Wow, this was... terrifying.

Great level progression, with increasingly complex puzzles. The graphics and audio were great in terms of atmosphere, especially the fast footsteps and then

> *Crunch*

was a pretty spooky game ha ha, it was really fun too! great job!

Very fun game. Good idea and atmospheric graphics, I liked it)

Amazing entry. Great art and atmosphere. No critiques whatsoever

Nice game!

Nicely presented, probably should have read the description more closely but when I figured out what to do I was pleasantly surprised how entertaining it was. I guess my major gripe would be the unpredictability of the monster's movement. that's probably supposed to add to the spook factor, but i personally didn't find it more than a bit of an annoyance.

On behalf of our team, I thank you all greatly for taking the time to provide feedback about the game! We’re always looking to improve and there is no better way than to hear your direct thoughts regarding the game!

@jasper-hansen
Haha indeed the game isn’t particularly self explanatory, we tried to design the levels well to introduce the concepts of the game but there was definitely more space for explaining through the gameplay and design. Curious if you have any suggestions

As for the monster, we wanted it to be somewhat unpredictable, especially when it is out of our sight and generally wandering. This does make it difficult to bait the monster at times. Additionally there are some rules about the monster’s behavior out that we don’t expose to the player that we would have liked to make more visible and understandable. Curious to know some examples of the behavior you found particularly frustrating and why :)

Nice art, terrifying animation of the monster eating you. I enjoyed it

Very nice artwork and ambience music. Gameplay wise could have a couple more simple levels to explore the mechanics, because at level 3 there are already multiple portals. Otherwise it's actually quite solid and especially scary.

Solid game! Especially loved the graphics and atmosphere. Really interesting puzzle.

The atmosphere is crazy!
Really loved the horror part)
The monster is unpredictable sometimes but it leads to more action, so I liked it)

Great art, both visuals and audio, it participates in a very specific spooky atmosphere, great "world" and imagination. I find the game super hard though.

The artstyle looks awesome, the kind of impressionist pixel art you used fits really well with the scary themes, and the animation looks amazing.

I don't exactly understand what I have to do tho, I can't get past the first corridor, the portal seems to kill me and to the right is the beast. If it's a bug, fixing it post jam is allowed I think. Let me know if you do.

Who of you made that animation? I would love to see more of their art if they have it posted somewhere.

@croxel-studios

@sophiemae0 Handled all of the art and animation and can say more about their other work!

About how to play: The goal is to lure the monster into a loop using the portals! I see that that isn't entirely clear though. For that first corridor you go to the left and into the little alcove, then wait as the beast is stuck in it's loop. After a short time the game will automatically progress you when it detects that the beast is in a loop!

@croxel-studios I did the pixel art and the animations! Thank you so much for your kind words, if you want to see more check out the game we did last Ludem Dare called One Tough Flower, or check out my Instagram @Sophaloph0.

As for the first level you have to let the beast charge at you but step out of the way so he goes through the portal. This gets him stuck in an infinite loop between 2 portals and is how you beat the level

@gonzalol Hehe thanks, @sophiemae0 really did an incredible job on the animation!

@marcusuke Thanks! The levels concern is super valid. We noted the rapid difficulty progression of the game but were limited by time from smoothing it out with more levels.

@mr-greenhat Thanks we spent a lot of time on developing the atmosphere!

@kamennsq Haha, Our third member (who doesn't have an ldjam account yet) put a lot of effort into the behavior of the monster and got it to a good balance of controllable through baiting, but unpredictable if you get too far away. Glad you liked it!

@gorrgolem That was one of our highest priorities! I'm glad to hear you appreciated it! As for the difficulty, it is quite hard. Had we more time we would've liked to balance the difficulty a bit more.

...Don't tell anyone but... I actually haven't beaten the game.. :sweat_smile:

@william-derksen @sophiemae0 Ah! That makes sense, silly me. I failed to understand I had to wait a few seconds for the loop to work.

The level design is actually really good after that. I didn't expect the rocks mechanic, really smart.

Thanks for the answers! I will check out your other game later.

@william-derksen I think it was just that the monster's movement felt random enough and your ability to keep track of it is so limited that by the time you do know where it is you've barely got any time to react. Not sure what the best way to fix this would be? I think just decreasing it's hitbox could be something to consider.

@jasper-hansen Gotcha. We may mess around with it later. We also talked about maybe making the light cone wider so that you had more time to react, but we worried about the sense of spookiness going away. I think we probably need to come up with a more comprehensive set of audio based information presentation and teach it at a more reasonable pace so that players don't rely as much on the visuals and more on audio to determine the safest way to avoid the beast!

Thanks for the suggestion!

I pretty much gave you 5/5 across the board, lol. You really nailed the theme. The art work was AWESOME. And you do horror very well! I love this. Great job! =)

5/5 is worth here, amazing job

@stephenwhoskins and @aless thank you both so much for your kind words, these comments made my day <3 We worked really hard on this game and it is heartwarming to hear to hear you enjoyed it :)

5s all the way with this one. It's hard to sum it all up because everything is really good. Great loop and atmosphere, they work so well together and I think the art is amazing

The art and mood are wonderful. I love the death animation, so creepy.

Great game overall, really dig the aesthetics and atmosphere. Good job!

Incredibly cohesive game and a perfect use of the theme! You guys did an amazing job setting the mood. And the balance of footstep volume/visual field was good as well!

Super job on this game, progression is smooth and mood is here !! First time I got caugh, I was really disgusted by the sound of the monster eating liza XD good job on this atmosphere !!

i think this might be the game with the best mood i've ever played in ldjam! It's easy to pick up the mechanics of the game and a (creepy) death animation it's a nice adition that is not usually seen. Some hitboxes could be a little smaller tho.
good job! :)

I really loved it!
It's addictive!
Use sound to make creature run in your direction was a good idea.
Nice job!

Once I figured out what to do (after reading a previous post here), it was a fun game! :smile:

There's something about the sound and animation of the beast grabbing Lyza that made me want to see it again and again. :smiley: Nice job!

man that really really was intense! The audio really got me into the zone there, I really couldn't bring myself to finish it, that monster AI is creepy as hell! (In a good way of course) well done on the mood!

Hi all right, I really liked your game, I took several scares, I hadn’t read the instructions and I was lost in relation to the movement, I believe that the game instructions should be done inside it, because many people end up going straight through the text separately, I needed to have ambient sounds to have a more threatening atmosphere, I loved the art and the idea of the duo, congratulations, a big hug.

Very creepy! Didn't understand that I had to use the portals until I read it later but still ended up enjoying the game

Awesome ambient and sound effects, solid art style, simple and engaging game mechanics! Death animation is magnificent! Guys, you've created a brilliant piece of work here :)

This game made me jump out of my chair more than once. Great, exciting gameplay and very creepy graphics and sound. Loved it.

Pretty spooky and stressful to play - nice jobs with the graphics and sound effects, it really set the tone.

That was super spooky, and I loved that. The game over animation gave me chills, and reminded me of Alien: Isolation. Super cool game!

A very nice game ! I finished it and almost screamed several time, Nice job !

I was really hoping someone would build a good game around the idea that "stuck in a loop" is something to be inflicted on an adversary rather than the player's state of being, and you have delivered. Horror and puzzles fit together naturally. I see that not everyone was able to figure out the basic mechanic, but I will say that the breakable rock mechanic is very intuitive once you get to it. The death animation and sound, if anything are a little *too* creepy - they certainly made me want to not die. For some reason I really felt that I could dodge the monster in a one-tile hallway, despite all evidence to the contrary - making the creature wider would clarify its hitbox. I'm glad I was able to play this with headphones. It was very satisfying hearing the monster dash through a portal and crash into rocks in the distance. Excellent work!

Nice game!

Excellent death animation. The crunching sound only adds to its juiciness. You did a good job on mood creation - I really felt stalked by the monster and always wondered, from which corner he will jump at me next.

Monster-bating was a daunting and a slightly frustrating experience at times. What I mean is situations like this: I just made a monster hit his head the wall one tile south from me; I go straight north few tiles and find myself wondering straight into the monster coming at me from the north.

The puzzles were nicely designed. If I could just... get the damned monster... to follow me. Oh noooo, he got me again :scream:

I LOVE the pixel art!! It was kind of spooky with sound effects! :laughing: I literally called my sister to stay with me! :laughing: Greato Jobu! :smile:

Cool puzzle game! Was a bit hard to figure out how to use the portals and traps, but figured it out in the end.
The pixel art is nicely done, and the death animation is appropriately gruesome.

Lessons learned: bones do crunch.

Very cool game! Puzzles are interesting and overall game is nice!

That was tense. The last time I've gotten these emotions was when I played the Alien Isolation. It's amazing how you managed to create this atmosphere of fear. The artwork is wonderful, sound design is top-notch. Oh, these steps will haunt me in my nightmares. Thank you for that.

Well that was terrifying!

Pretty much nailed it with the mood of this game! The puzzle was at first a bit confusing and it kinda broke my heart to see poor Lyza going through these horrors over and over again, but after a while I understood and appreciated the game on a different level completely!
Aesthetically the game of course is very pleasing, too! Wonderful job all around!

I'm glad i didn't read descryption before playing, it felt so nice to understand mechanics by myself. Great artstyle and atmosphere, really good job!

Really great game! The graphics are nice, and you really made a freaking terrifying monster. I know you opted out of the audio, but you definitely used some nice sound effects. The sound of that thing running after you (especially while using headphones) and then that crunch sound as it bites off your head is just done so well, and creates an awesomely freaky effect. Not to mention that face the monster has as it crunches - you truly depicted a terrifyingly gleeful and hungry face on that beast! The gameplay is also very nicely done. It felt great when I realized what I should do on the first level. I couldn't get passed one of the levels, but there was nothing wrong with it - it was just really challenging, and I like it! Overall, fantastic game! Great job!

I can't take horror, and this scared the bleep out of me! Nicely done :)

I was among the crowd that didn't read the description before diving in, haha. It was fun figuring out what to do at first, and satisfying once I got it down. I also loved the death animation; it was cool to watch, though at the expense of Lyza. An issue I ran into, while not often, was getting stuck if I was running against a wall. It is mostly just a minor collision issue, but it did get in the way when I was trying to run away from the monster.

Regardless, this game was really fun to play! With some more work this could totally become a full game. Awesome job, and keep it up!

[We played your game on stream this weekend!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/779942253?t=01h02m02s)

So yeah, this entry was horrifying (in a great way).

I do think that the puzzle mechanics kind of undermine the horror aspect once the levels get a little more complicated, but overall this is a very unique game with a lot to expand on. Absolutely bang-up job on this one!