The Anchorite
A young boy awakens in a strange set of rooms at the top of a tower. He is told that he is to become the 'Anchorite', and must follow three commandments:
Thou shalt complete the daily tasks.
Thoug shalt not look upon the sullied.
Thou shalt not leave the tower.
He is told that he must do this to reach enlightenment, and that it is not only for his own good, but for the good of the city.
Many years pass, and the Anchorite adapts to his new life, until he sees something unexpected at the window, and his life, which had seemed so safe and serene, begins to unravel...
The Anchorite is a point & click mystery made in two weeks for the Adventure X Jam 2024.
Available as both download and playable in browser.
Edit: Due to time constraints of the game jam, there were a few bugs in earlier versions - if you encounter any, please download the latest version (currently 1.0.4).
Updated | 22 days ago |
Published | 25 days ago |
Status | Released |
Platforms | HTML5, Windows |
Rating | Rated 4.8 out of 5 stars (61 total ratings) |
Author | beyondbooleans |
Genre | Adventure |
Tags | Mystery, Point & Click, storygame |
Average session | About a half-hour |
Languages | English |
Inputs | Keyboard, Mouse |
Download
Install instructions
Either play in the browser, or extract all files to the folder of your choice and run either the .exe or winsetup. Enjoy!
Development log
- The Anchorite - Out Now!25 days ago
Comments
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actually fire ass game
very cool! thanks for sharing. Maniac Mansion vibes
Very i interesting game.i like this graphic
Thank you!
loved this game great
Much appreciated
Hi, love this game!! if you're interested I can help you making a game trailer totally free :) just dm me over discord. sorry for the spam but I couldn't find a way to contact you.
Thank you
wow 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Thank you:)
That was absolutely incredible! The pacing, the story, the use of repetition to establish a pattern, and then brutally taking that pattern away... An absolute masterclass in horror, and a joy to play!
Thank you! I didn't think it was particularly horror when I was working on it but I guess I can't get away haha
This was sooo fun and enjoyable. I enjoyed the cutscenes and little animations. The length of the experience was perfect.
Thanks! I did think about adding a bit for the city outside but I also liked the mystery, and maybe sets up a sequel
I loved everything about this game. The twist was kind of predictable, but its presentation is perfect here. Great work!
Thank you :)
A good example of a short game that works perfectly as it is. I really enjoyed the few minutes it took to play through. I like how you built up the player’s immersion by providing simple tasks to complete while gradually unveiling the background story and drama through small doses of information and events. I have to admit, I somewhat anticipated the twist —probably because I was biased by my expectations— but it was still surprising and clever how everything connects at the end. The atmosphere and dialogues worked great. It’s impressive that you managed to do all this in just two weeks. Congrats! :)
Thank you, it was a lot of work to get it done in time, I'm glad it was effective :)
Amazing game. I really enjoyed the plot twist.
Great, I'm glad it worked :D
The plot twist is crazy tho
Thank you!
Great game! I guess I need to check out all your other games now
Please do :)
A beautiful game with a sad story...
Thank you!
really good! we need more!
I should have a new game out early 2025 (I hope).
Nice this was really good game I like it and you did really great job for this game! anyway well done keep it up!
Thank you for the kind words :)
Really nice! Back to early point and click adventures like Kings Quest. Got a Beneath a Steel Sky vibe from it. Great work, hope you continue this project!
I loved Kings Quest VI and Beneath a Steel Sky, still have my Amiga big box of BASS!
Love the art style, love the story, love the anticipation..
Thank you!
Such an amazing game and would love to see it continue.
Maybe one day...
Hey! Wow. That was great. Nice, puzzles, lovely animations, great story. It all led nicely to the end. Are you planning to continue this one 'out the door'? It's kind of asking for it, no?
Bravo.
Maybe, I have so many games I have planned and want to make, we will see...
Amen to that!
It works to leave it too, for sure. But... A monk from the middle ages in some kind of techno dystopia could be pretty fun! Where might he be in five years...?
Really great, thanks so much!
Glad you liked it :)
Congratulations,
this is a good game with a "crescendo" of mystery. Too bad it was so short.
Yep the game jam time frame is super tight!
i am so stuck LOL. i have the quill but cant figure out what to do with the ash to make ink. i feel so stupid, anyone have tips? thank u!!
Take the inkwell and combine with the ash. Fill a bucket of water and combine with ash filled inkwell. Take the knife from the table and use it on pillow. Take feather and use the knife on it. :3
Add water to the ashe to make poor man's ink.
Great and amazing game. I really enjoy it. ALL ENDINGS HERE:
Thank you for playing!
How to get the quill? I have ink ready, knife and a water bucket(for some reason?), and I used the knife to open the pillow..? But I can't take the feathers out of the pillow as Anchorite just talks about sleeping and something about the pillow.
Lol, please send help.
You need to click on the feathers that are showing (white), to get a feather... but then something else to make it into a quill :)
ohh ty, seems that I had only been pressing the pillow instead of the feathers. I didn't notice it had a different spot to click.
A cool game tho! Love the art style and the way the colors are so saturated. (And the cool kinda dystopic story too) !! <3
I have nothing to say besides that it was an amazing game. It shows that sometimes long doesn't mean better.
Thank you so much, I'm glad it was effective!
THIS WAS INSANE GUYS... THIS WAS INSANE.
So much said with so few words, there's a compassion in this work that I didn't know I needed to see.
I want to thank you for making this one.
That's such a lovely thing to say, thank you I'm really touched :)
It takes some serious talent to tell a story this captivating in such a short amount of time 👏
Btw, finished your game on Linux natively. Take a look at this if you want to package it yourself: https://itch.io/t/4016389/play-ags-games-on-linux-natively
Wow, I had no idea it was that easy! Thank you, I will try this out on the weekend :) And thank you for your kind words.
Thank you for playing! I appreciate it :)
beautiful story. continue making games. wish he walked faster haha
He's a gentle, relaxed monk haha
It was a pleasure playing your game! It has nice graphics and a great plot! The music fits very well to the atmosphere and the game gets more and more thrilling. Hats off!
Thank you! Yes the music was great, it's by a composer/sound designer named Bernardo Uzeda
woah beautiful graphics, awesome story, loved it!
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
I loved it! Great job!
Thank you!
I strongly recommend playing this game to anyone who comes across it. If you like a strong story with some gently puzzles, you will have a good time.
Thank you very much :D
I really enjoyed your game. Good work as always
Thank you!
Hello,
Very interesting premise, and I enjoyed the twist. However, I did encounter some bugs that unfortunately messed up the narrative pacing.
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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".
Hi, thank you I have fixed the wall, sorry I missed the scheduling of that hotspot too... the dangers of having limited rooms and lots of different things happening over different periods! I used Adventure Game Studio to make it, it's a free engine that I started making a horror game called Abscission with about four years ago, I've never used anything else so not sure about how it compares to other engines, but I like it. All the sprites and backgrounds etc are mine (I made everything apart from the candles and fire from scratch for the jam). Thanks again for playing!
Very interesting and atmospheric game. ALL ENDINGS HERE:
Really nicely done. The sudden shift in tone was really quite effective.
Few minor issues I encountered:
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Thank you! Yes I had to get it out for the game jam, so didn't have as much time testing as I would have hoped. Thank you for your help with these, I have fixed most of them (except for the draw animations), and will get an update out. Thank you again!
Game jams can get pretty hectic! Glad you were able to fix them :)
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.
Thank you, yes it sometimes struggles with some AGS files... not sure why. It's exactly the same way of compiling as my Steam releases! Ah well.