Ochre
A downloadable game for Windows
"Three friends on a trip to Morocco venture out into the Sahara in search of a mysterious yet popular tourist destination. There's nothing to fear if you're not alone, right?" Brought to you by Portal Emulator.
A ~120 min text-adventure horror game. Tried something a bit different to my previous stuff.
Again, this turned out to be longer than expected. Sorry for the long wait! (I could only start programming/illustrating in June). If my next planned idea turns out to work well, the next game will be much shorter. As always, any feedback appreciated.
!! Content warnings: this game contains strong language, depictions of gore/body horror, and dark themes including violence, death and self-harm.
For full detail, set the game to at least a 1080x1080 resolution. Smaller display options still have readable text, but the smaller the display, the more image detail is lost.
A secret ending? I've never heard of such a thing...
Artificial intelligence was not used to ideate, design, write, illustrate, program or generate any aspect of this game.
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Don't know if anyone's ever gotten it before me, but I did manage to get the secret ending and solve the mystery of the obelisk's inscription. (Mercifcully, unlike the text adventure games this is styled after, once the ending is triggered, the puzzle is solved automatically instead of spending hours figuring out what to do.)
One important thing I'd add to the developer's hints: the idiom is the same as the underlined one used by the Oracle, but sand is replaced by "time".
Also, if you're not sure you've successfully clicked on the redundant element at the right time, click on it before getting to the idiom's second appearance and remember what happens when you do click it. That will give you the experiential reference you need to know.
OK, if you're down here and are the dev, some questions about the ending:
* Is the ultimate solution to the obelisk's elevator functionality to have three people who have recently been...transferred?...to stand at the positions indicated by the inscription with the bowls, and one still-living person to do the same? I know it doesn't matter since, regardless of the solution, the game auto-solves it for you, but as someone who's played a lot of adventure games, graphical, text, and hybrid, I'm still curious. :D
* When Olivia arrives at the artists' chamber, does she lose her face at that point, given she's doomed to a different sort of eternal life than in the bad ending?
*Aside from explaining how the paintings get made, what is the office-like artists' chamber meant to represent? I must admit the symbolism there, if any, is lost on me.
Anyways, I didn't like the ending at first, until I realized what the Oracle meant when she was talking to me, the player: I can't cheat Olivia's ultimate fate - she will enter into the afterlife one way or another (not exactly sure if being transferred(?) or managing to enter the artists' chamber counts as dying). But I can make that fate bittersweet.
But yeah, without the hints you provided previously, I'd have no idea how to achieve the secret ending. Even if I'd thought to go back and enter Olivia's actual dying words to the Oracle, the idiom sounds like "when the sandy blood of Tyler flows (slips) through your hands, exit the game using the in-game exit button", not "when this idiom is repeated similarly in the game, exit the game using the in-game exit button"...though that's my adventure game brain working there. While I agree the solution is definitely overly-obtuse, I do think a simple change would make it much easier to achieve. Specifically, if you've gotten the Oracle's advice using Olivia's true last words, that locks you in to the secret ending. As such, once the idiom is stated in dialogue, Oliva suddenly realizes the Oracle's meaning and, thus, knows it's time to LET GO (possibly allowing the player to actually type that in).
(comment contains BIG spoilers)
Congratulations on getting the secret ending! I definitely made this one way to difficult to get and I'm making sure they're more approachable in the future. Someone has found the secret ending before (look up Ochre Secret Ending on YouTube) but you're the first, it seems, to want to really understand it!
As for the clue's wording, I tried to keep 'time' as the main object of the slipping and 'sand' the secondary object. Maybe brackets would have been better instead of commas:
"... to realise when time (like sand) is slipping through your fingers ..."
"it feels like time is slipping through my fingers"
There was originally no 'sand' there. But at some later point I added "like sand" to link it to an hourglass and must have missed that the sentence wasn't as clear anymore.
I'd love to answer your questions - I won't flat out spoil the whole story but I'll ask some questions (kinda like the Socratic method).
1. The elevator's functionality is clued by the inscription: it descends when four people stand around it who are ALL 'transferred' as you put it. The inscription is composed of three drawings. The first two depict an elevator descending when the humanoid figure has no swirl on their face. The third slice shows four dots around a (strangely familiar) square symbol - this is a bird's eye view of what is required. It wouldn't make sense if one person was living, because "Not a single soul had witnessed the opening of the studio. And not a single one ever would."
2. Olivia's face - like everyone else's - disappears after looking at her painting, but before her painting is placed back on the wall. When she's walking toward the obelisk, her face has already vanished. You say 'she's doomed to a different eternal life', but the normal ending and the secret are the EXACT SAME ending, from different perspectives. (Remember, she cannot avoid her fate, it's inescapable.) What part of Olivia do you think the normal ending focuses on? What about the secret ending? These two parts of her have been separated from one another.
3. The office-like chamber does represent something, but I don't think I'll reveal too much yet. It's related to an underlying theme. To explore the theme, consider:
a) Why does the symbol on the ticket (and the game icon) look the way it does? (it's not arbitrary)
b) What one feeling are all three characters suffering from (in different ways)? What are the sources of this feeling?
c) The oracle says "The combination of iron, the inorganic, and oxygen, the organic ... it's unnatural." They attribute it to iron-oxide in a literal sense, but what else is it reminiscent of metaphorically?
d) What was Olivia reminded of here: "Faceless people within square frames ... it reminds me of something but I can't quite put my finger on it."
e) The entire secret ending process places importance on 'taking a break'. From what? There's a literal answer - the game - but what's the metaphorical answer?
Your comment about the Oracle is spot on :)
And yeah, in retrospect it was definitely overly-obtuse. I think I got too adventurous after people found Pleonexia's secret ending so easily and ramped it up way too much. Your idea about locking the secret ending in when you enter the words is a good way to simplify a secret ending, and I'll consider doing something similar in the future. I might not change this one though, because I think it's nice every once in a while to have bits of my games that are extra hard to sus out, like rabbit holes, so that you can dig your fingers really deep into the them and still pull stuff out.
Thanks so much for playing!
I am going fucking crazy. I have no idea where the oracles advice applies in game, put in four attempts after beating the game to get the true ending, put in too many hours taking notes, reviewing, theorizing, now I've run out of patience. Don't even know how to apply the advice, do I close out of the game and reopen it, do I afk for 5 mins? Damn you and your obscure secret endings.
I'm completely stumped, from here on useless spoiler points
> The white flash Olivia notices from behind in the maze is Sam taking a photograph in secret
> The bowls contain the physical tears crying for years of the people in the paintings
>The box you see when you step out of the car is the remains of the people that went inside, probably clothing, phones, cameras, jewelry, the taxi driver is in on this operation
>The white text that flashes on screen after you enter your true last words are as follows, "Stop trying to think about what you could have done differently", "Eternity is hell; hell is eternity" "No amount of imagination will free you" The text flashes once immediately after you enter your last words, the rest are probably just play at random times
>Game has themes of a literal tourist trap
>Olivia's parents are probably fated to come to the gallery looking for their daughter, and find their photos, as mentioned before they would fly to Morocco if Olivia sprained her ankle.
>Don't know what the book stall means, maybe (ASCs) is the state Tyler and Sam were in.
(Comment contains spoilers)
Let me immediately begin by thanking you so much for your determination and patience! It means a lot when I see someone trying to see the secret ending. You've put in more than enough time than I expected and you deserve clarity! I must admit I think I've made this secret ending too hard/convoluted to get. Multiple oversights on my part. I haven't heard of anyone getting it in comments or videos, so I'll give you some hints and hopefully others will benefit from it too.
Based on what you've figured out, you're not far from getting the secret ending. From my experience with puzzles, being told the answer is never as rewarding as figuring it out yourself, so this comment will not spoil it entirely (but will get close). Feel free to stop reading if you get any ideas. But I also understand that's not how everyone likes to play games, so if you want the answer straight up please let me know and I will be happy to provide in further comments! I spent a solid bit of time on the secret ending so I hope it's worth it.
To get the secret ending, there is a certain action you have to perform at a certain time. The advice has two important parts to use.
1. The first is the group of 4 underlined words, forming an idiom. In the entire game, there is only ONE other time that idiom is used. You can only get the secret ending when the paragraph containing that idiom is the one you're currently "reading". That is to say, the second it shows up, wait for any automatic text to finish and do NOT press space! If you press space, the next paragraph will start typing and the chance is gone. I know ... very unforgiving. (This is what "only in that very moment" tries to imply).
Oversight by me: The idiom only shows up the second time if the game knows you've received the advice during THAT playthrough. Originally it would show on every playthrough, but that left open the possibility for people to accidentally stumble upon the secret ending without experiencing the bad ending first (which would narratively make no sense). So, it only shows if you have the advice, which you can only get after the bad ending. Not the best idea in retrospect because people might not realise this and without a save system the game takes a long time to play.
That leads me to my next oversight: the idiom doesn't show up at the most convenient time - it's not at the beginning of the game, nor in the middle ... sorry. It's not during the bad ending either, so never click "It's no use. There's no way out.". You also have to have given the old lady her painting.
2. The second important part is the action you have to perform. Hitting the X to close the window isn't the answer: Due to the way the game is currently programmed, no information is retained when the game window closes (hence why there is no save system). When the game is reopened, it has no knowledge of what you did on previous playthroughs.
There will be an indication when you perform the right action - you should notice something different. If you stop at the right moment and don't hit space, you should eventually find it.
If only there was some functionality implemented into the game that seemed redundant. As if the entire game could be perfectly playable without it, but for some strange reason … it's there.
Hope this is enough and good luck! I'll respond if you want further hints or the answer. Use headphones to get the most of the secret ending. :)
holy moly guacamole...
whilegameisfalse, super immersive experience, really enjoyed how you played with all the mechanics this time. sound was really great, too.
I'm wondering about your pixel-jitter effect, similair to the one Yames uses. you use Unity, right? I've been trying for the last week to replicate that pixel jitter but can't get anything right.....
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed.
Yes, I use Unity (for now...). The glitching component of my shader works by displacing (tiny) square regions of the image by a random amount, at random intervals. The locations of the squares are determined by random translations of a texture that is fed into the shader (they are not procedural).
I did base mine on Yames' one but I know for sure mine doesn't replicate theirs exactly. When designing it, I drew on the shader examples from Shaders Laboratory (which is an amazing free resource in general). At least to me, programming shaders through code is difficult, so if it's any consolation, I made mine with heaps of trial and error. Maybe if you're using the shader graph it might be a bit easier.
Another ethereal dreamscape...another terrifying descent into the abyss. Just like Pleonexia and Acrophile, there's an unnerving, foreboding and quite frankly, wrong sense of the world in your games - (and I mean that in a complimentary way!) It's almost like reading a good Stephen King book, or watching a slow burn 70's horror - you want to look away, but can't seem to muster the strength to do it...finally you stare at the screen through latticed fingers...bravo on another well put together, deliciously macabre tale.
The mechanics at play seem to leap-frog in every game, so I fully applaud the text-based narrative on display here. Your previous games have also heavily relied on text and dialogue, but I felt a warm fuzzy sense of my youth when playing Ochre - games like The Big Sleaze, The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy and others exploded in my mind when playing this.
I particularly enjoyed the sense of minimalistic sounds at play in Ochre - the faint rustling of wind in the background, the faint drip, drip, drip when in the gallery, the clinical and sober snap of the camera in a darkened area - especially with the glowsticks and puzzles (which I completely failed to recognise this time around) it all amassed to a crescendo that was very Twilight Zone, Tales of The Unexpected, The Outer Limits.
Although limited with the amount of prompts on offer (LOOK, TALK TO etc) it's really the story that drives this forward - three friends on a trip in Morocco to find a gallery of questionable merit. It may not be for everyone, but that's okay - I had a blast playing it.
Unfortunately I didn't get the 'real' ending (I suspect) - although I'm pretty sure I cracked the code, I couldn't find the old lady's painting. I leave the floor open for someone to do another video and capture the ending that I can slap my hand to forehead and sigh, 'Oh, so I needed to do that!"
As always, congratulations on a very fine indie horror - keep up the macabre, twisted sense of corrosion and I look forward to the next one!
Left a comment on your channel - thanks again for playing! I do understand that the text adventure isn't like the usual ones (e.g., commands like north/n, use, take, inventory/i). That's definitely one of the things I'd change if I made another text adventure, but I probably won't make one for a while (I think most people prefer the visually-oriented ones). I'm planning the next game to be of the sort. Glad you enjoyed the slow-burn horror!
Oooooooh, new game? Have downloaded and will check out in the next few days. Think I cracked the secret message...although at this point I have no idea how/when/where this will be used...
Looking forward to the 'ol text based adventure.
I have a sneaky suspicion that no-one will survive...
I'm excited for you to play it! And yes, the hint is intended to make no sense in isolation haha. I will also not confirm nor deny your sneaky suspicion.
**May contain spoilers (mostly related to gameplay)**
Always a treat when you upload something! It's exciting you're trying something new, kudos to you for branching out of your comfort zone!
I enjoyed this one quite a bit. I couldn't solve the secret ending (I feel like I'm close but just can't figure out how to action on it) but I'll be coming back to it to try again.
I think this time around if I had any feedback it would be the more unique mechanics you brought to the table (glow sticks lighting up the screen, camera/taking pictures) weren't utilized enough. I think you could've gotten some really great tension and scares from those, or at least weaved it into the gameplay a bit more. But as this is a text adventure where most gameplay comes from those command prompts, it might be a bit hard to suddenly introduce point and click or other elements right? A tricky problem to solve for sure.
Either way, I thought those aspects were great! Would've just loved seeing more.
I think this could benefit from more diversity in how you tackle a problem with the text prompts too. But text adventures can quickly become beastly to lay out/program, so I don't think it's an issue you kept things fairly straightforward.
The atmosphere & setting were very nice, you have a knack for capturing a certain mood or scene that's very present in all of your games. And for this time of year (at least in America) this game really came along at the perfect time season wise.
Kudos again, I'll definitely be on the lookout for your next title, and will be patiently trying to solve the mysteries of this one ;)
(comment may contain spoilers)
Thanks a bunch! Yes, this was very much a change in focus, with narrative being #1. I mirror your thoughts about game mechanics exactly - they were designed secondary to the story, so I can see how they feel a bit separated.
I agree that there isn't much in the way of branching possibilities - the idea that you may not be able to change your fate is part of the story, so many events have to happen. And yes, this adventure has certainly taught me text adventures are hard to code!
I hadn't even realised the release in America would be so fitting, so lucky me. Good luck for the secret ending! Don't forget there are hints in the usual place.