FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD55 → The Weaver from the remote hamlet

The Weaver from the remote hamlet

By kerdelos, tyrannas, schadocalex, Daviiiiiiid and TobaccoLeopard

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall224.3457
Fun1523.9757
Innovation414.1957
Theme354.4557
Graphics684.5158
Audio834.0957
Humor6032.9951
Mood224.4357

Comments

icaka 2024-04-16 18:53

wow, good job making this, i like it

locksmitharmy 2024-04-16 18:55

I was really impressed with this, the story kept me wanting more and the mood was great. Stellar job!

pigeoncode 2024-04-16 19:02

A gorgeous game, the art on the spirits is incredible and the soft music gives a really great mystical air. I loved your take on the theme and the card mechanics were cool with new symbols opening up new possibilities. I did struggle to understand what each card does and how it's used, which can be fun to work out, but with the later days I found myself just brute forcing the solution which was a bit of a shame as the interplay between symbols seems really interesting if it can be understood! Other than that minor point a great game, definitely worth playing!

noah-lovelace 2024-04-16 19:05

I am blown away, this is such a unique idea and fully realized. I can't believe y'all made this in a weekend. Also the card playing mechanics appealed to my Balatro addicted brain. Incredible job!

capreola 2024-04-16 19:07

I loved it! The artstyle was amazing, so polished and put together. You could really feel the atmosphere. I enjoyed the puzzle element too, it was fun to figure out how to get specific spirits, though sometimes a bit hard. Overall, great game, well done!

sampai 2024-04-16 19:09

I really, really like the art in this one, and the idea is lovely. It took me a while to figure out what exactly each rune does in order to properly get to the node I wanted to, but once you get the hang it turns into a quite fun puzzle game! Really enjoyed playing this, good job!

tomtomgome 2024-04-16 19:23

It really shows that you are an experienced team. The graphics are amazing and give off a veeerryyy convincing atmosphere together with the music. Gameplaywise I found it very original. Sadly I got stuck to the old man fearing the end. Tried every combinations I could think of, twice, before giving up. By that's on me and my tired brain.

Very good job! (makes want to check out your other games)

schadocalex 2024-04-16 19:36

@tomtomgome Sorry for that. You were just at the middle-end of the game. We will add solutions as spoilers in the description after your comment. We didn't have time to add hints in game and it's always hard to balance the difficulty. If you want to play the end, the solution is: clockwise by one, repeat, double anticlockwise, transfer to second, go to bottom and you will have the owl.

dogshroom 2024-04-16 19:42

Amazing game. I loved the art and the writing and how gameplay and story intertwine. It reminds me of those alchemy games, but your game is much more immersive. Sometimes it was a little bit hard to figure out the logic behind the rune combinations, but it fits perfectly with an esoteric theme. Music and sounds are great, too! Could easily see this being turned out into a full game (and would definetely buy it).

unchain 2024-04-16 19:53

This is such a beautiful game, great art, music and story!

kamuniaft 2024-04-16 19:58

I feel like I stumbled on a gem here! The writing is brilliant, weaving puzzle is fun to explore, art and sound prefectly fits the mood. Very enjoyable. I wonder if this story has several endings.. But I'm satisfied with the one I got :)

denilseven 2024-04-16 20:36

It's truly a gem @kamuniaft !! The atmosphere, the art, the narrative, the puzzles... everything is so on point!

You can really see that a lot of effort was put into it.

But I'm also wondering if there are other endings.. Maybe there are, because there were some spirits that I didn't had to summon. I'll have to try it.

schadocalex 2024-04-16 20:39

@kamuniaft @denilseven Thanks a lot! there's no alternative ending and not all spirits are used, didn't have time for that! It was planned but maybe for a post-jam version.

willhoit 2024-04-17 01:11

Really enjoyed playing - though I felt I was just brute forcing the permutations rather than having a logical theory for why I was extending my patterns. (Maybe I missed some clues in the art or text?)

sodoj 2024-04-17 16:04

Yooooo, it's the dude who helped me troubleshoot my mspaint game last year and his crew! Good to see you guys again! Based on screenshots I expected a standard card game, which plays along nicely with the theme of summoning, but it's so much more than that! In fact, it doesn't even become a card game until you get like 4 of them. It's both visual novel with a great subtle hint of something sinister that might be going on and a nice cast of likeable characters, a surprisingly neat card/puzzle game and an audiovisual marvel! The only thing that I'd like to see fixed is the text that appears in between gameplay scenes, it's kind of bland looking compared to the rest of the game and it appears way too fast, especially the choice text which doesn't even have a fade-in animation. Apart from that, this game is great, I loved my time with it!

unx 2024-04-17 21:08

Impressive how much you accomplished in such a short amount of time. I enjoyed the game but, sometimes i felt like the choices would lead to the same dialog

abbattoir 2024-04-17 21:26

What first drew me towards this game was the art. I also really liked the native american setting, which worked well for the mystical atmosphere and the emotional tone. Overall I enjoyed the writing and story beats, in particular the reflective parts at night, but ofcourse the big-end came relatively fast. I had some trouble with the puzzle itself and sometimes felt that I was just brute forcing myself through them, although they were interesting enough that my partner leaned in and participated in solving them. I think having the dream catchers more central to the screen would have eased that for me personally because I had overlooked them initially.

flatgub 2024-04-18 12:33

This was absolutely incredible! I loved the puzzle mechanic and the framing and story sections were wonderful! Extremely well done!!

tyrannas 2024-04-18 12:53

@sodoj oh waaaaaaaaw it's you !! Haha I tried and liked your game without even recognize your pseudo but everything connects now ! Still want to know the morse code at the end of your game btw (if you want to give a slower version of it or just give the translation )! Anyway, really happy you liked our game, we're kindof happy of the result we got. And yeah totally agree with you that the text during the "night" scences lacks a bit of decoration, but there was already so much to do !

tyrannas 2024-04-18 13:28

@abbattoir Aw shoot, sorry you had to bruteforce your way. With puzzle games it's always hard to be super objective on what's clear or not after you spend 3 days thinking about it, it always seems easier than it really is for the people discovering it !

sodoj 2024-04-18 16:33

@tyrannas I am also happy you enjoyed our stuff as well! We updated the game with various mini tweaks and we also made the morse code a lot slower and more legible. If you dont feel like going back and decoding it yourself, basically it references a very old Zero Wing meme and it thanks the player for playing the game (yeah we really didn't know how to end it haha). Anyway, its been great seeing you again, hopefully we meet each other again in the next Ludum Dare!

nusan 2024-04-19 08:30

Very cool game! There is so much between the great visual, music, the story and even the puzzle aspect. I think it's lacks a few explanations, for a long time, I didn't really understand how the cards where working, the dreamcatcher on the left felt unimportant and I didn't pay attention to the path on it, just on what result I would get from a specific combination of cards, and that doesn't get you very far in the game. Soon I was frustrated and just trying every combination I could think of. It's only at one point it clicked and I noticed that the important thing is the path on the dreamcatcher, and the card are just tools for that. Once I had this realization, the rest of the puzzles were really enjoyable. So yeah, I feel like more emphasis should be put on the dreamcatcher, maybe some tooltip on each points (with a ? if not already discovered maybe) could grab the player's attention to the path. Anyway, it's pretty cool, good job!

gumibear 2024-04-19 10:45

Thank you for such a great game! At the very beginning of the game i was left wondering what the game's goal and mechanics were, but personally i felt the levels and progression were designed perfectly so that i intuitively understood everything without any in-game tutorials or hints. Exploring the dialogues and positions of the dream catchers felt very engaging, the music paired with the gameplay and story gave me chills! at some point where i figured out a particularly tricky pattern (the owl, which also had great implications story-wise) the music just rose to a peak and although i don't know if that was intentional it was very memorable. Sometimes i wondered whether the dialogue affects anything but I assume that

SPOILER

the game's final choice only displays characters you've gotten very close to.

SPOILER END

I love what you managed to create in such a short amount of time, it feels very polished.

pierre-cilluffo 2024-04-20 11:25

You have an excellent concept there!

I had a great time playing your game.

deformhead 2024-04-21 14:03

A lot of depth here!

So much work on the unique idea, the story, and the visuals... Fits really well the theme!

Great job! :clap:

iolis-lui 2024-04-22 10:12

It was very pleasant, thank you)

So calm and meditating. I really like the grahpics, and the rules of summoning - this is interesting to figure it out.

And I've been playing a logn time and have a rest in your game))

ecenizo 2024-04-22 14:40

The music, the art... even TWO LANGUAGES?!? Oh my this is probably the most polished game i've payed so far. Amazing work, team!

tyrannas 2024-04-22 14:44

@ecenizo Thanks for the kind words @ecenizo, however as written in the description we added the french translation in a post jam update, we didnt feel like updating a special link for french since it's not changing the game itself that was made during the jam, so we just wrote it in the change log!

callmety 2024-04-22 14:56

Wow that was an experience! I can't believe this was a game jam game. Took me a couple min before I could actually see how the puzzles worked (I just kept doing random stuff and it kept working), but once I understood I really enjoyed the puzzles! Very polished and amazing design. Absolutely amazing job guys! Y'all can be proud!

whenyoucantfindafriend 2024-04-22 19:09

Great game and very ambitious for a game jam! I really like the combination of a narrative/visual novel format with card and combination puzzles. Well done!

freamdev 2024-04-22 20:24

This was an amazing game to play, puzzle games are not my forte (and I had to check the spoilers for the owl) but the story was so captivating and even just from the few lines every character had I felt like I know them and want to take care of them.

fabonacci 2024-04-25 08:14

My favorite game of this ldjam for the moment. I was so captivated by the story, the mood, the arts, well done and thank you for the experience.

cgraen 2024-04-25 09:03

A Crazy good game for a game jam. I was fully pulled into the story and wanted to keep going to find out what happened. The weaving mechanic to summon spirits is really unique and the art is beautiful aswell. I wonder if there are alternate Endings besides sacrificing anyone?

jerrre 2024-04-25 09:14

Very nice game, played it to the end! Both interesting story, atmosphere and also interesting puzzle mechanics and build-up. Some small spelling mistakes, and a better font would be the only small improvements to think of. The art for the spirits and the characters is especially nice!

joshua-miller-pio 2024-04-26 10:20

Beautiful art work and was very fun, you guys definitly deserve more votes!

krummsakura 2024-04-26 12:20

It's not like a jam game, The art style is gorgeous. The narrative aspect of the game is admirable, one of the best I've played in LD55,. Every choice and interaction feels meaningful. Music and effects fit the mood nicely. Excellent job!

sweetwizzle 2024-04-27 15:11

Aside from occasional writing hiccups in grammar and typography, this game is phenomenally polished and thought-out. The theme is really front and center here. The audiovisual direction is gorgeous and the game blends narrative and gameplay very well. By far one of my favorites this jam, well done!

aeveis 2024-04-28 05:41

Really enjoyed the game! Like the narrative with the puzzle solving, and the different combinations to draw the pattern as well as making a dream catcher. The spirits were also very nicely illustrated. nice job!

kallico 2024-04-29 17:12

I love the asthetic very much. I like being able to tell my own story so to speak.

I wish however if there are multiple lines of dialogue it would do a short fade for each one. Also if a dialogue option will not provide any new text I would like it to disappear.

THE WEAVING MECHANIC IS SO AWESOMEE!!!

ueighti 2024-04-29 18:22

I like how you manage to mix the "summoning" theme, narrative and puzzle. The art and animation, it's very well done. Nice job!

alpacalypse 2024-04-29 22:21

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this but it's a really complete package. A novel and pretty good puzzle mechanic, really good graphic design, solid and extensive music and even decent dramatic writing which most LDs don't attempt and those that do rarely succeed. Great entry.

sn4pi 2024-04-30 10:46

That's a really nice entry for this jam! I was completely invested into playing through the whole game, even when I sometimes had a brain fart on the puzzles. The art style is gorgeous and I felt really immersed.

Actually I found your game because of the "how do people rate humor?" Post and I gotta agree on this topic. Since you told about the little snacks of jokes I actually caught onto that and - it was same for our entry. We don't have a funny game in that regard where people would laugh their butts off but we tried to sneak in a bit of humour for example through the way the player dies!

Really felt ya on that topic and had to play because of that - oh boy I'm happy that I got to play yours! Top of the jam games I played inbetween these 2 weeks :smile:

tyrannas 2024-04-30 13:25

@sn4pi How waw thanks for playing because of this post haha, I was really wondering how humor was rated and I'm glad we're not the only ones in this case! And thank you very much for your nice comment, will definitely try yours too when I get the time to do so :)

keithswanger 2024-04-30 14:09

That was such a nice experience. The art, the sound, the story, the puzzles, all very well done. I had to play twice. On my first playthrough, I felt like a hero. On my second playthrough, I felt like a monster! I had the hardest time on the owl puzzle, but the eureka moment when I figured it out was great! My favorite part is how much complexity came out of very simple weaving rules. I never felt frustrated or that the solution was out of reach. A really enjoyable experience, great job to everyone involved!

jonathan-fischer 2024-04-30 18:12

I had a little trouble at first understanding what certain cards did, but this game totally blew me away: amazing job with the graphics, the story, the gameplay--everything was incredibly well done. I would love to play more of this if you ever decide to expand it, great job!

nozomu57 2024-05-02 19:25

This is an incredible achievement! Super super cool idea with cards and weaving, and I see the obscurity of symbols as a plus: it encourages to experiment with weaving, learning how things work.

No need to say anything about art and music, apart from that it mesmerized me.

Writing is a bit cheesy, but it's still super well put together, even inspired me to try something narrative next time (it's usually super hard to combine puzzles with narration and you nailed it)

samh 2024-05-03 18:42

Excellent job, guys! Loved the puzzles, they made me long for more, with more runes and more combinations. Loved the story, too; very cthulhuesque. Congrats on devising such a good combination of both, it felt very well thought! Everything is extremely well polished visually, too; if I had one suggestion it would be to use a pixellated font.