Keep Your Faith Alive by Geckoo1337
Keep Your Faith Alive - is my entry for the 46th LudumDare contest. I created (again) a clever puzzle game with cubes. I am proud of what I did, and especially about code because this project does'nt use any collider, raycast, rigidbody or light. All aesthetic and levels are created procedurally. Finally I have a good draw calls value - more or less 20.
The main gameplay is easy to understand but really hard to master. At start, you move a single cube (a monk) using arrow keys so as to reach a star on ground, keeping your unique eye upwards so as to pray some divinity. So you have some epiphany - an illumination and you nourish your faith. After first levels, things are more complicated...
My game has been posted as a jam project because as aesthetic I use a shader which I coded a few weeks ago and some useful scripts. Have fun playing. Rate my project and I will rate yours. I wish you the best. Stay At Home :)
~~I cannot work more time on this project as I want because I have to work now, delivering thousands surgical masks in Luxembourg door to door. Thanks Covid19 :)~~ done

| Youtube | https://geckoo1337.itch.io/keep-your-faith-alive |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/keep-your-faith-alive |
Ratings
| Overall | 1146th | 3.529⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1244th | 3.309⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1500th | 3.143⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 2397th | 2.721⭐ | 36🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 1275th | 3.597⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 743th | 3.471⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 767th | 3.643⭐ | 37🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 40🗳️ | 50🗨️ |
By the way, I wont say that a shader enters in "content" category and can't be seen as "base-code", but I confess I'm not aware enough about high-level game programming in general, and shaders in peculiar, to state about that for sure. :sweat_smile:
From a fell cube puzzle game designer (check out my submission) - great work!
1 - Mecânicas, Aprendizado e Fluxo:
O jogo é puzzle, no estilo encaixar as peças que se movem juntas, mas que sofrem limitações individuais de movimento.
Comparando os estágios, na maior parte do tempo concordo que exista um desafio crescente.
Não me senti aprendendo muito do terceiro estágio em diante (creio que muita coisa fiz por "micro-epifanias" e "tentativa-e-erro", muito mais que dominar a mecânica).
O fluxo do jogo não caiu no tédio, tendo mergulhado diversas vezes na ansiedade (mas não por completo ao ponto de abandonar o jogo).
2 - Gráficos, Áudio, Narrativa e Polimento:
O gráfico é simples e voltado a mostrar com clareza a jogabilidade (ele alcança esse objetivo).
A escolha de mostrar frases motivacionais me pareceu pouco funcional, porque elas aparecem apenas embaixo na tela, isso me faz não ler (só percebi que perdi muitas frases depois de vários níveis).
Creio que seja interessante colocar as frases numa parte separada da tela e fazer ela piscar ou algo assim (de forma que chame a atenção para a leitura).
O áudio foi confortável, mas quase me deixou cansado, talvez mudar de trilha de três em três estágios possa ser algo benéfico.
Se for interessante ter uma "micronarrativa", seria interessante acompanhar tal mudança em áudio.
3 - Cultura:
O jogo conversa culturalmente com outros puzzles (especialmente do gênero).
A forma enxuta/minimalista que e funcional que foi apresentada colaborou bastante para ficar bom.
Os textos do jogo conversaram com a situação do mundo (Pandemia 2020), creio que tenha por objetivo entreter e levar mensagens com boas vibrações.
4 - Monetização:
Se o foco for monetizar, creio que seria interessante ter mais estágios e conjuntos de estágios, com mecânicas novas que seriam apresentadas aos poucos.
Quem sabe monetizaria com propagandas ou vendendo direito a tentativas (daí haveria limitação por tempo, ao meu ver, quem sabe usando número de jogadas como outra forma de pontuação).
1 - Mechanics, Learning and Flow:
The game is a puzzle, in the style of fitting the pieces that move together, but suffer from individual movement limitations.
Comparing the stages, most of the time I agree that there is a growing challenge.
I didn't feel that I learned much from the third stage onwards (I believe that a lot I did for "micro-epiphanies" and "trial-and-error", much more than mastering mechanics).
The flow of the game did not fall into boredom, having plunged into anxiety several times (but not entirely to the point of abandoning the game).
2 - Graphics, Audio, Narrative and Polishment:
The graphic is simple and aimed to clearly show the gameplay (it achieves this goal).
The choice of showing motivational phrases seemed to me not very functional, because they only appear at the bottom of the screen, this makes me not read (I only realized that I lost many phrases after several levels).
I think it is interesting to put the sentences on a separate part of the screen and make it blink or something (in a way that draws attention to the reading).
The audio was comfortable, but it almost made me tired, maybe changing the track every three stages can be beneficial.
If it is interesting to have a "micronarrative", it would be interesting to follow that change in audio.
3 - Culture:
The game talks culturally with other puzzles (especially the genre).
The lean / minimalist form that is functional that was presented helped a lot to look good.
The texts of the game talked to the situation of the world (Pandemia 2020), I believe it aims to entertain and carry messages with good vibes.
4 - Monetization:
If the focus is to monetize, I think it would be interesting to have more stages and sets of stages, with new mechanics that would be introduced gradually.
Who knows, I would monetize with advertisements or sell right to attempts (hence there would be time limitations, in my view, who knows using number of moves as another form of scoring).
I like the music and the little lines of text that accompany the player on each level.
Good entry!
Really ?! I applause the performance, it's very impressive :clap:.
You're right, the gameplay is simple to understand but very hard to master, and that's make your game amazing !
Sentences is good idea, but they should not appear all the time, only when an event occur (as player reward) or between levels (like a loading screen).
Overall, it's incredible work for only one person ! :clap:
As some others have stated, I think the game became a bit of trial and error instead of trying to find these procedures. However, that is fine because I think in the time span that most people play LD puzzle games, this is the common universal strategy.
I really enjoyed the art and music as well. It is very crucial to build an atmosphere that enables you to focus. Also enjoyed the quotes for each level.