LdDB
Ludum Dare #46jam

The Flame of Life

by pandasekh
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.50
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.44
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.04
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.94
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.57
TheFlameOfLife.jpg
You are a knight with a mission, but during your journey you fall into a hole. You find yourself in a dark cave, with only your torch as a light source. If it fades, you will die.

Keep your torch alive, or you will perish.

How to play:

A-D to move

Left-Click to do a melee attack

Right-Click to do a ranged attack

E to use

Spacebar to Jump

Your torch will fade over time, if you get hit by enemies and if you use your special ranged attack, so be careful!

TheFlameOfLife_2.jpg

End notes

This was my first game jam and it was so fun! I started learning game development a month ago, so I did this jam mostly as an exercise. Unfortunately I had many things to do and I lost a whole day, so this game is pretty short. Nonetheless I am proud of my work! Please enjoy :)

My twitter: https://twitter.com/PandaSekh

My website: https://alessiofranceschi.me/

Credits

Music: https://opengameart.org/content/spooky-dungeon

Sword SFX: https://opengameart.org/content/swishes-sound-pack

Flame SFX: https://freesound.org/people/hykenfreak/sounds/331621/

Knight Sprite (I recolored it): https://adrverissimo.itch.io/knight-pixel-art

Fire: https://stealthix.itch.io/animated-fires

Font: https://www.dafont.com/it/enchanted-land.font

Tileset: https://vectorpixelstar.itch.io/1-bit-patterns-and-tiles

screenshot
Tags: #1-bit, #dungeon crawler, #side scroller
Genres: adventure
Tools: Adobe Photoshop, Aseprite, Audacity, Unity

Comments19

puntocom20 Apr 2020, 20:40
I think that for a first game it's pretty cool! I liked the graphics and music and how the lights fade out with time!
No Grapes Games
No Grapes Games21 Apr 2020, 04:36
Visual effects were very good. Music and graphics were nice and nostalgic.
Henwee
Henwee21 Apr 2020, 09:02
Very fun game. However i thought it was a little hard to notice i had died, since it happened so sudden, and without any noise. The fading light just wasn't enough for me. But still a fun and great game
m0dsat21 Apr 2020, 09:08
Liked the look and feel. The mechanic of the dying flame and visibility being linked was quite fun. Overall I had fun. The mood kinda brought me back to Prince of Persia in the early 90's. Thanks for the game!
Baptiste Guerin21 Apr 2020, 09:16
Cool game for a first entry in ludum dare! I love the graphics!
PapyKent
PapyKent21 Apr 2020, 09:23
Hi! First of all well done for your first game jam :D! Loved the aesthetic and the atmosphere! The fading mechanic is cool but it can be tricky to know where you have to go when the fire starts to fade. It might be due to the platforms being quiet far one from the other or the camera being a bit too close to the player.
Rustywolf21 Apr 2020, 09:23
Awesome idea, well executed, but I think it needs to be more forgiving to mistakes (especially early). Either make mistakes harder to make, or make it way harder to die (fail a jump multiple times instead of once or twice). Some of those early jumps are pretty difficult.

Lovely gem
cowarky21 Apr 2020, 09:46
i loved the idea of the game, i dont mind the difficulty since the game is made in 3 days
HectorPather21 Apr 2020, 09:57
Nice first try for a game jam, simple but good idea, well done.
3LSTMsInATrenchcoat21 Apr 2020, 10:04
The lack of visibility makes it very difficult to tell whether you're going in the right direction, but otherwise I like it.
RiccaStudio21 Apr 2020, 11:47
I like the catch with the flame, it fits the theme very well. The Jump doesnt feel so good yet and the Animations are a bit buggy. But id like to see what you can acomplish in the future!
JanMatyooStudio21 Apr 2020, 12:04
I liked the game! Escpecially the incorporation of the theme to it! Tha graphics are also good! :smile:
PerfectSquare21 Apr 2020, 12:17
Really neat concept with the fading torch, I definitely felt the urgency of trying to make progress before I ran out of light to see. I found making some of the jumps a bit too challenging...but I'm typically bad at platformers so maybe it's just me :)
PandaSekh
PandaSekhauthor21 Apr 2020, 17:30
Thank you everyone! I know the game might be a bit hard, and while it was my goal all along, I think I did some mistake which made the game hard in a "bad way". For example, I thought of adding another line in the tutorial to tell players to go up. With this information, the player already knows that he has to look for platforms in a higher position. Many jump are also tile-precise, meaning that you have to jump from the last tile in order to get to the platform. I think this is good sometime, but I made too many platforms like this.

So, to everyone who played my game, thank you kindly! It's great to see that you appreciated my work :D
PandaSekh
PandaSekhauthor21 Apr 2020, 17:32
@riccastudio Thank you! Can you please tell me why you didn't like the jump? I used a technique I found on YouTube weeks ago about making jumping different depending on how much the player press jump. It was my first time using it, so I probably still need to tune it.
RiccaStudio21 Apr 2020, 20:59
@pandasekh The last bit if you keep holding the button down, does not feel natural, because the gravity force should increase. Cheers
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