Cairn by Amaroq

[raw]
made by Amaroq for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

Play as a mysterious shaman who must build a cairn as an offering to the Gods. The villagers each want you to take their stone in hope that their wishes will be favoured. It's up to you build a stable structure so their offerings are accepted.

DOWNLOAD HERE: https://leuamaroq.itch.io/cairn

CONTROLS: Arrow keys to move around. SPACE to interact.

HOW TO PLAY: Talk to the villagers and collect their stones. When you interact with the shrine in the centre, click and drag the stones from the inventory onto the screen. Then you can build a cairn. The game ends when you build to a certain height.

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Screenshot 1.PNG

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Ratings

Overall 855th 3.45⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1403th 2.684⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 999th 3.075⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Theme 633th 3.65⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 748th 3.6⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Audio 314th 3.725⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Mood 334th 3.8⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Given 7🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

Ghatazorg
05. Oct 2021 · 11:22 UTC
Great game, simple but cool graphics. It's a bit difficult to buid the cairn, maybe cause to the stone physic. Good job!
Nerisma
05. Oct 2021 · 11:26 UTC
Love the overall mood of the game, the UI, dialogs and all, gameplay could use a bit of depth :). GG !
LDJam user 0
05. Oct 2021 · 11:43 UTC
Amazing efforts! The game was really cool and fun.
mrchip
05. Oct 2021 · 13:37 UTC
Couldn't get the tower done, the rocks keep sliding. (+ bugs mentioned below)
Graphics are a bit flat sometimes, especially in the rock minigame. That + the fact that the background stays perfectly unchanged in "rock view" made it a bit confusing when i first opened it.

Vibe was successful IMO. Would have been interesting to have the option to just *refuse* stones. Interesting, not necessarily good. And most likely out of scope for the jam, so im not complaining at all.

Also, have to appreciate that not only there's music, but it's a full track instead of a 30 second loop that moves and changes just enough to never get boring, AND fits the mood.

Bugs:
- the rocks keep their momentum after you drop them (take rock > let it drop > catch mid air > release, now the rock will continue with the momentum it had on that fall, tends to be dangerous)
- there is nothing (afaik) preventing the rocks from going off screen and getting lost
- rock picking up logic (when clicking, what chooses what rock to take) isnt perfect
- lets you place rocks inside others, which generates physics instab... wait, is this a feature?
SkallyWags
05. Oct 2021 · 16:55 UTC
I really enjoyed the beginning of your game - the storytelling was very well done, and I liked the combination of art and music. The actual cairn-building was a bit frustrating though, and I wish that sequence was as visually-pleasing as when you're collecting the stones from the villagers.
Zahab_AQ
05. Oct 2021 · 18:38 UTC
This seems like the beginning of a cool short experience! I especially loved the atmosphere created, and the storytelling when collecting the rocks from the villagers. I was engaged, and I wanted to learn more about the universe you created. The art for the rock collecting sequence was also good, although it became very flat when balancing the stones. Maybe more details could be put into the rocks, and maybe a bit of the corresponding villager's personality and story could be told through the rock design. Balancing the rocks has a great mechanic idea in place, although the physics itself was a bit finnicky. Fine tuning it would result in something that I could see myself putting much time into since it can be very relaxing. To finish, it was a cool experiences, and the ingredients are there to further expand this into something great. Good job!
hammerfrenzy
07. Oct 2021 · 01:35 UTC
Nice somber atmosphere. I appreciated the puzzle twist on the "stack unstable blocks" genre. It was a bit difficult like some of the other commenters mentioned, but I think I was able to get it (although perhaps it was a bad end - their fate is sealed :scream:)
ilbini
07. Oct 2021 · 02:30 UTC
I really enjoyed the mood of the game, the graphics are great and i think it was a very original approach to the theme using the village and the cairn to gather rocks.

To be honest i couldn't made a pile of rocks, the base was not plane and some problems with gravity and drags. But i could see the first part and the dialogs and it was really well made, the cairn part didn't work out for me because of this frustration and its a shame because if it was a little bit easier it could've been a really great entry.

I understand the time limitation to work on this on a weekend, but maybe it was a matter of priorities, the cairn and rocks part for me it was where you want the player to have the best experience, because is the name of the game and the theme and i feel most of the "polish" was done in the first part which i enjoyed btw. Well, just a little feedback if its useful for you guys for future projects.

Best of lucks, keep doing awesome games!
Linkwin
07. Oct 2021 · 23:10 UTC
I enjoyed the mood of this a lot, story and dialog were solid. Obviously wishing for more, but great job with what you made!! The music really added to the atmosphere, and the character art was nice. I got frustrated with the rock stacking and didn't finish the cairn. All in all well done!
LDJQ
13. Oct 2021 · 23:45 UTC
I liked the music and atmosphere.

Using the mouse and arrow keys is a little awkward. I would have liked to use either WASD for movement or the mouse to interact.
MasterProject
21. Oct 2021 · 02:02 UTC
This didn't work for me. The stories are too short and too generic to make me care. There are no meaningful repercussions to refusing the stones, nor a powerful significance between their characters and their stones, or their impact on the overall gameplay. In other words, the story is here and the gameplay is there - their connection is too tenous and too arbitrary.

Not only that, but I found the gameplay itself rather frustrating, though I admit that mostly comes down to my inability to stack rocks. Even then, the fact that the rocks can roll to outside the screen and that the player is able to constantly hit existing rocks with rocks they hold means that the possibility of accidentally toppling the entire thing by simply moving a rock is quite high.

In any case, the mood and the art style were relatively successful in captivating me, despite the other factors not quite working. This premise has potential, but its design needs to improve.
Shea Kelly
21. Oct 2021 · 07:38 UTC
very good graphics looks beatiful
Alekzandar
21. Oct 2021 · 07:39 UTC
very nice atmosphere and graphics enjoyed the little stories.