The Tulpa by nahual


It's a cinematic puzzle-adventure game inspired by Lucid dreaming and the concept of "Tulpa", which means that you are playing the role of an imaginary friend. Going through memories in form of rooms, you're trying to find out whose mind made you.
Controls: W, A, S, D or arrows - moving, Q - inventory, E - interaction, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - use items.
Requirements: stop your inner dialogue while playing. And remember... "Every step makes you more weak..."
Changelog: Decreased the magnitude of the swirl effect and fixed problems with sounds and entries to the rooms.
| HTML5 (web) | https://bondar.itch.io |
| Windows | https://gamejolt.com/games/TheTulpa/301662 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-tulpa |
Ratings
| Overall | 613th | 3.417⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1053th | 2.586⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 445th | 3.31⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1023th | 2.714⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 73th | 4.468⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 52th | 4.069⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 17th | 4.367⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 29🗳️ | 36🗨️ |
When I am playing this I get Amnesia vibes, it feels scary and creepy, but in a fantastic way without jump scares but rather through the ambiance.
Fantastic entry guys, you should be really proud. And for all of our sake, continue development on this, I would pay to play a full version of this game. It is just that good!
Good luck!
Pros:
- Very good choice and use of color and silhouettes
- Sense of intrigue
- A feeling that this is a personal piece of art-- makes me wonder what life experiences inspired it. You say lucid dreams, but actually the feeling of playing this is more like an uncanny nightmare. In lucid dreams you have control where in this I get more of a feeling of being lost.
Cons:
- The starting over when I get too weak is a little frustrating-- maybe at least keep the peices of the puzzle I've solved in the same place so that I don't have to re-hunt for things?
- The environmental story telling is obstructed by the dreamy motion swirl effect
I really like what you're going for, keep it up.
I think it is a bit too punishing. The atmosphere is great, but it gets ruined by "oh, I have to start over again, just because I walked into the wrong room".
But I really like the visual style. Looks really awesome.
Great work folks.
Estética, gráficos e sons muito bonitos. A jogabilidade é interessante, principalmente pela opção de uma perspectiva de profundidade, apenas o controle de movimentação pelo teclado que ficou um pouco difícil, mas interessante. Parabéns. :flag_br:
@weeping-rupee I should say that lucid dreams are not only about controlling of a plot of your dream. It's like creating your own unstable and morphing reality. And sometimes can happen.. Unexpected and uncontrolling things, for example, I was struggling during a long time with one demonic girl that was looking like Samara Morgan from the movie "Ring". I met her when I was flying around in my dream. Suddenly, I lost control and felt down. Then she appeared and started choking me. So, I woke up because of my own loud scream.
Once, I woke up in my room and she was standing near my bed. She pushed me and I woke up second time (the first was a lucid dream).
Next time, I had a calm lucid dream, I was walking around the place when I used to live long time ago. I lost the attention for a moment and woke up. It was ok. But I had a sleep paralysis. And some weird shit happend. In the first moment when I woke up, I noticed a huge spider (1-2 meters). He jumped on the wall and then on my closet. It was terrifying. I was lying in my bed without any move during the next half an hour and listening the wall clock (actually this is the reference to the room with a clock in the game).I checked the top of the closet and it was empty. So, this was a hallucination caused by stucking of my conciseness between two worlds simultaneously, the "real" one and the world of a dream. It was mixed.
And, the sleep paralysis actually the one of the best ways to provoke a lucid dream.
So... the mood of lucid dreams is gloomy. The more you practise, the more weird places you can visit.
I know that I can sound.. Weird. But you can try this and check my words if you want. I know the almost 100% techniques and can share it :)
It was very surprising for me when I died and the game was restarted.
Maybe you can add a bit more story telling by text or voice for deeper diving in your game. But the game is very nice. Well done!
Actually, I tried to fit the theme in this way :D
Couldn't figure out the point/what you were trying to do in the game.
Can you maybe try another browser?
It has a lot of potential you should definitely finish it!
On the other hand, it doesn't seem to fit the jam's theme in any way. It looks more like you added the swirl effect in order to adapt the game to a concept that was totally unlinked to the theme. But hey, it's not mandatory that everyone follows the theme, it's just there to help some people with "blank page syndrome". It's only that I like the "theme interpretation" part of Ludum Dare jams.
Yeah you right, that thing with raising a swirl effect when you walking and doing some things was added to fit the theme. I have a role of a game designer of this game and it was my first entry, so I don't really know how to do things.. right :) But me and my friends, such as our artist and sound designer wanted to create some.. Experience that is close to watching a meditative movie. But suddenly it became scary and gloomy :D
Other than that, great submission, congratulations! =)
I think the weakest part of this game was the puzzle. It didn't feel like it had any sort of reasoning behind it. I did this and suddenly I get the item I need to progress? While you can say that is how dreams work (and they do sometimes), the player isn't actually dreaming so whatever tenuous explanation you can give them is good. Even if your explanation makes no sense, if you pretend it does then it will be better.
I think your audio was on point, the subtle knocking sounds, the slow ambiance, weird chanting sounds, all on point. I'm not sure if they achieved the feeling you were going for. Some people felt like it was closer to a horror game than a dream like game, which makes sense. All of your sound affects are dark and dramatic. Horror games frequently use the concept of isolation to make things scarier. Along those lines if you wanted something more dreamy less horror-ey then add more ambient sounds. The TV could use some noise, add some muffled talking, a slurred lullaby, maybe the clock could have an offbeat rhythm to go with its crazy antics. Any talking or TV needs to really be clear and audible (think about simulating receptive aphasia, the inability to understand speech), it should just be there to provide context and make the game less cold and isolating. Unless this is what you want, then bravo! It worked well as a creepy game!
The graphics were amazing. The avatar going more and more transparent, the wavy graphics, everything worked out to enhance the feeling that you were going for. The only complaint I have is use of cues for player interaction. In Mirrors edge the colors mean something about the routes the player can take. Glowing items is another pattern to use to guide players to the right choices. You used glowing items as well, but there were some things I couldn't interact with that were glowing white. This caused confusion and some frustration at the game because at that point you can't trust it. The things like the glowing chair could've been glowing with less intensity or maybe glow a different color (like the TV).
This game manages to create such a deep, oppressing ambiance...!
It's impressive. Add to it the effect on screen and the character inevitably fading...Well, everything on the art and sound design are awesome :)
As WetDesertRock said, some glowing items I couldn't interract with put me in some trouble, as I feel that I lost some "steps" trying to make something about them.
Anyway, really "bravo", because it's not an easy thing to set a true identity on a 72 hours game.
Good job to the team!