Shadow Lands

by mr-madcat

co-authored: @dexi, @elanya, @shito

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.53

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.35

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.85

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.48

Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.88

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.08

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.92

A dark game about a shade looking for salvation. Which you of course achieve by sacrificing "friends" because some voice tells you to do so.

Controls:

Jump: Space/Gamepad Bottom Button (A Button on XBox Gamepad)

Move: Arrow Keys/WASD/Left Control Stick

Collect/Sacrifice/Throw Friends: E/Right Gamepad Button

You need to collect three keys. Advance through the level by gathering "friends" and sacrificing them in front of altars or throwing them into spikes or unto enemies.

Team:

Johannes Alef: Programming

Hagen Becker: Programming

Koucha123 (https://soundcloud.com/koucha123): Music

Rebecca Schieren: Art, Programming

Hong Linh Thai: Music, Programming

Technology: Unity, Krita, Gimp, Ableton Live, Audacity

Genres: platformer

Tools: Audacity, GIMP, Krita, Unity

Comments20

Charlie CR4 Dec 2018, 04:02

Love it, the music and the ambient is great. And the boss fight was very entertaining and creative. Some parts of the game felt a little repetititve, you could simply scale or rotate some assets to bring variety to the scene like the faling boulder of the boss fight. But overall great work :D

polona4 Dec 2018, 13:29

Great game. Very nice graphics.

Vlad Ilisan4 Dec 2018, 15:37

Nice art. 5 for mood

jfraser3144 Dec 2018, 15:45

Fun game, loved the sound. And great final boss, I really liked the noise it made when you dropped the kittens on it.

ankan4 Dec 2018, 15:48

Just love it! love the little "toe" ish animation under the cat and the effects of the sacrifices!

snakemuho4 Dec 2018, 16:07

Wow I did not expect that. Not a lot of boss fights this jam, so that one was actually a good twist.

roNtz5 Dec 2018, 19:37

Great game! I really like the mood :)

Team Infernus7 Dec 2018, 22:09

Enjoyed the ambience of this game a lot. Controls felt good too.

PeachTreeOath8 Dec 2018, 05:47

Good use of a single resource in many different ways. I especially liked the parts where you had to place them on a wall, grab them then quickly jump cancel to get higher w/o wasting a resource. I think further exploration of those kinds of mechanics could separate the game more from the pack.

Tbh I didn't see the mice as a sacrifice as much as a resource to progress, though the parts where they just explode in blood and unlock a gate were super well done. Overall, I was surprised at how many different uses you piled onto them and was actually pleasantly shocked when the boss appeared.

royur8 Dec 2018, 07:02

simple and fun game! The buildup sound for the big boss really makes you expect a big dog. and there it is a big dog.

Shito8 Dec 2018, 11:57

@peachtreeoath Thanks for the feedback! Yeah this time we focussed on polishing and getting a game without any gamebreaking bugs - I hope we succeed there :), such that we didn't have enough time to explore the mechanics further. But we would have loved to.

And yeah we had a lot of fun with creating the sound and animation for the sacrifice. :)

Shito8 Dec 2018, 12:02

@charlie-cr Thanks for the feedback and the hint. When I was designing the stones, I already varied the fallspeed. But somehow I didn't think of something simple as varying the scale of the boulder. ^^ (Note taken for the next time)

FlashViper8 Dec 2018, 23:18

Nice game! The ending made me laugh a lot. The trail of friends can lag behind you. I'm assuming you are lerping them in some capacity, and if you are, you could cap their distance from the player. Anyway, that's just a suggestion, I really have no idea how the trail works. Anyway, I really liked your game, and wish you good luck with the rating gods!

GenericToast9 Dec 2018, 07:22

This was an extremely fun game to play! Solid level design coupled with simple mechanics made for a really fun experience. The sounds and music also added greatly to the atmosphere and mood of the game. I found the final boss a little challenging at first since it could push me around but after a couple of tries i managed to defeat it. Overall a really well made entry which i thoroughly enjoyed!

SecretPocketCat10 Dec 2018, 18:29

Great music and the walk animation is the best thing ever. Shame there's no jump animation :laughing: As mentioned, mood is pretty strong with this one. I did not expect a boss fight, though once you figure it out, the doggy is bit of a pushover.

kristinamay11 Dec 2018, 18:52

This is awesome! It felt really good to play and the levels were well-designed. I did get stuck at one point - I shouldn't have gone back to spend the 5 mice to unlock the new area without finishing the area below. I ran out of mice! :D Sound was great, music was great... definitely one of my favorites.

egos12 Dec 2018, 21:35

very well realised but i like cat ....
solid entry anyway

Papaver25 Dec 2018, 00:18

Great game! And wow, so much nice music! It really adds to the dark mood, and especially in the boss level it made me nervous and anxious of what would come. There were some points were you could get stuck (not enough friends around), without a restart(/kill yourself) option. Once I got stuck in the ground of the boss level. I liked the falling rocks, they keep you moving aruond! Well done :smile_cat:

Woett25 Dec 2018, 01:06

Very nice game :) Simple but effective idea, and I enjoyed the unexpected boss fight! The music was especially stellar!