Little House of Horrors by Archimagus

made by Archimagus for LD 38 (JAM)

Title Card 2.png Little house of horrors is a game where you explore an "abandoned" mansion to find clues to close the portals before Cthulhu devours our Small World.

Performance may struggle some, If you have trouble, the windows build is better than WebGL, and there are performance options in the game.

Post Jam Update

Added Monsters
Added more clarity of what stats are being used.
Added different player pawns for each character.
A few bug fixes.

Web Player

Official Jam Release

Web Player

Windows, Mac, and Linux downloads - https://archimagus.itch.io/little-house-of-horrors

Source Repo - https://github.com/Archimagus/ludumdare38-LittleHouseOfHorrors.git

We are unsure if we should opt out of the Art category. Our artist put in a whole lot of work. All of the models are ours, though a lot of the textures were pulled in from places, credits below, most of them were used as part of a composition to make up the final texture. We feel they qualify as derivative works but if you think they are not transformed enough, please feel free to opt out of voting for the art category.

Accreditation - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13Tz86VVjyY7kMs0yfmKSfQp_Z28amGIwfONCprBXkhE/edit?usp=sharing

Original URL

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/little-house-of-horrors-working-title

Ratings

Overall	297^th	3.514⭐	39🧑‍⚖️
Fun	334^th	3.25⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	347^th	3.194⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Theme	669^th	2.639⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	177^th	4.083⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Audio	53^th	4⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Humor	585^th	2.03⭐	35🧑‍⚖️
Mood	33^th	4.194⭐	38🧑‍⚖️
Given		37🗳️	49🗨️

Feedback

PhilStrahl

27. Apr 2017 · 20:11 UTC

Wow, this one is great! You already had me at "Cthulhu" but this game is very polished and I see a lot of polish went into every aspect, assets, sound, coding. I mean, there are not many jam games that have a title screen, let alone options! :) Also enjoyed the mechanics, there's a lot of potential in it. Also, the sound design was great, every new appearing portal gave me chills. Make it a full game and I'll buy it! :)

EDIT: Only suggestion I have is that the character stats are hard to read, red on yellow-ish parchment. I'd opt for plain old black instead :)

pixelstuff

27. Apr 2017 · 22:04 UTC

Really cool ambiance and game mechanisms. I am sold to Lovecraft universe but discovering it like a Cluedo/Board Game was really interesting. I liked the sounds, the attention given to story and player movements. If I could suggest one thing, it would be to make the player stats clearer of at least slightly bigger on the interface. But however, really nice idea and game!

picapica

27. Apr 2017 · 22:35 UTC

It really feels like a complete game with the art, the sound, the text, and the mechanics. I had to keep playing until I finally beat Cthulhu. Character stats that didn't effect the game (I think?) made me wonder if you're planning on adding more to it? Or was it mostly for getting the right feeling? Anyway, good game!

King Kujito

28. Apr 2017 · 15:25 UTC

Looks cool! Somehow reminds me of the board game Cluedo. Good job guys.

johnryanaudio

28. Apr 2017 · 15:43 UTC

Thanks for the comments, we plan on continuing work and are taking your suggestions into consideration!
@picapica The character stats do affect the game but we didn't convey that to the player, which is something we're working on.

WhatsAGaym

30. Apr 2017 · 22:44 UTC

Cool game, though it would help if the sanity and health bars would be visualized better to give more immediate feedback (the icons aren't self-explanatory).

Another point: I tried to record some video footage of this game with OBS but it didn't work. Is that by intention?

🎤 Archimagus

30. Apr 2017 · 22:59 UTC

@whatsagaym It is a standard Unity game, so I'm not sure why OBS wouldn't record it. Also, I agree, we still have some work to do with explaining the stats.

Tommyflower

01. May 2017 · 13:30 UTC

I like the light turning on when you enter a room:) Nice music. Took me a second to realize who the character was. Good job!

Maksym

01. May 2017 · 20:24 UTC

@archimagus Audio, atmosphere, graphics, they are great! I was confused about my goal but I enjoyed climate. Noises and light were the best for me. Good job!

those-30-ninjas

01. May 2017 · 20:26 UTC

Really like the art definitely gives off the right vibes. The animation and sounds for the piece moving are perfect. Very cool game. If you get a chance check out ours https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/down-the-rabbit-hole

ArcticMattekar

01. May 2017 · 20:39 UTC

Love the animation of the player character and the art style.

Nice work! :)

_for_science

01. May 2017 · 20:41 UTC

The atmosphere is pretty cool. I enjoyed the mood and art style. The wobbly chess piece player character felt a little too cutsie for its surroundings, though. (Which doesn't mean that I don't totally love that walking animation). :thumbsup:

SilverTwig

01. May 2017 · 20:54 UTC

That was a brilliant game, I didn't get all the portals yet, will try again though. Love the art, music and the feel of the game and its mechanics, quite tense with the time limit. Felt very much like Cluedo. Good game :D

Miss Scarlet, please roll the die or make a suggestion.

Listonos

02. May 2017 · 02:03 UTC

Reminds me so much of a board game we play a lot with friends of mine. Haunted mansion or something like that. Great atmosphere, very nice environment. More gameplay with stats would be great.

🎤 Archimagus

02. May 2017 · 03:05 UTC

@whatsagaym I uploaded a DirectX 11 version of the game to itch.io. The initial upload was using the Vulkan API. That may have been why you were unable to record. If you see this, and that fixes it please let me know. Thanks.

XAVIER_INDIE_GAMEDEV

03. May 2017 · 03:06 UTC

Hey guys! Let me just start by saying that this is my favourite game thus far for mood by a long shot. The music and SFX work amazingly well, and I like the lighting and visuals too (not sure why I'm a chess piece though, maybe would make more sense if I were one of the characters I selected? could be a time constraint thing though haha). The menus were great too, and I appreciate all the options you included. Gameplay wise, I had fun. Honestly though, I had no idea what I was doing. I just clicked the green feet and clicked the eye, and repeated that continuously until I won. :joy: Also I didn't know what the stats on my character represented or why it made a difference. Maybe it could be clearer what the objective is, and then add a bit more challenge?

Overall, fantastic job! :smile:

crazi456

03. May 2017 · 03:11 UTC

Nailed it on the mood with the artwork and audio! Was a very nice experience, great work!

Nilanjan

03. May 2017 · 03:19 UTC

This game is so good in terms of the atmosphere it creates. Love the lighting on this one. This game would immensely benefit from a proper character instead of placeholders. Great job overall!

flukeshot

03. May 2017 · 04:39 UTC

I sure did go *insane* playing this one :D The audio stand out particularly as being done well - it really sells the feel/mood of the game. I felt the core game-play perhaps could have had monster encounters as a skill based mechanic to make it a little more interesting. Anyways, it is a nice complete package. Well done on this entry.

Tetristar-Interactive

03. May 2017 · 05:49 UTC

There are two things I dislike about this game. 1) On the first few playthroughs it's difficult to understand what all the player stats do and 2) I wish I had made this game!

This game is fantastic. The sound effects, music, and events inspired a genuine creepy feeling while the player pieces and modular board design make the experience approachable. A serious great game, it's going into my personal collection of Indie Games for a long time!

Shaolin Dave

03. May 2017 · 05:55 UTC

Sounds did a lot for the atmosphere. Tbe font was incredibly hard on the eyes, I'd suggest switching to something easier to read. There was a lot of repeating rooms/text, but I guess that comes with the time crunch. Overall it was pretty fun, a lot of potential as a horror adventure.

slueta

03. May 2017 · 11:28 UTC

Hi, the game has great sounds and graphics. But it was not clear to me what I was supposed to do to reach the objective. Congrats for finishing it, has a lot of nice details.

Fiote

03. May 2017 · 13:48 UTC

Loved the concept of attribute rolls. I'm still playing it, but just want you to know that the checks seems to be using a "greater than" instead of a "greater or equal" like it's shown on the screen:

(my total was 9, the difficult was 9, but I still lost it)
![stats.png](///raw/246/1/z/3c85.png)

Ok, playing more I couldn't really beat the game lol. Sooo many rooms to die lol. Hard to find the portals. But i guess that was intentional. Nice game overall!

🎤 Archimagus

03. May 2017 · 14:43 UTC

@fiote Good Catch. Thanks, I'll look into it.

morrilet

03. May 2017 · 18:56 UTC

This was a cool game. Very interesting mechanics. It ran a bit sluggishly on my laptop but it worked more or less. I had some trouble finding the last portal in the huge maze of unknown rooms, but that's whatever. I liked the graphics and audio, but my concern with this entry is balance. It felt like I would never run out of essence (I had enough to close almost all of the portals before the first opened) and it also felt a bit random with the win/lose condition. This is because if a portal opens across the map near the end, there's a chance that you simply can't get there in time and would lose the game. I think that this could be fixed by making the map a bit smaller and diversifying the rooms with random events to keep it interesting. All things considered, however, I thought that this was a pretty good entry with some really interesting mechanics. Definitely a good proof of concept.

inventroom

04. May 2017 · 00:46 UTC

This was pretty spooky and fun! Here's the quick rundown of my thoughts:

PROS
- Music and SFX are on point, nice spooky atmosphere
- Nice flavor text on the room encounters
- Cool particle effects

CONS
- Might be a bit too RNG based, player can be screwed over by no fault of his own
- It's not initially clear that rechecking a room with an enemy in it will deduct your sanity/health again
- Stats were unclear (though I played the Jam build and I see you later made changes apparently)

For full criticism and breakdown of ranking, as well as candid reactions to gameplay, do check out the video~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvFOGRAzCsg

GrassWhopper

05. May 2017 · 03:08 UTC

it is quite a bit difficult.
but i must extremely well done, the theme, feel atmosphere and music in it are just top notch.
they're really good.
i liked the game with its interactive elements, and RPG like patterns.

everything in the game just blender well witheach other very nicely. well done to your team :)

really interesting.

tylerraz

05. May 2017 · 18:03 UTC

Overall great job; had to figure out how to 'die' strategically to get health/sanity refills, which is a neat concept but may be a little too counter-intuitive.

dennyrocketdev

05. May 2017 · 19:14 UTC

The atmosphere was certainly something. You actually managed to create a spooky mood with perfect use of audio and visuals.

The gamplay felt a bit too open and a bit complex to just get thrown in there, I feel. None of the stats were explained, you have no clue what the rooms do before you enter. It just felt like a huge "wtf is going on".

Overall a very solid game, and 5 star mood for sure.

somethinboutgames

05. May 2017 · 21:07 UTC

I just love the sound design on this one, even gave me chills at one point, not because anything scary was on screen, but because some scream coupled with the ambient sound was so damn scary...

Gameplay wise I like the exploration thing, I just feel like it could be too little about planning and taking calclated risks or exploring with a plan, but more about randomly clicking things, walking about and hoping that something good happens.

Even though the whole thing is set in a scary mansion you managed to sneak some humor in there with the line about bumping into the air and apologizing, that got a chuckle out of me :grin:

All in all a really pretty, polished entry, good job!

MestreRothLD

06. May 2017 · 21:14 UTC

Great ambience and great concept. This is quite unique, imo. I'd think about making the enemies or the setting even more cryptic, to exploit player's imagination even more.

Congrats and thanks for presenting this. It is a really cool game with a lot of heart in it.

BlackRose

07. May 2017 · 15:06 UTC

This game remaind me a table game, and i like it! The atmosphere its perfect with that graphics and that sounds ^^

At the beginning of the game it was hard to me know how to do, but its a fun game and so entertaining

LeReveur

08. May 2017 · 18:03 UTC

So much and various content for a gamejam !
My only problem was everything but clicable icons was black, I understand that the Cthulhu mood implies dark, but it's a shame we can enjoy the great artwork done only when closing a protal ;)
Well done anyway, this was good to play it.

Edit : OK, after testing anymore, I find why everything was black : I played it on web, and it seems that in low graphics it works as intended, so it was probably a memory issue on my browser.

🎤 Archimagus

08. May 2017 · 20:52 UTC

@lereveur I'm glad you figured it out. I was starting to worry with your comment and it's not supposed to be black. Maybe playing the windows build will give a little better experience? (or mac or linux, though those are untested)

OccultOne

13. May 2017 · 06:20 UTC

I Played this on Livestream Yesterday at the request of the Developer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekGMbpHGKUE

This was really awesome, I had a few issues really understanding what was going on. My thoughts can be boiled down to: "There's too many stats and they aren't well explained.". I am gonna play around with the game tomorrow as I really enjoy boardgame style games. (Hence, why I made mine). Great job!

NumNumDude

17. May 2017 · 01:46 UTC

This game is good once you figure out what to do. I liked the graphics, and I also loved the use of sound. Gameplay is good, but could fit the theme better. The atmosphere is just perfect, it made me feel what I assume is exactly what you want me to feel. Nice!

DaisyChubb

19. May 2017 · 13:57 UTC

Wow, what an absolutely gorgeous game - I personally loved the take on the theme, and the atmosphere is spot on. I played the windows build and everything seemed to be working smoothly! All in all, great game, your hard work paid off.

Jupiter_Hadley

01. Jun 2017 · 14:36 UTC

Very boardgame-esque! I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLywFLMDPJc