It is Dangerous to Go Alone in the Dark by fueelin

[raw]
made by fueelin for LD20 (COMPO)
UPDATE: Here's the first minor update for anyone who's interested (not for rating purposes). Did a couple minor things to make it a bit harder, largely based on people's feedback. In short: More enemies, less flares, no paths from start to exit by just following the walls. More updates soon.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2908100/TBeck%20-%20LD%2020%20-%20Update.swf

TLDR:
Arrow Keys - Move
Left Click - Place Flare (Aim w/ Mouse)
The closer you are to a monster, the faster the sonar beeps. Shoot flares to kill/reveal enemies.

Thanks for your feedback, I will start working on updates tomorrow and put a link to newer versions here (though obviously the official competition version will remain as-is).

Description:

The easiest way to describe my game is that it's Minesweeper, except you control an actual character and instead of visual clues where the 'mines' are, there are audio clues. The character has a sonar device which beeps faster/high pitched the closer you get to an enemy. Walk into a square adjacent to an enemy, and you're dead.

If you think you know where an enemy is, you can throw one of your limited supply of flares. If the area the flare lights up overlaps with an enemy, it dies. Also, enemies won't attack you on lit-up tiles, even if it's within their range.

Your goal is to make it through a series of randomly generated caves to make it through to the other side. As you progress into deeper caves, the monster count increases. Eventually, the number of flares you get per level starts to decrease. If you can make it through the final level, with 10 enemies and 0 flares, you win!

If you die, your choices are to retry the same layout, try a different layout with the same parameters, or give up, leading to the game over screen (which you may as well check out at least once). Additionally, there are two different difficulty modes. The differences are described in-game.


Tools Used:

Language: Flash/Actionscript 3
IDE: FlashDevelop
Game Library: Flixel
Map Editor: DAME (Very sparingly, mostly randomized levels)
Music: LSDj in Visual Boy Advance
Sound Effects: Spear & Audacity
Art: GIMP 2

Ratings

Coolness 7% 86
Overall 3.00 127
Audio 2.88 81
Community 2.87 115
Fun 2.96 123
Graphics 2.33 229
Humor 1.88 231
Innovation 3.33 75
Theme 3.00 91

Feedback

billknye
02. May 2011 · 05:10 UTC
Interesting idea. Only downside is the levels tend to not place monsters around the edges, leading to easy routes frequently.
jsmars
03. May 2011 · 01:14 UTC
fun little game, but I agree with previous comment about the routes, and sounds were bit annoying after a while :)
Dark Acre Jack
03. May 2011 · 02:02 UTC
Ah, very good use of audio cues! I liked the tension. First time I was killed I was like, WTF but then I realized why.

Not a huge fan of walls of text to start with, but hey whatever gets the story across ;)

Good job on finishing!
k_wright
03. May 2011 · 02:06 UTC
You are likely to be eaten by a Grue!

I actually beat the first three levels without using the flares... mostly cuz I didn't know about them.
Winterblood
04. May 2011 · 21:57 UTC
The concept is cool, might work better with a smaller grid per room so when you get up to 4 or 5 monsters you HAVE to use precious flares to take them out.
Grungi Ankhfire
04. May 2011 · 23:33 UTC
Some nice idea in this one. Loved the way the monster appear, really creepy with the sound the first few times :)
But yeah, the radar became a bit obnoxious after a while.
elbowroom
09. May 2011 · 09:19 UTC
The game is filled with suspense, good job.. I was never into the Minesweeper game but I find this variation exciting.
I felt it was unfair to have less flares than monsters?
Having the option to replay the same layout is kind of like cheating I think?
One thing that bugged me is that in Minesweeper, you know exactly how many mines are next to the current square.. in this game it seems you only get a vague idea? And also in minesweeper you can touch those squares.. and here you die?

i like it but find it very hard for a new player.
arielsan
10. May 2011 · 13:56 UTC
Instructions are a bit long for what the game is.

I feel you used the theme right and I enjoyed playing the game.

Nice game, good luck with the compo.
SonnyBone
12. May 2011 · 17:35 UTC
Ooooh, this is really cool! I dig the audio-cue gameplay.
mwest
15. May 2011 · 08:55 UTC
Very nice game, well done!!

The combination of minesweeper type mechanics with a horror setting and the use of audio cues was very innovative (audio did get a bit grating though)! I think you could turn this into an interesting game if you add slightly more diverse levels and an end goal (level 10 no end in sight?).

Also found the edges fairly safe routes through and the early game perhaps too easy for an experienced player, reducing replay value (see in your post you fixed this post-compo, will try it later).