Oakhaven by bentglasstube
Beneath the Whisperwind Peaks, a labyrinth of shifting stone guards an ancient secret. As Elara, delve into the depths, rearrange the very fabric of the caves, and uncover the Codex of Shifting Symmetries to save her threatened village.
Explore a maze of caves and rearrange the rooms to make your way through. Find treasure along the way to help you explore.
Note: Sometimes the edge detection doesn't work well and you may have to walk away from the edge and back toward it to trigger a transition to the next screen. It may take multiple tries. If you can see the edge, you should be able to move to the next room.
Controls
Arrows/WASD - move around / slide tiles
Space/Z - interact / advance dialog
Some controllers are supported as well
How the Sausage Is Made
- The game is written in c++ using my game jam library, gam
- The art was hand drawn in Aseprite with a Wacom Cintiq
- The music was made with a variety of synthesizers and pianos.
Hints and Tips
Skip this section if you'd like to discover everything about the game on your own.
The cave is a series of increasingly large mazes separated by the "control rooms" with the orbs. The orbs let you slide the rooms around like a 15 puzzle. You do not need to perfectly "solve" the puzzle to make a path through the maze, and honestly I wouldn't recommend trying to do so. You need only slide the pieces around to ensure there is a path to the next area.
As you progress deeper in the the caves, the visibility worsens. There is a hidden item that will help you overcome this. If you go too far past it, the game will let you know.
One you get the treasure at the end of the maze, you need to backtrack out of the cave to win.
Ratings
| Overall | 177th | 3.368⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 207th | 3.05⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 90th | 3.579⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 151th | 3.553⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 182th | 3.263⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 164th | 3.158⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 95th | 3.684⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 23🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
Music certainly gives it an eerie vibe
Puzzle games, espcially sliding puzzles, are not for me, so I didn't progress far. I wonderif the procedural generation hurt here a bit, as the fact the orb may affect different room felt really obtuse to me, and the slow movement without diagonal didn't help
Still, very impressive, especcially with C++
Very good work with light! I love it so much. Also good idea about puzzles, i enjoy it.
Personally, i think that going all the way to the up after you found the book is not very good idea ^_^'
Anyway, this is nice game!
I didn't find the helpful item at any point, I was a bit confused about what I was looking for and whether I'd need to route to a specific room to find it (not really being sure what room I'd want to aim for!) But I managed to get the treasure and return without finding that item in the end so not a huge issue - and I can see it being tricky to hint to where it could be found without completely giving it away!
It took me some time to understand precisely what I was doing with the orbs, and it felt rewarding to get it and reach the end. I never found the light (?) though.
It has some potential to be expanded: what if I could fall into the holes? Then the end section without light would be very tense. What if there was only abstract symbols on the tiles? Then I would need to explore and take notes.
Anyway, nice game and congrats on doing all of that in 48h!
After that time getting my understanding, I started to think I wouldn't finish, because of the walking speed, I could feel myself starting to get that feeling of wanting to just speed through a game. But the cool ambient music kept the mood right and I stayed engaged with the game on its own terms for a lot longer than I initially expected I would. Go mood!
I found the light and got all the way to the codex, but then I decided that I would skip the return trip.
Overall very nice entry! Cool system, nice line-of-sight darkness, solid graphics, and a great ambient background, and coming together into a complete-feeling experience.
ps thanks for posting that note about the edge detection, it helped to know that.
However, I keep getting glitch of not being able to return to previous room and it ruins the fun of this game. Hopefully it could be fixed in the future.
Congratz on the procedural generation! That's a tough one to pull off well in such a short amount of time. The art is charming and I liked the into/ outro music. There were a few times where It would not register that I was moving to the next room. I would hit the black portion of the map and it'd act like a wall. I was able to back up and get in every time by backing up and trying again, but it was a real pain when I made the long trek back. Good game!