para-no 2021-04-26 12:58
Had fun playing, music works perfectly for the mood. Liked the concept, good job:)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Astral Descension
By nyxkn
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 594 | 3.24 | 37 | |
| Fun | 678 | 2.94 | 37 | |
| Innovation | 481 | 3.15 | 37 | |
| Theme | 676 | 3.17 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 709 | 2.90 | 38 | |
| Audio | 512 | 3.01 | 37 | |
| Humor | 432 | 2.51 | 28 | |
| Mood | 271 | 3.55 | 36 |
Had fun playing, music works perfectly for the mood. Liked the concept, good job:)
The music was a bit too powerful and the text reading was slow, other than that looked pretty nice.
Things I liked: - great mood - love that there are multiple endings - fun little puzzler - the music is fitting as others have said
Improvements: - The border (light blue) didn't contrast much with the white border of itch.io; so I didn't distingush what was going on at first until I learned to look for the blue wall... maybe wrap your entire play area with a single or double-pixel border of it's own so that it doesn't matter where the game is hosted or what the background of the page is, you can still see the room borders. - I found myself being a bit impatient to having to wait for the hidden path animation sequency for easy paths; if it's 2 blocks, I don't really need to see the whole sequence; would be nice to be able to acknowledge and continue somehow rather than wait for the animation to play out. - some soft footstep noises and stairs noises would add to the mood.
Bugs: - didn't find any
Hey, nice mood and story line heheh, characters are also awsome, love the animation of reflection on helmet. Good work and very creative one!
@bw-devel Thanks for the feedback my friend! Thanks a bunch for spotting the white background issue on itch.io, which I did manage to change to a darker color. Life saver! The pixel border in-game sounds like a masterful idea actually; will keep that in mind for future games!
Love the music and the overall mood! Agreed with @bw-devel about the improvements. I really dig the final judgement scene, I almost wonder if there could be a random event thrown in there, so each time if you fail similarly you can hope for a different outcome (or maybe for a quicker restart). So creative!!
Fun game! The mood and pixel art are really good. I liked that falling off the edge would send you down a level of the game too - that was a clever way to integrate with the theme more completely.
Yesss, such a great vibe ! The game play was fun. I could see you pushing the memorization mechanics even farther. There's lots of room to grow this idea.
All of the pieces were hit in stride and came together to make a really cohesive piece. Good job!
Hehs. Hard to say, the ambient was very good. I felt the drama, but I had some sounds problem while the music was playing., which was a little bit annoying. In the end all piece matched together. Good job.
I overall like the game and the story. The music sound very weird, but this might have been a with my PC or perhaps with the browser. But anyway I had fun trying your game.
I liked this a lot - simple gameplay and just enough story to keep you going forward. The graphic style and music fit together with the genre, and all in all this was a solid package! It was nice to have extra challenges on the way, though the game was a tad too easy in my opinion.
Some thoughts that rose:
- Having the starry background move a little, it could make memorizing the paths more challenging (maybe?). - I got confused by the borderless UI on the right and the pits, and thought some arrows just pointed you towards a fall. - The idea could be explored further by f.e. having the player return to the previous, or even older rooms.
I really like the mysterious feeling this gives off. Really well done!
I think you captured the mysterious mood very well! The music is coherent with it, too. I stopped at the normal ending because on a calibrated monitor, the contrast between normal tiles and the void is really small, which ironically made normal walking much harder than memorizing glowing paths, the supposedly difficult part. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but it is a bit frustrating for me. Still, this is a pretty solid entry overall. Well done!
Really nice game ! Love the graphics and the different endings. Also the "fall" mechanic is clever. Good job !
The contrast between the walkable tiles and unwalkable tiles is very low. Maybe it was intentional but it feels like artificial difficulty that punishes having a monitor at a different color temperature than what the game was designed with. I had to sit really close to my screen to see the difference after falling off several times at the beginning.
Other than that, fun little game!
Great vibes on this one and I like the main mechanic. Good job at making a replayable jam game. I'd just say that the color difference between the actual walkable paths and the void was almost impossible to notice on one of my monitors.
Cool game, the background music is nice, and the mechanic is interesting. The contract between the ground and the backdrop needs to be increased, it was quite difficult to see on my monitor. I died many times in the beginning before I looked closer and realized what was going on.
@toasteater @kraemahz @john-chapman @nisovin
The low contrast was not intentional unfortunately. On my machine it does look noticeably different. Is it because I have a shit monitor? :D I'll have to be more careful about this. Thanks for the heads up!
I think the mood is wonderful, I really liked these astral beings coming to follow your progress. I'm not sure I understood the flow of the game, when you fall down you go one level deeper? I was judged as "Okay," but I played really terribly, so I'm wondering if this was perhaps ironic :P However it was a really nice experience and a good jam - your drawings are perfect for the mood and music in this game. I was entertained!
Great work! The game was entertaining and the music fit. As others have mentioned, the difference walkable vs non-walkable tiles are difficult to see (at least on my old monitor). Really liked the idea of having multiple ends. That's always a great way to get engagement on short jam games where people want to experience more.
Cool concept. I think this idea would work a lot better in a real-time top down game where you had to walk on the invisible section for longer, and there was a risk/reward to getting close to the edge. In a turn based movement system it is pretty easy to remember the path. This is really cool, and I would like to see more.
Great game! The vibe reminded me of Adventure on the 2600. Really original take on the theme, and I liked the soundtrack too.
I think im not worth =( Nice mechanic,very unique. Art style is very good, music is a bit annoying for me, good game! congrats =)
Great concept. I got the best ending! The music and story really built that mysterious and dire atmosphere for me.
I just have 1 minor nitpick: I'd love to move with WASD instead of the arrow keys.
Keep up the good work!
Good narrative, art and music created a deep atmosphere. Light animation on the helmet was a nice touch, good signaling when player loses/gets control. Stars were nice, was the right call to prioritize them over tile textures, since they helped navigate too. The music was a bit glitchy though, which was unfortunate since the track was really nice.
Level indicator is also a nice addition, made progress clearer.
Kind of weird that I didn't have to get perfect score to get the best ending - also not sure if I didn't miss some narrative in the endings because the game didn't actually end.
Overall, was fun to go through and see all 3 endings.
Nice little game! Simple mechanic that is actually fun for the duration of the game! The game has a nice atmosphere, with the music, visuals and the storytelling bits working well together.
Great mood. I really love the grim music and somberness of the story. The music fits the setting very well!
Nice gameplay mechanic. I love that there are multiple endings, and secret paths.
Well done, good entry!