The Chain to Bind You to Earth
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
You get a call from your Grandma to go visit your uncle in a forgotten town. Chop wood, wash socks, and enter the cosmic void.
Created in 30 days for the Haunted PS1 2020 Halloween Jam with a Folk Horror Theme.
Estimated playtime is 20-30 minutes. No jump scares.
CONTROLS: WASD + Mouse to move, Left-click to interact. Right click to chop wood.
Credits:
Graphics, music, and design by VaporShark
Narrative Design and Writing by Jamie Gallegos
Music by Fire Ant Season
PS1 shader by marmitoTH: https://github.com/marmitoTH/godot-psx-shaders
Software used: Godot 3.2, Blender 2.8, Audacity, and Gimp
Download
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Development log
- 1.1 Whip-poor-will UpdateNov 05, 2020
Comments
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The ending was a bit out of nowhere but I mostly enjoyed the game.
A bug I've come across in a few of your games now is that when you start you're looking straight into the ground and spun around from where you're meant to go first. Not a big deal in the mall game but here it was kinda odd.
I enjoyed it, it was pretty glitchy and ended rather abruptly, though. I'm a little confused because the screenshots show more of a horror element and I really didn't get any horror. Are there more endings? I didn't really feel like anything had options to it unless it was just because I didn't check out all the buildings. Nothing scary really happened and I even checked out the church like the uncle said and nothing happened. Additionally, I'm not too sure if a 'horror' tag really suits this game.
Suggestions:
- The walking speed got really annoying really quickly. Could be faster or at least have the option to sprint.
- Wish I could close text by clicking or something. Being stuck standing there until the text disappeared was pretty painful at times.
- Bug fixes. Things kept glitching into the floor and if I looked around at a certain angle the floor would disappear altogether. Also the birds just hover in the air with no animation or anything, not sure if this was intentional.
- I wish more things in the game were interactable, like if you interacted with the thing under the sheet it might have some sort of internal dialogue to go along with it. That would add a bit more depth.
I'm going to try playing it again to see if I missed something, if I did I'll update this comment below. That was just my first impression of the game. I feel like it has a lot of potential and it started off strong but the ending was a little weak.
EDIT: I replayed it, it seems that the thing I missed was the building behind the general store.
However, there were still too many things left unanswered.
For example, one thing I noticed was it looked like the uncle's house had some sort of basement. Is there any way to get down there? Also, what's under that sheet in the corner? What does the shadow in the church/green building have to do with the Uncle or the main story, and with the uncle listening to crazy conspiracies? How do ghosts tie into all of this? What is that building across the river?
I loved the atmosphere, and I feel like it has a lot of potential, but I think the story could use something extra.
Thanks for the in depth feedback!
The reason the game is tagged as horror is more of the fundamental themes of loneliness, mental illness, and hauntings, but it's true there are not any jump scares.
For some of your questions about the story:
***Minor Story Spoilers***
The building across the river is only mentioned if you exhaust all of the dialogue options with the neighbor. It's actually based on a metaphysics institute located in the woods near the ghost town of Windyville Missouri.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/School+of+Metaphysics/@37.702386,-92.8856272,1...
There are all sorts of strange ideas, about that area being a portal or energy vortex. For the purposes of the game, it's left pretty ambiguous.
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Your gameplay suggestions are very useful, and things I hope to add eventually. The game was made for a 30 day gamejam, so there are definitely tons of glitches I still need to fix, but I've kind of taken a breather after submitting. Unfortunately the most glaring of them all (disappearing ground) seems to be a bug in the game engine, so I'll have to wait until a new version comes out to fix it.
Thanks for playing! I can't emphasize enough how useful feedback like this is. I threw the game together fairly quickly, and didn't even really have time for anyone to play-test it before release, so I've noted your comments and will try to incorporate them in a future update.
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cool retro
I really like the writing and the little world you get to explore. It's a sad reality people like Dan live in and unfortunately I think a lot of us can relate to knowing someone like this these days...
Really stellar game! Really enjoyed loved all the visual touches and narrative! The level is very unique and atmospheric. I also like the idea of the Character of Dan giving the players chores to while his madness slowly unwinds the Alex Jones segments were unexpected but perfect at the same time! I thought the ending was a little sudden I guess my only criticism would be I would love to see more with the ending apart that amazing job! :)
Thanks for playing and for the feedback! I hope to add some more segments eventually to make the ending less abrupt :)
I really enjoyed this. So many details that I love: the moving leaves on the ground, that broken couch, the horrifying faces, the fact that you can just simply destroy all the trees in this poor town.
The ending felt very sudden to me, but I like the idea it expresses.
Thanks for playing and thanks for making the Crystal Golem (I will beat it someday when I git gud enough)! It was truly my hope that someone would chop down all 200 trees in the game. And yeah, the ending is definitely a bit abrupt, but I was afraid to pad out the game too much.