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A jam submission

The place where the moon once wasView game page

Find a way through the mazes to rescue your sibling and the moon, while your lamplight dwindles
Submitted by scribe — 7 hours, 18 minutes before the deadline
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The place where the moon once was's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Originality#54.0004.000
Enjoyment#92.6672.667
Overall#92.7782.778
Bonus-Points (for accessibility, theme usage and being outstanding)#101.6671.667

Ranked from 3 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous.

  • This was a fun entry and I liked the use of the theme. I found that the game got very difficult in some level/part 3 to the point I was struggling. I enjoyed the narrative part at the beginning and how moving around is what started the game. The light collection/ability I found to be less of a balancing act and more of a rushing/button spam. There wasn't a time I could use A/B without it basically ruining the run, so I would just move as fast as possible and hope to get to the end. For a full release-which I saw you were planning for, consider maybe a single use of A/B per level. I found that when moving costs me my light, I couldn't afford to ever use either of them. I like the buildings and art in the background. Somewhere on level 3 with my button mashing I managed to get to an all black screen that would occasionally flash white as if I was taking damage but nothing ever happened - there may be a wall or two that needs the collision turned on. Hope the full release comes soon!

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Comments

Really love the idea of collecting bits and having the light source grow. Worked very well. Would have liked to explore 'in the dark' when my bits ran out.  Cute idea for a story. Enjoyed my time with it.

Jam Host(+1)

Feedback

  • Nice visuals, nice step by step showing of things on the screen
  • Nice sfx
  • I'm missing music :)
  • I love the visuals if the town and how it's put together
  • It's pretty hard when not seeing much of the screen, I feel like the additional sight raduis, when picking up lights is going down way to quickly
  • Most times in a mace level, I pick it up, backtrack the way I came from and the raduis is almost back to normal, so they don't feel that useful
  • The with the vertical rays which deal damage is pretty hard, to the point were it became frustrating. I tried hiding behind a tree, but with susch a small raduis of sight is to hard to even get from one to the next tree. And then the vertical ray seemly come out of nowhere, hit you twice instantly, dead. The player needs anticipation of danger.
  • I did use the reveal of the screen, but it's still hard. With the cooldown time I wonder do you want the reveal to only be used once per level? Then it should stay longer on or reduce the cooldown so it can be used more often.
  • However I had to hold the level in my memory, but when moving there is no way of orientation. Little more indications in the level could help. This can lead to a feeling of unfairness, because the player doesn't information to react up on.
  • Refine some of the rought edges, this has great potential!
Developer(+1)

Thanks for the encouraging words and great feedback! I'm aiming to roll out a slightly easier version once the voting finishes, and then focus on more beta testing for a more polished version later - it wouldbe nice to spend some time back on level design as well. Cheers again!

Submitted(+1)

An interesting story focused game.  Not usually my thing, but I enjoyed my brief time with it.  The light-collecting aspect of the game was a good take on the theme, although it could really lead to a bit of a vicious cycle, especially in later levels, where because you couldn't see very far it was impossible to find more light.  This was also the reason I didn't really use the time-stop ability; I felt my vision of the level was more valuable than making obstacles easier to avoid.  Some of the later levels seemed to give you very little light to work with and many obstacles, and I'm not sure how I would even go about using the time stop effectively in those levels considering the lack of light pickups.  Also, I know it's standard that pulp games require a press for each move but I would have liked the ability to hold a direction to keep moving.  Still, I think the writing was pretty good and I enjoyed the story of the game.  It's always fun to see what gets made in pulp, and even if this doesn't break the general pulp vibe like some games do it's a fun and unique experience in its own right.

Developer

Thanks so much for playing through, and for the feedback! I'll be revising the initial jam version (which had at _least_ 3 playtest runs ;), so this is really valuable - and definitely in line with the balancing going on right up to the last day.