Fountain Of Death by sawtan

You are an Immortal, tired of existance, the food tastes of ashes and the drink of sand. You have heard about the legend of the fountain passed down by the aeons. And as you enter the ancient keep, you can hear the trickle off...
... The Fountain of Death!

Instructions
The Fountain of Death is a platform puzzle game, you have at your disposal some boxes that you can move around and activate trigger plates on the ground in order to open doors and gain access to the next level.
Use Arrow keys for movement, Left/Right for running and pushing and Up for jump.
In case you get stuck and things are harsh, you can enter the previous level and thus when returning the stage will be reset. Or press R to make it happen instantly.
Use arrow keys for movement.
The Team
:japanese_ogre: @khorm - Neferious Puzzlemaster / Wine dude (Level design/Code)
:lifter: @catams - T-Legs McFittnes, Esquire (Sound design/Tramp)
:bird: @bellivit - Birdwhisperer (Graphics)
:beer: @emil-sunesson - Beer-Lord (Code)
:beers: @sawtan - Keg-Slut (Music and Graphics)
The Tools
Graphics: Aseprite
Music: Ableton Live 9
Audio: Audacity
Game Engine: Unity
Level Editor: Notepad
| Youtube | https://github.com/LudumDareOsd/ld47 |
| Youtube | https://ludumdareosd.github.io/ld47/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/fountain-of-death |
Ratings
| Overall | 942th | 3.4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 910th | 3.25⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1395th | 2.711⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1539th | 2.625⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 842th | 3.5⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 182th | 3.917⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 276th | 3.9⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 41🗳️ | 13🗨️ |
I think it would have been fine to increase the puzzle difficulty just a little bit and adjust the jumping a tad - although the latter may be just my playing. Felt like I tended to hit the arrow key always a fraction of a second too soon. It would be nice if there were some sort of visual indication when a pressure plate needs additional weight.
The level intro text appears very slowly. I stopped reading it because I'd already be trying to go for the puzzle. Something like [space bar] to complete the text instantly would've kept me reading as well.
An interact button for levers would have been welcome, as I kept flicking the lever twice after turning back, closing the door again. Character movement speed sent me just past the levels usually, so an interact button would've been welcome.
It was pretty frustrating when I've made the level unbeatable by accidentally pushing a crate just a bit too far - the ability to also pull crates back would've been great. Restarting works as well, sure, but with failing jumps and such it added frustration.
Speaking of said missed jumps, the jumping sometimes seemed unresponsive, or maybe a little laggy. It's a common mechanism in platformers to have a brief grace moment after getting off a platform where you can still jump, and that would've been very welcome here, as I think it registered my jump just beyond the edge and I was already falling down then.
In the end I didn't finish the game as I just kept missing jumps, but I did feel bad about not pushing through. After a series of missing the jump, pressing R, missing the jump, pressing R, missing the jump, pressing R, I just couldn't bring myself to continue.
And finally a pet peeve of mine, the art seemed to have been scaled up by 1.5 or something, distorting the sprites. I really liked the character sprite but I feel like I didn't get to truly see it as it was designed. The brick environment art also shows this, sometimes having 1 and sometimes 2 pixels in between each row. Always scale pixelart by whole numbers like x2, x3 etc, or the art will be distorted.
Props for a solid concept, but those elements I mentioned put together kept me from finishing.
The puzzles are fun to figure out, but are spoiled by the platforming. I didn't finish the game on the first try, because I got tired of falling off the edges of the platforms, when it felt like I was supposed to make the jump, or the character would hit the block above it and not being able to finish the jump. The platforming rather than being challenging gets annoying in some parts. I did return to the game later and finish it though. The story was interesting, and well done.
The audio was great - I loved the music, and it added a lot to the mood. Adding a few tweaks in other aspects would make this game a 4-5* mood candidate, with this soundtrack.
Don't take the negatives in my review the wrong way. The game is still fun to play, and I loved it so much I was actually able to feel dissapointment with certain aspects - didn't happen with any other game this LD, and I played around hundred of them so far. I would definitely play a post-jam version. Nicely done.
Anyway, I'm only complaining because it's such a captivating game. The concept of searching for the fountain of death is great, and
!> the way you incorporated the theme
really caught me off guard in a memorable way. The art and music is very nice and suitable.
!> I have to know if there is some way to escape the loop? I went round a second time and still couldn't find anything...! But the timer is still going, so....?
The texts also turned out really small on my display, but it wasn't really that big of a deal.
I would've also appreciated a visual hint of some sort for switches that require two boxes. If there was one, it was too subtle for me :smile: Caused a lot of level restarts.
The music is great, reminds me a little bit of the mood created by the Mansions of Madness app, not a "begging for attention" detailed tune, but just a really good atmospheric buzz :smile: The sounds fit the general atmosphere too.
Cheers! I'm happier to have played this!