Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Haunted Forest
By zimny11
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 139 | 3.61 | 37 | |
| Fun | 211 | 3.25 | 36 | |
| Innovation | 193 | 3.26 | 36 | |
| Theme | 191 | 3.51 | 36 | |
| Graphics | 102 | 3.83 | 36 | |
| Audio | 166 | 3.21 | 34 | |
| Mood | 20 | 4.14 | 36 |
I like the aesthetic, I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong, but I couldn't kill the weird antler guys. Hit one a bunch of times and it didn't seem like anything was happening. I was able to sacrifice a corpse on a stump and open a secret path, which I very much enjoyed!
@ollie-d Thank you for playing! Well you can't kill them, but that is a good point. Let me add some info in description to avoid confusion.
Really love the vibe you are creating with the sound design and visuals. I do wish it was a little clearer with what you can interact with and what you need for it. The first "puzzle" is easy enough but then when it opens up it gets confusing. I somehow ended up with the rope and could use it but I could not tell you what of all the steps I took lead to it. The minimalist animations especially after you use the rope are great!
Nice compo entry!
I went all the way to get a warm mushroom stew in my bucket, but didn't what to do with it. Trying giving it to an old man, but I guess it wasn't to his taste. I was killed on the way to see if I can spill some on the altar, and didn't have the strength to redo it all ^^
I was in vocal with a friend, and I really didn't understand at first that all the noises were from the game. Kinda disturbing :joy: Love the handcrafted vibe of "I'll blow on my mic, roll my chair wheels, and open the window to record birds" :ok_hand: The 1-bit pixelart was nice and effective.
I guess the game would have been even nicer with a way to understand the summoning recipe, not only relying on randomly stumbling on ingredients (maybe have the wendigo push you in a specific area, or writing, ... ?)
Took a while to even start figuring out what was going on. The character designs and sound effects are great!
I really liked that you made such a crawling mind game. I like the idea and the look of it. It fits the mood very well. But unfortunately I got stuck at one point.
It would help a lot if they had some outline of the things that could be interacted with. And after you grab something, some text will appear. A sentence that refers to what it is and/or what it is good for.
@domenixius Thank you for playing my game! Yes, feedback to player is something that I always struggled with, and it would need to be improved. I really should divide second stage to two parts to make it easier to figure out what to do. One more time thanks!
@colisan Happy to hear you liked it! You had the correct idea about the altar! That is one of 3 steps to win the game. Actually most noises are recorded by me while taking a walk through the park (at least what I was able to salvaged from this recording after cutting out part with car noises and trams and kinds screaming playground that was near by and plain decided to land at this time too... XD). And I do agree, I need to put some hints, since it is not obvious what to do. Thanks for playing!
@digitaliliad Thanks! Glad you like the art and sounds :)
@lelek-hunor-kadosa Thank you for taking your time to play the game! The idea with outlines is great :D Thank you for the feedback.
You got a pretty unique esthetics in this game, but it makes finding a path through the dense forest rather hard. I managed to sacrifice a few foxes (or are they squirrels?) but those pesky bucks got me too many times.
I really dig the black & white + a bit of red color scheme that you have going on. It really sets the mood. First I misread your message that you replied saying "Well you _can_ kill then". So I spent like 10 tries, determined to own the bastard. Only to re-read your message and see that I had owned myself, haha.
But overall a fantastic compo entry, very memorable!
Very striking visuals with the red-white-black pixel aesthetic, though I found myself a bit stuck in the second area trying to put squirrels onto the altar - wasn't sure what to do. Still, the atmosphere was incredible, so great work either way :)
I'm incredibly fond of your game! I don't know why everyone seems to immediately try to kill antler-man, (Just wait until you see multi-face-bear-guy) I guess game-developers have a low survival instinct :map:
This is a brilliant callback to trial and error adventure games that I adore. I hope you don't end up adding lots of hints in there like I see discussed in the comments, as putting the time in and figuring it out is what makes the game!
There is absolutely more than enough in there (There is even a sign with an arrow, come on people, stop complaining!) for you to figure your way through the woods, and it being very rewarding, making you feel good about making connections. If you are lost in the woods, you don't get any hints handed to you, I know because I have been, haha! :evergreen_tree:
The artstyle is wonderfully simple and effective, you don't need more to sell the feeling, and the impersonality of complete contrast adds to the feeling of hopelessness which you must fight while trying to figure out the puzzles.
Thank you for this game, glad to have played it!
I loved the art-style of this game, reminds me heavily of Faith (which is a good thing). I liked the puzzle aspect of the game, even though I will admit it took me a little bit to realise I had to sacrifice an animal on the tree stump to open the bridge. Great game overall though.
Incredible game, the art, the ambiance, the sound everything is perfectly creepy, you really nailed it.
@flying-dog-fish I get that it could be hard to find a way between trees. I tried to limit a places where player need to do that. The "deer" are more of moving obstacle that player should avoid, not fight them. Thank you for commenting and playing my game!
@simon-rahnasto Thank you! Happy to hear you liked it and sorry for the deer-confusion :D
A very atmospheric game.
I like the monochromatic style.
I spent a long time trying to cook a squirrel in the cauldron XD
photo_2024-04-18_23-14-42.jpg
@drainkid Thanks! Good to hear you like the art style :) You need something bigger than a squirrel on the big altar ;)
@belle Thank you so much for your comment! It made my day :D
I do not want to give too much hints, since figuring it out is the game, but I also get that this is LD game, so it need to be limited to like 5-10 minutes, or people will not play all that way through. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but I worried not many people will see ending animation and I put a lot of work to it XD
I'm really happy you enjoyed my game! One more time, thank you!
@cainetinyarms Thanks! I wanted to add some more visual indicator next to the stump, but I was so tired, at the end I completely forgot about it.
@phobos Thank you! Hope you had a good time playing it :)
@ben-yazi Thanks for commenting and playing! Ah, that is not one of the ingredients :D
Your 1-bit wendigo will haunt my dreams forever 10/10. The mood of the game was absolutely excellent. The graphics and the audio were cohesive and made for a surprisingly unsettling atmosphere. Really great job!
Very cool style and atmosphere. I wanted to finish it but after dying a couple of times I gave up. I lit up the altar and smeared it with soup but not sure where to go from there. It was a bit frustrating dying and having to redo stuff(especially slowly carrying items around) but at the same time, without any danger it wouldn't feel as tense.
Never been so scared to be chased since Ski-Free. Nice atmosphere and very effective 1 bit graphics. I didn't make it too far in but I had fun. Keep up the good work!
I did it! I finally did it!
Great idea for the game, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere. I agree with some of the others that it may have been a bit too hard to figure some things out. Providing text that says what an item is when you pick it up would help a lot, I think. (With the minimalistic style, some were hard to tell what they were.) I also found myself initially overwhelmed at the amount of ground to cover and explore after the very first area. Not sure if there's anything you could do to direct the player more?
I got a solid amount of playtime out of this :D. Good job on building this in 48h 👍 I didn't quite understand the visuals of the water source, one of those old pump thingies would have worked better for me. Screenshot 2024-04-21 150507.png
@rcxa Thank you for playing. I'm really happy to hear you like the art style :)
@silkworm-sweatshop Thanks for playing my game and for the feedback! It looks like you got 2 out of 3 steps to finish the game. The last missing is a "thing" you should but on the altar to make the sacrifice >:] About the "deer things" you should be able to outrun them, or push them back and stun them for a moment with your knife, or lose them around trees. Also, I put almost all of them in such a way you can just go around them. I tried to design the map in such a way long walks while carrying heavy stuff was not necessary, but of course it wasn't possible in all cases.
@braktheman Thank you! Hope you had good time trying my game :)
@cole-cecil Thank you for playing and commenting! Yea... QoL are not my strong side of game making (if there are any :P ). After looking at the feedback I should divide second part of the map to two, it probably would have been more easy for the player to figure stuff out and move around. And congratulations on winning! I hope you liked final cutscene!
@kanagg Thank you! It supposed to be a stone well with broken mechanism of pulling up water, view from the side (as everything else in the game). Probably should have put more work into that graphic, since it is hard to design stuff in such a small resolution and with only 2 colors (well 3 colors, but one is not really usable for this).
Really good 1-bit aesthetic. The controls work well as expected. I would like to say that the bloody color is just perfect. Weird and freaky experience. Well done ++
> I wonder what the old man is for. > > Maybe he wants a log to sit on. > > ...no? > > These stones need a combination. > > Perhaps if I give the old man this bucket of water he'll give me the combination? > > ...no. > > Ah, I see! A hearty batch of mushroom stew. Surely the old man will love this! > > ...nope. > > Perhaps if I bring him some string to help tie his shoes he'll ...oh. Oh dear.
At least I managed to feed him some mushroom stew in the end :P
The sound worked super well on this one. I didn't think the difficulty was too high, but I guess with jam games people don't have a whole lot of patience.
I'm still not sure what the big rock was for. Maybe to press the pressure pad? It seems I didn't need the rock to go through the passage, though, but maybe that was a bug?
@geckoo1337 Thank you :) Happy to that you liked the game art style!
@henk Hah! I saw one more person going through similar process with old man, to at the end arrived at the "oh no!" conclusion :3 Glad you like it and hope you had fun! Yes that is a bug, sadly. The stone was for pressure plate, but it looks like the logic to check, if you put that stone or something else does not work correctly.
https://gyazo.com/dc02d67ec1c70adb07074a45decfc73d I was unable to get past this first part, maybe I wasn't trying the right thing. The game looks cool though! Love me some 1bit graphics :) I also enjoyed the spooky sound design!
Super nice aesthetic... Music would have been amazing
Really, really liked this one. My favourite so far. Spent well over an hour on it and finally finished it.
I very much appreciated the wordlessness. It added a lot to the atmosphere and made the puzzles more intriguing. I did struggle to understand what some things were until I figured out what to do with them and the interaction or sound effect made it clear. I thought the bucket was a mushroom and the brick thing was a house ruin until I brought them together and realised it was a well. Not sure if that's a good or a bad thing!
Amazing atmosphere. The simple (but very well done) graphics and sparse sound effects do a lot of work. Black and white plus red isn't exactly new but you made good use of it and chose well when to go for the red. I really liked that the snow on the ground still wasn't pure white while the snow in the air was. Made it feel all the more cold and sparkling with icy crystals.
I'm still pondering the story. My character wasn't exactly being very nice so I figure the "monsters" are forest guardians trying to prevent me from causing death and destruction? Like someone else I tried to bring the soup to the person with the cane but of course the actual solution was much grimmer :(
High ratings from me, really good!
@cananaman Thank you for trying my game! Yes, that in not one of the ingredients of the potion you need to make.
@jose-bonilla Happy to hear that you liked the aesthetic of my game. I was debating to add music, but it would take a lot of time, since I'm not good at it, and I'm not sure if I would have been able to make the music that would fit the mood in the game.
@ava-skoog I'm so glad that you liked it! And that you put the effort to finish the game <3
Yea... small resolution and using only black-white (plus red) colors does not help with readability of things in the game. Probably some changes are necessary, especially the well and the bucket (I notice with those two players have the most issues), to make them more recognizable for the player.
Thanks for your kinds words about color palette. I really tried to pull off this self-imposed restrictions of colors, since I thought it would add a lot to the aesthetic of the game and the mood.
Yup. We are not necessary "the good-guys" in this scenario... or are we? ;) You see... that's the trimmed version of what I wanted to make. I think even in game files I left the name of the map scene as "Stage1". Stage 2 was supposed to be somewhat "quick events based" fight (not really that, but it is hard to explain what I had in mind) against summoned monster (that you can see glimpse off in the final animation). Sadly, deadline had no mercy and it was cut off. I guess that is the beauty of game jams :)
One more time, thank you so much for for playing and giving such a nice feedback!
@zimny11 I will try out the game again when I get home then! It's understandable that you weren't able to implement any sort of feedback like a flash or buzz sound to let players know to try something else, due to it being a solo project, with the time constraints, hopefully can be in a post jam release!
@cananaman Thank you for giving it another try! I have a suspicion (based on sawing other people play it) that you might be missing a part of the map, that you did not find, so small hint just in case: the sign is there for a reason. To be honest, QoL stuff was never my strong side, but maybe doing post jam version would be a good way to work on improving that.
The atmosphere is really strong in this one, I really enjoy the minimalist 1 bit style I really adds a lot to the overall presentation! I also think the lack of sound actually woks in it's favor to make it a little bit more eerie and atmospheric.
I was able to gather items and advance a bit but at some point while brewing things on the pot I got suck and couldn't figure out what to do, may return later and give it a try I am sure I missed something in the world
very interesting entry!
@tetracold Thank you for your comment! Happy to hear you like the in-game mood :) It takes a moment to realized what you need to do, but once you do it should be easy to finish the game.
It took ~45 minutes, but I managed to finish this!
Anyway, I the vibes here were amazing! The graphics were seriously awesome - I loved all the little animations and effects, especially the footprints. The simplistic sounds also added a ton. And the final animation was really cool!
However, this was also probably the most frustrating game I've played this jam. I *know* that stuff like slow movement, very limited health, and - most importantly - limited (or in this case, no) saving are staples of survival horror, but here they felt like they only added tedium instead of tension. The lack of checkpoints was the absolute worst - every time I made the slightest amount of progress towards finishing the game, an antler monster attacked me and I had to start from the very beginning again. It even happened once after I completed two of the three steps and was on my way with the final ingredient. To be honest, I wanted to ragequit several times while playing this, but my curiosity about the ending kept me going, if only because there was no playthrough video for me to cheat with.
In addition, it was extremely easy to die - and have to start all over again. It took me a long time to realize that you could only attack while moving, and I kept dying until then. Not that attacking really helped in any way - since the monsters kept charging you a moment afterwards anyway, and would eventually deal damage to you no matter how many times you tried to fend them off. Essentially, the moment a monster spotted you there was no way to avoid taking damage, and with their movement being pretty random and the ease of getting lost, it meant *a lot* of game overs.
There were more things, but these were the worst offenders. Still, I did have fun! Figuring out the puzzle was interesting, and some of the twists - like with the old man - were pretty cool. I think I would've enjoyed it a great deal more if it was a pure puzzle game without the possibility of losing. And again, the graphics & vibes here - which were probably the focus - were really good. Overall, great entry!
P.S.: I managed to get softlocked here ~~(which led to yet another restert)~~, but that one was mostly on me for trying something dumb.
Screenshot 2024-05-03 185520.png
@frogman Thank you so much for the feedback! And for putting so much effort to finish the game!
I'm really sorry about all the frustration it caused. The fighting would need an improvement for sure. You can in theory deal with "deer" by attacking them and then running in the opposite direction, attacking them stuns them for a moment. But I guess they move a bit too fast, or the stun is a bit too short, or both. Fighting being "a bit" finicky does not help with that at all... You can also lose them by getting them "stuck" on obstacles and I put all of them, but one near the sign, in such places you don't really need to get close to them, but... if what I did not took into account that player does not know the map and wants to explore, so of course player would walked into all of them at some point, which is 100% on me. I'm a bit worried that without those deer the game would turn into boring walking simulator, since there will be no tension at all, but I also see your point about focusing more on puzzle aspect of the game.
The "softlock" is also on me. It is bugged and player should not be able to pass the bridge without stone being on top of the pressure plate. Also, I'm pretty sure that is not really softlocked because, even that the visual for the bridge is not there, the passage should still be possible (the invisible walls should be gone, but not 100% sure about that one).
Thanks one more time for playing my game!
I love the minimalism! Maybe it sounds strange, but the palette is lovely. The very slightly dirty white feels so good, and red makes such a good contrast. Only the snow flakes stick out.
I was genuinely scared when the wendigo came for me first. I later tried fighting it, as it seemed you can do it with well timed strikes. But the game sort of broke and i couldn't swing the sword after my fifth death. I read here that we can't kill it, but i think it would be cool if we can, even if it doesn't do anything big. Just getting rid of it with some skill feels nice.
The controls also felt quite good to me! It is tough to make them a bit heavy but still feel good, but here it fit i think. The sacrifice mechanic was cool, i was a bit shocked when i killed my first squirrel. It took some time until i understood what the tooltip in the bar mean. Probably something directly on the object works better, flashing or an outline or sth.
Great job again, it is awesome to see your progression over the jams :D
@rongo-matane Thank you for your kind words! Happy to hear that you liked the art style. I think that is a good point, killing those deer-things is hard enough and they are big enough threat that just getting rid of them might be enough of a reward. And the outline changing color if player can interact with something is also a good idea. Happy to hear that there seams to be progression with my game making skills. Thanks for taking your time to play my game <3
Whew! That was a tough one! Thankfully, I've managed to finish it before the rating time ended. :D
I love the artstyle, the 1+ bit graphics work really well to build the atmosphere. One thing that could perhaps be improved is to use the red a bit more often, but on this one I'm not certain - it might make it feel a bit more special when used really sparingly like that.
The movement works fine, but I have a bit mixed feelings about the attack. Having to use move + interact to attack gives you a nice way to attack in a specific direction, but it also makes it difficult to time your attacks precisely to push the enemy away. More often than not I found myself just spamming it and hoping for the best. It might be the combination of the key control, game perspective and maybe the hitbox colliders not being adjusted well enough that made it feel awkward.
On the topic of enemies, they do seem to be a bit too difficult to me. The camera is confined to a pretty small area, so it's extremely easy to accidentally get into aggro range, especially when moving vertically. Decreasing the aggro range might make it a bit too easy to evade them altogether, so I think giving the player a bit more visibility would work better here. While I hated the deer, the bear-wolf-like monstrosity was great, I even tried playing fetch with it, but it never brought the stick back. :(
haunted2.png
I'd agree with previous comments that the interaction indicator would probably work better if it was shown in-world near the object you can interact with, but it gave me another idea. When I first saw it, I thought that it might be something like a "danger sense", letting you know how close you are to the nearest enemy. That might be one way to give player better ability of evading enemies without making it too easy - just have an indicator that increases in strength the closer you are to an enemy. You'd be able to see that your getting close to the deer guys even when they weren't yet visible for you, and it wouldn't be too easy, since it wouldn't tell you their exact direction.
The sounds are pretty cool. I was thinking that maybe some music would nice, but actually the lack of music works well to enhance the sound effects here. If anything, any music you might have add would have to be rather light to not detract from the current atmosphere of the game.
While it took me a while to finish it, mainly due to being rather tired and not being able to remember where everything is (I really need a map today, lol), I finally managed to complete the game. Worth every minute! :D
haunted.png
@lcstark Thank you for putting effort to finish my game! Glad you liked the art style :) Also, thanks for the feedback and your kinds words! Yes, it looks like the camera would need some adjustments. And the idea about warning, either visual or sound, about player getting close to the monsters is great!