Looping Gazelle by Maxime Cyr

Ready to break the loop?
Looping gazelle is a puzzle game in which you need to navigate a maze and find the exit.
To escape your endless torment you will need to find keys to open the door to your salvation.
These keys are spread across the maze and puzzles, be careful not to get lost, one wrong turn and you might end up where you started!
Will you be brave and wise enough to solve the maze? Beware of what might be lurking in the shadows.......

| Youtube | https://redm4x.itch.io/looping-gazelle |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/looping-gazelle |
Ratings
| Overall | 729th | 3.553⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 746th | 3.389⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1068th | 3.079⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 735th | 3.684⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 925th | 2.5⭐ | 18🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 304th | 3.868⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 8🗨️ |
Minor annoyances - I feel like the torch was really unnecessary upgrade as there should've been bigger visibility radius from the beginning, the atmosphere would have been as dense in my opinion (and the boots of faster movement are pretty questionable too, as it adds nothing to the actual gameplay). The smaller visibility circle just made it more unpleasant than moody. At least there could've been as big circle, but more of it would've been lit just more dimly without the torch. Still the lighting work was really well done and helped the overall atmosphere a lot!
Second minor annoyance is that entrances felt too tight, sometimes I got stuck on the corner, so maybe smaller colliders or some way of letting the character sort of flow around the corner would have helped.
I would suggest (in case of further improvements, as there was probably no time for that during the jam) to make areas more distinct. I get that player is supposed to feel at least a bit confused about where he is and how he's looping around, but then he should also be able to wrap his head over it and get to learn how the stuff works, which is close to impossible with all the same corridors everywhere. So maybe some different carpets, wall paint or style or even some pictures hanged, so that different corners of the manor/maze are recognizable, so that the player would get even more "aha" moments than he got from seeing the gazella in really unexpected place for the first time. Oh my, there's just so much space for pushing this concept further that I'm bit jelous of you! :)
I really enjoyed the game, the spider spooked me properly, and also addition of checkpoints before points of probable death (or other fail state) was very clever from you and saved many players from some serious frustration, myself included! And the concept is really clever, can provide many exceptional puzzles on it's own, as few games explore this idea! I'm glad I found your game and I wish you keep going!
I feel there could have been more puzzles though. I feel like I was mostly just walking through the maze until I find the keys instead of having to actually think and figure things out.