The Will of the Wisps by adsilcott
12/15/2017: Update! Please see the new Post-Jam version, below.
A young girl wanders lost in a mystical forest, guided only by the light of the fireflies she collects in her jar. But soon she will discover that the more light she collects, the less she wants to see the things lurking in these haunted woods.
Perhaps, she hopes, the gathered light of the fireflies may reveal a path to safety. Or, perhaps, to more things darker still.
Controls:
- WASD/Arrows to move
- Collect fireflies to illuminate your surroundings and to reveal away obstacles blocking your path
Credits:
* Adam Silcott: Programming, Level Design
Melanie Judd: 2D Artwork (http://www.instagram.com/inkystache)
Greg Lord: Music, Sound, Animation, Story (@gplord, http://www.instagram.com/gplord, http://soundcloud.com/gplordmusic
Post-Mortem blog posts:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-will-of-the-wisps/tools-used-for-making-the-will-of-the-wisps https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-will-of-the-wisps/music-audio-in-the-will-of-the-wisps https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-will-of-the-wisps/the-will-of-the-wisps-artists-thoughts
A note about Performance
A few reviews have mentioned experiencing significant slowdown in the WebGL build. If you run into this, please consider trying one of the downloadable builds (Windows or Mac), as they are able to run more efficiently and should have a stronger performance.
(And in the case of the Post-Jam (see below), the downloadable versions also let us enable graphical effects that the Web build didn't like!)
Post-Jam Updated Version!
First and most importantly, we have deeply appreciated all of your feedback, and the many kind words and constructive thoughts that you've all shared.
We've kept working on this game since the Jam ended, arriving now at a "Post-Jam" version that adds back in many of the ideas that time kept us from adding during the Jam itself. It was important to us to say that almost all of the additions here were things we had originally imagined and even started to build during the Jam, but had to cut to make the deadline. (In particular, all of the new artwork here was completed before the Jam ended, and the music is only a minor revision to the original soundtrack.)
This version is a slightly different take on the same idea, implementing a bit more of the actual gameplay we hoped might fit with the mood of the game. But hopefully it feels like a natural extension of the Jam version. Either way, we would love to hear your thoughts.
Please remember that the Jam version (linked further down on the page) is the edition that should be used for scoring!
Post-Jam Controls
- WASD/Arrow Keys: Walk
- Touch a firefly to capture it in your jar, increasing your light range
- Spacebar: Release a captured firefly, to lure away the monster
- Avoid dangers lurking in the shadows, or they will steal away your light
Download or play the Post-Jam version (not for scoring!):
Windows: https://s3.amazonaws.com/krowocstudios.com/LD40/Windows/WillOfTheWispsWinLD40POSTJAM.zip
Mac: https://s3.amazonaws.com/krowocstudios.com/LD40/Mac/TheWillOfTheWisps000006LD40POSTJAM_Mac.zip
WebGL: https://s3.amazonaws.com/krowocstudios.com/LD40/WebGL/twofwld4000006c/index.html
Official Jam version, for scoring:
Ratings
| Overall | 19th | 4.234⭐ | 113🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 437th | 3.456⭐ | 115🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 177th | 3.685⭐ | 113🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 363th | 3.684⭐ | 116🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 10th | 4.711⭐ | 116🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 4th | 4.468⭐ | 113🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 868th | 2.241⭐ | 87🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 4th | 4.554⭐ | 114🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 49🗳️ | 72🗨️ |
What you've created here is beautiful and haunting. In five minutes you wordlessly created an entire universe in my mind. In particular, I loved walking onto the dock; Genuinely unsettling!
The art is astounding, the music is phenomenal, and the controls are just right.
Fantastically well done!
There was a fair bit of wandering around in the first half and I nearly gave up a couple times but managed to find the new area that had opened up in time. At first this was a little confusing because in my head, I had already explored and area but now suddenly a wall was gone so I had to keep reexploring areas that I had already been to. Maybe if they evolved more visually then it would be more interesting to go back and look again.
Anyway, all in all super well done, congratulations!
One thing I might change to improve this is to make it more obvious (somehow) that you can enter the blacked out areas in the future.
I really like the mood and music of this game.
How did you make this shadow effect ?
Damn, the art is amazing as is the music. Great job there, guys. The environment being revealed when the lights hit it was simply awesome. I just wish for a little bit more of mechanics, but this is a great entry either way.
I think this is one of the most memorable games I've played in a Ludum Dare ever.
All in all a fun experience. Nice work!
Super good atmosphere in my opinion~
@mikomikisomi Thank you for pointing that out! I thought people just thought she should walk faster, but it is indeed just running slow for some people in the browser.
@kantora You're the best, thanks again!!
@tad @tutaratuta @dr-binary @cyberpunks and many others, I can't thank you enough for all of the kind comments and excellent feedback! We had a great time making this game. It has really made my week reading the comments and seeing the kinds of experiences that people have had with it. If we have time we want to do a post-jam version with some tweaks to address some of the issues and expand on things we didn't have time for. Thanks again LD peeps-- this is such a great community!
P.S: Please teach me how to make beautiful art like youuu :3
I think the music, while orchestrated well, takes away from the mood. I think it would have been much better to hear crickets and the occasional strange monstrous sound, with only perhaps only a couple of notes suspenseful music when a monster in close.
However the game feels sluggish and too slow. Part of the sluggishness was probably my low end laptop, which experienced lag when the monster appeared on the screen(who is gorgeous by the way!).
Picking the wisps up was not very fun and engaging experience. I finished the game just to admire the beauty of the artwork that kept changing while I advanced in the game. Ending was visually very satisfying.
Good job!
Congrats on this nice concept!
While the mechanics of the game are just alright (akin to a 2D walking simulator), the themes and feeling of dread and impending doom were no joke. The atmosphere of this submission is one of extreme tension, which gets even stronger as the music changes when the player approaches the enemy. It's so satisfying.
Impressive displays of art, sound and light effects really let this project shine. I feel it's important for player to catch up early on with the visual cues, since the game, which begins as a simple and friendly firefly catching collectathon, slowly but steadily degrades into a crooked forest of hysteria.
Incredible work there. [In behalf of my team](twitter.com/whalesandgames), we congratulate you on making one of the greatest quality submissions on this LD. Cheers! :whale:
The roadblocks feel a bit arbitrary, but otherwise this game is really cool. I love how everything becomes more horrible when you shine light at it.
Awesome game!
I also liked the way you used the theme. It's not harder for the player but worse for the character.
Great job!
Two things I didn't like were the black edges that blocked the progress - these felt very artificial, not like something I couldn't go through because I couldn't see but 'because reasons' and the redraw terrain becoming various monsters is very sudden. An alpha blended fade or something of the sort might have been better.
Really nice how you progressed with the new version adding a new mechanic to lure the monster.
Although due to the low pacing and and repeat the stage over and over gets a bit frustrating, all and all great entry
So I was running away from my family?
`https://youtu.be/0MdaPAncE3o`
Don't want to duplicate all the previous commenters and mention atmosphere, raycasting, art, animation and the plot twist (or did I just... oh).
Post Jam version has a larger level layout and I think if you expand it even more -- it could be hard to navigate and remember all 'closed doors'.
I didn't get if it's dangerous to touch all the spooky things around: flyings shadows, deadly-locking rocks, trees, etc. Was trying to avoid just in case.
Great game. :ghost: