Exorcist Pianist - Postmortem

Exorcist pianist is a typing game with a musical twist, about beating your inner demons by playing the piano. I made it within 72 hours for Ludum Dare 55, with the theme "Summoning".

The Idea as I first wrote it

“You are a pianist that exorcizes demons by playing music. You must discover which notes hurt the demon by playing”.

What went right

Gameplay

I made what I set out to create and it worked pretty well. You feel like you’re playing the piano. The typing game is challenging enough, and the game is fun to play.

Art and Atmosphere

I succeeded in achieving the mood and style I aimed for. I would’ve loved to make more detailed art with animations etc, but I’m very happy with the results.

Tapping into a common feeling shared by many

I set out to create a game that speaks about something real to me. Everyone has inner demons, and I think this made the game more relatable.

Midi Keyboard / Controller support

This was a pretty unique and cool feature to make the game playable with a midi keyboard and I think a lot of people appreciated it. Plus, it immerses the player even more!

Positive feedback, and lots of it!

I was amazed to see so many people playing and commenting, and the amount of positive feedback the game received. This is by far beyond my expectations - I knew I enjoyed the game, but I didn’t think it’d be my most popular LDjam game. I spent far less time working on it than the other two I made (I decided I’m not crunching this time, although I kinda did during the last day), and I didn’t think a typing game would be very popular, or that combining it with playing the piano would elevate it from a simple typing game to an “experience” of sorts. I’m very grateful for this.

What went wrong

A typing game that wants to be a rhythm game

Typing games encourage the fastest action possible, and rhythm games are about making the right action at the right time. Those two concepts are naturally hard to combine - there’s no telling how fast a player types and how fluid their experience will be. I would’ve loved to have more time to work on this.

Seeds for sequences

The game has three different seeds for all of the sequences, one of which sounds a lot better than the other two. In retrospect, I should’ve only left that one to ensure everyone has the same experience, or finetuned the other two. The thought behind it was that if you’d replay the game, you’ll get a different tune so it won’t be the same every time.

More variety of demons with the same number of notes (I.E 2 types of demons with 2 notes, etc)

Seriously… How did I not think about that? I mean, drawing more demons would’ve been very tough considering the time I had left, but this would’ve made the game’s “generated melody” a lot less repetitive and the gameplay more interesting.

Not melodic enough

This is probably the most common feedback the game received and it’s totally understandable. Unfortunately, I did not have much time left to experiment with the musical aspect of the game and it feels like a missed opportunity. This feedback could also be the result of my previous point with not removing two of the subpar sequences-seeds.

The game needs a better score system

Keeping time was not enough to encourage players to try and beat the game, and besides, it wasn’t very clear how to beat the game or how long it takes. It would’ve been great if the game had better score keeping.

The game needs to better communicate how sanity loss/gain works.

Maybe show a number when sanity is restored, etc.

Backing track and more sound effects!

Something to accompany the piano and SFX when demons appear or disappear would’ve been very nice. If I had the time.

More visual effects!

Would’ve love to add more effects, such as a red vignette when making mistakes, notes flying out of the piano when playing, text effects, etc.

Final Thoughts

I believe this game was an important stepping stone towards continuing to make games that speak from my heart - and I believe this led me to create my most popular LDjam game so far, even though it’s a lot simpler than my previous one.

I’ll definitely be thinking about making a post-jam update for this game.

Thank you for reading, feel free to leave suggestions.