That was fun but that audio was really loud had to take my headphones off

367.60 was my score. You caught my interest with the lasers, and that's a really cool use of your darkness mechanic, but the levels are a test of patience with trial and error, as taking untested paths may lead to you not having enough power, even with a pellet. I love the concept but the execution was frustrating. Also, I agree with SnipZ, VERY LOUD. Nice music, though.

Great use of the theme, but only really got interesting once the lasers were introduced. Very trial-and-error heavy, though. Not very fun retracing your steps to find one new path that doesn't get you closer to the exit.

Quite difficult, but fun to play nonetheless.

One of the better "light radius" games I played this ludum dare!

Like:
- very crisp graphics and mechanics
- the levels looks sometimes mesmerizing in their geometry
- nice music, even with variety
- interesting mix of memory and exploration gameplay
- plays great with game pad.

Try differently:
- "juice up" your player movement a bit, google for a talk called Game Feel by Vlambeer or Juice it or Lose it. :) As you spend so much time moving in this game, movement could feel more fun.

Overall:
- good looking game with decent music and innovative mechanics!

Hey @schu - [you put your game on my list to play](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/end-of-time/whos-not-had-any-love-link-your-game-for-me-to-play), and [I streamed the play-through on Friday](https://youtu.be/-DEvWdMWCKk?t=4097), Thought you might like to see. It was a bit though to play because it's got a lot of trial and error running, but I did like the mechanic, I think it had a lot going for it, and if you have the patience, it's a good game. Pretty solid :)

Good use of the theme! I especially liked when the lasers were introduced! However, success requires a lot of trial and error which I'm not a huge fan of.

Very nicely done! I think your levels are designed pretty well and the gameplay fits the theme well. Its a little bit like my game :)

I love the concept of this game. Fits the theme in a very interesting way. Well done!

This game was pretty fun! Very frustrating when you realize that you took the wrong path and that there is no time to turn back... Makes for some good gameplay :) Well done!

The game concept is really good and I liked the other aspects of the game too (visuals and audio). However, I think the level design can be enhanced. Some levels are clever and requires thinking but some greatly depends on trial and error and memorizing the steps after many trials to finish the levels. Overall, good job :D

I think the level design encourages trial-and-error way more than it should. The maze-like layouts and time limit really grind the game down a bit and I think you should refine the level design and maybe add another mechanic that encourages some more deductive reasoning from the player. Good job getting this game done for the deadline though, that's the most important part ;)

It's a great concept, pretty fun exploring the mazes. I felt I could only keep going by trying first the wrong ways, maybe adding some kind of mechanic that allows you to actually think would be nice. However it was a really well done game with minimalist art that really fits the concept. Great work!

(Also, if you wanna check out ours, I leave here the link like you asked in your other post: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/eclipse)

354.42

The problem with timing a maze is that mazes are a subset of puzzles and puzzles are deductive logic challenges thus once you know the solution, in this case the layout of the maze, you can simply speedrun it. I didn't bother going that far though.

Solving (there must be a more apt word) a maze is also rather trivial. It takes patience, trial, error and memorization. The visibility mechanic and the lasers did spice things up a bit, but not enough for me.

There are at least two ways to make mazes more interesting:

* Procedural mazes. If the layout changes after each playthrough, memorization goes out the window. Now we are dealing with an inductive logic challenge. You have to sometimes guess which path to take, based on the little information you gathered before.

* Hostile entities. The stakes would go through the roof, if the maze was inhabited by enemies which chased you down upon visual inspection. The monsters (of course there are monsters in a maze) could make disturbing sounds, both helping you pinpoint their location through walls and attributing to the atmosphere.

Yeah, I'm not too much into puzzles, especially mazes. Inductive logic challenges, i.e games, are more interesting to me.

Nice entry, I liked the style, the music was really great! I know the art style was minimalist, but you should add some sort of texture on the walls as a reference point, as there is such a low field of view. That didn't matter too much though, I enjoyed playing this game :)

Funny game with interresting machanics!

Very nice game concept!

Nice puzzle maze, and clever use of the theme. It needs memory and foresight reflexion, but fast. Art is a little raw, but developing this gameplay did worth the lack of time to make more pixels ;) Well done!

great depth with simple concept and simple mechanic... and the mood with such simple tools, you really let the imagination work... I love it!

The concept is really nice, and the game is kind of hard, but pretty fun !

I like it! The light turning smaller is so good. Simple maze but works so well. I think I found a glitch in the second or third level: when you die and press space you go to the next level xP.

Good job!

Simple but fun gameplay, that fits very well with the theme. It kinda reminds me of Pac-Man is some way. And I wasn't really expecting the red things, took me by surprise! The only downside, I think, is that on harder levels you kind of have to lose a few times to remember the right path, making it a somewhat trial and error game, independent of your skill.

Great use of the light mechanic, although in long straight corridors, it sometimes felt like I wasn't moving at all

Nice minimal gameplay that fits the theme perfectly! Like others mentioned, it felt a little trial and error at times. Some sort of indicator to show the next closest pickup might be nice (though maybe that would make it too easy?)

Good job :)

I liked the simplistic style of the game, with the focus on the gameplay :)

Your idea was really fun :) has a lot of potential :) one thing you can probably improve is that currently as others have said it is a lot of trial and error, e.q. if you move wrong in certain levels you basically lost already, also this combined with a rather slow movement speed made the second tries more tideous, maybe an increased movement speed could solve that (with adapted lifespans)?

Overall well done :)

Hey thank you all for your feedback so far! I really appreciate all the criticisms and praises! I agree with the general consensus that the levels are much too trial and error. I had considered enemies and/or procedural generation as @huvaakoodia suggested but ultimately decided I wanted the challenge to purely be escaping mazes and I thought it'd be a good way to practice some level design. I felt that the lasers themselves added enough of an extra challenge.

I am very happy that people seemed like to like the music since it was all procedurally generated with tones.wolfram.com, but I made it waaaaaay too loud cuz I threw them all in in the last hour. I'm glad that people liked the overall aesthetic too cuz I felt that was a definitely a strong point given the fact that the only art assets in this game are a square and a circle.

If I were to remake this I would definitely spend more time designing levels that are actually fun to play through and don't rely on trail and error. Thank you all so much for your feedback cuz it'll definitely be useful knowledge for me in the future! I do game jams a lot cuz I feel that they're great learning experiences and if you wanna check out any of my other stuff here's a link: https://schu-box.itch.io/

I really like the overall aesthetic. Though the graphics and audio are simple, they work together really nicely. I agree with others about the trial and error nature of the gameplay, but I think that's part of the style (spend one run trying to gather information about location of other energy sources, rather than just try to get to the exit) to be more of a memory-based game. Nicely done!

The simplicity of the graphics works well here: there's nothing extra to distract you from the real mission. The mazes themselves we're alright and the idea of losing the POV is pretty cool is also neat. My absolutely favorite thing, however, was the music. Had it not been for the crazy cool chords and melodies (especially in the maze with that one super long hallway if you go up) I don't think I would have played for as long as I did. You really did well with the music!

The mechanic with the lasers was really smart. Eventually it comes down to memorization though. My score was 300 at the end. You need some visuals/particles that indicate movement, because otherwise one can't tell if anything is moving when the radius gets really small.

It is an interesting maze game. It fits the theme thanks to the shrinking light mechanics. The player learns quickly and easily the game rules and can enjoy the game immediately.
As the other people who tested your game, I found the controls a bit approximative. It makes you lose the game in an unfair way. Music and sound fx are fine but the rest looks like a prototype. Better graphics, candy eyes and a humanoid character would juice the game up. Finally, the game mechanics do not renew themselves at all, from a maze to another. It feels it is just an extensive use of the same mechanic. Some twist and nuances in this mechanics could help make a fun game with an acceptable durability.

Damn, I loved this game, it is very simple, but it was one of the games that I had more fun playing, I really loved, although I could not finish all levels I got kinda addicted in this game, the art and sounds are very good, I loved this concept, a 5 star games, no doubts, I will definetely come back to play this game and beat all the levels (btw great level design). Amazing job !