One of the things I love about pixel art is how much emotion and personality you can read into characters. This uses that really well, coupled with the beautifully done sound and music. It's so simple but conveys an atmosphere so well.

I can't believe that this was created by a single person, your game is simply so stunning and polished that it's hard to describe all of its pros. Love everything about it: animation of footsteps and how distinctly they sound; the noisy art of an incoming snowstorm; how colors subtly change during character animations that liven up a bunch of pixels into a real human being; how well-paced sound iteration actually is; and so on...

It reminded me of my childhood.

Man, you need to make people know about your game, it may be the best entry out there on this Ludum Dare!

@duzzondrums I'm glad you enjoyed it! That's one of the reasons I love pixel art too. Thanks for playing!

@eveningwayward Thank you for your kind words! They really made my day. I'm so happy to hear it reminded you of your childhood :)

mood, graphics, & audio were all on point BUT the gameplay was severely lacking.

i left the house then reentered for a game over... then i checked out a couple ponds and saw a bird...

I could jump but... for why? haha!

loved the camera follow stuffs on the duder too, just wanted more of a game, ya know?

:smile:

I'd recommend removing the donate option from the game page, it's extra clicks. I would recommend porting it to mobile though, think it would be a nice de-stress game.

This game is all about the atmosphere and while it may get flak for not having typical game elements it is good. Very solid visuals and the audio adds to the experience. Hopping along in the snow out to the docks, short jumps, long jumps, and the creaky boards.

Simple, short, but sweet.

Nice atmosphere though! Very nice feelings when you just walking on snow and look up. Add snowflake eating feature please =)

Thanks for a fun experience! Love the use of noise in your pixel art - it really helps the whole scene blend.

I think you really captured the pleasant solitude of a silent walk in the winter. I think it is a fun experience - not every entry has to be an active game. I do kind of wish I could make snowballs or knock snow off of trees, through. :grin:

The art, sound design and atmosphere are incredible. I do wish there was some more gameplay but this is really impressive. Nice job!

The way I went back into the cabin after a walk in the snow, so lovely.

Great pixel art, are you using some kind of shader though cuz it looks really cool. The sound is great too, you really get the feel of the game down. Nice work!

The atmosphere and sounds in this game are absolutely incredible. I'd seriously like to see this turned into a full game, it has so much potential. Good job!

Really nice mood, seriously gave me a bit of chills from the combination of the music and the scenery. Love the grain on the pixel art, gives a nice clean look to the entire game. Would be nice if some more interaction was allowed, though now that I think about it it would ruin the feeling of the game in a way.

Nice job :)

Really beautiful little experience. All the elements work so well in reinforcing the scene's quiet meditative character and the feeling of being dwarfed by one's surroundings. Some little details I particularly liked:

- Excellent attention to detail in the sound design -- love how the footsteps change when walking on the docks
- The subtle film grain, which gives everything a kind of vintage warmth
- The camera pan out over the water
- I particularly like the sprites for the large evergreen trees

Out of curiosity (these are not meant as critiques):
- Did you consider a parallax scroll effect on the trees and mountains in the far background? If yes, what led you to decide to keep all of the background elements fixed?
- Are you rendering with the GPU or the CPU? I'm not confident I'm getting a consistent 60 fps. (Well, perhaps I am. I didn't investigate too deeply...) On my monitor on my machine, I notice a flickering effect on edges of high contrast pixels, while walking but more so while jumping forward. I wonder if it's just my box, or a consistent behavior of the game -- if the latter, I wonder what can be done to mitigate the flicker? Of course, I only noticed this because of how serene the rest of the visuals are :)

I suppose there was one other thing that broke immersion a little bit, and that was that when stepping away from the edge of the either dock and walking back toward solid land after staring out over the water a while, the camera has to pan back to center on the player character, and I thought it snapped back uncharacteristically fast.

Your game has not much interaction but nevertheless it is very immersive. I think this is the right way to make something minimalistic.

The game does not have much gameplay am I right? Jumping feels right, walking is a bit slow. The game looks really good. I hope you extend the game with gameplay!

I love your world.

Ps for the impatient life-passbys. I found the press spacebar quickly will give you a acceptable move speed.

Really beautiful game. I love the pixel art and the well places sound effects (walking on the snow). The music reminds me a bit of minecraft (which is awesome). I really would like to see this turned into a full game in the future with some gameplay elements. Maybe like building and farming things?

Nice work! :thumbsup:

Beautiful little game. I think that the rarety of it makes each interaction more powerful. Though I wish I could do a little more. Nice entry anyway!

Wow, I really loved the great care you put into the details. The pixel art is fantastic, and the sound, like the one of steps in snow, are so well chosen. It inspire very contemplative and peaceful emotions! Really nice job! :)

Sweet soft color palette and a touch of film grain make the pixel art visuals connect beautifully to (sorta lo-fi) slow & moody piano arrangements and realistic sound effects. It does not necessarily need "more gameplay", but I still feel for some reason that having just a few meaningless interactions scattered about would make this experience even stronger.

Nice peaceful experience with a really nice realization. There's a lot of feeling coming out of this game, and that is really amazing.

I like the minimalism of this entry. I also think sound design was really well done, I could really feel the snow beneath my feet. I think as @palemachine said it would have been interesting with a few extra interactions scattered about, or maybe a run button, or an option to lay down in the snow. Other than that I feel the game really hits the intended mood. :snowman:

Thank you everyone for your comments! It's been great hearing your feedback ^_^



@aaranos Thanks for the tip -- I forgot about the donate popup on Itch. And thanks for your kind words!

@stanislav A snowflake eating feature would be a lot of fun :)

@endlessplumber Thanks for the ideas! I glad you enjoyed the experience :)

@coderjoe I originally wrote a shader for the noise effect, but ended up just drawing a pre-rendered texture across the screen. Easier implementation! Though I did make the pre-rendered texture using my shader. So, it was useful in the end!

@megalink Thank you!

@joyfired It's a thin line between content and experience, for sure! Thanks for your comment :)

@lennart-jansson Thank you for your in-depth analysis! I'm glad you noticed some of those small details :) As far as your questions: 1) Yes, I originally did add a parallax effect. But, I removed it because it looked weird and was slightly distracting (in particular, it conflicted visually with the noise effect, which moves at the same rate as the player). 2) Rendering with the GPU. The game runs at default 30fps :P I'm not sure about the flickering. What's your monitor resolution? Perhaps I will investigate. Thank you so much for your questions and kind words!

@jorbits Nope, not much gameplay! It's more about being immersed in a small moment in life :)

@arcticmattekar Thank you! I also love C418's music in Minecraft -- very beautiful.

@zaibakk Thank you for your kind words! Glad you enjoyed it!

@palemachine Your idea for more small, random interactions is a good one! Like, little things to discover on your walk through the snow. Thanks for mentioning!

@drestuff I really like your idea of lying down in the snow. That could be really fun too :)

It is really impressive that just pixels can make us feel emotion! I firstly was shocked that the game ended without "actions" needed. But then I realized that I really enjoyed the walk in the snow, and it did the trick for a nice experience. Well done on this.

I loved every second of it, the mood is really great and the experience is solid. I would love to see something more to help imagining a little story and maybe a bit more of interactivity, but I really like it as it is.

Good job!

This game has such a good vibe to it thanks to the awesome music and visuals. I like the little details (falling snow, birds) that also helped define the emotion this game portrays :D Good job!

It's lovely, really. I'm glad that so many people are reacting to the attention to detail. (〃˘◡˘〃)

@louspirit I'm glad you enjoyed the experience!

@fran-segura @zach-bracken @parkdraws Thank you for playing ^‿^

This was cool experience (no pun intended)! The art is beautiful as is the music, which is so relaxing too. I liked, but I missed more interactivity, ya know? Keep rocking!

Beautiful experience! Very well crafted. You managed to get a great deal of personality in the animation and movement. I really love the jumping! The footprints are also a nice touch. I wish there were a few more interactions but perhaps I am being greedy. Thanks for the lovely game I had a great time:)

I feel like I am missing something. because I could not find a game in that thing. sure it was nice, but there was no gameplay. It wasn't even a walking simulator. I tried to explore everything only to find nothing. I must've missed something...

Beautiful! I love the polish and personality, and the audio design is fantastic. Really good attention to detail.

Such a beautiful little world!
Love the relaxing atmosphere here, the sound of the footsteps in the snow and the minimalistic pixel art!
Good job!

It's stunning how much you've achieved with (seemingly) just a few things. So short and simple, yet so pleasant to play. Great job.
Thanks for the game.

The mood and atmosphere you created with the pixel art was amazing, really enjoyed the audio as well. All adding to the mood. Very little gameplay but I don't think that matters. :snowman:

This was so beautiful, I genuinely love it. It has helped me relax and feel better today, thank you. Audio was just perfect