Using the sun god Ra’s love of humans, Apep tricked him into turning himself into a mortal to spend some time among his people. Wielding his chaotic powers Apep attempts to slay Ra.
Failing to kill the immortal god Apep instead separated his body into numerous canopic jars and spread them throughout the land.
The mortal realm is now in chaos and the world is unstable. Is up to you, Anubis, to collect the canopic jars containing Ra’s mortal remains and join them so that Ra can once again fight away the chaos brought to the universe by Apep.
*Gameplay*
Run around the levels collecting all the glowing canopic jars. The world around you is unstable. Standing on single blocks will cause them to sink. You can also push single blocks horizontally. Some canopic jars will require you to move blocks around until they are reachable. Once all jars are collecting you will automatically continue to the next level.
*Tools used:*
Ableton Live 11 Lite, Audacity, Bfxr, Quixel mixer, Wings3D, Blender, Milkshape 3D, Gimp, Tiled, Materialize, Visual Studio 2019, SFML
Hint, if you get stuck you can sometimes use nearby enemies to knock you through a couple of blocks which will allow you to split blocks in a bunch of new ways.
The game no ending a loops once you reach the final level.
Bugfix_1* Was released 2021-10-07 to default the window to the centre of the screen and to allow players to resize and move the window. Which should fix the issue when the window seems to end up outside the desktop. It also includes the OpenAL32 DLL and a couple of preconfigured resolutions including fullscreen and no_shaders. The only new code is that resizing and moving the window has been enabled the rest was available in the original release and just wasn't included in the game description.
The game is hard. Still I found the gameplay fun? I dunno, it's like those games where you don't really know what makes it fun but still manages to be compelling. I also really respect that you managed to create a captivating but at the same time simple narrative, which I did not manage to do so big props on that. Great job!
I'm definitely intrigued, this is like a fever dream. For some reason all the sprites are squished with their normal map showing below, but with the trippy music I didn't even realize it (I thought all enemies were balancing on pink and blue soda cans for some reason, because why not?). The levels are somewhat confusing, but I appreciate that they offer so many solutions; it definitely suits the theme when you push a block the wrong way and accidentally fall through the ground into your goal. It straddles the line where I'm never sure if I'm doing what I'm "intended" to do. At the volcano level (it's shaped like a volcano with two thick platforms along the center passage) I keep falling through the floor though, which crashes the game. Is there a level select? I really wanna try to beat this game.
@bobertsson Yeah, a lot of the block moving and shoving is intentionally unstable to make the game more dynamic, but there seems to be bug where it sometimes possible to fall through the floor and crash the game.. That instability wasn't planned :-)
It also sounds like you computer can't handle the pixelshaders I'm using (since you can see the normalmaps).
You can run the game with "CurseOfApep.exe no_shaders" to turn off the shaders.
Very fun game! Reminds me computer games from the 90s' ah ah The main mechanics is fun but the collision bugs make it really hard to reach the end of the game. The sound and egyptian mood are great, well done!
@bobertsson Sorry there's no level select but if you go into the "maps" directory for CurseOfApep you can just rename the level-files and play them in any order you wish.
The window drew at the top corner of my screen, almost offscreen, and the 4th level my character was offscreen getting hit by stuff I couldn't see? Tried to move the window/maximise to help but couldn't seem to solve that one. maps/level4.tmx seems to have a top row, I just couldnt' see it. I like the style, the effects and the mood, so apart from the issue above, I think it was great fun!
Hi, congrats on your project! As said by other commenters I feel unnecessary that you need to install drivers for it to work, plus the screen was drawn at the top left corner of the monitor, effectively giving me half the view. Music and graphics are nice.
The music and sound design are excellent, as well as the art and the aesthetic in general. I love moving around bits of the unstable world to get through the levels. However, I had the same problem as @jose-bonilla which made it essentially unplayable not being see most of the map. I'd definitely revisit this one if there's a bugfix
@oliver-richmeier@jose-bonilla I can't really reproduce the issue you're having. Sure the window opens in the top left corner, but the entire map is visible. It would be great if one of you could post a screenshot so I can get an idea as to what it looks like on your computers.
@cogcomp Here is a screenshot of the main menu, as well as the taskbar preview which shows exactly how much is being cut off. Usually the character is dead before I can actually get them onscreen
As was said previously, the game is a bit glitchy, but I liked the overall feel. Also, you used very unusual tools for development and it gives game some different feel, in my opinion.
Thanks for all the help @oliver-richmeier . I've uploaded a version that defaults to the centre of the screen and allows moving/resizing the window plus a bunch of other settings have been exposed via bat-files. Hopefully one of these should work fine on your system.
@cogcomp no problem at all, and seriously awesome game, played until it looped. quite slippery to control but the level design is great, especially level 7. love how there's multiple ways to get to the jars
This game has such a great atmosphere! It feels like "real": a little plastic guy/ figure in a surreal toy land which defies gravity. The sound is very repetitive, but even in all the minutes this was no problem. The glitchiness somehow fits very well ... the game and the ludum dare theme.
Mechanic is little hard to grasp, some visual indicators would be nice to understand blocks possible movements, but random wiggling helped me through most levels.
Good work on post-processing, and lightning is awesome too:)
Anything I would have added to suggestions or remarks seem to have been covered already by other people. Played to the end (I assume, it just kicked me back to the beginning.) Good game!
Nice platformer. One of the sound effects is a bit jarring, but the music is nice. I will score art style base on the video in the first comment, since, for some reason, the game on my pc looks like this:
Neat full featured menu screen, nice graphics and a cool game-over animation! I also feel that the move vertical vs. move horizontal blocks puzzle gimmick was inspired, and matches the theme. (Though it can get a bit glitchy when the enemies bump you into level-geometry... while that does _also_ feel unstable, I don't think that that's what was intended.)
However, this falls into the pitfalls of a lot of pre-2000s puzzle games, in that not only are there enemies (fair enough) and often have zero to do with the puzzle at hand (ok, that can happen), but are seemingly placed to frustrate the player (the crawling ones most notably). I think that's what the other commenters where getting at too, as yes, it is hard, but that didn't necessarily _have_ to be a bad thing. This type of hardness is just made out of frustration though. (Also true of the lightning effects ... if the monster-placement had been different, this would've indeed helped make the game more tense and atmospheric. It still does partly, but now it's become part of the frustration as well).
Overall _definitely_ not bad for a compo, I just don't really feel the pull to play any further, which is a shame.
@zimny11 Your computer doesn't seem to be able to handle the shaders. Thank you for rating based on the video instead. You can run the game without shaders using the "no_shaders" commandline argument or starting it with the "CurseOfApep-No-shaders.bat" file.
Here's a playthrough: