A Good Way to Die

by pennycook

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.69

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.76

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.38

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Humor★★★★★★★★★★4.17

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.48

I opted to enter the Jam instead of the Compo this time, to give myself a little more time. I've also been toying around recently with developing a top-down RPG in Godot, and entering the Jam was a good excuse to add some features to that engine.

As ever, my plans were much more grand than what I accomplished. I'd hoped to spread the game out over a few more rooms and polish some of the janky animations, but I'm still very pleased with the end result.

If you have problems with the web version, please download the standalone version. I promise it loads eventually... :laughing:

Keyboard Controls

- Accept / Interact: Space or Enter
- Cancel: Escape
- Move: WASD
- Inventory: Escape

Known Bugs

- Cannot move and interact at the same time.
- ~~The Windows build doesn't work.~~

Tools

- Godot
- Aseprite
- sfxr

Attribution

This information is also in the in-game credits, but I'd like to draw extra attention to:
- Art by Jason Perry (http://timefantasy.net/)
- Music by Eric Matyas (http://soundimage.org/)

Tags: #2d, #pixel art

Genres: puzzle

Tools: Aseprite, Godot, sfxr

Comments22

causalpigeon5 Oct 2020, 04:26

i cant figure out what to do please list the controlls and i have no idea on what to do

DMac5 Oct 2020, 04:29

I made the antidote and got the hammer and nail, then got stuck :)

Thorn5 Oct 2020, 04:32

While I loved the game it took a while to figure out that space was to interact. It would be great if you listed that somewhere (I played the html version).

JustusPan5 Oct 2020, 04:36

how to pick up props? I find mouse click cannot interact with environment.

magnusfurcifer5 Oct 2020, 04:37

I like it. The only feedback I have is that I would have liked a bit faster movement speed. Nice effort!

Dr_V5 Oct 2020, 04:47

Nice little game. Great sound + art. Would have liked to see a bit more content.

Pennycookauthor5 Oct 2020, 05:14

@causalpigeon, @thorn: Thanks for the feedback. I've added a list of controls here, to mirror the in-game controls screen.
Space and Enter are both supposed to work as interact buttons.

@dmac: You're so close! Only two more steps! What needs fixing in the room?

@justuspan: Sorry about that. The mouse only works in menus, and you have to use the keyboard to interact. Mouse navigation is something I started, but it isn't finished yet.

@magnusfurcifer: Thanks! At one point he moved even more slowly. :laughing:

@dr-v: I can only take credit for the sound effects, but thanks all the same. Next time I'll aim for more content.

tengusheath5 Oct 2020, 05:50

I liked it. Has nice art. Wish there was a little more to the puzzle. Was really quick to figure it out. Controls could use some more tweaking, movement feels slow and slippery.

Elizir5 Oct 2020, 05:57

Had fun playing the game! Nice mood, good music, cool idea and nice concept :)

typeswitch5 Oct 2020, 15:26

That was really fun! It's a bit hard to interact with objects though. I think maybe you can't hold a direction and press space at the same time?

Pennycookauthor5 Oct 2020, 19:03

@tengusheath, @elizir: Thanks! Glad you liked it.

@typeswitch: You're right. I had real trouble trying to fix that bug. I meant to document it in the game description, and clearly forgot. Thanks for pointing it out!

MrPiedPiper6 Oct 2020, 02:55

Great game! Loved the humor, and nothing broke. My personal favorite bit was the different dialog Death gives after each death 💀

BakemonoMori7 Oct 2020, 02:32

HAHAHAHA I really loved this short game. It has been a lot of fun and really cute graphics!

Lone_Wolf7 Oct 2020, 03:36

Great work, my head hurts now. 10/10

LandoSystems7 Oct 2020, 07:04

Got a couple good chuckles, enjoyed my conversations with death, made a snek friend, what's not to like? Good work!

JuanSabadoPeron8 Oct 2020, 00:46

Top notch game design, art and music! The one room game is a really good use of the theme. It's nice to see someone else using godot! Next time don't forget to use:

if OS.has_feature("HTML5"):

$YourExitButtonName.queue_free()

or you could use:

$YourExitButtonName.disabled = true

$YourExitButtonName.modulate = Color.transparent

If you're using a VBox/HBox Container and don't want to mess up the positioning of the buttons, that's what we did

GameFriend8 Oct 2020, 03:15

Short, but sweet. This felt like an incredibly polished game for such a short time period.

DiscoReunion8 Oct 2020, 21:53

A funny and pretty game, well done !

Pennycookauthor10 Oct 2020, 02:29

@mrpiedpiper: That's my favorite part, too! :laughing:

@juansabadoperon: Oho, that's very clever. Thanks, I'll definitely fix that.

@lone-wolf, @landosystems, @gamefriend, @discoreunion: Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

ZOMBIEBUST3R10 Oct 2020, 10:16

Funny interactions and the Death character is funny. The art and soun design is very good. It is a bit short but gets the point accross very well so congrats! I would think of making the one room escape the theme of your game and expand on that. You could make a very fun game!

Pennycookauthor10 Oct 2020, 23:44

@zombiebust3r: That's a good idea! I'd been thinking about spending some more time on developing this idea, and hadn't considered that I could basically have the same set-up for each room. Thanks for the feedback.

ectucker113 Oct 2020, 04:56

Quite an interesting game. Some of the objects were kinda tricky to interact with; I tried to grab the plant from the left first, but was only able to actually get it from above. The story and concept were clever; I could see myself playing a few more rooms of this kind of game.

Other games by @pennycook

★3.05

★3.62

★3.31