FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD50 → The Short Dark

The Short Dark

By physcokillermonkey and burntcustard

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall9943.2821
Fun10533.0221
Innovation11212.7821
Theme4053.8921
Graphics7623.5521
Audio1.289
Humor1.9615
Mood10703.1021

Comments

forgin-bits 2022-04-05 12:41

Nice entry ! I love the minimalist art style and the attention to detail, like the footprints in the snow. Good replayability as well. Good job :thumbsup:

adamjn 2022-04-05 21:04

I tried replaying a few times but could never find any containers or at least pressing E on everything I could find didn't seem to do anything. Not sure If I'm just being a dummy (Very Very Possible, if not likely) but maybe write a short guide on what things look like. Liked the art style though and it looked cool.

fc85057 2022-04-05 21:05

Absolutely nailed the "demake" vibe of "The Long Dark." Easy to pick up and follow, controls are smooth, and art gets the point across. That this was all done with JS, HTML, and CSS makes it even more impressive. Would be interested in seeing it with some audio and a timer. Very nice entry!

firescape-games 2022-04-05 21:07

Nice game! The idea to remake an existing game but add your own feel to it is cool. Well done.

guy-girmonsky 2022-04-05 21:09

Cool submission, I like the art style a bunch. took me a while to understand where to get the food from, but once I managed to find some it was much easier to navigate and move around. More versatility in the enemies could add much more depth to the game, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

math1369 2022-04-05 21:12

The colors and shapes are very suitable. Unfortunately, I could not hear audio. Should the game have audio? The sound is listed in the ratings.... Without audio/music the game is very well-behaved. This also makes it relaxing. If you are not being chased by a bear....

kro 2022-04-05 21:19

Yooo, nice pretty little game right here! Sadly, didn't find anything except a few food sources and guns. Would be great to have some interactable objects in houses (like fireplaces, dunno) and more content overall, but it's anyway pretty clear what you wanted to do with this game. Good work!

leiv-erik 2022-04-05 21:20

Pretty good game! There is for sure something to build on here! maybe have an endless generated level, or design a bigger level with some overarching goal.

Anyway very nicely done! good graphics and atmosphere! Keep it up!

bougiebirdie 2022-04-08 23:58

I'm a big fan of the Long Dark (one of my country's greatest cultural exports), so I was excited to give your game a try

The minimalist art style is great, and it's a great look for a top-down perspective. It really helped make this game your own, which is something I've always worried about when I make a 'clone'

I seemed to hit the edge of the world, so I'm guessing this was a curated experience. I'd be really interested to see an endless mode with procedural generation - this is the kind of game I'm a sucker for

Edit: This is rendered with CSS!? Holy crap you madlads lol

physcokillermonkey 2022-04-09 10:05

Lota comments so I'll try reply to them all in one :D

@forgin-bits Thanks for giving it a play. Footprints was one of the things we had from the start in our mockup, managed to just squeeze them in before the jam ended!

@adamjn Containers are just found in houses at the moment, you have to open the doors and walk in then you should see them. Thanks for playing!

@fc85057 Thanks for the feedback, happy that we got the vibe right. We would have loved to do more with it but was probably a bit ambitious, ended up a bit more like a tech demo than we would have liked.

@firescape-games Glad you liked it!

@guy-girmonsky We started out with the art vibe then built a game around that so glad you like it! Ideally we'd have a bit more of an in-game tutorial/make it more obvious but ran out of time. Likewise with the enemies we were planning for wolves and other wildlife but that was a bit ambitious :D

@math1369 Good to hear you like the style. The game doesn't have audio, was 2am here when we submitted so forgot to opt-out of audio, have done now (:

@kro Thanks for the review! Yeah there isn't a whole lot of content as we ran out of time a bit, I like the suggestion of more objects in houses, it's something we want to add on as a follow up.

@leiv-erik Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah it's a little tech-demoy at the moment. We wanted a bigger/infinite level but we didn't have time to implement any kind of object culling so this is about the maximum we could have before FPS started taking a massive hit (drawing everything with CSS isn't the most performant way of drawing things).

@bougiebirdie I picked it up recently and am loving it! Just on episode 4 at the moment, haven't actually played the survival modes yet so this was a bit of a stab in the dark at how they should play. You can thank @burntcustard for the art, I love it too. We unfortunately didn't have time to make the level bigger/infinite as we started hitting performance issues making it any bigger - the level is procedurally generated but just with a limit on how much is generated :D And yeah, all drawn in HTML/CSS, many mannyyy divs (our second game this way, you'd think we would have learnt by now, at least it was just 2D this time :joy:)

cakts 2022-04-09 10:44

Super impressed what you guys achieved with CSS, I would probably cry if I saw how many divs there were. Love the art, definitely a very impressive technical feat. Great stuff! :smile:

gatlink 2022-04-12 08:38

I died because I was thirsty but I couldn't scroll down to my water bottle in my inventory... :( I love the minimalist art style, it has just enough polish to look very good. The bears' AI needs some improvement: they can see the player through walls it seems, and once they saw you enter a shack you're pretty much doomed as they will block the exit (at least if you don't have a gun.) I would also witch walking and running, but maybe that's just me. The super slow walking speed made me run all the time. It's still very impressive, and it works really well. Well done!

grumpy-gecko 2022-04-15 02:37

I liked the art style of this a lot (footsteps in the snow was an awesome touch). I'm impressed with the whole inventory system as well. An overarching goal beyond survival or more things to do would be a great addition but an awesome job!

physcokillermonkey 2022-04-15 13:44

@cakts Glad you liked the style, doing everything with HTML and CSS is definitely an interesting way of rending things that's for sure!

@gatlink Oops, now you mention it I never thought about the inventory scrolling. Not sure I ever lived that long with that many items to need it. Running does use up food and water quicker than walking, but maybe it's not enough of a noticeable effect to make a difference. We wanted to have a kind of stamina system too but didn't get it implemented properly in time. Thanks for playing :)

@grumpy-gecko The art style was the main drive in this project so nice to know the style worked for you. I'm personally super happy we managed to squeeze in the footsteps at last minute, I think they add a lot to the feel of the game. Definitely want to take this one further, we ran out of time a little bit with the scope of things to do.

sugarsugarsugar 2022-04-16 03:50

Nice game. I would've liked interesting interactions across the world, but I understand that's pretty hard given the time frame.

masterofcheese 2022-04-16 05:49

Like the art a lot, audio would've been great and added to the mood even more .I can't imagine using CSS to do the graphics, props to you for doing that haha. Overall it's really great, wish the generation was larger, but that's such a small thing tbh.

physcokillermonkey 2022-04-16 14:20

@sugarsugarsugar Thanks! We had a lot more planned but ran out of time unfortunately.

@masterofcheese Great to hear you like the style :) It's mine and @burntcustard second project using CSS for rendering now, it can be quite powerful but is a right pain to work with haha. We were planning for an infinite world but didn't manage to get that implemented in time.

zimny11 2022-04-16 15:12

Love the unique art style! Controls feel nice. For me, the game was a bit too easy (probably too many boxes with resources spawn). Anyway, nice game!

noiyy 2022-04-16 16:51

This is really cool, especially since you made this with JS, HTML & CSS, congrats and great job! :smile: Is the map limited somehow? I kept walking and walking north, but I didn't find anything, so I had to turn back and return to house so I wouldn't freeze. Also, a feedback on time while playing would be good, as I only find out when I die :sweat_smile:

physcokillermonkey 2022-04-17 16:05

@zimny11 Thanks! We ran out of time a bit so didn't manage to get as much content in as we wanted in the end.

@noiyy Glad you liked it :) Yeah the map only generates so far, we didn't manage to implement an infinite world like we would have liked and this was about the limit of objects before performance started taking a big hit.

jozgames 2022-04-21 17:48

Bem interessante a proposta, pena que o mapa é limitado, se fosse gerado proceduralmente ia ser muito legal.

Gostei também de como fez os gráficos com formas simples e mesmo assim da pra entender muito bem o que é cada coisa.

Bom trabalho. 👍