LudumData

Tormenting Idol by Cameron Borthwick

[raw]
made by Cameron Borthwick for Ludum Dare 51 (COMPO)

Its been 2 year since I competed in a jam and Ive had as much fun this time as I remember from the last ones. Took it a bit easier on this one, the game is a little bare bones with a focus on making my own art and sound effects whish I use to struggle with. This weekend has been me taking my microphone around my flat recording every sound I could make :sweat_smile: and curating them down to a short list of sufficiently creepy ones.

Tormenting Idol takes the theme literally, a cursed Idol will chase you around a maze when the fog rolls in and will be frozen (sortof?) until the fog rolls back in again. this will happen every 10 seconds.

How to play: - Dont get caught! - Retrieve the three keys around the level - Bring them back to the starting pedistals. - The Idols a little shy, looking at it will cause it to slow but not stop it!

The idol will get more aggressive the closer you are to defeating them. - 1 key - increased movement speed, even when stunned - 2 keys - unlocks the ability to teleport, even when the fog is thinner.

Controls: - WASD - Movement - Mouse - look horizontally

Tools Used: - Unity3d 2021.3.11f1 - GIMP 2.10.20 - Audacity 3.2.0

Edit2: bug with the html5 version should now be resolved and is playable again.

EDIT1: discovered a bug with looking around in game on the HTML5 version. please follow the link and download the windows version until this is resolved. if this isnt an option please check back in later.

Link https://github.com/DireRaven21/LD51---Every-10-Seconds
Link https://camee14.itch.io/tormenting-idol
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/tormenting-idol

Ratings

Overall 389th 3.053⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 369th 2.947⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 462th 2.447⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 452th 2.816⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 403th 2.816⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 117th 3.579⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 24th 4.079⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 36🗳️ 17🗨️

Feedback

Trabasura
03. Oct 2022 · 03:49 UTC
I really did not think I would be able to beat this one and yet...
![Screenshot 2022-10-02 234540.png](///raw/579/c3/z/50094.png)

You handled the mood and audio really well. The graphics were the only part of the game that felt under developed, but I feel like the other things that you did made up for it. There are a couple issues that you could fix with both the WebGL and windows version. The game is really hard to play if you don't lock the cursor in your code. Besides those few issues, I genuinely had fun playing this, and it was a great way to start Spooky Season. Welcome back to the world of game jams!
AnxiousGameDev
03. Oct 2022 · 11:42 UTC
Nice work on the purple fog and I liked all of the sound effects. Very atmospheric. Worth carrying around your microphone all weekend! But the maze felt a little bit empty, and when I died it wasn't really clear "what" got me. Overall I think the gameplay needs some more thought to make it more interesting. But great job on completing it.
Quinn_Patrick
03. Oct 2022 · 13:57 UTC
Wow, this is sincerely terrifying! It reminds me of Slender. The way the monster tracks you down really creates a feeling of powerlessness. At one point I thought I had trapped it in a corner, but it teleported to me later. Its abilities in this respect aren't really "fair" per se, but they work well for a horror game, and the result is that when the fog rolls in, I start looking around in a panic trying to figure out where it is.

One issue that I had was that the camera mouse controls didn't feel totally responsive. Sometimes I would move the mouse and the camera wouldn't move.
shared
03. Oct 2022 · 14:04 UTC
Nice work, enjoyed playing through it. The atmosphere is pretty well done. One thing to note though, you can move a lot faster by moving diagonally, if that's not intentional, you might want to normalize your input vector (I am biased but I actually do like when games move faster in diagonals).
🎤 Cameron Borthwick
03. Oct 2022 · 14:17 UTC
@shared doh! rookie mistake right there! and i think i caught the bug with the camera that @quinn-patrick expreienced. unless its changed i think we can still publish bug fixes so ill get a fixed version up now
shared
03. Oct 2022 · 14:28 UTC
@cameron-borthwick No biggie, it's an easy thing to forget !
Linus Lindberg
03. Oct 2022 · 18:55 UTC
Wow this is very nice and atmospheric, the first time I died I really got scared haha. The sound design is superb, I can tell that's what you focused on. Graphics and gameplay works well. However decpite trying for 5 times I could never find the final (yellow) orb. I might have to go back and play this some more later :) Good job!
cafebeef
04. Oct 2022 · 06:05 UTC
Very spooky! I jumped when the idol got me from behind. Wish it had a bit of background music (though perhaps it is more spooky without).
Real_Human_1000
04. Oct 2022 · 19:52 UTC
Cool! Atmosphere is nice and the sound effects are suitably creepy. Reminds me of a Wolfenstein 3D sort of retro style, which I happen to be a big fan of. I actually did jump a little once when I noticed the idol was right behind me. There are some issues with playing on a trackpad, as sometimes the camera would get stuck and wouldn't move smoothly anymore. Also, the camera seemed to clip into the wall in one corner, so I could see inside the wall and into the void, but that didn't affect gameplay at all.
Somnium
04. Oct 2022 · 20:11 UTC
This game really nailed the spooky mood!

The maze was a bit confusing to navigate, but on the other hand there seem to be a bug where you can look through walls if you walk close enough to them to clip partly through them - so I guess that evens out XD

Also, the audio-design was great, and the graphics meshed well with the overall mood.
🎤 Cameron Borthwick
05. Oct 2022 · 09:30 UTC
@real-human-1000 the people saying i got them to jump is making me unreasonably happy :sweat_smile: i was going to get around to fixing the clipping bug but i prioritised other things and i dont think its the worst issue. thanks for the feedback!
mdotedot
05. Oct 2022 · 19:19 UTC
Real spooky, but I didn't find I had much control over how to escape. I still don't know what killed me all those times ... But I like the graphics and lighting and the audio to keep the mood/atmosphere going on. Well done on that.
Inno
06. Oct 2022 · 20:40 UTC
oh no, greeted by a wall of text. Like the Dr who vibe
Wheffle
07. Oct 2022 · 02:38 UTC
Nice simple idea. The dude was genuinely creepy. Could use a few more features, but a good entry nonetheless.
Harmadillo
07. Oct 2022 · 18:00 UTC
I liked the 2 phase dynamic, sort of moving between searching and running away. There was a lot of sudden deaths.
Misfire_dev
10. Oct 2022 · 21:11 UTC
found a glowly green orb and then turned around and jumped out my skin as I died to the idol haha gj
Steffo
13. Oct 2022 · 17:31 UTC
Heya!

-----

First thing: you have rated a lot of games, so you're almost on top of the "Classic" game queue, but for some reason you're very low on the "Smart" queue, which is the one almost everybody uses to rate games.

Since the "Smart" queue uses a ~~stupid~~ algorithm where your positioning depends on the hearts you've received from other developers in comments on their game pages, I'd suggest you to leave a small comment on every game you play, so that your game may get more attention!

-----

Second thing: my review!

Pretty cool game overall: I appreciated it, even if I usually hate horror games...

I think it's because of the "spooky, but not scary" mood it creates. **Well done!**

I managed to get the green key, then I died an horrible death to the idol that was chasing me :skull:
jk5000
13. Oct 2022 · 18:06 UTC
A super simple and pretty fun little game. I especially like the games atmosphere. There could have been a bit more gameplay, but it was okay for a jam game.
Kitkii
14. Oct 2022 · 20:32 UTC
So, I really like how the games atmosphere is. The sound effects you can hear as you run around, and they are close behind you is very well done. I like the whole gameplay layout as it felt super clean but there were times where I could look through walls depending on the angle.