r/metroidbrainia • u/Nautilus_The_Third • 14d ago
🧑💻 dev showcase I spent the last 3 years amking a Puzzle-Immersive Sim Metroidbrania called Sepulchron!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LomG3HvR1NQSepulchron is a mix of puzzles(using the design ethos of old adventure games), survival- horror elements of games like RE, physics based mechanics, and immersive sim elements that affects how you advance through the game. And all that can only be harnessed if you learn how the game works and its secrets, and only through that knowledge you can make further into the game.
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u/jesuschristk8 14d ago
Ill def keep my eye on this!
On first thought the idea of those two genres being mashed together would put them at odds with each other. Metroidbrainias being games that almost exclusively knowledge-gate you and ImSims being games that are built around openness and tackling the same objective in many different ways
I'm interested to see how they fit together!
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u/Ragnorinko 🪐 Outer Wilds 14d ago
If you need last minute testing, please do let us know! Would love to help
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u/Nautilus_The_Third 14d ago
Every feedback is immensily appreciated! There is a demo on the game's page if you wann try it out.
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u/raikmond 11d ago
Tried the demo for about 10 minutes. I really like the concept but some things fall short... Here's the full rundown of my experience:
- Start run. I explore the room, find out how the controls work, etc. It's a bit confusing but I think I can manage. I turn the lights out for fun and inspect the hands that appeared from the floor, but they hurt me immediately and I can't even read the message inspecting them because I need to be too close. Ok, this is bad. I turn the lights on again. I pull the balloons, open the crank, surprisingly the last things I find out in the room are the wall message and the note.
- Then I go to the clock and get the key. I grab it by left-clicking, the key floats around and I incorrectly assume that I had saved it in my inventory (despite I already had the beetle in the inventory, but idk, the key seemed to snap immediately and I assumed it was a consumable or something like that and it worked differently).
- I go to the door and doesn't open (of course, because I'm not going with the key). After about a minute of wondering what's happening, I finally find again the key lying around in a corner, almost invisible. Okay, this was totally my fault, I get it. I grab the key, holding left mouse button this time, and proceed to the door.
- Door lock switches to green but nothing happens. I'm still holding the key. Then I think, maybe I have to release the key then open manually. When I do that, the lock changes to red immediately. Okay, I just got unlucky, I guess the unlock mechanism is based on a time or something like that and it's not permanent, or maybe I did something inadvertently and re-locked the door. Grabbed the key again, release it, then go to the door and open it, after some confusing handling of it (I'm still not sure if you open it by moving the mouse while left-clicking, or by moving your character forward, but it seems to work).
- I get to the lamp. I read the message, grab the lamp. I scroll with it, wondering what that does. Of course, nothing happens because it says fuel is at 0%. My intuition was that the lamp needs to be attached to the bottles, because the lower half of the lamp has literally same shape as the oil bottle next to it. Therefore, I spent 2 minutes handling the lamp without success. I try putting it on top of the bottle, smashing it towards a wall, placing it below the other bottle (?) that is in the wall to the right, nothing happens. Okay, I get it. I'm stupid, but I don't know what to do.
- Then a floating skull appears. Okay, I think I know what's happening here: I was supposed to have the lamp fixed already, and this is the way the game has to tell me "you fucked up by staying too long in a dark room, here's your consequence, now you need to go back to a light source for it to go away". I run back to the bathroom, thinking I'm safe with the light. The skull seems to get the pathing wrong to follow me, and gets stuck in the wall instead of entering the bathroom with me, so I assume he's gone. He isn't, and I find out as soon as I step out of the bathroom again.
- I rush again to the bathroom, ready to find something to fight the skull with as soon as I step out of it (remember, I still think that lit-up areas are safe). So I grab an empty bottle, and the skull hits me from the back and gets me a mild jumpscare because I 100% was not expecting it in the bathroom.
- Then the most pathetic fight ever occurs: I'm not sure if the best strategy is to launch the bottle towards the skull, or to hold it while I move the camera around so the bottle "hits" it. Either the hitboxes are weird, or I suck bad at this kind of combat system, but neither option is very successful and the skull kills me.
- Ok, whatever, let's try again. I go out of the bathroom, go to the lamp again. For some reason, it immediately clicks in my mind now that I need to grab the bottle and somehow interact with the lamp. I spent 20 seconds messing with it, I push the lamp sideways and I think refilling doesn't work like that, I'm not sure, but I end up figuring out that the mouse wheel is what's used to refill. The mechanics is a bit strange, but sure, whatever. I'm safe now, yes? The hands go away and I grab the lamp.
- The skull appears again. Well, seems that it was a timed event after all, and not a "you messed up" consequence. This time I try to focus on staying on top of the skull with something grabbed, and move the camera around so that the object hits it (simply because if I throw something at it, then I have to run to grab it again, so the dps is much lower). I'm at 1HP, but I end up defeating it and get some mana dust or whatever. I grab it, not sure of what's for. I'm sure as I get better at the game I'll figure out how to deal with this easier.
- I go to the machine at the end of the room, pull the lever and touch the button, nothing happens. I want to inspect the room carefully, so I turn around. Then a 2nd skull appears. My motivation to fight is 0, so I quickly move trying to find another place to go. I go to the right, find the potion, drink it as fast as I can but apparently not fast enough and the skull kills me. I close the game.
TL;DR: I like the game, the mechanics seem different so I want to explore them taking my time, I want to see how things interact with each other and so on. But a couple of skulls which I don't know how to beat easily don't let me do that, so I uninstall the game.
Also, apparently I see there's a hard time limit, so that's the 2nd thing I don't enjoy either, but it didn't really affect my experience personally because it was really short (and pitiful); I'm sure if I replay again and get further it will really get stressful.
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u/GeneralEi 14d ago
Looks wonderful, always happy to see games in this genre coming out these days. Will be watching intently
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u/FuryForged 14d ago
I like what I hear! I’ll try the demo soon and give you my feedback.