vanleiden 2019-04-29 19:46
This is great! Love the shooting mechanic. Amazing job!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD44 → Arrow of Light
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 97 | 3.96 | 118 | |
| Fun | 87 | 3.90 | 118 | |
| Innovation | 190 | 3.59 | 118 | |
| Theme | 222 | 3.75 | 117 | |
| Graphics | 470 | 3.66 | 118 | |
| Audio | 81 | 3.94 | 118 | |
| Humor | 353 | 3.16 | 112 | |
| Mood | 181 | 3.78 | 118 |
This is great! Love the shooting mechanic. Amazing job!
Neat Game! The mechanics feel very satisfying to perform. The sound helps a lot. I feel if I'd suggest anything it would be to make it so projectiles don't go through stuff allowing you to maneuver around obstacles. The life cost may be a bit high too since I was having to repeat the same room to build points.
the shooting mechanic was excellent, the audio was good too, especially the music.
Hey this is a neat little concept. I did have trouble finding my away around the levels, but otherwise great. Nice shooting mechanics and I like the way you made life be the gate between areas.
Despite the primitive graphics and poor color combinations, the gameplay is perfectly polished. the music and cute faces of the girls enhance the cute atmosphere.
Very fun! The shooting mechanic is tricky but once you get the hang of it it's pretty rewarding. I love the interactions with the townspeople - makes it believable. The reapers are a neat way to use the theme, but unfortunately you can get yourself stuck if you die and reload a save point beyond the reaper (you can't get back). Great job though!
This looks very cool, but how do I get out of Forgotton Town?
@ComicSans Hi, there should be a door you can press the `down` key on to leave!
a classic platformer with some light weapon. Tons of working game elements and nice graphics. And nice flower theme, and ladders and small town.
A fun game with a surprising amount of content to it for a weekend project. Also, the number of music tracks in the game is surprising, and I love the "one, two, three, four" in each of them. The shooting mechanic can feel a bit slow at times, however, and the final area is a bit too difficult. Otherwise, the game is great and surprisingly fleshed out.
I love the arrow shooting. It's a mechanic I've seen before, but rarely seen done as well as here. The graphics were excellent for a jam, enough that it seemed like a style choice instead of one based off time constraints. I accidentally found a cave when I missed a jump, which was either dumb luck on my part or excellent level design on yours. I see other people praising the sound, but for some reason the games entirely silent to me. Not sure why that is. Theme was it was pretty good, but for the life to actually be a "currency" i'd expect it to be used for more that just tolls. You should keep building on this game after the jam is over.
Definitively love the style. The bow mechanics is pretty sweet. The soundtrack is also simple and very catchy. :slight_smile:
Really cute. Innovative shooting mechanic. Challenging and compelling at the same time. Really nice job.
well done bro
That was a lot of fun. I was totally bummed when the enemies could shoot through walls... I thought I was under cover... lol! Nice Work! Thanks!
Just beautiful! So lovely, and such a complete game - not just a prototype! I kinda felt like it was unfair that the baddies could shoot through platforms and I couldn't... but the music made me not grumpy about it.
Really cool game! I made it through the mines but only had 65 health at the 66 health reaper so I must have missed a flower or something. I loved the music.
Congrats, well done.
It's very cool. They used the theme well. A good soundtrack. 1, 2, 3, 4!
Please, rate my game and leave some feedback too =]
https://kaish.itch.io/jukebox
I loved the music and the mood that you both achieved in this entry! My favorite part was the slow fall while aiming the arrows. I am also very glad that the girl at the bottom of the mines acknowledged what a freakin' pain it was to walk all the way back down there to her :)
Very nice entry! The simple art and music worked very well.
Wow, this is smooth, long and very fun! I completed the game (I wish there was a "secret" in the first world, not that the amount of content is not enough). The arrow mechanics works supergood, I specially loved how your jump slows down when throwing an arrow. I've missed different enemy behaviors, specially since the sprites were different (they do different damage, but something like movement, or more health would've been great). Incredible job!
Love the idea, jumped out of my seat when I was struck by lightning
Wow! This is my favorite LDJam 44 game yet! Just about everything about this game is perfect.
Tight (and interesting) movement and shooting. Rewards player for being skillful, and prevents progression until you learn.
The art variety is excellent. Each area has its own flavor. Even though it's a short game, it feels like I've been so many places.
The ominous things the reapers say generate a lot of interest and leave the player wondering if he made the right choice. Not a cookie cutter storyline.
Very well done! I am impressed!
It looks great, I liked it. nice work!
The arrows mechanic is pretty nice, great work there !
What a delicious game !!! I could not stop playing until it was over! Simple and fun! I miss games like that! Congratulations!
Great game, reminds me on Wonderboy II, adventure land. LOVE IT!
Really cool graphics and mechanics. For real, the sound that the character makes when walks its truly nice. Also the music is another great point of the game.
In the beggining it seems just a simple platformer but the shooting mechanic makes it unique. Kinda tricky but easy to learn. Also, the stage design restricting you to advance based on how much life you got is not only a way to fit the theme but also makes the player look for hidden bonus.
Nice job!
This really reminded me of cave story. Although simple, the mechanics were really cool. It's a tough game, so maybe some lead in would be nice (e.g. why do the first enemies 1. float and 2. deal 5 damage). It takes a while to get used to the x/c control scheme. Nice job!
I like the way the game feels with exception of:
- It seems to be running at 30 fps? - Related to the above point, it's a bit hard to aim precisely as the angle changes too fast and the framerate can't keep up.
The music seemed a bit sporadic in places, and some of the sound effects (the lightning strike in particular) are way too loud.
The animation of the sprites, especially the character falling, is very nice. Charging an arrow feels responsive and it's very easy to tell where it's going to go.
cool mechanics the game gets crazy if you trigger the sticky shift by mashing it. Great music and art
I really love this entry!!! Sometimes it's hard when you tryto aim from a ladder and you go up and down, but game feeling is awesome anyway. I really like the level design, enemies, platforms and hidden paths are very good solved. Also, good job with aesthetic. Congratilations!!!
The shooting mechanic is interestig, but the enemies shoot too fast in order for me to aim miss and then shoot at them to kill them. The art looks good and the music creates a good mood.
are - you - freaking - kidding me?! This jumped right on top of my favourits. What the heck. The game is oozing a love for this particular period of games, it's super challenging, it has the perfect score, it as secrets, mini games, the most nostalgic village intro...Dudes. Seriously.
Lovely and impressive! So much content, and so well put together. And even autosave of your progress! Really terrific work. It also reminded me of Rogue Legacy with the grim reaper thing and the balloon game (which I won in an impressive manner*, just to let you know). Thanks for this!
*by mashing all the keys frantically
Really well put together game but the aiming is a bit hard to get used to. I liked the consistent graphics and the audio was integrated seamlessly.
This was great! Everything felt really polished and you even got a nice little narrative in there. Shooting mechanic is really satisfying and the challenge is just right. Just one question, can I leave the tower in the end somehow?
Interesting game, but the controls were a little frustrating. Shoot should definitely had been mapped to the mouse to make combined platforming and shooting easier. As it is you have very little time to react to enemies shooting at you
@silkworm-sweatshop Thanks for playing! You can leave the tower, there's just a fake block you have to find to get out!
Yep, this was a pretty cool game with some awesome mechanics and music! I actually left it running while I was browsing the web :smile:. I love platform games so I really enjoyed playing this one. As already been stated, the shooting mechanic is very cool and very satisfying to use. Again I have to say the music was fantastic and I loved listing to it. Congrats on completing the Jam!
This game had really fun and engaging gameplay. The level design was very good, in my opinion. By the time I reached the end, I felt very satisfied, and the music totally enhanced the mood. All around, this is a really good entry!
Also, on some less relevant side notes... For some reason those enemies on the balloons gave me the vibes of Kirby's Adventure (but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the intent), and the heart flowers were insanely satisfying!
Very well done. It was clear right from the main menu that this was going to be a quality entry.
Good level design, i love the way the mechanics of the game embraced the theme. The music was a bit annoying on the start, but it hit the right spot at the Tower.
Damn, bar far the best entry I've played so far... And I don't think anything might be able to top this. This feels, looks and plays like a finished, bugfree and balanced product. I love the fighting mechanic (bow&arrow ftw) and the theme is implemented in a way that doesn't feel like it was an unbalanced afterthought. The pixel art is basic but cohesive which gives it a very polished look. The music subtle but awesome and everything about the gameplay feels earned and satisfying. Even though I died a couple of times in the last part (thank you for implementing a checkpoint/save system) it never felt like the game gave me some cheap shots. I actually am astouned how you pulled everything off in such a short amount of time. Awesome! Good luck with the game, not only in the LD but maybe even after this!
There's a lot to say about this game. I'm a big fan of the music, its the right mix of campy and unnerving and is really fitting for the game.
Also i can shoot fireballs. As in, i cannot launch them, but i can kill them with my arrows. thank you for letting me be stronger than the flames.
I liked this game a lot. Being an achiever, I had to go all over the place and search for all the hearts.
The tower was a bit hard at first, but I finally got it. The whole experience was really nice. Enemies being able to shoot thru the walls while you are not is a nice touch. Makes you think about positioning. I also really liked the fact that you go into a slow-mo mode while aiming and jumping.
Very well done.
I love this game!!! I watched it played on twitch and I wanted to try it but couldn't before now. I just wish people play this till the end, because they lose so much if they don't. Amazing job, @sylvie, doing such a great job (graphics, story, implementation) in such a short time! Not to forget the music maker... The music fitted perfectly and I LOVE the change in the tower. Good job @hubol! I love how the story gets better and better as it enrolls and even though it is challenging it is also satisfying to achieve the victory. I just love this game! :smile: Make sure to let me know when this gets published! :slight_smile:
<<<>>> Spoiler alert <<<>>>
ReapersGone.jpg
This game is super adorable! I love the pitter patter of the walking sounds, I love all the dialogue of the NPCs, I love the arrow of light ability (I just wish it could also unveil secret areas like an AOE reveal effect!) The difficulty spikes could be worked on. (easier at the beginning, and ramping up to 10 at the end?) And yeah, pretty great game :D I could see a lot of people just rage-quitting this game in the starting area, the lava puzzle area where you get the key, the tower where you just get funneled into a bazillion enemies that shoot balls through the wall at suddenly double damage and there's no heals, and after you break the circle of light at the end (because people might not find the way out and then just think that there was no ending and leave unsatisfied.)
This game is really big for jam, as it contains some lore and narrative, additionally, it reminds me of good old games for Sega or NES/SNES. However, it's a little bit too hard.
You have a lot good going on here. Firing was well done though enemies seemed to fire a bit to fast for me to actually shoot them, put I could just be bad at it. Overall I liked it!
I loved this game, but it was a little too hard to start out with. The enemies can take out half of your health in one shot, which is hard when you are still getting used to shooting. It's a great game, and I would totally play it on my own if the difficulty curve ramped up more smoothly!
(I just want solitude)
Me too, small blue-haired reaper of darkness. Me too.
-------------------------------------
Impressive amount of content/levels for a game jam. So many secrets, plus a minigame, story, and NPCs to boot. Excellent work for two people and 72 hours!
Really cute game. I liked all the little bits of world building you put in there. I thought I found the use of flowers as health interesting. If this was further developed, I think as a player, I would like it if I had the option to pick up flowers rather than just walk over them (even though I knew they regenerate when I re-enter the screen). The arrow shooting was frustrating yet satisfying lol. Great job!
Thanks for hanging out on the stream, as well. Here's the [link to the stream](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/420903849). Your game should start around [58:50].
Thank you for submitting your game to be played on my stream!
Once the stream is finished you can find the video here: https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos If you want to know when it was played you can find your game in the queue here: https://tinyurl.com/y5rdokvp
Very innovative shooting mechanic!!! The story was lovely, and I'm surprised you had time to implement a story at all! I found it a little too hard, but I persevered and it wasn't that hard afterwards. This makes me think the other reviews of ramping up difficulty have a point! It could be easier at the beginning, especially since us players aren't used to the mechanic. Oh yes, and the music is great!!
All in all, a fantastic entry, you should be proud!
Awesome game, easily the most fun I've had all jam. The only thnig that I'm concerned about is the lyrics of the song; 1,2,3,4! I would not recommend this game to people who are only just learning to count, this game is hard! And I loved it! thanks for the awesome game, ending wasn't the greatest, but it's still an all round amazing game!
That was a pretty fun game. I liked shooting arrows around, and you falling slower when charging an arrow was a nice touch.
However, I think I am doing something wrong, how do I get past the reaper who requires 66 life to pass? :-(
@caranha You are probably overlooking an important secret area, search more carefully in the fields!
Nicely done! I am bad at platformers usually, and this is a bit of an example of that. :P I found the 5hp per hit quite harsh for the early opponents. Nonetheless, I quite enjoy the archery part. Visuals and music also fun!
Loved this one! Super cute art, adorable music (reminded me of Puzzle Bobble, in a good way), fun dialog, slick visual effects, and a clever core mechanic. My one gripe would be the slow aiming relative to the firing rate of the enemies, especially given that aiming can't be changed on ladders; at times I felt a bit too frustrated by the controls to enjoy the challenge that had been designed into the levels (mostly near the end). Very excellent work all the same, and an impressive amount of satisfying content was delivered here. Hats off to you both!
Fantastic Job. I loved the work that went into this, and enjoyed the attention to detail, down to the various dialogue triggers and hidden rooms.
Pretty fun! A little bit slow paced and grindy at parts, but it was satisfying to finish. I liked the ending where you could go and talk to everyone. The music was great and really set the mood for each area.
One of my favourite LD entries! It felt complete, and the music really added to the mood. I didn't find it as hard as some claimed, but I did have a bit of a hard time finding where to go, like knowing there was a second secret wall in the flower area.
I really liked it! The bow mechanics were satisfying. I will say that the theme felt a little unfulfilled, since the life tollgates all had infinitely respawning flowers before and after them. I didn't feel like I was risking much by paying the toll.
But the gameplay worked great. Nice work!
H
Hi you two, great job making this game in such a little time. I enjoyed it very much, maybe as much as I would have for a normal non-LD game. I'm an RPG fan after all so.. And that arrow thing was really cool in the end (felt like a true Link from BotW). Here are some notes and thinking I had while playing your game.
MUSIC AND SOUND EFFECTS - neat music, maybe too much waiting in the beginning of the tracks, nice colors (changing instruments), catchy rhythms, special mention to Cavern of Flames that nails the ambiance and feels very “whole”
- nice sound effects
- nice use of the silence at the end
GAMEPLAY - nice controls and mechanics: simple and effective while having some depth (when you can slowmo if you aim while jumping, and yeah I get the BotW reference ;) )
- maybe you could have make us able to aim on top of us
- at the end nice arcade difficulty where if you fail it is only because you didn't get or master the gameplay enough
LEVEL DESIGN, ENVIRONMENT - nice classic nintendo rpg elements: invisible paths hinted
- nice guiding: having very little health, at first, and enemies doing so much damage to us was a good teaching of the need to move ; then this little mini game help us understand we can fire a lot at a time
- the bottom of the lava cave was actually a very clever level design because we had to "overcome our fears", in a way: jumping into lava, then risk to jump again into lava to get to a maybe invisible path on the left... very well done. With the little secret path on the right that leads back to the entrance, good point too.
- nice difficulty management between the middle/end of first level and the second level: beginning to gain more health bar made me felt like I could kamikaze to the enemies and refill my health almost instantly, it was like a vacation ; but when I began level 2, I rapidly understood that this will not work anymore as there were no more that many flowers around... This was a nice managing of my, as a player, objectives and concerns and also my tension and engagement in the game: both situations felt actually very nice, being silly in the fields and running like an invincible suicidal hero and just being silly, but also having to get more serious while the story goes on and I must catch up to be more skillful the level 2. Nice work ;)
FUN, FEEL - nice details: all of the places have names, and even the Tower's name changes depending of how far are you in the story ; awesome little animations (climbing, falling down), the speaking with everyone at the end, that "one, two, three, four" that changes in the musics giving literally a voice to what ambiance is on (may it be challenge, adventure, calmness). All of these things a little things but very cool to notice and definitely adds a "something" to the overall feel of the game.
- juicy life system: many life giving objects as well as many ways to loose it makes our health bar getting down and up and down and up so much it is super fun. Also, super satisfactory feeling about the life meter at the end when I finished the tower with 4 health left and replenished my health meter outside so fast, it felt awesome
- also jumping in lava with all 75 health is super fun :D
IMPROVEMENT POSSIBILITIES - gameplay, mechanics: I believe that two more controls would contribute to a more engaging gameplay. I'm thinking crouching (by holding down on the ground) and felling down faster (by holding down in the air). These would make us more responsible of our dodging abilities and could lead to some awesome and super fun moments. :)
- difficulty: I noted two difficulty peaks that I felt unnecessary/unfair. The first one is the actual first bunch of enemies. I mean really? They two shot you? That's more than harsh. But anyway. The second one is the tower. But this time I felt like to get us more smoothly to this level of difficulty you needed more time and so I can't blame you for it. *
Overall great game to play, well composed with enough content and diverse actions to do. Definitely a stand out.
This is, actually, a game!
This game is insanely polished! Your main mechanic is really refreshing, I haven't seen anything like it before. And it works marvelously! The graphics are absolutely charming and the audio design likewise. You created a great mood there! All in all your game feels like a fleshed out, finished product. Awesome job!
"I just want solitude" :-D
Also, of course I went all the back down the cave to tell her :-)
This game is AWESOME! Really great work! In fact I am keeping the game open in another window instead of just another tab while typing this so that the music does not get muted.
This music is the first thing that I want to talk about. It is extremely high quality for a Ludum Dare entry, I have not heard anything like it in any game here before! 1, 2, 3, 4 in all its variations, please let me download that separately! :-) How cool to use the same song but put different moods into every version!
EDIT hey you actually put your OST in the links :-) Did not see that at first, thank you, good call!
The graphics are so cute, I too am a big fan of pixel art, especially when it is made so very well! Everything is clear, no confusion as to what is what in any place. You really know what you are doing.
I see that you drew inspiration from NewZealand Story. But you really made it your own, it is not at all a clone, you have created a very unique game. I love the arrow mechanics, it is kind of hard to use but you created a very nice difficulty level throughout the whole game. One enemy, then two, then three (almost like the song) and three is really enough to barely plow through! Perfect balance in my opinion!
The backtracking through the level, the victory lap so to speak, felt like a real accomplishment. The feeling when you leave the tower, the music starts and everybody acknowledges what you did - man you really created another world here.
All the hidden places and little jokes everywhere, I laughed out loudly a couple of times :-)
I have probably never used that many exclamation points in a review! ;-)
5/5 to you, this is my personal winner this LD and I am pretty sure you will be at least top 10 (even though I have not seen most of the other games). I am following you now and am really excited to see your future entries. I hope to see much more of you. Thank you for your great work!
Loved the music and shooting arrows was satisfying, so was finding all the secret rooms. The fact the initials enemies deal 5 damage and then 10 at the end is a large amount of damage, even with 90 health I can only get hit 9 times. It is a very difficult game but enjoyable.
Many secrets! Very much lore! This was awesome! 1, 2, 3, 4!
Nice job. I enjoyed the art and music especially. I liked the simple mechanic used in the game which made it easy to learn. I think there was a nice balance of wanting to keep trying versus being too hard.
I finally had the chance to play this, and I really enjoyed it! First, some constructive criticism:
1. Couldn't set up the joystick. It just didn't work in the menu, so I had to use the keyboard. 2. Colour of the character is too dark. With colour, she blends into the purple backgrounds. Even in different colours though, all of her values are really low. Some bright values on her as well would make her pop. 3. Wish there were a combo system. I hit two bad guys with one arrow, and it would be nice if that were acknowledged. 4. Wish the edges of the screen that were impassable looked so. I tried to walk to the next screen a few times.
Some good stuff:
1. Nice controls. Moving and aiming felt pretty easy to do. 2. *One, two, three, four! ♫* Cute music! 3. Love the user interface. I like how the health flies out of the character, one hit point at a time. Shooting the balloons in the menu is nice too. It would be more clear if "Load Game" were changed to "Continue" though. 4. I like how the arrow can catch fire. You could create puzzle and combat elements out of that.
Impressive amount of work for a weekend! Very good job.
Really cool game! I really liked the shooting mechanic and I enjoyed the difficulty of the game. I was a little lost at the beginning before I found the cave entrance. Overall, I felt it was a really solid game for a jam!
Really nicely put together, with a few frustrations.
I found the aiming mechanic quite challenging, meaning that I died a lot. That meant I constantly had to wait on the screen fade to the main menu, shoot the 'new game' balloon, and go back through the non-skill rooms. It just felt slow. Hard to practice and improve when there's 40 seconds of boredom between attempts.
It seems unfair the enemies can magically shoot through the ground, but I can't. I got hit by a lot of far-off shots that I _felt_ safe from.
The music is lovely, and the art suits the game quite well. Love the dialogue and world-building!
@trevor-shoe Thanks for the feedback. From your description, it sounds like you could have instead popped the "load game" ballon. Popping this loads the last autosave. The game autosaves on room entry, but I guess it must not be clear from the language...
Very well put together. Charming from the get go, and with an exceptional soundtrack to boot. My once piece of feedback is the starting enemies hit for way too much damage. When you're supposed to be getting used to the controls and how to aim your arrows accurately, you can die in about 3 seconds of not positioning correctly. It takes away from the experience in my opinion.
Very nice game, loved the steps sound, but i think it would be easier and more comfortable play if the shooting used the mouse.
That was pretty great! I loved the sound track and how bits of it tied each of the themes together. Really challenging at first, but wasn't too bad when I got the hang of it, and thank goodness you could re-load from the start of a level when you die!
I tried plugging in my gamepad, but the UI just went crazy (was constantly moving around in the configuration screen) and couldn't get it to work, but I managed to suffer through on keyboard.
Very nice gameplay! Feels like a mix between Yoshi's Island, Towerfall and Max Payne (stopping mid-air feels bullet time-y).
Enemy bullets not getting stopped by the environment feels wildly unfair, and there are a lot of fun strategic duels that would happen if this was implemented.
I'm really surprised by the rankings - expected this to easily end up in the top 25 or so. Maybe it's just bad luck with the game's strengths not really fitting the given categories too well, or there was just too much content so many players missed out on most of it. Gameplay- and level design-wise it was my favorite of what I've played this time around!