itch.io

Thank you so much for playing my game. I did have a lot of fun trying to match the UI aesthetic, I would have liked to have proper pixel art but 7 days was a bit short for me to learn XD

That is TOTALLY fair! I couldn't find music I actually liked and that fit the game's vibe, so I ended up going without. I'll probably commission a musician once the jam's over, I'm saving up :D

And thank you for the kind words, I appreciate it :D

Sorry... If that makes you feel any better, there's multiple endings where Vladimir is okay? ^^

I totally agree about the sounds and I actually am saving up to hire a musician once the game is over. Truth is, I wanted a very specific kind of vibe that would fit with the old macintosh aesthetic, and the 8bit songs I found leaned too much fantasy for the setting. I should have teamed up with a musician from the get go but I didn't expect I'd be so picky about it. ^^'

Thank you! People going back to get more endings is the best compliment someone can pay a visual novel :D

Thanks for the kind words! I can't take credit for the save system though, it comes with Renpy from the get go! :D

That's a really cool concept. I'd be so interested in seeing a longer version of this game, especially if we had a bit more interaction. Those character designs are gorgeous, I would love to learn more about all of them.

Also the little animated intro was great. :D

Only three days? Damn, you did good!

I struggled a bit with how "swimmey" the controls felt and how slow the character was, but that's all. Everything else worked great! And while I did expect the scare to come, it still made me jump lol

I'm sorry, I tried to rate it but almost 2GB is a lot for my old ass computer D:

I really like the concept you weaved from that prompt. Our identity is how we perceive ourselves, but it's also how other people perceive us and interpret us. And they may force their idea of who we should be onto us. There's a kind of banal horror in that, I hadn't thought about it.

Also you did amazing on such a short time, the animations are fluid and the dialogue tree was engaging. It's also really cool how you saved times with the faceless models and the hats. And it also works with the theme, as these characters identities are only contained in their accessories: if you stripped all the models, they'd be impossible to tell apart.

Also good lighting and camera work, it's great not having to struggle and squint to see what's going on.

Really interesting stuff!

Thank you, sadly there isn't a vampire vladimir ending because I ran out of time >_<

Thank you for playing my game!

I kinda used this game as a way to work out some real life frustration with my day job and I think it shows XD

It's a seven days long game jam, we do what we can! You did great!

I have to admit the Tposing victory screen made me laugh, good choice!

Also good use of genuinely creepy art, I just wish I could make the window bigger to look at the cards better. :D

The art is adorable, I love the dog's floppy ears and the watercolour textures everything has. The little intro movie was a very fancy touch, I hope you guys finish it.

Also we need a bark button to bark at everything. It's important.

I beat the game and saved our protagonist from DOOOOOM! That was pretty fun, kinda reminded me of Slay the Spire in the artstyle for the cultists (Slay the Spire is my favourite game so it's a compliment).

It was fun and simple, I just wish there was a bit less walking since there's not much to look at between fights and you have to redo it all over again if you fail. Maybe adding some spooky decor and greenery would help? Or have it be in a straight line, in a temple as you're fighting your way to freedom?

As others stated, if you have three items, you have to use the bottom one, the others won't work. That's the only bug I noticed.

I had fun!

Loved the dragon drawings and their little blurbs, made me want to unlock them all to read it all. I didn't have the patience though, the game play is a bit repetitive and sometimes clicking wasn't registering. Still, it was kinda fun and reminded me of old school flash games I would play in computer class when the teacher wasn't looking.

Honestly, FAIR. And it's such a minute detail, it doesn't change anything to the overall quality of the game. :D

I was looking forwards to playing that game ever since you posted the screencaps on discord, and I wasn't disappointed!

The artstyle looks great and I enjoyed the way the writing. They both have distinctive voices and you made them likeable in a very short time, which isn't easy. The final twist was so bittersweet, I feel like I need to grieve people I never met.

The one thing I would change is maybe add a way to close the game at the end, I had to call my taskmanager to exit :P But that's peanuts. I think this might be my favourite of the jam so far.

Ah, that makes more sense, maybe giving the friends distinctive outfits and having them wear the outfits in the photos would make it clearer they're the same people ? Like a red sweater, a hat, the sunglasses...

It was a huge project for such a short time and you got a lot done. I hope to see more from your team in the future!

It did seem like a very ambitious project and it's impressive you got this much done in such a short time. I'm looking forwards to seeing more of your games, you have some great ideas there.

Ok so as I told you on discord, I had a pretty good time playing your game! It wasn't boring, and figuring out the puzzles was satisfying. The animation when you try to turn off the internet is pretty fun. Couldn't manage to crash the game despite my best attempts, so you made it pretty solid!

Here's the things I would change to add extra polish:

-For the first puzzle, I wouldn't tell people to use a base64 decoder. It's a fairly common cypher in ARGs, so I would let people figure it out by themselves.

-For the second puzzle, I struggled as the design was very similar to the previous note (the clue to solve puzzle n°1). I just assumed it was a normal text file and didn't realise you have to have it open for it to work. I figured it out through multiple trials, but maybe add some buttons or make the box look more like an actual cmd window so it's more clear that an input is expected there. Maybe something like that? I think that would make it way easier to understand on top of making it look more real and immersive.

-I liked the mini game! Maybe don't start the level immediately so the player has a second to breathe? But since you can retry it over and over again, it's nbd. It'd be an issue if you had limited lives but that's not the case so... Eh, it can stay. :P

The story needs some work, I think? I don't really understand how the intro that references analogue horror, the locked computer, the child and his awful parents and the mini game text all fit together. It feels like multiple distinct stories, and they're all interesting... but they don't exactly mesh together at this point, it that makes sense?

Overall I had a good time and I'm glad I got to playtest it. I think you can make it into something really good if you're interested into reworking it, but it's already a fun puzzle to solve as it is. I'll keep an eye on your future projects :D

Alright so I gave this one a good try, and played it for about two hours and a half (I had to replay the beginning because I had to go get lunch and there's no save files, which is pretty normal for a game made for such a short jam).

There's a lot of good things, and some that need some polish. I hope you don't mind the review, I'll delete it if you feel like I'm being too harsh. I just think it has potential and so I'm taking the time to point out what (in my opinion, someone could have a different take on it) needs a touch up.

The maze with its slowly disintegrating texture and architecture as a metaphor for the protagonist sanity is a great idea.

However, I got lost for like half an hour in the first map, because the corridors are all very non descript and the pure white walls, ground, and fog make it very very hard to tell them apart. Maybe adding more "misplaced" items like the clock would help, or reducing the fog?

I was really hype the second time I got to the maze and there were the missing textures. I really did feel like the environment was breaking down around me. And it made navigating the maze a lot easier, as I could use those to know where I was. Plus it really gave a "glitching/falling apart" vaporwave vibe to the map which was unique and stricking.

I am not sure I understand why there were random dead soldiers on the ground however, and the registered message starting with a "I fucked your mom" joke kinda killed the mysterious/spooky ambiance.

Also nothing makes it clear WHY you need to press the levers. I mean, as a player, I press buttons because they're there, but I don't know why my character is doing it. Maybe making sure the player sees the locked door at the entrance of the maze and then letting them roam in search of a solution would help make it feel more logical?

The second scene in the flat was the weakest in my opinion, it was a lot less interesting than the maze, despite having more things to do. The VHS tapes is a simple enough way to give players missions, but if there's no image on the TV, an audio tape would have worked as well... Or maybe it was planned to have some video and you ran out of time? One week is a very short game jam, so it makes sense that you can't do everything.

The fact that none of the rooms were locked meant that the very first room I went in was the grandfather's bedroom and I saw his hand poking through the side of the closet, which kinda killed the later jumpscare. Also the dialogue was very strange in that section, I don't think the lines are playing in the correct order...? And the protagonist says he "can't do this to his grandfather" but he "needs the key"... but we don't do anything to the grandfather and there is no key. It felt like random? The subtitles also don't always align with the audio, playing too late, and the music is way louder than the spoken lines which makes them difficult to understand.

Actually the audio seemed to cut off brutally after a while. And while the silence can be spooky, since it did that every time I lingered too long in a map and nothing else happened, it kinda killed the potential scare.

The three friends bedrooms confused me because, well, there's nothing to do, you just wander into their room and then you leave. But you had established in the previous scenes that you needed to do something to exit a room (gather clues or press levers). So I kinda awkwardly hovered around, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do. Maybe having chains on the door that only fall apart once you visited all three rooms or something would make it clearer? Or maybe I'm stupid, lol.

I really liked the minigame with the radio and then finding the coordinates on the map, that was an interesting change of pace. However, then I had to grab a shovel and wander around some more for a ritual. And the navigation problem came up again as I could barely see where I was going and had no idea which direction to go... Maybe a map in that section would help, since we aren't in a maze anymore? So I got lost for about half an hour, trying to find my way... And I clipped through a hill and couldn't find my way back to the map. I gave up at that point as replaying the entire game back to the same scene would have taken me too long.

I don't know what the link between the dead grandpa and the three friends is (I'm guessing the ritual is to bring them back to life?) but as I couldn't finish the game, maybe it's all explained?

I hope this is helpful, as I said I'll delete it if you want me to.

Yes everything works now!

Looking forwards to it, it really has a lot of potential!

And thank you, I have painkillers and tea 💪

The aesthetic and the mood is amazing but like others before me I couldn't explore much as I ended up in a black void. I was able to pick up a nice out of scale burger though so that was nice. :P

Very addictive, I played for about an hour and a half! I think there's some balance issues, as it's pretty difficult but it's a game jam prototype, that's pretty normal.

I tried to bully the game a bit by going fast, clicking around etc... Only bug that arrived was that I ended up getting the "you farkled" once when I had actually won. That's the only glitch I managed to force though, and I couldn't make it happen again, so, well done!

This was good, I enjoyed the character designs and the hide and seek mechanic was interesting. I couldn't sacrifice myself sadly, as it only gave me an error message... Sorry Minka :(

I'm also very impressed you managed to give both of them animated blinks, it looks really nice and adds visual interest.

This was really fun to play! I liked the whole concept, seeing the world through a rat's eye was a very interesting idea, and the dungeon area was very fun. The nightvision also was a good idea, I kinda expected things to become visible when you used it since you made the switched functional. Maybe the bedroom could have specific markings on the walls, or there could be messages left by previous rats warning you of the poison? Also maybe a gauge showing you how much you charged your jump would be helpful, so you don't overdo it and yeet across the room like I did.

I enjoyed the fact that the code was randomized so you can't brute force it. The mechanic to remember clues is also a nice touch, especially since I feel like that game would be a great one to speed run, and having to remember the notes or write them down would make it slower and less fun.

My main enemy wasn't Beast, I think I only woke him up maybe twice and once was on purpose to see what the gameover was like. However the lighting made the platforming hard at points. I couldn't finish it because when I got to the end of the dungeon and tried to eat the satanic cheese, Beast got to me through the pentagram. I think I'll try again when I don't have the flu anymore, it was fun. Oh and some of the sounds seemed kinda random, they got me to jump once or twice but when nothing happened, I just started ignoring it. Maybe that was a bug on my end? My computer is old.

Despite bullying the game as much as I could, it was very stable and there were barely any glitch. The game froze, like, once? And when I got on top of the bedroom cupboard and jumped, I clipped through the roof. But honestly that was it. I'm used to playing way glitchier games in jams, so that was a really good surprise.

Also Beast made me think of NightMind, so that was a plus. The design looked properly spooky, but not overly so.

Overall that was a very fun game and I can imagine people trying to beat each other's high scores.

Thank you so much for playing my game! The aesthetic was strongly inspired by the Ren'py Hypercard Framework that I used (my first computer was a macintosh performa, so that was very nostalgic). I wish I had more time to do proper pixel art for the sprites and the backgrounds, but I had to cut a couple of corners for time's sake!

I'm so glad you enjoyed my writing, as english isn't my mother tongue I get a little self conscious about it at times XD

I don't know if I'll work on this specific game again for a while (I still haven't finished my detective story  VN and I have a fairytale inspired one in the works)... But I might hit you up if I do, solo projects are a lot of work lmao.

Thank you again :3c

So I tried to play it! It doesn't have an ending yet, right? It seemed like the game just kept looping.

The mystery seems pretty compelling, and I enjoyed the characters interacting with each other.

I can't say much about the aesthetics, as I'm guessing they're placeholders. Some songs in the tense or nostalgic moments would be nice, but I liked the sounds you used at the beginning.

It's giving Marble Hornet, I'm really curious to see where it goes!

Also came across that bug at some point.

Nope, I only lowered the volume a little, but didn't touch the brightness setting at all! Might be my screen setting?

Thank you for trying out our game! Really appreciate it :D

This was hard but I really enjoyed figuring out how the rules worked and retrying it over and over until I won! The goofy voice over made me crack up. Having way too many hours under my belt at slay the spire and inscryption, I'm always excited about card game themed video games.

I hope you do more, with more ennemies and different mechanics... Maybe something that would allow the player to generate more cards, because they seemed to run out fast! Either way, I really had fun.

I got the good ending on the first try! I didn't kill the monster though.

The walk cycle was a little silly, and I ended up having to go back and ram into the hanged man because he was getting in my way and I couldn't get to the key and note. It kinda removed the jumpscare which had me on edge, by making it funny? I also ended up not using the flashlight at all, it didn't feel like it was that necessary.

That being said, great aesthetics, good voice acting, and some genuinely tense moments!

I really enjoyed it, a horror game themed after ballet is pretty rare, as far as I'm aware! It's very original. And Tchaikovsky is always a pleasure to listen to!

If you were to make a longer version, it'd be really cool to get little hints about what happened to the kid, why she's haunting miss Pirouette, etc... just little details that would make the horror that much poignant.

It was really fun.

I took a lot of inspiration from Alien in general and Gieger's work specifically when painting the textures, I'm really happy to see that the vibes are correct :D

Thank you! I think the point was to have an arcade vibe, and also to add to the stress, as you can't move while you're aiming? Thanks again for giving our game a try!

Thank you, it's been really fun working on this game with our team :D

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much for all the kind words! <3 Our team lead and dev did all the animations for the characters and the 3D models, so like 80% of the creep factor is thanks to him!

Yeah the end and game overs screens aren't working apparently. As it's not a game breaking bug, it probably won't be fixed until the jam is over.

(I didn't realize you could kill the first enemy, that's really funny.)