A game where you're in a cave, with a torch, and the screen is mostly black. Controls are basically the right and left arrow to move, Z to jump, C to turn on or off the torch, and X to change it's batteries. There's not a lot of power in these batteries though, and you're low of them.
There's ennemies! There's multiple levels! So here's some anticipated question/answer:
Q: Why are movement so weird? Why can't I change direction while jumping?
A: Because the game is design like that, in order to make you feel uncomfortable.
Q: Why is the battery running low so fast?
A: Because of the theme of the Ludum Dare. And because without that, collecting battery would feel useless.
Q: How can I low kick in the face of an ennemy?
A: You can't. You only can interact with them via the flashlight, or by dying.
Well, I'll admin I'm not great at platformers under normal circumstances, so this one gave me fits. The light level just drops SO fast! It would have been nice to start in a lit area just to get a feel for the controls, scale, and level design before being plunged into the darkness and having to worry about budgeting the light on top of it.
It's reallly hard, and the controls are very frustating. But daaaaamn I love the style of this game, really unsettling. I'd love to see more, but I had enough when I died for the third time on the same spot. Too bad, it's clearly a good game and you put a lot of work into it. Great job !
Quite enjoyed this, despite being rather challenging! Was able to make it to the purple area, but ended up getting stuck in some spikes that didn't kill me, and I'd died enough times by then I gave up. Love how if you don't have your flashlight on there are things that you can't see that will kill you, that are suddenly there when you turn it on. Might be nice to have one last flash of your flashlight showing what killed you in that case though =).
Interesting premise. Could definitely use some quality of life changes, such as being able to move your flashlight down to see your immediate area or being able to change batteries while moving and/or in the air, and making it so the "ghosts" won't spawn immediately next to you before you have a chance to move. I died at least twice going into a new zone and having a ghost spawn directly next to me before I could move or react.
While I can understand and respect sticking to your guns about not moving while in the air, it'd be nice if there was one or two extra frames after the jump before cutting off movement. I often would be stuck between 2 objects and unable to get out because any time I'd move then jump I'd either not get the movement before the jump or move too far into an object before the jump. There's a distinct difference between designing your controls to make the player uncomfortable and frustrating the player with bad controls.
Besides that, definitely a more challenging platformer that did a good job of conveying the intended mood. The eyes coming at you, finding ghosts nearby you when you leave your light off, and many other obstacles made me always want to keep a very healthy supply of batteries while trying to move through the level as quick as possible.
The art was all consistent with itself, the music was well timed with the remaining charge of your flashlight, and the enemies showed up just frequently enough to make the player always try to get further into the levels quicker.
Overall pretty good, 3-4 stars for most every category.
Hey, nice platformer using the light as time to survive! We made something like this in our game, but with a bit more of visibility. In my point of view I think that making the player visible would be better.
Music/sound is so good in general, I enjoyed it!
I couldn't jump to any side when I was next to a collision terrain :(
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While I can understand and respect sticking to your guns about not moving while in the air, it'd be nice if there was one or two extra frames after the jump before cutting off movement. I often would be stuck between 2 objects and unable to get out because any time I'd move then jump I'd either not get the movement before the jump or move too far into an object before the jump. There's a distinct difference between designing your controls to make the player uncomfortable and frustrating the player with bad controls.
Besides that, definitely a more challenging platformer that did a good job of conveying the intended mood. The eyes coming at you, finding ghosts nearby you when you leave your light off, and many other obstacles made me always want to keep a very healthy supply of batteries while trying to move through the level as quick as possible.
The art was all consistent with itself, the music was well timed with the remaining charge of your flashlight, and the enemies showed up just frequently enough to make the player always try to get further into the levels quicker.
Overall pretty good, 3-4 stars for most every category.
I'll echo in with the above though, it's quite difficult to figure out what you're doing first time round :P
All things aside though, great entry!
In my point of view I think that making the player visible would be better.
Music/sound is so good in general, I enjoyed it!
I couldn't jump to any side when I was next to a collision terrain :(
Anyway, for a compo, well done!