>>>> Play on itch.io! <<<<

Solve cyclical puzzles, reclaim stolen power, and release trapped souls to the stars! A moody puzzle game with a time-stopping mechanic where objects and events follow a repeating ten second cycle. Features guitar-centric sound design and light narrative elements. Can be finished at a relaxed pace in under 10 minutes.

Controls

• Movement: WASD
• Sprint: Shift
• Interact: Click
• Timestop: Space (must be found in-game first)
• Adjust brightness: Up/Down arrow OR +/- keys

The game is meant to be dark, but if you're having trouble seeing in general, use [Up Arrow] or [+] to increase the brightness.

You can interact with the hexagonal pads on the floor to change your respawn point. (This is necessary to solve one of the puzzles.)

Hint for the last puzzle: When you flip one of the switches, which device gets powered on when the bell rings?

Credits

• Mediflect: engineering + gameplay/visual design
• Gnocchi: music + sound design

Hotfixes

• Changed the WebGL template so that fullscreen mode works.
• Added keybinds to adjust brightness, as the game was too dark to see clearly on certain monitors.

Known Bugs

• On certain browsers/computers, the cursor will drift to the right (this is a bug somewhere in Unity's new input system or the WebGL stack)
• The music will desync from the cycle if you focus away from the tab the game is running in

Music

For any music nerds out there, the game's audio is extensively centered around the following motif:

(for any metalheads out there, this is the intro riff from The Literal Black Cloud by Intronaut, with the rhythm slightly altered)

Speedrunning...? (An aside)

If you've already played through the game once already, you might be wondering... how fast can it be beaten? Going by the number from the credits, the lowest cycle count I've ever gotten is 18 cycles, but it can absolutely be pushed lower.

The game presents some interesting challenges when looked at through a speedrunning lens (completely by accident, I should add). Some of the puzzles can be solved very quickly if you know what you're doing, but others can force you to wait if you arrive at a bad time. Best guess, I'd wager that sub-14 cycles is certainly possible.

That said, all of this is hampered by the unskippable intro sequence at the beginning... I might upload a speedrun version of the game on a separate itch.io page later just for fun (not to replace the official LD51 entry of course).

Tools used

• Unity 2022.1.16 (engine)
  • Universal Render Pipeline (post-processing)
  • ProBuilder (level design)
• Visual Studio Code (coding)
• Guitar Pro 7.5 (music + SFX)
• Cubase Elements 10 (SFX)
• Audacity (SFX)
• Photoshop CC 2019 (textures)