itch.io

Adorable little game. Definitely not much for spooks, but it's not really going for that. I like the deployment of dialogue cutscenes between the different cats and their color-coordination. I like that each cat has different personalities that come through in the dialogue. The gameplay is challenging enough to have replay value, and my only major criticism is that the double jump is barely relevant and that I found myself often overjumping my targets. I think a convenient solution here is to halve the distance of the first jump, and make the second jump about 75% of its current force. This would make it more important to double jump to get up onto platforms, and also make it significantly easier to hit ghosts that are just barely above you. Otherwise, this is a charming little game with a cute story and intuitive gameplay.

-Hadal

Played, rated, and reviewed! Thanks for your consideration!

Quite a unique and engaging experience! The monster composition is a bit rough, but once you see it in practice, it makes some sense. There are some elements here that I really, really love, like the speed-based initiative system, and the small board, but other parts of this are kinda rough, and it's likely a product of the very condensed development period. That monsters can't "flip" to face backwards is one of them. I had one monster who just became useless at a certain point because he was too deep into the map to hit anyone. As well, HP and Dam are significantly more powerful than speed, which results in some strange losses in utility for "fast" monsters. The music jams though, and the sfx all feel appropriate, if a little lacking in diversity. The art style is also great. It'll be sweet to see more parts and levels added to the game in the future, as well as more tracks to the OST and might I suggest unlockable shaders that will totally alter the color pallete? Just a thought. Anyway, I thought this was great! Excited to see what you come up with next!

Aesthetically, this game just works for me. The combo of B/W and old school PS1 era low-poly graphics is very satisfying. I wouldn't say this game is particularly scary until you complete your monster, and even then the scare immediately wears off because the monster appears to be harmless (I didn't stick around to find out). The gameplay itself is a bit finicky, but very engaging for such a project. If anything, it could be a little more forgiving, and (potentially) correct your placement just a little bit. I had some struggles getting enough pieces to finish my first monster. There also isn't really much of a story here. If anything, it's borrowing from the classic Mary Shelley Epistolary Novel, which I don't mind, but do kinda wish there was an acknowledgement, despite the story being public domain by now (I believe. I could be mistaken, I have done NO research). The sound design is also quite great. There's a satisfying click sound when you get a body part placed, and the ability to drop parts on the ground is helpful for rapidly accumulating a few needed parts, but the conveyor seemed to dry up after a certain time, so I wish Igor would hurry up with those bodies.

Overall, this is a very very solid demonstration of a concept, and I'd be excited to see this game more fleshed out after the jam finishes up! 

-Hadal

Instructions unclear, soul lost to devil.

On a more serious note, this game is a really interesting concept, but I feel like the execution is missing some conveyance. It's not very clear what to do or how to succeed, and consequently, I spent around 15 minutes just totally lost as to what I was doing. I think more feedback and more instruction would be very nice. Game isn't really all that scary unless you take the central concept super seriously, but there's also a bit of a narrative issue. The song which this consistently borrows from (The Devil Went Down to Georgia) has a very strong interpretation which suggests that Johnny still loses his soul to the devil for the sin of pride; his belief that he could beat the devil is hellworthy even if he does, successfully, beat the devil in the fiddle contest. This isn't really a problem for the song because the song is a bit ambiguous about how things are going to go at the end of Johnny's life, but it does present a couple of issues for the game, one of which is narrative.

The other one is a bit more nebulous and has to do with credit. This game cribs a lot of lines from Devil Went Down to Georgia, but there's absolutely NO credit given to the Charlie Daniels Band whatsoever. This might not rub everybody the wrong way, but with lines taken very directly from the song like "I'm the best there's ever been," and the title of the game being directly from the chorus of the song, it feels a bit strange to have absolutely no mention of the origin of the story being retold here. It feels a bit like the story has been stolen, and that makes me sad.

Don't get me wrong, I like it in concept, but these things bother me as someone interested in marketing, and who likes to see credit given its due. It especially bothers me when I scroll through the comments and notice absolutely no mention of any of the versions of Devil Went Down to Georgia being mentioned there either.

-Hadal

I'm passing this critique on to our devs! Give it another shot after the jam, since we'll be pushing a MAJOR update right after the jam is over!

Wow. Just wow. This was quite an achievement in atmosphere and pacing. Very very light on the jumpscares, but the ones that were present were generally good, minus a few spacing issues. The movement system was really helpful in creating tension and ambience, and the lack of clarity on what was happening really elevated it into a very lovecraftian place. I expected some kind of monster to jump me throughout the game, and was very pleased by what I got. While it was a very breezy clear, all things considered, it made up for its brevity with an absolutely GOOEY atmosphere and sound design that kept me totally enthralled. Most major critique I have is simply that it didn't lock my cursor to the window, so I kept getting distracted by my cursor appearing on my other monitor. This is a very minor complaint though. Very well done! Would love to see this expanded on, even though it was a very satisfying horror experience. I could easily see 8-bitryan playing this on his channel and getting a few legitimate frights out of it!

-Hadal

You'll become a Master Wizard yet!

Superb little game. Definitely looking forward to it getting updated and cleaned up. Others have mentioned the malfunctioning buttons in places, already. You've managed to design a nice-feeling castle that feels lived-in without feeling cluttered. The art was very well chosen, and it even contains a few decent scares! I only sought out a single ending, but I'm seeing from the comments that there are multiple endings as well! This is very impressive for such a short time-span. I'll be excited to see where this goes in future updates, post-jam!

Our team is currently working on some new weapons, including a new pulse-type weapon that will deflect projectiles and push enemies back, so that'll be an option right after the jam ends!

Thanks for the feedback and we're very glad you enjoyed it!

-Hadal

Ok so I'm gonna rate and review even though I haven't completed this yet, so take some of this with a grain of salt.

This game is very interesting. The idea of having to swap back and forth between the game and an external webpage is very compelling, and gives it a very robust ARG type of feel. The most negative thing I could say about it at this time is that many of the puzzles are incredibly esoteric and difficult to solve. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in the long-run, as those puzzles will inevitably be solved and that information will be spread around. This is the type of game I could easily see a wiki being written for. However in the context of a game jam, it's very unapproachable at times, and the level of difficulty of the puzzles can be genuinely frustrating. I spent several hours trying different combinations of names to no avail, only to learn that I was supposed to use the first letters of each name in a specific order.
Ultimately, I love this game's concept and I think the aesthetics and sound design are on point, especially with regard to the external website. It's a bit hard, and a bit unpolished, but this is definitely one of my favorite projects from Scream Jam so far, and is criminally under-rated.

-Hadal

This clearly drew a lot of inspiration from both the Mandela Catalogue and other "test" games in the same vein. I spotted quite a few images from other sources (the most obvious being Aphex Twin's infamous edited face) which largely took me out of the moment and made it pretty hard to take the game at face value (pun intended) Overall, this wasn't terribly scary, but the sound design was quite good. It does the classic trope of "in room" audio cues as you play, and while I was able to get through the entire game without making a mistake, some of the later questions do give me a little stress due to some ambiguity in what was the right answer. The opening question (email/word-of-mouth) is a little odd in that answering "word of mouth" is an instant game over. It's impossible to know if this is some kind of lore or not. Additionally, since I was playing with my mouse, interacting with unselected buttons was a little awkward, requiring an extra click (one to select, and one to confirm) where the already-selected button only required one click.

Overall, I think this game shows some solid potential, but would really heavily benefit from more original assets and more lore to flesh things out. As this stands, it's mostly a proof of concept with some solid sound design. It's far too short to pace itself effectively, but I'd expect a more expanded release to contain itself more in the earlier questions and wait on the "in-room" sound effects until you're deep in the quiz.

This is a very good start to a game within the same vein as the Silkbulb Test, and it'll be interesting to see where it goes, but for now it feels a bit undercooked.

-Hadal

Games don't have to be horror to participate in Scream Jam! There also is a story, it just hasn't been fully implemented beyond our promotional material yet.
Anyway, thanks for the review!

-Hadal

I really enjoyed this, though I couldn't get very far into it. I got super lost in the little houses and couldn't really tell what was killing me. Despite a lack of clear conveyance for some of the mechanics, the procedural generation of the environments was incredibly impressive, and the artistic direction was extremely unique. The sound design was very nice as well. All in all, the presentation of this game is very unique and stylized and it has a lot of potential. While the conveyance isn't great (it's hard to tell what to do or where to go. Sometimes it's so dark that it's difficult to tell where you are or what is going on) it's still an extremely unique game with a lot of replayability. I'll be taking more cracks at it in the future, for sure, since I like games with good replayability. Very well done, especially for such a small team (of two!). Definitely one of my favorite jam games so far.

-Hadal

Oh that's REALLY interesting! It sucks y'all didn't get to implement these mechanics but I really like the concept! Good luck fleshing it out after the game jam! I hope y'all still have enough interest in it afterward to finish it up because I'd be super interested in seeing how it turns out!

We're so glad you liked it! This time we decided not to do something scary, but I have more than a few ideas for Capital-H Horror games that we may put to work sooner or later! We're so proud of our composer and artist for their brilliant work on the game, and we're delighted that people like their work as much as we do!

-Hadal

Very clearly unfinished but the concept and premise are really fascinating to me. There isn't so much to do in this version, yet. There's a phone upstairs and what seem like quite a few enemies. But there is a robust first person perspective (I can see my body) and there are enemies with behavior that don't seem quite fully cooked yet. The audio stings are solid. All in all, a very ambitious project that didn't seem to quite make it to completeness, but whose bones are all present. I'd be interested in seeing where the game ends up once it can spend some more time in the oven! Lots of potential. The pun in the title is an... interesting choice, but it doesn't detract too much, and does make me wonder what exactly is going on in this house.

-Hadal

Short and sweet! The gunplay is a bit lacking in feedback, and the sound fx can be a little repetitive, but the voice acting was welcome and pleasingly cheesy, the actual gameplay loop was satisfying, and the ending made for a good time. Overall, I think what really shines here is the aesthetics, which are absolutely on point. With some further polishing, this is gonna be a true gem of a little horror experience. I also quite liked the invisible zombies, which add an element of unpredictability and stress to the game that it otherwise would be sorely lacking. I did not find any of the other weapons, and didn't realize I had a pistol until I was wandering around after activating the radio tower, and as another said, I really liked not being able to dual-wield the flashlight and a gun. It gave me nice flashbacks to Doom 3, but with less value on the flashlight, which helped a lot with keeping things feeling stressful and tense. This was quite an accomplishment within a week.

-Hadal

I've passed this along to our team and we may release a patch fixing it if they can recreate it!

-Hadal

Thanks so much for the feedback and for streaming our game! We really appreciate it!

Really fascinating little experience. It's a bit sparse, and a bit grim, but there's something really compelling about it. The gameplay is a bit empty for the most part, but that compliments the theme of hunger rather nicely, I think. The few moments of very intense gameplay really draw that into sharp focus, and the attention to detail is really impressive. For something created in seven days, this is a game that feels very complete. About the cruelest thing I could say about it is that the ending feels just a bit abrupt, but that's a very mild criticism properly placed in the context of a game jam, where time is at such a steep premium. The scene in the shed is deeply jarring and utilizes the "condemned to fail the minigame" style of gameplay very nicely in a way that reflects our pov character's lack of willpower. It felt a little bit like a love letter to both The Lighthouse (film) and Mouthwashing (game), but while dramatically shorter than both, it made up for its length with very solid visuals and storytelling.

-Hadal

This was a BLAST to play. Everything about it works very nicely together, my biggest gripes are things that feel like they'd be right-at-home in this game, but are absent, which isn't a mark against the game. I suppose I could say that it isn't a terribly difficult or scary game, but I'm not personally bothered by that, so much. It has a very light and breezy curve, making it easy to play through. I strongly agree with the other commenters that Stations where you can upgrade your train would be very welcome, but that's quite involved, and I think the game really works very well with what is on the plate, as it were. One of the strongest showings I've seen so far this game jam. Keep it up!

-Hadal

Very interesting! I like the concept and execution quite a lot! This really feels like something I could see a horror-tuber playing for far too long. Unsure if there's more to the game beyond the sword I found, but from what I've seen, this is a very, very promising game concept! Would be excited to see more of it in the future!

-Hadal

Very promising start! It could have paced itself a bit better, but as a proof of concept and second game ever, this was a great entry! Hoping to see more and more from these devs! The atmosphere was spot-on!

-Hadal

Very interesting and unique! The art style could be a little disorienting with all the movement, but that felt very immersive in the context of a train ride. I liked the dialogue and didn't notice any major errors in the path I played through. 

-Hadal