Welcome to Journey in the Dark

Definitely worth a play through. Fits the theme perfectly + feels good to play

Cool submission. It is sometimes hard to tell what can kill you and what you can walk on/past, but I really like how the visuals and sound design deliver the atmosphere.

Yes I did not want to hint out the killing objects out too much by making it red or something. I want the player to know it intuitively. In the real world you also watch out of sharp objects, so :P. Thank you for your feedback!

Nice art and jump/move mechanics.

Maybe working a little more on the menu UI and putting some sort of tip to click on the mouse button when the flashlight is turned off.

If you invest more time in this project after the ludum dare, this could evolve to something exciting.

Good Job!

A fun game with a brilliant main mechanic that fits the theme great. Loved the ominous audio!

Is there no end of that cursed cave?!
Great idea, challenge, I made 92.

Great game, especially love the mood of it all!

Overall very good, (especially for a first try!) but since you asked for criticism:
- Maybe start off with some easier obstacles, my first couple of tries I died with a nearly full battery on a hard first obstacle. Get your players to invest in the game and then kill them when they like it :)
- Showing the area after death is nice, but doing so at full brightness is a bit jarring, maybe place a large gradient around the player to still allow the player to see where they failed while preserving the atmosphere.
- At the beginning you already show the start area. The effect of the dragon would probably be greater if you can only spot it behind you with your flashlight.
- While I understand your explanation, I agree with BAJARYMI that sometimes its hard to see what kills you. Especially at the spikes at the edges of some of the platforms. It might be clear that they are deadly, but where the killzone ends is hard to judge and critical information for an instant kill.
- If you use Kongregate as your primary distribution platform, try to match their template size to avoid the scrollbars. (And add a full screen toggle)

But as stated before, it's great already :)

**It's a great game :thumbsup:. **

**Just one thing:** I have to agree with @bajarymi and @arnage: I also understand your explanation, but it would have been great if it had been a bit clearer what's an obstacle and what's not (it doesn't have to be shining red, but just **a bit clearer** – maybe by having just a bit more contrast in the brightness of the colors…).

All in all, a great game, thank you for sharing it.

wow, that was a cool journey , thanks for this atmoshpere! good job!

Very good game ! I like the ambience and graphics :D The concept is very good and fit well the theme ! Very good job !

I really enjoyed this game. Art in the style of Limbo, but procedurally generated content like an endless runner. In fact, it is the opposite of an endless runner with the added requirement that you be careful. It is not about moving fast at all. I disagree with other comments about pointing out what hurts you. In the description, you gave a list, and I felt that was enough. Only once did I run into something that I did not realize would kill me, but it was pretty small on the ground. The other times I died, I deserved it!

Of the games that I have played so far, this is the one that creates a mood for me, so great job there. I did not rate in audio, though, because I am not clear what you created and what was downloaded from freesound and/or Brackey's.

Also +1 for providing a web build! Again, the first game that I have played to rate that did.

Wow, this looks really cool. As good as it is, I've got some tips for you. Hope it is helpful:

Differenciate the lethal elements from floor and not lethal elements. Some games uses colors or more exagerated forms.

At first try I didn't understand what was going on. Maybe a little animation or decreasing light will help.

It's more likely to die than running out of battery, so this is a thing to balance, in my opinion.

Overall, great envoirement and style, the dragon is stunning! Good luck!

original idea definitively in the theme

The most interesting game on LD39 I've played, sincerely!

Nice idea and fit perfectly to the theme.

I had also my problems with obstacles and sometimes it was not clear for me what is deadly and what is only in the background. In my opinion color would destroy the atmosphere ... but maybe make them sharper?

Its nice that the startpoint changes but after a time the obstaclesareas repeat themself.

But i had managed to 172m and was fun to play.

Thank you all for your constructive feedback, I really appreciate it a lot. I agree fully that the balance between dying and battery running out is not good, but this is what I could do in a weekend. Color would definitely do the game harm, but I agree that the objects should hint in some way that they are deadly. Maybe light reflecting on the tip of the sharp object. I don’t know yet. I saw a lot that at first people don’t immediately know what to do. But after a minute they understand it and are able to play.
I am very happy and excited to receive so many positive comments. It’s really appreciated!

One of the best game I've played in this ludum dare. The atmosphere was great with the hollow wind sound effect, the footstep and the flashlight toggling sound. The core mechanics has a lot of potential and it was well executed. I didn't realized until later that the level was actually partially random generated which adds a lot of replayable but it does add some randomless into the game. For example, I got my high score because i had a relatively easy start for that run but then other runs were much harder. Also sometimes it is quite hard to tell which area is safe and which is not. I got kill at randomly tiny spikes that I did not notice and it ruined my good run which was a bit annoying.

However, it was a very innovative used of light and the game is very well polished and played nicely. Well done!

Very well executed concept.

I wish the shapes of some obstacles were more clear though,

graphics cool, but no offense, but it's like the 20th game i play like this right now (light management + plateform) ^^

But you made it well so, well done !

I love your art!
Especially the stone with monster look really bring me in the mood!
Also the main system of the game(battery consume) force me to not to turn on the light all the time, this lets the gameplay feel more compact!

I love the gloomy atmosphere and the idea of the flashlight makes this platformer really challenging. With a little better graphics it could be a hit!

A very challenging game, with a great atmosphere and decent graphics. The fact that the levels are procedurally generated kept me playing until I felt I had a decent high score.

I did find that the dangerous objects were hard to make out at first, but once I learnt the various puzzles I knew what to avoid.

Great game!

Cool game, quite fun for a while

Solid entry. I like the minimal graphics, and the sounds coupled with the darkness create a nice isolation feel. The use of the theme is basically the same as in our entry so I can only appreciate it :P

Good job!

Very nice game!
The idea of flashlight wisely is very innovative, I liked it! Nice difficult levels, it is hard but not impossible, and you feel fear when you walk in the dark.

When I played, some pieces of cave repeat. It could be some easier puzzles in the begining, to be able to play without keep the torch flashing, but maybe it is just because I am not too strong playing it :P

Congrats on the game! I like simple but challenging games and this has both!
The only thing I would change is to accentuate somehow which think are gonna kill you, spikes, blades, pits... Don't know how though :)

Really liked the limited colour pallet and the tension that was made with the flashlight. The light was a great game mechanic. Like others have said, I would have liked the spikes to stand out more.

Oh, nice concept and execution, it's really a good game !
It's a bit hard for me, but I like it ^^

Well done !

This is very well executed. I like the "Limbo trial and error" feel it has. I actually like that it's not obvious where traps are, that you have to experience them, and then try again. The ambience sound gives a nice atmospehere, though I don't like the footstep sound. Cool game!

Awesome concept of travelling in dark cave. Really fun and seems to be polished, great job. I really enjoyed that parallex effect, it definitelly increases overall mood of the game. Really nice job!

Pretty cool game. Had a kind of Limbo vibe to it, and the giant dinosaurs that towered over you made for some interesting discoveries with the flashlight. That being said, jumping was always a challenge for me, and there was a lot of trial and error. However, the audio and the art very much put you in a cave environment, which is why I gave your mood a 4/5!

Nice work! I really like the aesthetic here. The silhouettes and minimal sound design work together really well.

Great game, very impressive for your first Ludum Dare. The mechanics were really innovative and well implemented too.

The idea is a great take on the theme and you managed to polish up the game quite well. The graphics were simple and the colours works well in this kind of athmosphere that the game creates. The audio is also simple but elegant and did not annoy the player so it was easier to focus on the game.

As others have said the main complaint I have is the jumping did not feel quite right as it was very easy to jump into an obstacle and die instantly which took away some of the fun. Also wall jumping would be a cool and fun mechanic to include to increase the fun factor.

I also noticed that the level differed from time to time which is also great. I couldn't tell if it was procedural or not though.

Overall great job!

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWNSsNR3doE

Thanks for being part of the stream :)

i like that you kept the game in monochrome, it helps a lot to create a mood. i know other players have suggested different colors for danger objects, and i understand those concerns, but i don't believe color is the way to go for that. if you expand on this later, maybe dangerous objects shine when your flashlight hits them? that would be enough for me, i think. i also agree that the game gets too intense too fast. overall nice work!

Game's mood is awesome and all the art and sound perfectly reflect it!

It seems like obstacles are not always obvious (for example little spikes in that construction with platforms and kind of half-hill on the other side)

Kongragate give strange scrollbars on the left and bottom of the game, perhaps moving game to the other platform (itch.io?) could be good idea

Overall the game is awesome and worth playing couple more times!

Very original game @furkanfs! I like the atmosphere and the mechanics. Great idea to keep it to several shades of grey. Only thing to improve the game is to fix the jump, as sometimes I try to jump but it doesn't (I think it is when I'm at the edge of a platform. Good to see random level generation!

Great atmosphere and nice idea - really the only complaint I would have is maybe the pathways could have been clearer, it was really hard to figure out which platforms I would be able to jump on and which not. Apart from that I really did like the artwork as well. I never got to run out of power, tbh, I always got killed before that got to happen.

It's definetely a cool idea, really well linked with the topic and well executed! I really enjoyed playing it, my only complaint could be that the "dangers" were sometimes connfusing, or hard to see. Not because of the darkness, but because they didn't feel clear. Each time i died to something, i noted mentally that it would kill me... but when you're getting far and you die to something you had never seen before and didn't look especially dangerous...

But i don't want to take out the merit this has. This is a great game, really worth checking and fun to play. I feel like, with a little more work on it and polish, this could be a great experience! I could see this in between my mobile games :P

Great work!