Night's End by glimaleite


[ Remember, this is a compo entry! 48h all by myself! ]
Things have gone terribly wrong. This is the last option they had, and their only chance.
Play as a witch to protect an innocent child. Balance between draining the energy of said child to increase your power but don't go too far, or she will not survive.
Dont want to download it? Play it at the itch.io page: https://glimaleite.itch.io/nights-end
**Note 1: You get teleported to the house everytime you're hit! The feedback isn't clear enough I believe.
**Note 2: I'm trying to blend Action with Mood and this it's been really tough. Let me know what you think of the result!
**Note 3: this is sort of the sequel of my LD39 entry https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/fade
Ratings
| Overall | 45th | 3.962⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 87th | 3.692⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 159th | 3.415⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 208th | 3.585⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 23th | 4.295⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 39th | 3.852⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 15th | 4.223⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 17🗨️ |
Audio was cracking for me a bit though when shooting.
unfortunately i had to quit half way through because it was being so glitchy it was unplayable. I'd be up in the sky and it'd just randomly teleport me directly below, to the house, or to any other random place. i dont know what caused it, but if it werent for that glitch, id have finished this game.
i have no reservations about giving this game 5 stars all across the board! bravo, sir, bravo! :clap:
@bmopapa you're right, E would be so much better, don't know why I haven't thought of it lol
Thanks a lot for the words ;) Cheers
But please, don't put so many cutscenes between waves, it just stops the gameplay when it doesn't need to. As a player I want to keep shooting and improving, not wait for the same cutscene to end when I already watched it. Maybe make it so you can move during them and only spawn some small enemies so the player can rest a bit between big waves but it's still entertained during the scenes.
Also, I didn't know how much I could drain the child, was there a visual hint?
Don't worry about the mood and action mix, it worked really nicely.
I get what you're saying, it breaks the flow right? I only realized that on the last hour hehe. About the visual hint, yes, there is, a subtle one, the vignette around the screen.
Thanks for your feedback, really helpful :D
Exactly, it breaks the flow.
Good luck, it can become a really great little game!
All in all, you did a great job. I loved the early 90s feel you achieved.
Edit: I forgot to mention it, but this was a VERY cool method of integrating the theme into a mechanic. I loved how taking damage only weakened your power, and in tense moments you have to make the choice to continue the fight weak, or potentially accidently kill the child to re-power yourself.
I dont think I ever got fully into the swing of things, my aim was off a bit, having the cursor for aiming but then having the shots have gravity felt strange, and a little unfair. I think its what stopped me from trying to progress further, that and not wanting to wait through the cut scenes again... I think I would have liked much less bullet gravity, just enough to provide a sense that they moved in a slight arch, but so little that my aim was mostly absolute.
Teleporting felt a little disorienting as it was not immediate... if you initiated a teleport to a position, and proceeded to fire, many times the first shot would come from the pre-teleport position as the teleport has not happened yet... this would draw my eye back to the teleport from position(origin of the shot), making me miss the teleport animation, and thusly make me momentarily unaware of my user position until my next shot which was usually way off as I didnt realize I was now firing from the new teleported position... I think making the teleport much faster, almost immediate, and playing up the teleport anim(the trail left behind was very faint), would help.. And either disabling shooting while the teleport was in action, or, and i think this would be my preferred solution, have the shots originate from the teleport to position before the animation was complete... so even though my character had not yet animated to the new position, it would reinforce my understanding of the soon to be character position... plus its magic so I think it would work...
The first moment when I life drained was pretty sweet, the visual effect my character gained, and the new weapon power felt pretty rewarding.
Overall this is a solid compo entry... the graphics are cohesive and visually pleasing, they have a very spectral feel... The music and sound effects all work in adding to the ghastly gloominess (however it did feel like some sounds were missing)... there are functioning game mechanics, and a bit of a story(not sure how far it got developed, as i didnt progress far, but I liked what I got to experience)
Side note:I also chose to compose my own soundtrack for my compo entry, and my weapon of choice was guitar as well. So that basically makes us cousins.
My main complaint is the text - sometimes it's a bit blurry and hard-to-read. When I first played, I didn't quite catch which button was the "Teleport" button, so as soon as the shielded enemies appeared, I had to restart the game so I could look it up. Then when the game first tells you to drain the baby's energy, the button looks like a P or an R and it took me quite a long time to figure out that it was supposed to be F. Maybe it would be a good idea to list the controls here, or on the itch.io page?
That's really my only complaint, though. This is an excellent entry. Very well done!
(oh, and I highly recommend you start rating a few more games, otherwise your entry won't be counted! It'd be a shame, because I expect this to be rated quite highly!)