That's outstanding to hear; I just finished this and really enjoyed it. It actually made me feel like I was watching an analog horror YouTube video, pausing and rewinding to catch those ever-present freeze-frame bits. Can't wait for the update!
soldancer
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This was super good. Excellent production value and intriguing story. I love games that can evoke dread without actually endangering the player character, and Within did that marvelously. The story is remarkable as well, in that I actually got to know the characters and their background, which in turn gave weight to the narrative.
Great job all around!
I liked this quite a lot. It did a good job of balancing tension when it came to the enemies, as I felt like I had to be cautious, but could still move about freely. Also definitely had some good creepy moments and straight-up scares, too. The first one got me good - I literally jumped, and I don't do that often at all.
I might be misremembering how the game was before this update, but weren't there more things (like bait) that could be bought in the store with sand dollars? Did that change because pearls can be purchased through Itch now?
Also, does purchasing the outfit packs unlock them immediately, or do they get added to the outfit store to buy? I'm not really interested in these ones in particular, but I might like other ones down the road. I'd almost rather them get added to the outfit store, as it gives a little gameplay extension.
Speaking of which, I'm really glad there's a new character. I had a ton of fun playing this when it first came out, but I have long since unlocked or purchased everything except the prototype net (and any that come after). I thought about doing it for completion's sake, but it seemed a little silly without anything else to do with my gems and cash. I'm trying to decide if I want to just grind while watching TV or plunk down a few bucks to unlock her. I never really play games with purchase-locked gameplay elements, so my "buy once, play forever" mindset is making it hard to decide. But seeing as I got this as a bonus when buying the AGL bundle during a sale, it's the least I can do to chip in a few bucks to help keep more content coming.
Well, it looks like I answered my own question!
I picked this up on Steam, but it runs like garbage there for some reason, when it ran the Itch demo version just fine. It looks like I'm not the only one with the issue. I made sure to have my laptop pick the dedicated GPU, which usually fixes stuff like massive frame drops, but no luck. Any suggestions?
I really needed something like this in my life right now. I tried playing Windbound recently, and liked the atmosphere and crafting, but wasn't too keen on the combat. Summer in Mara scratches that tropical island adventure itch but in a gorgeous, relaxing setting. This is my current go-to for a stressful day relief game.
I played the first couple minutes of the game, and after waiting through the intro text I started walking left. Imagine my surprise when a piano came out of nowhere and killed me instantly. And then I have to start over and sit through the long intro all over again?
The description shows cool looking puzzles and the title screen says "pixel horror", but I have to ask straight up: is this a meme/punishment game like I Wanna Be the Guy? Because that is the impression the piano gave me. The only horror is how silly that was and how much I don't want to sit through the intro again and again if there's a ton of trial and error.
For the bridge/drawer thing, I did see the interaction icon, but it hadn't occurred to click-and-drag. I just clicked on it and figured I needed something else in order to interact with it. I discovered I could move it completely by accident while madly clicking on it to try to get it to do something, lol.
Cool, I'll have to try that! It's a true credit to the level design and the agility of the PC that I had fun with this, because normally I am not a big fan of "run away from the thing" games. But here, I felt like I could keep one step ahead, and when I couldn't, it was because of poor planning and faulty mental mapping, not because the enemy is BS or the levels or controls are crap. No one-hit-kill plus a limited recovery options is a big plus as well.
I thought I might elaborate a little, too. Only (very minor) criticisms I can think of is that it took me a while to figure out that I needed to pull the bridge out to go left from the heart gate, but I got there in the end. That, and the clicking to interact text. I would frequently get confused about which button to press to examine, advance text, and dismiss text, and would often do the wrong thing by accident. Just a couple quibbles; nothing very major at all.
Several specifics for things that impressed me:
When I read it was voxel-based, I thought it was maybe just regular assets rendered with a highly-pixelated overlay or a forced low resolution. I've seen people try to do that to pass stuff off as voxels when they clearly aren't. I was pleased to see it was actually voxels, as it lends a sense of otherworldliness and childlike wonder to the game. Maybe because it makes me think of LEGO, which seems to fit the setting really well.
Speaking of otherworldly, the whole eyeball section blew my mind. The way the background shifts as you move is just mesmerizing without being too disorienting.
Descriptions while examining the room gave a good sense of who we are playing as, and I felt that I got good insight into the character.
Again, I loved this and am really looking forward to more!
That's probably it, then. Especially if it's rendering anything at a decent distance. More complex Unity games with long draw distances tend to be the hardest for my machine to deal with. It took a ton of tinkering to get (for example) Edge of Eternity to run decently for me because the scenery in the world is so far off to create a sense of scale. I can see pretty far into the distance in Witness, so that might be the culprit. I'd suck it up at like 15-20 FPS since I really want to play it, but can't even squeak more than about 3 FPS out of it.
A fun, spooky escape room game, really liked this. Creepy atmosphere and some good jump scares. Also, is it weird that I know enough Latin to be able to read everything here? Didn't even notice there was a translation for the colors until after I'd solved the puzzle. :)
Anyway, I enjoyed playing this, but I had a few bits of feedback/questions:
- The first key was really hard to find. It's the only part I needed some help to get past.
- Was there a point to moving the cage? And what did the two ground plates unlock? I put stuff on them and they lit up, but I never noticed what they actually did.
- The elevator jumpscare plays every time you ride it down. Got really annoying.
- Definitely needs some interaction sounds, it was not always obvious what happens when you solve a puzzle.
This is so much fun! It took me a long time to find the last lever, and I got killed about 3 seconds afterward just before escaping. I love the feel of the movement; it would be really fun to be able to to the platforming without the pesky curse. The game actually reminds me a lot of City of Brass, an excellent FPP roguelike that also has a sweet sliding crouch and lots of loot to grab.
For a first game on Itch, this is really well done. Some of the event triggers are a little unclear, but the tension is through the roof.
Oh, and I LOVE the mechanic of needing to zoom to interact with something. It gives you the feeling that the second you zoom back out, someone is standing right behind you. Every horror game needs to do this, seriously, it's SO effective for such a little thing.
I don't know why, either. Sometimes, it's an easy fix - Intel's integrated GPU doesn't always know when a game needs to run off the nVidia GPU on my laptop, so I have to switch them manually. But even doing that for this game made basically no difference. I have no idea why, it's like some Unity games (and recently a CopperCube 6 game!) just hate my PC. I can run UE4 games at max settings at 60 FPS, so it's not like my card's a total slouch for a laptop. I don't get it.
Not my favorite. I could not get a stable framerate and that pretty much made it impossible one the man shows up. For some reason, my PC hates small Unity projects even though it can run much better looking games at 60 FPS. Basically makes it impossible to accurately interact with anything while trying to run away.
Yeah, it took me about ten tries to beat the tutorial, and after seeing the next level I just gave up. Way too hard for me, and I managed to beat Hotline Miami. It's such a cool idea, but telekinesis not actually killing enemies makes this way tougher that I think I'm able to deal with at my age. Maybe I'll come back to it later.
Nicely done. I found the tension of avoiding the creature pretty much perfect, I usually hate avoid-the-monster horror, but the set route made it a lot more fun to avoid. Also, the fact that it is silent was really creeping me out, like I jumped when I first saw it, then got chills the whole time I was in that room.