Worm Out

Cool game, just the right amount of tense. The level design is nice, but sometimes I couldn't understand how to progress further. Good job!

Good game, maybe add a bullet limit.

We did a patch to fix the sounds, for some reason they didn't load because of a bug on them, and not hearing monsters was a big problem to play the game, so hopefully the game is more fair now !

Nice game. Great athmosphere and graphics. The two points of constructive feedback I have is that I somtimes got wormed without understanding why, and and would have been nice to get the instructions in the game aswell. Overall a great game. Nice work.

The atmosphere is impressive, and the management of the character's limited vision works hand in hand with it. I just sometimes had trouble clearly discerning the creatures' FX from other ambient noises, but other than that I loved browsing your game :D

Very cool top down shooter, the sound is very good for the mood of the game. It laks of narration or objective to be honnest, like point of interest (read things or turn on the light to see better etc...). The atmosphere is creepy and very good, that's a good job ! PS:no pause game in the inventory its cruel.

worm

Actually very good atmosphere in this game, I love the background sound and effects, this game is actually scary even in daylight with headphones, that's impressive. Took me a couple of tries to figure out how to proceed further(I finally found the first gate card) - nice level design. Couple suggestions:
- my PC mouse sensitivity is pretty high, an option to reduce it in the game would be nice
- the texts "press F to pickup" should be centered to the windows, sometimes they're upside down based on where the player is looking
- being able to open gates without removing the weapon in hands would be more natural, although it increases the panic level which is not bad considering the horror genre
- to take another item it's not very obvious that you should drop the one in the inventory first, maybe auto item replacement on pickup would be better, or a message that the inventory is full
- that one fast screaming creature really increased my anxiety levels, not gonna say thanks for that, but good job
- somewhat of instant animation or sound upon pressing reload button would give more expected feedback (pistol) on the start I wasn't sure if it started reloading after pressing R or not. The shotgun feedback is good
- I think I got a bug when I reloaded the shotgun and couldn't fire, it just won't work until a creature got me
- probably some more health would feel more natural, dying to one contact with a creature sometimes frustrating, when you progressed in the game

I love it ! The light system and creature in darkness is really cool, sometimes you have to freeze as you don't know where the monster come from and look all around, really good game feel. Audio is great, graphics too, I liked the ending screen too !

The only issue is that sometimes you don't know what killed you, maybe make the player die and keep the game running to see the creature that killed you ? Cos twice I've been killed by the faster worm and I thought it was a bug as I didn't see nor hear it. The time interval to shoot it is very short, maybe it would be easier if it's sound would be louder OR player camera larger (to have more time to shoot it) OR slower it's movement ?

Otherwise the inventory system is working great, no bug found, great job !
In overall I loved it, especially because it's playing with light / visibility, moreover ambiance, sound design and graphics are great !

Thanks for playing the game and for the feedback ! We took some decision to create the ambiance that hinders the gameplay a bit sadly, so we got rid of the cursor

If you have trouble with the speed worm you can read the spoiler section, it gives some tips about it !

first of all, really good game-cover image. not a lot can pull that out. I enjoyed playing it. would be really cool to have some kind of flashy anticipation before coming in contact with the worms. so that the player knows something is coming. keep up the good work.

I was rly scare the first time I got to hear the monster omg. Well done on the atmosphere. The lights done wonderful, art-style rly gave me a nostalgic vibe

I couldn't see any enemy/worm. I was just running around but couldn't see any worm or keycard. At some point i just died without knowing what happend.

Hey @phaix thank you for playing our game ! To see the enemies you need to flash them with the flashlight, their sound help locate them ! the keycards are hidden throughout the level

Our games share a few similarities! I like your team's take a lot. I am a wimp when it comes to scary games; this had me completely tensed up despite understanding how the game worked after a few tries. I think it is brilliant that even though you can see plenty of the environment, you only explicitly show the monsters when you shine the light on them. Real spooky see them appear so close when you turn around! That's good design.

Admittedly, I wandered around a lot at first because I didn't know what to look for. But once I knew how the gate keys looked, it was better. Still, it was an awesome game. Really great job!

@diego-escalante thank you for the kind review ! I'll check your game too then !

Really well done! I really liked the art, and the controls for the most part were smooth and had good feedback. It would have been nice to have a cursor, it made aiming kinda hard. The worms were also a bit frustrating, I died several times without having any indication that they were coming after me, maybe, and delay the killing attack and play an audio cue when it reaches you? Other than that, really great job!

Edit: Just noticed the spoiler warning and tried it again, that helped a lot knowing that the worms only spawned occasionally and how to know when they appear.

A good level of tense horror and a really nice style, an impressive looking game in such a short amount of time. The different enemies are cool. Nice different weapons with limited space on which to have. I killed a few speedy worms but often they were a bit quick for me and so I lost my progress quite a bit haha.

I, too, struggled with the sensitivity of the mouse in this game, at first I thought it was because I wasn't playing in fullscreen mode, but even when I did, I felt like I could never get my flashlight to be exactly where I wanted it to be. I also feel like the audio sensor thing didn't really work? As in, I didn't hear a difference in sound volume as the creature approached me, at least not enough to think 'oh its right behind me now, isn't it' and the fact that the dark area around the player is still bright enough to see other details in the environment but not monsters really threw me off. I'm kind of conflicted, because I definitely see the vision, and I could see how making the monsters visible at all times can ruin that, but there were also way too many times where I died seemingly at random. Maybe if you make the angle of the flashlight wider (along with a sensitivity toggle) and make the area in the dark *darker* it would be better?

I also think there should be a splat sound when an enemy gets hit, solely because when I encountered one of the black blobs for the first time, I shot it and immediately thought it was unkillable, but tried shooting a few more times in case I missed or something.

The maze aspect was also a bit overwhelming to me, although it could just be my personal preference, I had a hard time figuring out both where I was supposed to go and what I was supposed to do, as there wasn't any (from what I encountered) set dressing or decoration that pointed me in any one direction. Maybe a mini map that doesn't show any detail but rather the position of the character in the arena. Maybe it could even light up along the paths the player takes? And as a final note, I think that the backpack (I was convinced at first that it was a body bag that would unzip to reveal a corpse as I took damage) takes up just a bit too much space on the screen.

But as for the atmosphere and the creature design, I think you really nailed it! The art at the end of the screen looks really good, too. Your monsters are very creative and unique, and I wished I got to see more of them crawling around.

@adam-gallina @danjoricey thank you for the kind review ! yeah the speedy one can be very tense at first

@viktorthegreat thank you for the in depth review !
We made multiple choice to sacrifice some "quality of life" to make the experience more stressful overall ! We also wanted to have multiple flashlight modes but time was ticking.

I think there's a splat sound but it's being covered by the gunshot because it's way too low but i completely agree on that !

For the level design, since we didn't randomize we made sure to have something a bit challenging even if you knew the spots that's why it can be tough at first !
For the backpack I made it specially big just because I'm evil :)

The mouse aiming seemed a little harsh, almost like my cursor was flipping between the center of the character. I think some sort of alert icon to show the direction the enemy was coming from would be useful, other than solely relying on sound to indicate their movement. Nice 2d lighting helped set the creepy atmosphere!

OK great choice of SFX. The scream got to me 🫠. I didn't read your advice about the special enemy and died quick, maybe the game could have an example of them standing at the end of a corridor easy to kill? Great atmosphere and art.

Not being used to playing top-down shooters I did not progress past the first room. I found the controls a little hard to use. I somehow managed to keep the system cursor shown once, which helped me a little with aiming :slight_smile:. Perhaps adding a crosshair, or constraining the mouse position to a smaller circle in the center of the screen would make it more approachable to noobs like me. I still enjoyed the game.

The monsters are scary, sprites are nice; perfectly fitting sound effects and ambient music earn this game 5:star: in the Mood category.

The art was great. Good sound design, too. I struggled with the controls, didn't love that there was no way to recover from running into an enemy (1hko), and the upside-down text that was mentioned in an earlier comment was a little annoying. I noticed the inventory system played into the theme as well when I died because I was fumbling around trying to switch/drop items to pick up a shotgun :P
Seriously impressive paintings and artwork; can't be overstated.

@deadjolly @choo @m-1 @animatrix1490 thank you for the reviews ! Lack of crosshair is one of the main concern and we will learn from that and find a better way to have this while still making the ambiance feels spooky

I like this kind of games with a limited sight and the atmosphere was really creepy. I didn't come that far though since sometimes my weapon won't fire even if I had reloaded shortly before and so I kept dying.

I like the game, it's immersive and creepy in a good way.
I found it quite difficult and unforgiving though. Aiming is a bit hard, and the worms kill you right away, you barely have any chance to react.

Nice entry overall. GG.

Hey really nice game we see the potential it could have with more time invested in, great job !
The immersion is HUGE, the graphics might seem simple but the more time we spend in the levels the more you see the details they put in !
I love the challenge it puts you into tho.

I had a good time playing the game. A lot of the criticisms have already been said so i will keep it too the one i have that seems too not have been mentioned yet(unless i somehow missed that comment). I personally wish there was a build-up too the horror, now i understand the reason why there isnt one the time constraints are brutal afteral, my semi-horror game in a previous jam actually had the same problem because of it but i still feel it warrants mentioning, a horror games build-up is equally as important as the horror itself(the horror itself is great btw the sound design, graphics, lighting, its top notch)

Well done for crafting that eerie atmosphere and claustrophobic level design; it really amps up the creep factor. However, I did notice that mouse control starts to feel a bit wonky over time, making it tough to handle, especially when enemies can one-shot you. It would have been helpful to have clearer indicators of those pesky worms closing in. Also, that worm on the game over screen zipping straight towards me in an already low-visibility game just feels a bit unfair."