Lovecrafting by LDJam user 265725
“You are trying to wake ancient unnameable gods by taming dark and secret powers. You’ll need to be cautious, as the ritual is as unstable as your skills, and the creature’s condition will degrade if you don’t maintain the equilibrium … To a point of no return.
Conduct the awakening of living blasphemous fish-frog or find the secret to bring to life The One Old ! They’re waiting for you ...”
Features
- Maintain the stability of your creature while bringing it to this world.
- Choose and combine wisely, as the ritual will become more and more difficult.
- Discover up to 10 ancient gods by combining certains traits in a successful ritual.
Controls A mighty mouse will only be asked from you.
Language English only, but you will encounter some unspeakable words …
Credits A game by Théo Saragas, Cecil Desbaies and Matteo Gaulmier, all from Nameless XIII.
Changelog (Times are CEST)
0.1 (05/10/2021 - 0h00 - Hidden) : - First release
0.2 (05/10/2021 - 0h30) : - Fixed a bug preventing cards to appear on build
0.3 (06/10/2021 - 14h00) :
Fixed a bug where cards were getting out of screen
Fixed a bug not previewing the corresponding caracteristics with "trait" cards
Fixed a bug not showing the corresponding "mask" when unlocking a god.
Fixed a bug not playing "cultists chants" sound
Screenshots
Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sezV_QYuLW4
| Windows | https://nameless-xiii.itch.io/lovecrafting |
| Playable Online | https://nameless-xiii.itch.io/lovecrafting |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/lovecrafting |
Ratings
| Given | 58🗳️ | 37🗨️ |
I'm sure it's not because I simply LOVE lovecraft but seriously this game has such an amazing feel to it. The idea was excellent and the execution is oh-so sweet.
The art and music are excellent!
The first time I played I didn't realize what I was doing, and thought I was trying to get the bars to go into the red. And then once I got them there, it was too late to fix it.
The second time I understood it and had a pretty good time! Unfortunately, I encountered a bug right at the end. I picked Humanoid, and some of the cards flew off screen and then I got the win screen and the lose screen at the same time, or something? I took a screenshot
Really excellent work!
@squirmonkey Huh-oh, we'll look into that one. Thank you for the report !
2 small things you can improve after the Jam:
* When choosing a card at the very last second I ended up not being able to choose the next card (I think I choose AND got the "you fail to choose go to next cards" effect)
* Nit-picking but on the web version you could reduce the "fullscreen" when the player click "Quit"
Very well done one of of the Top game of this Jam. Definitely scores in the Art category.
This is happening consistently. Windows version
I however didn't manage to summon a single beast with a name
That's an amazing game, everything is so well done and convey this Lovecraftian mood! Great job!
Also the art is awesome and the mood with the music is perfect !
I agree with many others that it was not very clear to me how the game worked. I thought I was just trying to keep the bars out of the red zone, but I never managed to make a monster with a name. Are there some more mechanics that I am not understanding?
Anyway, this was really an amazing experience! Definitely the most beautiful game of the jam I played so far! Great job ^_^
Good job!
This is for sure one of my favorites so far!
Main issue is the cards flying off the screen, every time I'm about to craft a named creature the cards fly off the screen and I lose :( Should definitely look into this bug because it is game breaking.
A smaller bug is when shrinking or gaining stat bars it seems that sometimes the indicators will point to the wrong stat, but definitely appreciate the QOL of pointing to the stat anyways!
Smaller design things I would consider: it would be nice to have the stats be a little bit more distinct, maybe color code them? Sometimes when things get frantic, all the icons appear similar since they are all the same color scheme and it would be easier to figure out which stat is which with a little bit more differences. It might also be nice to sort the stats on the card based on the order of the stats in which they appear, because sometimes you see some stats but they are in the wrong order.
Unfortunately there was quite some bugs while summoning that the cards tend to fly off the right side of the screen which automatically results in a fail. Also the web build tends to freeze Chrome completely when trying to quit the game.
Other than that really amazing submission, congrats to the team for the great work!
Usually I don't like this kind of game, but this is really well done!
- Strongly adhere to the theme and I like the way it is implemented
- Gorgeous graphic style
- Plesant to hear music
- The compendium is another clever choice, the player feels a sense of progression and gives replayability
- The progression in which the mechanics are presented is also well done
Really nice and polished game guys. Keep doing games :smile:
Still amazing game very polished.
(We will consider working on the game later on. I can't promise it for the rest of the team, I personally want to.)
I will try to answer some specific questions :
@mrchip @shootboots @wobs (and others) Sorry for the bug about the flying cards / going too far to the right. It happens when you're late to select the card before the timer ends, but we'll probably correct it in a potential future version, if we decide to work more on the game !
@louiejams We love him too <3
@wuppos Making a monster with a name can be done by mixing some traits together, but we don't have much hints for the player to discover them. We had some others ideas, but the time was over unfortunately ! Maybe for a future version.
@shootboots To be fair, we wanted the game to feel a bit humoristic, but it tended towards a more stressful experience than we expected so ... We rolled with it.
The music is great, overall a good atmosphere.
Спасибо!
We pushed a new version fixing some annoying bugs (cards shouldn't disappear anymore!). All informations are in the changelog. You can still get the original release in the itch.io page by downloading the v0.2.
A little note about the Gods as a lot of you seem disapointed not getting one. The game was designed with getting a creature as the main goal and the Gods more a special reward/achievement. With hindsight, the game doesn't convey successfully this feeling and could let you feel you failed. It's obviously multifactorial but I think the most important is the process'randomness (for those whose interested, there's 12 differents traits so 220 combinations of 3 traits. Each 10 gods representing one unique combination, you have less than 5% chances to get a God by picking traits randomly). I'll probably add a rule during the week-end so you can get at least one "god drawing" by game.
All in all, if you completed a ritual and got a creature, don't feel disapointed, know you won :).
So smooth. The graphics is incredible - WoW. Can't believe how good this is and it was made in so small amount of time.
Congrats on your entry. I would love to see an actual full game
system is clear,
Im enjoy it very much!
But it cant let me feel unstable~
Visuals and sound are spot on, it really felt like I was summoning some terrifying ancient creatures. Also very polished, such a concept just wouldn't work otherwise.
I'd maybe add a Zen mode without the timer, or maybe I'M just bad :D
The visuals and audio were absolutely stunning good job!
One of my favorite entries so far :)
Every visual feedbacks are on point and the difficulty curve is perfect.
Too bad I'm too slow to enjoy it fully, but this was really exceptional work!
The art is very beautiful and so is the audio. A game that would be easy to sell on a platform.
Congratulations!
If i can make a suggestion, maybe mention that there are whispers in the game, or even better if we could turn them off. Those kind of sounds are really hard to deal with for some neurodivergeant people. I'm sorry if that sounds like a nitpick cause otherwise I really loved your game!
@hotowlgirls You're right about game's beginning. It was designed as an introduction to the mechanics and a way to "experiment" the game without much punishment but it feels boring after 2/3 runs. We're thinking on how to improve this part.
But, yes, as others have said already, this is a phenomenal entry, with amazing art, sounds and gameplay, that fits the theme perfectly. Probably contender for winning, and if not, you should at least be incredibly proud of yourselves.
My only criticism is that the art shows rain and thunder and there's no sfx for either of these things.... I feel like it would fit the atmosphere!
Congrats on a fantastic entry!
I wonder how I'll be able to make a god next time...
The music and art are cool!
We're thinking about **bringing the game to a fully fleshed release**.
As we're still unsure, we're looking for more precise feedback about it.
Some of you mentionned that you would like to see a full version (@mrchip @jon-nova @stroe-andrew @nefylem @liviuslycurgus), so **if you would like to help us, [you can follow that link](https://forms.gle/NmaSYGdk8aYd7qaQA)**. This a small form and you can add your mail adress to get informed, follow us and participate in more testing !
Thanks a lot everyone for your support, it's amazing. We see you soon !
The gameplay, visuals and audio go well together and the approach to the theme was great as well!
Well done! Thank you for the game
I liked the mood that was set by mostly sounds and music but also the dark mostrous theme.
Initially I was not sure how well it tied into the unstable theme, because it only felt unstable to me towards the end. But then I read through some of the comments and realized that the cards with multiple changes in short time limits did really push me to instability, which was very cool.
Because the game concept is simple and focused, you were clearly able to get it quite polished, in terms of art, audio and UI, and probably were able to playtest a fair bit. Things like the indicators next to each of the UI whenever you hover over one of the cards that affects it - things like that only come from playtesting and evaluating and are super helpful as a result so kudos on that.
The first thing that struck me when I turned on the game was the music and it was AWESOME. They say that music establishes a tone and vibe of the game, and this is a great example of that.
I tried really hard to think of some suggestions or criticisms I could give, and I have just a few small ones that could maybe help you if you are planning on expanding it.
1) When it got the end of the game, I wanted to spend more time in the "unstable state". I wanted to feel like I was on the verge of dying for a longer period of time. In my case, my first playthrough I died shortly after the tense music and timer started. My second playthrough, I was in the tense state for maybe 20 seconds before finishing the game. I think you can look at something like DOOM 2016, DOOM Eternal, or Ruiner for that "on the verge of dying" loop. In those games, you are just about to die when you are just barely able to kill an enemy and find some health, and they likely have some internal systems built to make the enemies give you a bit of leeway on the edge of death. And this might go on for minutes in medium to large fights. You guys do a good job of the leeway, but in terms of the length, you are only in the tense situation for a little bit of time. It's like getting just a taste of a great meal, which you have been looking forward to for a while. Minor complaint overall, but something worth considering.
2) When I finished the game, I did not feel some great joy or anything like that. It was fun to make it to the next step and the next step, and so on, but at the end of the process I expected to feel rewarded for making a monster but I didn't get that feeling. Maybe this has to do with some more art / sound / vfx that should play once you create a monster to really highlight the moment. And maybe this will be helped by addressing the first point and making the tense situation last longer so that getting out of it feels more rewarding.
3) I think this works great as a game you have to play for 5-10, maybe even 20 minutes. But I wonder how you make it work if you want to expand the game? This is not a criticism of the game jam submission - I think as a submission it's great, but just thinking in terms of a full game. Do you keep going down the same route, and just add more stages? You make a monster, and make another monster joined to it, and so on and so forth to form a multi-organism being or something? Or do you also expand the gameplay itself, have monsters fight each other or kill humans etc? This is a great concept, just curious how you would expand it essentially.
Okay, I rambled enough. Great job! Thank you for reading my essay if you got this far :laughing: :smile:
Concerning your points, you're totally right about the success not being rewarding enough. We worked mainly on the gameplay loop and didn't have much time to polish the endgame (either victory or defeat) and it's showing. Obviously, adding some SFX and art is the easiest way to improve it and would have been enough for the jam.
As for the future, your take about "unstable state" is interesting so I'll explain a bit more our process : the game was more designed around the difficulty curve and how we put more and more pressure on the player as the ritual go on more than sustain an "on the verge of dying" feeling. The two main reasons were the crescendo feeling seemed more fitting the theme (we don't see the theme as a "must have" but still a matter you try to take into account) and more importantly, the difficulty to balance randomness in such a situation. To maintain the player in this "zone", you'd have to acknowledge the game state (player's life, current turn, position of each characteristic...) and tweak the rules governing randomness accordingly and pretty precisely. In 72H, such a system seems almost impossible to produce as it requires a HUGE amount of calculations and/or playtesting. Of course now there's no theme to follow and we have more time to devellop the idea.
Now, concerning the way we keep the player interested in the long run... good question! We had some discussion but we haven't decided a direction at the moment. If you're interested, you can complete [this survey](https://forms.gle/NmaSYGdk8aYd7qaQA), let us know your impressions and maybe even take part in playtesting.
@jpgfg Woah... :relaxed:
@jpatchz It's really touching but I have to disagree. [This one](https://anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/another_world.htm) will forever be the epitome of video game. :wink:
@artonix @alexej @piper-thompson @jusw85 @boaheck-artgent @echo-gameworks and to all the others people who commented, thanks for your messages and your sight on the game. It's a great feeling seeing that much reactions about our game(and for those wondering, even if we didn't answer much, we read all the comments).
I don't have much to say about the cons of it as a jam game as the game loop feels complete and overall well polished.
The main issues would be that not all victorious runs lead to what I feel like is a Victory (summoning a named god) and that you don't really know if the unnamed monster is supposed to be a good end or not. This could be fixed by having all possible combinations of Traits leading to a God but that would require I guess at least 2-3x more Gods (which would be undoable in 72h though), or having some kind of hints (other than looking at the compendium) to what choices might lead or not to a named god.
Now, seeing as you're thinking about possibly extending the game further, here are some thoughts about that :
- The gameplay as it stands feels a bit too simple and repetitive for a complete game that could be played for a few hours (it's totally fine for a jam game that is tested in 30mins max though). Some additional game mechanic would be welcomed to have more variety in the gameplay.
- A current side goal I guess is to fill the Compendium with all gods. So, replayability has to be adressed as dozens if not hundreds of runs will be necessary. You could add maybe rogue-lite elements to it (ie. you start by summoning lesser gods first, get upgrades through the runs, then summon greater ones), maybe a story, or whatever you feel like might do the work.
Maybe that's just me but I kept being confused with the stomach and heart icons, maybe their shape are a bit too alike or something.
Amazing visuals and mechanics. Just love it!
But now here I am, and it's a good game! I made a few abominations but couldn't figure out the recipes for any of the actual gods. It would be nice if there were clues about what combinations might make gods (as I assume it's based on the things like humanoid/dreamcatcher/feral, etc). Visually, "immunity" is a little too large - the "y" is behind the meter. It is also a generally small resolution UI - I played in browser and had to full screen it to see hte buttons, which is at least a step up from not being able to read anything on my phone's screen. The cards are nice as they are very large and easy to click on even on small devices, but the fonts and buttons could use some legibility work. (This is counter to my advice regarding "immunity" being too big - which is to say, perhaps it's more that the fonts need to be larger, but have more breathing room away from the meters).
I enjoyed this a lot, even though I gave up on making any gods - but that's partially due to outside forces demotivating me from playing longer (read: I've got some kind of back sprain or other injury going on so this game is very intellectually stimulating in a very fun slay the spire type way but not in the right way to distract me from my pain).
### TL;DR: Fantastic game; UI resolution isn't quite accessible & hints on god recipes would be lovely.
Concerning UI, you're right, we focused on make it fit on PC and we need to work on accessibility on portable devices.
As for the gods, it's a point of design we didn't polished enough. As you and others mentionned, it can be frustrating to not get any gods (or at least a hint). We made some modifications (a hint system, tweak on randomness) to try to solve this but it'll only be available friday to comply to LD rules.
Anyway, thanks for your feebacks,it always appreciated.
At the beginning I was a little confused, but I found myself carefully choosing my card later. You managed to implement the idea of keeping all of the parts balanced really well. I actually found myself thinking about my card choice and not just picking a random card.
Great job!
The atmosphere of this game is unmatched, and the audio is lovely. Gameplay is really engaging and tense once you know what's going on. Didn't get a god on my first playthrough, but I'm going to try again now!
The art and music are excellent!
Crafting a character was dandy idea but I think it's not relevant for Unstable Theme.
But I enjoed your atmosphere! Thanks for the experience!
Congratulations for good work in a such short time!
Concernant tes remarques à propos de mon jeu, je te remercie, mais je te trouve un brin sévère. Comme tu le dis en préambule, c'est à prendre avec des pincettes. Néanmoins, sois assuré que je prends en compte ton feedback parce que manifestement, tu sais de quoi tu parles - tu es peut-être même un professionnel eu égard à la qualité de ton entrée. On est d'accord - tout est à revoir dans mon projet. 3 jours - 3 jours pour faire une entrée qui se détache des autres entrées du fait de son originalité. En premier lieu, j'ai imaginé un jeu d'équilibre (comme les centaines que l'on a considérées durant la 49ème LD). J'ai choisi une autre orientation. Il ne fallait pas jouer ! J'ai placardé un peu partout l'information selon laquelle ce jeu ne convenait pas aux personnes souffrant de pathologies affectant le visuel. Bien sûr que ça t'a fatigué les yeux. C'est une torture pour l'esprit que cette expérience où tout est instable, du game controller à la moindre des textures. J'ai eu peu de temps pour composer un projet alliant environnement non-euclidien et énigmes. Je crois que tu ne sais pas ce qu'est un simulateur de marche. C'est bien plus basique. Bien sûr, qu'il faut garder haute la barre de l'intérêt pour un projet semblable. Il faut bien plus, mais je me désole du fait que tu juges une entrée pour ce qu'elle aurait pu être avec davantage de temps, de réflexion et d'éléments. C'est comme si tu jugeais ton Kébab du coin considérant qu'en un autre lieu il aurait pu faire de la gastronomie. Je voulais utiliser cette dernière comparaison de second degré volontairement afin que tu comprennes que je ne suis pas fâché - je te remercie encore pour ton feedback. Peut-être en reparlerons-nous une autre fois après des mois de développement. Bonne continuation à toi. Je te souhaite le meilleur ++
PS : Ashwalkers est dans ma Steam liste. Il faut vraiment que j'y joue :)
J'ai aussi répondu à ton "feedback request" pour une full version de LoveCrafting ++
Je vais pas m'étaler sur tous les éléments mais j'aimerais juste préciser 2/3 trucs :
- Le ton que j'emploi. Bon déja, c'est par écrit, donc je peux pas être aussi exhaustif et précis que je le souhaiterais, y faire passer toutes les nuances de mon point de vue, sinon j'y passe l'après-midi et je ponds un roman (jusque là, je t'apprends rien). Ensuite, en me basant sur ta description et tes réponses aux autres commentaires, je me suis mis en mode "professionel". Je me suis trompé, je m'en excuse. Je reconnais que j'aurais pu m'arrêter plus longtemps sur les qualités de ton jeu.
- *"On est d’accord - tout est à revoir dans mon projet."* Non pas d'accord. Un peu déçu de t'avoir transmis ce sentiment.
- *"En premier lieu, j’ai imaginé un jeu d’équilibre (comme les centaines que l’on a considérées durant la 49ème LD). J’ai choisi une autre orientation."* Tu en es sincérement remercié, j'en ai vu assez.
- *"Je crois que tu ne sais pas ce qu’est un simulateur de marche. C’est bien plus basique."* C'est vrai que "walking sim", ça fait péjoratif. C'était une simple comparaison sur la boucle de gameplay. Après, c'est clairement pénible d'expliquer ce genre de truc à l'écrit, je vais pas m'étendre.
- *"Il faut bien plus, mais je me désole du fait que tu juges une entrée pour ce qu’elle aurait pu être avec davantage de temps, de réflexion et d’éléments."* Mon jugement, que ca soit la notation ou l'analyse, ne se fait que sur l'existant (mon expérience de l'existant en tout cas, c'est nécessairement subjectif). J'ai l'impression que t'as vu des reproches dans une phrase comme *"Le thème me semble sous-exploité"*. Qu'on soit clair, pour moi c'est à la fois un fait neutre et quelque chose de logique (t'as pas eu le temps d'en faire plus). Donc dans la perspective de la Game Jam, je trouve ça très bon. Pour le post-Jam, ça me semble à approfondir. En gros, comme ta remarque sur l'aspect cyclique de notre jeu (auquel je souscris). Bref, on rejoint mon premier point sur mon approche.
- *"Peut-être en reparlerons-nous une autre fois après des mois de développement."* Ce soir, demain, la semaine prochaine, dans plusieurs mois : avec plaisir.
Bon finalement, c'est un plus que 2/3 trucs :/
I can understand you're a bit disapointed about ratings and yes, the system is not perfect (but none are). At the end of the day, it's just a friendly competition and we all know how it works before the results. Take some time to cool off, enjoy the positive outcome (your game received a lot of attention) and come back to us with a clearer mind.
But I have my right to being angry, the ludum guys have something good here, and they are not making any afforts to improve it.
Now to talk to the core of the problem (ie : the rating system), I can see what you mean. Yes, there's a (little) mathematical bias whether you got a lot of ratings or not. But I think you miss something : no system are flawless. There'll always be a way to cheat or people feeling it's unfair towards them. At the end of the day, rankings are cool but not that important.
One last point : your critics on Mike and his team not wanting to improve the LD is uncalled for. They proved it just this night by adding the results countdown.
To sum up my thoughts, as a friendly advice, please try to be more charitable, it'll be beneficial not only to others, but more importantly, to you.
https://youtu.be/8_QTmqZ8bnw?t=239
The music actually comes from an asset pack (that we paid for and have the rights to use without credits), called "Ultimate Game Music Collection", by John Leonard French. You can find the concerned song here : https://soundcloud.com/game-music-collection/arid-wasteland
The music in Supraland must come from that asset pack too.
But you're right, we should've credited it anyway, so here we go !
Have a good day.