Torch Keeper
A puzzle platformer about keeping your torch lit.
The enemy is at our door and we need to call for aid. As the Torch Keeper, you have to bring your flame to the tallest tower, and make sure it stays lit!
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My second Ludum Dare, probably found it much more stressful than the last.
Idea came from thinking about fire being early technology.
Was considering making something closer to Getting Over It or a progression requiring a flawless run, but at some point shifted to more puzzley design.
I hate level design, but the game told me to do it 😭
No AI was used to make this project.
Comments25
I really liked the idea of checkpoints being places where you can relight the torch. The jumping and movement feel great, making the game enjoyable to play. Excellent work.
The base mechanic is simple intuitive and very well thought out, definitely makes the game really challenging but intuitive at the same time. I would say that maybe a little more leniency on when the torch goes out would have made the experience a lot smoother as sometimes the torch barely grazed the water or a wall and it still went out and it made the game a bit stressful.
I really liked this entry and I think you did an outstanding job for your second ld!
The physics are a bit slidey and rudimentary with the crates really showing the unity defaults. fixing the physics will make this a 10/10 small indie puzzle game in my books for gameplay. The fire smothering sound is great, the jump sound is... strange :). Adding a constant small flame sound could bring ambiance and maybe some background cave music would complete the picture.
Over all super amazing work.
NGL, it was really fun and entertaining
Took me a while to understand how to pass levels from a laptop (It's really hard to play using a touchpad)
The secret is that you have to figure out where to point the torch first, and only then do the platformer things
Overall, the art is cute, the gameplay is polished, you did a great job, and I think this game might be developed into something bigger!
I also like how clear everything is: it's clear which platform you can stand on, what objects does what even if this object is seen for the first time.
But I'd rather watch someone else play the game than do it myself. 😁 The fire is way too fragile and redoing the same sections again and again is frustrating.
The game did remind me of Getting Over it at some point, like I tried to figure out if this is more of a foddian or not closer to the end. Reading the description afterwards cleared the uncertainty for me 😅 The inspiration is clearly there, I like it!
At first, I spent around 30 seconds or so in the first room not *quite* understanding the controls - In the beginning, I was rushing as fast as I could because I assumed that the torches kept expiring on an extremely short timer, but I pretty quickly figured out that walls were putting my torch out once I hit the second room. I had originally started rushing because I assumed that the jumping enemy at the gates was about to start chasing me, which prevented me from taking the time to fully understand the mechanics on that first screen. My initial rush wasn't an actual problem, and the second screen did a great job of communicating how the mechanic *really* worked :)
I loved the art style you used! It all looked very consistent and cohesive, and it was extremely readable at a glance. I'm a huge one-bit enthusiast, and it was used to great effect here. I'm also really curious about how you accomplished the water effect, because that's something I've been thinking about adding to my own games for awhile. Is that being done as a custom shader, or something else?
The level design was also quite readable! I never found myself unsure of what the game wanted me to do, which is really important in a brutally precise platformer :) I also appreciated the quick restarts and frequent checkpoints. Knowing that you'd never lose more than ten seconds or so to a mistake was very appreciated!
In terms of constructive feedback, there were a few tiny places where the game felt frustrating in seemingly unintentional ways (as opposed to simply being difficult and precise), and where a few small tweaks could have an outsized impact on the overall game feel.
The first point of friction was admittedly avoidable. At the end of every screen, I would jump to clear away the vines, and then immediately lose my torch to the ground/ceiling right next to them. This meant that I had to play each screen twice: once to burn the vines, and then another time to bring the flame to the next checkpoint. While I could have theoretically positioned my mouse better and avoided doing this, playing the same level a second time felt like busywork rather than an intentional feature (because it didn't provide any novel challange/new gameplay). Providing the player with either a checkpoint right before the vines or with a small immunity period while the vines burned would have made the flow from challenge to challenge feel much smoother.
The only other friction I encountered may very well have been an intentional design decision; every time I jumped near a ceiling, my platformer instincts kicked in and would release the jump button early to try to perform a smaller jump. Ordinarily, a variable-height jump makes a platformer feel so much more fluid and responsive and it *could* be a great option to add here, but I could also see it competing for space with the torch-carrying mechanic, because they both accomplish similar goals.
Please don't let the long post make you think that I didn't like the game - The opposite is true, I really enjoyed it! The fact that you had such a well executed vision makes it easy to comment on the nitpickiest details, because you obviously put a ton of care into what you made. Very well done, and thank you for sharing! :)