Room Again by SofiGnedova
Room Again
Every 10 seconds the world resets itself. Solve, save, make it on time, escape the room!
Hell is repetition. - Stephen King
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein
Life of young Werther has become hell. Every 10 seconds he wakes up in the same apartment, in the same bed, and the world resets itself every 10 seconds preventing poor young man from escaping. The only things that keep him from going insane are his memory and a supernatural ability to keep what his hands hold throughout the time cycles.
Help Werther escape from this trap.

Genre:: Hard Escape room Special feature:: Room reset every 10 seconds. Controls: - WASD - MOVE - E, Space - Pick/Use
Authors:
2D Artist: SofiGnedova (@sofignedova)
Unity developer: Extravirgin (@extravirgin)
Game Designer: Faust_Mi (@faust-mi)
Voice and Sound: Maxim Pankov (@qiweister)
Translator: Maria (@dronekeeper)
Author Background music: anonymous fix Source: https://opengameart.org/content/dark-and-desperate-intro License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
| Link | https://teriyak.itch.io/roomagain |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/room-again |
Ratings
| Overall | 79th | 4.107⭐ | 226🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 192th | 3.861⭐ | 225🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 159th | 3.858⭐ | 224🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 72th | 4.279⭐ | 226🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 77th | 4.429⭐ | 228🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 72th | 4.185⭐ | 226🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 195🗳️ | 275🗨️ |
I liked a lot!
Very nice work!!!
Great art, moody music and nice puzzle design. Great entry!
Loved the whole thing. Really great work.
I really love Jam games like this. The artstyle and the music was also great. very impressive
When I managed to get to the last step first time, I was like "oh no, I can not do this all again in 10 seconds" But you made it to be done in manageable steps.
I had great time with this game, maybe best one so far I have played. Art is great and music and atmosphere is great as well. Well done game!
Well done team !
It could have been point and click, and it is not, and I think that's *very* smart. The controls are slightly imprecise. Nothing bad from a UX standpoint. But they leave you struggling a *little* to do what you want. And from this springs the very immersive anxiety, of shuffling, your hands trembling, with the rising fear of having to start everything all over again. It's feverish. It really drives the immersion home.
I think the controls would not feel this imprecise if you weren't always pressed by the clock. I also believe they could feel better with some polish, highlighting the interactive elements, maybe an other control scheme...
But I'm really glad you didn't do that. I'm glad - because for this experience, this is the perfect game feel.
It's never dramatic to start over because of that ruthless, extremely efficient, 10 seconds loop. I think there's genius in the way these 10 seconds squash and stretch depending on the context. Sometimes feeling extremely long as you're waiting, your single battery in hand, to start the cycle over again, and more often than not feeling incredibly short.
You really played in that space, with the texture you could give these 10 seconds you were working with; and I believe, for such a short experience, with so few words, you really did a wonderful job with the narrative design, and the ludo-narrative consonnance. The atmosphere, the aesthetic of the visual and the puzzle design are all really good.
Ultimately this is a game that leaves you with more questions than answers, and that's very much my thing. Who's jo? That singular voice clip about the key? It's so jarring and strange to only have that voice clip, for something obvious as well, because, well, there's a lock on the door - but it really adds to the experience. Never explain or try to justify that kind of things. Great, great mood. Awesome job and congratulations to the team.
Also, I really liked graphics, it creates good atmosphere and mood.
Great job!
Nice entry overall
Other suggestion would be something like extra signal that you threw up something through window. I was spamming E key and first time after smashing it it seems also that I threw glass shard through it. And because of that I was stuck for long moment.
The puzzle mecanics work really well, and 10 sec is just what is needed to finish the game.
Being able to keep only one item is a very clever idea, and make the whole thing interesting.
The art style fits the atmosphere very well.
I didn't know what to do with the ax for a while. I just didn't notice anything changing in the inventory. After that everything was clear!
Should anything happen after the three pictures after the escape?
It seems like something is missing here.
-- Unfortunately, this picture ends the game. Thanks for playing!
A pretty cool loop. It is very good to learn the sequence of what you have to do. One of the most complete games I've seen so far.
Congratulations!!
Clever use of the theme, keeping the item in the inventory opened interesting possibilities. The graphics, music and sounds are spot on, creating a great atmosphere.
I really have nothing to criticize, maybe just that I thought the game bugged out at the end with the 3 pictures. Also it was pretty short, I want more :smile:
Excellent work!
The mood was amazing, it looks polished and the difficulty of the puzzles was just right, the 10 second span and character's speed allowed to try enough combinations of items to not make it frustrating to have it reset that quick.
Great entry! I enjoyed it ^^
Dark but very intreresting!
I had fun figuring it out!
The graphics are also great.
Could use a little bit more feedback, but honestly all ld games do ahah
À great entry, congrats!
Either way, it was a very enjoyable gaming experience! great atmosphere !
I do have two issues. The first may be somewhat personal, but I think E is a strange key to bind a Search action, when you're using WASD for movement. Normally, unless you're using a mouse in your right hand, you use the arrows key for movement in games like these. Then E would've been fine. My problem is not with WASD though, that is understandable and commonplace. But then the search should've been bound to something like the Space key, since the thumb is idling. The E key you have to press with your index finger, which is also used for D right movement. They can sort of get in the way of each other.
I'm sorry I know I sound very nitpicky right now, but I actually did feel this way during my playthrough, and I felt that I had to tell you. This is not going to affect my game rating, it's just a very minor heads up to help you consider this in future game design, beyond Ludum Dare. You either have to make your keys customizable and/or have them not hinder each other.
The second is that there was no clear indication of an ending. You might want a The End or a To Be Continued... sign. They're almost obligatory, and honestly I stalled for a couple of seconds waiting for the story to progress.
Sorry, I did not mean to write this long. It really was a nice game, something I can definitely play for longer. Great job!
check out my jam game!
I had some experiences I THINK were bugs (the voiceline "here's johny" plays when I open the locker, and the locker breaks when I open it with a key, despite me not holding an axe) but otherwise the gameplay was smooth.
This is definitely a case of "Doing a lot with very little": The only real mechanic is "you keep the item in your inventory when time runs out".
The style is cool, the sounds are good, the intro comic was good at explaining the mechanic.
Nice!
@tranzit Yep, this game have only one lvl ^^ We wanted to make a small game and polish it well. Thank you :heart:
[Stream vod here!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1611166734?t=01h01m21s)
And it also seemed to me that you in life also look like a capybara hehe
Thanks for playing the game! \o/
The intro was a very good idea! It gave an introduction to the machanics and gave the player a way to start.
What was the Stoolcode for? I did not have to use that? Or just an easteregg I don't get? :up:
The graphics are very well put together. Is it all drawn on the computer? Or by hand first? I could not tell. It is very well fitted to the mood you where going with. The music completed it.
Well done :)
Keep on doing !!
Keep on doing !!
I was thinking of doing something like this myself, but didn't have enough inspiration for the puzzles. You have done a great job!
The ending was a bit weird as I was kind of left there wondering if I should do something or if it's bugged.
(bonus points for the Shining reference, was thinking the exact same thing)
I love the fact that there is a phase of discovery, one loop per item, then a aha I have to do two things ! oh no wait it's three ! and then a Frantically running around to achieve the perfect order of steps. It's amazing to have such a nice and complex three loop run.
keep up the good work.
[Here's a link to the VOD](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1619345236?t=0h50m00s)
the atmosphere and art are very nice and coherent. the ending is a bit anticlimatic, but the way to get there is really clever! good job!
*But I need one more level…*
One little thing that annoyed me was that using the glass shard on the windows seems to cause it to cease to exist, and I did this on accident a couple of times since I wanted to "pick up a glass shard" and didn't realize that it had automatically picked one up already.
I thought the stool code was a hint for some puzzle but it seemed to be unrelated.
The art style is quite good, and it reminds me a lot of Don't Starve.
10 seconds worked out to be a pretty good amount of time for your level design, where as long as I planned out my actions I was able to do everything with a second or two to spare.
Thanks for submitting your game to stream!
Very charming art on this. :slight_smile: I felt like the 10 seconds was maybe a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit too tight in some puzzles, but whaddaya gonna do about the theme I guess. :shrug: Nice job! Always enjoy a good escape room puzzle.
The art style is great, and nice sounds. I find the music slightly annoying after awhile, but the mood is good :-)
Thanks for a cool game!
"I didn’t understand if I finished the game, or if it was another puzzle to solve at the end screen."
It's a neat puzzle and an original interpretation of the theme. Very well done! And I absolutely loved the "Here's Johnny" when he picks up the axe :laughing: Many small references you sprinkled around are great, but this one is my absolute favorite.
My only gripe is that I couldn't use the piece of glass on the curtain to create a rope. And when I tried, the piece of glass just disappeared (maybe Werther throws it out of the window in his Sorrow ;)).
Once I got past this, I find the way the reset mechanic interacts with the puzzles is very interesting. The end felt like it came too quickly and left me wanting more satisfying puzzles :)
Very polished and fun entry in every category for me, I only wish it was longer
p.s. Under the time pressure, I had a hard time hitting interactables right consistently, would be nice if the triggers were slightly more lenient
@fae-pdf "jo" is the first part of "johnny" as in "here's johnny", a the shining reference. Nice little misdirection for what to use the axe for!

I do gotta agree with the comment above, "Here's Johnny" reference was kinda funny.
The sequences were just long enough for 10 seconds, though I did miss a button press a couple of times and ran out of time because of it, which would've been fine if not for the fact that I then had to take the battery again and wait 10 seconds.
Overall a really cool and atmosperic experience, and I only really wished there had been more :)
What a small a nice creation actually, love the art style and mood of the game. As well it's not really annoying to play through due to smart usage of the mechanic you've developed. Nicely done!
Thank you for a submition!
the art is also cool I really like tha "starve" vibe!
Very good work 😀👍
The art style reminds me of Tim Burton and Don't Starve in a great way, and the look is completely cohesive. The core gameplay loop is really simple and clever. I would love to see a longer game based on this design.
I was stuck for a little bit after getting the rope because I thought I'd have to go through the entire loop again to break the glass, but luckily I realised I only needed to get the axe, and from then I could take my time and get ready until I could complete the final sequence in the timespan allowed.
Might be one of my favourite jam entries as a whole. For a 72-hour game, there are no obvious weak spots or places missing polish that stick out. Really good.