A Place, Forbidden

written word the arcane expression of intelligence put into permanence as others taken futility

the collection of smells to touch and see gives humble situation among immense priority to divulge

terror embellishes a pedal mechanic as interest pulls distances of imagination

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This was a lot of fun! Interesting to go through and check both endings; got a little too surreal for my tastes but not necessarily a bad thing. Great job!

I think I got the 'bad' end, but when I restart to continue the game - it starts the ending sequence rather than a place where I can try and find the other ending. Is there really no choice but to play again from the start?

I feel a little ripped-off by this - I like to read everything before moving on to the interactive/puzzle elements, but I think in this case this is what lead me to the 'bad' end?

SO MUCH READING!!!  But I thoroughly enjoyed the puzzles and the library (especially when things got weird)!

The puzzles were great, just complex enough to make me think without needing to use a guide. I’m really happy the puzzles were diverse, it wasn’t simply questions or finding items, but instead about aspects of each level you go to. I don’t think I ever really see a developer make use of their level design to devise such interesting puzzles. 

Loved the game, can’t wait to see what else you make.

I like how the full version is free on itch.io & Steam!!!

... BTW, I thought the Full Version is Paid?!

Very good Game. I loved the puzzles. Congrats.

I loved the game! got stuck a few times but such a good game!

Very interesting. At the end of the game I was lost though I couldn't finish it.

this game really is everything I've ever wanted in my life, it's like you tapped directly into my conscious brain and made this game for me specifically, I love it

I absolutely love this one! I played it on Steam.

Such a good game with fun puzzles and a cool concept! Really enjoyed the creepy atmosphere!

Easily one of the best horror games I've played on Itch. It manages to be really scary without jumpscares, and the puzzles are good, not too hard. There are a lot of interesting things to find. Definitely play it if you like horror games.

I played the demo as part of the PS1 Haunted Demo Disc.

Great job on the creepy atmosphere and being able to uncover a story. I think I'll have to play the full version for sure some time!

This was a fun little atmospheric puzzle game with hidden secrets i made a video of me playing it 3 months back but i forgot to post it i hope you enjoy 

I was able to run the demo of this game from a while back without issues, however this does not run on Windows 7, and when I run it on Linux through wine/proton the sound is missing, on both the Itch and Steam version. Any chance for a linux sound issue fix/non-windows 10 version? 

UPDATE: After hours of trial and error I finally managed to get the game to run on Windows 7, no sound issues. What I did was I downloaded dxvk (https://github.com/doitsujin/dxvk/releases) and copied all the dll files from inside the x64 folder to "<game installation folder >/Ouroboros/Binaries/Win64". I hope this information is useful to others in my situation.

UPDATE 2: I managed to also get sound working on linux by running winecfg for the prefix I run the game in and changing the windows version from 10 to 8.1.

Had to revisit and finish this one (& get both endings 😋). It definitely made a good 1st impression; great writing, atmosphere, & overall experience!

Love this so far 👍. I meant to do more of a 1st impression vid, but got totally caught up in it's atmosphere & played 3x as long as intended 😂. I'll post ending to my 1st playthru tomorrow, along w/me going for the forbidden knowledge I missed & trying to get the other ending.

The game is great. Was interesting to play from the beginning to the end. Here is first part of my journey.

Really nice game! I found it very immersive and the puzzles got quite difficult at the end, I enjoyed it a lot. The aesthetic is amazing too, I love the PS1 vibe, and the crispy sound the objects make when you interact with them, very well made! I'll keep an eye on your projects, congrats and thank you for the experience! ^^

I played through the full game and actually recorded it for my channel. This was an outstanding little experience. Although there weren't any overtly terrifying elements that jump out at you, the entire experience is incredibly stressful. The atmosphere that you managed to create was fantastic, every step was permeated with dread. It is fairly short, only taking about an hour or so to get through, and the puzzles weren't infuriatingly difficult to solve. All in all, I loved this, despite hitting a few minor bumps towards the end, thank you for this! 

Great game!

I found my first forbidden knowledge in Room 2, then wasn't finding the code for the padlock. So i manage to translate the messages with the fews hints and found out the code wasn't in there x) 

;0

Fantastic game! I have little to add to the previous comments. Just that I look forward to your future projects! It's a story that I'll be mulling over for a while, I think.

I played it twice and managed to join the ranks of the Librarians (I guess?) my second time around. I had to scrap my first recording, unfortunately, but here is one of my second play through if you care to see it. 

This is a prime example of horror done right and what's been lacking in the genre from indie devs lately, focusing more on story and gameplay over cheap scares and horrible lighting. Not only that but it stays very true to the ps1 style lost game format. Its a blessing to my boozy ol heart to play this game.

We open with our character awakening in a library which is pretty unrealistic in 2020. I'm not sure how many people know how to read anymore let alone go to libraries. But I digress. The library is in shambles with rotten plants, broken computers, and garbage strewn throughout the rooms. These few rooms are what makes up for the majority of the game portrayed in different ways as the game progresses and gets more and more haunting. Each rendition of the room leads to another puzzle and every puzzles leads to another room as you spiral more and more towards the whims of the evil librarian. Which just sounds ♥♥♥♥ing awesome to say. As you begin to read through books found around the library you start to uncover a bit of the mystery behind the uroboros library, a symbol of infinity or everlasting life, and the reasons why others have came before you. I personally have my own theories to what is going on in this library but I think the devs allow for bit of interpretation which I really appreciate.

You move slowly throughout each room uncovering new stories and horrors as you progress and become deeper involved with the story. Each puzzle offers just the right amount of difficulty that need some critical thinking but are still logical and don't require you to do anything that is too ridiculous. Best part for me is the this isn't the type of game where you have to wander around in circles finding items at point A and returning them to point B but instead every puzzle is part of the story and overarching plot to the game. I don't want to spoil too much here and since it is a free game you really have no reason not to give it a try!

As for bugs,glitches,controls, and things of that nature I didn't notice anything at all out of the ordinary really aside from a few typos and a couple times where you might get stuck on an object but that was mainly from me ♥♥♥♥ing about trying to climb over or on top of places I shouldn't be. So if you intentionally try to break something you probably will.

Pros and cons are down below) Check out my vid here:

Advantages:

1. I very much enjoyed the puzzles. They are the main feature of the game and you have nailed them! I think they were rather original (at least for me) and interesting to figure out. Though, at first it was hard to figure out what to do because I didn't know what I was looking for so I had to spend lots of time in the first area.

2. I enjoyed the environment. It was cool how it changed after each solved puzzle near the end but still there were hints left for the player to figure out where to go. Very cool!

3. The stories were creepy. I didn't read them all I have to admit, but the things I have read were spooky. The game has created a very good ambiance and the voice acting also helped with this task. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

Disadvantages:

1. The game lacks horror aspects for a horror experience. The place is creepy but there is no feel of danger or even pressure. It would be cool if some sequences would be timed (or at least you had a feeling of being timed) or if the monster that is seen once would appear more.

2. As I have mentioned before - at the start the player does not know what they are looking for so maybe it would be nice to add a note that would hint that you need to pay extra attention on what you read. Because I honestly thought that the spelling mistakes were the spelling mistakes and you need to check each corner for some instruments.

Overall:

I think the experience was very interesting. I am so glad I played the game! It may benefit from some more horror elements but overall it deserves 5 stars as is! Btw, I think I had the version before the updates so I am really sorry if some of my points are irrelevant atm!

Hope my feedback was useful!

Absolutely bizarre and horrifying. So happy the full game was released because I totally loved it.

I played this game before most of the updates I believe, so perhaps there were issues that I encountered which have since been fixed. Having said that, the story was interesting, I wanted to know ultimately what the library holds and the ending did give me a sense of closure. I look forward to your future work. 

Here's a little review of the game that I made after playing it - I hope this encourages more people to check it out!

This game was nicely done.  The suspense is pretty thick and puzzles are good for a bit of thinking.  I made a few 360 gameplays so viewers on Youtube could get inspired to play this game. Here is the first https://youtu.be/tNg_grUYuA4 (notice that the recorder doesn't get the overlaid items like book pages, Cell Phone etc but otherwise it is representative of the game.  Looking forward to the games evolution and more from BanzaiBonsai

Thank you for joining me for this game and suggesting it for me to play! I'm terrible with these types of games (obviously) but it was a fun ride!

I loved this game, and after I played the demo I went to play this game in full. It's a super interesting story and I suggest to anyone reading this to play the game! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3vvDFC_Ns0&feature=youtu.be

This is the type of horror game that I love. There isn't some demon chasing after you making game play unbearable, but instead it is extremely atmospheric and detailed.

I love this game, it was everything the demo was and much more than I ever expected it to be. If you've played the Haunted PS1 Demo Disk then this is just as polished as that but about ten times as long.

The puzzles in the game might be a bit hard to understand at some points (in particular the finger puzzle might pose a challenge in case you misunderstand what you need to do) but otherwise it wasn't too hard with figuring out what you needed to do in a particular area.

Thank you for making such a great game. Really refreshing for the horror genre.