Unobelisk
A downloadable game for Windows
Uno, a newborn lifeform composed of dense steel, buzzy circuits and disjointed, static memories, wakes up, looking through a frosted cerulean ceiling. On its inside drive, weird images, and a text file with instructions.
The Subject's test has begun. Meet me at the top of the Obelisk.
"Where am i?" "How did i came into existence?" "For what purpose?" "By the hands of whom?"
Isolated in a hidden point of our universe, the Obelisk is a true wonder land, far from the 01's chains of morality and ethics. A place of true scientific progress and rebellion against the deterministic laws of nature's causality.
There's no other way. All the answers, reasons and a way out, lies at the top.
Unobelisk is a solo turn based, exploration game focused on resource management and puzzle solving.
With level design inspired by classic Resident Evil games and Metroidvanias, puts the player in the logic circuits of Uno, exploring an obelisk-shaped space station for a path to the top of the structure, where a way out is promised.
The not exactly linear progression of the game is blocked by a number of riddles, passwords, keys and the mysterious threat of the primordial ghosts, along with your own Subject brothers and even the 4 scientists themselves.
On the other hand, optional puzzle solving and exploration are rewarded with upgrade modules, that grants better ammo capacity, maximum health boost, greater evasive perfomance or stronger offensive capabilities.
Under normal conditions, the game can be finished between 10 and 20 hours, though finishing in less time is possible by skipping text content or simply knowing your way through the Obelisk.
A Puzzle helper function is available on the options menu for those stuck in Unobelisk. It doesn't skip any puzzle, but hints to solve them gets more obvious in some text files or even on the map.
There's also a challenge difficulty mode if the default one feels too easy. A ranking system exists exclusively for this mode, rating the player's performance based on the final game playtime, number of times healed in restoration devices or the collection of optional modules.
Controllers are natively supported. The ones using the DirectInput standard will have problems with button placement but there's a menu option fixing this.
While there's only one active dev behind Unobelisk, it uses assets, music, raw graphic materials and others from a number of people that makes their great work available with free licenses. Credits can be seen in the game's options menu.
Feel free to send feedback, relate bugs, or ask anything in the comments.
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Final update! (I guess?)Jan 09, 2024
- A mini guide (English)Sep 15, 2020
- Price change noticeAug 02, 2020
- July 2020 updateJul 13, 2020
- Just some place to post creditsJun 18, 2020
- Late release noteJun 08, 2020
- First big update: Difficulty balanceMay 01, 2020
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
The map feature that tells you if you've found everything in a room doesn't take text files into account.
Some of the text is in Portuguese, even when the language is English.
I think modules should have their own inventory tab, to reduce clutter.
Talking to 4 sucks. You can't choose a topic, instead you have to cycle through them. But the cycling doesn't work properly.
The maze of trash sucks. The enemies respawn immediately, and there's so many of them they can stop you from moving at all.
The pit boss sucks. The tentacles can knock you into other tentacles, and there's no invulnerability period.
I like this game, and I like the art style, but there are several big flaws. I want this game to be better, so please fix it.
To be honest, at this point I would probably not mess with design related stuff anymore, despite the problems. I kind of want to remake this game in a better engine eventually, so to adress its more fundamental problems.
I have been fixed so many wrong language text in the last update, it's sad that there's still a lot unchecked. Will give it a better look some time.
If anything, please check if your version is the last one updated. 99% chance it is, if you downloaded it after january 9, but who knows. I have lots of really old itch games in my folders myself, so that happens.
The enemies respawning on Maze of Trash may be a bug as well, since they are supposed to just respawn when the player uses a restoration chamber.
Yeah, honestly impressed that took so many years for someone to criticize the tentacle boss haha Nowadays, not sure if making a boss like this in a turn based game was a good idea in hindsight, working with the clunky collision of RPG Maker, no less. Sorry for the frustration.
Dude, haven't finished yet - but just have to say the music is so good. You make it?
It's all royalty free music haha I have edited some tracks, adjusted tone and tempo, stuff like that.
You can read credits here: https://ghostwind.itch.io/unobelisk/devlog/155577/just-some-place-to-post-credit...
There's urls with the source of the music, though not 100% sure all the links still works.
There's a whole lot of incredible musicians out there with royalty free music available, wouldn't never guess how high quality they can be, before i needed them.
Yeah, that's cool man. You picked a really good track for the safe room theme. Love it. Love the game also, hope you're still working on games. :)
this was an incredible experience! me and a couple friends played it together (two of us commentating and the third actually playing) back before the revamp and it really defined a period of time for us. Ever since we would say 'remember Unobelisk? god i wish we could play that again for the first time' or to play more of it. thank you so much for making it!
Thanks for playing it!
I sure miss those times of playing single player stuff together with friends. Really happy Unobelisk was part of it for someone.
To be honest, the biggest sadness of making this is never being able to enjoy it properly. Since it's a game about discovery, and as the dev, i knew all about it already :´(
Clearly a long time coming, but I finally got to this one on my BRJE want-to-play list. The first 20 minutes or so I was getting that nagging "mmm, I don't know, this is pretty sketchy" vibe. And I'm so happy I kept going because the game just kept growing on me into something very cool.
Yeah, it is pretty sketchy and outright janky at times (hey, super slow-mo frame rate again for maybe some reason!), but it's also intriguing and fun. The obelisk map is more complex than I was expecting. I could feel the old school Resident Evil touches and loved uncovering how some things are foreshadowed far in advance. The music choices set the mood well, giving everything this mysterious, sort of creepy, forlorn atmosphere. Even the weird ghost graphics are endearing. And the story line has surprising substance and pathos. It reminds me a little of The Talos Principle in handling AI, humanity and what it means to be alive.
Ghostwind, thank you for making this odd, enjoyable game! I can understand the effort that goes into a project like this, and you should be proud for designing and developing the entire thing solo. Since we can't DM on Itch, I'll just toss it out here: I'd be glad to volunteer to edit the English translations in Unobelisk if you're interested. No love lost if you're not.
Sorry for the delay, i don't visit itch a lot nowadays.
Thanks for liking the game! This means a lot to me : )
We can maintain contact in another site. Do you have a Reddit account?
If you want to edit the text in any way right now, the "en.json" file can be accessed in the www folder. It's pretty easy to edit it with notepad++. Unfortunately, i have no way to compensate you money wise (I was planning to make it free as well, since pretty much anyone that played it, did so from the bundles), but you have complete freedom to edit stuff in the game. Will credit you if i end up using your editions, of course!
To be honest, i don't mess with the butler client for some time, plus i'm 100% on developing another game rn so i didn't expect to update this one anymore (Tbh i had some enhancement ideas and bug fixes, gave up due to not many people playing it nowadays). But i have no problem accepting your help, and will make an effort in updating the game with the new edition.
I don't have Reddit, but how about send me an email and I'll edit this afterwards.
How can I empty the bucket? I put the poison water in it before watering the branch, and now I can't do that because the poison water doesn't go away and I can't use it on the mushrooms because they're on the other side of the branch.
Interact with the puddle, and use the bucket with the poisoned water when the inventory window appears. There will be an option to empty the bucket.
Note: Not 100% sure, but i think the puddle need to be poisoned to empty the poisoned water bucket. In the same way the puddle need to be clean to empty the non poisoned water bucket.
You can use that purifying machine thing to alternate the puddle between poisoned/not poisoned, using the herbicide poison again for the later.
I thought I already tried throwing it into the poisoned puddle, but I guess I didn't. Thanks for the help.
Okay, found an actual bug. The text when collecting the modules in the Hideout is not in English, despite that being my chosen language. The text immediately before getting the modules is in English, as is text from examining something in the room afterward.
Tbh every dialogue and image language is set manually on the event itself, so i solved dozens of those some time ago.
There's probably more of these bugs, specially in the map display on area transitions.
Since i'm developing another game rn and nobody commented until today, i was waiting for feedback from the players. Now i'll probably make another bug hunt gameplay to update the game in the next weeks.
Thanks for letting me know! Most people either don't find these bugs, don't care or just give up on the game, i'd guess. As a sole dev, it's essential to have feedback like this.
I am stuck on the presumably optional puzzle in the Repair Room in the Factory, to the point where I think it might be a bug. The solution seems to be to use a sequence of items with an object in the room. If I use what I think is the first item, nothing happens other than closing the item menu, and I still have the item. If I use anything else that I have, I get the same result as if I had used that item straight from my inventory, suggesting failure. I'd think that SOMETHING should happen when using that first item.
Edit: Oh right, using the items in the expected sequence (or others) also failed beyond the first item. That's important imformation I left out. Also, I had previously used some of those items in the puzzle in the room immediately following the room where those items are obtained, so I went back to the room where I got them and got new ones. That could matter.
Just to be clear, you completed the puzzle in that room after the one you got the materials without a problem, right?
I will try to replicate the bug here, so expect this post to be updated in the next 30 minutes (or maybe 2 hours, assuming it's more complex than i think haha).
Thanks for letting me know! And sorry for the trouble.
While i try to replicate the bug, feel free to comment here about any possible extra info or if you made any progress.
Edit: Checked the event, tried to replicate in-game multiple times in different conditions, but i couldn't make it fail. It's apparently working properly.
I will post some spoilers below. Since comments on Itch.io doesn't have a spoiler function, i will edit this post deleting the spoilers after your reply, okay?
About returning to the room you got the materials to take some more, don't worry, you're supposed to do this.
Please reply this post to inform wheter you've used the repair machine previously or not.
Edit: Deleted the paragraphs with spoilers.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean. I got the materials, completed the PRMI puzzle and lost some of them, then returned to get the materials again and now I'm stuck on the Repair Room puzzle.
Okay, that would be the issue. I have not done that other thing with the machine yet.
Thanks for the quick reply.
Oh, that's a relief! haha
At first, the repair machine could be used in any order, but then there was a rare chance of hard locking the game this way, so i decided to make sure the player used the repair machine to get the mandatory item first.
To be honest, the only hint that the materials could be used to make the module in the repair machine would only appear if you checked it after defeating the boss, but you figured it out without the hint haha
Thanks for the info. Feel free to reply in the comments about anything in the game, bug or not.
Huh. There is a file in the repair room that is pretty blatant about what to do there, as least to me.
I think it's sorta obvious after you get the materials.
In hindsight, i was probably expecting most players to get the mandatory item before reaching that point with the PRMI room in Tower of Light, but of course it would be common with the non linear nature of the game haha
Maybe i should change that in an update. It can be really misleading now that you mentioned it.
I'd like to report that it worked correctly after the event that you described.
Hello! I have spent 6 hours immersed in the game, love everything from the look of it to the character interactions, problem is, im soft blocked in the intersection between path of faces and mist wood where the game has autosaved as Im in low health and have no amo, so i keep respawning there surrounded by ghosts. I really don't want to restart the game. Great game btw!
The game autosaves on every room for convenience but safe rooms should save in a separated slot. There was one right before the entrance of the Gardens, two screens from where you are now.
To be honest, i think it's possible to ignore every save prompt in the safe rooms but it's highly unlikely. Is this the case? The auto save always saves on slot 8 while the player chooses the specific slot for the main one.
Aside that, it's fairly common to get locked in an autosave since the game was designed around resources management. At first, it wouldn't offer auto saves at all, but i thought it could be a nice quality of life feature. Though it can be misleading at times.
Can you load a main save from the last safe room?
Thank you for the quick reply! I cannot load the save since my only save file is on slot 8, I didn't realise it autosaved on that slot and now I keep respawning with minimum health and no ammo at the start of path of faces where enemies spawn and block my way since I cant beat them, and if I try to go back to he safe room via mist wood, ghosts spawn once again surrounding me and blocking my way. Since I can't beat them and have tried everyway possible to leave it seems like my only option is to start a new save file which I would really like to avoid considering I have already invested 6 hours in the game.
Damn, that's unfortunate. I think the save system is not super well explained unless the player reads the in menu tutorials.
How many HP Uno has?
It's a long shot and maybe a little luck dependant, specially depending on your HP, but try to do that:
- In Path of the Faces, depending on what floor Uno steps on, it can trigger 2 ghosts of different kinds. One of them is always a "Statuarum". Basically, you are in the soutwest entrance of the area, so you should get to the northwest exit.
- There will be 3 fights to get throught this way, try to make sure you only fight Statuarums (There's also Staturuams, don't confuse them) in those 3 battles.
- Statuarum does minimal damage in normal conditions, like 3 per attack. While your knife attack should kill it in 3/4 turns? That will depend on how many knife upgrades you have. The catch with Statuarums is that when they start to smile, you should stop attacking them, using evasive actions instead, then return to attack when the ghost gets serious again.
- While you make your way through the Path of Faces, don't go back to Mist Woods, since that will make the ghosts respawn.
- If you manage to fight the 3 Statuarums and reach the northwest exit, you'll reach the Archery Zone area. Go west, trying to avoid encounters, and reach the area "Pathfinder's Pass".
- On Pathfinder's Pass, there's a secret passage through the trees to north. There's a hidden ghost there but it can be avoided.
- After the secret passage, you'll reach an upgrade module. Every upgrade module found in Unobelisk recover Uno's entire HP and ammo, so you're basically saved.
- Return to the Archery Zone, go south to reach Mist Woods, so you can return to the Safe Room. Make a lot of saves in different slots to be sure. You may have to fight a ghost in Mist Woods but now you're completely recovered.
If you manage to pass through the 3 Statuarums and follow the instructions, you're 100% saved, but depending on your current HP or knife strength, it may be impossible after all.
Can't do that now, but if you just can't pass through the Statuarums no matter what, i may send you a save game in the Safe Room just before the Gardens.
Besides that, my apologies for the problem.
Hey! just wanted to tell you that i finished your game, and i think it's amazing! I really like the whole idea of the game, and especially the plot. The game kept me hooked for a long time, and it was completely worth it! Really liked the characters, bosses, atmosphere, enemies and the ending. I can see that you put a lot of work and effort on this game, and it should have more recognition! Thank you for this game :)
Thanks!
This means a lot to me!
I liked the game a lot. Nowadays people give too much value for the graphics and forget the best part (the narrative). Thank you GhostWind to develop the game and feel free to develop new games like this. 😁Congratulation! 👏
Thanks! :)
This game has a great atmosphere and unique setting and enemies. It's really fun and deserves more players, great job! I was curious about getting to the stage beyond the Factory (the Junkyard?) after obtaining the Alpha Key. The key is supposed to allow Uno to travel through tougher air ducts, but I'm still blocked by the north duct between the Dorms and the Factory. I thought that was the way in but maybe I was wrong? I've looked around all the other rooms for stuff I missed but they all seem to require information from the Junkyard. Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks! Really happy with any feedback :)
Did you use the Alpha Key to upgrade your armor? (It gets purple instead of orange, for reference). Like, the key unlocks the device that upgrades Uno's armor to get through tougher ducts, but you'll have to find the device first. It looks like the restoration chamber from any save room but orange instead of purple.
There's another area acessible after the tougher ducts. The Junkyard can be reached at this point but it's not related with the Alpha Key.
Did you get the Portable Heater, by any chance?
Have you visited the Light Room in the Factory?
You have visited the Engine Room to eventually get the Alpha Key, right? Maybe you should visit it again to change the direction of the blue lever and see if something in the factory changes.
There's actually two entrances to the ducts from the factory. The first one that links the Factory with the Test Dorms, and the second which can be accessed after unlocking a specific room. That locked vent on the ducts between the Dorms and Factory can only by opened from the other side, and serves as a shortcut.
The game gets slightly less linear at this point haha Will try to give hints but i can just say the solution if you want to.
Thanks! I had gotten into the light and reunion room and activated the alpha key, but I took a closer look at the light room and was able to get into the Junkyard with the tools there, just not the way I was expecting within the light room itself. I'm looking forward to unlocking the secrets of the Stargazer :)
Kind of sucks that the game isn't popular enough for someone to make a walkthrough. Maybe i'll make a simple one myself and post it on the development log haha
But anyway, if you get stuck again, just post in the comments about it.
Hi sorry to trouble you, I'm having so much fun with this game but I'm completely stuck on the password to give to the angry tree. I've been trying for a day to think of the answer now and I don't think I'll be able to finish the game without asking for help. Could you possibly let me know?
There's no way to private message on itch.io unfortunately, so i'll reply with the password but i'll edit it in the future to not spoiler the other players haha Reply this comment when you're done, Thanks.
Ah thank you very much! I tried some combination of that but I couldn't find a space key on the keyboard I'll look harder! Thank you, really looking forward to finishing it!
I guess i should try to solve it in a future update. Maybe change the password to something with only one word haha
I pretty much tested the game alone, so i think there's a lot of stuff that feels obvious to me as the dev, but not to anyone else.
The "space key" can be found as an actual blank space, so i understand why it can be so confusing.
Thanks for the feedback! Will try to solve this asap.
I love the style of this game and I'm looking forward to sitting down and playing it properly soon. Thank you so much for making it.
Thanks! With so many great stuff in the bundle, i suppose not many people will focus too much on this one right now haha
It's the double edged sword - I never would have heard of this game without the bundle, but now also I need to balance playing it with the other stuff in the bundle. That said I'm so glad I found it, I love the aesthetic and I'm ready to solve some puzzles!
This game is really cool. Thank you for making it.
I love unique little games like this and this was a gem to find.
Thanks! Happy you're enjoying it.
Beautiful!
Thanks : )