LD58: Totem Traveller

by gyzra

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.00

Fun★★★★★★★★★★2.89

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★2.92

Theme★★★★★★★★★★3.14

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.03

Mood★★★★★★★★★★2.78

About the game

Collect magic to restore energy to animal totems and unlock their hidden powers. Travel through 3 distinct stages, using each new ability unlock, until you can open the final door!

This is my first solo game jam project. This is mostly in a rough graybox stage with the core ability/mechanics implemented and some initial artwork. I wanted to learn how to combine 2D assets with a 3D world and push myself to finish a gameplay loop within the time limit.

Fixed Download!

Update: The original zip file did not work and is now hidden. The new file is fixed: LD58TotemTraveller.zip Unzip the folder and then click the LD58.exe file to run.

Changes

Packaged correctly. Added text on the walls throughout indicating gameplay mechanics as the menu and UI system is not fully implemented.

Known issues

Does not run on a multiple monitor set up. Not optimised, will run badly on many systems (working on Windows 11 with GTX 1080 GPU). Visual glitching, screen tearing, and occassional lagged input due to too many static meshes and intensive lighting that I didn't have time to replace. Menu broken, autoplays on start up and must be force quit to close. Requires mouse and keyboard, no keybinding options available yet.

Important

The level bounds are not completely set up, so it is possible to jump over some walls. I will have this fixed in the next version update, but for a true experience, make sure that you only travel through the large white doors to get to each new level. Thank you.

Credits

The water texture is from Ninja Fluid Flux. Everything else is made by me within the 72 hour time limit.

Next Steps

I will try to update this project as soon as possible with better optimisiation, full UI and controller information, environment art, narrative cutscenes, and audio!

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to check out my project. I am new to game development, so any advice is very welcome!

Portfolio

Please check out my art portfolio at https://www.artstation.com/gyzra

Install instructions

Zipped folder. Unzip the download and then click the LD58.exe file to run. Should start the game immedietely.

Currently running on Windows 11 with GTX1080 and no second monitor.

Opens on a laptop, but runs poorly.

Crashes if there is more than 1 monitor connected.

Windows version only. No web version.

I will update this page with any future updates!

Tags: #ld58, #magic, #no ai, #short

Genres: platformer

Comments19

Adrien Tremblay7 Oct 2025, 01:25

Is this playable right now? Couldn't find a .exe in the folder

NBumgardner7 Oct 2025, 01:48

Good question, I couldn't figure out how to play it either. The download took a minute or 2 but the root level folder only has 2 folders and a `LD58.uproject` file. The screenshots in the author's post about it at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/ld58-totem-traveller/first-solo-game-project look vivid and fun though.

Gyzraauthor7 Oct 2025, 01:56

@adrien-tremblay @nbumgardner Thank you for letting me know! I’m not sure why it didn’t zip properly. I will try to fix it first thing in the morning (Uk) and then add another message here to notify that it is ready. Sorry about this!

Gyzraauthor7 Oct 2025, 14:24

@adrien-tremblay @nbumgardner Thank you so much for your comments last night. The download is now fixed!

https://sarahchildsgyzracom.itch.io/ld58-totem-traveller

After reading documentation (then reading reddit to understand what that documentation meant!) I learned that I did not have the SDK correctly installed. The .exe file is now included in the zipped folder and works. It is also a reduced overall size and hopefully downloads a lot faster than before.

Thank you for taking the time to help me!

LDJam user 1485397 Oct 2025, 14:59

Congratulations on submitting something, I really like the art and animation! The "I don't know what I'm doing" text at the end really resonated with me, if it's any consolation, I don't believe it's a feeling you ever lose no matter how much you learn. Keep doing jams and keep learning, I'm excited to see what you make in the future!

Gyzraauthor7 Oct 2025, 15:03

@gat Thank you so much for playing! Honestly, it's just awesome to know that someone has taken the time to play something I made. Thanks for the kind words on the art! I will definitely keep going and hopefully this is just the start of everything!

egor.ae_game7 Oct 2025, 20:38

I like 2d in 3d! Good style

Gyzraauthor7 Oct 2025, 20:54

@egor-ae-game Thank you, I'm glad! I hope to try more 2D/3D hybrid methods in the future!

basic_eagles8 Oct 2025, 00:16

Good combination of 2d and 3d styles Great job

Gyzraauthor8 Oct 2025, 00:20

@basic-eagles Thank you so much! It was a fun challenge!

TemmyT8 Oct 2025, 00:29

Mixing 2D and 3D is dope, and the surroundings felt big and impressive while moving around

lizardinblizzard8 Oct 2025, 14:37

Love 2.5D games! And your main char has nice art

Khamekaze8 Oct 2025, 15:54

Big fan of 2D characters in 3D worlds, this made me want to try it out myself in the next Ludum Dare! Very impressive for a first solo project, even though the environment is mostly gray boxes I can clearly see your vision. The camera (which initially felt a bit clunky but kinda grew on me as I played) and 2D style gave me nostalgia for the Hercules game for PS1 which is one of my favorite games from that era 👌 Only real advice I can give you as an on-and-off hobbyist is to make sure that the main thing you do in the game is done well and plays well (usually that is character movement or combat etc.). Also be prepared that the more complex your game gets the more work is required for lesser and lesser improvements, it's something that can catch you off-guard if you're not prepared and can kill your momentum 😩 Well done and congratulations on submitting!

Gyzraauthor8 Oct 2025, 19:20

@temmyt Thank you so much! I'm a big fan of 2D art and really enjoyed experimenting with how to navigate large environments with it.

@lizardinblizzard Thank you! I'm glad you like the main character! Next time I will dedicate more time to add art throughout!

@khamekaze Thank you for the advice and detailed thoughts, I really appreciate it. I have been playing a lot of PS2 and PS1 games lately and would love to see the 2.5D genre expand on a wider range of retro game inspirations. Yeah, the camera definitely needs work to make it smoother and keep the core focus in shot. But there are certain angles that are so fun with it that I want to explore more (I am particularly inspired by Final Fantasy 8's static camera with 2D backgrounds or Ocarina of Time's changing camera for stealth missions.) I think adopting a camera inspired by Journey would really improve it. Thank you, I will definitely aim to be focused in the future so that I can give time and attention where it is needed.

Thank you so much to everyone who played, it really means a lot to me!

Eugenik9 Oct 2025, 06:38

Really good game!.

X2SHADOW11 Oct 2025, 15:27

A very interesting combination of 3D and 2D graphics. Also, a very unusual and cool camera, although it gets in the way in some segments. For example, the segment with jumping on fire platforms towards the end seemed incredibly difficult. Overall, I liked the game, and I wish you luck in further game development!

NBumgardner11 Oct 2025, 17:25

I am glad it is working for most players! It booted up Tuesday successfully and I took a few steps then. Today I unfortunately got an error on startup even after re-downloading. Below is the popup error log I get in Windows 10 in case it helps debug it:

```
LowLevelFatalError [File:D:\build\++UE5\Sync\Engine\Source\Runtime\D3D12RHI\Private\D3D12Util.cpp] [Line: 991]
RayTracingDevice->CreateStateObject(&Desc, IID_PPV_ARGS(Result.GetInitReference())) failed
at D:\build\++UE5\Sync\Engine\Source\Runtime\D3D12RHI\Private\D3D12RayTracing.cpp:663
with error E_INVALIDARG

0x00007ff7d4816d67 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!D3D12RHI::VerifyD3D12Result() []
0x00007ff7d47c2185 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!FD3D12PoolAllocator::CreatePlacedResource() []
0x00007ff7d47c3f80 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!FD3D12RayTracingPipelineCache::FShaderCompileTask::DoTask() []
0x00007ff7d47c4dd8 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!TGraphTask::ExecuteTask() []
0x00007ff7d2d92e01 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!UE::Tasks::Private::FTaskBase::TryExecuteTask() []
0x00007ff7d2f2dc22 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!UE::Tasks::Private::FTaskBase::TryRetractAndExecute() []
0x00007ff7d2d9404b LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!FTaskGraphCompatibilityImplementation::WaitUntilTasksComplete() []
0x00007ff7d47b5991 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!FD3D12RayTracingPipelineState::FD3D12RayTracingPipelineState() []
0x00007ff7d47cc303 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!FD3D12DynamicRHI::RHICreateRayTracingPipelineState() []
0x00007ff7d48e6de4 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!FCompileRayTracingPipelineStateTask::DoTask() []
0x00007ff7d48e9270 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!TGraphTask::ExecuteTask() []
0x00007ff7d2d92e01 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!UE::Tasks::Private::FTaskBase::TryExecuteTask() []
0x00007ff7d2d7f5cf LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!LowLevelTasks::TTaskDelegate::TTaskDelegateImpl >'::`5'::,0>::CallAndMove() []
0x00007ff7d2d820fe LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!LowLevelTasks::FTask::ExecuteTask() []
0x00007ff7d2d94a33 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!LowLevelTasks::FScheduler::WorkerLoop() []
0x00007ff7d2d7bfa1 LD58-Win64-Shipping.exe!operator

zimny1112 Oct 2025, 20:18

That was fun! Really nice art style on 2D elements! Jumping is a bit hard to control, but after some time you get use to it. Surprisingly it worked fine on mine multi monitor setup... Also, the cut scene I imagine was so cool ;) Good job with the game!

Lyssa18 Oct 2025, 02:27

I really liked your character, I really wish you would have at least laid some more textures down, but this seemed a little ambitious