FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD58 → Unholy Black Hole

Unholy Black Hole

By bereg

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall843.5139
Fun923.4039
Innovation663.5238
Theme653.8139
Graphics1073.4439
Audio633.5239
Humor253.6639
Mood783.5038

Comments

ericns 2025-10-06 00:38

Honestly, this might win the Compo, it's really really fun, can't believe you made this in two days

immortalfox 2025-10-06 01:03

A very strong submission :) Probably would be in top-10. Good job!

theoratkin 2025-10-06 04:11

Very well-polished game! Quite unique idea with directing the crowd. This might sound weird, but I love the little screams haha.

bereg 2025-10-06 08:00

@ericns Thank you! Procedural generation in Houdini really helped me a lot with the content. I started by creating just one little house, then multiplied it with variations.

bereg 2025-10-06 08:01

@immortalfox Thank you!

bereg 2025-10-06 08:02

@theoratkin I had so much fun recording those sounds. I think my neighbors appreciated it too!

egor-ae-game 2025-10-06 17:52

I'd love to rate the game, but I can't install it on my Mac. It would be awesome if you added a gameplay trailer!

artificer 2025-10-06 18:20

Getting all the ones on the edge is pretty tough with the demon but herding the masses into the portal is satisfying. +Respect for 3D game. The little screams are great and the models remind me of little claymation dudes. Nice entry!

bereg 2025-10-06 18:32

@artificer These guys staring into the abyss are a side effect of bad pathfinding. I should fix it at some point. Thanks!

bereg 2025-10-06 18:51

@egor-ae-game Valid point. I added a link to a youtube gameplay video to the post.

she-wrote 2025-10-06 19:51

What a cathartic and fun game, full of potential! Luring people with money works perfectly, and it’s super fun, I love seeing them being sucked into the black hole! The hellish vibe is great, and the music fits perfectly. However, demons are a bit too unpredictable in where they’ll go. It’s easy to run out of money trying to guide humans to the black hole this way, which can be slightly frustrating. And I do think the “It’s happening” text takes a bit too long to disappear, especially when restarting the level. But overall, a quite solid, cathartic, and fun compo game. Well done!

bereg 2025-10-06 19:56

@she-wrote Yeah, I’m planning to rework the demons’ behavior, as well as some other aspects, to make the game a bit easier. Sadly, I spent the last hours of the jam trying to fix a memory leak caused by Unity instead of testing it. Thanks a lot!

alec-cunningham 2025-10-06 20:42

This one had a very nice feel to it! Enjoyed the whimpers of the humans, and the puzzle-aspect of it, having to be smart about when to use the money.

Wanted to rip my hair out over the humans being stuck around the perimeter (or god forbid, the corner!) Very tricky to get em out, and I'm too frugal to use the cash-bait for that. Really enjoyed it overall, awesome job man! Very strong entry:)

bereg 2025-10-06 20:45

@alec-cunningham Thanks! I also hate when they gather in the corners. The pathfinding and state machine itself both need some rework - I’ll get to it someday after the jam is over.

petitlu 2025-10-06 20:48

I found it frustating to have the humans being stuck on the sides or corners. The money bait works really well but demons are a bit heratic and will often make the humans go at the opposite of what you'd want. Since the demons run faster than the human they sometimes overtake them which makes the humans turn back. Still a good game. Good job on making all of this on 2 days. Idea, graphics, audio everything is there!

bereg 2025-10-06 20:53

@petitlu Thank you! I didn’t mean for the NPCs to behave this way, but it is what it is. I like to think they’re just staring into the abyss at the edge of their world - and maybe wondering what they’re doing with their lives.

adrien-tremblay 2025-10-07 02:54

Fun simple game. Directing crows by coordinating demon spawns is an interesting concept.

pres2300 2025-10-07 03:46

This was really fun and satisfying to play! I liked the graphics, SFX, and music. I got the population down to 23 before I ran out of money and the population stopped moving much. Great entry!

protohere 2025-10-07 08:04

this is some pretty impressive stuff for a compo entry! nice work on the graphics and SFX :) Ivve had some issues with the demons behaving weird and chasing in undesired directions which i think takes away from the satisfaction of consuming the npcs

infernaton 2025-10-07 09:07

Good game ! A little bit frustrating how quickly your money goes away (maybe a comparison with reality). As someone say, bait work really well but demons don't do that much: Sometimes for me, he will turn arround for no real reason and don't chase the human anymore. For the bait, it can be good if we can retrieve it back, or move it ; when there's no humans left in the area, it just stay there with no purpose.

Also, the game crashes when clicking on the "exit" button in the main menu (what a beautiful way to exit a game haha)

bereg 2025-10-07 10:42

@adrien-tremblay @pres2300 @protohere Thanks!

@infernaton Thank you! It definitely needs some work on the state machine. As for the crash - it shouldn’t be happening. However, there’s a known bug in this specific Unity version where, on DirectX devices, the game starts leaking memory after a while. Maybe your PC doesn’t support Vulkan, so the game defaulted to DirectX?

floriancohen 2025-10-07 14:43

Really good game nice job !

torte478 2025-10-07 17:43

Fun game! It's really great to see such a witty and original take on the theme.

baluj 2025-10-07 20:03

Good game! I wish there was a web version.

bereg 2025-10-07 20:38

@floriancohen @torte478 @baluj Thank you for your kind words!

avhatar 2025-10-08 07:04

Clear and enjoyable gameplay, good visuals. Maybe it’s a bit lacking in visual consistency, but that’s just nitpicking. For some reason, I got a huge laugh out of the sounds — especially the “aiyaiyai” — I imagined the author recording it at home into a mic. There’s even some music in there. As for downsides, I’d mention the characters who keep getting stuck at the edge of the map, and it’s not clear how to get them out of there. I made several runs, and here’s my personal record so far: Screenshot_3.png

bereg 2025-10-08 07:55

@avhatar Yeah, I already know where the bug is in the code. As soon as the jam ends, I’ll fix the characters’ behavior. Although, to be honest, if I lived on a giant cube, I’d probably spend a lot of time just staring into the abyss from its edge too.

wisstopher 2025-10-08 22:06

Great game, solid mechanics and art. Can see this doing well. Great jam.

notime4games 2025-10-08 22:12

For me, Avast detected a virus in this exe :/

bereg 2025-10-08 23:09

@wisstopher Thanks a lot!

@notime4games That's strange. Pretty much standard Unity build. And it was made with the fresh version, patched for the vulnerability they discovered recently. VirusTotal shows all the green checkmarks when checking the entire archive.

bangkerpow 2025-10-09 13:10

Really fun concept. I would have liked a bit more predictability on the demon's paths but otherwise a really good game.

yvanor 2025-10-11 14:06

The concept and the ambiance is very cool !

I got issues too with the demons walking next to humans without scaring them, it's a bit frustrating, but I get that it's quite complex AI to setup correctly in so little time.

So good work !

frank-gevaerts 2025-10-11 15:24

This was tricky! It took me about five tries to get them all, so well balanced.

Quite an interesting concept, and well executed. Graphics and sound are decent, but it's mainly the game concept itself that shines here.

One thing that definitely stood out was that my GPU fan didn't stop for a second while playing this, I'm assuming no vsync at least on my linux/X11 system. I have no idea if that's something you can easily force from the game side though.

bereg 2025-10-11 15:36

@bangkerpow @yvanor Thanks a lot! Rework on the state machine is planned already.

@frank-gevaerts Thank you! I'm not very familiar with Linux systems for games - does it use Vulkan by default? There's a bug in this particular Unity version that causes a memory leak on DirectX systems. I only caught it pretty late and ended up spending the last hours of the jam trying to figure out what was going on, so that might have been the cause. The game itself should be fairly light on the graphics side.

tanis 2025-10-18 14:27

Cool idea but the daemons are acting up in a way that is very hard to predict. They would probably need some love :smile: Nice entry!

franciscorp 2025-10-21 16:34

So fun! I didn't find bugs, I would say that there could have been an objetive instead of all, but the game is super vibes and silly. Gerat audio, concept and art

bereg 2025-10-21 21:03

@tanis Thank you! Demons are spawns of chaos, of course you can’t predict them! Ha-ha!

@franciscorp Thanks a lot!

ginger-kyoko 2025-10-22 15:55

I liked the game. It's fairly simple and straightforward, with an acceptable level of difficulty. I liked that it has a strategy element. I also like the name. I think there's room for improvement, but in terms of the jamming, I can't really add anything. Good luck! ;)

By the way, if you like games with a slightly strange, surreal atmosphere, you might want to check out our game too 😜

philstrahl 2025-10-26 21:51

The sound effects alone, haha! But the most unholy thing was how it brought my GPU (and subsequently the livestream) to its knees after prolonged play 😅 For your reference, here's that stream archived 😊🦄

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-o544ihrdU