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A jam submission

Ascent: A Tale of a Thousand LanternsView game page

A short flying platformer with a warm aesthetic, strong soundtrack, and unique story.
Submitted by Shiro Sky (@leonchen7498), Diogo Santos, Rune Reeves, IffiDev, Loryenne (@LoryenneArt), Golden Sky — 4 hours, 42 minutes before the deadline
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Ascent: A Tale of a Thousand Lanterns's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Graphics#54.7364.736
Audio#114.2644.264
Overall#1013.7703.770
Game Design#3253.5093.509
Theme#3833.6233.623
Innovation#4783.2453.245
Fun#5213.2453.245

Ranked from 53 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

In what way does your game fit the theme?
The lanterns gather together. On their own they are weak, but together they can do great things.

Did you write all the code yourself and made all the assets from scratch?
All code is written by our team. All assets are also made by our team.

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Comments

Viewing comments 36 to 17 of 36 · Next page · Last page
Submitted

I really like the aesthetics and the atmosphere of this game but I have some criticism to do in terms of gameplay: 

-The game gets very hard towards the end.

 -the movements of the lantern are a little too sharp for my taste -> it should be a little more floating I think. 

-the path to take is not always obvious you can get lost easily.

Submitted(+1)

I can finnish it, but a really enjoy the art and feel of the game, it's awesome. so polish, here the simplicity of gaming helps to create an atmosphere so good. Some times a feel a little lost on the map but nothing too bad. Congrats, beautiful game.

Developer

Thank you so much for the compliments <3 We're planning on updating the game after the game jam so you won't get lost too much

Submitted(+2)

Amazing visuals and audio!

I did got to a point which I couldn't go through for like 30-40 times and I just quit, but didn't make me enjoy the game less.

Very well done! I'm happy I didn't miss this one.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for your kind words <3 We noticed too late that the difficulty spiked a bit too hard near the end so we're planning on fixing that after the jam, so sorry for that :(

Submitted(+1)

Nah don't worry. I personally liked the difficulty it's just that I was really tired and had to go to sleep.

Like I said, this was a great game! I'll wait for the update to see what you've got to add.

Submitted(+1)

The aesthetics of this game are really simple but also really nice. My biggest issue was the drastic increase of difficulty after seeing the pack leader. 

Developer (1 edit)

Yes we noticed that the difficulty spike is a bit too hard as well :( We'll fix it after the gamejam is over

Thank you for playing our game though <3

Submitted(+1)

This is really beautiful.I like story art and music very much. 

Developer

Thank you so much for the compliments <3

Submitted(+1)

Such a cool game! Loved nearly everything) The art is very beautiful, music is great too. Calm and warm atmoshere! Interesting story

Also found it kinda interesting, that both our games have partly the same ideas) But no spoilers for you, if you maybe would like to test it out)

Loved it! Well done <3

Developer

Thank you for your kind words! I'll check out your game later

Submitted(+1)

The cinematics at the beggining are beautiful <3 

I love the art style! Looks so professional and clean! Plus the color palette you choose fits perfectly, warm as the light of the lanterns <3 

The narrative and story is beautiful as well! You have some nice writers :) 

As for the gameplay, the experience was so relaxing (exept for the wolfs part lmao) 

What a cool job!  

Developer

Thank you so much for your kind words <3

(+2)

An enjoyable experience that's short and sweet, though I will say the narrow passages portion took several tries, and the order in which I picked up the lanterns made it to where the enemy got a free hit on me on spawn. The enemy behavior seemed intelligent enough to not corner me early on, which I appreciate.

The art is very nice, though I'd say the wolf heads' tapering off may have justified a second pass. Then again, time is of the essence in these game jams.

Developer

Yeah we definitely felt the stress of the game jam so we couldn't fix some of the things you mentioned such as the narrow passage and the shadow bug :( Thank you for playing our game though

Deleted post
Developer

NO, YOU'RE THE BEST <3

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Lovely art and story! Both a narrative & interactive explorative journey. :)

Would love to see some more varying gameplay to bolster the themes you have going! The overarching contextual narrative is engaging, and having the rewarding gameplay reflect that would be an even more lovely feeling to immerse the player in experiencing & "co-writing" your authored story.

Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed the journey. <3

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your feedback! We're gonna update the game after the game jam is over so we might look into these things

Submitted(+2)

Absolutely gorgeous game! The gameplay is a bit boring and could offer a bit more variation. But art music and story was perfect! Great game!

Developer

Thank you so much for playing our game! :)

Submitted(+2)

The Art is Amazing! I like that you managed to add story to the game and intergrate it to the gameplay, Il say that I fell like the movement isnt that fun, it doesnt fell like a floating lantern, and its slow and a bit repetitive, It didnt Make me want to go and explore becuase if il die in that spot it will feel like i wasted time.

but great job anyways!

Developer

Thank you for your feedback, we wanted to add an animation to the lantern to make it feel more floaty but didn't have enough time :( Also we added lots of checkpoints (lanterns) so you would feel less bad for dying 

Submitted(+2)

This is a banger.  You can release this on steam and nobody will even think this was made in a week.

Developer

Ahh thank you so much for your kind words <3

Submitted(+3)

Beautiful music!! The artwork is great too! Nice game

Developer

Thank you for the compliments!!

Submitted(+3)

Beautiful journey worth checking out.

Fun

This category is interesting since it is opinion based. I honestly had fun with this experience. Not from an action packed standpoint but from a perspective of going on a journey and getting immersed into a story. This was more of a journey than anything else!

Innovation/Theme:

 You matched the theme very well here. You went with the literal interpretation of having more to become stronger.  The story element is what made this take of the theme unique. Creating lore in such a short time that works well with the game is well done here. 

Graphics:

This is definitely the most solid part of the game. The art is beautiful all the way around, with multiple cutscenes, great transitions, and a gorgeous landscape which even though I only played a short while, I still remember the world that was laid out before me.

Audio:

The music was on the average side of things. It was solid for the game, but nothing really stuck with me after I finished playing the game. Also it didn't create much impact for me during the game, which I think this area could have been utilized better and really help create more emotion for the game.

Game Design:

The game overall was well built. The creative design behind the game to help piece it all together was very strong. The team who worked on this should be proud of putting together such a solid experience. The only real gripes I could say about the game was the lantern controls felt a little awkward, especially at times when certain areas caused the frame rate to drop. This may have been all boiled down to the webGL version though. So I recommend playing this game via the download version!

I streamed the game here:

Developer(+1)

Ahhh thank you so much for the kind words and the gameplay video <3

Submitted

It was a great experience!

Submitted(+1)

Beautiful lighting, art, story, music <3 I couldn't finish because of that one tight passage, I look forward to the next version, I'm invested in these lanterns!!!

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for your kind words <3 I agree that the tight passage is a bit too hard :( we'll change it after the game jam is over

Submitted(+4)

That was a very pretty game.  The music and the graphics are really good, and I like that the music changes depending on which area you go to. I can tell you guys put a lot of effort into the map as well, and it really shows.

I actually felt like the map was too big though, it's very easy to get lost, especially when finding the hidden passages. I also thought some parts required too pixel-perfect precision to navigate around. I'd add an arrow marker next to the player that shows where the nearest lantern is, because it's really easy to miss them if they're just below or to the right from a branching path. I would also add in a visual indicator that shows the cooldown of your burst attack.

Great work overall, the story is really charming and I managed to beat it.

Developer

Thank you for your feedback! We'll try looking into making the map more recognizable when the game jam is over

Submitted(+4)

The art style was interesting, and the story sounded like a real folk tale (not sure if it is) but it was awesome nonetheless.  Movement was interesting and definitely made it a bit difficult but fun to avoid stuff.  Overall a really solid game to play through.  A couple points though:

  • Moving Up felt a bit too fast in my opinion, it seemed as though you jumped a bit more than felt right.  Which made some areas difficult to traverse, plus kinda let to a lot of spamming the button.  Though that would happen anyways.
  • The "burst" (not sure what to call it) that you have to get rid of the wolf paws etc. was interesting, though a little hard to tell when it was ready..  so maybe a clearer indicator could help?  Unless I just missed it, but that does sorta illustrate the point.

The art style, gameplay and story were all great, the only thing I'd say is more.  More folk tale style games would be great.  

Developer

Thank you for your feedback! I thought that making the lantern move at that pace vertically might've been good but maybe we overdid it haha, though I agree that there should be a cooldown indicator for the lantern burst 

Submitted(+4)

It's a very pretty game with great art, music and a strong style 💕
Loved the great use of Unity's latest 2D features like the splined sprites and light sources
The floating disembodied enemies did look a bit silly tho 😅
Maybe they could use a big trail renderer behind them or something like that
Appreciated the generous checkpoints and health refills

On the start I could feel a strong level design and could tell apart every area, but I kinda gave up once I got to the spike maze which was a bit too pixel perfect to go through (aka: thread the needle)

Would've enjoyed the gathering of lanterns to reflect more on the gameplay since they only act as a checkpoint and healthpack
In fact, the more lanterns you get, the harder it is to see the spikes since they're all the same color

Big props to the team!
Hope you develop this further

Developer(+1)

Thank you for your feedback! We're planning to update the game after the game jam so we'll try to look into the things you've mentioned

Submitted(+4)

I really hope this game wins! So beautiful. So polished and professional feeling. Keyboard controls are a little touchy, but still, its amazing!

Developer

Thank you so much for enjoying our game! :)

Viewing comments 36 to 17 of 36 · Next page · Last page