Search for hope by agmcleod

[raw]
made by agmcleod for LD29 (COMPO)
Given the theme, what i did first was listen to the song "Beneath The Surface" by Dream Theater. And that spawned the idea of a game, where as the player you need to find hope, and that hope might not necessarily be above the surface and immediately visible.

There is a current bug where if you hold the mouse down to dash back and forth, and combine it with a jump, you will go above the screen (whether under the surface or not) and get stuck. It's something I wasn't able to spend time on to fix, and i thought it was kinda funny. I hope to advance the level design in the future to combine usage of dash jumping.

Tools used:

Game Engine: MelonJS
Map Editor: Tiled
Pixel Art for map tiles: Pixen
Sprite art and backgrounds: Pixelmator
Music: Garageband for the iPad

Ratings

Coolness 41% 1669
Overall 2.54 1111
Audio 2.54 677
Fun 1.92 1213
Graphics 2.56 941
Innovation 1.96 1214
Mood 2.86 687
Theme 2.68 967

Feedback

burquitlambadgers
29. Apr 2014 · 01:02 UTC
Interesting game. Love the audio, but it would be better if the music didn't restart every time you die.
GameGrape Corporation
29. Apr 2014 · 01:08 UTC
:D the art in this game is awesome :D i like the main character little blue guy. Great job!
wdebowicz
29. Apr 2014 · 13:26 UTC
This guy really can jump. Nice art style.
Hayawi
29. Apr 2014 · 15:02 UTC
I loved the art style and the audio. Everything really worked to set the mood of a dystopian world moving to a bright future.
Crooksister
30. Apr 2014 · 09:53 UTC
I didn't enjoy the music restarting at the beginning of each room. Needs quite a bit of work but you're building towards a nice aesthetic.
🎤 agmcleod
30. Apr 2014 · 11:48 UTC
Crooksister yeah that was a very late bug. I had to rename the files when I deployed it to lowercase, however my dictionary on tracks for maps still had the uppercase values.
MunkeeBacon
01. May 2014 · 00:12 UTC
Game controls are clever, I like the idea of the mouse dash. However the music is a little bit repetitive.
Photon
02. May 2014 · 21:34 UTC
I think I can kind of see what you were trying to do here, but it needs a little more work. The audio in particular was a little grating in my opinion. The game works and has a certain mood to it, but a little more fleshing out could go a long way.
VictoryGarden
03. May 2014 · 21:43 UTC
I really like your character's walk cycle. It's smooth and kind of fussy, which helps with characterization.

Dashing and jumping sent me through the roof, and I couldn't get down. There were also a few times when I ended up in a loop based on whether I platformed up or not--seemed a bit cheap. You could put a wall there and get the same result.

And then... I thought that dashing through enemies would kill them, but instead it just drained my health, and there seemed to be no reason for the dash other than being able to move quickly (which wasn't necessary since the game was so short and the character moved fast enough). Since it wasn't one-hit-kill, though, it would have really helped to have had a health bar.

I got to the end, though. It was interesting that the player character moves from one anonymous city to another, and I actually walked up to monsters a few times, wondering if they were the friends I was supposed to find ._. This was a nice effect, and a nice driving premise! Good job.
alexdantas
06. May 2014 · 02:03 UTC
I immediately loved the game. The gray image,
"I Feel Alone" and the sad keyboard tones gave
me chills like no other LD entry has.

But the feeling faded away quite quickly.
Please take the following as critiques, not
complaints:

- At first, I jumped and the user went through
the roof.
- The music kept restarting at each scene change;
It's kinda irritating, specially for people who
like to rush through a platformer.
...but the music was so awesome I decided to chill
around.
- Completely static enemies - come on, it's very easy
to add animations on melonJS. It would've made
a huge difference.
- I like how the lifebar is a counter that follows the
character.
- The ending was great; little fade out with good song.

Overall I think you put a lot of emotion on this game,
but it don't deserve to be given 48h only.
I really think you should work on it whenever you have
time - it's a great work of art and expression.

P.S.: High five from a fellow melonJS user! Thanks
a lot for contributing to it. :)
sP0CkEr2
07. May 2014 · 03:17 UTC
some potential but there was no heart here - the enemies never move - frustrating when you hit things and I guess I was taking damage? overall it was fun - nice job
CDK
13. May 2014 · 17:13 UTC
music was kindof annoying as it started over a every new "level". but nice short game.. some movement might have been nice.. but i probably just don't understand the whole concept ^^
f7f5
17. May 2014 · 07:52 UTC
Nice setting but it needed more of a challenge.