The fall of the Buxhaven family
IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO PLAY THE GAME FULLSCREEN (button will appear in the right-down corner of the game window, the controls may not work properly otherwise! You may need to click on the gamewindow again once in fullscreen for the controls to respond.)
James Buxhaven arrives home after a exhausting day working in the hospital. Just before going to bed, and after saying goodnight to his wife Mary and his daughter Sally, he sees an uknown man wandering inside his house...
The game is very dark on purpose and is better view under dim or no light. (If it is too dark you can make it brighter by pressing 1 )
You can download a Windows version below.
Controls: (Can be customized by pressing C in the starting screen)
Arrows: Move
Z: Start game / Interact with objects (Tip: you can only interact with objects whose name is displayed).
X: Use selected inventory item. Most items must be used on an object of the environment, but a few of them can be used on their own.
A: Change selected inventory item.
1/2: Change game brightness
Esc: Quit game (download version only)
The game autosaves when certain important actions are performed. There is no manual save system.
HR is Jame´s heart rate, it will increase when he is close to unnatural events and recover when everything is calm. If it reaches 300, James will die.
Credits:
Music by RedAvery (https://redavery.itch.io/entity)
Download
Development log
- Downloadable version and updatesJun 09, 2020
- Customizable controlsJun 01, 2020
- The fall of the Buxhaven family. UpdatesMay 31, 2020
Comments
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I love this low-pixel style of horror! Will the developer's next project be a similar horror game? Hope the game process is longer! Have more horrible scripts!
Thank you for your kind comment! I have several projects floating in my mind, unfortunately I currently have very little free time so I don´t know when I will be able to work on them...
Help, I can't murder my ghost-wife. Does anyone who got this far have tips on how to get through this part without utterly losing the will to live? I got this far and don't want to turn back now...
I absolutely adore this game but I'm stuck running away from the thing in the garden. Does anyone have any hints on how to get to navigate this bit? I can see from the video's below that you can find a crowbar, but is it pure trial and error?
Hi! Glad that you like the game!
The dark garden is divided in three parts, you enter in the middle one and first you have to go to the left part where there is a garden shed with the crowbar. Then you have to go to the rightmost part where the chapel is and use the crowbar to open the door.
The middle part is the actual maze, as a hint, the purple plants/bushes indicate the path to the left part and the red ones the path to the right part.
I hope this helps and that you will continue enjoying the game!
Wow, thanks!
Would be nice if there could one more save point after getting the crowbar - it is not that easy, I think, to get there very healthy AND get to the church then.
Umm... How do you escape the Sally-monster thing? Im kinda stuck...
Hi! Put Mr.Teddy on the balcony railing and it will go for it
This was an awesome game! I hope you do make a sequel, though I would be happy to play any other psychological horror pixel game you might make.
For anyone trying to make up their mind whether they should play the game, I wrote a spoiler-free review on my blog here. I also made a video commentary, but that's spoiler-with, so be sure to watch it only after you played! It's here.
Hey! Thank you soooo much for your review and the video! I really loved the video, it was very fun, I loved the group of James dancing Offenbach´s Can Can haha.
I´m very glad that you liked the game. I have some ideas for a prequel explaining the story of the family (it would be a little more supernatural though), but I have very little spare time now and I don´t now when I will be able to make it...
I'm glad you liked it :) I look forward to your next game, even if it means I need to wait a bit :)
boring. spent too much time not knowing what to do. Maybe a bug, I literally looked everwhere. I'm stuck after the kid disappeared from the room
I guess that you have already found Mr.Teddy. Have you checked Sally´s bedroom wardrobe after she´s gone?
You can find a few walkthrough videos in the comments below.
yes, and I die after that
I really enjoyed the game but the poor "twist" at the end left me disappointed and rather annoyed. It's another lazy cop out and antagonizing portrayal of mental illness for the edgy factor. The "Oh he was actually crazy and that made him violent and murderous." It's not a good look. Hopefully you learn to write a real story line with your next game. Loved the gameplay, hated the story.
i found a bug where mary wont spawn and i cant fix it i restarted the game, exited out then went back in, ive tried every thing what should i do?
Hi, it is probably not a bug. Have you talked to Sally? After speaking with her Mary will go away (even if you haven´t been with her before). In any case you don´t need to talk to Mary to progress, she will only ask you to speak with Sally.
ok thank you for your help (edit) by the way i LOVE your game if you could please make sequel! thanks
Very cool! Love the minimalist visuals and I love that there's so much to explore. I might suggest that talking to the daughter the first time be made an autosave trigger, so folks don't have to sit through the intro again if they do what I did and beeline for the basement and step on the electrical wires. >.>
Thank you so much, I´m glad you enjoyed it! I note down your suggestion for a future update.
Hey Bluxtejor, first I want to say I'm VERRYYY impressed. This was NOT a small map at all. You built an amazing game and the flashlight in the dark scene was phenominal!!
I'm a web developer and have zero experience with developing games. I would be honored if you could shed light on a few things for me:
1) How long did it take for you to complete this game (in months).
2) Did you have prior experience to developing games?
3) Knowing everything you know now, what are the best resources that have helped you learn how to develop games.
4) Is this only HTML, CSS, and JS? If not, what other technologies are you using and what aspects of the game are you using them for?
5) What are the steps you take in developing a game like this? What is the structure of you built this kind of project, for instance for a website:
- 1) you have your idea.
- 2) you draw it out on paper.
- 3) Design a static page (HTML & CSS only).
- 4) Create an MVP (minimal viable product) and
- 5) Complete (add all the styling and extras that you would like for the site to have, but that weren't critical to it's functionality).
6) What is the best advice you could give an aspiring browser game developer like myself?
Finally, not a question, just a suggestion. I'm not sure if you did this, but I think if you made a youtube playlist demonstrating the steps in making a game like this, it would be very popular. Youtube is over saturated with Unity content and I think there's a wide open gap for content like this to blow up!
Keep up the good work and please let me know if you develop any more masterpieces!!!
Hi ezg97,
I feel overwhelmed by your kind words! Thank you so much!
I am more than happy to help, however I don´t know to which extent my experience can help you as I have almost zero web development knowledge and I am not by any means an expert in game making. Going point by point:
1) It took me about 7 months to complete the game, but I have only spent a few hours per week in my free time the first months, then during the lockdown in my country I was able to spend a few hours each day. I would say that if I had worked on it full time it would have took me about 2 months.
2)This is my second "serious" or full game, you my try "Kyrie Eleison", a platformer that I published a few years ago also in itchio if you feel like it. However I have being creating crappy games that I never finished for about 20 years. It may seem a lot, but it was only as a side-hobby and for fun. I also made a Castlevania fangame, but was never published online.
3)This is a difficult question, I don´t think there is any "holy-grail" resource for game making but experience. I think the best way is starting making crap games and programs and building up from there. This is like playing an instrument, don´t look for magic recipes, just play and play until it sounds good. Learning a programming language (Visual Basic when I was a kid) was what helped me the most, also some maths can be very helpful, long ago I spent a lot of time trying to make an object orbit around another one until I figured out that it was extremely easy with some basic trigonometry.
4) I have never made a game from scratch (except a simple puzzle in Basic), I always used game making software. This particular game was made in Construct3, this kind of software do all the heavy stuff for you, so you only have to focus in programming the game logic (Construct uses visual scripting but you have to program the logic anyway). When you export the game you get a zip file that you only have to embed in the web you want. Other software I like is GameMakerStudio2 (although it needs a separate license for web export) and Pico8 (very cool if you like retro-looking games). Each of them have their pros and their cons. Starting from scratch will take you tons of time just to properly render the graphics, setup collisions, etc...
5) My workflow is usually quite chaotic :D I start by developing an idea in my head for some time, then I sketch something on paper (in this case I drew the house and the house map and wrote down some of the key events) and start drawing the sprites and tileset (I use Aseprite for that). Next (or at the same time) I create all the mechanics (movement, object interaction, functions for handling events, text boxes, save system, dictionaries, visual effects, etc..). Finally I put everything together and design the maps and events of the story.
6)My advise (that you may have heard before) is: Start with something very small and simple. Even a small game can get overwhelming at some point and many many people (inclusding myself) end up abandoning the project because it grows too much.
I hope this helps you at least a little ;)
Thank you again!
Would love a downloadable version of this.
I´m planning to release it in a few days!
Downloadable version is now available
Nice! Thanks.
When MS-DOS [DOSBox] Edition?
Game will not start for me no matter what, i put it in full screen and no matter what i do i cant get anything to respond when i click it...for it to start.
Thanke you for your interest! Is the game not starting at all or are you locked in the start screen? If it is the second case, sometimes browser games won´t react to keyboard input until you click on the game window a few times. If that doesn´t work or the game is not starting at all I would suggest updating your browser or trying another one. Many people played the game without this issue.
Yeah i have put it full screen clicked the window about 20 times then tried to start and nothing happens....i have tried 3 diff browsers also
And i am sure plenty of ppl have played without problems....i don't doubt that.....Plenty of ppl also play games and don't experience bugs while other ppl do...so i am not really sure why you felt the need to say that?
Sorry if I sounded rude. What I mean is that your issue doesn´t look like a general problem or bug but something more specific to your system. If it is the case and you can play other web games here in itchio, the problem will be probably related to the underlying engine the game was built on. If it is the case I´m afraid that I don´t have the knowledge nor the tools to solve it.
In a few days I will release a downloadable version, maybe you can try it.
I have an RTX 2080 ,17 8700K........but yeah you are right, prob related to my system. I def should upgrade....Thx for your time
you were pretty responsive,most devs that respond right away are sarcastic dicks...... Game looks great . hopefully i can try it when i upgrade my system.
Wish you luck ...pce
Downloadable version is now available
Man, this looks awesome, and people are saying such good things about it! Are there plans for a downloadable version? I don't have a constant internet connection. Good luck!
Thank you for your comments and interest. I could make a dowloadable version, but it would be a node-webkit package that would be quite big (about 100 MB, the HTML version is about 5 MB). Currently I am updating the game quite often and I don´t want people to be dowloading a big file plenty of times just for minor changes. When I have a more or less stable version (hopefully could be the current one) I will probably upload a downloadable version.
Downloadable version is now available
Thanks for creating such a wonderful game. I really loved the atmosphere. Graphical style was also a hit, ambient music was great and story was absolutely great. Only thing that really bothered me was input. I use 60% keyboard and I don't have arrow keys, so I had to keep FN button down to move and then I needed to release it to use A, Z or X. I'm quite sure that there aren't many people with this problem, but just wanted to let you know.
Please create a set of games around this same story / setup and bundle them together.
Thank you so much! It makes me very happy that you enjoyed the game and liked the style.
I´m sorry that you had to play in such an ankward way, I don´t know if many people are experiencing that, but from now on the controls can be customized to your liking.
The game had a very good reception so I am considering making more chapters arround the story of the Buxhaven family, but I can´t promise anything and be warned that I am very slow making games (this one took me almost one year).
So, I think I found a bug? I hit z too fast when the title screen was loading after being killed in the attic, and now I'm replaying the beginning of the game, while still having the loaded pistol haha
Wow! That was a big one! Thank you so much for pointing it out, it is fixed now! The bug was independent on pressing z fast (but there was another one related to it). The inventory was not reseted to zero after starting a new game without restarting the whole game (facepalm)...
Again thank you all for the feedback, not only helps improving the game but I am learning a lot too!
The "Fall" of the Buxhaven Family... Sure... They "fell" off the balcony :D
(Subscribe today to keep demonic forces making you go insane away!)
Thank you so much for playing and recording it! I hope you enjoyed it!
I loved this so much and I'm glad I managed to see it through as the story was incredible! Thank you for your help and thank you so much for sorting out the collision boxes because that was driving me insane!! Really really really good job!!
Thank you for the video and your kind words! A lot of effort and love was put in making this game, and is still open for improvement.
You can tell how much love and dedication has been poured into it, it really shows!!
I´m glad that you liked the game and the style. Many thanks for sharing your gameplay!
Yeah, I honestly like it so far (still haven't finished it) and I can't wait to play your future games !
Edit: Episode 2 is now out !
Edit: Episode 3 is out !
Edit: Episode 4 (End) is out !
Giving it a go, can see it being a definitely inspired-by-FAITH, lol
Thank you so much for playing and sharing your gameplay!!!
BTW I have already updated the textbox behaviour. Instead of skipping the text, the action button now just shows the entire text. I have also adjusted some collision boxes like Mary´s.
And yes, not the only one, but FAITH was a source of inspiration, I loved the atmosphere created with very simple graphics.
I absolutely love this and I'm recording a gameplay video but I seem to be stuck in a loop in the crypt (after reading the gravestone and finding the body). Any hints you could give me to avoid me walking around in circles forever? haha
Thank you so much! I´m really happy to hear that you love it and that you are recording a gameplay. As a hint I can tell you to follow the voices you hear when reading the grave, they tell you where to go. If you need further help please don´t hesitate to ask!
That was very helpful, thank you!
I like the atmosphere and the retro feel. Love games like this. Only suggestion I would have is that when the player presses a button when a text box is printing out the text, maybe just auto-complete the text instead of closing down the text box altogether without finishing the message. That's the only gripe I had, and I suppose that's on me because I'm impatient!!
Thank you for your kind words and your suggestion! I think it is a very good idea, I will take note and try to change that.
Changed it! Thanks again!
I started playing and I'm enjoying it. I haven't found MR yet. TEDDY hehehe
Thank you! I hope you continue enjoying it!
me too... by the way, the wife disappeared like a ghost the second time i went to the place she was in... sPoOkY