THE HORSE WE MADE by cesta

[raw]
made by cesta for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

The Horse We Made

The Horse We Made is an experimental project exploring themes of active imagination, hypnosis, human character, and the alter ego. The horse is your soul — no further explanation.

As for the team, we are two college students who are always dreaming about games, but rarely creating them. We are both interested in alternative approaches to game design, and this project is our way of challenging ourselves once again. We wouldn’t call this a finished game, but rather a prototype — something that still deserves time, care, and refinement. If you decide to play our project, we hope it doesn’t challenge your nerves too much. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time, Kristýna & Anna

TitulImage (1).png

Controls
- wasd for movement
- choose one of three words per room and type its first letter - door = d - if you meet a horse you can restart your journey by clicking esc and returning to menu

The webgl takes a while to load but it works i promise :)

Minor bug fixes - 22.4 pause menu function, scene change malfunction

Ratings

Overall 502th 3.484⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Fun 575th 3.156⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 92th 3.953⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Theme 793th 2.5⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Humor 195th 3.464⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 183th 4.047⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Given 38🗳️ 40🗨️

Feedback

insomniapill
Apr 21st · 15:47 UTC
Interesting form of storytelling, seems like an interactive gallery. Even with the lack of narrative, which is overall not needed, my soul was touched. The game made me think, feel and reflect on myself.
uvwar
Apr 22nd · 00:41 UTC
What did you mean by the 'enter the first letter' bit? I walked through the floor and one point and then got to a round room at the end of the corridor but wasnt sure what to do beyond that.
🎤 cesta
Apr 22nd · 06:54 UTC
@insomniapill Thank you so much for your kind comment!! it means a lot to us that someone can connect with our game :heart:
🎤 cesta
Apr 22nd · 07:02 UTC
@uvwar Sorry for the confusion. In each room, select one of three words by typing its first letter on your keyboard. The first room acts as a tutorial where you enter 'd' for 'door' to learn the mechanic. hope this helps!
uvwar
Apr 22nd · 14:37 UTC
@cesta Ah ok, I thought I tried that but didn't get past the hallway area, it worked this time! I got the fish ending, although the menu stopped working once I got there. I had fun exploring the various rooms!
🎤 cesta
Apr 22nd · 14:43 UTC
@uvwar thank you for letting me know ill fix the issue :) im glad to hear that! thank you sm for playing our game
Dennis
Apr 26th · 15:54 UTC
Interesting idea. Maybe it would be better if the first word wasn’t “door” but “enter,” since with “D” you also move to the right. And at the edges of the scene, colliders would be quite useful or, if you want players to be able to fall off, a collider underneath the scene that triggers the escape menu.
Zettelkasten
Apr 26th · 15:55 UTC
I think this game has a lot of potential! I love the laser scans (is that how you made it?) and the overall chaos.

I first couldn't figure out that you need to press the initial letters to progress (I was typing the whole word which somehow didn't work + it's also confusing that the first stage is "D" and WASD includes D already), but after reading the description here it was fine.
johnnyalfonso
Apr 26th · 16:05 UTC
Technical issues:
- The web player had issues playing it - and the unity logo stayed in the foreground of the screen
- The Windows EXE will just stay running when i hit QUIT in the main menu, so i had to End the Process in the task manager
- Hitting ESC required 2 presses before bringing up the menu.

I thought the direction was fun, and liked the different rooms set up like a digital art exhibition/museum. I would spend time in the rooms looking at the different models / art

The messages at the end were a bit too direct or on-the-nose to me. It felt too much that the author's concrete thoughts or opinions then blended into the piece, rather than being able to form my own interpretation. I feel like having a simple title of the piece, or trying to make the piece closer reflect what the message was trying to convey would have left more of an impact, and would leave more open to the player's own interpretation or "soul."

With that being said, i think i got all the endings and played thru the whole thing, and i enjoyed my time in the game.
ionhaven
Apr 26th · 16:08 UTC
Technical issues
🎤 cesta
Apr 27th · 15:03 UTC
@dennis ohh yes you are right that didnt even cross my mind haha, thank you for letting me know. Yes we wanted do add a killzone but i didnt have the time for it, but thank you so much for playing our game!!thank u for the tipss
🎤 cesta
Apr 27th · 15:07 UTC
@zettelkasten Thank you for your comment, yes! those are 3D scans, scanned with a phone, some of them are ours but some of them we had to download from polycam, ive listed all the sources in the pdf file, so thats why we had to back out of graphics. Ohh yes the controls are a bit confusing but im glad you figured it out in the end :) again thank u for playing
🎤 cesta
Apr 27th · 15:15 UTC
@johnnyalfonso Thank you so much for your honest feedback!! It really helps us improve and learn for the future. And we appreciate sm that you played the whole game. The technical issues we are stil trying to figure out, if you have any tips how to export the game better let us please know
GeraldFIngBurke
Apr 27th · 15:49 UTC
This is some high concept stuff! Particularly enjoyed the 'drink' scene. That could just be something inside of me, though.
Justine D
Apr 27th · 15:54 UTC
I'm a bit confused by the goal of the game or what message it's trying to convey, but that was an interesting experience. The art had an eerie feel to it, makes the whole thing kinda surreal.
I had some issues:
- I'm on an azerty keyboard, and while WASD was correctly auto remapped to ZQSD, the letters I had to type for the words weren't (had to type "," for "m" for example)
- Hitting esc on web player exits the fullscreen so restarting was a bit of a hassle, I suggest using another keybind next time
- for some reason the mouse sensitivity after "door" becomes super low and I have to move my mouse a lot more just to turn around
Ben Morledge-Hampton
Apr 27th · 18:13 UTC
Something about this is very captivating! The gameplay is simple, but the sense of mystery and exploration is really well done. I did a few quick playthroughs and was impressed at how much variety there was between the different scenes. How did you build the 3D environments? They look like they were created from photos but are somehow distorted. It gives everything a dream-like quality that I think works very well.

Also, it's worth noting that it's very easy to fall out of the map if you stray too far out of the scenes. An easy fix for this would be to track the player's vertical position and move them back to the spawn location of each scene if they fall too far.
jelch
Apr 29th · 04:00 UTC
I thoroughly enjoyed this.
ectucker1
Apr 29th · 04:09 UTC
Very interesting method of storytelling here. Reminds me a lot of LSD: Dream Emulator.
🎤 cesta
Apr 29th · 13:10 UTC
@justine-d Thank you for playing and for the feedback! We had no idea that such problems could happen with the keyboard. Thank you so much for letting us know and we will keep that in mind next time!
🎤 cesta
Apr 29th · 13:10 UTC
@justine-d Thank you for playing and for the feedback! We had no idea that such problems could happen with the keyboard. Thank you so much for letting us know and we will keep that in mind next time!
🎤 cesta
Apr 29th · 13:23 UTC
@ben-morledge-hampton Thats so good to hear thank you sooo much!!! Yes the 3D enviroments are some from various 3D scans put together into a composition and others our own 3D models and playing with textures :blue_heart:

Also thanks for the note!! We had plans for adding atleast a killzone but with the time limit we completly forgot
hoarime
Apr 30th · 04:23 UTC
enter the first letter of the word that resonates with you:

love

this

game
Jim jagers
Apr 30th · 22:48 UTC
The environments where quite beautiful
picross
May 01st · 02:42 UTC
Very cool. Reminded me a bit of LSD Dream Emulator, yall should do the LSDJAM this year if you get the chance! The soccer/football field reminded me of the game Despelote. Really enjoyed my time once I figured it out!
Skleembof
May 01st · 04:25 UTC
The sores don't last forever... This was an interesting experience. Definitely one of the most unique LD entries I've ever played. I played it twice but unfortunately the second time I ended up in prison. Not sure what that says about me. Maybe I shouldn't second guess myself
Chaseplays
May 01st · 04:57 UTC
I loved this one so much more than I expected to. I don't know what I felt while I was playing but it was definitely something? You guys made easily the most unique game I've played this jam, thank you for creating this experience :pray:
ljol3
May 05th · 03:40 UTC
this was a series of self-actualization
EllaS
May 06th · 06:27 UTC
I love the many different routes you're able to take. Also, loved the bizarre factor!!!
Hazel C
May 08th · 13:09 UTC
I was drawn in by the cover, and then completely amazed by the game!

I really love this art style, especially the way the scenes and typography are combined.

The only pity is that I played it directly through this interface because it said “Mac is not supported,” so the lag was quite high, and my camera often got stuck in the walls or outside the scene models.
🎤 cesta
May 08th · 14:44 UTC
@hazel-c Im so happy you liked the game and the art style! Sorry about the lagging, we should have made a Mac build as well, but thank you so much for playing anyway!
zhangzhimu
May 09th · 04:27 UTC
This cover is too abstract, hahaha. It's really attractive. The idea is also very interesting and humorous, and it is a highly complete game.