THE SECRET FLAME by Thomas Lean
Most have given up. Will you go all the way?
CONTROLS: - Move the Mouse to control your flame buddy - Arrows Keys or WASD/ZQSD to move around - Press [E] to talk to characters (some will help you in your quest!)
/!\ The game is quite big, first load might take some time.
If you can't find the solution, here is a full playthrough!
LINK TO THE OST: https://soundcloud.com/drjedd/sets/ldjam46-keep-it-alive
CREDITS: - Programming: Thomas Lean (Twitter) - Environment Art: Lucas Princé (ArtStation) - Character Design/Illustration: Jim Bishop (Twitter, Instagram) - Pixel Character: Célia G. (Twitter) - Visual Effects: Orik McFly (ArtStation) - Music & Sound Design: Dr. Jedd (Youtube, Instagram)
| Youtube | https://thomas-lean.itch.io/the-secret-flame |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/sgfgdfgfdgfdgfd |
Ratings
| Overall | 4th | 4.519⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 183th | 3.943⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 530th | 3.651⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1583th | 3.49⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 6th | 4.792⭐ | 55🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 7th | 4.548⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1015th | 3.029⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 11th | 4.548⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 20🗳️ | 22🗨️ |
The UI is just a bit under everything else, but it still very good, good job ! are you planning to release a full game ?
And the menu music remind me of a Miyazaki movie ;)
Puzzles are intuitive enough to let the player search for the answer
The hints are well integrated
<3
Regarding the completion of puzzles, as well as just gameplay in general, I think a large improvement might come in the form of increasing the fire's speed - I think this could make puzzles more intuitive, especially if they're based on sound as I assume the second one I mentioned was. Now that I consider it though, this might have been as a result of a mild amount of lag present throughout the first part of the game (before you enter the tower) - because the flame moved considerably faster once inside. If that's the case, it's probably just a question of optimisation - which is *very* understandably something that is hard to get around to within 72 hours. :joy: One final thing - the quit button doesn't seem to trigger anything. Perhaps just because it's on web?
The ending suquence was utterly gorgeous, and the visual effects throughout also enhanced the experience wildly. I would have loved to see the story come to fruition in some way - even if it was an after-credits thing. I would be really curious to know if you guys were trying to incorporate the theme, and if so what your interpretation was? :slight_smile:
Incredible work!
About the puzzles, yeah the torchs one is kind of buggy so even if they're a real logic to solve it, it's not always clear (you have to turn on & off some of them), it's not always working. But I think you can't be stuck so we keep it like that because of lack of time ahah.
And about the theme, it inspired us the story & the lore of the game, I'm not sure it's that obvious in the dialogs but it's about saving your flame 'cause it's dying, and the others adventurers didn't manage to save theirs 'cause they lost motivation :)
And finally, thanks to everyone in general for the feedbacks! We're so happy to read the puzzles in general are ok and you liked the game!
Just everything is amazing. The music, the graphics, the gameplay, ...
Well done !
I wish there was away to click away the text reveal animation (and jut reveal the whole text) - but sadly, clicking anything just cancels the text completely.
And I have one story problem... how did the last lady you meet get through the bridge? I mean, the bridge didn't collapse behind me when I crossed it, so if she solved the same puzzle and crossed the same bridge - why wasn't it rebuilt? And if she didn't cross the bridge, then how did she get there? Did she fly on a big eagle (or teleported - are there teleportation powers in this universe?)? And if she flew (or teleported), then why she was too late to save her fire? Did she procrastinate too long on getting the cure and just one day was like "Yeaaaah, I guess I can fly and get it now" but it was somewhat too late? :laughing:
This is a game that I really want to see a full version, and please if you can, make a downloadable version, I know people prefer web, but it just laggs so much.
Everything in this games are awesome, the environment is incrediable, unbelievable but belivable! (C.Bing)
The music, and mood of the game, the puzzles.
You guys really made me feel in the middle a jourey that I was invested in, the best one for me.
It would have been nice to have the option to show all text right away when talking to an NPC, but clicking ended the conversation instead. I don't understand how the other adventurer got across the bridge before you considering it was missing, but apart from these 2 minor issues the game was a fantastic experience and an amazing entry.
I'd love to see an extended post-jam version of the game! Well done, you all made something great!
Since your game, for me, is the best game i've played in this jam, i'll make some harsh deserving critics. Some "came to my mind" critics too XD. And questions for you to do with your team.
Dragon with a hat? What's the pourpose of that? It's in some cultures, and a bit in general, that dragons are already upholders of wisdon, that said, wise, intellingent and powerfull. Does the hat have to make a double take on that?
Minor problem, no up animation and down animation can save time but can kill mood. (I know it's a jam XD)
Why there's a sword if we can't swing it? I can see it's uses in the future, but if there's a sword on the character, i must have a pourpose. Even if it's useless in these puzzles, swinging it with "Space Button" would feel great and add dimension to the game for players in the demo.
About the continuity of the game, if the characters presented appear in a bigger space of time and have more lore, it would be perfect due to the amount of information i can obtain only through their appearances. They are too meaningfull in your game, so you will have to work a lot in it and don't present them to fast, i will diminish their importance.
Minor problem, Fix hitboxes.
Minor problem, to much shaking at the end. Yes it needs a lot of shaking, but that was too much and eye disrupting.
Chatting, my reading speed isn't yours reading speed and the same for everyone else, make a dialogue speed menu or make it clickable(or pressing e again) to show all before just closing or make the letters appearance unique to each character so i can read as if there's personality to it. It is so slow at the moment that i couldn't read as the character would be speaking for me and broke a bit of my immersion.
Now despite that, again, i'm speechless. Incredible work 5/5
Ps: I passed the first puzzle without the rock, just by thinking, that's how good your puzzles are.
What was not that good - collisions were bit weird, it seemed like there's enough space to the edge of a cliff or between the trees to squeeze into, but suddenly the path was blocked for no visible reason. Also the last puzzle felt a bit trial and error more than actually learning something somewhere, but maybe I just missed something?
And the text speed mentioned above - that was definitely by far the most annoying thing, and it is not that hard to implement second E press to uncover the whole text, which is also kind of a standard nowadays I'd say. Devil's in the detail I guess :)
Still AMAZING game even for much longer than 72 hours, you guys surely know how to do stuff :) And the game actually left me both wanting to play some more and uncover more of the story of the world and the characters! Great job!
If I could offer critique, I don't see a lot related to the theme Keep it Alive? Afaik through playing you can't die/fail, and you just solve the puzzles to continue. There were mentions of other npc's fire's fading but they never explained how? Unless there was a timer (which I don't think there was?) or other way for your fire to fade? I may have missed something. But unless there wasn't, I don't know what aspect of it was to do with the theme.
When playing it as well, I also got the sense that this was something taken from a much larger idea and made to fit this theme. I don't know if that is true, but was just the impression I got. Again, a mixture through the lack of the theme coming through, but also because it felt like a small piece of a game taken randomly from a much larger whole that there was a lot of context missing.
Overall though it was definitely enjoyable.
About the lore, this is exactly the point, we had 72 hours to imagine one so we didn't were into too much details and we tried to keep mysteries here & there to give the feeling it's a bigger story!
And for the hat, yeah it's a long story but to make it short, this dragon loves hats and it's difficult as a dragon to assume your style ok??
Keep it up!