Static Man by tifu

[raw]
made by tifu for LD 39 (COMPO)

Static Man is a survive the night style game. A malicious entity is roaming your house looking to kill you, it can only be slowed down with light, your only hope is to survive until dawn by feeding every piece of fuel you can find into the furnace to keep the lights on and keep the monster at bay! Having lights on will slow the entity down as it walks through a room, but will consume more power.

Controls: WASD - Move around Mouse - Look around E - Interact Mouse button - Use axe (once acquired)

StaticMan2s.pngStaticMan3s.png

[Issues: Collision with the axe is a little bit finicky with some objects, mostly tables and wooden doors, if you aren't getting the hit (there will be a sound) then try stepping away a bit or facing more up or down. Every difficulty is possible, but I recommend playing on Normal.]

[Tips: The keys might cause confusion - ideally they would have been colour coded. The "store key" unlocks the door in the corridor, the "kitchen key" unlocks the two doors between the furnace and the kitchen, the two front doors only open at dawn. Finding the key, getting the axe, and smashing up everything made of wood to stick in the fire, is the way to survive. Wood gives more fuel than paper - but paper can be picked up before you have the axe: paintings and books.]

Game was created using the standard First person controller asset that comes with Unity.

[Edit] I've uploaded a video walkthrough of normal mode, don't watch unless you don't mind having the whole playthrough spoiled:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptci2_tqusQ&

Ratings

Overall 586th 2.75⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 518th 2.75⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 518th 2.65⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 306th 3.55⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 393th 3.05⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 484th 2.056⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 96th 3.6⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

IgorsGames
31. Jul 2017 · 20:56 UTC
Nice start, but for the most part I tried to run from the ghost and had no time to do anything else. Maybe if I had a map, I could plan something to trick her and not get come up :D
cnoble
01. Aug 2017 · 11:54 UTC
I agree with Igors, It turned into a game of die as many times as I could by just running away from the ghost trying to learn the layout of the floor before I could figure out where anything was. I like the concept! Maybe a little music could heighten the mood just a little bit? Keep it up! :)
SelfTitled
01. Aug 2017 · 12:33 UTC
I found I could just run in a circle to avoid the alien. That said I properly jumped the first time I turned around and saw the monster dude.
🎤 tifu
01. Aug 2017 · 12:41 UTC
Yeah, my original intention was to make the ghost not spawn until a certain time has passed, then you'd have some time to explore and figure out a strategy, but due to some poor planning/decisions I was still coding victory and lose conditions in the last hour so I didn't manage to implement that =[
Wheffle
02. Aug 2017 · 07:07 UTC
Pretty creepy. Nice work on that. As others have said, there isn't really time to find fuel and also run from the ghost. I think it could have been cool if you were 100% safe in the furnace room while it was lit, but you had to venture into the darkness to gather fuel to keep it lit.
Peredom
02. Aug 2017 · 11:52 UTC
Cool game! I freaked out first time I saw the monster xD As others have said, the normal mode is very hard
bram_ve
02. Aug 2017 · 11:57 UTC
The game has a slender type of feel too it which worked out well. I just think the game is too hard since there is no way (that i know of) to at least temporarily disable the ghost to do something. Currently it feels like just running is the only option.
milano23
02. Aug 2017 · 12:20 UTC
Like others have said normal is hard. I couldn't get very far. Kept dying in the room with the key. By the time i got there the ghost was on me. Cool idea though. Make the ghost slower for the normal difficulty and the game will be a lot better. Overall i liked it. Good Job!
Rikoclon
03. Aug 2017 · 11:08 UTC
Yeh pretty difficult on normal, could have dialed that back a bit by just making the entity slower. it was pretty fast. Very creepy. if it wasn't so dark you could maybe see what your supposed to do, I imagine there is more wood around. I took me like 7 tries just to get out of the first room. I turned off the light thinking it would turn on. Mood was great tho. That entity made the screen go fuzzy and I liked it. very creepy. Nice art!
gilborn
03. Aug 2017 · 18:33 UTC
Damn, that was creepy! The athmosphere is great.

In my tries I couldn´t manage to accomplish much, even in normal mode.

Controls work well, the graphics are fine too.

Improvements can be imagined at the gameplay itself. The Ghost was in my opinion a little to fast to get things done.

Nevertheless, a very nice entry!
silkworm_sweatshop
05. Aug 2017 · 13:38 UTC
Played it a few times but didn't get very far. Maybe having the light switches be a bit more visible (glowing?) would make it less trial and error in the beginning. There is definitely a sense of urgency and creepyness but maybe a tad too difficult (only played on normal).
Ava Skoog
07. Aug 2017 · 06:44 UTC
I really like the core idea of this! It's suspenseful and exciting and really manages to invoke an atmosphere even without music or dramatic sound effects (tho those would've added a lot!).

I do have to agree that it was just too darn difficult even in normal mode. I tried and I tried, but never managed to survive for more than a minute, and I never managed to find the axe either. :c The description gave me the impression that there was only one "entity" moving about, but during actual gameplay I felt like there were at least two of them, because when I got to the room with the store key, it didn't matter if I tried to go back the way I came or move on; it was there anyway.

One thing I tried to be clever about was to wait for the entity to enter the room with the key on the table and after it turned out the light using the switch near the kitchen door, I'd wait for it to cross to the middle of the room, and turn the light on using the switch at the other end of the room and then run for it back through the kitchen, but it seems it doesn't need to use the switch to turn it off, only be in the same room? I guess changing that would've been a neat way to modulate the difficulty a bit. And like you said yourself, give the player a bit more of a head start, and maybe make the entity move a little slower (especially in normal mode).

I feel like this is something worth working on beyond the jam, because with playtesting and more time spent, I think it could be really interesting, and I'd be happy to try an updated post-jam version!
🎤 tifu
07. Aug 2017 · 09:50 UTC
@Ava: There is only one entity yeah, it uses the in built Unity navmesh pathfinding, so which way it goes just depends on which way is the shortest to reach you. The entity cannot turn off lights, the power must have ran out I guess? If the power goes off it moves at maximum speed.

I had other ideas that never made it in... I had a run button until the last hour or so of the comp. But I couldn't get stamina done in time, so it made the game far too easy. I had an idea of having high powered lights (like on tripods) in a few spots that would use large amounts of power, but knock the entity out of action for a while, the entity would turn on some of the devices occasionally (the cooker/shower/radio) so you'd have to run around turning them off to save power - I wasted a lot of time modelling those items even though I didn't end up having time to code the effect they would have... yeah, bad planning on this one ^^;

I'll think about a post compo version, if I could get all that stuff put in it would probably make it playable D;
Mars
08. Aug 2017 · 15:10 UTC
Nice game! First person I've seen to try and make a horror game, and I'd say it panned out just fine. First time I fueled the fire at the same time as I died, so I kinda startled myself. Thought it was a jumpscare when the burning sound and the death happened at the same time, haha.

After I played it a little more, I ended up not being able to survive the night. That static man thing has too many hax, going through tables and all.

Anyway, it's nice to see a horror game. While I personally didn't find it that scary, mostly because of the lack of sound, it's a valiant effort considering it's a compo entry. Good job!
doorless
10. Aug 2017 · 04:36 UTC
I had a lot of fun playing your game. The graphics were good and the game felt pretty polished for the time given. I did find myself running from the ghost a lot not leaving any time for anything else though. But for the time given I think you did a great job.


Keep up all the good work and good luck. :)
AFlatThrasher
11. Aug 2017 · 15:31 UTC
Man, that was tough. It was fun, but tough. I think an easier mode to get used to it would have been very nice. But, controls worked well, mood was great, felt the ghost-thing was good (although perhaps going through tables was a little overpowered, but maybe I just needed to get better at the game). Felt like I was constantly being hunted, which was nice and what I think you were going for.
Franklins Ghost
18. Aug 2017 · 14:42 UTC
Interesting game idea but did find that the entity appeared to quickly so you didn't get much of a chance to survive. Would be nice as you mentioned, if they only came in once you'd been playing for a bit, to give you sometime to explore before it all begins happening. Liked the mood with the visuals and theme, thought it all worked well together to support the story.