Trial by afterisk

made by afterisk for LD28 (JAM)

Oppressed and spiritually imprisoned, will you heed the call of your guardian to seek freedom by traversing a treacherous landscape?

Harness the spiritual elements of Courage, Forgiveness, Resilience, and Perseverance to reveal which path is the safest.

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Move using keyboard arrow keys.

Press [SPACE] to use an ability (once it's recharged).
-Courage: leap over tiles
-Forgiveness: you won't fall
-Resilience: temporary protection
-Perseverance: reveal tiles around you

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Conceptualized, designed, programmed and completed with music by 2 guys at Afterisk in 3 days.

Tools used: Unity, Photoshop, Audition, Logic Audio, bfxr.net, online speech generator.

Enjoy!

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Update - new and improved version!

After spending a few more days, we were able to improve the abilities and refine a bunch of other mechanics. We know this doesn't count towards our Ludum Dare submission, but wanted to share. Check it out on Kongregate:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/afteriskinc/trial

Windows	http://www.afterisk.com/trial/TrialWindows.zip
OS/X	http://www.afterisk.com/trial/TrialMac.zip
Linux	http://www.afterisk.com/trial/TrialLinux.zip
Web	http://www.afterisk.com/trial/index.html
Web (Post Comp)	http://www.kongregate.com/games/afteriskinc/trial
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=29370

Ratings

Coolness	79%	2
Overall(Jam)	3.36	153

Audio(Jam)	3.33	134
Fun(Jam)	3.11	184
Graphics(Jam)	3.89	118
Humor(Jam)	1.88	393
Innovation(Jam)	3.56	57
Mood(Jam)	2.95	242
Theme(Jam)	3.13	160

Feedback

Lacutis

17. Dec 2013 · 01:45 UTC

Beautiful game. Plays really well. I'm not sure I understand the difference in the 4 powers other than there are different squares on the board.
Is there a way to tell if a square is going to be a bomb? It seemed kind of random.
Nice entry!

sudorossy

17. Dec 2013 · 01:46 UTC

Neat little puzzle game, really difficult.

AtomicVikings

17. Dec 2013 · 01:46 UTC

AWESOME GAME! :-) Like to play it. Overall a really great game. :-) Thumps up

Tyro

17. Dec 2013 · 01:49 UTC

Very interesting game. It's sort of like a third-person Minesweeper. I enjoyed trying out the different element and traversing the board. Good work!

nikev

17. Dec 2013 · 02:10 UTC

Clean looking graphics and simple but fun gameplay

🎤 afterisk

17. Dec 2013 · 02:15 UTC

The mines are dropped randomly, you have to use tools and be smart about which spots you step on to avoid the mines or protect yourself from them. Press shift, it explains what each ability is doing.

Unept

17. Dec 2013 · 02:55 UTC

I got 1,650. That's good. right? What's my prize?

Well done! So polished!

My only feedback would be that I felt like I was guessing a little bit more than I would have liked. But overall a tremendous job.

@TeddyNashor

17. Dec 2013 · 02:56 UTC

That was an interesting game. I didn't know what the powers were untill I read the comments, so maybe just have a little tool tip? Other then that great job! gameplay is smooth and fun. Thanks!

glovecat

17. Dec 2013 · 03:06 UTC

I like the clean looking graphics and the simple but really fun gameplay. Good work!

🎤 afterisk

17. Dec 2013 · 03:10 UTC

@TeddyNashor : there is a help menu, just need to press "Shift" (the tip is at the bottom of the screen!

@Unept, unfortunately there was no time to build a high-score system with server keeping records :)

@glovecat Thanks, i'm stilltrying to get Wilhelm out of the room!

Cheshyr

18. Dec 2013 · 20:54 UTC

that was clever. I didn't realize it was a minesweeper variant at first, but the first bomb remedied that. that was really well polished; nicely done.

dkilford

19. Dec 2013 · 09:07 UTC

I really liked this game overall. It felt that perseverance is really the only way to play the game because if played properly you can play indefinitely (though with pressure from falling spaces) and get to the end. While I understand why you went with the random bomb mechanic, the way the other abilities were designed, made going other paths get punished greatly for trying something different.

In terms of other feedback, showing the descriptions of each of the abilities when you first select them would really help picking up the game, as well as a strong explanation of how the red bar is relevant would be great. Overall great effort, I really enjoyed it.

🎤 afterisk

19. Dec 2013 · 18:52 UTC

@dkilford thanks a lot! All valid points. And we did rethink other abilities completely after ludum, but not updating them for Ludum (the rules!). Going to put a better version (few more days worth of work) on Kongregate sometime soon. It should have better UI, better gfx and more importantly more balanced.

bsowers

20. Dec 2013 · 18:32 UTC

This game was pretty tricky; I never felt like I got good at it. Enjoyed playing it though.

sfdnetwork

20. Dec 2013 · 23:40 UTC

Like Minesweeper of old. Thanks for road to nostalgia. :)

LoneStranger

23. Dec 2013 · 05:30 UTC

Loved the polish. You did a great job on the overall presentation, though I felt like I didn't quite 100% understand what I was doing.

van noctar

23. Dec 2013 · 20:49 UTC

Great sounds and graphics! Innovate and fun :D

Crabman

23. Dec 2013 · 20:50 UTC

Random bombs got me again and again, but overall, that was pretty sweet. :D

Benjamin

28. Dec 2013 · 10:01 UTC

Nice ambience on this puzzle. I loved the fact that you find a good world and original hability names but I was a bit disapointed by the core mechanic : It seems you can only rely on chance whatever the choices you make. Resilience and Perseverance are probably the best choice if you want to improve your survival rate but it's still random in the end. The fact that you can use hability more by playing slowly kill the rythm of the game : You end up with an arcade game where most of your attention is focused on the top red bar.
Also changing your skill in the middle of the game dont have any sense because you dont get local gameplay element that would make one of the skill better in a specific situation.
Somehow, despite all of this I spent a lot of time in retries because your game have a very strong appaeal on me :)

Colapsydo

28. Dec 2013 · 10:20 UTC

I feel like there is too much part for chance in the game (I'm maybe playing it wrong).
I'm using perseverance to scan the tiles (playing another power is just playing Russian roulette), but sometimes you have to cross some unknown tile, you can die or pass without any influence on the result, this is not a good feeling for a player.
Again, I'm maybe missing some part of the mechanic.

Graphics are neat, and the audio is doing great.

ViliX

28. Dec 2013 · 12:48 UTC

Perseverance is my favourite :)
Nice entry and fun to play.

mactinite

31. Dec 2013 · 16:59 UTC

I played the game a few times, even tried out the post jam version. First off it's a very pretty game. The presentation is great. However, I'm not sure I understood the game mechanics? or how I'm supposed to get "better" each time. It seemed random and I felt like when I used the powers they did nothing (except one time when one moved me to a bomb square and killed me lol)

🎤 afterisk

01. Jan 2014 · 02:12 UTC

@mactinite, yeah you're right. The core mechanic of the game doesn't provide a good experience. Maybe it's too randomized and needs a blend of handcrafted level design and randomization - like spleunky or doodle jump. By the way, the powers have a cooldown timer, so you got to wait for them to recharge. We should make it more visually clear when it's charging/charged.

mcapraro

02. Jan 2014 · 06:12 UTC

awesome game! really polished and solid feeling, congratulations! i did find it a little hard to understand the game at first, and it seems impossible not to eventually hit a bomb