FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD23 → Hero of Rain

Hero of Rain

By 31eee384

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness372
Overall483.82
Mood503.64
Fun693.58
Audio903.45
Humor1832.82
Theme2363.40
Graphics2433.31
Innovation3793.05

Comments

covebit 2012-04-23 15:11

Damn! 5/5

fireblend 2012-04-23 15:11

Loved how simple and yet original the concept/story were; and the controls were just right! Nicely done :D

binary_girl 2012-04-23 15:12

love the gfx and decent game :)

robbiehunt 2012-04-23 15:13

Really great visuals, and idea and sound and ... yeah dude, great job!

ratking 2012-04-23 15:14

Perfect atmosphere, and polishing one can only dream of! Really cool, 5/5 overall.

neilo 2012-04-23 15:21

Hope you get round to finishing this!

lotsa 2012-04-23 15:33

Great game, had a lot of fun playing.

31eee384 2012-04-23 16:37

Thanks all! I did spend a considerable amount of time polishing throughout the project, for the compo result and for extensibility post-compo.

(In other words, it's likely that I'll come back to this project at some point, because I tried to make it easy for me to come back to it.)

cakencode 2012-04-23 18:44

It was exceptionally fun! Neat art style, it's very abstract and minimal. Hope you finish!

xsmalldeadguyx 2012-04-23 19:21

Pretty fun, a bit hard and not much help with controls, is there any way to shoot or anything?

31eee384 2012-04-23 22:55

Cake&Code: Thanks!

Alex Gilday: You're told how to shoot when you get the gun, and I included instructions on this page as well as in-game.

Maybe I'll record a playthrough, so people don't get stuck or think they've finished when they haven't. If you follow the right path, it's easy to get through the game with minimal damage.

31eee384 2012-04-24 00:13

Added a link to a quick playthrough of the game! Should be detailed enough to help find a survivable path.

draknek 2012-04-24 16:48

I found it really unintuitive that I had to click on doors to open them. It's a good thing you were closing doors behind me or I would probably have taken that key all the way back to the beginning before finding the weapon!

Combat seemed mostly unfair, I died a lot...

matt-rudder 2012-04-24 18:35

Very cool.

31eee384 2012-04-24 18:47

Draknek: Thanks for playing! I had limited play testing by other people, so I had no idea the game was challenging. Do you have any suggestions for door unlocking? I made it open on click because that was the first thing I thought of--maybe when you get close enough you're prompted to hit "e" (rebindable), or just automatically unlock when you pass by? (For now, I'll make it more clear on this page what the controls are.)

Matt Rudder: Thanks!

sheepolution 2012-04-25 17:31

Awesome idea! Too bad you couldn't finish it.

vdz 2012-04-25 18:43

Wonderful game, you should definitely finish it. Still, it gets -1 overall on my score for not being finished, despite the amount of polish.

The gameplay was pretty simple, but it was very well made and provided an actual challenge - I died multiple times, yet none of the deaths felt unfair. The controls worked perfectly, and the amount of polish is amazing for an LD game.

Theme-wise, this game was brilliant. It's an innovative way to use the subject, and it's completely central to the game. I couldn't ask for better.

The graphics were clean and charming, and functionally they were perfect; despite the abstract style it was clear who was an enemy and who wasn't, you could instantly see where you could walk and where you couldn't walk, and the simple effect on the transforming enemies clearly conveyed that you were fucked if you were too close. My only complaint is that it might have been too abstract - if hadn't been for the text, you wouldn't know you were in a raindrop. For that matter, I never really know what exactly my allies and enemies were, other than 'those star-shaped things' and 'those round things'.

Sound-wise, the game simply does its job. There's no background music, but the storm sounds do a great job of setting the atmosphere. Everything that needs a sound has a sound, and the entire thing just feels right. It wasn't revolutionary in any way, but what it did, it did perfectly.

The story was interesting and fairly innovative. I wanted to continue through the game to find out what happens next, which is always a good sign.

The game lagged significantly, which might have been caused by Flash. Still, the game was playable, even if most of it was in slow-motion.

It's a damn shame the game isn't finished, otherwise this would be an easy 5/5.

kato9 2012-04-25 21:20

Great game, I liked the RPGish elements. I was sad that it ended when it did!

suese 2012-04-29 00:38

I loved the abstract visual style with the glowing sprites and the wonky tile map. This game could have been improved with more animation and a more complete conclusion to the game. I was also finding myself wanting a 'run' button for quick bursts. Otherwise the goodies were spread out nicely and logically, it was well balanced and fun.

Thank you for this.

frankthetank 2012-04-29 00:54

Great game, love the simple art style and I also like the level design. Also feels very polished, good job!

matthias_zarzecki 2012-04-30 20:42

Great health-mechanic. Lovely rain-sounds.

Shadow 2012-05-04 03:06

Loved the mood, graphics and audio (it's refreshing to see a game that relies on sfx instead of bgm to create ambiance). I liked how you implemented the "health bar". Now, if I must talk about my personal experience with your game I think it could be summarized as follows: "F*CKING B*STARD RED PAC-MEN OF DEATH! DAMN YOU ALL!"

sidetrackgames 2012-05-05 01:18

Simple and good :)

envy3d 2012-05-05 08:08

Neat game, but I didn't like how choppy it gets when the screen moves.

onehandclap 2012-05-06 17:54

Looks simple, but oozes atmosphere. Great!

31eee384 2012-05-09 02:51

Thanks for the comments, all! This is very helpful to the development of the game in the future. Apologies for the choppiness/slowness and difficulty! Didn't have time to investigate lag at all (I don't have any anyway), and I didn't even realize it was difficult when making it.

If you have a problem getting through somewhere, check out the Youtube link I added to the entry. Most of the challenge seems to be in finding a path, and in that video I show a path that results in zero damage.

dr-pingu 2012-05-11 13:40

Graphics are really nice.
A nice story with a simple idea well developed !
Good job :)

kevinworkman 2012-05-12 01:34

I really wanted to finish this game, but as soon as I got the gun the framerate dropped to an unplayable level. Good start though, I'd like to see you finish it.

keirua 2012-05-12 10:03

Simple, interesting story, nice graphics, very good realization... the only place I did not put 5 stars was innovation since it reminds me a lot of Zelda.
Your game is really good though and I really felt frustrated when I reached the armory :D
I loved the story thing with the rain. It works very well with the sound of rain in the background (and with "clouds be blessed !" that someone says east from the start).

I also liked the different level of zoom depending on the location. This is a nice feature.
However:
- the game is a bit hard or maybe the shooting ennemies are too strong
- the player is too slow IMO, same for the shooting frequency
- it's not very clear at first that the "branches" of the player represent it's amount of life.
- having to click in a game that you control with the keyboard is at first annoying, yet makes sense when you get the weapon

Keep up the good work !

jaj 2012-05-12 12:19

I love this genre, and even though the game ended in the middle of the story, it felt as one of the most complete in its genre made this ludum dare (as far as I played them.) You could do a little more with the visuals to make it really feel like a world inside a raindrop, perhaps some blurry backgrounds that show hints of the bigger world around it. The audio was moody, but I think inside the raindrop the storm wouldn't sound so clear, but more hollow and deformed.

jfroco 2012-05-13 06:22

Great game, hope you finish it.

jeffz 2012-05-14 00:17

brilliant!

murrayl 2012-05-14 00:19

Really hard :(