Deep Dreams by Diebanez
Something troubles you in your sleep. You have been making a lot of lucid dreams lately, or rather, lucid nightmares. You have the recurring feeling of exploring dark places, and you often sense you are on the verge of discovering what bothers you, but in the end you are always surrounded by dark monsters that overwhelm you and stop you, waking you up.
But that's enough! Time has come for you to try and go deep down in one of your Inception-like dark nightmares.
Will you be able to avoid the monsters and get to the bottom of it?
Deep Dreams
This is a bullet hell game, where you must avoid enemy bullets thrown at you. You can move around in a dream cloud which gets smaller and smaller as you progress through the levels.
To advance, you must shoot Z's at your sleeping body at the corner of the screen to make it fall in a deeper and deeper sleep. You don't need to aim while shooting. But careful! When you are shooting you are slowed down, making yourself an easy target for the enemies!
Try to reach the deepest dream, and don't lose too many lives, or the current level of your dream will pop, bringing you back to your previous level!
Controls
W A S D - Movement
SPACEBAR or LEFT MOUSE BUTTON - Shoot (No need to aim!)
| Link | https://luxel.itch.io/deep-dreams |
| Link | https://luxel.itch.io/deep-dreams |
| Link | https://luxel.itch.io/deep-dreams |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/deep-dreams |
Ratings
| Overall | 217th | 3.983⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 219th | 3.9⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 300th | 3.793⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 72th | 4.345⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 513th | 4.017⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 246th | 3.917⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 775th | 2.848⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 420th | 3.879⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 30🗳️ | 38🗨️ |
Good job on the game you made, controls we simple and the patterns we great, still challenging but winnable.
The illustrations are quite nice, I absolutely love that artstyle.
Challenging, but fun gameplay, cool aesthetics, there's nothing else to say.
I can't really say anything bad about it.
I also liked how the sleep bubbles and stack on top of each other as we go "deeper and deeper".
Wonderful job! :v: :crescent_moon: :zzz: :cloud:
Thank you for your feedbacks!
Music is very nice and the artstyle works well with it. Good job!
We added that at the last moment and called it THE FINAL BOSS.
Programming it was fun, and it's good to hear it feels like it was intended: cruel!
I think it's currently a little too easy to brute force your way through most of it, you can normally just hold down fire and manage to transition fast enough to stay alive with the exception of the final level. Other than that I think it really just comes down to needing more time for refinement and adding more content, everything that's there feels really good already and is ready to be built upon.
Excellent work to everyone involved!
The only thing I will personally re-think is how the game teaches the mechanics to the player.
I had to play it 3/4 times just to figure out that I had to shoot to the character just to reach the next level.
Maybe a little tutorial level will solve the problem.
@kovi I think you're right. Maybe adding a longer cool-down between the Zs could force the player the move even more
@h0pe86 thank you for your feedback. Improving the visibility of the progressing bar could also help to clarify the objective of the game!
It's also interesting that the name of your game is only one letter away from mine. You're welcome to play our game and I hope you enjoy it!
@daquxxn, @rexgame, @tsuk13 Glad you enjoyed it!
@ekaterina Wow thank you for your feedback :D
@stone-studio Ahahah what a coincidence :laughing: We will surely try your game, and thank you!
When running on better specs it was still chaotic (level before one ball level) and random wandering tactics covers most easier levels. In some levels I could get to 80% before objects even start getting close to me. Some later levels had too little space I would say (screen seemed a bit unutilised).
Also it can be confusing if I am going to previous or next level. I also couldn't always tell when I was struck multiple times what happened (maybe shorten indicator especially if it doesn't mean immunity and add death indicator).
Finnaly, exiting your game from controls or when playing seems impossible except by force.
All those remarks are actually very minor, I liked the graphics and the story is nice. Mucis was pleasant and fitting. Each level is different (it is really a shame that players don't see them much when they can rush most levels) and designed quite good.
But here are a few points:
- UI so small. Buttons on FullHD looks small, and on controls screen it's hard to find exit button
- Bullet hell part is good, but it's starts too late. E.g. before bullets appear you already can fill bar to 50%
The one level with a lot of red balls was a bit difficult.
Good luck!