play online: https://evilgeniusdance.itch.io/ninth-live

Love the attention to detail in the animations, which reminds me of old school Prince of Persia. Boat mechanics took a bit to figure out, though eventually it felt natural. Nice work!

Love the art! But after I get ~20 seconds past the eye thing the screen just goes black?

Good art

First game I tried and I'm pressed. It's very simple but the athmosphere is amazing. The art is cool.

The game lacks a way to restart. And I wasn't sure how to progress, the monster was alwyas getting me from behind. I was trying to go slow. Hints?

@eieio so my team has already figured out that we failed in the tutorial part)
screen goes black only when one looses (its not a bug!)

i may give a hint to pay more attention to sound and really try to be quiet.
(i dont know if i should just write what exactly is the key thing here...)
thanks for playing!

@christian-zommerfelds hi! hint: pay more attention to the sound. try to be quiet!
about the restart -- noted, thank you!

thanks for playing!

(its also the first game me my teammates ever made and our first game jam, im happy to hear it made you impressed)

@binroot thank you for playing!

Oh! I didn't realize it but sound was disabled, that explains my confusion. I'll try again @evilgeniusdance

@eieio i gotta add that to description... thank you for feedback

@kristallllllik thank you!

WebGL context lost, please reload the page(

@alex-chertilin We are really sorry if you see an error from Godot engine in web browser, we had huge problems with exporting game. You may try to play it on itch.io https://evilgeniusdance.itch.io/ninth-live , it works there (at least in my browser :D). The last solution is to play desktop version. Thank you for feedback!

The art and audio are really nice, but it's really not clear how to not die immediately. I've tried to be quiet as stated above, but I have no idea how to tell if I'm being sufficiently quiet, or what else I'm supposed to be doing. Seems like the thing behind me gets me no matter what I try.

@3lstmsinatrenchcoat would you like a hint? or maybe the key answer?

Is figuring it out supposed to be the point of the game, such that it would be a spoiler to explain? Because if so, it's not really clearly communicated that this is a puzzle to be solved and not just a mechanic that isn't explained well.

@3lstmsinatrenchcoat we meant it as a puzzle to be solved, but we clearly didnt make a good job explaining the mechanic that allow to solve this

im gonna add the answer under the screenshots

thank you for playing!

looks very cool and i like the concept but i keep getting killed an di dont know why

I have a soft spot for psychopomps, so you got me there!

The concept was interesting and the graphics put me in the right mood.

I did struggle with the green monster despite being quiet.

Adding a visual cue or a noob mode could help players understand the noise level better and make progress in the game.

Overall, I enjoyed playing it.

Really nice graphics and mood. The sky was painted really super, the cat intro animation was really convincing. The sounds and all that work out. Like the big eye to which you need to flash light also. The concept is quite great. I gave up after three tries not knowing what i do right or wrong do, even after i learned i need to be quiet. The addition of signs for space and e was good and clear. What was disturbing though is especially in the beginning when i have hit space the boat would not move - so maybe a sign to say wait until sound finishes or something would have been good. Also did not understand why the guy does not row when i hit space (sometimes he did, sometimes he did not).

I would love to get to the end but the monster always catches me. I'm not too good with the sound cues.
Other than that, what kept me wanting to try to get to the end was the mood, the sound and the graphics that are definitely very cohesive.

PS: I got to the end. Worth it! (But a small problem with the camera that got off centred because I waited too much in the final cutscene.

@aalula thank you for playing!
to not get caught you can only row when you hear the monster splash, it's about 3 rows at a time

@snory thanks for playing and giving us feedback!

@hotaloca thank you for playing!

sorry, there's a bug in the rowing animation

@jiexdrop thank you for playing!

Great style and sounds, I like non-menu intro, just press&play, though I am not sure I got the gameplay.

@hobbito89 thank you for playing!

Great atmosphere!

I love the effort you've put in the art of this game :) The introduction of the gameplay is innovative also. However, I kept getting black screen. Did I miss something :D?

Congratulations for making this game! Nice mood, the gameplay elements are maybe a bit hard to understand. It somewhat lacks audio feedback or something.

Love the atmosphere and the background, but if the comments weren't there I would have thought the death was a bug, a "restart" button is definitely missing.
I only passed a few eyes though
Really cool for a first game!

@enad96 thank you!

@longv thank you for playing!

you didn't really miss anything, it's our bad for not showing this more clearly, but to not get caught you have to row only when the monster makes noise

@wakobu thank you for playing and giving us feedback!

@achiru thanks for playing!

Cool spooky vibe. Simple but well done game. It was a little too hard for me though. Couldn't quite get the correct combo of paddle and light. Nice art and sound. Good job.

@paul-avallone thank you!

Such a great atmosphere! I enjoyed this one a lot, it felt so unique and... weirdly warm? Probably because of the sunset and the adorable cat, but it was quite an usual feeling to have while rowing over a body of water littered with Lovecraftian horrors. Not that I would mind.

Some constructive criticism:
- The light of the lantern is currently a bit hard to see in front of the background. It took me a while until I realised what the E key did. Wasn't too big of a problem though.
- The game design of the sound monster felt somewhat unintuitive to me because of the little amount of feedback it provides. The thought of it reacting to the sound I made actually crossed my mind rightaway and I did try it out, but I didn't know for how long I could row while it's making noise and ended up overstaying my welcome. And so because that attempt failed, I assumed that my assumption was simply wrong - which is a problem. My recommendation would be to not have the monster kill the player immediately but first make a warning sound. And there could be slightly more distinct animations for when the monster can hear the player and when it cannot. That way, it would feel fairer and less frustrating. Like I said, I still enjoyed the game a lot (the atmosphere is what kept me going instead of giving up), but this would be an important improvement.

@luxiffre thank you for playing and giving us feedback!

Really cool hand drawn animations. I still don't understand how to get past the swimming monster, it keeps attacking me even tho I am quiet. But the game has a very nice vibe. Mood scores high, well done! :D

@wouterk12 thank you for playing!

Really unique game. I liked the art and sound. The mechanics were a bit unclear at first, I think more feedback on the different interactions would have helped. Great submission!

@lvl99chicken thank you!

Great, great mood! The art is fascinating too. I miss some feedbacks gameplay wise tho.

@refry thank you for playing and giving feedback!

Good art and sounds, the button icons with anti-aliasing feel a little off though

Unique mood in this one and great onboarding. I keep dying though, so maybe a game-over screen with some hint would help (amnesia style) because I'm not sure whether I'm to slow or to loud.

God, it's creepy! but good and fun, great game!

@ironcutter @studiozyyt @terry-crow thanks for playing and your feedback!

Great mood! At first I wasn't sure I was getting caught and got a bit confused although the sound was hinting it, but got through after reading the hint and other comments.

@lucas-taniolo thanks for playing!

I like the atmosphere and the fitting visuals ( and of course, cats). But an endscreen would be really helpful to understand whats going on.

Nice and moody game. For a game including a lot of trial and error it would've been nice to have a retry button. The art in general is pretty decent but also a little all over the place stylistically (some of it was also a bit blurry). But in any case, a good entry

The atmosphere is absolutely stunning! Even though the gameplay was a bit cryptic, I still had a lot of fun with it! Excellent sound design as well! Something about the monster being right behind you, and you not being able to move as it slowly gets closer is creepy as hell! Amazing job

(Oops! Sorry for the duplicate comment!)

The atmosphere of this game is great. At the start, there is complete silence except for the sound of the oars hitting the water. Then, something unknown lets out a low growl from somewhere, and the atmosphere becomes instantly tense. It's amazing.

For some reasons The E button doesn't work in browser for me) Great game and graphic and idea.