Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → Thunderstorm
By paul-nadan
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 43 | 4.00 | 23 | |
| Fun | 95 | 3.71 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 145 | 3.54 | 23 | |
| Theme | 67 | 4.07 | 23 | |
| Graphics | 43 | 4.16 | 23 | |
| Audio | 10 | 4.35 | 23 | |
| Humor | 2.00 | 4 | ||
| Mood | 2 | 4.50 | 23 |
Nice! Was Fun to play through! I liked the art a lot, and it's a fun concept! I really like the 2nd to last and last sections a lot. The music does a good job of creating a sense of dread, and the monster chasing you is quite legitimately scary at first!
It did feel like, despite the theme, this game would've been a bit more interesting with a somewhat faster rate of lightning and platforming changes to match that! Regardless fun to play through!
I like the idea and the music was brilliant, I found it a bit hard to play, didn't hold my hand at all haha but maybe that's just part of it. Nicely done!
The best game i've played in the jam so far. The artstyle, the lightning and scary monsters just worked perfectly together. Having small puzzle variations for getting past monsters kept the gameplay from being too repetitive, and the save system prevented dying from being too frustrating. Just fantastic in so many ways - really well done!
First, the black-and-white art style is great for the game concept. The game immediately starts with an "oh shit" moment that establishes the atmosphere really well.
The sprite and animation work were quite good. I especially loved the character design for the creatures, as well as the lamp posts. The variety of monsters was great and made you learn different strategies as you went.
I will say that the ten second timer for the lightning felt a bit slow (not much you can do about that with this theme, of course). It was often not possible to wait until the next flash to see the next area, since the chaser would get you before the lightning flashed. It also might have been nice to have enemy movement and the lightning timer reset to a particular moment on respawn --- there were a couple times with the spiders I spawned at the worst possible time in their movement cycle and don't think it was possible to win from that position.
Audio was really well done for a jam game. The music is frantic and spooky. I particularly liked the bells/chimes in the soundtrack and upon reaching a checkpoint.
I've added the "crawler" from your game to a fan art compilation on [my profile.](https://ldjam.com/users/jeremy-ryan/)
Nice work!
So well executed. The lamp checkpoints with the bell sound were really above and beyond for a 48 hour game - I was very impressed when I realized what they were. The art style is great and the variation of monster mechanics is really solid. My favourite moment was in the first third of the game when you have to jump to a platform that you can't see!
One of my favorite 🤩
Good job! I liked the tension that the monster only being visible in flashes added, very unique
That was a neat game idea! I liked the monster designs and music too! The lamp lure was pretty funny :)
I ended up learning most of the level layouts through trial and error, rather than waiting on the flash to appear, so I tend to agree with other comments about the lighting occurring a little too infrequently. But rather than disregarding the theme altogether, I think it could work if the player can see more of the level, so that it's a matter of memorizing as much of the snapshot as possible. I also think the game would feel a lot more tense if you discouraged trial and error gameplay by having a lives system, but that might also be more frustrating than fun.
I had a lot of fun playing your game and ruminating about the design. Good work!
Good job with this game! I enjoyed the music, and loved the concept! :D
What a pity there is no web version :( From the screenshots looks just great!
Nice
The start of this game is so incredible that it's a bit of a shame the screenshots spoil it. It's an excellently crafted moment. This then spills over into pretty much the whole game doing a great job of evoking the intended emotion and mood.
This is the best "you are allowed to see every 10 seconds" game I've played from this jam {there's been a few of them actually, even another one with thunderstrikes illuminating the world in a brief flash}. The thing that makes it work here is the conflict between wanting to run away from a threat and see where you are going. It's hard to know quite how close the monster is to you, and the path ahead of you is full of instakills. This creates a great dynamic of needing the thunderflashes but not simply waiting for them.
I wouldn't call this game "fun", but that's ok because the main focus is on evoking a feeling and I consider this a great success in that regard. I love the checkpoints, my favorite part is the troll one
It was pretty frustrating that the enemy respawn cycles weren't consistent. You pretty much always have to go forward upon respawning at a checkpoint {or monster eats you}, but sometimes that means you simply die because you got unlucky with the enemy cycle. This is especially egregious in the spider section.
This is awesome. Love the aesthetics and the creepiness of it all. I felt like the section with the spiders and hiding in the holes was really difficult and tedious; that's where I eventually gave up. The mood is great, and it's cool that there really is a bit of a horror aspect to it when it's just a compo game made in pygame. Impressive!
That was really fun, and as a scaredy cat, kept me on the edge of my seat! I made a lot of funny noises, trying to dodge the creatures.
I really like the games atmosphere, music and visuals. For me the very limited view made the game a bit too difficult. But overall is this a very good compo game. Well done.
Great atmosphere, super moody, and cool use of the theme!
Concept, graphics, and audio are great, but there simply isn't enough screen real estate for the mechanics, which leads to a lot of blind jumps. I almost gave up on the spider section, which felt extremely frustrating.. Not enough light to deal with that sort of mechanics at all. Also don't put in fake lamps, unless you make them even more different, it felt really cheap. Also a dedicated jump button rather than up to jump would be appreciated. Overall the game's really neat, but is a bit of a victim of the 10 second theme, as 10 seconds are far too long in-between lightning strikes for the screen real estate you have.
I'm impressed by how far you were able to take this idea! The concept is good but not groundbreaking, but your execution of it definitely carried the experience. The sheer variety of enemies is impressive and creates a number of unique experiences. Dying to the anglerfish-style enemy is one of my favorite moments from this jam! I also was a big fan of how fast dying and respawning is, which quickly relieved any frustration as you're able to try again immediately.
As others have noted, the lightning strikes are too infrequent, but there's not much you can do about that given the theme. I often stood at a ledge and waited several seconds for zeus to bless my eyes instead of making a leap of faith into the darkness.
Overall in my opinion, the strengths of this game are the enemy/level variety and soundtrack creating a neat horror aesthetic. There are definitely some rough edges but I thought the experience as a whole was fun and very unique.
The monster and I having a friendly chat:
youwin.png
Thank you everybody for all the great feedback!
Definitely the most common piece of advice was to increase the amount the player can see, either by increasing the rate of lightning flashes (@william-derksen @jeremy-ryan @deepfreeze @n4tticus) or making the screen bigger (@rashcan @deepfreeze). Balance-wise, my intent going in was that the game should be beatable even without any lightning flashes by repeatedly dying until the level was memorized, and I had hoped that the frequent checkpoints would make that a little less frustrating. I think it is important not to provide too much lighting - I want the player to have to take the occasional blind leap of faith into the darkness, or run into a monster where they aren't expecting one. That said, I think a combination of a slightly higher frequency (maybe 7 seconds?) and a slightly larger/zoomed out screen could make for a more enjoyable experience.
The other common pain point was the non-deterministic enemy behavior, especially for the spider level (@jeremy-ryan @ninjacreeper47). My intent there was to prevent the player from memorizing the enemy patterns, and instead have to see the enemies as they reach the edge of the player's light bubble and react quickly. I think the best solution here might be to keep the non-deterministic behavior but make the light bubble a little bigger and/or the enemies a little slower so it is easier to dodge in time. For what it's worth, the spider level is winnable from either spawn direction, but you need to run towards the spider initially, stop outside its patrol range, and then wait for it to come into view and follow it once it turns around.
The anglerfish-inspired "lamp" generated mixed reactions, but the majority seem to have enjoyed it so I'll consider it a success.
@deepfreeze I agree adding a dedicated jump button would be a good idea, it never hurts to give people more options.
@ninjacreeper47 I think some kind of screenshot is necessary to get people intrigued enough to play the game, but I agree it's a bit of a spoiler and I might try replacing it with a version without any monsters visible as a compromise.
@n4tticus I'm glad to see you and the monster are getting along so well!
Most of all though, I'm super happy about all the positive feedback on the atmosphere/music/visuals! This is my first attempt at a "horror" game, and my main goal was to give it that scary aspect (especially the initial lightning flash). I'm really glad to hear that people liked the effect.
Thanks for playing!
Congrats on #2 in Mood!