Vermis - Fan Game
I did not make the music, nor did I make the art it is based off. I just wanted to make a fan game based on an artbook that I enjoyed a lot
I felt since the artbook was made to look like a game manual for an old PC game, styling this text game to look like an old MS-DOS terminal was very fitting, you can find Plastiboo's art, information and contact here:
The music was created by the artist Kobold, from the album "The Valley of Forgotten Secrets" and "Cave of the Lost Talisman", linked below is their bandcamp.
You can type help at any time to see the commands!
Special thanks to Seven ate you for helping with coding
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Development log
- UI Update, bugfixes31 days ago
- Level ups and Experience34 days ago
- Regarding Updates44 days ago
- Secret Path update, new areas, etc53 days ago
- Various bugfixes and a settings tab62 days ago
- New levels, command processor overhaul, functionality add64 days ago
Comments
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Is the art book literally just a book pretending to show game lore for a game that doesn't exist? It looks pretty cool I'm just confused about it
yes the artbooks idea was a game guide for a game that didn't exist, and i decided to make the game actually exist
Really cool game, I love it. On my first playthrough I had a bug where all enemies, NPCs, and items kept respawning after I saved and loaded, and going into the character menu all stats were 0 and hitting confirm just set all my stats to 0 and would gain no experience no matter how many enemies I killed (I was a stone scholar, if it matters). I fixed it by creating a new character as a cursed fool.
(SPOILER ALERT)
Does the game currently end after beating the abhorrent beast? Trying to 'go inside' after killing him just returns 'the path towards go inside is locked'. It's alright if that's as far as it goes now, I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
You need the key from a monster that you slay, I forgot the name but it's a hard one to kill and it has a chance to drop the "corridor key", it's name is written in purple text and let's you continue with the game.
The monster in the flutewoods? I killed it and it didn't drop anything, and I can't leave the area, I'm caught in a loop and I can't find any other monsters.
It only has a chance to drop it which is why it respawns, but since your game is bugged idk what u could do unfortunately
Enemies respawning after a save/load is how the game functions currently, I do not have it set up to keep enemies dead when killed. Treat that as a feature! Infinite xp farm π In regards to bugs with your character stats, can you let me know the steps you took to get that bug so i can recreate it on my end? As for the key to get inside the house, you can get inside, the key is in the flutewood forest, even though the area is unfinished, it is in there.
maybe I'm just stupid or something but HOW do you choose a character??? Cause when I choose one so that I can see their strenghts and stuff like that I can't type comfirm and when I klick on the box where you type and type comfirm then it says I can'r do that uhm sorry if this is a stupid question
You left click their icon, then you type "confirm" in the input area, while visually it may look like you deselected your character, it should still be selected. It's just a visual bug. Make sure you are typing the command correctly aswell
Thank you so much, but what command are you talking about? Is it just comfirm?
Yup, you would just type confirm in the input area and it should work.
is it possible to make an input via the phone, otherwise the game loads through the browser, but I can't press the buttons
There are no current plans to make the game mobile friendly
Is there a translation planned?
No current plans for a translation, I make the game myself and the only other language i speak is some german
Hello, the game is wonderful! I would like to ask you to add functions for the convenience of the game, namely, so that you can use Tab to add commands to the console, scroll to previous commands using arrows. Well, so that after death I don't have to restart the game every time (I'm stuck on helmet's beast and I have to turn off the game every time and watch the screensaver after death). It would also be great to see more settings, for example, a button to turn off all these BIP BIP BOb BOB sounds or a more detailed visual setting (in some images it is very difficult to understand what I am looking at). Thank you for your work on the game!
P.S. If someone knows how to defeat this forest bastard, help huh.
Hi! thanks for commenting, regarding adding these features in a future update, I made this devlog explaining the future of developments for Vermis, and for the art I pull the art directly from Plastiboo's book Vermis, so not much can be done in the line of changing the art since its supposed to be based directly off of the books, perhaps there's some adjusting i could do with shaders or what not, but that would be the extent of what I could do.
about the visuals, I meant something like that:
I did it in Photoshop, if you like this option, I can help you with this case)
oh yeah that looks really nice! I'm not any good at photoshop, so I wasnt sure how to fix the noise on the left image
If you need any help with visualization, I will be happy to help! I could contact you at discord if you need help.
If there's a way you'd be able to show me how to do it in like, Photopea that'd be awesome!
This game is great! I love vermis and I love this interpretation of it, but I've found a few bugs.
(SPOILERS)
After fighting the Stench Champion and getting infected, once outside I saved and once the status went away I still took poison damage indefinitely throughout the playthrough, this was only solved by closing and re-opening the game. I even took infection damage in the character select screen when I quit without closing the game!
Many NPC conversations don't reset between playthroughs, so I'll be on a new save and the frog knight will always be on their last line of dialogue - this persists regardless of whether or not I have closed the game.
I hope this helps!
Also it took me so long of traversing the flutewood forest trying to find the key to go inside after the Helmet's Beast before finally reading that its unfinished.
noted, i'll have to look into the bugs
Fantastic joob, i love this game so much!!!
but i still cant go to the hidden chambers, I type go forward after using the skull, but the path appears to still be blocked. Anyway, i love this game.
my bad, you have to type go inside. I'm still currently working on making hidden entrances visible when they are discovered.
Fantastic and true to the source material! I am a huge fan of Vermis and the art style and I think you do it a huge favor. Interesting choice with the core mechanics of the game! A great take to truly make it feel like a game released long ago!
Love it. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but I can't seem to (SPOILER) enter the hidden chamber after using the skull on the statue in the tomb.
If it is a bug, it might be important to note that I went ahead and beat the boss first, then went back and used the skull on the statue.
type go forward to enter the hidden chambers, i've been working on a way to make it so secret passage ways are visible once found but its a wip and im not entirely sure when that will be implemented.
I think I froze the game! I was playing online, and I hit the tab button, curious if my prompt would be completed automatically. I wanted to talk to the frog knight, so I had entered "talk fro" and then hit tab. It seems the game also freezes after I die and I click the quit button.
But otherwise, I love this so much! The addition of the computer ambiance was really immersive!
Oh jeez, that is the first time I've heard about that bug, but its happening to me too when I play on my end, I'll look into it
okay I figured it out, it was instantly pressing the quit button on pressing tab if you had the input area in focus, will push out the fix on next update
Really cool that you did this! You captured the vibe of the book really well. A couple quality of life suggestions:
Please provide a setting to turn off or reduce the wobbly screen effect. It got a bit unpleasant after a while.
Pressing tab crashes the game (in firefox). I wanted to try autocompleting commands with tab.
Let us press up to autofill the last command. It would be helpful when cycling through NPC dialog.
feedback noted, thank you! I'll work on putting these in a future update
Error: Couldnβt load project data at path β.β. Is the .pck file missing? If youβve renamed the executable, the associated .pck file should also be renamed to match the executableβs name (without the extension).
Were other able to install the .exe?
same problem here
ah i see I forgot to upload the pck aswell, i'll fix that
you rock BTW this is so cool. Looking forward to showing you my similarly themed project when I am finished.
Very excited that someone put the work in to make Vermis playable like a crunchy old computer game. Well done!
thank you!
i can't seem to use any of my inventory items. I got the Whistling Death and a catacomb mushroom, but when i try to use/equip it, it says that I don't have it despite them showing up on the screen. Even the inventory prompt doesn't register them, just my starting items ;w;
hmmm, what starting class did you pick?
Sorry for the long response ^^;
I picked the Infant Seeker. For all I know, i probably don't have the correct stats to use it
I also experienced this issue as the Stone Scholar. Typing 'use Vertebra Stone', 'equip Stone Staff' or variations thereof didn't do anything.
some items do not have any use yet, the stone staff should be equipped on start, if it isnt then its probably attributed to the bug i found that reset all items required stats to null which stop it from being equipped
Ok that makes sense, the dialog didn't indicate that the staff was already equipped or that the item had no use ("That's already equipped" or "You can't use that here"kind of things).
It's not a serious problem, since I managed to die of infection in the Pauper's Catacombs without any bugs or glitches, A+
I know it is old school and such, but if you can make that when we type the prompt is focused automatically... that could be a saviour. Anyway... this feels and sounds amazing. Good Work!
I have the same issue when testing the game, I haven't implemented a fix for it yet but I will work on one, should be very simple
You're a legend T_T can i ask where it currently ends? I can't tell if I played through everything or if i just got stuck lol
Current version ends right after the stench champion, there's nowhere to go from there. game will continue to be updated though
Looking forward to it!!
i just pushed out a massive update, hope you get to check it out soon
Awesome! Great job dude!
I would suggest a different font, I'm having issues reading it.
That kinda fits the aesthetic of the book
in the most current version I'm working on, the font is changed, not sure exactly when I'm pushing out that update though.
This is a helluva start. I hope you continue it, especially with the increasing publicity.
Working on it until its finished, or until plastiboo sends a dmca for the fan game π
I'm glad you are planning to see it through and I hope Plastiboo doesn't ask you to stop. If anything, it'd be cool to see them pitch in or give pointers. I can also understand if they don't see an actual game as in their vision for the project though. Hype should be good all around as long as it isn't promoting bad actors.
I immediately recognized Kobold, great choice, great work.
thank you thank you
Great Stuff.
Super cool!