The Cleansing

Good lord! Your maze-design is really good!
Your sounds are quite annoying, but I love the simple graphics and how you use them.

But the mazes and level design are the real star here.

Loved the graphics and aesthetic! Could not for the life of me find the last 2 candles...

The maze is designed very well and incredibly huge. I failed to find the last candle, I think there is a catch that I couldn't figure out.

Why must I play in little tiny window? It's hard to see anything on my 4K screen.

Great game! I love the mood of the game; it's very well achieved! Achieving that mood requires having all the artistic elements well-organized, and this game succeeds in that. The maze is awesome and I genuinely enjoy it. I also love the detail that allows me to play without a mouse, using the arrow keys along with WASD. It's a very good game, especially considering it was all done by you in 48 hours. Great game!

Awesome visuals and really awesome vibe of the maze. I liked that you switched it up on the last candle. I thought the sound design was pretty good, one of the noises was a little annoying but the actual effects when the maze changed were super cool. The movement and controls felt good.

I will say that I'm terrible at mazes that aren't simply connected without automapping so I had to bust out the pen and paper to get the last two candles (to make a map and then to note down the directions). I got so lost ;_;

Really liked this one!

Great graphics and sound - worked well together (along with the aspect ratio) to make a really claustrophobic atmosphere. Got pretty creepy at times.

Found the areas different enough that I was engaged the entire time. Also like magnusfurcifer I had to grab a pen and paper to get through the last one - which is always great :D

Really cool game.

Nice puzzles. I was able to finish. Nice ending haha!

The audio on the other hand... interesting

Nice game! I like the art style and the concept. The only issue I encountered was that the camera would sometimes jump, which I'm not sure if it was intentional, but it made the maze much harder to figure out. I liked the antichamber inspired non-euclidean section (its actually something I've dabbled with myself) but because of how big that room and hallway are, it took an annoyingly long amount of time to execute the part of the solution I'd figured out so far. Given how claustrophobic the maze feels, I'd maybe shrink that room down or add a sprint button. Overall a nice game with *great* atmosphere!

interesting riddle even if I almost gave up

> ...the camera would sometimes jump, which I’m not sure if it was intentional...

@darkwolf What do you mean by "jump", exactly? Like it rotates suddenly or something? That's definitely not intentional if that's what's happening. What is your browser/OS combination?

Really fun puzzles, I finished it and enjoyed the difficulty level! I also had the "camera jump" issue on the way to the second puzzle - I was hugging the right wall while moving corridor by corridor and sometimes it felt like I had a frame drop or sudden teleport back, and wasn't sure whether I was taking the right path. The only other feedback I have is that sounds were slightly overwhelming and annoying, I had to turn down the volume. Everything else - graphics, gameplay, the scare with the monster hiding in the corridors - was amazing!

@outstar

> I also had the “camera jump” issue...

I'm still having difficulty reproducing this, unfortunately, even after trying several things to trigger it. What's your browser/OS combination? It might help me narrow it down.

> ...the monster hiding in the corridors...

Those kids and their pets! I told them to put that thing on a leash!

Win 11/Chrome! @henk

I checked out your source code and it looks like you made this without an engine, right? That kicks ass. Good game.

@outstar Yeah, in the maze it felt like my position was jumping (perhaps by an invisible teleport gone awry) but I think it was actually just the camera rotating a large amount in one frame, probably 90+ degrees in some cases, nearly 180 in others. I played part of the game again to try an replicate it, and it happened way more often this time around and in more locations too, to the point the game was almost unplayable in the maze. It is definitely a camera rotation issue. It only seemed to happen when I was moving the mouse. Using arrow keys to look around seems fine. I'm using up to date Chrome (*"version 124.0.6367.61 Official Build 64-bit"*) on Windows 10. Hopefully this helps you track down the bug.

Also, I had a quick look at your source code and while I don't understand everything, it looks like you are working without an engine which is an awesome accomplishment! If you want another rabbit hole to explore in order to do the rendering yourself, there is an old school technique called ray-casting (not ray-tracing) that can give you similar visuals. There are a few great tutorials on the subject if you don't mind the examples being C code from 1996 or 2004. It's not particularly relevant now-a-days but can be a fun hobby or game jam project.

@outstar @darkwolf Thank you both. I believe this is caused by a bug in chrome when using a mouse with a high polling rate (i.e. a "gaming" mouse). I have pushed up a patch which I hope works around the issue. Would either of you be willing to try the game again (after clearing your cache) and confirm that the problem is fixed? I don't have a mouse with which to reproduce the issue locally.

@henk I replayed your game and haven't encountered this issue again (did encounter a monster in the maze in a spot where I didn't see it last time though so I got scared for a moment :D). I think your fix worked! I use Roccat Kone Pro mouse, so that might've been an issue.

Nice game! Love the style of the graphics, and the trick in the last room was cool. Good job!

so good! sound design and graphics were very effective. the last puzzle stumped me for a bit but i eventually figured it out. great work!

Great atmosphere, I like how the synths that start on picking up each candle are in harmony :)

Without giving it away, the completely smooth camera transition in the last puzzle is a great touch that really makes the puzzle.

The ending is great! The mood in the game is awesome, only music is a bit too much, especially after getting first candle. I also enjoyed the puzzle aspect of the game. Good job!

Awesome game! I had some trouble finding the last 2 candles but I managed to figure it out, well done!