The Darkest Light by zblah

THE DARKEST LIGHT
Theme : The more you have, the worse it is.
Our answer : Light !
Explore this dark world, equipped with a light to help you, but beware...
If you can see them, they can see you...
Credits :
-Alexandre Lattavo - Programmer
-Sylvain Barbaza - Programmer
-Iannis Rosset - GameDesign/LevelDesign
-Valentin Mehu - GameDesign/LevelDesign
-Hugo Willems - 3D/2D/Textures
-Raphael Franco - Composer/Sound Designer
-Josselin Viricel - Composer/Sound Designer
A game by Zblah.

| Windows | https://zblah.itch.io/the-darkest-light |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/the-darkest-light |
Ratings
| Overall | 109th | 3.947⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 420th | 3.477⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 188th | 3.667⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 188th | 3.947⭐ | 68🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 196th | 4.149⭐ | 69🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 69th | 4.008⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 28th | 4.231⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 76🗳️ | 82🗨️ |
come check our game <3 : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/lamattractive
FYI: You should rename your Build Folder to The Darkest Light v1.2_Data instead of Build_v1.2_Data :)
Thanks ! We did an update on itch.io ;)
The animations will be the first thing we will work on (after some rest ofc) !
@grey
Happy to know that the intentions are working !
@johnnyo
We let the character hard to control (slow rotations, no strafe) to maximize the "i'm weak, i'll be dead soon" effect. Besides that, what improvement would you suggest? :)
Play movement animations could be added but all is forgiven. Wonderful job! congrats.
The movement itself would be a little better if you could instantly move in all directions, say with a keyboard in all four, or a controller full 360 control, because it made running away from THEM quite difficult. When they appear in the light, I'd also welcome a little "waking up" animation or some other form of delay, because like this, I died way too often just because they appeared right in front of me :/
One last detail that I love is the faint heartbeat when you stop and listen :)
Good job!
@illabom Thanks a lot for your support, as a team composed of juniors in game industry, it means a lot to us to see this kind of enthousiasm !
@drauthius The choice of bringing some text to the game was a dilemma during the jam... We decided to let it to be sure that everyone understood the light up / light down mechanic, knowing that some players could be annoyed. But if we update this part of the game, a proper tutorial will be added to get rid of this. Thanks for your feedback ;)
@somethinboutgames Great feedback ! It got us think about a movement update that could do it ;). The "waking up" animation was also an idea, we had a hard time balancing the ghost AI. Saying that, i'm thinking about a way to do it with a proportional timer based on distance, it could do it !
And to the next jammers letting feedbacks : don't hesitate to tell us what we did wrong, it makes us better game developpers ;)
And the music is great. We always love to find games that work so well this category.
SOME IDEAS:
The main character is too "static". I see a knight with a cape, so I would like to see some animation when he walks. We know that one weekend is not enough for all these details but i'm thinking that the hero could be a statue or a stone-made hero (a golem?) so you don't have to worry about that.
Good job, guys!
Check out mine too if you can :D
The audio and mood are superb. The atmosphere is just awesome.
The idea itself is very interesting and really well executed I agree with the others that the movement feels kinda static.
But hey its Ludum Dare I can feel with you :grin: Great job!
This entry is an entry with the best mood i've played so far. The idea is great and well implemented. I've enjoyed playing it! With a bit polish this could be a title to throw money at :) For example you could build in some more elements of Dark Souls. I immediately was remembered of this title by your entry. Good job!
@Annie Owl : You're PC is totally fine, this game is supposed to be played with space and directional arrows ;) we forgot to clean our InputManager from some unused keys.
@samurai-spark : We will definitely add animations and more polish to our characters in some time, it was the last thing on the long "to do" list of our only artist :)
@diablol
Our intention was to maintain a little discomfort about how the player interacts with the game. It's the same idea for the character controller, who doesn't permit strafes or quick turn back. We had an hard time to figure out how to use the mouse without making the movement trivial, maybe you're thinking of a way to do it ?
@finbobby123 : We love games with single mechanic :) We will check your entry !
@Marin0104 : Thanks a lot for playing our entry too :) You're right, we're huge fans of Dark Souls and fantasy in general, and it was a major inspiration for our level designers.
@Norbert : Your comment warms our hearts, thanks a lot :) You're absolutly right, we have made the choice of modulars assets that can be flipped, but we were short on time for this kind of polish. Another thing that we couldn't manage to do right : the fire which unlock the doors was supposed to be a little light up before you reach them, but we can't find a way to work our shaders without a huge loose on graphic polishes.
- Fun, solid adn innovative gameplay!
- Nice graphics (animations would be nice though)
- Good audio.
- Nailed the theme.
- Mood is on point.
- Overall a very good entry! Good job!
Nice work !
If i had to nitpick i'd say that the only negatives would be that the lack of a walking animation felt weird, but it's not really that big of a deal anyway.
Nice game you made there, good job to you guys :)
See you around !
The only complaint I have is that I personally don't like the movement, but that might be just me.
Anyway, great entry!
@iluvatar : Thanks for playing !
@lexi : Thanks for your feedback ! Your not the only one to complain about the movement, it's a tricky part between a good feeling and our intention to weaken the player against the ghosts. We think about to rewrite this part soon, don't hesitate to if your have any ideas !
@terryg : a big big thank you for your playthrough, it's very instructive for us to see how peoples play our game ! Unfortunately, we know we have a lack of signs and recognizable landmarks, that explains why not everyone get to the end :( We have set a list of thing to do, we will upload a polished version in a few weeks !
A little spoiler to help you to find your way : in the three branches path, the right one is the good way to go ;) you were very close to find the next corridor in the room with the hole.
Really solid entry!
Good use of lighting also, are the shadows disabled because it made thinks even harder ?
This added to the tension and horror since I knew it would never be trivial to flee.
What hurt my experience the most was the full restart. If each portcullis was a checkpoint, I certainly would have played to the end. Eventually though, it wore me down having to repeat the same sections.
But the main thing was that you nailed that spooky high tension - and maybe checkpoints would have ruined that. Lot of really nice elements here, well done!
@pkenney
First of all, thanks for your feedbacks !
That's really strange that you didn't encountered checkpoints.
I've tried it and they are were we placed them, maybe you didn't manage to reach them. I think the first "fork" is a little bit too hard at the start, we saw that too late.
Stay tuned, we will update a animated / rebalanced version at the end of the rating time ;)
//SPOIL
After the 2 first doors and the first hole, turn right. At the end of the corridor, there is a checkpoint. They are not marked, but i think it could be great to have a "progression marker", because reaching the first check point is less than 20% of the game.
Let us know if you get to the end !
//SPOIL