In Samhain, play as the smallest little beetle, Anna. As fall comes to a close and the frosts of winter encroach on her home, can she reach safety, warmly glowing at the other end of the yard?
Reach the door step on the other end of the yard, and escape to a nice warm home for the winter!
Category Opt-Outs SFX (Music However is done by the team during the Jam)
__The Crew__
* @Vanillycake || Lead Artist * @Hierophant || Lead Programmer * @Marty_fun || Assistant Artist and Programmer * @@WMMSounds ||Music Artist * Subtank (No Twitter) || Assistant Artist
Extra Not quite ready to write a postmortem yet, but I did write an article about the experience doing my first Ludum Dare -Hierophant
Please note if voting on Audio. All of the music heard in game was done by our fantastic composer. However we did use 3 sound effects from a public library. This being our first Ludum Dare, we didn't know music and SFX would be the same category.
Awesome work on everything. The art - 2d, 3d, hand painted - was awesome. It was a very cute game. Flying did feel a little overpowered to get home. I explored the ant mine and killed some ants by jumping on them, but I feel like it was intended to include interaction/actions inside the tunnels but didn't have enough time to do it. Looks like you have the structure to continue this game and flesh it out even more. What you have now is really cute and fun - keep up the good work!
Lovely art and animation! I enjoyed the mix of 2d and 3d. At first I tried collecting the snowflakes and was surprised when they damaged me, but thinking about it later I guess to a tiny little bug snowflakes could hurt.
First of all, I think it's mandatory to highlight the aesthetics of the game. Great integration between 3d and 2d. You've done a really good job considering the time constrains.
Even when I couldn't figure out the main goal of the game, I enjoyed it because of the really cute graphics. However, the gamefeel would improve a lot if you change the controls of the main character for a custom physics based one. Sometimes it is really frustrating to deal with that floaty behavior of the avatar, even while walking on the ground.
I felt like I should have done something with the queen ant and their little cute childs, but I suppose you just behold their cute magnificence :P
Anyways, you made a great job in a really short amount of time. Congratulations!
I really like the art and sounds. The concept is also nice. I have some comments on how I think could be easier to understand. I'm not sure if it's because the drawings are cute but from the beginning I thought that both elements, snowflakes and fairies were good elements, I tried to get them or something and they were both enemies. I think it could be a cute enemy but the meaning of the element should be more clear somehow. I really like the feedback and animations you added, it really give good feeling to the game. Good work!
The background music was incredible and the gameplay was pretty smooth in my opinion, although I kind of broke the game so when I jumped off an edge of a lake or what it was, I was able to fly very high and fell down veeery slow :| even though it was very challenging and the world itself was very interesting to explore! It's a very good entry ^^ Because of the reason that you can't see our game by clicking on my profile, here it is: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/plutiny
I really liked the 2D-3D art style. One thing I think you could modify would be the the flying movement, as it was a bit awkward controlling the flying. Maybe have the character jump normally, only if the spacebar is still pressed when the character is at maximum height then activate the flying? Also, I think there could be more feedback on the goal of the game, as it's not immediately obvious that the snowflakes and fairies are enemies. Otherwise, really great job on making such a beautiful little game in such a short time!
If I had to criticise any part of it, it would be that slowing down from the maximum speed can be tricky, but that could have been intentional to fit with the icy theme.
I was smiling the whole way through, so obviously this was a good job!
Lovely aesthetic. Graphics are nice. Sound is nice. :) Criticisms: I found the jumping/flying/floating mechanic a bit awkward, making it hard to control the direction where I was going or when landing. It wasn't initially clear that the snow was harmful. It wasn't initially clear what to do. But overall this was a pleasant game to play. Well done!
Really loving the fact that someone decided to do a 2.5D game with 2D sprites. Very uncommon, and the soundtrack and gameplay was very nice as well. This honestly feels like something that should be worked on more and turned into a full game.
I dunno if it was possible to talk to any NPCs or interact with them other than just being hit, but I felt immediately compelled to explore, which is a very good thing. One thing I did bump into is that the physics made it possible to just skip most of the level and end the game quickly, so you might want to do a bit more with making sure the flutter action doesn't get reset every time you land on something.
But otherwise, very cool game and I hope you bother to continue working on it.
The art is really nice, but holy cow is flutter utterly broken. I think I was able to blow past the entire game by holding the up arrow key and fluttering past everything 4 or 5 times to get to the end. I mean, it's an awesome feeling to blow past what looks like an otherwise difficult game (the controls felt slippery to me, otherwise), but...I'm not sure it was all that intentional. It made it too easy to skip the cave entirely and make the game background sky-only.
@omiya-games Skipping the ant hill is intentional, but yes there seems to be some issue where the flutter acts much stronger than it's supposed to. Hopefully if we continue working on this game we'll try and make the controls tighter as a main priority. thanks for the input!
Edit - Figured out a portion of it, fluttering bonus stacks when stepping on snowflakes more than it should haha.
I love anime-style games! great character design. Seamless combination of 3d and 2d arts. Great study of tiny creature's worlds. However, control is not satisfying. and game context is not enough
I agree with everyone else that you've managed to combine many different art styles together very well. It was quite tough to get into the gameplay itself, as it seems very unforgiving if you mess up by falling into water (and the controls did not make retracing my steps very fun). The music was quite nice; it definitely conveyed the chilly winter effectively. I liked the different types of enemies, and there were some interesting elements in the underground areas that weren't explained. There is a lot that can be skipped, however, especially with the floating mechanic. I do like it, but yeah, it felt like there needed to be more to encounter along the way to make this an effective journey.
This game is beautiful! The combination of 2D pixel art (with animations!) and the 3D environment turned out really nice. The end game image was also really nicely drawn. The music lends a nice ambiance that fits with the feel of the game.
In terms of difficulty, I felt like the game was a bit too easy because of the flying (though for a LD game it was perfect in terms of getting a feel for the entire game without a huge time investment), since most of the level could be flown through with limited dodging of snowflakes -- maybe an energy/endurance bar would make it a bit more challenging and emphasize more of the platforming and dodging enemies near the ground.
Overall, this feels like it would work as a good early prototype for a future game with multiple levels, with a longer story line.
The game lacks of enemy death animation. At first I didn't understand why ants were dissappearing. And some indication of stamina would be helpful. Overall, awesome entry with great visual style, music and game mechanics. I would play full game! Good job!
This game is so cute! I really like the anime style of the characters! The flutter is a really nice touch to, but as the others sayd the flying is a bit over powerd maybe add a breeze up, so it gets a bit more difficult.
Usually calling an entry a "nice little game" may sound like a slight, but this one here is a "nice little game", both literally and in the best possible sense of the word (line?).
The Theme of the "small world" was implemented in a solid way, and the lovely music and 2D/3D hybrid graphics (massive props to both the artists and the composer) worked together really well to evoke the right atmosphere. An impressive result, especially seeing as mixing 2D sprites with 3D models is never easy. I liked the ending, it might have been a single image, but it felt really satisfying.
The flight/gliding mechanic did not feel too floaty or unresponsive, at least to me, and the jumping and running controls felt very precise, a must for any "platform" worthy of the name.
The gameplay was simple and intuitive. To elaborate: I forgot to look at the controls in the description, and yet after not even 10 seconds of gameplay I knew everything I needed to know. Again it is not easy to make a game readily playable, accessible, without coming off as overly simple, or in the worst case scenario even boring and trite. You managed to pull it off with a clean, simple gameplay, devoid of useless intricacies, that while familiar does not feel stale. I think you all deserve praise for that.
All in all, crossing the level felt fun, even though I may or may not have spent most of my time exploring the anthill.... I failed three times before making it to the end of the level, but not once did I feel like it was the controls' fault: those three deaths were on me. Sorry about that, Anna, but hey, in the end we made it through somehow.
Speaking of Anna the beetle, good job on the Main Character design. Said design and what little storytelling you included in the game's description easily made me sympathize with her, and, as I just wrote, made me try again and again until on the fourth attempt we reached the goal.
There is room for improvement, mainly adding more feedback and tuning the difficulty, and I am not sure being able to kill enemies is entirely necessary: I never felt like I had to resort to that, as all obstacles could simply be dodged, but for a Ludum Dare (72 hours) game this is really good, and I believe it could, with a bit of work and polish, become a "Nice little released game".
This is my new favorite game I've seen this Ludum Dare. It's very fun to play, but I think my favorite thing about it is that this game feels like a work of art. The graphics are beautiful and fun, the audio is fitting and complete, and the controls and mechanics feel well designed. The concept is simple but I enjoyed it so thoroughly that I happily played until I completed it. Amazing work, guys, keep it up!
Very nice game, I really enjoyed the setting that you created, the graphics and audio were fantastic. Sometimes it felt like the controls were a bit loose but maybe that was just me.
Comments21
Even when I couldn't figure out the main goal of the game, I enjoyed it because of the really cute graphics. However, the gamefeel would improve a lot if you change the controls of the main character for a custom physics based one. Sometimes it is really frustrating to deal with that floaty behavior of the avatar, even while walking on the ground.
I felt like I should have done something with the queen ant and their little cute childs, but I suppose you just behold their cute magnificence :P
Anyways, you made a great job in a really short amount of time. Congratulations!
Because of the reason that you can't see our game by clicking on my profile, here it is: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/plutiny
If I had to criticise any part of it, it would be that slowing down from the maximum speed can be tricky, but that could have been intentional to fit with the icy theme.
I was smiling the whole way through, so obviously this was a good job!
I dunno if it was possible to talk to any NPCs or interact with them other than just being hit, but I felt immediately compelled to explore, which is a very good thing. One thing I did bump into is that the physics made it possible to just skip most of the level and end the game quickly, so you might want to do a bit more with making sure the flutter action doesn't get reset every time you land on something.
But otherwise, very cool game and I hope you bother to continue working on it.
Edit - Figured out a portion of it, fluttering bonus stacks when stepping on snowflakes more than it should haha.
In terms of difficulty, I felt like the game was a bit too easy because of the flying (though for a LD game it was perfect in terms of getting a feel for the entire game without a huge time investment), since most of the level could be flown through with limited dodging of snowflakes -- maybe an energy/endurance bar would make it a bit more challenging and emphasize more of the platforming and dodging enemies near the ground.
Overall, this feels like it would work as a good early prototype for a future game with multiple levels, with a longer story line.
The flutter is a really nice touch to, but as the others sayd the flying is a bit over powerd maybe add a breeze up, so it gets a bit more difficult.
All in all nice game guys! :)
The Theme of the "small world" was implemented in a solid way, and the lovely music and 2D/3D hybrid graphics (massive props to both the artists and the composer) worked together really well to evoke the right atmosphere. An impressive result, especially seeing as mixing 2D sprites with 3D models is never easy. I liked the ending, it might have been a single image, but it felt really satisfying.
The flight/gliding mechanic did not feel too floaty or unresponsive, at least to me, and the jumping and running controls felt very precise, a must for any "platform" worthy of the name.
The gameplay was simple and intuitive. To elaborate: I forgot to look at the controls in the description, and yet after not even 10 seconds of gameplay I knew everything I needed to know.
Again it is not easy to make a game readily playable, accessible, without coming off as overly simple, or in the worst case scenario even boring and trite.
You managed to pull it off with a clean, simple gameplay, devoid of useless intricacies, that while familiar does not feel stale. I think you all deserve praise for that.
All in all, crossing the level felt fun, even though I may or may not have spent most of my time exploring the anthill.... I failed three times before making it to the end of the level, but not once did I feel like it was the controls' fault: those three deaths were on me.
Sorry about that, Anna, but hey, in the end we made it through somehow.
Speaking of Anna the beetle, good job on the Main Character design. Said design and what little storytelling you included in the game's description easily made me sympathize with her, and, as I just wrote, made me try again and again until on the fourth attempt we reached the goal.
There is room for improvement, mainly adding more feedback and tuning the difficulty, and I am not sure being able to kill enemies is entirely necessary: I never felt like I had to resort to that, as all obstacles could simply be dodged, but for a Ludum Dare (72 hours) game this is really good, and I believe it could, with a bit of work and polish, become a "Nice little released game".
really nice game overall.