Flame Keeper by codexus
A puzzly adventure thing! It's like a cross between Zelda and the Olympic opening ceremony. You have to keep the flame alive and light the big cauldron!
It's a solo jam entry, I was originally aiming for the compo, but ran out of time and also changed the gameplay quite a bit on the 3rd day as I was not happy with it (and nearly gave up). So in the end it was quite a rush to finish a game!
NOTE: The windows exe version always goes fullscreen because apparently Unity decided to remove the automatic dialog thing that allowed people to change resolution and quality settings. So annoying!
Everything made during the jam:
- Game made with Unity
- Character sculpted in ZBrush, textured in Substance Painter, animated with Akeytsu.
- Other textures made with Substance Designer.
- Additional models with Modo
- Sounds recorded by me, except a few generated with SFXR and the musical jingles which use a VST instrument.
- SKybox procedurally generated in Vue
* UPDATE Version 1.03: *
- Feedback from users showed that the first puzzle could be frustrating when playing in less than ideal conditions (low framerate or trackpad). I'm making it easier so that everybody can enjoy the game.
* UPDATE Version 1.02: *
- 1.01 introduced a nasty bug: sounds were paused when entering the pause menu but not unpaused when choosing to quit to the menu, causing the next playthrough to start with all sounds paused (d'oh!)
* UPDATE Version 1.01: *
(Some quality of life changes for testers, but I keep the original in case you're super strict about this)
- Fixes some tiny graphical glitches (2 missing textures on hard to see polygons, 1 case of z fighting and a rare occlusion culling issue when standing in corners)
- Added a pause menu so that pressing escape in game does not immediately quit to menu
- Windows version now can switch between fullscreen and windowed mode
- You now can set the graphical quality to medium or low if you have performance issues
- Made the game playable with a gamepad by adding control of the camera on right stick (the rest was working by default)
- All options are now remembered when quitting and restarting the game
- Made the first puzzle 12.5% easier
Ratings
| Overall | 1361th | 3.442⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1361th | 3.25⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1519th | 3.135⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1681th | 3.442⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1015th | 3.769⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 1088th | 3.16⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1694th | 2.405⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 982th | 3.5⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 20🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
Thanks for the feedback.
Overall, there are only 2 real criticisms that I have. One is that the players movement animation is out of sync with the movement speed. I believe that could be fixed without altering the animation, but I understand that you most likely ran out of time. Another thing that felt a bit flat was the physics; jump height was too low and the movement felt a bit janky. Otherwise, not too much to complain for a jam game.
The graphics, especially the lighting/lightmapping were done really well. I liked the aesthetics, they fitted the theme of the game quite nicely. You also tied the theme well with the game mechanic, keeping the flame alive by not falling in the water and using it for some pretty neat puzzles such as the cannon in the end (which actually worked pretty well!). Glad you didn't just stick to the basics of lighting torches to open doors for the whole length of the game.
I also appreciate that you put the graphics settings in the main menu; that allowed me to play the game on my laptop in a browser with a reasonably good performance. The z-fighting / camera clipping didn't bother me that much; its understandable for a jam game (hell, even some triple A games suffer from it). A longer gameplay length, better movement and animation syncing would come a long way to take the game to a next level, but overall, pretty LIT game :-)
Anyway, I liked this! Your light puzzle got me thinking (had to get out pen and paper) and your torch-lighting tutorial was just difficult enough to be challenging with the controls/movement as they are now. The movement is a touch sluggish when it comes to the platforming/cannon-pusher-arounder elements, but the level design makes up for it. Pretty satisfying to light that final torch. Thanks for making this!
Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback.
Animation and sound are cool!
It was challenging to play it, and for a pity it is too short( but come one, you created this game alone! It is really mind blowing)
And it would be nice, to jump a little farther)
P.S. character is a bit creepy:D
Thank you for the feedback!
On the web version low settings made the first puzzle much less frustrating to complete, so maybe default to them (don't know how easy that is to do).
Very moody concept. The cannon at the end was a bit challenging, but quite a funny way to finish the game.
