Lantern by hasuprobe

made by hasuprobe for LD 40 (JAM)

You walk in the shoes… err.. in the bare feet of a child, wandering through Boogeyland, where nightmares chase and hunt you, until your heart can’t take any more.

Your only allies are your lantern and faint fireflies, scattered around the eerie wasteland, to bring you some rest to your soul.

Run child, run! Until the endless run is over...

Lantern is an endless dodge game, where you can use WASD keys to move in the cave, Left SHIFT to RUN, U and I to shrink and enlarge lantern radius.

Keep the Monsters outside your lantern radius to preserve your heart rate.

Follow the compass to find and collect fireflies to lower your heart rate.

The game is localized in: - English - German - Hebrew - Italian - Russian - Slovak - Spanish

(There has been some confusion about the integration of the theme into the game, and I will explain some different ways the game fits the theme: 1. The more light you have, the more likely you are to be chased by monsters. 2. The more your heart rate goes up, the lower health you have. 3. The more fear you as a player have, the more likely you are to make a mistake. Thank you all for the support!)

Source code	https://github.com/RuslanRuslan/LudumDare40
Other (document)	https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-iAsQxTCkx-XEuUUCVD6BIqxI3ov0C31Luo282iFTjQ/edit?usp=sharing
Other (document)	https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pSXZ3byX4DAoctNqlinEaF5qjIbZkwXiVJPdjNkTy2s/edit?usp=sharing
Windows	https://www.dropbox.com/sh/pliervhcozaai9q/AACFEEyn17M7MQeDlXxqwVjKa?dl=0
macOS
Windows	https://brolton-mown.itch.io/lantern-for-ludum-dare-40
macOS	https://brolton-mown.itch.io/lantern-for-ludum-dare-40
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/lantern

Ratings

Overall	778^th	3.214⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Fun	1078^th	2.5⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	1051^th	2.476⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Theme	1044^th	2.667⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	209^th	4.119⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Audio	93^th	3.929⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Mood	140^th	3.881⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Given		16🗳️	3🗨️

Feedback

oleg.kuzyk

05. Dec 2017 · 08:18 UTC

Nice and simple gameplay. But I didn't see the theme.
The boy is cute especially when he taking a light bulb and his hair is waving :)

Grentacular

05. Dec 2017 · 08:24 UTC

I really liked the graphics and the music/sound effects! The gameplay was pretty basic, but there was enough of a challenge to keep me interested for a while. Overall, a solid entry in the jam! Good job!

Abductkaz

05. Dec 2017 · 12:17 UTC

Fun little game, artstyle is very soft and cute. I liked the enemies most of all - they were just amorphos, soft evil blob looking things, very childlike!

The gameplay was fairly basic and, once you've figured it out, not incredibly challenging. I feel the theme got lost a bit though. The further you went on, perhaps more enemies could spawn, or they could get a little faster.

Overall, pretty fun little entry, I enjoyed it. The art was the best part though.

🎤 hasuprobe

05. Dec 2017 · 15:57 UTC

@abductkaz , @oleg-kuzyk , @grentacular :

thanks a lot to everyone! :)
Our interpretation of the theme was: the more you have (heartbeats) the worse it gets. Thanks for the feedback, it would be very helpful to polish the game and balancing it better!

Best,
Giorgio

spaceturtle

05. Dec 2017 · 19:57 UTC

Nice graphics and sound effects! I enjoyed the gameplay and I think it it might be better if there was more incentive to have a larger lantern radius, perhaps by adding more obstacles to navigate around.

smilewood

05. Dec 2017 · 23:55 UTC

This is a beautiful game. I really love the lantern effect and the design of the character as well as the monsters. I thought the all of the animation of the character was great, and I especially liked the game over animation. I really liked the concept as well, keeping vague monsters just outside of the light was very effective. I also thought that the music was great and perfectly fitted the theme of the game.

I did have some problems with the actual interface. The back button in the options screen is very hard to find, it blended in very well with the lantern hanging in the top corner. There also didn’t seem to be anything after the game over, it just faded to black and stayed there with no options.

While this is a fantastic environmental game I didn’t see much of the theme in it. What is it that gets worst if you have more of something? Fears themselves? That would be very Meta, I like it. Complaint revoked. Thanks for the fantastic game!

Sand-Gardeners

05. Dec 2017 · 23:56 UTC

Very well done mood, the atmosphere was great even if the game wasn't really challenging or hard! Great work, team :)

SonOfSofaman

06. Dec 2017 · 00:54 UTC

High marks for mood, music and artwork! Aesthetically very pleasing. The gameplay is fun, but I wouldn't call it highly replayable. I like the interpretation of the theme, however it may be a bit too subtle.

The back button is too hard to see and I'd like to be able to play again without having to exit and relaunch the game. Also, using the shift key to run is awkward, plus Windows kept thinking I wanted to enable sticky keys.

🎤 hasuprobe

06. Dec 2017 · 17:43 UTC

@spaceturtle Thanks a lot for the review and the feedback! You're right! The shrinked lantern radius has some advantages over the larger one, we will surely think about how to incentivize it. :)

@smilewood Thanks for the wonderful review! the element that gets worse is the heartbeat, or fear as you suggested :) Thanks again for looking into the game!

@sand-gardeners Thanks!! It was definitely a team work from second 1 to the very last minutes! :D thanks for looking into it!

@sonofsofaman thanks for looking into the game! We'll look into the replayability and try to come up with some design to keep it enjoyable through multiple attempts! ^_^

Thanks to everybody! :)

srakowski

07. Dec 2017 · 01:10 UTC

The audio and mood on this game were exceptional. You did a great job of capturing the experience of being alone in the dark with monsters lurking. I thought the graphics were well done as well. The gameplay itself wasn't all that intense, but you really provided an experience. Well done :)

DSC-GRAPHICS

07. Dec 2017 · 21:45 UTC

I really like the Artstyle, I´m a Graphic Designer and Animator myself, so its quite cool. Also nice Music and the whole atmosphere....I spotted afew bugs, but since I never programmed a game in such a shrot amount of time who am I to talk about bugs... XD

Netherless...cool work

OldShrimpeyes

09. Dec 2017 · 12:04 UTC

The character/monster artwork was great, and the music and sound design established a delightfully eerie atmosphere. I felt the lantern mechanic could be more impactful, but as far as the audio and visuals go, awesome work.

Mike Cullingham

13. Dec 2017 · 15:48 UTC

Fantastic sound and very nicely done art. Needs more depth in gameplay, but resisting the urge to max out the light radius is a good mechanic (could use some additional tempting reasons why you might want more light too). Also needs to communicate better that the monsters are more attracted to more light. Great job.

pogo

13. Dec 2017 · 18:39 UTC

Love the art, sound and mood. Trapping monsters behind rocks was surprisingly effective

TuilePiment

17. Dec 2017 · 11:31 UTC

Nice game, really beautiful art! We have the same base concept (the more light you have, the worse it is) Come check our game : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/$53321

Hisfantor

21. Dec 2017 · 14:48 UTC

I like the sound mimicking the heart beat

ProdigalSon

23. Dec 2017 · 18:38 UTC

The stuff of nightmares! Poor kid and all he wants to do is sleep. Unique artwork from what I've seen so far. I understand this is and "endless" doge game but it would've been nice to have some objective like "escape the room before the light runs out while dodging enemies" and each new "room" is larger, has more enemies, and so forth. Nice concept