coderaurus 2024-10-07 06:54
Your Itch.io link doesn't lead to anywhere. Is it possible that it is not published?
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD56 → Dance with the Sprites
By flewbimo
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 305 | 2.78 | 21 | |
| Fun | 298 | 2.60 | 21 | |
| Innovation | 193 | 3.21 | 21 | |
| Theme | 315 | 2.39 | 21 | |
| Graphics | 236 | 3.10 | 22 | |
| Audio | 231 | 2.65 | 21 | |
| Humor | 286 | 1.71 | 18 | |
| Mood | 120 | 3.55 | 21 |
Your Itch.io link doesn't lead to anywhere. Is it possible that it is not published?
@coderaurus I'm sorry I forgot to make the page public earlier, but it's done now.Thank you.
I like the tradeoff between being able to see and attack. Would make an interesting mechanic to build a full horror game around. Nice work!
Clipboard 1.jpg I have this error message when executing "Dance with the Sprites.exe" on my PC (Windows 11). And the online HTML version doesn't work too.
.pck file missing in download and html version ran at 1 frame per minute. Out of fairness I won't rate at the moment. Will check back later to see if it's fixed. Good luck :8ball:
very atmospheric :star:
@patbgames I'm sorry for the incorrect file uploaded earlier; it's now fixed. Thank you!
@oddballdave I'm sorry for the incorrect file uploaded earlier; it's now fixed. Thank you!
I stumbled my way to the boss. I feel like I didn't utilize the sprites enough to light my way, instead holding on to them in case a red light appears. I was assuming some sort of passive light when picking up sprites.
I appreciate the sound alert when danger is near.
Good job.
I found the mood and aesthetics of this game quite pleasant. However, I'm not sure why I hit game over. Is it one of the red lights? Something else? There's an SFX of a gong/chime that played a few times, was unsure if it was a good or a bad thing happening…
But the mechanics of knowing when to spend your light to illuminate and then remembering the level is quite interesting.
Hey, first of all good job for your work. I like the concept and the glowy VFX in the dark, it's cool and fits well with the environment. You took the time to make a quite big map with different patterns in Level Design which is nice. Though, I think I would have liked it more if it was smaller but with a less clunky controller. Unfortunately, it's quite heavy to move around and it is not smooth (especially the jump), making it the real challenge when it should not come from this. The SFX are fine, but I couldn't understand the big "gong" for a while, as it lacks a bit of explanation. Also, maybe you should track the number of orbs/sprites you collect in UI, to make sure you never lack of (if I understood correctly, it's consumed everytime you press E, because at some point I ran out of light).
In any case, we can see the effort put into your game, especially in the Level Design. So nice job on that ;)
@dashvirus Thank you for your feedback! I also noticed the jumping issue during development and tried to modify it (for example, allowing jumping for a short moment after leaving a platform), but I ran out of time and couldn't finish it. The bell sound indicates that enemies are spawning, and I thought players could intuitively see the enemies appear, so I didn't add any prompts. I also wanted players to judge whether they could press E based on the size of the light surrounding them, so I didn't include related hints. Now that you mention it, I can see that some information is indeed lacking. Thanks again for your comments!
@ladybenko Thank you for your feedback! The game over usually occurs when you are touched by a red light (perhaps you didn't see it because the red light appears behind the black walls). The gong sound indicates the appearance of enemies, while the chime is triggered when you press the E key. I can see that the prompts I've included are indeed insufficient. Thanks again for your comments!
So much lags. I cant play it, but i see that visual is cool and i just rate graphics(
@sdcorpse I 'm sorry for the lag caused by web performance issues; the frame rate will be significantly improved after downloading.
I have a weakness for light/shadow based games and the chill atmosphere and gong-like sounds make a pleasurable experience.
If the game is slowing down for you, try going a little further and removing more light elements from the game (LOL). I've played a fair part of the game and after eating a red light source, it said game over. Was it an enemy? Anyway, interesting concept, but yes, it lacks optimization). Overall, the level design is not bad, but I'd still like to see more gameplay variety (or maybe I haven't gotten to it =) )
Cool concept and it has an interesting vibe. Quite relaxing but also a little bit chilling as well. Took me a couple of attempts to fully figure out the mechanics and I died to the boss the first time. Managed to beat it after another go though.
I actually enjoyed the fact that the mechanics aren't explained that much. It gave it more of an exploratory feeling. Especially paired with the parts of the map that if you miss a jump, it's hard (maybe impossible?) to go back.
Nice work!
Just as an aside, I tried to play through Itch but I was getting an error: error.png
The .exe worked well for me though.
So I'm assuming this is a win?!
Screenshot 2024-10-11 at 18.46.41.png
Might have been better to have something else on the "win" screen to tell it apart from losing. Not to even mention how unceremonious the actual win was.
Got there twice as the first time there I though I had gotten hit my those red sprites who were often really hard to distinguish from the friendly ones. Relying on color only on that isn't probably the best of choices. And the shape too was hard to figure out as they were just blobs. It was very tough to estimate how close you could let the enemies come. And even when releasing light and killing them, it was hard to make out when they were actually gone and it was safe to move past. At least once I was too impatient and they were still able to kill me even if they had started to die.
The web build ran just fine for me just on a MacBook so not the most powerhouse of devices out there. And I don't really see why it wouldn't perform, there wasn't really anything that should tank the frame rate unless the code is horribly unoptmimized (or even counter-optimized).
It was pretty fun to explore around the map but it was quite desolate and boring as the only threat there was really was confusing the red sprites with the collectible ones or outright missing them appearing from behind a wall or something. My first death came right out of the blue and still not sure even if there was an enemy even nearby.
The controls felt a bit abrupt and stiff for me. Some precise jumps (in the dark too) were unnecessarily hard to make as the character was so tiny accelerated so quick.
The boss was bit of a letdown after realizing that it's just a waiting game really. You literally can just rush there, stand absolutely still and mash E until you win. Didn't seem like whether you had even gathered any lights up to that point really mattered at all. And the boss was also in quite an obvious spot making over half of the map completely pointless. Like in my opinion that one floor above it would have been a much more clever spot to put it on as (at least for me) I completely missed knowing about it before I had already fallen below it.
Other than the similar and confusing enemy/collectible design, it looked good. The silhouette look is always nice to look at. The wasn't much audio at all but it did paint a nice and moody atmosphere. Some atmospheric music or ambient background noises to fill up the space would have been welcome though.
Anyways, good job! đź‘Ť
@antti-haavikko Thank you for your insightful comments. Since this is my first time participating in a compo and due to my technical limitations, it resulted in many flaws. For the victory screen, I initially intended to create a unique scene, but due to time constraints, I ended up just removing the black canvas, which indeed feels very basic and lacks a sense of victory. The red sprites have a fixed size and move by tracking the player, while the regular sprites move randomly in place, so I thought it would be easy to distinguish them, but it seems that’s not the case. The game ends only when a small dot at the center of the red sprite touches the player, and they are released 0.1 seconds after the red glow completely disappears, so it can indeed lead to a game over when the red sprite just starts to disappear. In fact, there are three paths to the boss; two of them provide a lot of light source rewards but are hard to find, while one path is easy to find but has fewer light sources. However, it seems that the boring and simple boss fight renders this design ineffective. I have also noticed the issues with controls and audio, and I plan to improve them in the future. Thanks again for your feedback!
Concept is interesting, but implementation is a bit rough. It's quite not obvious how to play. Add more detailed instructions. Yes, you can do it even now. Also, why is it so dark? Would be great if the sprites you collect would actually illuminate the stage around you.
Congrats on your first compo! Quite moody with the lightning effects and chime. I figured you'd need to collect the orbs to be able to do the attack but not sure if that was really the case as I always seemed to be able to use it. Maybe some bar or somthing could show how much energy you have and can use.
i'm sorry but i cant play, there is si lag on my PC. However i like your style, i found the VFX very cool. I try to play and your gameplay seems intresting ^^ And Well done for the compo ! :)