Insomniac by AidanAK47

[raw]
made by AidanAK47 for LD27 (JAM)
A Kinetic novel created using the Ren'Py visual novel engine. The music and sound effects were taken from the visual novel Umineko no naku koro ni.

This horror story involves a college student being tormented by a strange creature that sits in the corner of his room at night.

Ratings

Coolness 30% 1613
Overall(Jam) 3.42 155
Audio(Jam) 3.82 31
Fun(Jam) 3.17 191
Graphics(Jam) 3.28 287
Innovation(Jam) 2.84 347
Mood(Jam) 4.44 2
Theme(Jam) 1.94 583

Feedback

Shmarah
27. Aug 2013 路 07:30 UTC
Playing this at 3:00 AM was a baaaaaad idea, but proves that you have created a fantastic, horrific mood!
I suggest the usage of text tags (especially {w} and {p}) to dramatically break up your longer lines of dialogue, as well as a better point of view/scale when it comes to the graphics? Great writing!
stewthepoo
27. Aug 2013 路 12:54 UTC
that was amazing! the music actually made my skin crawl.
Epiphane
28. Aug 2013 路 05:23 UTC
Good god that was terrifying... all that ties it to the theme was 2 words in the whole game, but still. Amazing atmosphere, tension, suspense, and great music & sound. One plot hole (or maybe I overlooked an explanation?) is, why doesn't he just have somebody sleep in the room with him? I'm assuming it would still torment him, only appearing when the other person was asleep or something, but it seemed like the obvious solution to me.

Nevertheless, fantastic spooky game!
paulmcgg
28. Aug 2013 路 21:17 UTC
Interesting horror game, kept me engaged.

I like the shots of house, but could have been more of these, even different ones of the same place from the same POV.

I would have liked if the monster was less in your face, maybe there was something other way you could have done the art for it or meshed better with environment? Sound was well used too (that sound effect damn).

Liked hearing the character's thoughts, more of that and more unusual, atypical stuff.
馃帳 AidanAK47
29. Aug 2013 路 02:59 UTC
@Epiphane, good point. I did think of a reason as to why he didn't tell anyone but I didn't think of countering someone being in the same room as him. I should change that after judging is over.
Though I would approach it in a different way that just having it appear when the other person is asleep. I think I will have it that he asks someone to stay in the room but it is at this point where his mentality is slightly unhinged. So rather than the person becoming scared of the thing tormenting the main character, they instead become scared of the main character standing guard with bat in hand. And then leave him to face it alone.
lopiky1
29. Aug 2013 路 03:35 UTC
scary and fun :3
Arcana
29. Aug 2013 路 04:01 UTC
Really nice narrative. You can actually infer a lot about the main character based on the way that he was responding to his hallucinations. The artwork, or what we saw of it, was great. I wish the "horror" was a little more abstract early on, we see that it's a bit fuzzy and faded at first before it comes into focus, but it's a bit odd when the character describes it as "a shadow" but you can clearly see a green cloak on top of a character.

I think it's reasonable that he might keep it all to himself - most reasonable people after all don't want to say "I see shadows at night and I'm scared". After all, he didn't tell his flatmate or his family about it, so it might be not his style to talk about these kinds of things to his friends. Perhaps some suggestion that he's a character who doesn't believe in any supernatural phenomena (or possibly mental disorders, though that's a little less PC) would help explain why he wouldn't tell anyone.

Good entry!
blackotus
31. Aug 2013 路 15:50 UTC
I really like how moody this is!
It's a great short story, too! Very well told!

Nice work on the narrative and presentation!
Nick Cash
03. Sep 2013 路 02:01 UTC
A really interesting entry! I didn't know about Ren'Py; I'll have to check it out for my own projects :)
gmaker
05. Sep 2013 路 10:31 UTC
amazing game!! =) GREAT JOB!!!!
zzForrest
06. Sep 2013 路 23:53 UTC
This game is incredible. It's strangely imersive and gets across the feeling of slowly descending into madness due to a strange shadow in the corner. The theme wasn't really implemented well, because it was only there to tell a bit more story that wasn't necessary, but fortunately this is a great game.
porglezomp
07. Sep 2013 路 14:39 UTC
That was terrifying. I'm dissapointed that I can't rate this higher for mood, because on the scale I've been rating, this is the highest by FAR. Anyway, it doesn't seem so much like a game, I don't really control anything, but it's absolutely wonderful writing, and it wouldn't work without the images and music.
lordjosephdeburg
15. Sep 2013 路 00:26 UTC
ok its dialog heavy and took me a long time to get through. That said the mood of the game is tremendous as is the creature