The beginning of the end by Game-mon
In a world where time is not what it seems, an inhabitant is trying to prevent a catastrophe. But can you stop what's already happened?

A puzzle/adventure game about relativity of time.
Made in 48 hours by Thomas Bringer for Ludum Dare 45 (Theme: Start with nothing)
Discover how the game was made!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmBObzPEPWQ






| Youtube | https://thomas-bringer.itch.io/the-beginning-of-the-end |
| Youtube | https://github.com/ThomasBringer/LD45/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/the-beginning-of-the-end |
Ratings
| Overall | 82th | 3.821⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 159th | 3.474⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 110th | 3.711⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 93th | 3.882⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 25th | 4.244⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 121th | 3.474⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 88th | 3.297⭐ | 34🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 39th | 3.889⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 34🗳️ | 36🗨️ |
My one issue was with the perspective. At times I wasn't sure what was obscuring my path and what wasn't. And moving diagonally is a bit finnicky when using the keyboard.
Another small suggestion: I think you should remove the explanation of what was going on at the end. I think it's unnecessary and kind of takes away from what the story was communicating with the visuals and the conversations with other characters.
Overall, though, fun!
Yeah I struggled a lot with the controls. For the perspective, to be honest, I only realized it could be an issue at the very end of the jam, when I added trees (which are probably the biggest source of the problem). Didn't found a solution before the end. :)
Also yeah, in the beginning the game was ending after the destruction of the world (without explanation). After playtest I realized some players wouldn't read most of the dialogs and didn't understand the whole time thing of the game, so I added the explanation, but yeah, I felt like it is way better to tell the story through the game.
So thank you! :D Your feedback is very helpful and valuable. :)
@paulhocker just like I said above: the controls are definitely an issue. If I ever continue the project, it would probably be on mobile--so a swipe system should solve it. Thank you for commenting! :D
Hey, maybe you want to see how the game was made! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmBObzPEPWQ
@xumr Yeah, you're absolutely right about the text & controls--these are probably the main issues of the game. Also yeah, I kinda took inspiration from teletubbies x) haha. Thanks for your feedback!
If you were to carry on post-dare, would suggest swapping out arrow keys for a pathfinding / click target style movement for the player, as moving around the sections with 1 block thickness was quite laborious and took away from what would otherwise be a very unique puzzle game.

This game is pretty cool. I have some problems with the graphics, because they tend to obscure the tile behind them. Other than that the graphics are pretty cute and nice. Are those creatures really human though?
I think the game overplayed in terms of the story. We figured out that we were moving backward fairly early and felt we didn't need the game to explain it. On the other hand, you did say in the chat that other people did need the explanation.
So I'm of two minds about this. This game is well made, and it looks good, but the minute to minute gameplay is frankly not very engaging. I'm also not a huge fan of block puzzles. It would have been nice if the teleporters indicated where they went.
https://youtu.be/qq_qRoOOl-s
Good stuff :8ball:
Realy great job! :smile:
Minor nitpicking follows :smirk:
The controls could be better (as other have pointer also). At first I could not move until a found out that I have to press for ex. both up+left to move diagonally.
Also at first I was confused about the text popups that couldn't be closed until I found out that I have to move away from the npc to close the popup. Maybe an short explanation in the first few popups.
Still an excellent COMPO entry (Yes this is COMPO entry not JAM!!!) with great gameplay, something that is missing in many LD entries.
@fashionbatman Thanks a lot! :D
@youngblade Thank you so much! Yeah you're right about the controls. :)
@maskinmask Thanks! :)
@jandourek Thank you for commenting! Yeah controls and perspective are definitely two major issues of the game. :)
@oddballdave Thanks a lot! :D It was the original idea to replay the game backwards at the end, but I quickly realized it woul be hard/time-consuming to implement, and decided to focus on gameplay and story. But yeah it's definitely missing, many players expected that to happen. :)
@mr-chocolatesalmon Thank you so much! :) You're probably one of the few who actually liked reversed text haha :)
@negator2vc Thanks a lot! :D Yeah controls are definitely an issue. I tried keeping the dialog system as simple as possible, but yeah, an explanation could be useful. :)
So far, it looks like only chrome plays the sound but not Firefox for the Unity WebGL build..
Suggestions:
- Control scheme does seem tricky for the Hexa-Isometric maps; Here are few solutions IMO that may gel for this case:
- Num Keys; num7/num9 - Top-Diagonal_Left/Right; num1/num3 - Bottom-Diagonal_Left/Right
- WSAD approach; Q/E - Top-Left/Right; Z/C - Bottom-Left/Right; A/D - Left/Right; W/S - Dialog/Action
- After NPC finished 'talking' through its dialog prompt, allow user to press action key to end the dialog.. (for the first encounter, it seems like there's an endless pause or anticipation for something else to display..)
- Allow user to advance/skip dialog
- In Contrary to the controls; This game could even be "button-less": based on arcade joystick movement:
- U/D - Action-A/Action-B(Cancel) ; uL/uR, L/R, bL/bR - Movement
Despite the quirkyness of the controls for Iso-maps the game did a good job on its handling of the multi-arrow key for performing diagonal movement.
Keep Going! :dizzy:
Oh, and I tested sound both on Chrome and Firefox, and it worked for me. That's weird. (It's normal if there is no sound at the beginning.)