You're a lighthouse keeper. Your beam guides lost souls to shore. Something dark creeps toward you when the beam isn't looking. You are the signal for these poor souls' hopes and dreams.
Move the spotlight across the dark water with WASD, mouse, or stick. The outer glow reveals souls and pushes miasmas back; the inner core guides souls home and burns miasmas away. You can only do one at a time.
7 nights of story ending with the Abaddon boss, then Endless mode unlocks. You're not fully alone out there. Jellyfish can heal you, blue-fish scout the monsters, and a cute mermaid sings. Moon phases drive difficulty, fog shrinks visibility, rain whips the sea.
And cutting through it all: the keeper's radio. 75 recorded voice lines, reacting to every soul you save, every miasma you burn, every shift in the sea.
Built in Godot 4.6.2.
Credits
- Game Design and Programming by Tanjou (Twitter: @tanjounokamioku) - Art, Audio and Music by Sasori (Twitter: @sasasori1) - Voice Acting by Pangami (Twitter: @pangami)
Play the desktop build if you can
Grab Windows, macOS, or Linux from the downloads on itch. That's the recommended way to play. The audio mix lands cleaner (no browser WebAudio quirks), your progress persists across sessions, and you sidestep the rare "WebGL context lost" crash some machines hit inside the iframe build. The web version is here for convenience and for folks who can't download, and it works, but the desktop build is noticeably nicer.
Install notes
Windows: if SmartScreen pops up on launch ("Windows protected your PC"), click More info → Run anyway. The build is unsigned; jam budget doesn't cover code-signing certificates.
macOS: first launch needs right-click → Open (or Ctrl-click → Open). Gatekeeper will refuse a plain double-click because the binary is unsigned. Same reason as Windows, it's an unsigned jam build.
Linux: the unzipped binary may need the executable bit set: `chmod +x lighthouse_vigil.x86_64`. Some archive tools strip the permission during extraction.
Notes on the web build
Godot 4.6.2's WebGL path is still rough around the edges. Audio processing, heavy particle bursts, and shader-masked lighting can all push a browser past what it wants to do in an iframe. On some machines/browsers the game will stutter, drop frames, lose its audio context, or crash outright ("WebGL context lost").
If you're hitting any of that, here's the order I'd try before giving up on the web build:
1. Turn on hardware acceleration in your browser. Most "context lost" crashes come from the browser falling back to software rendering. In Chrome: Settings → System → make sure "Use graphics acceleration when available" is on, then restart the browser. Firefox and Safari have similar toggles under their performance/advanced settings. 2. Force GPU rendering in Chrome. Open `chrome://flags`, find "Override software rendering list", set it to Enabled, and restart. This pushes Chrome to use the GPU even if it thinks your driver is sketchy, which it often does incorrectly on older machines. 3. Close other GPU-heavy tabs. Video calls, streaming sites, and other WebGL games compete for the same context pool. 4. Try a different browser. Chrome has been the most reliable in my testing; Firefox is usually fine; Safari is the most finicky with audio. 5. If all of that still stutters, please grab the desktop build. It's attached here and to the itch page for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and it's the one I actually recommend if you want a smooth run. No WebGL, no audio-context drama, full persistence across sessions.
Very nice entry, the atmosphere is on point, gameplay is simple and clear, overall I really enjoyed it. I wished the light was a little bigger sometimes as it was tideous guiding souls near the character, and I could not beat the 7th level, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do it, maybe I'm missing something but I'm just getting overwhelmed by miasmas. Also maybe 7 level is bit much for a jam entry as it's a bit repetitive, the mechanics added across the levels are nice, but imho 4 or 5 levels would have make it more enjoyable to play again.
the art and all of the visuals look real good but the lighthouse moves so unbearably slow and on the later nights past like night 4/5 you become too slow to keep up with anything, i wish the lighthouse moved faster later on and also had lingering effects, like when you stop shining a monster, itll still be backing away for like 0.6 seconds or something, overall the game is innovative and nice looking but just becomes hopeless later on
Really nice art and sound and it has a cool atmosphere. The game is fun, but its a bit unfair later when there are too many enemies and you can't handle them all.
Lovely game! I liked the visuals a lot and the voice acting gives additional atmosphere. I had no problem to understand what I needed to do either. It's hard to come up with an idea on how to improve this actually. The only downside gameplay wise might be that you can do only so much with one light beam. If things get faster the main bottleneck is light beam speed, not so much your skill, I guess, which was a little frustrating at times. Overall a great game!
Very cool! Love the art and the voice lines, gave me a very creepy vibe. I got overwhelmed at the boss very quickly. Could definitely see this being fleshed out into a full game! Great job!
Lots of fun, I enjoy the simplicity here, and it's a very new way to play something I hadn't even thought of! Very nice, very cool! Goes great with the theme in a way I did not expect.
A very stylish game. The atmosphere is really good. The gameplay is simple and effective. I liked it.
From the fifth night on, it felt a bit too difficult for me. I think some of the gameplay details could use a bit more polish. Overall, it is a good game. Keep it up!
The eerie atmosphere is done perfectly! I absolutely love the voice acting and the BGM. The whole game’s color palette is so harmonious, and I really enjoy the gameplay too!!
I really liked the atmosphere of this game, with nice artwork and music. The difficulty was a bit unfair though, as others said the beam is too slow when you get overwhelmed by ennemies, and if an ennemy is near a black ball, it just can't be killed.
A very creative and atmospheric game with a strong sense of visual and gameplay layering. Unfortunately, the amount of gameplay content feels a bit limited
L
LDJam user 021 Apr 2026, 15:33
I really liked how this game is simple to learn, I want more time to try the endless mode. Nice visuals also! The soundtrack is cute, but at the same time kinda creepy. It’s like something will break the somewhat pacific atmosphere.
I am so stunned by the atmosphere, this is the kind of stuff I like a lot. The only things I didn't like were: 1. the beacon has to be controlled by holding the mouse button instead of just hovering 2. The player doesn't get stronger (or perhaps i didn't find a way to do it) while the enemies ramp up pretty fast.
Really beautiful game. The pixel art stands out, and the music and sound effects give it a super cozy feel. The beacon felt a bit slow at times, and the hit detection could be clearer since I wasn’t always sure when I was actually connecting with enemies. Aside from that, I had a great time with it.
Very nice concept, and the atmosphere is cute! The audio is great, and I love the art. Personally, I found the lighthouse beam hard to use. It's too slow to catch up with the mouse when you move it a long distance, and it should probably be a little bit stronger, or have a way to be powered up a bit for later levels. I also felt that the light became too small at close distances. I think some small touch-ups would help to make this really fun. Still, I enjoyed it!
Very good, moody entry. The shadows made the game a little bit too difficult at times - for example, the monsters were pushed into them, but didn't shrink and disappear like they did normally. Other than that, this is a very good, polished entry. The atmosphere shines (haha, pun!) in particular, but it feels very much complete overall. I enjoyed the gameplay as well (and the web version on Chrome works quite okay). Congrats!
Thank you all for the very kind words. I'm looking forward to testing more of your games too! I am likely going to improve it with your feedback after the jam ends!
Answering a few points from above: @gtgg There is actually a pause button with menu functions if you press ESC! Did you try that? @dmitriyci I actually work in the games industry for a few years, but I still haven't released a full indie game by myself (this is the first, yes). I do have two other games being worked on for the longer term, hopefully I can finish them in this lifetime 😇
This is absolutely awesome! I love your idea and how you implemented the theme. The progression is quite challenging, but still manageable, and I think it fits the game well. Great game!
Great idea for a game! Pretty creative and interesing to play, also very pretty! Only thing I don't love is the time it takes to move the light, especially considering later levels and how everything starts to stack up to much, while taking a long time to kill the monsters and bring lights to shore. That being said, overall I really liked everything, great job! Bora Brasil carai
I really liked the visuals of the game, Very cool style, the colors, UI, as for the gameplay, at first I didn’t quite understand how to play, then I got carried away
Great pacing and difficulty curve. Like the idea of keeping support units. But, if I understand correctly, random spawns of enemies that block the light of the lighthouse sometimes prevent you from killing enemies and you are left with a choice: to pass them or to hold out until the end of the night. And I'd like you to add a stage selection, first few tries i hadn't understand how to beat a wave 7 at all, stage select would be huge upgrade of QoL.
Great game! It seems using the light beam with WASD is faster than using the mouse and it gets a bit too difficult at the end. I couldn't kill the demons faster than they spawned. Are they regenerating when the light is not on them? It also seems they kinda block the light, which makes it harder to kill them. There might be some ways to make it a bit easier. But again, overall this is a great game!
such a great aesthetic, I love this interpretation of the theme "signal". the game is fun and well polished, graphics are amazing, sounds are great (did you do the voice lines yourself? they are also cute), well done :)
i loved the atmosphere and pixel art. The vibe was consistent throughout the game and i love when dev use real voice in their game in an interesting way.. good game.
@oeuegha Hi! It's not necessarily enemies that block the light, it's just debris!
Regarding stage selection, the difficulty is based off of the phases of the moon, food and rain, so adding a stage selection would have been hard at the time.
I appreciate the feedback in anyways!!! We might have a post Ludum Dare update!
Very cute. Quite similar to old Game Boy games. I didn't notice any apparent bugs.
The music is calm and very suitable for the game's style, and the graphics are simple and clear.
I just didn't think it was fair when the circles blocking the light appear in front of the lighthouse. There's nothing you can do because the light doesn't go anywhere. Does it appear in random places?
@euler-moises thank you for the comment! The circles blocking the light are debris from the sea being carried by the water! They're supposed to be part of the challenge 😄
- easy to play - instructions are dead simple
- great narratives
- really nice art
- good difficulty