FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD45 → NOTHING : A sentient ascendency

NOTHING : A sentient ascendency

By mak6, Daitse, Brainstorm67, rooster-and-fretillant, Saowll and Morkiche

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6443.3663
Fun6223.1863
Innovation5143.2363
Theme2093.8163
Graphics7943.0963
Audio4193.2661
Humor4672.9061
Mood7853.0562

Comments

yaroslav-kravtsov 2019-10-07 22:56

I don't get how to play. I have a black screen after NOTHING text and looped sound. I should do something to proceed or it is just a bug?

brainstorm67 2019-10-07 23:09

@yaroslav-kravtsov , sorry it was a bug on some computers, should be fixed by now

hmaya 2019-10-07 23:09

same as yaroslav here

geoff-nagy 2019-10-07 23:18

Worked fine for me! Had to do a bit of exploring to find everything, and the collision detection seemed a little glitchy at certain spots, but was otherwise fun! Wandering around looking for parts is a neat idea. Music was great, too! Fun game that can be finished in a quick sitting.

beefbone 2019-10-07 23:48

Finished it pretty fast

syem 2019-10-07 23:53

Pretty cool concept, a few collision issues but overall the feel is nice and there's a bit of challenge. Not very replayable but well done!

yaroslav-kravtsov 2019-10-07 23:54

Now game works and I'm able to play. Controls makes me mad, but I understand that this is a part of conception. I can pass through the closed doors if aim into the middle. It is awesome idea to play in the brain literally and metaphorically.

brainstorm67 2019-10-07 23:58

If you want a bit of a challenge, one of our devs not knowing the location of stuff finished it in 3min 25sec ^^ Enjoy

changemewtf 2019-10-08 00:02

The controls were a little too confusing for me! I was expecting WASD but it was more like... QSZX?

brainstorm67 2019-10-08 01:17

@changemewtf you can select your input keys in the windows launcher to my knowledge, we'll do some ingame setting some time for web users ;)

dry-squid 2019-10-08 01:30

The game surprised me a bit. At first I was like I don't like this game. Then I kept playing it and kept playing it. I like this game quite a bit actually. It started getting super addictive. I always got so close to the next control. I loved how you added controls with each object found. Super cool game. Reminded me of something off of gamecube

merdeboi 2019-10-08 11:49

Pretty neat game. Good selection of items to find and I was able to finish the game! Well done.

whatnamegames 2019-10-08 13:01

Adorable. Interesting mechanic too, would have prefered WASD control, but still cool.

daitse 2019-10-08 14:34

@whatnamegames if you use the Desktop version you can change the input keys :)

whatnamegames 2019-10-08 15:11

@daitse Ah ok, that's great then. Again, really nice job on this.

berkin 2019-10-08 16:24

S key works but W doesn't so i thought i should pull it back then it will charge forward :smile: May be a smooth camera movement could look better. I loved the music and art, i enjoyed playing. Keep up the good work !

karlipoppins 2019-10-08 16:26

Very cool entry! The web version played fine from the first time, and I loved the new mechanics that came with each new object. Very nice little mood, made me feel a bit claustrophobic! Great music, controls/collisions were a bit on the rough side but the gameplay was quite effective.

Great job overall!

nachtwitch 2019-10-08 16:28

Can't complain about anything here, and the name is absolutely amazing

mad-brokli 2019-10-08 16:34

Very cool game and concept. The first part with the black screen was kinda annoying with the looped sound effect. But other than that Very cool :)

daria-toni 2019-10-08 22:59

I got stuck after I found the flashlight. Somebody tell me what to do next! The controls are a bit crazy, but otherwise I like the game, I love puzzle ones. And a funny name :)

zgragselus 2019-10-09 00:13

Congratulations on making game!

Controls are a bit wacky, and the lighting tends to be crazy (especially once you pick light), collisions doesn't work sometimes ... but the idea is cool, and it plays quite well - which is what counts for a jam entry (nobody has enough time to polish the game). I have enjoyed it.

Keep up the good work!

kroltan 2019-10-09 02:04

Nice level design! I liked the upgrades too.

Managed to get the end screen without visiting the area with the pulsating door, though. Not sure if that's a sequence break.

The controls acted _very_ weird around corners, changing my direction suddenly, often to the opposite side. The Web build had severe artifacts (light cookie texture clamping, vertex light for the player light, no initial blackout ("vision" upgrade was useless for me, reading from the comments it was supposed to be hard to see before it)

daitse 2019-10-09 06:17

@daria-toni without spoiling too much you're supposed to light the squares around the last door :)

@kroltan thanks ! It IS a sequence break ! I suppose you powered through the door to get the flashlight or managed to jump on a tunnel ? The problems around the corners may be due to the box colliders that we made bigger than the meshes... The only thing hard to see before the "vision" upgrade is the key sequence necessary to open the next door :) We'll look into the web version issues.

mimusangel 2019-10-09 07:45

The game is really cool, I'm staying block at the door with red and blue, I did not understand how to open it ...

siarhei-pilat 2019-10-09 11:18

The game is 'almost' cute. The controls are terrible, though, the camera makes you dizzy... I mean, it's OK... not great, not terrible...

kroltan 2019-10-09 11:20

Yes, the flashlight area had a door that closed before I could get to it from the start, but when I got the code door and got the new respawn point I could run into that door.

The colliders are fine, by themselves they wouldn't cause that kind of problem, with all respect it might be a bug in the movement code.

odeyalko 2019-10-09 11:23

I liked the game, I did not understand how to open the door with a blue and red square.

daitse 2019-10-09 12:05

@kroltan thanks for the feedback, we'll try to work on it

@siarhei-pilat we will try and make the camera movement smoother if we have time

@odeyalko in the last puzzle you are supposed to get on the platform and flash the right colors in the right order, if you flash a wrong color while in the zone it resets the puzzle. (btw there is also a white square above the door )

crazyhomeboys 2019-10-09 18:47

Nothing.png

Finally after 10 min playing, omg! the last door made me very nervous until I understood the mechanism :v:

dmanzano101 2019-10-09 20:36

14 Generations to complete. I had trouble seeing the white box in the flashlight door, and might have bugged the nitro door accesing it before it being unlocked. Nice and very coherent approach to the theme.

gregoire 2019-10-10 11:29

I finished the game with 2 generations ahah ;)

t8kk 2019-10-10 16:17

A nice little game, when i started out I didn't quite know how to operate the mouse with the movement keys but after a while I got in the hang of it. The game has a refreshing setting with the story and the ludumdare theme is fitted in aswell. Nice entry guys!

douwe-ravers 2019-10-10 18:25

very nice game, cool twist at the end :)

lars-erik 2019-10-10 21:51

Was interesting, but I fought the controls too much. Maybe mouse turning or at least some damping would've helped? Otherwise fun take on the compo.

alicecrd 2019-10-11 12:43

Really hard to play when we are on ZQSD ^^ But nice concept !

coldsanwdich189 2019-10-11 12:53

nice game but a bit hard to control

daitse 2019-10-11 14:03

@alicecrd you can use the arrows if you want :)

ohnqapwjgcpr8vai9cxo1mmonugljxwi 2019-10-11 19:04

I really love rats so this game really does it for me. Thanks man! jk, a little janky to control but apart from that pretty decent work :) good job!

dib 2019-10-11 19:34

Really nice game. It felt good playing. The music is excellent, and the idea is a creative take on the theme. While I do see the problems with collisions, I honestly found the controls rather pleasant. I'm not sure if I got into the second last door correctly or not - I was stuck on opening it for a while, but then I decided to just run into it to see if I could abuse the collision detection. I am not sure if it was because I had nitro, since I didn't use it at the time I got through, but I finally did it at least. Then the last door was relatively easy compared to that.

dodelov 2019-10-11 20:44

Not bad idea. Fun gameplay! Very Very good music!

landosystems 2019-10-11 20:51

Liked how the powerups were portrayed and really tied up with the player character as a mouse... tail for rotate, spring for jump, and so on.... Cute how the timer was a windup mechanism. My main issue was that the walls got in the way of seeing stuff sometimes, but its a minor nitpick. Great work!

daitse 2019-10-11 21:01

@landosystems thankyou ! yeah we did not have enough time to add particle effects to make the objects stand out more :/

@dodelov thanks ! a friend of ours created the musics for the game during the 2nd day of jam :)

@dib thank you ! for the second last door there is a "platform" in the middle of the room and if you stop there it opens the door, you then have to use nitro to go through before it closes but you know, whatever works xD

kooshy 2019-10-13 03:49

Like some others, I didn't really like it at first - the 3rd person camera feels like it's parented to the player object which ends up making the controls feel stiff, and I didn't realize I'd missed a pickup that let me use one of the doors in the main room, so I kept trying to figure out how to get through the one that takes the nitro.. It wasn't until I read some comments that I thought about looking around for more pickups.

And that's when it changed. The reset mechanic that seemed kind of annoying at first was suddenly lending a sense of urgency to the search around the maze (that ended up being shaped like a brain, which was a really nice touch!), and the different music in each tube and things really made the sections of the maze feel different. By the end, it was a blast! I'm not entirely sure how I opened the last door (I think it involved the flashlight colors, but trying to get the right colors on purpose, point the flashlight at the objects, etc, didn't get me there ... but mashing buttons a bit did?)

Dunno, but great fun, and a neat twist on the theme - you start with such nothing that the ability to _turn_ is a powerup. ;)

daitse 2019-10-13 08:47

@kooshy thanks for the in depth analysis ! Yes the camera is parented to the player, we did not have enough time to make a proper camera script :/ For the last door you need to flash the right colors indeed. Color are taken into account when you are on the platform in front of the doors, if you flash the wrong color it resets so you actually need to get off the platform, switch to the right color and get back onto the platform.

dock-frankenstein 2019-10-13 14:19

The art style reminds me of some old games I've played and that start sequence is awesome!

kooshy 2019-10-13 15:04

@daitse Hey, no worries! 3rd person cameras are surprisingly difficult (and this *a* reason my games are usually first person), and parenting the camera to the player gets the job done. And cool, I tried some things along those lines (like facing away from the door while cycling through colors) but don't think I tried specifically stepping off the platform. Makes sense. (And I probably slipped off while button mashing.)

mrstari 2019-10-14 11:14

funny idea :) had fun to complete it in 14 gen. :hearts:

souldzin 2019-10-15 02:06

This was enjoyable! After I gained the ability to feel, I got stuck for a bit :/

I really enjoyed the metroid interpretation of "You start with nothing".

upisfree-2 2019-10-20 02:49

NIIIIIIIIICE, I really like the idea! F R E S H FEELINGS

thomas-bringer 2019-10-24 16:58

Cool entry! I really like the different mechanics & puzzles :) I think movement & collisions could be a bit smoother but still, it's a great entry! Also, audio was nice. Congrats! :D