Spirit Solstice
CONTROLS
Arrows: Move
X: Toggle Lantern
Z/X: Advance Text
Enter: Pause Game
You can also skip dialogue from the pause menu.
ABOUT
It's the Winter Solstice and you've been tasked with inviting the local nature spirits to join the celebration. Use your lantern to navigate three different areas of the forest in this mini seasonal adventure!
This was made over November and December 2021 for the 2021 PICO-8 Advent Calendar. This ended up being my first time really exploring the extended PICO-8 color palette.
This version of the game is expanded from the original one released through the Advent Calendar on December 21, 2021 with a whole third area and some extra bits of polish.
You can also play Spirit Solstice on the PICO-8 forums!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Better Hints & Nicer Wolves UpdateJan 02, 2022
- Polish & Quality of Life UpdateJan 01, 2022
Comments
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Nice game! Took me a while to realize what to do on the deer one, but really cool puzzle!
Hey, thanks for playing and for the video! Glad you enjoyed it :)
cute!
Amazing game! Those wolves were very tricky!
Loved it very much! Please keep working on more games like this.
Complete gameplay and opinions on the end:
Hey, thanks for playing and for the video! Glad you enjoyed it!
If you're looking for other games like it from me, I will say I consider Spirit Solstice kind of the middle point between Winterwood and NULL.
Great Jusiv!
I'll definitely take a look at these games.
Keep developing!
This was lovely :) Stunning visuals and sound! And the mechanics were cool - def felt like I was lost in a forest hehe
Why thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it! :D
I think I might just be a bit dense but I truly can't work out what I'm doing - even when I see the markings on the ground to follow(?) Shame, because this definitely piqued my interest but I'm going around in circles!
Are you referring to the looping forest area? If you stumble around enough in that area you should receive hints, did you get to that point?
I am, yeah! Even with the hints, I can't seem to work out what I'm doing - I follow glowing paths and go right back where I started! Like I said, possible I'm a total dummy.
Hmmm... interesting. That's not really what the hints say so clearly there's a conveyance failure there, but you're not the only one that's been struggling!
I just pushed an update with a revised hint system for that area that gives more, smaller hints more often and lets you repeat them at any time in the area from the pause menu.
Let me know if it helps!
Well, I completed that section but I think it was out of sheer dumb luck if I'm honest, haha! I also only received one hint while I was wandering about, but I wonder if they're triggered by resets (back to the first area) rather than time taken?
Well that works I guess :P
But yes it is by number of resets, not time taken. I feel like that's a more accurate measure of how much someone is actually struggling with the puzzle.
A bit janky on the controls (which proved frustrating on the wolf path), but overall enjoyable :)
Thanks for playing! I've just pushed a patch that hopefully should, among other things, reduce the jankiness you describe by letting you aim the lantern regardless of whether you can move.
I actually really liked that you need to move towards the wolves to make them run away. Felt more real and responsive, even tho it made it harder!