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Fading Away: The Bleak Tale of Leanen's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| MOOD | Did the game have atmosphere or make you feel something | #47 | 3.963 | 3.963 |
| Overall | #79 | 3.504 | 3.504 |
| VISUAL | Did the game have nice graphics or art direction | #80 | 3.889 | 3.889 |
| AUDIO | Did the game have great music or sound design | #83 | 3.370 | 3.370 |
| IDEA | Was this game super interesting or innovative | #139 | 3.259 | 3.259 |
| FUN | Was the game satisfying to play or did it bring you joy | #162 | 3.037 | 3.037 |
Ranked from 27 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Let people know how long you've been working on the game
This version is the culmination of about a year and a quarter's work.
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Hey !
It's easy to see you worked really hard on this game already.
It's a nice demo and the mood is already here. I can see you have a big story to tell and I can't wait to test further versions. I'm gonna follow you to stay updated.
Keep it up!
Thanks for playing my game!
I've begun work on the next addition to the game, which is roughly double the size of this demo (and even then, that isn't the entirety of the full plans for the game!) With all of the stuff I've learned from this demo project, more content should come at a faster pace. Thanks for the follow. =)
The game is gonna have some major narrative updates I wont say anything more though but lets just say lore and some underlying mysteries are involved. :)
Haunting visuals and very dark mood. A lot of potential here for a really good game when its completed! The story and writing is very well done and the art style is suitably grim. Its super creepy how the player character is always looking back at you while he is running through the woods. Excited to see where this project goes in the future!
Thanks for checking out the game!
Your last point is very interesting. I never intended for him to be looking back at you, but I do see it now, and definitely agree with you on that haha My main hope was that the player wouldn't be looking at the PC/NPCs in profile, so I tried to give some dimension to the sprites, but I'm glad that another aspect got added to it,
Looking forward to hear more about your game !
Thank you!
I'm in the process of creating the next set of content, which will add lots of new areas and NPCs to the game. =) So, there's lots more to come.
hm, this time i tried playing the game stopped working when i picked up the shortsword and wouldn't accept any inputs..
was in browser, i'll try the download version next.
i definitely think that jump should not be a thing if it just drains stamina for no gain, there's too many buttons already.
Thanks for letting me know about the bug! I'l look into it. As you mentioned, it could just be the browser, but I'll still check.
I hope so. Thanks for playing!
I cannot wait to play this game in full. I really like the visuals and the music. Not to mention the story is fantastic!
Thank you for the feedback!
Love the atmosphere and there is a lot of potential for this game keep going!!
Thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Tried playing the game in the browser, but got stuck in a crafting window.
Is this just me who cant find the right way to go out or should I download the windows version to play it better?
I will try again during next week =)
Thanks for checking it out!
Hmm that does sound odd. When you say "stuck," do you mean that you can't exit it, or the game itself gets stuck? From my attempts just now, I got taken out of fullscreen when I pressed Esc, and could close the crafting window with another press of Esc. If the problem is with the crafting window itself, you should be able to get out of it by opening another window (C, R, or T, for example), and then close from there.
This probably is something connected to the browser, so I'll be looking into ways to get around this (probably with some export settings). As far as I'm aware, there aren't any issues like this in the download version, so you could certainly try that.
Again, thank you for your feedback. =)
hmm... now both techniques you describes works. It might have been a focus issue from the browser.
I played a little longer and got to a place, that was really dark (running to the right), it felt a little random just running to the side. Maybe some more interaction and story can be introduced earlier. Then it wont feel as, I just run to the right, because that is what a normal platformer does.
Generally, the amount of time you can wait between important things is somewhat correlated to how much a player has played. So the first few minutes, should generally have a lot of things happening to pull the player from what ever they are doing and into the world. This normally cannot happen through the entire game, soother things needs to take over (here the actual game mechanics takes over).
I struggle a lot with getting feedback from others, have you tried watching somebody play the game? Without giving them to much intro, Just hey play this game and let me look at you (even though it sounds a little creepy :) )
Good luck with everything =)
I've seen some of the videos, it was nice to get to play this. I really like the story and the mood as well as the pace and dreary graphics. Well done!
I'm glad you could have a look at it! Thanks for commenting!
Very good ideas in this demo. The graphics are pleasant, with a successful parallax, different climatic conditions, and views from far or near. Walking, running, fighting, jumping, and many other possibilities offered for this promising demo ... all with many features such as the essential inventory, or character abilities. The difficulty is not obvious, especially when it happens to be chased by 5 wolves (in other words, I did not survive the battle). Still, as a perfectible demo assumed, this game announces something very interesting that will have to be followed closely.
Thanks for playing my game!
I tried to include all of the standard RPG elements (within reason), so I'm glad you say they turned out well haha
I've tried it for some time, there are some bugs regarding the inventory and the movements. Also have not found any enemy, since i went deep into a forest and met some wolves.
Graphics and behaviours are really cool, also the ambient of the story sent me in another world.
Gl for this work ^^
if you'd be alright with it, could you send me some details of these bugs (actions taken, game state, etc). in a DM over Discord, please? The name is Sol(us/ace)#8314. Any detail helps to get these things corrected.
Thank you for trying out the game!
Sure, i will :)
Loved the mood, reminded me of old school flash games. I would like to see some animations for picking up items and such in the future, but as of now this seems very promising! Great job :)
Thanks for playing. =)
Animations are definitely something I want to improve in the upcoming versions. Fixing the sprites in general is a big goal of mine haha
Nice game. with great visuals
My problems with the game are:
- you should be able to craft more than one thing
-faster picking things up
- i would personally like a different difficulty were you don't restart the game when you die
- i get lost easy (some kind of map would be helpful)
Thanks for trying it out!
When you mean to craft more than one thing, do you mean at a time? Or the list of things that you're able to craft?
Hmm Adding different difficulties that can be toggled is something that could work pretty well in this game. There is actually a way to continue onwards after death (in fact, dying unlocks the other half of the game!) which you can find in Dormedon, but it does sound like a good idea to have some "continue," even before then.
Similarly to the above, there are maps in the game, but I should probably make them available much sooner.
Thank you again! =)
I just meant more at a time.
Thank you for checking it out!
Nice art! Adding to comments below:
- progress label is hidden by the bar
- it takes too long to pick up stuff
- when you filter items to craft, it shows even items I can't craft yet (it seems it includes items even if you have only some ingredients)
- it seems time does not actually pass when you craft
Thanks for checking out my game!
The rate at which items can be picked up does seem to be a common criticism, so I'm adding that to the list of things to work on. Currently, I just have a modifier (based on your Dexterity) that affects the base time to pick something up (based on the object's weight).
Thanks for pointing out the issues with crafting. I'm looking through the code on that, right now. =)
I appreciate the feedback! Every comment and critique helps.
The game was really pretty and super atmospheric! I liked the background especially, with the trees and the thatched roof houses. The story looked interesting as well, and I am curious what will happen with the setting.
However, I was not really sure what I was supposed to do? I started out running to the right and found some logs, with which I made a staff. After that however, I just kept going right, but there was not much to do there. I did not come accross any enemies or story. Perhaps it would help if you draw the player in with some immediate action, or a clear goal right at the beginning? To give the player an idea of what kind of game it is, and what they are supposed to be doing.
Secondly, I struggled a bit with the controls. For example, in the main menu I could not close the 'read this first menu'. I later found out that I had to use F to do so. And showing all the controls at the beginning is nice, but a bit much to take in. I cannot remember all of those at once :) Maybe show the player one-by-one what to do?
Finally, I was wondering what the idea was behind the loading bar when you pick things up? I had to wait a really long time to pick up all the oak logs, which was a little bit boring. Maybe it would help if you let the player do something to make progress on the percentage bar, or perhaps you could remove the system if it is not necessary? Of course, if you think it should be like this to match your vision of the game, then that is okay too :D
Hopefully you don't think my feedback is too harsh! I see that there is a lot of passion for this project, and I just hope that this will help create a better game in the end ^_^ I want to stress again that there was a lot I liked, such as the art, the sounds and the story. Maybe the gameplay is just not my cup of tea :D
Anyway, great submission! Thanks a lot for making this ^_^
This was a really well-timed comment haha
I actually just finished a short update that fixed/changed a lot of the things I received advice on, and am uploading it now. =) Some of what you mentioned are things I've been working on.
Since not having a clear direction at the beginning was a common criticism, I added a second pop-up that points out the direction of two major locations. With the way I wanted this demo to be, you can go in any direction and still receive something to do. Once you get to some NPCs, navigating the world should become much easier.
With the screens on the main menu, I added the ability to close them with Esc, in addition to Enter or F. Also, there's a page to check the controls in the pause screen.
Time to pick things up is based on the weight of the item and your current Dexterity. I.e., heavier things take longer, but this can be lowered if your Dexterity is high. I'll definitely look into ways to make this a better experience for the player (altering it, or making a flat speed for all items). I like your idea of including something to help speed up the progress, so that's going onto my list of considerations. =)
Your feedback isn't harsh at all! Even if it were, its still very constructive, so I'm quite thankful for that alone.
Thank you for checking out my game!
Very nice, dark atmosphere! I didn't have any idea what I was doing though, just running from one place to another, picking up random stuff. Didn't encounter any enemies either. I'm guessing the bark, bones, logs etc. are going to be used in crafting in the bigger version? The stamina system seems weird - at first I never ran out of it, then I'd lose it with just a few seconds of running and only recovered a little bit.
One thing I'd recommend working on is teaching the mechanics, because the player is bound to forget a lot of stuff when they're given a huge info dump at the beginning (I only remembered there was a "rest" button after I quit the game and started writing this feedback). The game does have a pretty solid foundation though, and you clearly have a lot of ambition. Good luck with further development
Enemies have a random spawn time, so you must have gotten lucky haha
If you get stuck, try searching for the city of Dormedon. Keep to the right from Cersedd, and you can't miss it. Someone there may have tasks for you to do! Also, crafting is currently in the game, so if you have some logs or bones, try taking them to a carpentry bench.
You're probably referring to fatigue. Every time you use stamina, you'll gain a very small amount of fatigue. Fatigue reduces your maximum stamina, so that's likely why you're only recovering a small amount of stamina. If you have quite a lot of fatigue, try resting! Fatigue decreases every few seconds, but it can be removed very quickly if you rest for an hour or two.
Thanks a lot for trying out my game and providing some feedback! I've received a lot of notes about the controls/mechanics introduction, so I'm working on making that more intuitive. =)
Great entry, I like the cohesion of art style, parallax effect and sound design, this one is very immersive. We can tell that you put a lot of energy on this project. One thing that happened to is that the character doesn't walk/run when I move the camera. And on that note, I understand that a lot of commands are necessary for the game, but I feel like all commands are on my left hand. Overall, great job.
I really appreciate your feedback! It really helps to know other peoples' experience.
Thanks for pointing out the camera issue! It's now been fixed. =)
Do you think a more spread-out input map would work better?
If you have any advice or further comments, please send me a DM!
Sol(us/ace)#8314
I've played a bunch of games from this jam now and this is absolutely one of my favorites so far. I had a great time playing it :)
Thanks a lot! I really appreciate the kind words.
Stay tuned...there's lots more to come for this game.
P.S. Twin Switch is fantastic. I'd definitely like to see some more levels in it.
great game man! this is what I call a game you can feel !
Thank you!