Trapped in a dark world of nightmares you decide to collect all of the nightmare spirits to unleash their horrible power upon the overworld, our world.
Controls: Move - Right/Left Jump - Z
Post Compo version:
*Updates: > Background ever so slightly brighter. > Added progress bar.
*Fixes: > Size of background light did not update correctly.
Comments32
T
theanprocks16 Dec 2012, 22:23
I like all the sounds and the graphics are ok but they could be better. The concept is good. Overall I give a 5/5
I like the graphics and sound--constricting the viewport was a nice touch, but once I got down to a small circle I found it almost impossible to play (or even find another light to commit suicide on and see what happens when you die).
Graphics is cool and atmospheric, sounds too. Only thing, there should be some progress bar, because I have no idea if I'm getting any closer to goal. Anyway, good job :)
Great aesthetics, clever way of demonstrating health. I finished the game, but wished there was some way of measuring progress; perhaps when you return to the altar you would be shown the percentage of collectables left.
It's hard to tell which areas will lead you to your doom. It's also quite easy to get lost without recognizable landmarks. The audio really works well with the visual style.
Great mood / atmosphere. The light circle representing your health was very intuitive and interesting. Which I had more direction in the level design to know where to go
I really like the overall feeling of this one. I started feeling a bit lost after a while, though, because I had no idea where I was or how many spirit thingies I had left to gather. Other than that, nice work!
Good atmosphere, but not enough variation to keep me interested for a long time. And since the world seems to be pretty large, that is nessecary. But again very moody and it looks very good in motion.
I'd seen a couple of your posts during the 48 hours and was actually quite looking forward to playing your entry. Fortunately I don't feel let down at all! The graphics were lovely and the game had a solid feel to it. I liked the jelly-fish movements of the enemies and despite the gameplay mechanics being simplistic I was still met with a few "how on earth do I get up there?" moments.
I also liked the story put forth by the lighting and coloring. Our protagonist is black and, we presume, evil. He collects nightmares which are black, touching anything white hurts him. Two things I noticed were, firstly, the protagonist's life force is represented by the light he's emitting, and secondly, the entire world in which he roams is black. I couldn't help but wonder what was implied by this and what it could mean. Is the world hes surrounded by evil? Or perhaps black wasn't evil at all, perhaps black represented the neutral in the world. Maybe our protagonist wasn't evil, simply a normal guy. Black being evil, of course, is just an assumption made by the player, this is never explicitly mentioned anywhere, black nightmares in the context of a black world could mean normality, maybe they were simply a part of his every day life, much like the grass on the ground.
The almost ever present glow represented the goodness inside of the protagonist, his commendable attributes which had evolved as he had progressed through his life, yet, still he clung to the black, the mundane. Why was it that touching anything light would slowly damage him? The lights it seemed, shining brighter than the brightest stars, represented the most positive things he'd ever come across in his life. For some reason they would seemingly have a profoundly negative effect on him. They wouldn't just hurt him, they'd relentlessly and irreversibly remove his own goodness. Was this all the result of too much of a good thing? The rules of the world were that the light would hurt the protagonist, and that he should stick to the mundane black world which had always been so familiar to him. I think this spoke lengths about the kind of person the protagonist was, at least at this point in his life, and how some days, I imagine, his existence could have felt much like a dark dream.
Like the atmosphere. IT would be nice if the light particles actually produced light as well - would aid in seeing them when they were just off-screen.
This is to discover games like this one that I participate in jams. Simple but enjoyable mechanics. I couldn't finish it on the first or second run but I'll be sure to give it another try. This one is not going to the trash.
Played both versions. Definitely needed a progress bar, but not sure about having it fade out. Once gone I have no idea where I am, really. Even in the post compo version I felt the sight restriction was not really fun. Brightening the background helped but it was still annoying. I think I'd rather have just been able to wander and collect and enjoy the mood/gfx. Perhaps you could do something like have the light radius recharge if you stand still for 10 seconds or something, or return much fuller, faster, when gathering the items. In the end I think the core mechanics hurt the fun of the game. Nice controls and platforming - that's hard to get right.
Looked great and an awesome idea with the lights. I usually find exploring large arbitrary platform levels a bit dull but this one kept my attention pretty well. The light's movements had a threatening, malevolent quality which I enjoyed. Good work on the sounds as well.
Comments32
I also liked the story put forth by the lighting and coloring. Our protagonist is black and, we presume, evil. He collects nightmares which are black, touching anything white hurts him. Two things I noticed were, firstly, the protagonist's life force is represented by the light he's emitting, and secondly, the entire world in which he roams is black. I couldn't help but wonder what was implied by this and what it could mean. Is the world hes surrounded by evil? Or perhaps black wasn't evil at all, perhaps black represented the neutral in the world. Maybe our protagonist wasn't evil, simply a normal guy. Black being evil, of course, is just an assumption made by the player, this is never explicitly mentioned anywhere, black nightmares in the context of a black world could mean normality, maybe they were simply a part of his every day life, much like the grass on the ground.
The almost ever present glow represented the goodness inside of the protagonist, his commendable attributes which had evolved as he had progressed through his life, yet, still he clung to the black, the mundane. Why was it that touching anything light would slowly damage him? The lights it seemed, shining brighter than the brightest stars, represented the most positive things he'd ever come across in his life. For some reason they would seemingly have a profoundly negative effect on him. They wouldn't just hurt him, they'd relentlessly and irreversibly remove his own goodness. Was this all the result of too much of a good thing? The rules of the world were that the light would hurt the protagonist, and that he should stick to the mundane black world which had always been so familiar to him. I think this spoke lengths about the kind of person the protagonist was, at least at this point in his life, and how some days, I imagine, his existence could have felt much like a dark dream.