I really like the look of this. The fixed-length jump seemed odd at first but I quite like it - it helps when you can tell exactly where you will land. I could not get past the monster though.

Glad you decided to make this, the world is richer by one fun game! I can only imagine how fun this would be with good sounds and music.

The lantern mechanic and animation are amazing.

This is simply THE BEST GAME I'VE PLAYED IN ALL FIVE LUDUM DARE COMPETITIONS THAT I'VE ENTERED. PERIOD. The forced distance jump, the amazing random lantern strike, the graphics, the animation, the 'story', the atmosphere, the EVERYTHING. Even without sound, this is the best thing I've seen. Period. And you started late? WOW. Seriously. My vote for BEST GAME belongs to vandriver.

I enjoyed the lantern mechanic a lot. A little more smoothness in the controls would help.

You seem to, uh, made a very similar game to me. Not that I'm saying you stole it. But you did an amazing job. How did you do your lighting?

I like the aesthetic, shame about the lack of music, would go towards making a brilliant little game.

Probably my favourite game so far in this entry. It's simply brilliant in every way.

But yes, this _needs_ to have audio.

nice mood and love the lighting and jump :)

hah, wow guys. i must say i'm really enjoying these comments!

@evilseanbot: some of the controls i purposefully made a bit sticky to show her age, and some of them i just didn't have time to make smooth(or didn't know how, haha)

@yoman: i did the lighting in the simplest, most brute-force way possible since i'm not too adept on the programming side. i took a giant black image, erased random parts in the middle, and layered it animated over the character.

I LOVED this, the ending was adorable and really made it feel like I accomplished something :3 I thought the gameplay was great; it was challenging but not frustrating, because I knew what I was doing wrong whenever I hit a snag. Great job, glad you had the idea!

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

I forgot to mention, I loved that I only had to kill the vampire. I really like it when killing isn't the only way through (and killing a vampire seems perfectly justifiable :P). I put out my lamp when I saw the ZZZ's and was able to sneak past the bear (who I assume wakes up if you have your lamp on); so amazing >:3

this was really good. the look/lighting was awesome. the jump felt great. nice job!

OH MY GOD. You just used sprites and opacity for the lighting? I was SURE that you had used the Game Maker lighting system. No wonder it look so marvelous. And your source code is HILARIOUS. Some of your variable names had me rolling. How in the world you managed to remember what the fuck some of that stuff meant... wow. I played this again today. Do you plan on expanding with music? Do you do music at all?

@ian i love nonkilling games also, but not as much as i love oldschool boss fights, hence the vamp. also you may notice a pointless room with a blue mouse in it. i had planned to have a wolf you could kill there and save him, then if you killed no mice he'd join you on the last screen as a sort of easter egg but i could never get the wolves to be fun(and wasted way too much time trying)

@sonny haha, after reading this i had to check my code worried i'd put some horribly obscene names for variables; i find it helps me remember their names as the program gets more complex. and without comments even now, the code is so convoluted that i don't even know without looking what half of them do.

as for music, i do like using tracker programs and may still try and write something for it, but people seem to like what's there so far that i'd be worried about messing it up actually. i do think some sfxr sounds will be solid though. when holidays are over i may try and motivate myself to add those things. i do thank you for the kind words and promotion. you're why this community is awesome and infectious despite my introversion. maybe i'll even make a holiday version and write up a postmortem!

Dude, I only made the account here to congratulate you, I LOVED how without sound, no story and simple game mecanics you made a fun game & a great ending. I'm no game expert, nor a game creator, I justa happened to be a guy that stumbled upon your game on mindless surfing, and boy did I get lucky! I hope to see another of your submissions, because, for what it's worth, I think you have a great talent! Cheers!

Hey, iforce2d commented!.
His box2D tutorials are amazing.

CONGRATS ON 17th OVERALL! This game was my vote for number one, but I'm glad to see you get some recognition for your work!