itch.io

All good! I'm excited to play! :D

I may have consumed a lot of cold medicine today so this might just be that buuuut... I just bought this game and I don't actually see a zip or executable in the list of downloads, just the two text files listed on the front page. =\

This has been a wild ride! I'm so close, yet I still have so much to do in the remaining time. I did all my sound design and music today, and I've decided I have just enough space to implement a relatively simple feature before I make a bit of art for my endings.

Managed to take some playtest feedback into consideration and dropped the difficulty level a bit, but I still like the sentiment someone shared that this game is brutal and tense in the style of Pathologic, so I'm rolling with that. However, I'll have to play a few passes at the game to see just how difficult it is to actually survive the week.

Good luck everybody!

I also had a hell of a week, between work, and Canadian Thanksgiving, and some weird personal news, so I can relate. (I hope things get less complicated for you going forward, Trick!)

I only got one respondent from my playtest but the feedback was good, and that was even without any art. No surprises: there were bugs, and some mechanical imbalances I totally anticipated. Helps to have someone else confirm the state of things though!

The Unreal project was dragging me down (I am trash at modelling and texturing, and having to fix free assets is...almost as much work) so I decided to put my weight back into this and finally made some pixel art!

The only RTP elements here are the grass (which I recoloured, so who cares), the dirt (which I don't care to touch because it looks fine?), and the character (obviously, to be replaced in time).

I survived the bulk of the 'programming' challenges and managed to rope some friends into doing technical playtests for me. It's something this project really needs because there are so many ways an elaborate rm2k3 script set can go wrong. :D

I'm gonna wait a few days for feedback before I continue (and work on my other jam project while I wait). Honestly, the results of the feedback are probably going to determine how hard I go on this. Worst case scenario, the consensus is that this isn't a very fun game, so I'll be sure to at least get the jam done and be satisfied that I've accomplished so much on a technical scale. Best case scenario, I fry my brain on two separate jams trying to make the most of each of them.

As with last week, no art to show, but now that I've gotten through the hardest part of building this, the rest will follow with time!

Hoooo jeeze did I really set myself up for a challenge. I came up with something that is very mechanically complex (and error prone) by rm2k3 standards, and I hammered at the bulk of the logic over the weekend. I still have a few custom menus left to program, and then the major 'end of day' event for my day/night cycle, but it's coming along smoothly. Ish.

By the end of the week, if I can get the core game loop done and (relatively) bug free, I can coast and work on balancing, art, and music. I'm definitely going to finish. :D

Not much to share on the visual side since things, apart from the menus, everything's 100% RTP, but maybe next weekend!

Itch Name: Tower & Moon

Preferred Name: Christopher

Pronouns: He/Him

Favourite Horror Media: Silent Hill 2, Thomas Ligotti's short fiction, and b-movie trash

Professional Occupation: Software Developer

Gamedev experience: I've been using RM2k3 (badly) since my teens; I recently graduated college and got a job as a software developer in the game industry, and during that time I've made a few short games and demos on my own.

Why are you here? I've played a bunch of RPG Maker horror over the past few years, and while I came in with low expectations, I found that they could be quite fun and dark. I wanted to try my hand it, was looking for some jams to participate in during the spooky month, and found this!

Just finished my first playthrough and it was everything I hoped and more. Definitely still digesting a lot of things narratively, and am garbage at writing meaningful reflections on such matters, but the storytelling was excellent and I can't wait to see what other endings have in store (especially since I feel like my playthrough was catastrophic and full of bad choices [or, non choices, if that makes sense]).

Also, on a technical level, y'all managed to do stuff I didn't even know was possible with RM2K3, which is always exciting to see. (Would love to learn more about any of the tricks up yer sleeves, but this probably isn't the medium for that .:P)

Fantastic work all around!

This looks messed up. I'm stoked!

idk who Suzie Doll is but this is weird and amazing. Nicely done! ^_^

Haha it is cute! And it is also very much the Shy Dance.

For an absolute first, I gotta say you did quite well. If the art is all original then it's quite good, and the spirit of YN is definitely alive in this project. Plus, I'm a sucker for anything alchemical and occult.

If you were able to squash the bugs (I found a few), eliminate some of the stock rtp assets, tidy up your maps, and add some music, you'd have an absolutely kickass demo.

Keep at it! I'd love to see how this project evolves. :)

Having fun with this so far. As with all the ddj5 entries I've played so far, the art is lovely. Also, I definitely dance like Lulu and I'm not sure how I feel about being called out like that :P

Not only is the art lovely, but I think this has been the most thematically sound DDJ5 game I've played yet. The ballet dancing, the porcelain dolls and statues with their implications of timeless beauty and youth...this manages to strike an effective balance between the symbolic and the surreal, and that can be very hard to accomplish.

Found some bugs:
1) You can keep picking up the knife. I have 8 knives in my current save file :P
2) Found another collision issue where you can go off the tiles in the uh...candy clouds?

I'm playing a bunch of ddj5 games today but I'm definitely coming back to this one to finish it. Got 4 effects. Still haven't figured out how to get any dolls though!

Ripppin through as many DD5 games as I can today. Yours is the first ynfg I've played that's in 3d and I hope it's a sign of what others have to offer because it was a fuckin trip. Love the wild transitions (some custom shaders you wrote, maybe?) and the generally wonky 3d vibe. Love that you made an homage to the YN red hell maze :P

Ran into a quirk that I thought was frustrating as a player that I thought you might wanna know about:

I wound up down this corridor (there's a mouth, I think? behind me) and this glitchy shadow person followed me. I started to leave the corridor but the collisions really impeded my progress.

I also noticed that, after transitioning between rooms, there was text in the top right corner that just said "ERROR". Not sure if that was some leftover dev stuff or if it was deliberate, but I haven't made much progress in the game yet. Like I said, rippin through just to see what everyone else did. ;)

Anyway, great stuff! And out of curiosity, what did you use as an engine for this?

The art in this is great! I was also really happy with the way y'all set up the area progressions and unlocking. If you don't continue to work on this, I hope you all work together in the future on something else!

This game is great! I've definitely still got a lot to explore but I'm enjoying wandering around as a spooky blindfolded bride. Also, your music choices were excellent!

It was great to watch this progress during the course of the jam! For something 'very rushed' it looks fantastic. :)
[also found a small quirk, if you press Shift while riding the panther, a text box shows up saying 'Fast Speed Test' or something along those lines]

Trying to do a 1 day tour of as many of the DDJ5 entries as I can. I started with this because I remembered it from last year but I don't think I got a chance to play it. Your environments are absolutely killer!

I was gonna consider rebuilding Unduhagge in GMS2 but I also start my new job tomorrow as a programmer sooooo... I think I need to make sure that my work for DD5 uses a lot less braincells. I'm using the official RM2k3. :)

Just listened to Dhampir and damn it's good. Gives me old old Autechre vibes while still having its own voice, and the piece just has a great slow evolution overall. Looking forward to jamming the rest of this!!

Just downloaded. This is definitely going to make my holidays. :D

lol yeah I figured you were aware that the fights were a bit weird, but I was able to figure out that I could crush the bug-things before they got to me, and I'm assuming you'll be including sound effects to emphasize that in the future.

There were two things that stuck out to me as a player. First, when you get into the locked room on the second floor, I had to jump to get across a lamp that was on the floor. It didn't look like something I should have had to jump over. My thinking is that there are two ways to go about solving that: 1) remove or shrink the collision for that prop so you can just walk over it; 2) make it more visually explicit that you have to jump there. Make it a tutorial moment to let the player know that jumping is even an option.

The other thing was that I didn't know where the entrance to the corn field was. The farm is pretty much surrounded by corn, and I walked around the whole level counterclockwise before I found it. I think the specific gate probably just needs a better visual signifier, like some tall fenceposts (vertical lines draw the eye), so the player would see the gate the minute they get out of the car.

Now, if I haven't already, I'm gonna follow this project and keep my eye on updates. Excited for what's to come! :D

I don't have a lot of time to play games from this year's jam so I'm glad I chose this one! It was nice and spooky, and the dialogue was pretty good too. I even managed to get nailed by a couple of the jump scares. :)

I know you're looking for bug feedback, but I didn't encounter anything game-breaking. That said, if you want any other thoughts, I would be happy to share.

Contact the HPS1 team! They're usually very forgiving about late jam entries.

The game is finished and has 3 endings. I just forgot to change that flag. Thanks for catching that!

Well, that definitely wasn't supposed to happen. Thanks for sharing your playthrough (and finding that glitch)!

Oh, great! Glad that worked. :)

If you ever wanted to send fan art, you could always reach me at chrisewick@gmail.com.

You should be able to wake up by pressing 9 (nine) on your keyboard.

You can use the 9 on the numpad too, but only if numlock is...on? Off? I can't tell because my stupid keyboard doesn't have a numlock LED.

If that doesn't work then please let me know, because it's possible you've found a bug!

(Oh, and thanks for playing! I'm glad you like it so far.)

I think this has the best art I've seen in the jam. It's really cool, and if it weren't for the fact that it's 1:30 am and my brain is turning into sausage, I'd probably be playing more of this.

Possible bug: The very first time I ran the executable I played for about ten minutes. During that time, when I'd open my inventory, I didn't always see the icons for effects. Once I ran the program again, though, I didn't run into that issue. Video games, amirite??

I broke the game by pressing Enter while facing upward and trying to interact with the bed.

The art style in here is great though, and there are some lovely set pieces!

Nice and tranquil! And I had a couple chuckles in the gallery. ;)

Haha I'll take confusing. :)

And thanks for the tag heads up!

Oh damn, sorry about this. When did you download your copy? I've been fighting with that bug for a while and I thought I solved it in the latest release.

lmk if the newest version works, and if not I'll investigate once the weekend's over (finishing my semester with some big projects)

Fascinating thoughts in here.

Thanks for playing! ^_^

A short fantasy horror poem with jarring minimalistic imagery. Well jammed!

This cracked me up. :)