The Serpent of Scorhill by Jofish
Premise
An ambitious twist on a classic game, Snake.
I wrote all this flowery flavour text about how you control a spiritual being who is attracting the rune stones from within the Earth towards themselves and they can form spiritual bonds by looping the stones around, but honestly it's all just a little overblown. I was going to have some additional animations to convey this more clearly, but couldn't get them working in time.
Controls:
- Arrow keys or WASD to move
- Q to restart
- Esc to quit
- F1 to save a screenshot (It will be saved to appdata/local/the serpent of scorhill)
- Alt+Enter to toggle fullscreen mode
Some self reflection:
I'm pleased with the work I did on this, particularly the visuals, but I managed my time poorly and there are one or two things I never got to finish.
The main thing to note is that the concept was originally going to be a puzzle game about creating specific shapes with the loops, but because I chose to invest so much time in art and animation (much of which I had to scrap anyway because it didn't work), I no longer had time to make a level editor or any of the other infrastructure that the puzzle game concept required. I think this problem is particularly apparent in how unsatisfying the percentage meter can be - I thought it might be broken for a long time, but I think psychologically it's difficult to properly estimate how much of the game space has actually been filled in and the effort required is so great compared to the actual progress that you're making, that you're realistically not going to reach much more than 50%, especially on the larger levels at higher speeds.
If I ever rebuild the game, the puzzle game concept will definitely be the priotiry. I feel that this would better emphasize the core mechanic of the game, which I believe to be a strong one despite the poor presentation here.
Notable miscellaneous problems:
- No highscore (a problem shared by my LD46 game, Protect the Sandworm)
- Dodgy sprite layering
- The game possisbly crashes if you somehow win (but if you manage it then frankly well done)
- The concept is poorly communicated
- The writing is rushed and wonky
- General UI ugliness
Still though, I've learned a lot from this one and I'm excited for what the future holds.
| Youtube | https://msjofish.itch.io/the-serpent-of-scorhill |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/the-serpent-of-scorhill |
Ratings
| Overall | 1003th | 3.365⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 863th | 3.288⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1207th | 2.942⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1170th | 3.231⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1112th | 3.212⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 621th | 2.935⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 972th | 3.229⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
The game looks a bit rough but charming, and the haunted stone actually looks pretty damn good. I think you did a good job despite the time management issues you mentioned, especially for a solo game :smile:
And thats a unique take on the snake-genre, as you said some things might maybe need some fixing here and there but that's gamejams you know! and once more, huge props on writing after thoughts down <3
Certainly a cool spin on Snake.
I liked the flavor text stuff!
My main gripe is the graphics for the segments that make up the "Snake" body.
Them being taller than one grid tile makes it kind of hard to line things up correctly, especially when things get crowded and hectic. Less is probably more for this kind of gameplay.
Still, I enjoyed my time with this!
Overall I had fun. Good Job.
I indeed crashed the game on "Small" + "Thoughtful" and running around till there is one square left (without making loops).
I wonder were you wanted to go with the puzzles, so let me know if you develop it further. Well done! :)