Known Issues

In the current version, you might encounter some issues and unfinished features. The list below highlights a few I would like you to be aware of.

• The chests, while they take damage, cannot be destroyed. Don't waste your mana on them.
•  The particle effects might take a while to load and cause a lag, especially on the first playthrough. 
•  The "Restart" feature doesn't appear to work correctly on the web build.  

The Curse

Embark on this short interactive journey through a cursed castle.  As you delve into its darkness, you must evade dangerous mimics and  fight off eerie phantoms of your past self, all the while  attempting to collect your lost memories.

How to play

At the start, you will find yourself in your chamber. To start the adventure, you will need to investigate the ancient book. Once you've regained composure, look around for your wand and start exploring the castle for clues. 

Your goal is to collect all 4 memory pieces before the curse consumes you. They are hard to spot in the shadow's of the curse. Your wand will be your friend: once you found it, you will be able to uncover a small part of the world around you. Use this spell wisely, as it speeds up the progression of the curse. 

At the current stage, the game concludes with your collapse as the curse reaches its full strength. To fight against it, you would need to collect more memories, as they strengthen your ties to the real world. 

Controls

• Press the scroll wheel button down to rotate the view and scroll it to zoom in/out.
• Use the Right Mouse Button to  lift the curse.
• Use the Left Mouse Button to cast a defensive spell.
• Walk around with the WASD keys.
•  ress E to interact.
• Press R and listen out for a bell sound to find the memory pieces.

Godot Wild Jam #78

The main theme for this month's game jam is Erase. 

"The Curse" incorporates it by building a story around the erasure of the protagonist's memories. How did the mysterious book appear in their chambers? What happened in the past? What do these scattered notes mean? 

As the curse spreads, the colors of the world begin to shift and soon the castle no longer looks like a beloved home it once was. In the darkness, inanimate objects take a form of dangerous monsters, and familiar, yet unseen faces lurk in the shadows.

The Idea

As this game jam's theme was announced, the following idea formed in my head:

An old mage gets cursed by an ancient book and must find a way to remove it before it consumes him. Soon he discovers that the real effect of the curse was the erasure of his memories. He traverses the eerie castle in the search for an answer. On his way he encounters letters, notes and various trinkets that help him reconstruct his memory piece by piece. 

The truth however is darker than he could have imagined. A letter from a loved one dated decades ago, a distressed note with a warning, a journal entry of a tormented soul... It all starts coming back together. 

As a young and curious mind, he set out to acquire all the knowledge - even the forbidden kind. With the love of his life by his side, he felt undefeatable. Yet the worst has happened - a misfired spell, and a bitter consequence. Now he was faced with a force stronger than any he ever faced before: grief. 

Agonized with the pain nothing could heal, he decided to use the most powerful cure: a forbidden ancient spell to erase ones memories. Burdened with the grief, he was ready to part with his memories of his loved one to lessen his own suffering. But every time he cast the spell, something brought him back... Something much stronger than the dark magic - love. 

While his memories kept him fighting against the dark spell, the shock of being snapped back from the curse left his mind shattered. For years, he would be lured back in by the book, losing his sanity bit by bit.

The jam

As the deadline kept on getting closer, the to-do list grew bigger and bigger. I entered this jam with a head full of ideas, a strong programming toolkit and a little knowledge of the Godot engine (I'm primarily a Unity user). 

While this submission doesn't feature a full suite of features I had planned for it, I am excited to share the progress I've made with fellow game developers. 

Previously I have always started projects with the "implementation first, looks later" kind of mindset and this led me to a mountain of abandoned projects. This time round I took the initiative to try flipping this on its head with the art assets coming first. And it did work wonders for my motivation levels - having something fun and polished to look at everyday helped me through the biggest of slumps. So if there's any take-aways for this game jam, that's the one for me!

Future development

Due to the limited timeframe, a lot of features had to dropped out. The most obvious missing ones are:

•  Using keys to unlock chests and doors, 
• Collecting loot from the chests,
• and collecting /using health and mana potions

A few other features I had planned on developing had the time allowed were:

• A quest system to guide you through the exploration,
• Collecting memories reduces the corruption level of the curse,
• or as the curse progresses, the world becomes more dangerous.

There are also many things that require some tweaks and improvements. This includes: 

• UI music cutting tracks instead of fading, 
• The lack of a settings menu, 
• Choppy handling of animations,
• Poor enemy AI.
  

Assets

3D models

•  KayKit - Dungeon Remastered Pack 
• KayKit - Character Pack : Adventurers
• KayKit - Character Pack : Skeletons

Thank you for playing this small demo!