Cthonic Depths by Lazyanttu

Cthonic Depths is a puzzle game about rousing the incomprehensible might of the Cthonic Masters from the Depths below to overtake the realm of men and submerge it into insanity.
You are playng as a Cthonian servant, a fishman being capable of assuming different forms, such as humanoid disguise, foul-preaching cultist or your trueborn form. You may change that at any Depth Sanctum.
Gameplay:
You win the game by getting every location under the Depths' control. This is accomplished either by finding locations under your human cultists' control while being in cultist form yourself or by Activating the Sanctum. The other, more rare occasion is if you manage to convert the Cults of the Sun to your loathsome faith.
You lose the game if you are slain. When you move to a human-controlled or contested location without your Human Appearance form, the local suspicion rises. If it rises above "High", you are slain and lose the scenario.
You can equip one equipment at a time, but you can swap them.
Dark Truth: You can use this at any contested location. You promise salvation from the invading Cthonians, turning the location under your (still) human cultists' control.
Ritual Dagger: At Elder Circle, you can blot out the sun. Border patrols and city watches cannot catch you (no effect on suspicion), but the Sun Cult goes into hiding. Can be reverted by you.
Amulet of Breathing: You can move through coastlines even without a Cthonian Trueborn body.
Fake Papers: You can pass patrolled main roads with these documents (no matter what your form is).
Orb of the Depths: While in Cultist form, you can use this to turn any place from human control into contested. This is only consumable equipment; it is removed after use. It also increases suspicion by one when used, so be careful to not lose.
You always have one of the three forms:
Human Appearance: You can enter human-controlled or contested locations without raising suspicion, and you can neutralize suspicion in locations.
Cthonian Trueborn: You can swim through coastlines. You can turn any aquatic location from human control to contested by calling your brethren. If two adjacent areas are Cultist or Depths controlled, you can call the Cthonias to shift the current location from human control to contested.
Cultist of the Depths: You can Activate Sanctums and turn your cultist controlled locations into Depth Sanctums. You can use the Orb of the Depths, and you may read Cthonic Scriptures in the library, which causes the location and all nearby to become Enthralled.
Game States:
Locations have two attributes, control and suspicion:
Control in general goes: Human, Contested, Cultist, and Depths.
Suspicion in general goes: Enthralled, Low, Medium, High and Agent Slain (defeat).
Once suspicion hits Enthralled, it can never go up. The location will never be harmful to you again.
Changelog: I fixed major bugs
-Scenario 7 is now playable. It was missing one equipment data entry. -Obr of the Depths is now properly consumed when used. -Itch version now partially support fullscreen.
Ratings
| Overall | 187th | 3.333⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 262th | 2.762⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 88th | 3.614⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 98th | 3.773⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 220th | 3.114⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 187th | 2.471⭐ | 19🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 110th | 3.591⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 8🗳️ | 16🗨️ |
I got last code changes and project finished ~10 minutes before the deadline, and last publishing stuff done ~7 minutes before the deadline
This was my first time participating in a game Jam, was quite an experience ^^
Now to the project, it looks very stylish, if the goal was to make something similar to the old dos games, then it really turned out!
@oxnh , @javasaurus , @dhim I planned to have tutorial in game, but failed to do so in this timeframe, so I just put a wall of text on this/Itch pages, but that was definitely not ideal. The game is not very self explanatory. Levels attempt to be in ascending difficulty order, the first ones teaching more basic stuff first, but you can play them in any order. Thanks for feedback!
@aleksey4adoff I made a mistake with assets (for example, using .wav for sounds, and too big images) and too big resolution, so it takes quite a while to load on itch. I originally thought it would be desktop game, but then I went for HTML5 on web for ease of access without testing it first properly (I was running quite thin on time tbh). Thanks for effort for building it regardless of the hassle, I'm sorry for that experience. Yeah, I took inspiration from the old dos games definitely!
-Scenario 7 is now winnable (it was missing one equipment)
-Orb of the Depths is now properly consumed after use.
-Fullscreen in itch.io partially works, however with it WASD scrolling no longer works (not essential in the game, but nice to have)
I updated few critical bugs from the itch version (looking at that performance issue later). Currently very likely your local version Scenario 7 is unplayable, and the Orb of the Depths is not properly consumed per use. I updated the source code download link also (Itch version is also up-to date, also partially fixed its fullscreen issue).
Also, I love this kind of theme (cultists, creatures from the deep, cosmic horrors, this kinda stuff). The fact that all characters had their uses reminded me a lot of the lost vikings (norse by norsewest), but in a tactical kinda setting.
Great job on this one, I'll definitely follow you on itch to see what comes up next haha
Very intimidating at first, but you get the hang of it eventually and get to feel smart :-) Very nice!!