Another Night

quichi 2020-04-21 17:43

Great game! It's a nice execution of the survival genre :)

I liked the art for the game, all the assets blended quite well together to create a very spooky atmosphere. The music did a great job of making me feel really tense as I was playing!

I also really liked the dynamic lighting that you put in, it makes the game feel very dynamic. I would like to see more interaction between this lighting mechanic and the gameplay though, as I think it is a very big part of your visuals.

I noticed a bit of a frame rate drop whenever I was around the campfire, I'm not sure what could be causing it but that might need some performance tuning. When I left the camp my framerate went back up to normal.

Also, because the background is very repetitive, it's really hard to find your way back to the camp once the player has ventured very far. I would either add a 'compass' system to direct the player back, or add some landmarks so it's not as easy for the player to get lost.

Overall, I had fun playing and it was very intuitive and easy for me to pick up and play. Great work! :)

oldknivestale 2020-04-21 18:23

Really nice game, love how much atmosphere you're getting across with such a simple art style. I must've been really unlucky because I didn't find a single piece of wood >_<

datagreed 2020-04-21 18:58

@quichi thanks for such an extended comment!

I've just fixed a major frame drop in version 1.0.2 (live on web, the version should appear on title screen).

We decided to not include compass in a game and let you orient using footprints and sound to make you go around more carefully and notice where you a heading and preserve the feeling of being alone in the dark out there.

Landmarks is really a good idea, hope we had time to implement them :)

keyo 2020-04-22 14:39

Nice game. I know the focus is in the "survivability" of the main character, but I have lost track of the bonfire a lot of times, maybe an arrow pointing to the bonfire would help. Also, I would love to hear the steps of the monsters too, getting loud or quiet depending of the direction I am moving!

datagreed 2020-04-22 14:43

@keyo getting lost is the idea. Compass would make things really easy. You have to use your footprints to find your way back and also there is a bonfire sound when you're near the camp :)

The monster steps is a good idea. Now they are just making growling noises once (with 3d sound - gets louder/quiter depending on their position and pans from left to right)

flaviat 2020-04-22 14:46

Good game ! it's very immersive, however I lost my fire hahaha

(we made a game on the same theme :p)

datagreed 2020-04-22 14:47

@flaviat keep track of it using your footprints ;)

flaviat 2020-04-22 14:48

@datagreed I thought about it too late, I had already gone around in all directions

aaiko 2020-04-22 15:06

really liked the game, the graphics are really cool. great job!

kirke 2020-04-22 15:22

I enjoyed your game, you have great art and your interpretation od LD theme is amusing :) (I'm sad that mummies wanted me dead, I wanted to play along with them xD)

I like your idea of footprints and possibility of making a torch during wandering. I lost myself a lot of times and it was fun to find correct way to my bonfire :) Great entry :)

muchobestostudio 2020-04-23 10:40

Nice game with an immersive ambiance through the audio, graphics and the little story at the beginning. Footprints are a good idea to avoid to be lost. Enemies are not annoying because you can spam the evade action 🙃 #tricks. Like us, we have the same problem, items (wood in your game, axes for us) are a bit difficult to find and can be annoying after some time.

schizoid2k 2020-04-24 00:55

Nice game... graphics, effects, and sound really set the mood. First mummy was unexpected :smile:

ben657 2020-04-24 09:03

I really enjoyed that, felt very moody and actually had me getting nervous the further out from the fire I got!

congusbongus 2020-04-30 06:10

Love the ambient music and overall mood. At first I thought the wood was placed too sparsely but I barely made it on the second attempt so I guess the game is pretty carefully balanced. The footprints and sound effects were core to the gameplay, very cool to see.

undead-aubergine 2020-05-01 14:40

Really liked the idea! The way the lighting plays with your orientation is quite great, and I really like the subtle way of orientation footprints are. I might even include them in my game, as we both have a pretty similar settings. I realised that the player walks faster when he goes diagonally, this is typically caused by increasing the horizontal and vertical speeds separatedly according to arrow keys. The way to achieve the true diagonal speed is to multiply both vspeed and hspeed by sqrt(2)/2 every time you move diagonally. I also liked the graphics, the non-black strokes to delimit volumes work pretty good!

sodaking 2020-05-04 04:59

Wow! Very tense. At first I was afraid to go out in the dark. Although once I knew it was some what easy to defeat what I can only assume are mummies, I was much more willing to venture for sticks. It felt very easy to get lost, so to counter this I went out in one direction till' I found a stick, then I went back in the same direction. The game had me hooked, and I was determined to help my party survive. Very fun!

rhiz 2020-05-05 18:25

The darkness and using your footprints to navigate is a good mechanic. The shadows cast by the cacti looks good.

The enemies have a longer reach than it looks like and there isn't any telegraph for when to dodge. It was kind of a bummer that there wasn't any way to heal.

I think I found an optimal strategy of finding three sticks and then standing at the edge of the firelight where the enemies don't spawn, waiting until the fire is low, then using the sticks to waste as little as possible. Unfortunately, this made the game less exciting and mostly just waiting.

yy404 2020-05-09 10:58

Using footprint is such a brilliant idea! Can't survive but enjoyed game!

datagreed 2020-06-18 14:00

We've decided to open-source the game. It's now published under MIT License here - https://github.com/DataGreed/LD46

You can explore the code, sprites, animations, sounds and music and use it in your projects – just don't forget to mention us in the credits ;)

Thank you all for playing the game and commenting @quichi @oldknivestale @keyo @flaviat @aaiko @kirke @muchobestostudio @schizoid2k @ben657 @congusbongus @undead-aubergine @sodaking @rhiz @yy404