Drained

kataware 2018-12-04 02:09

Very atmospheric! I've never been a fan of scary games/movies, and this one had me so scared! It didn't even have any jump scares (that I'm aware of) but walking around with the creepy vibe, everything red, spikes and scary paintings everywhere, as well as the sound effects had me on the edge of my seat.

The first time I saw the black cloud monster thingy I screamed a little.

I would have liked to see something than the default unity sliders for the UI, but I liked the minimalist interface overall. In addition, the graphics were pretty exceptional.

And when the door popped open and the figure came out, goddam I closed the game and it took me a while to reopen it.

I ended up not sacrificing blood at every alter just because I could finish it, sorry xD

Overall, exceptional work, especially in the Mood, Graphics, and Audio.

hechi 2018-12-04 02:13

Pretty immersive game. The effects of the camera are very successful. I have taken several good scares :D

johnsensei 2018-12-04 02:29

Thank you for including a Mac version. Definitely very creepy, excellent establishment of mood, and completely consistent with the theme of the jam.

I didn't complete the game, it was actually a lot longer than expected. So there is much more content here than typical of a Ludum Dare game jam game. Good job on that. But it did get a little repetitive after a while. I didn't feel like I was making any progress. I'm guessing that sacrificing to the altars is how you progress the game. I found found at least three and I think even a fourth, but the game resolution didn't change like in the screenshots. I felt like that was a lot of altars I found, but I couldn't tell if I was even progressing the game, let alone what the purpose was.

But other than that, again very well done and a lot of content for a 3D game made in a weekend. I enjoyed it and did get quite scared at times.

jamesdude 2018-12-04 02:30

So uh, this is the most awesome thing ever but I just got properly jump scared multiple times right before I have to try and go to sleep :D Amazing job, I'm blown away

lstryhard 2018-12-04 02:32

Oh, the jump scares... good camera efx too !

darkianmaker 2018-12-04 02:48

A very fine game with an unique mechanic, didn't play to the end as I don't enjoy playing horror games that much but what I saw was quite impressive. Also, bonus points for the resolution degradation for getting Drained :stuck_out_tongue:

anchry 2018-12-04 03:27

@johnsensei Hm, we didnt manage to properly test the mac build but wanted to include it anyway, there might be some issues with the resolution degradation shader on macs. Sorry about that

kciwsolb 2018-12-04 16:58

Neat game! I had fun. Blood spitting is an... interesting mechanic. I want to know how this guy manages to expel blood so far. That's quite impressive.

Only one complaint and that's how long it took to drink blood. It mostly felt like a chore. I am guessing maybe you were supposed to feel on edge since you were stuck in one place, but nothing ever approached me while I was drinking.

Oh, and I feel like the blood bar should be red when full, not the other way around. :D hehe.. but I get that it could just represent health and you lose health as you spit blood.

Nice job! :D

joshanthony1990 2018-12-04 17:26

Excellent atmosphere. It took me awhile to figure out what to do for the endgame. Overall, the mood was amazing. Great jump scares, and the blood resolution drain mechanic was an excellent idea.

hayart 2018-12-04 17:32

Simply sensational, my god, curti, the hair of the ear shiver, sometimes it was possible to see the demons behind the wall, but very good, sounds, visual, congratulations !!!

isaque-picao-sanches 2018-12-04 17:41

mood 10/10 congratz

johnnyginard 2018-12-04 17:44

Very cool idea! Good job! :smile: :top:

tetralogia 2018-12-04 18:56

I'm not into horror games but I can tell you did a really good job. The atmosphere is nicely set up, the level design with its many many doors make you feel genuinely lost and creeped out. As you begin to run out of blood you start really considering your choices and the game gets so much more stressful. I also really liked the fact that the screen gets blurry when you're low on blood! Nice job!

sadzanenyama 2018-12-04 19:15

It got a bit repetitive after a bit and one of the enemies walked straight through a wall for me. But I was scared and seeing the enemies the first few times actually gave me the chills. Although I have to say that drinking the blood took too long, I would suggest making it shorter or have enemies occasionally attack you if you want to make it suspenseful when standing in one space. Also I would suggest adding something that moves in the main menu. Like some sort of particle system or annimation on the buttons eg Getting bigger when the mouse hovers over them as the main menu is very static and boring with no sounds.

Overall decent entry

0x01f0 2018-12-04 20:13

Aaah, I got scared at every encounter. Well done, well done. When you're constantly trying to find stuff and monsters pops up it really catches you off guard. ;_;

Our game has the same atmosphere as yours, that's why yours caught my eye. :D I'm jealous on how large of a level you managed to do and the gameplay possibilities.

I liked the pixelated shader you used, it really contributed to the atmosphere. :thumbsup:

Great work!

thorpalsson 2018-12-04 20:26

@0x01f0 Nice thanks for the comment will definitely check your game out!

zelberor 2018-12-04 21:03

Now that is a scary game. The sounds and visuals create a really dense mood. I did not find any flaws exept for the very slow blood-drinking speed. Great game!

corbak 2018-12-04 23:19

i had a good scare and I couldn't play it anympre ^^' because it was really spooky at times. But yeah the mood and ambiance is impressive. Well done on that game :)

mrjoshuamclean 2018-12-05 06:08

Was a bit dark in some places, and I wish the blood packs would refill faster. Otherwise, love the visual effects and mood/scare factor.

Here's a video of my play: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/344729947?t=01h52m42s

sickdot 2018-12-05 08:37

That was awesomely cool! lol

linear 2018-12-15 21:27

I think this is an overall excellent entry, and it is because it's better than most that I wanted to critique some finer game design points:

I think that the idea of spending blood to open doors works on paper, but in practice, when presented with two or more opaque doors, there's no real choice to be made, because there's no information to make an informed decision with. You either choose one or another. So if your choice actually matters (i.e., it's important to open one and not the other), it becomes frustrating because the player is punished with a removal of blood over a choice that can only be made via trial and error.

To compensate for this, you guys added lots of blood packs so that you could never really run out of blood. However, that also invalidates the game mechanic itself, since at that point, you're not really sacrificing anything of value if you can just refill blood from a million different places, so blood just becomes a resource you have to tediously manage, much like stamina. If you use too much (and you have to), you are obliged to sit around refilling it from a blood pack for a while.

So you've designed yourself into a hole with the blood mechanic because if you place too little, it's frustrating and you get stuck, and if you place too much, it's too easy, with virtually no middle ground.

I would recommend solving this by making bloodpacks scarce while also making sure that there's intelligent ways to manage blood. That can be as simple as making the doors have grates that you can peek through. That way, you can make an informed decision as to whether or not you want to open that door at all. For instance, maybe the door leads to a hallway full of other doors, but you see a bloodpack on the wall, so it's a low-risk door. Or maybe you see no bloodpack, but there's a pentagram shrine, so you'll come back to that once you're sure you have enough blood to spare.

Maybe blood could even come back / regenerate, but it happens slowly. So if you ever really mess up and run completely out of blood packs, you can sit around and wait for it to come back--except you can't sit in one spot because the patrolling enemies will eventually get you. In that way, blood could be like fuel. With it, you can move quickly, open any door you please, and feel rewarded for your wits and budgeting. Without it, you're a coward, hiding in closets and hoping the enemies don't clobber you while you're trying to regain enough blood to open that door that you should have opened earlier.

An additional way to make blood scarce without making it completely frustrating is to put some bloodpacks in easy-to-reach places, while placing others in rooms full of enemies or other difficult challenges. That way, it's not just "oops, that was the last bloodpack", but rather "okay, this is the last bloodpack, except for that stash in the basement I read about.... I don't want to go down there, but I don't have any other choice." This way, you can punish the player gradually for mis-managing blood, with each punishment becoming more severe than the last, by sending him into riskier and riskier areas to get the remaining blood.

Lastly, I wanted to comment on the big dudes. They seem unkillable, which is fine, but there appears to be no way to break the chase and hide from them, and stunning them with blood doesn't last very long. I think if the blood stunned them for longer, like 1-2 seconds, and they stopped chasing and started searching for the player once line of sight has been broken, it would be much better. As it was, I was killed because I couldn't loop the evil dude around the hallways long enough to crank the portcullis open, and quickly gave up on trying to stun him with blood since throwing blood at him slowed both of us down, not allowing me to gain any real distance over him.

Anyway all that aside, this is a great entry! I think overall it's got some promise if you wanted to do a post-LD version.

anchry 2018-12-17 21:20

Thanks a lot for playing and for all the feedback @linear, i am unsure whether we will do a post LD version of the game, i suppose we will see after the holidays. But again, thank you for the feedback!