Awaiting Response by DzejPi
Awaiting Response
You are not sure how you got here. But it feels like something is trying to communicate with you. It feels like stronger you are to the signal, the closer you are to something important. Follow it. Trust it.
Game tips
- Don't overthink it.
- Let the signal guide you.
- ~~It becomes stronger the more you engage with it.~~
- Find what responds to you and act on it.
- You won't progress by standing still.
Controls
- WSAD: Move like in all 3D first person games.
- E: Respond to signal.
- Escape: Toggle pause menu. If you're playing HTML5 version, press Esc twice and click on the Continue button with your mouse to focus it back properly; this is the limitation of the web platform, unfortunately.
- Shift (hold): Sprint.
- Space: Jump.
Tools used
- Game engine: Godot 4.6.1.
- Aseprite
- Blender
- Audacity for generating sounds and editing voicelines
- Some sounds generated by Bfxr
- Color palette: Gray Weather by Cactus Celery
Commentary
Probably the hardest push so far; I am borderline delirious. Maybe I am a little bit too old for this anymore. That said, I had a lot of fun with this one, and I have to give respects to the Godot devs, because web exporter was obviously improved massively.
I remember having the issue in Dreadzone where models in web build just disappeared abruptly once the scene got over the certain amount of nodes. Thankfully not the case here, because I would be in trouble.
As usual, scope was just a little bit too big again, but I managed to keep it relatively under control. Let me know how the game was, I always rate everything back! Just give me few hours to sleep, alright?
Ratings
| Overall | 83th | 3.703⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 140th | 3.344⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 220th | 2.984⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 177th | 3.516⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 111th | 3.641⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 89th | 3.563⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 13th | 4.219⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 49🗳️ | 42🗨️ |
Thank you for the review, @tolviere! You're right with people maybe bouncing off too early, maybe I should have added some hint into the game over screen. Oh well, sleep deprivation, right?
I liked you vibes too, @cupofmilk7! Thank you for the comment!
Rated all of your games back if not already, and reviewed all of them. :heart:
The chromatic aberration around the walls and the fish eye lens give a very dream like view. And the back-rooms-esque map is cool.
I wasn't quite sure how it tied into the theme beyond the waveform in the top right of the screen but I really liked it a lot!
Cool game :D
Glad you liked it, @khaotom & @johku90!
@richjbaron it's true that it's kind of a stretch, but you are picking up signal every time you are near interactibles, so, let's pretend it counts.
@frib no, don't ignore *it*!
!> Joking asides: That's exactly what you're supposed to do, ignore signals and not interact with anything (you are helping *it* find you by doing that) and keep going, that's actually a correct solution, well done!
@guardaro glad you liked that room, it's my favorite too! Glad to get a pass on the jumpscare, the deadline was incoming quickly and I was borderline delirious from the crunch, so, I stitched it together by glue and thoughts and prayers, so, it's not exactly the most terrifying one.
Rated all of your games back, if not already. :heart:
@beareye yea, I can definitely understand that, I gave the game to play to my friend today and he was confused too. You can check the spoiler in my previous comment which explains how the game actually works. But I really regret not dropping a hint into the game over screen, I will do better next time!
@goodwayman glad you figured it out and the game didn't deceive you completely! How would you improve jumping? Does it feel floaty? Or any other ideas? I'm all ears, since I pretty much just make first person games, so, any improvement there helps. :slight_smile:
Rated your games back!
Amazing game for sure! The back rooms feeling was intense and I had a lot of figuring out how to escape. The best thing about the design is that every room can take quiet some time to solve, but when you know it, you can speed run the whole thing in a minute or two. Love it!
GG! Great vibes and sound. I struggled with some of the areas, but was interested enough to keep trying. I liked how you played with player instincts to keep me second guessing what to do. There's maybe a few too many giant chambers that you just have to run through. Great work overall
When I got confused on what to do after following the arrows and didn't really feel like playing more, I was tempted to bounce off.
Spent a little more time exploring without knowing what I was doing, and then I found the room with the computers to reset. Got killed after resetting a bunch of them because I didn't know what I was supposed to do and then decided I was done.
I really like the atmosphere, and I wanted to let the signal guide me, but I had no idea what the signal was. I didn't understand why I died.
@bonedaddy maybe I should have put more clues in there, but I didn't have enough time, unfortunately. I had more plans with that room, but the clock was ticking way too quickly.
@fabelay yea, speedrunning is the way, I think you can get to the finish in like not even two minutes!
@dan-whiffing yeah, my classic problem with making maps way too big. I already wrote it down for the next jam, it's a chronic issue of mine. :sweat_smile:
@haln ah, understandable. Really makes me realise I should have put more hints into the game over screen. If you want to know the solution:
!> Do not interact with anything, you're helping *it* to find you, *it* designed the environment to deceive you into helping *it* to find out where you are. This is why arrows do not lead anywhere or point towards things that harm you, and why the exit from the first room has "do not enter" signs. Your ultimate goal is to get to the end without being found out, which means without interacting with anything. But yeah, the way how it's communicated is ultimately not very good, sorry for that.
Rated all of your games back, if not already. :heart:
I'd ignore the people bouncing off the game; a lot of them are just trying to rate games as fast as possible. The trick isn't really that hard to figure out, and there's value in letting the player come to that realization on their own. That said, my first death was right at the phone, so I initially assumed that was supposed to be the end of the game, since it felt pretty conclusive. The note on the game over screen about trying again was what made me give it another shot.
The *real* nightmare is all the doors opening from the wrong side...
There's a lot of various paths to take, it reminds me of the Stanley Parable in that way.
@henk it's true that maybe it's better to keep it that way, and let players figure it out instead of making everything super obvious. Phone IRL is usually a death of me, so, I would say your gameplay tracks. Didn't notice the doors, that's funny, let's pretend it was made on purpose. Rated your game back!
@zedgame glad it made you uncomfortable, I take it as job relatively well done, I wanted some Stanley Parable fourth wall breaking, but I would say they surely did a better job. Already rated your game, it was my favorite one!
@phlip45 glad you liked it, and yea, moving as fast is the way to go!
@frowsyfrog interesting; when I was creating that room, doors were super obvious, so, I added some pillars and significantly more tables, maybe a little bit too many.
Rated your games back! :heart:
The audio is well done, the backrooms-esk vibes are an easy win for mood, and the graphics are simplistic but i think they work really well.
I will say, every time I died, I really had no idea why I died or even where the monster was or anything like that. Plus, that one room does kind of turn into computer-restart-simulator. The button was a unique interaction, and i think having like, max 5 computers to turn off would have been plenty, but I want to say there was probably...14? haha...gameplay is a tad shallow in that regard, but these kinds of games rarely have intricate gameplay, so for what its worth it fits the genre just fine.
Super impressive to get all this done in 48 hours...nice work!
Definitely true that not much of an intricate gameplay here, so, I am not planning to continue on this one after the jam.
Rated your game back, I would say yours was much more impressive for 48 hours. :heart:
However, I think the guidance of the game could be clearer. But it's still a very good game.
I'd agree with previous comments that it is quite unclear what you are actually supposed to do, but I don't think simply giving hints would work here - I feel like that would only make it too easy and ruin the experience. I think that it could maybe be solved by getting better feedback on player actions, so they could figure it out by observing what happens. Right now, if you interact with objects, almost nothing changes, so you don't know if you have influenced anything and if so then in what way. When you finally cross the interaction threshold, your camera turns around and the monster is there.
Maybe making it more gradual could help. Like after 1-2 interactions there's additional background noise which sounds like the monster is in the area, then with a few more you can occasionally catch a glimpse of a dark shape moving somewhere far away from you, few more and sometimes you can hear something running just behind you, and eventually when you interact too much monster comes to get you. If you wanted to add additional hints to that, then instead of a straight hint at the end screen, you could add a short text describing how "agitated" the monster was, which should hopefully direct players to the right idea.
Despite those, game is pretty cool! The visuals build a very creepy atmosphere, whether it's cramped corridors or a spacious office. All the assets work nicely to give you a sense of unease. The blinking lights in the office got me a bit, though, as I've spent some time trying to figure out if they might be blinking in any pattern or if they're related to the computer triangulation thingy. One of those several misdirections in the game that managed to make me smile. :)
Sounds are pretty good too. I'm still not sure about the buzzing in the background, though. I've played the first couple of times with it on, and after a while I thought it might be a bit much. But after playing it again with buzzing off I wasn't sold on it being better. It feels both like it needs something in the background, whether it is the buzzing or some music, but it is also quite "busy" with the constant beeping, ringing and the "help me please". And I'm not sure how to change it for the better. Maybe making the phone ringing quieter and more rare, and using the buzzing as feedback for interaction limit could work? Dunno. Still, what is there felt appropriate for a horror game, helping to build a tense atmosphere.
Really well done compo entry!
Thank you for your really in-depth review, @lcstark, love it! I think you're right, the feedback is kinda too subtle, it feels, so, that there's not that much of a difference between (invisible) 20 % or 80 % of "signal" and there could have been more hints.
I think your idea with the monster making some sound after few interactions would actually be really good and super easy to implement, so, that's a shame I didn't have such ideas. I wanted to go with the ideas like catching a glimpse of a dark shape for a bit or some monster movements when it's barely visible and far away from you, but I simply haven't had enough time.
Blinking lights are pretty funny; there's no pattern, because it's actually just a bug, haha. I think it's an issue with incorrect occlusion culling. However, I thought it looked pretty good, so, I kept it in. :laughing:
Constant buzzing is a good feedback. Figured out that most of the people will spend few minutes in the game, so, it wouldn't be a big deal, but I surely can't imagine listening to it for an hour or something. I tried to set 3D audio so that it would kinda work, but when you listen closely, you can surely hear everything at once. Gotta focus on that in the future, because audio is definitely one of my weaker skills.
Thank you very much for the comment and great ideas, rated your game back! :heart:
On the first run I only went out of the first stage after exploring every nook and cranny, then promptly got very confused as to "what is the puzzle with these screens", but got out not much after I've seen the door, and then I lost on the long corridor. On the second run I skipped the button and the screens, and although I picked up the phone, in the "geometry room" I finally kinda understood the premise and completely ignored the square things on the floor and won. Didn't turn around ^^ (nice voicelines btw). I spent the next few runs on exploring the game and blasting it open, finally allowing myself to overthink it. Fun stuff. Although, I couldn't crack what's up with the balloon room, I am still creeped out in confusion by this one.
Small stuff I'd change:
- the mouselook feels uneven between the X and Y axes, is it scaled with the viewport ratio maybe?
- the chromatic aberration is to strong on the text imo, on the edge of being too hard to read (on fullscreen)
- literally that's it
I'm so glad you did this one, I was afraid you may be done after you skipped the last LD. I too feel old lately ^^ Remember you can switch to Jam category if you feel like you're stretching yourself too much, and touch up on Monday. You're actually crazy fitting those entries of yours in 48h, chapeau bas.
I will have a look at the mouse feeling, but not quite sure what could be issue, because if I remember correctly, the mouse delta should be the same for all axes, but maybe that could be an issue, maybe it should be faster on one of them to feel better.
Chromatic aberration is a little bit overdone for sure. When it's on max, the text is barely readable, I gotta tone it down next time, though I think I won't be doing horror one next time, so, maybe it's not going to be needed.
It's incredibly surprising for me that anyone would even notice that I missed the last LD, this really warmed my heart! :heart: The last autumn was quite challenging, because were were in the process of preparing to move, we were renovating the new apartment, working on new floors, painting, and thousands of other things... so, I was playing around with the idea of joining LD regardless, but I just couldn't do it. For some reason, strangely, it felt kinda freeing to break the streak!
I was thinking about going until Monday on some LD, but I don't want to use my vacation days for that. Though it's true that no matter what, Monday is a borderline sick day territory either way, so, I don't rule it out in the future. It's super challening to do these things in 48 hours, but it feels good... at least for my mind, body is starting to fall apart, it feels, haha.
Rated your game back, loved it! :heart: