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A short game made in two weeks for the "Swap In the Middle With You" event. Created by Craze and Subzero Dragon.

Six villagers from Wisteria begin a journey to return to their town. Along the way, they encounter terrible things that threaten to end their journey prematurely. Can they survive this horror, or will they become little more than a dire warning?

Features:

O - Difficult battles: there are no inns or magic healing spots.
O - No stores either: just you and some provisions! Use your limited supplies wisely...
O - Six playable characters: but will they live or die?
O - Apx Playtime: ~1 hour - 1.5 hours

Latest Blog

Stolen Versions Floating Around

So, it turns out that some meanie has taken this project and uploaded it for their own gain on the Google Play store and elsewhere. Let this be a general warning that any versions not downloaded from this website (RMN) are not endorsed by Craze.

Dear Google: I hope my ability to post this can prove my authorship.

Posts

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This just creaks with spooky vibes, dawg. Good job, y'all.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
This looks awesome! :DDDD
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
You can add your own part to the title, btw! Up to you. I like the look of the castle; I'll have to play it after work (and curse myself for making it hard)
After one final playthrough, I noticed a glitch where the one boss *Minor Spoiler* (The Guardian of The Gates) will never cast its apocalyptic spell. Oops. I've uploaded a fix, though it's not a game-breaker.
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
I don't think I'll expect anything Craze touches to be easy, but I kind of like it that way. :D
I agree. I'm a fan of challenges,especially in horror games. I've been known to be a little sadistic in my game challenges sometimes, but I wanted a balance so players don't get pissed and just quit.:D I hid a few tricks to make it easier in here. Hints are dropped as to what one is, but another is a bit harder to find. See if you can find the easier way! (Or don't if you want the original challenge, muhaha... )
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
I got to the dungeon with the lantern puzzle. I beated the boss, pressed some switches, lost a member, then found a maze where the ghost of the dead dude resides and...? I have no idea how to progress.
author=Ratty524
I got to the dungeon with the lantern puzzle. I beated the boss, pressed some switches, lost a member, then found a maze where the ghost of the dead dude resides and...? I have no idea how to progress.

I'm in this same exact position, actually, and was waiting to see if it wasn't just me.

Also, on a side note, I absolutely love the battle system and the mood of the game. It's pretty great, I can't wait to progress further.

Totally borrowing ideas from that battle system, too.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
if it makes you feel better, i'm stuck there too...

glad you guys like my "elderly people with canes" battle system though
SPOILER FOR THE MAZE!

If the lantern is on, you will trigger battles. If it is off, battles should not occur, making the exploration easier. Also, you need to shine the lantern between the dragon statues in order to see where to go.

Also... that particular party member doesn't NEED to die. If you skip a certain switch, he will live. The final boss has a horrible, game-ending spell that can only be interrupted by a certain item he can find. It also is extremely low on HP, so if he died, just kill the Guardian of The Gates first.

Edit: Ack! I accidently uploaded this version that had a severe mapping error! That's what I get for submitting a game while exhausted and sick. The new version 1.2 should actually work. Sorry. >_<;
Just finished it following the new upload! I really enjoyed playing through it again, it made me appreciate it all the more, especially the "elderly people with canes" battle system. The castle was really cool, also.

Anyways, here's a couple things I noticed and thought I would mentioned due to your previous comments (spoilers!):

1. It seems your intention of the lantern is to have it spawn random encounters while on. I never had a random encounter with the lantern on. In fact, I would flick it on and off and walk around trying to see if it was just a high step count, but it wasn't.

2. The path in the maze, the upper-left most area where you see the ghost of Agnes, has a sparkling event you can inspect to acquire more angel tear. It says you acquire the angel tear, yet there's no box you're getting it from.

3. I never noticed angel tear doing something. It seems I have two different types of angel tear, one that revives, and one that never seems to do anything. I used them on the enemies in the last boss fight and the item never seemed to do anything.

4. I don't think Guardian of the Gates ever cast his apocalyptic spell when I played it. He went down real quick.

Also, I thought I'd mentioned it here in the spoilers section: great ending! It definitely fit the mood of the game. It was rather sad what happens, but it seems completely plausible. Really wish there was more to this game, because I enjoyed all of it.
author=Gredge109
Just finished it following the new upload! I really enjoyed playing through it again, it made me appreciate it all the more, especially the "elderly people with canes" battle system. The castle was really cool, also.

Anyways, here's a couple things I noticed and thought I would mentioned due to your previous comments (spoilers!):

1. It seems your intention of the lantern is to have it spawn random encounters while on. I never had a random encounter with the lantern on. In fact, I would flick it on and off and walk around trying to see if it was just a high step count, but it wasn't.

2. The path in the maze, the upper-left most area where you see the ghost of Agnes, has a sparkling event you can inspect to acquire more angel tear. It says you acquire the angel tear, yet there's no box you're getting it from.

3. I never noticed angel tear doing something. It seems I have two different types of angel tear, one that revives, and one that never seems to do anything. I used them on the enemies in the last boss fight and the item never seemed to do anything.

4. I don't think Guardian of the Gates ever cast his apocalyptic spell when I played it. He went down real quick.

Also, I thought I'd mentioned it here in the spoilers section: great ending! It definitely fit the mood of the game. It was rather sad what happens, but it seems completely plausible. Really wish there was more to this game, because I enjoyed all of it.
1. I'm 90% sure this has something to do with me misunderstanding a script change Craze made to the encounter system. I'm going to tinker around some more and see what the heck happened...
Edit: Found the buggin' thing! It's fixed.

2.Gah, thanks... That'll be fixed straight away.

3. The shining Angel Tear has a special feature. If the Guardian of The Gates is alive for 6 turns, it will start gathering energy. 6 turns later, it will cast the apocalyptic spell. The shining Angel Tear will cancel its charging and force the spell to end prematurely. If it is not charging, the Angel Tear does nothing. The Guardian of The Gates is meant to seem more innocuous than He Who Listens, only to one-shot you in 12 turns if it is allowed to live. I might toughen him up in the next update. (I was worried that the game-ending spell would seem uber...)
Edit: I toughened it up slightly. I didn't intend it to be IMPOSSIBLE to kill the Guardian of The Gates without the item, so I was worried about this...

4. See 3.

Glad to see you enjoyed it! I've been thinking about making an "extended" version, and once I've figured out problem 1 I'll do so! This game was a blast to work on~!
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
Finally saw the ending to it. I have some mixed feelings on this one.

I liked the overall concept of it, having some symbolism in how people deal with death, it had a nice sense of atmosphere and even though dialogue was mostly avoided, it still communicated its story very well.

The problems come from the battle system. While I like its complexity, there is way too heavy of a reliance on RNG to score your hits, and enemies rarely ever miss their attacks and are capable of creaming you easily for something that is beyond your control. This made the difficulty feel fake, by and large, and reduces encounters to a matter of chance rather than skill.

I also almost wished you didn't tinker with the encounter script, since in the dungeon it kind of becomes too frequent in an environment that's arduous to navigate through and dependent on exploration. Do battles really reward you in anyway? If not, then they feel even more of an annoyance to get through.

Overall, it kind of felt like a great concept that went to waste from bad mechanics. You 'ought to watch Liberty's LP of it, too, because she shares some of my frustrations in a pretty damn raw example: https://youtu.be/i4xwwFwhjsM?t=1h20m
Honestly, after Craze's part the battles weren't necessary at all. I just escaped from all of them but the boss because they didn't do anything for you. They were just annoyances.

Hell, even in Craze's part there were only a few reasons to even have them:
- to show off the 'stalker'
- to give you a feel of what people could do so that when it came to the boss you knew what to use
- that's all

There was no growth tied to them so after those initial uses there was no use bothering with them. After the first boss they could have been removed completely and the game would not have suffered from their loss.

The maze was ridiculously stupid. None of the tears ever did anything when I used them so I just never bothered with them. The last boss I just hulked through.

The castle had some neat atmospheric style but it was a chore to get through, which is a pity. It also felt like you kinda lost the thread of what Craze was aiming for a little when it came to using the battles. That said, bar the battle annoyances, the game wrapped up okay. It didn't go anywhere incredibly interesting but where it did go worked.


Oh, and for the love of all things fucking holy why would you make skills that cost you precious resources not hit almost all the time?! >.<;
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
Watching the VOD: "craze i kinda want to grab you and shake you" it's not my fault you don't focus fire the mooks before you went for the boss ;V

i dunno why raul is missing so much outside of shrapnel, though. he has the second-highest hit rate (behind belle). also yes, she does have two facesets. =)

ratty, re: battles: yeah. that's the point. it wasn't meant to be too fair or pleasurable. it's old people hitting things with canes. if you felt frustrated but eventually got through it, my intentions were fulfilled. same with liberty complaining about the herbs being shit recovery items even though they have a restriction. this was not about "proper" gam dezin, it was about making you hate everything.

i'm glad you had all the right reactions to my half in the video though, haha. it was my first time doing horror so... glad it worked out.

spoilerz:
also no it's not random who dies. i wanted belle to witness the worst. and kent's death IS in the right spot, it's just that i didn't have the energy/time to animate She Who Watches carrying it.


thanks for playing ~
The atmosphere was very well done, so you did really well in that. ^.^ Very good use of music to build tension whilst also calming it, and the stalker battles were very effective at giving the vibe of being hunted/followed.

I liked the idea of randomised deaths, but also having pre-determined ones helps drive the narrative along a bit more especially since you only had a limited time frame to work with, and you know where the plot is going in that aspect and can plan around it.

The subtle touches like walk speed (I didn't imagine that, right?) really helped sell the concept, too.

And yeah, it took a little moment to realise what had happened to Kent. XD



Raul missing might be due to tagging skills as Physical attacks and then nerfing his physical hit rate/effectiveness in battles? Or making the enemies very dodgy versus physical attacks? I'd have to pop open the hood to see which it was, if either. It got to be a bit of a pain to deal with. ^.^;


Also, pretty sure I did focus-fire the mooks and the bitch brought them back. :||||||||||||||||||||||
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
Wait did they have canes? I seriously didn't pay any attention to their equipment. :V
author=Ratty524
Wait did they have canes? I seriously didn't pay any attention to their equipment. :V

I checked and there's actually no equipment window in the game. I know Mayor uses a rapier and Raul a handgun, and they're all either in their middle ages or elderly, minus Belle.

But there's neat little things I noticed in combat, like the delay before the attack. Kinda' like it takes a moment for them to get into position to execute a strike. No legendary heroes here. Maybe that's why I love the combat so much.
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
author=Gredge109
I know Mayor uses a rapier and Raul a handgun...


*nasally Squidward voice* Is that what you call it?

Generally, the fighters were pretty good for old fogies, but Raul couldn't hit the sidewalk with a can of paint. I think he missed something like 90 percent of all of his attacks. He'd make an excellent stormtrooper.

It really was an intriguing story. I don't think I would have personally finished it because of just how close to home it hit for me. I shouldn't be surprised that it ended up being a trigger for me, given the nature of how death was presented. Still, I feel like Craze was doing something amazing with this. When it got to Subzero's part and I saw what he did with it, all I could think about was the effect that Craze's half had on me. I couldn't take the swap for what it was and I just felt like Subzero had missed the point.
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