gabriel-chan 2022-10-04 01:14
Nice game! Love the fog of war mechanic. The backing audio really adds a lot to the spooky vibe of the game. Good work!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → Stormlight Manor
By Cool Summit, Paul Avallone, roguebrain, SoupyBeans, Poggys, Max Reff and Andrew Calvarese
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 659 | 3.45 | 73 | |
| Fun | 704 | 3.25 | 72 | |
| Innovation | 552 | 3.35 | 72 | |
| Theme | 328 | 3.92 | 71 | |
| Graphics | 696 | 3.45 | 73 | |
| Audio | 268 | 3.67 | 71 | |
| Humor | 755 | 2.50 | 67 | |
| Mood | 355 | 3.69 | 72 |
Nice game! Love the fog of war mechanic. The backing audio really adds a lot to the spooky vibe of the game. Good work!
I really enjoyed the style of your game. The amount of light provided was just enough (for me) to get frustrated that I couldn't see just around one more corner... I liked the game play and felt satisfied every time I could get to the escape door. If you wanted to continue working on the game I would suggest you implement some sort of speed burst or timer to race against yourself. A multiplayer race against your friends mode would be fun too! I really enjoyed your game, cheers!
I really loved this game. The biggest complaint is with the doors that require ghosts to pass through them though. The pathing on the ghosts can take a long time before opening the door, and it really bogs down the experience when you're just waiting. Even more-so when you die after waiting for the door to open. Ahhhh.
Here's an exceptionally long video of my experience with your game if you want some more feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKqacUZLNEk
Edit: I see now that I accidentally recorded the screen a bit too low, so the top of the maze is cut off in the video. my bad!
@100th-coin Thanks for going above and beyond by posting a video. We didn't have much time to playtest so some levels might be a little too hard. All the levels are accessible from the main menu level select so you can skip one if you get stuck. I'll make sure to check out your game. Thanks again.
Really cool concept! Its like pac man but with a twist.
Reminded me of Pac-Man. Had fun with it, but wished the doors would have been a bit bigger or more noticeable. I had to wait for the second flash of light because the first was always looking for the door. Loved that you could turn off the "grainy" look. Options are nice to have.
Overall: Cool concept that was well implemented! Difficult for sure!
Fun: Great idea and execution. Level 3 I started to get a little burnt out and frustrated though. Not being able to see put me an unwinnable spot a few times. Since all we as player can see is the enemies it would have been nice to have different enemy sprites that moved n very specific way so we knew by their visual what they would do. This would let me get a feel for what the level might be even when I can't see it and get a visual confirmation of those assumptions on the lightening flash.
Innovation: Again super creative idea that was well executed! I think with some balancing tweaks and maybe a little story this could make an excellent horror game.
Theme: I think a lightening flash every ten seconds? It wasn't immediately clear until few flashes in.
Graphics: Thank you for making the post processing optional!!! Cute little sprites and a very cool light(ening) system!
Audio: Loved the SFX and music!
Humor: Not super funny but very atmospheric!
Mood: very atmospheric
@himecrycho I'm glad you enjoyed the game. The doors are always visible and have 2 candles next to them so it's lit in the darkness. Maybe in the future we'll make them pop out more. Thanks for your feedback.
I thought the lightning vision mechanic was an interesting way of using the theme! Having different playable characters was a nice touch and I was really impressed by how many levels you guys had put together.
@isaac-hisey Happy you had fun playing our game. All the enemies have specific behaviors like how the ghosts can go through walls. Also some enemies chase you while other don't. We didn't have much time to playtest so the balancing of difficulty might be a little off for some levels but we made it so you can skip levels you get stuck on in level select in the main menu. You guessed the theme implementation correctly :) Appreciate your feedback.
This is a really good take on maze games. Absolutely perfect for a October dare. And its good sound to boot.
I AFKed on the title screen for a bit and the glitch effect was REALLY cool. The little sprinkles of details really show the care you guys took in making it, like the lightning crackling + animation when you clicked on signs. SFX was great, and the music worked well with the art for the spooky atmosphere (same with the VFX). I did notice that it feels like the hitboxes don't always feel intuitive (e.g. the ghost seems like it'd be one block width but it's two), but that might just be me haha
I like the continuation of the musical motif between stages and in the pause screen too. I did feel as though difficulty suddenly spikes in the levels with the purple aggressive ghosts, and with the rather slow movement speed if you die close to the end of a level it can take up to a minute just to get back to where you were, as some paths are reliant on waiting for the ghost pathing to open up. The crackle mechanic where lightning is used for vision is honestly one of the most creative takes I've seen on the theme so far, props! This goes for the AI too, pathing was quite smooth.
Overall, very fun, well-polished and with a really creative take on the theme! :)
The title screen reminds me of Nightmare on Elm Street on NES... and the ingame blocks are looking kinda like the ones from Super Mario. Combined with a little bit of Pac-Man. Overall: nice. Pixel're nice.
I like the pac man inspiration. Fun maze game that fit the theme.
A fun maze game that really reminds me of pac-man without the worldwide vision! I guess it's because of the theme that the lightning hits every 10 seconds, but to me that feels really long having to wait for it to see the world again for a brief moment. Syncing it with the music really helps to let me know when the next flash is coming though! I'd also like to suggest placing emphasis on the light sources dotted around the world, either as guide points or warnings of dead-ends, or even a waypoint of some sort to help with the navigating! And of course, the music, art style and effects come together really well to create an immersive mood!
nice work!, great story!.
This was cool, though I feel like the only challenge comes from waiting for the light to flicker, which isn't the most fun gameplay mechanic. On the other hand, it challenges you to remember the layout of the map, which would be an interesting mechanic and work better if the map wasn't so big.
Also, I feel like the doors are a bit too small. The goal should be more obvious, and I missed it during my first playthrough.
Nice job overall.
nice job! the pac man inspiration + Halloween theme fits well!
Nice spooky game. Good job!
I liked the twist the light gave to the maze, suddenly it makes it way more interesting, and the 10 seconds cooldown for the lighting feels fitting. Nice entry!
Good game with some fun moments, nice touch with the big scarry ghost, but I think that could be more mechanics, like a flash light with batteries or grab some of that candles to increase the size of your sight, anyway. God job guys!
I really liked this games atmosphere I thought it all followed the theme and was fun good job!
The lighting system is super cool and added to the atmosphere. I couldn't continue much since it seemed things were out of bounds for my screen resolution sadly.
@keffk5 Yeah we're thinking of adding in more elements like a timer that make it more urgent that you move and not just stand and wait for the lightning. We want you to risk going the wrong way. Currently the Super Ghost shows and chases you down if you take too long but we didn't have time to tweak the time it takes for it to show up each level. You can skip to Level 5-1 in the level select. We have enemies on those stages that produce a lot of light. It might be more of what you are looking for. Thanks for the feedback.
@shrillwhip The idea is that we want you to risk going the wrong way but at least try to memorize parts of the maze if not all of it so you have a general idea you are going the correct way. If it was any smaller it would be too easy. We are going to add a timer and maybe other things to make it more urgent. You are not the first person to mention having trouble finding the door. We will definitely be altering it so it is more noticeable. Appreciate your feedback.
@gousen-pride Glad you had fun playing our game. We are currently looking into additional mechanics. Thanks for the feedback.
@austin Thanks for playing our game. I'm sorry the game was cut off by your screen resolution. Which version did you play? The download version or the web version?
Great idea with the lightning lighting!few indicators would have helped the game a lot I think, countdown to the next lightning strike and levels to go counter. Levels feel bit samey. I started to think these are procedurally generated forever. Great little game! Good job!
I truly Love that maze game and the sounds are great too
A solid idea with lightning and a one-screen levels.
The difficulty curve might use some adjustments, though - feels like the first levels are too long for what they are intended to teach the player while the last ones leave very little space for errors (ghost thingies are super dangerous and almost impossible to escape as they go through wall and at about the same speed as player).
Nevertheless, good job :thumbsup:
Great use of the theme! Very well presented game. Great menu and the screen effects were very fitting and atmospheric. Excellent music as well. Mood was just excellent. Gameplay was fine but it got a bit repetitive and the higher levels started getting a bit frustrating just by how long it was going to take to go through it (having to wait 10s quickly adds up), and that you'd have to restart the whole level. Great entry overall and great amount of polish and attention to presentation!
I like this. Only having a moment at a time to look at the map makes it quite difficult to remember where exactly you're going, but I like that in a maze. Red Ghost was big spooky. The music is also very good.
Very cute ! Nice gamemechanic that fit the theme, the little music is cool too. Just waiting for more sprite animation ;)
Really cool take on a maze game, with nice progression between the levels. Each maze was a bit long for my liking, but that's probably personal preference. The audio also perfectly set the mood.
@makemakemake just out of curiosity how far did you get? We tried to make worlds of 3 levels each that were coherent with each other, so if you felt that the first three levels were very similar I can understand that. If you felt that they all were too similar, we'd love that feedback, as we tried to make the level sets have unique mechanics and layouts.
@nyxkn As we work on the game more, difficulty and repetitiveness of redoing a long level if you die at the end are important things we've gotten a lot of feedback on. We did not have a lot of time to balance, but moving forward we're going to try to implement things like temporary checkpoints to prevent you from having to repeat a whole level if you die.
@roguebrain, I got to the fourth level.
I really like this idea! The lightning flashing to illuminate the level only for a little bit makes the exploration really challenging. Especially that everything in the manor wants to eat you, and you forgot to take your sword ;). Big red ghost reminded me of the ghost that comes in Spelunky if you tarry too long.
Music is great - really fitting and moody. I didn't like the post-processing effect (I think it gets really hard on the eyes after a while - and this is a game you play for quite a while), so thank you for making it optional.
The thing that could be improved is the wait times on some later levels - some enemies have quite long routes, and you do a lot of waiting if you miss your opportunity to proceed. Add to that the waiting for the flash, and you get quite a bit of just sitting around.
I will admit to cheating in some of the late levels (in which I kept dying) and making a screenshot to figure out my route :grin: But most I finished legitimately. A really nice jam job!
@makemakemake You can use the level select to skip to later stages of each world, like seeing 3-1, 4-1, and 5-1. Each first level of a world serves to teach about its gimmick, and so by the third level the mazes can be pretty challenging.
Nice little, well presented game. Love it.
Interesting game ! I like the mood of it, the music fits the game and the feeling of it !
Great game. Only seeing the map every 10 seconds was a great idea that really made me push my memory to the limit to remember what was around every corner.
I also appreciated the level select feature as this let me see everything the game had to offer
I really liked the atmosphere, it's like an horror movie, you don't know what you're in for until it's too late and you're cornered.
A game taking place in a manor, in a stormy weather, with lightning striking every 10 seconds. What a peculiar setting! I wish I came up with something similar
It's a cool maze solver with a twist, although the mazes are not very complex. The timer on the sudden death boss may be a bit too long because it spawned when I was in front of the exit to the final level, and I had enough time to wait out most of my problems. I dig the mood; when you get cornered you can feel it. Who was in charge of SFX? They deserve extra credit for the thunder sounds.
The game glitched out after a death, but it wasn't a big deal thanks to the level selection menu. My game used to have a similar problem during development. Guess manors have a natural tendency to softlock on death
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shFLfewjsso
the music and atmosphere in this game was great!!! loved the thunder and lightning -great use of the theme! Was fun to try to path find during the lightning strikes -awesome work! :D
The audio and the graphics work very well with the idea ... Nice Game !
A fun game with a creative use of the theme and great atmosphere. The only problem I ran into was a minor oversight - beating level 3-1 didn't load the next one.
@erukolindo Thanks for pointing out a bug. We'll look into it. In the main menu you can use level select to go to the next one. Glad you had fun.
@alaah Thanks for pointing this out, I'll try to look into it more, but was there anything else notable happening when you died? Or was this the second or third time dying on that level, as opposed to the first? Bugs like this can be hard to squash without knowing exactly how to replicate them.
@roguebrain it was my first death on that level and second overall. Everything that happened is on the recording
@fabula-rasa Thanks for your feedback. We were definitely inspired by the Spelunky ghost but we didn't have time to balance the timing of when it shows up each level. Your not the first person to mention waiting for enemies. We will be making adjustments to time them better. So happy you enjoyed it enough to play all the way through even when it got hard.
It was fun! I liked the art style and it meshed well with the the theme of the game and the music was very well done. Gave me those Nightmare on Elm Street for the NES vibes. I did wish to see more detail in the game and full screened it, but doing so cut off the sides as my main monitor isn't a widescreen. It'd be neat if each character had a separate attribute to them, running faster, larger lit area, longer delay in lightning flashes, etc. Great job overall!
@pychewing Glad you liked our game. We'll look into aspect ratio settings in the future. Each character was going to have a separate gameplay attribute but it was cut for time. The characters will be more unique in the future. Thanks for your feedback.
Great execution on the theme, and a fun NES vibe to all. Did hit a silly bug on one level (2-1 I believe) where I walked through the exit and broke it, did just continue from the Level select but a funny bug.
Good take on the theme, the result is actually pretty fun gameplay wise. I only had time for the first 3 floors so far but there was a good job done of ramping up the difficulty with new kinds of enemies. Always a fan of the retro style. Music was good and added a lot for the tense atmosphere, the art was cute. The only downside was that I played it in the web player on itch and whe I tried to use fullscreen the side of the level was cut off making it unplayable (using 1920 x 1200 resolution) So i had to play in the small window instead and not be able to enjoy the art so much. Great job.
Liked the vibe a lot and it was very fun to play! (:
@automatonvx So glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for the feedback on window resolutions. We are going to work to make sure the game is playable at different resolutions, likely by downscaling to the closest one that still achieves our intended aspect ratio.
Every aspect of the game is polished in its own way. Looooved being able to choose skins, the music was great, pixelart as well and the theme use with light was very clever. Liked it a lot, great work!!
hsdsg.JPG great game！I almost made it through！（rate back？）
@projectcolorball Thanks, glad you liked it enough to get to the last level. I played and rated your game 3 days ago. It was a really great game. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Surprisingly stressful for a maze game! Incredibly well done!
The levels were really fun to play. I loved the take on the theme. The way that certain nooks became your friend instead of enemy was also REALLY cool!
I do feel like the lighting could have have a bit of a pulse to it in order to help during fast run times - where it gets an additional cells distance away but fades in and out. There were just too many times where I was panic running and got caught in a corner for my liking.
But this is a game jam, and finetuning user experiences is HARD.
This is extremely well done and I could see the concept being fleshed out more into a wonderful "full" game. :D
@otterfaelure I appreciate your the feedback. I'm happy you had fun playing our game. We didn't have much time for playtesting so some levels are a little too hard. Thanks for understanding. We are actually going to be fleshing it out into a full game where we are adding a lot more levels and fixing the current ones.
@paul-avallone That's awesome! It's gonna be a killer game. :D
Great concept ! levels becomes quickly really hard for me. but great game !
@roroto-sic Thanks for playing our game. We didn't get the chance to balance the game that much so some levels are a bit harder than they should be. You can skip to any level you want in the level select in the main menu if you get stuck.
Very very fun idea! I really liked the idea of navigating a maze and only getting a brief glimpse of the full maze every 10 seconds. I think the level design was really good, although earlier on the enemies don't really pose much of a threat other than to block my path and make me wait for them to pass by. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed this title. Simple and easy to understand. Great job and thank you for the game!
@jag Thanks for the feedback! We wanted to go for a sort of ramping difficulty and use earlier levels to introduce mechanics before adding to them later on. We're currently working on adding even more levels and characters to create a greater variety and tougher challenges.
Good job for all the work, multiple level with small gameplay changes, environnement and music. Everything is simple but well executed. Good job team.
Game with a lot of potential and extremely fun. It is one of the few games of this gamejam that tried to do something different in relation to the theme. The lightning every 10 seconds mechanic is just perfect. I really enjoyed this interpretation of the theme. The graphics are beautiful and the sound too. And the gameplay is solid. The mood that this game passes is incredible! I would love to see a commercial version of this game. Although I wasn't able to clear it because of a possible bug I found: In one of the last levels (I believe), my character died (turning a tombstone?), and I accidentally pressed ESC and for some reason the game continued (I managed to move the player's headstone), this ended up breaking the game (the reset functionality was no longer functional). Anyway, but I believe that I still managed to enjoy the game. Overall it was a good job! Bug.png
@vphyre Thanks for your kind words. I'm so glad you enjoyed the game we made. Thanks for pointing out a bug. It's very useful. We made a level select in the main menu for people if they got stuck or the game broke. We are turning this into a full game with a lot more levels, extra character mechanics, and gameplay polish so look out for that in the future.
Wow, it's really fun and challenging, the levels are so well designed, with excellent mood too! Keep up the great work!
A simple yet a fun and creative approach to the theme, the levels were nicely made, considering how you really gotta figure out the path towards the exit without just blindly running to it.
The music works! It makes the game really tense. But in reality, the ghosts aren't that threatning. Good work and cool mood!