Free The Deerfather - A lovecraftan stone age hunt

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LoveThyCraft

Guest
The Deerfather

The Deerfather is a short top-down action adventure game, made with GM:S 1.4 Professional.

You play as a stone age hunter, on a hunt for cave deer in ancient caves. Throw spears, discover cave paintings and uncover the dark ancestry of man and deer.

The game takes around 10-15 minutes to beat, depending on your spear hunting skills.

Controls:

Arrow keys/WSAD - move
Space - interact
Esc - quit

Screenshots:



DOWNLOAD:

Available for free download on Itch.io:
https://lovethycraft.itch.io/thedeerfather

Feedback wellcome!
 
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Ankokushin

Guest
I enjoyed the green on black minimalist visuals. Also, I enjoy stuff that doesn´t take too long. Will check it out.
 
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Ankokushin

Guest
I played it. Didn´t go through to the end, but here is my review:

The game plays and looks like it was made on production limitation: there are art issues and what little movement there is (of your character and the deers) often feels confusing and hard to control. It doesn´t feel like it was made by an experienced gamemaker programmer.
THAT SAID, it actually is a nice gaming experience. The green on black screen is both relaxing and nosthalgic of old videogames. The simple mechanics and the mindset "get to the door and don´t die" feels nice and intuitive. Half of the gameplay (which is throwing spears) is both optional and strangely limited (as you easily run out of spears), but to me this came accross as the most original aspect of the game.

Besides getting to doors, you can read simple texts which are supposed to tell of the dark origins of men and deer, but as far as I´ve played, these texts didn´t really catch my attention and more than once I just wanted to speed run to the next room.
I BELIEVE that the text might pick up later on and be interesting and scary, but the first messages didn´t shock or puzzle me enough that I would want to read more.

The deers are beautifully drawn - really. They are nice to look at. Other sprites are strange or merely conceptual - I would never understand the pit was a pit if the NPC didn´t specifically tell me it was a pit.
The art concept (of Matrix green and minimalistic drawing) is pretty solid. I really liked it, but I think the sprites themselves could be spruced up.
The sound is 8-bity, and would be unpleasant if it didn´t fit the art concept so perfectly. The bad sound combined with the simple graphics makes the experience feel that more nosthalgic,

I can´t recommend it, but I had a good time. Will try to play again soon and see if I can finish it.
By the way, it is permadeath.

EDIT: I thought about why I liked the deers so much and it came to me they resemble prehistoric cave drawings of deers. Maybe it was intentional - it would make sense, given the scenario - and maybe it wasn´t. If you are ever willing to change the human sprites, I´m posting some cave drawings as a suggestion.




Cheers!
 
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LoveThyCraft

Guest
Thank you very much for your detailed feedback! I am sure I will take your suggestions into account in future projects. And I really do like the idea of making everything look like cave art, if I'll do another prehistoric-themed game, I think that will be the way to go.
 

woodsmoke

Member
I agree with Ankokushin, except that I like the cave man look.

The door at the end of the level was hard for me to see. Maybe make it animated.

Sound is good. The walking sound really replaces the lack of animation. The menu music sounds a bit futuristic? to me. Could be a bit more unclean and organic.

I went fullscreen the screen stayed black. This is a Gamemaker issue that happens when there is no v-sync. If you check the v-sync box in the settings (settings, Windows, graphics) it should go away.
 
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