I have been working on this game solo for two years now and I’m hoping to release before/during spring break but I do not feel my game would do a good job bringing people back and it’s worrying me.
+{[Play Here]}+
If you are unable to play or don’t feel like it or whatever here’s the rundown
Rundown
Liminal Labyrinth is an exploration and badge-hunt experience with 50+ rooms to explore ! filled with clickables like NPCs, gears, and noisemakers (I’m not a scripter). Each room is meant to convey the feeling of emptiness, nostalgia, and familiarity like liminal space videos on youtube.
Here are some pictures !
My scripting ability is restricted to youtube/devforum but if you have any fun ideas with scripting I’ll do my best to make them. And for your troubles (and if you want) for play testing I can make a badge in your likeness !
I appreciate any criticism. Thank you !
There are a lot of rooms. My only issue with actually getting to new rooms was exiting “spawn”. I was continuously going in a loop between the convenience store freezers, both pools, hotel, motel and that room with a holiday tree. I suggest adding more “ways out” of that loop. You can do this by connecting more “starter rooms” with outer rooms.
Different music per room would be perfect too.
Also I was unsure of how to obtain the collectables at first, I didn’t know if I had to click them or touch them. If I hadn’t read the description I wouldn’t have known to collect anything at all. I suggest some sort of incentive for collecting all (or some) of the collectables. Maybe hint that it’s the way out of there?
I’m also unsure of what these gamepasses do until I read the descriptions of them. You can maybe add a classic billboard, like below, to suggest at what they’re for. You’d have to design your own of course but the example is still there.
In all, I suggest having an incentive in your game if you collect them all. Maybe to prevent burnout this incentive could slowly work its way up depending on how many collectables you get? For example, a door at spawn that says “exit” will slowly open depending on how many you have and you can’t enter until you get them all.
I really like the game, all the places give off the desired feeling. Though I must admit the VHS filter gets a little annoying so it’d be cool if there was at least an option to disable it.
I can’t fit through that gap, unless I am not supposed to then that’s something you should fix, I haven’t found other ones but you should probably check other parts of the map like similar to that.
Also a way of knowing your progress would be cool, and probably make the flashlight point to wherever you look so you have better visibility and can further appreciate the building.
Anyhow, I really like the idea and I can definitely feel the effort put into the game, though it might need some small polishing. Keep up the good work!
thank you for your comment! I will add all of your suggestions because I agree with them all ! I’m glad others feel the same way
the gap isn’t meant to be entered, a few people have pointed it so in the past I suppose I should put like, caution tape over it (if you adjust your camera you’ll find a secret in there!)
so happy to hear that it gives that emotion because I don’t get that feeling anymore - thanks again!
In my opinion, based on your pictures, what I think your game is missing is crappy screen effects. If you want, you can try to make static effects and all the other generic VHS effects, just make sure you make them in a subtle way. Another thing you could try adding is Chromatic aberration. It’s a really cool effect that not many people use in their games.
In case you want to add this effect, use it like I do in that image, it’s not a major effect but you can see it.
Another thing you definitely should use is sound. Sound gives adds to an atmosphere, so choose the sounds accordingly.
the static is animated thanks to a scripter I hired - although for some reason the timer is based off of timezones and is usually negative. (you can also turn it off)
Those effects would be great ! I’ll look into that !
I played around with some audio; vending machines whir, some outdoor areas have nature sounds, random ambiance and music, ect - I used to have a functioning material-based footstep script but somewhere along the line it broke and I haven’t gotten around to fixing it lol
