Last Light

Nice one! Something to make it more fun would be a reason to keep the light on for longer. Right now I only need to turn it on to jump which I can do very quickly. Also checkpoints please haha :)))

I love the art style. Very nice use of colors.

Cool art, nice lighting. Was a bit hard and couldn't get passed a certain point.

Nice lighting and concept! Found it hard to work out balancing the need to jump and hide the light. Super hard bit early on when monsters come at you from the front. Maybe zoom the camera out a bit so you can see more and have time to react? Would love to see more of the world in one shot & seeing the light bouncing around

@lexi89 Thanks for the feedback, we really appreciate it. We actually wanted to provide a full story to the game spanning 3 levels and some camera work for the world, but didn't have enough time. :(

I like it! Colors and the game and lighting is very attractive! The sneaking in the dark is fun, however I found battery depleting while light is off contra-intuitive, but I've learned fast. Like Lexi89 I also found the part with monsters coming from both sides very hard - is there more or is this all for now? I like the idea of the texts as a tutorials, but it were also kind of spoilers for me. All and all, I believe this is an amazing first attempt! Hats off!

Best,
Anna from 4boa team

I liked the concept itlsef and the music and presentation was nice as well, but I had some problems with the gameplay mechanics and how the felt. The controls were very floaty and the enemies very overpowering. There semeed to have unlimited acceleration and were very fast very quickly. Once hit, I wasn't able to get away anymore, if there were two of them, even when turning off the lights. They drain your three health almost instantly.

I couldn't even finish the first level and after three attempts and merciless deaths at the "watch out" part, I gave up. To jump over them, you have to turn on the lights, which makes them very aggressive and unrelentless. Even turning the light off after jumping over one, the others will still hit me and I will get stuck between them.

I think the core gampley needs some rebalancing. The core concept was good though. Maybe you can work on a post jam version to fix some of the issues?

Hey, Anna (@morriekken)! Thank you very much for the comment! The *depleting battery* while hidden actually has its explanation in the original storyline. We were also thinking of having voice overs for the tutorials and also to add to the story of the game. There were a lot more planned for this: more enemy types, more levels, etc. We soon found out we wouldn't be able to do all that within the deadline :sweat_smile:. I guess this is all for our submission but we're still thinking if we can take it further outside of Ludum Dare.

@duke Thanks for trying out our game and the insights! We'll consider being more forgiving to the players in the future as it is very challenging based from all the feedback. The specifity on what to tweak is much appreciated.

This is awesome!, Love the feel even though at some points it feels clunky. Music and art really set the tone and i love the take on the theme.
Suggestions:
- Maybe add some obstacles more than the one enemy

That multidirectional rush of monsters in the beginning there was killer, and there didn't seem to be a logical way to get past them short of furiously jumping down and hoping to get propelled out of the way through sheer luck. I didn't have time to keep going over it (the one time I did manage to get past them I promptly fell off a cliff XD). But overall the mood and graphics were really stellar. Nicely done.

OK, now this is my favorite game so far. It is beautiful and the whole mood is really good. I like the mechanics, that you can use your skills only when having lights on and also you need the light to survive, but also the light is dangerous.
The only critic I have is the difficulty, I tried 5 times and didn't come that far, which is a bit frustrating. Still, really nice game and I think there is a lot more potential in this.

interesting idea. Maybe it would be even more fun if the "leaving your light on at the wrong times" mechanic was more forgiving. :)

Nice Game! I really liked the atmosphere ! The concept was great!

@streetgeek Agreed! We were planning to have a lot of different enemies like a lumbering mindless giant and stationary tower types. If ever we do a post-game-jam version we'll include them!

Very nice game. Great theme that goes well with the art style.

My suggestion would be to work on sound effects, especially in terms of giving some ques about nearby enemies and such.

Thanks @leeloo for the high praise! It means a lot to us. We'll definitely try adjusting the difficulty which seems to be glaring problem for now if the rules allow.

I liked the idea of having a light and monsters attracted to it, but holy moly the speed of those monsters!!! Also I've hit a bug(I guess?) where even if the light is off every monsters of the level was rushing into me :D

The mood is great :)

Nice game ! Love the graphics and the light mechanics. When the ennemies come from all around you at the begining it pretty hard to guess what is happening and might be a bit frustrating. Overall really good idea :)

@sinamon Yes, definitely! The game doesn't have sound effects yet. We thought of barking sounds or rustling to alert the player instead of a big "WATCH OUT".

interesting tho

Enjoyed the concept. Traditionally you'd expect the light to repel enemies or drain your meter while on, so this was a nice subversion of that

I had some troubles with the enemies still chasing after me when the light was off, but when it was working it was an interesting experience

Thanks for all the comments! We'll be sure to take them to heart. Sorry about that bug @caladrius @toffanim! I thought we covered that bug already. If you can tell us when it happens, we'd love to be able to fix it; we'll try reproducing that bug on our end, as well.

Cool idea! I had some problems with the controls because I'm so used to space being jump and here its quite the opposite. I think the level desing could be more interesting and its difficult just because you can only see that small distance. Might have been more interesting that light give you further to see. Other than that it is really nice.

@demkimos It was happening to me on the second group of enemies, and if I had to guess, I think it has something to do with rapidly turning my light on and off as I'd done that a little bit on the way there each time it happened

Hope that helps!

@demkimos same as @caladrius, it s especially noticable on the second group of ennemies and right after switching on and off the light :) Good luck with the debugging!

Nice game! I really liked the aesthetics and the concept.

I realized I forgot to comment and rate. Love the eerie environment. The monsters creep me out in a good way! I feel the game still needs some improvement but overall great game!

Good job! Graphics are awesome!

@caladrius @toffanim Oh, I see! Thanks for the replies. Rapid switching won't work on the monsters effectively and I believe they'll just build up their speed. A big part of the enemy movement is their incredible max speed and the velocity they retain after switching off. I think this may be less a programming error but a progression mistake. It's our fault that we didn't really give the players time to get accustomed to the kinks of the light before throwing them in (the section we fondly call) "the field". In any case, we'll work on those things and hopefully we can iron it all out in the post-jam.

Great job, the colours are really nice and a lot of the 2D art has a cool painterly feel to it I really like. :) x

Good game with a nice aesthetic, felt that the player's movement was a bit floaty. Nice entry!

I really liked the light mechanic in this! The fact hiding your light prevents you from jumping was a really nice feature, and the health bar for hiding light made it really tense in moments where I wanted to keep it hidden but couldn't! Good job, I really like!

This is a cool idea! I like the art and ambience too. I found it pretty much impossible to move while hiding the light, I know you're not supposed to be able to jump, but I couldn't get away from the monsters when I was hiding. A good game nonetheless!

This is a cool idea! I like the art and ambience too. I found it pretty much impossible to move while hiding the light, I know you're not supposed to be able to jump, but I couldn't get away from the monsters when I was hiding. A good game nonetheless!

i like the game , there is much potential

Love the idea! Music and art are great, the game is indeed a bit challenging but i see a lot of potential! Great job!

About the third time I facerammed an eyeball worm thing I realized why the controls felt so awkward. My character was always in the last third of the screen, leaving me virtually blind and unable to plan for upcoming obstacles. Art was good and the aesthetic was suitably creepy, but it wasn't a lot of fun to play when you can't see jumps or enemies coming.

Hey @hacktrout thanks for the kind words! Would you mind telling us what made it floaty? We want to be able to fix as many things as possible

@timeloopedpowergamer Got it! Thanks for the insight. Definitely adding and changing the camerawork for this. I just recently found good camera tutorials after the jam

@timeloopedpowergamer Got it! Thanks for the insight. Definitely adding and changing the camerawork for this. I just recently found good camera tutorials after the jam

@lykawolfie Sure, it was a bit vague of me. By floaty I meant that the time between releasing the button (left or right) and the player coming to a complete stop was long. Typically for platformers, you want snappy movement. There can be a bit of accerlation and deceleration but it normally takes less than a second or two to completely stop.

Just played the game, I like the controls, smooth enough and balanced, but I saw a jittery motion on the character at its max speed. It can be due to the camera position update not placed in `FixedUpdate()` or maybe due to the character position update directly to the `transform.position` without rigidbody. I had the former issue in my game :sweat_smile:
It's a really nice concept, although I wasnt able to get past the 4 monsters ramming from both sides. I would like to play the post jam version!
And also, I was getting stuck when attacked by the monsters I'm not very sure of it

Hello! Your game was played during my stream!

If you want to know the timestamp of when your game was played you can see it in this spreadsheet:
https://tinyurl.com/yau8hjzn

And then look in my latest videos and find your game being play (after the current stream ends)
https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos

I like the concept of hiding the light from enemies, the controls are easy and the graphics is quite unique. Very cool game for me! :smile:

Thanks @joamd we'll look into that. We'll leave a comment on this thread and on the entry when we have a post-jam version out. But I think that'll be in a month or a few weeks.

Hi @ursagames! Thank you so much for trying out the game and all your patience. We got a lot of insights from watching your stream that gave us a better picture of what should be improved on (one of which is the difficulty that many other people commented about). I think we'll need to do beta testing next time around. It's not meant to be that difficult but it should at least keep you on your toes all the time. Looks like the game is in store for a huge overhaul.

some of the artwork is really nice. I like the text on screen but the font doesn't match the style. some of the animations feel a bit awkward and the lack of sound fx make the movements feel a bit empty. It's difficult to anticipate the fast enemies when you can't see them coming. i think a post jam version of this would be awesome, as you have a nice style and mood going on. would be great to see more.

finally got to try this game, it's been in my bookmarks for a while.
What a nice game! Kind of reminds me of an online one I played years ago called Wink or something.
I really liked how you've put the tutorial and the music was nice.
The idea of the lamp and it's pros and cons was really interesting!
However, I found it a bit too hard and unforgiving, after 5 or 6 tries I was too frustrated to try again to be honest. I feel like the punishment for having the lamp switched off is too harsh, plus the enemies are too OP, I feel like after you've crossed some you should be "safe" of sorts. or balance this any other way. I know there's never enough time for this kind of stuff at gamejams, but I think if you balance this a bit more this can become a really great little stealth puzzle game :) maybe have the light drain your energy slower while enemies are around, or what about if it actually slowly recharges when you're around enemies and have it turned on! (the recharge must of course then be slower then what they take from you if they hit you, otherwise it's basically godmode)
but like that you'd give the player a cool reward for being able to be around the monsters and evade them to not be hit: that their energy gets reloaded :)

all in all, good job you two!

Thanks for pointing those out @jamesolivermusic! All of those are actually in our to-do-list for the future. We're glad that you're anticipating a post jam version as are we! We'll try to update you all on the next release :smile:

@fatpenguin We're sooo flattered by your comment, and thank you for taking the time to test and write down all your thoughts!

We do agree that it is waaaay harder than intended and has led to frustration for many, sorry about that :( We're planning out numerous balancing issues like turning off the hitbox on invincibility frames and screen adjustments. For the lamp, there's actually a reasoning for its nature important to the plot (not included in the game yet!) but your ideas are also interesting to work on.

lykawolfie no worries :) yeah I know the drill. Gamejams and balancing, ain*t nobody got time for that haha.
If you're lucky you start with the actual level design and gameplay on the last day because before that its only adding features and assets xD tell me about it haha.. that's why it's awesome of you conitnue to work on your game though :D best of luck! <3

Nice game, i just liked to see a bit larger around me or some feedbacks about monsters. Good work

cool graphics and theme

Great graphics and adherence to the theme. The presentation was spot on, and I liked the concept of the game. Stealth games are tough, but I have a few ideas of small tweaks you can make that I think would really improve things.

1) Make the camera move ahead of the player a bit so they can see what's coming. Or maybe even zoom out a bit.
2) Don't make the enemies start chasing the player so quickly, maybe add a warning to the player that they've been seen so they can quickly turn off the light.
3) There were a few collision issues there I'd stop being able to move forward, and I'd have to jump over a tile or something to keep going. Sometime's unity's boxcolliders can be a bit finicky when tiled which I'm assuming was the issue.

Overall though I think with those few improvements, and maybe another couple enemy types, this would be a fantastic game. You already nailed the audio visual experience, so congrats!

Nice style and I think it fit the theme really well!

All in all a solid entry, but it would have been nice to have the camera zoomed out slightly to have more time to react to enemies, holes etc. I felt that I had to sort of die once to learn of an obstacle and then restart and try it again, but because you don't have checkpoints, that means all the way from the beginning.

Really cool game! I enjoyed playing it! The mechanic of reduced movement, and no jumping while hiding the light, all while reducing the light's bar at a faster rate, was cool! Your music was fitting and of high quality! The game felt smooth although my player did stop moving randomly while I held the light. There were two particular monsters that I struggled to pass because there seemed to be no way past (they got me light on or off). Also, I would advise zooming out the camera so you can see the enemies easier. But the game is great! Its graphics are really good and the light is like the centrepiece; you can really tell when it is hidden, its like the world dies a little (good mood). Overall, a smooth feel and a very well put together game. Well done!

Very intriguing style and very moody, felt a bit like Limbo. Sadly, I didn't manage to get far as the second set of monsters attacking you was impossible to dodge and when I ended up wedged between them I had absolutely no chance so that felt a bit cheap. Here's my latest stream featuring the game, by the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP012VKTPV8