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.
This really was a rip-roaring horror romp! I leapt in expecting a short little spooky experience and left a broken, gibbering wreck.
The basic premise is that you find yourself in a library, despite not being in a library when you fell asleep. It all seems quite quaint and peaceful but something feels off. And the more time you spend in this place the more eerie it seems. Thus begins your quest to get out of here before you see things you'd rather not.
The game is in essence a puzzle-based psychological horror experience, and it ticks so many goosebumpy boxes! Throughout the library's bookshelves you'll find notes from people who've been there before you and excerpts from books that seem like they've been left there for you to find on purpose.
So, can you escape this place? Has anyone else managed to escape? Only way you can find out is get this little gem downloaded and give it a try for yourself! =)
(I noticed there's been some updates since I played too, which means I may have to go right back and play it some more myself!)
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!
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.
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
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!
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.
I enjoyed it a lot, though I spent a embarrassingly long time retracing each room looking for what i missed. The thing where each hole went somewhere different took a while to figure out, and i found where to use the lockpick by accident.
I hope that's vague enough to be a hint but not a spoiler...
If I were to put forward a couple minor suggestions, I'd use a boxier surveillance cameras and florescent light fixtures from the 70s or 80s to go with the outdated feel.
Thanks for the great game, being part of the demo disc (can't wait for a new one!)
An okay game, but I think it needs a lot more polish (and funnily enough, less in one area). While the graphics are spot on, I felt it was a longwinded walking simulator with weak puzzles.
I stopped reading the scattered books early on, as they were incredibly wordy and just kept reinforcing "library bad" (show, don't tell).
On the puzzles, they were easily solved, except the typo puzzle (due to me not knowing I was looking at a puzzle) and the first safe puzzle, as I was running the game in a sandbox and that stopped it from working.
The environments looked good, but the slow walking pace made traversing them dull. A lot of the time I felt like I knew where I wanted to go, but had to wait while my character got there. I also kept checking the interactable objects (phones, cabinets & photo copier) but they were never used for a puzzle (except the obvious phone one at the end).
I REALLY liked this. I LOVE to read the interesting stories so I went through every one of them. The mystery of the entities inside the world were really cool. The only real problem I had was that I went to some places too early and didn't know I had to backtrack so often towards the middle/end.
very good game. I usually have some thoughts about the game, like how to make it better and stuff. but in this game I can simply say that it is great. I hope to see more from you in the future.
Currently we do not intend to support Mac, just because of the weird way that Unreal and iOS handshake (you need an Apple computer to build for Mac, and even if we worked that out the end result would be badly optimized and buggy). Sorry about that!
What a brilliant and immersive experience this was. It felt super atmospheric and eerie, I was completely sucked in this game until the end. The mysterious setting made me curious for more. And with the game's brilliant and suspecting attention to detail as well presentation, I couldn't resist not pausing or stopping - it truly got me on the edge of my seat. Wonderful work, looking forward to future works.
Took me a lot longer to do the puzzles than I would have liked. It seemed to me like the game went on for longer than it needed. I also didn't really bother to read most of the books after a while since it seemed like most of the info was pointless.
I managed to finish the game but it must have taken me at least an hour and a half if not longer.
By the time I got about half-way through nothing really scared me anymore. The environments were interesting but nothing was really terrifying, it just looked cool.
Most of the reason I took so long was because a few of the puzzles are barely explained. One where you need to look at typos in the text, another where you need to look into some rooms and randomly count the number of objects in them.
None of this is to say I don't think its a good game, I did enjoy it. The style is well executed, the voice acting is great, and the environments are awesome. But for a horror game, this didn't really scare me at all.
Holy heck, you explained my frustrations with the puzzles perfectly. I literally came back to this page becaues I'VE BEEN STUCK FOR AN HOUR trying to figure stuff out. Thought I was glitched, exited to main menu, continued & somehow triggered a voiceline that didn't happen before so maybe I was glitched at that time. Still can't solve this though. In my opinion, for a story game, this ruins immersion based on how frustrating getting stuck for this long is. I usually don't mind taking a few minutes to examine thing...but no progress for 20+ minutes (so far 60+ minutes for me) is so disheartening for a game that was so amazing up until this point.
I'm in a library that loops into itself, the door is blocked by a crap-ton of chairs. There's a combination puzzle on the front of the desk (there's a door behind the desk, and a door across the desk, boarded up). It also says on a window, I need some way to remove a padlock.
Presuming you already have the item near the broken CRT, I recommend checking the note on the desk again, as that will lead you to a particular code for a particular lockbox.
If you'd like me to just tell you the solution to the puzzle I can as well.
As someone else who got stuck there, I'd say that puzzle needs to go or else it needs a secondary hint somewhere. Even with your hint I had to read the letter twice, minor typos just don't register unless they destroy the flow; if they did, nobody would make it through any comments on the internet.
For me, a "filter" (if you will) has been pulled over my eyes from the many games I've played on here. That filter being to ignore typos, because many games I've personally come across have them (even this game, later on in the game where I think the term "no loner" is used instead of "no longer").
*Possible spoilers for the metal box puzzle below*
I originally thought, I had to click the buttons in a certain order.
I wish there was some sort of indicator letting me know I had a key. Like one of the slots highlighting when clicking a button. I was stuck for about 80 minutes until I found out by randomly clicking the screen that, clicking a button gives you a key while on that puzzle, and that the holes at the top are the key slots. I thought those holes were normal and from my characters POV, they were just seeing the inside of the safe because of the depth/way the light shines.
I had to stop at the multiple staircase/holes-in-the-floors parts, but I think over all the game/graphics/atmosphere are pretty good. It's just a few UI/HUD things in the puzzles would help.
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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.
This really was a rip-roaring horror romp! I leapt in expecting a short little spooky experience and left a broken, gibbering wreck.
The basic premise is that you find yourself in a library, despite not being in a library when you fell asleep. It all seems quite quaint and peaceful but something feels off. And the more time you spend in this place the more eerie it seems. Thus begins your quest to get out of here before you see things you'd rather not.
The game is in essence a puzzle-based psychological horror experience, and it ticks so many goosebumpy boxes! Throughout the library's bookshelves you'll find notes from people who've been there before you and excerpts from books that seem like they've been left there for you to find on purpose.
So, can you escape this place? Has anyone else managed to escape? Only way you can find out is get this little gem downloaded and give it a try for yourself! =)
(I noticed there's been some updates since I played too, which means I may have to go right back and play it some more myself!)
Thanks a bunch for the kind words, Mikey! We really appreciate knowing we're doing something right!
Found this through the Haunted PS1 collection, love the premise for this. I just played the demo but plan to play the full game!
Smh stop stealing plants
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.
I enjoyed it a lot, though I spent a embarrassingly long time retracing each room looking for what i missed. The thing where each hole went somewhere different took a while to figure out, and i found where to use the lockpick by accident.
I hope that's vague enough to be a hint but not a spoiler...
If I were to put forward a couple minor suggestions, I'd use a boxier surveillance cameras and florescent light fixtures from the 70s or 80s to go with the outdated feel.
Thanks for the great game, being part of the demo disc (can't wait for a new one!)
Thank you for playing and for the valuable feedback!
We're looking into slightly changing some visuals for those first two things you mentioned to hopefully make them a little clearer.
Thank you for making such a great game. Really refreshing for the horror genre.
Very cool game! I liked the objectives and puzzles in this game!
Which tablet puzzle are you referring to? I might be able to give you a hint!
I noticed that the full game is very different from the demo.
Yep! The demo's really more of a prologue to the setting/characters.
I enjoyed both. They both had their own different puzzles and places.
An okay game, but I think it needs a lot more polish (and funnily enough, less in one area). While the graphics are spot on, I felt it was a longwinded walking simulator with weak puzzles.
I stopped reading the scattered books early on, as they were incredibly wordy and just kept reinforcing "library bad" (show, don't tell).
On the puzzles, they were easily solved, except the typo puzzle (due to me not knowing I was looking at a puzzle) and the first safe puzzle, as I was running the game in a sandbox and that stopped it from working.
The environments looked good, but the slow walking pace made traversing them dull. A lot of the time I felt like I knew where I wanted to go, but had to wait while my character got there. I also kept checking the interactable objects (phones, cabinets & photo copier) but they were never used for a puzzle (except the obvious phone one at the end).
I REALLY liked this. I LOVE to read the interesting stories so I went through every one of them. The mystery of the entities inside the world were really cool. The only real problem I had was that I went to some places too early and didn't know I had to backtrack so often towards the middle/end.
Thanks for making the video, we're glad you're enjoying the game and the stories!
Sorry about the bug with the phone towards the end, it somehow never happened during testing. I managed to reproduce it and am working on a fix.
Edit: The bug has been fixed with Update #2
10/10
very good game. I usually have some thoughts about the game, like how to make it better and stuff. but in this game I can simply say that it is great. I hope to see more from you in the future.
btw if you are interested, check my video:
I think you were really close to the end. Not sure where the key was though, lol
Mac support?
Currently we do not intend to support Mac, just because of the weird way that Unreal and iOS handshake (you need an Apple computer to build for Mac, and even if we worked that out the end result would be badly optimized and buggy). Sorry about that!
Sadly ,not a wasd user but looks fun.
Also not claimable.
I believe we have controller support, if that's what oyu mean!
AZERTY keyboard?
I believe we will have support for this at some point in the near future. If so, I'll be sure to post an update about it!
Unless they mean they exclusively use arrow keys! Foreign keyboards is definitely something I would have overlooked if I was releasing a game.
We just added the ability to rebind keys with the recent update if you want to give it another try!
So, is it finished? You have just published an announcement, saying that it's a full version!
This is the full version of the game, yes. It will likely receive at least one significant content update in the future, however.
;o
What a brilliant and immersive experience this was. It felt super atmospheric and eerie, I was completely sucked in this game until the end. The mysterious setting made me curious for more. And with the game's brilliant and suspecting attention to detail as well presentation, I couldn't resist not pausing or stopping - it truly got me on the edge of my seat. Wonderful work, looking forward to future works.
Heyyy, thanks a million, n3dd! I'm glad that our project hit the proper notes with you!
Brilliant!
We've posted up a full playthrough of the game below. Thank you!
Thanks for playing!
Here is the first part.
Took me a lot longer to do the puzzles than I would have liked. It seemed to me like the game went on for longer than it needed. I also didn't really bother to read most of the books after a while since it seemed like most of the info was pointless.
I managed to finish the game but it must have taken me at least an hour and a half if not longer.
By the time I got about half-way through nothing really scared me anymore. The environments were interesting but nothing was really terrifying, it just looked cool.
Most of the reason I took so long was because a few of the puzzles are barely explained. One where you need to look at typos in the text, another where you need to look into some rooms and randomly count the number of objects in them.
None of this is to say I don't think its a good game, I did enjoy it. The style is well executed, the voice acting is great, and the environments are awesome. But for a horror game, this didn't really scare me at all.
Holy heck, you explained my frustrations with the puzzles perfectly. I literally came back to this page becaues I'VE BEEN STUCK FOR AN HOUR trying to figure stuff out. Thought I was glitched, exited to main menu, continued & somehow triggered a voiceline that didn't happen before so maybe I was glitched at that time. Still can't solve this though. In my opinion, for a story game, this ruins immersion based on how frustrating getting stuck for this long is. I usually don't mind taking a few minutes to examine thing...but no progress for 20+ minutes (so far 60+ minutes for me) is so disheartening for a game that was so amazing up until this point.
Sorry to hear that you got stuck! Do you mind if I ask which room it was that gave you so much trouble?
I'm in a library that loops into itself, the door is blocked by a crap-ton of chairs. There's a combination puzzle on the front of the desk (there's a door behind the desk, and a door across the desk, boarded up). It also says on a window, I need some way to remove a padlock.
Presuming you already have the item near the broken CRT, I recommend checking the note on the desk again, as that will lead you to a particular code for a particular lockbox.
If you'd like me to just tell you the solution to the puzzle I can as well.
As someone else who got stuck there, I'd say that puzzle needs to go or else it needs a secondary hint somewhere. Even with your hint I had to read the letter twice, minor typos just don't register unless they destroy the flow; if they did, nobody would make it through any comments on the internet.
For me, a "filter" (if you will) has been pulled over my eyes from the many games I've played on here. That filter being to ignore typos, because many games I've personally come across have them (even this game, later on in the game where I think the term "no loner" is used instead of "no longer").
*Possible spoilers for the metal box puzzle below*
I originally thought, I had to click the buttons in a certain order.
I wish there was some sort of indicator letting me know I had a key. Like one of the slots highlighting when clicking a button. I was stuck for about 80 minutes until I found out by randomly clicking the screen that, clicking a button gives you a key while on that puzzle, and that the holes at the top are the key slots. I thought those holes were normal and from my characters POV, they were just seeing the inside of the safe because of the depth/way the light shines.
I had to stop at the multiple staircase/holes-in-the-floors parts, but I think over all the game/graphics/atmosphere are pretty good. It's just a few UI/HUD things in the puzzles would help.
Thanks for the game :)
;o
This game was such a genuine joy to work on, I really hope y'all have as much fun playing as we did making it!
;o
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What game engine do you use?
A Place, Forbidden, was built in Unreal.
;o
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;o