daemon by bombjack
An angel had the mission to purify lost souls in hell. As angels can't go freely in hell; he decided to control a demon to achieve his goal. You are this demon: good luck!
The souls you gather are your energy. You start with just one soul. If you loose it: run as fast as you can to get one or you die. Hell is full of danger, your energy will leave you quickly.
Press C to Jump
Press X to Draw your Soul Sword and jump a little higher.
Be careful of using it because it draws souls out you body.
I suggest that you play the post-jam version[HTML5(web) link] since it fixes some playability issues.
The post-jam version requires a 1280x640 screen to be played. If you have a smaller resolution, play the original version.
The original version is still playable with the link Other(web).
The desktop links allows to download both the post and original versions.

| HTML5 (web) | https://itch.io/embed-upload/560939?color=084a3c |
| Windows | https://bombjack.itch.io/daemon |
| macOS | https://bombjack.itch.io/daemon |
| Linux | https://bombjack.itch.io/daemon |
| Other (web) | https://itch.io/embed-upload/551135?color=084a3c |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/daemon |
Ratings
| Overall | 574th | 3.126⭐ | 184🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 654th | 2.785⭐ | 183🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 714th | 2.522⭐ | 184🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 690th | 3.011⭐ | 184🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 292th | 3.853⭐ | 186🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 550th | 2.014⭐ | 147🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 246th | 3.551⭐ | 180🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 214🗳️ | 189🗨️ |
the game is prety good, i hope to see it again launched.
I got some bug, in the first level, after touch first spike, with 1/5 of life ( without extra life )
i got damage but did not die.
if i move or stay iddle, nothing strange happens.
But if i just jump, anywhere, even in a safeplace i die.
Also experienced some graphical glitches (lines being drawn on screen).
The jumping/platforming is a bit buggy (the first time I jumped, right at the start of the game, I got stuck in the wall). The game itself is pretty hard, but I don't think it's necessarily too hard. It is annoying however that the camera is so zoomed in on the player, I'd like to be able to see a bit more of the level at any given time. This is especially frustrating with some of the weird spike placement.
Overall, it's definitely not a bad game at all. It just needs a bit more polish and maybe a tad better level design. Also, I'd really like some kind of feedback that I hit a spike. It took me a couple of deaths before I realized the game thought I was hitting spikes that didn't look like I was hitting them to me.
On the other hand, the "funny" sound effects didn't match very much with the somber theme of the graphics.
But this is good work, graphics are gound, the sound is good too, and the concept is quite classic for the theme, but interesting
Well done! ;)
** Gameplay **: I really like the concept of your game, there is a lot of room for options, but as others have said it gets really hard really fast, also initial i only found out by accident that i can do wall jumps/can use x to do a higher sword jump maybe something you can improve upon?
** Sound/Graphics **: As i said before those are really well executed great job :)
I had a bug happening that vertical stripes appeared on the screen some times during a jump. I don't know if it is the game or my ancient PC tho.
Maybe adding less difficult jumping challenges among the others could've help.
Graphics are simple but cute in a way!
The controls worked fine for me, but I think you could keep the drag time for wall jump a bit more. I don't know, I kinda like having a bit more time. :)
The artwork is really nice! I did love all of it, but I thought that the main character was a "Donnie Darko"-like bunny (when I saw a screenshot :P). And you also set up a really nice mood in your game!
Congrats! Cheers! :)
I didn't get the slide/double jump, it's a bit rough, so it adds more difficulty. I must admit I cut the sound, the music loop is very short ^^
Otherwise, nice color palette an pixel art :)
If you work on a better learning curve, introduce mechanism bit by bit (traps, power, slide jump...) and rework this camera, ping me, I'll be glad to re-test it, because I love the ambient of this game!
I see alot of potential in it, overall a great LD entry!
- it is a little bit too hard to play,
- layout of level could be better.
Graphics looks nice and creates really nice mood.
Good Job!
The graphics are really good. I enjoyed the artstyle and the animations a lot. You need to disable anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering in the Quality settings though, because you got a lot of graphical glitches that seem like they come from there.
The music isn't too bad as well. The SFX could be a lot better though. Especially the jumping sound kind of ruins the mood and is far too loud.
The gameplay is okay, but it feels really finnicky. I couldn't grab hold off the ledges many times and the attacking feels weird with the strange delay. It seems to be challenging, but I couldn't tell if it was the game itself or the controls that got me.
Overall awesome entry though. Great work.
Suggestions:
- Make the soul sword free to use. Hopping around and using the sword to get that extra boost and dodge obstacles was the most fun for me, and then I figured out that was what was killing me every time. I felt like my options were "make an impossible jump hitting a trap, losing a soul" or "Use the sword to make the jump and lose the soul regardless".
- I'd like to see unlimited wall slide. I think it was a little too short to be all that useful, and I couldn't ever get the hang of using it to get out of that pit near the beginning. I wanted to pull off a cool wall to wall between the traps jump but never could manage.
Bugs:
-Like others have mentioned, there are lines that are showing between tiles sometimes. These are usually caused by the engine tracking positions as floats and trying to sample pixels just outside the tiles. I'm not sure about Unity, but sometimes you can fix it just by setting your zoom level on your camera to something like 1.05.
Nice entry!
positives:
- graphics/art style are awesome
- background music fits perfectly with the mood
- Html version (I like to point it out as well)
negatives:
- the jump mechanic is a bit clonky
- too few souls at the beginning and no cooldown between two hits
I think the difficulty comes from the controls and the camera, not the level design.
Instead of letting the player constantly jump, I suggest you should force the player to release the jump button before the next one. That way the wall jump mechanic would be more friendly.
I keep in mind you only had three days so that's a great game for that time span. Good job.
**Positive stuff :**
- The graphics were really good, i liked the style and overall mood of the game, i felt like it had a mix of shadow of the beast meets soul reaver with a more pixel style ^^
- The music, it fitted the mood of the game for that dark atmosphere
- The little details like the minimalistic UI on top of your head, the soulsword, the walljumping, even the sound effects
**Negative stuff :**
- The wall jumping mechanic, while a great idea, felt a bit clunky, jumping a bit too near a wall has an instant use of the wall jump
- The camera was a bit too zoomed in and didn't help getting a good view of your surroundings
- Some graphical glitches on the web version, i had these sort of lines that popped up ever so slightly
All in all, i'd say that's a solid concept otherwise, it just needs a bit of polish on some aspects, quite a good mood and presentation going on with this one
despite its small issues its a good game, well done dude :)
The game idea is very good and fits the theme really well. I found the first level a bit too difficult and the jumping unforgiving...
Smarter wall jumps & double jumps would have helped. Usage of the sword didn't do it for me - when I collide with an obstacle I loose one life, when I destroy it with the sword I loose one life...that could be improved game mechanics wise.
Overall a very good entry - would love to play an enhanced version later!
I died a lot and suddenly I think if there is an energy supply on my previous die position, the game can be more friendly and easier to play! I think a lot of players are going to need this. :joy:
Started with the original and I just couldn't do it. Danger just out of sight and few lives to pick up along the way. Gave in eventually and moved on to the new version, which I managed to finish quite soon—but the irony was that along the way I actually got a lot better, so I decided to go back to the original and see if I could beat it now, recording my attempts, and I can finally present to you… TEH URN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9aV4t8ZtPg
Mighty proud of m'self! I never did figure out when and why to use the sword tho, so I just never did, haha. Would like some clarity on that. p:
It's challenging! The original version does feel unfairly so, but of course you fixed pretty much every issue in the new version, and it was fun to have a "hard mode" to go back to after mastering that, at least!
The volume of the music was a bit too low compared to the sound effects. At first I didn't even really realise there was any music because I'd turned the volume up to a level where the sound effects were loud enough, and not until I picked up on the faint melody in the background did I turn the volume up more to find the music as well, which is a pity, considering the music was so good! Of course I did use speakers, but I'd balance it out anyway so that the sound effects don't grate too much on the ears with headphones either (the sound effects were good too; just the volume that's the issue).
It's a nice platformer, and the difficulty is of course warranted since jam games are generally really short, so it's pretty much the only way to make the game last for more than a minute. Good job! C:
Pressing X to draw sword and jump a little higher doesn't add any jump height unless you press it at the tip of your jump, which feels kind of wrong. The animation for it seems to play quite late also, I feel like it should play a lot quicker to time in with the arc of that extra jump height. I'm also uncertain when I'm supposed to use the sword-jump because quite often I can wall jump or 'bug' up the platform in a similar way. Usually when wall jumping you as the player are pushed off the wall at a velocity and that means you don't stick to it. This didn't have that and I felt like I was cheating somewhat.
Final thing. The 'losing power' sound when you touch a red thing (and use your sword, technically, but that's less important) sort-of blends into the background music - should be some more visual feedback when that happens.
Sorry if that's super critical. I did enjoy it! Figure it's best to say in case you want to improve or make another platformer in the future. :smile: :thumbsup:
Also I found the wall jumping to work half the time. It seems like the window of checking if you are jumping off a wall is too small.
Overall I think this is a good entry for the jam and I would love to see a more expanded version of this mechanic.
Some parts you can't know if there's something bellow so you have to go down and perhaps lose a life... Feels kinda a 'die once to memorize the map to not die later'
The wall jump seems somewhat off, or maybe I'm bad at it.
The game seems nice tho. The demon has a nice art :D
Maybe set two levels of difficult, in the easiest one setting a 'hit cooldown' so you can take to much damage at once.
Adding a story line would make a nice pos-jam game
But I enjoyed the game a lot, it has a really beautiful art and I also like the music and sound FX.
Really good work, team :)
That said this was pretty difficult. That might have been by design or just a happenstance of limited time when making a platformer. Either way I would say you have all the right pieces together. I would say the difficulty could do with a slow ramping up if you intend the game to be a harder platformer. Along with adding a bit of a leeway between hits when taking damage. Sort of like when characters flash white or transparent in older games. They can't take more damage until the flashing stops.
Otherwise nice work. I like the setting and the graphics. It feels like a good foundation to work from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV0OIfrtqh0
But very nice pixel art!
>One must suffer much,
>to free the lost souls from hell.
>Is the angel doomed?
edit : sorry i just saw that your default link is the post jam version (not really fair, this should be the link labelled as 'other') , i'll play the original and change my feedback accordingly.
Overall, I enjoyed it. It just needs some more improvements! :smile:
This game is really cool, really sick graphics and nice dark background music. The bunny remings me of the overgrowth protagonist :-)
This is really just a platformer so the theme is not met in my opinion, BUT it is a really cool one. It has the double jump and the high difficulty level, really nice.
Overall a solid entry, keep up the good work!