Very good work with audio, but the movement is made very unreadable, not quite understood and why do you need a timer? I and without it wandering around:). I think for more readability of locations could paint the walls a little differently, (well, or add a minicart as one of the options)
I got to two eyes and a rat after which I did not quite understand where to go and what to do,
But the atmosphere due to the sound is very thick I like it!

seconding Dedos' opinion on this one. I really love the concept there, going for the time loop thing with games like minit. It just gets frustrating to play after a while, I just wish that the maze is a bit easier to navigate

Also it's hard to perceive depth with the "fireball" projectiles. I keep hitting them all the time and I'm unsure how to even dodge them

You've done a great job with the sounds and atmosphere: even though there's nothing scary in the labyrinth, there's always an uneasy feeling when looking around.

I also love the discrete movement system concept. However, the game felt quite disorienting at times, especially when it would turn me around for no apparent reason.

Sadly, I wasn't able to understand the mechanics of the blood-clouds. Sometimes they would just damage me and send me back to the spawn, but other times they would just reset my timer, without resetting my position.

Nevertheless, I still love the atmosphere and the look of the game! And that ending was unexpected :smile:

Fun! I got to the fishing ending... not sure if that's the only one :)

Good atmosphere in the game!

If I were to suggest one change it would be to add a map to be a little less disorienting.

Nice game! Really liked voice-acted intro, it has very high quality! Though navigation was very hard for me, maybe interpolating position and rotation instead of snapping it instantly would help with that?

Well done...reminds my of the good old games of Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master

Fishing :D

I really like this kind of hand drawn art style, it looks great and the mice are cute. The sound design was effective with ambient drones and wind sounds. The combat was a bit simple but mechanically it was satisfying.

I actually found the layout of the dungeon to be super easy to keep inside my head, specifically because of the staged progression from the buttons. Opening short cuts was a really good idea for a time loop game, it felt like even if I didn't make perfect use of a loop as long as I was closer to the next button I wasn't wasting my time. However the real pro move was the red tinted cells, providing a super easy visual queue with high contrast for orientating after a spinner meant I felt I could learn how to navigate past those traps rather than just getting frustrated.

I wasn't sure if I needed to keep track of the text on the walls, or if that was just flavour. In fact my primary piece of feedback is that I really didn't understand the story, an influencer drew pentagram and died and then I went fishing.

Personally I thought this was a really cool game and really the right amount of exploration required to learn the layout of the level, but I expect a lot of people will be frustrated by the spinners and navigating the layout because of the changing layout of the dungeon.

Nice work!


@magnusfurcifer Yay you got to the fishing! Glad you found navigation worked. I'm guessing that seasoned dungeon crawler experts fair a bit better with spinners and instant movements.

I think you correctly summed up the whole story. It didn't make so much sense, and as for the wall texts, one of the main points for them were that all mice where numbered so that there was a way if one missed any of them to notice and go back hunting for it.

One thing I am considering for a post-jam version is to add a bit of difference on the ground or wall tiles on each loop of the game, or at least for each exit out of the pentagram hub room so that it's easier to identify which way to go when stepping of the pentagram. (And to not start the clock until you leave the pentagram tile)

@jezzamon yes that was the one and only ending! good work getting there!

@annie-owl So the blod-clouds were "fireball" style traps that damages you / steals your time. I didn't get the interactions perfect and they move kind of slow (so that you have time to run up towards them), which also makes it a bit too easy to run into them. And then in general when time ran out you were sent back. If I hadn't run out of time/energy the last day, I would have added a nicer transition when resetting to the spawn and also added a sound on each second when time was getting short.

(I played the HTML and Windows versions)

This game has a great, unique, and dark personality, backed by some awesome art and clever sound effects! The aesthetic is gorgeous!

The Windows version runs smoothly, but seems to spawn way more bee swarms / gas clouds than the HTML version, making them almost impossible to dodge. The HTML version for me was a slower frame rate, but I was able to make it WAY further through the maze and kill lots of evil Bruja rats.

It took me a while to understand that the Windows version's maze forces you to look at this text on the side wall, completely disorienting me and throwing off my internal compass multiple times each run. The HTML version is much better for playing.

(The writing on the left, the clouds on the right)

Very cool game! I recommend the HTML over the Windows.

@footlettuce thanks for your feedback and... did I forget to update the platform versions and only update the web one with the final version?! Because there should be no difference to them really... That'd be unfortunate. Perhaps I should hide those versions then and only let people play web-version! I'm not sure I understand your comment on reading the text making your disoriented though

It was this section here, where that tile always changed my view position whenever standing on it.
The game is super fun and gorgeous! I hope that I can be at this level in Ludum Dare one day. I just found the navigation a bit tricky because of the forced view position changing, and because there's always a lot of clouds meaning you will always be hit at least once. I had a lot of fun learning the map and killing the rats! I hope this helps for understanding.


@footlettuce thanks so much and glad you enjoyed it. The tile there, with the hint on the floor is a spinner that rotates you 90 degrees upon entry to the tile in the direction of the hint animation. So to get past this particular one you'd press forward to enter it, it turns you 90 degrees to the right, then you turn left to counter that rotation and continue forward.

The thing about graphics is that my skills are in that department are very limited. But I've learnt a few tricks. For this game I selected 3 colors (near black, near white and a red) and that's the only stuff I used. All other shades comes from lighting of the scene. I also used the same limited set of brushes while painting. Adding fog to the camera, a bit of vignette and some noise and that's pretty much it.

That was a very moody game indeed. Awesome job doing the voice acting, it felt really fitting and set the tone for the whole experience. The visuals are minimalistic but stylish, and also they are nicely put together to enhance the overall atmosphere.
For the longest time I was stuck trying to get past the corridor with the two consecutive spinning tiles, I almost gave up, it was just impossible for me to build a mindmap of that area and navigate in an intentional manner, but it kinda added to the experience in a weird way - being a struggle of a half-summoned demon to orient themselves in this new dimension.
But after some time I miraculously got past that point by mostly random button mashing, and the rest of the game was very smooth. And I managed to witness this very philosophical ending.
I appreciate that for the more challenging paths you designed the level so that the player can mostly just press a single directional button repeatedly to automatically get all the way to the said challenging bit. This and also the shortcuts were really nice touches that significantly cut down on the frustrations of teleporting back every time.

@detectivelosos thanks for the feedback! The funny thing about the room you got stuck in is that the room proper is just 5x5 tiles and the entire game isn't larger than 23x23 tiles in total. But I also got a bit stuck there in that room when I wasn't careful. I actually didn't plan on having the spinners in that tricky room spin you in the direction you probably should go. But when I noticed that what I had done I kind of liked it. That if you get lost there it's because you don't listen to where they point you. But it's a bit evil since the first spinner you encounter in the game is the opposite. So the game isn't exactly helping the player there.

I feel so thick, but I'm completely stuck! After Leah the fourth I'm completely unable to find anywhere new to go to. I really want to finish this so any hint would be appreciated :(

@ava-skoog

!> Did you miss the button right by where Lennie the Third was placed? Pressing it should open up both a way forward and a short-cut from the original room. From the spawn room, after clicking the button, the short-cut is visible if you turn right when reset to the pentagram.

@local-minimum: Yeah, I did find and press that but after the fourth rodent I couldn't find anywhere new to go :(

I don't think I can spoil-tag images...


@ava-skoog 

Interesting game and a good idea. I definteley like the graphics and atmosphere. Good job)

You've done an amazing job with the game's atmosphere; it's very impressive. Between the voice-narrated story and the graphics, it's very enjoyable to play.
I find it very interesting to have to start over after 30 seconds. It's sometimes difficult to understand that something has changed after clicking a button. I almost missed the ending because I wasn't sure if the game was over or if a new room had opened.
The game was a beautiful experience to play. Bravo!

Very interesting, unique and "weird" in a good sense game. Both atmosphere and style along with discrete movement in 3d works wonders.

Great game! I love a dungeon crawler =). The dungeon design was great, I love the unlocking shortcuts, the candles here and there were nice for getting bearings. Once I had about 3-4 shortcuts open I started getting a little disoriented though. The fireballs seemed really finicky, at a couple places I couldn't quite figure out if there was any way to get through without getting hit a bunch, so I just used one life clearing the fireballs and then on the next life ran there before the hallway could fill with them, which didn't feel like what I was supposed to be doing (though maybe I'm wrong ^_^). Very nice atmosphere too. I'm slightly relieved I didn't have to play a fishing minigame at the end.

I did it! :) Finally found the rest of them. Thanks for the map.

Still a bit unsure what I did differently this time. This game gets very disorienting. It's not too difficult to recognise different parts of the maze (the different texts on the walls help as well) but there's so much involuntary turning around and I was never sure what direction I was made to face (it didn't seem to match the direction of the rotating arrows on the tile?).

The blood clouds seemed to all do different things on collision (felt like sometimes I lost time, sometimes gained it, and sometimes got turned around by them as well?) but I may be in error. 😅 Also tough to judge distance and know whether you'd get hit at all.

But I'm not just here to complain! The game had a great, mysterious atmosphere, and I'm still left pondering what it all means. The graphics were nice, good use of contrast. Cool sounds, nice to hear if a rat is nearby, and some voice acting! Impressive amount of stuff in the game for a jam too.

I liked the way you kept opening more paths that looped back around to the pentagram, and the time mechanic itself. Was a relief every time you saw one of those buttons.

I'd say if the confusing parts were made clearer it would overall be really great, but if it was intentional to make the player feel a certain way I think you did it well too. Cool stuff!

@ava-skoog Thank you for being so persistent! You are right that I might have slightly overdone the number of spinners... and thank you for pointing out that they are spinning in the wrong direction! I don't know how I could have missed that all the times they've spun me around.

I'm planning to use this project to try and make a nice smooth transition dungeon crawler controller so with that instead of instant stepping, I think it will help with the spinning a bit too.

There was a bug with the "fireball" collision detection too that didn't raycast in the direction of the movement, but in the direction of the camera, which might have been some of those odd "why did that hit me" moments.

I did this entry in the middle of the voting period for a very nice dungeon crawler jam on itch, which in part probably explains the density of spinners and traps, but I also kind of wanted to see how much of it I could get away with. And the answer is that in particular in the 5x5 room where I think you and most people got lost. Three spinner might have been one too many with the low amount of decorations and instant movement that the game has now.

Very enjoyable! Good audio, art style. My only criticism would be in regards of the turning. It got very confusing being spun around without my own input and gathering my bearing again was difficult due to a lack of landmarks. I made a game in this genre before and found that having a turning animation makes it easier to read, even if it didn't exist back in the early dungeon crawlers.

Fun! I reached the fishing ending
If I were to suggest one change, it would be to add a map to be a little less disorienting. Sorry for any language mistakes!

This game is fun! I love the SFX, i kept getting jumpscared in the beginning! It's a tad hard for me to navigate though. But good job, can definitely see the potential in this game!