Game looks and sounds great!

Oh, it's been so long since I've seen graphics like this... I actually missed it >< Thank you for this approach and beauty – a very special kind of beauty! It turned out really stylish (in its own way) and unique :) Thank you!

I felt that the minigames where really hard for me, but after a while i could do them consistently. It was a great experience.

This was a great entry! Well done!

For me, the strongest part of this game was the visual consistency and quality. Everything felt cohesive and was done well, there were animations, and opacity usage, effects, etc. Really great job on the attention to detail for each of the visual elements.

One improvement I would make to this game would be to start the minigames off easier. One less tone for the music, one less candle for the candles, etc. Give the player some confidence that they are "doing things right" and let them see their success early. I personally thought I was playing the game wrong or didn't understand something when I played, but I was just bad at the minigames, haha!

One nitpick was the top area scrolled. Is there a reason you didn't want to show the whole hallway? Even if the people were smaller, you could keep the icons the same size and I think it would be easier to understand that people are still there once they are off the starting screen.

This one's so tricky- and I can't stop playing! I love the look and feel you've set up!

I absolutely loved the idea! Mini-games are always a blast, and while some are really challenging, it makes the game even more exciting. Overall, it's a great experience.

Nice game idea. It has a nice graphics and that ghost tycoon game type is quite enjoyable.

Okay, the game feels very polished, awesome entry. I enjoyed the audio-visual setting a lot.
I agree with one of the previous comments: for me the minigames also were very difficult. Ideally there would be some sort of progression or a difficulty setting. Anyway, good work!

The graphics and music are great. It was a little hard to figure out play, but once I got it, it was fun. The minigames were difficult, an easier start would have helped me figure it out sooner..

Wow this is really nice! Presentation is definitely 5/5 - great music, art, theme.
There were some interesting takes on some classic mini games - particularly the twist with choosing pairs with the card swapping one. I've got a sore hand from mashing on the plates to get them to float though!
After a few goes I feel like I got the hang of it and managed 4 scares, and would definitely come back for more. Good job!

I was coming to write a comment, and realized that I agree with everything that @tobius pointed out - They took the words right out of my mouth! So, I'll try and elaborate a little bit more and avoid repeating them. :)

First off, I absolutely loved the art style that you have here - Everything was super cohesive and polished, and nothing felt out of place. It felt like the work of someone who really knows their craft, great job :)

I also really struggled with the minigames at first - The musical one, for example, felt impossible to me until I played and failed it several times in a row and got used to the scale of the notes. Starting with a smaller scale would definitely have helped, but also introducing the player to the scale at the start of the game would help give them a mental map for the memorization portion. In my case, I would often remember the pitch of a note, but have no idea which chime was mapped to that pitch because I didn't know the extents of the scale.

The matching game was also super hard for me at first because I didn't know what I was looking for during the memorization period - It wasn't until my fifth or sixth playthrough of the minigame that I realized there was a matching pair of cards that I was supposed to have been following (my original understanding of the game was that I had to click on the cards in the order that they had first appeared), and even once I knew to look out for the matching pair, I would often not find them before shuffling started. Making the matching pair have a distinct bright color would have made the objective a lot more obvious I think.

Hopefully this doesn't come across as being super critical of the game - The opposite is true; I thought it was very well made! It felt so polished and finished, with a clear vision that it was offering, that it made it very easy to offer (hopefully) constructive feedback. Really well done!

@plidomo Glad you liked the presentation! FYI, you can just hold on the plates to make them float... hopefully that helps your sore hand.

@koolruz Thanks for all the feedback! We're hoping to make some balance changes in a post-jam update, so all advice is welcome.

What a great idea, I really love the music and visuals and the gameplay is pretty interesting! I really really suck at the minigames though lol.

Amazing concept, the audio and art create a wonderful mood. Sadly, I couldn’t get far since I failed almost every mini-game, but I really love the idea, haven’t seen anything like it before!

Interesting concept, with nice music and solid visuals.
Kinda tough to play when you're sleepy though — it really demands your full attention!

Nice idea and overall style of game. Music is also perfect

really cute idea and art style! some of the mini games felt a little fast, but after a couple tries you get used to it. overall really great job! :)

Super cool and cute once it clicks what to do for each minigame and what the goal is. The minigames are soo hard though. The music very fitting for the game while not being distracting :)

Wow, really great, I love the visuals and the audio, everything really fits together and the entry feels pretty polished! I had a hard time to relate some audio cues to their meaning, there is one sound that sounded like a "success", but did play pretty regularly even if I didn't do anything, this confused me a bit. In general I found the game waaay too hard, it would've helped a lot if the minigames were easier (at least in the beginning). It took me some time to fully grasp how all the minigames work, but even when it clicked they were just too hard. I think the hint for "<- drag ->" could stay where it is instead of fading it out, at least until the player drags around the map a little bit, because I didn't see this the first 2 rounds I played.

Even though this sounds like a lot of critique, this was a really great entry and I only found these points because it was really fun!

My best score were 6 scares.

**EDIT**: I just read the comments after I wrote my own, and I fully agree with the detailed feedbacks of @koolruz @tobius :thumbsup:

All the mini games are really polished and fun to play. Art and sound is also amazing. As a hardcore mini game fan, this is 10/10

It's very hard, but the music is sooooooooooo well written! (and the SFX are in the same key, really nice!)

@skosnowich Thanks for the feedback! I think that sound you're confused about is the alert when a new person enters the map. I was going to add a visual indicator but ran out of time, so it might sound like it's just playing randomly.

@sam-gorman Oh yeah, that probably is the sound! That confused me a lot, thanks for clarifying :smile:

hover is hardest and I am pretty sure I haven't tried one mini game.

Game looks and sounds amazing. But it is way too hard. Not just a little bit too hard, a lot too hard, in multiple respects, to the point of being super frustrating.

I just played for about 15 minutes (over about 6 runs) and managed to get 2 scares during that time. The fact that there are multiple villagers coming that each need to be scared three times before they reach the end which takes about 90 seconds... even if you play all the minigames perfectly I don't see how you could scare more than 2 or 3 villagers before becoming overwhelmed, and then the game says "villagers are coming more frequently now".

The minigames themselves are all too difficult and require a lot of mouse dexterity. The fact that I don't have any choice of minigame (since I *have* to attack the frontmost villager) means I need to be good at all of them.

- Hover: Probably the easiest, but I still managed to complete it only about half the time.
- Boo: The first ~10 times I tried this I couldn't get it, and couldn't even figure out what it was asking for. When I finally did manage to click at just the right time, I kind of got the hang of it and can get it right more often than not, but the fact you have to do it 3 times means it wastes a lot of time even if played perfectly. My people were often off the screen by the time I completed it.
- Music: There are way too many chimes (bars) and they're too thin, unnecessarily requiring mouse dexterity in a puzzle about memorization. I could cope with memorizing a sequence among 5 chimes, but my brain can't cope with remembering whether it's the 8th from the left or the 9th from the left.
- Extinguish: Almost impossible to click more than 1 before the time runs out.
- Match: I can just about cope with these "follow the hidden card" game when there's one card to follow. I can't imagine ever being able to follow two at a time. I didn't feel there was even enough time to identify the two matching cards before they flip over, let alone follow both at the same time. I never beat this one.

I like the idea of this game but if I could balance it, I would drastically lower the difficulty (then maybe ramp it up after you've been playing for awhile).

1. Make each villager start with just 1 scare needed, and ramp up to 2, then 3, over time.
2. Have a health system so you don't have to stop every single villager, that way if a villager needs a scare I don't like, I can just let it go through. Heal back up if I scare a lot very quickly.
3. Hover: Reduce the time I have to keep it going for.
4. Music: Reduce the number of chimes (bars on screen) to 5 and make them fatter.
5. Extinguish: Triple the amount of time available.
6. Match: Just ask me to pick one card out of three (not match). OR don't do the shuffling (just show 5 cards, two the same, flip them after a short while, and ask me to match the two that are the same). Not both.

The games has a fun feel and concept is well displayed in the artsytle and the audio adds well to the games aesthetic and gives it the feeling of vintage horror game with with good humor however some games are extremely hard like the card game even when you try focus hard on two cards it almost seems like they almost vanish. But overall excellent idea that has been made into a good game.

such an lovely artstyle!

Awesome game.

Artwork and music are top notch! But damn are the minigames hard hahaha. Especially the match one I couldn't even beat it one time. Some tuning to ease into it as others said might have been beneficial. Like the villagers requiring two minigames at first.

I managed to get two scares after a couple of playthroughs. Super nice submission!

@matt-giuca Thanks for the detailed feedback. We did not have time to do extensive playtesting, and those who did test the game just so happened to pick up on it quickly, so the difficulty is admittedly rather high. We're working on figuring out a good set of balance changes to make once the rating period is over. The game is intended to be difficult, so more heavy changes like a health system are probably not on the table, but I'm planning on increasing the lenience of the minigames to make them less frustrating. (I _knew_ the candle game was too hard! I kept increasing the hitbox and reducing the speed throughout development, but I guess it wasn't enough. Testing the game constantly just made me too skilled a player to judge difficulty.)

I'm assuming the majority of people here are playing the web embed on this site, which is rather small, so I suspect that may be where some (albeit not all) of the difficulty is coming from. The itch.io version already had a fullscreen button, since itch.io provides one by default, but I've gone ahead and implemented an equivalent button for the ldjam.com embed, so people are no longer required to play the game at only 2x scale. Hopefully this can help reduce frustration.

This is just so clean from the start screen. All the art, music and design is so good!! (even if its too hard for me)

Looks like I would be a very poor guardian ghost. I tried, but haven't been able to scare away a single villager XD Minigames are quite hard, especialy the "Hover" one with the levitating dishes - haven't managed to finish this one even once. The overall concept is fun, I loved art and sounddesign. And those little interactions with the scene - coffin, chandeliers and staff. Good job guys!

@kamuniaft Perhaps that one is somewhat non-obvious. You can hold down the mouse on the objects to make them levitate. The trick is to not let them acquire too much downward speed, since the more they have the longer it takes to accelerate them back upward.

@python-b5 your explanation gave me some confidence - I tried once again and managed the hover game, actually now I think it's the simplest one, lol. Even scared one peasant away! Maybe I can be a ghost after all :D

So, overall, I wish there is more merciful complexity curve, like first peasants have just one slot and easily scared away. In other words, I wish I have sometime to actually manage those minigames a bit.

i like the game it was very ambitious and i think it ended up just a bit too hard -- i guess it felt more like a haloween gem hehe -- still it was fun to play and figure out each mini game and the graphics are very good -- thanks for making it

Funny game! Nicely made graphics <333

Love this entry, I think the art is really fitting and music is awesone too, really fits the tone.
I found the games a bit hard and too quick at the beginning, I would make them slower at the beginning and ramp up gradually to show the player "hey here is how you need to do it, now we go quicker", but that is just a minor thing. Well done, what a nice little game!

LOVE THE MUSIC!!!

@edison-boerke Thanks!

Always love a minigames game, not sure about the theme but really enjoyed this entry. As always with minigames, the first run was really hard, but there is no so much variety that I was lost for long

Playing is very interesting and varied, thanks to the number of mini-games. Super!

Love this game, the audio and visuals are incredibly well done. I was only able to get about 4 scares before being done in lmao. I like the wario-ware style of minigames, but it feels like things move a bit too fast - I think it could use some more downtime / visual feedback so it's easier to understand what's happening, especially when just starting out.

Overall a really solid and fun entry!

funny idea

Love the Style and idea! Nice graphics. But i had a hard time understanding what the issue with the Boo was :D Bug? To ate? Playing wrong? I needed more advice and signs if i am doing it correctly. Hard to win.

I love this game! Graphics, music and sound all fit together very well. It's a little hard though. It took me ages to succeed in hover. But overall a great game!

@norabacu It's a timing game. You need to click the button right at the end of the countdown, which you can see via the light-up ghost icons and hear via the beeping. The timing will probably be made more lenient in the future, but it's not especially tight right now if you stay on beat.

A lovely idea with a great implementation. The overall game loop and each individual minigame were fun.

The only complain I have gameplay wise is the difficulty. It is simnply too hard and this hurts the overall quality of the game, and it's a shame it be dragged down by something that is so easy to fix. Especially the music minigame, I played it maybe 15 times and I never got it right. It needs to be at least one, preferably two, notes shorter, or have fewer notes to choose from. The ghost minigame doesn't need to be played 3 times in a row, it consumes a lot of time. Also, the overall game could be a bit easier, either by having a longer room / slower villages, not to lose immediately when one villager crosses (maybe lose when X villagers cross), or need less scare minigames per villager.

Other than that, A+ on the pixel art and music. Highly polished game too.

One of the better LD entries I have played this year, congrats!

Nice entry! And quite original theme covering.

You did nice arts and mini-games, and everything feels in place.

Good music and sound design also, btw!

I think like a lot of people here - my best score is 6

Good job!

The minigames were a bit hard, specifically the match, the cards moved way too fast and it was just RNG.

Minigames are soo hard, but otherwise the game is well polished, nice graphics and good audio :thumbsup:

well polished game. though minigames are too hard. overall it's good, especially so much content for a game jam.

First, I echo everything positive and negative that has been said so far. And I just wanted to add two things.

When I was playing the music game, I thought that coloring or numbering the chimes/bars would have made it much, much easier for me. Maybe that'd make it too easy, but it always seemed like I'd know which one was hit but after following the sequence through, I couldn't tell by length alone if it was that chime or its neighbor, so I would inevitably mess myself up before completing the tune.

Second, someone before made a good point, but since not many people brought it up: I think the game would benefit from more and clearer feedback when the player does something wrong versus right versus just incidental stuff happening. A couple examples are the sound cue for a new villager entering. I didn't know what this was during the game and only learned about it in the comments, but it messed me up a few times because I thought it was a signal I had done something wrong and was about to fail a minigame or something. Second in the Boo game, there's no indication I've done the right thing, that I just need to do it three times, so I as a player assume I'm doing it wrong but am being gifted a second chance--until suddenly I'm pulled out of it because I have failed or time or ? Again, not clear what failure is or how exactly it happened. I think there's a gamedev term for this--legibility (if I'm remembering correctly). Your game is quite good and quite polished and has lots of content, but both the difficulty and the lack of legibility counteract all the good stuff the game has going for it.

Eager to see what the post jam version is like though!

Pixel art is great, and art design itself. But minigames are not very intuitive.

Great atmosphere that feels like classic games. Loved it!
The minigames were a bit challenging for me—took a while to figure out the cup puzzle. But the seamless gameplay loop and instant restart after failing were fantastic. Excellent game!

@oter Thanks for the feedback - positive or not, it's useful to have more information on what works and what doesn't with the game.

We're working on a balance patch that will be released after the rating period. Some of it is increasing the lenience of the minigames (larger hitboxes, more generous timings), and some of it is readability. Much of the problem with the game right now, I think, is that it is not immediately clear to players what the goal of each minigame is. I didn't notice this during development because, having programmed each minigame, I already knew exactly how each one worked and did not fully consider the experience of someone who didn't. We will try to work on a solution to explain the controls and aim of each minigame more clearly.

Numbering the chimes might work to aid readability. That is perhaps the hardest minigame right now; being familiar with the minor scale definitely helps, but the majority of people aren't, and seven notes is admittedly a lot to remember. The other memory game (matching) is easier as-is, but I've also tried to improve readability there for the post-jam update by sorting the matching cards above all the others, making visually tracking them easier.

The intent of the Boo minigame is to force the player to react to the different speeds of the countdown, so for that game to work properly it has to repeat multiple times. We can see about perhaps adding some kind of indicator that progress is being made. I've already gone in and heavily reduced the downtime in that minigame for the post-jam update, to make it less time-consuming (it now resets considerably faster, though not too fast as to be overwhelming).

Visual cues for both villagers entering the castle and villagers nearing the staircase were intended to be in the game, but time constraints prevented us from implementing them. I will make sure they are added to the post-jam update. The sound could also probably be replaced (or even removed), since it seems to many players it is unclear. At one point in development sounds in the hallway itself were panned to match their source, which I removed since it sounded off to me but perhaps helped connect the villager arrival sound to what it represents a bit more.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback! As frustrating as it can be to see players not having a positive experience with your game, these kinds of comments are extremely valuable. This game certainly could have done with more playtesting and balance prior to release. The one playtester we had just so happened to pick up on the game very quickly and seemed to enjoy it, which I believe is what convinced me the difficulty was fine. The game _is_ intended to be difficult, and the score numbers are not high (a "good" score is around 10 scares, I think; my best is 15), but it is not intended to be demotivating, and I apologize for that. Perhaps we spent a bit too much time on polish instead of design... but hindsight's 20/20!

Don't get me wrong, I do like the game! I think that's why everyone is giving so much feedback, because we can all see the potential this game has, and because you are going to update it after the fact. Thanks for going through your plans and thought process, if anything it reminds me just how much work went into this game in the first place (especially for two people, I forgot your team size til now, holy cow that's a lot of work).

Sorry if my or anyone's feedback was too harsh or demanding or anything, I didn't intend to give the impression I'm negative on your game :sweat_smile:

That's a really well done game and I love the aesthetics!

I do think the difficulty should have been raised more carefully as having 3 puzzle per villager from the start is a bit too much, you want player to get into the rhythm first without putting too much pressure on them, and I think it would also make sense story wise as villagers that pass through first don't expect much to happen while those that come in later are challenging their nerves as to see how far they can make it.

Some puzzles could use some work as they are way too unforgiving.
I also never figured out how to do the "Boo" thing right which didn't allow me to progress anywhere on the score. I tried timing it multiple times and it just didn't work out. I think maybe adding some sort of hint the first time player tries to do that would be a nice thing.

I'm glad that you're going to update the game and not just move on which is a sign that you're a good developer. This is how you get better and jams are all about that.

~Xp

@Empyreans Thanks for playing! We've heard a lot of confusion around how to work some of the minigames, so intuitiveness/readability are definitely going to be a focus post-jam.

Lovely entry, I really enjoyed the Warioware vibe mini games to try and haunt the right people, things got hectic at the end for me. Music, graphics and atmosphere are all very top notch!

The picture match game though was brutal, my mind trying to keep track of two cards, damn that took some skill and when under pressure too! This was one of the more polished jam games and it shows! Music was great, really fits with the atmosphere and the graphics had a nice crisp look to them, which really helped with the mini games.

This was an excellent entry one of my favourites so far! Well done!

Really loved the charming art and audio, remind me of old games which is fun

I played before seeing the comments and felt bad because I barely managed to progress, but I see many found the mini games a little too hard. I would consider starting way easier, and make them progressivly harder for the korean starcraft players later :)

Ooof this is pretty tough, the villagers move so fast, but its super cute and I like the variety of minigames. The art is cute and the sounds are nice too. The whole thing feels quite polished and with a couple tweaks to the minigames it could be really solid, nice job ^^


It's such a cool entry! I love the idea, awesome visual and sound design, mini-games themselves were also super cool. But, as others said it is a bit hard with no learning curve, which is fine - those things are easy to fix with some playtesting on real gamers/users. It also feels like it could've been a very cute game to play on phone, as it would make aiming easier. I liked this a lot and even attemted to tryhard ahaha :D nice, good job!