Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Mind Depths LD 48
By littlegamer
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 819 | 2.79 | 31 | |
| Fun | 874 | 2.22 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 657 | 2.85 | 30 | |
| Theme | 748 | 2.98 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 764 | 2.74 | 31 | |
| Audio | 296 | 3.41 | 31 | |
| Humor | 637 | 1.72 | 26 | |
| Mood | 79 | 4.00 | 31 |
Hi, I like the atmosphere you created but I'm a bit confused about what to do. I ended up on a body floating in space but can't find a knife. Controls are a bit wonky but I really like the mood you were setting. The music and visuals work well together.
Well that was trip... In more senses that one... Phew...
You were not kidding when you mentioned that this game might be disturbing, and the background music amplifies that as well.
Nice music and atmosphere, but I also stuck on the floating body. There is a way to move outside the level and go to outer space. Some weird controls when colliding with walls.
Hello @arya-s , @hilvon and @smeljey ! Thanks a lot for testing ! I'm really happy to read your commentaries.
To answer you all (I'll try to be clear in my bad English) :
- The room with the body is actually the end of the game. It's not really clear because I used a very dark color but there is the word "Fin" in the upper part of the room. There is nothing more to do there, it's the end of the game, there is no interaction with knife, the content warning is more about the way it is presented in this room. I thought it might be shocking for people with phobia of cutting objects for exemple (again, if you people reading happen to be disturbed by cutting objects, I suggest that you don't play, or don't finish the game). Surprised that it is possible to move out of the body but well it happens ! Thnaks for feedback !
- For controls, was the problem with the hitboxes of walls and objects ? I kind of struggled with this. I had particularly trouble setting good collisions with the changing walls. At first I wanted a RPG like movement, with the character going on (invisibles) square of 32 pixels, but it was really wonky for a reason I cannot explain. So I used a simple movement, more common but maybe less personnal. I wanted the player to feel a bit trapped in his movements.
- Incredibly happy you guys liked the atmosphere. The music almost got scrapped, I started making these at 1am this night (so I had 2 hours to do these and final testing, packaging, translation, etc.). It was my first try at music so it really means a lot.
I'm really happy to read your words and critics, I take note of the problem you are mentionning for later games or LD. I have not made games in a long while and I'm a bad programmer, so it means a lot to hear that the game was pleasant even thought it was clanky. Thanks a lot for your time and messages, I'll play your games too.
I like the concept and mood of this very much. The lack of direction and the weird colission issues sort of added to the strangeness of it. Simple visuals and audio get the job done nicely.
Horror/surreal is really hard to do in such a short time. You nailed the atmosphere though. The music and the super weird graphics were spot on.
A very unsettling game which I love! I'm not sure if it was intentional to interact with the same object more than once since I first just interacted with the bed until everything degraded and looked like a nightmare. Solid art style and very fitting soundtrack! Good job!
Really great atmosphere in this one. The sound design is pretty brilliant stuff. Seems like you're aware of the strange collision detection. Also I'm not sure if it's supposed to work this way, but if you press return at the bottom of the window that says panorama (as opposed to higher up) the text is displayed off screen.
I genuinely hope you'll consider continuing work on this or a similar project. I love horror games, and they're not often done right. Great stuff!
Hello there @pdotjpg @dirkinz @hpa97 @threeli ! Once again I'll answer you all in one message to avoid flooding the feed.
First of all, thanks a lot for playing and giving feedback. This is extremely appreciated, and I'll go play your game during the day (I already played your @pdotjpg , and fun fact, it was the first game I played from this LD !).
So about the atmosphere :
- Again I'm really happy you liked the music. First attempt at it and I was really not sure if it was going to work. In insight, I realize I should have put a cooldown to interaction so that the player can listen a bit more to the musics, because from your feedbacks, it seems to be a huge part of why you guys liked the experience.
- The surreal part is admittedly something I had already grown since long. The idea of a place changing because of the state of a character is in my head since a long time, and seeing the theme I tought to myself "oh now is the time to try this". So I got a bit lucky because some ideas were already existing in my head, altough I never really experimented it in a game. I tried to put this idea in the soundtrack too with the instrument changing through the game.
- The collision could have been way better and I was indeed aware of the problem. I had two solutions : try to implement a collision checking with the tiles used for the room, but at the risk of losing time because I never made anything of this kind on Game Maker, or make something faster to do but less precise. Took the latter. The idea of how it works is that there are invisible blocks of "permanent walls", that are active from the beginning to the end of the game, and a serie of blocks that only works after the first change of walls. Not having much time I could not do the same for the secondth change of wall and there disappearance, but that did the essential (tho it seems a bit bugged after retesting). This is a solution made with scoth tape and sticks but as I was missing time, I believed it was the best solution.
- @hpa97 It was intentional for the bed indeed. For other objects, like the furnitures in the living room, there is a cap, but I let the bed be usable multiple times to avoid softlocks. I did not wanted to lose time on doing a precise tree of possible interaction paths, and since it was late at night when I programmed this part I was too tired to make a solid logic check in my head ahah. So my sleep deprived brain said "just let the bed be usable again, it'll be like Yume Nikki ; and go to your while you are at it".
- @threeli I take note of this bug, if I'm understanding correctly, I think it's because of how I handled the apparition of the text window. It takes the character as reference and not the screen, so if the character is too far below, it probably disappear. I'll fix this if I do a polished version.
- About continuing this kind of work, I'm actually sort of considering it. Problem is that I don't know if I'll have the time to do it right now, nor if it will be as good (here I think the surprise of finding a weird game in a jam plays a lot in how you liked the game, on a bigger scale I don't know if it would be as good). I want to work a bit my programming skills before attempting something, because I really lack a lot of knowledge there, and then maybe I'll try. Since I have some ideas I could not put in the game because of a lack of time, like small puzzles and other environment (I wanted the player to go in the basement of the apartment too, and to use the elevator in the corridor of his building at first), it could be interesting. I also have a longer project I want to do that is set in a surreal environment, I have already started it but dropped it because it was too badly programmed. So, maybe in some months !
Again, thanks a lot for playing, critics and support. I'll play your game during the day, and give a feedback !
@littlegamer , interesting to read your response. It seems to me you have a pretty healthy and objective understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. You should definitely return to this idea once you improve your programming skills – you have a really good intuitive understanding of horror and surrealism.
You totally nailed the atmosphere - brilliant music!
Great atmosphere. The simplistic music and graphics really worked in favor of setting the mood. One think to note though is that there are quite a few hidden “walls”, mostly from the hard to see insects or whatever spawning on the floor. Good entry.
Interesting atmospheric game. I like the strange ending ;-) Worst thing was the collision detection on the walls. But I think is fixable.
@majadroid Yes it's totally fixable, just did not had the time. Thanks for playing !
Definitely set the mood. That being said, I was super confused the whole time. Had no idea what was going on and when ***spoilers*** I got to the guy laying down with the knives I got more confused. I kept going invisible and didnt know what to do at that point and couldnt figure out how to navigate my characters. The audio was great and definitely set a mood and the transitions were really cool.
@cavedens thanks for playing ! Going invisible ? You mean out of screen ? The place you describe is the end of the game. There is nothing to do once you are there. The word End on the last screen is not very visible due to the dark colors I chosed, not realizing it would be nearly invisible on the black background.
As others have mentioned, great work with the atmosphere! And the music is super interesting, both great strengths of the game.
This might just be a problem on my end since no one else had mentioned it, but whenever I try to extract the game I get the classic "archive is either unknown or damaged" error. on both versions.
@simex I never heard about this indeed. I've just tried to download it and extract it, it worked fine. This is a bit strange. Does it extract anything ? Did it downloaded fully ? The RAR must be around 35Mb. If it extract at least the Game folder with the Mind depths.exe, the data.win and the options.ini, it should run, the rest are all the ressources used in a separate folder and the game project.
@wintergatn thanks for playing and for your kind words !
I'll play both of your game this week end ! (a bit too much to do today).
I definitely see the atmosphere you were going for, and I like the idea of everything slowly degrading around you. The mood, with the music, crunchy sound effects, and black and white art was well done.
I got the same problem as @hpa97 , where I just hit Enter on the TV a bunch until an elevator showed up, and then I guess I was at the end of the game? I had to check the comments here once I was on the body, because I wasn't sure if I had reached the end of the game or not.
Good job finishing your first LD!
@andrewkennedy hi ! Yes it was not very clear due to the font I used for the word "Fin". It's too dark and becomes invisible. Thanks for playing and for commenting ! I'm really glad I made this LD. I can't believe it's already been almost a week it started. It was so nice to do...
Bonne atmosphère, et c'est renforcé par la musique et les sprites qui donnent vraiment bien le ton, même si je trouve que la transition entre les différents "stages" d'hallucinations aurait pu être un peu plus progressive pour un effet encore plus perturbant. Peut-être en rajoutant un peu plus de texte ou en diversifiant les différentes actions et en sombrant plus lentement. J'étais un peu confus par la fin, mais je suppose que le perso se jette par la fenêtre en pensant s'échapper ?
En tout cas, ça reste très cool, on voit beaucoup l'inspiration Yume Nikki. Et l'interprétation du thème est sacrément intéressante. Joli travail !
@littlegamer Ah didnt know that was the end. I might have broke the game wandering outside of the screen then. I can back within the game screen and I was invisible and there was no words that said end :D but good to know I managed to get to the ending
@whismirk Je voulais mettre une transition au début mais il était difficile de faire un truc qui fasse un bel effet pour tous les types de transition, et je n'avais pas le temps d'en faire un par transition. De même pour la diversification des actions, c'était prévu mais je n'ai pas eu le temps. Il devait y avoir des micro-énigmes sur l'espace de jeu, utilisant notamment des portes (qui ne sont même pas dans le jeu par manque de temps). L'idée était de voir l'environnement changer selon les pièces traversées aussi.
Comme c'était ma première LD (mais pas ma première game jam) j'ai mal jaugé mes possibilités en termes de temps, particulièrement parce que j'avais sous estimé certains problèmes techniques que j'ai rencontré, notamment la gestion des collisions avec des tiles changeants. Je sais qu'elles sont mauvaises dans le jeu, mais il faut comprendre que pendant le développement, c'était encore pire :laughing: Du coup, avec ces problèmes, je n'ai pas pu implanter tout ce que je voulais.
Je ne donnerai pas d'information sur la fin, je laisse chacun se faire son avis ;) La confusion est tout à fait recherchée pour le coup. Je sais que ça peut sonner comme une excuse pour un truc absurde, mais j'ai réellement cherché à rendre les derniers moments inattendus et perturbants, dans l'idée il faut que le joueur se pose encore plus de questions après avoir pris l'ascenseur qu'avant.
Je suis très heureux que l'inspiration Yume Nikki soit visible (qui plus est au point de contaminer ta vision de la fin !) car même si je n'ai pas énormément pensé à ce jeu en le faisant, c'est un de mes jeux favoris. Pour l'interprétation du thème, j'ai eu de la chance dans le sens où l'idée de descendre dans des profondeurs est une thématique qui me plait beaucoup dans l'art : les descentes aux enfers, dans l'inconscient, la déchéance... Aussi j'avais déjà quelques idées qui me trottaient dans la tête depuis longtemps qui ont pu me servir.
Merci beaucoup d'avoir joué, ça fait plaisir de pouvoir répondre plus facilement en français en plus. J'irai jouer à ton jeu quand j'aurai un peu de temps, surement pendant le Pont de l'Ascension !
@cavedens Well the word to search is "Fin" even in the English version ! It's part of the body sprite, written between its legs. Thing is, I drew it thinking the background would be all black (which would not have been very visible too in fact), but then I added the stars to echo the last background of the apartment. With these, it becames borderline invisible, I honestly have some hard to read it too so I can understand the trouble :laughing: thanks a lot for the feedback !
The game had me on edge. I think it was the mixture of the eerie visuals and manacing music. I didn't know what was going on but i think that was a design choice perhaps. I also did not know how to finish the game. I also found that there was a few hidden collision boxes.
Great job on the mood! Super creepy game! The music and graphics were very effective - I love minimalist creepy games! It was very unsettling, but in a good way.
I did get stuck on a hand as it appeared on my first playthrough, but it was fine the second time I tried. A few collision tweaks would help, but I thought it was a really nice effort! Very impressive for your first LD!
@mza Thanks for playing ! Yes not knowing what is going on is a design choice, I wanted the experience to be strange. And yes the collisions are bad, I'll try to do better next time on this !
@fueelin Glad you liked it ! Sorry for the collision bug with the hand, doing test I thought I had managed to avoid this kind of softlock but realized later I did not since the hand collision mask expand when unearthing. I was probably in an angle where it did not matter when I tested.
Thanks everyone for playing !
You absolutely nailed the mood there. The sounds, the setting, changing atmosphere. Really works, well done. Felt the gameplay itself to be a bit clunky. For a game where the main interaction is to walk and interact with objects, I found it a shame that it was quite unclear when I would get stuck or when I would surprisingly find something invisible I could interact with. I think some clearer affordance would have helped me stay focused on enjoying the story and the mood rather than struggling with navigating it. Otherwise as others have said before: incredible to have pulled off such an interesting surreal horror in such a short amount of time, killer mood. Well done!
@namidasai thanks for playing ! I agree, replaying it I too feel it's a real problem. Again it's because I changed the way the character moves during the jam, and did not tessted the collisions with enough seriousness for the objects. For the wall it was more complicated, it's due to the tiles, I could not program a collision system that was efficient enough in the given time. At first, since the game should have been on an invisible grid with grided movement, it should not have been a problem, but it became impossible to repair after changes were made.
Thanks for the critic and compliments on the mood ! Glad you liked it !
Well, that escalated quickly! The mood is on point, but the pacing is almost ruining this game. Just clicking a few times on the TV and then bed and boom, you're floating on the guy. I would love to see it in a longer, maybe more exploratory way, with a proper intro. But hey, it was still a good experience.
*PS:* Hey, I also went into the weird horror direction as an interpretation of the theme, I'm glad I'm not the only one! ^^
@suchista Thanks for playing ! Being encouraged by many here, I actually consider doing a longer version. You are totally right, the pacing sucks : it heavily rely on the player goodwill. Again it's mainly due to my lack of experience in jam and programmation. I'm working on my skill for now, so if I'll do it it'll be for later.
I'll try your game tomorrow !
Your game is very reflective and emotional I would say. It has a good interpretation of the theme. The controls are simple and functional. The text content is good too. Thinking about a game made in 48 hours, you delivered something interesting. Congratulations.
Thanks a lot @vphyre ! I'm glad you liked it in spite of its problems.