u died by arcayn
u died is a conceptual genre-mixing game which aims to 'keep alive' two genres close to my heart which don't have much representation these days - text-based adventure games and pure platformers. I hoped to encapsulate the energy of the very first days of game development and really make the player feel like they had stumbled on something ancient. The game you see here is a minimal, immersion-focused, text adventure and the combat system, one of the few things I always find lacking in this genre, is very simplistically replaced with platformer levels - you fail in the level: you lose health. You beat the level: you beat the enemy. These levels are stripped-back, removing all gimmicks and focusing on the core component of moving through a level which is out to get you not through whats in it, but by its layout itself!
Play (kind of) as yourself, someone venturing into long-forgotten games and finding something new! Interact with the game world and talk to your new friend
In terms of fitting the theme, I'm mostly looking at it from an abstract position: the act of making the game is "keeping it alive". However, much of the game is focused on protecting someone else whilst you have little option to do anything else, and the questions that raises (at least I hope this is communicated properly). The minimal storyline I do have right now does conclude with something that takes the theme a little further but I'll leave that as a surprise ;)
I'd love in the future to see more interactivity, more dialogue, more rooms, more platformer levels, more objects and most importantly properly flesh out characters and important game events.
The only asset I didn't make myself was the amazing font. Credit to sensi.org for this.
WARNING: the intention is for this to be dark, and without giving too much away, some of the descriptions can me quite graphic so please do make sure to keep this in mind.
| Youtube | http://kaeos.net/udied/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/u-died |
Ratings
| Overall | 576th | 3.771⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 970th | 3.44⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 371th | 3.75⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 2218th | 3⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1226th | 3.63⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1377th | 2.705⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 366th | 3.885⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
(btw: to get more ratings you need to vote others entries to be listed higher and get the required 20 or so votes for a result - it was very hard to find your entry in the zero votes section. :wink:)
i had to reverse engineer some portions. couldn't figure out how to go straight ahead into the "treasure room" or how i get to the state so i can attack the shadow. but it was easy enough to figure out in source code.
I thought the switch from text to platformer was really neat, I've never seen that before.
I like the graphics and text animations.
Did you know you can use creative commons copyright music in Jam tho?
As a programmer I really liked that the console remembered my last typings and I could use them to type the same thing.
It's nice that I have 50 attempts when attacking the troll :smile: Controlling the square was kinda hard, but I guess that was the idea (I'm attacking the troll, right? so...)
And, I'm not good at this :v: I killed the troll on my 28th attempt, and later found some items. But I don't really know how to win! I've seen the cheat command, but I want to win normally. Maybe you could help, please?
Such a nice done game. Very polished. I enjoyed this experience.
- The text-based adventure is captivating, I really really loved the art of the terminal (this is somethind I tried to do on one of my previous games but you nailed it) and I didn't get stuck searching what to input
- The platformer is challenging (I died 20 times on the first one, if only I had my controller with me, damn you lockdown!)
Overall your game is good, you want to keep working on it? **Please do!**
Fun fact: I closed my shutters just before playing this game, I'd recommend anyone playing it to do so
@sandra-jasionowska I completely forgot about the audio until an hour before the deadline and couldn't wrangle with the HTML API properly to get the mood music I would have liked :((
In terms of winning (spoilers!): take the items and leave the room with the chest and go back to the landing, then go left. Once you're in there, talk for a while. Once you get a response I hope the rest of the path to the end is clear :smile: (it involves another fight...)
but it's a great game!
I liked the text effect, I thought it added to the atmosphere.
I've done some testing on edge and I think it could be it... I'd only tested on firefox and chrome!
I've disabled controller input for now again, it should work :)