Hidden Tales by zubspace
A journey through 4 picturesque landscapes with very mild puzzle elements. Use all the time you need and immerse yourself in the different stories that reveal themselves to you, piece by piece.
Here’s a gif for your pleasure:

2 minute development timelapse:
https://youtu.be/Mm7RO6MJVEQ
How to play:
Just drag around your mouse to progress.
Features:
- Relaxing and child friendly gameplay.
- 4 completely different art pieces about harvest.
- High resolution vector graphics.
- In-Game music and a bit of sound feedback.
Tech
- Godot 3.5.1
- Affinity Designer
- Paint.NET
- FL Studio (Afroplug + DecentSampler Plugins)
- Agreloy Font (Public Domain)
I use my own Godot Base Code hosted here: https://github.com/ZuBsPaCe/godot-base-code
Post-Compo additions:
- Fixed levels 3 and 4 not resetting properly after first play.
- Added a 'Thanks for playing' screen.
Ratings
| Overall | 57th | 3.889⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 180th | 3.315⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 10th | 4.204⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 132th | 3.796⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 54th | 4.13⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 37th | 3.926⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 235th | 2.229⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 6th | 4.426⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 27🗳️ | 38🗨️ |
It's neat and works well. The 4 chapters are the perfect length for a game jam game. Also, drawing mechanics are not that easy to build in 48h, congrats !
I like the drawing mechanic, but I had to use 10 rendertargets with a lot of overdraw to reveal different elements independently! Thank god current computers are fast enough for such madness. :laughing:
One small feedback. I ended up moving the mouse very fast all over the place because I did not want to miss anything, which made me a bit stressed out.
This was a very convincing argument for "games as art".
On a technical note, I was extremely impressed by the way you managed to fade different segments of the screen with what looked like splat masks? I'm more and more impressed by what can be done in Godot. I'll definitely be looking at the source you uploaded.
@amkingtrp Thank you so much! your comment has warmed my heart! My last game was too hard for my kids to play, so I tried something else this time. Godot is a great engine with a nice community. But my code is a mess, lol! I'm using 10 Viewports (Rendertargets) which I can fill with white splatter sprites which fade out, and use the resulting texture in a shader for other sprites to blend them in or out. Simple but not very optimized.
@owca Thank you! Relaxing you was my goal! :)
@rrsmtz Thx! Glad you enjoyed the story. The sound effects are so simple, but I was surprised that they are actually good enough. Less is more sometimes.
@naomiajacobs Thank you! Usually I make games which even I can't complete, lol! My kids complained about it. So I turned the difficulty level to 0 this time :laughing:
@serpo Thank you! Today I learned what diegetic soundscapes are. :) You're right, that would definitely improve the experience. I actually recorded a few sounds like rain and footsteps, but due to my time running out I just added some piano tunes in the last hour. Turned out better than I anticipated though :sweat_smile:
Want more interaction with game like click with LMB and effect of draw with a brash.
Glad to see games like your on a game jam =)
Thank you =)
@forik Thanks alot! In an early prototype you had to click+drag to reveal, but I thought that the click itself unecessary. I actually wanted to add a bird which follows your mouse and reveals stuff, but time ran out.. Anyway, I agree that more ways to interact with the world would have been really nice.
@pazzi Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed the stories. Each level I wanted to add something animated to make it more interesting. Took me a lot of time, but I'm happy that it was worth it! :relaxed:
Instead of having fun, I lost in thought :thought_balloon: (in good way). What story the designer want to tell and how the story can be conduct in this way?
Interestingly some find it simple and relaxing, while some like me found myself lost in thought, that's how beauty this game is.
Liked the art style, music and the 2 min dev timelapse. Really well done!
Either way, I'm glad that you enjoyed it, at least some parts, and that the stories gave room for thought. Means a lot to me!