too strong, especially the bright line that went down the screen.

Thank you so much! This is really exciting news, I'm sure the whole team will be thrilled to hear it. And thank you for hosting the jam!

Ah, understandable. All of the puzzles felt very solid leading up to it, so I'm sure if you decide to continue developing it and rework those last couple they'd be just as good. 

But hey, I wanted to share a link of my playthrough of it. Ended up recording some games I was playing/rating the other night and yours was one (actually the longest! haha). Check it out for some feedback and/or entertainment. Your game starts at 10:27

Happy accidents are always the best thing about jams for sure! By the way I wanted to share a link. Your game was one of the ones I played the other night while I was making recordings for the jam, so check it out if you want to see me playing it. Yours starts at 59:39

Hey, glad to hear you made some updates. As for seeing how people play I hope this helps. The other day I ended up recording gameplay of a handful of games I played and rated and yours just happened to be one of them. Here's a link, yours is the first on this video so no timestamp needed:

I think it might have to do with developer/debug mode being enabled during building. I don't know how godot works, but in Unreal and Unity the file size of your build is increased if you have developer/debug mode turned on. I think it adds additional binaries/packages to the build that release builds don't include, thus inflating the file size. My main suspicion for this being the reason is that I noticed the title bar of the application said [DEBUG] after the name.

Pretty cool game with a very fleshed out backstory and lore. I liked the idea of giving away my powers to progress and it fit in with the concept of becoming nothing and giving away everything in order to traverse the depths of the nothingness/void. I was worried at one point that I got stuck and wasn't able to make it any further but I didn't immediately realize I could use the claw to get rid of the large blocks. 

Anyway, cool story, liked ringing that bell! I think I beat it because I turned into star stuff at the end, but then I was able to walk around and fell into an endless gray abyss? Honestly not sure if that was a bug or meant to happen.

Edit: Your game was one of the ones I played the other night while recording. Check it out if you want to see my gameplay and get some additional feedback/entertainment. It starts at 1:00:17

Hey, as a fellow puzzle person I just wanted to say well done! I picked up on how to complete the puzzles fairly quickly and how each symbol had its own purpose/created its own path. I was actually breezing through it up until the last symbol. It took me a lot of trial and error and by the final 2 puzzles I was kind of guessing as to the role it played in completing the chain, but I did end up beating it! I think my only suggestion would be to have a different set of puzzles for introducing the orange symbol because they make it seem like you need to alternate the symbol with another symbol but then the very next set of puzzles make it clear that that's not necessary. All in all though a really solid puzzler :)

Pretty cool experience! Quite unique and dark story. Had me guessing til the end on which one of us was going to make it out of there.

Edit: Wanted to share a link of my playthrough. Hope it provides some valuable feedback or at least some entertainment! Starts at 0:00

Nice and enjoyable short story experience! Congrats on completing it since you said it was your first time completing something to the end. It can definitely be tough, so well done. I liked the story that unfolded and the bite-sized puzzles and tasks required to advance it. The need to go around and feel the walls was really unique! I only wish there was some music/ambience and a few sound effects to really help you get immersed in it.

Hey I had a lot of fun with this one. I love deckbuilders so I got the gist of it really quickly. Everything made sense and the mechanics worked well with eachother. Only downside is the same thing that can affect all card games and that's RNG. I came super close to beating the boss but that RNG hit me bad with so many attacks of 25+ damage that I literally couldn't block anywhere close to all of it that they whittled me down just a bit faster than I could stick it out for. Would have loved to try again from the boss but unfortunately it would have meant starting over from the very beginning. Really solid game though, very enjoyable!

I think something that could help balance it is either getting an extra card to choose from after each victory, or the option to remove a card from your deck when you gain a new one (thinning out starter cards). Another option could also be cards that have a currency value when played and a shop you can visit in-between battles to either heal up or purchase more cards for your deck. Maybe even cheap but powerful one-time use cards or something! Anyway, just some ideas!

EDIT: Just wanted to add a link. I played your game while recording and uploaded some of them so the devs can get some better visual feedback. Your game starts at 31:03

Very cute and well made visuals. Great style! I think the mix of mechanics and having to switch back and forth to accommodate his hunger and wellbeing worked pretty well for the most part. I could easily see this being expanded on to where there could be multiple veggies or even cooking to combine them for a super hunger boost or something. Having more types of games to play would be great as well, but of course its beyond the scope of the jam so not a criticism or anything. I also like that you could buy humans to feed him, I only wished they staved off hunger loss a bit more as once day 8 or 9 hit it felt impossible to keep up with the hunger even after feeding it a human and rats and veggies! But very cool game with a solid foundation that I could see being built into something bigger.

Edit: Just wanted to add a link. I played your game while recording and uploaded some of them so the devs can get some better visual feedback. Your game starts at 16:53

Thank you for the kind words, our team worked quite hard during the course of the jam. Also I'm happy to hear that you found the pacing and length good, puzzles are very difficult if not impossible to balance for everyone so I think that means you're pretty much the target demographic for this level of difficulty haha. 

Oh and thanks for the feedback about the pause menu. This was something we added post-submission and I think the cursor bug just got overlooked. I assumed it was a web browser issue but I've since confirmed it also appears in the windows version so I'll have to ask our programmer to take a look at getting it fixed so thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Thank you! I hope you end up making it through to the end. If you need any hints you might find some here in the comments or you can just message and ask :)

Wow that's amazing to hear that you two stayed up just to finish it! Really happy that our team could make an experience that you enjoyed.

And thanks for the feedback about the note. I did notice the typo on one of my playthroughs but forgot to fix it before the last build. I'm adding it to my to-do list!

Thank you for the compliments, our team worked really hard on this one so we're thankful to hear it.

Really solid dungeon crawler. The tutorial setup was really well done for introducing the player to all of the mechanics. I thought the flashlight illuminating the true paths was a pretty creative twist on its use. Although I'm generally not a fan of flashlights and batteries in games, especially if combat is another concern, so I have to agree with @OzMaister on this one because I too often was wandering around without any flashlight battery left. It became both necessary to use in and out of combat between all the enemies and the constant hidden paths, and then it flickering as it got low made it even more difficult.  I also encountered an unkillable 'doomfish' during my playthrough that ended up stopping my ability to progress any further. I ended up having to respawn as a new character, run from the doomfish to find a battery, kill my previous self, figure out where I needed to go, kill more enemies all while still running from the invulnerable doomfish so I ended up in a scenario where I would end up in a loop of doing this and dying over and over again making more and more enemies lol. Hopefully you can figure out what bug is causing that invincible doomfish because I'd really like to be able to make it to the end!

Thanks! Hope you enjoy it and feel free to ask me if you need a hint or two.

Ohhh gotcha! Thank you, I definitely need to take a look at the colliders for that then.

Hey thanks for playing and the feedback! 

I had no idea about those bugs but it sounds funny, at least the first one. I'll see if our programmer can get those fixed. What item were you able to get through the bookshelf by the way? Just so I know what to take a look at for the colliders.

Hey no worries, it's definitely difficult to design puzzles and find a balance between too easy and too difficult.  Thanks for playing it and trying. If you do end up giving it another shot make sure to look closely at the bookcases themselves and not to get too distracted by the books 🙂

Wow, what a unique and creative game! Loved the old DOS FPS style of real image based sprites. I found it hilarious and great that I couldn't open gates at first because I didn't have hands! I kept trying to walk through hedges too because it seemed like they were meant to be, and it wasn't until acquiring the candle that my suspicions were confirmed. I think I beat it? Honestly not sure. I made it out of the maze through a narrow hedge and walked into the fog and it faded to black, so it seemed like that was the end but then it immediately restarted. Any way, really cool style and unique experience. Kudos!

Wow that girl really likes to talk! Haha, on a serious note it was nice and creepy. I especially liked the part where the cadaver followed you around and the little whispers were a nice touch. I do think that the audio on the recording was a little too low, I struggled at points to understand what was being said. Also it was a lot to take it all at once with one long recording that never stopped. But anyway, nice and unsettling story, very imaginative!

Very unique and expressive work! I really enjoyed the DOS style dungeon adventure aesthetic. I ended up playing through a couple times to experience the different paths. The sounds complemented the visuals and text descriptions nicely. I was a little disappointed I didn't come across the symbols like in the images on the page, not sure where they were but I was looking forward to trying to decipher it, but maybe that's a result of the randomization? Like I said I tried it a few times but only ever had a few options, so I might have to give it another try and get lucky.

Really interesting entry and take on bullet hell. I liked the introductory story with the mysterious traveler. The gameplay itself seemed fairly rough though, so hopefully you can flesh it out a bit more. I think some things like having the character rotate to face the direction they move along with making the bosses not be stationary and defenseless would go a long way towards making it more engaging to play.

Hey a fellow "Echoes" game, nice! Really liked the ability to pick up and use any object for combat, and that they all had different values for breaking. Game design was pretty good as there was generally always an object or two nearby an enemy for when your current one broke, so I really liked that. The ability to throw things was cool too, definitely killed off at least a few of them by tossing little jars at their head! That said, I kind of feel like the throw mechanic could be polished up a bit as sometimes it felt like there was some input lag or things didn't go as far/fast as you felt they would. Visuals were nice and hit that retro-pc vibe quite well! Audio was well done too! Although there was one part in the corn maze where it sounded like I was walking on metal for some reason, not sure what that was all about haha. Nice entry though! I managed to make my way to the end and see the light at the end of the tunnel :)

I gotta say you really nailed the style of the PSX era third person horror games. Even the controls were slightly frustrating when the camera angle changed just like back in the day lol. I only ended up being able to walk around and read notes and then woke up from my nightmare. I read on the game page that you ran out of time to implement things, so hopefully I managed not to miss anything in my playthrough. If you end up developing more story and gameplay let me know and I'll come back for another go!