Tombwater
A downloadable game
Tombwater is a fast paced action RPG: explore a cursed Wild West town to uncover its Eldritch secrets.
This game is currently in development, this download is for our demo.
Welcome to the town of Tombwater.
Combat:
Dash through combat against unsetting Eldritch beasts. Utilizing an arsenal of firearms, blades, spells, apothecary items, and charms, there are many strategies to survive Tombwater's dangers. Perhaps you will strike quickly with a light cavalry sabre before dashing away to cast a spell, or maybe you will prefer to equip a flame-imbued shotgun and a heavy mining pickaxe. No matter the build you create, you will need to fight with everything you have to survive against your foes.
Exploration:
Find your way through the cursed city of Tombwater and its canyons, scrublands, forests, mines, and more. Metroidvania elements allow you to follow your own path. Find many optional areas full of strange NPCs and their quests, or dangerous enemies guarding rewards.
Mystery:
A cursed town, a mining disaster, a missing sheriff, and Eldritch influence permeating everything. Uncover the secrets that Tombwater's inhabitants are trying to keep buried.
Please Note: We've tested playing an Xbox controller or keyboard (or mouse and keyboard) - other controller ought to work, but there may be some button display inconsistencies that we'll work out soon.
Known bugs (we'll fix these soon!):
- The "Journal" tab of the menu cannot be exited with B or Backspace.
- On rare occasions, after killing the Graveyard Sentinel, the door to the mausoleum will not open. This can be worked around by teleporting using the Homeward Coal, or after saving/restarting.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Demo version 1.0.2Jun 29, 2023
- Demo version 1.0.1Jun 28, 2023
Comments
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I revisited this game again recently after playing the first hour or two of the demo some months ago, and was reminded immediately of why I recommended it to several friends. I really look forward to seeing where the project takes off!
Cowboy Bloodborne was not the sort of game I was expecting to play today, nor was it a combination I ever thought of before, but you really hit the bullseye with this one. Great work!
The game looks amaizing. I can feel some intense lovecraft influence. May I know if I buy the game here, will be also full release it here on Itchio? Exist any Discord to join to follow the progress of the game ? Best Regards.
Thanks!
For now, the best place to get any updates, when I'm able to share them, will probably the the discord for the Solarus game engine (linked from solarus-games.org)
We'll try to let folks know here too when we can share more : )
I've got that same issue, with aiming. When I aim with the left bumper, it only aims in the up direction.
Thanks for letting me know! Since the demo, I've moved the game to the in-development next version of the engine, which totally replaces the controls API. I'd like to get a new version of this little demo out with those fixes, there's just some complications with the engine's releases and the build pipeline I use, it's a little boring to get into details haha.
Anyway, one thing you can try is to go into Pause - Settings - Control Options, and disable the right stick aiming. Then go to Settings - Gameplay Options, and set the "aim style" to Pivot.
This means while aiming, you should get locked in place, and the left stick will spin you around to aim. That MAY fix the issue. If not, unfortunately, you'll probably have to wait until I can release the next version.
Love the game so far! one issue I have is the gun controls on gamepad. I dunno if anyone else has had this issue but when I press left bumper to aim it just aims in the up direction and I cant seem to change it, not even with the right stick. Is there a fix for this?
Thanks for letting me know! Since the demo, I've moved the game to the in-development next version of the engine, which totally replaces the controls API. I'd like to get a new version of this little demo out with those fixes, there's just some complications with the engine's releases and the build pipeline I use, it's a little boring to get into details haha.
Anyway, one thing you can try is to go into Pause - Settings - Control Options, and disable the right stick aiming. Then go to Settings - Gameplay Options, and set the "aim style" to Pivot.
This means while aiming, you should get locked in place, and the left stick will spin you around to aim. That MAY fix the issue. If not, unfortunately, you'll probably have to wait until I can release the next version.
Great demo thus far. Loving the Bloodborne inspiration and vibe. As noted by many others and stated on your page, controllers are a little iffy. I use a Dualshock 4 and the aiming for right analog only aims north (plus the 45 degree angles). I also have an 8bitdo SN30 Pro and the controller works as well but same issue with the aiming. For the leveling stats, it would be nice to see what each increment does. This is definitely a fun game and I look forward to your progress.
Oh yeah button remapping! Since it uses the axis/button terms instead of Xbox or PS icons, it's a little confusing to know which is which if I want to remap some of the buttons. Could those icons be implemented?
Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, we're definitely going to have these fixes implemented - a build that should address the controller issues is running, but it's got a few other new bugs that we need to figure out before we can update the demo, in addition to needing to rewrite a new button mapping menu (but the new one will be able to use icons instead of the nonsense we had to use in this one! 🙃)
Thanks for playing!
Fun demo! You seem to know about the controller issues already so I'll skip that.
My main critique is the game is very easy. I don't think I died once and I beat the end boss practically by accident, two levels in the gun stat was enough to obliterate him with the pistol. The difficulty plays nicely with how easy the campfires are to overlook. I kept thinking they were decoration, and I wasn't punished for skipping them.
That being said, I can't wait to see more of this game. The core soulsborne themes and mechanics translate very nicely to a wild west setting. The world building is already solid, which is a great indicator. I want to call out deputy summoning hanged men as one of my favorite moments. The fight may have been easy, but that was cool as hell.
Keep up the good work!
thanks!
You may then be interested to know that there is a "how much damage do I take" setting in the options menu. We actually dialed it back to default at 50%, so basically the demo is starting at a kind of "easy mode". Our first testers at a recent convention were all giving up after a couple minutes 😅
This will be part of the "start a new game" choices/settings in the final game, but for now you should push those sliders up to normal (100%), or maybe even slide them higher (to take double or triple damage) and see how the game feels! : )
Please add a manifest so you can download through the itch.io client.
Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into this over the next week or so and see what we can do : )
Update: I looked into it, it seems super easy. I'll include one with the next demo release.
This is really cool! My only problem is that when I play using the controller then I can only aim the gun upwards (right analog stick when using an Xbox One controller doesn't seem to be able to aim 360 degrees). Aiming works with the mouse, so not sure what the issue is.
thanks for the heads up! That's super weird, we'll look into it and update the demo when we fix it! : )
And also, thanks for playing! It's awesome that you saw this demo so quick hahaha
No worries, I really love it. Reminds me of Yarntown. Will look forward to the update! :)
Hey, I just wanted to keep you in the loop!
We're going to do a major to our engine soon to use a new controller API. That will take a while though, so in the mean time I've added a couple options which you can find from the pause menu.
- Control Settings: Disable Right Stick - this will totally disable the secondary analog stick from aiming. Some controllers are sending inputs the engine doesn't handle well.
- Gameplay Settings: Aim Style (Strafe / Pivot) - this toggles between two styles of aiming. Strafe aiming locks the player in a direction while aiming, but lets them walk without turning. The right stick (if active) should allow turning with this mode, like a twin-stick shooter. Pivot aiming locks the player in place while aiming, but the left stick allows them to turn. This is actually the style we used while designing the game, and it allows for gameplay with only a single stick/dpad.
We'll definitely resolve the Xbox One controller issues at a later point, but these changes might help you and/or others play until we can spend the time to get those major updates in.
Awesome, thanks for the heads up! Will check it out. Out of interest, what type of controller where you using? I might just try another type of controller if it's still not working for me.
I'm just using an Xbox Series X/S controller - I actually thought it was really weird that there would be any difference, they're such similar controllers. I don't know what the difference between an X/S and a One controller would even be :-/
Woaw i've seen the video, this game is crazy, thanks a lot :)