Love the creepy background music and the lighting, they set a good atmosphere!
Could not get past the first level though :(

There are some tips for getting past the levels on the Itch.io page if you need any help getting past a level :).

Also thanks for the feedback!

You managed to do a lot with the mood of the game, I agree that the lighting and bg music were great. It was a bit tough, I was struggling on the second level on easy mode. Maybe that's my bad though XD

Fun! It took me a few deaths before I figured out it was "e" to turn on lights though. Definitely had me running and gunning.

Thank you everyone :). I put a lot of work into it so honestly all of your comments mean so much to me.

I intended the game to be difficult but I may have made it a bit too hard.

Difficulty level affects damage taken, enemy speed, light duration, spawn timer, and projectile speed of enemies.

First level, I just changed it so the doors only require 1 battery to open now so hopefully the earliest level should be a bit easier.

Tip for the Crow boss - Just spam him down while running around picking up blue dots. You'll kill him in 20 shots. Also, prevent him from merging with other crows as they will increase his health and movespeed.

I like the mood you set up there, both the music and the graphics work well in that sense, but I feel like the experience could benefit from a better tutorial/explanation. For example I'm still not sure how do I gain or lose sanity.
Anyways, nice job.

This is so cool! Love the music and the lamppost/light idea... we had a similar idea in our group so glad to so someone completing something like this. I had a hard time progressing in the game and I pretty sure i've read through all the instructions. Very good job!

i get fun playing it. but when so many units in screen - it starts freeze and lags :(

Cool setting and art. Almost too creepy for me.

Good job!

Very cool mood, very creepy and the art is really effective. The gameplay is fun but sometimes the player speed starts to get annoying, overall though very good and best of luck!

I liked this game, the art is simple but good, I had some lags while I played, but it might be because I played the HTML version, anyway is a good game =D

@svr-audio Thank you! I'm not really an artist so I'm surprised that so many people enjoy the art style!

Yeah the HTML version tends to lag quite a bit. Because I had so much I wanted to do, and so little time, I had to cut corners in a lot of places. So basically everything is done through physics collider collisions, meaning way more resource intensive than a game like this needs to be. On top of that, some things have multiple colliders on them and everything is done with OnTriggerEnter2d(), which is super resource intensive. Plus, I think the player shoots out like 10 raycasts a frame.

Although the gameplay is simple, the sound effects and lighting are impressive and make the game quite engaging.
The game is a bit hard for me. I struggled even with easy mode.
There is a counter next to the lights telling you how much time until it goes out. The counter is very small to read.

If you're playing this game, I'd like to know how far into it you get. I want to figure out where the difficult points are and fix them with a balance patch in the upcoming week!

Good job on making a very fun game. I especially liked what you did with the game's audio!

Amazing Game. Nothing much to add other than "better graphic" which will happen if given enough time ;)

Nice game, I liked the concept of having to light lamposts. I had an issue where I couldn't light lamp posts after playing the first time.

Finished the two doors and then there's more!?!? Yo, dude! good job getting all the mechanics in there and then building a decent little game with it. It was more then just a gimmick. This is a game!

@gengi Oh there's a lot more. That is just level 1 of 8, and there are a lot more mechanics after that level. Thanks for the really encouraging words, it honestly means a lot to me!

Here is a level list:

1. Get Through the Doors

2. Defeat the Crow Boss

3. Power the Generators

4. Follow the Light

5. Defeat the Spinely Boss

6. Destroy the Egg Sacs

7. Stay Alive

8. Defeat the Master Brain

Sweet game! Took me a few deaths before changing it to easy haha. Very neat concept, love that the crows get bigger through consumption of other crows. The atmosphere was good, very creepy especially the laugh.
Great game with the limited amount of hours, would like to see a more polished version in the future!
Keep up the good work!

Nice game, I liked the creepy atmosphere. The laughing... things... were very unsettling.

Good entry! But hard to see shadow in the dark. Good

I played it at night and it scared me, so you managed to create that creepy feeling - 5 stars for the mood :)

Loved the concept, it is very creep and it is scary to play at night, the art is so good, the bird enemy is very scary.

I really liked the mood of the game. Everything is creepy in this game sounds artwork and I love it!

Thank you for the game!

It was hard, but that is not a bad thing! I like challenging games. I really enjoyed the mood set by the lighting and music. Congrats on a good entry!

Challenging game, and has some specific mood. Some minor bugs, but they are not critical. Haven't got very far yet, in some places I'm getting overwhelmed :)

@cpv I'm going to make a walk through video when I get out of work. Personally I think level 3 is the hardest as the spinely enemies make navigating really really hard.
Glad you like the mood!!

Very interesting atmosphere, definitely pretty creepy! Pretty challenging as people have said, I never got past the first level but maybe I'm just bad! Nice job.

No clue why it double-posted, sorry.

Amazing game! It's really fun to play and the lighting effects are awesome. Keep up the good work!

@carsen-d Nah, you're not bad. I have been playing through the game on hard saying "Oh this is easy" but I didn't take into account that I'm the developer and know all of the secrets and mechanics of the game. Difficulty on easy is way toned down now though.

@daydreamerstudios Glad you enjoyed it! The lighting effects were actually really, really easy to set up in unity and I just added some small stuff like lights flickering and modulating the color to add to the vibe.

Not very intuitive, but very good job!

nice shadows...

Neat game, with a cool use of lighting effects. I like the art style and the mood for sure. It wasn't entirely clear what the various gauges were measuring - I got that the top was batteries and the bottom left was health, but I didn't really get what the bottom right was. It would have been cool if the crows made a more obvious sound or indication when they were hurting you, especially because in the dark they could be hurting you and the only indication would be the health bar dropping. I found it challenging but fun. Nice work.

Loved the mood, it was very creepy. It was a little hard to get what the goal was, this needs to be a bit more clear. Otherwise good job, I had fun :slight_smile:

Creepy, but funny) Great job)

@dob Yeah the game definitely could use some more explanation in-game. I was so burned out by the third day that I completely forgot to add in sound effects for damage taken, as well as the other two enemy variants seen in the later levels. I also wish I would have added some sort of sound effect when you're not in the light.

@johngun Yeah I thought putting those bushes there would be a good thing but where you need to go is almost totally in the dark, meaning it requires some guess work. One thing the players is supposed to do is scout out the area using the lights outside the bush area, but that isn't totally obvious and ends up being kind of confusing. The later levels I think are a little bit less unfair in that regard.

I like the game and it is nice to see that you included lights and sounds. But it feels strange when an enemy is bigger than the screen, maybe add a limit of enemy accumulations?

But good job mate! ^^

@quemagalletas That's actually a really good idea. Ideally, a player should try to deal with the enemies before they get that large ;). Once they hit that size, it's basically a lose condition. But yeah, things like that should be more clear!

Really fun game to play, the mood there is just awesome! I really like the concept of game mechanics. Also lights look nice, but the game is a little bit creapy. Good Job!

@theflyingkeyboard Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Great mood, enjoyed the game :D Contrats !

I really dug your game! Fun and addictive.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTzb7vK37hA

Thanks for being part of the stream :)

@togis No, thank you dude! It was exciting to see you get to level 3! I actually learned a ton about user experience by watching you try and figure out the game. Definitely know some ways I can improve it moving forward now!

Really Awesome game!!!!!!!!!!!

@kippllo Thanks man :).

That was really well put together. I love the envoirenment of this game, and how it plays with sounds and light effects. I get stucked at some point because of a door, but I'm not really good at this kind of games.

Nice work, good luck!

A solid game with a great mood. It was really fun to play
Great work!

I played on easy, beat the shadow realm, now I can go home and rest :)

I loved the variety of levels, I think quite alot of work was put into it.

Well made entry, the lighting gave a good touch. But I think it was still a little hard at some points.

I would really like to see this as a completed game with polished graphics! I had fun playing it, although hard was... hard xD superb entry!

@brorawr Thanks man, I plan on continuing this idea though heavily reworked. Things like large, open areas for levels didn't work really well and some of the gameplay mechanics are unintuitive. I want to make it more close quarters, like a Resident Evil 1-Like game with light mechanics and a large world with transitions between areas. Maybe make it a little bit more slower based and claustrophobic, with a more lovecraftian theme. I'm pumped though to see where this idea is going to go from here.

@connor-hagan Im really interested in where this goes!

If you have a twitter I'd be happy to follow you and your progress :)

@brorawr I am way behind the times and don't have a twitter account, but I'll set one up soon and I'll provide a link on this page!

Link to my playtest of your game: https://youtu.be/QaFjqMSQLks

Cool game! A little bit dark at places and a therefore a little bit hard to see enemies and know when you've been hit. It also wasn't very clear which obstacles blocked your path and which didn't. I played at normal at first and then lowered the difficulty. Still, I didn't get very far :) Really nice game though, and I enjoyed playing it!

@jusw85 I just wanna say thanks for letting me know that you actually beat it! I didn't mean for the game to be so hard (whoops) but I'm glad you managed to see it all. I think the first level is the worst as far as how intuitive it is, and that levels 3-8 are a much stronger experience than the first level, but unfortunately I'm stuck with the build I got!

I played on stream, _(VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/164456874)_ so you were able to watch a lot of thoughts live as I played. However I _**promised**_ I would come back to rate and give feedback. Any questions/comments use [@timbeaudet on twitter](https://www.twitter.com/timbeaudet). And **finally** a link to _my_ game if you wanted to check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/edrive

## Feedback:
I always play the game as it was created during LD for voting, so I did not try the post-build where you claimed to have tweaked difficulty. Going in I knew it would be difficult and on stream you had given me some hints. When I first started everything felt very dark and I was clueless as to what I needed to do or anything. Honestly it actually added to the effect/horror theme, at least of the first level. I didn't even get to beat the first level, but had started by wandering the dark and using shots to find my way. Without you on the stream to indicate the interacting with light posts, (_or perhaps me further reading instructions_), I wouldn't have figured it out.

Finally when I did, I found that some would turn on while others, didn't? It seemed the collisions was a little odd. Perhaps with a feature/mechanic like this it would be great to have a large collision area that allows turning the lights on. Other movement collisions sometimes felt odd, against the poles and swing-set. I did like that a single shot _could_ kill multiple baddies. Audio was lacking a little, nothing happened when I picked up batteries or ammo, shot or killed, or turned lights on. Any point of interactivity should have audio feedback. Obviously a challenge in a short time period. The crow sound and laughing was quite nice for the theme though and definitely made things a bit creepy.

The art was functional. I'd guess you are, _like me,_ more programmer than art/music - primarily based on yellow/blue dots! While some of it clashed, it worked to get the point across and the darkness allowing the ghosts/crows to hide was pretty nice, definitely made wanting to turn the lights on a thing. I wasn't able to finish the first level and I guess you had 8, so hopefully I saw a reasonable amount of the game, but that would be my thoughts/feedback for you.

Keep at it!

Interesting game. I feel like there needs to be a little more feedback from the game to indicate when something bad is happening.

@timbeaudet Thanks for the feedback! All lights are able to be turned on, I just made the raycast a little bit too short distance and a little bit too small meaning you have to be really precise about interacting with them. Plus you need to be pressing the movement direction towards the light to interact with it. I've found it's fixed by using a boxcast instead. I also ran out of time to add detailed in game instructions, which would have helped a lot because there are a lot of mechanics that aren't obvious to the players.

I think you're slightly mistaken about the audio, though, as there is a shooting sound. I ran out of time to finish art and sound effect for the remaining parts though (I actually had a sound for lights turning on and pickups but I didn't get to impliment them). I've been doing music for about 15 years (Cello, Guitar, and both jazz and D&B music composition in Ableton) and programming for about 10, so I lack a little bit of effects experience but I get basic sound design. But you are correct about me not being an artist.

And it's a little bit of a shame that you didn't get to see the later levels, as things like the collision issues, hitboxes, and many other things are actually greatly improved in level 3+. Also later levels have more clear objectives as well as different mechanics too. Unfortunately the first level is probably the weakest of the 8, and probably shouldn't have been included in the game.

@tayopi yeah I ran out of time to add all of the feedback mechanisms. I focused purely on making tons and tons of content, and as I went along the content got better and better, but I failed to fix the content at the beginning of the game as well as add some polish like feedback that really would have made the game shine.

Wow, okay, that game provided me with A LOT of nightmare fuel. With very little you created a haunting and frightening atmosphere! I liked the music and the torchlight system and was very happy you included an easy mode for me, which was still a bit too daunting. But the amount of content and levels you managed to squeeze into this game in such short amount of time is a feat of its own! As you'll hear me say in the video: I didn't like it (because I am very easy to startle and don't like exposing myself to frantic horror), but I liked it (because it was a real experience that'll stay with my for a while). Great goob!

@philstrahl Thanks for the feedback! I spent a little bit too much time making content and not enough time balancing the content :wink: so the game is pretty difficult and unfair in some sections. I love horror and wanted to try to create as unsettling an atmosphere as possible and tried to avoid flat out jump scares. I'm glad the atmosphere was effective!

I'll be continuing this idea in the future, although in a significantly different way. Hoping to make it even more frightening going forward!

Looking forward to you working on the game, but it's pretty scary already. If you want to watch me curse, you now can: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQCQ5LjoLgg

@philstrahl I'll be watching your video the second I get home!

Wow, this has some great atmospehere!

I tried it on Hard (cause I'm the hardcore guy you know :P ) but quickly come to realisation that is not going to happen.

Game was really challenging (I think in the right way... there were cheap parts but nothing horendous) and very fun to play. Absolutely no complains to graphics or sound - they fit nicely together, really build up the overall atmosphere and kept game interesting for me.

I'm looking forward to what you'll come up with next jam! GJ with this one mate :)

Nice creepy feel. Congrats!

Would love to try, but no Linux64 build. If you're able to make one, I'll give it a shot.