I tried to run on my PC and it crashed. As a fellow godot user, could you try to upload a 32bit and a 64bit windows executable?

The same thing happened on our game in the last Ludum Dare. We solved it by doing this. :)

Avast was certain it was a virus and kept deleting it, so I eventually just killed the task.
Loved the storyline, and although my headphone's left ear is broken I still managed to, to be frank, shit myself. You really pulled of the atmosphere part anyway.
I know you didn't ask for comments like "It’s cool. I like it." but honestly I can't fault it, everything added to the setting.
If I really have to nitpick I'd say the "power" bit of text has a very bland font for the game, but that's all I could really find.

I'll be honest; it took me too long to realize what the core mechanic actually was, or how it pertained to the theme. On paper, it's definitely an interesting idea - directional audio isn't something that people use as a mechanic nearly enough, and this could be great.

However...With the tiny flashlight battery, and the speed at which the enemy (?) approaches, there's really not much time to think about what you're doing. I spent about the first two minutes just sort of blindly opening doors trying to make sense of what was going on. I eventually made it to Level 3 before deciding to throw in the towel.

The story could be interesting with different mechanics that're built around said story, but...there's a bit of disconnect between the two.

The game, flawed as it may be, still feels pretty well-polished; I didn't encounter any bugs or find any glaring problems, which isn't something that can be said often for LD entries.

Neat concept. Had to re-read the controls a bit to get it. I liked the use of spatial audio. Only issue was that the game over voice would drown out the audio cue sometimes.

This is one of the strongest submissions i have seen so far, the mood, sound, and graphics were great. At first I almost gave up on it because I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be doing. I only figured it out when I went back and read the Itch.io description. I would put the 'how to play' section on this website because i assumed the two pages would have the same information when they did not.

I really enjoyed the concept of having to rely on your hearing to solve the levels.
And, in response to the other comments, it worked fine on my Windows.

@sir-daniev I'll do so immediatly! Should be up in like 5 minutes.

@rogue-studios I'll add the control description to this page too. I'll also probably rewrite it for clarity later that day (it's 2AM where I come from).

@binary-coder That's a good point. This was my first time working with sounds and I had a bit of trouble with getting the sounds to play well together and at the right timing :'D

@cliffracerx Better description on what to do will be added after I slept. The flashlight is just a bonus if you can't look fast enough on initial light flash - that's why the battery is so limited. But I can think about increasing it. You are actually spot on on the story - it was added really late because I felt the game would lack alot without one. I think I pulled it off pretty okay considering the little time I had to do it but I agree it can be improved on.

Thank you all so much for the reviews!

I had a lot of trouble getting to know when I was able to choose a door, and when I got it wrong the game resetted way to fast so when I click past the "Level" screen the game sometimes takes it like two inputs and makes me lose again. The "gameover" voice plays when I'm already choosing a door so it added more to the confusion.
Give the player a clear indication that it choose correctly and if you lose try to change to another screen or something else before resetting the level. The other thing is that you can loose way too quickly, you can hear some steps just before you lose, so try to give the player some time without any noise and then the steps sounds.
It will benefict your game a lot because you can scare the player and at the same time that it will feel more just.

It's a innovative game and I really liked your idea for it. I hope this is the kind of comment you wanted. (And please don't play/comment on my game if you aren't interested on it, I wanted to play yours and comment on it because I found it interesting)

@maldo19 Yep, this is exactly what I'm looking for :) I noticed on my first LD entry how many trash comments there are - left clearly just so you play the games of others. So on my second entry I asked for a "fair roast" which I got. I got helpful critic! So that's the tradition I wanted to continue this time (my third entry). So if I understand you correctly the main point to improve on is audio timing? I could easily agree on that - I never worked with audio before so this was all new to me. I LOVE the idea of silence before the steps - a random amount of silence would add alot. Why didn't I think of this? I'm probably tired. I think I'll add this feature tomorrow. Thanks alot for the review

Disclaimer before you read this; I played with headphones first, and had no luck, but could here things better with regular stereo speakers.

After a lot of trial and error I started to get a handle on the mechanics and was able to get to level 4. The best I could gather from the game play was that I had to figure out what door the sound was coming from and not go in that door. This seemed simple enough and I got far solely on that information.

A few games in, I realized there was a flashlight that I can use (I'm guessing I was good at hitting the door the first time). Again I thought this was a limited resource to find doors as you get later on and thought that was it. Then I read the comments and saw comments about the speed at which the enemy was coming and comments about the graphics being great (which not to offend, but so far all that I had seen was a static scene which while not badly drawn wasn't particularly special). All this leads me to believe I'm missing something about this game. I don't know if I'm not, but it gives me an uneasy feeling that even by level 4, I wasn't sure I knew what I was doing.

So, given this, the biggest issue is that the game doesn't do a good job explaining itself. I know there is a "How To Play" section, but I didn't gleam a lot of information from it ("Click on the door you think is safe" is too obtuse if the game doesn't teach you what is safe). I'm not suggesting that you spell everything out, as that would kill the mood, but you need a way to teach the user the language of the game in a lower risk environment. A quick way would be to really telegraph the audio at the beginning, and slowly obscuring the audio in a logical manner, or using specific sounds relevant to the scene that help clue you in as to what is happening (knock over a vase, or closing a window to block out the outdoor sounds) or using the same things to manipulate the scene.

Also as a note the audio direction is great, and you should focus on explaining what is going on through audio to keep the mood consistent. I'd go so far as to narrate the story rather than have the user read it.

@dalbinblue You're not missing anything. The gameplay mechanic is exactly as described in your second paragraph, the flashlight is there for the people who aren't as fast as us (you don't necessarily need it) :) The graphics aren't "great" but I think they are pretty okay - there was not much use of putting in alot of time on these as you don't see alot of it. It's still almost the best I can do pixel art wise. Originally I wanted to hand draw the screens but the time frame limited my options there.
I gave alot more time to audio which is also why the story is not really related to the gameplay (well it is very loosely).
Adding like a little tutorial room is a good idea but at the end of the jam I was too tired to do it - I might actually add one today. I absolutely agree that the game doesn't explain itself and try to fix this today.

Thank you for the feedback!

I'm not sure what happened, but I was unable to play past "Level 1" screen. :worried:

When I click anywhere in "Level 1" screen fades-out I hear "Game Over" and then "Level 1" appears again. I don't get to see the actual level. Tried restarting the game, but same thing happened. :worried:

Here's a gif of how it looked:


@lawrence That's the supposed behaviour - you have a flashlight. You only get to see the level for a short time before it fades into darkness and you should remember where the doors are. The game over appears because you haven't selected a door before the entity got to you. I tried to explain the game a bit in the tutorial but I might need to also adjust the "How to play" some people seem to have a hard time understanding what they need to do :(

Really cool concept although I didnt have my headphones in so failed many times. But I enjoyed it.

Since I did not use the flashlight. I lacked the main part connecting the the theme. Very nice concept!!

Please play, rate and comment our game aswell:
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/disaster-on-nebula-one

You did a great job with the sound since it was your first try! Some variation in the footsteps might have been nice, it wasn't a particularly menacing sound, although with the tone of the game it worked wonders. You could have made it start slower and increase in speed as it got closer as a better indicator than just volume too. And maybe had a clearer audio cue when it was almost upon you. It was hard to tell how long you had left basically.

But the tone was spot on. And the art, audio and design all worked nicely together to give that super creepy feel. I think the best improvement would probably be better explaining in-game how to play, I understood the flashlight and clicking on doors from the tutorial, but nothing said "you're being chased, listen to where it's coming from and choose a door to run away) I had to quit and re-read the description on the download page to figure it out. I also didn't figure out what was happening when I was dying, that the game was over when it said "level 1" again (since I was clicking too fast and didn't hear the voice).

But yeah, overall a really sweet game, well done!

I uploaded my gameplay of this game on youtube, you can find it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuqwkTmpFMg

Thanks for being part of the stream :)

@duzzondrums Besides manipulating the volume I planned on also manipulating speed - maybe with an exponential increase - but figured I wouldn't need it and cut it. Well... Time to readd it the list :D Same goes for audio cueue. I wanted to play a breathing sound which plays only if the monster is close... Or maybe heart beat sound? Might be better for the short time it's playing.
The sound on the foodsteps could vary more - I agree completely - I just didn't know how to do it.

Finally speaking on the tutorial - I suck at that. I also suck on explaining stuff to people in "real-life" so that just might be a thing to work on. Especially as a game designer you need to explain and ship ideas I think.

It was hard to understand the mechanics, but eventually I did. I think the time you have to choose is a bit too short, you try to listen as the sound fades in, then you are already to late.

Very atmospheric game!
Mood is very good.

It makes for a tense game, but only after I understood how to play the game.
The explaination/tutorial in the beginning is not very helpful, for understanding the timing of the game. The first 5 times had me guessing what happened and what "she" said.
It does get a bit repetitive and I quit after level 3.

The graphics are nice and clean. And your first incorporation of audio worked out well.
The theme is there, but fortunately it's not so in your face, as you can easily do without the flashlight.

Good entry and keep it up!

@estebe The tutorial was a late addition to try to fight the frustration some people tend to get from the game - which is understandable. I actually think alot of the frustration comes from the "Game over" sound because - as you said - it gets very repetitive. I just haven't figured out a good replacement. I'm currently working on improving the tutorial before rating more games so hopefully not too many people will play and get frustrated before that happens :)

I loved the mood Anudin :D You did great, and in 3 submissions we can notice you're growing stronger ! Keep practicing ! And very good entry for a one-man standing game :D I liked it aloooot !

@sempra Thank you - it means a lot!