Book of the Dread by Nerzal
Recomendation
Better only use the WebVersion if you are on Mac. The WebVersion has some problems, that do not exist in the windows/linux builds.
Story
I remember it, as if it was yesterday. The smell, the texture, the overwhelming feel of dread, as I laid my weary eyes upon its leathery binding. It really feels like yesterday. But it's been close to 20 years now. The Book of Dread. Written many, many centuries ago in the gobi desert, by the mad Caliph Abril Ab Hazreds on Human skin. Human skin he harvested himself. How he harvested, you might ask? I will not talk about the atrocities he committed. He collected all the rituals and spells he could acquire into that abomination. And I want to have it. I want to learn the spells and perform the rituals. To Ascend.
Last summer I was able to track down a translation of said 'book'. It belongs to the austrian curriosity collector Charles Kneipzach. He does not live all that far from me. I plan to pay him a visit in the next few days...
https://youtu.be/o6ENBsudQEM
Controls
| Control | Description | | ------------ | ---------------- | | W, A, S, D | Move | | E | Use | | Tab | Open Book | | Q / R | Dialog options | | Space | Jump | | Mouse | Look around | | Scroll wheel | Focus FlashLight |
Ratings
| Overall | 1349th | 3.265⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1680th | 2.691⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1347th | 2.882⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 769th | 3.757⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 132th | 4.214⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 35🗳️ | 46🗨️ |
In all its horrorness(Why did I do this to myself? I am terrible with Horror! You succeeded in horroring me out, well done.), this game leaves me a little lost to be honest (well, I guess to a certain degree that's intended).
I see you like writing - and you're good at it - but the Intro is very long down time, so maybe try a different approach to storytelling next time. It might also be a good idea to make the Intro skipping less sensitive(i had skipped it before I noticed that I could).
Regarding the gameplay: I figure it's not uncommon for Horror games to be mainly walking through [insert creepy place], so there isn't really anything wrong with that. However, some interactables apart from the pages would have helped to keep me engaged.
In my opinion, the mouse sensitivity is wayyy to high, which left me disoriented often and made it hard to stay focused.
Other than that, I think you did a good job regarding the mood overall!
On a last note, you might want to check https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/176454/unexpected-scaling-of-ui-elements-after-build-unity-web to fix the UI scaling for the WebGL build.
Sadly screamers are not for me, I managed to get 5 pages before quitting. I constantly got lost, sometimes my rotation became jerky and I had no idea of my orientation anymore (critical in straight corridors) :(
The flashlight focus is a good idea, it would have been the perfect feature if I have met moving threats !
But the zombie sound is way too loud x)
I've done a few horror games so I could survive it, but I stopped pretty quickly as the game seemed to rely only on those sudden screaming sounds to scare the player. While they worked, I found them quickly irritating, I think it's a cheap technique that can be used once but not all the time. I also spent a lot of time running in circles without finding any pages, so I got bored after some time.
But good work overall!
(One small thing I noticed: the footstep sound still kept playing when you're in the air.)
Other than that I think you did a great job! The lovecraft inspired story, the music that intensified the deeper you got. I personally got enough atmosphere from the game and could have gone without the jumpscares, but they we're not too over the top and I am wondering if I skipped some by moving along the walls.
The thing that bummed me out a bit is that I didn't quite get the ending I think. I decided to take the book, but it didn't seem to do all that much.
Either way, this was really fun, looked and sounded great, and had a good story too. All together probably one of the best games I have played this jam so far. Really well done guys!
We really appreciate that :)
Here some notes:
It was part of the concept, to create the feeling of getting lost, when creating the map. While creating the level i got lost myself several times :D
When only following the right/left hand rule, you'll reach the end, but you won't get all pages, thats true, so you will have to explore :)
Story & Music was truly inspired by Lovecraft :)