Seance by alexrose
A murder case has gone cold, and the NRPD has asked you to help them solve it, on account of your abilities as a psychic medium.
Channel the dead, confront them with the truth, help them to unlock their memories, and solve the murder.
Hints below if you get stuck!
Controls
Game entirely uses the mouse. Click the Detective/Table symbols when you aren’t in the middle of a conversation to go between the sections of the room.
Click the Ouija board to start a seance. Input the name of a spirit, then click Submit. Light the candles, and summon them.
The buttons at the top of your board allow you to go back and forward in your conversation, or inquire with some hard hitting questions. Sometimes they’ll reveal some extra information.
If you think you have an answer to their riddles, either select it from your notebook or type it out in the Ouija board.
Team Credits
Alex Rose - Programmer, Designer, Dialogue, VA Director, Story Co-creator
Atmospherium - Music, SFX, VA processing + organisation
Lowri Bowden - Artist, Story Co-creator
VA Credits
Mike Bithell - Voice of Entity (Spoilers!)
SonnyBone - Voice of Detective Tether
ChrissieCodes - Voice of Aria
Rincs - Voice of Tamsin
Loriston Fennell - Voice of Rendell
Naetoid - Voice of Dylan
Sheepolution - Voice of Altmann
I'm stuck!
All the evidence you have can be seen in the Detective's room, these are the only valid names to type into the Ouija board. Make sure you click Enter.
The ghosts talk you through a set topic. You can go forward and back through it by clicking "Keep Going" and "Go Back". "Elaborate" lets you elaborate on each specific phrase.
Evidence is context sensitive. If a ghost tells you you aren't listening to them, you have the right evidence and you're presenting it at the wrong time.
When ghosts ask you questions, "Who am I?" "Where was I?", that means they want you to tell them.
Mouse to the bottom of a screen during a seance to bring up the full board. Then you can click Goodbye if you want to see the detective again.
The detective gives you evidence too. Don't neglect him. Don't neglect any ghost except Altmann, they know more than you think.
There are multiple ghosts.
"Elaborate" asks them to clarify the current statement. Some bits of dialogue are hidden and you have to elaborate to reveal them. If you elaborate on every piece of text you will learn the whole story.
Specific hints
You have to type Tamsin's name into the board and click Enter
Is Tamsin asking who she is? Tell her her name.
Altmann is a name. Did you summon him?
Tamsin can't remember where she was. Do you have a location to show her?
Make Tamsin elaborate. What buildings were you near?
Aria says that someone from her family probably misses her. Who might that be?
Did you ask the detective about Dylan?
Did you show Dylan all the evidence? There's one piece of evidence that's used twice. Where was he going?
Tamsin witnessed something. What crime could be witnessed?
Aria was accosted by someone who broke in. Who breaks into buildings?
Make Dylan elaborate. What happened when he broke the pipe?
| itch | https://alexrose.itch.io/seance |
| OST (SoundCloud) | https://soundcloud.com/atmospherium/whodunit |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/seance |
Ratings
| Overall | 2th | 4.648⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 24th | 4.305⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 38th | 4.203⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1th | 4.828⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 11th | 4.734⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1th | 4.797⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 1th | 4.773⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 102🗳️ | 63🗨️ |
if you're stuck, you need to ask everyone to elaborate. if it helps, altmann is a complete red herring, he's gives you 2 clues and then that's it. so if you're at 5, sounds like you need to push Tamsin to elaborate until you get a dialogue where she's asking a question
I'll see if more people get stuck, if so I could just make the text that is pushable/presentable a different colour to make it clearer. we didn't get to do any playtesting before the game launched
The story is great, the search for info is tedious but rewarding, the art is gorgeous.
I could have bought it.
The depth, the concept, the visuals, the voice acting/sound design, everything was so perfect. I'm just amazed, incredible job!
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2122044081
Here are two details that wasn't perfect for me:
* The board is using the letter's mesh as raycast targets, which makes it annoying to click on some of them, like the I (especially when you want to go fast after some back and forth). A larger transparent target would make it perfect.
* The story is really nice, but imo the clues about who the killer is are too rare and subtle for most of the game, then we get some really meaningfull ones right before the end. I think I would have preferred to be progressively convinced of who the killer is, instead of a twist at the end.
there are some clues about the killer's scattered identity throughout. tamzin mentions that the man was about your height. aria mentions you have dizzy spells, that the person must have had access to the building because there was no break-in (you are a patient) and points out that one of her patients (you) had the truck and that you always talked about summoning (and you later find out the killer wants to summon baphomet). dylan keeps telling you to come down here below (since he is in the same building), then later there's the candle. It is scattered throughout, if I just told you up front though it would ruin the surprise
I wish there was a volume slider, as closer to the end the music started to get tiring, but I couldn't think of missing out on the voice acting.
I find it funny how the notepad has Rendell's name wrong, especially after the Detective mentions it wrong himself. Was that intentional?
The ending felt slightly weird, did it mean [rot13]Oncubzrg unf npghnyyl znantrq gb svaq gur irffry naljnlf? Ohg gura jul qvq vg arrq hf gb, jryy, pnyz qbja gur fcvevgf?[/rot13]
Overall, a really great entry! I'm honestly surprised at how well you've managed to keep the voice acting throughout the Seance.
>I didn't catch them with my bare hands though. **I had another way.**
with a green highlight. when asked to elaborate he says:
>That's the power of technology.
when they say you aren't listening, it means you presented evidence that the character responds to in the wrong place. could be from a later sequence you didn't get to yet, or from the same sequence and you replied to the wrong word
and yeah the notepad was a typo lol, good catch. altmann and knife were accidentally swapped too, I've corrected them, cheers for the heads up
Gameplay is interesting and makes a lot of sense once you understand the colors and the evidence giving mechanics. The oujia input is very clever and novel, but it does end up being just a fancy way to select words from a menu. You do provide a menu, which is very convenient, but it only sidesteps the issue that the oujia board is not actually necessary. I would've liked to see some prompts that required typing answers that aren't on the notebook. Like some really easy non-puzzles like "hmm what direction did he go? not north or south..." where the goal is just to use the ouija. I thought the vehicle one was one of these but I guess it wasn't (see below).
The interruption dialogue was a bit confusing. Does it mean that the clue is meant to be used on a different line of this particular phase of dialogue, or a future phrase, or do past phrases also count? I used "thief" with Aria and it was the right answer, but when I used it again later she did the interruption dialogue. So I wasn't sure if I had to use "thief" again or if it just triggered the interruption dialogue because it was used in a previous line of hers.
That is the point where I got permanently stuck thought (after getting the cctv clue and using "thief") and could not progress at all. I spent probably over 20 minutes brute forcing all the clues with all the ghosts and could not get anywhere. I also tried manually typing in all kinds of creatures and literally every vehicle I could think of, but it didn't work. It seems like a bug but I can't really tell since it's a mystery game. I tried to reload the game but it doesn't remember progress so I'm quitting for now.
The murder mystery is very good. You really need to go back and forth between all the characters (well except Altmann, rip). There were moments I got stuck. Those moments did have me end up trying things at random, but the eventual solution I found was always one that made sense, I just hadn't thought of asking that person about that particular thing before. I was a bit confused by the ending. I read your head canon. [rot13]V guvax gb fryy gung lbh pbhyq unir rzcunfvmrq zber ba gur snpg gung ur jnf penml, naq gung ur arrqf uryc. V thrff gung vf nyernql fnvq jvgu gur snpg gung ur unf n gurencvfg, ohg fgvyy.[/rot13]
The art looks amazing. The fuzziness around the ghost was a bit distracting at the beginning, but I guess it does add to the ghostiness. Though I'm not sure if that was intentional. Besides the big artwork of the ghosts and the detective, the small artworks of the clues are also really cool. The candle flickering is neat, and even the ouija board had a cool design.
I was a bit confused about the elaborate/keep going. I feel like you would always want to elaborate. At least the first time you are entering that path of dialogue. Other than that I had no issue with any of the mechanics.
I hope your game gets a final rating that it deserves, and is not affected too much by people only playing it for 5 minutes. If someone asks how good and big of a game you can make in 72 hours, I think this will be a great example to show them.
The only thing that slightly threw me off was the fact that sometimes the questions you had to answer were green, and sometimes they were not. At first I thought you only have to present evidence when you see green question, so that made me get stuck one time.
But that's a minor concern, overall amazing job!
can't imagine how you guys could finished such an complete and amaizng entry in 3 days.
What an experience to make it through the end and realize everything has already reveal itself at the initial start
I love sucn an experience reminds me of good time playing ghost tricks and phoenix ace attorney, and now they are coming togethe with a big twist here.
I love this entry! super good job here!
When talking to Aria about candles she says "like the ones you have here". The right candle is short and stubby and doesn't look much like a church candle any more. The left candle looks more like what I'd expect, but unfortunately the notepad covers most of it. Maybe it could be moved further left, or even removed for this final stretch of the game where we don't need it any more, just so we can see the candles in all their glory.
I started to cotton on to the ending at the line about the height of the killer, and I especially liked the pig and sheep on the Ouija board. I especially liked the lines from the victims which were reminiscent of what they actually said, it really helped with the idea that Baphomet was sort of controlling the player (or at least messing with their head). The changing image of the detective was great, and the application closing was really impactful for some reason: Did I die? Was my mind completely taken over by Baphomet? Something else?
This game is insane for a game jam, and I definitely need to replay it to see all the foreshadowing. It seems like some secret good ending (maybe a new game + exclusive if saving is implemented) would fit perfectly in a good release. Maybe there is one that I missed.
Great job, an almost perfect score!
Everything is so well conveyed and interesting, and coherent with the end!
I just to talk about this story with everyone I know XD
Please, make it a serie <3
Perfection.
(if only it had a web version)
As a huge fan of the Ace Attorney games, this game immediately clicked with me. The production level is off the charts with this one, awesome job!
I am once again asking for your banger soundtrack to be uploaded somewhere so I can listen to it occasionally!
it for me, but the art is great too.
all round Great Work!
This was intense.
Overall just perfect experience, for a jam game.
It was sometimes hard to know what to next, but the good gentlemen in chat helped me.
Everything was great - graphics, story, music, voice acting - just great.
Thank you for stopping by at my stream!
Thanks for submitting it on stream! Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2133052643
The writing was for the most part very good too. Just the ending left me a *little* cold, but for a jam submission, it's still good. The progression was smooth, except having to use the office clue on Dylan twice was very unintuitive. I suspect that's what the above commenter being stuck on the CCTV clue was also missing. This brought my progress to a full halt until I checked out @mateusboga 's VOD (thanks for that!) to figure out what I was missing. After that it was smooth sailing again.
Overall though, this was by far in my top 5 this entire jam. Wonderful stuff!
And keep going! The human race needs more of your talent.
https://youtu.be/znoHJpOZCSc
Lovely entry, thanks for your creation. :)
Everything is beautiful and well done, but the story managed to leave me intrigued and wanting to find out what really happened.
I saw that a lot of people played it (I didn't watch the gameplay to avoid spoilers) and I thought I wouldn't like the game. I was very wrong!
Congratulations for the game!
First things first, the critical feedback. This game is such a masterpiece, that I only have the minor-est of nitpicks. The game automatically closed instead of going to a "GG, close the game now" kinda menu, so I briefly recorded my messy Desktop at the end of my video. I also usually like to start replaying a game while I can provide some more feedback, but that would require restarting the application, and I already panic-ended the recording because my messy desktop.
I also think the shots of my character was a little... poorly framed? For a second, I thought the detective guy was the one striking a dramatic "OH NO!" pose, only to realize a few lines later that it was actually me. (I incorrectly assumed for a minute that I was the killer)
Also a few things in the timeline seem to be a bit conflicting? At least I assumed the timeline was, thief takes pig/sheep, kills butcher, kills aria, kidnaps dylan, kills tamsin, loud bang, fragrance. Which conflicts with the butcher smelling the fragrance.
Anyway, that's all the criticism I have. This game was amazing.
I recorded myself playing to provide some extra feedback.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN7fbol7gdo
I wanted to execute that more clearly at the end but I didn't have time to write a shader to sell it better because.. 72 hours
Such a unique take on the theme!
I agree with @100th-coin that this is a master piece haha. My only, super nit-picky nitpick is that I wish it did not say [ENTER] on the board, but that there was a different way to "lock in", maybe lighting the candles?
Top marks! Even though there was no rude bear :smile:
1. you dont need to remember words, just find the green lines and click keywords
2. always talk to the detective after you get new keyword