THAT NIGHT, STEEPED BY BLOOD RIVER
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
please doctor please
waiting for your call
wicked won't be alone
flowered road-side
left penny-eyed
comes down hard
worry on your head so you can't eat
pill drown drench
remedy, bloody sea
ripping out old wallpaper, flowered
we all sign the book
shredded destroyed
another hospital trip
you visiting a flowered room
your hero past lying
with remain, lingerance
when you go down to the river
to dust remember, receive
& travel on it or
live cursed forever
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"A short series of dreamless vignettes where nothing but the signature you scrawl on the hotel room door is certain"
-Natalie Clayton, Rock Paper Shotgun
"Looks Like Nothing Else You've Played [...], it’s a mindfuck like nothing else"
"Rooms are eye-searing abstractions, the music is calm and contemplative"
-Steven Nguyen Scaife, Fanbyte
_________________________________________________
Status | Released |
Platforms | Windows, macOS |
Rating | Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars (178 total ratings) |
Author | Taylor Swietanski |
Genre | Simulation, Adventure |
Tags | Abstract, artgame, blood, Experimental, Exploration, First-Person, Lo-fi, Surreal |
Average session | About a half-hour |
Inputs | Keyboard, Mouse |
Download
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Development log
- Soundtrack Available NowDec 13, 2020
- MAC VERSION ReleasedNov 22, 2020
- THAT NIGHT, STEEPED BY BLOOD RIVER ReleaseNov 13, 2020
Comments
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I really enjoyed the game. After i reached the end, it turned out there was still more to explore. I like the art style.
I have a Mac, so I don't know if version 3 is any different. I hope I'm not missing out on anything interesting.
i don't know why this game is so appealing to me. I really love that
Incredible work here. Loved the game.
Wow!
Yes!
This is exactly the type of experience I've been looking for!
please make more games like this I am begging you. Oh my god.
Really enjoyed the artstyle and atmosphere! :)
I love this game more than anything. Many, many times I have been with friends and suddenly said "do you wanna see something really cool?" and I'll drag out my laptop to pull up this game. The visuals are like nothing else. The atmosphere is thick. Sometimes, I just sit in the lobbies watching the lights and enjoying the music. I've played it more times than I can track yet every single time I have to stop and stare at every detail.
I haven't figured out the "moon" doors yet but I've found five hidden "bow and arrow"s. My guess is there are four more? If anyone else has been crawling the game for these like I have, I'd love to compare notes.
I have only managed to find two out of three bow and arrows on the casino level. I assume all three would make the crescent moon, but there's nowhere else a secret could be on that level.
I'm also trying to figure out the moon doors and the bow pieces.
All I've found so far is the piece for pulling the levers on the TVs in the blue area, and the piece for collecting the flowers in the TV room.
long time fan, loved playing the game. I don't know where you went but wherever you are, I hope you're living the best life you can have.
hahah thank you, i'm still around, just been taking a break :)
working on a new game don't worry 💕
very very good
good
i like
wonderful
the stage are great for appear an lot colors
i'm not even a gamer and i think this is one of the best things ever made. its obscenely beautiful at times.
Up there as one of the games that I would want to be buried with in my coffin. Thank you. I love this game, its visuals, and the soundtrack. I feel represented by a piece of media for once.
yet again i do be vibin
this game and soundtrack have lived in my head since I played it, I really cannot recommend this game to the weird art scene enough. there is so much style and passion here
I'm in love with this game to the point where playing it is an emotional experience for me. Thank you for putting your art into the world
There is something that I've been wondering about and struggling to find answers for though. Each of the rooms has a thing on the left side of the entrance showing the two triangles you can collect and either one of those Crescent Moon shapes or the Full Moon Circle. Would you be able to give any hints on how to find those last three?
Amazed, never played anything quite like this before and I am not sure if I ever will.
[SPOILERS]
Loved every second of this game, I was prepared to run it just as a reason to continue being immersed in the visuals, but the more I played the more of a speed game it became. I am a huge fan of the "insecure" feeling of most areas in the game, if you want to wander into a softlocked area you can, but despite that, i never softlocked due to exploring. Makes the speedrun a minefield as well, and imo adds to the fun of running it. Being able to stop time with this gem was genuinely therapeutic, thank you.
It's definitely one of the games of all time
I finally decided to play this and woah why did I waited so long. Amazing. Unfortunately a bug forced me to close the game halfway, but I will replay it for sure. Great experience, thank you.
An amazing game!! I noticed the circle and two semi-circles on the level also on the elevator. I actually met doors with circle or with semi-circles when playing three levels. I went through doors but nothing happen. I think when collecting all the figure (6 arrows and a circle and two semi-circles) completely it must be the third ending!
Incredible experience. Love the soundtrack. It was almost impenetrably dense, though, to me - I do enjoy an esoteric game that's hard to figure out, and I do not count myself as quite the smartest at figuring things out, but I don't think I would have realized there was anything to figure out if I hadn't been motivated to keep plumbing its depths by having seen that one comment before mine calling it one of the best games they'd ever played. YMMV, though.
I feel like there's more to crack that I haven't figured out, though. I've found the church with the bow symbol that raises your speed, and solved each bow puzzle in each dream world, but I haven't been able to find anything past that, if there even is anything.
Wow! Just..........wow! Honestly, this is one of the best games I've ever played in my entire life. There aren't enough words to describe how amazing it is. The visuals, the intuitive resolutions to further enter other dream worlds, not to mention the f-ing songs. I'm absolutely blown away by it. Thank you so much for this. It really made me feel at home, away from depression.
this was so so good i loved everything about this! the vibes the music the weird learn-as-you-go intuitive mechanics and the way it just kept expanding further and further all made for a very uniquely interesting experience. i particularly liked how different each "room" was, and how each one could change so entirely as it progressed, it made the whole thing feel very dream-like along with the repetitive signing-in motion that felt sort of like waking up. i got myself stuck in a hole at the blood river and crashed my game right (i think) before reaching the end, so i'll play it through again and see if there were any remaining bits i missed in my first round to boot :]
thanks for sharing this and i hope u have a very good day
(edited for spelling mistakes)
there is still more i need to find out
Gameplay -- enjoyed trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Got my just desserts at Blood River, though.
really cool!
I played this game a month ago and I loved it.
Each room/vignette/wtv was so different from the previous one but they were all so beautiful. I loved the optical illusions, the lo-fi aesthetic, the distortions, the colours!!! it's creative and inspiring
Some of the songs were also good and catchy, my fav is easily "still waiting".
It was one of the most impressive games I played in a long time.
Actually I couldn't open the door with 3 triangles or reach the top of the room with the trees because I surely missed something earlier, so I'll have to try again eventually.
hey I super loved this. I've been meaning to play this for ages and I wasn't disappointed. you have such a creative and unique approach to visuals - its really very cool. and I appreciate the time you put into making it sound interesting too, it really ties the whole thing together.
your work is really cool. thank you for making this
I loved this game so much that I created this itch.io account just to make this comment.
This game is one of the best experiences I have been lucky enough to find in the past year. The dreams, the secrets, the symbolism, the extreme simplicity... makes this game a pearl. It's almost like an interactive work of art. All that psychedelia and abstractism put into the scenarios, combined with strong and bright colors, generate very fanciful landscapes as well as gratifying. The soundtrack is too relaxing and addictive to listen to, and it's beautiful, like everything in this game.
This game has a lot of potential. If I had to make a recommendation, it would be to include more dreams, more ideas, and more secrets. In short: more content. This game may have more capacity than it has. You have to keep experimenting and discovering new ways of making art in this medium as beautiful as video games. Congratulations, you made a game fill my heart.
Greetings from Argentina.
What an amazing experience. Seriously. The graphics and style are nothing else I've seen and the soundtrack is so calming! I'm downloading bandcamp just to listen to it, it's THAT good. I can tell that a lot of love was put into this game and I'm going to be playing a lot of it. I wish I could pay you what it's really worth but I can't do online transactions. Anyways I love this game and I'm going to be playing it a lot.
i always wanted to know...what are the names of the films/documentaries on that tv??
I think my brain just turned into mush or something like that.
Thanks for the experience.
Okay so I have to ask, are there more than 2 endings? If you want to keep the mystery alive I understand, but I feel like I'm missing something and I'm not sure whether I should keep searching...
I think there definitely are/is, whenever you collect a symbol, the corresponding buttons on the doors light up and the scythes and the sphere are both on the elevator door and the individual levels. Also I've read a not from the dev that you can actually toy around with the levers in the parking lot area. I think the 3rd ending is just a bit harder and more secret but I believe it exists. Also you can peek through the door next to the counter at the main entrance area
edit: i found the secrets in each level now and managed to enter the church now, still no different ending :(
parking lot?? Where did you find a parking lot?
It's not really a parking lot I guess. It's just the first level where you first ride a car. After the car ride is over go to the left where the pillars are. On the pillars there are little pannels and you can flick the levers next to them when you click on the pannels
OHHHH the car scene. Yeah I saw that. Ok, thanks for clarifying!!!
Absolutely beautiful
I hope to see more like this and Canary from you. You've come a long way. Tru terrifying beauty.