badmuchachob 2021-10-03 23:52
This is probably my favorite submission so far. The atmosphere and sound design is insane!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → The Salatroitsk Incident
By drunkardwolf
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 60 | 3.97 | 75 | |
| Fun | 199 | 3.56 | 75 | |
| Innovation | 361 | 3.10 | 74 | |
| Theme | 421 | 3.08 | 75 | |
| Graphics | 20 | 4.37 | 76 | |
| Audio | 41 | 3.95 | 75 | |
| Humor | 326 | 2.44 | 57 | |
| Mood | 2 | 4.49 | 76 |
This is probably my favorite submission so far. The atmosphere and sound design is insane!
Fun and atmospheric! Couldn't find the last rock(s) though. Good job!
Wow this was awesome! the atmosphere is great, fantastic job on this one, my favorite so far!
Awesome!
Awesome sounddesign! I liked the big blop enemy.
As a horror game wuss, the atmosphere was spot on. Even though the enemy doesn't even move that fast I found myself screaming for it to get away. Fantastic job!
Great atmosphere! Couldn't find the next rock and got eaten by a blob instead. Btw there's a little typo in you controls description ;)
This was so fun! Honestly pretty dang creative, even as a slender clone~
The atmosphere is stellar! Sadly running through Wine seems to be a complete chore for this game thanks to the heavy particle effects. I'd love to give the game side another look with a Linux port if you have the time, but your PSX artwork is incredible as always!
The PSX aesthetic really lends itself well to the horror element. Great work on putting together a cohesive experience; every element strengthens the mood that you were going for. The muted color palette, the heavy breathing, the fog, the low resolution. I have mixed feelings about the fog and the low resolution, because on one hand I'm sure that it wouldn't be nearly as spooky without it, but it also made it harder for me to navigate the map. There were some landmarks that I could take note of, but not enough and ultimately I spent 50% of the time feeling lost, wondering if I'd been here before, etc. When I first played Minecraft I had mixed feelings about getting lost; on one hand I was frustrated and wished I could just warp back home, but on the other hand I was engaged, there was also something to do because the world was so full of stuff, and I would just lose hours playing the game. The Geiger counter helps with navigation a little bit, but it didn't help me find my way back to the car. I feel like I just stumbled upon my car again by sheer luck. It's a bit like trying to walk around my house with my eyes closed. It's an interesting challenge but not that fun.
Having said that, I know that my submission suffers from the exact same problem of players feeling lost. It's interesting to see how you went about addressing it. Overall the game wasn't so difficult that I had to put it down. I finished it in 6 or 7 minutes. Perhaps it was knowing that there was a finite number of rocks I had to collect that gave me the determination to keep going.
Nitpick and I know this is the compo but I didn't enjoy some of the sound effects. For the Geiger counter on/off sound I think there was too much reverb for the situation. Just a dry beep, or the clicking of a plastic button would do. For the empty magazine sound, it's usually a click, not a buzzer. For the gun reload, it just doesn't sound like a reload in any game I've played. There was no satisfying click, and the sounds that were there were just very harsh on my ears. I don't know how you would have recorded sounds for that though. The closest thing I could think of was maybe a plastic battery cover for loading the clip and clinking keys (??) for cocking the gun.
@turncoda thanks for the really cohesive feedback, I agree with you on every point. Wanted to add more landmarks but struggled to get more in during the 48 hours. Regarding the sound effects, the reload and empty clips were just me hitting and sliding two pieces of metal together, found it quite hard to get anything that I was really happy with so had to settle. Thanks again for the feedback :)
@anchorlight thanks for playing again, shame it doesn’t run better through wine, unfortunately I don’t think a Linux build is in the cards as I don’t have a Linux machine to test on. Looking forward to checking out your game when I get home from work! :)
Typical day in slav city. Big blob fella is my new friend. My pocket full of glowing pebbles and I don't feel good.
@drunkardwolf No worries, I'll put it on the backburner for a Windows setup. If you do end up putting out a build, I'd be happy to take a look for you though! My own game lacks a Linux port at the moment for known issues, hopefully that will be rectified before tonight.
Your arts and sound design really bring back some memory from childhood. In this way, the game hit the bullseye and is really immersing. Unfortunately, mechanics are not solid enough to push me to the seventh heaven. I felt lost too many times and the rock collect was a bit more tedious than rewarding. In my opinion, you could take away the "nemesis" (and even maybe the rock mission), put some piece of history here and there (so that we don't get lost anymore but we stumble across nice surprises) and get a super nice walking-sim. You would have been able to focus more on the great atmosphere you created. Anyway, still an amazing entry (especially considering it's a Compo).
really cool, loved the graphics and sounds. really awesome mood, meat boy was scary.
Cool game! Really interesting idea to use radiation for this theme. And i like this graphics.
It's a very interesting game. I liked the way the visuals and sound effects work here. Also, I liked the setting.
Interesting game, I'm not usually big on horror games. Not the most innovative horror game but a good amount for a game jam
The sound and graphical design is impeccable. Wicked stuff. While the game play leaves a lot to be desire, that's understandable given its a jam game. Good stuff!
Neat game. Loved the aesthetics and simple, yet effective gameplay. Reminded me of Slenderman, even though the monster kept my sanity at check by letting me know where he was (but he still scared me when I had to reload the gun)!
The game is super atmospheric and creepy, reminds me of Silent Hill with a nuclear post-apo vibe :) The PSX-like graphics create a unique experience, reminding me of the old times playing some creepy games (like Dino Crisis) as a kid. The actual gameplay is rather simple, but I feel like it's enough for a game like this.
The constant presence crawling behind my back sent shivers down my spine, especially when I realised that with each rock sample gathered it was getting faster and faster. This game is so immersive and atmospheric that I sat with my headphones and couldn't stop playing it, even though I am usually too much of a wimp to play horror games. The sound indicators of the monster were a good idea, I hate jumpscares so this made the game enjoyable for me :smile:
Very good submission, definitely unique and worth playing. Good job!
What a great experience! It's a surprisingly polished game with every aspect given enough attention. Love it!
Maybe the monster was a bit easy to scare off, but it still made the game feel really unsettling, so it does it's job very well.
I was streaming my playthrough of some games and made a recording of it. I hope it will be helpful for you to see a first-time player's perspective of your game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88rtTOXawsw I'm starting to play your game at 58:16
Wow amazing work, especially for a compo game. The ps1 art style works great for this genre, the visual representation and the sound design create a suitable mood. Hats off!
Great spooky and retro atmospheric game. A nice concept with the radiation detector and nice gun shot sound. A well rounded game, nice entry!
Good atmosphere, enjoyed shooting at that big fucking blop of meat.
Amazing!
Adore the look and feel of this game, and a compo game no less!
It was a really cool experience, i think the game could be balanced a bit more if you have a limited amount of ammo ! Good job
Awesome work, the atmosphere was tense (love the use of classic PS1 fog and the sound design, no music was the right choice). The monster was very slow moving, but I don’t think that was a bad thing combined with the persistence of it. Admittedly I’m a total baby with horror, but I found it very tense—great work!
Very cool game, especially for the amount of time you had! My only feedback is that I wish there was more architecture to explore and the beast was faster.
very good game. The setting is fantastic, I love the retro style. It plays very well, good mechanics. Impressive to do this in just 48h
Not sure if it was intentional, but I found my way to the car by looking at the location of the Ferris wheel. Great map design!
Very gripping. Definitely made me feel some things at least once or twice. Controls were intuitive and gameplay was pretty straight-forward.
The theme is touched on with the radioactivity / chemically unsable, and maybe the user's unstable state, but I didn't feel it so much in the gameplay. If you really wanted to play to the chemical instability, maybe have some of the rocks turn into little rock monsters when you get up close. And maybe have the gun jam. Maybe have the player walking on a frozen lake, where the ice starts to crack.
As far as navigation goes, yes there were landmarks, but the entire terrain felt a little silly. The road markers at the beginning were great, but then the terrain turned into this giant bare bowl? A map would have been nice, maybe a car alarm so you can use audio to find your way back, or even the ability to climb the hills and get a better vantage point.
Cute horror game. I saw some silent hill atmosphere.
Very Cool PS1 Style horror game! Graphic is amazing. The audio make the atmosphere very good. Monster keep chasing you gibes the game more tension and gameplay.
Probably my favorite entry so far. The atmosphere is just too good. I think it would have been even better if the enemy were smaller, sneakier, faster, etc. and ammo was limited just to bump up the difficulty, but as is it's still fantastic, especially for doing it by yourself in 48 hours!
EDIT: Also great job on the polish! No bugs or weirdness whatsoever.
just gonna mimic everyone else here and say that i found the mood to be perfect. love this type of old-style 3D horror game. took me 3 tries to beat which i think is perfect and makes the final run that much more satisfying. i also noticed after the fact that this was a compo, so even more well done my friend.
Today I downloaded Unity 2020.3.20f1 (closest I could get to the original game on Linux, 14f1) and tried to port the game myself. There was a pretty bad flickering bug where the black bars flash random colors, so it's probably for the best that you didn't release a Linux version as it could easily be headache inducing. It is a _constant_ flashing due to the method you used in limiting the aspect (not faulting you for this, there's absolutely no way you would have known this and for Windows it clearly works perfectly as intended).
All that said, I finally played through your game in the editor preview window. WOW. The atmosphere is stellar, the enemy is just enough of a threat to keep you on your toes, and best of all, it's a horror game that doesn't make you _entirely_ powerless. I can't stand the Amnesia approach of making the player useless, and having a small arms that can deter but not stop your greatest fear is a fun mechanic I wish more developers understood.
I found the game to be a little bit easy, but maybe this was because I didn't run out of ammo if there is any kind of limit. The vignette was a nice touch as it warned me of the monster's presence just moments before it took me down, and from that point onwards it was a mad dash for that last rock. You once again have proven that you know exactly how to tell a story through atmosphere and give away only the bare minimum for context.
I would like to point out that I did run into an input bug, whenever I was walking diagonally there was a chance that my input could get stuck moving in a certain direction and refuse to change. It wasn't ever a gamebreaking problem, but occasionally got on my nerves and stuck out like a sore thumb in what was otherwise an incredibly polished entry.
The technical hurdles were all worth it. This was spectacular. Congrats on yet another Compo entry that leaves everything else in the irradiated dust.
Now, on the topic of what went wrong when building for Linux... I'll have to do some further investigation but it seems like the issue I ran into is because no camera or any other rendered _anything_ is present on the left and right sides of the screen. I believe that you may be able to work around this by rendering entirely blank UI canvases or cameras on the left and right sides of the screen, but I may need to do more investigation.
EDIT: Creating a camera that sees only the solid color black with a W/H of 1/1, no letterboxing script, and a culling mask of nothing seems to have done the trick. By setting depth to -500 it stays out of the way and simply covers areas of the screen that would otherwise be a don't clear.
I now have a working build on my system. The issues were as follows:
- If you used a technique to posterize colors or cut down on resolution, it appears to be broken in this version. Looking at the Inspector, I believe the cameras in the source code are missing a Script responsible for the low resolution buffers. - Intense Z-fighting on the Giger Counter-- fixed by slightly raising the meter/display plane above the geometry - Color flashing on black bars-- fixed by a dummy camera that renders solid black at depth -500, culling mask of nothing, in both game scenes
I have footage of a second playthrough on this scrapped-together port (built just before fixing the z-fighting issue I mentioned) which can be seen below: https://youtu.be/Cv38HnY0k4c
For fixing the posterization, I think it may be doable using Unity's 2D Pixel Perfect Camera package and the posterize script from dsoft20's PSX shader. If you're interested, I could probably have this port tidied up and sent to you some time early next week.
@anchorlight thanks for giving this a test for me, its very helpful. Theres no need to spend more time cleaning this up for a proper build though as I might end up getting round to that myself at some point. Regarding the input issue, I'll look into it and see if its an issue with other platforms, or whether it may just be an quirk with the new Unity input system when on Linux (there are a few quirks with it in editor on windows such as sometimes having to tab out and in at start up for input to work).
Well, this is the scariest game of the jam so far for me. The PS1 style lends itself to the horror genre really well, and the sound effects and ambience here are high-quality. The gameplay *is* pretty similar to Slender, but considering this is a short 5 to 10 minute experience, I don't consider that a bad thing-the gameplay loop of Slender works well in short bursts. This is a nicely rounded out submission for the compo. I can't really think of anything negative about this game, other than maybe the iterative gameplay, but that'd only be for people who are sick of Slender-style games.
I enjoyed this!
The atmosphere was great and I loved both the sounds and visuals a lot. I think the lack of music really helped the maintain the feeling of tension in the game.
My main criticism is that a lot of the sound effects were a little bit too video-gamey for my taste. They broke my immersion somewhat and made the game not quite as spooky as it could have been. Instead of bleeps and jingles, I think the sound of clicking switches or rustling equipment would have worked better.
I didn't get lost while playing, but I can understand why some people complain that they did. The buildings and landmarks in the background were really good, so perhaps positioning something distinctive behind the car (like the Ferris-wheel) would make it easier to find the way back there?
Anyway, these are minor complaints. I think you did a really good job.
Nice moody game - the graphics and style work nicely together. Collected all the glowy bits and got away. The danger wasn't too high tho - would have loved a bit more threat from either the monster or the radiation. :)
I really liked the atmosphere of the game and the mood it creates. I personally think that it would be a lot more fun with limited ammo, because the *abomination* did not really pose any threat. This is an extremely polished 3D game for 48 hours, congrats!
The PSX graphics and Soviet aesthetics create an atmospheric world in which the idea of sending a single dude to collect rocks and fight against a monster doesn't seem that implausible! Loved the look of the game and the sparse audio worked well. The game isn't that scary - so just perfect for me! The monster seemed enough like a threat and I imagine you can still get yourself killed if you forget to reload. I didn't tho and successfully escaped with my new collection of radioactive debris. Great job!
Took a couple of gos and re-reading the decription before i realised i had a gun and had a way to fight the monster. Once I did it was easy enough to get all the pieces and escape. Great job for 48H the PS graphics filter works really nicely and overall everything has a pretty polished feel and nicely atmospheric, only missed a bit of creepy ambience music to complete the effect. As at @loyance said might be better wth limited ammo as once you realize that it can be easily scared off its not much of a threat. The encroaching vignette to warn you he is behind you is helpful, but maybe a bit too helpful, i guess that would be 'easy mode' or something, i guess sound design could also be used for that warning slightly more subtley perhaps. Anyway very nitpicky for an LD game. I would say for whats possible in a compo game going for a retro horror style you really nailed it, congrats.
Exactly like my hometown
This is an awesome game, really enjoyed it. Reminds me of STALKER with PS1 graphics. Found all 6 rocks but the monster eventually got me. Sometimes it felt like bullets were going right through it.
Also, good name haha. We both had similar ideas with that
One day in Salatroitsk-Pripyat, I liked it! I thought that when I get into the car, there will be a continuation. It would be very interesting to further explore this city with new monsters. Good job!
Such immersion.. I personally don't like horrors, but in this game enemy isn't really scary. Maybe it should be faster, or to resist more shots
Really great job on the playstation vibe. From the sound effects being creepy, but still PS1 quality to the pixel-ization. I loved it, I did have some trouble reading the text on my 720p monitor at times. Overall great job. Might be interesting to see this expanded upon with some sort of ammo mechanic. That would make the monster even more scary.
You did a great job for Compo Game! It has a very thick atmosphere 😊
First off: This game is absolutely gorgeous! I love the artstyle to bits, it's lit amazing the backdrops are wonderful the fog is moody.
I love that the screen dims when he gets close so it never feels unfair if he sneaks up on you, however the pistol having so many shots and it only taking one to deter him as well as him not going that far just meant he wasn't much of a threat, couple that with sprint and he's more of a nuisance than anything else, I wish the difficulty here was a little better.
The mood was freaking amazing and I loved even the little clicks for the menu options and the environment, the Geiger counter it was great that you had to hold down RMB to open it so the ticking doesn't give you a headache.
I loved every little bit of this. Gameplay wise it was a little lacking as aforementioned but it's just so solid.
Wow what a moody game for such a short jam! As a compo entry, this is unbelievable. Atmosphere, graphics, audio were all amazing. I really love how simple the objective was, while giving me a perfect excuse to have my encounter and avoid the monster. The whole thing felt dangerous and spooky. Great work!
We found all samples without using Geiger counter) Had to explore the whole location to find the last piece. The Creature is funny and creepy at the same time. Sometimes it felt like Slander. But, honestly I liked the fact that I have infinite number of ammo, so that I can fire at this creature as much as I want. Graphics feels like you play Minecraft in RTX mode. I would play this game one more time if the graphics could be improved to a suitable level. It would be also nice to have a minimap to help with orientation. Fog is cool, but sometimes it is too much of fog. Game feels something like "You Are Empty" or "Cryostasis" Sound is good, all actions have their sound. The only thing that was missed is the ambient sound (and graphics settings in menu :)). If this game has been released 15 years earlier it would have gained its popularity :) Thanks a lot guys
A very atmospheric game, and I enjoyed the use of the PSX aesthetic. I would have liked to see more.
I did have trouble reading the font, but it could have been a resolution or aspect ratio problem.
Dude, it's cool to do this in 2 days. But it was unrealistically boring... The enemy just gets faster when you collect more ~~notes~~ stones (well, I think you get it). And the usefulness of the radar ... I did not understand at all. He definitely does not point to the stones, and then I had the idea that he was pinting to a traditional sign... But why? What was the point in that? And yet you can shoot back from the enemy even there hundreds of meters away. And you only need to hit once, so the reload mechanic is essentially useless. There are a lot of controversial points. But of course the sounds and the snowiness itself and monster, are not bad. But I definitely did not immerse myself in the game, because this postprocessing will not help make the game better if it is already boring from the very beginning). But thanks for such a gaming experience.
Incredible entry. The gameplay may be very minimalistic, but looking at what you achieved under compo, I am amazed. Ambience, graphics, and game feel are all very sweet, and the game's accessible enough that even the worst "horror" players (me) can get to see it to the end. Definitely solid enough for more potential content, too! Reading such weird comments in here... I'm very glad that any jam or compo game would be easy, and I don't see how I can complain or recommend extra features - when either they aren't needed, or aren't there because of time :p We all did the same event right? Seems like some folks here got to use the time chamber during LD ;) Cheers!
you've nailed that PSX look perfectly
Dandy game! I love the name of your game :3