Erefos by exopunk

Erefos (Before Light) by Tiny Hop team is an action platformer experiencing a spiritual journey through the inevitable darkness.
CHANGELOG (After submission)
05/04/2022 15:57 UTC - Updated OSX build, it had a breaking bug where it wouldn't open at all and appeared as "damaged".
KEYBOARD
Move - Arrow Keys
Jump - Z / SPACE
Attack - X
Dash - C
Pause - Esc
It should also work on non QWERTY layouts, using the physical layout of the ZXC keys.
Alternative keyboard layout:
Move - WASD
Jump - J / Space
Attack - K
Dash - L
Pause - Esc
CONTROLLER
Move - Left stick, D-Pad
Jump - XB A / PS Cross
Attack - XB X / PS Square
Dash - XB B / PS Circle
Pause - XB Start / PS Options
Only the first keyboard layout is shown in the tutorial.
TINYHOP TEAM - https://twitter.com/tinyhopgames - https://tinyhop.itch.io/
Alex Podaras - Programming - https://twitter.com/ex0punk
Theodore Moustakas - Sound design / Music - https://twitter.com/mous_sfx
Vasilis Kaminaris - Art - https://www.instagram.com/el_kaminaris/
Alex Kaminaris - Art - https://twitter.com/necta_nebo
ATTRIBUTIONS
Luckiest Guy by Astigmatic
| Link | https://tinyhop.itch.io/erefos |
| Link | https://tinyhop.itch.io/erefos |
| Link | https://tinyhop.itch.io/erefos |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/erefos |
Ratings
| Overall | 82th | 4.106⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 177th | 3.885⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 517th | 3.481⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 522th | 3.804⭐ | 53🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 36th | 4.635⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 70th | 4.154⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 35th | 4.375⭐ | 54🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 39🗳️ | 76🗨️ |

It kinda feels like a homage to Hollow Knight. Very fun to play.
Attacking feels nice, and I really like the light fading mechanic.
Also, it feels like the character is very heavy, making it hard to jump and go up and down the platforms. Maybe a little tweak in the jump and fall speed can fix it.
The art looks very good and the sound design is nice too.
Great work!
This is a great game, a great prototype I should say. I can easily see this game becoming a full game, it has so much potential.
Art was simple but nice, music was relaxing. I was having fun!
Not so good feedback:
I didn't see too much innovation and I don't think the theme was well implemented, though.
Overall I think it's a great game and I would absolutely buy a full game - it's just that I don't see the theme in it, that's all.
I was impressed by the size of the level and the amount of different traps/enemies.
Different keybinds would have been lovely as the current ones felt quite awkward.
Great job!
Other than that its a very good game :)
The only very minor criticism I can think of is that the movement and animation feel of the player character seems a little bit ponderous given the frenetic central mechanic of running to get to the next light; the light mechanic seems more suited to a faster pace. But even then, that's totally subjective, and I can see why you went the way you did.
Thanks for the great little bite of platforming! Would love to see a full version someday.
But I enjoyed, great game!
Anyways, thanks so much for playing :smile:
The feature that the screen went dark really killed it for me.
I felt like there was no Koyote-Time/GraceJump which would improve the feeling of the controls.
I've just dashed through the complete level using the dash :D i'm sure that is not exactly the intended way to play the game, but dashing is faster than moving normaly, so i tried to be fast enough before i'm unable to see anything.
Dropping through platforms on the controller does not always work on the first time everytime. Sometimes it does, sometimes it dont.
Positively i realized that you have implemented modular jumping, which is always nice!
The part with the "down-attack" was a little bit confusing, as you cannot perform that attack, while standing still.
Graphics:
I really liked the artstyle.
The charcter animations looked really nice, despite the fact, that the is no blending of the animations when attacking while moving. Everything else looks really great.
Audio:
The ambient sounds are amazing and add to the athmosphere
The sounds in general are really good matching
Mood:
Audio, Graphics ands also the "light goes out" feature go hand in hand creating a depressive and dark athmosphere. You've done a great job at this point!
In general: Without the light going out feature i'd really enjoy playing several levels of that game :)
Not sure about the negative feedback loop of getting hit a couple of times because you don't understand a certain mechanic or how to reach a spot and then not seeing anything.
BUT that's actually just nitpicking, the game has such a good style and mood. And it was never really frustrating because of generous checkpoint placement.
There were a few cases I found where the character would stop moving after landing, even when holding down a direction, which did kind of trip me up, but it wasn't a huge deal. Other than that, it felt quite good to play through! A pretty solid entry for the jam, well done!
Beautiful art, great atmosphere and very challenging! I like that you respawn at checkpoints so you can try again and again until you get the gameplay, and the tutorial integrated into the beginning of the game is great.
Great work! Thanks for sharing!
My only problem was keyboard layout.. at least jumping with spacebar would be nice, haha. Great job anyways!
Thanks for coming to my stream! Here's a recording in case you'd like to refer to it https://youtu.be/aJkdjOKW03M
The only lacking elements to me are **innovation** and **theme**.
I would have liked it much more if the game was unbeatable and procedurally generated. That would have been a solid 5.
Nevertheless - super solid entry! Keep up the good work and I wish all the best to your studio guys!
Nice atmospheric platformer. Horizontal movement in the air felt like it was slightly less than my intuition which kept throwing off my jumps.
Shrinking light as a timer was effective and fitting.
highlight: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1449896005?t=02h13m44s
I wish hazards were a lil more visible. While most areas are nice and simple, that down attack section seemed especially brutal while introducing a more complicated maneuver. The fading light mechanic looks cool and is appropriate for the theme, but also feels a little cheap when it gets too dark to see anything I just have to wait the next few seconds to die and try again.
Very good job overall!
i know you said your team was watching at the time but in case any weren't please share this with them so they KEEP MAKING MASTERPIECES.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLrZ2oYv9pE
seriously i'm remembering this game and i just get fucking excited like please, please PLEASE keep making stuff guys
That aside, the artwork is incredible. The character animations, the backgrounds, the enemies, all of it is beautifully eerie and creepy, and I love it. I don't think hindering the players vision is inherently a bad gameplay decision, it's a really cool mechanic, and had the player controlled better I probably would've enjoyed the added challenge of minimal vision.
Played on a qwerty keyboard, windows build on windows 10. I hope you can figure out what was happening with the controls.
**EDIT**: I tried the game a second time. closed the application and re-opened, and the issues were gone. Gonna replay and give better feedback.
Okay, the game played much much better, and I loved it. (also I was able to play it on controller, but the keyboard worked too) Anyway, no clue what that was all about. I take back everything negative I said, this game rocks. The darkness was never an issue, and the level designs are pretty nice. The checkpoints are perfectly spaced too, by the way. All around, a solid game.
Ps. As far as the weird bug goes i have no clue, i leave that to our dev @exopunk
vod @ 1:12:45
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1449593775
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7DtwoxB_IE
The art is great, but I'd like a little more visual feedback when hitting enemies. Just a little puff of particles would help.
The control scheme needs refinement, but the mechanics in the game work very well when I manage to press the right buttons.
The sound design is great, not overwhelming and well balanced.