BATHOS

BATHOS was my entry for the 21st Ludum Dare 48 hour game development challenge. It was quite well received, placed third in the theme category, and was even picked up by non gaming media

The game is very spoiler sensitive so please play it right away! Click to focus and press X to start. There is a solution, I promise!

When done, here's what others thought:

Grinding Down
IndieGames.com
Konzortium
MT2
Let's play BATHOS on YouTube
Dot Pixel Games
L'OUJEVIPO (in french, english translation)
Aussertech.labs (in german, english translation)
Fucktotum, yet another review (translated)
GeekZone (in french, english translation)
GeeMag (in german, english translation)
Nezavisle Hry (in czech, english translation)
Super Level (in german, english translation)
Simply Indie (in german, english translation)
écrans (in french, english translation)

Comments (18) Trackbacks (5) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Dr_zox
October 23rd, 2011 - 08:36

This was Awesome, but also made me hit my face and think of course…. took me 20 minutes to figure out lol,

Keep up the good work, now to share it with my friends ans see if they can figure it out

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- johanp
  October 24th, 2011 - 12:19
  
  Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. Face slapping included for free.
  
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- negaman1020
  September 9th, 2012 - 16:07
  
  i finished in like, three seconds. HA!
  
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chris zombieking
April 28th, 2012 - 03:25

ha! nice wee game
i misdirected myself by trying to find another ‘right’ key, instead of the correct key! but then i caught the clue in his speech after a couple of restarts.

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Johnny
April 30th, 2012 - 18:55

There’s no solution to this game… whats the point ¬¬

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- johanp
  April 30th, 2012 - 19:26
  
  Oh, but there is! You just have to think, well, different.
  
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- Seya
  December 26th, 2012 - 14:53
  
  Here is a hint!
  a key does not have only one thing!
  
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almyr
May 5th, 2012 - 18:12

Excellent!! After quite an hour (!!) I finally found the solution.
Thanks for the great game!
There IS a solution and the funniest, is… well, all the clues we have!!!
I admit I was helped by the comments…
(wont tell more..)

Do you plan to make another game like this ?
Now that the trick is known, it will be difficult to make a 2nd game like this, won’t it be ?

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- johanp
  May 9th, 2012 - 09:42
  
  Wow, that’s a long time! Glad to hear you pushed through and that you enjoyed it. I’ve had plans to make it bigger or make sequels but it’s hard to come up with anything worthwhile. The core idea in BATHOS is extremely hard tied to tricking the player using the double meaning of the word key. Coming up with more puzzles of the same kind would be hard as the player already knows what’s going on.
  
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  - almyr
    May 11th, 2012 - 00:54
    
    Yes, I took my time. There was no need to hurry after all. I spent also quite a time on a bug : if you take a key, walk to the right-hand wall till you are stuck, throw the key while still keeping to walk, then sometimes the key will stay stuck in the middle of the wall. I tried to do something with this and with the keys named ‘E’ ‘S’ ‘C’, hehe.
    Anyway, I also forgot to mention I found the ambiance excellent (music, pixel art, hero lost in the world etc..), it stimulated my imagination.
    
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Ash
July 22nd, 2012 - 06:40

I must of been extremely lucky, only took a minute or 2 to figure out

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Markus
July 22nd, 2012 - 21:21

Ended up getting extremely frustrated and started mashing random “keys” on my keyboard; Huzzah!

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BathosTheWolf
December 10th, 2012 - 09:03

My friends told me about this game because it had my name in it. i enjoyed it and didnt find it too challenging. these sorts of games are my favorites <3

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Agustin
March 2nd, 2013 - 01:30

it took me 43 minutes, sight, i read some of the comments and figured must be a smart combination of “keys”, then I got frustrated and did what I would do on any other window to remove, kablam!!!. I swore at the screen, loudly. Congrats, very sneaky game.

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- johanp
  March 2nd, 2013 - 08:47
  
  Excellent! Just as intended. Happy to hear you enjoyed the experience. And thanks!
  
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Avery
March 3rd, 2013 - 22:22

Literally tried every key on the keyboard except the escape key. Dummie.

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Mystic
September 22nd, 2015 - 19:01

Ahahah that was clever.

It didn’t take me long to figure out, honestly. As soon as I saw the first hint I knew I had to rearrange them and… Well, it’s done.

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jamie
April 11th, 2018 - 10:46

I still haven’t figured it out and i’ve been stuck for almost 2 years

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