The tomes in this library may prove of use for escaping it, but the cost of your sanity may be too great...
Library of Madness is a cinematic platformer where you can find tomes that will help you in your journey out. But reading these comes with a cost: madness. Escape while minimizing the sanity you spend.
Controls: - Left and Right Arrows - Movement - Up Arrow - Climb/Jump - Down Arrow - Drop Down - Q, W, and E - Pickup/use tome - R - Restart level
Tomes: - Slash - Slash forward at an enemy - Force - Hit an enemy with arcane might - High Reach - Climb to a higher point - Leaping - Jump horizontally a longer distance - Featherfall - Drop down any distance - Dark Healing - Restore all health - Vanishing - Temporarily turn invisible
I liked the idea of your game. You really nailed the theme! The audio and graphics were nice too! Also the insanity, that affected our vision was good. But I really didn't like moving mechanics. Because of the fact that instead of letting player jump, fall etc., you have to stand in special place and then hit jump button, I didn't really felt I can control the character. I also found a bug that is caused by this weird moving mechanics: In the place shown on the picture below, player cannot climb this bookshelf. Besides this unusual mechanics, the game is great!
@corqi Thanks for the feedback, I'd definitely try for more flexible movement if I had the time. That spot there isn't actually a bug though; the player would have to clip through the platform above to get onto the bookshelf.
Gameplay was definitively its strong point. A lot of thinkgs to experiment with. As other said, the controls were a little bit clunky but overall i enjoyed it. (didn't finished tho).
The walking animations match the controls, they both feel very blocky. I think you might have been inspired by Another World and Flashback a bit with the tile-based walking and the jumping up and down onto platforms. However it does not feel very good in my opinion.
Another problem that I have with this game is that although it does explain the controls in a nice tutorial, good job on that, it does not explain what the powers are that you get from the books. It took me some time to realize where you were going with it and that QWE are the three spots for powers that I am supposed to be careful about as what to override next. Nice idea but the implementation is not that great. First it is not really explained which is OK since you figure it out pretty quickly, but then I had some books where there was an enemy near by so I just ran there, took the book and ran back, leaving me no time to read the book's title and make a good decision.
This probably stems from my next issue with the game - the combat. Is it even possible to kill anything in this game. I hit something five times and it did not die so I assumed these things never die. If I cannot kill something in level one, I assumed that they were invincible. Then I wondered what the sword was for and figured, enemies are probably just too strong.
I think your game has a lot of potential but that you made some poor implementation choices leaving me with the feeling that there is some much better game here, waiting to be freed. This is not supposed to sound as negative as it does, I know how little time we all have in Ludum Dare so this is all fine. I am just giving you my honest opinion and try to point you to some issues that I think would make the game better. Sorry for giving a review that is more on the negative side :-)
The graphics are really well done. Especially the background and the monsters, they all fit together nicely. The icons at the bottom seem a little out of place, they are not casle-y enough I think.
The music is OK but feels very generic and is not the best fit for the graphics. Though it conveys kind of a dark atmosphere, it is not quite there I feel. I find it still a bit too light for the game, especially when the world gets darker over time.
Overall a solid entry with a couple of small things to improve here and there. Keep up the good work, I am excited to see what you have for future LDs!
@gonutz no worries on sounding too negative; it's good feedback. I'd definitely have gone with a non-tile based movement system if I was confident I could do the physics well in a weekend. I'm not sure what's happening with combat for you though - enemies should only take 3 hits to kill with Slash, and 2 witch Force. Are you sure you're actually hitting them?
Would love to see this executed outside of the tile like system. Only real issue I had was at times it felt like I didnt have full control of my character.
Really enjoyed the music + the feel of the game. The learning process of the tomes was really enjoyable too
The controls were hard to get used to at first but wow the art and music are amazing! I was thankful for the little hints to tell me what keys to press. Good job you guys! :clap::clap::clap:
Heyo, looks good, but I had a problem. The game took around five minutes to load. Then, when the tutorial taught me to use the down arrow, my computer crashed when I pressed the button. That wasn't the game crashing, or even the browser. My entire computer crashed. Not sure what the heck you were doing there, but I can only imagine it was something on your end, coinciding with the down arrow press. I ran the game on Chrome, Windows.
Comments19
Besides this unusual mechanics, the game is great!
A lot of thinkgs to experiment with.
As other said, the controls were a little bit clunky but overall i enjoyed it. (didn't finished tho).
Another problem that I have with this game is that although it does explain the controls in a nice tutorial, good job on that, it does not explain what the powers are that you get from the books. It took me some time to realize where you were going with it and that QWE are the three spots for powers that I am supposed to be careful about as what to override next. Nice idea but the implementation is not that great. First it is not really explained which is OK since you figure it out pretty quickly, but then I had some books where there was an enemy near by so I just ran there, took the book and ran back, leaving me no time to read the book's title and make a good decision.
This probably stems from my next issue with the game - the combat. Is it even possible to kill anything in this game. I hit something five times and it did not die so I assumed these things never die. If I cannot kill something in level one, I assumed that they were invincible. Then I wondered what the sword was for and figured, enemies are probably just too strong.
I think your game has a lot of potential but that you made some poor implementation choices leaving me with the feeling that there is some much better game here, waiting to be freed. This is not supposed to sound as negative as it does, I know how little time we all have in Ludum Dare so this is all fine. I am just giving you my honest opinion and try to point you to some issues that I think would make the game better. Sorry for giving a review that is more on the negative side :-)
The graphics are really well done. Especially the background and the monsters, they all fit together nicely. The icons at the bottom seem a little out of place, they are not casle-y enough I think.
The music is OK but feels very generic and is not the best fit for the graphics. Though it conveys kind of a dark atmosphere, it is not quite there I feel. I find it still a bit too light for the game, especially when the world gets darker over time.
Overall a solid entry with a couple of small things to improve here and there. Keep up the good work, I am excited to see what you have for future LDs!
Really enjoyed the music + the feel of the game. The learning process of the tomes was really enjoyable too
Well done