Ouroboros: The Sacrifice - A dark fantasy adventure

Started by Firgof, Sat 06/06/2015 15:16:09

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Firgof


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The lands of Fyra are a harsh, cold, and unforgiving wasteland; traits the people that inhabit it have inherited.  When their children reach maturity, some are sent to guard the land's borders - told never to return without either a trespasser or completing a Journey delivered by the Gods.  In exchange, their families are guaranteed food and shelter in the harsh lands for as long as their children man the wall; in the end, many die on the border - waiting for intruders who do not come or Gods who will not speak with them.

Iyu is one of those who was fated to guard the border.  He has survived 30 withering years in the biting cold and, now an adult, is plagued with visions of death and dying alone.  His resolve is tested as the Gods finally deliver him the means to take the first step on his journey - a meeting with the Goddess of Death.  It seems that to go home, first he must die trying.

Ouroboros: The Sacrifice is a short-length (30-60 minute) first-person horror-themed adventure game.  Includes professional voice-acting, hand-drawn backgrounds and characters, and an atmospheric soundtrack.


Addenda
Thanks to everyone here on AGS for posting their commentary as I worked.  You are part of why I was able to bring this game to completion after its disappointing start.
I hope you all enjoy the game - please feel free to add your thoughts, bug reports, and suggestions down below.

If you do like it, please let me know.  I'm not sure whether I will continue producing this game series or not - it does take a lot of time and effort for me to produce the art that Ouroboros is founded on and not much of it is reusable.


Game Updates
[6/6/2015] A new build (v1.1) is now available.  The build includes the following changes:  Fixed strobing behavior in the ritual room, removed defunct text, made initial dialog with Voshim function with voice acting as intended.
[6/6/2015] A new build (v1.2) is now available.  Fixed errors with the journal entries, added temporary warning to users to alert them of the bug.  Fixed temple drum puzzle (answer array was set to an incorrect length, making solving it by the hints in the journal impossible).
[6/7/2015] A new build (v1.3) is now available.  Added an option to the Journey button on the main menu to continue from a saved game (apologies for the oversight).
[6/8/2015] A new build (v1.4) is now available.  An issue with the tracking of a variable in the bell puzzle room made completing it impossible.  The issue has now been resolved and the puzzle is working as intended.
[6/8/2015] A new build (v1.45) is now available.  A leftover variable declaration and a debug print statement have been removed from the Bell Puzzle room; the puzzle's solution in 1.4 was two tones shorter than intended.
[6/15/2015] A new build (v1.5) is now available. The issue with the journal entries has been resolved.  Added: a description for the items in the preparation room when being picked up.
[6/20/2015] A new build (v1.6) is now available.  Added a few more hints to places I felt needed some more work, some editing work of the conversation with Delgof.  Made all the interactable items in the ritual cave default to any click rather than examine so that folks don't feel like they can't get information out of their environment.

AGS for Linux users!
It has come to my attention that the current build for AGS for Linux doesn't yet support video files.  In deference to that, I am placing links below to the two endings to the game which you may obtain at your leisure.
I apologize for the extra effort to obtain your hard-won ending.


Ending A (Accept the Wager)
Ending B (Refuse the Wager)



qptain Nemo

A very interesting and fresh work. Aside from a few technical issues, I really enjoyed it. I particularly liked the original lore. Though personally, I'm not a huge puzzle lover, so while the puzzles were fairly well thought-out, I'd prefer more lore, dialogue and interactivity than puzzles. However, there is no doubt in my mind that I'd like to see more of this sort of thing. Well done!

Firgof

Thanks, qptain.  I'll be keeping those critiques in mind if this does well enough to get a sequel.  Which endings did y'all get?  I'm curious to know.

Also, if you're grabbing the game from GameJolt: Please rate and comment if you like the game.  I'd love to hear each and every one of y'all's opinion and ratings are how we can get the game some visibility!

Shadow1000

I keep getting stuck on one of the
Spoiler
newly added
[close]
journal pages. It won't go back to the game when I open that page. I have to force it down and reload.

I also don't see a way to load the game from the opening menu. It seems that you have to play through the opening and dialogues to get to the point where you can load. Am I missing something?

SHADOW

Firgof

That's an oversight I'm correcting today (having to get past the introduction to load a game).  And yeah, there's an issue with the journal pages - I have no idea why it does that.  All the new pages are the same as the old pages, and they're all clickable.  I'll keep looking into it until I find a solution though; for now I recommend saving before clicking on any of the new pages so that you can read them and then continue playing.

For now, if you need to get to the load screen you can hold down enter/space and it'll skip all the dialogue.  Should only take about 10 seconds to get to the point where you load the game if you remember the sequence you took the first time.  When the new build is up you'll be able to continue from a saved journey on the main menu by clicking on the Journey button and selecting the 'continue journey' dialogue option.

Edit: The new build is now available.

Firgof

Now that the game's been out a few days and seems to have reached a stable (albeit with one bug still remaining) build: if anyone has any feedback they'd like to share, I'm all ears.
Or all eyes, I suppose!

Ibispi

Amazing game with nice graphics and story. Even the voice acting is amazing. Well done, Firgof!
I will give you feedback once I complete the game, I wasn't able to do so because of responsibilities in personal life.

StillInThe90s

Epic graphics style.
Will pull the blinds and sink my teeth into this as soon as possible.

AprilSkies

I enjoyed this game so far!
Great Job Firgof!
Art stuff is amazing, and the storytelling is even better!

www.apemarina.altervista.org

[delete}

You are a very talented in drawing. Ouroboros is also very atmospheric, enjoyed it - even with me being easily frightened.

Stupot

I just got woken up at 3:30 in the morning to my phone going mental. It turned out to be 20 Gmail notifications of GameJolt updates for this game. I'm pretty sure you didn't deliberately send it 20 times, so it must be a quirk on GameJolt or Gmail's end, but damn that was annoying :-/ I wonder if it happened to anyone else.

Anyway, congrats on the release. It's a lovely looking game and I'll check it as soon as I can :-)

Firgof

Sorry about that.  Yeah, I did just put out a news post today if that's what triggered it.
CROS is currently working on GameJolt Next so there's probably some bugs in his mailer daemon or something.

I hope you enjoy the game!

Firgof

Finally figured out what was causing the issue with the journal entries.  They should now function as intended.  A new build is presently being uploaded.

Also, I'm optimistically working on concept art for the next game as seen below.


Firgof

Added a link in the main post to a full walkthrough of the game which I've posted up here on the AGS forums.
Folks seem to keep getting stuck in parts of the game, so I figured it was worth it to create a simple blow-by-blow for y'all to have as a guide when you get lost.

I recommend only using the walkthrough if you get truly stumped by a puzzle - the Journal does a lot of subtle hinting and guiding already in the game.

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