Comments - daishigajo1394689128

I also want to say I will be advance purchasing this game this Friday when my company's payroll processes! I loved it that much. I'm going to Lets Play its face off :D

After verifying with a second game, it seems the problem isn't the game itself but a conflict with Fraps. The error actually repeated on a second indie game I tried recording. When I attempt a run without it, the game performs fine.

Okay. So before I get into it, let me drop kick you with this awesomepunch Let's Play

Onto the review!

Spooky's castle is intriguing and I'm not entirely sure why. There's not much to do, at least not in the first 50 or so rooms I explored. It's essentially a game that asks you to go forward. Sure, some rooms have two paths instead of one, but for the most part it never seemed 'hard' to get to the end of a room. The fact that there are sets of rooms means, any time you do get confused, it's not difficult to memorize the way forward the next time you see that type of room again.

But you're not reading this just to hear me complain, and I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't think there was a good game inside of Spooky's. For me, the intrigue begins at the outset. On the surface, Spooky's is a cutesy take on jump scare games that goes so far as to portray the monsters you see as carboard cutouts, unable to hurt you.

Then, around level 50, things take a change. Suddenly things get a lot more real, and you realize why, exactly, you have a health bar. It was at this point that a sense of threat began to pervade the game, and I found myself sprinting for my life to end of the next few rooms.

I did die but, thanks to the checkpoint system, I will find myself returning to Spooky's castle very soon.

First of all, let me punch you in the face with my awesome Let's Play.

Now for a full review!

The initial diagnosis was grim: The game refused to move past the start screen, even after multiple reboots. However, as if blessed by the gods, the game did begin.

I was not punished for waiting.

There is little in terms of setup; the game delivers you into the midst of a lonely and dark avenue. Whilst you might not have context, you are almost immediately confronted with the fear of dark strangers at your periphery.

That, soon, descends into a maddening exploration of some sort of... I'm guessing it's a cybernetic lab? At any rate, the game begins to switch back and forth between two settings, almost Silent Hill esque in its movement between a 'normal' world setting and a darker one.

I will not lie; I scare easily. Still, the setting, mood, and unsettling switches between two varying worlds, along with the constant confrontation with unknown invaders AND the intriguing plot point of cybernetics experiments all lead me to conclude that this game has gotten off on the right start.

Every time I begin trying to play this game, it says 3D mode failed.

The game crashed on me when I got to level 5 D: Truly the greatest horror of all.

So yeah gang the demo goes all the way to the end of the first mission :P

That full demo is coming out if you still want to play it.

Secretly I'm not friendly I just talk a lot ;) Kidding kidding

Oh I havent thought too much about that. Five to ten dollars maybe? And that's not a proper demo that's a pre alpha demo to show off the spook scanner. I have the real demo coming in a few days.

Well I wanted at least four levels and it took three weeks to program one level. I guess I'd like the game to be about ten hours long.

Yeah I just got a chain of commands sequence script to work, which I'll be using for two sequences in the demo before shipping it this weekend. I'm fairly happy with the final engine. Last script I'll have to implement is a dynamic shadows engine and I'll be done.

Whops thanks my friend. I'll probably fix that in the actual release demo I'm about to release that goes all the way through the first stage.

I don't know you're the first one to say anything about a crash :P Is there any particular type of error message?

Is it okay if I say I scared myself designing this game? I'm a total scaredy cat XD

And now for my review.

Cleithrophobia is genuinely frightening and it utilizes a number of tried and true fear methods employed in previous RPG Maker horror games. It has a unique position of being the first I've played with dynamic shadows and 8 directional movement, which made the fear that much more intense, especially during chase sequences in which you have to evade your pursuer.

Beyond that, the game put an eery lack of music to great effect, sound effects that evoked a horrific sense of foreboding, as if something was just around the corner, and a number of item based and number based puzzles. While you could not fight your enemy, you were pursued in a way similar to Ao Oni and sequences in the first One Night game. Other puzzles included maneuvering your way through small mazes you manipulated via external cogs, or navigating identical rooms and having to 'guess' your way through the end. These may seem goofy but were done quite well and led up to some shocking scares. The appearance of your foe from the darkness was always terrifying.

I truly enjoyed how well these parts were put together, but the lack of any coherent plot made it hard for Cleithrophobia to stand out definitively on its own, something that is hopefully rectified in future editions. However, as far as sheer fear effects, I was on my tip toes throughout. I am hoping for a revision and future, more well thought out versions with a better thought out plot.

And of course like every Indie DB cool guy, I mad a Let's Play. Watch it. Or don't!

For the record, I'm the author, and this is my game. I originally titled it Jason Luthor because I didn't realize it was asking for the game name. I thought it was asking for mine. Anyway, it's now titled The Spirit Seekers. Do leave your thoughts on the concept and initial impressions. This is my first game though I used to do high school coding like, over a decade ago. That was essentially Visual Basic type of stuff.

As of now the demo goes to the introduction of the Spook Scanner. Over the next few months I want the haunting locations to involve increasingly larger homes, then eventually other locations such as sewage treatment facilities, art galleries, and other larger places.