Ritual Bound
Deep in the forest, the witches watch over a prison, keeping an Old Horror sealed. Tonight, the seals binding it must be renewed... But there's a problem.
This game has no jumpscares. We recommend using headphones and the desktop version for the best experience
The team:
- Pablo Rodríguez Saseta "prsaseta" - Director, Designer, Writer
- Juanma Adones - Programming
- Aina "ainaSGE" Gelabert - Art
- Jacob "DonutDroid" García - Music and Sound Effects
- Christian "Chris Glitch" Machuca - Sound Effects
Contact: rodriguezsaseta(at)gmail.com
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Ritual Bound - v1.0.2 released!Jun 12, 2023
- Hotfix v1.0.1May 14, 2023
- Ritual Bound released!May 14, 2023
Comments
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Hey Pablo, I really loved the story you wrote for this game. I made a video about it.
It's a commentary/review/deep dive/love letter to Ritual Bound (It's funny, but it took me a few minutes to find the game after remembering it because I could have sworn it was titled Don't Let It Escape)
You made such a hauntingly beautiful story, with so much emotion wrapped up in it. I'm not sure whether or not it means the same thing to you as it does to me, but at any rate, I hope you see this and that I was able to do it justice.
I think it deserves far more attention, and I hope this can help with that in some small way. And I'd like to personally thank you for making it for us, because it was incredible.
Take care.
Very fun video, I'm happy the game resonated so much with you! Not often do I see people engaging with the themes and choices of Ritual Bound so deeply
Like this game.
Spoiler below:
Never expect the MC to be a witch at all. Incense part is easy compare to the rune part.
super cool!! one of my favourite games on this website :)
Thank you <3
Very immersive way to tell a story! I like the way the lore and world-building are blended in seamlessly with the gameplay. If anyone is interested, here's my playthrough:
It reminds me of Papers, Please in a good way. The game requires you to make sense of all the unfamiliar rules and pay attention to the details, which really puts you in the shoes of our hapless protagonist.
I felt like the rune puzzle, however, took me a while to find the right combination considering that there's so many possibilities. I wish there was a little extra help in terms of narrowing down which symbols to use, but that's just my opinion.
Otherwise, I highly recommend Ritual Bound for its unique experience!
Mac version runs automatically in full screen only and I'm unable to get to the options button to do anything about it or the resolution. Suggestions?
Sorry to hear that! Here's how you can change the options manually:
Let me know if that fixes the issue!
No config.json file there (that may be part of the problem)
From godot.log (in the logs folder)
Godot Engine v3.5.1.stable.official.6fed1ffa3 - https://godotengine.org
OpenGL ES 3.0 Renderer: Apple M1
Async. shader compilation: OFF
ERROR LOADING CONFIG FILE: 7
Falling back to default config.
Loading GVars state from user://save.json
ERROR LOADING GVARS FROM DISC: 7
ERROR: ERROR @ DIALOG REGISTRY: Error 7 trying to open json (res://Data/Dialogs.json).
at: call (modules/gdscript/gdscript_functions.cpp:775) - ERROR @ DIALOG REGISTRY: Error 7 trying to open json (res://Data/Dialogs.json).
ERROR: ERROR @ DIALOG REGISTRY: Error 7 trying to open json (res://Data/DialogJSON/book_dialogs.json).
at: call (modules/gdscript/gdscript_functions.cpp:775) - ERROR @ DIALOG REGISTRY: Error 7 trying to open json (res://Data/DialogJSON/book_dialogs.json).
And for curiosity's sake (since I had run the 1.0.1 version, I tried running the 1.0.0 version, and it doesn't seem to generate it either
Thank you for the logs! We'll look into it!
Nice game, really!
<3
My m2 mac isn't running this game properly can u help?
What is the issue? Have you tried the web build?
yes but the display isn't showing all of it and if I download it it just crashes I have tried to adjust the res but that didn't do anything
Played the game, IT WAS GREAT! Ngl it was pretty challanging keeping up with the rules and the runes, but the incense part was kinda lacking in the way how complex the runes were. The general feel of the game and the look of it is just great, SPOILER WARNING STARTING FROM HERE: didnt expect us to be a witch, i thought we were like a prisoner because is the discription it said the plot is based in a prison. But i guess the prison was only for THE EYE IN THE DARK. And i also got all of the three ending, including when you fail the binding ritual. But the other 2 can be sammarized as either doubling down on saving the world or having a shadow demon pet, i think the ladder option is the best option for having a powerful guard dog but the saving the world can also be seen as a better ending. It just depends is youre more selfish or selfless. Otherwise 9.5/10 game, couldve made the insence part a little more complex.
It was a lot of fun, very atmospheric for a game played in one room facing down a demo . Excellent work.
its a cool concept, but i have one question.....why n the heck does a game that is literally just pixels, have resolution options for screens that are likely as big as my wall? you could literally have this on 800x600 and it would look exactly the same, and wouldnt tank your computer like having it on 3840x2160. it just seems like a very weird option to have for a game thats pixelated is all. pixels dont really need resolution.
managed to get both endings
i didn't use the notepad.
Hope you enjoyed!
So, this game looks awesome and unique and I was really excited to play it and record it.
...but it appears that, for whatever reason, the Desktop version I have downloaded just simply does not have a visible cursor. It disappears immediately after the Godot logo.
Any chance this would be something you guys could look into?
Thank you for reporting, we'll look into it! What operating system are you running? Does the web version work? Until we find the issue, we recommend using the web version: it should work the same as the desktop version, minus the issue (hopefully).
Windows 11, Online version worked fine. Thank you, hope this gets solved - and will probably just play the online version otherwise.
Hello, sorry for the wait! We weren't able to replicate the bug, but we've added an optional fix for it, toggleable in the options menu. If you find it hard to navigate there, you can add it directly to the game configuration:
Go to "C:\Users\<your PC username>\AppData\Roaming\Godot\app_userdata\RitualBound", and create a plain text file there called config.json. Add the following text to it, save, and it'll work.
{"fix_mouse":true}
How do you light the match?
you click on the incense container while it is in the circle
I remember trying this, but it works now, so I guess I'll never know if it was a glitch - ah well! :) Thank you!
The Linux download crashes when you reach the chamber, just so you know. 👍
Incidentally, I write witch-hunter stories, where the witch-hunters are quite similar to the witches in this game. :) Thanks for the interesting game!
This was an amazingly atmospheric game! I'm astounded by the pixel art and impressed you were able to fit so much into the jam! The simple mechanics (figure out what runes to use, make sure they don't conflict, prepare incense, and sacrifice) built a surprisingly deep gameplay loop and I could definitely see this being blown up into a full on game with random enemies to banish!
The story beats in the beginning immediately sucked me in, the art kept me engaged and enamored with the experience, and the gameplay made me have to think a lot more than most puzzle-esque game jam games!
Absolutely beautifully done and I'm excited to see what y'all put out next!
I was convinced that The Eye in the Dark was a Masquerade, but I ended up deciding to free it anyway and found out it wasn't. Also I lost the first time around since I thought I was human and so I put the human runes. Cool game though.
That was a lot of fun! The instructions about flesh sacrifices led me to believe I'd have to add some fingers on my own and that I'd do so immediately after lighting the ceser instead of before. I'm only a little bit salty since this is what prevented me from getting it right on the first try but other than that this was a really fun spooky magic puzzle game. Great job!
Thank you for your feedback!
That was so good! I was shocked how much was going on. I thought you'd like to see my notepad notes and how I wrote down the symbols. I kept losing because I confused the eucalyptus and the lavender three times in a row -_-
I really enjoyed the story and the music and sound effects at the start were INCREDIBLE. The art was really cool too and the combination made me feel really immersed.
I was a little confused by the instruction of drawing of the pentagram because it had already been drawn, and at first I thought the finger was the sacrifice that had to be added after the incense was set alight. Eventually I got it. The X disappears when you make the finger sacrifices though and it took a lot of clicking around before it came back.
I really enjoyed the puzzle of laying out the runes, it took me right back to my old online text games.
Excellent world building. Thanks for the game!
Thanks a lot for playing, the feedback, and the notes! We're glad you enjoyed it!
Honestamente, me parece injusto lo bueno que es. Muchas felicitaciones al equipo!
¡Muchísimas gracias!
Muchas gracias!!
Frankly phenomenal this was made for a jam. It has such fleshed out mechanics and polished art, it feels like a full game (minus the playtime of course, but that's more than excusable for a jam). Overall, an amazing feat for the jam window; my congratulations to the devs. Looking forward to seeing what you guys do in the future!
Thank you :D!
Thanks!! :)