FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD45 → From Nothing To Nothing

From Nothing To Nothing

By patvanmackelberg

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall783.8333
Fun1153.5933
Innovation1433.5833
Theme773.9533
Graphics973.8333
Audio1633.3332
Humor1622.9029
Mood473.8533

Comments

rob1221dev 2019-10-07 00:20

~~I don't know what's wrong but for some reason I can't move at all. Restart/quit still works.~~

Update: my plugged in controller was the cause, although I still needed to press the space bar.

josh-galecki 2019-10-07 00:21

I enjoyed your game. Here's some quick thoughts: - I wasn't able to use the keyboard controls. I had my gamepad plugged in, though, and it worked fine. I'd recommend mapping the "A" button on the gamepad to the same action as the space bar if you are looking to support a gamepad officially. - I wasn't sure what to do with the sword or at the end - did I miss out on content, or was it unfinished because of time conraints? - Good implementation of the theme. I feel like there could have been more puzzles involving body-swapping / switching states.

ogre 2019-10-07 00:26

This was cool. Took the theme seriously, no hands, no eyes, love it. Not sure what happened at the end, or what that sword I couldn't pick up was about... ran out of time to finish it up?

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-07 00:31

@rob1221dev My only thought would be you might have a controller plugged in and it is defaulting to that - sorry! Thank you for trying.

@josh-galecki Thanks for playing! You are right with the sword thing - i wanted to get the player to battle and all that but the time constraints on top of real life stuff this weekend got in the way!

@ogre Lol this guys family was murdered and he killed himself - but I didn't have enough time to convey all of that. It's a bit dark though, so maybe for the best hahaah

bocodillo 2019-10-07 00:36

Dying was a bit too punishing with the long walk times. I really liked the ominous music and the fact that the player ghost walk SFX was in kinda in time. It looked really nice too. Good work.

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-07 00:47

@bocodillo Thank you for playing! The walk was a bit of a pain - I almost redid the first level because of that but I ran out of time!

stefanie-leitch 2019-10-07 01:57

Honestly may have been the best game I've played so far. The only issue is that it ended rather abruptly -- assuming it was because of time constraints but it would have been nice if it was explicit that you had reached the end. For a moment I wasn't sure if I had finished it or if I just died somehow.

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-07 02:08

@stefanie-leitch thanks for playing! I was pretty crunched for time - and the end felt pretty rushed. I did make sure to add the "the end" text though because I was sure people were gonna say "is it over?" haha

brice-mahier 2019-10-07 02:40

I couldn't stop playing, really nice game!

lanalux 2019-10-07 03:41

Cute game and great vibe. :)

cantthinkofname 2019-10-07 05:14

Fun game

khaotom 2019-10-07 06:56

I really like the skeleton animations. He looks so happy to stand up again. :smile_cat:

hajden 2019-10-07 12:16

I enjoyed this. The music sets up the mood well, together with the bleak "underworld" aesthetic (before you get the eyes). Music itself is pretty good too, though I found the sounds doing it a disservice. Too little variation in them, and they were overall too loud.

I like the gameplay mechanics of possessing skeletons, and dropping them like dead weight when not needed any more :) I did find the collision not very good, as visually I would expect my skeleton's head not to collide with the floor. But overall that's a minor issue for a rushed game.

Final gripe: the intro screen and the ending cutscene are too dark to really see what's going on properly. I get this is supposed to be night time scene, but it sorely lacks contrast and light.

maximbegunov 2019-10-07 14:33

I liked your simple art style and cute animations, also when the ghost killed me the sound scared me shitless :D

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 02:20

@brice-mahier @lanalux @cantthinkofname Thank you :D

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 02:22

@khaotom Thank you! How could someone not be happy finding a sweet new bod?!

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 02:42

@hajden Thank you for all the feedback! It echo's all the doubts I had posting it lol! With the time constraints I got a bit done but I wish I had a bit more time :P Thanks for playing!

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 02:42

@maximbegunov thank you for playing! I purposely made the sound for the ghost attack loud hahaah I'm glad it worked! :P

karyna 2019-10-08 15:04

I got like really sad when I made it to the end. Want more:)

rayne 2019-10-08 18:15

Great game! It restarted itself when I reached the graves. I loved the concept!

rayne 2019-10-08 18:15

btw, those ghosts leaving the red trail were really cool

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 18:48

@karyna His family :( :( Thank you so much for playing :)

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 18:48

@rayne Thank you for playing, the ghost sound effect was my favorite part - when it gets you haha!

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 18:50

@rob1221dev thank you for giving it another go - in my control scheme I forgot to link space bar to anything on the controller! Hopefully you enjoyed it though ahha

lombax 2019-10-08 21:02

holy hell, never imagined that would happen when i got the blue eyes xD. and oof, got scared every time i died :D. i got some "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime" vibes from this game :D? gj realy nice game. :dog: :dog: so i would actualy have liked that at the very beginning, everything is black, then you move and start sensing the enviourment (going from only darkness, to what we have in the beginning), then you get eyes and can see colors. would make the going from nothing/nothingness abit clearer. but gj, realy nice game.

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-08 23:40

@lombax I really wanted to do a bit more with this - the initial plan was to find flesh and slowly become human again - but then I realized that's a lot of sprites to draw and a lot of logic to make it happen haha! Thank you so much for playing :D

hwaet 2019-10-09 02:03

Great game. I like the flow and the music felt very appropriate. It was a bit tricky to tell where the bounding boxes were at times but it was lots of fun. I'm kind of glad I didn't get the whole story. We have a young kid and family death stories make me queasy.

corrade 2019-10-09 03:42

Nice twist on traditional gameplay stuff! Swapping from skeleton to 'spirit' form to squeeze through the bars on lvl2 was a highlight, along with the ending and enemy aggro mechanics. Though the SFX for dying/getting hit were unbearably loud and harsh. The collision of the barrels was also unwieldy.

The mood was hurt when all the ghosts died after the player took control of the skeleton on lvl3. I get why that was necessary with that level design, but it didn't make much sense narrative-wise.

Personally I found the player and ghost sprites to be quite cutesy. That didn't mesh well with the dark tone of the game.

When I reached the graves, I wasn't sure whether or not the game had ended or bugged out.

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-09 14:56

@hwaet thank you for playing! I was worried the bounding box would be troublesome - the skeleton should have been a bit smaller :P I have young children also. I suppose that's why I do a game like this though, I know it makes me emotional to think about tragedy and I want to make people feel :P

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-09 15:00

Thank you for playing! I'll admit I did mean to make the dying sound outrageously loud lol I wanted to scare people! The skeleton bound box should have been smaller also. The ghosts dying was supposed to be a "spririt world" to the "Physical world" transition but I didn't have time to make it really effective, maybe some sort of hazy vignette. Lol it was an abrupt ending though, I think I bit off a lot more than I could chew in one weekend. Thank you for playing! Your thorough review is basically all the things I was worried about as I made it :P

maxdmg 2019-10-09 18:33

That art style is great, cutesy morbid is a match made in heaven. Would love a full metroidvania style game made from this. The story was not too hamfisted which can sometimes be a problem in game jam games with story. I thought the difficulty was solid for the length of the game. My only and main critique would be the collisions were kinda odd especially the barrels. Great submission!

suchista 2019-10-10 16:57

Impressive stuff, great art, nice narrative, I like the text on the map. Cool concept of the game, I like your usage of the theme. Great entry!

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-11 00:24

@maxdmg thank you! The collisions seem to be a common qualm - I'll make sure to be more careful in my next jam :P

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-11 00:26

@suchista Thank you for playing :D

dqmhose 2019-10-14 10:21

Super fun idea! Lovely execution, graphics and music gave a nice Undertale vibe.

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-17 14:42

@dqmhose thank you :D

andos 2019-10-18 13:36

Fun little game! Well done.

djindegames 2019-10-26 20:33

Definitly ranks among the best entries I have played so far, managed to get through the whole gmae, didn't really get the ending though ^^. The game's atmosphere is really well made and the graphics and audio reminded me of the old adventure games on PC. Gameplay was really cool and interesting! Nothing else to say, well done mate !

patvanmackelberg 2019-10-28 13:40

@djindegames thank you!