| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Narrative | #2539 | 2.900 | 2.900 |
| Enjoyment | #3942 | 3.067 | 3.067 |
| Artwork | #4427 | 3.100 | 3.100 |
| Creativity | #4537 | 3.267 | 3.267 |
| Audio | #5962 | 2.467 | 2.467 |
Ranked from 30 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?
The game uses a countdown as a time loop mechanic.
I really pounded the keys like crazy, there were a minimum of errors in movement - but there was still not enough time to beat the heart. Maybe I'm doing something wrong?
By the way, I'm from Discord - I saw your post there and got stuck.
And since we are on the same wavelength, I would be very curious to hear your opinion about my game. If you find a moment to check and throw a couple of words - I will be sincerely grateful!
As soon as I reached that one specific spot after all the enemies, I audibly went "Oooh" and got it on the next try. I loved that dungeon crawler presentation, and it was overall a very strong entry. I would've loved a little bit of creepy music, but it still worked without!
A cool puzzle game that's combined with the retro rpg playstyle. Was fun to playthrough, also it's unfortunate the music didn't loop, but I had to same issue before with my previous gamejams. Good job on this gamejam project.
Great game ! Love the atmosphere and love a pure knowledge based game. Wish there was a "better ending" for, say, doing more than escape, but overall a really enjoyable short experience. Good job !
I escaped on my first attempt lol. I like the way the combat mechanics work, and the "ah-ha!" moment when I discovered the shortcut! Really cool game!
Liked the art direction and felt like everything came together visually really well, mechanics were thought out however I did wish there was more responsiveness in the audio when interacting with things.
Fun game! Really enjoyed the atmosphere and the gameplay loop. It did not feel too tedious to have to replay the loop each time. Felt like just enough content to keep me engaged without getting frustrating.
Personally, I feel I would prefer it if I could take my next action quicker after taking any given action. Sometimes it felt a bit off that I could not immediately turn after moving. But maybe that's just the timer getting to me and me spamming too much.
Also, maybe it would have been cool if the ending was a bit harder to "accidentally" find before you were supposed to.
Overall though, solid experience!
Thank you for playing and for the review!!
Yeah I agree, the movement could have been smoother. But I also didn't want to make the player too fast because of the timer, so I just left it as good enough.
As some others suggested, having a step based timer in combination with better movement could have worked better.
Knowledge based game are quite tricky to make, but you managed to get the core of it.
Because of last comment, I looked and found the main solution pretty quickly. But I had fun replaying to beat the heart Thought it could have been cool to have a true ending (maybe slightly different Game Over text) when you manage to do both in one run
And same as last comment, maybe you’ve tried it, but I first I was expecting a timer based on step. Though it works well like that
Overall, fun little experience. Thank you for making it!
EDIT: I kept thinking about it on my home. I think the main answer was “obvious” for someone that have played different knowledge game, having it locked behind another (or 2 other) condition could have help prevented that. Thought for the time we had it’s great, especially the level design that works very well :)
Thank you so much for playing and for the kind words!!
Yeah I can think of a lot of ways to improve and polish it, but I really didn't have enough time haha, I put in that ending 1 hour before the deadline. This is my first game and I had to do a lot of things for the first time so it was a challenge!
Also thank you for the suggestion, I'll take that into consideration if I end up working on an update after the jam.
About the step timer, idk, I considered that and thought it wouldn't work, but that's because I was thinking about it in the original scope I imagined and not in what the game became. This would probably be a great change and would make it much easier to balance.
Initially I imagined an even more ambitions version, with multiple levels, proper RPG leveling system, equipment and inventory, more enemy types, and all kinds of other stuff haha
Way too overscoped, I know. I never expected to actually deliver all that, I just thought, lets see how far I get and then I'll just build what I can out of the parts I have.
A pretty ambitious game for such a short jam.
Sadly I found the solution in 10 seconds woops !
Still managed to beat the heart, wish the timer was a bit more lenient, or on steps only.
Congrats !
cool, I didn't expect i will be playing grid based first person game. good idea.
I got to the heart, but it required really high precision in my inputs to make it that far in time once you knew the route, but I couldn't figure out how to beat the heart at the end, since the timer was always so low I could barely inspect anything. I just about took out the two things either side of the heart, but only managed to get one hit in after the fact. I like the idea, but I think the timer is too short, or I'm missing something. I tried breaking that breakable wall from the other side too, but that didn't seem to work. I liked how a couple things misdirected you until you looked around though, and I like the idea behind it!
Thanks a lot for playing!
I'm really happy that somebody finally gave it a proper try!!
You are actually supposed to break the wall from the other side, you just need to bump it 2 times, just like you have to from the cracked side. As for the heart, there are 2 things that give you a hint on what to do with the heart.
First, inside the tunnel, if you pay attention, 1 enemy is too strong for you to beat, but you still do it. Why?
Second, the way the shield monsters have to be killed.
Some things could have definitely used a bit more polish and could have been telegraphed better, but unfortunately, that's all I had time for.
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