Into The Darkness by ProgrammingDimension

[raw]
made by ProgrammingDimension for LD 39 (COMPO)

COVER.PNG

Description:

The Earth entered a Dark Age. No Sun. No Light. No Life.

Into The Darkness - A top down arcadish/horror/not horror game for Ludum Dare #39 (Compo)

Controls:

Move: WASD & Arrow keys

Links:

Web Game, PC/MAC/LINUX Download, SourceCode: https://programmingdimension.itch.io/into-the-darkness

From Safety, Into The Darkness

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Ratings

Overall 596th 2.719⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Fun 642th 2.094⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 649th 2.031⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Theme 216th 3.719⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 525th 2.656⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Audio 230th 3.129⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Humor 496th 1.522⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 245th 3.156⭐ 34🧑‍⚖️
Given 32🗳️ 28🗨️

Feedback

Falk Bruskeland
31. Jul 2017 · 15:32 UTC
Creepy atmosphere and nice music. Cool game!
Antti Haavikko
31. Jul 2017 · 16:43 UTC
**Solid stuff!**

"horror/not horror" :D

Made it to a bit over two minutes. I don't really feel like trying again though. Maybe there wasn't enough gameplay/strategy involved. It was pretty much just wandering aimlessly shining the flashlight all around and hoping to bump into a glimpse of red somewhere.

The visuals and sound design were nice. Clean and functional. **Good job!**
uzyfeo
31. Jul 2017 · 16:59 UTC
I really liked the mood of this one. Music adds to it nicely, visuals included. Overall its not half bad :)
PerduGames
31. Jul 2017 · 20:03 UTC
Music and sounds fit very well.
FurkanFS
01. Aug 2017 · 00:18 UTC
I survived 100 seconds exactly! Nicely done and nice effects at the end! I just didnt understand the battery spawn mechanics. Didnt really know where to look at :P
zaygellard
01. Aug 2017 · 06:39 UTC
Interesting, but really hard.
Gris
01. Aug 2017 · 16:21 UTC
Music and sound are very good. I liked that the torch got dimmer towards the end. I didn't find any battery though. I'd suggest zooming out a bit and make the beam of light make it slightly easier to find the batteries. Really good game. Congrats!
Clockwise2000
01. Aug 2017 · 16:29 UTC
Music tone is great, but the bass is slightly too much for some speakers. I love the way you transferred the feel of a 2012 horror game into a top-down 2d game.
ijona
01. Aug 2017 · 16:32 UTC
The gameplay is pleasant, though too difficult.
JnKrambrich
01. Aug 2017 · 21:06 UTC
Great idea! Music doesn't felt right but that is only my subjective opinion.
Controls are good and i liked the art style. I feld like in a horror game :). I you planing to make an after jam version, i would suggest to add horror elements :) But also you must work on the way of battery spawning. I never knew in wich direction i had to go.
isolea
01. Aug 2017 · 22:29 UTC
I really like the atmosphere you created here! Although I wasn't sure where to go to get batteries, the ambiance tied your concept together nicely. Good work!
piscythe
02. Aug 2017 · 01:53 UTC
This game has a good atmosphere of tension. The music is creepy enough to be fitting and the effects used do a good job of inducing an escalating panic in the player. However, the gameplay itself feels basically luck-based. There is little obvious strategy besides 'cover as much ground as quickly as you can.' I don't know if this was an actual mechanic, but the last couple bars of power felt like they took much longer to tick down than the rest.

I scored 75, 65, 75 on my three attempts.
DarkXolotl
02. Aug 2017 · 01:57 UTC
The game has a nice mood. I really liked the music. Thanks for the red effect around the batteries, it really helps when you play. It quickly gets boring, but that's more than understandable for a game designed and made in 48 hours by only one person. Good job.
Kosmo
02. Aug 2017 · 04:50 UTC
Music is the best part of this game -- you did a great job of making it feel ominous. The game itself is a bit simple and doesn't really offer much outside of walking around somewhat randomly hoping to find some batteries. I think it could do with another mechanic or two to make it a bit more engaging.
gilborn
02. Aug 2017 · 09:22 UTC
85s lasted...

The game lives from its mood, the dimishing lamp, the baleful sound and the battery getting lower is great. The dangling and sound wenn the battery gets real low creates good pressure on the player.
I think this is quite the essence of the theme.

Improvement would be possible in the gameplay itself: At the moment you are running in the hope to find battery, the only strategic I found was to run from edge to edge, then back one screen higher to avoid searching the same place twice.
Baby Dino Herd
02. Aug 2017 · 13:52 UTC
Really nice job establishing the mood and having the flashlight weaken as the battery depletes!
good.enough
02. Aug 2017 · 14:36 UTC
I survived 100 seconds! It lacks depth, and finding batteries is pretty random, but the controls were intuitive, and the mood was great. The music was a little on the slow and peaceful side, but it was fine. I really liked the way the flashlight dimmed as the power ran out, and how the battery glow grew brighter. It was as if, even though in real life the battery glow wouldn't change, in the character's desperation, they seemed to shine brilliantly.
justinooncx
02. Aug 2017 · 15:48 UTC
Hm, there could have been a lot more to this game. It started out creepy, but once I figured out that there were no enemies about, and my only goal was to find batteries in the map, it got frustrating and boring pretty fast. Lack of threats, plus the random nature of the battery spawns and the huge size of the map made it really hard to find more power. With a little work, this could be a genuinely spooky survival game; you set up the mood pretty well~
GanbareGamesKyle
03. Aug 2017 · 03:03 UTC
This Ludum Dare, I've seen a handful of these top-down walk around and collect items to extend your survival timer types of games. My question is why have a finite amount of items in this game? It makes playing these past a certain point impossible.
ProdigalSon
03. Aug 2017 · 19:49 UTC
I got lost trying to figure out what I was supposed to do or what hurt me if anything, but I agree that the sense of "alone" and "darkness" was captured.
zenmumbler
07. Aug 2017 · 08:29 UTC
Got to 90 seconds which is probably very close to the maximum. Main issue I have is that there is no skill aspect to the game, it's essentially luck if you run into enough batteries. Of course, that there is no win state is also sort of a feature. I'm DOOMED no matter what I try. Nice.
drtizzle
07. Aug 2017 · 09:10 UTC
Nice atmosphere! The music really fits the gameplay and the visuals. Even though it looks simple, the visuals are stylish, they really work. Gameplay was a bit too simple. Just running around hoping to run into a battery, so there's something to gain next time.

< nitpick >
Dark blue text on a black background is really hard to read, especially when you're sitting outside enjoying the sun ;)
</ nitpick >

Well done!
Jupiter_Hadley
31. Oct 2017 · 15:54 UTC
Simple but well made game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hFP2TT_L4k