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Hi all! I'm part of a 3-member team currently looking for another collaborator. We're a composer, illustrator, and writer/programmer looking for someone interested in any of pixel art, sound design (FMOD? SFX?), 3D anything, video, collage, or honestly anyone with a cool skillset that'd like to work together. Personally I love working with people I already know, but half the fun of these jams is finding new people to make fresh stuff with.

We've worked on a previous Scream Jam together on Recursive Dream (https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2022/rate/2029658) , and I've personally done this jam four times before, probably most notably with Dememorize (https://itch.io/jam/scream-jam-2021/rate/1241326). We all like making experimental stuff, but also like going for a polished and gripping final product. Unity is our primary engine, and we talk via discord (all different timezones).

Our team's likely making something narrative-heavy: not quite a visual novel, but mostly story with some exploration or other mechanics mixed in, depending on themes and ideas and the skills of the team. Influences include DDLC, Zero Escape, Dangan Ronpa, Ace Attorney, Higurashi, etc. We're tossing around ideas now about caves and exploration and Forbidden Places generally. Expect to have a lot of creative freedom.

If this sounds like your idea of a good time, feel free to drop a reply, or DM me here or on Discord (@psy_wombats). Thanks!
Psy (https://psy-wombats.itch.io/)
Jamie (https://jamieobeso.itch.io/)
Canvas (https://flatwhitecanvas.itch.io/)

Thanks for the comment! glad you enjoyed it

I really enjoyed the game. The writing and the visuals work really well together to set the stage. I definitely prefer this format over an actual adventuregame command interpreter thing. Sound might've been a bit underutilized -- I would've loved to hear Olivia or the taped seance, for instance, rather than just reading about them. The record player sound is certainly effective though.

I love the map but it's absolutely huge for the amount of stuff going on in it. I'd advise a minimap or other guide for an open environment this huge, and especially an objective list so it's possible to know when all the parts are actually collected. Neat theme though, loved the visuals of the ships in the sky.

Played through to the end -- liked the 3D atmosphere, although the briefness of it makes it a bit hard to get a handle on where you were going with the concept.

As a heads up, I had some /major/ performances issues on my machine (not a topline gaming PC, but optimized for 3d gamedev all the same). I haven't had any issues with other (larger) UE games this jam so I wonder if there's something weird going on.

The rules screen made it sound complicated, but I found the game pretty intuitive! Is the RNG fixed though? Seems like me and the opponent always had the same draw, so I knew the winning strategy.

Neat story! The quick ramp up with the room transitions was probably my favorite part. The second half was a bit flowery but it worked. The face of the "friend" was pretty creepy to begin with so I definitely appreciated the later changes.

Phew, it's obvious there's a lot of care and polish on this one, but it looks like it's on everything but the core gameplay, which isn't quite strong enough to carry it.  The creature design is excellent, and I love the use of lighting effects to convey tension. The bloom-y menu around the soul fragment upgrade screen is kind of a neat effect too. The whole leveling up concept is pretty fun and maybe the game would be better served by a lot of small levels rather than four absolutely huge ones. (though to be fair, to combat the big dungeon size, I just dumped all my points into speed). Anchoring is much more interesting than dragging and I could also see the enemy population going way up as long as the distances went down. It seems most enemies are neutralized by hiding behind the pyramids though -- not sure if it's a los or pathing thing, but they tend to ignore the player on the other side of one.

(definitely been there with the time crunch)

Thanks for the feedback! Yeah we weren't quite able to shore up some of emptier segments in the middle. More streamlined controls could certainly help -- we were also thinking something like fixed perspective and no movement within rooms.

I really like Silver Case, so I guess some of that influence shows haha. And the composer (Jamie) was directly going after a DanganRonpa feel, which was composed by Masafumi Takada, also behind Silver Case music.

Ah, sure:
1. collect money from Deimos Delivery
2. buy the items in Cybershop
3. leave Cybershop's store going south and trigger the scene at the red mist marker
4. obtain keycard from Buddies
5. go back to Cybershop... but you spawn outside the store and the automatic doors don't allow you back in
so at that point it's impossible to get the instruments in Cybershop required to complete Buddies

I like the concept but the mouse sensitively made it extremely hard to click anything. I got stuck at the music festival -- the keywords don't have to be in the correct order, do they?

Managed to pull through! The first chase was pretty intense, but once I learned the monsters couldn't enter rooms, a lot of the tension dropped off, and it was just a matter of figuring out a good strategy to navigate the maze. I have to wonder: what's the point of the locked door behind the player in the first room? I used my key on first load in and had to restart haha

That stupid barrel got me good.

Excellent work on the sound design, I think that was probably the high point. Add me to the list of people who had no idea about the flashlight until after they died, 90% into the game... that would've been handy haha. This is probably the most "immersive" horror game I've seen so far, so, good job on that for sure.

Cute art and a very heavy ending. Loved the style of the open/end sequences especially. I was confused about the mouse interaction a bit, but also there seems to be some aliasing issue at the current resolution that's causing the 'E' prompt to show up as 'C,' not sure what's up with that.

This was fun. I really like the idea of the four linked scenarios with the device tying them together. Very SCP. I think there's a slight issue with the Cybershop setup in that you can get locked out before using the keycard into the back room, making it impossible to complete Buddies. I wound up brute-forcing the last number but still got it haha. RM horror always makes me nostalgic.

Aw man, all the atmosphere buildup and not thrilling conclusion. One thing that might be fun if you get around to the postjam update -- I usually don't like voiceacting but this seems like the right place for it, with the player trying to drive while the story's going on. Radio music was nice haha

Yeahh that's kind of hard. It's difficult justifying time spent on jam stuff post-jam unless turning it into a portfolio piece or something (also why my priority in jams is always to just get something 100% finished haha). Could be an idea to just use the learnings here to apply to the next jam/game.

While I like the idea of having an environment so overrun by fog that it requires Theseus-in-the-labyrinth levels of strategy to navigate, that starts to come apart a bit once the environments in the school start showing up copy/pasted and it's no longer possible to get your bearings back after a wrong turn. I would've liked to see where this all lead! but it was super disheartening to take a wrong turn and realize I'd have to spend so long lost or backtracking to get back to it. Appreciated the BGM.

Took me a  bit to realize the game card existed, but the scenery was enough to get me to come back and revisit this one. This misty/foggy winter is definitely the strength of this game.

I also appreciate the code entry as someone who got jumpscared by one of those things as a kid haha

Well I went graverobbing and shot a creep in a hoodie. I guess that's a good thing? Cute portraits for sure. Some polish on the mapping and SFX would go a long way.

Neat entry, mostly appreciated the environment and the NPC modeling. The shader's neat too, applying the CMYK split when to the sides of the camera view -- really neat way to apply what would otherwise be an obnoxious effect. I would've loved to see this be a bit lengthier to really get the story going, but as it stands it's a very effective setting.

I like this sort of plotline, and I don't mind relatively graphic/extreme content in VNs, but there's a couple spots where there's some pretty heavy stuff that isn't treated by the writing with the gravity it deserves, specifically the discovery of the murder and the discovery of the amputated bodyparts. I also kind of lost any sympathy for the protagonist when he started bullying/hitting on the teacher haha. The dialog itself is pretty serviceable though and I admit the cliffhanger had my anticipation up though -- some revision/expansion and this could be something good.

This is a very effective and personal bit of fiction. It's tough for me to evaluate it as a "horror game" because I really think it's best as a story without any of the supernatural or uncanny bits and just as something deeply human. Enjoyed reading it.

Well this was pretty frankly disturbing. Something between the laughing, the eye swap, and the transitionless shifting is just very unsettling. I think it's /plenty/ creepy -- mostly because it's grounded in the extremely ordinary.

Thanks for playing and taking the time for feedback! I'm definitely going to be looking at some revision post-jam based on the info here (and a couple of other posts) with an aim to compact the story and get rid of most wandering. The art's my favorite part as well and I think merits the polish on the gameplay/story end.

Ahh this was fun. Love the 1-bit graphics for the locations, and in general all the visuals had a very eerie feel. The audio added to that quite a bit -- I think my favorite bit was the BGM with the reverse piano. 

The story's compelling for sure in that it keeps you reading, but I definitely found myself wanting more at both endings, but maybe that's a good thing. I would've loved to learn what the last two tapes were in the reporters' backstory were -- that was probably the most compelling part for me. This sort of reminded me of the VN "Return to Shironagasu Island" both for a lot of setting similarities, and that the plot touched lightly on a bunch of different horror devices without settling on one. While I think it results in a less "tight" story it's definitely a fun one.

But yeah, very neat! Thanks for making this!

Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed -- yeah it seems the middle segments are definitely the weakest with the whole semi-random wandering. Might be a good spot to condense in a post-jam version.

Interesting idea, for sure! Would love to see what this could become in the full jam timeframe. I would've appreciated longer-range audio cues on most objects I think. It was also a huge advantage after one object was collected as it could be used as a reference point light source.

Managed to get to the bottom. This has been one of my favorites so far! The gameplay is good and novel (especially scrambling for the hole in the dark) and the creature design is excellent. Not bad sound either.

Neat -- this is a great jam game, has a unique gimmick and executes well. It's super-disorienting navigating by spark, which I guess is probably an intended effect.

> enter clown world

Well, Absurd was pretty accurate for a title haha. I was expecting something more traditional from the fence and trailer shots but it all turned out nice and light-hearted. The talk noise for each character was a nice touch, and I think my favorite ending was the honk initiation rite just for the clown designs. The animation adds a lot. Nice font. I did run into a renpy error for a missing `trash_trash` scene, I think by trying to examine the trailer trash a couple times.

Fun premise and I enjoyed the portraits haha. I understand a lot of the design decisions in this game came down to time constraints, but two things I noticed that maybe would be useful in the future:
 - There's a lot of parts in the story where SFX could do the job the text did, and probably more effectively
 - It uses a lot of the uhh think it's called "WTF artifice" where some of the realism is broken by the protagonist commenting about how surreal the surrealism is.
Would be neat to see what this would've been with the full allotted time!

The prose was a bit much for me in the first couple pages but I got into pretty quickly and overall found it fantastic. The bug-themed BGM was neat but I also appreciated the room tones that I think helped to build tension well in the middle scenes. I enjoyed the more subtle body horror more than the ending bits, I think just because they were much easier to picture, and a lot more visceral for it. Unwrapping the duct-taped wound and maybe the amputation were tension highpoints for me. Nice job for sure!

I think I reached the end -- the music changed, anyway. It's too bad about the technical difficultes with the conclusion, as I was enjoying the story, especially the last message. Mouse sensitivity was definitely high but I had no problem with the lighting. Also I'm not sure if the door autoclosing was intentional or not but it creeped me out.

Maan I'm disappointed the demo ended there haha. Love the pixel art of the characters, and the animations especially. The x'd out photo is real nice too. The script could stand to be a little more formal (less ??? ,,, etc) for a more "horror" feel but the story works all the same.

It took me WAAY longer than it should've to figure out that I had to type in caps for the parser to figure out anything. Smooth sailing after that though, but now I'm disappointed that there's no conclusion haha

I think the blurry, wind-swept environment is the biggest appeal here, and could be increased through ambient sound. I'm not sure if it was the control scheme, but I found it very easy to get lost and very hard to figure out what I should be doing.

The Thing is pretty neat and the environment has a nice, eerie feel to it, probably because of the lighting. I really, really dislike the control/camera scheme though -- I understand it's an oldschool ps1 vibe, but I also think that the camera+controls are the parts of those games that have aged the worst. Here, it led to a lot of quality time with the Thing -- well at least the death sequence is fun haha

I love bullet hell haha. I didn't quite realize how shooting worked for a bit and it seems like everything the ghosts take a while to die. The art between levels was a cute touch.

(and I did read the readme!)

I really enjoyed this. Very well-written and with a couple points (Harold's karaoke, Dan) that evoked a real sense of dread. The clickable text is a nice way to make the fiction interactive without relying on choices (and a nice way to present flashbacks unobtrusively). The endings all a bit less down-to-earth than the rest of story but I liked #4 anyway.

I kind of disagree with some of the other comments saying it's the good foundation of a VN or something -- it's really good interactive fiction and it's hard for me to see what visuals would add. The lack of illustration really lets the writing do the work in some key moments (climax of end #1)