Fantastic work here. Really well written, the library is really intriguing.

I played twice to cover more ground, but I have to move on. I'm keeping the executable to play again later though, I really want to know if there are scenes I haven't seen, or even if there is some kind of ending.

My first playthrough I died to the infinite room. If I had enough heatlh left, would I eventually have been able to cross it by selecting "Keep Going", or is that just a trap to get curious idiots like me killed? 😭

@teddyreid Thanks! Really glad you found it interesting.

I feel it's the sort of thing that's best explored blind, so I won't say too much, but I will say that, if you haven't found something resembling an ending, then (statistically, at least) there are probably quite a few scenes that you haven't seen yet. :smiley:

If you run into any bugs when you revisit it, I've already posted a minor series of fixes on itch and will probably keep doing so if I discover any more during judging. ^^

Very nice work! The writing is really compelling and atmospheric (of course, the sound doesn't hurt it there as well!)

My only criticism is that some areas can get a bit repetitive - I can't count the number of times I went back and forth between the maze and the black pool. But that's just a consequence of having limited time to do this. Great job.

@adam-gould Yeah, I completely agree! I'd have loved to have weighted the randomness so that rooms you see more often get pushed down in terms of how likely they would be to appear again, but, alas, game jam...!

Will definitely be something I add in future if I end up putting together an expanded, post-LD release, though. :grinning:

Wow, it is a really interesting game!
I really love an approach to writing - you have good story and good atmosphere of the Great Library!
So, I have not any complaint to quality of a game content.
But for me impossibility to check previous pages of text was a little inconvenient. But it is not really important, I think, because you have done great job!
Thanks for mystical mood)
P.S. Did you play in Fear & Hunger? I felt the same atmosphere )

Interesting game, I thought it was quite well written and I really liked the premise. I think it could have done with some more options for how to deal with certain scenarios though, and maybe it could have been a little nicer with the checks. It can be a little frustrating to sit there and watch your character lose health over and over without really being able to influence it. Still though it's a nice game and I think a post-jam version with more content would be cool!

WOW. Really effective writing, there really is no overstating the effectiveness of good writing in games, it's a rare treat when it's done well. And in this case it's a jam game, which makes it all the more impressive. I'm glad you kept the gameplay simple and focused on the story, I bet you probably needed all 72 hours to refine it this much. I was very glad to have the save and load system to abuse :D it's incredibly difficult to stay alive, even when you have some idea of how the options will play out. Effects of options do feel a little random at times (I think because it is) but that's not necessarily a bad thing, it adds to the intentional maddening, hopeless feeling. Great job, GGs

@krakadushka The Library is merciless, I'm afraid. There can be no turning back... :wink:

I'd never heard of Fear & Hunger, but I took a look at the Steam page and it looks like something I might enjoy, so thank you for mentioning it!

@baconinvader Thanks for the feedback! I'll see how the game's received over judging, but I enjoyed working with the concept, so a post-jam version is definitely a possibility. :slight_smile:

@brotherst That means a lot, thank you! Yes, I only *just* scraped in at the deadline before submission hour...! Think I spent pretty much the entire jam at least an hour behind schedule! XD The difficulty is definitely intentional, even if there are some places I'd like to tweak it a bit. Nobody's ever *truly* escaped the Library, after all... :wink:

this looks very nice and beautifully written! sadly, i can't get to actually play the game on linux.


# YES

@subvertissement Sorry about that, thanks for letting me know! The PC version *should* run on both Windows and Linux, but now that I've tested it myself, it's not running on my Linux laptop either... I'll try and do a Linux-specific build and, if it works, I'll upload that as well.

If that doesn't work either, I'll have to limit the release to just PC and Mac for now since I don't have time to troubleshoot... I'll reply again once I've had chance to test out another build. Sorry again!

@subvertissement There's now a Linux-specific version on the itch.io page that works on my laptop. Hope that works for you! Thanks again for letting me know there was an issue! :smile:

BGM sounds really creepy. Great game!

I haven't finished it yet, if it can even be finished, but the way I lost was so amazing it made me fall in love with this game.

I love a good narrative game. This is a good narrative game. I love it.

I'm going back and I already know that I'll want more once it is over.

(Also, how the hell did you manage to write all this in three days?)

Not my type of game but Great game and really well written!

@anhievus The concept of the Library is something I've had in my head for a while, although nothing's really come of it until now, so that meant I had less to have to dream up before I could get straight to the writing. But other than that? Everything written for the game was written within the three days of the jam so... yeah, wrist cramp from typing was becoming a real issue at one point...! ^^;

Really happy to hear you're enjoying the game! :grin:

Really enjoyed this one. I agree with other comments that it did seem to get a bit repetitive after a while when you seem to be stuck in the same area over and over, but when I encountered something new I was drawn in again.

That audio. Wow. This was a completely different experience from all other games I have played so far, so that was great in itself. The writing - fantastic....and you even got a decent rating on graphics for the nice font.

And yeah, I drank the tea.

Was this worth it? Hell yeah! Something between Borges' Library of Babel, Lovecraftian dreams, and some kind of calm dark fantasy can be great if it's well made, and it's well made. It can be a little repetitive sometimes, but it's ok, it's a Jam game, it can't be perfect. We've made some kind of text/choose-your-own-adventure game during a previous jam (your game is better), so we know how much work it is to write so much text.

I'll be sure to play it again and again. Btw, nice touch to let people change text speed, and have save and load functions.

It's one of my favorite LD50 game so far. Really awesome.

So different than the other games I played! I loved it! Excellent writing and the audio really sets the tone. Really impressive for the short jam duration! Great save/load system as well.

I really liked this game. The concept is great, the ambience is fantastic and the writing is really well done. I liked that you could choose different characters at the start. There was a bit of an annoying bug though, the pages kept repeating themselves, even when I didn't have that book in my inventory. I think it would be nice to have a map in it or something too.

@chocolat-endive Thanks so much for your kind words! I took a look at The Well of the Past and it looks like we were both aiming for a similar kind of slow, descriptive style to build up an atmosphere for the player.

I liked your work! It was an interesting take on the theme of that jam--keeping an old, fragmented story alive with just enough information to keep you intrigued, but not *quite* enough to paint a clear picture, at least not that I found in my playthrough. It's really great to see that the interest in both making and playing text-based games is still going strong. :smile:

Afraid the text speed and save/load functions are features of Ren'Py, so I wouldn't feel right taking credit for those...! :laughing:

@lvl99chicken Really glad you enjoyed it! :slight_smile: Again, though, I wouldn't feel right taking credit for what's already built into Ren'Py. You're right, though, their inbuilt save/load system is great! :grin:

@abdonatioera Thank you for the feedback! I just went and double checked to make sure that there wasn't a bug that made the effects of Continuo Circulus linger after you've discarded the book and, given that its effect is entirely self-contained and doesn't set any flags, I think you were probably just experiencing the same room being randomly selected multiple times in a row...!

I agree with you that it's annoying. My plan for a potential post-jam version already includes a weighting system to dynamically de-rank rooms that you encounter regularly, so hopefully that'll fix the issues you're talking about! Happy to hear you enjoyed what you played, though! :grin:

Great writing! Madness is inevitable, but I have survived.

Super cool concept! Loved it! Well written and interesting journey. I was super scared at first, but it seemed that you only lose one HP or sanity at time so I was little bit more brave to experiment. After 30 min of paying it I felt it kinda started to loop around between same 3 rooms(and eventually died in them), tho I made it to nexus earlier, and I think I could have gotten to a different area from there. I think it needs little less randomness with witch rooms come next so it would not repeat itself. Overall good concept and if you plan to do some post jam tweaking I am more than happy to play it again.

Really well made game. I liked the presentation, a very clean and easy to read design, with great choice of colours, helped bring me into the world. Good job!

@boclow Thank you, I'm happy to hear you liked it! Yes, reducing randomness is definitely something that a lot of people have mentioned (and that I completely agree with). It'd essentially be the first thing I'd want to address in a post-jam version of the game. If you were wanting to play the post-jam version, I'll make sure to post a devlog on itch.io if I get around to releasing one (looking likely at this point) so anyone who's following the game will get a notification when it's out! :smile:

I find this game impressive. The atmosphere pulled me in from the start, and I found myself completely immersed in the otherworldly experience. The sound absolutely helped, and the writing was fantastic, I couldn't believe at how much content there was. Thank you for making this.

Very nice text adventure with a creepy atmospheric background music, really feels like im exploring a library, impressive game, well done. One cool suggestion is to add sounds to choices to build tension, that's just my perspective, I might not know what im talking about, or do i?

@infecsean I hadn't considered doing that--it's a good idea! I'd originally wanted to make variants of the background ambience track for the different areas too, but ended up running out of time. I think sound design is something I'd want to take another look at in a post-jam version without the time constraint, so thanks for the suggestion! I'll make sure to post devlogs on itch.io about any post-jam content so, if you're interested, feel free to follow the game over there for updates! :grin:

I like this writing! I hope you're making $ out of your talent. Are you a quest designer or dungeon master? You nailed the atmosphere and when I saw  I knew it was inevitable. One of the best experinces I've had so far. Do the player stats help in any way?

The music did its job I would say. UI was also excellent with smooth overall gameplay. I enjoyed the writing a lot. Great job!

@baubau Thank you! Haha, yeah--I used to do a lot of tabletop GMing, but not as much recently, unfortunately...! :sweat_smile:

The player stats are what determine whether you pass or fail certain checks. I left it vague as to which one is being tested in each check to keep the focus on the atmosphere, although it can *usually* be inferred from the descriptive text. :slight_smile:

I made another run today. Really love your game. Do you plan to update it in the future or creating more games like this?

Very atmospheric game! I agree with what was said above, some subtle sound effects would make it even more immersive.

A nice text adventure with variety. It would have been cool if it made like a map that you could then travel around. I went to the Dust storage a lot :)

@chocolat-endive Ahh, great to hear it's got replay value! :grin: Yeah, I think at this point it's highly likely that I'll be doing a post-jam release. I don't know exactly how much extra content that would entail right yet, but I'd be starting with incorporating the feedback I've been getting about the randomness and sound design at the very least!

Best way to keep track of post-jam releases would be to follow the game on itch.io. As I've said to other people asking about updates, I'll make sure to post devlogs over there when I put out new content for the game! :smile:

Wow the writing was very well done I was fully immersed in the world. This is definitely one of those jam games that I'm saving to dive deeper into later.

Honestly really well made; the solid atmosphere and graphics serve well to improve the mood set by the writing. the gameplay is simple but fun, sort of "puzzly" as you try to figure out what is the best choice to make.

Awesome, I love text based games. Especially when they're well done and have good atmosphere! Only managed to get 1 Index fragment before the inevitable though. Will probably try again. Great work!

Not a huge fan of this style of games but this one did captivate me for quite some time. The writing combined with the atmosphere of the background music made for a great experience. I like that there is a fair bit of replayability. Overall felt very clean and well done. Good job!

Aaaah the mythic Akashic records! I had a vision of the Akashic library once during a meditation. It was an impossibly huge, endless room with rows upon rows of archive slots on the walls, whereupon mechanical belts of minted blocks of text were being stored and constantly moved, fed by a machine that was constantly punching the blocks of text as it went.

The game is wonderful, I gave it a 5 all round because it nailed the immersion, and although I missed having some sort of artwork of the setting or locations, in the end my imagination was far scarier and more effective, just like in the old days of text adventures. The music was perfect and served its purpose, simple and effective, not much else needed.

The dynamics keep you on your toes and you never know what's going to happen with every decision you make! Writing is incredible 10/10. You must have stayed up all night channeling a lot of inspiration to write all that world in such a short time.

The only downside I could find to the game is that I couldn't finish it because it crashed on me at some point as I got slammed by one of the statues :joy:

Even still this is definitely one of my favourite entries so far

@longsilvr Thank you so much for your kind words! Weirdly, the Akashic Records weren't the original inspiration for the concept, but I read about them subsequently and some of the similarities were uncanny, hence "Akashica"! :grin:

I'm really sorry to hear about the crash! Was this when you were playing on the Ludum Dare version for judging, or did it occur on the post-Jam version? I'd really like to find and iron out whatever bug caused that to happen, especially if it's on the post-Jam version...! :sweat_smile:

@skruffye Dude! Well deserved! The crash occurred on the post-jam version, I did not think to take a screenshot :(, but if I find a similar crash at another point I will send you a screenshot!

I really enjoyed the writing, you have intriguing and interesting ideas.

If you decide to continue the game after the jam, I think you could do a couple of things.
I feel you could use more of what the video game medium offers you instead of basing everything on writing.
For example, instead of throwing a dice to see if you can evade a weird entity, do an interactive mini game.
And instead of describing the distant sound of chains, just play the sound.

Wow, great story! You are very good as a writer although what they have said is also true, more mini-games would be great. But it is also true that this gender is defined and clear. Do you work for a video game company? Because the story is so good and maybe you can work in some major video game company. I don't understand how there can be AAA games with such a bad story!

I insist, great game and it is surprising that you have done all this in 72 hours and that it is even procedural!

@milq Thank you! :smile: No, I don't work for a company, but I do do freelance work in game writing from time to time. :slight_smile:

Glad to hear you enjoyed it! :grin:

This is an impressive game for the time available, great work. The music and the menu selection sounds set the mood so well. I would consider further development, maybe each room having a small corresponding image, just so the player can understand where they are immediately at a glance.

Wow a ton of content into a small little game, I did not know pygame can create that level of immersion into a small text adventure game
Even though this genre is not my type and I tend to prefer visuals it was really fun!
It might be me, but it was a bit hard to keep track of everything and an ASCII map would've been really helpful even though I bet it is hard to implement, and I know it's a text adventure game so visuals are not really a consideration here, maybe a way to see where you are while still keeping it textual...
Great job!

I have not played a lot of TTRPG, so I am not sure what the different stats do and how they affect the progression. The mood is great, I think some sound effect such as door opening would add another layer of immersion to the game. The final Endless staircase is really cool and had me for a second. I thought I was stuck or needed some item to progress. Very cool entry.

Thoroughly thrilled to see well-written interactive fiction among the submissions. This was without a doubt one of this jam's highlights for me, and not just because I'm a sucker for the subject matter. The theme is such a core part of the game, and the tone does wonders to support it as well. I'll certainly be experiencing it again to see how much the game does with its procedural nature -- for now, however, I'll extend kudos for its incredible quality.

Whew, that got icky. But very well done! Very good music and ambience to set the mood and help you imagine your own graphics. Always impressive to see that much writing done in so little time. I'm not sure it was good or bad that it wasn't really possible to tell what choices were really good or bad, but it did add to the tension and the mood for sure. I guess the point is to play multiple times to discover different routes either way. Nicely put together! c:

I started this a while back and thought I should leave a comment before the event wrapped up, even though I never quite managed to finish - I found the events got a little repetitive considering the amount of exploration needed to progress. I think I will come back to this at some point, though, especially as I see you've made some changes since the initial Ludum Dare version. It's an interesting project for something made with Ren'Py - obviously less in the way of art assets than a traditional visual novel, but still more flair than I'd typically expect from, say, a Twine game. It's actually quite a nice demonstration of how versatile the tool is, being something that steps away from the usual characters-and-backdrop setup but has a cohesive look and feel nevertheless. It's also nice to see another submission set in a spooky library! Thanks for pointing me towards it: I think this is one of the stand-out games of the jam for me.

@damonwakes Thanks a lot for coming back to leave a comment--I really appreciate it! :smiley:

Yeah, I was messing around with Ren'Py a bit last year and it really impressed me with how versatile it was (strictly within the realm of text-based games, although even then, there's a lot you can force it to do outside of that if you really know what you're doing). I've always really enjoyed creating interactive fiction, but I tend to find most dedicated tools to be a bit too restrictive in how they'll let you go about it.

Would definitely recommend considering it if you're planning a text-centric project! :grin: