1) Music was horrible to most, it was too short, and didnt really fit the theme 2) Some didnt like the mines mechanic, in a new release i will change that 3) Some didnt like the loud sound effects. ill make them better, and quieter 4) Some didnt like the long levels. yeah i can make the long ones shorter 5) Some wanted notifications when spikes went up. yeah i can do that. 6) Some wanted more to the game. yeah i will add more stuff to do 7) Most mobs can be avoided. yes this was an oversight, will be changed. 8) Some wanted the walk to move to be at the feet. yes i agree, it will be changed. 9) Most wanted more mobs in the game. yeah i agree, i will put more. 10) Most wanted the mobs to do more. yes i agree, i will make this happen.
Again i really appreciate the feedback. No hard feelings for any feedback, all feedback is welcome. I wont be able to get better or grow as a game maker with out great honesty.
Sincerely,
Jamie C aka jcmonkey
EDIT: I have completed a post compo release of the game. please play the first one that was made during the competition. Then go ahead and try the second one and let me know what you think. :D
Using mines to kill monsters that pace in one direction forces unnecessary waiting at times.
It would have also been nice if the spikes signaled their time to activation, as you again can only wait for them to pop to find out when they'll be up next.
Areas felt a bit unnecessarily large, but it fits with the mood of the game.
Nice game! I like the lighting effect. It makes the game feel a little bit scary. The only two bad things I found about this game were that sometimes I would die to an enemy when I seemingly didn't touch it, and that the music was a little loud and became repetitive quickly. Good job!
I had a hard time with the music, I thought that the loop was too short for a puzzle game. Other than that, the game is really awesome. Simple puzzles added with the stress of darkness and monsters make a great combo. Cheers!
Simple but effective puzzle type of game. The music was nice and dungeon-y, although it got repetitive. The shadow effect made it feel a bit spooky: good job!
This is a nice game, i liked the idea but if im honest iturned the sound off due to the music being played (would of been nice giving user option to turn sound on/off)
love the whole darkness only seeing a range of light and the enemy is great :)
Neat. I would have had the mouse click send the player to stand on that spot on the ground instead of putting his chest there. Some way to walk faster might be interesting too.
Controls work pretty well, nice and simple visuals, could use some adjustments (music, player dies on own mines), but overall is true to the theme and pretty creative. Nice mood, as well! :)
A lot of good comments above, so won't rephrase em! I think you can skip the ":" in the hud controls so they look less cluttered, also a little minimap that reveals the places you been at could help a bit with the backtracking. Otherwise, good work and the WebPlayer worked fine for me!
Hey man, really awesome game! Love the look and feel of it, those bad guys are cute but at the same time ridiculusly creepy and terrifying! The level progression was good too! I think the music would need some work in the future as the 6 second loop gets annoying very quickly, and maybe a few extra sound effects would be good too! Nice job overall :D
I love the graphics. I found a bug where if you are not moving on the spikes when they come up, you don't die. I liked the sound effects but not so much the music. The gameplay was fun and I really liked how things disappear into the darkness.
Cool game, especially for your first one. The music here is your biggest enemy, the levels were short but felt longer because of how short the BGM was.
I never thought smiling slimes could be scary before!
I liked the game controls were nice. Difficult but not a bad difficulty it was fun. Music was a little short so it got irritating, but that's fine. Good game!
Enjoyed it a lot, but as it was said before the music was a bit too repetitive. As for having to wait for the monsters to step on the mines, I actually think that's a good thing, it makes you more in the mood of being in a scary place and having to rely on unconventional methods. Well done. BTW the web version doesn't work on chrome
Good basic little game, however a bit tedious, as waiting for monsters was annoying, spikes were unpredictable, movement was slow and my mines didn't refill on death, making it impossible to finish some levels if I accidentally wasted too many.
Fun, but a bit frustrating. Executed 2 button controls well. No growing? Just a tad fast and slightly smarter AI would have done wonders. The SFX were great ;p
I have to say that even though I thought I would not get scared with the graphics and music of the game, the first time I heard the sound of an enemy I have t o admit I was kind of nervous... ^^
Nice game, but the sounds and music are really annoying (at least for me). I think it would've been a better idea to use throwing weapon instead of mines. Still, quite good for your first game.
Good use of the two-button-controls! The animations could use more frames per seconds, but I guess this is because of time shortage. The character moves nice, though!
As a first games this was a really well put together game.
I wanted to comment on the summed up feed back.
1) Music was horrible to most, it was too short, and didnt really fit the theme I do agree that it didn't fit the theme of the dungeon crawl but it wasn't horrible
2) Some didnt like the mines mechanic, in a new release i will change that I thought the mine mechanic was really original. I also liked the fact that you only has a limited number of them.
3) Some didnt like the loud sound effects. ill make them better, and quieter The sound effects were a little loud but they really fit the thing making the sound.
4) Some didnt like the long levels. yeah i can make the long ones shorter There was really only one long level (level 8) in the game and it wasn't that bad. Then again I'm old school and used to mapping out a level ;)
5) Some wanted notifications when spikes went up. yeah i can do that. I really don't get this one. there was a sound when they came up.
6) Some wanted more to the game. yeah i will add more stuff to do For what it was it wasn't bad. Yeah perhaps some different types of traps and different types of monsters would have spiced it up a bit. But you can always do that for Hello Darkness 2 :D
7) Most mobs can be avoided. yes this was an oversight, will be changed. I noticed I was able to avoid some of the monsters, but there are never more monsters than mines so I just killed them. besides this isn't a bug its a feature!
8) Some wanted the walk to move to be at the feet. yes i agree, it will be changed. I have no comment on this. I didn't really notice.
9) Most wanted more mobs in the game. yeah i agree, i will put more. see #6
10) Most wanted the mobs to do more. yes i agree, i will make this happen. see #6
The best thing I liked about the game was the torch glow and the limited vision. These really added to the game.
Great job. I liked how well the lack of light setup the mood and worked as a mechanic. I also liked how the light wasn't just a defined circle, the light being emitted was kind of grungy which made it feel more authentic. You actually did a pretty good job making things creepy and once you reduced the light I actually got spooked by one of the spike traps. Thank you!
Nice game! To me it does feel a bit slow. I personally would have liked it if the character moved a bit faster or if the corridors were a bit shorter :) Also, if I'm moving using only the mouse, why can't I place mines using the mouse as well? An extra option for placing mines (using e.g. right click) would have been cool. It's still a great game though! :)
Congrats on your first Ludum Dare! Give yourself a pat on the back.
The concept certainly has some potential, and I for one think that it was clever of you to approach the theme by controlling the character with the mouse. It is one button, after all!
As of now, it's a little repetitive. I think that stealth elements could be a fantastic addition to this game and liven up the atmosphere, especially since you don't seem to go after action gameplay. Furthermore, as many have pointed out, the music need some working on, and sound effects could also be more consistently designed (why a "realistic" death scream, when you could have opted for something retro, as for the rest of the sounds?). That is obviously just an opinion. On a more technical side, you might want to consider lowering the trap's sound, which is way too loud.
Good job on getting this done, and I look forward to see your future Ludum Dare entries!
Some good level design right there. Congrats to you first LD! And keep it up, theres a talent in you! (Plus, just make it difficult on the game design level and not on game reset punishment when you die). <3
A nice idea. Yeah, the character is too slow and the levels are too large (and there's a lot of other stuff), but with some work this could become much-much better. Congrats on your first LD :)
I like the concept, and it is well implemented. The controls are responsive and the tutorial has the right progression. I enjoyed it. I found the music a little annoying to be honest.
Good variety in levels ranging from Bomberman style defeat the enemies to full blown mazes. Wish there was a little more in the music loop and sounds effects though.
Dude, keep your principles! I just read the summed up feedback and while I agree with the audio being pretty bad, you don't have to compromise EVERYTHING. I got up to level 7 and nothing felt too long, the spikes didn't need a notification (although running into them AFTER they've popped up shouldn't kill you), avoiding mobs is also perfectly cool. The mine mechanic wasn't very well developed, but there's nothing wrong with it in essence, you just need a more complete system of mob AI and behaviours so that you can create some tricky puzzles or challenging gameplay with the mines.
This was a nice attempt and had one of the better non-text tutorials I've seen in LD. Additionally this game has lives and I was surprised to realize I havent seen that yet in LD34.
The thing about it is I think you have too many mechanics here shoved into one game-- I wish it was more distilled. Theres darkness, a timer, lives, mines, buttons to press to open doors which is all fine but I feel like they didnt reinforce a central theme.
Also, dunno if I was missing something but there really needed to be aggro on the slimes and a chase code because if i run out of mines and a blob is pathing thru my only path I have no way to get past him because my mines didnt refill when I died.
Good game! Great atmosphere, and cool mechanic with throwing your boomerang light-source. Killing enemies is pretty satisfying, although the mines tend to kill YOU way easier :P
Instead of just lowering the volume of the sound effects, it would be better to make the sounds have a source and play them at a volume respective to how close the character is to the sound (distance attenuation).
For post-compo version, I feel that giving the player a boomerang is like giving the character from Amnesia a shotgun, it greatly reduces the tension of the game and monsters are now just cannon fodder that get in the way temporarily. The mines were slow but now that the monsters follow you you don't have wait for their walk-cycle to repeat anymore to continue.
Also, W + mouse aiming was very confusing to me as I instinctively starting pushing ASD as well to move relatively and they didn't do anything, causing me to be killed.
Finally, unless you are getting quarters from people per play, best to just omit "lives" entirely, esp. for a compo game where people are unlikely to restart.
And remember that just blindly following tips from testers like us will not yield a better game, as people often come up with a quick suggestion for what they think could improve something, but that doesn't mean it fits in the whole picture. :)
Like other people said, music was not that good. What I did, actually, was mute the game tab and then play listening to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zLfCnGVeL4 Fits perfectly hahahaha!
The music was a little repetative, but it was very playable, I got bored after a few levels though - the enemies are a bit easy to kill as their paths are predictable - you just have to leave a mine in their way. I have a soft spot for dungeon crawlers, the torch is a nice touch.
Good work. I would have liked the mobs to chase the player once they spot him - several times I dropped a mine in (what I thought was) a mob's path just for it to get very close but then turn back. Maybe allow the player to pick up and re-deploy unexploded mines?
Simple dungeon crawler in which you kill slimes to go down levels for reasons unknown.
Not a fan of how little you can see. I found having a very small viewable radius around the character to be unnecessary. If you wanted to denote darkness you could have the lit portion be 90% of the screen so there's still a small amount of darkness around the edges.
The visuals are a little rough and the music loops too quickly but overall a nice first entry.
The lighting was the main part of the game, however you had it centered around the torch instead of around the player's feet. If you think about this a 2.5D or even top-down, the lighting was being cast to the player's left hand side but not his right.
I everything else about the game. The lighting irked me a little :)
Great mood, sound creates a lot of tension! It would be nice if the sound helped you understand your suroundings, e.g. monster sounds would get louder if they approach you.
But nice game! Music was kinda intense. :)