Haunted Carnival Is Here!

You waited ever so patiently, likely wondering if this was going to end up as another project a dev intends to finish and then ghosts on, vanishing for the rest of eternity. I am pleased to report your patience has paid off!

The Haunted Carnival update is now live, taking my little jam game and making it something I'm now looking forward to putting on a cartridge! There's a LOT to go over in this one,so buckle up!

Most anticipated, of course, is the new map itself! You can now select from two different maps in the main menu: the original House map, and the Carnival! The Carnival is made up of 8 hand-drawn scenes (compared to the House's 5!), each made to be a bit more artsy than the House was, pushing the sprite limits of GB Studio in some areas. Rather than hiding in cabinets, the Carnival allows you to hide in the port-a-potty (which also flushes when you leave it!), the ferris wheel, or the prize tent by the carnival games! And instead of knocking objects over, ghosts on this map seem to like conjuring a mischievous little clown doll named Boxo that appears to be almost everywhere... But he seems friendly enough! The summoning circle has also made a return, and works with the same cheat code as the House!

With the new map also came new ghosts, and a new piece of equipment! You can now equip night vision goggles in the truck to search for ghost orbs as a new type of evidence, small glowing orbs indicating a ghost presence not visible to the naked eye. Each of the 3 new ghosts have orbs evidence, so they're a good way to quick check if you're dealing with a new or original ghost type! The new ghost types are:

• Clown - Ghosts of carnivals past. Likely deceased at the hands of an eldritch horror hunting children. Let them rest. (Orbs, Voices, EMF)
• Witch - As in a malevolent ghost possessing magical powers. Can hunt at 70 sanity. Be careful. (Cold, Writing, Orbs)
• Treasurer - A demon of the mines underground, guarding a mysterious treasure. Hunts only at 50 sanity, but does so often. (Cold, Voices, Orbs)

In addition to all of the new things listed above that made it into the update, I also want to note that I took the time to go through my Game Off feedback again and made an honest attempt to better the areas in which the game was lacking. I want to talk about some of this in detail as I feel it's equally as important!

First, there was notes about the text and popup speed. Initially, I wanted the game to play slower. I wanted it to feel like you were walking, creeping around the house, worried what might be around the next corner. Many similar games leave players walking with a very limited sprint for the vibe, and thinking of older Pokemon games, thought the slower pace would fit. I had slower popups and a slower text speed that I found comfortable, but it seemed others didn't agree and rather found it annoying (though you could always skip the text by double tapping A, like any Nintendo console). Eventually I caved and sped everything up, with the popups closing instantly when you push the button instead of being slowly animated. I'm sure you'll find this helpful in the Carnival anyways, with how much ground you have to cover.

There were quite a few comments from players not understanding how to play the game, not understanding why they died so suddenly, and requesting guides. Multiple guides. And though I had one built in to the truck computer from the start and the controls and premise on the game page, it evidently was not enough (not to the fault of the players, evidently I was missing something!) And admittedly this puzzled me for a while, mainly as I wasn't sure what more I could do. This isn't an RPG Maker game, it's a GB Studio game, made not for the GBA or GBC, but for the GB DMG. This leaves me with some very restricting limits in terms of how many sprites, triggers, and actors I can have in a scene, how many actors I can have in a horizontal line, how much text I can put in a text box, it's developed for a 36 year old console! I struggled to think of a way to do a tutorial that wouldn't end up as a repetitive loop of pick item up off the table, walk out the door, press B, did something happen? If yes mark it in your journal. Walk back inside. Pick up another item. Walk back outside. Oh no the ghost is hunting, run to the hiding spot 4 steps away fast! It wouldn't be engaging, it would stale quickly with the limited mechanics, and I can't see anyone sitting through 20+ text boxes of explanation every 5 steps, I can't see myself not getting frustrated by it! So I needed a new plan.

What I've gone ahead and done instead is I've created a 1-page printable game manual that you can download, print, and fold like a zine to have a physical paper manual to accompany you as you play, just like was common with Game Boy games! This is the same manual I intend to include with physical copies when they get made (more on that later). It includes the controls, the basic gameplay premise, and a brief explanation of the two game modes on the inner front page. The middle of the booklet has information about the truck (starting room), noting that your equipment is found here as well as your computer to check and restore your sanity, access the built in manual, or submit your final guess. It lists each piece of equipment, the corresponding evidence, and even the percent chance you have of getting the evidence within the ghost's room, if the ghost has that evidence type. There is a note about marking off evidence in your journal, how ghost types are immediately blotted out as you rule them out, and how to mark your guess. There is a brief explanation of what a hunt is, advising you to outrun the ghost or find a hiding place to survive. It includes a note about the set spawn locations (doorways and certain tiles usually near the middle of rooms) and advises you to be wary in these areas and not spend too long in them so as not to have the ghost spawn on top of you, killing you instantly. There is a direct instruction about how to enter and exit hiding places. The final inner pages list every single ghost type, their description, sometimes information about what sanity % they hunt at or whether they hunt often, rarely, for a long time, or for a short while. The very back of the booklet has a QR code leading right back to the itch io page, as well as a smaller QR code leading to the GitHub repo. The best I can do with this game and the restrictions I have is to simply put guide information in as many places as possible, I can't force anyone to read it anymore than I could force them to read it if I wrote it into a tutorial. It is available as needed.

This predicament also got me thinking about accessibility. If people are having trouble understanding how to play my game, it likely isn't just for one reason, this is likely just the first thing they think to point to. So I sought to work some other things in as well, some on recommendation from the Game Off comments and some on my own realizations that I had accidentally created barriers in my game for my own husband.

My first adjustment was to add button prompts. In the bottom right corner of the screen, you will now get A and B button prompts for interactions. The B button prompt will remain visible as long as you have an item in your inventory to use, with the prompt changing to an A button when the player approaches hiding places, equipment items, or interact-able parts of the environment. They are a bit messy in the truck due to everything being close proximity to each other, but I did my best! If you didn't know my random decorations had side commentary, you're about to find out!

My next adjustment was actually an entire inventory overhaul. I scrapped the entire separate page and instead made it always visible, in the bottom left of your screen. Rather than pulling up a whole menu, you can now simply press Select to swap items. Along with this and redecorating the truck to fit the new equipment, I also took advice to make items disappear from the table when picked up, to make it even clearer what you've taken when you're button mashing through all my text. Off the table, directly into your on-screen inventory, with the second item being placed back on the table when needed. It's SO MUCH CLEANER and should help those struggling to remember what they're carrying without pulling up a whole new screen.

Since I also had to redo the journal to fit the new ghost types and new evidence, I took the liberty of literally redoing it from the ground up. I flipped it to be dark text on a light page, with a larger font for better legibility. Rather than thin lines crossing out or circling ghosts, we now have dark ink blots to mark off ghosts you've ruled out, and a bright page marker to mark which ghost you've selected. You can now also unselect guesses, and marking off evidence that would rule out your guess resets your guess as well. The journal is now split into two separate pages, with the evidence page immediately visible and the ghost page viewed by pressing the right arrow to turn the page. You can return to the evidence page with the left arrow, or simply close the journal as usual. You may navigate through selections with the up and down arrows, and press A to make or remove selections. Fairly straightforward!

Another note I got a few times was about the speed of sanity drop feeling too fast. I chose to leave it as is, for a few reasons. The first is that the scenes and maps themselves, in perspective and especially while you're running around, are small areas. It doesn't take long to traverse a room, even if you stop to check evidence every few steps. Slowing sanity drain in my testing resulted in rarely being hunted at all before I found all of the evidence, which doesn't make for much fun or challenge! The second reason is that I am trying to balance mechanics I've made for a Game Boy with what might be a more obvious effect in more modernized ghost investigation games. Given how often ghosts can hunt and set off smaller events in their room, it wouldn't make much sense to watch a bloody handprint show up 4 feet from your nose and let you walk out fine. However, admittedly, having it be "if you lose it it's gone" may have been somewhat harsh, especially for those who might struggle with understanding controls, smooth movements, pushing buttons, or those who like myself might even just dissociate into it a few seconds too long and lose the run. And that doesn't feel great! So with this update, I've added a way for you to regain sanity! Using the computer in the truck, you'll see a new option labelled "Look at cat pics". I wanted to try a mechanic that didn't revolve around asking players to take psychiatric medications under the guise that it was curing anything or just there to give a boost, as though it were recreational. What I landed on was looking at cat pictures on the computer! It restores a small amount of sanity (20% in normal mode, 15% in hard mode) per cat picture looked at as a way to calm yourself enough to venture back into the House/Carnival and complete the job. Sanity still drops just as fast, so 20% won't last very long, and it definitely is not curing anything, rather you're regulating your character. Player characters in hard mode will refuse to look at more cat pictures after they view 3, making a very tired statement about how they can only view so many, drilling home that it is no form of cure or solution, just a small pick up.

My last accessibility feature I made sure to include was a correction for an oversight on my part during initial development. Ghost hunts were indicated with an auditory cue of the music changing to a low heartbeat-like sound, which very much left Deaf and HoH folks in the dark and at a severe disadvantage. The game will now display a popup at the top of the screen that says "Hide!" when hunts begin, and "Coast is clear!" when the hunt has ended. The important note here is that these popups will not vanish automatically, rather they wait for you to press any button before the script will continue. This allows Deaf and HoH folk to clearly know what's happening, folks with slower reaction times or processing issues to realize what's happening and have ample time to react, and those who skipped all the instructions to sort of know what's about to happen. Yes, this also means you now at least get a warning before it spawns on top of you, which should eliminate the rest of that confusion.

My final note to add is that the game now informs you what the ghost was when you lose, so you aren't left wondering! This can also help with learning how often certain types of ghosts hunt and for how long, rather than just going "You got it wrong! Try again!"

Like I said, I've done a LOT to this since I last updated it! I'm very proud of how it turned out, so much so that I am planning to make physical copies of the game. I am mostly self-funding this, so you can expect the initial run to only be about 10 carts or so, but I am hoping to keep them around long term once they're up! If you'd like to see these happen, please consider supporting the game to help me fund the initial materials! Games will be flashed to a Game Boy cartridge inside a glow in the dark shell, to keep the spooky ghost vibes, and will be distributed in repurposed cassette cases (as I will be doing with my other games as well!) They will contain a game manual, a custom j-card so you can proudly display it alongside your other games, stickers of various sprites found in the game (including Boxo!), as well as a USB backup copy of the ROM, 3DS cia file, and complete project files for you to keep, no internet required! I am hoping to have these available by summer of this year, so any support in doing so is appreciated!

It has been a long, wild ride going from never hearing of GB Studio a day in my life to getting to a point where I feel I can really call the game a complete game. It has been an even wilder ride going from believing I would never be able to finish making a game to planning cartridges! I am so grateful for all the support I've received, and I hope you find this big update to be everything you hoped would come from this little game and more.

Enjoy the Carnival, and say hi to Boxo for me.