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SANCTUARY: IOVELA's itch.io pageTeam members and roles
Nully (solo) - Moirexstudio on itch
How did you interpret the themes?
SANCTUARY: Iovela combines brawler combat, active tower defense, physics-driven puzzle play, and horror on the same battlefield.
Trap placement shapes enemy movement, while direct combat, environmental physics, and the tethered iron ball let you manipulate that defensive setup in real time.
The horror comes through the setting, enemies, atmosphere, and constant pressure of defending the cathedral gate.
What are you entering?
Engine and tools used?
Custom web engine / runtime: Phaser 4, Three.js, Rapier
Art / 3D: Blender, Krita
Other production tools: Codex, Bezi, Pre-existing Suno-generated music
Road to GDC
Consider my game for the Road to GDC prize
Bezi Challenge
We used Bezi and want to enter the Bezi Challenge
Synty Challenge
Enter my game in the Synty Challenge
Which Synty assets did you use?
Selected assets from: POLYGON - Dark Fortress POLYGON - Dungeon Realms Fantasy Skeletons - Sidekick Modular Characters POLYGON - Halloween Horror Masks ANIMATION - Sword Combat INTERFACE - Fantasy Menus Only selected assets from these packages are used in the final game.
CrazyGames Challenge
Enter my game in the CrazyGames Challenge
Fan Art Artist
N/A
Fan Art Process Video
N/A
Where can we find your Fan Art?
N/A
Submission Confirmation
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Comments
Oh this is so old school. Including the clunkiness. The crazy camera work, the debris that trap your step (collider problem), the enemy animations, lol. Despite of those, i love how the game plays. running around, let the enemies get into your trap and then powww. They are too high health though. Expecially the higher level ones. Need like 5 to 10 traps to actually make them down. Otherwise this is a good concept game. Expecially when you get to set your traps. And i love how gamepad works better in this game than keyboard. Overall remind you of those old games. Good submission, dev!
Thanks for the detailed feedback! Glad you enjoyed setting traps and baiting enemies. The PS2-style visuals were partly a practical choice for web performance, but the overall vibe is definitely inspired by that era, complete with the Resident Evil talking hands 🤣 I’m taking your notes on the camera, debris, animations and enemy health into account for the next version.
I feel like there are some good ideas in here, but perhaps too many at once, and some conflict with each other a bit. Using the big bell as a weapon gets mentioned a lot like a central mechanic, but it seems to be the weakest tool at your disposal given how little control you have over it. The tower defense mechanics are neat, probably my favorite part of this, but I think a lot of other parts could have maybe been cut to spend time on strengthening the more well defined parts of the game.
Thanks for giving it a go! Glad you liked the tower defense side. I’m working on making the Bell and the different mechanics easier to learn and use together in the next version.
dude you made such graphics work with three.js thats impressive. did u use custom libraries other than three.js or like your own libraries ?
Thanks! It’s a custom browser stack using Phaser 4 + Three.js + Rapier, with a fair amount of custom engine code integrating them. I also did a lot of the asset, animation, and Blender work myself. I’ll probably do a proper postmortem after judging.
i tried using rapier.js it was weird sometimes it would work n sometimes i would get NASM errors some rust engine errors. how small are ur texture files ? cuz three js librarires are tricky to get bigger texture files to work properly
Sorry, missed this follow-up! Most textures are 512 or 1K, with some 2K where needed. KTX2 helps a lot with keeping them manageable in the browser. Thanks for checking it out!
Nice game, definetly its strongest point are the visuals. It was hard to me to get at first what to do and how it worked, i felt like there was too much happening.
Thanks! Glad you liked the visuals. I’m reworking the opening to introduce things more gradually so it’s easier to get into.
WOW this is amazing! Tower Defense + Action + Physics Puzzle in one battlefield is such a brilliant genre collision! The Sanctuary Bell is GENIUS - pulling several tons of iron through enemies! I love how structures break and change routes and how combat pushes enemies into traps. The 5 handcrafted encounters feel so polished for a jam game. The atmosphere is so intense! Incredible work Moiré X Studio! 🔔
Thanks a ton! Really glad the Bell, traps, destruction, and combat all came through. Getting those systems to actually work together was the main thing I wanted to nail for the jam.
I liked the look and hoe you presented it, but the gameplay relied for that style a little to much on visualls. And I just didn't know what to do the whole time. Still love the idea
Thanks for trying it and for the feedback! I’m working on clearer instructions and a more gradual introduction so players can get a better feel for what to do.