Painted Tomb

arthousegames's picture
bluedude.png

I tried to post this as a game but it kept crashing the page. But the game can be downloaded at http://arthousegames.itch.io/painted-tomb

This game idea came to me when I was in the bathtub.

Shouts out to Nuup, Clyde, Capt Haistings, Terry the Platypus etc. list goes on *blows kisses*

Comments

ihavefivehat's picture

this is great. I played it a

this is great. I played it a while ago, probably saw it on twitter or something. But it holds up to a second playthrough. Anyway, the visuals the the audio were all really nice! That scene near the beginning when you and your kid (I assume it's your kid) are just hanging out watching TV and whatnot is great. It really makes you care about the relationship they had.

I suppose everything from that point on takes place in a dream? I like that it's ambiguous whether you're still dreaming or awake when your house catches on fire. I felt bad that the kid is still on fire at the end, and presumably the older person is still lost in this weird dream-area. Sad game, but fun.

Capt_hastings-Chrissy's picture

I would love to know

So this whole time I thought little buddy was a traitor who set the house on fire and saved himself, and I don't even know why he turned on us. But now I wonder if he was a traitor reading the above reaction. Am I allowed to ask or would that ruin the mystique?

clyde's picture

Little Buddy loved us, but

Little Buddy loved us, but we fucked up getting drunk and smoking cigarettes in bed. The rest of the game is a whirling dance of regret.

Capt_hastings-Chrissy's picture

then why

If he loved us so much why didn't he wake us up when the fire started? All I saw was footprints leading away. Little buddies footprints. That is VERY telling.

arthousegames's picture

Yes, there are little buddy

Yes, there are little buddy footprints leaving the burning house. And if you notice, there is what appears to be a gasoline can that was dropped along the way. When you cross paths with the gasoline can, a static filled square appears on the screen. In my opinion this could represent your emotional state at the time.

A main theme in the game is dissolving partnership. We don't really know if little buddy had a good reason to leave or not. Perhaps the main character wasn't so nice to little buddy. I hadn't thought of that before, but it's possible.

There's a lot of weird shit going on with this game though. I really appreciate you guys taking the time to check it out and enjoy it.

clyde's picture

Chrissy and I were talking

Chrissy and I were talking about your post and it went like this:
Clyde: There's been a mistake, Little Buddy wouldn't do that to us.
Chrissy: Little Buddy betrayed us.
Clyde: Little Buddy loved us, he wouldn't do that to us.
Chrissy: Look, we called Little Buddy "Little Buddy" too many times; he asked us to stop; we just thought it was kinda funny and kept calling him "Little Buddy"; he had enough of it.

everythingstaken's picture

How did I miss this game?

I'll play it when I get home. 8-)

arthousegames's picture

did you play it? did it suck?

did you play it? did it suck?

everythingstaken's picture

I just played it!

It didn't suck. It took the whole Yume Nikki approach to game design that's been popular with some people here, you know, strange music, strange graphics, some bright colors, vague story, not entirely interactive, wondering around a lot with not much sense of a goal or direction. This is it's own thing, but still feels like it's trying to be that a little bit. I think some parts of this game could have been better if I knew what to do because of how slow the character moved I would go to one area and have to traverse the entire area again felt a little frustrating in a way I don't think was intended, like there was a part where I had to enter the grey structure and you have to be right in the middle of it to go in. I like the interactive parts where the sprites were bigger like the living room. There was some nice storytelling in the background like the spaghetti on the floor. I like the graphics that looked less pixelated or when they had photoshop filters over them. I thought some of the jpeg, artifacted like dithering on the characters and buildings when it created form rather than just texture was pretty cool like on the building on the screenshot. The music was good! I'd like to see you make more stuff!

arthousegames's picture

Thanks for playing, I

Thanks for playing, I appreciate the feedback. I have yet to play Yume Nikki but it looks great. I agree some design flaws pop up, especially when you get to the forested scene. I partly wanted the player to feel lost here and have to stumble upon the needed triggers to progress, but I can definitely see it being frustrating. Hopefully I'll get better at guiding the player in a way that's enticing.

I have other games on gamejolt http://gamejolt.com/profile/arthouse-games/264147

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