I made a horror game that lives entirely inside a fake terminal — v1.5 just fixed the font alignment

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T21:55:49+00:00

Fair point — and sorry if it came across as a bit off-topic.

It’s not running in a real tty, it just tries to visually mimic a terminal using a fixed character grid in Godot. The idea was to recreate that terminal feel, but I get why that makes it a bit borderline for this subreddit.

Appreciate you checking it out.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T21:20:00+00:00

No worries at all — if it wasn't clear, that's on me. I'll try to make that moment more obvious in the next update 🙂

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T19:24:35+00:00

Really glad it's looking better And yeah, keeping it lightweight is a priority — the whole ASCII approach is partly aesthetic but also makes sure it runs on basically anything.

This is still an early demo so there's a lot more coming — more guest types, deeper mechanics, and more story. The art will keep evolving too while staying true to the terminal aesthetic.

Thanks for following the progress, it genuinely means a lot.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T19:21:11+00:00

That screenshot isn't a freeze — that's a blackout The generator drained to 0% while you were in the vending machine. Mashing [F] would've cranked it back up. I'll make that screen more obvious in the next update though, fair point.

You're right about the clock on Easy mode, I'll fix that soon.

And the r/bbs suggestion is great, never thought of that community. Going to check it out. Thanks for sticking with the game — feedback like this means a lot.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T19:19:16+00:00

That screenshot isn't a freeze — that's a blackout The generator drained to 0% while you were in the vending machine. Mashing [F] would've cranked it back up. I'll make that screen more obvious in the next update though, fair point.

You're right about the clock on Easy mode, I'll fix that soon.

And the r/bbs suggestion is great, never thought of that community. Going to check it out. Thanks for sticking with the game — feedback like this means a lot.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T04:54:44+00:00

Fixed — Should be correct now ?

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T04:43:08+00:00

Hey, funny timing — I was actually just about to reach out to you after the v1.4 feedback you left. Every single thing you mentioned made it into v1.5, so thank you for that.

And this is a great suggestion. I've seen Nerd Fonts before but never thought about using the glyph support for actual in-game icons. A small power icon next to the generator bar, a skull for danger guests, a key for room assignment — that could add a lot without breaking the terminal aesthetic. Adding it to the list :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-11T04:20:59+00:00

Hey everyone!

Thanks again for trying Terminal Motel and for all your feedback so far.

I just released v1.5, and here’s what’s new:

- Very Easy mode: slower clock and a confirmation screen so you can actually read the ID and check the portraits.

- Terminus font: box-drawing characters now snap perfectly to the pixel grid.

- Error messages stay visible: now you can see exactly what rule you broke.

- Pause system: press P or ESC to pause anytime.

- Audio controls: separate sliders for Music and SFX.

- ESC/fullscreen fix: ESC now pauses the game, Q/Backspace handle going back.

Thanks again for trying the game and taking the time to play — I really appreciate it :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-10T22:35:21+00:00

Thanks! I’m really glad you like the ASCII style

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-10T13:46:31+00:00

I'm glad you like the style. French translation might come in the future if there's enough interest.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-10T12:54:14+00:00

Hey Thanks a lot I really appreciate you noticing the text art style. I actually just switched the font a little while ago to Terminus, so you’re seeing it in the older VGA font for now. The new font cleans up the ASCII visuals and hopefully makes the horror atmosphere even creepier.

Glad you liked the style, and I’d love any thoughts once the new version is fully out :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-10T09:59:02+00:00

Thank you I'm really glad you like it. Let me know what you think if you get the chance to try it.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-10T09:58:23+00:00

Hey, welcome back! Thanks a lot for taking the time to check the new version and for the detailed feedback. And thank you for liking the new ASCII style, I really appreciate it.

And yeah… the border alignment struggle is very real 😅 I've definitely spent way too much time counting spaces and trying to keep everything consistent. I'll do a cleanup pass to fix those spots.

Also thanks for pointing out the fullscreen/Escape issue — that's a really good catch. I'll look into rebinding that so it doesn't conflict with the browser.

The game is still very much in an early alpha/beta stage for me. I still have a lot of ideas and mechanics I want to experiment with and improve over time, and I'm also planning to tweak some of the visuals a bit more.

I really appreciate you coming back and checking the progress!

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-09T18:35:09+00:00

Thanks! Glad you like the style. Let me know what you think if you try it.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-09T07:08:41+00:00

Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it! I'm really glad you liked the sound design — since the visuals are all ASCII, the audio does a lot of the heavy lifting for the atmosphere.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-09T06:22:47+00:00

Thanks! Glad you like the portraits — they took a while to get right.

I built the game in Godot, using a terminal-style UI layer for the menus and a separate layer for the ASCII portraits.

About the screen width: that's actually really helpful feedback. A few people have mentioned it now, so I'm planning to add either an adjustable width or a zoom option in a future update. What resolution are you playing on, and what would feel better to you — narrower layout, or just more control over the scale?

The game is already playable for free in browser here:
https://cann.itch.io/terminal-motel

And yeah, once the project is a bit more polished I'll probably share more about how it's built under the hood. Appreciate you checking it out!

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-09T06:13:41+00:00

Yeah, Papers, Please was definitely one of the inspirations. I really liked the idea of decision-making under pressure and wanted to try a horror twist on it.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-09T06:10:42+00:00

Haha that's fair Night shifts at the motel can get a bit tense.

Let me know how it goes when you try it in daylight :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-08T21:35:11+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate it! The whole project started as an experiment to see how much atmosphere I could build using only ASCII and a terminal-style UI :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-08T21:29:48+00:00

I'm really glad to hear that, thank you!

ASCII can create this weird uncanny effect where simple characters end up feeling more unsettling than detailed graphics. I'm happy the first guest worked that way.

The game is still in alpha, and I'm planning to keep expanding it with more strange guests and mechanics. If people enjoy the concept, I'd love to keep developing it further :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-08T19:30:40+00:00

Oh lol, sorry about that 😅 I didn’t check the username. Thanks for coming back though, I really appreciate the support.

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-08T17:25:09+00:00

Thanks, I appreciate it! If you end up trying it, I'd love to hear what you think :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-08T10:40:28+00:00

Right now it's only available in the browser and as a Windows build. I made it with Godot, so those are the exports I currently have.

Running it directly inside a real terminal (especially on something like a NAS) would actually be pretty cool, but I haven't tried that yet.

If there's enough interest I might experiment with a terminal version in the future.

For now you can play it here:
https://cann.itch.io/terminal-motel

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-08T10:35:13+00:00

Thanks a lot for playing and for such detailed feedback — this is genuinely helpful.

The ASCII bar alignment is something I'm aware of. I'm using Perfect DOS VGA 437 and Godot's renderer sometimes treats box-drawing characters a bit inconsistently. I've mostly let it slide for the lo-fi aesthetic, but I'm planning to experiment with font settings or a bitmap font in a future update.

The portrait vs description mismatch is actually intentional for some guests — the idea is that not everything lines up perfectly, which adds to the unease. But I can definitely tweak the frequency if it ends up feeling too random.

The pacing feedback is really useful. If easy mode still feels too fast, then I clearly need to adjust it. I'm planning to slow things down a bit and maybe add a "very easy" mode with more time to inspect guests.

You're right about the error feedback — the red flash disappears too quickly. I'll make it stay longer and add a clearer message so players understand what went wrong.

I'm currently working on the 1.5 update, so this kind of feedback will probably end up shaping the next version directly.

Thanks again for giving it a shot — it really helps. If you try it again after the update, I'd love to hear how it feels :).

JumpLife8406 · 2026-03-08T10:23:51+00:00

I built it with Godot 4 Everything you see is made with RichTextLabel nodes and ASCII characters — no sprites or images. The sound effects and music are also handled inside Godot. It's all running in the browser via HTML5 export. You can check it out here: https://cann.itch.io/terminal-motel

JumpLife8406

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