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STROBE's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Graphics | #7 | 4.375 | 4.375 |
| Overall | #10 | 3.655 | 3.655 |
| Originality | #18 | 3.917 | 3.917 |
| Theme | #19 | 3.792 | 3.792 |
| Accessibility | #21 | 3.083 | 3.083 |
| Fun | #26 | 3.583 | 3.583 |
| Audio | #29 | 3.458 | 3.458 |
| Controls | #33 | 3.375 | 3.375 |
Ranked from 24 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
v4.5.1
Wildcards Used
World On Cue
Something reacts when the player moves
Game Description
Explore a derelict world in order to fix your spaceship and get home
How does your game tie into the theme?
The aim of the game is to find objects that can be repurposed into parts / reused to fix the protagonist's spaceship
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
bennbluee
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
1
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Comments
Game looks pretty great, really interesting narrative and unique visuals. I like it.
Mechanic of flash is great, really cool! You did really good job with player onboarding *clap*
I would love to see this game developed further
Unfortunately I run into problems of game stuttering and crash on 1-6 room :(
Running on macOS, chrome browser.
Congratulations on your first submission! Waiting for more!
Hey there :) Sorry for taking a while to get back to you! I have just uploaded a macOS version of the game, so if you'd like to play you could give that a go. You can follow the instructions here once you've downloaded it: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/tutorials/export/running_on_macos.html#app-is-signed-including-ad-hoc-signatures-but-not-notarized
I don't have a mac unfortunately so I haven't tested it, but generally the desktop builds do have much less stuttering than the web build.
I've also added controller support :)
Either way, thanks so much for checking out my game!
This game is so cool!! I really liked to creepy atmosphere and using the camera flash to discover new things in the dark. The world feels so mysterious and I was very interested in learning more about what was happening.
I'm on a mac so I can only play the browser version, but I kept getting stuck after going into the first room, getting the pencil, and trying to leave through the second door in that room. I tried reloading the game and playing again but the same thing happened in the same spot :(
Not sure why this happens but its a shame - I can't finish the game and this game looks really cool.
Hey! I'm really sorry it doesn't work on macos web. Once the jam is over, I'm going to upload some fixes, and I'll also upload a macOS version at the same time. Hopefully that works. If not, I'll dig deeper into what's happening at the start of that level to see if there's something else going on.
Thanks so much for playing, and I'll try to reply to this thread when I've pushed a macOS build
Hi! I've just uploaded a desktop macOS version of the game. The desktop versions look to have much better performance and less stuttering.
If you'd like to give that a go, you can download it from the game page.
Once you've downloaded it, the instructions here will tell you what to do (since its just a jam game, I haven't signed or notarized the exe, so your mac will warn you about running it): https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/tutorials/export/running_on_macos.html#ap...
Thanks so much for checking out the game, and sorry for taking a while to upload a macOS version!
I like how u implemented the theme. The visual remind of "Return of the Obra Dinn". Overall a great game.
Great game, some parts were very unnerving and made my skin crawl 😱
The art style and atmosphere is very cool, and you did a good job with the camera mechanic!
The art style and atmosphere is very cool, and you did a good job with the camera mechanic!
Great game loved the atmosphere! Wonderful job on the dither effect. Best pause menu I have seen all game jam. Thanks for making the game.
Also I beat it upside down :p
Thanks for the compliments :) I tried to make the pause menu be nice, thanks sm for noticing :))))
Well done on the upside down completion!
A very original and atmospheric entry!
Thanks for playing!
I love the dithering and the camera mechanic! The whole atmosphere was spooky, and I got the shivers as the creepy enemies were approaching in the dark. Great submission!
Thank you for the feedback and for playing :)
A brilliant way to use dithering to make compelling horror experiences.
Awesome work on the lighting of the game and well done using the camera flash to use as a gameplay tool. Very ingenious.
It's a bit short but a satisfying experience.
Well done.
Thanks so much! I think in part the game feels short because there isn't much substance or detail to each level... maybe if I added in some more detailing and dialogue / puzzles to each room it would feel a little more alive and players would have more of a reason to look around? Then the game might feel longer. Or of course I could just add in more levels.
Thanks for the feedback :)
This might be my favourite game of the jam so far, so nice to see a horror game here.
It's dripping with atmosphere not just because of the shader but how you set up certain situations using it and the camera mechanic together, I genuinely felt a chill when you photograph the door and the shadows of three enemies ambushing you are lit across it.
I think the only things that need work is maybe the pencil animation seems a bit stiff compared to everything else in the game and the enemies aren't that threatening, with the last set of enemies before you escape I just stood on a higher platform and cheesed them because they couldn't jump.
Great work on the entry, looking forward to seeing more.
Hey! Thats great to hear that the eerie atmosphere & suspense worked!
I agree, the animation is not that great. I think it would be better being a stabby animation instead of a swiping down one. And I probably should've spent a little more time making it look nice.
The last level definitely needs some work too... maybe I could increase the enemies reach a little. Or just add in a simple jump for the enemies.
Thanks so much for playing :)
Very stylish entry! I love the location based dither texture on the objects and the way the camera reveals the level is so cool. The polish and quality of life features such as the settings and tooltips when you bump into a wall are appreciated! The way you used the wavy BBcode to emphasize the theme was amusing and I'm big fan of the atmosphere you managed to capture with your art, sound design, and levels. I wasn't able to finish it sadly as the camera would freeze on the web version (on mac). I'll save it and give it a whirl on my linux and don't worry it didn't impact the score. Wonderful game and I'm looking forward to what you put out in the future!
Hi! Thanks for playing and for the feedback :) Do you have a video or screenshot of the camera issue?
If its that the mouse is not being captured, then pressing backspace should fix that. But maybe its another issue; it would be great to know what's going wrong :)
The game keeps playing as I can hear the movement sounds and UI but it gets frozen shortly after entering the first room regardless of me using the camera. I tried escape and backspace but still no luck. Here's a video I took with it freezing at the end. No audio and the quality might be bad as I just uploaded it but I hope it's just an issue for me. Good luck!
Hey, thank you so so so much for this video; I'll have a look at what's happening when that level loads in and I'll try my best to fix it.
Thank you!!!!!
Hey there, I've just uploaded a desktop macOS version of the game. If you'd still like to have a play through the game, you could have a go at downloading that and see if it works better for you. Either way thanks so much for checking out the game :)
This was like a 3D version of an old 80s RPG Horror game. It also played like a Minivania. Very nicely done. I'm really curious what shader you used for everything. It was a very cool effect!
My only complaint was no controller support. Playing with a keyboard hurts my hand.
Really strong entry overall.
Hey! Here's the shader I used as a starting point: https://github.com/tufourn/Dither3D-Godot
I then modified this for the invisible objects by adding something like this:
void fragment { ALBEDO = [call function from Dither3D] ALPHA = get_alpha_from_spotlight(world_pos) }(where I got the world_pos using one of the methods from here)
My get_alpha_from_spotlight() function would be passed the position, angle, brightness etc of the most recent light that the camera had created (each time you take a picture, it just moves a spotlight to the player's position). It can then test for whether the vector (world_pos - spotlight_pos) is within the cone that the spotlight lights up, just using maths (testing against cos(spotlight_angle) etc, and using smoothsteps to make it look okay).
I had depth ordering issues, so I placed all the invisible objects on a higher render priority, so they always render first (which is a massive bodge, but it sortof held together for the room layouts I used).
I hope that makes sense, if you'd like any other details let me know and I can share my code / explain other bits.
As for controller support, I'm sorry I didn't add it in. I really should've, as it wouldn't have taken very long at all compared to other features. I'll add it to my template player controller script so I can use it for next time, thanks for pointing it out!
Thanks for playing :)
Thanks for all the info!
If it helps, take a look at my Controller Plugin and Camera 3D Plugin. I use them together with my Character 3D Plugin to support mouse/keyboard and controller out of the box. Along with providing an image for every key/button for use in your UI that tracks the last thing the player used as a controller. (You can see that last part in my current game if you open the Controls window in the upper right of the HUD.) They support multiple camera angles including first person, third person follow, Isometric, birds-eye view, etc. Allowing the player to scroll through them. Feel free to use the plugins or grab the code that helps your implementation.
The main difference between the two is when you're using a mouse you have to reset the look variable every frame, and with the gamepad you have to let the value accumulate.
Thanks so much, that's really useful :)
Hey there, I just added controller support to the web version. If you would be up for it, a quick test to see if it works and is implemented well would be greatly appreciated :)
Mostly works. A few issues:
Take a look at this plugin I made. You can either use it or steal code from it.
https://github.com/dragonforge-dev/dragonforge-controller
Thanks, will do!
This game is dripping with atmosphere and great ideas. Reminds me of "Scanner Sombre" with the camera mechanics. I mean that in the most complementary way possible, this is an awesome game and very impressive for your first Godot Wild Jam submission!
The jump scares were very effective! I'm not sure if you're preloading all of the 'enemies' when you enter a scene or if you are spawning them as the player hits specific triggers. But I would recommend preloading them into the scene and then activating them as the user hits those triggers. That way you can minimize performance hick-ups on web and make the jump scares really impactful
I sincerely hope you choose to pursue this project further. I'll be recommending this game to my friends to try out!
Hey, thanks for the feedback! Scanner Sombre looks really cool, I'm definitely gonna check it out!
As for preloading, I was using a bodged method by having a parent enemy controller which has the enemies as its children. On ready, it paused all its children, and then when I needed to activate them, the enemy controller would unpause its children. I'm now realising that this probably pauses the child nodes before any of there init or ready functions are called, meaning that these all run when I activate them, causing the lag. Or maybe its something else. Either way I should definitely use a different method next time!
If I do pursue the project more, I would probably make 1 small and detailed level, and try to come up with some more interesting puzzles using the camera (as I felt I didn't really do that with this demo).
Thanks once again :)
I originally played your game on a Firefox browser, but retested your game on Chrome and it ran smoother! So it could be partially caused by a difference in browsers. In either case, I appreciate the in-depth explanation, as it helps me out when I want to implement enemy controllers in future projects!
I disagree with your camera comment. I think it added a lot of spooky-ness to the game. Only being able to see a small sliver of what's in front of you really increased my fear of the unknown! Again, awesome submission!
Wow... that was truly an amazing experience. I honestly was a bit scared at first because it kind of looked like an horror game, but it ended up being fine haha.
Honestly, the camera flash really is an incredible feature, and I am really impressed that you managed to do that, along with all of the other stuff, within the duration of the jam. Amazing work!
Also a little thing, at the beginning of the game, I tried to jump but couldn't, so I assumed there was no jump in the game. Which made me struggle a bit at the end when I needed to get the vinyl, I walked around the whole thing before figuring out I could jump and grab it lmao. Maybe I missed a dialogue that explained it?
Nevertheless, that is an amazing entry, I love it! 🔥🔥
Hey, thanks so much for playing my game :)
The camera flash feature was so annoying to implement lol... everything ended up being a massive bodge but it all sortof somehow held together! I agree, I think its the coolest bit. In hindsight, making a simpler game that just focuses on that mechanic would've been a bit more fun to make probably.
Yeah I agree that the game design isn't that intuitive. That was actually the 1st level I made for the game, and then I added other rooms that felt like they should go before it. Then it was near the deadline and I was like "okay this doesn't really fit or make sense anymore, but I may as well throw it in somewhere". But I think a big learning point for me in this jam is that just because something works doesn't mean it has to be included; its okay to remove things if they don't fit into the bigger picture. The idea was that you picked up some springs on the table (that you were "repurposing" as jump boots) in order to gain the ability to jump.
And yeah with horror in general I like to aim for a more eerie / suspenseful vibe, I get scared very easily so I don't really like jumpscares. Once again thanks so much for the feedback!
Nice go at replicating the visual style of Obra Dinn which I love a lot, I've tried a bunch of times and can't get it right, really cool and unique idea!
Thanks for playing :)))
Really impressive graphics, Redefining what is possible in Godot! Sadly the camera was a bit broken in the web version but the rest was amazing!
Hey, thanks for playing! Sorry about the camera :(
It was interesting playing first person 3D, in a 1 bit style. It worked surprisingly well. Needing the camera flash to see things, even some walls and larger furniture, added to the challenge. Sometimes I was a bit off exploring and area and missed a key item, such as the springs, and that could be frustrating to need to recheck, but overall it worked. The levels were pretty well laid out. The combat is an area that felt a bit off. It was hard to tell the range and targeting of my attacks. I wasn't sure when and where was best to attack, so just spammed left and right mouse buttons while facing the enemies as they approached until they went down. I think it comes down to the short pencil and the animation staying off to the right side, making it feel like I need to be offset to the side.
Overall the game played pretty well, though, I wasn't a fan of being the bad guy. It's listed as a hotel, but you break into the building, then break into someone's room and steal their stuff. As you leave they come back to see their room being robbed and you kill them for it...
Hey, thanks for the feedback :) I 100% agree with you. I think the combat is quite lacklustre and doesn't really make much sense. The 2nd to last level (the one with the springs) is also quite bad and isn't that intuitive (or in keeping with the idea of a hotel). In retrospect, removing the combat and just having this be a game about revealing things with the camera might've been a better option.
Once again thanks for playing :)
I love a good monochrome game
Thanks, I love them too!
I really enjoyed the mechanic of the camera flash revealing things!
Thanks!