A Bit Too Hot by Kris3
Oh no! The volcano erupted again! Go on an adventure with Monata and help her avoid deadly labyrinths made of lava... Or make her pass through them?! Lift Mother Nature with your cursor and stop the further destruction of the environment!
Controls: Move Monata using W, A, S, D! Use the mouse and left-click Monata to lift her up!
Game made in 72 hours by: Kris3, xelaurt, Dragos Comanici, & Kiyoshi.
Tools used: Unity, Github, Aseprite, FL Studio, Sfxr, Photoshop.

| Link | https://cluelesstudios.itch.io/ld54-no-title |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/a-bit-too-hot |
Ratings
| Given | 34🗳️ | 54🗨️ |
The music - cool, I love jazz.
I have to say, the use of mixels here really bothered me here for some reason :sob: I know pixel-perfection can be really really hard to achieve on engines that weren't designed with it in mind, but a good piece of advice I have is to basically try and keep all on-screen assets that use pixel art at the same (or nearly the same) pixel size, to simulate pixel-perfection.
I also found a bug (that it seems like some other people found as well) where clicking her sent her flying out of bounds, I ended up having to reset pretty early on! I also think having your mechanics be more clear would also be very helpful. The first time I found the lava, I thought it was a dead end, so I turned around and went exploring elsewhere. The only reason I knew to click was because I read it in the description! Another good piece of advice I have is to make sure your controls and mechanics are explained in-game, because the player shouldn't need any supplemental material (like a store page or read me file) to play it (unless it happens to be a selling point of the game, which is a rare case and is usually reserved for puzzle or mystery games).
Finally, I wonder what the reasoning was behind not having her be centered in the screen during gameplay. It makes sense that she would stray from the center of the screen when you get close to the edges of the map, as to not show a bunch of black void space, but it really threw me off during free movement seeing her tucked so far away in the side!
This game is a great start, though. You have a lot of great ideas-- they just need to be workshopped a bit!
https://youtu.be/OMFzVKOU-1I?si=kASZpiZNY-fiKjr8&t=2006
But it was pretty hard to explore as the movement was very fast when I picked her up. I did get to the end and it was very nice that there was also a cutscene. I can see if there was more time and you keep working on the game it has a lot of potential, it feels very fresh and imaginative.
Also, du to the clicking bug, the game isnt really playable.
This may become a good game after a workover though, so maybe give it some more time?
Despite the fact that you've come up with a unique mechanic, it became too overpowered. Essentially, it negates the need for movement using WASD, and the character can just be dragged across the entire level. If it's some special ability, you might want to think about limiting its utilization.
But it's not necessary, even as it is, dragging the character through the level, trying not to drop him into the lava, is fun
As already suggested, the cursor dragging mechanic needs to be fixed, and should probably lock the screen while dragging and make it limited in some way. The level design is also a bit too sprawling and maze-like, condensing it would help a lot. I like the fountain area but I missed it entirely, I only know about it because I saw someone else play.
I can tell y'all put in the effort! I'll be looking forward to what you create next time!