The House in the Dark Forest by Tygrak

[raw]
made by Tygrak for Ludum Dare 57 (COMPO)

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A walking simulator.

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Created in Godot.

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Controls:

Move with WASD. Advance text with E. You can quit the game by pressing escape twice

Ratings

Overall 43th 3.952⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 93th 3.548⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 76th 3.714⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 45th 4.071⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 94th 3.773⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 49th 3.81⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Mood 2th 4.475⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 20🗳️ 18🗨️

Feedback

maxem4ek
07. Apr 2025 · 14:20 UTC
The game has a very strange but appealing style. Overall, it's pretty cool!
Sicosiber
07. Apr 2025 · 17:49 UTC
Me reading the text at the beginning: nahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I've played Stories Untold, this doesn't end well
Follusior
09. Apr 2025 · 17:48 UTC
Yes, it's a really interesting style.
oeueGHa
17. Apr 2025 · 01:16 UTC
Unusual visual style like it, but some parts in maze were too long.
AToxigner
19. Apr 2025 · 10:43 UTC
Excellent combination of narrative and maze gameplay! The story was meaningful and connected with the topic, I like it!
MoonDweller
19. Apr 2025 · 13:44 UTC
That's one I'd call a hidden gem!!!
I was so surprised to see that it's an actual story-based game!
![DepthDarkForest_win.jpg](///raw/f37/04/z/6c53d.jpg)

Exploring **the labyrinth** reminds me a lot of early **Shin Megami Tensei** and **Persona** games.
The level design is excellent, and the **audio hits the mood**!

I want more people to try this entry.

It's a pity that you don't have a Web build.
I hope this GIF will help show the vibes of your game:
![DepthDarkForest (2).gif](///raw/f37/04/z/6c53f.gif)
🎤 Tygrak
20. Apr 2025 · 15:49 UTC
@moondweller thanks for playing the game and for the super nice comment, really appreciate it! sadly Godot when using c# doesn't support web builds since Godot 4 so I've been stuck with non web builds for my games :(
She Wrote
20. Apr 2025 · 21:00 UTC
Great game! Even though it mixes two very different graphical styles, they work really well together. All the visual details are great too, like how the walls only become visible near the player, and the shiny lights you need to reach. Great work!
Jern
21. Apr 2025 · 01:41 UTC
I love this game. It was really satisfying uncovering more and more of the maze and I thought the story was really sweet and well done through this format. The choice of the sketch art style fit the game really well too. 5/5 mood
nathmate
21. Apr 2025 · 10:23 UTC
Felt very high concept and compelling. Having the goals visible through the maze and eventually being able to see everywhere you'd already been was great from preventing such an elaborate maze from becoming frustrating.
Small critique, the text-scroll would start to run off the page before it realised the word was too long and needed a new line, it was a bit distracting.
Local Minimum
21. Apr 2025 · 12:58 UTC
lovely style and interesting mix of story and maze walking. Personally I feel like the mazes got a bit too large though, and especially when they got intricate, I would really have liked to have the collisions not get me stuck on the walls but glide around corners and such. I sadly didn't get to the end, but I think I got pretty far. There were some balls I saw but couldn't figure out how to get to / one seemed completely boxed in and the other would have needed a much to large loop.

Nice entry though.
Retrisma
21. Apr 2025 · 15:49 UTC
Very interesting story-focused walking sim! I really appreciate how the ability to remember walls was granted partway through, it definitely helped the experience both before and after. The story was also well written and intriguing, so well done there.
jk5000
21. Apr 2025 · 18:47 UTC
Weird, scary and pretty interesting.
Alvaron
22. Apr 2025 · 18:33 UTC
Great game, loved exploring it. Also really loved the artstyle. Minimalistic but spot on!
Thanks for dropping by on stream and sharing your link.
nsadie
22. Apr 2025 · 19:41 UTC
A-mazing gameplay :laughing:. Very effective art style, nice and moody with an interesting story. Good job!
jacobingalls
23. Apr 2025 · 05:50 UTC
![Screenshot 2025-04-22 224702.png](///raw/da9/b1/z/6c682.png)

Really well done. I tried to do the fractal maze one first; and ugh. That was pain; but in a good way :smile:
LDJam user 321333
26. Apr 2025 · 00:47 UTC
This game was my jam (pun and compliment very much intended), glad I happened to see it a few days ago so I could make sure and play it before ratings ended.

Only negative was that I was confused that the narrator was indicating they were done and wanted to go back to the start, but there were more shinies to find! While I get that it probably would have been a slog, especially for a jam game where people just want to dip in and out, I felt torn between what I as a player wanted to do (keep exploring the awesome maze and see more narrative moments and collect/clear all the shinies) vs what the game was telling me to do without addressing the uncollected memories(?).

That one point aside though, I really enjoyed it top to bottom. Well done!

(also, holy crap just noticed it's a compo game. Extra well done!)