The Anchorite

I really enjoyed your game. Good work as always

Hello,

Very interesting premise, and I enjoyed the twist. However, I did encounter some bugs that unfortunately messed up the narrative pacing.
.

.

.

.

.

.  SPOILERS!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The broken wall was immediately accessible from the very beginning, just as I first entered the bedroom. This resulted in me getting to what I assume is one of the endings within five minutes of play, which I suspect wasn't intended.

I also encountered some of Steven Don's issues on the replay (the visible Amos sprite on top of the sealed door whenever he (it?) speaks, wrong draw location for Amo's words, the chest was already open and the hammer acquired at the start of the game, etc)

Two weeks definitely sounds like an intense crunch, so I think this is pretty impressive for such a short time. If you don't mind me asking, what engine / software (or library) did you use to make this?

EDIT: Playing all the way through a second time gave me the narrative as intended. Excellent -- the pacing was very important to the payoff at the end. I'd love to see a sequel where the Anchorite navigates life outside the, eh, "tower".

Really nicely done. The sudden shift in tone was really quite effective.

Few minor issues I encountered:

.

.

.

.

. empty lines to keep from spoiling

.

.

.

.

.

.

• the "3 commandments" and "closed chest" are hotspots, but there are no labels for them (oddly enough, the chest has one, but only when opened)
• the "mess" and "broken pestle & mortar" hotspots are available right from the start
• a few issues with draw ordering:
  • the cake coming through the opening gets drawn on top of the opening
  • when the anchorite is sitting at his desk, writing on the parchment, the parchment is drawn on top of the anchorite
  • the shovel does not seem to go into the ground, but draws on top of the wood surrounding the garden bed
• several "you can't do that" style messages appear erroneously (like when actually doing the thing you're supposed to do):
  • when digging up the garden to plant the seeds
  • when putting the clothes in the tub
  • when putting the bucket under the pump
  • when dropping the water into the tub with the clothes
  • when using the inkwell with ashes on the water in the bucket
• Typo: I won"t be able to get all of the dirt out with just water should probably have a ' instead of a "
• restarting the game (to try out what happens when choosing a different option at the end) results in glitching out almost everything:
  • I have the inkwell, quill and knife already in inventory at the start
  • the cake is already in the room when the young anchorite wakes up
  • Amos's blue text is by the anchorite's head, rather than by the door
  • Amos's sprite can be seen drawn on top of the door and he becomes an interactible hotspot... I can actually ask him the same questions I can in the control room:
    
  • from here the game is too glitched out to be able to get further, I had to quit and relaunch the game to be able to do a second playthrough

I tried to play the downloadable version, but Windows Defender quarantined the archive with an error message indicating it contained a Trojan, "Trojan:Script/Sabsik.FL.A!ml", when I tried to unzip it. Thankfully, I was able to restore the file from quarantine and unzip it as normal. I did have to check "unblock" in the files' properties afterwards to get them to run properly, though.

I'm not sure if it's something you can really do anything about since Windows Defender apparently gets these occasional false positives, but I thought I'd mention it in case anyone else experiences the same problem.

Beautiful start and then...

<<<spoiler>>>

What a plot twist. A kind of “The Truman Show” horror version. Awesome!