Riddles In the Dark

by lex-randea

co-authored: @jorne, @sepp, @h-m-murdock

Overall★★★★★★★★★★2.67

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.52

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.65

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.33

Audio★★★★★★★★★★2.10

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.08

Overview
========
In this game you descend into a dark dungeon in order to retrieve treasures. However, you need to solve riddles to descend deeper and deeper with the elevator. When you are stuck, try to search for a clue in the level. Controls are regular arrows or WASD and mouse. Left button to interact, right button for a little more light.

How much treasure can you gather?

Updates
=======
Fist windows build is our original submission.

The html5 build of our latest version

- 26/04/2021 - *Base Game* - Functional but rough around the corners.
- 27/04/2021 - *Bug fixes* - Solved clue render problem and added random player thoughts
- 28/04/2021 - *Major Update* - Added options menu, introduction level and ambient music
- 29/04/2021 - *Minor Update* - Attempt to make online performance better (+ added M for menu)

Second windows build of our latest version (best performance)

Controls
=========
- *Movement*: arrow keys or WASD
- *Camera controls*: mouse
- *Interact*: left mouse button
- *Toggle flash light*: right mouse button
- *Main Menu*: ESC or 'M'

Screenshots
===========

Credits
=========

Team:
- Alexander - @lex-randea - Player Programming
- Jorne - @Jorne - Elevator Programming, Level Design
- Sepp - @Sepp - Riddle and Clue Design, Level Design, Sound Design
- Hervé - @h-m-murdock - 3D modelling (elevator), Level Design, Play Testing

Assets:
- Ambient music by Zapsplat
- Sound comes from Free Sound and ZapSplat
- Level building blocks from Low Poly Modular Dungeon Pack

Genres: adventure

Tools: Unity

Comments17

MicroChasm27 Apr 2021, 19:23

The game is an interesting little space to explore, and the idea of solving riddles is nice. I'm always down for a Tolkien reference for sure. I didn't hear any audio-- some music and sound effects would have gone a long way to increase the atmosphere. There were also some technical issues-- on the second floor the object that was supposed to have the clue was displayed with Unity's pink material-not-found color. There were also many objects placed directly on top of other objects, causing z-fighting. When you picked up objects, the camera's near-plane caused clipping. The level design could have guided the player move clearly as well, as it was it was easy to get lost since each direction looks similar. Speaking of communication, the red rope on the door tells the player that they are not allowed to leave, but then they are expected to move right through it. It's important to think about what you are communicating and teaching the player about the space. Overall, nice environment and good concept, very Indiana Jones.

Lex Randeaauthor27 Apr 2021, 19:44

@microchasm Thanks for trying out the game and give us some feedback. We were a bit in a rush to submit and are aware that there are still a lot of bugs. We hope to add some improvements on Friday. The lack of guidance in the levels is intentional, but maybe not so fun for the player.

Canijo27 Apr 2021, 19:48

I agree, music would have made it more interesting, and some better UI design. If you take care of the details you can improve the experience a lot! Nice work though

Lex Randeaauthor27 Apr 2021, 20:43

@canijo thanks for the feedback. Normally there should be footstep and elevator noise. We'll look into why to sound got lost.

MaratG228 Apr 2021, 16:20

I don't know why, maybe it's only when I was playing - FOV and sensitivity were intimidating, to the level of headache. Though solving riddles is an interesting idea, and graphics itself is fine. Thank you for the game!

frompdx28 Apr 2021, 16:22

The flashlight is a nice touch to the atmosphere of the game. One difficulty I had is that the look sensitivity is very sensitive which made navigation sort of difficult. It looks like maybe there were going to be some options to adjust this but I was not able to access the options menu at the start of the game.

Szkocka28 Apr 2021, 16:41

Hello,
I really liked the riddles(Iam really bad at them tbh). The models look nice, the objects look good, the walls clip a little but that nothing bad. Had fun, would recommend ;)

phil_lesnar28 Apr 2021, 17:09

The Elevator model was nicely matched with the Modular Dungeon Pack. I had trouble progressing at first, but I eventually figured it out.

Lex Randeaauthor28 Apr 2021, 20:46

@maratg2 and @frompdx thanks for the feedback. I updated the game and added the options menu so that players can tweak the mouse sensitivity, player movement and FOV to their liking. Additionally we also added some ambient music in an attempt to improve the immersion.

Lex Randeaauthor28 Apr 2021, 20:48

@phil-lesnar if you want more riddles you can check https://www.riddles.com/ and https://www.pocoyo.com/en/riddles/hard

Lex Randeaauthor28 Apr 2021, 20:49

@phil-lesnar you made our 3D modeler happy :)

MaratG229 Apr 2021, 02:36

@lex-randea Huge! Thank you!

Fenderbate29 Apr 2021, 09:35

I like the game and I wish I could finish it, but the constant lag spikes were really nausiating so I had to stop :(

the_ShaderMaster29 Apr 2021, 13:11

Congrats on chruning this out @lex-randea !

Lex Randeaauthor29 Apr 2021, 16:39

@the-shadermaster thanks for the heads up ;)

Lex Randeaauthor29 Apr 2021, 17:05

@fenderbate Sorry to hear that. I added an updated windows build which should have better performance than the html5 version.

someone8 May 2021, 20:46

Good riddles, terrible performance.
I assume I got to the end. the elevator wouldn't go down any further.
I went back up again and all the gold had respawned. Ended up with 18522.

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