Abyss' Stare

by vinicius-pessoa

co-authored: @daniel-malcher, @olga-leao, @natalia-cavalcante, @willians, @yasser-tuma

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.50

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.95

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.34

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.40

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.74

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.25

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.95

Topic

While Unstable could have many meanings, the lack of stability that comes with the lack of control you have when you're stared down by an eldritch being while the world around you collapses is what we decided to interpret it as :smile:

Gameplay

Abyss' Stare is an horror platformer with very simple mechanics: Jump to the other side! Be wary of the eldritch entity hiding within the shadows, searching for you with it's eye. Seek temporary shelter behind several walls, but proceed with caution: stay for too long and you'll be discovered. Time your movements when its not looking and escape is guaranteed.

Controls

W,A,S,D or arrow keys movement
Spacebar for jump

Team

Daniel Malcher (Programming and Art)

Natália Cavalcante (Programming)

Olga Leão (Level Design)

Vinícius Pessoa (Programming)

Willians Amaral (Programming)

Yasser Tuma (Programming)

Check the game out in GameJolt!
https://gamejolt.com/games/abyss-stare/652647

Comments15

MrChippy5 Oct 2021, 00:55

I really like your take on the theme and the lighting looks nice. The timing is too tight though. It took a while to even get though the first room with an eye because of how precise it is.

SeaM00se5 Oct 2021, 00:55

This game was really fun! I enjoyed trying to escape the evil eye through some of the levels. The pixel art in the game was good, but I feel like I missed out on some. I couldn't get very far because the game was very difficult, like It took me forever to just barely get past the first level.

LDJam user 2508255 Oct 2021, 22:23

Cool aesthetics! Really wish there was checkpoints in each room though as it's very difficult so getting sent to the beginning is pretty punishing.

Daniel Malcher5 Oct 2021, 22:40

@mrchippy @bqq @seam00se Thank you so much for the feedback! The game's difficulty really was something that ended up being overlooked, specially with the lack of a proper tutorial so some mechanics were misunderstood by players. Sadly, we did not have a lot of time to do proper playtesting and by the time we thought about changing the difficulty, it was almost submission time so we had to let go. However we'll take it into consideration for a future game or jam!

LDJam user 2508255 Oct 2021, 22:44

@daniel-malcher Yea that happens to me every time without enough playtesting as well :D It's so easy to get used to your own game and make it too hard

baconharemthug5 Oct 2021, 22:53

The mood is very well-tuned, and the graphics and sound effects work well together to build the atmosphere. I agree with others that the timing felt way too tight.

P.S. your game link seems to be dead.

I had to manually look up the game on GameJolt to find it.

Daniel Malcher5 Oct 2021, 22:56

@baconharemthug I'm so sorry, the issue has been fixed now. Thank you for still giving the game a try! :D

Ravenmages5 Oct 2021, 23:52

Interesting take on the theme! The graphics suit your style of game well. Overall, I enjoyed this :). Nice work!

Kyrell6 Oct 2021, 00:16

Love the art style!

blobo6 Oct 2021, 16:27

I think it's way too punishing to send the player all the way to the first level every time they make a mistake. All it does is eventually frustrate the player. If you want them to learn by dying, the consequences for dying have to be minimal. Other than that, the art is nice, and I love the spooky aesthetic.

Daniel Malcher6 Oct 2021, 17:02

@100th-coin Thank you for your feedback! The issue ties back to the difficulty sadly. We made a few checkpoints (the door you find in the prologue level) and scattered them around, but it seems like people are dropping the game before getting to them. We also took notes about lowering the consequence of death, that really is something we should've taken into consideration after deciding not to have a tutorial.
Sorry for the frustration and thank you so much for your insight! :D

rufson10 Oct 2021, 03:23

Probably the first game here that uses stereo sound panning to build mood. I like the sound of the door opening from left to right, but the sound of the footsteps looping is a bit repetitive (I do this trick:randomly varying the audio speed on foot step when I have just one audio sample)I will add an extra stars for stereo implementation in the overall category. You've made a difficult game!
I still trying to jump thru 3th eye :sweat_smile:

Daniel Malcher11 Oct 2021, 12:27

@rufson That is a very clever solution! We are making some adjustments on the game and one of them was change the walk animation so there's a bigger gap between the steps, but we might also apply that alongside some different audio samples. Thank you so much!

haivron16 Oct 2021, 14:40

Wow, the atmosphere makes you feel uncomfortable really quick! The ambient sounds, scary SFX, unexpected light bulb pops, 2D lights with shadow casters... everything sets the mood perfectly. The only thing breaking the flow for me is the timing being too tight. Just a couple of extra seconds would be way better at least in the first few levels. Very solid entry, congrats to the whole team!

Macbarette18 Oct 2021, 17:34

Very cool atmosphere, but the game is unclear so i wasn't able to pass the first eye.