The Recluse and the Relic

Summary

Can a hedgehog lost in an ancient ruin stay safe long enough to find a warm nest, a way out, and - perhaps hardest of all - a chance to be alone with her thoughts? A short, turn-based, dungeon crawler that tries to play around with in-combat movement.

The web build is functional, but some players may experience audio corruption or poor performance on it. If you have problems with the web version please switch to Windows (though I'm afraid save games will not transfer).

Made in nine days for "Dungeon Crawler Jam 2024" with the themes "Solitude", "Ancient Ruins", "Cosmic Horror" and "Infinity/The Endless".

Controls

The game can be controlled with keyboard, mouse or both (though currently the title menu is mouse-only). All keyboard instructions have accompanying on-screen prompts, but major navigation controls can also be activated with the arrow keys or the number pad.

This game largely uses classic dungeon crawler controls; the QWEASD block of the keyboard is used to move and to turn left and right. All other actions are activated with other keyboard letters as shown in the interface.

If you think you may be stuck, resting at a nest will reset the world. If you cannot find a nest, you will respawn at one if you quit the game (all progress is saved constantly).

The game is fully turn based with no real time elements, so feel free to take your time planning!

Inspirations

• The hedgehog's dilemma.
• The Lost Worlds series of game books.
• The unspeakable horror of air conditioning.

Known Issues

• Occasionally UI rendering will corrupt slightly; this shouldn't interfere with gameplay and will usually pass quickly.

Music

"Destiny Day" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Heroic Age" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"Mystic Force" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
"The Sky of our Ancestors" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Assets

Character and landscape models, animations and textures are kitbashed from various Unity asset store packages. Miscellaneous fonts from Google Fonts. Voices were recorded by me, then put through voice-to-voice processing on fakeyou.com to adjust their character.