towercrane 2025-10-06 22:30
intro is great. But gameplay itself is really underwhelming
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD58 → EMBERS WILDFIRE
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 620 | 3.17 | 48 | |
| Fun | 691 | 2.75 | 46 | |
| Innovation | 600 | 2.86 | 46 | |
| Theme | 262 | 3.88 | 48 | |
| Graphics | 519 | 3.38 | 48 | |
| Audio | 241 | 3.53 | 47 | |
| Humor | 641 | 2.24 | 41 | |
| Mood | 196 | 3.87 | 48 |
intro is great. But gameplay itself is really underwhelming
I generally like walking simulators, it's cool that you're telling this story through your game.
I found the animations pleasant, especially the one that was a pre-rendered animation (I think?), where the player is walking up the mountain from the left to the right (where the player character looks more cartoon-ish), that animation had a very nice landscape and scenery in the background!
Here's some of my feedback regarding the "game" part of your game:
- the intro text was cut off, the first letter of each line was off-screen, although I was still able to read the text fine - I found the initial mountain climb & ember collection to be fun, I liked that the red bottom border engulfed the screen at the end of that climbing section, that felt cool - during the part where you had limited time to collect all embers in the "maze", the timer text was aligned vertically from top to bottom, each character being on another "line", which made it hard to read the time and was a bit distracting because it was overlapping the maze game. Also there was one ember in the top-left that I couldn't collect because both entry gaps where too small for the player to fit through, not sure if that was intentional as I didn't lose, but I found that to be confusing. - I liked the (gruesome) animations of the people burning, it set an intense mood and a feeling of urgency. Although I was kinda hoping to be able to "save" them by walking to them haha - in the later part of the game, there was a change in story-telling style, where the story text looked different from the start of the game (pixelated font, click to continue), and the text moved on way too fast for me to keep up with reading (maybe I'm a slow reader :sweat_smile:)
I found the style throughout the game to be inconsistent, making it a bit hard for me to properly "feel" the story. There was pixel-art (the mountain in the intro, the controllable player sprites, pixelated font) then there was a different character style (more round/cartoon-ish). I feel like the game would have benefited from a more uniform art-style.
Your style of story-driven game, mixed with quick interactive sequences is unique and very interesting to me, I hope you continue on your path of story-telling game-design! I like it that you used your game to tell a story! It made me checkout the 1996 Pat Sin Leng wildfire on Wikipedia, so I learned some (tragic) history today!
@noahro Thank you so much for your feedback — it’s very insightful and honest! I’m really happy that you liked the animation that I made, because I actually work in the animation industry.
For the points you mentioned, they’re absolutely right — most of those issues happened because we ran out of time.oops. The font my team used couldn’t be opened properly in my Adobe After Effects, so I couldn’t fix it before the deadline. I originally planned to rework everything in the past couple of days, but due to my job, I had to let it go for now.
This was actually the first time that three of us made a game together — our programmer was using Unity for the first time, and it was also my first time doing game design. That’s why the style leans more toward narrative. From the beginning, we just want to finish a game , and honestly, we did it — though it’s admittedly quite rough, lmao.
We’ll definitely keep exploring game development in the future, and I personally plan to learn more about narrative design and gameplay balance. Thank you so much again for your kind and thoughtful feedback!
@towercrane Thank you so much for your feedback,it was my first time to design a game,im actually an animator,and yes.we kinda know the balance was ekkk(lol).but personally I will learn more about game design in the future. Since it was actually our team r newbee in this aera, and for our coding menber, it was her first time to use Unity ,so i dont want to push my team so hard ,all we want is to finish a game.But we will definitely keep exploring the game area in the future.thank you
Completed the game! The animation is so polished and the music truly fits, and the story is truly touching. Great job!
Fun game, felt a little bit of danger when the fire wall nearly caught up. Nice controls and fits the theme!
It's a very beautiful game. I really like this art style and the atmosphere is rendered extremely well.
@debugman18 thank you for your feedback,we did it for our first time.we kinda know there r lot of bugs and we need to improve more in the future.Your feedback means a lot to us and truly encourages our team。
@tinysky thank you so much.your feedback means l lot to us,we know theres lot of probs in it.if we have extra time ,maybe we will improve it in the future
I find it strange that the screen moves on its own and it takes a while to collect fire, but maybe that's one of the game's difficulty features. It's a good game idea, I liked it.
Interesting theme for your game. The introduction story can do with a skip button if you've already gone through it. Though to get the one flame tucked away in the corner!
A beautiful game! I like the atmosphere setting. The background music is perfectly in line with the theme.
@blazerker thank you for your feedback,thank you so much !!!!and this is our first time to make a game we r so excited about it,will improve the game in the future
@ciphereo thank you so much,the bgm was search on freesound website(lol) thank you¬¬¬
@ioshiodnanoshka yea, bc this is my first time to do the level design,I know it was super rough(lol).will learn more about game mechanic and level design in the future
I like how there's so much lore to this. Although the intro was cut off screen, and I couldn't seem to fix that (do you have a 4k monitor perchance?).
I like rendering glitches, so, intro section was very vibey, gameplay was maybe lacking a bit.
Thanks for making it! Good luck in future games :smile:
I like theme and social subtext. Move on guys
I expected quite a different game from the intro; the style changes abruptly. I didn't understand, was clicking supposed to extinguish? I think I click and held and it did something on the 3rd level (non auto-scrolling) level. There was a path above, could I have gone that way? The game just ended. There was a flame in the top left you can't get to at all. And the text on that screen was impossible to read because it overlapped the black parts of the level. Ultimately it was more frustrating than fun.
I'm a fan of the atmosphere and the narrative of this game. Really well done and unique.
I also enjoyed the gameplay - finding the right path under time pressure. However, on the last level, I believe I was not able to collect an ember in the top left side of the screen, due to being blocked by the walls.
The text towards the end flashed too quickly for me to be able to read everything in time. But it was an interesting message.
Overall, a great submission. And keep in mind, the LDJAM Rules allow you to update your game with small fixes - as long as you don't add new features. If you have the time, you could consider it.
The narrative, art style, and conceptual depth of your game are excellent! It would be even better with some improvements in gameplay and controls!
@ciph3rzer0 hey thanks for your reply that u really played our game，the final level is meant to let players feel the ultimate despair of a wildfire — the helplessness one faces before nature’s fury. The protagonist’s story is actually based on the a real hero who died in the wildfire..But I think that's my mistake that didnt conciderated players feeling ,and also this is our first time to make a game(lol)we ran out of time at the end,so the game style changed a lil bit (We didn't match the software that we uesd).due to the working ,we cant fix the bugs and improve the style after jam.but really thanks for you feedback!!!!!
@everglow thanks for your feedback we will make better gameplay in the future!!!
@f2 thank you for your feedback!!!tActually, we’d love to keep updating the game, but since the three of us joined the Game Jam, we’re now rushing to a work deadline at the end of October.（drives us crazy....i hate work) If time allows, we’ll do our best to continue updating it.
@nnnnneeeedddd we will try to fix it in this days!!!
I really liked the mood this game set and how it tied in together with the general theme of wildfires in today's society. Great stuff, keep it up!
This was a really good way to tell a story and share some facts of life that people may not other realize. I think the visual style during the cutscenes and text portions was really well done, but sometimes the text went by way too fast for me to read the whole thing. The gameplay was pretty basic but seemed to work as it should without issue. Overall, nice job!
Nice mood and the visuals of the cutscenes were pretty nice. Excelent message. The game itself is pretty crude and the text was sometimes impossible to read, but I'm glad you managed to finish the game!
Hey! I played your game, it's a pretty good fire safety awareness demo! But I have some suggestions:
Some text is very long but disappears quickly, and you can probably understand what you mean through the image.
However, adding a bright background to the text, or having an extra unburned wooden board, would probably be better.
The interaction is simple, and the fault tolerance is very high. I passed it on the first try, which is great!
Love the intro, but I really wish the respawn was after it so I don't have to click through it every time I die
Nice game, esspecially about the background music, it really make a serious and mysterious atmosphere.
Very interesting story telling aspect to the collector theme. I enjoyed the ember collecting part, although I was confused that the map I could walk on was smaller than the walkable area. Also missing an ember could lead to a game over right away, as I missed on on the first level of my first go, and still had to do the entire level despite being unable to complete it.
Still, very nice concept and game!
@b0guslaw thanks for your play and feedback,the map actually ,its my working pieces(lol),we ran out of time and didnt do as much as game test at the end, will figure it out in the future
Wow! This game is a ton of fun! Nice work
Nice and simple game! I think you managed to balance the difficulty just right: I felt the time pressure but still managed to complete every challenge first try even though the time was running out.
Maybe, you should consider using the same color palette for all parts of the game. Intro part seemed black + red + orange to me, while the action part is mostly black and white.
您好@einfach老师，很有意境的游戏，有好几个阶段，喜欢老师做的氛围感！不过过场的时候太快了有些剧情没看到Q.Q 提个小建议，结局的图像和文本切换有点快，并且在最后一句的时候有个中文句号 :P
Very Good.My wife is Developers，I love her!
Hello there, I'm the main game art designer of this game.It's such a pleasure to work with Einfacheinfach.Her ideas were soooo impressive,as well as her innovative planning and management skills enabled our project to proceed smoothly.We hope you all enjoy our work.
The intro really set up high expectations, but ended up with lackluster gameplay. That said, this was the first time I heard about the Pat Sin Leng wildfire, and my heart goes out to its victims.
选材好棒，很有意义，氛围塑造也特别好！
Very interesting way to combine the narrative with the gameplay. The feeling of having to run together with the minimal artworks and sfx made me feel immersed in the narrative. I did not understand the choice of having different text fonts throughout the game though. Anyway, great work!!
特别好的音乐！整体氛围也很到位…游戏的立意也很有意义！一点小建议是如果死掉重来可以跳过开头动画就好啦
来回评啦！很有意思的游戏，氛围很好选材也很有意义！游玩体验的话有一点小建议，希望等玩家开始操作后屏幕再往上移动，或者一开始移动速度稍慢，不然每关开始时稍微没反应过来就很容易game over，有点猝不及防hhh
@fin1717 好的好的，我们会在牛马时间之外，赶紧修复完善一下
@yuriscat谢谢老师的反馈。我打算今明两天重新做一遍，因为当时是压着ddl赶紧做出来的哈哈哈哈
@wenqing 好的，我们正working on it
@anima-animus049 谢谢你的反馈，我们也是第一次制作，也知道有诸多不足，我们会继续努力的
@surfacedfox，Thank you so much for your reply! We’re currently rushing to polish the final scense — it was such a tight deadline when we submitted. Really appreciate your kind words and support!
@woona Thank you so much for your feedback! you’re absolutely right about the color palette! We were actually rushing to meet the deadline, so some parts ended up visually inconsistent. We’ll definitely unify the colors in the updated version. Thanks again for the thoughtful suggestion!
@angelpatanez Thank you so much for playing and for your thoughtful feedback! As for the different text fonts, that’s a great point! It actually came from a last-minute technical issue — we couldn’t get our intended font to work properly in After Effects before the deadline. We’ll definitely fix that in the post-jam version. Thanks again for noticing the details!
@fin1717 谢谢老师的建议，非常有用 ^ ^ 我已经在相机移动前加了三秒的缓冲时间，但是显然等玩家操作后再移动会更好。
Everything about this game is awesome: the art, the narrative, and the atmosphere... Well done!
My wife grew up in Hong Kong and remembers the fire this game was based on! Really feel like the mood is the primary triumph, and the elevated syntax of the intro dialogue really set the stage. That cutscene before the final level was also great. Echo some of the feedback on text spacing, some odds and ends for post-jam. I also got a win screen even though I missed an ember at the end - wasn't sure if this was intentional. Ultimately, I really connected with this entry!
I really liked the music, the graphics are simple but nice, it's a shame that if you lose, you have to read the intro again, it gets in the way of replaying, it becomes too lazy to skip the beginning
Fun game with meaning, thank you!
Screenshot_16.png
@alexandra-suprunovskaya thank you so much!!!
@kevin-garske Thank you very much for your feedback. We’ll do more fixes and adjustments during our days off — we’ve been really busy with work lately. For the final level, our intention was that players wouldn’t actually be able to collect both the people and the embers, because the protagonist’s story is based on a rescuer from that disaster who, afterwards, developed PTSD and ultimately couldn’t bear it and died by suicide. My thought with the final level was to have players empathize with this hero (but time was limited and my level design wasn’t fully thought through). I originally planned to include the hero’s story in the ending animation, but firstly I only started the ending animation two hours before the jam ended, and secondly the Pat Sin Leng wildfire has long been surrounded by controversy. My original intention was simply to use this game to let people learn about this tragedy and to encourage players to protect nature — which is also protecting human society. “I want to approach the story with respect, not to exploit those who have passed. Perhaps I need to think more carefully about the level design. Thank you again for your feedback.
@dumchevdev thank you so muchhh!!!
我从小红书看到作者的笔记，满怀期待地来玩的。游戏的开场很有氛围，让我以为会是一个沉浸感很强的叙事作品。但后续美术风格的割裂破坏了这种期待。这种从高期待到失望的落差很让人难受。
对这个题材，我认为游戏的收集余烬玩法是契合的，追求可玩性未必是件好事。但我不解的是，游戏里有一段美术风格统一、精美的2D步行模拟场景（见附图），为什么不把玩法整合到这里呢？参考《奥日》的银之树逃亡，我们完全可以在一个2D平台游戏里传达和现在这种俯视角步行相近的紧迫感。虽然在山火这个题材里主角的机动性或许不能太强，我自己也没做过氛围感强的游戏而不确定可行性，但我真的本来很期待这会是个很好的作品。
这样的游戏很有意义。祝你们下次能做得更好。
screenshot.png
@rinevard 非常感谢您的反馈，其中您提到的美术风格问题是因为当时我们做的时候没同步导致的（哭），您提到的2d步行模拟场景一开始是想这么做，但是工程量着实是有点大sos，这个场景从前期找参考到做美术test的过程用来半天的时间。但是您的建议我非常认可，或许在以后的游戏制作中能尝试
I learned about the Baxianling Hill Fire for the first time through this game. Its integration with the game is excellent, and I also really like the game's art style.
@zyt，thank you so much for your feedback！！！
Sometimes text is centered, other times it is not.
The text at the end scrolls by way too fast to be able to read it. I played the game twice but still could not read all of the text.
The moment I first saw the burning person on the ground really shocked me. Even though it is pixel art, this struck me!
The pixel art animation of the person running up the hill in the middle of the game looks just awesome, really well done!
The gameplay is good, nice and simple, but at first - without reading the instructions because I accidentally skipped them - I tried to avoid the fires (as you would in real life) and was surprised that I could not get out at the top. Why would you even put an "end" up there when the real end is the last fire to pick up? The same thing is true for the last level where there is an exit at the top and you instinctively think "I'm going to collect all first, then exit up there" but again, the game ends when the last fire is picked up. Close the opening at the top in this case, it is a red herring otherwise :-)
I love that you put in a real message here. People dropping cigarette butts is a real problem. I salute you for that. Again, I suggest to really ride that out and have the screens at the end on for at least a couple of seconds, preferably until I as the reader hit SPACE or click with the mouse to continue. Then everybody can read at their own speed, like at the beginning of the game.
This game really feels like Conway's Law at play. You are three people and I can easily identify (I think) which parts everybody worked on because they were so different. The animation styles, the pixel art in the middle, the gameplay with the two different kinds of levels. A mixed bag of game elements. They are related by their theme, so I actually don't mind that. It is kind of charming for a Jam game to see what different people have done, but it was so noticable that I wanted to mention it :-)
Overall still a great game, even though my review might come of as critical, depending on the mood you are in at the time of reading it. But I really enjoyed this game. Great job and really just a couple of minor things to tweak on the UI side, so no big issues really. Keep up the great work and thanks for this cool game!
@gonutz Thank you so much for your feedback! We’re actually working hard to unify the art styles, but since all of us are currently juggling our own study and work deadlines, we’re doing our best to push things forward.
Regarding the text issue, thank you for pointing that out — we’ll take another look in the next couple of days. We fixed a similar bug before, so we’re not sure why it popped up again.
And about the exit issue — that’s a really great idea! We’ll share it with the team right away and make the adjustment. Thanks again!
The visuals and ambiance of the game are great. As someone who lives in a country that experiences many wildfires due to people's lack of awareness, I found the game's concept truly remarkable.
My main issue was that sometimes the text scrolled way too quickly, especially in the final scene and kind of disrupted the mood of the message. I would have preferred it to be slower like the premise.
山火的主题很切题也很新颖，想到最近的始祖鸟事件。美术风格不统一的确是一个问题，不过我喜欢你们的bgm，如果增加一些收集正反馈音效就更好了！
@amiuke谢谢反馈！！我们也是灵光一闪有了这个想法，并且联想到了环保相关议题。谢谢你提供的宝贵建议，正反馈音效我们后续会逐步增加的！
@schatzi Thank you so much for your feedback! And so happy that our game serves as a cautionary tale. We will fix the speed problem for text.Wish we can creat a better game experience.
I found the mood so cool and all the cinematic work. But very surprisingly the levels are so pure white, it's a total opposition with the cutscenes. Congratulations for finishing your first game and being able to have a working web build!!!
Good job! The mood was well done. The text went by super fast and I couldn't actually read it all. I read pretty slowly, and I always prefer to advance the text myself. I really like the pixel art. The cut scene in the middle looked especially nice.
I really like the theme and its tie to the environmentalism.
A different game I would say. Loved the graphics, specially in the animation. Very cozy, for such an hard theme. Important message and well transmited. The gameplay could have improvements, some feedback on the collecting of the embers, and I got a little lost on how to grab and save the people. But, quite simple and effective gameplay. Congratulations :)
Thanks for uploading! The gameplay itself was simple, but I think the narrative goal more than made up for it. The mood of the game felt very eerie and tense, and there were a few moments where I could really feel myself tense up in response to the game. I think the main thing it might need would be some additional clarity. On the last level, there was some text to suggest a changing of the game loop, but it seemed to play just like the other levels, or if there was something different, I don't think I understood exactly what it was going for. Additionally, I think the ending sequence could use a bit more time on each page, some of them went by too fast for me to finish reading them, let alone have the time to let the reality of it sit in. I liked some of the details with the animations as well - especially with the player character, I liked that there was a bit of a delay before fully turning around so it kind of felt more like I was actually in the process of turning as opposed to just snapping to face the direction I'm moving.