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Shrew
Shrew
By lightningst
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 38 | 4.06 | 39 | |
| Fun | 78 | 3.73 | 38 | |
| Innovation | 113 | 3.59 | 38 | |
| Theme | 4 | 4.43 | 26 | |
| Graphics | 33 | 4.28 | 39 | |
| Audio | 13 | 4.16 | 38 | |
| Humor | 46 | 3.77 | 26 | |
| Mood | 20 | 4.18 | 39 | |
Comments
Help/Spoilers
_If you want to complete the game normally, don't read this comment! That being said, nothing is more frustrating than being stuck on a puzzle in a game jam game. No wikis, no tutorials. So here are some hints to help you out!_
**Statue/Rat** 1. Have you asked Rat about the cave? 2. Who did he tell you to go visit? 3. Did you run their errand? 4. Did you return to them after? 5. Did return to the statue?
**Crawfish** 1. Did you know there are 7 item themes? 2. Which items are next to each option? 3. What animal is in a cave with those items?
**Chameleon** 1. Did you talk to the Chamelion? 2. What did they ask you to do? 3. Did you find all 5? 4. They're disguised as items that do not match other items in the room. 5. They are with the Gecko, Worm, Tortoise, Red Panda, and Hedgehog. 6. Did you return to the Chameleon? 7. Did you let them know you had found them all?
**Spider** 1. Have you talked to the spider? 2. What are all those rectangles below the 6 digits? 3. Have you asked any animals specifically about the code? 4. How many have you asked? 5. You probably want a piece of paper for this one. 6. Use process of elimination, you can do this.
**Cheat Codes** - Hold B, U, and G at the same time to go into debug mode (very fast, less shadow, no collisions) - Hold F, I, and N to unlock the ending (you can always restart to try all the puzzles)
dingbat
2024-10-07 00:57
I absolutely love the art style and audio design. Sadly this is just really not my style of game haha. Could also just be that I'm too burnt out from jamming to read straight at the moment xD I could absolutely see some of my friends getting lost in a game like this though and overall I love the aesthetic you have here! Nice work!
ember44
2024-10-07 01:01
I'm deeply impressed by how much content you have! It can be a little tedious running around the cave & trying to remember which animal is where, but the art & ambience is really strong.
It'd be really cool if the animals had a bit more personality in their dialogue, besides "I am [species]", "I [do thing]," but the visuals and sfx for the dialogue already do a lot. Great job!
Couldn't get it to run :( but I love all of your art in the screenshots!
@richjbaron are you on Windows? If so does it give you any errors?
bertobui
2024-10-07 05:47
Not my type of game but I can recognize that the atmosphere and artwork are phenomenal. It truly feels like a game made with much more time.
Managed to beat it! This was really awesome. I love all the little details here - the dynamically changing music, the small animal animations, the line of sight blockers, the ending fade out... Everything felt super polished! The puzzles were pretty fun and different too. I only struggled a bit with the chameleon one, since I didn't realize it included the Red Panda's and Hedgehog's caves, but it was probably my favourite puzzle otherwise. I also liked the dialogue here and the different animal reactions to the question about the code. However, there was a minor bug where clicking before the text finished scrolling skipped it - I'm too used to games where it displays the full line instead, and ended up missing several lines because of it. It wasn't a huge deal since you could just speak with them again, though. Overall, really enjoyed this one, amazing entry!
(Any chance of getting a web build for this? It looks amazing!)
Quite fun, though, I would have liked some sort of dash/sprint :D
For the code game, having the conditions be red/green if they are valid or not would be nice
sviborg
2024-10-07 10:39
Audio and desighn is great! :thumbsup:
@pirate-rob were you able to finish the game? If not, there is a debug mode (hold B, U, and G at the same time to activate) that let's you move much faster and through walls.
Also, I didn't even think about that for the code game. That would be super cool! I might have to add that after the jam!
@mrspeaker I don't think so. At this point I don't know if I have it in me to deal with the weird quirks of web exports.
Also, the game is just one file. So if you do decide to download it you won't have to deal with any zip files!
I did finish it already, just giving some feedback :)
Absolutely amazing experience playing this! I love the artstyle and the puzzles were tough but not too difficult I couldn't solve them. :D
Unfortunately I didn't finish it, but from what I played I do really like it! The art is really appealing and I like how all the puzzles are knowledge-based. While I didn't finish much of them, before I knew the game wrote down the code hints for you at site, I had actually gotten out notepad to write them out for myself, haha.
Really cool!
Beat the game, it's very nice and the graphics are super pretty! I enjoyed the puzzles and found them to be very doable without any hints! overall very fun and well polished game!
buzzydev
2024-10-08 09:33
Bro, this is such a great exploration game. I love interact with different creatures to find out about them. Otherwise, its kinda too long for game jam game grind. I found all Chameleon's children and tried to guess crab's question, but its nearly impossible, lol.
Explored all of north cave and some of south. Funny dialogues! Absolutely a game.
P.S. A love the hedgehog!
image2w56.png image268.png
niterich
2024-10-08 14:56
Amazing game! The graphics and visuals were all on point, and the puzzle design was nicely varied! I agree that it's a bit long and tedious to run back and forth so much, especially for a quick game jam game. But overall I was seriously impressed by how much you could fit into 48 hours of work!
@niterich early on I totally planned on adding some shortcuts (kinda like the vents in among us) but ended up running out of time. It's definitely something I want to add!
Really impressive game for 48 hours! The art style is great, and I enjoyed the puzzles. It can feel a bit long with all the running around, but the atmosphere and details make up for it. Well done!
Love the graphics and sound! Well done.
shrew.jpg
This was easily one of the most fleshed-out compo games I've ever played. I'm exceptionally impressed by all the work that must've went into this. Finding hidden babies was a cute distraction from that six-digit code I was supposed to be cracking, haha. Had a great time with this. Pleasant music and visual style, too. That zoom-out (at the end of the game) was VERY cool.
sevadusk
2024-10-09 05:43
For a compo game, this is crazy. The art definitely took a long time with all the sprites. I feel like game appeals to some people over others and it was slightly tedious for me, but I get the vision. Great entry!
The work produced in a single weekend is pretty amazing ! Love the graphics, the riddles... Great Job ! dont hesitate trying my game x)
rincs
2024-10-09 14:57
That was so much fun!! I had a blast working through the code! :3 Hehe Thank you for this adventure.
Screenshot 2024-10-09 235511.png
Love the art style. Good job!
@rincs I'm glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for playing!
I've just realized that I was somehow opted out of the Theme and Humor categories. I don't know how this happened, but I've just fixed it! If any of you who have already played are able to leave a rating in those 2 categories, I would really appreciate it :)
@frogman @pirate-rob @sviborg @clare-chan1738 @nikkunakku @budster16 @decadedecaf @rincs
@lightningst Done and done! :)
Done did
Well done
crcdng
2024-10-09 22:46
impressive game for 48 hours!
Good entry for Compo, very interesting visuals with this underground society vibes.
t-c
2024-10-09 23:21
Echoing what everyone else said: art was nice, atmosphere too. Puzzles had a nice variety and made you really look at your environment and talk to everyone. Well done!
Pausing in the middle of playing it to tell I found a typo: pygmy rabbit says "the sum of the first **the** digits" instead of "the sum of the first **three** digits"
I'll go back to playing it now :)
fint
2024-10-10 09:42
Really great entry and impressive for a compo game!
Really nice and complete aesthetically, and I loved the audio for each creature and all the creature facts!!!!
My main bit of feedback would be around the visibility mechanic - I think it adds really nicely to the cave vibe but something about it - maybe non-visible areas being the same color as the background - made me feel sortof disoriented. I think it would maybe be nicer if it were such that you could still visually track the structure of the cave, while hiding the contents of non-visible areas from view.
I went to sleep after I finished it and forgot to submit my comments 😅
I really liked the whole game (in particular the code puzzle). I can't even think of a something that I could say like "hey, [...] would be better if [...]". Details like the the outline for interactable stuff, or the panning to the statue everytime a riddle was solved, were very welcome.
(btw I just searched for pictures of the Etruscan Shrew and... how can it be so tiny? You really picked the best animal for the theme :) )
Wow, this was a phenomenal game. So many things stood out to me that made it such a great experience.:
- Wonderful graphics, the characters are adorable and I'm impressed you were able to have so many given the time constraints! - The puzzles were incredibly well done, there was a nice variety and they all felt challenging but fair (I was never once stuck or confused). - The UI was simple but very nice, the text scrolling is a small thing but made the whole experience feel sooo polished. - The tutorial was also really well done, I barely even noticed I was being taught how to play because I was too busy reading the story! - Lastly I love how all the creatures have different voices, it's such a nice touch and really gives them personality.
Overall a fantastic game and one of the best Ludum Dare games I've ever played. You should be really proud of how it turned out!
really good game, this is right up my alley! I had a lot of fun solving the puzzles, love the different characters and the artstyle of the game, the music really brings it all together especially during the ending monologue when you win the game, overall great jam entry!! There was a glitch where the text boxes wouldn't appear in the right places but that didn't take much away from the experience at all
poboy
2024-10-11 07:41
My favorite game of the jam so far! No notes. Really enjoyed the puzzles, especially the last one, as well as all the different creatures you managed to add
Wow! That was good! I had a relaxing time solving puzzles, with good art and music for company ;) The final code ended up being solved accidentally - I was midway through trying to crack it, or so I thought, and I just happened to have everything lined up :) The ending reminded me of Fairy Song's, I enjoyed that extra touch! Cheers!
Easily the best game I have played this jam. The graphics and audio were spot on. I loved all the animal drawings. The puzzles were engaging although with the code and room matching I was able to kind of brute force them once I was close. The "real treasure" message is always entertaining. Great job.
Really nice game! super polished, great graphics and really fun mood! well done!
Awesome! Super polished and really a complete package. Really neat 3D effect for the cave. Had a lot of fun solving all the puzzles in the cave.
zirrrus
2024-10-22 18:01
Extremely impressive what you managed to do in such a short time! The art is perfect, I especially loved the huge red panda
Fantastic!! Really great stuff, I had a ton of fun playing through this. I definitely needed to take notes to solve everything, and I wasn't really expecting to need to do algebra, but I enjoyed doing so thoroughly. I really appreciate that the hints for the code puzzle were saved and displayed so I didn't need to write them down. Loved the zoom-out at the end, gave it a kind of bittersweet final note. Screenshot 2024-10-22 171704.png
knarf
2024-10-23 13:26
That was lovely. Awesome take on the theme, and very polished entry. Everything works quite great together, and gives us smart and funny simple puzzles. I really enjoyed their was so many animals to talk to, absolutely each one felt fun and cute. It was smart to use the field of view and the maze the cave builds as a gameplay element itself. The end was also very polished and lovely... Well done ! One of the smartest approach and with the best vibes !