Eyewall by SaintHeiser

[raw]
made by SaintHeiser for LD33 (JAM)
DESCRIPTION:
This game is about dragon who sealed inside a wall. Find the kites to fulfill the dragon's dream about flight in the sky.

CONTROLS
Arrows - move (smoothing, yeah). Movement require stamina (look top of the screen)
Z - sleep to restore stamina. Watch out hazzards!
X- jump that also require stamina. Try to jump over the spikes on full speed =)
R - reset level (aka selfdestruct)

XBOX gamepad also should work...
Left stick - move
A - jump
X - sleep
Y - reset

AUTHORS:
@Saintheiser - dev, art, programming (http://twitter.com/SaintHeiser)
@Chromastranger - cool music! (http://twitter.com/Chromastranger)

Ratings

Coolness 77% 2
Overall(Jam) 3.84 100
Audio(Jam) 4.06 44
Fun(Jam) 3.13 472
Graphics(Jam) 4.38 79
Humor(Jam) 2.56 657
Innovation(Jam) 3.49 180
Mood(Jam) 3.94 73
Theme(Jam) 3.71 318

Feedback

Mr. Chelnoque
24. Aug 2015 · 22:10 UTC
You are the monster.
andreymust19
25. Aug 2015 · 14:48 UTC
Very very nice. All on places.
PotatoGrader
25. Aug 2015 · 20:24 UTC
So hard. Didn't pass level 3. Retried it 15-20 times.
It is really frustrating when every litte bump costs you a precious hp. And taking a nap every 10 seconds does not help. But overall it is good.
Maybe, I'll beat level 3 tomorrow.
Graphics is really great. Music and sounds are good, too.
kaype
26. Aug 2015 · 03:41 UTC
I am genuinely jealous of this art. Wow. It's actually kind of inspiring.

The music is really fitting, the art works well, and the controls are really solid. It's a shame this game doesn't have more attention.
TnT
26. Aug 2015 · 03:42 UTC
Those are the most beautiful hand-drawn graphics I have ever seen. Awesome game.
Teesquared
26. Aug 2015 · 03:52 UTC
Great color pencil graphics and animation. The exploding Eye Wall is awesome. Sound is great. Very complete game. Difficulty is high but I kept retrying and had fun.
Macecraft
26. Aug 2015 · 05:07 UTC
Absolutely beautiful art style for a game, quirky and clunky controls which hinder my ability to play but clearly add some difficulty to this and a soundtrack that blew me away and made me just want to leave the game open and dance! Really well done!
Patomkin
26. Aug 2015 · 07:29 UTC
Absolutely brilliant <3
CheesyRamen
26. Aug 2015 · 08:05 UTC
I really like the art style & music for this game! Great job!
Berserker_Chris
26. Aug 2015 · 08:16 UTC
Very cool graphic, Gameplay is very hard.
NAL
26. Aug 2015 · 10:04 UTC
Absolutely gorgeous-looking game. Solidly programmed too, although a couple of things were a shade annoying - spikes didn't stand out enough and I often found myself hurt by them without noticing them, and why does running into a tree damage you? Particularly when you're an eyewall with low friction! :P

Superb atmosphere in general, and one of my favourite entries so far on the whole.
Fanatrick
26. Aug 2015 · 11:29 UTC
Challenging and well made all-round.
Romaing
26. Aug 2015 · 11:31 UTC
I enjoyed the mood and the scenario, the idea of dragon soul is interesting. The gameplay is good, bit I would have prefered a mini story than only "finding the Xth kites". Nice art btw !
stoarch
26. Aug 2015 · 11:39 UTC
Good game. If stamina bar and hp bar was captions... Music is beautiful. Jumping is hard (so close). Maybe display speed by blurring for long jumps.
amras0000
26. Aug 2015 · 11:46 UTC
Biggest frustration in the game: hitboxes. They're all way too large. I couldn't tell you how many times I died by something that didn't touch me. And to compound the problem there were several situations where I thought I could squeeze through something only to be murdered by it.

In the third level, there's a series of raising walls that follow a random pattern. Some runs I had through them were fine, and others were infuriating sessions where I'd only barely have enough time to sneak by if at all.

The music and art are spot on and beautiful, and the platforming carries with it the frustration, difficulty, and heavines off being a wall.

I would like it if the stamina gave some more indication of running out. Maybe a screen flash or a noise so I don't have to keep looking up to the top of the screen.

And finally, spikes do continuous damage, which wound up being another minor frustration.
Sicilica
27. Aug 2015 · 01:47 UTC
Absolutely love the art style. I agree that the hitboxes seem a bit too big
VDZ
27. Aug 2015 · 13:33 UTC
Although this game has a lot of potential, it has several major issues which detract so much from the experience that in the end, it's more frustrating than fun.

Visually, I love the art style. Everything looks pretty. However, from a functional perspective, it may be the biggest weakness and the greatest source of frustration. Due to the art style, elements don't stand out as well as they should (most notably the spikes which I sometimes didn't even notice until I was on them, but also things like walls) while other elements that don't affect gameplay stand out too much (such as the rocks on the ground).

A bigger issue is the fact that hitboxes are extremely unclear - due to how vague the art is, you never know for sure where spikes start and where they end. The same goes for all other objects, especially walls and trees. When those elements damage you and there's no way to heal, you really should be able to tell what exactly their hitboxes are.

Because you see only a small area on a screen, and because areas don't look very visually distinct, it's hard to tell where you are. I have been going in circles for a while in level 3 and it took some time to even tell I was going in circles.

The fists feel horribly cheap and unfair. There is no way to tell where they're going to strike - or even the very fact they're present somewhere near you - until they've struck for the first time, and in many case, that first strike deals damage to you. Dying this way feels incredibly cheap and seriously detracts from the fun.

While I liked the sleep to heal mechanic conceptually, I feel it didn't add anything to the game. (Note: I only made it to level 3, where I kept getting lost trying to find the exit; maybe the later levels make better use of it.) As all dangers are static, there is no risk to sleeping (other than the risk of being hit by a fist, but you also have that risk when moving or standing still). This means that the only thing it does is waste your time (having to wait after moving every couple of steps) and limit how fast/much you can move at once (which can be implemented in a less obnoxious manner).

Due to unclear hitboxes and the floaty movement physics, as well as how short the jump is, jumping feels very frustrating. It's hard to reliably jump over something, and there's a good chance that after you finish your jump you'll crash into something and lose health anyways. This one could be chalked up to the game just being difficult, but particularly with how unclear the hitboxes are it felt more frustrating than challenging.

The game has fun elements, but with all of the issues above I don't really feel like giving level 3 another try.
Ninja Garage
28. Aug 2015 · 19:23 UTC
Very nice conceps and art!! Unfortunately it is too hard!
Drunkteam
29. Aug 2015 · 08:01 UTC
I loved the atmosphere! The music and animations are great.
It's maybe a bit too difficult. It would be cool to be able to jump a little more when running, perhaps? And to actually be able to avoid meteorites. Also, I couldn't tell apart walls and roads at the beginning. It would be cool, since just touching a wall takes away 1/5 of your life.
Aside from that, I really enjoyed. The sounds effects were also on spot :-)
tripleVisionGames
30. Aug 2015 · 08:08 UTC
Brilliant! Presentation all around is fantastic (except that the spikes should probably be bright red and angry so I know they're going to hurt me). Really great fun to control, although I'd like it a bit more zoomed out so I can go everywhere really fast!

Didn't need the little story introduction, worked well enough as just controlling a weird eyewall.

Also, could probably do with some easier levels to ease you in and a few places where you can really have fun with those fantastic movement mechanics you've got in there. Bumping into things costing HP and moving costing HP felt harsh (but probably the bumping more than the moving).

In summary: Awesome. I would pay money to play an expanded and tweaked version of this.
NuSan
30. Aug 2015 · 09:29 UTC
Very nice idea, art is great and the game has a lot of content and enemies. The third level is too hard for me, maybe a bit long. With a chekpoint or something in the middle it would be less frustrating. When you explore for the first time, you are doomed to get hit. I like the music too. Keep up the good work !