FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD43 → Altar

Altar

By niterich, bhavesh-tiwari and elnu

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6813.2361
Fun7582.9463
Innovation9052.6363
Theme6953.1963
Graphics5423.4562
Audio4603.1260
Humor8332.0452
Mood5663.2562

Comments

izi 2018-12-04 04:44

First!

Keep up the good work! (:

hunter-ahlquist 2018-12-04 04:56

are these those internet web crawlers i've been hearing about?

konomizure 2018-12-04 05:02

Nice game, sorry to hear that some of your teamates dropped out. Besides that, it is a pretty fun game!

selgeron 2018-12-04 05:07

Played the game, killed some spiders, I brought the spiders I found to the 3 altars I found and none of them did anything though.... Sorry if I'm being dense, but they just sit there. If you let me know what I'm doing wrong, ill try it again!

anfaas1618 2018-12-04 05:10

Its confusing it will be better if you make a gameplay video on YouTube so we can see how ot works but 5/5 for graphics

elnu 2018-12-04 05:14

@selgeron You need to fill up all the altars to beat the game. They don't give you any bonuses, they are just tasks needed to do to complete the game. In a future version I'll add a short sacrifice particle effect/animation. Thanks for playing!

bungus-productions 2018-12-04 05:51

Nice game! I might recommend color-coding the altars as it's a bit confusing at first but once you figure out where they all are there's a nice gameplay loop and it's really fun to unload your spells and bring in a bunch of spiders.

elnu 2018-12-04 05:54

@bungus-productions Will do in the post-LD version! Thanks for playing and giving your input.

maycon 2018-12-04 06:13

hahah... passed some good minutes playing. Nice art and great idea.

elnu 2018-12-04 06:29

@maycon Thanks!

kypello 2018-12-04 23:15

Cool game! I really like the graphics.

rumor 2018-12-05 03:59

It got a lot easier once I figured out I had to hold down the left mouse button to attack and not just click really fast. It's kind of hard to find my way around though. Even once I did find the right altars, the world is too big and looks too similar to make navigation easy. Simplest thing I'd suggest is just adding a wayfinding arrow that points to the correct altar for the spider type I'm holding. Or you could throw in a couple of unique objects as landmarks (recognizable rocks, a big weird-looking tree, lakes, whatever) that I could use to build a mental map - oh there's that one rock, that means the altar I need is up and to the left! That sort of thing. Good job overall though!

ryan-brenner 2018-12-05 04:21

Great game! Although I'm not sure if I'm missing something or doing something wrong, but there doesn't seem to be an end screen? I'm pretty sure I've slain all the spiders and filled all the altars and I'm sort of just wandering around aimlessly now. Despite that, I really like the graphics and setting. The light music in the background with the rain and thunder gives it a really nice ambiance. The spell effects are great too (especially #3!). My only suggestions would be a map of some sort to see where all the altars are located (I spent a lot of time trying to figure out where to deliver my spiders) and a way to make it more obvious what spiders are needed at each location. Awesome job!

lexyvil 2018-12-05 04:22

Neat game~ It took me a while to realize I could pick more than one spider at a time. The sprites are very well drawn too! I couldn't finish it from not being able to find the last altar, kind of wish there directions could be shown, but the combat was interesting~

elnu 2018-12-05 04:28

@ryan-brenner Thanks so much for your response! Ya, the win screen missing is a known issue. We were really tight with time by the end of Ludum Dare 43, so we didn't get a chance to fix it. We'll fix it soon. Thanks for all your suggestions, We'll be sure to implement them post-LD!

elnu 2018-12-05 05:22

@rumor Thanks for playing our game! Landmarks did come across my mind when creating the game, but we didn't get a chance to do it. Great idea about the wayfinding arrow that points to the correct altar for the spider type you're holding! We'll definitely put that in the post-LD version! We really appreciate you play testing it!

elnu 2018-12-05 05:23

@lexyvil Thanks for testing out the game! You probably did find all the altars, there is a known glitch where the end screen doesn't appear.

boopsgames 2018-12-05 07:24

The graphics are excellent! Sylvia's sprites and those spiders especially!

mza 2018-12-05 14:40

Artwork and sounds are great. Physically carrying around spiders looks a bit clunky, perhaps an inventory would be better and some more damage animations/vfx for both sylvia and the spiders would be cool. Congrats! :thumbsup:

@mertios : Regarding the question about BlackThornProd. I saw a couple of his tutorials, but I didn't get inspiration from his artwork - albeit it looks similar. I do tend to draw things more cartoony as oppose to being more realistic. His artwork is far better than mine lol.

gaming-night 2018-12-05 20:33

Nice cool game, I hate spiders !!

gucio-miszcz 2018-12-05 20:34

The game itself looks really nice, with good background music. It was fun playing it for about 10 minutes, but after that it was like - where did I left that spider? where are the altars? and just running from one side of map to another. I couldn't find one of the spiders I've slayned before, probably it was under graphics of one of the trees, because of which I was not able to finish the game - checked literally whole the map, line after line...

elnu 2018-12-05 20:58

@gucio-miszcz You can pick up multiple spiders at once, it makes things a lot easier. :wink:

rohezal 2018-12-05 21:46

Nice game, sweet sound effects and nice gfx effects. The webs and the lightning are doing a great job for the ambience. I would have prefered a Zelda or Terranigma style combat system. So you could attack and move. Or slower rotation rates for the spiders.

gamebuilder 2018-12-05 21:58

Cool game. Once I learned how to collect mushrooms and use Spell #3, I had the game mastered. I don't like spiders so I found much satisfaction in this game. Them critters are creepy.

elnu 2018-12-05 22:04

@gamebuilder Thanks for your feedback, I remember your comment from LD42! I can't wait to play yours!

gucio-miszcz 2018-12-05 22:16

@mertios The problem was that I've figured out how to pick them up after I had killed all of them :P That is why you read entire instruction first :laughing:

elnu 2018-12-05 22:34

@gucio-miszcz I should probably add some in-game tips :wink:

eric-smith 2018-12-06 03:38

Fun little game here! I managed to kill all the spiders. Once I figured out that you just had to grab mushrooms, I was thinking "not enough mushrooms!' Then I figured out that they are actually in abundance. Finding the alters was really tough. Maybe a mini-map would help? It wasn't until the end I figured out that I could carry multiple spiders and once and I had no idea if certain spiders only fit in certain alters? Anyway, well done! :clap:

elnu 2018-12-06 03:47

@eric-smith Thanks for your reply! Out of curiosity, did you manage to see a "You Win" screen? We've been having trouble with a bug that prevents it from showing up. :confused:

eric-smith 2018-12-06 03:51

@mertios I did not see a win screen. I was wondering about that. I killed all the spiders, filled all the alters and nothing happened so I just quit out.

elnu 2018-12-06 04:07

@eric-smith Yeah, sorry about that. We were really tight on time by the end of it, so we didn't get enough time to playtest the game. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll get the issue solved in a bugfix. Thanks!

steel-dev 2018-12-07 02:11

Really like this :D them pesky spooders >:) great job :D

saoi-games 2018-12-07 07:30

Thank you for sharing your game with me. I played it on my stream tonight at https://www.twitch.tv/saoigames

I have rated your game, but all of my feedback was captured in the stream.

You can hear my comments in the archive at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/345723905

arvejeitor 2018-12-07 18:06

Nice game, but kinda hard, I started the game and the spider attacked me inmmediatly xD

emcannon 2018-12-07 19:07

It was fun, but I couldn't figure out what magic did. :P

elnu 2018-12-07 21:36

@emcannon The magic damages the spiders. For example, the first magic slot is an ice attack, the second slot is a fire attack, and the final slot is a skull attack. You collect magic spells be eating the mushrooms spread throughout the forest. Hope this helps, and tell me if you have any other issues with the game!

elnu 2018-12-07 22:01

@saoi-games Thank you **so** much for streaming our game! If I remember correctly, I think you streamed my game *Countdown* last Ludum Dare. To answer your question, no, spiders do not regenerate. You beat the game when every single spider has been sacrificed to an altar. However, currently, there is a glitch that the win screen doesn't appear. :confused: Thank you for your time!!

jorgegamedev 2018-12-08 01:14

2018-12-08 00H-38M-39S.png

As much as I wanted to reach the end of the game and seeing the 'You win!' screen, I unfortunately ended the game mid-way through. Like other comments have said, the game would definitely benefit a lot from direction queues and sign-posting as to where to find the altars, as in both of my runs I spent a great span of time just moving around trying to find where the 3 :skull: and 4 :skull: altars were.

The game had several interesting ideas in terms of the different levelled spiders and collecting mushrooms in order to collect spells, and the different spells gave the game a more strategic point of view. Although they do feel like they could also be slightly a bit more balanced as in most situations I mostly ended up using the third spell.

Other than that, the graphics had some appeal to it even if you used some free packages, and the audio also gave it some mood, despite the rain sounds with no actual sound overlay. I'd recommend you increase the size of the embed on itch.io though, as some elements were slightly cut-off the screen.

On [behalf of our team](https://discord.whalesandgames.com), it's really sad to hear that you had the issue of two team members dropping out during the jam. I really hope that all of you that made it to the end are able to do their best next time and that you don't unfortunately end up with the same situation. We'll be cheering for you! :whale:

elnu 2018-12-08 01:57

Skull update added yesterday.

elnu 2018-12-08 01:58

Thanks so much for your extensive review @jorgegamedev! Sorry to hear you didn't manage to get to the end, I'm still trying to figure out that bug preventing the win screen from popping up. :bug:

In the post-jam version, I'll add most of the things people recommended, especially direction queues. Icons for the spells would also be nice! :wink:

I've joined you discord server! :whale:

renegadepunisher 2018-12-08 20:18

Nice graphics, and the sounds really set the scene. I played to the point that I couldn't find any more spiders and all altars I found were full, but there was no indication that I had won. I'd recommend adding a minimap so the player knows where they need to go, also some kind of reward for filling up an alter.

Pretty good effort though. Well done.

kaipi 2018-12-08 21:06

Great job on graphics! the mood was great, I liked killing the spiders I would love to have some sort of points after killing them, nice job!

elnu 2018-12-09 00:26

You can win the game now! The bug where the win screen doesn't appear is now dead. :skull: :bug: Screenshot from 2018-12-08 14-37-24.png

xphere 2018-12-09 21:02

Nice game! Finished the game, but it gets repetitive after a while. Also it's hard to keep track of where are the altars and those that are full. Nice graphics. Good job!

boyturnedrobot 2018-12-12 02:18

Had some trouble figuring out the alter mechanic and the fact that I had to hold down the mouse button to attack. Overall though it was a fun game. Nice graphics too. Well done.

secretpocketcat 2018-12-14 09:34

A lovely entry with great atmosphere. Reading the credits on the Itch page, you should have probably opted ot of graphics, though. The core gameplay is let down a bit by the melee combat - just standing there and holding the mouse button doesn't feel particularly exhilarating. Also, the player can just walk away, wait for the HP regen to do its thing and then return. The spells, however, are cool and the skull one is downright badass (though OP and abundant). I'd love to see either a slash + dodge mechanics and something purely focused on spells.

There're a few other things. Namely, the input doesn't seem to be normalized meaning diagonal movement is faster. Carrying multiple spiders looks a bit funky (you could add an inventory or allow the player to carry just one). Lastly, a minimap or a some kind of pointers would work wonders as I was running around quite a bit.

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-16 11:15

Nice game! I have linux too, but I can't find unity 2018.1.9f2 that I always use.

elnu 2018-12-16 19:47

@franciszek-pyrc What do you mean? Through Unity Hub? :thinking:

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-16 19:49

Oh, there is unity hub for Linux?

elnu 2018-12-16 21:06

@franciszek-pyrc Yes, there is. There is a thread on the Unity Forums that has the download link, it's a bit tricky to find.

elnu 2018-12-16 21:13

@franciszek-pyrc I did some digging and I found the [download link](https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-hub-v-1-0-0-is-now-available.555547/). What Linux distro are you on?

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-17 04:02

@mertios Ubuntu.

elnu 2018-12-17 04:20

@franciszek-pyrc Ok, same as me! You should be good then. Tell me if you have any problems getting to work. :thumbsup:

folex70 2018-12-19 01:34

Beautiful graphs! congratulations!

elnu 2018-12-19 02:33

@folex70 Thanks!

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-24 11:55

@mertios I have fixed the jam linux version of my game. Sadly I didn't built a post jam version and now I can't do that.

elnu 2018-12-24 23:05

>> Sadly I didn’t built a post jam version and now I can’t do that.

What do you mean?

elnu 2018-12-24 23:05

@franciszek-pyrc

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-25 04:02

I mean that there isn't a post jam version for my game for Linux.

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-25 04:02

I mean that there isn't a post jam version for my game for Linux.

dock-frankenstein 2018-12-25 04:03

I mean that there isn't a post jam version for my game for Linux.

elnu 2018-12-26 06:14

@franciszek-pyrc Ok.

elnu 2018-12-26 06:14

@franciszek-pyrc Ok.

elnu 2018-12-26 06:14

@franciszek-pyrc Ok.

2018-12-26 18:28

Neat game! I included it in my compilation video series of games from the Ludum Dare, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/piFMgX8tbrA

elnu 2018-12-26 20:20

Thanks for playing @jupiter-hadley! I really appreciate it.

bhavesh-tiwari 2019-07-29 10:37

Thanks @jupiter-hadley for reviewing our game:)