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 Nightingale has awaken into a dream. She finds herself in Mostyn House, surrounded by the zombies and spirits. In the dream magic is real. Nightingale will need to become a witch if she has any hope of escaping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8rAORaHsUo Withering Rooms is a 2D indie horror game developed by Moonless Formless. If you want the best most obnoxious way to describe it, its Clock Tower as a Souls-like. When you die in the game, you wake up the next night in the dream once more. You'll lose all your items and the structure of Mostyn House will change, but by finding shrines you can unlock slots letting you carry items over to the next night. But in all honestly, as long as you are playing smart, death isn't as common an occurrence as other games with similar mechanics.  The game gives you a variety of tools to make your way through the house. You can sneak your way through, avoiding monsters. Alternatively, if you think you can take them, you could try a more physical approach slashing them apart with a butcher knife. And as a witch, there is a variety of spells you can learn by crafting scrolls that can allow you to trap doors, create distractions, or reanimate suits of armor to fight by your side. Magic does have one drawback. The more you use it, the more cursed you will get. And things get weird when you are cursed. But even this can be a benefit, as being cursed allows you to "see" more. New passages reveal themself and once invisible enemies can now be seen. The game is charming and weird. It deserves more eyes on it, this is going to sneak into more than a few goons GOTY lists. I am not sure if I have properly convey the appeal of it. I could write more but I think its one of those things that is better to just play and discover on your own. Link to the game's website. It has hints if needed. Snooze Cruise fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Apr 14, 2024 |
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Apr 13, 2024 04:19
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psoting to freaking follow.
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Apr 13, 2024 20:16
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Just got to chapter 4 and so far loving it. Melee is a bit rear end in the beginning but I went deep into magic and am enjoying it. Thinking of doing another playthrough after because some of the melee items/artifacts I've seen look crazy good.
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Apr 13, 2024 20:30
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I beat this a few days ago and I went hard into melee and projectile damage and I was a combat god by the end of the game. You can get some pretty crazy rings if you farm the Labyrinth starting Chapter 2. I had over 300 health by the end I think.
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Apr 13, 2024 20:39
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I played melee in EA and it was ok. Decided to focus on magic for my 1.0 run and it's hilariously easy. Once you get access to the Possession Book spell it becomes much easier to manage your curse since the spell slowly drains your curse for you. There's a ring that drains curse as well. Investing into the Weird stat to reduce Spell Toll helps a lot too of course. It's so nice to be able to artifact dodge spam, use the artifact sprint, and the backdash offhand without having to worry about curse rotting myself so much, and I can just spam candlestick on most targets to save the heavy hitters for serious threats. I took out the boss in the Labyrinth just by casting Fireball 7 times, it was great. Looking forward to NG+, I saw a streamer dip into it and it's crazy how the game just keeps opening up more and more. I really like the setting.
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Apr 14, 2024 01:31
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i wrote up a bit in the horror thread, but im glad to see this getting its own thread, and i hope a few more eyes land on it. ive had a incredible time with the game- the combination of unforgiving combat that you are overwhelmingly well supplied for, the gloomy, sprawling landscape that changes forms yet draws from the same structure each night, and the completely unhinged and awesomely evocative plot drew me in hard. ive had a great time switching between different styles of combat- while usual souls-likes tend to have you commit to a build, the giant amount of armors, amulets, rings, and hats combined with the easy switch items allow you to try everything without sacrificing a lot of effectiveness or having to restructure stats. i started early with melee, switched over to ranged once i got my hands on some gunpowder, and am now using magic on almost everything i see. if i was to pick a nit, i would like more spells- i felt like the weapons were well varied for the most part, with melee being wildly different styles depending on whether you want to be stabby or tanky and ranged being a fair range of straight up shooting versus tossing ailment vials, but spells each felt like the main schools couldve each used another spell or two. that being said i really enjoy the general combat, as enemies can be either incredibly threatening or fodder depending on your style, and the boss rooms all allowing you free retries gives you a good learning experience instead of instantly getting smeared and rolling back to the next reset. the enemies, meanwhile, do a really good job of hitting hard and using different styles to fight, while also having a stiffness that really draws out their undead nature and clock tower origins. little touches like the different fonts for everyone or languages reflecting the origins of some monsters also is a great way to give personality to friends and foes. i really, really love the story- the structure of the game's progression (avoiding spoilers here...) means i was really interested in how story things could change rapidly and yet still reflect the same areas (which i loved all of). and the game's willingness to ground the story in a interesting history with modern (for the time) explanations instead of throwing a more typical "ooo haunted stuff ooo" story really sold me. all the characters were really charming in lots of ways- tragically sad or deranged, evil but practical, or just friendly or cheerful despite the circumstances add alot to your exploration as you run across these people trapped in this nightmare and the ways they are trying to come to grips with it. im rapidly approaching the endgame, and while i do have a few more areas to check, i think ive exhausted most of the content that is there and had a great time overall. i would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone whose interests would lie along these lines- clock tower style games, games with slower but consequential 2-d combat with a lot of variety, exploration focused games with lots of "what is THAT" as you press deeper into this weird world, or someone looking to hear a great deranged horror story where you feel both vulnerable and resourceful depending on the plot beats. this game made me feel like i am the greatest armored cowboy witch of all time, and thats priceless.
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Apr 14, 2024 01:43
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If people are on the fence because of the price point I will say doing about 90% of the content took me about 25 hours which I think is pretty long for games in this genre. I'm pretty sure I missed one last explorable biome and I didn't get all the endings and didn't try NG+ which also adds stuff
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Apr 14, 2024 01:50
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Just grabbed this. The vibes and concept are both immaculate but I'm still far too early in the game to form a strong opinion. The posts above have me a little worried about the game becoming more combat-focused because at the moment I really enjoy playing as a frail weakling who needs to resort to classroom pranks such as cursing doors and throwing jars of acid at my foes.
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Apr 14, 2024 15:37
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I'm assuming the dev was super inspired by Clock Tower and the game evolved into being much more action RPG. Stealth is an option but you are required to kill enemies to level up and progress through the game, so to me it felt largely pointless to hide after you get past the very beginning of the game. There's also times where I have tried running away and hiding to disengage, only to be found anyway which made hiding feel even more pointless. I've never bothered trying to build around stealth though. There's a ring for back attack damage and a ring that muffles your footsteps when you're above 50% curse. Not sure what other options you'd be able to use for stealth. Guns would be out entirely since the whole floor can hear when they go off, and some enemies are super loud too.
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Apr 15, 2024 01:33
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Hiding is an easy way to avoid projectiles and stuff so it still has some use cases even if you completely abandon stealth. But even if you are killing everything like its just good for setting yourself up in a better position and getting some clean hits in.
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Apr 15, 2024 01:47
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This game is really quite loving good especially for 25 usd
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Apr 16, 2024 03:59
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This game is fantastic and more people need to know about it. I just started NG+ and have been enjoying crushing the game with a melee + luck + vampirism build. Story question, full first playthrough spoilers: So Robert from 1916 is the one who woke up our 1892 IV iteration, right? Why? Or is that something I'll be able to figure out from NG+ story? Edit: Actually, the Last Witch's dialogue could imply that Millie is the one who woke our iteration up looking for the last idol. Still not 100% clear on this plot point though. PhysicsFrenzy fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Apr 20, 2024 |
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Apr 17, 2024 15:34
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Reviewing this game for those interested or on the fence. About 10-20% in I think. Story 9/10 - It's quite compelling and presented well. Could use voice acting, I think it would elevate it a lot. Music 10/10 - Almost carries the game by itself. Gameplays 7/10 - The game rewards going whichever direction you feel like which is great. Stuff like the camera popping up gives good variety. Ultimately you can probably cheese most encounters but it does keep ramping the difficulty on me so not sure yet. Gameplay loop does feel satisfying winning or losing though. Controls/UI - 6/10, little janky for sure. But great quality of life design, it unlocks and drips new things to play with at a good rate. Definitely a fun romp, had me captured for hours today.
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Apr 18, 2024 04:50
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Spiking posted:
I hope the dev goes into detail about the soundtrack, it's wonderful. Kind of annoyed that they haven't gotten around to officially uploading the soundtrack other than the curse songs, which are cool but there are SO many good songs in this game that I may just take it upon myself to upload them. e: Cool thing about games released by a single person instead of a a whole company, you can just ask them directly about stuff.  https://store.steampowered.com/app/2926600/Withering_Rooms_Soundtrack/ https://moonlessformless.bandcamp.com/album/withering-rooms-original-soundtrack Diephoon fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Apr 19, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 12:52
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Just beat the game. I don't know how people are getting many hours out of this game, I beat it and did everything pre-NG+ in about 10 hours. Probably helps that there's no game balance and my build accidentally turned out to be insanely overpowered. Great story, music and overall setting, but the gameplay is pretty terrible. I wish it had cost a bit less, but I enjoyed my time with it.
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Apr 19, 2024 18:43
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Elswyyr posted:Just beat the game. I don't know how people are getting many hours out of this game, I beat it and did everything pre-NG+ in about 10 hours. Probably helps that there's no game balance and my build accidentally turned out to be insanely overpowered. Great story, music and overall setting, but the gameplay is pretty terrible. I wish it had cost a bit less, but I enjoyed my time with it. NG+ has a lot of meat and grinding. I also have Labyrinth brainworms and keep farming for the perfect ring.
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Apr 19, 2024 20:55
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I think the gameplay is fun and not terrible.. . Maybe its more fun the worst you are at video games.
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Apr 20, 2024 00:37
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I started having more fun once I got a teddy bear I could cuddle to lower my curse level and stopped trying to use melee weapons Turns out not a whole lot survives endless fireballs
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Apr 20, 2024 01:11
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I do feel much more powerful with my magic build than I did playing melee. The combat feels a bit less janky as well. If you're using guns a lot it feels more Resident Evil, which was also very clunky in the olden days. Haven't dug into NG+ yet but I really should. Seems that it makes the normal campaign feel like a long tutorial with how much the difficulty increases.
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Apr 20, 2024 13:24
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I'm in ch3 and finding it a bit tougher, probably doesn't help that I haven't optimised my build very well. Been trying to get a bleed thing going with the rapier but it does so little damage and guns seem quite good so may just lean into projectiles. Spells seem powerful as well, but I don't like the idea of having to craft them all the time. Aside from being bad at the combat I'm really enjoying the game. The story is actually intriguing and the atmosphere is incredible.
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Apr 21, 2024 12:58
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Chas McGill posted:I'm in ch3 and finding it a bit tougher, probably doesn't help that I haven't optimised my build very well. Been trying to get a bleed thing going with the rapier but it does so little damage and guns seem quite good so may just lean into projectiles. Spells seem powerful as well, but I don't like the idea of having to craft them all the time. For a spell build you can use the Candlestick weapons on most enemies. One Candlestick shoots a long range projectile and the other shoots a close range fire blast. There's also a Spirit Tree Branch weapon that throws curse balls, but the angle makes it kind of awkward to use. I only break out the big spells for bosses or particularly tough enemies. I still end up using my guns too depending on the target. In chapter 3 there's at least one type of enemy that is immune to both fire and curse damage, so guns cover that niche perfectly. Diephoon fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Apr 21, 2024 |
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Apr 21, 2024 13:37
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definitely kind of frustrating to melee things but they give you tons of options to not do that. really like everything else about it. the music IS really good! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_y0hJWkTvs
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Apr 21, 2024 19:24
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Got all endings and achievements the other day  Maybe now I'll plink away at finishing the book of burdens. I do not have enough brain worms to max out the custom battles million point ladder though  Chas McGill posted:I'm in ch3 and finding it a bit tougher, probably doesn't help that I haven't optimised my build very well. Been trying to get a bleed thing going with the rapier but it does so little damage and guns seem quite good so may just lean into projectiles. Spells seem powerful as well, but I don't like the idea of having to craft them all the time. If you want to give a melee bleed build another shot, the axe carried me until I got the scythe, which I used to demolish the game four times.
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Apr 21, 2024 20:01
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I gave up on melee by ch2. The clunkiness of the PC attacks wasn't too bad but massive reach on a lot of common enemies and speed they start attacking made spacing attacks out to safely melee incredibly hard. I just started throwing spells at everything since if you kill everything you never run out of materials and money to buy more materials
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Apr 21, 2024 20:13
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Valdent posted:I gave up on melee by ch2. The clunkiness of the PC attacks wasn't too bad but massive reach on a lot of common enemies and speed they start attacking made spacing attacks out to safely melee incredibly hard. I just started throwing spells at everything since if you kill everything you never run out of materials and money to buy more materials Same, also the possessed book spell drains your curse, so that and the curse reduce ring let's me sling a lot of spells as well as having the dodge I-Frame book equipped. And even if I die , jumping through a couple of mirrors and running through a hallway gets me enough money to buy out the vendors and get my snowball running again.
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Apr 21, 2024 20:20
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Got a fair bit into chapter 4 last night, and while I really like the game, it's a bit odd. Like others have said, stealth is never a full option and stops mattering almost entirely pretty quickly. The randomization of rooms never really matter, because they are still always connected to the same floor corridor. TBF the alternative would be worse, having to reset the night because a room wasn't available would suck. Also maybe this is right Snooze Cruise posted:Maybe its more fun the worst you are at video games.
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Apr 25, 2024 07:24
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Finished NG, immediately started playing NG+. What a unique and fascinating game. Never really got into the combat, but the story and atmosphere completely captured me. For those of you who've finished NG+, how much does it change from the first run through? I went with ending A, so at least I could choose another option this time.
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May 5, 2024 00:41
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Chas McGill posted:Finished NG, immediately started playing NG+. What a unique and fascinating game. Never really got into the combat, but the story and atmosphere completely captured me. It's more its own path with some extra mob enemies. I opted to get all three normal endings before getting the NG+ one since it felt right (C-B-A-D), but I could have gotten the NG+ ending a lot sooner. Ending C has more in the way of extra content in the main game.
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May 5, 2024 01:27
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Chas McGill posted:Finished NG, immediately started playing NG+. What a unique and fascinating game. Never really got into the combat, but the story and atmosphere completely captured me. NG+ has some really substantial changes. new non-respawning enemy types have been added around the world, enemy placements are changed with harder late game enemies appearing earlier, there's new story and game mechanics that make the purpose of the book of burdens clear, and there's meaningful new tools/armor/weapons including a flamethrower. anyone who liked the game at all should definitely do NG+, it's not just the same thing with enemy health doubled or whatever. I've rolled melee stats for the whole game using heavy armor with vampirism, and it's definitely viable for the whole game on base difficulty. I think it's sort of intended that enemies are simply going to hit you without much you can do about it a lot of the time if you try to melee them, because everything is meant to cost resources. either you're spending spellbooks and ammo doing ranged damage or health items doing melee damage. but if you invest in the right things, you can actually chump a lot of the bosses by just standing in front of them and staggerlocking them or healing off of them with vampirism. where it kind of breaks down is the book of burdens. with 150 HP and 51% physical resist, a bunch of pretty basic enemies can just instantly drop you to danger while getting hit by any curse attack is almost guaranteed curse rot unless you lose a lot of offense to raise curse resistance, which is not good when the book already gives enemies enough HP to survive 10 swings at 500+% melee damage. so without the book of burdens you can facetank a lot of the game, but with the book they can just snap from idle into putting you into danger with bleed, so you constantly have to reapply the armor spell if you want another hit and even with my crappy projectile stat I've still been leaning on the flamethrower. I beat all of NG without dying once, but I'm now at like 12 deaths once I started trying to fill out the book, and I don't think I would have so many deaths if I wasn't rolling melee. I'm currently unclear how much of the book of burdens is actually required, I'm at 77/89 pages done and I only just got to the part where you spend the currency you get for filling it out, and it turns out that gives you a massive benefit and would have made things a lot easier if I had done it earlier. I assumed going that way would end the playthrough so I stalled on it, but turns out I should have done it much sooner.
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May 5, 2024 07:16
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I just finished the game, and I really enjoyed it. The story was neat, the gameplay was fun, and it had really good visuals. I think it has a chance to be the Game of the Year for me. Although the final boss was a complete joke since I did all the sidequests. Hel posted:Got a fair bit into chapter 4 last night, and while I really like the game, it's a bit odd. Like others have said, stealth is never a full option and stops mattering almost entirely pretty quickly. The randomization of rooms never really matter, because they are still always connected to the same floor corridor. TBF the alternative would be worse, having to reset the night because a room wasn't available would suck. I did have a night where ||the market didn't show up in the labyrinth||
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May 5, 2024 08:19
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