Legend of Troll by Christina Antoinette Neofotistou
Everyone knows trolls turn to stone within 10 seconds of getting exposed to sunlight.
So this is their story.
Made with Construct 2
Art, animation and music by Christina A. Neofotistou
Hint: the goal is to get the queen to the finish line
____
I planned 10 levels of troll puzzle fun. I managed one and a half, so I present it to you. I worked 3 days on my own, and I'm not even a programmer. There's so much content that didn't get into the game, but I'm SUPER happy. I love LD so much, I want to have one next week as well!
Please keep an eye out for the post compo version. It will be amazing!
Don't forget to vote.
___
Controls:
Ctrl+Arrow keys = select your troll
Arrow keys = move and jump
So this is their story.
Made with Construct 2
Art, animation and music by Christina A. Neofotistou
Hint: the goal is to get the queen to the finish line
____
I planned 10 levels of troll puzzle fun. I managed one and a half, so I present it to you. I worked 3 days on my own, and I'm not even a programmer. There's so much content that didn't get into the game, but I'm SUPER happy. I love LD so much, I want to have one next week as well!
Please keep an eye out for the post compo version. It will be amazing!
Don't forget to vote.
___
Controls:
Ctrl+Arrow keys = select your troll
Arrow keys = move and jump
Ratings
| Coolness | 100% | 1 |
| Overall(Jam) | 3.41 | 158 |
| Audio(Jam) | 3.60 | 69 |
| Fun(Jam) | 3.04 | 244 |
| Graphics(Jam) | 4.56 | 20 |
| Humor(Jam) | 3.38 | 84 |
| Innovation(Jam) | 3.42 | 114 |
| Mood(Jam) | 3.55 | 86 |
| Theme(Jam) | 3.44 | 138 |
It captured the theme very well. 4/5
I first noticed your post during the 48 hours and was pretty excited to see how it would turn out.
There is certainly a lot of potential for a full feature puzzle game!
Even though it was short the one puzzle was pretty clever, and not immediatley obvious. And you even managed to create a couple of cutscenes, awesome!
Those poor trolls though... :P
I didn't understand what to do though, until I read a comment below that explains it.
Also, maybe one of the trolls should be automatically selected at the start of the game, so you can start moving immediately.
Yeah, I enjoyed it all
I'm definitely keeping an eye out for the post-compo version!
Graphics / Audio were great! Could do with a little more things to do but given you're not a programmer, maybe you had some ideas you couldn't implement - would like to see more :)
Really nice idea in this game, and awesome pixel art! Nice work. I really like the concept. Unique!
Good job, hope for more levels now!
- lovely art... nice animations (especially the turn-to-stone one) and gorgeous environment
- very nice music (one bug i saw was that going back to the main menu caused the game to be silent when re-entering the level)
- a pretty satisfying little puzzle, figureoutable without a tutorial
- some good humor, especially the rocks talking
Not sure why the queen didn't turn to stone also, though :P
I have to say I'm jealous of your title screen. I always run out of time to make a nice one, and yours is wonderful.
Keep up the good work!
You really should make it a bigger game. All hail the queen!
Awesome entry, i enjoyed this one so much.
promising gameplay, i look forward to the 10 levels version.
In the description you wrote about one and a half levels... where is my half level?! :D
@nhmllr
thank you! Fixed the control descriptions, should be ok now
@Verrazano
Thank you, I blocked the trolls from going over the finishing line, and it is much clearer now!
@jay griffin
You're the sweetest, thank you!
@theholychicken
Thank you, I'll try not to disappoint!
@bytegroveYes, definitely Lost Vikings, with a dose of Lemmings and Doublefine's The Cave. I was going for lemmings/adventures of Lomax with the mood, but hopefully in an original way
@rezoner
thank you! If you press "ctrl" you can skip the cutscene
@Steve
Very good suggestion! I thought I'd make people learn the selection system first, but you're right, it's confusing
@Moosefly says ...
All hail the queen!
@wine says ...
Thank you!
@DreamTeam says ...
Thank you, I will.
And yes you're absolutely right about the troll selection, thank you! I will work that into the finished game
@Tifu
give it time <3 Thank you
@zatyka
Agreed, and will do! Thank you
@dancingflame
Awesome pixel arts and the background scrolling looks quite good. The animation is smooth and epic too! I love your idea and puzzle, it surely has some potential. Nicely done! BTW your gameplay is somewhat similar to ours, in good way :)
@rincewind_cz
Nice pixelart :-)
@Typedeaf
I made the finish line uncrossable by worker trolls, this should make it easier. Thank you so much for playtesting it
@Vasileiadis
Ευχαριστώ. We'll see!
@AdventureIslands
I changed the control descriptions! Thank you and I apologize for the confusion
@deepnight
I made the finish line uncrossable by worker trolls, this should make it easier. Thank you for the tip!
@spliter
Thank you! I didn't want the trolls to turn into boring old stone statues, as in the actual myths :)
@rylgh
You're so right to point this out. The queen, if I had time to make the sprite, was going to be under a huge tent, designed to keep her safe, while the other trolls bust their asses for her.
@cafeine
Thank you! Please do!
@Sakuyan
Wow, that's so sweet of you, thanks!
@Atmospherium
I will! Thank you!
@savethejets1
Aww, thank you! You know, it helped that the graphics are old-school. That way the title screen was just a copy/paste of game graphics.
@Optimus6128
You're right about that, thanks for the bug report. It's a problem with Construct 2, but now that I know about it, I will make the jump impossible unless there's a stone where it should be.
@GrooveMan
I took your advice, and made the finish line impassable to worker trolls. It makes a world of difference, thank you!
@KhaoTom
All hail the queen!
@Colapsydo
All hail the queen!
@bitserum
All hail the queen!
@UnorthodoxGames
Thank you, I promise you will. All hail the queen
@Linus Lindberg
I will! Thank you!
@Capro
You're right. And I will, thank you!
@withoutpillow
Yes it was! Well, they're Trolls, so they're Scandinavian. But I want only the queen to insist on talking in the Old Tongue, to make her more snobbish
@Zccc
Noted, thank you so much! It's a Construct 2 bug, but I will fix it by making the jump impossible until you've placed a step in the right place.
@klianc09
All hail the queen. Thank you! I... decided to leave it out, and show it to you along with the other 8.5
@Diptoman
Thank you! Well... I lost a lot of time designing 10 levels, because I thought I could finish them. If I had designed just 5 puzzles, I might have managed to get it in. Live and learn!!
I can definitely sympathise with only having time to make 1 level, and I also can't wait to play more :D
Anyway that's still a good game, I like the lemmings-like mecanism.
I think that "10 second and transform in plateform" mecanism could have been super awesome in a "10s rush" plateformer (you have to fastly go back to the right place and build your plateform path for the Queen). A lot of LD27 games took that plateformer-rush mecanism but I can imagine your mecanism on top of that could be super powerful.
One suggestion:
- add more queens! :) and the trolls to be confused which one to obey!
"Do this, do that... Argh! A troll needs less queens, less sunlight, less jumpin' and more food!" :)
Is there only one level? I want the post-jam version now! =D
More levels please!
Tiny things you maybe didn't know you could implement: A "thump" sound when the trolls lands, being heavy creatures they do make heavy sounds. I'd even shake the screen a little when a troll lands, that gives it heaviness. And a sound when the turn, something crackling. The occasional grunt, a complaint when you run against a wall with them. It is those tiny things you want to work on now.
ctrl AND arrows is a bad choice, switches desktops on MacOSX. simply hitting one button multiple times will work better and is less confusing.
I've put the trolls correctly, I'm sure, still the queen wouldn't jump up. But programming some fuzziness here is a bit harder than you might have the skills for.
Thank you for the tips
The gameplay mechanic is very promising too, and makes good use of the theme.
Excellent work!
Kind Regards
Patrick
Kind regards,
nathan
I feel like I am a total retard... I understand nothing that is going on.... :(
I guess the game is nice, it looks and sounds good, but... yeah, I should go to sleep now and try again later! :)
I can't wait to play the post-compo version with more levels. All hail the queen!
PS: You seem to have the programming part down pretty well, but since you say you're no programmer: If you ever want to team up with one for a project, shoot me a message!
The premise is very good, too, creative use of the theme there!
I like how the trolls still hail the queen, even after they turned to stone for her, haha!
Absolutely fantastic work!
The music is nice and fitting as well.
I think there I found a bug. When the last minion was going to die, I pressed control and arrows, and then he 'revived' and never was able to die. Also, maybe start with someone already selected would be good.
The game itself it's a little short, but really well polished, I'll look forward to your post-compo version :)
The idea is very cool, there' a lot of potential in this :)
Applause!
Easter Egg:
When starting the level a second time and spamming the x key, the queen will come and just jump over the obstacle :)
As others have already mentioned the graphics are lovely, the animations are great. The game play mechanic felt interesting and tied into the theme well and I liked the personality the dialogue gave to the little characters. It's a shame it's so short but I assume the post compo version will be extended? Overall nice work.
On a side note, I checked out your past submissions when you mentioned one of my old LD entries and was surprised to see it was you who made Kumiho for LD#23 -- I hadn't taken part in Ludum Dare at that point but I had tried that entry a few months ago when looking at random old entries and absolutely loved the graphical style for it.
It's a shame it's so short!
Can't wait for the post-compo version. :)
I can't wait for extra levels !
Aside from more content, it could use a bit more polish in a few areas. If you go back to the menu after the initial cutscene and restart the level, the ingame music does not start again. Also the queen's movement is rather wonky. I played a couple times, and my second time doing the correct solution she failed to step from the first rock up onto the ledge, turned around, said her 'unacceptable' spiel and left (and I of course had no trolls left).
Also, as good as the arts are, it would be nice if there was a bit more connection between the visuals and the mechanics. What I mean is, the ground in the centre of the level is the brightest, so appears best lit and thus the area that's exposed to sunlight visually, but it's the edge of the play area that counts as being in sunlight for the mechanics, which appears shadowy compared to the centre in contradiction to the (albeit excellent) sunlight warning sign. Just a little something that could make the game more cohesive.
I can see this as a prototype of a great puzzle.
Great sprites, decent music, what more does a game need?
Btw: would you mind telling me the instrument/VST you used to create your sound?
This is amazingly well done. The graphics and especially the "turn into stone"-animation is absolutely gorgeous.
I will NOT criticize the fact there is only one level, because i myself struggled enormously with the time limit (even though your game is a JAM-entry), and the fact that you got this one level bugfree, greatly polished and beautifully done qualifies it for a fantastic Ludum Dare Entry.
You can expect a very good rating from me.
@X-0r I used Korg Legacy M1, a great VST
Thank you everyone