The Broken Seeing Glass by Linear

[raw]
made by Linear for LD31 (JAM)
Game Storyline:

Everyone knows that if you use magic too much,
you spend your life surrounded in an aura of darkness.

Only a seeing glass can SCREEN out the forces of evil
around you. It's a shame yours broke and was scattered
throughout the forest!

Find your old spellbooks and recover the shards of your
seeing glass. But beware... dark things lurk about.

Instructions:

Use WASD to move and the mouse to look around. Space makes your character jump, and the spells listed on the left can be used by pressing the corresponding keys. Spells have a cooldown, so use with care! Press TAB to toggle off the spell listing.

The objective (although unstated) is to collect all of the shards of your magic seeing glass.

Authors:

Aurel Lazar (Programming)
Alex Okoneshnikov (3D Art)
Michael Weber (Sound and Music)

Ratings

Coolness 67% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.24 468
Audio(Jam) 3.19 311
Fun(Jam) 2.70 765
Graphics(Jam) 3.38 448
Innovation(Jam) 3.39 295
Mood(Jam) 3.39 259
Theme(Jam) 3.13 827

Feedback

apiotrw
09. Dec 2014 路 21:03 UTC
Really interesting idea
Andy Gainey
09. Dec 2014 路 21:17 UTC
The woosh skill was an obnoxiously weak defensive maneuver, and jumping even with the jumping boots felt limited. The broken glass vision was an interesting concept to try out, and was implemented well technically, but it didn't really produce an engaging experience for me personally. Along with the limited defensive and avoidance capabilities, it made the experience just frustrating. Though it did effectively produce a mood of danger and near helplessness. I guess that's just not the mood I felt like experiencing right now.
馃帳 Linear
09. Dec 2014 路 22:26 UTC
@Andy: This is our first upload, and unfortunately it is rife with bugs. A list of things you probably experienced, currently on our To-Fix-And-Reupload list:

- Music on the title screen is at full volume for whatever reason after building.

- To our utmost astonishment, the bouncing pumpkin enemies DONT DIE when you cast the Woosh spell on them. They make a satisfying "pop" when you Woosh them into a wall, but only when you run the game from the editor. As soon as we build out the game, they're immortal.

- Moving platform sounds are stuck at full volume regardless of distance to player

- Shards don't seem to propagate state between levels (although all other things do?)

- We've noticed that the game is extremely dark on some peoples' screens. We may have to add a gamma correction setting. Not sure if this falls within the rules of bug fix re-uploads, but it makes the game unplayable when its too dark. Stupid mistake on our part for not testing on different brightnesses.

- We left in a debugging "Spell" =/

- Statue enemies work fine before building, but walk sideways (!) instead of towards the player when we build the game. Arrgh!
Future Proof Games
10. Dec 2014 路 01:59 UTC
I really like this one! It's visually awesome, and I think it's a good way of representing the theme beyond the obvious. It's awkward to move around and the combat bugs make it frustrating, but I still got pretty far. I really like the seeing glass effect.
Wusakko
10. Dec 2014 路 06:00 UTC
Idea is really nice. Many good elemets: Menu(camera moving), Art, Music.
myachin
10. Dec 2014 路 06:57 UTC
I collected all of shards) is it victory? )
Very nice game... magic and medieval and puzzly like a Hexen. Good job!
Catwheel
10. Dec 2014 路 07:24 UTC
The platforming is a bit difficult. still a few bugs but that aint no thang. I would have liked a "You win" message if you collect all of the shards. Also, making more re-spawn points for if you die, might be an easy way to re-leave the stress of dieing.
馃帳 Linear
10. Dec 2014 路 15:25 UTC
@Catwheel: Yeah, unfortunately, there's no "Win" condition yet, and although we're going to fix a handful more bugs, I feel like adding a "Win" condition is adding functionality. In reality, we just ran out of time, so the game is unfinished =(

But hey, we tried. This was the first Ludum Dare submission for most of us =D
goodbadokay
10. Dec 2014 路 17:41 UTC
袟写芯褉芯胁芯! 袩芯薪褉邪胁懈谢芯褋褜
d3garcia
10. Dec 2014 路 17:46 UTC
Frame nrate was a bit slow, other than that, was cool
馃帳 Linear
10. Dec 2014 路 21:28 UTC
Last set of fixes applied:

- Tweaked sound fall-off parameters on things. The horse breaking sounds were only audible from up close.

- Fireball explosion sound was barely audible at all, increased volume.

- Blue hearts restored either 2 or 3 hearts, and if you had less hearts to restore than a blue heart would give, you could heal multiple times before the pickup disappeared. Fixed a glitch in the script causing these strange issues.

- Fixed some hearts bobbing through the ground (raised them up).

- Fixed boots spell disappearing upon level change (although you still had the boots, the HUD just said you didn't).

- Fixed bouncing enemies seeing the player only behind them.

- Fixed bouncing enemies dying when hitting the ground instead of having to be splattered on walls.

- Fixed seeing around the spike pit into the skybox in second level.

- Fixed disabled particle effect on teleporter to next level.

- Fixed ability to see into skybox near teleporter to next level.
dieblume86
10. Dec 2014 路 22:27 UTC
Nice idea.
Nekith
10. Dec 2014 路 22:39 UTC
I staied stuck in th first room after having killed the legged tomato. I couldn't use the boots and the doors would'nt open.
The "open" view window is really small, and as I didn't find the other parts it remained that small.
The idea of having a part of the screen that has a different render is cool. In fact, first I was thinking that it was a kind of periferical magic vision where you can see demons, and only there. And to shoot them in the "real" world you should do it a bit blindly : you can't see them when you look directly at them.
Ogniok
10. Dec 2014 路 22:44 UTC
It is kinda creppy and i love it :D
Evergreen Games
10. Dec 2014 路 22:47 UTC
great zelda-like feel. love the different spell types. interesting concept.
馃帳 Linear
10. Dec 2014 路 23:06 UTC
@Nekith: That's a nice idea we didn't think about! You can see certain things outside the Seeing Glass--mostly fog and light coronas, but having an enemy you could only see in the peripheral vision would have been cool.

As for the room with the Boots: basically, the boots just allow you to jump higher (and jump over spike pits, as a result). To get out of the room, you have to Woosh the crate inside the room onto one of the two switches, then stand on the other switch, and the door will open, allowing you to return to the previous area.

Thanks!
MrShoestore
11. Dec 2014 路 02:03 UTC
i like the atmosphere of this, and i thought the effect was pretty cool, although it started to hurt my eyes (though i did spend all day at work on the Oculus so that probably didn't help)
Erhune
12. Dec 2014 路 06:30 UTC
The concept is interesting, but I couldn't get very far because I'm totally unable to play any FPS game without inverted Y axis. The mood of your game seemed pretty solid though, and the result quite polished. I was impressed by the "broken view" effect, looked really good!
esaygin
12. Dec 2014 路 07:40 UTC
Its too Hardwarehungry to play it on my Lenovo T400 over 5 fps =( I couldnt find a Pause-Menu
nokusu
12. Dec 2014 路 11:06 UTC
Nicely done :) the concept, art and music are all good, though it would help for this sort of gameplay to have an options menu (the mouse sensitivity felt a bit high to me) other than that good job !
ZNCatlaw
12. Dec 2014 路 17:14 UTC
So frustrating to have to look through a tiny screen! Once I figured out how everything worked, this was pretty cool. I think the colours are too faded, they don't really feel engaging.

I got stabbed by a statue and died...
MintArcade
12. Dec 2014 路 22:38 UTC
Nice idea indeed. Interesting use of theme.
Benjamin
17. Dec 2014 路 10:20 UTC
Very great mood on this game. I wish this spell names & lifebar dont take so much space on my already too small glass. I almost completed my glass but could not reach the end because of the lack of spawn points
maxmetallica
17. Dec 2014 路 12:54 UTC
nice idea
ynots
17. Dec 2014 路 13:28 UTC
nice..
jlouisB
26. Dec 2014 路 12:57 UTC
Nice, the game probably needs to be a bit more polished, but I like it, especially the concept, the atmosphere, the music.
jachepe
29. Dec 2014 路 12:14 UTC
Interesting idea, I love it!