Amzing ambientation and music! I love the aura of mistery!

Interesting game! It's amazing how the Hazel Engine has evolved over the years. Really impressive stuff, a lot of effort was put into this. I did find myself getting stuff quite often, though. Excited to see what you guys have in store next with Hazel

I really wanted to check this game out, but my character kept getting stuck :(

@badcop we've fixed the physics and updated the game, should be okay now!

yooo, this was really cool and super impressive considering that it is running on a custom engine! I don’t actually have much to say because I think the core game is really solid, the only stuff I’d like to see is some better tutorialization, some settings (mouse sensitivity was a bit high for me), the door collision was a bit rough, etc, etc… but as you can tell from that list, that’s just polish stuff that’s totally excusable in a game jam. When that’s the only thing that irked me you know you did a really good job!

@simex glad you liked it and thanks for the feedback! Definitely agree with everything you said, hopefully some of this stuff (like mouse sensitivity and general settings) will be in the core engine for the next jam :)

It's awesome to see the Hazel engine at work! Very atmospheric game.

Graphics are pretty and consistent. Music and SFX are great. Good level of player feedback. Environment and story is great, could have just made the game loop part but the beginning really adds to the environment.

Only issues I had were:
Sensitivity is really high.
Music was a bit too loud
Pressing escape releases the cursor but the only way to be undone is by left clicking, which if you are holding gun forces you to shoot. (proper pause screen?)
Weapons sway when moving is very exaggerated possibly due to the high sensitivity

I wanted to check out the game but it doesn't work for me. It's nice to see that this game was built using hazel. Well done!

Would've loved to play this one if my GPU was compatible :-/

Very good entry, the ambiant mood was really working well. Had some problem with the sound (was saturating in the first part, don't know if that was intended but it was a bit painfull for the ears after a while, and during the second phase, after the graveyard, I had no sound at all). Despite those few problems, excellent works from all of you, was a pleasure to test your game, gg!

@lonelyliongames You can try again we've just added support for older GPUs perhaps yours will make the cut now!

That was a cool game! I had your guy's streams on in the background throughout most of the jam so knew a bit about how to start, think it would have taken a bit longer had I not known the initial quest. Super impressed by how far Hazel has come, and the game worked perfectly for me! It was just a bit dark during the first quest and I lost the initial ammo once I entered the graveyard. Otherwise, loved to mood and sound in the game, great entry :)

Nice to finally get to test a game made with Hazel!

Overall I enjoyed it and it was a cool experience :)

A cool moment was when I picked up the letter on the blacksmith's table, I couldn't read it because it was too dark inside, but there was light shining through a hole in the wall. I was then able to move the paper into the light, and read.

I don't think that the game should have been more tutorialized, I enjoyed the fact that you had to explore and try to figure out what's going on without all the handholding. And the big poster board which contained the "quest note", was one of the first things you see, and the rest was chained together nicely.

The only issue I had was that I followed a path of lamps, which I assumed would lead to the graveyard, but they lead me off the map and I had to restart. On my second playthrough I did manage to find the graveyard though, and got to slaughter some zombies :sunglasses:

Unfortunately I couldn't launch it - got an 'Incompatible Vulkan driver version' alert. I tried updating GPU driver, it's up to date as far as windows is concerned

impressive submission! Keep it up!

I liked the atmosphere of the game and may I say the sound design on the enemies were... interesting. The final fight could have been a bit more challenging, maybe just increasing the speed of the enemies? Great work, keep it up :)

This looks great, unfortunately I'm having trouble getting it to run. The loader works fine, but as soon as the game starts I hear one note of the piano soundtrack and then it crashes without any error. I'm running an RTX 3060 Ti.

Event Viewer shows this in the crash logs, if its of any use: https://gist.github.com/jordwest/bf981e145825e18f56ec2e8bf9eb4c47

@studiocherno Unfortunately still doesn't work...

@jordwest hmm that's strange, wouldn't have expected any issues from an RTX 3060 Ti... are you on latest GPU drivers? Also if you could share the logs in the logs/ directory, they may or may not contain some more info.

@lonelyliongames unfortunate :( what are your system specs? Have you tried updating your GPU drivers?

When I played for the first time I spent about 15 minutes finding the gun and ammo and exploring the whole map (including the graveyard) trying to figure out where to go next, since the blacksmith house note didn't spawn until I picked up the first note. For this kind of game I like it when the world just exists without my input, accidentally breaking that sequence reduced the immersion a bit for me

When I restarted and played through correctly, it was a really effective experience! My timer at the end was about 10 minutes (it'd be nice to see what your timer was once you die) and wow I had chills for the entire second section. Super effective mood with excellent music, sound effects, and lighting. Amazing job!

Unfortunately I am also getting the ‘Incompatible Vulkan driver version’ error on launch. I have updated my (AMD RX 5700 xt) GPU to the latest version (21.30.23.04-211216a-376209C) and still no luck. I watched some of your Twitch stream and I really want to play (and then rate) this game!

@ me if I can provide anything to help debug this. The log directory contains two empty text files, so no help there.

Great game! At first i was lost, fell of the level, came back stronger than ever and survived forever in the forest, but about 10minutes lost in the darkness i gave up to the bubble making sound ghosts. The atmosphere is top notch, the physics is glitchy af ( you fall off so slowly!) but as i understand you are using you own engine wich is impressive. Awesome entry well done!

On a side note, you helped me and my friends to pass the opengl class we had back at the uni, so thank you for that haha!

First of all, congrats on making the working engine! I've checked out your web site and it looks very competent!

As for the game itself, I liked it fine. It's a decent shooter with some spooky Slender vibes.

I appreciate a lot the inclusion of controller support.

Well done!

Unfortunately, it doesn't work on my laptop - it just closes without an error on start up.

I actually thought the first half was pretty entertaining with getting the gun and ammo and going to the graveyard. I liked searching the town for the landmarks and finding what I was looking for. The second part was good too, but I kept hopelessly looking for a way to win (I guess that defeats the purpose of the theme).

I actually have a bad sense of direction so the first time I played through I somehow went far enough to fall through the floor! haha That aside, this is a very insteresting game considering the custom engine. Hazel engine is actually new to me and I'll look it up later to see more about it.

Now, on to the gameplay itself, running should have some kind of stamina bar, I felt like if I ran non-stop they would never catch me.

Even so, after I noticed this, I tried playing it without sprinting so much and got the sense of delaying impending doom, so good job on that.

I liked the lamps as a visual cue, but this takes me to another point: I think the map was TOO dark. I mean, I know this was probably to set the mood, but I very much would like a more somber approach instead of plain dark and a few really bright lamps (does that make sense?), maybe it was just me though.

Speaking of setting the mood, you did it really well.

Great game!

I understand this was made in your own engine? neat! That's not a claim to fame that many in LD have :smile_cat:

I'd hate to state the obvious but; I thought the use of music/sound combined with the dim, moody visuals make for a great and immersive atmosphere! Very tasteful ;)

I'm subscribed to your channel but missed the Ludum Dare video, so I was very surprised to have stumbled across your game naturally through this site's recommendations. Congrats on making a game! I too had problems getting the game running, but updating my RTX 3060 drivers fixed the problems. The mood was very suspenseful and strong, and I feel that the lack of tutorials or direction added to that feeling of being out of place. The gameplay was solid, perhaps the feedback on you getting hit by the enemies could be made more clear. Overall a solid entry, keep it up!

Wonderful game! I like this dark atmosphere and graphics. Musical accompaniment and handwritten letters are very complementary to the aura! But I found graphic bugs opening doors and windows.
Keep up the good work!

The starting sequence was very well done. When I loaded up the game for the first time, I thought this would be another directionless horror game where I would have to walk around for way too long to find the objective.
But the layout of the village kept me focused and led me straight to the bulletin board. From there it was very clear where to go.

My only complaint with the game is that the survival sequence at the end was too slow and easy. I felt like I could go on forever, and when I died it, just restarted.
Was there a way to beat the game or does the survival phase just go on until you die?

Either way this was a very nice breath of fresh air after playing a bunch of less polished LD games so great job all around guys.

Impressive that this was made in a custom engine! Feels like you can just run forever in the 2nd part, so maybe having more enemies spawn would help add some tension.

The atmosphere and gameplay are pretty good. I'm not sure if there's anything after the stage where you're chased by monsters but if so it should definitely be shorter. If that's the theme then some kind of kill indicator would be cool too. Good work overall!

I got transported.

Game looks like great fun, too bad I can't run it.


It was a fairly good game. I liked the models and the atmosphere. The open world was nice, but it was pretty hard to actually figure out where to go, so I'd recommend adding some signs or stuff, as well as making important things in the world BRIGHTER. The game was very dark, even at 100% brightness on my monitor. Understandable for the second part, but in the first it made it difficult to navigate. In the second part, I think I could've run in a straight line forever, so a little too easy.
One physics bug, my head can go through at least one of the floors of the elevated houses (I don't remember which one). Also, the doors opening towards the player was a little annoying. Also, I followed some of the lampposts and fell off the edge of the world and had to restart.
Also, it is mainly just my preference, but I did not like the way the gun aimed at all. It felt like jelly almost (except when you are looking down the sight, that is good). A little bit of movement might be okay for animation, but I'd say reduce the amount by 10x, as well as give it a max angle (the gun could spin all the way around if you turned too fast).
One more side note: I used the launcher to set the mouse sensitivity to the minimum, and that was pretty good, although I'd recommend adding some even lower settings.
With more time, I think this could turn into a great game. Also, yes, I realize this is on a custom engine (I've even seen a few devlog videos about it), but I am solely rating the game, not the engine.
Good job, and I hope to see even better things in the future.

This game looked really neat, and I like the moody atmosphere that the music and setting build in the first part. I would have loved to see the exploration expanded on. I was a little bit disappointed by the second part, just because it was a change from that. That being said, the gunplay feels nice and I like the way your gun trails your camera a little bit, it adds a lot to what would be a very static gun pose. The enemy designs were pretty unique, which was cool. The actual challenge of the second part was a little underwhelming. Because you move faster than the enemies surviving a long time doesn't take a lot, I let them kill me after about 10 minutes. I would love to see their speed adjusted a bit to make it harder to just run away.

Great work on this though, I see a ton of potential in the game and it was really awesome to see a custom engine used for the jam!

Nice to see Hazel in action! Great job with the jam too!

The first part of the game is very well done! With great visuals and music setting the mood and mysterious notes making you run around the village. The slowly intensifying pressure is just so well done!

The second part is kind of a setback after that. I totally get the limitations of the jam and taking into consideration of the amount of job for the first part. It's just the feeling that quality doesn't match what was promised with the world-building: the enemies have no character, you can just endlessly run away from them.. looking for a lantern to find some ammo is a nice idea though, could totally see it expanded and maybe used as a trap for the player later. Anyway, again, I totally get the limitations of the jam, I'd love to see that project expanded -- it has a lot of potential. Thanks for making it!

I was streaming and recording my playthrough of your game, here's a link in case you'd like to see it https://youtu.be/xAmitsB_F9k

The start of the game obviously very very good, I just dislike that playing again I have to again interact with the first letter instead of being able to just grab the gun, grab my ammo and go! but I do understand you design it around one time play.

The darkness could have been shown later I think, but it did bring in the mood, maybe at the graveyard you could have started stage 2 of the game.

I really dislike the randomness of how many hits I need to do to kill an enemy. I prefer personally more enemies with stable amount of hits.
Running for the ammo and then spam hitting stacked enemies became boring I would say after 3 min.
So after that I would love to see something more!

character coughing could be 2x less frequent.
Really good overall. The graphics are insane (love how you played with bloom I remember you talking about it in your video!)
It just felt like the inevitable really was just for the player to give up, because there is nothing more.

Mood-wise I also want to say that I would actually be happier to see ghosts or zombies then robots.
Considering how the game looks visually. But you are the creators and you decide what you feel like to do :). Thank you for nice experience

está bem bonitinho o jogo mas não entendi o que era pra fazer

Watched your amazing stream. Thanks for the entertainment, it was a blast! :-) Game crashes on my pc, using NVIDIA GT 1030 of which I'm not sure if it really supports Vulkan. Some sources say yes, other's don't so maybe that's the issue here. A window appears, stays black and music starts playing. Then after 2 seconds the process exists. Tried both with the .exe and the launcher.

I haven't seen much of your videos on the Hazel engine, but it's really damn cool seeing it in use for a Ludum Dare event! The graphics are really good looking as well! Though it's a little odd seeing a shadow for the gun but not the player; well, hey, it's still cool to see real-time shadows supported here!

The beginning was really good, but I'm not so sure about it becoming an endless shooter later. I agree with @caudatecoder on pretty much everything he said, alongside what @taaada said. They've basically said everything I would've, and more. They did my job for me.

Now this is where I'd congratulate you for managing to make this game within the deadline... but you made the entire engine yourself! Obviously THAT took *so much longer* than 3 days to make. It's incredible being able to try it out for myself with this game.

Also I really want to say this before ending this post, but I remember discovering your YouTube channel via the video on your Ludum Dare 24 entry Genesis. It's so cool to see you enter the competition again! Have a wonderful day, Cherno!

@ronanrory thanks for the review! We're definitely quite happy with what we've achieved within the 72 hours (as this was our first time using Hazel collaboratively as a team to make something), and I agree with everything you and the others have said.

If we had more time, we would have definitely fleshed out the second part of the game much more, and in fact we'll probably continue working on Forest as a little side-project as we continue to develop Hazel.

Thanks for playing (and for being around since Genesis!), have a wonderful day too! - Cherno

Unfortunately the audio was really glitchy for me and I had to mute the game.
I got a bit lost at first because I didn't realise I had to pick up the note on the billboard even though I could read it without picking it up.
I liked the lighting in the main part of the game and how you had to navigate using the infrequent lamps in the distance.
Shooting the ghosts was pretty satisfying, I liked the bullet effect.

I've been following the development of this engine for quite a while and I must say, good job. This is where my good points end, so if you don't want to hear mean things, stop reading now.

### The game
The game isn't good. Movement is really slow, there is no jumping, gravity is way to small, you can easily fall of the map, the ground texture is ugly, many objects don't have collisions, there are sometimes invisible walls, music doesn't loop nicely (and gets really annoying & repetitive), UI is ugly and there are missing sound effects. I think I listed all of them.

I might be wrong about everything above, because I couldn't even get pass the first section. This was because of the constant bugs. I tried following a playthrough above me, but I sill couldn't trigger a wave. But that wasn't the only bug I spotted. Sometimes I would get 2 bullets with my gun and sometimes 0, I couldn't ADS when I had a controller plugged in, opening settings would just lock me out of the game (also, why is it under F1 and not escape like literally every game), I couldn't change any settings (nor escape them) and looking at the note in the starting area after getting the gun would crash my game.

I was also disappointed about other accessibility / quality of life features missing from the game. There wasn't a pause menu, settings, remappable input nor anything except the launcher with a couple of things to tweak (more about that later), no icon, no way to disable togglable ADS (hate that) etc.

### The engine
I understand that this jam was only supposed to be used for testing out your engine. Sadly, I'm not too happy about it either.

The opening launcher is quite nice, but once again: no input remapping and only a couple of basic settings. Not sure what render scale is supposed to mean. Most games have normal resolution dropdown with every available resolution, which was missing here. I often change my resolution for fullHD because it still looks good on recording and my computer doesn't want to jump of the bridge. Fullscreen (and fullscreen modes more preferably) would be also welcome.

Your launcher also has dementia. I had to restart this game a lot of times and every time it set my mouse sensitivity to 5. I mean, the sensitivity slider didn't work... but still.

Your game's lights were ugly. I'm not talking about city lights, I'm talking about lighting. City lights light was quite good, but the rest felt like an unlit Unity game from 2014 (I'm a Unity dev, so you can't be mad at me). I'm not sure if your engine supports post processing effects (yet), but even some simple tone mapping would make a huge difference.

Input remapping was also sadly missing. Once again: I have no idea if you can actually support that, but I know that a lot of people have different preferences and keyboards. I hope hazel has (or will have) something like that built in and not make me write an entire custom input system like for Unity just to add some buttons in a menu.

### Final thoughts
The game isn't good, the engine needs a bit of work, but that's okay. Once again, I understand this project was used to check if your engine won't light on fire and what needs tweaking. It takes a really long time to make good bug free games quickly and develop tools / workflows to allow that. I developed a system of testing a game using a cheat console and displaying values on screen which is proving to be quite affective. I can't wait to see what you'll make in the future and I'm interested in trying out hazel especially, because Unity keeps blowing up (you can read about that on my game's page). Keep up the good work

(Holy garbage, why did I spent 20 minutes on writing this thing)

### Edit 1
Before you ask about the crashes: I unpacked the game to a folder. Here's my specs
* Ryzen 7 2700
* GTX 1650 Super
* 16GB RAM (with XMP disabled)
* Win10 Personal 64-bit

Also, please include which coding language hazel supports in your FAQ.