Sampler by caeonosphere

made by caeonosphere for Ludum Dare 54 (COMPO)

A short, creepy narrative puzzle game.

WASD + mouse, hold left click to pick things up, Space to jump. Can be beaten in under 5 minutes, if you can figure out what's being asked of you. I was hoping to have more... content... got caught up in polishing the core systems instead. And VO. And conlangs. Oops.

HINTS

Three boxes room: !> Stack all three boxes into a tower.

Five buttons room: !> This is just the game Simon — each word spoken corresponds to one of the five symbols. If you get it right, the pattern will repeat extended by one. If you get it wrong, a new pattern will start. The game continues until you make several mistakes.

End: !> You always get the same ending no matter how well you do.

Done with Unity/C#, Photoshop, Illustrator, Blender, FL Studio, and Audacity.
The written language is rendered in Tennent. Font face by Bryson Schnaitmann.
The spoken language was built using Vulgarlang. I did the VO with the help of Katie Linero's IPA Reader.
Ambience from nick121087 on Freesound.
Check out my other projects here!

Link	https://github.com/thquinn/Sampler
Link	https://github.com/thquinn/Sampler/releases
Link	https://thquinn.itch.io/sampler
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/sampler

Ratings

Overall	74^th	3.917⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Fun	174^th	3.521⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	230^th	3.261⭐	25🧑‍⚖️
Theme	295^th	3.104⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	72^th	3.979⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Audio	32^th	4⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Humor	233^th	2.275⭐	22🧑‍⚖️
Mood	2^th	4.583⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Given		19🗳️	28🗨️

Feedback

LDJam user 280036

03. Oct 2023 · 03:28 UTC

This is incredible. Immensely polished compo entry. The room-based puzzles give me Portal, Antechamber, Manifold Garden vibes in the best way. I'm really impressed you made something that plays this good in 48 hours. What a mood. Great ending.

quasilyte

03. Oct 2023 · 09:03 UTC

A friendly hint: if it's possible consider making a web export of the game.
It would make it much-much easier for people to play it, so you get more ratings and feedback.
It looks like the game is decent, so it would be a pity if not enough people end up playing it.

I see that you made it with Unity. Unity has a good enough web builds that can run simple 3D games with a stable frame rate.

Also, it might be easier to upload it to itch io and add a link to it here.
ldjam site is tricky when it comes to embed-games as there are many limitations that may stop your game from launching.
I've seen some of the Unity games being runnable here on ldjam though, so it should be at the very least possible.

🎤 caeonosphere

03. Oct 2023 · 18:07 UTC

@googlypoo Hey, thanks! I’m really glad you were able to get through it and enjoy it. It’s a little cryptic, so I was worried…

@quasilyte Unfortunately I had to be on a plane like 10 hours after the compo deadline, so I only got the one build out — when I get back home I’ll definitely put a web version up on Itch.

quasilyte

03. Oct 2023 · 18:15 UTC

@caeonosphere ping me again when this build is out. I'm looking forward to it.

LDJam user 238639

04. Oct 2023 · 21:51 UTC

This is really neat! I do wish the puzzles had a little more meat to them, but at the same time, not having things explained to you (and, therefore, having to keep the puzzles a little basic) is part of the atmosphere, which is really good. The audio and graphics are super clean.

🎤 caeonosphere

06. Oct 2023 · 03:34 UTC

@quasilyte Web build is up!

@dovodx I would have loved to add more meat! I gotta learn to prioritize content instead of spending hours on, for example, extremely subtle fake reflections.

quasilyte

06. Oct 2023 · 07:42 UTC

Thank you for making a web build!

You know, I read this in the notification and thought: "hmm, I'll check it out later".
And then I realized I can't find a notification history, so I can't jump back to this game!
Luckily, I managed to find it in my browser history.
Whew, that was a close one.

I really tried, but couldn't solve the 3-box puzzle. :D

I tried stacking them, moving them, throwing them at different places, throwing them at each other, phasing them through the textures out of existence. Nothing makes this fellow behind the glass impressed!

Here is a short demonstration of what I had to go through (box glitching included):

( In case if video embed below doesn't work `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CbfxrQnby0` )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CbfxrQnby0

Please give me some direction so I can continue playing it. :)
I want to finish the game before rating it.

quasilyte

06. Oct 2023 · 07:50 UTC

I managed to leave the room, but there is a catch ( `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DIpSoUcjkw` ):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DIpSoUcjkw

🎤 caeonosphere

06. Oct 2023 · 07:51 UTC

@quasilyte Hahahaha, love how you managed to get them out of bounds. You're meant to stack all three on top of each other to solve this one — some kind of tutorial image was next on my todo list when time ran out. If you can make the stack of three and keep the top one still up there for a couple seconds, the door should open.

quasilyte

06. Oct 2023 · 07:52 UTC

Hmm, I tried doing that, but I guess they were not standing still for too long.

quasilyte

06. Oct 2023 · 07:53 UTC

I still like my rocketjump solution of getting out of the room better.
I tried to think out of the box.

The eye-guy comment proves that they were not see this coming.

DiscoFish

06. Oct 2023 · 12:58 UTC

Great job! Atmosphere is really deep and moody. I enjoyed to play!

LDJam user 238639

06. Oct 2023 · 14:24 UTC

Something I forgot to mention: when I played, it looked like the game was running at a high framerate (which is great!), but certain objects weren't interpolated, particularly the cubes. It creates a very jittery-looking effect when moving the cubes around which is unpleasant to the eyes. It should be fixable with the interpolation dropdown for the Rigidbodies. Not a huge deal, just another way to polish things up.

If you don't have a 120Hz+ monitor to test on, you can try temporarily slowing down the physics tick rate to something like 20Hz and see if things still look smooth. If they do, you know the interpolation is working. Then you can just set it back.

Raphiell

06. Oct 2023 · 20:30 UTC

I'm spooked! For some reason my character kept slowly turning to the right. Was fun! It would be nice for a bit more contrast in the level design, was sometimes a bit disorienting. I loved it! Well done.

Roitchie

06. Oct 2023 · 20:35 UTC

Wow. The atmosphere in this game is something else. The tension and dread it manages to build up with the ever-present eyes, the cold and alien sounding music and the perfectly white interiors is something else.

Making a game in 3D as well is very impressive. Especially for a compo game. The puzzles are interesting and unique and the ending scene when you realise
!> you are a meal for the creature watching you genuinely gave me goosebumps.

An excellent entry. There's really not much to critique. Even if the assets are simplistic they really match the clinical theme the game is trying to get across. A really great entry.

digitaldude555

06. Oct 2023 · 20:37 UTC

5/5 mood, very interesting and spooky. Puzzles were easy enough to understand, theme wasn't utilized much but over all good job.

LDJam user 352490

06. Oct 2023 · 22:33 UTC

Everything here is really cool! The voice over and background music especially have some Metroid-like vibes. I never figured out the 5 button puzzle, but I pushed lots of random buttons and he eventually let me through xD

Moebius

07. Oct 2023 · 14:08 UTC

Cool entry. Reminds me a little bit of "The Cube". The puzzles are not too complicated but the fact that an (apparently) alien being, or rather just two eyes in the dark are watching you and giving you instructions in an alien language makes the game really stand out!

Ynnon

07. Oct 2023 · 16:57 UTC

one of the few interesting and atmosphere 3D games, I liked it!

dob

07. Oct 2023 · 21:18 UTC

Looked very cool, but I couldn't seem to interact with anything (mouse cursor went away and holding click didn't do anything). Couldn't do anything or get out of the first room. I'm sure I'm missing something.

EDIT: OK, I reloaded and went full screen immediately and figured it out. Was able to play through. Great game, very atmospheric. I blundered my way through the level with the triangle buttons somehow - didn't do anything systematic. The ending was very cool. Nice work!

Mastoast

08. Oct 2023 · 08:50 UTC

Solid sound design and great atmosphere ! It makes you feel your own tininess as a rat lab, that's really cool

MasterProject

08. Oct 2023 · 10:25 UTC

The mood is captured expertly here, well done. This reminded me a lot of Prey's tutorial - doing inane tasks for some unknown reason, with a sense of dread building and building with each new room.

jk5000

09. Oct 2023 · 10:57 UTC

I like the atmosphere, and I had fun trying to solve the puzzles. The in game hints could have been better, but okay I got to the end. Overall a pretty well made and fun little jam game. Well done.

LDJam user 248799

09. Oct 2023 · 14:04 UTC

Wow, so oppressive, great game for the limited time!

Cubes were a little too physic, it was a pain to stack them all three, I had to check the hint to be sure I was doing the correct thing :sweat_smile:

I passed the simon by doing random things :shrug:

But well done!

Local Minimum

14. Oct 2023 · 09:41 UTC

That was a great entry. I got stuck on the cubes, I did have the right idea, but it seemed to finicky and hard to get them stacked that I gave up and thought it must be something else. So perhaps making them just slightly smaller and giving the monster a line or two that sound positive when the player puts one on top of the other and when picking up the third. Just to hint them in the right direction. The password sequence up in the air, I don't know if I understood correctly, but I did solve it fairly quickly by listening to the feed back and some mild brute force.

I really enjoyed the game, very well made!

🎤 caeonosphere

16. Oct 2023 · 17:09 UTC

@local-minimum Ah, encouraging voice lines would be a good idea. The next thing I was going to do before I ran out of time was adding hint images above each door, but VO would be more natural if I could make it clear somehow. (A way to translate some number of voice lines was also in the works...)

blobo

16. Oct 2023 · 18:43 UTC

Goodness, the creepy setting you set was perfect. I love the whole "I don't know what they are saying, but good lord I better figure it out soon" vibe this gives. Ah- and the ending? Creepy. very very creepy.

I assume there's no way to win the pentagon-button-pushing game? I had a pretty good run in one of my attempts. In any case, here's the recorded video for extra feedback. Cheers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkk2Mo6BOyg

🎤 caeonosphere

16. Oct 2023 · 23:36 UTC

@100th-coin Hey, thanks for the video! Man, it pains me to see how confusing everything was... lessons learned about time management this time around. You're right that there is no "good ending"; it got scrapped along with a buncha other stuff at the last minute.