D.S. al Fine
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Dal Segno al Fine / to begin from the Sign
A mysterious parcel. An absent friend. When did you buy a radio?
this experimental game is inspired by the audio-drama Malevolent and is based on its pre-show events, but knowledge of it is not required to play (no spoilers past season 2 if you are familiar.)
it is the melancholy of accepting something you can't avoid.
atmospheric horror.
-average play time 10-30min
-controls:
| W/A/S/D | Move |
| E/Other | Interact |
| Space/Enter | Advance dialogue |
| Esc | Pause |
-content warnings for: body horror, an illustrator trying to animate, Him Who Is Not to be Named
-3rd party assets are all listed in the .txt file upon download
-sound design is inspired by the soundtrack of Malevolent but all is constructed/designed/played by me
-known problem: camera uncenters itself if looked about too wildly.. I will fix it if it is a recurring issue but hasn't seemed to happen naturally during play testing. in other words just don't try to look up continually(you won't need to).
originally developed in Godot Engine May->December 2024
developed the expansive update from April->May 2025!
this is my first game, feedback & bug reporting is super welcome!
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Patch--Fullscreen45 days ago
- Patch--Bug fixes56 days ago
- Patch--Dialogue UI/UX59 days ago
- D.S. al Fine UPDATE!60 days ago
Comments
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Hello! I'm having trouble getting the most recent release of the game to start! The older beta version works just fine but it's the most recent one that's giving me issue. It loads to the yellow sign and then loads forever until I have to manually close it. I'm on windows 11 and I've already tried to run it as an administrator and redownloaded it all together. Absolutely LOOVED the beta and I love the king in yellows model and I'm desperate for more. Hence why I'm leaving this message as I want MORE. Absolutely fabulous job you've done and any help getting my game to load would be lovely. I hope you're having a good day!!!!
oh no :\ weird because when I went to playtest the patch I just put out with another old laptop of mine the same thing happened, it would just stay on the loading screen and never play properly. Since it has run fine on my main computer and other's perhaps it is then a specs issue? What's your ram? I have 16gb ram but the computer I was testing it on had 8gb. Since I'm a new dev this game is definitely not very well optimized, so it could be the case that its just overloading the ram on startup (even though its such a small game, I have no idea.)
I'm super glad to hear that you enjoyed even the older version of the game though, thank you so much. A game patch for optimization is prioritized to be next, so I will be sure to let you know when that's out!
My ram is 16gb as well! Technology is a fickle and odd beast,,, I look forward to the next patch and I hope I can get it running!!! I'm not very tech savvy so any other info I can provide you to get this beast goin I'd be happy to provide!!
this is so good so far but along with the other comment, once you reach the part where you enter arthur's house you can't look around anymore so you're basically softlocked :/
strange, so again my question is does pressing space/enter not finish the dialogue? I believe clicking (left mouse) also gets you out of the locked state in my testing. Glad you enjoy it so far sorry about this difficulty :,) I put the controls in the game description but maybe I should have put them in the dialogue box too
so I tested this myself again and I think I see what you mean--you can walk around but not move the camera even if the dialogue has not been cycled through yet (by pressing enter or space). So to get out of the locked state press enter or space, the dialogue will disappear and you can walk freely. However I will work on a quick patch right now to ensure you are fully locked and it shows the control on screen just to get rid of future confusion lol
update: patch released for redownloading!
oughhhh this has been so good and i love as much as i've gotten to play, but i believe there's a bug unfortunately :( whenever the kiy/john speaks, i cant move the screen and his text is stuck there, overlapping with other text, i 100% want to be able to play this if its on my end and i can figure it out or if it gets fixed in a future patch because i'm obsessed with malevolent and was geeking out at all of the small references i caught onto while playing just the first bit before I got johned :D
oh no I'm sorry to hear that, so the text does not progress or disappear at the end of dialogue even when pressing space or enter? those are the two keys that progress the dialogue when it happens, then you should be able to move when the dialogue is done cycling though (you have to press it after every line)
and I'm really glad you enjoy it and all the references haha! trust me at that point you are like 30% in!! "got johned" lmfao
went to replay the game after listening to malevolent, I think you did a great job capturing the same atmosphere that is so unsettling about the podcast. however, I will say I enjoyed the game significantly more after experiencing the media of inspiration simply due to confusion/no cohesive story. you did wonderful and I will continue to stalk everything you make moving forward!
thanks man!!!!! and yeah no I definitely was focusing on learning the softwares and everything over creating a cohesive story for an outside viewer, and capturing atmosphere is where my brain flocks to in any situation regardless. so super valid critique. appreciate it :^)
Difficult to understand, but the gameplay itself keeps you in suspense, great job.
fair, there are quite a few niche references. Thanks!!
cool
nice thanks for playing!
this is so very incredible. ambience, sound design, pacing... so so great
thank you Odd!!!
I adore the art style of this game!!! Very very good for the first game!
thank you so much! many games to go (:
Nice this was very good game I like it you did very good job for your first game excellent work anyway well done keep it up!
thanks!!