FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Flame Keeper

Flame Keeper

By codexus

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall13613.4428
Fun13613.2528
Innovation15193.1328
Theme16813.4428
Graphics10153.7628
Audio10883.1627
Humor16942.4023
Mood9823.5028

Comments

cocohop 2020-04-23 17:14

Nice game! I liked the shadow engine (not perfect but pretty good for 3 days), I'll be using one of the puzzles you included in my DnD game haha

loig 2020-04-23 17:25

I liked the graphics, which look really impressive for a 3 days work. I am less convinced by the game itself (played with the 1.0 version, and indeed, the first puzzle is quite difficult), in particular because I found it difficult to control: having to jump in order to take the stairs after the second puzzle is not convenient, moving the canon seems a bit random (or at least I did not get how its movement works, it seemed a bit lucky when I solved this last puzzle).

elmo 2020-04-23 17:28

it's lit af

machwerx 2020-04-23 17:33

Impressive amount of work for 3 days!

codexus 2020-04-23 17:35

@loig I found the first puzzle really depends on the conditions you're playing in, with a good mouse and good framerate, it's fine, I struggled when testing on a lowspec laptop with trackpad, so I'm not sure how to balance it. Basically the cannon's angle changes when you move it.

Thanks for the feedback.

jk5000 2020-04-23 17:36

A fun and interesting little puzzle game. The controls could have been better, but else is this a pretty good jam game.

justmars 2020-04-23 17:37

For a solo developer, this was a surprisingly great achievement for only a 3 days of work! Definitely got the Zelda vibes from the flame puzzle at the beginning! I think I played the version where you made it 12.5% easier? (I assume 12.5% slower?), but I still felt it a bit too hard for a first puzzle (thought I did manage to beat it after a couple of tries). On another hand tho, the game was pretty short so I think that justifies a bit harsher difficulty curve as well.

Overall, there are only 2 real criticisms that I have. One is that the players movement animation is out of sync with the movement speed. I believe that could be fixed without altering the animation, but I understand that you most likely ran out of time. Another thing that felt a bit flat was the physics; jump height was too low and the movement felt a bit janky. Otherwise, not too much to complain for a jam game.

The graphics, especially the lighting/lightmapping were done really well. I liked the aesthetics, they fitted the theme of the game quite nicely. You also tied the theme well with the game mechanic, keeping the flame alive by not falling in the water and using it for some pretty neat puzzles such as the cannon in the end (which actually worked pretty well!). Glad you didn't just stick to the basics of lighting torches to open doors for the whole length of the game.

I also appreciate that you put the graphics settings in the main menu; that allowed me to play the game on my laptop in a browser with a reasonably good performance. The z-fighting / camera clipping didn't bother me that much; its understandable for a jam game (hell, even some triple A games suffer from it). A longer gameplay length, better movement and animation syncing would come a long way to take the game to a next level, but overall, pretty LIT game :-)

corc0 2020-04-23 17:39

Hey! I'm playing on the WebGL version. I was curious how it'd perform (ours was too sluggish as a web build so we stuck with Windows). The download speed here is pretty slow (several minutes' wait) but it runs well!

Anyway, I liked this! Your light puzzle got me thinking (had to get out pen and paper) and your torch-lighting tutorial was just difficult enough to be challenging with the controls/movement as they are now. The movement is a touch sluggish when it comes to the platforming/cannon-pusher-arounder elements, but the level design makes up for it. Pretty satisfying to light that final torch. Thanks for making this!

flamti 2020-04-23 17:41

Cool game! Good puzzles.

codexus 2020-04-23 17:45

@justmars I was aware of the animation movement mismatch but I was in a bit of a quandary as making it loop faster made it look worse and slowing the character made the game too slow, so I was going to try to redo it but didn't have the time. I'm really bad at animation, it's not something I do outside of ludum dare. One day I'll get better!

Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback.

pepperkep 2020-04-23 17:48

I found the first puzzle just about impossible on high settings but when I switched to low settings I managed to get it on my second try. Not quite sure why that is but it might have to do with framerate. The lighting is really good and I like the wide variety in the types of puzzles. The movement was a bit sluggish which made the platforming a bit iffy. The Olympic torch idea is a pretty lit interpretation of the theme. This is really impressive for a solo entry!

vladlawrence 2020-04-23 17:53

Good game! and great job) Animation and sound are cool! It was challenging to play it, and for a pity it is too short( but come one, you created this game alone! It is really mind blowing) And it would be nice, to jump a little farther)

P.S. character is a bit creepy:D

codexus 2020-04-23 18:09

@pepperkep yeah, I'm quite sure you get the same amount of time but it's clearly harder when not getting good fps. Maybe I should just give 2 extra seconds and it doesn't matter if it's super easy with a powerful PC. My idea was to make the player think about the fastest way of doing it, not make them struggle with input lag.

Thank you for the feedback!

codexus 2020-04-24 12:16

@corc0 For your webgl build, have you enabled the static batching option? It's off by default, and if I don't enable it, it really kills performance on webgl (and of course make sure all your static objects are marked as such)

eldogg 2020-04-24 19:38

"Nooooo!" - great voice sample!

On the web version low settings made the first puzzle much less frustrating to complete, so maybe default to them (don't know how easy that is to do).

Very moody concept. The cannon at the end was a bit challenging, but quite a funny way to finish the game.

picross 2020-04-25 04:47

Cool little puzzle game! Reminded me of Tomb Raider. I liked the puzzles, but I wish there were a few more! It seemed like a lot of the sounds had varying volume levels and they made me jump frequently. Nice work overall!

lestat 2020-04-25 05:43

Nice fun short game. It fits the theme. Good job!

ptsnoop 2020-04-25 07:11

The background sound really helps sell the mood... and that's got to be the most detailed player character model I've ever seen in an LD!

rob-parker 2020-04-25 11:11

A really nice short game with good puzzle elements. For 3 days it also looks really good as the lighting and shadow elements work really well. Good job!

splitpainter 2020-04-25 11:13

The game kept me hooked until the end. There is an air of mystery due to the sound effects and the way the level is built, that I was loving every second of it. The gameplay elements were well balanced. The map itself feels like a map coming directly out of Quake - which is amazing.

itslit.png

marxy-37 2020-04-25 18:32

Cool Game!!!

greendinogames 2020-04-27 14:54

I really enjoyed this one! Good puzzles and meets the theme. Well done!

bitpokit 2020-04-27 18:12

Good game! Nice puzzles! :slight_smile:

asfdfdfd 2020-04-29 20:36

Finished you game. Great solo entry!