Ludum Dare #50compo

Sunset

by ptsnoop

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.90

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.60

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.33

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.09

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.12

Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.57

Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.00

A sunset at the beach. A symbol for, and reminder of, the inexorable passage of time. Now, with pinball flippers!

Use the left/right arrow keys to control the flippers (or the left/right shift keys, or left/right control keys, or A/D, or Z/X, or A/L, or a few other options).

Over time, the controls will fade from view, and the horizon will slowly rise up the screen. If the sun falls off the bottom of the screen, or the horizon passes off the top of the screen, you lose.

Hitting the two small circles with the sun will lower the horizon a bit. Hitting the large circles will un-fade the controls.

Try to keep going as long as you can - there's a timer in the top left corner. Good luck!

---

Background sound from https://freesound.org/people/bitlab_coop/sounds/487003/ . I was very tempted to rush to the nearest beach with a laptop and microphone myself, but the weather put paid to that. For rating the compo, probably best to just turn your speakers off.

Comments16

Forgin Bits4 Apr 2022, 13:06

Wow nice, the idea of playing with the sunset and the horizon is simple yet pretty effective ! That looks beautiful, and the waves sounds compliment the graphics pretty well. Overall it's a nice relaxing game, and the pinball controls are well executed. GREAT JOB ! :thumbsup:

JovialKnoll7 Apr 2022, 02:23

Very amusing juxtaposition. Short, simple, and to the point.

Visuals were lovely but at times I wanted a little more contrast. I really wanted the top set of paddles to have a longer arc, or at least be tilted a little more to start with; they felt relatively useless.

Felt like I didn't want to play more than twice but mostly that's because the game does everything it wants to pretty quickly: nice job.

Lazzor13 Apr 2022, 13:14

Wow, your game looks and feels great! Some modest sound effects for the ball collisions or the paddle controls and this would be perfect in my opinion. Fantastic job! :)

Krisztián15 Apr 2022, 12:44

Great and creative return of an old game! Good job!

pollahard15 Apr 2022, 13:14

Excellent minimalistic design, nice to play. Good job!

tompudding16 Apr 2022, 15:19

The controls felt very slick, just what you want in a pinball game. Nice job

Untitled Studios16 Apr 2022, 15:56

Serene, fun, PRETTY. A great idea with great execution. There isn't a lot here, but that just means that I don't have much to criticize. Good job.

edit: ended up playing this for the entirety of a virtual college tour, which was an hour long. good stuff fr

Noiyy16 Apr 2022, 16:23

Really love this concept, very well executed, great job! :smile: That fade really made it harder :sweat_smile: I enjoyed it, though I couldn't get past 40 seconds, being the pro pinball player that I am :laughing: Maybe the smaller circles could be also made to unfade after some time when the controls are faded and you can't hit the bigger ones - this could be an easier difficulty option.

damakuno17 Apr 2022, 06:40

Pretty relaxing game, I have been playing quite a lot of pinball games recently so I'm kinda biased towards this sort of game at the moment! I like the aesthetics of this game mostly, and the gimmick of the controls fading added a extra challenge to this game. Overall, good job on the game and I look forward to seeing more of your creations!

fueelin17 Apr 2022, 08:31

Really cool game! Having the "board" disappear like that was a really creative idea! The visuals were nice and relaxing. Nice job!

Birdwards17 Apr 2022, 16:47

This is super cool! I agree with Lazzor that it could use some sound effects for collision (and maybe some subtle visual effects for colliding with the circles), but that's a minor thing. Besides that, this game has everything it needs and nothing it doesn't need. Great work!

lilkrit18 Apr 2022, 10:10

One of my favorite games so far in this LD. The graphics are very simple but they work perfectly. And I like the background noise. If you are gonna improve this later, please make the circles more responsive, and add some leniency with the sunset - right now it goes up a bit too fast.

antonsem18 Apr 2022, 13:35

OMG! This is fantastic! Such a simple and elegant twist on the pinball! I love it :)

PS: I'm tweeting about the games from this jam. Here is yorus: https://twitter.com/TheAntonSem/status/1516047362992529412

mikouaji18 Apr 2022, 17:10

Very chill game :) Nice background sound, could use some effects on ball hit. Liked it a lot

Raptarr818 Apr 2022, 17:30

I really enjoyed the minimalistic design. The aesthetics are simply amazing!

lenaschimmel18 Apr 2022, 17:34

Very nice, I love the minimalism of this game. Of course I was motivated to delay the inevitable, and the fading controls made it more difficult - on the other hand, it was somehow satisfying to let the controls fade away and enjoy the pure, unobstructed sunset.

Other games by @ptsnoop

★3.48

★4.15