Dream Catcher

by mykola
co-authored: @blackmamba
Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.63
Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.43
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.09
Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.90
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.79
Audio★★★★★★★★★★3.99
Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.89
Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.80

Story

Have you ever had a dream where you're falling deeper and deeper scared and excited of what is down below? Experience the same feeling navigating your personal raccoon through his trippy dreams. Do you have what it takes to handle dreamy physics and uncover their true nature?

Controls

* A/left arrow and D/right arrow to *rotate*
* W/up arrow and S/down arrow to *move forward and backward*
* Space to *air dash*
* Backspace to *wake up and start over*
* P to *pause and unpause*
* Escape to *quit*

More details in the in-game tutorial.

Make sure to hit Backspace at the end of tutorial to proceed to the actual game!

Credits

All the contents apart from the font were developed from scratch during the game jam by *Mykola Herasymovych* (game design, coding, sound, art) and *Halyna Oros* (game design, art, voice acting, playtesting).

The soundtrack was composed by *Mykola Herasymovych* during the jam. Check more tracks at https://soundcloud.com/mykola-herasymovych. ​

​The font Cartoon Fun Font​ was developed by *Darrell Flood*​ at https://www.fontspace.com/cartoon-fun-font-f51921 and used under the free license.​

#### Tools used:

* Unity3D
* Krita
* FL Studio
* Audacity

Notes

If you get stuck or for some other reason can't finish the game yourself, you can watch @eric-smith nailing it in his stream here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1003785681?t=2h32m32s.

​Windows built messes up the initial menu screen position on load but it gets fixed after the first waking up. We recommend playing the browser version for a smoother experience.

#### Bug fixes:
* Adjusted sprite import settings to remove dithering on the edges.
* Adjusted the last tutorial message to explicitly ask players to hit Backspace. Deactivated all other inputs at that point to make sure that players complete the tutorial and get to the main game.
* Added "Skip tutorial" toggle to the menu screen for those whose game crashes when they hit Backpace so that they could still proceed to the main game.
* Adjusted sound effect triggers to be less regular and annoying.
* Adjusted the difficulty a bit to make the game easier to win and discover the ending.

Many thanks to those who reported these bugs and let me improve the game experience.

---

Enjoy the game and thank you for playing!

Comments36

KAPA6UH
KAPA6UH27 Apr 2021, 07:18
This game is really fun to play, audio and visuals are awesome.
RimskyPapa27 Apr 2021, 15:25
I'm just falling, is this the norm?
carolinewang
carolinewang27 Apr 2021, 22:23
this game is nice and simple, a very enjoyable play :) i had a bit of trouble with the controls at first but it got better. the little raccoon sprite is adorable too. nice work!
PeculiarCarrot
PeculiarCarrot27 Apr 2021, 22:36
This is my highest rated game so far! No category below 4.5 stars :) I adore this game, it's so cute and the mechanics are a blast! I was legitimately laughing to myself when I would accidentally boost into a floating object, slowly slide off, and fall directly onto a bomb, getting thrown across the screen. Ragdoll physics are very fun to play with, and you got the bounciness of the walls and floating objects just right. And the art and sounds are super cute! I used the boost a lot and I think a voice line plays every time, so it got a bit repetitive, but kind of added to the silliness. I like this game a lot, really really well done!
rubenwardy
rubenwardy27 Apr 2021, 22:38
This is good. It's novel and innovative. I found the interruptions annoying, but there's not much you can do about that
orlandobatista28 Apr 2021, 20:39
After the tutorial the obstacles stopped to appear and I just started an endless fall. :confused:
But it seemed fun to play in the beginning! If I really like skill based games so it was a nice mechanic! :slight_smile:
TotteriLudum
TotteriLudum28 Apr 2021, 20:40
Cute visuals and interesting concept! Ragdoll physics like these in a falling game are quite unusual!

I think it would be easier to control for those who are used to traditional game controls, if the movement keys were rebound to A/D and Q/E. This might just be my opinion, though. Well done!
Mykolaauthor28 Apr 2021, 21:50
@landosilva oops, that's not how the tutorial is supposed to end. Thanks for reporting that!

What you should do is to hit backspace when it introduces it in the tutorial and then you'll be able to start the real game. Please try it out, as it's quite skill-based and challenging indeed, and there is an unexpected twist if you manage to beat the game. :)
fabula_rasa28 Apr 2021, 22:12
The surprise ending is surprising :smile:

I loved the graphics and the animation on the main character. The cute raccoon is extremely cute and the environment is a pleasure to look at. There are some aliasing issues, but that's really a minor complaint for a jam game.
Movement feels nice, responsive and natural.

I met a bug when I ran the game for the first time. It just hanged on the second tutorial line, I could do nothing to "unhang" it. But I restarted and all went well the second time. That was on downloadable version.

It's a very cool simple game. Very solid entry!
waltsontanaka29 Apr 2021, 02:29
Really fun game! The audio can get a little confusing and crowded when too many things happen (like spamming the space bar to slow down xD) so I would recommend adding some crossfade between sound events so they don't immediately cancel each other, but also don't play together all the time. Also, the swearing is kinda funny, however I feel it breaks a little too much the cute side of the game, so I think I would choose going "clean" and cute only, because the game is really really, great work with the audio and art!
Hoeleboele29 Apr 2021, 07:26
Game kept crashing when I pressed backspace in the tutorial. But it froze when i didnt. For what i did play was feeling pretty good. I like the physics you used in the movement especialy the moving left and right by mashing up.
Tubertz29 Apr 2021, 14:24
Very cute! I love your interpretation of the theme!
Eric Smith
Eric Smith29 Apr 2021, 14:54
What a great little game! The physics were really fun if not a bit hard to control sometimes. Which makes this game because if not, it would have too easy. The music and sounds were great and the voice overs had me giggling. Yes and on the art, when using large images and scaling them down causes dithering on the edges which can be fixed by using Mipmaps on the import. But the graphics were well done! Thanks for sharing! :clap: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1003785681?t=2h32m32s
Minefreak29 Apr 2021, 15:49
Nice game! The pastel colours and floaty physics work very well at conveying a dream-like mood. The obstacles stop at around 300m, but if you were to spend a bit more time on it and make that procedurally generated you would have a nice little highscore game on your hands.
Laurent29 Apr 2021, 15:50
Interesting little game and awesome voiceover !
Mykolaauthor29 Apr 2021, 18:36
@kapa6uh, @carolinewang, @rubenwardy, @tubertz, @laurent and everyone below thanks a lot for your kind words, we're really glad you enjoyed the game! It means a lot to us!

@peculiarcarrot, @landosilva, @totteriludum, @fabula-rasa, @waltsontanaka, @hoeleboele, @mighty-mufflon-games, @minefreak thank you so much for the detailed feedback and suggestions, they are invaluable. I carefully went through them and tried to cover most of the show-stopper issues in a post-game version of the game with bug fixes. You are more than welcome to try it out!

@waltsontanaka regarding the cuteness and swearing we fully agree with you and plan to make a child-friendly version of the game. For the jam version, we thought that it might be too cute, so decided to balance it out with some black humor. You might want to try getting to the ending of the game to discover what's behind this controversy. :wink:

@minefreak regarding the procedurally generated obstacles, they actually are there in the main game. I'm afraid that you've encountered a bug in the tutorial phase and didn't get transitioned to the main game. Sorry about that! You can check it out in the updated version with bug fixes now. :slight_smile:

@eric-smith we really appreciate it that you took your time to play our game on your stream and give us some really good feedback. Fixing the sprite import setting made them look much better! Would you mind if I add the link to your stream to the game description? This way, those who get stuck or can't play the full game for some reasons, can still see the full content of the game.
Eric Smith
Eric Smith29 Apr 2021, 20:20
Absolutley! Feel free to use the link where you want.
xpoho
xpoho30 Apr 2021, 01:43
Какой милый маленький енот! Он так сладко спит! Только... Почему он ругается матом? Плохой, плохой енот!

Увлекательное приключение вместе с маленьким недовольным енотом ^_^

Are you plaing with your ass?
pnkvrt
pnkvrt30 Apr 2021, 15:53
What an ending! Neat game, I like the visuals. The music and sounds were good and funny :D. The concept is nice however the controls are a bit iffy, though maybe that's on purpose? Either way neat game! Well done!
Mykolaauthor1 May 2021, 18:49
@xpoho well done, you almost made it till the end! If you can go some 30-50 meters deeper you will find out why it's swearing and what's behind its weird dreams. :smile: Thank you for the kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

@pnkvrt thank you very much for playing and the feedback! Yes, we started with standard controls where it moves in the direction you press but it was too easy and not consistent with the falling / dreaming concept. So we changed them to be harder to manage and more affected by the physics of falling and floating. This way, it felt more like navigating through a dream and trying to move while falling. So the iffiness is kind of on purpose. You can also do some cool and funny flip and parkour tricks with these controls. :slight_smile:
xpoho
xpoho1 May 2021, 19:07
@mykola, спасибо, доиграл до конца - весьма неожиданная концовка. Енот-алкоголик и наркоман - такого я еще не помню! ^_^
Mykolaauthor1 May 2021, 20:03
@xpoho спасибо за вторую попытку и спасение заблудшего енота! Теперь у него есть шанс начать двигаться в правильном направлении!
Trexxak
Trexxak1 May 2021, 22:45
O_O I didn't expect that ending :'D

incredibly cute game! I loved the physics-interactions especially (for example when hitting one of those cottonball-thingies!)
retrome
retrome2 May 2021, 15:13
Very funny game with an contrasting emotional ending! Great atmosphere backed by graphics, voice and music. Nice physics which adds some emotions to the end.

Some remark: sometimes tutorial texts are behind the raccoon and hard to read. Expectation: texts are shifted to be fully visible.

Great entry!
Kaminos
Kaminos3 May 2021, 00:19
So cute and funny! To infinity and beyond!! After a few tries i managed to get to 340m.. The controls are someway funky but nonetheless enjoyable to play. The cute voices just make it irresistible for me! Cool graphics, music and idea. Great entry guys :)
don.shinski3 May 2021, 00:22
Had me chuckling, and the game is quite cute. Sound and graphics were delightful, nicely done. Having time to add an in-game tutorial is great. It looks like a lot of players expect it this LD. good work!
LDJam user 236055
LDJam user 2360553 May 2021, 18:07
Cute sounds and graphics and a fun concept with funny physics! Very interesting idea and odd/contrasting ending :) Only problem I had was that sometimes bombs would spawn right where I fell out of my room into the dream haha
Flying Dog Fish
Flying Dog Fish3 May 2021, 18:12
What a cute game and fun game and what a dirty mouth on that raccoon.
YuriKun4 May 2021, 00:34
A cute and fun game. I loved the concept, art, music and sounds. Congratulations to the developers.
joe40001
joe400019 May 2021, 00:13
Well that ending was unexpected. Almost got to 200 sleep on the way down. Fun little game.
Hobzone10 May 2021, 10:13
This game was one of the funiest I have played on this jam !
blobo12 May 2021, 23:30
I like the inclusion of a tutorial, though I think some of it is unneeded. Like, duh- I'm going to be dodging bombs. The game was a lot of fun, I love the flailing limbs of the character, ha! Great job.
LDJam user 245333
LDJam user 24533318 May 2021, 17:43
A bit hard to avoid obstacles or catch anything, but still fun to play. The swearing are really weird, but in the end, it's a fun and silly surprise! x) The whole atmosphere is very sweet. It was quite a fun entry overall, well done!

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