Labyrinthian by BlackBulletIV

[raw]
made by BlackBulletIV for LD31 (COMPO)
You are trapped in a labyrinth filled with monsters, with only the light of your torch to illuminate it. Your goal is to fight your way through and survive.

---

Each level is only the size of the screen. They intersect with each other at some point and will swap when you're not looking.

IF YOU ARE STUCK:

* The crossing over points are "box-like" structures near the edge of the map. There can be multiple points, so choose carefully.
* Look to the wall (away from the rest of the level). Turn around and the levels should have switched.
* If the player gets stuck, try resetting the level with R. If that doesn't work, you may have paused the game. Press P to unpause.
* If you need to, you can skip between levels with - and =, which decrements/increments (respectively) the current level. Bugs can occur with this, but it's generally pretty good.

Notes:
* If you encounter a bug or crash, please try to give details. It'd be a great help.
* The .love require L脰VE 0.9.1

Ratings

Coolness 78% 2
Overall 3.68 146
Audio 3.66 83
Fun 3.39 283
Graphics 3.73 194
Innovation 3.30 421
Mood 4.26 14
Theme 3.75 362

Feedback

keyle
08. Dec 2014 路 03:03 UTC
I confirm your game works on Windows :-)
(Windows 7 here)
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
08. Dec 2014 路 03:12 UTC
Excellent. I'll test it myself tonight, or whenever I've managed to get some rest.
raincole
08. Dec 2014 路 07:27 UTC
Doesn't work on MacOSX :(((
http://imgur.com/V4xX2DO Got this
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
08. Dec 2014 路 07:35 UTC
Damn. I'll look into it shortly. If anyone else is getting errors, let me know.
benmcnelly
08. Dec 2014 路 07:35 UTC
Loved how much atmosphere you got out of such a simple premise. Nice!
erik
08. Dec 2014 路 07:41 UTC
I got the same error as raincole under OS X 10.9.
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
08. Dec 2014 路 07:47 UTC
erik, raincole: Uploading the fix as I type. Try now.

benmcnelly: Thanks. Lighting and sound are incredibly powerful tools.
Slashee the Cow
08. Dec 2014 路 08:16 UTC
Some things seemed to require a few too many shots.

And then it froze.
Catwheel
08. Dec 2014 路 08:17 UTC
had a glitch after "maybe your destiny is to run in circles" or something like that. Anyways. thought it was really cool.
Valtaroth
08. Dec 2014 路 08:19 UTC
Your game is great! Reminds me a lot of Teleglitch. It amazes me how much atmosphere you got into such a simple game. I got really tense while playing it and got startled a few times when a monster came around a corner and killed me. I love it. :D
talecrafter
08. Dec 2014 路 08:26 UTC
Great game and atmosphere.
Love the fact that the game is continous and you restart at the current challenge.
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
08. Dec 2014 路 08:30 UTC
I know people who've already commented won't read this, but if you encounter a glitch/crash please try to give details. It'd really help me determine if I can fix it.

Anyway, thanks a bunch for the feedback guys.
Wayward
08. Dec 2014 路 08:32 UTC
Can't believe this was done in 48hours.
Very scary and moody, nice dark pixel art.
Simple but atmospheric musc.
Well done!
jepster
08. Dec 2014 路 14:35 UTC
You were right! I like it! By looking at the screenshots, I didn't think I would like it as much as I did! It's really great, and the audio is stellar! The gun has the perfect amount of reverb! And I can confirm it works on OS X for me :)

I did have one issue; I got reverted back to the beginning of the game after choosing to go "Left". But now that I think about it, that might have been my destiny all along :)
vrld
08. Dec 2014 路 14:50 UTC
Wow, creepy game. Very well executed. The mechanic fits the theme nicely.
vekjeft
08. Dec 2014 路 21:28 UTC
Loved the supense! Gun sound real, but a bit load. 4 for sound, 5 for everything else:)
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
08. Dec 2014 路 21:59 UTC
jepster: Yes, that's a feature. Spoilers: going right would've given you the "ending", which is what the narrator didn't want. Which one you choose depends on how much trust the player has for the narrator.

vekjeft: You're right. I was going for realism (as real guns are deafening), but it did end up a tad too loud.

Thanks for the feedback guys.
frenzyasii
09. Dec 2014 路 02:19 UTC
excellent!
Conk
09. Dec 2014 路 02:24 UTC
The light was a bit awkward to start with, but I got use to having to move mouse as I move around. The combat was real cool, very tense, especially when those rats were coming for you. I'd say I missed quite a bit of dialogue as it seemed to come when something attacked me, other than that, very strong game, had a lot of fun playing it. Mood was good too, nice audio and effects.
error031
09. Dec 2014 路 03:50 UTC
It's very atmospheric, sets very dark mood. Nice work
Manou
09. Dec 2014 路 11:57 UTC
Minimalistic and very effective, good atmosphere.
TheScragglyMan
09. Dec 2014 路 12:17 UTC
i love the use of lighting in this entry, Was really unsure with what i was actually doing, but i enjoyed figuring it out :D Really enjoyed it.

Best atmosphere yet!
Snuux
09. Dec 2014 路 15:10 UTC
Super! Love2D shadows are pretty good! Thanks for game!
ryguydavis
09. Dec 2014 路 15:20 UTC
This was really compelling. I so enjoyed playing. It did ride the line between disorienting and frustrating, and I think tipped over into frustrating a few times (especially finding exits)--but I think the amount of this shows it was still worth the frustration.
andreaswitzen
10. Dec 2014 路 00:23 UTC
I like it! The brownish monster who roars and comes at you made me jump in my seat. Green blobs are not to mess with. Was a bit to hard for me though. Spent a lot of time just being lost not finding the exit (title tells me this is on purpose) and got killed several times by the same monsters.
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
10. Dec 2014 路 02:18 UTC
Thanks for the feedback guys. Sounds like I made the game a bit too hard *once again*. Remember, if you can't get through a level, press = to skip to the next (this may mess with the sequence of things a bit, but it should work 9/10 times).

I did intend a little confusion, though not as much as it sounds like some people are having finding the exits. Hard to judge how hard it'll be when you've built the levels.
ArcturusDeluxe
11. Dec 2014 路 00:44 UTC
Oh man, this game is pretty cool. Really tense atmosphere, love the lighting effects and the field of view blocking. Reminds me of Teleglitch if you ever played that. The way you use darkness to hide the level transitions is a stroke of genius, it really makes it feel like you're lost and the walls are moving around you. Which, I guess they literally are. The monsters maybe kill you a little TOO quickly though. Good job anyway.
p1x3lruckus
11. Dec 2014 路 00:52 UTC
I'm not sure if this is a bug or not but my torch doesn't do anything, it makes a sound but doesn't turn on.
TriSquare
11. Dec 2014 路 01:00 UTC
I f*cking love this game. . . im saving this game on my desktop just so i can beat it later. Awesome Work. . . Well done :)
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
11. Dec 2014 路 01:15 UTC
p1x3lruckus: Is this on level one? I know you probably won't see this, but if anyone else experiences the same thing, could I get more of a description of what you were doing/trying around the time it wouldn't turn on?

Glad to hear you guys are enjoying the game.
p1x3lruckus
11. Dec 2014 路 05:43 UTC
I had just started up the OS X version, text appears on screen to press f to toggle the torch, then pressing f plays a sound but no light is generated. I can faintly make out the character on the screen and the rest of controls seems to work fine, but no torch.
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
11. Dec 2014 路 06:09 UTC
My recommendations would be:
* First, try to move your mouse around and moving the character if you haven't already.
* Second, switch the level forward with = and then back again with - (or just keep it at level 2).

If those combined with starting the game again, then I have no idea what's going on. I haven't been able to reproduce the bug myself.
p1x3lruckus
11. Dec 2014 路 06:42 UTC
Hmm, no none of those worked. I'm not familiar with the love engine but does it use openGL? Maybe a shader that makes the torch work is incompatible with my graphics card or something strange like that. Either way it seems most people can play it so I wouldn't worry about it.
馃帳 BlackBulletIV
11. Dec 2014 路 07:16 UTC
A shame we couldn't get it to work. The game uses two OpenGL shaders, one of which does part of the lighting. L脰VE and the game itself should check for incompatibilities, but it's possible your graphics card reported its compatibility wrong or something. I dunno; it's weird.
Zimennik
11. Dec 2014 路 10:49 UTC
Great game!
Gwilym
11. Dec 2014 路 13:22 UTC
I really jumped when I saw those enemies run at me. I do agree with some of the other commenters that some of them took too many bullets to kill, but I really enjoyed playing it :D.
Mr.Greenhat
13. Dec 2014 路 01:07 UTC
Great use of the theme and overall a great game!
slarrimer
13. Dec 2014 路 01:11 UTC
Nice lighting effect for the flashlight!
Team Flashlight
13. Dec 2014 路 01:26 UTC
This game is so excited and intense! Nice graphics and audio! The use of visibility algorithm with flashlight also create a very good scary atmosphere for players. I like your idea of changing level when player is not looking. The only thing I concern is maybe the difficulty is a little high for new players.

Our game "Flashlight" is also about using flashlight, welcome to have a look!
AkirAssasin
13. Dec 2014 路 09:32 UTC
This reminds me of a Minecraft map called The Code :D
If there was a fullscreen mode, it will be totally awesome!
little-burrito
13. Dec 2014 路 22:37 UTC
Very cool, moody game! I love that there's no health indication or any other hud, and the sound design is great. I agree with Slashee the Cow on that some things require too many shots - that broke the atmosphere for me, because there were a couple of levels where a monster would start right next to me and I'd only sometimes manage to kill it even though I was spamming the fire button in their direction. For me it would have felt much better to more or faster monsters that would require fewer hits, because most atmospheric thing for me is when you just manage to kill when it's in the air, jumping towards you for the kill, and you're left there just panting! It almost happened a couple of times, but because of their health it felt a bit random when it did. The sound of the footsteps of the big monsters is super cool. And the narration totally works in the style. Very nice! Thanks for this game!
Jaloko
14. Dec 2014 路 06:23 UTC
I enjoyed the lighting effect and that combined with the audio really helped set the mood. The game was quite hard to play initially but after a bit you get the hang of it. Solid entry.
Taunia Sabanski
14. Dec 2014 路 08:27 UTC
The atmosphere and music in this game was very effective. The droning, plodding and digital/scratchy sounds definitely lent to the game's overall creepiness. The way I had to bend the light around corners and move in a certain way to ensure I had a good view of whatever was in the next room was fun and intuitive, and I found myself being very careful going into new areas.

As others have said, the difficulty curve is quite steep and the monsters start off quite hard. 7 shots to kill one of the larger monsters right off the bat, as it runs towards you, is quite intimidating for underexposed players who can't quite grasp how everything functions yet.

The other difficulty I had was figuring out exactly what corner of the screen I had to shove myself against to get the level to change. As I suggested in Twitch chat, the best, simplest way to remedy that sort of confusion is to give a simple, indicative sign -- such as a caution stripe on the floor. A signal to tell the player that they have not only reached the end of the level, but now can turn around and go back the other way.
Warboys
14. Dec 2014 路 10:03 UTC
Great lighting, very cool effect. So disorienting which I suppose is what you were going for. Top notch mood!

Gameplay wise I really wanted to like this, it reminds me of Darkwood which looks super cool, but I was just dying to everything so easily. By the time you see what's hitting you, it's already too late... and I found myself constantly shooting my gun so that the muzzle flash would light the area around me! That as a mechanic would be really cool, like an expendable flash you can use if you really need to see all around you... but when available at all times it becomes abuseable (although I still died too much!)
Snicklodocus
14. Dec 2014 路 22:35 UTC
The mood and audio is very well done. I liked the screen change gimmick though it took me a while to figure it out. Nice game!
maxmetallica
29. Dec 2014 路 21:13 UTC
nice work