FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD53 → HOTARU - Guider of Souls

HOTARU - Guider of Souls

By Salazar, Dronnzer, skullyy, Fuyu Eterniya, Skyrim007 and AD.Aditya

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall8773.3032
Fun10342.8731
Innovation10852.6931
Theme9923.3731
Humor6452.9828
Mood4233.7132

Comments

angiemon 2023-05-02 16:33

this looks extremely amazing!

forager 2023-05-02 16:51

Great graphics, though it is very demanding on my pc at higher settings (GTX 1070, RYZEN 5 5600X). Having issues with that 3rd platform - I cannot for the life of me get past it. Let me know if I'm doing something idiotic and I'll go back to try again.

skullyy 2023-05-02 17:00

We will have an updated version soon. There is a bug at that place. I am sorry for that and if you are facing the problem in jumping and climbing the wall then you have to only press the space bar. (No other key) And you have to maintain the soul bar by clicking the right mouse button.

2023-05-02 17:31

love the style and gameplay

sherwin-claridge 2023-05-02 18:43

Like the art direction and the UI looks mega. Gameplay is good. Able to jump 3 times if I spam it

stefan-funke 2023-05-03 11:20

Graphics are awesome and an eyecatcher!

Gameplay has some problems though and is too punishing in the beginning. Two examples:

1) It's not obvious that I have a double jump. I only learned that after falling down twice at the first gap. Maybe let the player learn the controls in a safe environment (don't let the rock fall down. Instead just put a high cliff there, where you only get up with the double jump).

2) Same thing at the wall-jump section. Why place a gap in the floor where players can fall down? Let them learn the controls first. Wall-jumping didn't work very well, so of course I fell down there! :laughing:

Some other inconveniences: - Tutorial text is not very well readable (yellow color above bright floor, orange color above orange colored tree) - I got always stuck on the stairs. - Maybe make the soul follow you automatically, without having to interact everytime. - Remove the mouse clicking. It's not a very interesting game mechanic

Sorry, I hope this didn't sound too harsh. I'm really impressed you made a so good looking game. Just polish the gameplay a bit and it will be awesome! :)

skullyy 2023-05-03 13:17

Thanks for the detailed review. We didn't get enough time to polish the gameplay. We know there are some issues with the level. We will fix all those issues in an update later. And the mouse clicking thing was added to make the game harder. We nerfed it before posting. Maybe we will nerf it more.

the-neon-shark 2023-05-03 15:46

Very impressive visual design!

pixelce 2023-05-03 15:53

The graphics are great and well thought out. Good luck !

tom-oak 2023-05-03 15:59

Hi! I played a little and got stuck at the moving platform: since you have no point of reference (platform dropped and background is too far away) and you can't stay on the right I could never get the right timing.

In general it feels like you couldn't really decide what the core of your game was (2.5D feel and level design but 3D movement, click spam, etc.) but overall everything is quite well done and gorgeous to look at!

Congratulations!

ruslana 2023-05-03 21:27

It looks beautiful!

kot9 2023-05-04 17:51

wow, level design looks really amazing and the art is beautiful

jamieok 2023-05-04 18:19

Nice little jam game. Checkpoints would be a huge improvement for me as it's very punishing to be sent all the way back to the start. The jumping is a bit awkward, a little bit of air control would feel nicer. Good work :slight_smile:

durkagames 2023-05-04 18:46

Very nice walking animation, and there was some problems with jump controller, it feels quite uncomfy. Thank you for entry!

erlioniel 2023-05-04 18:57

Hi there! Tried to play this visual masterpiece, but my toaster (which is kinda PC, but really I have doubts) was barely capable to run on low. But to finish me off the game mechanic didn't played well, so I didn't manage to play through tbh.

I see that you put a lot of efforts to visual - and it did pay off! Hope you had more time to spend on gameplay & optimization tho :smile: But that's LD rules, right? We are all under pressure.

Great effort, good visual result, nice work guys. Keep my :thumbsup:

branung 2023-05-05 05:40

I really enjoy the theming as well the main character's animations and adorable footstep sounds. The mix of 2D and 3D gameplay was also cool to see. I think some of the camera angles can be difficult for platforming, but overall I had a fun time!

barce 2023-05-05 20:00

amazing art! The mechanics were pretty responsive and fun to play with. Congrats!

skelleroznik 2023-05-06 11:51

Good game! The visuals are just gorgeous. But because of this the performance on my machine was not very good, which made it quite difficult to platform. I stopped playing the game, because my memory card ran out of memory in the middle of the playthrough :/. But it's understandable with this quality of graphics. I liked the mechanics, they felt fresh and made the game very engaging. It felt a little frustrating to me, that if you jump without moving first and then try to move in mid-air, it doesn't work. Was a little hard to get on walls because of it. Other than that, it was an enjoyable experience!

daniil-vakhrushev 2023-05-08 17:22

Great visuals and atmosphere! Good job!

skleembof 2023-05-08 18:58

The gameplay is very simple, but very unforgiving. A single mistake and you have to restart the entire game! The environment looks very nice, and the character animations are adorable. The background music is beautiful and soothing and the little sound effects for the footsteps are a nice touch.

I think the game would benefited from giving the player more horizontal velocity when they jump, because jumping on moving platforms felt really awkward. Some more playtesting would have improved the overall experience, but I know playtesting is impossible during ludum dare.

Great job overall guys!

ardorugus 2023-05-09 04:49

Heavy graphics. But it's good. However, I'd recommend to proofread the in-game text. And polish+optimize, if possible.

danyclockworker 2023-05-14 19:56

Great graphics!