FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD59 → The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

By iluvatar

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1623.9447
Fun3513.4746
Innovation7442.7346
Theme5053.5847
Graphics234.6349
Audio364.2447
Humor3482.9741
Mood304.4448

Comments

jamesgames1000 2026-04-19 18:03

Great visuals and great sounds. Really loved it!

pfeyffer 2026-04-20 00:50

What a great start to an even bigger game ;-) The visuals are stunning and the dialogue is fully voiced. I want more, please!

kanity 2026-04-20 12:23

My thoughts as I go ^^

I got interested in your game seeing the graphics you shared on LD page on the weekend. I am playing the downloaded version right now.

The main menu is very pretty, and the sound effects are adding to the atmosphere. I love love love your art!! It's just my taste xD As is the genre. I'll be honest though, I thought "matches" was a book before I moved my mouse over them :')

Your voice acting is rather nice and fits the character :) (UPD: the (infected?) guy voice over is even better!!) I don't often see jammers who also do voice overs in their games. It adds so much and for me it's a special feeling to hear the person behind the game ^^ Also, don't be shy to raise your voice when needed and put more emotion into it! (Unless people are sleeping in a room near you, I can understand then it's not possible)

Received the HELP message and smiling ear to ear. This is getting juicy!

Gun under the armchair? I would say that's funny but I DID immediately click on the armchair when he asked for a gun...

After "I killed him" voiceline there is that line that is not voiced and has a number in front of it:

line.jpg

The sea creature and everything... Very lovecraftian! I wonder now if I could avoid killing the infected(?) guy and get an infected ending right then and there.

The final CG is absolutely fantastic!!! WOW!!!

Final thoughts:

I loved my time with this game. Obviously the graphics and the atmosphere are the strongest parts. The story is not unique but I love the feel of it. You have achieved a lot in just 2 days and I feel satisfied with the gameplay and the story and how it wrapped up ^^ We need more horror themed entries like this one! +_+ (for me to play hehe)

bereg 2026-04-20 12:51

This is amazing! This game has everything I love: point-and-click, Lovecraftian horror, and gorgeous pixel art. The final image is absolutely mind-blowing! Congratulations, this is a phenomenal game!

2026-04-20 14:14

Great pixel art ! Pleasantly surprise that a jam game took the time to do some voice acting. Also loved the overall mood :)

bigfatgua 2026-04-20 14:20

The art style here is absolutely STUNNING!

iluvatar 2026-04-20 16:06

@jamesgames1000 Thank you!

@pfeyffer Thank you, glad you liked it!

@kanity Thank you for your comprehensive review! I really appreciate it. I'm glad you enjoyed the game. And thanks for all the feedback, I will make sure I fix it later. Regarding my voice, that's just my terrible boring voice haha. I AM speaking loudly haha. I guess my vocal cords are just so weird. Feel free to try my other games, I feel like I'm making the same kind of "vibe" so if you liked this one, the others are even less original haha.

@bereg Thank you! Yes, I think I make every Jam "Lovecraftian" haha. Maybe I should finally move on... NOT!

@maxence-delacroix Thank you, appreciate your kind words. Yeah it was fun, I always try to do something fun and this time I felt like voice acting haha.

@bigfatgua Thank you, really appreciate it!

kanity 2026-04-20 16:55

@iluvatar All right, noted ^^

euler-moises 2026-04-20 23:53

Point and Click is fun. "Unfortunately," I didn't get a game over on my first try and had to play again to achieve it!

:D

I really liked your color palette.

Congratulations!

2026-04-21 02:47

The art style: Amazing! Love the colours and use of dithering. The audio was very atmospheric. Was pleasantly surprised that it's a point and click game and had voice lines! Awesome work!

jiri-hysek 2026-04-21 08:14

Ahoj Davide! Amazing art as usual, nice color palette btw. Along with audio and voiceovers (wow!) it made the mood really cool. All an all, I get what I came here for! Great game as always. And you made me to play it twice again to see both ends :)

skeyven 2026-04-21 08:47

Great acting, man! It turned out really atmospheric.

How many endings are there? I feel like I definitely didn’t get the best one, but at the same time it kind of feels like there couldn’t be any other outcome :D

erk 2026-04-21 09:51

The art is fantastic, very cozy! We also made "The Lighthouse" for the jam but with a completely different loop. Great job with this! :)

oadt 2026-04-21 13:22

Always looking forward to play your point and click game! The voice acting enhances the mood even more. I only got a bit stuck by clicking on the signal receiver vs the machine gears, which made the beginning feel a bit too long for me, but I loved the part after that and the ending. Great work!

verttixpertti 2026-04-21 15:29

Could have had some more gameplay but the vibes were cool

wouter52 2026-04-21 19:46

Very well done! I enjoyed your game, I like the voiceacting in this one. I compare this one a lot with your last entry. The style is similar, but improved in almost all aspects

As I recall, the last one did not have voice acting, right? And multiple screens this time! And multiple endings! I had a good time playing this. I have one point of feedback I think: the "signal" part I found a bit weak? It was part of the game, but it did not feel like an element that was vital to the game to work if you know what I mean. Although that does not take away how fun it was. The theme is in my opinion mostly to nudge the developers into a way of thinking

alex-de-la-cour 2026-04-21 20:57

Cracking little game, David! Genuinely would want to see more and where something like this goes, creepy mysterious lighthouses are such a killer vibe. also I thought your voice acting was perfectly on point. Nicely done.

lereveur 2026-04-21 20:58

Almost everything I had to say, the others already said it! So, I will just add two little glitches I spotted: the light from the stove appears above the character after starting the fire, and the character walks backwards when you go from the left stool to the stove Amazing entry, as the previous ones, I really liked playing it, good job!

zhr 2026-04-21 21:15

The visuals grabbed me right away. I really love classic point-and-click adventures. I did run into a bit of pixel hunting, but aside from that, everything was clear and really well done. The game works, and I was definitely immersed in by the atmosphere of everything that was happening. I originally wanted to make a game about a lighthouse too, but my team talked me out of it XD

indiepanda 2026-04-22 00:11

Point and click is one of my favorite genres. This one looks amazing.

2026-04-22 02:10

Absolutely beautiful and really well voiced!

iluvatar 2026-04-22 09:05

@wouter52 Hi thank you for your feedback! I had some voiced but it was usually when working with my friends. This was my first voiced solo game. And yeah, I had a bit different idea to use the signal, but I didn't manage to do it, so that's why it feels a bit lacking there. Well I've never been too good in using the themes haha.

@alex-de-la-cour Hi Alex, thank you! Appreciate this coming from you :)

@lereveur Thank you for your feedback! Yeah, my scene objects are often messy during Ludum Dare haha. It's all about calculating pixels and we all know AINT NOBODY GOT TIME FOR DAT!

@zhr Thank you! Another Lighthouse enjoyer! Yes, there is definitely something dark and mysterious about lighthouses. The old building atmosphere, the remoteness and loneliness of these places. It's almost like little haunted castles. Just perfect for storytelling. I originally used a different greenish color palette to give it more lovecraftian vibe, but for some reason the colors felt off, maybe I used wrong colors... but anyway I changed it to this dusk-esque atmosphere instead :)

@indiepanda Thank you! As a P&C developer it's always great to see this genre still has fans!

@hiretsu Thank you, I'm glad you liked it!

tomssuli 2026-04-23 08:13

Ahh another lovecraftian lighthouse game! (we made one too)

Very nice pixel art, I like the classic style cramming so many details in low-color, low-resolution environment. The pixel gradients especially make it feel very retro :sunglasses:

Loved the ambience and the voice acting is a nice touch and worth the effort.

Everything feels polished (apart from that little dialogue bug) and the mood is well transmitted.

I liked the dual use of the theme. Lighthouse is signal for the ships and in the lighthouse you get a signal.

All in all, great job!

muraena 2026-04-23 17:55

A surprisingly cosy atmosphere for the story aha! Lovely art, I adored the detail and care put into the CGs and backgrounds, especially the approach to the render of light. Voice acting is another incredibly pleasant addition. Amazing vibes, would love to learn more of the story!

luminella 2026-04-23 18:04

loved this so much! immaculate vibes

luka420 2026-04-23 18:11

Amazing art and aside from one small bug that was already mentioned, very polished! Great work!

iluvatar 2026-04-23 18:28

@tomssuli Thank you! I'm glad you liked it. I also played your Lighhouse game, we are lighouse bros/sis! Haha. I guess lovecraft and lighthouses are just a perfect match.

@muraena Thank you for the feedback! Glad you liked it :)

@luminella Thank you!

@luka420 Thank you, appreciate the feedback :)

titos2k 2026-04-23 20:53

nice entry. And fully voice acted. Respect.

gurkenlabs 2026-04-23 22:15

Kudos for the nicely rendered backgrounds, the mystic voice acting and the atmospheric soundscape! I liked the feeling of inevitability you evoked and felt reminded of the Movie "The Mist" :)

badpiggy 2026-04-24 20:33

Phenomenal presentation here. Everything from the voice acting to the pixel art was honestly immaculate. The story also had me pretty hooked.

Adventure games usually aren't my thing, but I can't deny that this makes me want to make one now lol. After getting the monster ending I replayed and got the one where the zombie kills you as well. The voice acting on the zombie and the standoff were genuinely chilling and had me on the edge of my seat.

If I had any sort of qualm about this game, it's that the theme isn't really too prevalent in it, even from a narrative point of view. Still, that doesn't negate the absolute quality on display here. Fantastic stuff

ukulelefury 2026-04-25 03:14

:) So good! I really love your pixel art. And I love a good point-and-click. Every time I hear any voice acting in a jam game I'm so jealous I didn't do it. Really great mood and narrative!

aurel300 2026-04-26 10:52

Cute! As with many LD point 'n clicks the game suffers from being basically one screen with very little actual puzzle solving: matches -> furnace; wrench -> gears; then "find the gun" which is just "click all objects again in case the results will be different now", but it's fine since there are so few objects.

The art is nice and the voice acting is good. Some lines, such as after killing the monster, maybe don't quite carry the emotion fully, but that's a big ask (: The seaside ambience in the background does a lot for the mood.

Nit: the line "But... I didn't have a choice [...]" is not voice acted?

Nit: entering full screen ruins the pixel art by scaling unevenly and not aligning the layers anymore...

daniel 2026-04-26 17:42

I love when people do voice acting for ludum games, great short story and presentation.

annie-owl 2026-04-26 18:59

The graphics and the audio of this game are superb! As already was mentioned in some of the comments it's a bit hard to figure out that the object on the table is a box of matchsticks and you can actually interact with it (I was stuck until I read one of the comments). But after that small hurdle the whole experience was smooth sailing :smile:

annie-owl 2026-04-26 18:59

LD Lagged out and my comment was sent twice, sorry :sweat_smile:

t-c 2026-04-27 00:30

Always a huge fan of your submissions. Love the amount of atmosphere you're able to cram into each game. Short and sweet. Art is (as always) top notch. Well done!

cameron-paxton 2026-04-28 16:36

The atmosphere is really well-done. I do think there were a few moments that would have benefitted from some music, but otherwise the sound design really helped sell it. And full voice acting as well!

I played through a few times, but didn't get the sense that my choices made much difference. I found two ways of dying. Perhaps there were more?

I think the visuals and the vibe are definitely the stand-outs. Nice work!

adam-gould 2026-04-29 07:43

Great work as per usual! It's been a while since I played a point-and-click game, and this one has style and polish oozing out of it. Love a bit of cosmic horror, too.

It's very short of course, but in LD that's not necessarily a bad thing.

picross 2026-04-29 20:33

The V/A here is awesome. Wonderful atmosphere and beautiful art! Love the LucasArts vibes. Really great work!

nexusasx10 2026-04-30 00:11

Oh I like point-and-click games! The atmosphere is so cozy. The artstyle and audio are great. And I didn't expect the game to have voice acting. It's a really nice touch. The MC is quite funny.

wuppos 2026-05-01 14:04

This is really impressive for a solo game in 72 hours! :O The pixel art is beautiful. The colours matched the vibe really well and the dithering made it feel old fashioned. My own art has mostly been separate sprites, but I would love to be able to draw beautiful scenes like you did here.

The sounds of the birds and the voice acting also all added to the spooky yet cosy vibe. Amazingly done! I enjoyed this a lot :D

skiddings 2026-05-02 20:01

Great voice acting :smile:

tetracold 2026-05-03 17:15

really enjoyed it, the pixelart work is great and the story is engaging too, it managed to keep me hooked despite being relatively short. the mood is definitely there and I also thought the voice acting was a cool touch.

hagamosvideojuegos 2026-05-03 19:14

For a game jam project, this is seriously impressive. Yes, it’s short, but that’s completely understandable given the time constraints and what’s here is incredibly well done.

It genuinely made me want to dig deeper into the story. I would love to see this expanded into a full game with the same style and atmosphere. It strongly reminds me of classic late ’80s and early ’90s point 'n click adventures and I love it!

The artistic side is absolutely fantastic. The pixel art, the way you’ve interpreted the theme, and how everything comes together, it all works beautifully. Even if the programming side might be relatively simple, the overall experience feels really nice.

Congratulations! :octopus: :ship:

jvdwijk 2026-05-06 12:04

Cute game! It had nice art, voice acting and a story, very impressive for a solo jam game!

The only thing that I would change, is having a couple restart checkpoints. I wanted to see what happened if I didn't defend myself and had to start back at the beginning.

marudziik 2026-05-07 13:43

I loved everything about this entry. Literally the only thing I wish for is more content - as in, "I enjoy this stuff so much I'd like to have more please". What's here is extremely well put, especially for a Jam entry. The graphics are just so extremely good, wow. And I for sure did not expect a full voiceover. Wow. Just wow.

Thanks, and congrats.

jin9310 2026-05-08 22:00

Oh man do I just love these... these stories you make for the jams have always someting special and I really much enjoy going thru your little game jam stories. I like the take on the theme where lighthouse is quite strong representation of a signal and the story with your voice acting is great (although I totally understand that you would underestimate your performance). But trust me, it was great to sit back, without any need to read the captions and enjoy the story only by listening, which is huge for a solo game jam entry. Do I even need to mention the pixelart. Well ofcourse! Truth to be told I am always impressed with your dithering and sence for lighting the scene. Also the palette gives the game that chilly misterious vibe. Great job David!

python-b5 2026-05-08 23:06

This was really neat! It's rare to see point-and-click adventures in game jams - especially ones done well - and so it's always a treat to come across one. I will admit that I was hoping for a more puzzle-focused game, but the story was engaging enough that I didn't care all that much. The art is fantastic, and I appreciated the voice acting (though, the audio balance on it could probably stand to be cleaned up; some lines are much quieter than others). The game was also very polished, and did a good job _feeling_ like an old SCUMM game from the 90s.

One criticism I have, though, is that the game isn't always consistent in its tone. The main storyline itself builds up suspense nicely, and I felt some tension near the end, but the ancillary voice lines for objects around the room don't change throughout the course of the game, so interacting with objects during the back half feels a bit dissonant. (As a side note, it was also pretty funny hearing the main character proclaim he needed to "run for [his] life" before casually strolling over to the staircase. That's understandable for a jam game, though, since running assets would take extra work.)

Lastly, while the game seemed pretty stable overall, I did encounter a couple small bugs: - The "Who are you?" question during the encounter with the intruder didn't disappear after being asked, unlike the other questions. I thought it might be intentional at first - as in, maybe I could only exhaust a certain number of turns before being attacked, or something to that effect - but since the dialogue for the question was always the same, and nothing changed no matter how many times I asked it, I figure it's probably just a bug. - One dialogue line didn't play its corresponding voice clip, and had some extra characters at the start that maybe looked like a broken control code. I'm not familiar with AGS, though, so I'm not sure what exactly might've gone wrong here. lighthouse-dialogue-bug.png

scrapmetal 2026-05-09 01:58

Wow!!! This was just incredible. :open_mouth: :heart_eyes: I am in awe.

As a lover of old school lucasarts style adventure games... this really hit in the nostalgic sweet spot. The art, audio, story and level of polish are astounding. Killer job.

I immediately loved the tone and vibe it set. I wanted to snuggle up in that chair with a cup of coffee. :coffee:

I even failed and started over because I wanted to explore the other options and see the end. Just AMAZING stuff.