Sword of Sight
The journey is finally nearing its end. It is now time to prove yourself and meet your destiny.
About the game
This entry was made with Unity, Blender & ProBuilder (3D modeling), Photoshop, Propellerhead Reason & Audacity (sound).
It might not show up too much due to our limited art skills, but here's some of the works we had in mind while designing the game:
Hints
After some testing with friends, we realized a couple riddles can be misinterpreted, so read the tips if you have issues. Please only read the hidden hints if you're really stuck.
- World 1, Riddle 1
The bridge might be missing, but faith will help you cross it
- World 1, Riddle 2
Tip: The final words of the riddle are a single direction, not three.
The sun sets at the west, so the temple's shadow is at the east. Which part of the wall is east-southeast?
- World 2, Riddle 1
The middle and right ravens agree. Two ravens lie.
- World 2, Riddle 2
Tip: The archs are two "windows" that see different things. Walking through them does nothing.
Watch carefully through both portals. The white blocks that they see show you the path. The red doors must be avoided.
Comments (11)
@caiqueassis Thanks for the comment. Don't worry, the two people I saw playing didn't really understand and found the solution by chance.
Here is the solution ;)
The door is invisible on the castle east wall. The southeast precision should be understood as ont the left on the east wall
Mysterious riddles in rhyme? Love it! Quite liked the concept and how the theme was used.
I actually thought the puzzles were very nice, even though some of them can unintentionally be overcome by chance (that happened to me in world 2, riddle 1 as I experimented to see what would happen while doing stuff). It seemed to me that the riddles are well written and one can solve them with a bit of thinking.
Regarding riddle 2 of world 1, I think maybe a problem is in the intonation, the voice really separates the words east-south-east as if they were three different directions, while normally for example the word southeast is pronounced all at once. Also I was stuck for a bit because I confused "coming from" with "going towards", but I think the riddle is pretty clear there.
The graphics feel good and the way the riddles are delivered gives the game a lot of mood.
The whole ambiance is very nice.
Not so sure about the end sequence though. In particular I thought the sword wasn't quite up to the rest of the graphics.
Really enjoyed it, found the riddles pretty straightforward (which is good) and the graphics pretty good in the low poly style and the sound worked well for the ambience, adding subtitles was also a good call ;).
The only negative i Noticed was on the puzzle where you have to navigate across some stepping stones that you can't quite see the last part from the angle you have, you would need to be able to jump or something to see it. Interesting take on the theme too. Good job
You made a first person riddle (or collection of riddles, whichever you prefer), haven't seen these types in a while for good reason. You see, riddles work best when the answer is ambiguous as is the case with an open-ended riddle spoken in the real world. You have to choose your answer from every possible answer imaginable. That makes you think. Maybe you can even ask the riddler some follow up questions?
A riddle with multiple options only works if you cannot try again. Wrong answer and you lose something forever. Multiple options, even if counting in the dozens, are trivial to go through one by one when retries are allowed. Sure, it is more entertaining and interesting to actually think about the riddle first, but the ease at which the solution can be attained does detract from the feeling of success.
Puzzles don't have this issue. They are based on rules, not authorship. Even a small set of interconnected rules results in a combinatorial explosion which the player cannot brute force their way through. Makes you think; no easy way out.
This is why digital riddles aren't a big deal any more. Text adventure puzzles occasionally utilized them back in the past. They themselves went to way of the Dodo, more or less, so you are treading stale water.
How silly of me to start with the negatives. The rest is pretty good!
Quality visuals, taken the deadline. Some of the assets are crude, but the scene composition and graphical style make up for it. Audio fares worse due to the voice-over. There are normalization issues (volume levels don't match) and the accents, no offence intended, don't exactly fit the language. On the other hand, French voice-over with subtitles could have been ace!
The setting and mechanics support the theme. The clever use of visibility effects (fog, magic portals) helps to solidify the subject matter as well.
All things considered a unique experience. Worth playing even if the simple riddles rubbed me the wrong way.
Overall: 7 (Good)
Graphics: 8 (Great)
Audio: 4 (Below average)
Gameplay: 3 (Bad)*
Originality: 7 (Good)
Theme: 7 (Good)
What a trip! I felt like the protagonist in an 80s fantasy movie making my way through the climax of the film. Yes, the punishment for failure was very mild but I still felt smart thinking through the riddles and finding the solutions. For me personally the riddles were just the right mix of weird, informative and slightly vague to let me feel a sense of accomplishment for solving them without having to spend too long puzzling them out. The only one I had trouble with was the bridges and doorways and that was because I was rushing without paying attention. Great atmosphere, cool voiceovers, had a lot of fun! Great entry, well worth the hour it took me to download.
OK, I'm not into "3D puzzles" usually, but the relaxing, non-punitive tone of this one (no "game over" / "click to retry", very pleasant) and the 80's vibe motivated me to get to the end. Your lowpoly / lightsources used was a pleasure to look at. Some kind of a "walking simulator" feel too: would have liked some easter eggs/detours.
Some puzzles felt rather random (the crows?), but the doors and blocks one was great once I understood the jump key was deactivated :)
Hey!
So, I played it for some time….I think I'm really dumb, because even checking the spoiler here, I got stuck at the part where I needed to enter the castle.
But what I played of the game I really liked. The graphics are simple, but I love this minimalist, low poly style. And the music / ambientation is very well executed. Those "riddle voices" too - I liked them a lot.
Sadly, I can't say much more since I got stuck…