FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD55 → Summoning Ritual

Summoning Ritual

By velvetlobster, Janderson Barboza and RoguePug

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3103.8261
Fun5813.4460
Innovation10052.8860
Theme6933.5261
Graphics1554.3461
Audio1763.8760
Humor6662.8954
Mood724.2361

Comments

legendarypie 2024-04-15 06:03

Incredible game, your art and animations are amazing!

alezjl 2024-04-16 14:12

I love pixel art and the parallax effect. I would love to see companion summoning mechanics in this game.

velvetlobster 2024-04-16 16:12

@alezjl try getting to the end and you will see =)

mxbi 2024-04-16 16:53

I love the art and music, and the story really worked! The casual platform mechanics were definitely enough to enjoy but not enough to be distracting, you balanced it just enough to get the story to be impactful. The portal transitions were a bit jarring/disorienting but then I realised they actually just take you to the next level.

Oh, and you should make a cover image for the game!

razicat 2024-04-16 17:09

Old school vibe)

julia-nemo 2024-04-16 17:10

Графика и анимация очень вдохновляют, хотелось бы чуть больше разнообразия в геймплее, можно добавить врагов и т.д.

roman-dubrovin 2024-04-16 17:23

I really like the graphics and sounds. I like how you told me the story. Really good work!

ryaneklipse 2024-04-16 17:52

I didn't expect a feels trip in this jam ;-; 10/10 i <3 my doggos

weefairyfabi 2024-04-16 21:29

Oh my gosh the art and animation is so beautiful and I love the way you tell a story through the scenes in the summoning circle in between levels it is so cute (dogs are just 12/10)!! I am not normally a fan of platformers because I am pretty bad at them but I happily beat each level to see where the story was going. Amazing work you guys!!!

lachlan-james 2024-04-17 04:45

Aww. I loved this. The little scenes were inspired between the levels. Animation and art were great, platforming was solid. A few little sounds for character movement would have gone a long way into making the movement feel tactile. Parallax stuff was really well done.

I don't always finish LD games - but the little story progression was beautiful and inspired me to finish it. Great work - can really tell this was made with love :)

goddoesplaydice 2024-04-17 13:14

Cute little story. I hope the doggie would be alright from now on!

matthewdrake 2024-04-17 14:04

Aaah, my heart! Really sweet story. Good way of showing the ghostly platforms are still physical objects even when they turn invisible by having the encounter where they vanish too quickly to jump onto them and off again. Art was great, story was great, all in all a solid entry for LD. Well done!

lexi89 2024-04-17 15:54

loved this so much. The art, the responsive platforming, the music... Favourite game so far! Only notes I had were the sudden track transitions and wanting there to be more levels.

Given more time, I'd love to see the beloved pet comes back but something goes wrong and the character has to instead learn to face their grief. Maybe it looks like the pet comes back but it's actually the character's grief in disguise and it starts chasing him down in the levels...

Really tugged at my heart-strings this game.

baluj 2024-04-17 16:04

Very polished and complete game. I love this game and now I need more.

unless-games 2024-04-17 17:20

Nice story and music. The player controls are tight and satisfying.

The level with the moving stack of platforms was a bit confusing. Took a long time to realize you could only jump on the platforms from the side.

I was expecting the protagonist to sacrifice themself at the end to summon back their pet, but the story was touching nevertheless!

Think you forgot to add a cover image.

awr 2024-04-17 17:25

awww i thought the gargoyle puppy was cute!

fenix131113 2024-04-17 17:45

Nice parkour game, i want more levels!

kseniya 2024-04-17 17:47

Good game! I like the palette

gruzdid 2024-04-17 17:53

It's a sad story. Cool graphics and art. Not a bad move. Good job

velvetlobster 2024-04-17 19:21

ooohhh thanks @unless-games somebody else mentioned that I thought it was on itch

cody-holt 2024-04-17 20:17

Art and sound were great. Would have liked more to the gameplay, but it had charm to it with the narrative. Great job.

jvolonte 2024-04-17 20:27

I loved the pixel art! The movement and animations feel very satisfying; everything flows smoothly. Great job. About the story I was like NOOO WHY WHOULD YOU DO THIS OMG I THOUGHT THIS WAS A CUTE STORY😭 Thank you for that ending! :)

rakowu 2024-04-17 20:33

I knew that the dog had a cadaver face. He was too cute to stay alive. Sweet story. When I pressed the space bar it seemed to have stacked something and took longer to load because suddenly the game was very fast. A little tip, for platformers you should consider adding the coyote jump :D

emiliabea 2024-04-17 20:43

This game was so nice to play, it was really sweet and I love the graphics and especially the sky, I love that color combo. Really cute and memorable ending, and plays really well :^) Would love to see more of these characters in the future

Screenshot (78).png

meru 2024-04-17 20:44

My Heart! Sich a Sweet Story! This is a gem!

frib 2024-04-17 22:01

Short but sweet! Feels very polished and the story is told quite well with the images between levels. Gameplay is a bit simplistic, which is my only point of criticism. The rest is very well executed! Great job :D

velvetlobster 2024-04-17 22:32

folks thanks everybody for playing the game, we really wanted it to be simple so everybody could get to the end with less than too many minutes =) @rakowu we also thought to make it a cat, which was our first model, we kinda changed the moment we started doing the cutscenes thanks @frib @meru @emiliabea if we had more time we would have made the stars shine as we had initially planned, but good that the current sky could please you =) thanks for playing

thanks @jvolonte =) it means a lot that it touched you

@rakowu yeah when I noticed it was too late to implement it was worried that I could break something, I am not the best in logic you know lol

@unless-games OH YEAH the initial draft of the story included a sacrifice, but we thought it was a bit too dramatical and just wanted to go towards trying to make it cute instead

velvetlobster 2024-04-17 22:34

@lexi89 thanks for such nice comments and yeah you have good narrative ideas =) and yes those would require a lot more character development, its an option for a bigger game

velvetlobster 2024-04-17 22:37

@lachlan-james thanks for playing =) oh I feel kinda mad that we still had time on monday but we kinda tried to fix some very rare bugs instead of looking into adding sounds. I am very happy you finished it =)

velvetlobster 2024-04-17 22:37

@ryaneklipse @weefairyfabi thanks a lot

ffenril 2024-04-17 23:00

Hey! I think my computer does not like your game because it crashed twice while I was trying to play it (second time, it progressively got slower, and when I checked and my GPU was at 100%)

Which is sad because I’d really like to see the ending! The pixel art is great, the music really sets the mood and I got instantly hooked by the small "cutscenes" and the good doggo! I stopped twice at the moment the mage is reading his spellbook. I’ll try coming back later (maybe after a reboot or two my computer will cooperate more ^^’) to see it all!

pincushion 2024-04-17 23:48

Moving story. The music really pulls at the heart strings. Nice looking too. Well done.

velvetlobster 2024-04-18 00:34

oh thanks for heads up @ffenril I will defintely check if there is wrong in that part .... maybe because it is when it loads the last song, idk ... but if you still wanna try it again we would really appreciate that =)

vivid-hallucination 2024-04-18 00:47

Similar experience to FFenril. My PC resource usage spiked like mad and made my PC almost unresponsive by level 3.

Your pixel art is vibrant and beautiful though. I loved the illustrations between levels.

velvetlobster 2024-04-18 02:04

definitely checking on that tomorrow @vivid-hallucination thanks for the heads up, btw did you guys play on chrome?

vivid-hallucination 2024-04-18 02:05

I'm running Firefox on Linux.

quinnster 2024-04-18 02:38

Fun simple platformer. I think some extra mechanic or tie into the theme could have made it more of a memorable experience. However, I loved the art and little images between levels.

mcgank 2024-04-18 03:24

What a beautiful little game, I loved the decision you went with for this theme. I loved the art and music and the story was very heartfelt, I felt like I was watching airbud for the first time again. Great job to you and your team. I can't wait to see what you all do next!

nardandas 2024-04-18 06:29

Woah. Combining the tiny little bits of platforming with the bits of narrative was a wild experience, didn't really expect it to have that kind of effect. Even that the platforming wasn't very difficult didn't really matter, just the mood of the levels tied in well. Great job!

coffeemakingtoaster 2024-04-18 10:04

Adorable game with a nice story behind it. Really enjoyed it :)

busisen 2024-04-18 10:07

This submission has so much soul. It's so mechanically simple but it fit really well with the mood. I genuinely love the story and wanted to see how it ended. Great submission, I'd love to see this developed further, I think it has something special.

megzneko 2024-04-18 10:45

I was a bit confused after the first level screen, but then it all made sense and i loved it. I wish it could use WASD too, not just the arrow keys. But I love the narrative and art style.

re-markable 2024-04-18 11:10

This was such a beautiful sweet game! The music really set the tone, especially at the end! Great job :)

benjaminw 2024-04-18 12:39

Omg, this is the only game I've played this jam that really got my feels. Super talented; great art and music, and I love the way you decided to tell the story. In fact I'll remember that for some of my own games going forward. Beautiful stuff ^^

andreas-decker 2024-04-18 15:22

A heartbreaking and heartwarming little title. I really like how it tells a story in pictures. The platforming is a bit incidental, but it definitely works to pace and deliver the story.

digitaliliad 2024-04-18 16:40

You really pulled my strings with that sweet dog companion. That was a short but intense rollercoaster of emotion <3

usenrame 2024-04-18 22:33

very atmospheric arts, loved it

pimeko 2024-04-18 22:44

Who cut onions while I was playing the game? This is the cutest thing ever, I loved the aesthetics, the fact that the story was told without any words, the atmosphere and music. Honestly a banger good job!

risminator 2024-04-18 23:26

Cute little story! The art is so great here, the character feels responsive and everything is pleasing to the eyes and ears.

velvetlobster 2024-04-19 02:36

@risminator thanks for playing

@pimeko =) thanks for stopping by, we really wanted to create a short script that most people could relate, it feels great to see it touched a few people, although the bugs

@digitaliliad thanks, seeing it on stream was something else

@andreas-decker I am glad it could touch you, thanks for playing

@benjaminw your comment made my day, thanks soo much

@re-markable thanks a lot for playing, the last music was made by the so talented jan-barbosa in the credits there

thank you everyone who tried our game, it truly means a lot

dishwand 2024-04-19 02:40

d'aww, this is absolutely adorable. what a nice little romp, congratulations on your game :)

recursor 2024-04-22 19:02

Very nice visuals and music, though I do wish you had been able to add sound effects as I think that would have elevated the experience by quite a lot. At first, I thought I died when I hit one of those red things, but then I figured out that it was telling some sort of story. I felt like the time required to wait before I could press space was a bit too long, and oddly when the game continued, it sped up and played very quickly for a few seconds (maybe a bug?). It was confusing at first but once I figured out what was going on, I was interested to see what the next picture would tell me.

aeveis 2024-04-24 02:59

liked the cutscenes, and while the platforming was pretty easy the controls were pretty polished! nice job!

furtive-pygmy 2024-04-28 00:56

Art, music and story were great! Loved it, simple but effective. Great work!

benpigchu 2024-04-29 16:57

Great art and story, but the gameplay is too plain. Still a good one.

sheol 2024-05-01 04:08

I like the idea of using platforming to tell the story. I think the art and the animations are really good, having the parallax for the background is such a nice touch and the jumping animation feels really smooth. I would have liked a bit of coyote time for the platforming but honestly it's not really that important haha. Overall great work!

ogelgames 2024-05-01 13:06

Sometimes even short games can be great, this is one of those.