LudumData

Summoner's Circle: A Murder Mystery by Matt Green

[raw]
made by Matt Green for Ludum Dare 55 (COMPO)

You've been Summoned (let's get that out of the way)

A few days ago, you received a letter with nothing but an address. Desperate for work, you arrive at the address to discover a dark, musty room. While the room is gross, there is a table with a set of colourful glowing crystals, standing before what appears to be a magic ritual circle. One of the crystals is sitting in the circle already.

You don't know why you're here, but you know this circle will hold the answers.

titleScreen.png

Ask Questions

screenshot1.png

Collect Clues,

screenshot2.png

Unravel the Mystery!

Tools:

Unity

Aseprite

MS Paint (a little)

Bosca Ceoil

SFXR

Audacity

Developer's Note: This is an homage to old pen+paper games from the past. Be sure to have a notepad handy (digital or analog) to take notes about names and clues. While you can return to previously visited conversation, I intentionally excluded

Also, word to the wise: Murder Mysteries are very hard to write in 48 hours. Forgive me if the story isn't perfect. I tried my best to test all the branching paths and narratives. If you find something janky, please let me know.

Link https://matt-the-green.itch.io/summoners-circle
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/55/summoners-circle-a-murder-mystery

Ratings

Overall 223th 3.306⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Fun 253th 3.056⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 232th 3.111⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Theme 110th 3.868⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 175th 3.474⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 163th 3.222⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 95th 3.368⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 163th 3.389⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 6🗨️

Feedback

vidim888
15. Apr 2024 · 12:54 UTC
You itch.io link is not working. Maybe you forgot to make the game public? It's not in the list of your games either.
EnderDremurr
15. Apr 2024 · 15:33 UTC
Link doesn't work
🎤 Matt Green
15. Apr 2024 · 16:34 UTC
Sorry! You're right, it was private. I posted it on LD and itch was kind of an afterthought.

@enderdremurr @vidim888
LDJam user 372425
15. Apr 2024 · 16:54 UTC
The itch.io link also isn't working for me, but the embedded copy of the game is working for me. I thought this was really well done. The graphic were cohesive, the music and sound effects were good. I'm impressed by the amount writing integrated into the game in such a short time period. Overall, great job on the jam!
asatrain
15. Apr 2024 · 16:57 UTC
It does not work on itch
Frogman
15. Apr 2024 · 17:21 UTC
What a ride! This was a great murder mystery - I wanted to accuse so many different ~~people~~ ghosts at various points of the game... You were right about needing a pen and paper for it :) My one nitpick is that early on, I wanted to try accusing someone to see what happens, and got a game over, forcing me to restart from the beginning :( Maybe a warning that this would happen would help? Other than that, awesome entry!
🎤 Matt Green
15. Apr 2024 · 17:48 UTC
@rcxa @asatrain gah. itch is annoying. I uploaded the new build and deployed and I guess it didn't save.

Just uploaded again and tried in a private browser and its working now. Sorry.
🎤 Matt Green
15. Apr 2024 · 18:15 UTC
@frogman I unfortunately added the win/loss condition in the final hour and only had so much time to test/plan for it.

"One Accusation" was sorta a staple of old mystery games. Perhaps if I had made it more direct like [ACCUSE X], otherwise it just seems like you're starting a conversation and lose surprisingly.

That's great feedback.
vidim888
15. Apr 2024 · 21:40 UTC
Nice concept! I'm not big on murder mysteries so I didn't finish it, but the general idea is interesting with finding new "codes" to summon new ghosts. I would probably appreciate it a lot more if game would have some sort of built-in note taking mechanic not to rely on pen-and-paper. But maybe I just became more lazy with the current state of games in general :)
martonel
18. Apr 2024 · 15:18 UTC
It works for me, but I don't figure out what is the perfect combination for the summoning.
LukasT
25. Apr 2024 · 19:59 UTC
The ghost designs are really fun. A bit hard to play just by memory but very good for 48 hours. Must have been quite a brain scratcher to figure everything out in writing and STILL make it in time coding wise.
henk
25. Apr 2024 · 22:25 UTC
This had a lot of depth for a compo game, and I liked that there was quite a bit of humor sprinkled in as well.

So many questions, though: Do all rocks have ghosts? Do all inanimate objects have ghosts? How does a rock "die", exactly? If I split a rock in half, does that count as killing it? Are the two halves each new rocks that get their own ghosts?
Azure Drake
25. Apr 2024 · 22:33 UTC
Cool idea, but the music gets rather repetitive after awhile. It would also be nice if there was an easy way to track the crystals of the ghosts that you already had figured out.
DJTequila
25. Apr 2024 · 22:39 UTC
What a unique way to tell a story! I'm impressed you added so many characters in just 2 days. Wish it automatically kept track of notes and summoning combinations though. Great job overall!
LDJam user 99418
25. Apr 2024 · 22:49 UTC
Had to write down notes to keep track of everything, but I solved it (second try) first time I didn't understand I was making an accusation and accused the green ghost IMMIDIATELY XD

Fun little mystery lots of redherrings and misdirection!!! What a twister!

I wish I knew the murder's motive
LDJam user 244504
25. Apr 2024 · 22:56 UTC
This must have took so much time to write the whole thing. Kudo to that ! :tada:

The true culprit wasn't obvious to me. I felt like it missed a dialog at the end to know ;).

Also, (I don't know how to avoid lore spoiler with this one), but let's say that I thought that the priest and her friend with similar power needed to touch each other in order to regulate their power. If it makes sense to you~

Good job on this entry !
silkworm_sweatshop
26. Apr 2024 · 00:13 UTC
Nice! I like deduction games. I guessed wrong I'm afraid but I had several suspects in mind. I wish I could guess again just to find out and have the challenge of getting it the first time more self imposed. Since I already have the clues written down myself, having to go rediscover them in game again isn't that appealing.

If I'm not mistaken, I noticed a couple of times where something was mentioned that my character shouldn't know. For the most part though this wasn't a problem and new dialogue options would appear appropriately. For a jam game I was surprised how well it worked. Presentation is quite polished as well.
🎤 Matt Green
26. Apr 2024 · 03:28 UTC
@henk All great questions! unfortunately questions I don't have the answers for. You could ask Rock himself, but he's not much of a talker :joy:
🎤 Matt Green
26. Apr 2024 · 03:32 UTC
@azure-drake That is almost always my biggest fear. I only ever really have time to write 32 bars. I figure if people get tired of it, there's a music off button in the bottom corner.

I'm a musician in RL but Im still working on translating that to games! Hope you still had a good time.
🎤 Matt Green
26. Apr 2024 · 03:35 UTC
@djtequila I realized as I was explaining the game to my wife after submission that maybe 12/13 characters was too many. I had all the sprites and such coded in before I even began writing the story.

re: note taking, I suspected this would be a primary concern. I watched a video essay recently about how we all used to play games with a pen and paper to write stuff down because there were no in-game trackers. It added an extra layer to the game because you had to decide what was important and such.

Perhaps it was just nostalgia for me! Maybe if I build out the game more, I can add the tracker in as an extra, for people who don't want the trouble. And let people play Classic for the extra 'challenge'

Hope you enjoyed it regardless!
🎤 Matt Green
26. Apr 2024 · 03:37 UTC
@kallico I'm hardly an expert writer and whatever it was came together in a blur in the last 3-4 hours. I thought it would be easy because the core game mechanics were pretty simple, I "just had to write the story" but that turned out to be the bane.

That's what's great about game jams, you live and you learn.

Also, congrats. You're the first person I've heard of who solved it. Maybe other did but said nothing :shrug:
🎤 Matt Green
26. Apr 2024 · 03:38 UTC
@gcake writing was the most stressful part and I put it off for too long. I kinda hoped there'd be some tool out there for writing abstract mysteries that I could just use, but nope. So I just started writing branching threads and hoping they made it somewhere.

I'm sure it wasn't the clearest story in the world, the ending came together pretty fast, but under the circumstances I hope people will forgive me :joy:
🎤 Matt Green
26. Apr 2024 · 03:40 UTC
@silkworm-sweatshop I tried to remove as many of those slips as possible, but I wrote the branching mechanic before I wrote the story, so there was no way for a line to have two "parents".

I'm curious what path you took to hear those things out of order, but I figured such a thing might happen. There's lots of room here to grow, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I definitely want to explore this concept further.