TWILIGHTHOUSE by bobanko
TWILIGHTHOUSE
A survival signal game made for Ludum Dare 59 — Theme: Signal
Congratulations, you got the job as lighthouse keeper. Your real responsibilities: help smugglers deliver their "medicine", blind sea monsters, and make sure the cops stay in the dark.
One wrong shine and it’s game over — in more ways than one...
Sounds easy, right?
Controls
←/A— rotate beam left→/D— rotate beam rightEnter/E— confirmQ/Esc— back / pause
On mobile: tap the on-screen ◀ ▶ buttons to rotate the beam
How To Play
- Rotate the beam to light up approaching boats — they use your signal to navigate safely to shore
- Mermaids swim toward the lighthouse in the dark — illuminate them to scare them off. Let 3 reach you and it's over
- The Kraken lurks in darkness and charges at you — shine the beam on it to drive it away
- Police boats are a different story — don't light them up. Every cop you illuminate confiscates a crate from the supply stash. Lose all 3 crates and the game ends very badly
- The lamp burns out over time — the beam narrows and flickers. Keep an eye on it
- Save 10 boats to win
The Story
Young Robert takes the night shift at a remote lighthouse run by grizzled old sailor Willem. What looks like a simple job quickly turns into cartel logistics: guiding suspicious boats to shore, keeping the beam away from police patrols, and using the lighthouse light to fend off very angry mermaids and an increasingly pissed kraken.
Between the cynical old wolf and the cocky young pup, the real storm isn’t the weather — it’s trying not to get everyone arrested (or eaten).
Authors
- @idbieon-odri — concept art
- @r1m — concept art
- @linaaa — concept art
- @bobanko — programming, game design
- @nuclme — programming, game design
- @stepastepa — game design
Music: suno.com | Sounds: pixabay.com, libsounds.com
Tech: PixiJS, Firebase, Vanilla JS
| Link | https://bobanko.itch.io/twilighthouse |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/twilighthouse |
Ratings
| Overall | 456th | 3.541⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 392th | 3.43⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 551th | 3.186⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 433th | 3.735⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 628th | 3.25⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 390th | 3.367⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 386th | 2.854⭐ | 50🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 494th | 3.52⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 74🗳️ | 100🗨️ |
Please, play it at itch.io:
https://bobanko.itch.io/twilighthouse
To repel the Kraken you need to shine the beam directly into its eyes.
Lamp burning out too fast + spawn balance is noted.
Boats are distinguished by their lights:
🔴🔵 Cops — blue-red flashing
🟢 Cartel — green
Still gonna make them more obvious.
PS
btw, first idea was to keep it harder: cops 🔴🔵, cartel - just🔴
But it was fun to play. Although it feels like the segments with the neural lighthouse keeper don’t quite fit and stand out from the main game’s style (even if it was also generated—I’m not sure).
про льдину да, боль - многие из картеля тоже жаловались, подумаем как исправить.
над апгрейдами тоже думаем 👍
Excellent work -- very well done!
The same goes for the music. You credit an AI generator. If you didn't create the music for this game, you should remove your game from the music category.
The same goes for the music. You credit an AI generator. If you didn't create the music for this game, you should remove your game from the music category.
This is our first Ludum Dare ever (Twilighthouse), so we're still figuring things out. The rules page is currently throwing a 404 for me — mind dropping the exact link or quote about AI stuff and categories? Would really help us get it right.
Quick note: we hand-drew a bunch of the graphics and used AI as a tool for the rest (mostly win/lose screens). Music is Suno track, SFX are from free libraries. If the rules say we should uncheck Graphics or Music because of that, we're totally cool with removing the ticks.
PS
Appreciate the sharp eye on the six-fingered dude btw 😂 Classic AI moment.
BTW, We’re already fixing the beam, reducing the number of cops, making the tutorial way clearer and smoothing the difficulty based on playtime.
Ultimately, it comes down to individual judgment. So it's complicated ^^.
From my point of view, you either have to be transparent about the graphics you've created so that people can rate what you've done, or not put yourself in the graphics category.
Some people do everything from start to finish during the game jam and aim for the graphics category in the rankings because it's their specialty. I think it casts a shadow on them if they're compared to work done by AI.
I think the main goal isn't to win, but to participate and maybe be featured in a category. It's always nice to see the top pages of each category especially the graphic one to discover new artists and styles.
There is this sentence at the end of the page i shared: "That said we still want to celebrate artists, which is why we ask those using AI tools to opt-out of artistic categories." Which sums up my point of view well.
Sorry for the long post, I hope it helps ^^. Very good game for your first Ludum Dare and good luck! :D
Thanks for clarification!
I’d like to see a bit more development in the game, maybe a few more levels, but even as it is, it already feels like a complete experience
yeah, you've pushed that idea to the next level.
unfortunately, we've wasted first jam day to test a lot of other concepts, before we stopped at lighthouse version.
our first idea was to drive the ship, while lighthouse is watching, and stop when it turns away.
The game works smoothly, and I like the light beam effect.
I managed to finish the game on my first try.
Awesome that you managed to implement a leaderboard, but since the game finishes when you save 10 boats, it seems weird to have the leaderboard sorted by longest time.
I don’t think the game becomes more interesting just because the ending screens are more visually striking, the important part is everything that comes before them, and that part is already genuinely good. Sometimes we forget that we don’t need to force attention when what we’ve created already speaks for itself.
Well done! :ship:
Thanks for the tutorial and the translation. Finally, proper onboarding! 🙂
The gameplay is conceptually interesting, but the arrows at the bottom of the screen confuse me. When the beam is pointing downward, pressing A moves it to the right, while D moves it to the left, but the arrows seem to indicate the opposite