Tôtem
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– Something strange has appeared on earth –
Multiple gigantic beings with unique languages... and you're the only one who can deter them.
You are the translator
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A unique experience in which you are tasked with translating and conversing with unidentified entities. Your goal is to make them leave, while using their unique languages.
Note: Mac version seems to be temperamental; may or may not work
Features
- 3 unique entities:
- Wreckingball, which has 2 consciousnesses,
- Creaker, who is a blind pack predator,
- Cow, who loves to ask philosophical questions,
- and a secret one, which must be unlocked.
- 3 interesting languages, with branching dialogue!
- Careful gameplay and eerie atmospheres!
- 2+ hrs of gameplay!
Controls
- WASD: Move
- Mouse: Look around
- Left click: Click, drag, or touch
- Right click: Zoom
- Escape: Pause / bring up language information
- F11: Toggle fullscreen
Requirements: A pretty beefy computer, probably beefier than you'd think
Sidenote: This game was made in 2-1/2 months, by a single person!
Tôtem is followed by Gallerie, which continues the storyline and expands on the universe built in Tôtem.
Purchase
Get this game and 1 more for $5.50 USD
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $2.50 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- So, About UnitySep 15, 2023
- Gallerie Trailer Is Now Up!May 04, 2022
- Sequel Update 2Apr 30, 2022
- I'm part of THE DREAD X COLLECTION 5Feb 07, 2022
- Sequel UpdateJul 23, 2021
- Tôtem Sequel in the works!May 14, 2021
- Bug Fixes!Jun 07, 2020
- Added sensitivity slider!May 14, 2020
Comments
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As of sep 12th 2024, unity canceled the runtime fee.
Yeah I saw that, took them long enough. Dunno if it’s going to save them at this point, but who knows. I’ve definitely moved on, though.
but hey, really cool game. I played this a awhile ago and recently watched arrival which got me thinking about this game. The ending dialogue when touching the totem pole blew my mind. I just saw you made a sequel so I'm hyped. Excited to see where the story goes.
Hell yeah, that movie is so dope. Thank you man :)
Shakle, Hello again
I have a game idea in mind, you are probably uninterested, but hear me out, the general idea is a survival type horror game this is set around underwater exploration with a pressurized diving suit, so no submarine to protect you.
It would include resource gathering in drowned cities, with realistic standards towards how stuff would work, so you wont just combine 2 rotten planks of wood and a tin can to make a speargun.
Also each of the lifeforms you would encounter have unique mechanics, so each encounter would feel unique, and not just "Oh, scary enemy, time to kill it."
This is an EXTREMELY brief summary of the idea, so in concept it would have way more story and gameplay.
Again, you are probably uninterested/busy/ there is too much to code and model , but I can provide more information if you would like. It does also fit within your theme of aliens and inconceivable horrors.
Hey, that definitely does sounds quite interesting. The underwater setting is quite a cool idea, I actually really like that! I definitely don’t have the time to get into any more projects right now, though. I would highly recommend that you have a go at it, I think it would be worth it, as a learning exercise if anything :)
I will look into more concepts, its still a pretty early idea. I will also start looking into blender and unity. If you have any tips on the way you do your graphic style, I would be all ears, as it would make the game whole new leagues of creepy.
If it doesnt sound weird, are you looking for teamwork, or do you prefer solo development?
Nice, sounds good! I would recommend Godot instead of Unity, though. If you want tips for my style, basically just do a lot of volumetric lights, high contrast lighting, and play around with colour. If you’re trying to make a horror game, the high contrast lighting is really going to help if you’re just starting out because it hides detail and really helps keep things creepy without needing to make a tonne of high quality models. I’m definitely more of a solo developer right now, I would say.
I will definitely take that into mind when I start developing, thanks mate!
No problem man, I wish you good luck!
Hey 👋. It would be nice if this game could make it onto Steam. I'd buy it again on there so that I could play it on my Steam Deck. thanks for developing this game either way!
You can always manually add it to your Steam collection as a non-Steam game and run it through Proton, Steamgriddb has images for this game too if you're willing to go the extra mile. While that's not quite as nice as actually having it on Steam it's the next best thing
does that come with the steam control customization, if necessary?
Yes, Steam input for controllers will work as normal for non-Steam games added to your library
Hey, I claimed this game quite some time ago and finally decided to play it. Love the concept!
I have an issue though, I am playing on a widescreen and the top glyps (general question, hypothetical question, etc.) are off-screen, along with some slider. Do you have any idea how I could fix it maybe?
Unfortunately I don't really have an easy fix on hand. The only thing i can really think of is to maybe set your display resolution to be something less wide temporarily? You can right-click your desktop and set your display settings there. Sorry 'bout that!
hey! i was wondering if there are any audio files of the creaker in the game folder. i tried to look but i couldnt seem to find any. the reason is that im trying to create my own sentence for the creaker for fun and i was wondering if there is any way i can.
Hey! Yeah, audio files aren't included separately. But here, I made a Google Drive folder with some Creaker audio for you to use: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RlcWPW26F3YGs8Z9uVyj5LN1KN4Gbd3R?usp=sha...
I don't have exact pitches, so unfortunately i can't tell you what the audio pitch scaling is or anything. You'll have to figure that out yourself or make a new scale.
Also, I don't remember the attribution, but it's from freesound.org.
i can try to use smth to change the pitch of the horn e.g audacity so its fine dw
Will you ever add more to Totem, cause quite frankly this type of game is extremely interesting, unique and well made. I am a big sad that we only have 3 aliens to actually translate. Mind you all of them have really amazing forms of translating. But is it possible for you to add more to the game like adding more aliens for people to translate
I dont feel like you will ever actually see this, but in the case you do, you have made a genuinely good and engaging game that has made me truly inspired, like seriously, this is an amazing consept. (I am not putting this paragraph in for pity points, I genuinely enjoy the game and am a bit sad its so short)
Thank you so much, that means a lot! I read every post I get on Itch so no need to be worried about me not seeing it :) I’ve said before that I don’t really intend to do much with the game, and that’s roughly how I feel about it now. I’m usually pretty interested in doing other things so going back to Tôtem feels like a step back unless I find a good reason to do so. I might be coming up on a reason to, but I promise nothing, I’ve learned that the hard way with Carnavâl.
thats fair enough, I posted this without reading the other 2 hundred other comments to update the game so mb
lol no worries, I don't expect people to go through all the comments before posting one
I just finished the first area in the game 'Gallerie' from DreadX V. Wow.
So many things about that game that I love, and I haven't even finished it yet. The language, atmosphere, action events, scares, visuals, sound design, story progression--all amazing. You're a very talented developer.
I googled 'Gallerie game' out of curiosity to see if anyone had 'translated' the various messages that appear throughout the art gallery, and was pleased to find this page for Tôtem. When I realized it was a prequel to Gallerie, I immediately bought it.
I work professionally as a programmer, and have been making games as a hobby for over 10 years. I'm jealous of your work. You should be very proud.
I was also wondering: how did you accomplish the volumetric lighting for the projectors? I thought that looked incredible.
Also, any chance you'd ever port Gallerie to VR? I think it would work great, especially with the ASMR and trippy visuals.
Anyway, keep up the great work!
Wow thank you so much, that’s some of the highest praise I’ve ever received :) I’m glad you liked Gallerie though, it’s a very meta project for me because literally every aspect is driven around the concept of art and echo chambers, including me while I was making it since so much of its development was driven by echo chambers. Gallerie is one of the most controversially experimental projects I’ve done and seems to have provoked intense reactions on both sides which is kind of stylistically amazing (I’m referring to the asmr and difficulty lol). The game is made in Unity and the volumetric lighting is done using the High Definition Render Pipeline, which supports all sorts of crazy stuff. I do it by adding a little volumetric fog in the scene and then adding key lights with the volumetric light effect cranked all the way up for them. I also put a cookie/texture on them of this video I cooked up of a kaleidoscope effect, I think that’s what really makes them pop. As for VR, well I don’t actually have a vr headset to play around with, so whenever I do release Gallerie on its own and I manage to get my hands on a vr headset I might give it a go. Actually, I have an Oculus DK2, but it’s very out of date, so never mind. Anyway, thank you again, cheers!
hi, I thought the game would be in Spanish. will it be one day?
Maybe, maybe not, there isn’t a system for translations yet
Hello!
Could you pls specify the requirements of the game in the description..?
Thanks
Hey! I have no idea what specific specs you'd need to run it, I don't have tons of machines to test with, but i can say that I developed it on a gtx 1080 and an i7-7700 and it runs at somewhere between 70-100 fps if I remember correctly
Thanks man.
unfortunately (for now) is a little for my pc... 😅
Thank you 🙏
Hey man, I love the game! just wondering if there is an update on anything next? I know that making games in general is rough and to come up with cryptic languages cant be any easier. Anyways hope your doing good and wish you the best!
Hey man! No update on anything next. I'm kind of taking a break from making games for the moment to focus on other little projects, so you might maybe hear from those but nothing will be posted on my itch.io for a while, tho I still do have big plans to make more stuff in the future. Tôtem-like games aren't really in the plan, but who knows that might change
Love the game, but I think I've encountered a glitch with the cow. I can do everything right, but after the last question is asked, it won't go away, it'll just nod to every response I give until the spinner gets too erratic and it attacks me. I've watched other people play and this doesn't seem to be a problem for them. Am I doing something wrong?
Oh yeah I’ve heard of that glitch being a thing, there isn’t really a workaround for that as far as I know, so you’d have to restart if that happens. Sry about that
I've got to ask... does anyone have a hint for communication on [CLASSIFIED]? I have tried morse code, I have tried recording the click rhythm and setting up an auto clicker to match them, and good ol' button mashing, but nothing seems to work. I have ended the game properly, I'm just on the hunt for any secrets. Love the game :D
Sorry I never left a comment - I loved Tôtem (I died a bunch, but that's just part of the fun, Trial and error and what not) I didn't realise you were made Gallerie until I saw your name in the credits - that game was amazing too!
I hope to see more from you in the future, I love the "Translate for an unknown entity" idea. :D
Thank you so much! I’m very glad you enjoyed those games and the idea too :)
Good game
i like this art!
I really liked the game. I decided to record the gameplay and show the Russian-speaking community about it. I hope they will appreciate it too. Thanks for the game :3
Oh dang, that's awesome! Glad you like it :)
nice
I absolutely loved the game but my computer was struggling hard and I couldn't finish because it was so painfully slow. Could you consider adding a feature to reduce the graphic's quality? I know that big bart of the game is how incredible it looks but even a little bit of glow and shadow reduction could do wonders. Mine it's not a "beefy" computer but it's also not that bad so idk
Yeah, I've gotten this exact comment so many times over the years lol.
Unfortunately, currently there aren't any plans to do a performance update. The performance issues come from more deep-seeded and complex issues because I made it back when I didn't really know how to properly code and stuff. Disabling shadows and bloom would make basically no difference. Actually, you would probably see the most performance increase from a simplification of the display screens and other random things. In the future perhaps, but not soon, since I would most likely be reworking everything. Maybe try running the game with your monitor's resolution a little smaller for now, I guess?
Ahh understand. Thank you for replying tho! I really really loved the game
Worth absolutely every penny, best horror/sci fi game I've ever played, so much has gone into this game that I can't recommend it enough. Can't wait to play the sequel! So excited!
Thank you! I'm very glad you like it :)
i played this on stream last night - it was the first horror game i'd ever played and i absolutely adored it. the entity designs are gorgeous and the languages are so creative and interesting! i wasn't particularly good at it and made some really stupid mistakes (like not realizing the pause menu brought up a dictionary for the first 40 minutes LMAO) but my chat helped me out and it felt like we were a team of linguists all working together. was a really great experience and i'm so excited for the sequel :)
omg I genuinely can't believe you made it that far without using the dictionary LMAO
Glad you liked it tho, looks like it made for a good stream :)
Any chances of another free day? I'd like to pick this up for my S/O. They're too cheap to buy anything and I'm unable to.
Game's a bit too beefy for my laptop, but can't wait to play this on a stronger machine.
fun game
Does the final level require morse code knowledge...because it REALLY seems like a morse code scenario.
Game is fun to play and a great style not like the others but i got a question the last alien the Totem with the emps and the clicking and the red shiny Button is there a way to translate it or just the end by u know how i got it. ^^
will there be more aliens added? will this be put on steam?
There might be more aliens added eventually, and steam is most likely going to happen in the future, but right now I’m focusing on the sequel
looking forward to it. this is a game i am planning on buying very very soon
i saw a youtuber playing this game and it just looks so damn cool
Game is awesome, I have no idea how to play it though
Is it possible to customize the graphics? I'd really like to play it but I got very low fps and I can't find the options ingame? Has anyone a solution?
lol im just to good at this, just clicked some random files and then the game started
yeah that nice shot game
im so excited and i cant download xd, dont know what to do with the file
Ah, the file is a .zip, which means you'll have to extract it using either 7zip or winrar (or some other zipping program) by right clicking it. After that, the .exe is free to be opened. Hope that helps!
how do i download?
I would love to see more entities or more updates to have more conversations with the current entities. This is my favorite indie game by far because there is so much you can do with so little. Would love to see more!
holy shit the graphics from the screenshots...
and yet
346 MB?????
The plot sounds like the movie Arrival which came back in 2016. I'll play this and see if I like it :D
This is a very interesting idea and i fully enjoyed it, i hope there is a sequel...
well that a good thing that its free in its first week
ill test it then ill give a former feed back
It is working on a med level laptop?
Someone recommended it on the free stuff and i just check it.Found out it is really unique logic game with rare interactivity gameplay you see. It need a lot of optimization and i think if the creator can make out this unique and not repetitive type of puzzles , for sure it will be an hit with good price as the other indie devs if the sequel get more investment making it more polish.
P.S. add an IQ score in the requirement spec :P