LudumData

Until Sunrise by Jishin

[raw]
made by Jishin for Ludum Dare 46 (JAM)

Story

You are stranded in the woods, armed with a lantern that can harness the power of fire and your trustworthy axe.

Your campfire is your only lifeline to survive the night.

Will you make it throughout the darkness? Will you maintain your fire alive?

Keep it alive Until Sunrise!

Gameplay

until_sunrise320x167.gif

Cut down trees and use wood logs to keep your campfire alive.

Upgrade your powers at your campfire, but they come with a cost!

Be careful though, there are things out there…

Things that feed on fire!

Plan carefully!

The team

Andrea Montagno Cappuccinello and Federica Audrey Rossi

Our Ludum Dare experience

This is our first Ludum Dare and we tried adding as much as we could, in what we found out being a very short amount of time.

Obviously not everything we wanted is in the game.

Hope you will still enjoy it as much as we had fun (and stress :laughing: ) creating it!

We will soon add a downloadable version as well, time to figure out itch.io :laughing:

Changelog up to version 1.5.1 (Last Ludum Dare entry)

  • Added support for ultra wide screen
  • Corrected some glitches related to wood spawns
  • Corrected some problems with monsters' movement speed not scaling correctly over time
  • Balanced time to win, following player's requests. From 30m to 20m
  • Added some visual effects for clarity when fire's health is low
  • Increased bar's length to properly display increase of health with the right upgrade
  • Balanced upgrades adding a monster counter before unlocking (feeling of progression)
  • Added some effects when getting closer to the end of the game
  • Added scaling over health for the campfire's flame dimension
  • Fixed some issues with players getting outside of the outer ring or stuck inside border rocks
  • Fixed some issues with sound not being played correctly in certain instances
  • Slightly balanced wood quantity and overall calculations to reach the endgame properly
  • Improved performances over renderering, when alpha blending was causing frame drops around the campfire area (Changed monsters attack animation in order to avoid framerate drops)
  • Slightly added more linear drag to improve control of the main character

Controls:

  • Mouse to navigate menus
  • WASD, Arrow Keys or Joypad to move your character
  • Attack :
    • Left Mouse button
    • Joypad (A or Square)
    • Z or J
  • Upgrade at the Campfire :
    • Right Mouse button
    • Joypad (B or X)
    • X or K
Youtube https://deepintheabyss.com/untilsunrise
Youtube https://jishin.itch.io/until-sunrise
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/until-sunrise

Ratings

Overall 639th 3.743⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Fun 700th 3.581⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1633th 3.081⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Theme 573th 3.973⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 203th 4.378⭐ 39🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1610th 2.484⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Mood 197th 4.069⭐ 38🧑‍⚖️
Given 41🗳️ 40🗨️

Feedback

🎤 Jishin
18. Apr 2020 · 23:05 UTC
End of day 1.
Random generation of terrain, lighting and menus are ready.

Player control is 80% done, we're missing attacks.

Ingame UI is basically missing, will be added tomorrow alongside with monsters :)

![keep-it-alive1.PNG](///raw/cdb/c1/z/2b115.png)
manadream
22. Apr 2020 · 04:24 UTC
Nice looking game graphically. Not totally sure what the end goal is, some more narrative or dialogue would help.
🎤 Jishin
22. Apr 2020 · 08:06 UTC
Thanks, I didn't have time to put a narrative before the 72 hours deadline, I will definitely add something now, to give a bit of context and objective. For now the purpose is to survive, managing your fire, until daylight arrives (countdown timer on the top of the screen).
🎤 Jishin
22. Apr 2020 · 13:52 UTC
Done a few bug fixes and added some introduction text at the very beginning.
I've improved performance a bit as well, hopefully it will be a smoother run.
Restart is now working properly too, so enjoy replaying without having to reload your window :)
WilliamCarter
23. Apr 2020 · 00:14 UTC
Dude, this is an awesome game! The pixel art, 2D lighting, and music are great, and the gameplay loop is a lot of fun. As far as constructive criticism, I'd say maybe add more specificity as to what each upgrade does for the player, as well as making thew attack hitbox bigger (the controls can get a bit fiddly currently). Otherwise, I really loved this game, and give you props for making such a polished game in so short a time.
🎤 Jishin
23. Apr 2020 · 03:35 UTC
Thanks @williamcarter !!! Really happy you loved it! We really put a lot of effort in a short amount of time. And a bit of insomnia, mixed with lots of coffee.
Will take your suggestions into consideration!
I just uploaded a new version that should have some little additional quality of life improvement and slightly better performance over WebGL.
toxicon
23. Apr 2020 · 09:38 UTC
I like the idea very much. the overall mood, music and art styl fits together.
Chiara Sanviti
23. Apr 2020 · 09:43 UTC
So good the graphic
GoldenEvolution
23. Apr 2020 · 09:46 UTC
Initial impression is that the game looks nice and plays nice, I understand that I have to chop trees and fuel/upgrade the fire. After 5 minutes I got all the upgrades and there's 25 minutes left of fueling the fire and defeating enemies, so the pacing feels kinda off.
MorandiGame
23. Apr 2020 · 09:47 UTC
Super intriguing!! I spent quite a long time playing it. I like the art style, SFX and "fire spitting" VFX. Great entry. I wonder how you achieved the VFX where there are shadows coming from the sky when getting close to the rocks. Also, love to know what you think of my entry~ Keep it up!
Emperor Eagle
23. Apr 2020 · 09:56 UTC
I like the shadows and how you can use the fire's health to upgrade (rather than resources). I had fun playing it and found the graphics and audio really nice (and liked their combination to create a great mood)!
🎤 Jishin
23. Apr 2020 · 09:58 UTC
Thank you all!

@goldenevolution appreciate the feedback! I believe that getting all those upgrades earlier on will likely cause an early defeat. I've tried to keep the pacing in a way that a player would try different upgrading strategies to overcome the bigger waves coming at a later time. Please let me know if, after trying a bit, you still feel that way and I will see what to balance :smiley:
polegar
23. Apr 2020 · 13:10 UTC
Great entry ! Music and graphsm are amazings. The game is nice to play, controls feels good and the concept is cool.
The only thing that bothered me was the fact that there is not enough upgrade to justify the 30 min timer. Maybe some cool but expensive upgrades like an AOE for killing enemies or a spell to make an enemy healing the fire instead of killing it would have create a desire to play longer in order to have a really powerful character.
Anyway great job !
SlimBun
23. Apr 2020 · 22:24 UTC
Very cool game. Me and my team had a similar idea, but we did it different. The art is simple but cute.
housecat
23. Apr 2020 · 22:28 UTC
The pixel art is gorgeous! Great lighting/shadows also. The gameplay was a bit confusing at first but I eventually got what I was supposed to do.
colan
23. Apr 2020 · 22:33 UTC
Really great game! good loking art and moviments.. Good job man
dob
23. Apr 2020 · 22:39 UTC
Great graphics, lighting, sound, and music - such an atmospheric masterpiece. It was a lot of fun to run around and chop. I found the chopping interface a little hard, especially when attacking the bad guys - often my clicks wouldn't work. Sometimes with the trees, too. I got all the upgrades purchased and my fire back to healthy with about 20 minutes left, and I didn't see the point of waiting around until the end. Maybe it should be a shorter game? Or maybe I missed something else that was going to happen, but I waited for a while. Very impressive entry - thanks, and good work.
acgaudette
23. Apr 2020 · 22:42 UTC
solid pixel art and lighting! the core gameplay loop of grinding for upgrades to something you are feeding has promise, and you executed on this for sure. the pacing struggles the most here--way too slow compared to the immediacy of the controls. the movement feels pretty floaty, and combat seems to reduce to spamming Z as quickly as you can--some tradeoffs here would be nice. I really like the upgrade system! the level cap on the upgrades is unfortunate though, I think leaving that open would have made the gameplay more flexible to different play strategies. but that's a simple fix.
Dannyk1994
23. Apr 2020 · 22:44 UTC
Great game , love the artwork. Perfectly balanced and overall well rounded game. Very good work :)
nightcrawler9001
23. Apr 2020 · 22:45 UTC
just amazing. only thing I can really say is the timer felt a little long but over all the game just had a spectacular atmosphere and weirdly nostaligic music that reminded me of the wonder of being a kid. just amazing
TechnoGoth
23. Apr 2020 · 22:49 UTC
I liked the art and music. It felt like very leisurely paced game. It just felt too long there didn't seem to be anything to do after the first 5 minutes.
zacharyhunt90
23. Apr 2020 · 23:00 UTC
I really enjoyed this. The atmosphere combined with the music created a nice ambience going away from the fire to find more wood felt like a risk. A couple issues I ran into though: Sometimes when cutting down a tree, some of the wood pieces are unreachable. Also, with about 8 minutes left till daytime, I accidentally walked past the rock border and couldn't get back in. Otherwise, fun game, and I could see this going even further!![Screen Shot 2020-04-23 at 6.55.32 PM.png](///raw/61a/a2/z/32e4f.png)
OndraSej
24. Apr 2020 · 21:46 UTC
Nice game, it reminded me a bit of Don't Starve. I liked the visuals and the audio. I think the game could use more tuning and visual feedback as to how the fire is doing.
🎤 Jishin
25. Apr 2020 · 03:59 UTC
Thanks everyone! I've heard you out and upgraded the game according to your feedback!
Please see the changelog for a list of things done since the beginning of Ludum Dare. :heart:

EDIT: For some reason the fire sprite is not emitting anymore, not sure why this happens only over WebGL. I'll fix that tomorrow

EDIT2: Fixed and uploaded, now the sprite renders correctly without problems :smile:
Duke
27. Apr 2020 · 09:07 UTC
Very well done! The graphics are gorgeous and the details on the animations are very impressive. The lighting and shadow effects add a lot to the mood, as well as the soothing soundtrack. The core game play is a bit slow and lacks some variation. Having an upgrade system helps, but If found, that the last two upgrades are kinda pointless if you just stay at the fire after the first two upgrades and defend it from the sprits until the timer runs out. Which brings me to the last point: It takes too long to reach the winning state. The game does not have enough content to keep the player invested that long. At least that's what I felt. After having all upgrades, the timer still was at 12 minutes or so. That's way too long. i think there's room for some re balancing there. OR you add more game play mechanics to keep the player on their toes. Aside from that, this entry is great! Really enjoyed it. Keep up the work!
Alexascher
27. Apr 2020 · 17:31 UTC
One of the best games I've played. Good job. The only bad thing is that there was no indication on how much an upgrade will cost. I've lost almost immediately after purchasing the last upgrade. It was sad, because only 2 minutes were left till dusk. (
🎤 Jishin
27. Apr 2020 · 17:54 UTC
Thanks to you both!

@duke did you try the 20 minutes version or the 30 minutes?

Anyhow, we will definitely rebalance after Ludum, adding more content and possibly more updates following it.

Thanks again for trying it and appreciating what we created! :heart:

@alexascher thanks! We decided not to make it too easy so that players would experience a bit, and maybe lose, before finding their right pacing and playstiles. It is quite true that the last update got a bit more pointless after reducing the time.

We'll definitely look into that.

Thank you so much for trying it!
kfischer-okarin
28. Apr 2020 · 04:29 UTC
This was really fun, though eventually I lost because the wood on the map ran out.... (I think?) and too many ghosts came at once to kill the fire....
It would be nice if there was something like an indicator how much time you still have to play to win (like a progress bar from night to day or so?)

Graphics and sound were really good and the gameplay fun! Good job!
🎤 Jishin
28. Apr 2020 · 09:45 UTC
@kfischer-okarin the timer is at the top of the screen with a bar that moves slowly from night to day.

Could it be that your browser decided to cut off the top of the screen? Could you please try in full screen and verify if that works?

Thanks for you review!
dankar
28. Apr 2020 · 18:23 UTC
Cool game and nice graphics and music! I felt it was a bit hard to hit the spirits though, and the movement felt a bit floaty. But otherwise good job!
Madbarron
28. Apr 2020 · 22:37 UTC
Hello, fellow fire-keeper! The game looks good and I will play it later. I just saw your news update and had to say, how can the timer at the top of the screen not read "mm:ss Until Sunrise"??? XD
johnnysix
28. Apr 2020 · 23:14 UTC
Wow, this should have way more views /comments. Love the art, and the spirit guys that come huff the flames out were spooky.

It maybe my old PC, but it felt difficult getting around, and grabbing the wood. I'd do a loop around a log a few times before I picked it up.

While it's not realistic, maybe a little magnetism to get those logs into the inventory quicker would be more fun.

I did the same interpretation of the theme, but side scrolling. I like how you did your shadows with the ray-trace.
ldd
29. Apr 2020 · 00:10 UTC
What is the name of the song that you use? It's really cool.

I love the art direction and effects. Perhaps starting with a little bit more carrying capacity wouldn't hurt. BUT besides that, probably the most atmospheric and relaxing campfire-related game I've played.

Awesome stuff!
Skyeward
29. Apr 2020 · 01:33 UTC
This is one of the best looking LD46 games I've played so far!

So many lovely touches like an animated timer, dynamic lighting with normal mapping, fantastic animations on the tree felling, and more. Beefing this core up with some more content would make for a fantastic game. Right now it's a little light on enemy types and upgrades, but what's there is all good. Great game, thanks for submitting!
Lexyvil
29. Apr 2020 · 03:18 UTC
Really love the visuals in this! Playing from the web, I found this bug I think where the words don't appear:
![words.jpg](///raw/b69/a1/z/3387f.jpg)

Maybe it's because I played in full screen and back to normal screen?
kfischer-okarin
29. Apr 2020 · 06:13 UTC
@jishin Oh yes my bad... I didn't play in full screen. In full screen it properly appeared! Thanks for your answer!
🎤 Jishin
29. Apr 2020 · 08:43 UTC
Firstly, thank you all!!! Your feedback is amazing and really helpful!

Upcoming in a new version today:
- Tentative bugfixing for the upgrades menu not showing any text
- Improved controls over the main character
- Auto attacking on button held
- Improved hitbox for monsters

@ldd the music is part of a bundle called "[Ultimate Game Music Collection](https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/audio/music/orchestral/ultimate-game-music-collection-37351)" that I bought a while ago from an humble bundle :stuck_out_tongue:

We couldn't find a sound expert in time and I had to optimise with what I had. Happy you liked it, I listened very quickly to dozens in a very small amount of time before deciding :laughing:

@skyeward thanks again for your live stream and for your kind words! We are definitely going to add more variety once LD ends!

@lexyvil thanks for reporting this! I saw it yesterday when @skyeward was streaming the game, I believe it's something related to how WebGL manages that canvas. I'm already looking into it, unfortunately, for whatever reason, I can't reproduce it locally.

I am going to try and add some visibility checks and debugging, which I will release in a new version today. Thanks for reporting it!

@kfischer-okarin thanks for testing! Possibly, the version playable through itch.io has a better template that handles top margins over the HTML page. I'm going to set that one as the main browser playable version.
Madbarron
30. Apr 2020 · 02:49 UTC
Great presentation and a pretty cool concept. For a jam, I would probably make the game 10 minutes max. I didn't understand how the upgrades worked until 5 minutes in when I sold my whole fire. I thought that buying an upgrade was an alternate way to spend logs, due to the label text. Personally, I would make the attack speed 2-3 times faster so the game feels more responsive. But those are relatively minor style differences. You should be proud of making such a solid game :)
cirno
01. May 2020 · 04:48 UTC
The atmosphere of this game is great! All the pixel arts and lighting effects are good looking. Like other players I found the last two upgrades are too costly and some more types of upgrade may make this game more fun. Also keeping the campfire alive is fit the theme very well. Nice game!
exilegl
02. May 2020 · 17:04 UTC
I like the nice instruction flow. The music is really sweet. Also, small thing but the fact that you can use the same button both to open and close a dialog (like the upgrade screen) is a nice little UX touch. Perhaps a tooltip when you go near your first tree would be nice - a little indicator that you can press Z to chop it in case it isn't clear. Same for enemies. The shop system using fire rather than directly requiring wood or coins is cool.
Maybe the ability to plant more trees (so you can have them nearby after the default near trees are cut) would be cool - could use saplings dropped from trees and placed with C or dragged & dropped from a little inventory/hud. These saplings would take time to grow of course, so there would still be benefit in exploring. Could also add a little arrow that points toward the fire once it's off screen, so you can very easily run back to it once getting some wood.

Absolutely love this - it's very well put together :) Definitely expand on it if you've got the time.