Oi!
I've played entire game with both endings. First I'd like to start with opinion as for a horror game. I don't play horrors often however this one left me pretty scared tbh- xD In general I dislike gore however I think you did this one very well, like no flying guts, blood everywhere or cannibalism... and I like rituals theme a lot!! I'd rate this with 7 out of 10 (both objectively and subjectively), even for a short game you did very well C: There also aren't any softlocks or bugs, so I can tell you've done a lot of testing before publicing, and that's the most important for a game.
Btw, I have recorded your game. I'm not active there often however feel free to tell me if you want me to make it private or delete it.
Good game, looking forward for more!!! :yhappy::kaoluv:
Thanks a lot for playing it! I'm glad you liked it!
You can keep the recording or even upload it somewhere if you want : )
I played your game for the forum’s Web Feedback Festival. I recognize the effort it takes to get a game in a playable state and released for people to try, so if you don’t care to read constructive criticism, all of my thoughts are in spoilers. If you do read it, I hope some of it provides you useful thoughts when working on this or future projects.
Spoiler
You stuck a shortcut file inside the game's archive - why? That can't work on someone else's computer.
The background...music?...on the first map is incongruously over-horror-ish for the completely non-horror stuff going on. It also doesn't loop correctly.
Overall - for my personal tastes - I found the constant soundscape-style background stuff to be quite annoying for continuously going for minutes on end of dialogue, and I ended up muting the game. I'd suggest some sparse actual music or just silence would be preferable.
There's a lot of dialogue. The whole opening TV interview doesn't come across as how two professionals would talk to each other in public. It also doesn't mean much of anything to me. Presumably a lot of it is throwback to your previous game.
Then, when Hank captures the main character, the protracted lecture about different types of occultism sounds more like you pasted your notes from a college class than something a gloating villain (or unhinged murderer) would actually be saying.
The repetitive shouting and "bastard"s weaken the dialogue, for me.
As far as the actual gameplay...there's not much of it, and what there is isn't really playing a game. Taking a break from scripted dialogue and scenes to tell the player to go click on specific things doesn't involve any kind of decision-making, it's just making the scene interactive for a minute.
When you take control of the murderer as he calmly says to himself the specific items he needs, and the specific places you get them, that pretty much breaks any immersion. Especially when you proceed to walk through the house and there are interaction messages on all the objects in the room, so he says he doesn't feel like calling anyone, or he'd rather not watch TV, or it's not the time for a snack.
I recognize there's a particular kind of game you're modelling this off of, but that kind of stuff doesn't contribute anything to the story you're trying to tell - especially when your promotional text for the game talks about how disturbing and really horror it is.
The maps are okay, if generally a bit large. I always feel it looks odd to have two-tile-high doors with the chibi character sprites. Do you have 12-foot-high doors in your house? :stickytongue:
There's also some inconsistent mapping, as sometimes you have black space between ceiling tiles above a doorway and sometimes you have another floor tile visible. Why doesn't the ceiling just continue above the doors?
Why does the flashlight make a keyhole-shaped light?
I have no idea what you're supposed to do at the end. I tried three times to go to different places with the demon chasing me, and each time a text box stopped me at a door and he caught me immediately thereafter. I'm not going to keep reloading the save to try random things when there's that little margin for mental processing, never mind error.
The best part of this, for me, was the writing with good English. Many of the games I've tried led to me quitting early because of poor spelling and grammar.
It was also technically sound, I didn't notice any events that worked incorrectly or anything like that.
This part outside of spoilers because I think it applies to anyone looking at the thread considering the game. This:
is not accurate.
I don't know whether you're misguided or doing a forum version of clickbait, but the only things that can accomplish are
- fewer people playing your game because they think it has extreme material
and
- people who play it being disappointed at the tame nature of the game's content
Constructive criticism is always welcome, thanks : )
Shortcut? Yeah that was before I discovered that a symbolic link would work, not a shortcut, and accidentally forgot about it
I tried to find some horror-ish quiet ambience and that seemed to work, as for looping correctly I have no idea how to fix that cuz I'm not a sound guy at all
What does "soundscape-style background stuff" mean? Also so you mean it's best to have silence or sparse music during dialogue?
Well it IS a visual novel after all , the references are for others in the Jam this game was in, a game called Unholy Lights by Abra Geroni has those two detectives on the show and they are as goofy there as I had them be in the TV show, Asher is from The Cardinal Park Case by LiminAce, and Justin is from Justice's Theme by Anows.
The game is a sequel to my previous game's, The Purge: Desperation, bad ending, so this is not the main character. As for the... uhh... lecture, I've been reading horror since I was 9 (I'm 23) and most of what I've read was by a local horror author called Ahmed Khaled Tawfiq (I'm Egyptian) and he had a similar style so it grew on me XD. He's not an unhinged murderer or a gloating villain, he's a desperate father.
I try to stay away from inappropriate words so I didn't have a lot to choose from XD, but those two are no strangers to each others hence why
Yes the game is a visual novel after all, I'm a lot more of a story guy than a gameplay one
Particular kind of game I'm modelling off? Wdym?
The house map is the same from my first game, Dean's house is new. I was still very new to all this and the chibi doors seemed too small but you're right XD. The game I'm working on has completely custom made graphics and the character is a tile and a half tall instead of a single tile.
That's a good point, I was still pretty new to all this as Hank's house is from my first game (it's a sequel after all)
Aren't flashlights supposed to be like that in those semi top-down games?
You are supposed to just keep running, there's no where to go.
Hint
There's a custom timer
Thank you, it's my second language but I've read a loooooot over the years plus I'm a sucker for grammatical and punctuational mistakes XD
Thank you
Spoiler reply
You're "reviving" a dead kid by making him live as an undead fleshy monster, it doesn't count? Genuinly asking