2024-04-16 23:40
Really liked the game! Hope you make lots more in the future!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Seance
By alexrose and atmospherium
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 2 | 4.64 | 66 | |
| Fun | 24 | 4.30 | 66 | |
| Innovation | 38 | 4.20 | 66 | |
| Theme | 1 | 4.82 | 66 | |
| Graphics | 11 | 4.73 | 66 | |
| Audio | 1 | 4.79 | 66 | |
| Humor | ||||
| Mood | 1 | 4.77 | 66 |
Really liked the game! Hope you make lots more in the future!
Everything about this game is so extremely well done, the visuals, the audio, the voice acting. It's all great but I got stuck after gathering 5 clues and I don't know if I'm missing something or it's the game breaking bug that's been mentioned. If it's the latter I will patiently wait till it gets fixed and try the game again. Nonetheless the game is super polished and probably one of the best entries.
Wonderful entry! I didn't manage to solve the mistery - I think I got stuck at a point, but I still had a lot of fun with it! I rarely see games with voice acting on jams, and yours is really good quality!! Love the whole graphical presentation too! But as someone who's seen a lot of ouija boards in games/movies, it was a bit jarring to see it used like this, but it adds a lot to the gameplay so I can look past that haha! Congrats to the game!
@vladimperator sorry, I fixed the bug like 2 hours after submission hour, the build is fine, it's completeable, a few people already beat it on stream
if you're stuck, you need to ask everyone to elaborate. if it helps, altmann is a complete red herring, he's gives you 2 clues and then that's it. so if you're at 5, sounds like you need to push Tamsin to elaborate until you get a dialogue where she's asking a question
I'll see if more people get stuck, if so I could just make the text that is pushable/presentable a different colour to make it clearer. we didn't get to do any playtesting before the game launched
Your game is beautiful, with cool music and even voiceover (!), well done that is a great entry!
This was incredible! I didn't manage to solve the mystery but I will have to come back to it and figure it all out! I really enjoyed this though, the game looks and sounds amazing!
The game is beautiful. The sound design is amazing. The story is crazy. This is like a finished game. JUST AMAZING!!!
And that's a perfect score for me, congratulations. The story is great, the search for info is tedious but rewarding, the art is gorgeous. I could have bought it.
@alexrose I really tried everything now from pressing on every sentence to asking different combinations of clues. I restarted the game many times and she doesn't ask me any questions. I even made a simple mod which shows me which dialogues are pressable and and only tried pressing those. I'm probably missing something trivial and it's super annoying since I really want to play the game.
@vladimperator you have to present the right clue at the right time. if someone is annoyed at you like "you're not listening to me", it means you didn't present the clue at the right time. I assume you're getting stuck where Tamsin asks where she was and you need to show Downtown
@alexrose Oh my god, I feel stupid now. I really couldn't connect the dots. Thank you
@vladimperator I added a clue sheet to the entry here that I think will take care of all the main things where people have got stuck
What a crazy good entry! I was a little disappointed by the ending, I fell like there could have been a better twist (even though I can't think of one now), but all in all this was just crazy impressive! Really well done!
How can such a masterpiece be made in just 72 hours? This game was crazy good, easily the highest quality game I've seen this jam. By a mile.
The depth, the concept, the visuals, the voice acting/sound design, everything was so perfect. I'm just amazed, incredible job!
Man I came into this expecting another goofy little rude bear game, and instead you (and the rest of your amazing team) deliver this incredible masterpiece! I’m now just curious what would happen if I typed things in the ouija board before I knew them, could I summon baphomet right from the start??? I’m also hoping that you put up the soundtrack for this!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2122044081
Didn't finished the game, I stuck in a moment I got a cctv clue. Great detective game, awesome arts, good text, good audio. Only issue - I don't really understand when spirits are able to process my request or when they are saying that I'm not listening them (even when it's the only part with a green text they say). Love it by the way.
Amazing entry! Perfectly polished, it looks amazing and the audio is all around fantastic.
Here are two details that wasn't perfect for me: * The board is using the letter's mesh as raycast targets, which makes it annoying to click on some of them, like the I (especially when you want to go fast after some back and forth). A larger transparent target would make it perfect. * The story is really nice, but imo the clues about who the killer is are too rare and subtle for most of the game, then we get some really meaningfull ones right before the end. I think I would have preferred to be progressively convinced of who the killer is, instead of a twist at the end.
@yorsh did you see in the note you can just click the word and it will auto transfer to the board? the board letters use box colliders not meshes, but the reason they're not even distributed is there's some overlap. e.g. T overlaps with S and U, J and K overlap, Y and Z overlap, so boxes don't work. I drew polygon colliders around them. The letter 'i' though is pretty hard to click because it's the least wide character yeah.
there are some clues about the killer's scattered identity throughout. tamzin mentions that the man was about your height. aria mentions you have dizzy spells, that the person must have had access to the building because there was no break-in (you are a patient) and points out that one of her patients (you) had the truck and that you always talked about summoning (and you later find out the killer wants to summon baphomet). dylan keeps telling you to come down here below (since he is in the same building), then later there's the candle. It is scattered throughout, if I just told you up front though it would ruin the surprise
An amazing game! The graphics work really well.
I wish there was a volume slider, as closer to the end the music started to get tiring, but I couldn't think of missing out on the voice acting.
I find it funny how the notepad has Rendell's name wrong, especially after the Detective mentions it wrong himself. Was that intentional? ACDSeeQVUltimate17_49eX7W9jxt.png
The ending felt slightly weird, did it mean [rot13]Oncubzrg unf npghnyyl znantrq gb svaq gur irffry naljnlf? Ohg gura jul qvq vg arrq hf gb, jryy, pnyz qbja gur fcvevgf?[/rot13]
Overall, a really great entry! I'm honestly surprised at how well you've managed to keep the voice acting throughout the Seance.
@pelmanable Rendell gives you 'Thief' in the same sequence that CCTV solves, you can't unlock 'CCTV' without 'Thief'. Sounds like you just didn't talk to Rendell. He says:
>I didn't catch them with my bare hands though. **I had another way.**
with a green highlight. when asked to elaborate he says:
>That's the power of technology.
when they say you aren't listening, it means you presented evidence that the character responds to in the wrong place. could be from a later sequence you didn't get to yet, or from the same sequence and you replied to the wrong word
@dragonayzer [rot13]va zl urnqpnaba, oncubzrg qbrfa'g rira rkvfg, lbh ner whfg qryhfvbany, nyy gur tubfgf ner lbhe zheqre ivpgvzf naq gur qrgrpgvir yvxrjvfr vf n qryhfvba bs lbhef (rkprcg jura lbh frr gur erny uvz nf lbhe cevfbare sbe n zbzrag)[/rot13]
and yeah the notepad was a typo lol, good catch. altmann and knife were accidentally swapped too, I've corrected them, cheers for the heads up
@alexrose damn ok I get what the inspector was saying at the start with the notepad now. I thought I had to click something to add it to the notepad, then when it obviously wasn't the case I forgot about it. Well, I went the hard way. So yeah it's perfect nevermind ahah.
@sariiger you can see the moment I come up with the idea here haha https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2118146033?t=3h20m48s
@alexrose Dropped you a follow and I will definitely watch the creation process once I have the time! :smile:
Wow! Excellent entry! The mood, the story, the music, the ending (I expected something similar, but you pulled it off quite well), wow. The only point where I got some frustation was when looking for "kidnapping" having to use a hint another time in a not so obvious place, was a little mean. Apart from that I really enjoyed where quickly I got the word I knew I had to use somewhere else, the feeling of really understanding the case and the witnesses. Congratulations on one of the best games I've played so far!
@le-slo yeah, it wasn't intentionally mean, but I wrote all the dialogue in one go and there was zero playtesting at all. by the time I realised it didn't have a clear clue, the game was already out haha. it is what it is. I'm just thankful I mostly made good design decisions
Impressively polished, great work! Well paced mystery, cute mechanic of needing to type into the spirit board, and wonderful art and voice acting. I do wish the notepad allowed for instant entry of names/words rather than still needing to be "ghost typed" into the board, but I'm an impatient person.
@tellatells if you hold left click the autotype goes at double speed
Stupidly good UX and polish, and a ridiculous amount of content! I wrote a VN for a week long jam once and spent a solid 40 hours writing. I can't imagine writing this much and also making the game. The art and music do so much, and it's all tied together with really intuitive gameplay. The music reminds me a lot of 999 which is perfect for a mystery thriller. The graphics are like old school scumm games which is fun. Really great character designs. And the VA!!! That's just not fair. Everyone was amazing. Tamsin in particular was great, very Slay The Princess esque, and Sonny also nailed it of course.
Gameplay is interesting and makes a lot of sense once you understand the colors and the evidence giving mechanics. The oujia input is very clever and novel, but it does end up being just a fancy way to select words from a menu. You do provide a menu, which is very convenient, but it only sidesteps the issue that the oujia board is not actually necessary. I would've liked to see some prompts that required typing answers that aren't on the notebook. Like some really easy non-puzzles like "hmm what direction did he go? not north or south..." where the goal is just to use the ouija. I thought the vehicle one was one of these but I guess it wasn't (see below).
The interruption dialogue was a bit confusing. Does it mean that the clue is meant to be used on a different line of this particular phase of dialogue, or a future phrase, or do past phrases also count? I used "thief" with Aria and it was the right answer, but when I used it again later she did the interruption dialogue. So I wasn't sure if I had to use "thief" again or if it just triggered the interruption dialogue because it was used in a previous line of hers.
That is the point where I got permanently stuck thought (after getting the cctv clue and using "thief") and could not progress at all. I spent probably over 20 minutes brute forcing all the clues with all the ghosts and could not get anywhere. I also tried manually typing in all kinds of creatures and literally every vehicle I could think of, but it didn't work. It seems like a bug but I can't really tell since it's a mystery game. I tried to reload the game but it doesn't remember progress so I'm quitting for now.
Holy shit, Alex, what a game! When you were asking for a whole bunch of voice actors, I initially thought that was more of a gimmick, like a "I do it because I can" situation, but I underestimated how much it helps with getting you immersed in the story. If it was text only, I might not have enjoyed it as much.
The murder mystery is very good. You really need to go back and forth between all the characters (well except Altmann, rip). There were moments I got stuck. Those moments did have me end up trying things at random, but the eventual solution I found was always one that made sense, I just hadn't thought of asking that person about that particular thing before. I was a bit confused by the ending. I read your head canon. [rot13]V guvax gb fryy gung lbh pbhyq unir rzcunfvmrq zber ba gur snpg gung ur jnf penml, naq gung ur arrqf uryc. V thrff gung vf nyernql fnvq jvgu gur snpg gung ur unf n gurencvfg, ohg fgvyy.[/rot13]
The art looks amazing. The fuzziness around the ghost was a bit distracting at the beginning, but I guess it does add to the ghostiness. Though I'm not sure if that was intentional. Besides the big artwork of the ghosts and the detective, the small artworks of the clues are also really cool. The candle flickering is neat, and even the ouija board had a cool design.
I was a bit confused about the elaborate/keep going. I feel like you would always want to elaborate. At least the first time you are entering that path of dialogue. Other than that I had no issue with any of the mechanics.
I hope your game gets a final rating that it deserves, and is not affected too much by people only playing it for 5 minutes. If someone asks how good and big of a game you can make in 72 hours, I think this will be a great example to show them.
@foolmoron, rendell says he caught the thief with the power of technology in the same sequence he gives you Thief
Absolutely loved it! That's totally my cup of tea and I had a lot of fun playing. Great art and fantastic voice acting, kudos to everyone involved. The story was interesting too, it managed to keep me hooked till the end. The only thing that slightly threw me off was the fact that sometimes the questions you had to answer were green, and sometimes they were not. At first I thought you only have to present evidence when you see green question, so that made me get stuck one time. But that's a minor concern, overall amazing job!
@alexrose Rendell accepted the cctv clue and then asked for a vehicle. No one accepted any of the clues after that
@foolmoron Tamsin gives the additional vehicle clue if you press her on the crime she witnessed, but you have to know the type of crime. That'll lead you to the vehicle type for Rendell.
@sonnybone Do you have to free-type the crime? I tried a bunch of crimes including “kidnapping” which someone mentioned here, but she wouldn't accept any
@foolmoron Can't free type. Has to come from the notebook. The victim of the kidnapping will give you the clue
@foolmoron dylan was meeting his mum in the office (his dialogue for therapist/downtown etc. also asks you about where he was going), you show dylan the office and he you get that clue
finally got it T.T
this, is, masterpiece. can't imagine how you guys could finished such an complete and amaizng entry in 3 days. What an experience to make it through the end and realize everything has already reveal itself at the initial start I love sucn an experience reminds me of good time playing ghost tricks and phoenix ace attorney, and now they are coming togethe with a big twist here. I love this entry! super good job here!
@foursay THANK YOU! Naming those two games put a huge smile on my face. I had no idea what I was in for when I agreed to participate and super proud of Alex, Lowri, and Atmospherium for nailing the landing.
This is an amazing game, and I'm glad I took the time to finish it instead of playing other games. The voice acting and music was amazing (I loved the shift in tone during a seance), and the art is really good. By the end lighting the candles was starting to get tedious - especially when switching back and forth between people, but not ridiculously boring. I noticed two small issues with the graphics: 1. There's no custom characters for "!" and numbers, and 2. SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE REST OF THIS REVIEW
When talking to Aria about candles she says "like the ones you have here". The right candle is short and stubby and doesn't look much like a church candle any more. The left candle looks more like what I'd expect, but unfortunately the notepad covers most of it. Maybe it could be moved further left, or even removed for this final stretch of the game where we don't need it any more, just so we can see the candles in all their glory.
I started to cotton on to the ending at the line about the height of the killer, and I especially liked the pig and sheep on the Ouija board. I especially liked the lines from the victims which were reminiscent of what they actually said, it really helped with the idea that Baphomet was sort of controlling the player (or at least messing with their head). The changing image of the detective was great, and the application closing was really impactful for some reason: Did I die? Was my mind completely taken over by Baphomet? Something else?
This game is insane for a game jam, and I definitely need to replay it to see all the foreshadowing. It seems like some secret good ending (maybe a new game + exclusive if saving is implemented) would fit perfectly in a good release. Maybe there is one that I missed. Great job, an almost perfect score!
@ned-murry haha, you are correct - the reason the candles were like that is because I wrote all the dialogue before there were graphics. in my head the match you use to light the other candles was actually a long candle too (which would be the one you carried to the scene of the crime) but in the rush of the jam I poorly communicated that idea and it wasn't worth changing that late
This game is incredible! The art, the music, and the voice acting are all fantasic. I was totally invested in the story and I thought the difficulty was about perfect - it was challenging but not too hard, and it was really rewarding to get to the end (nice twist too). Can't believe this was achieved in such a short period of time!
Came here from xkoster's stream. Amazing work, massive game! Really quality product, it really deserves a steam release.
This is actually my favourite game in the jam. Same as my comment on stream. Just fantastic, beautiful EVERYTHING. I would pay money for this.
I played through the entire game and actually forgot I was streaming and rating games - it was such a good story- super enjoyed it - well done - excellent voice acting - so so so good.
Very great game, all the sounds, voice acting and everything is amazing, and I love the art. We had a similar approach please check it out if you have time, we would love to have feedback from your very talented team.
this was soo goood ^^
For what you've accomplished within the short timeframe, that was amazing.
Screenshot 2024-04-21 024124.png
I replayed the game you a friend, and I realize how great the writing is! Everything is so well conveyed and interesting, and coherent with the end! I just to talk about this story with everyone I know XD Please, make it a serie <3
I feel like I was just about to solve the mystery onstream when Baphomet themselves bluescreened my computer! But I will not be deterred. I will come back and deliver justice! Incredible accomplishment, team <3
Amazing writing, great idea and greater execution. I have no idea how you managed to write the dialogue and story in such a short amount of time. Doesn't feel like a jam game at all.
Perfection. (if only it had a web version)
@msolomon I tried to do a web version but the candles are actually mp4s that I chroma keyed so it doesn't work in browser unfortunately
[Thanks for submitting your game to stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2124420925?t=00h22m42s)
As a huge fan of the Ace Attorney games, this game immediately clicked with me. The production level is off the charts with this one, awesome job!
*(queue bernie sanders):*
I am once again asking for your banger soundtrack to be uploaded somewhere so I can listen to it occasionally!
@justcamh lol, I'll try to get a version exported and posted online tomorrow.
Amazing. It's extremely rare to have a jam game with a full story, with great graphics, perfectly matching the theme. The only nitpick is that the music felt a bit short, so I felt like I heard it loop quite a lot of times. But the music was also pretty banging, and the whole audio and voice acting was incredibly well done, so from my pov the audio was still 10/10. I don't really know what more to say -- I hope you get first place!
@justcamh Just uploaded to SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/atmospherium/whodunit) and added it to our game links. Enjoy!
The scope of this game was just great. The voice acting really made it for me, but the art is great too. all round Great Work!
OHMYGOODNESS WHAT THE HECK, WHERE DID THIS COME FROM!? Everyone in the jam needs to play this game. It was SO well done! The voice acting was top notch! I so felt for Tamsin. I could FEEL her pain! And I swear I know a Rend'ell! The mood was perfect. Dark and spooky. The art was GREAT! I hope you all win! I look forward to seeing what more y'all come up with next time!!!
So I have to come back and let you all know. One of my viewers reached out to me today asking about the game I played last night and wanting to play it. Linked her here. Well done!
@flyingkaida awww, thanks for letting me know Kaida <3 <3 <3
Well, what can I say...
This was intense.
Overall just perfect experience, for a jam game.
It was sometimes hard to know what to next, but the good gentlemen in chat helped me.
Everything was great - graphics, story, music, voice acting - just great.
Thank you for stopping by at my stream!
Man, this was such an experience! Wow, I really wasn't expecting it. You did a spectacular job here! Thanks for submitting it on stream! Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2133052643
What an amazing submission! The atmosphere and theme are fine-tuned to perfection. The visuals, sound design, and voice acting are all phenomenal. It started off feeling sluggish due to having to enter each letter separately, but thankfully the notepad came very soon -- it could just be unlocked from the start in a future release, even if it's not as tactile as using the planchette.
The writing was for the most part very good too. Just the ending left me a *little* cold, but for a jam submission, it's still good. The progression was smooth, except having to use the office clue on Dylan twice was very unintuitive. I suspect that's what the above commenter being stuck on the CCTV clue was also missing. This brought my progress to a full halt until I checked out @mateusboga 's VOD (thanks for that!) to figure out what I was missing. After that it was smooth sailing again.
Overall though, this was by far in my top 5 this entire jam. Wonderful stuff!
This is an amazing piece of art to be proud of~✨
And keep going! The human race needs more of your talent.
https://youtu.be/znoHJpOZCSc
That was crazy, I don't know how you did that in that time frame. Amazing! :v:
I loved this game! Played it all through right now. From the overall premise, the graphics, the story and the amazing voice acting, everything was great and fit well together. I don't know how you did it in that short time. Lovely entry, thanks for your creation. :)
really got me hooked! Everything is beautiful and well done, but the story managed to leave me intrigued and wanting to find out what really happened. I saw that a lot of people played it (I didn't watch the gameplay to avoid spoilers) and I thought I wouldn't like the game. I was very wrong! Congratulations for the game!
Wow, I can't believe I waited so long to play this. What an incredible story. The voice acting, the artwork, WOW.
First things first, the critical feedback. This game is such a masterpiece, that I only have the minor-est of nitpicks. The game automatically closed instead of going to a "GG, close the game now" kinda menu, so I briefly recorded my messy Desktop at the end of my video. I also usually like to start replaying a game while I can provide some more feedback, but that would require restarting the application, and I already panic-ended the recording because my messy desktop.
I also think the shots of my character was a little... poorly framed? For a second, I thought the detective guy was the one striking a dramatic "OH NO!" pose, only to realize a few lines later that it was actually me. (I incorrectly assumed for a minute that I was the killer)
Also a few things in the timeline seem to be a bit conflicting? At least I assumed the timeline was, thief takes pig/sheep, kills butcher, kills aria, kidnaps dylan, kills tamsin, loud bang, fragrance. Which conflicts with the butcher smelling the fragrance.
Anyway, that's all the criticism I have. This game was amazing.
I recorded myself playing to provide some extra feedback.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN7fbol7gdo
@100th-coin you ARE the killer. the detective is your neighbour who came to investigate the Bang, it reveals that the killer is a patient of the therapist who does seances at the chapel (ypur location) and has candles, and has a truck, and is your height, and Dylan is under your building. You do indeed conclude that you are the killer but your brain doesn't want to allow the information in, so when your chained up neighbour (who you perceive as the detective) says "please, stop, let me go" you revisualise him as saying "I'm a liar, I deserved this and you shouldn't listen to me anymore", the implication being that you will then sew the sheep's head on him to make him the new vessel
I wanted to execute that more clearly at the end but I didn't have time to write a shader to sell it better because.. 72 hours
timeline btw is: you, the killer, are the patient of aria. she doesn't believe in your baphomet obsession. you want to summon him so you go to rendell in your truck and steal a sheep and a pig, which you later fashion into a pig mask. you clock that there was cctv recording later, so you go back in your pig mask to delete the footage, you bash Rendell over the head and steal the altmann knives from Rendell, which you use to chop him up and mix him in with the meat. Then you go to Aria's office where you kill her in rage for not believing you. You enter the office as a patient, put the mask on and quietly strangle her to death without arousing attention, then as you're leaving you come across Dylan. You knock him out and throw him in your truck, but Tamsin witnesses this on her jog, so you take the knives from the truck and kill Tamsin. Then you take Dylan to the church and cut off the sheep's head, then go upstairs. When you do, he bursts the pipe, and the sound is loud enough that your neighbour knocks. you drown dylan so he won't be heard. then you kidnap the neighbour, who you delude yourself into thinking is a detective, then conduct the final seance. you have candles with you throughout
Well this is the entry I have spent the most time on, haha. It took me a bit over an hour to finish. But it was well worth it because I loved the ending, there's so many things I loved actually. Obviously, great art & voice acting. Fun with a @sheepolution cameo.
Such a unique take on the theme!
I agree with @100th-coin that this is a master piece haha. My only, super nit-picky nitpick is that I wish it did not say [ENTER] on the board, but that there was a different way to "lock in", maybe lighting the candles?
Top marks! Even though there was no rude bear :smile:
@simon-rahnasto yeah originally I was thinking of making it automatically just lock in a word once you have typed a valid word but I like there to be some agency to a submission. if you click the notepad entries it does just go through so it's more of an intro onboarding thing but yeah, I would love to do better onboarding
Done!
1. you dont need to remember words, just find the green lines and click keywords 2. always talk to the detective after you get new keyword