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The Dark Side of the Room's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Theme | #196 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Cleverness | #227 | 4.500 | 4.500 |
| Artistic Style | #401 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Playability | #719 | 3.500 | 3.500 |
Ranked from 2 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.
- The controls felt a little bit wonky and at points i felt a little lost. Over all great job!
- I definitely found this fun to play; from figuring out puzzles, and even if I find myself bad at platforming or games that include it, I was interested in seeing what the game and story had to offer as I continued forward. The art and sounds were done very well, as the environment hooked me from the start. My interpretation of how the themes were incorporated stem from (like you said in your GDD) discovery and also the light source or lack of with shadow, and what felt like hidden knowledge with alchemy due to the story being told, and I guess me wanting to uncover anything that comes from it. Overall, this was done very well, so keep up the good work.
Did you include your Game Design Document as a Google Drive link?
Yep
Seriously... did you include your Game Design Document?
Yup
Is your game set to Public so we can see it?
Yeah
Tell us about your game!
Basically it's a puzzle platformer wherein you use a special torch to light up the world around you! You can change the element of your flame (Fire - Ice - Force) to solve puzzles and get to the end of each level.
Extra Notes
Story components like the intro cutscene and NPC are very basic since my main goal was the mechanics and environment.
There are 5 levels at the moment, and there's a walkthrough in the description in case you get stuck somewhere. Good luck!
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Comments
This is a nice entry! Although a bit flawed, doing a 3d puzzle platformer in such a short amount of time is impressive enough so I am not complaining. The idea is nice, the graphic and art style is great (I am assuming you built all the assets? Doesn't seems to be premade but I am wrong), we've even got ourselves a little boss fight! This is pretty good if you ask me.
So down to the flaws. The thorn's insta-kill is so annoying, and the hitboxes doesn't help either. I have died too many times by slightly touching the thorn, and need to go through the level all over again, to the point of getting a bit frustrated. I would suggest adding a small damage counter to it so that the player can have a bit of leeway before getting killed by the thorns. The mushroom / berry bounces are also a bit too chaotic, that it's really hard to do platforming with these. Not sure what to do about this one, but some assistant that guides the player to the intended destination may work. The force touch is a bit out-of-place, it just feels underwhelming when comparing with fire and ice. It also doesn't help with the fact that, the first puzzle for it is just not fun, especially the pushable mushroom where it's quite difficult to hit it with the torch.
But anyway, this game is nice, and with a bit of fine tuning it would be quite enjoyable! Good job!
Thanks for the feedback! And yes all assets were custom made for this jam :)
I really like the models! The player character's cool and unique, the environment's awesome! I like the big glowing mushroom and the sock!
Very smart ways to implement hints! When I first saw that red stone, it was instinctual.
It was awesome figuring out all the different reactions that the different flames had with all the objects! I didn't expect there to be, for example, a charred version of the mushrooms! Nor did I expect the resolution of the puzzle where you explode the big fruit. It all felt super creative!
Also, I have to say, the puzzle's in this game are REALLY fun. I felt like I could get really creative with how I felt the way to solve was, and a lot of times it would correct. They weren't easy puzzles, but more so very creative ones that have you experiment with different things in different ways. The knowledge you gather gets put a bit to the test with the boss, which works well and has more attacks than I expected.
The sound effects were satisfying, the ambiance noise was spot on and the boss music encapsulates a bit of the sinister context that it belongs to perfectly. Only thing I'd want to point out is to maybe sharpen the character controls a bit.
Other than that, I felt that this was well put together and I liked the puzzles a lot. Very good game!
I think I want to say the things I didn’t like with this one. (Spoilers and lengthy comment)
The game starts fine, when the level of the ice flame started is when I started to have trouble. I got to the flame in 2 ways, one risky jumping through the vines and landing almost in the flame platform, and one through the fungus. When I wanted to activate the lever to go through the door, I shot my flame instead of poking the lever, and it got stuck in a hole where I couldn’t recover it, so I got stuck there until I jumped into the abyss to respawn.
At least when you get the new flames and activate the flames around the level, you keep it so you don’t have to do it again, which I liked.
The difference between the frozen vine and the normal vine while having the ice flame isn’t too clear for me and for that reason I didn’t know I froze the vine, got stuck in the level. Maybe because I was tired when I played the game, I didn't realize.
The level with the pink flame also I struggled with because I didn’t realize that shooting the flame and poking the stuff with the flame have different strength of the effect it applies or it feels like that, so I got stuck until by accident I poked the fungus with the pink flame and moved it. And honestly at this point I was a bit annoyed at trying and shooting at stuff haha.
(Until now I see there is a playthrough to show you how to progress so maybe next time I check better the page of the game. And see that the fungus part of the 2nd level is easier than I thought hahaha.)
The final part is good since you already know how the 3 flames work. The only problem with that part is, you can set up everything before the fight, then activate it and do multiple damages in a short time.
And not a fan of not getting your flame back if it gets stuck in the ground in a place far away from you, sometimes I shoot from long distances and stay on the ground making you to respawn.
I liked the boss song and the fight in general, simple but using all the flames was good.
I liked the interactions between the flames, you can break ice stuff with the pink flame, moving the tomato with the flame and ice flame was fun and can give you more game, like moving it through a harder way. I liked the blue barrier in the pink flame level because it turns your flame to another element, so I would like to see that barrier in more places.
The fungus are ok and the length of the levels are also ok. I enjoyed some parts and it was an ok puzzle game, maybe putting a small example directly next to the new flame would be good since you show more easily what it can do. The sock saying you should pay attention to how it affects the environment can be good, but a more easy example can help the person more to figure out the power of the flame.
It was good to play this game, I can see creative parts and I liked the visuals of the game. It was nice for your 1st published game :D
Thanks for sharing :)
(Oh, I didn't include this in the main review but, I had a bug with the fungus in the ice flame level, I don't know how to replicate it, but I shot with the normal flame the little fruit in the rock, then I jumped into the fungus and had a weird collision with the edge of the earth platform and my jumping, it send me a lot higher, I jumped again into the fungus and never fall down for how high I went hahaha, I only respawned because I shot my flame and got too dark that the game respawned me.)
Thank you so much for the feedback!
I totally get the frustrations of how some of the systems and puzzles work, I already have an update queued to adress most of those. I'm glad you managed to complete the game regardless! One question tho, there's supposed to be dialogue from the NPC on the purple flame level explaining the recall pads that allow you to recall your torch, did the dialogue not trigger for you, or did the pad itself not work?
Oh, about the pads, those worked well and I was happy they got introduced because from there my flame worked better, and the NPC give me the advice :D
But before that level, sometimes my flame got far away from me because I tried to lit the candle from far away since I saw it, like the ice flame level, I tried to shot in arc to lit the candle and I managed to stuck the flame between the candle and the barrier. This was before I learned that I could froze the vines.
Or the level where you learn that the tomato can push you, you can see the 1st candle from the start of the level so I tried to lit with another shot in arc and I did it but after a few tries where my flame got stuck far away. This was before I learned that the tomato explode and can push you.
So it's more a case where the player (me) don't want to try more but sees the goal and just throw the thing until it works or I just want to see if I can lit the candles for far away with sick trickshot lol (because lazy to think how the actual solution is)
I'll play again the game when the game updates, feel free to ping me or sending a reply to try it out :)
Got it, I'll try and fix that in the next update. Thanks again!
Lovely little adventure. I like the sock snake a lot. Art style and environments are so well made, mood is just right, lighting is superb, every creature is so cute!
In the 2nd level you can just go around the doors :P
Awesome visuals and I love the ambience sound!
Sometimes I was struggling to apply the Ice element onto the thorns.
Really good submission!
Crazy that you made this in 2 weeks. The lighting and the feeling of being in the dark without making it unplayable was really well done . I'm sad I don't have a mouse with me so I couldn't experience it in it's full glory, but even with a trackpad it felt okay to play :) The only thing I didn't like was the long unskippable intro scene, but that's a quick fix to add a skip button. Good game!
Really cool game, and pretty impressive to be made in 2 weeks. I really likes some of the environmental details, like burning the snail to help find the hidden mushroom path, very clever. I think the game was maybe a little frustrating overall, mainly launching yourself from the exploding seeds as they were a little finicky at times, but overall this was awesome, nice to see someone making a 3d platformer for the jam :)
Oh also, the little rhyme at the start of the game was very charming :)
I'm so glad the snail reveal worked, it was a bit hit-or-miss during development. Thank you for the kind words!
You nailed the light/dark interaction we were aiming for in our game. We also used the torches, but there was still too much light on the scene so they did not make that much sense.
Feedback on the snake character talking: Consider playing the audio clip once at the being; the loop is distracting.
Also, allowing the user to skip the story manually will give more control, I read faster.
Your dark effect is a good reference to improve our game
very true on the story part, I couldn't implement a story skip button in time.
The dark effect is mostly a shader that floors any values under .1 to 0, I'm glad it inspired you!
Okay so here's the deal, I'm gonna mention the bad stuff first and get it outta the way, then floor you with praise. Deal? Deal.
Freezing/walking on vines in the first section after you get the ice flame is a bit janky I fell off a few times and having to throw to each section is a chore. I wish freezing 1 part of the vine did it for all (then maybe unfreeze after a few seconds).
Using the bulbs to jump and trying to correctly align myself was a pain in the ***. When I managed to climb ontop of them and do it from there it was much easier.
Although the levels weren't that long a checkpoint after getting a flame might have been nice once or twice to avoid having to re-do the same platforming sections.
Okay now that all that is outta the way 👏👏👏. Holy crap how you managed to create something this polished and pretty is INSANE.
Firstly the graphics and style are spot on they look very professional and I can't fault anything about them at all.
The sound design was fantastic especially the boss music (more on that later)
The platforming for the most part was solid and the flame mechanics were great. I absolutely loved how you continued to evolve the usage of the flames and added more to existing ones. Specifically moving the bulbs around and using them to light the flames.
The boss fight was SO well designed having to re-use the mechanics you were taught during the game to beat him is 10/10 on the design scale for me. The fight could have been harder IMO but it was still super fun.
Oh and lastly the snake sounds and the fact it's tail was sticking out from the sock the entire time was just really funny and cheeky to me haha.
You absolutely knocked it outta the park with this one. Well done!
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