Twilight of Humanity by wilbefast

[raw]
made by wilbefast for LD31 (COMPO)
"According to the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human populations sharply decreased to 3,000–10,000 surviving individuals. It is supported by genetic evidence suggesting that today's humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago."

Will you survive the twilight of Humanity?

Today we tend to forget to fear the dark, to forget how cruel nature can be and to forgot how fragile we human beings are. It's worth remembering how near we came to extinction at one stage.

All my own work except the Norse font created by Joel Carrouche, which the rules allows.

## Disclaimer
In this game you can, and will, starve, be eaten and die of hypothermia. It is not a friendly game. You are supposed to be confused, you are supposed to struggle to figure out the game's system, and you are supposed to ultimately fail to survive! In this it is akin to a minimalistic Dwarf Fortress: losing is a perfectly valid end to the experience. Losing is fine.

## Controls
* Click and drag tribesmen around to move them.
* Click on the ground to have the nearest tribesman throw what they're carrying.
* Tribesmen will pick up or interact with nearby objects automatically

## Spoilers
Struggling is an integral part of the whole concept, so I recommend you stop reading here if you don't want to spoil the experience.
If you're really stuck though the following might help you out:
* You can light branches by moving a tribesman holding a branch to a bonfire
* Tribesmen will die of cold if they stay for too long away from lit torches and bonfires
* It is considerably colder at night than during the day!
* You can create more bonfires by throwing burning branches into trees
* Multiple, well-fuelled bonfires will make it easier to spot attackers early
* Bonfires can be refuelled by throwing branches into them
* Trees drop branches periodically, so if you burn all the trees they'll be no more branches :(
* Tribesman will starve eventually unless you send someone out to catch rabbits
* Rabbits only appear at night and are afraid of the light
* Monsters only appear at night and can be chased away using burning torches
* Make sure your torches are burning bright by relighting them at the fire periodically
* If your torches burn low they will no longer work against monsters!

Ratings

Coolness 55% 3
Overall 3.48 282
Audio 3.55 109
Fun 2.86 768
Graphics 3.87 137
Innovation 3.71 180
Mood 3.87 41
Theme 3.81 297

Feedback

Tater_hater
07. Dec 2014 · 18:46 UTC
This game looks absolutely beautiful. Im having trouble advancing past the title screen however
🎤 wilbefast
08. Dec 2014 · 00:11 UTC
The compo ends in 1 hour and 45 minutes, the build will be up before the end ;)
Tater_hater
08. Dec 2014 · 03:06 UTC
I was right, was fun!
geartech0
08. Dec 2014 · 05:00 UTC
It was fun, but i was confused. I picked up the sticks and i tried to survive. Because of the many things to save, i couldnt deal with them all. Other than that, it was fun for what i understood. It was to survive with fire. Salvage sticks. But it easily got boring for me after a while :\
Alexandre Szybiak
08. Dec 2014 · 11:31 UTC
Love the graphics and mood, but I couldn't figure out what to do.
Germanunkol
08. Dec 2014 · 18:21 UTC
Your source code looks very nice and structured.
But why not supply a .love?
DesignerNap
08. Dec 2014 · 20:22 UTC
Great work on this. Simple style but so much atmosphere. excellent implementation.
🎤 wilbefast
08. Dec 2014 · 20:32 UTC
I should probably add a disclaimer: being lost an confused is an integral part of this game. It's a game about trying to figure out how to survive. So if you're confused that's pretty normal ;)

Germanunkol: I've uploaded a .love to itch.io. Often I don't bother as you can just run the .exe file with LOVE if, like me, you're on Linux ;)
Pete_H
08. Dec 2014 · 22:30 UTC
Stunning artwork combined with the music makes it very atmospheric, Think I need to spend some more time figuring out what to do though :)
Simon
08. Dec 2014 · 22:43 UTC
Love the mood and the overall idea. Is there a way to beat the green beasts ?
Team Flashlight
09. Dec 2014 · 00:51 UTC
I love this game! It is so simple and beautiful. However, it gets a little boring after surviving a few days. Could have a story for it.
🎤 wilbefast
09. Dec 2014 · 18:22 UTC
Well you know, it's an LD project: the game was designed as a vertical slice with about 10 minutes worth of content - we all have a lot of games to play ;)
There's likely to be a post-compo version with a bit more progression and perhaps 30 minutes of content.

Ok, so some spoilers for people who are really lost:
* people turn blue if they are cold, use torches and bonfires to warm them up.
* people get hungry: you can feed the whole tribe by hunting the rabbits that come out at night.
* bonefires need to be fed regularly.
* monsters can be chased away using flaming torches.
* trees can be ignited to create more bonfires.
* don't burn all the trees or you'll have no wood left!
ponk
09. Dec 2014 · 19:42 UTC
WooooOOoooooooo...! Astonishing !
Smooth and intuitive. I really like those procedural FX
Code Medicine
10. Dec 2014 · 02:00 UTC
The concept is fantastic. It looks good and is very atmospheric. After reading the comment with hints a lot of things made sense after my playthrough but I was a little confused if you can ever win. I love how simple the art is but I wanted just a little more detail and crispness in this area. The audio needs more work, the wind sounds became a little annoying after awhile and the music needed some more thought. I did love how ambient the music was, I recognized the drum samples and the audio didn't seem to be processed much. Overall, I really enjoyed the game and felt it delivered on theme and mood very well. Great job!
EquipeJAM
10. Dec 2014 · 20:38 UTC
Good Work ^^
gene-z
10. Dec 2014 · 22:13 UTC
Bealtiful game,,, Congratulations
Maurogik
11. Dec 2014 · 17:22 UTC
Confusing but in a nice way ;). Great game, it has a very strong mood.
theholychicken
13. Dec 2014 · 03:32 UTC
I never would've figured out you can stomp rabbits at night haha..
Brilliant use the minimalistic art style. It's simple yet there is so much humanity in taking turns sharing a fire. Then there is only three left of the whole tribe, then two and only one...
Great experience playing this! Terrific work!
Sartemis Smart
13. Dec 2014 · 17:16 UTC
Very cool game :) I had some stange flickering issues on my screen, but the experience was interesting.
lase
13. Dec 2014 · 17:19 UTC
This game is pretty cool, although I had some trouble figuring out what to do. I did get bigger if I walked into the fire though :). I also threw many sticks into the fire. The graphics and music are well done. I didn't see any rabbits so I eventually starved.
runvs
13. Dec 2014 · 18:22 UTC
It's a hard game but I like that very much (df being my one favourite game over the last years, says everythin ;) ).
Graphics are super awesome!
Erhune
14. Dec 2014 · 15:08 UTC
Hard, but interesting. The controls felt extremely smooth and interactions very natural for a compo game!
nuno
14. Dec 2014 · 21:05 UTC
very cool! Greetings from a another löver ;)
🎤 wilbefast
15. Dec 2014 · 18:17 UTC
Löve ftw =D

One things I'd changed about the controls: have the most recently dragged guy throw his stick rather than the nearest guy. Sometimes it's fiddly to get the guy you want to throw his stick somewhere :S
Poupi
25. Dec 2014 · 01:57 UTC
Very nice ;)
drludos
27. Dec 2014 · 23:27 UTC
Excellent idea and nice game, I love it (no pun intended)! :)
I like the general mood of the game, with minimal gfx and sounds but very powerful and emotional as we struggle to survive through the night. I like how you have to discover how the whole game systems works. A very solid entry!