Dark Points

by anstabo
Overall★★★★★★★★★★4.58
Fun★★★★★★★★★★4.40
Innovation★★★★★★★★★★4.58
Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.31
Graphics★★★★★★★★★★4.60
Audio★★★★★★★★★★4.73
Humor★★★★★★★★★★2.98
Mood★★★★★★★★★★4.85
LDBanner.png

Horror game based on the mechanics of scanner sombre

Scan the environment every 10 seconds.

Find all 12 upgrades, 6 keycards and confront your worst nightmare at the end of this journey.

This game requires patience, do not attempt it if you don't have 15-30 minutes.

Gif01.gif
Use your broken scanner to guide you through the environment.

Monsters are lurking in the shadows of your scanner.

How to play


Keyboard

WASD / ZQSD: Move

E: Interact

Space: Jump

Mouse

Left Click: Scan

Please prefer downloading the game instead of playing the webGl version, it is a better and more immersive experience!


Comments31

Vhalenn
Vhalenn3 Oct 2022, 21:03
I really liked how the scanner is screen space and force us to move and play with the parallax ! The mood and audio is so polished ! The pixel post process at the start is just really violent for a start.
The game is so long and rich of upgrades, impressive for a jam !
Congrats for this great game !
Hengen
Hengen3 Oct 2022, 21:55
Great game, best of ludumdare so far. Holy shit it was spooky.
Grif_in4 Oct 2022, 06:33
Amazing job. The tone, music, atmosphere, process of unlocking and discovery, everything was super cohesive and moody. Love how simple and slow it started out. The initial subtle movements that just barely catch your eye. How the game progressively ramped up in a bunch of different ways. Super cool experience.
Chacharl4 Oct 2022, 12:32
There's too much to say, I'll resume it by : masterclass

This is the first time I see a Horror game that works that well in a jam. The concept is so good, the theme is really well implemented and it fit perfectly in the genre.

The only problems I had were some lags while watching the levels previously discovered, but they were not too annoying (I was playing on the html version, maybe the build would have been more stable).

Otherwise you did a truly good job! The atmosphere is really oppressing, the sounds are spooky, and the character controller feels really smooth ! 5/5
La bread5 Oct 2022, 02:34
I literally cannot play this after that fall bro, this is terrifying. I could see this as a steam release. Yeah no, the game is great, but I am a coward.
David Stevenson
David Stevenson5 Oct 2022, 03:08
Wow. Wow. It started slow, but after a few upgrades it picks up, and then I was completely engaged. I think some early indicators would go a long way towards player retention (I almost gave up because of how completely blind I was, and how long it took to recharge the scanner). Incredible that you were able to accomplish this during a jam!
simex
simex6 Oct 2022, 05:24
well, I did not expect to play a full 20$ game for free during ludum dare. I also did not expect to shit my pants! :sweat_smile: fantastic job, this is the best game I've played so far by a country mile!
Trusty
Trusty7 Oct 2022, 01:21
Really good game, had lots of fun.
Amythyst
Amythyst7 Oct 2022, 09:20
This is SO SO good, one of my favorites so far. Beautiful and creepy. I unfortunately didn't have time finish it (you say 15-30, but it's more like an hour or more if you get stuck finding stuff!), I wish you had a save feature, this game is long enough to warrant one.

I'm also super curious to know the technical setup behind the scanning effect shader. How did you keep that performant? (even in WebGL it played decently well!)

Hopefully I'll get back to it again and finish it, but fantastic job.
Ace17
Ace177 Oct 2022, 17:38
Finally finished it (after three interrupted attempts) !!

This game is really impressive, the creepy mood is perfect and the main mechanic is brilliant!

The level design is uncompromising and makes no prisonners (platformer puzzle in a game where you're almost blind? seriously?) but with some effort it's definitely doable. And it's big, really. ( The good thing is, you didn't have to spend too much time doing UV mapping :D BTW, what editor did you use? )

I'm also really curious about how the rendering works, e.g how you store the scanned parts of each wall.
(If I had to guess, I'd say: a giant texture map, where all the walls are unwrapped, that gets written to when scanning, and read from during rendering.)
Juss
Juss7 Oct 2022, 21:09
Yey! We found our mechanic twin, definitely will check it out! Thanks @ace17
Cedric868 Oct 2022, 21:22
Incredibly well done. Really enjoyed this one. Couldn't finish it though. Ran around the entire map a couple of times but could not find key 0, 1 or 5. :-(
Must have missed something at the beginning.
Really well done mood and tone in general! Keep up the great work.
EOShadows
EOShadows9 Oct 2022, 04:52
Dang, this was an amazing game. One of the best of ludum dare 51, I think. The idea of a horror game where the only way you can see is through scanning the area was amazing, and made a very ominous situation whenever it picked up human bodies. It had me very curious about the mysteries of what I was walking around in, and what happened. The end was very cool too. Even though it only consisted of the dots of the scanner, the graphics were great, and the audio was also very good too. I think my only complain is that after playing for a while, there ends up being so much scanned areas in your vision that it's hard to see what you're doing. Other than that, I thought this game was very awesome. I could not manage to find the door that the 4th key goes to (and had never seen anything that relates to a 6th key or door) but what I did find was a great experience. Well done!
anstabo
anstaboauthor9 Oct 2022, 09:43
@vhalenn @hengen @grif-in @charliemrl @la-bread @david-stevenson @simex @trusty @cedric86 @eoshadows Thank you guys for playing and enjoying my game.

@amythyst @ace17 I originally went the real-time texture way but that was not optimized enough to let me draw a full level worth of texture. So instead I did the most intuitive thing and used custom particle systems. Everytime you scan you generate only 1 particle system that will batch with the nearest other particle systems. If a particle detects a moving object then it becomes another particle system that will attach itself to the moving object. And finally the water moving particle are simply the same ones but with shader trickery inside them.

@juss Haha we even had the same idea with batteries! Your entry was very masterfully done and it made me really think about the choices I made in mine about the scan.
Alex de la Cour
Alex de la Cour9 Oct 2022, 10:16
Wow!! Genuinely blown away by this game. It was unnerving and atmospheric, the gameplay was polished and smooth and the audio was perfect, it really felt like a complete game. Very difficult - it took me closer to an hour to complete, but I love a challenging game so I certainly count that as a positive. Overall, undoubtedly one of the standout games I've played from this year's LD!
p-r
p-r9 Oct 2022, 10:32
This was very well done, quite the experience. Not a big fan of first person 3D platforming, it got frustrating sometimes, I kept falling because I have poor 3D perception due to visual impairement.
Juss
Juss9 Oct 2022, 11:43
@anstabo Thank you! I really like how you use this mechanics, it drastically amplifies the fear of unknown when I can't check what's around me all the time.
And the audio is frightening(in a good sense)!

Also, I just found out that you are the developer of "Crumble", I've been following you on Twitter during the development. You made a great game!
Razor Zorax16 Oct 2022, 11:43
I usually dont comment on anything but this was just so much I felt like i had to.
I didnt expect a horrorgame could work in a game jam but goddamn it did. I didnt get all the rewards/keycards and the monster got kinda repetetive after like 5 encounters but it still gave me goosebumps. The scanner mechanic with unlocking your field of vision also worked really well with the mood and the movemnt/vision upgrades gave the player a nice feeling of progress. I am amazed that someone ddi this in a weekend and I am aware of how some poeple prepare things and just adjust it to the theme but I dont even see how this could have been done here since it fits so well. Great job mate.
10/10.
Mr. Rice17 Oct 2022, 07:59
really nice! inspired by Scanner Sombre, I assume.

The faraway terrain is a little distracting since it's brighter than nearby terrain, and that makes it hard to navigate sometimes.

Also, what engine did you use for this? Looks really good! Audio is great as well.
anstabo
anstaboauthor22 Oct 2022, 16:18
@honest-dan Thanks!
Also thanks a lot to the players who experienced my game!
jusw8522 Oct 2022, 19:03
Great entry! I really wanted to finish it, unfortunately I got stuck in a wall and couldn't unstuck myself. I think I was nearly done too, I found keys 0,1,2,4,5 and had 6 batteries and double scan recharge.

[edit]

I was stuck here, shortly after dropping from the long fall. Door in front of me is 03 after 00.

I was stuck in other areas too, most often after falling between pillars. Those managed to unstick itself after a few minutes of wiggling, but not this wall :(.
kuviman
kuviman22 Oct 2022, 20:16
WHERE IS DOOR NUMBER 4????
anstabo
anstaboauthor22 Oct 2022, 20:22
@kuviman door number 4 is a lie

@jusw85 Yea unfortunately some walls are glitched if you force them, I realised that specific bug right after the end of the jam :[
CameronPenner
CameronPenner23 Oct 2022, 21:32
Wow! Incredible entry! Absolutely deserves #1 overall, congrats!
AugustCoder
AugustCoder24 Oct 2022, 06:35
Disclaimer: I didn't actually play, but watched the gameplay video :P
I remember seeing something like this in a video about a Garry's Mod mod (edit: it's called the LIDAR mod). Love the story/gameplay take though, and the upgrades (especially good choice with the battery upgrade thing, waiting 10 seconds every time you scan would be a nightmare).
StesProject
StesProject24 Oct 2022, 12:48
This game is awesome, but I can't believe it has been made in only 3 days
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