FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD35 → The Killer's Apprentice

The Killer's Apprentice

By pauljs

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness282
Mood1593.68
Audio3403.25
Graphics4153.56
Innovation6312.95
Humor7741.83
Overall8772.88
Theme9202.73
Fun11022.19

Comments

peringo 2016-04-19 11:33

I like the idea of the man "shifting" and the athmosphere was pretty great! Some deeper gameplay, or some kind of failure state would improve the game in my opinion.
Still, solid work!

matzigon 2016-04-19 12:29

Interesting idea. Sadly the gameplay did not support the story, at least I did not feel it did. Other than that, nice work. :)

david-cookie 2016-04-19 15:23

A game of atmosphere, pretty rare! The gameplay is not that thrilling and would deserve 3D sequences (especially when we see these beautiful backgrounds). But the narration pushed me to continue to find out what it's all about!
So yeah.. An ambitious title that deserves more work, but I can clearly detect a potential: a Dear Esther-lika game, with a darker tone. Great work!

adsilcott 2016-04-19 18:35

Pretty dark. Interesting style and use of the theme.

mightytoaststudio 2016-04-19 18:42

The idea was very good, but the gameplay didn't work with the mood of the game.

banana-hammers 2016-04-19 18:47

Nice twist on the theme, with some very haunting music to go along. But I think the presentation is somewhat lacking; I was unsure of what was going on at first.
I do appreciate the theme you've been going for, although I think the narrative could use a bit more subtlety (yes, obviously we're playing along with this man's actions, we're complicit to them, no need to remind us every other panel; I believe the game has enough strength to speak on its own).
Cheers,
Matei (BananaHammers Team)

sndr 2016-04-19 19:18

I also think that this game still it's not in its full potential. I'd like to see it evolve.
Btw, it was extremely hard for me to kill the bathroom man. I even laughed hard at seeing how clumpsy I was being. :P

hyoga-3d 2016-04-20 00:38

Very different way of using the theme, but it was just too dark for me, but it's because I don't like terror things, but the game is nice, just not my type.

nihilaleph 2016-04-20 01:34

Nice twist! Mood, audio and art are great! Though there were some pictures that kept flickering while playing, and some of the collisions were weird, like the Next room text, or when someone bump into me.

Anyways great entry!

pokipsy 2016-04-20 08:54

I loved the atmosphere and narration. I would have like some choices to make, and a more catchy gameplay. Overall, there is a lot of potential in this entry !

nomys_tempar 2016-04-20 18:03

Love the background and the 2D top view, very cool.

louspirit 2016-04-22 21:44

At first, I didnt realize where the character was, it is not a usual point of view XD. Very beautiful pictures and a worked mood.

powerspark 2016-04-22 23:16

It would be cool with some choices involved in the game.

mf1214 2016-04-22 23:23

Very dark game. Confused at first with the persepective, but I learned eventually. Some more content would be nice, like obstacles and a time limit. Other than that, good job.

dallengd 2016-04-23 09:04

Daring entry. Mood actually worked pretty well even though I would recommend keeping the tone serious in the text. It would have strengthened the theme.

The gameplay sadly does not support the atmosphere. The "targets" don't have believable behaviors. The mother runs around like a crazy rat more than anything else. It was also very frustrating trying to catch her : maybe giving the player more range, lowering the cooldwon, or giving feedback when the targets were in range would help.

Kudos again for the general mood though.

megabrutal 2016-04-23 09:59

Nice atmosphere, nice background music, great graphics.

Would be nice to have some hints on the controls. At first I thought it's a mouse-only game, and it took some time to figure out that I can move with arrows.

How do you render the title screen? I couldn't read from the source. At first I thought it's real 3D animation with WebGL, but it's more likely that it's an animated GIF. With what application you made it?

Thanks for making me a killer, haha! :)

pauljs 2016-04-23 10:15

@MegaBrutal: The game is created with Processing Js and it's software is not really adapt for making games (we can't use videos or gifs for example, so i use another process) ;o But you can find the title screen in GiF here : http://i.imgur.com/EUbX9dU.gif
And you welcome :D

@All: Thanks for the feedbacks ! Some ideas are
interesting ;o) There is some also we don't want to implement like the choice abilities because the story is against that (You only choice it's to stay and play or leave the game)

- PaulJs.

datadazer 2016-04-23 16:11

Very interesting, dark and deep game. I liked the theme interpretation. The music set a good tone for the scene, and I liked the cutscenes. The gameplay was good, but I definitely think it could be improved and made more in depth. Overall, interesting idea with lots of potential!

bulletsarepeopletoo 2016-04-23 20:18

Getting a timeout when I try to play your game. Seems the site is down :(

fin_nolimit 2016-04-23 20:26

That was an interesting concept! i loved the creepy guy that kept popping up!! Excellent game!

pauljs 2016-04-23 20:36

@BulletsArePeopleToo No it's not, can you try the game in Chrome or Firefox in it was not already the case.

jcmonkey 2016-04-23 20:55

Pretty nice game, love the atmosphere :D

ithildin 2016-04-23 23:34

You nailed the mood, but gameplay on the other hand felt a bit pointless.

johnwatmuff 2016-04-24 20:57

lol I've never been so insensitive. cool game

franklins-ghost 2016-04-25 03:44

Interesting take on the theme and the whole mood was really well done. Did have issues with the gameplay especially the scene with the son who I seemed unable to interact with. Thought it was unique visually though with the top down view and the background shot of the room.

xanjos 2016-04-25 20:01

Pretty interesting take on the theme. Very creepy and atmospheric.

2016-04-26 17:17

Hi, nice game ! you use the b&w effects in a very cool way... We're realizing a video with several games of the Ludum Dare #35.
Can you add your game on indiexpo.net ? (it's free)
So we can include also your game in the video ;)
p.s. write #LDJAM in the game's description

pauljs 2016-04-27 00:06

Yes you can ! No problem !

adam 2016-04-28 20:50

I'm not rating because I assume what I encountered was bugs rather than the intended gameplay. I saw odd flickering of characters against the background and a progress bar which seemed to count down to nothing and then restart. I think I would have had trouble anyway as the game was too large to fit on my screen.

rock-eaters 2016-04-28 23:15

strange stuff, but good ambiance

thecolorman 2016-04-30 21:00

Really awesome atmosphere. It gave me the creeps

puppetmaster 2016-04-30 22:24

The mood is great! I also like the great art. Keep up the good work!

seconddimension 2016-05-02 10:33

A unique game and the mood was fantastic.

deadbodyoutline 2016-05-04 03:03

Interesting way to tell a story. I like the background and the atmosphere, but the gameplay needs work to match the mood ;)

pinkindian 2016-05-04 18:43

Really dark take on the theme. The story was great, telling that some things are just a game for others.
The graphics were cool. I really liked the backgrounds and the 'changing' character.

aaranos 2016-05-04 23:31

The atmosphere, gameplay, and story do not really work together. Independently they are good.

wertle 2016-05-05 18:39

Great atmosphere here! I love how you played with the idea that people will play the game that's given to them because that is what they are "supposed" to do, I thought this was a good way of bringing that to light in a super creepy way. The overhead movement over detailed perspective shot of the rooms really conveyed the tone super well (and emphasized that it was not about "gameplay" or skill so much as a context for highlighting this theme). The interstitial text moments were really good, though sometimes the light treatment/humor felt a bit like a mismatch to the tone, but perhaps that was the intent? Really interesting experiment, great job!

terryg 2016-05-06 09:20

interesting graphics style. kind of disturbing, but a good job of being disturbing. a way to lose would be nice.

bsoddevguild 2016-05-06 18:04

Cute little game but I want to see more content along with greater gameplay.

thecain 2016-05-06 22:47

This was not what I was expecting at all, but much more interesting. WASD movements would be nice though.

stanov 2016-05-07 21:00

Thanks for visiting my stream, you can watch my opinions again here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqDS9CXji3A

dcolgan 2016-05-08 03:15

I played the first room and did not really care for the direction things were going. It was bit too grim for my tastes. I will say the format and visuals are really great from what I saw, I am just not into that kind of thing anymore. It reminds me of Killer 7 (from when I used to play that of thing) a bit in how it combines things in addition the gritty atmosphere.

tselmek 2016-05-08 10:41

The topdown perspective of the gameplay felt weird compared to the perspective of the background images. Really cool dark atmosphere although I'd have hoped for less flashing images, which to me didn't really fit the game.