Ludum Dare #40compo
Infectious Void
Infectious Void
Sickness spreads to your body while you venture deeper into this void. Gather too much of it and you’ll die - but beware. Everything will make you sick and only light will be able to cleanse it. Think twice before drinking a promising potion.
For this jam, IV has one level that introduces multiple game mechanics and gives opportunity for the game to make use of the special mechanic.
IV was made in Unity3D 2017.2 on Linux. I used Krita & GIMP for graphics and FL Studio 12.5 for Audio & Music. While I composed the music, I used Kick Drums and some other SFX from the FL Studio standard library and edited them a lot to fit them to the theme of the game. Most of the sound effects are cymbals or hi-hats with a lot of reverb and echo to them, thrown into a compressor that makes them sound distant. There was also a singer's "Aah" sound, which I used to create a haunting voice.
I started making this on Saturday 7am and finished roughly 1-2 hours before the deadline. However, I got distracted for some hours. All in all, I was very happy with my time management and I hope you'll enjoy the game! Leave your feedback below and visit again.
IMPORTANT: While the game does ask you to use WASD, Arrow Keys are a much better choice.
Tags: #8-bit, #abstract, #atmospheric, #dark fantasy, #hack and slash, #hand-drawn, #pixel art, #souls-like
Genres: adventure
Comments47
Sickness can be tracked by looking at the character and the top of your screen. If there's already a lot of it going on, chances are high that using a lever tops it off.
@bigmetre: True, giving these mechanics the proper visual feedback they deserve is something I'd definitely work on next.
Also check out the itch.io page for the game! https://fumikogamestudio.itch.io/infectious-void
Art was awesome. I loved the shadows/light that would erupt everywhere and the mood set by the game was great. As far as the gameplay goes, I get the idea that taking potions made you more shadow-ey, but I wasn't sure how to tell when I was about to die by the shadoweyness. I drank the first potion and flipped the switch after and (I assume?) what happened was that I was consumed by darkness and died. I didn't really have a gauge on how far along the darkness had consumed me (only kind of dead? Half dead? zomg I'm on the brink of sadness dead?). Additionally the spikes were kind of hard to see. I was having trouble finding the safe area between the spikes after they retracted.
Those were the only complaints though! Great job! :D
Unfortunately it looks you ran out of time. I would have loved to see more.
The visual effects and animation are very beautiful. I think some visual and auditive feedback would have given your attacks a little more heft, but I can see how that might have worked against the solemn atmosphere.
It does feel like a tutorial level, but one that definitely makes you want to try out the full game.
Have a nice time, everyone.
The atmosphere is als well done. Controls were a bit awkward, using left ctrl to attack, but overall vry well done.
The particles effect in particular got me hooked.
Congrats for that !
However, the gameplay is very confusing :
- I often get hit by enemies without seeing them swing, I guess they die the same frame they attack ?
- Its very unclear at which point the spikes stop being deadly, it seems like it's a few frames before they finish moving down. Depending on the slopes, its very hard to know where to stop moving to not step on them, and its frustrating.
- The blue potion teleporting you is a bit confusing the first time (maybe use a scroll or something different ?).
- I guess using the switch hurts you by 2 points, but there is no feedback for that, the death screen still shows my 2 red potions.
If you manage to get all this more clear and fair to the player, it would be a solid base for an adventure game o/
- noticed a bug where if you die while standing close enough to the teleporting potion, pressing space will teleport you and kill you again instead of respawning
- given that the primary mechanic is mostly interesting as a puzzle mechanic, the enemies seem like a strange addition. If there were more ways to interact with them it might make a bit more sense, but as it stands all they really do is test your reaction time.
- the health values seem to be a bit fudged; the lever would always kill me after using the teleport potion, but didn't kill me after skipping the teleport and getting hit by an enemy along the way.
Would have been interesting to see more of this!
In any case, like I said, the game is beautiful and has a great atmosphere. Just a little more game would be great.