This is really clever and fun! The aesthetics are unique and perfectly fitting, and I love how such simple gameplay mechanics quickly become really complex and interesting. I think it would help (without taking away from the difficulty *too* much, because of the huge amount of variety) if the "cocktail menu" showed you the two necessary ingredients to make each cocktail you've already discovered, either by clicking them or hovering over them - you'd still have to trace them back to the original ingredients piece by piece, and then remember all the steps when you actually make the drinks. And you'd still have to discover the drinks first by experimenting! Maybe the game could slowly guide you into making slightly more and more complicated drinks too, the randomness of the orders being a bit more controlled. I could also easily imagine a difficulty setting, where different customers would give you more or less time to deliver their drinks, with the default you have here being the "hard" setting. Lol. Because it's *hard*. Which is fine! I just think you could do a lot more with this game to flesh it out and make it appealing to more players. Very cool though, overall. Love that there are multiple endings too. Following you and adding this game to my collection for sure!
gothidiot
Recent community posts
Absolutely loved this! So much potential. The mapping of the environments and surreal atmosphere were just fantastic, and felt non-linear even though progression is actually fairly straightforward. Your approach to the "uncanny" concept worked perfectly. Believe it or not, I enjoyed the architecture and layout of this mall more than the one in Silent Hill 3. They're obviously very different, but for me at least, that's high praise! Obviously the puzzling and item hunting were minimal, given the scope of the project, but even those aspects show a lot of potential and seemed very natural. The enemy concept, though again fairly minimal, is really creative. I'm sure I missed a few things, but I'll probably play it again sometime.
I loved the feel of the controls, and I hope you consider doing more with this third person fixed camera/tank controls scheme, because it played very smoothly and I'm always looking for more games in that vein but with their own unique style. It's a dream of mine to learn UE and make something like that; this is one of the best and most ambitious experiments in that realm I've seen in a long time.
The camera angle triggers got a little wonky here and there, but I did manage to push the blocks correctly the first time, which was cool. Someone else said the enemy balance could be improved, and I suppose that's true. The inventory screen was a little confusing, but I quickly figured out what to do with it anyway. It also took me a minute to figure out I had a flashlight and that I could manually reload. For what the game is, though, these criticisms aren't a big deal. Really cannot wait to see whatever you do next!
This looks really promising; the aesthetics remind me of DOS-era horror (Alone in the Dark), but with a gloomier, more engaging atmosphere. The zombie animations are good for a start, much better than you usually see with horror game prototypes. Hope this keeps growing into something big. Might I suggest some graphics settings options? My GPU runs like it's all very high-res, and it probably doesn't need to. I'm sure the efficiency will be ironed out more too as you go along, though. Looking forward to what's next!
Much like Nik says in the game, I'm normally not a huge fan of this style of game, but the overall design here was impressive, as well as the storytelling. Voice acting and sound design were also great. I'd love to see you guys do something a bit longer with some more varied gameplay elements incorporated into your stories; at this point you're definitely capable of going bigger and bigger, and I look forward to continue seeing your games evolve.
Absolutely love this game. I disagree with others who want to be able to see your progress as you're typing the runes; the interesting part of the challenge for me was trying to remember where I was after I entered each one. Makes for an interesting challenge. Maybe you could have multiple difficulty levels - a beginner one where you can see your progress as you type and a more difficult one where you can't. I wouldn't change a thing about it; just add more runes and make it longer!
Really enjoyed this - it's about time somebody decided to make some new stuff with Clock Tower-style gameplay. It plays really nicely. The voice acting is also great, and the art style is unique and pretty. The whole thing is designed very well; I didn't encounter any bugs or anything. It feels very polished.
I thought of a couple of small suggestions to make the gameplay just a tiny bit smoother, if you're interested. Nothing major. It would be nice if you could still double-click to run even when the cursor is blue and you're on your way to investigate an object/open a door. Then, if you have an item selected (like a key), it would help a little if it would still turn blue when you hover it over anything you can interact with, just like the cursor does when no item is selected (so you can tell if, for example, you're holding the key in the right spot to use it on the door). Also, being able to right-click to skip lines of dialogue would be convenient, particularly if someone is replaying the game.
I'm really glad to see this is only "Night One", and that there will be more coming in the future. I'd like to see more of the mansion, and a wider variety of items to find and places to hide (with more optional cutscenes and puzzles and such). This project seems on its way to becoming something very cool, and I can't wait to see more!
I agree with the other commenter. The concept isn't completely new, but feels great because the fast-paced gameplay makes it unique. I'd love to play something like this that still has time constraints but lets you play for longer, through multiple rounds with different environments/enemies and some special types of cards. This is fun to play, and about as challenging as it should be.
This game has potential. The gameplay is a little more frustrating than it should be, because the "falling off cliffs" aspect isn't really a thing; it's styled like a 2D side-scroller but the controls and movement are top-down style, and this is a bit awkward to get used to. I think that might have just been a limitation of the engine you used, which is fair; it's still very playable, and once I got used to it, it was a decently fun puzzle game.
It looks nice, though very simplistic, and more variation could certainly be introduced in the environments and textures. I have similar things to say about the audio; the ambient music is great for the underground caving feel, and I wouldn't change it a bit, but I would like to hear some variation in sound effects, even just when shooting flares or something.
The "Lightshow" theme was implemented perfectly well; no issues there at all. The "Only One" limitation is only okay to me here because indeed, there is only one exit, and not just only one life; that is significant to the gameplay as a limitation.
The 3 flare limitation could be more interesting if the flares actually shoot and hang in the air or stick to a wall, only illuminating part of the cave and then burning out after a certain amount of time. The whole game could be expanded with different kinds of environments and maybe even different amounts of flares and different light sources you can use in different stages. The overall concept is great, and I would definitely play a game like this again if it featured more elements like that (and if the movement was truly side-scrolling, with the player character walking on the ground).
I loved this game. Added it to my collection. There's something so soothing about the atmosphere of the whole thing, but it also feels compelling and makes me want to keep playing it, even when losing, which doesn't feel as frustrating as most games. For a relatively straightforward puzzle game, the basic mechanics are very unique and really make me think; I feel like there's a lot of room for complex strategy here, which is surprising given how simplistic the rules are. That's great for a puzzle game.
The whole thing just looks beautiful. I guess the backgrounds and such could be a little more varied and intricate, but the simplicity of the whole aesthetic fits the mood pretty well. The space setting makes the lights really stand out; you really feel like you're manipulating stars or something while you play. That means you implemented the theme really well, even though there aren't a ton of special light effects or whatever. The sounds do add somewhat to the "Lightshow" feel, full of sparkles and swelling ambience.
Not sure if you employed the "Only One" limitation in any way, but a lot of people didn't. Still, for how simplistic this game is, I really enjoyed it better than most games in this jam, and I'm definitely going to revisit it. Bravo!
The concept for the gameplay was really interesting and I want to see it explored more. The movement with the dashing was a bit awkward and confusing to control, but I understand the idea and was able to work with it for a little while once I played with it a bit.
Aesthetically, the game has potential; the changes between the nether world and its enemy-projectiles and the "real world" with its spiders were a cool way to introduce variation into the style. I would like to see a lot more changes introduced from wave to wave, however.
The audio was good; the sound effects were perfectly fitting, though sometimes they started and cut off at awkward times that didn't quite make sense. I still liked them though.
The implementation of the "Lightshow" theme was decent because the light your orb attack introduces to the screen and the light of the netherworld enemy-projectiles all stand out pretty vividly, although the fact that these elements are "lights" doesn't impact the gameplay much. I'm not sure if you tried to incorporate the "Only One" limitation, but the fact that you have "Only One" weapon did feel pretty significant because it was so easy to lose it when you use it and have to track it down again, as well as having to "recharge" it (in a sense) in the nether world, in which you can't use the thing at all. The precarity of that felt important.
Good ideas all around.
Fun but simple gameplay - I did feel motivated to play several times in a row, so it works well for what it is. It looks really nice with the theater theme too. It made me laugh when I thought about it and realized the audio is a MIDI version of Godzilla by Blue Oyster Cult; it sounds good and does fit the feel of the game. Made me smile. The sound effects are very solid as well.
The theme was implemented decently well with the spotlight on a stage (taking center-stage) and the dangerous sparks falling. Nothing too central to the gameplay about lighting, but it fit the aesthetic. You may have missed the "Only One" limitation, but the precarity of having one life was a step in that direction.
Fun stuff; build on it!
Very, very fun game mechanics. I like how it's this vaguely Spiderman-esque thing, but totally modified for a 2D environment and a fragile object that you need to protect from collisions. Really, I'm very impressed by it. When I first accidentally attached the bulb to the ground and crashed it, I was pleasantly surprised that this was possible in the game, even though it killed me! Added it to my collection to keep trying at it. Also, I really loved the 3D way the game started with the elevator and the warning.
It looks really nice, if a bit overly simple. The audio was mostly fitting, particularly with the sound effects, but it was all a bit quiet, though I guess that fits it for the most part too.
The implementation of the "Lightshow" theme is great, just because the entire game revolves around keeping your light on - not just like you're holding a flashlight or something, but literally making the player the light, as fragile as a lightbulb is. Not sure if you tried to include the "Only One" limitation, but the fragility of the lightbulb did make the one life you have feel more precious than it usually would in a game.
Great concept, and great execution for the jam.
This game is absolutely adorable. I love love love the idea of guiding a cat with laser lights! There was some awkwardness with cat's animations at certain moments (like when you're trying to hold it in place) and the game broke a couple times when the cat was guided off-screen by a rogue green laser light, but when it worked, it worked great.
Implementing the theme "Lightshow" with a cat and laser lights is just a very clever and creative way to approach the idea. I don't know which one of you thought of the concept first, but it was a great way to do it. I don't think you incorporated the "Only One" limitation, but plenty of people missed that.
Super, super great idea for a game, and you should keep working on it and fleshing it out when you're not bound by the limitations of the game jam.
I actually enjoyed some of the weirdness of the collision and the platforming mechanics; the character was perfectly fitting with the atmosphere, and the almost-weightless jumping (and movement while falling) made the platforming kind of unique as a sort of puzzle of its own. It's a basic platformer, so there's not very much you could do with it to make it radically new and unique, but it's memorable enough for how it feels.
The game looks great; every part of the aesthetic fits together great, from the character to the backgrounds to the music. There could be more variety, but other than that I don't have much of anything to complain about. Good job! It's a pretty game.
I like your use of the theme; the space-y atmosphere fulfilled a lot of the "Lightshow" theme for you, but the addition of the small radius light source around the player was a nice little addition to the theme - the light "shows" the stars you need to get. The way the bombs act is a fun little addition too.
I'm not sure if you tried to include the "Only One" theme, but I did think the fact that there is "Only One" main light source centered on the player character was at least a small step toward fulfilling that limitation in terms of the design, even though it wasn't really presented that way.
I enjoyed how the game felt and it would be fun to play more of this!
The game was fun, but did break in a few ways - some enemies glitched either into each other or in random directions, which made it easy to avoid or kill some of them. I liked the variation between the 2 kinds of enemies, the ones that shoot and the ones that do melee damage; I found I could save my ammunition by jumping over the shooting enemies in a carefully timed way, but had to kill the melee enemies. Figuring that out while playing felt good.
The game is cute; I liked the aesthetic, the atmosphere. The backgrounds looked nice and the characters were memorable. I wish there was more going on in the foreground - some textures on the ground would be nice.
The music was perfectly fitting, but the lack of any sound effects was a bit disappointing. Understandable, though, given your limitations.
The introduction of Zeus and the whole mythology theme was a creative way of incorporating the "Lightshow" theme; the "show" part only really showed up with the fire attack and the enemy laser-like projectiles, but all in all I liked the way the theme was used here.
I liked that you explicitly included the "Only One" limitation as a choice before each stage, but I quickly realized the flame/spark power (or whatever it was called) was unwieldy, and the arrows were the only weapon really worth choosing because you had so many more arrows than light-powers. It was a good idea, but it didn't really impact the game much.
Keep going with this! Add some more complex platforming, more enemies, etc, and this could be a solid 2D game.
The gameplay was familiar, but comfortable. I couldn't help but smile repeatedly throughout, partly because of the cute aesthetic and partly because of the simple but enjoyable gameplay. It's nothing revolutionary, but it's very easy to get into and to just keep going and going with. It feels like a comfy minigame that's just a tad above being an idle game.
It looks very cute, and I'd like to see the symbols and the main character used again in games. The audio fit the game very well; there could have been more variety in the sound effects (just as there could have been more variety introduced as you go in the falling icons), but something about that music was just infectious, in the best way.
The theme was used well, since, as you said, all the falling things are light-related; the sound effects also made "light" come to mind, and the contrast with the night skyline background made the light elements feel more significant. Good job with that.
The "Only One" limitation wasn't really followed in any noticeable way here; I think a lot of people miss that.
It was just cute and fun, and I did feel like I could play it for a long time without stopping, so it definitely has potential!
As is often the case with these jams, I would like to see this game fleshed out into something bigger. I don't mean a larger world; I mean a feeling of it being a bigger game. I think it could start with a much smaller maze, which would be easier to navigate, and the key could be used to lead you to progressively larger mazes with the enemy acting more aggressive. The maze was way too large for me to get a feel for it looking at it before I went in; however, I was impressed by just how massive the maze felt when I went in, and I think that awesome feeling could be preserved while giving the player a fairer difficulty curve.
The game looks good, though there's just not much to say about it because most of that is in darkness. That's not a bad thing, but since the light doesn't reveal much more in terms of textures or anything, there's still not a whole lot to go on here.
Not sure what other people make of the audio, but I actually found the whisper sound of the enemy to be very unique and unsettling as a pursuer sound, and the simple 4 note loop of the music to be very fitting. I do wish that background music evolved a little more, with some drones and harmonies and things, but I did like it as-is too.
I didn't know what to make of how you implemented the theme until I read your description of it after playing, and I have to say, it's a very creative application! Dividing "Lightshow" into "light" and "show", while unconventional, does show a lot of cleverness behind the development. Knowing what you were going for now, that might be my favorite aspect of the game - the light shows something essential, which is obvious enough, but it also shows the light, and both aspects are essential to the gameplay. Pretty brilliant, honestly.
The limitation "Only One" is supposed to "be a technical or a design limitation", and you didn't really explain how you tried to implement that, if you did at all. That's okay though; while it's not the most creative thing, I couldn't help but think throughout about how there's "Only One" enemy and "Only One" key; a single pursuer enemy is common enough, but the fact that there are multiple possible spawning points for the key, and yet, only one spot has the one thing you need, makes me feel like you at least fulfilled the "Only One" limitation with the design on a basic level that impacts the gameplay.
All in all, I'll say the same thing I often find myself saying with games made for jams, which is nevertheless true: I'd like to see this thing fleshed out with more nuance, more progression, and more gameplay elements. It's a solid foundation, and you did great with the limitations you were given. It genuinely made me somewhat anxious, which is a huge plus in my book!
The mechanics of the game are interesting and unique, but a bit confusing (as people have said regarding the functions of the weapons); the near-total randomization of the enemy waves and weapons also makes the gameplay feel like it relies a little too much on chance to be complete as a game (which could use a little more of a sense of progression).
Overall, it looks great, and sounds exactly how it should sound to fit the aesthetic - no complaints in either of those areas, although I only gave the looks 4 out of 5 stars because there's just not a whole lot of variety to evaluate.
The implementation of the theme was decent; there is obviously a light show involved, visually, and a couple of the weapons have light effects, but all of that kind of felt secondary to the point of the actual game, which feels more music-based than anything.
The limitation "Only One" is supposed to "be a technical or a design limitation", and I don't feel like the one life/one character aspects quite fulfill that limitation; many games only allow you to get hit once, but it sounds like the limitation is meant to apply more to things like assets, controls, or other aspects of the development itself or the way you have to navigate the game. Having one life isn't totally irrelevant, but it's not a unique implementation of the idea of there being "Only One" of something.
Overall though, I like that it looks and plays almost like a rhythm game, but not quite - it feels like some kind of twist on a shoot-em up with a rhythm game aesthetic. That combination may have been done before to some extent (as the whole thing kind of reminds me of some Japanese arcade games), but this implementation is definitely a unique experience. It's memorable enough that I'd like to see it expanded on and developed further into a more complex game with more progression. Given the limitations you guys were working with, you did a really good job; I really do want to see more!
I know this is mostly just a funny game, but I'm running into a major bug after going to the bathroom shower. As soon as "the clothed man" appears, and I can only choose "fight", I get a "loading error" that says "failed to load: img/animations/Hit1.png". So some image file from the basic gameplay is missing. You may want to edit that when you get the chance and re-up the game.