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Ritual's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Artwork | #1 | 4.933 | 4.933 |
| Audio | #21 | 4.485 | 4.485 |
| Narrative | #23 | 4.425 | 4.425 |
| Creativity | #740 | 4.090 | 4.090 |
| Enjoyment | #2035 | 3.381 | 3.381 |
Ranked from 134 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
There are layers of loops here. Gameplay loops, Narrative loops, even some literal loops on top of the Seers head! (There's a loop waiting for anyone that finishes the game too!)
(Optional) Please credit all assets you've used
see description for full credits
(Optional) What would you like to be called if GMTK features your game?
Dead Rock Games
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Comments
The atmosphere in this is top-notch, and the art is just stunning. Amazing job!
Thanks a ton!
This is pure art. The sound design and art style are both top notch. I just wish the star drawing part could be a real puzzle to add more gameplay elements. Right now, it feels more like trial and error. Still, it’s an amazing, very enjoyable experience, truly impressive.
WE AGREE! Thanks for all the nice things said! It means a lot!
sensational art - felt very complete in a way! I desired more information of the constellation and how they were formed, sometimes it felt like try and error. Loved the narrative as well!
It's a common thread and feedback and we totally agree! So we plan to flesh this out more and put out an even more complete and thoughtful experience! Thanks for playing and leaving nice feedback!
Wow this game was so immersive, I felt like i was the one in place of the mc. The music, art, the story building everything was perfect. It really relaxed me. You guys deserve more ratings. Keep progressing the development of the game i would wanna see the final product. Excellent work!!!!
We will! Keep in touch! We will try to push this out the door much sooner than later! But ya a bit more time is needed for sure!
A very well made and cinematic experience! This felt more like watching a movie than playing a game. The art and audio were very lovely!
Thanks for the great compliments!
I have no clue what I'm doing but it's beautiful! This game puts you in a state you never know you could be in, very atmospheric. Well done!
Does anybody know what they are doing these days hahaha Thanks so much for playing :D
what??? Could I experience this for free??? in this economy? I'm glad to have eyes rn.
Haha much love! We plan to release this actually, Spend more time to make it even deeper, and we'll try to keep the cost affordable. because ya.. this economy haha
The MOST beautiful game in the jam! I feel its unfair to call it a "game", it is an interactive art piece. Love love love seeing things like this among all the pixel platformers, but I'm art-biased. One of my favs so far.
We love Pixel Platformers! But ya for sure tried to stand out! We too are art biased haha thanks for the love!
I'd love to see some behind-the-scenes info about the art and inspiration. I've put some of my design process stuff up on artstation/twitter, do you have anything similar?
To be honest, we're in the middle of sort of redefining the games we want to make. Our current long term project is on Steam, Intergalactic Battle Roosters. It's WAY different from this. We used this game jam to test out and share some world building we had been doing and the response has been incredible so we're actually trying to sort out how we might change gears. Part of that plan is to try and grow the name of the studio over individual games. So this might be the path forward for us. We'd love to share some of our process but don't have anything really set up yet for that. Soon though, soon!
Such a beautiful experience. Love the storytelling and gorgeous artwork. The music and sfx are perfect. Would absolutely love to play more of this game after the jam if you expand the idea!
Plan to expand! We see where we can add more depth! And what to compound! It's been wonderful!
I really liked the vibe and aesthetic of this game. Very beautiful assets and music. As is no secret it does sadly lack in gameplay, but with even one more facet of challenge or greater story I'd have no hesitation buying this game on steam just for how appealing the art is!
That is really the highest praise an indie dev can ask for! Would you give me money for this thing? Yes! Incredible!
Thank you so much for commenting and letting us know that, in your opinion, we are close to something good!
I'm sorry but the artwork, the sound, the aesthetics??? True cinema omg
One of the best game I saw on this game jam so far, you should be proud of yourselves!!
How kind! Thanks!
Very beautiful game. A bit slow to play, and very simple gameplay, but it fits the narrative very well!
Thanks! We plan to try to make it feel more like marination and meditation to help with pacing! But ya 4 days is tough to do everything haha choices were made on the dev side! BUT we will address later :D
Sweet! even figuring out puzzles more similar to Return of the Obra Dinn or like, observe X and that gives you a solution to Y. Good luck with this project!
sound design and art are phenomenal from what ive seen but when i go to paint, my screen becomes black and i cant interact with anything :( am i missing something?
Oh no! We haven't had anyone report this yet. Might be a browser thing, not sure? Sorry you weren't able to interact and play the game. Thanks for letting us know! What browser/OS are you on? Does it happen when you try to click to connect stars, or does it happen when you leave the Observatory and then it just stays on a black screen?
absolutely adore the art style, the textures and painted look OMG. really got a chants of sennar feel from it but was disappointed when there was no deciphering or puzzle, it did feel like a visual novel, but a good one at that. I love how the start makes sense narratively after youve finished the game. only wish I didnt have to click on the telescope each time.
Thanks for playing! We had a long discussion about whether or not you should have to click the telescope to "end the day." The original scope included more stuff to do/interact with in the Observatory, but we didn't have time to implement any extras. In it's current iteration, it does get unnecessarily repetitive to have to click the telescope every time, but we just didn't have time to sort out a more elegant solution that didn't make things feel rushed. This was also reflected in the simplicity of the constellation "puzzles." We had also scoped for more in depth puzzle mechanics, but kept it simple in favor of making sure we could really deliver on the atmosphere and immersion.
We love that you understood the beginning quote and it's relevance once you finish the game! This is our first heavy narrative game and it's nice that it came across! Thanks again for playing and for the thoughtful feedback, it's incredibly valuable!
I love devs who give their players insight into their thought process. def getting a follow from me, im looking forward to seeing what youll make in the future. and... give me an insta, i need to see more of that art style
This game is absolutely mesmerising! The art is exceptional, and the atmosphere makes me feel like I am living through some transcendental life experience and not playing a jam game! This sure is something really special!
Wow! Thanks for the comment. Our main focus was to try to successfully create an atmosphere that people could get lost in. It's incredibly satisfying to read feedback like this. Thank you for playing!
OMG guys, amazing work for 4 days! The game feels and plays so smooth and nice, so I really replayed it a few times. Great choice for sounds and ambient music; I love the sounds when stars align. The atmosphere is incredible, the art is outstanding, and overall it feels like a masterpiece! I was literally screaming—DID YOU DO THAT IN 4 DAYS???
On the other side, I think you're missing some basic stuff—e.g., sound management or a tutorial for a better player experience. But it feels like it doesn't even matter, because this game is amazing! Well done, guys. Thank you for that project!
Thank you so much! I remember thinking at the start of the jam, "ok, I NEED to just put the options menu in now or else it won't get done...", and then I didn't and it never got done hahaha. We really appreciate the love! Thanks for the energetic response!
P.S. - We are heavily anti-tutorial haha, when the goal is atmosphere and immersion, tutorials are enemy number one. We try very hard to deliver a smooth and intuitive experience in our games. Were there parts of the game that were very confusing or that we could've done better in making more obvious perhaps?
haha, yeah, and then you can just copy/paste it into another project :)
I think I was confused with the character movement mostly and a little bit with the star connections, but it feels quite intuitive later on, as you said.
The art in your game is truly outstanding, and the music fits perfectly. The art definitely gets full marks!I really like the theme of stargazing; it's very story-driven.
Well done！(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧
I really like your font choice and as others have said, artistic direction. The digital painting is exceptional! The audio was also particularly atmospheric, particularly for the ending scene. I found the gameplay a little humorous as I was just randomly trying to connect dots imagining the mysterious character literally waving the staff around hoping something connects. Maybe that's a reference to memory?
The text of the constellation descriptions are.. interesting. Did you come up with each description yourselves?
Thanks again for making a really cool game!
Hey! Thanks for the compliments and feedback. Your description of the Seer just waving his staff around trying to connect stars made me laugh so hard hahahaha. That's hilarious. No, it wasn't a reference to memory, it was just the simple fact that we sacrificed more complex puzzle mechanics in favor of atmosphere and immersion. We just tried to make the overall experience of connecting lines tactile and enjoyable even though it's very basic.
I think you're the first one to ask about specifics in terms of the story/narrative. We have been casually "world building" over the past several months just as a creative exercise and as a break from development of our current game. We've haven't had a lot of experience creating a heavily narrative game, so that was our goal for this game jam. We brought in some of the ideas from those world building exercises and I spent most of Thursday morning writing while workshopping ideas with AJ and then he'd bring them to life with the art. I've got like 3 pages of an outlined story in my notebook. Originally it was supposed to be 5 visions/chapters, but we down scoped to 3 because game jams haha. It was a fun change of pace for us, but also, if it was too abstract or didn't make sense we'd love to know!
Thanks again for playing!
that's so cool, thanks for the indepth reply! Yeah I could definitely sense behind the text that there was a lot more going on in terms of lore. Please do let me know when your current game has a demo or something as I'd definitely like to wishlist it!
This is beautiful, atmosphere is steeped in spiritualism. Is there another ending to do the whole game again? I kinda want to do the whole game to see the new ending, but also not wanting to redo the ritual again?
We had planned for two different endings originally, but we weren't able to make it happen in time. Thanks for playing!
Absolutely stunning art and music — I was completely mesmerized.
The atmosphere you created is rich and immersive, even without complex puzzles.
One of the most visually striking games of the jam. Amazing work!
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! Yeah, we weren't able to do anything more complicated with the puzzles. Our goal we set before the jam was to try to create a very polished experience, so we focused on that over mechanics and complexity. Glad to hear you think we succeeded in that department!