Keeping Your Fire Alive by Louis Hong

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

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Hook

What lies outside the bonfire is abyss.

Why are you here?

Who are you?

There is one true ending to the game.

A short story based on The Egg Short story by Andy Weir

Hints

Use left click to play, you can click on most things you see. That's it!

PRESS M TO UNLOCK MOUSE

Orignal Plans, no longer possible but I got a better idea ;) (SPOILERS)

dev notes

(Cover Image is Shovel Knight Screenshot)

Ratings

Overall 1555th 3.35⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 2169th 2.775⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1731th 3.025⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1707th 3.429⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1803th 3.15⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 807th 3.421⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Humor 1572th 2.533⭐ 17🧑‍⚖️
Mood 423th 3.842⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 10🗳️ 11🗨️

Feedback

BananaGuyBob
18. Apr 2020 · 18:47 UTC
shovl night
ApexHurts
18. Apr 2020 · 20:24 UTC
Cool that you have clear idea what this game is about - we miss that ^^
🎤 Louis Hong
18. Apr 2020 · 20:51 UTC
@apexhurts I appreciate the encouraging words! Means a lot!
causalpigeon
19. Apr 2020 · 21:30 UTC
This looks like a really ambitious I can't wait to play that.
MrVarren
19. Apr 2020 · 21:49 UTC
Multiple endings? Wow. Can't wait to play this game now! :D
🎤 Louis Hong
20. Apr 2020 · 01:31 UTC
thank you so much for the kind words, I feel energized. @mrvarren @causalpigeon
Piko Monde
20. Apr 2020 · 04:40 UTC
Want to play it, but can't see the link to the game..![Screenshot from 2020-04-20 11-40-08.png](///raw/96b/11/z/2d0d3.png)
TomekS
20. Apr 2020 · 04:56 UTC
is this game going to be published? I guess you jump the gun with publishing before the Jam ends right? Art looks very nice, can't wait.
SuperGamersGames
20. Apr 2020 · 05:24 UTC
I'll have this bookmarked for later...
BGameDev
20. Apr 2020 · 05:35 UTC
Same, waiting.
SaeedPrez
20. Apr 2020 · 07:43 UTC
Hi there, you should mark your game as unfinished since you don't have a link.
🎤 Louis Hong
20. Apr 2020 · 08:41 UTC
@saeedprez Thank you for telling me this mistake! I'm very sorry for wasting peoples attension.
🎤 Louis Hong
20. Apr 2020 · 08:42 UTC
@piko-monde I'm very sorry, still WIP! Thank you for your interest!
randdir
20. Apr 2020 · 18:30 UTC
Yep still waiting for your jam pal ^^
🎤 Louis Hong
20. Apr 2020 · 19:24 UTC
@randdir thank you for waiting! WIP
🎤 Louis Hong
21. Apr 2020 · 02:09 UTC
I'm proud to have submitted my game jam!

I'm happy with my game.

But I know I have a long ways to go to be called "good".

if you found it boring, I want to hear it. if it was bad I want to hear it.

help, I wanna be better.
lectvs
21. Apr 2020 · 02:36 UTC
The mood of this game is incredible. The atmospheric sounds combined with a simple, repetitive gameplay loop made it feel like a genuine horror game. I thought something was going to jump out at me if I took too long or chopped down that particular tree in the middle. :o

The game lacks some features and content, but it's understandable given how late you pivoted away from your previous idea. One solid criticism I have is that the timed dialog made the ending especially slow. With no way to click through the dialog or speed it up, I got impatient and exited out early (I've read The Egg before so I'm pretty sure I know how it goes, but please tell me if you changed it!)

Solid entry, atmosphere was great. Would love to see this expanded with more content!
🎤 Louis Hong
21. Apr 2020 · 03:21 UTC
@lectvs I have not changed it you did not miss out on much. I just changed it so it matched what we believe is the egg now a days, simulation theory!

I'm thankful for your generous feedback, and I'm also glad you read the egg!
Bailey
22. Apr 2020 · 03:36 UTC
enjoyed the game :), nice use of lighting and the fire crackling & background audio set the atmosphere well
🎤 Louis Hong
22. Apr 2020 · 11:27 UTC
thank you for the kind words @bailey
Krassenstein
22. Apr 2020 · 13:37 UTC
The game felt nice and relaxing and the eyes that were on you all the time made me feel uneasy.

The only issue I had was the pacing, the text at the "true ending" went way too slow and I wished I was able to click through it to read at my own speed.

Nice job!
Marvin Chong
24. Apr 2020 · 06:04 UTC
The hook at the start was brilliant, it definitely established the tone and mood of the game. The ambient noise added to this, but I wished that there is some variance along the way (ie switching between different sfx files).

The first time I run into the part where I chop down a tree and saw the red eyes were amazing. The narrative was starting to build up and it kept me hooked.

I quite hoped the game had more mechanics, aside from attacking trees and keeping the fire alive. Maybe there was and I missed them?

There should have been more visual cues to tell the player what to do. I was able to figure out what to do because I spam clicked everything and learnt from what it did. Since the game is simple enough, it is possible, however, it would be a better user experience if there were some visual cues.

Also, I am not sure if this is part of the game, but I chose the option where you stay for a while longer, but the text box said code breakpoint or something, that kind of broke mood for me.

Overall, a solid entry.
gmaanicus
24. Apr 2020 · 06:33 UTC
This isn't that b--(cuts the middle tree)--*oh... that's freaking terrifying*

I literally recoiled from my monitor. Simple, but terrifying.

The storyline was really good too. I think I got the true ending. The text overall was *painstakingly* slow between lines, and sometimes (if the lines were long enough), it'd actually scroll past so fast that I would miss parts of the message. Unfortunately, the speed kinda took away from my enjoyment of the story.

Nonetheless, it is rather creative and simply terrifying. Again, your story is great, aside from the slow transcription.
SaltFactory Studio
27. Apr 2020 · 02:55 UTC
The atmosphere can be absolutely terrifying at time, and that the glowing eyes in the dark really does it jobs. For some reason, I found the smaller eyes to be much scarier than the large red one. The ambient sound really makes you feel like you're alone in the dark, and that I was expecting something to jump out of the dark after I cleared all the trees. The mood of the game is exceptional, great work!
tobiasw
01. May 2020 · 13:06 UTC
Well, that was interesting.

I wish I could click text to continue. Especially in the last dialogue, the duration between texts got REALLY, REALLY long. Like, half a minute between texts. And then sometimes 5 lines drop so fast that it's impossible to read them properly.

And I wonder if there is more to do in further iterations of the loop? I:
- Let the fire die down and went up an iteration.
- Went exploring.
- Refused to go exploring once, got chided for it and went exploring.
- Refused to go exploring twice, died, got an ending and went up an iteration.

It seems a bit inconsequential to not be able to change the outcome if this is a simulation to prepare me for something.

Atmosphere-wise, I really like how everything works together with rather simple graphics and sfx to create a scary, desolated mood. I especially like the eyes! Although I am a bit sad that they don't seem to play any other role and they don't change anymore, and seem to have nothing to do with the simulation aspect.

Still, very interesting, if a bit unfinished. Good job, especially after pivoting from another idea!
NurkkaCthulhu
11. May 2020 · 16:45 UTC
The texts are too slow, I started to write this review while waiting for them to appear... (and then there's the time when the text is way too fast in the end.) The eyes are a bit spooky when you see them for the first time, but the surprise was ruined by the screenshots on this page. Pretty complete game, but I would have enjoyed it more if I could go through the text on my own pace lol
Doot
11. May 2020 · 21:37 UTC
Great job!

The gameplay is here just to be part of an ambiance and a short narrative, and it fits well together. The eyes are really frightening and questioning.

As said by other, the text speed is awfully slow. I really tried but couldn't stand waiting so long to see the end of the ending. Too bad, It got me intrigued!

Thanks for the game.
Ava Skoog
12. May 2020 · 17:03 UTC
Hey, sorry for taking so long to play and rate, but I finally got around to it! 😅 The HDRP wasn't working on the ageing Windows 7 laptop I tried to play on so I had to go on a moderner machine~

Great mood! 💜 I had never heard of the story you based this on before so I had no idea what I was in for. So the world is written in C#, eh? Who'd have thought? 🤔

Audio and graphics work very well together, with the growling before you see those eyes, altho unfortunately I'd already seen the eyes in the screenshot so they didn't end up shocking me quite as much as perhaps they could have haha

I do wish I'd been able to progress the text at my own pace. Sometimes it was very slow, especially in between lines, but sometimes so much text would pass by so quickly that the box would scroll before I'd finished reading the first line and missed some words. 😢

Nice work! Looking forward to seeing what you do next time!
🎤 Louis Hong
13. May 2020 · 08:18 UTC
@ava-skoog thank you!