Anomaly Chapter 2 - Desolate Trees
Anomaly Chapter 2 - Desolate Trees is a survival horror game about finding your way out of an old, decrepit mansion while being ruthlessly pursued by a being called Sara who will do anything to stop you from escaping the mansion. Play as Alex, a young adventurer who wakes up alone in the mansion after getting attack by Sara.
Sara can cause a multitude of things to stop you from completing your goal of escape, such as throwing you back to the enormous foyer of the mansion, and chasing you away from your goals. Will you escape the manor? Or will you perish like the rest of Cobblestone Manor's inhabitants? The choice is yours!
Anyways, this game was made in a month for the I Can't Write But Want To Tell a Story jam, and can run on an actual gameboy hardware. Make sure the cartridge type is MBC5+RAM+BATTERY. Anyways, that was probably the most I've wanted to slam my fists on the desk out of pure frustration due to the fact that Sara's AI was really hard to code. It made me really frustrated, but hey, it's done.
WARNING: contains themes of Murder
Download
Install instructions
Just export the ROM to a gameboy cart, or put it in a gameboy emulator, and bam! You are playing the game.
Development log
- Patch 1Aug 01, 2020
Comments
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Long review ahead, skip to the end if you wish to read the results...
NOTE: This review is based on first impressions, to this day I haven't finished the game yet, so it is prone to chances, which in that case, this review will be edited.
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The retro style gives you the feels of playing a haunted GameBoy game, the plot is intriguing, the characters look rather fleshed out, and Sara looks creepy as hell.
There is a mix of puzzle solving and humor which add variety to the game.
In these points, good job.
However, this game has several flaws:
1) The music, while atmospheric at first, it is irritating to hear once you have heard it loop on itself several times.
2) It is a little difficult to see where are the entrances and exits for the rooms/levels, especially past the main door.
3) The lamp puzzle, while intuitive, may drive away new players after trying to solve it the 20th time.
4) I'm sorry to say the following, duo of how much problems you had programming her, but Sara behavior is rather odd and a bit buggy. Sometimes she will appear straight up from the beginning, leaving me without a chance to escape, and other times she would not appear at all.
It seems to be a trick to avoiding her once she appears that I haven't cracked yet.
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Overall, this is an unique creepy game with charm and lots of work put into it, with several strengths, mixed with several flaws that I can't ignore.
Still, you manage to code it all yourself in a month, and for that I congratulate you, you did more that I would manage to do.
I give this game: a 6/10 IGN points. Nice job!
Thanks! I actually had to fix some things, because one area wasn't accessable. It was such a major error, but things just slipped by me. I really apologize for the music, because i just decided to punch random notes and hope for the best. Anyways I hope you enjoyed!
No, don't worry about it. We are here to learn and improve as developers. The music is not bad, it just needs more variety. You still did make a very good job on this game jam.
Also, do you know how to solve the lamp puzzle?
Yeah, In the Maid's Quarters, the solutions are:
Lamp 1 - Down, Right
Lamp 2 - Up, Left, Down
Thanks!
*EDIT: The problem comes with the first lamp, I haven't managed to get the key of that one. Maybe I'm just stupid. :p