The Demon's Service by Michael Macha

[raw]
made by Michael Macha for Ludum Dare 55 (COMPO)

Not all is as it appears in this ritual...

The HTML 5 version is having some weird issues with validation and often crackling audio. I suggest downloading! Or, if you're on a Mac and you've got Godot 4.2.1, downloading the source and building locally. For the web, if it acts up, I've included a link to the Itch.io page which is more functional.

Whew. The great thing about a 48 hour jam is that I can count on having something done by Monday. I hope everybody likes this.

If you have trouble in the beginning, drag the match over the candles. The rest will hopefully be self explanatory, but some elements require number sequences, and some require the appropriate prop to be dragged into the summoning circle.

To be perfectly clear, there's a screams-of-hell sound effect in this. While I did create it, I did not do the screaming. That was licensed to me, and I compiled it together as a group over a piano sting.

Sparo Arika-Vigil, in the credits, is my wife. I grabbed her for a quick voice clip. Otherwise, all work was mine.

The demon voice was mine too with a little bit of post-work in Audacity, but I do not sound anything like that in my day-to-day! It really freaked out my cat when I was recording!

Ratings

Overall 251th 3.18⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Fun 323th 2.66⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 168th 3.36⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Theme 114th 3.84⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 183th 3.44⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Audio 65th 3.74⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Humor 73th 3.58⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 96th 3.64⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 16🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

mertol
15. Apr 2024 · 12:42 UTC
At first I could not understand, then I manage the phone ring. It is kind of a visual novel game I guess. The sound is really good. But the game is not for me. The sound is very good :)
ugly_robot
15. Apr 2024 · 14:36 UTC
Very cute! Loved the voices, and the effects. Good art too. A quick game, but I liked pressing all the buttons. Thanks!
LDJam user 382819
16. Apr 2024 · 13:20 UTC
很喜欢你们的艺术风格
Whismirk
16. Apr 2024 · 13:20 UTC
Really cool looking! Gotta love more narrative games. The writing was pretty hilarious. Who doesn't like demonic administrative procedures ? It's a bit confusing at the beginnning but you quickly get the hang of it.

I don't think I managed to find all the different endings, but I might very well come back to it to try to find everything !
AshKetchdem
16. Apr 2024 · 13:24 UTC
This was very well made, the voice acting made me chuckle. I like the idea of having some cultist line that you can call for all your cultist needs. The soundtrack and effect were also well made. The puzzles were a bit difficult to solve at least for me, but I'm not a great puzzler. The art was also well made. Overall, awesome entry, keep summoning!
Ben Albert
16. Apr 2024 · 13:27 UTC
Love the idea! Great voices and effects!
Denhette
16. Apr 2024 · 13:34 UTC
Very nicely made! lots to explore and experiment with. Awesome how much you've been able to achieve in such a limited timeframe.
Rob6566
16. Apr 2024 · 13:37 UTC
Nice idea. Short, but cool. It would be good to see something like "ending 1 of 16" to know how much of the game I'd found. Hope you didn't destroy your voice recording it!
manicthenobody
17. Apr 2024 · 02:27 UTC
There's an issue with aspect ratio where none of the assets except for the shadow scale up with a resized window. The game itself is interesting, and I greatly appreciate the ability to click through dialogue boxes and have the game cancel the audio it's playing. It's fun to listen to the lines, but I think I would've needed to call an actual exorcism service if I had to sit through them all every playthrough (or had them overlapping each other when I tried to go to the next line early) :sweat_smile:
🎤 Michael Macha
17. Apr 2024 · 17:09 UTC
@drgcandle 谢谢你! 对此,我真的非常感激
🎤 Michael Macha
17. Apr 2024 · 17:10 UTC
@denhette Why thank you! I must admit that sometimes, tight deadlines are the only way I get a real project started.
🎤 Michael Macha
17. Apr 2024 · 17:11 UTC
@rob6566 I appreciate your concern, but I'm a hobbyist metal singer and I recovered pretty well. The real trick is to warm up properly, and be consistent with it.

Thank you for playing!
🎤 Michael Macha
17. Apr 2024 · 17:12 UTC
@manicthenobody Well, my cat totally wanted to exorcise me after the recording session. Sometimes you might pick up on a distressed, confused "meow?" in the background. We all OK, though.
Pigeonic
17. Apr 2024 · 19:07 UTC
This was a really fun and surprisingly chill experience even with the not so soothing voice. Amazing voice acting and passion went into this, good job! Hope the cat got treats afterwards :))
🎤 Michael Macha
18. Apr 2024 · 16:41 UTC
@pigeonic Thank you! Yes, Torte Cat is plenty spoiled, don't worry about her.
Baluj
19. Apr 2024 · 00:37 UTC
It's an interesting concept, I liked seeing what happened with each attempt. Good job!
retrome
19. Apr 2024 · 14:22 UTC
Pretty atmospheric combo of audio and graphics! Good job!
Cody Raethke
25. Apr 2024 · 03:39 UTC
I wasn't really sure what I was doing here... I had to check the hint to light the candles, and immediately won the game by calling the operator. I was able to get a few different voice lines by pressing different numbers on subsequent playthroughs, but I'm sure I was missing something.
benskca
30. Apr 2024 · 20:37 UTC
Really great audio, what did you do in audacity to get such a cool effect on the demon voice?

+1 to the suggestion of tracking how many endings the player has seen, it makes it much more fun going back for different endings if you can be sure you haven't found them all already :)
🎤 Michael Macha
07. May 2024 · 04:41 UTC
@benskca Thank you! While the initial voicing was a low chest voice, most of my work involved denoising the track, then duplicating it twice, and pitch shifting one of the duplicates up an octave or so and the other down one. There may have been some slight reverb.

A lot of it was just the initial gutteral vocals, though. Took some warming up, and I recorded it all at once so I could save time and stamina.