A Knife Made Of Whispers by Managore
_________________CONTROLS_________________
Keyboard:
> Left/Right .................................... Move
> Up/Down ..................................... Climb
> Z or W or Y .................................. Jump
> X ................................................. Slash
> C ................................ Pick Up or Throw
> Esc or Backspace ............ Menu and Quit
> Alt + Enter ................. Toggle Fullscreen
Xbox Controller:
> Left Stick ..................... Move and Climb
> A ................................................. Jump
> X ................................................. Slash
> B ................................ Pick Up or Throw
> Start ............................. Menu and Quit
Controller highly recommended!
___________________HELP___________________
Please note:
> If you are getting an error when you start the game, please go here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=35
> If you come across any other errors or bugs please let me know either in the comments or on twitter so I can fix them as soon as possible!
> The game saves your progress so you can come back to it later.
> You don't have to beat every level! There are always three unbeaten levels to choose from.
> A checkered pattern around the level button means you beat the level, but took damage. A solid line around the level button means you mastered it! For a challenge, try to master all 23 levels.
Read on if you get stuck:
> You can only attack when you're close enough to the lantern, but you can pick up and move the lantern closer.
> Some enemies have lines above their heads. Each line corresponds to extra health. In most levels you have extra health, too.
> Doors only open when you've collected enough. You can check your progress in the top right corner of the screen.
> There are many ways to beat most levels. If you're having trouble, try to do things a bit differently!
> Here's the full story text: http://bit.ly/AKMOWtext
__________________ABOUT___________________
This is Ludum Dare entry number five for me! It's nice to slowly build up a collection of games.
A Knife Made Of Whispers was made using Gamemaker:Studio, with jfxr for sound effects and FL Studio for the music. The game uses a shader I wrote during the 48 hours for the grainy diffuse effect, the colour separation effect and the light radius around the lantern.
I had a lot of fun making this game and I hope you have as much fun playing it!
By Daniel Linssen (@managore)
Keyboard:
> Left/Right .................................... Move
> Up/Down ..................................... Climb
> Z or W or Y .................................. Jump
> X ................................................. Slash
> C ................................ Pick Up or Throw
> Esc or Backspace ............ Menu and Quit
> Alt + Enter ................. Toggle Fullscreen
Xbox Controller:
> Left Stick ..................... Move and Climb
> A ................................................. Jump
> X ................................................. Slash
> B ................................ Pick Up or Throw
> Start ............................. Menu and Quit
Controller highly recommended!
___________________HELP___________________
Please note:
> If you are getting an error when you start the game, please go here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=35
> If you come across any other errors or bugs please let me know either in the comments or on twitter so I can fix them as soon as possible!
> The game saves your progress so you can come back to it later.
> You don't have to beat every level! There are always three unbeaten levels to choose from.
> A checkered pattern around the level button means you beat the level, but took damage. A solid line around the level button means you mastered it! For a challenge, try to master all 23 levels.
Read on if you get stuck:
> You can only attack when you're close enough to the lantern, but you can pick up and move the lantern closer.
> Some enemies have lines above their heads. Each line corresponds to extra health. In most levels you have extra health, too.
> Doors only open when you've collected enough. You can check your progress in the top right corner of the screen.
> There are many ways to beat most levels. If you're having trouble, try to do things a bit differently!
> Here's the full story text: http://bit.ly/AKMOWtext
__________________ABOUT___________________
This is Ludum Dare entry number five for me! It's nice to slowly build up a collection of games.
A Knife Made Of Whispers was made using Gamemaker:Studio, with jfxr for sound effects and FL Studio for the music. The game uses a shader I wrote during the 48 hours for the grainy diffuse effect, the colour separation effect and the light radius around the lantern.
I had a lot of fun making this game and I hope you have as much fun playing it!
By Daniel Linssen (@managore)
Ratings
| Coolness | 71% | 3 |
| Overall | 4.11 | 25 |
| Audio | 3.83 | 63 |
| Fun | 3.70 | 124 |
| Graphics | 4.16 | 64 |
| Innovation | 3.76 | 145 |
| Mood | 4.32 | 9 |
| Theme | 3.55 | 379 |
Very inspiring!
I like it a lot.
Oh, I remember you from the previous LD. I like this entry more.
Mastered every level.
Other than that, I really love the game, especially the mechanics and the mood.
Well done.
It reminds me another game I played during a previous LD, but I can't remember its name for the moment :(
With a few flaws ironed out (controls are very hard, even with an xbox controller) and more levels I would even pay money for this!
The controls are difficult with the auto-grab-on to walls and the quite fast horizontal acceleration, but that's about all I can complain about and that's just du say something besides "great game", which it surely is!
It was pretty original and extremely well-crafted. Throwing the "ball" felt pretty good, though repeating some parts after dying was very frustrating.
Finally, the narrative was the cherry on the top ^^
I enjoyed figuring out how things worked. Keyboard controls are difficult to use, and button prompts might have been nice, but I wonder if they would take away from the discovery.
Only other critique is I feel use of theme was a little weak. Overall though, another wonderful entry!
Great work!
It took me a little time to understand that I needed to collect the floaty dot thingies to open the doors, but that's about the only flaw I could find in the presentation or in the game overall.
Enjoyed this a lot =D
I struggled a bit with the keyboard controls, constantly mixing them up. I guess it works much better with controller if you have one. Or maybe it's just me. Anyway, great entry!
The controls are a bit wonky (mostly during attacks) but it's soooo good.
Sorry for those of you that are finding the controls awkward, especially on keyboard. Maybe I should have combined attacking, picking up and throwing into one button but I wanted the player to have more control over the character. I intentionally made the character a little slippery so you had to use a bit of momentum to get around although I might have overshot my mark! I'll make a gameplay video today for anyone who had too much trouble with the controls but wants to see the rest of the game.
Okay, onto specific comments!
@Pachow: Thanks! I'll try to do a writeup on the shader, in case that's interesting to anyone.
@fullmontis: Definitely agree with you on this! If I had more time I would have tried to tweak the levels so this issue never stood in the way.
@DragonXVI, KedumeBits: I haven't seen Closure before but it looks great! I can totally see the similarities in graphical style and the light/dark mechanics. Thanks for mentioning it!
@localminimum: I'm not sure what you mean; it is possible to jump while holding the lantern, although it isn't possible to attack, and I think that's the direction I should have gone.
@rnlf: Thank you very much! I wouldn't mind spending more time on this, adding a bunch more content as well as ironing out the controls.
@PTSnoop: I'm going to use www.rot13.com to reply to this since it's full of spoilers. Svefgyl, V'z gnxvat n thrff gung lbhe pbzzrag fnlf "pbafvqrevat gung guvf ynagrea pbagnvaf/ercerfragf gur fbhy bs lbhe qrnq ybire" be fbzrguvat gb gung rssrpg. V'z abg fher ubj sne lbh tbg, ohg nf gur fgbel hasbyqf lbh svaq bhg gung vg'f npghnyyl gur punenpgre'f bja fbhy juvpu vf va gur ynagrea, abg gurve ybiref, naq tvira ubj riragf hasbyqrq V qba'g guvax gurl ner cnegvphyneyl raguenyyrq ol gurve fbhy orvat xrcg nyvir sberire.
@Snicklodocus: Yeah I found the theme particularly tricky to work with this time! I didn't want to make an ordinary game with a meatloaf instead of a sword, or anything like that, so I tried to think of unusual ways a weapon could operate.
@madameberry: The lantern itself isn't a weapon, but it's the source of your knife. My take on the theme was a weapon that only existed in a small space around a point, and I tried to emphasize this in the narrative but it was tough to get across!
The visuals are really nice, although they kinda gave me a bit of a headache (but that's just me having overly sensitive eyes I guess).
Love your stuff man!
Too unforgiving for me.
Atmosphere was top notch and gameplay the level design was great. I kind of think it should be shorter, but I beat the game so...
4/5
Sadly i don't like platformers so i didn't finished the game [for now], i really don't like tight platforming and i hope you'll forgive me for that :(
Congratulations overall :)
Also, fantastic name for the game (should I really be scoring extra for that?)
Thanks!
My main complaint is that the controls took a super long time to get accustomed to. I felt like I accelerated too fast, which led to a lot of frustrating deaths where I'd run off ledges or into enemies I was attacking. I'd find myself wanting to move with the same friction as when I was carrying the lantern, but the switching between movement mechanics when holding it versus not holding it threw me off. I tried using a joystick controller at first, but as the acceleration is all-or-nothing I found that the stick hurt more then helped movement. I'm not a huge fan of level-based platformers like Super Meat Boy (blasphemy I know), so it might just be me here.
There was a ton of content, much more than I expected in a Ludum Dare game. The levels had varied and interesting challenges; I especially enjoyed the sections where I had to ascend a small corridor while dodging enemies or projectiles.
I liked the mysterious snippets of text, but by the end of the game I couldn't quite piece together what exactly the story was. Some kind of ending cinematic or even textbox would've helped to tie the story together as well as reward the player for finishing the game.
Although this isn't my kind of game, I did enjoy it! Near the end of the game once I got used to the controls, it was fun to zip around the level throwing the lantern to go fast. I could easily see this game being well-suited to speed runs.
Super polished game, well done!
Amazing
This game felt too long.
But is that a bad thing? I played it twice and I can't decide why I feel that way. On one hand, more content is good for a game like this, right? More levels, more puzzles, etc. You introduced new ideas (while still using the same mechanics) over time to keep things fresh, and a few levels really stood out to me. The one where you have to follow the ascending orb, break blocks to the left and right, and kill enemies quickly while wall jumping up to stay in the light range... that was awesome. But moments like that were padded out by levels that felt repetitive. If you had just one or two extra mechanics that you could reveal along the way, it would help to break up that feeling. So the solution for me would either be a more streamlined experience with less levels as a whole, or the same amount of levels but with a few extra tricks up your proverbial sleeve.
Does that make it a bad game? Most definitely NOT. The game is great. It's not incredibly innovative or unique, but it controls well. It's consistent. It's challenging without being frustrating. It's a satisfying experience.
Your diffuse shader is awesome. The way it all dynamically shifts the safe playing area ... it really pulls you into the orb that much more. After a while you really start to feel like you NEED it to survive, even though it's just a little pixelated ball. The story that wraps around the whole experience has that same feeling. You did a good job of weaving the player's reality with the narrative. There are lots of parallels going on, and it's interesting to think about.
I also have to thank you for providing controller support, because I always have my controller in hand when playing LD games. If the game doesn't support it, I set up key bindings with XPadder or something similar. The platforming was tight, and I didn't have too much of an issue aside from the ball not going where I wanted it to go. I eventually learned how to control it.
I also like how you don't have to kill EVERYTHING. Most levels have multiple solutions, and this prevented me from getting stuck on more than one occasion. I was having trouble with one enemy so I said, SCREW IT, and went another way. There's some good level design going on here, too. You seem to have a real skill in that department.
As always I look forward to your awesome games, and this was no exception. Keep it up, man!
I'm always impressed with what some manage to pull off in 48 hours.
The short little text snippets really add to the atmosphere...
Feel somewhat sad now due to the game.
I really enjoyed this game! The graphics are great, with the simplistic sprites combined with neat shaders. The gameplay was also very enjoyable. I was surprised with how many combinations of buttons you can hit to throw in specific directions and jump at different lengths. Some of the levels definitely had sort of a puzzle platformer feel, where I didn't know exactly what I had to do to progress. It was very rewarding though when I ended up figuring out what to do. Awesome work!
1) The gameplay didn't quite fit the mood imo. The 'story' of the game was very very somber, but the gameplay felt goofy and fun! I'm not sure how you could have made the gameplay fit the current story, but I feel like without the story (and the music accompanying the story) you could have made a slick B-Ball adventure platformer.
2) The controls felt very floaty. I was playing on gamepad and I was constantly falling into pools and missing my mark. hitboxes felt very unforgiving (I had to remind myself that the weapon was a knife and not a longsword).
HOWEVER, I loved the concept, and totally loved tossing the lantern around like a ball. The audio was very well made, but the music fit the story better than it did the gameplay.
Amazing work as usual, always super psyched to play your games ;D
The only flaw, this time there is one, are controls. Jumps are too "strong", the player gain speed too easily.
One of potential winners for me! Congrats!
Let's begin with some good stuff. The overall aesthetics, with how the art style, music, the "writings on the walls" and the story ties together is completely masterful. Everything down to the level select screen feels lovingly thought of in a way that not many can do in the short time span. Kudos!
Okay here goes.
I hate how you walk slower when you carry the lantern. It took me ages to feel like I had some sort of control over my jumps and stuff. I blame this a bit on the constant shift in how the character controls. You run so very fast when not carrying that even the slightest misstep means death.
The orb bouncing feels REALLY good, but when I'm supposed to get it to land on a teeeney tiny platform and it just bounced away into a puddle of water it made me want to punch something.
The FUCKING water.
The attack is so puny! I feel like the combat is so secondary to this games design that making it this difficult to hit an enemy feels unnecessary. Especially since you also have to stand in the light to attack..
Alright, I think that's it. I want to emphasize that the only reason I bitch like this is because it's a REALLY fucking cool game. It just has a bunch of, what I think is, little hiccups.. I admire you Daniel, like the fanboyiest fanboy, and you made something I don't LOVE, so I'm butthurt as fuck. Sorry.
:*
http://ludumdare.com/compo/2015/04/27/my-top-10-platformer-games-of-ludum-dare-32/
So I'm honestly disappointed to see you do just another stock platformer with a shader. There's a few puzzles alright, but they're fairly straightforward, with floaty controls that don't match the gameplay style. And it just has to be the standard issue "playing with light and darkness" concept.
For someone's first entry, this would be a solid, fairly polished game - not a standout, but solid. For someone like friggin' Managore, I get the impression you didn't truly challenge yourself this time.
Soft 3 stars. You can do better, man.
figuring out the lantern lift in a later level wasn't as intuitive as it could be, but I did eventually figure it out. (I tried to jump on the lantern lift a couple times.)
Maybe an earlier level could have started with the lantern in a similar lift as a hint for that later level.
That's a minor thing, though. Excellent game!
1. There is noticeable input lag. You can feel it on levels where you do a lot of directional tossing, like level 23 when you toss up+right, sometimes it doesn't register from the time you press the keys to the time you toss the lantern and it ends up falling to the bottom of the level. Input lag caused a lot of frustration and I'd often die for reasons outside of my control.
2. The physics feel kind of bad. Level 14 is especially hard because you end up jumping into the first slime across the water pit and you can't really control your momentum after jumping. In the end I opted to just leave the lantern in the middle of the level and skip enemies (I assume the intended way was to bring the lantern to the end of the level, but it's almost impossible). Another thing is that sometimes your character won't turn around when you tap the opposite direction key. I'm not sure if this is because of input lag or because your facing is based on velocity or something, but it cost me quite a few lives.
These two problems combined with the fact that you're expected to do nearly pixel-perfect actions really hurt the game's playability. There are a lot of instances where you have to inch up to an enemy to kill it just so you don't overstep due to inertia. If you don't, you'll end up running into the enemy, flinch, and become unable to attack. Typically this ends up with you stunlocked on top of an enemy and you just die.
Overall, it's a pretty impressive compo entry despite the flaws. Grats on finishing such a long game in 48 hours.
@StrayByte: Fair enough! I didn't want to make a game that took conventional weapon mechanics and swapped the gun out for a puppy launcher or swapped the sword for a meatloaf, but instead I wanted to take a normal weapon and limit its use in some unconventional way, so I tried to think of a way to reinvent melee fighting and came up with the idea that you had to stay close to some sort of energy source.
@MonoS: No worries, thanks for playing!
@phi6: I've added it to my list to check out, I'll leave a comment when I do. And thank you so much for adding me to your list!! It's an honour to be among such nice games :)
@ekun: Thank you for the detailed reply. I guess I've always been a bit inspired by Super Meat Boy, sometimes to my detriment, haha! If you're interested in the full story text, there's a link to it in the game description up the top.
@SonnyBone: I wish I had had more time to tweak the levels, I think I would have scrapped a couple of the middle levels, or at least made them a lot more interesting. Unfortunately there were a lot of ideas I didn't get time to implement. Which is exactly what you suggest, and so I agree completely!
@01010111: I need to work on more somber gameplay for sure. Though, like you, I'm not sure what to do to get there.
@Ditto: Sorry to hear you didn't like it! You're totally right about the controls, I wish I had been able to improve them. I made the attack small on purpose because I wanted the player to have to use some precision to attack, but, like the controls, maybe I overshot the mark. Oh and say hi to blomster for me!
@Jwatt: Thanks for the detailed comment! Instead of trying to build a game around one interesting mechanic like I've done in the past, this time I tried to throw in as much content and mechanics as I could. I guess it didn't stick together as well as I'd hoped it would.
@Marcus316: I tried to hint at it with the horizontal lift in the second level, but your suggestion of a vertical lift early on is a better way to introduce the idea.
@jcmoyer: I'm not sure what's causing input lag on your system but I don't have any on my system so it might be some sort of bug? It may be worth pointing out that you only throw when you let go of C, not when you press it originally.
Other thing I'd like to say is that I didn't really connected with the character. That may sound stupid, but what I mean to say is that in games it's really nice to feel intrinsically motivated to achieve a certain goal. But I never really had a purpose in the game other then trying to get to another super hard level, throwing the ball in the pit all the time. The "thingies" you have to gather had no meaning to me and so I wasn't motivated emotionally to gather them. The ball was just a tool to me and the ultimate goal was unclear to me. Where am I going? Why am I going there wherever "there" is.
I had trouble using Z/X/C to do stuff and I wonder if you could've made the controls more intuitive.
Okay thus far for the bad stuff, I hope I'm not being to harsh, because I still really like your stuff a lot.
I like that in a lot of levels there are more "thingies" you need to gather than the needed amount. This gives the player a meaningful choice to make of which route to take, to assess the situation and explore more as opposed to just linearly follow a level's design.
As always you have stunning innovative visuals everywhere. I must say I'm not too fond of the black/white low res art-style, but the gausian blur at the edges of the light and the light effect itself make up for it.
Took me a long time to write this, gonna stop now, I hope I was able to give some decent feedback. I love your stuff, keep it up!
I also really like the level design.
Okay, so.. constructive feedback I think think of for the feedback loop:
I played on keyboard. I wasn't such a fan of the controls. I found that if I attempted to move a little I'd move more than I'd expect pretty often or not decelerate to where I want to. That's something I'd improve at as a player over time I guess, and it's something that would be absolutely fine in a platformer, but in a game where I have very little health and I have to get extremely close to things and hit them, it can be really frustrating.
The implementation of the orb and the puzzles around it were great. I'm not a personal fan of games where you carry and throw stuff, especially when you have digital controls and can't aim. I spent the vast majority of the game walking back to pick up my orb and throwing it again because the trajectory wasn't off. There were a couple of times when I would've ragequitted if it wasn't you whose game I was playing, carrying the orb carefully up a giant stairacse and then bam, it flies away and falls off the bottom of the screen, after tonnes of careful progress. I wouldn't mind, but it doesn't feel like my fault as a player.
Also, dropping the orb was fiddly. I would like if I could just slash my weapon to drop the orb and hit simultaneously, so in quick situations where I'm in combat I can quickly react.
I know WASD+mouse restricts gamepad use, but I think if the orb was mouse controlled, or you could use the right gamepad stick to aim it, this would've been a much better experience.
Oh also, one level it felt like the best way of completing it was to throw the orb in the water, jump in the water, pick up the orb and get out? When I have 2 hp having to use 1 hp to get out of the room when there are enemies feels mean. And when I can't hit an enemy that's above me standing on a platform because it's on the top left of me, but when I jump I still take damage.. just little things like that, I feel like giving the player more leeway so they get frustrated at their own lack of skill rather than the game would be nice.
However, these are minor gripes for a game which overall is fantastic as usual. Polished as fuck, beautiful, the text is interesting and moving, the level design is great as I said and the core mechanic is very cool and great with the theme. I especially like how the light diameter decreases when you slash, and all the image effects. Nice one.
Gameplay was awesome when it worked, but felt very frustrating at times. I had much better luck with a controller than with the keyboard, but I still felt like I never really had complete control. Acceleration felt inconsistent (as did the orb-throwing) and the wall stickiness felt intrusive on occasion. I got to level 11 and had to give up, but I'm planning to come back later and work my way through the rest of the levels.
That being said, I did really enjoy the time I spent playing. There's some really cool mechanics and some challenging gameplay. The first time I threw the light, jumped a gap, and caught it again on the other side to keep it from flying off the screen felt incredibly empowering. I think that the game does so many things right and has the potential to be something AMAZING, which is why the negatives feel that much more jarring. On the whole, this is an incredibly polished, incredibly full LD entry. Great work!
Give us noobs a chance, please ;-)
Wonderful entry, I liked everything and played it with a constant smile on my face! Great idea with the light, nice sounds and background music and I love your minimal graphic style! Hats off, Sir!
Very precise controls but sometimes I had problems picking up items in a ditch because my character was clinging to the walls.
Very nice graphics and sound, they really set the mood!
It's really, really rare to say this for a Ludum Dare game, but: this game might have been a bit too long.
The level where you're waiting for it to come to you while dodging bullets was not only an exception to my complaints, but probably my favorite level overall. It started out with that slow roll and I was already getting mad about it, but as it played out I couldn't help but enjoy the simplicity of it. I love levels that play nothing like their predecessors.
I realize I'm complaining a bunch, but I enjoyed playing most of the levels. The longer ones could have been split up into smaller separate levels and might not have complained about anything! Failing a bunch of times on the long levels colored my view of the game, I think.
The art is inspiring, it's ridiculously simple but sets a fantastic mood. The shaders are impressive as hell, as always.
Audio was all very clean and appropriate for the atmosphere/story. Although I wish the atmosphere/story was more original - there are too many 2D platformers where text pops up and tells a sad story. There's a lot more interesting stories that can be told in this format I think!
The gameplay itself was eh. The controls were awkward for me. Having 3 buttons seemed excessive. I understand why you had to separate all the buttons (can't have jump be up, because then you can't climb up a wall and jump off it; can't have attack be the same as picking up and throwing because then you can't attack when near the lamp) but I feel like instead of adding extra buttons to satisfy all these mechanics, you should've just cut down the mechanics. Especially since the combat seems pretty extraneous and not very fun. The slash isn't very satisfying, and while a "knife of whispers" is a cool concept, it's just still a regular old knife.
Actually, the platforming seems kinda extraneous as well. There weren't many interesting puzzles or exploration of mechanics (which you are usually brilliant at). Instead all the challenge felt like fighting the controls more than anything. The horizontal movement is really fast, but there's like no vertical velocity at all. To climb vertically you have to glue to a wall and climb, which is like a slow and boring version of Meat Boy. Moving with the lamp is even worse, which makes sense, but isn't fun. Moving the lamp in general was my least favorite thing about the game. Throwing it makes it go crazy and it's so imprecise, which sucks when the levels demand some level of precision. In particular, the levels always have you throwing the lamp upwards, but there's so many holes that it can slide into to fall back down, which is super frustrating. I admit that I rage quit at level 10 because I was just spending my entire time failing to throw the lamp up, so maybe there's better stuff later.
Overall I am floored by the visual style of the game, but disappointed by the gameplay and level design compared to your previous brilliantly designed games.
-The jump height seemed inconsistent to me. In Level 22, are you supposed to be able to jump and grab onto the walls? I generally couldn't, but I feel like one out of every eight jumps I actually could hook around the wall and grab onto it, out of reach of the cannons while waiting for the lantern to fall.
As others have said, the horizontal movement felt a bit loose, and movement in the air and on the ground was unpredictable. Tighter controls would have made the game a bit easier to grasp, and could allow for levels that were more challenging, platforming-wise. I liked the feeling of throwing the lantern upwards, and some of the most difficult, yet satisfying levels were the ones that force you to get good at vertical throwing. Horizontally, it was hard to predict the distance and speed, and it was easy to try to set down the lantern and wind up punting it across the level instead. The lantern also had a bit too much bounciness when hitting walls.
-That said, I liked the variety of levels you had. The early ones were a bit samey, but later on there were some that required a variety of tactics. The vertical shaft jumping between walls dodging birds, the one where you run a gauntlet chasing the lantern, and the one where you need to destroy only a few blocks were all standouts. The levels also did a good job teaching the game and easing players into facets of the mechanics even late into the game (like the one that forces you to try attacking bullets from a cannon).
-The knife itself wasn't very fun to use. It was cool to have it connected to the lantern the way it was, but I feel like it could have had more...urgency, I guess? I got very, very excited in the early levels when I saw the lantern's radius shrink after swinging the knife, because I thought that would be a crucial gameplay element, but it never came into play, even on levels where I was basically button-mashing to attack. I like that the lantern and knife are connected, but while how I used the lantern affected the knife, the reverse was never true in a way that mattered. I wonder if there's a way to explore that?
-Has anyone said yet that they hurled themselves into a pit? Because I sure did. It was purely instinctual: I overshot the lantern, it plummeted off the edge of the level, and without even a second thought I jumped down after it. The weird clenching I felt in my gut when I realized what I'd done will stick with me even after I've forgotten the parts of this game that weren't so great. (I was able to fall for a VERY long time alongside the lantern, an experience so atmospheric I consider it a feature, not a bug. In fact, if you're at all considering making more levels for the game...)
All in all, it wasn't your best entry, but it was still really enjoyable to play. I think you should keep exploring this concept, if you have the time and energy.
I got quickly frustrated by your game though. Maybe it's just not my thing. Dragging the ball everywhere got a bit annoying, especially if it fell in to the deep or in the water at the end of the level.
I wouldn't necessarily say you did anything wrong, I think this type of game just doesn't work for me. If anything could be fixed, I'd say give the player prediction lines of where he is going to throw the ball. I think that makes the game a lot better already.