Ahh! i was killed by gorgon >.< Interesting use of the mirror reflection and stuff. Well done. Is they guy mostly nude?

this is a really creative take on the theme, i like it! although the lighting was kind of weird at first

Nice little game. I will confess that I jumped a little the first time I ran into the gorgon. Watching Clash of the Titans before the Jam were we? =)

Interesting use of the theme.

This was great. Hope you take the time post compo to polish it up, add a tutorial, menu etc. Great take on the theme, and surprisingly intense to play.

@srakowski yeah, mostly. they did that kind of thing back then right? also easier to animate!

i'm glad it managed to be intense for some of you. and while i wasn't watching Clash of the Titans, it was one of my childhood favorites and fit the theme.

I feel like there's room to polish this up and make it more fun. It's definitely not quite where I'd wanted it, but that's Ludum Dare.

I GOT GORGON!

It got my blood pumping when I walked into a dark hallway, heard two very distinct grunts... a sound I had come to fear. THEN BOOM I SLASH LEFT AND BOOM I SLASH RIGHT - two clean kills on the beasts. My greatest feat as Gorgon Getter. With my head held high I continued forward into the darkness and GOT GOT BY THE GORGON REGARDLESS.

It's crazy how much 'feeling' you were able to get out of this despite the lack of polish. I don't know if darkness always manages to bring that sense of dread or what, but you definitely brought it.

I like the idea of having to fight a boss with no eyesight when up to that point you've been relying on that light to stay alive. It's almost like an anti-strategy which is perfect for the theme. Having said that, I wish the boss fight relied on positional sound rather than on wavy lines. That would truly bring you into the 'close your eyes' immersion.

I could jot down some further criticisms but I'm sure it would be nothing that you don't already know, and most of it is linked to your limited amount of dev time, so I don't see the point in focusing on that. What you WERE able to do in the time you had is impressive even if it lacks polish and scope.

Thanks! And yeah I spent way too much time trying to make the idea work at all, then figure out how to do shadows. I really wanted to do some visual representation of sound echoing around but was way beyond my skill and time.

I love this game.

My first couple runs were met with unfortunate death to beast or gorgon, which quickly established how dangerous the darkness was. Limiting the turn-rate on the mirror angle made exploration even more tense, as I dashed around corners, evading beasts and delving further into the maze.

The rats are a genius touch; at first I was confused as to their purpose, but at my first death to the gorgon I saw the surrounding stone rat statues and it immediately clicked. When I next came across the petrified rats, I was prepared with my mirror.

It would've been nice to see a little more polish to the ending and maybe the audio, but for 48 hours I think you did an excellent job creating a fun game with a captivating mood.

You see, this is why I love this feedback. I totally didn't catch the stone rats the first few times. I was so petrified with fear I didn't have time to pay attention. That's an awesome bit of detail!

So the combat, art, and audio were all a little lacking for me, I would have loved to seen this as polished as possible. BUT - the mechanic was really fun! I was spooked, and despite the unclear directions (I didn't know gorgons == medusas) I picked it up within a quick playthrough. This is the first time I've played a game with medusa that actually felt like a proper medusa game!

Excellent work!

Really cool! at first i honestly didnt know what a gorgon was, so i was looking for some dude in the fetal position whispering "Gorgon Gorgon..." similar to the rats and beasts. like, maybe he's your collegue but got lost in some dark place with rats and beasts.

This was fun but man those rats got annoying. Found it hard to beat the gorgon but did after about 12 deaths. Nice game, great job!

Got it ! :D

Super game! I love it, thanks ;)

Amazing game! I love the art style too!

This is really cool. The light system is fantastic with regards to going round corners etc, that must have been a real pain in the arse to implement.

I would've liked the torch to have slerped to my orientation faster. It feels weird when there's a disconnect between what I'm doing and what the game's doing.

Exceptional in building mood, the gorgon is fucking TERRIFYING. The lack of music I think is actually a positive thing too - perhaps just some general atmospheric noise would've been nice.

Great entry.

For some reason, the game was really chugging in my browser. Still playable though. Pixel art is simple and does the job. The monsters and mice especially were cool. The dark corridors make the eyes closing gameplay interesting I like how you can "see" the sounds with your eyes closed too. The movement controls were slow, which wasn't very fun, but it definitely added to the fear when playing. But it also made me quit playing pretty quickly.

Finding the Gorgon seemed kinda random and aimless. I just walked around until I saw her and then reflexively right clicked and tried to kill her, and I think it worked? But then the game continued and eventually I was killed by a thing. I wasn't sure if there was more than 1 Gorgon or what exactly I was supposed to do after that.

So I start the game: It is a bit chuggy on my firefox, but playable. I see the rats: SLASH SLASH SLASH, they are dead. I see the first monster, and I think it is the Gorgon. I close my eyes and the monster kills me.

Then I try to slash the monster, and it kills me. By this time I learned that I can ignore the rats.

Then I start avoiding the monster. I learn that they wait and dash in a straight line, and I abuse the hell out of that. I get lost in the maze, and I try to hug the left wall all the way to victory. I see a purple rat, can't interact with it. See a purple monster, and then it clicks! They are stone, the gorgon is nearby!

I see the gorgon for a second, panic, and close my eyes in her general direction. I'm not quite sure what happens, but I get a "You win" message. Then I'm back at the beginning of the game.

Learning how to play the game was really cool! I loved the touch of the stoned monsters. The fight with the gorgon was a bit too sudden, it was over before I realized what was going on. If that is the feeling you were going for, then you got it :-)

Cheers, and thanks for the game!

GORGON GOT!

I like the idea here and the execution works for the most part. Initially I kept assuming anything that wasn't a rat was a gorgon, so I kept closing my eyes and getting killed by beasts. Cause I'm an idiot like that.

I like the little details - animals having been turned to stone giving a bit of an indication of when you're near Gorgon. The lighting was perfect for a game of this type, where your presence feels like an intrusion upon the darkness. Having got Gorgon and been gotten by Gorgon, I enjoyed my time in the darkness.

Oh, and like Alex said, I think the lack of music in this game helps set the mood a whole lot. The sounds are left to be the only thing that builds the mood and and they do a really good job.

Yeah, I realized too late that closing your eyes and killing something with its reflection just isn't really a good game mechanic. There's probably a way to make it compelling, but not by me. Not in 48 hours!

I shouldn't have tried so hard to make something so unconventional. I spent a ton of time thinking 'how the fuck is this even going to work?' I think everything BUT the gorgon is fun part of the game, sadly.

Thanks for trying it out, though!

Woah, that was nerve wrecking.. I died to beasts a lot, and when I finally met the gorgon the first time I panicked and forgot what to do! I loved that feeling of "holy crap I'm looking for a thing that I'm not really sure how to hurt/kill" until I figured it out!

Apart from the popping tiles I think the graphics work pretty well! The animations are really good! :)

You really nailed that "I'm feeling worthless with this mirror shard against this monster"-feeling in this one, heavy mood all throughout! Great job!

I finally got the Gorgon.
My body halfway turned to stone.
What happens to me now?

I think the maze is way too big, Gorgon could anyway where and a few times when I was almost there some fking beast would kill me. I did get the hang of wiping the floor with those blue bastards and eventually I figured that they add a good danger sense to the maze. They are easy to one-shot, but when you get hit you gotta starting searching all over again. So that's kind of a good thing. I think Gorgon itself was super neat. The way you had to battle her(/him?) was cool, the purple petrified rats created a little forecast and in that way added a lot of suspense to the battle, like "OOOH SHIT PURPLE RATS HERE IT COMES FFFFF" - and then you close your eyes. I think closes your eyes need more feedback. Itreally disconnects from the tension you had before. Maybe that's normal for closing your eyes, but I don't think so. As a matter of fact, the whole game could use more sound effects/music/ambient and tons of visual feedback.

Well, that's about it, enjoyed it, got to kill Gorgon, I'm happy :)

I really like how you used the theme to create such an interesting combat mechanic. At first I was hunting down rats to kill them all, but the more I played the more I ignored them, and used them for gorgon bait. With the beasts, at first I had a lot of trouble with them, but it was really rewarding to slowly adapt to them and learn when to wait and meet their charge and when to close the distance yourself. As for the gorgon, I found her very difficult to deal with, even after multiple attempts! Because it takes a while to get to her, and because death can come so quickly, it made it much harder to find ways to beat her. When I finally beat her, it was only because I shut my eyes and hoped for the best until either her or I died. I suppose this felt a bit weak, compared to the very precise combat with the beasts.

Some polish and a lot more content could turn this into a really great game, but at the moment the graphics and audio let the rest of the game down a little bit. Again, fantastic use of theme, and great mood!

This game was fairly fun!

For some reason I thought that closing your eyes meant that you weren't holding your mirror up anymore... so I died when I first encountered the beast!

I've played a few games involving Gorgons that have worked well. I think in this one I would've liked if closing your eyes improved your hearing, so that there was some reason to do that aside from attacking the beast.

I think as the game stands, it's a little too easy? Once you find the Gorgon and know where it is there's not much to do aside from shut your eyes and walk near it. I would've like to have to fearfully walk around in the dark searching for it, but that didn't seem to be helpful in the game.

I don't know if this was just me, but I think it lagged a little which unfortunately took away from it a little. I'll rate as if it didn't.