Witchfall

CONTROLS: 

WASD - movement

Mouse - camera

Space - jump (you can bounce off walls, which reduces fall damage. you don't need to press anything for this)

Left Click - place checkpoint. 

Right Click (hold!) - after channeling, you heal. Believe!

R - reset game 

You can find additional control information below, which might be helpful if you feel lost but it could be considered spoilers.

CONTENT NOTE

 vertigo/falling, potential motion sickness, body horror, gender dysphoria, audio and game mechanics shift based on progress and stress state, screams, heavy breathing, visuals of an exposed realistic heart 

SUMMARY

How long were you going to wait? 

Descend into the pit to become a witch. 

You are not meant to climb, only to fall. 

The first spell a witch learns is her own name. 

SOUND

Please turn sound on! Sound is essential to the atmosphere this game. Headphones recommended :) However, there are no game mechanics or story information that only rely on sound.

PART OF GODOT WILD JAM 87

Theme: DECAY

Wildcards: 

FUSION: combine two genres (rage-game / Journey-like: I wanted to combine these two genres because they seem like polar opposites, but share a strong emotional response in the player) 

LIGHTS OUT: use darkness / night as part of your game (implemented as a "hard mode". You can unlock it by walking into the black fire behind the hut. There are no new narrative elements (due to time constrains) but the game gets harder (= you take more fall damage). Maybe it is still too easy but I did not want to include a mode I wasn't able to finish myself! Let me know what you think about the difficulty in general.)

UPGRADES AND UPDATES: Items and/or Skills in your game can have modifiers and upgrades (implemented but will not spoil!)) 

JAM EXPERIENCE

First I spent time getting the movement right, to find a good balance between slight air control and committing to the jump. The bounce mechanic was tricky, and I still think it could have been much better. Then, because of time constrains, me wanting to export the game to html and my lacking 3D skills, I thought of building the entire level with just a couple of different objects. This meant that the objects should be inherently fun to traverse from many different angles. That they also all have the same scale is a deliberate choice, because I wanted players to get really familiar with the objects. Personally I think the chain is the most fun object, with the metal plate being second. Then, I put free textures on them. Building the level was extremely quick, I placed the objects almost randomly in the editor, and copy pasted many at once. When an area seemed a bit empty during playtesting, I added more objects, but I basically never moved or rotated objects around once I had placed them. The checkpoint and heal mechanics were not hard to implement, so I still had a lot of time. So I spent quite a lot of time in this jam on "game feel", on adding sounds, screen shake or particles to give feedback to the players. The texts went through many iterations, and I always wrote and rewrote them on the side. Two days before the jam ended, I asked many people to try the game, and realized the main mechanics on left and right click can be pretty hard to grasp, as well as the new mechanic that gets introduced near the bottom of the pit. I'm still not satisfied with how they are communicated to the players. But I was so burned out from programming, I spent a lot of time on the last day just decorating the hut. I was attempting to combine a rage game with a Journey-like, but watching people play made me realize why most Journey-likes have barely any difficulty and are basically "on rails". Being able to fail and restart from the very beginning means it's really hard to have a narrative arc that lands. But maybe I'll try to further explore that idea in the future.

ADDITIONAL CONTROL INFORMATION

Don't read if you want to find out the mechanics for yourself. Read if you are stuck or don't understand the controls at all.

Left click - HEART: place a checkpoint on the ground which reserves 20% of your max health. After dying, instead of respawning at the beginning, you respawn at this checkpoint. On the second try, you cannot place a new checkpoint, and the health is still reserved. After dying again, the game fully resets.

Right click - FEATHERS: if you stand still on ground, you can channel a heal for a couple seconds. You do not heal during this channeling. After the channeling is finished, you fully heal. If you move during the channeling, the heal fails and you have to begin again. This ability might change over the course of the game. To heal, you have to believe!

PARTICIPANTS

Kimberline - 3D Modelling (of the chain links, the obsidian stones and the metal plate. They are very low poly because at first I wanted to export this game to HTML, which didn't work out), Writing, Programming, 2D Art (the drawings scattered in the hut), Level Design (which basically consisted of almost randomly placing the objects)

For all sounds, music and textures and the remaining 3D assets I used free assets, listed below.

FREE ASSET ATTRIBUTIONS

Fonts:

Angry Chalk by Geronimo (I love this font! free for non-commercial use)

Character Sounds:

female vocal sounds by mondfisch89 (License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0, https://freesound.org/people/Yudena/, hmm, sough, gasp, scream) / woman breath by hinnar (-- https://freesound.org/s/541591/ -- License: Creative Commons 0) / impact sounds by Kenney (CC0 (public domain), footsteps) / Angel Wings.wav by Thimblerig -- https://freesound.org/s/688751/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 / 01153 great wings in motion.wav by Robinhood76 -- https://freesound.org/s/75526/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 /pigeon wings.aif by tigersound -- https://freesound.org/s/9329/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 / bird scream by sieuamthanh (CC0) / heart by tgerginov (CC0) / splat by gprosser (CC0) / male gasps by thebuilder15 and jawbutch ( https://freesound.org/s/399799/ -- License: Attribution 4.0, Male Gasp 1.wav by jawbutch -- https://freesound.org/s/344407/ -- License: Creative Commons 0) / surprised gasp by cuburodante / screams and frustrated sounds by reitann (CC0)

Music / Atmosphere:

environmental ghost sounds by mondfisch89 / whispy shriek by philjn7 (https://freesound.org/s/588703/ -- License: Creative Commons 0) / wail by gazaa87 (https://freesound.org/s/30269/ -- License: Sampling+)/ pigeons takin off by nakhas ( https://freesound.org/s/360409/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0)/ croworraven by iwanplays (https://freesound.org/s/512781/ -- License: Creative Commons 0) / cave dungeon sec by szegvari (https://freesound.org/s/553953/ -- License: Creative Commons 0) / fire making by memnosis (https://freesound.org/s/504963/ -- License: Creative Commons 0) / snowfall final by shadydave (https://freesound.org/s/262259/ -- License: Attribution NonCommercial 4.0) / horror ambience by klankbeeld (https://freesound.org/s/202799/ -- License: Attribution 4.0)

3D Assets:

Heart by Assetfactory (free standart, https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/heart-animated-anatomical-3d-model-dedbab26bd274.../ used with obsidian 001 texture) / Dry Grass by Pixel-bit (CC Attribution, https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/dry-grass-d1484537470441b999d37077aeb9b47a) / Mud Hut by rhcreations (CC Attributions, https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/mud-hut-033e9356487346dabbf2ac61134bf236)

Textures:

Obsidian 001, Obsidian 002 and metal pattern 012 by Katsukagi (CC0) / particles set by Kenney (CC0, used for decay smoke for the black heart and dust particles) / White Feather by Gallery Yopriceville // Paper 002 by slin1e (CC0)

from the websites: 3Dassets.one (textures), sketchfab.com (3D assets), freesound.org (sound and music)

PLAYTESTING

Thank you to: Yvonne, David, Saskia, Lia, Kadir, Sasha, Mischa, Robin, Laura, Lena, Ebony, Leon, Jeremy, and my other classmates at games class!