https://1stepcloser.itch.io/lightwielder

Loved the graphics and mechanics!

Holy cow! The graphics in this sucker are DEVINE! Would love to see some better tutorialization. Was utterly lost for a while. But appreciate the take on the theme and the profound atmosphere you set up.

Yooo the pixel art is awesome!

Dude, this looks incredible! It's like Studio Ghibli pixel art in the best way imaginable. Great job!

Attack didn't seem to work or there was no feedback that attacks were successful

The game was hard to figure out at first, but after playing it more i got the hang of it :D. amazing graphics also.

Art is amazing and the sound design is on point, but I have no clue what the gameplay is. I spent around 10 minutes wandering around and seemingly accomplished nothing. I feel like some kind of direction regarding the goal would help a lot. Would love to experience this game.

The art and atmosphere are amazing! I'm a bit confused about the actual gameplay mechanics though, a tutorial would be appreciated.

The graphics, audio, and animation were amazing! However, the arrow keys kept making me scroll down and the sheer amount of enemies lagged the game. Very good game nonetheless. Good job!

Beautiful artwork and sound design!
Felt lost and wasn't sure what to do though.

Great graphic style, visual and sound effects are just right, nice game;

What attracted me to your game was the really good pixel art, but when I was totally lost while playing. I feel like the shadowy things are the enemy but I can't seem to hit them with my attacks and they seem to hit me from nowhere. Can't really figure out how to play/win the game

great job. It's got a nice style. Maybe make the instructions bigger. I didn't know what to do the first fun through.

Really good art style, wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but it was fun to run around and blast some light while hanging out with some deer. Great work!

The pixel graphics and sound make the game. While I wasn't entirely sure what to do at first, I enjoyed the experience of playing it. The mood is awesome! --Anna

The visuals are absolutely stunning!

Same for me as most others. I didn't really know what I was doing and really wanted to figure it out because of how beautiful the game looks.

Graphics wise this game is really gorgeous. The pixel art is top notch and sound design is really great. However I found myself lost most of the time, it was innovative but it didn't do anything to teach the player about its mechanics. A tutorial is really needed.

beautiful. But kind of no idea what to do. I would like it to be a complete game to see how far it could get.

Who is that guy?? what is he doing?? im very intrigued by those creatures!! Most of the fun i had playing though was related to the uncertenty of what whas happening. At the end i couldnt find out if i won or lost lol. Gorgeous graphics.

Beautiful pixel art. Loved herding the deer and shooting light birds and snakes. Now give it a narrative and some direction and you have yourself the full package. :metal:

Hello guys, really thanks a lot for the feedbacks ! Yes we have a problem with the gameplay mechanics because lack of time of testing. Its very hard to balance the gameplay. There are also pixelart cutscene that explains how to play and why, but haven't got the time to put it yet ! Hopefully we can update it soon !

I love the art style and music! Although the mechanics were a bit lacking.

The pixel art was absolutely stunning on this game, I'm frustrated there were not more to see in it, I liked the mood, wanted more!!

:deer:

Love the pixel art <3

very nice graphic!

I love the look and atmosphere of the game. Getting the runes and having dozens of deer following me felt pretty good. I saw that something shot out when I pressed x but I wasn't sure if it was doing anything. I couldn't seem to defeat the creatures near the bottom, they would pretty much drain all the darkness. so I liked everything about the game just I couldn't figure out how to beat it. haha

Thanks for all the nice comments and feedbacks, we are aware it's a bit confusing for the gameplay, we didnt have the time for a proper mini tutorial. We wantd to have a very original gameplay but we fall into it and didnt realize it was not so straightforward for newcomers. We gonna update it with a tutorial soon !

wow, amazing story, amazing art and amazing sound. With a little bit of work the gameplay can be really improved. Good job!

Very nice graphics and audio, the atmosphere made me feel like I was the last hope in a world where there's only darkness left. I didn't manage to defeat the octopus nest, and I'm not really sure how close I was either. It would help if it was more obvious what my attacks were doing I think. I saw a lot of shiny stuff flying around, but I'm not sure if it was dealing any damage.

art is superb! I can see where the gameplay is going and with more mechanics this game probably have a lot of potential!

OMG your pixel art is incredibly amazing!!! Superb! Fantastic! I'm a youtuber, your game is very nice! I want to make a video with the best games of LDJam46. Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOdTsWE7iIk .
Can I find your game also on indiexpo website? The channel is linked with them.

@torh I post on that website : https://www.indiexpo.net/en/games/the-lightwielder
But that website doesnt have an HTML5 player on the page? downlaod the zip isnt very convenient...
thanks for your interest btw !

Absolutely love the pixel art and tone of the game. The deer sheparding was endearing and I enjoyed that of wandering to find them. Wasn't too sure what to do after that though. Also I managed to collect a lot of the deer before the tutorial ended, so the darkness didn't start until I had them all.

Begining of the game remainds me of heroes games. Got similar feelings when i was supposed to Collect deers. I couldn't get the point of the whole game and what effect my abilites do. Also why there is no wsad controlls? :/

@risist Good point, I might consider adding in a WASD with mouse setup.

@chrismcco Indeed, I've added a quick mechanic to address the tutorial issue, thanks.

@norboy Thank you for the feedback, any ideas of game mechanics you'd like to see added?

@fryer Thank you for the feedback an hp bar for the octopus nest has been added.

The Artwork and Audio/Music take this game to a whole new level, even though I was confused and found it impossible to traverse at times due to my character getting stuck I found this to be enjoyable.

Your artwork is brilliant and together with the audio it is incredible! An artistic masterpiece!
The gameplay seems a bit hard to me, but maybe i simply dont get it :P

Hello @wekri, thank you for your feedback: the goal is to empower the lightwielder and the deer around him by running over the runes in the land while avoiding the darkness that haunts. Once empowered you should then be able to face the octopus nest that lies in the Southwest. The octopus nest guards the shrine that can be used to relinquish the darkness in the land.

Is there a particular part of this you don't understand or could be worded better?
Which part is most difficult for you?

@matsuya thank you for your feedback, what you state as getting stuck might have possibly been 1 of 2 darkness enemies in the game, one is capable of launching a projectile that latches onto either a deer or the lightwielder and prevents them from moving freely for a small amount of time, the other continually pushes either the lightwielder or deer in the direction of its momentum. These aren't easily visible which is somewhat what we were going for with the limited visibility due to the darkness.

Ah ok. I guess I had just some energy management issues so I can't face the octopus without losing the game :P Maybe when I try it again I can handle it. With this nice graphics it would be a pleasure :D Really nice Work!

- Gameplay wise, a bit confusing.
- Magical visuals and sound effects, reminds me of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery.
- The intro alone made me feel meeting some Ethereal beings, the feel of mystery around the "Lord" guy is awesome.

Very interesting mechanics. I really like the art and the music as well. The intro sequence could be tutorialized a little, I was walking around doing nothing for a while.

@splitpainter thank you for your feedback, which part of the game-play did you find confusing?

Great job on the full intro/menus and overall polish , it really feld like playing an old early 90's console game.

Bonus points for mood, a very forboding atmosphere, loved the sound fx, and the animation on the deer.

I played for 10 minutes but couldn't figure out what to do / how to attack the octopus.


@1stepcloser Just walking around waiting for something to happen. Maybe some visual cues (not tutorial wise, I mean environment wise).

Btw, is this inspired by Zelda: Lord of the Mountain in any way? I love the mystery and lore around that and I got this feeling in your game - plus points for that :)


Based on looks, sound etc alone, this game feels like a complete product. Definitively full-release quality.

For the gameplay I'd loved to have a bit more extra tutorial guidance because it took me a while to learn the tricks. Nevertheless, I don't know if maybe that was a deliverate decision since it contributed to my investment on the game a lot.

Great work, I'm super impressed.

Definitely Princess Mononoke vibes here :) Oh boy but was it creepy and the audio really sold it for me :ok_hand: I couldn't figure out how to beat it to be honest. And what is that bold supposed to do, it always goes in one direction only?

@splitpainter Understood, I can see how it would be tough, the conflict in terms of design was making sure the darkness made visibility a bit lacking for the player, but at the same time it shouldn't lead as you stated lead to aimless wondering. The general premise is to gather deer around you and walk over the runes to gain the power of light needed to beat the octopus nest in the southwest.

In terms of inspiration for the idea, our artist Chroma, started drawing up some mock ideas, one of which was deer, then we established what object we would be attempting to keep alive, which is what we call the light of divinity. We then made a connection of the deer with the light of divinity, and connected that with our main character as a shepherd capable of herding, in this case deer, and also wielding light to face the darkness that has swept over the land.

@johnnysix Thank you for your feedback. Are you referring to the how to attack in general? (if so that would be pressing or holding down X on your keyboard.) If you are referring to how to face off with the octopus nest specifically the most prominent method I have experienced is weaving in and out on a specific octopus to eliminate it so it doesn't spawn more darkness. Then, focus on the next one.

@jbdev Thank you for your feedback, tutorial design is definitely an area I need to improve on, the difficulty here was maintaining a level of obscurity, mystery while still giving the player enough info without landholding.

Very nice art style and atmosphere! I like the art concept of the game to collect deers and beat darkness with light. It took time to understand and learn the game, but I did it! Good job!

@kwaku Hi Kwaku, thanks for the feedback, Out of the 3 spells, 2 of them have manual control of direction, the Bird Of Light spell creates a bird of light that will move in the direction your character was last facing and will spawn small balls of light that you can see lighting up the area. The static ball of light is a more sporadic spell that will bounce off of enemies in a variety of directions. In all cases contact with light helps diminish the darkness it comes into contact with.

The art and the mood are awesome! Really loved them, the gameplay was fun but kinda weird as I didn't really understand if I was actually damaging the black enemies. As others pointed out I was lost most of the time so some guidance would be awesome. Other than that I like the concept of light dimming out (we made the same in our game haha) and it feels satisfying to regain back the health and the light. Cool small game, would love to see something more with the same aesthetic!

incredible visuals, i love the style. It would be great if the enemies could be designed in a similar style though. I wasn't too sure how the powers were supposed to work, maybe a slightly more explanatory tutorial would fix this for most people. i really like the atmosphere you've created with the sound and everything, awesome!

Awesome graphics! Awesome that this was done in so little time!

I love the artstyle and I would have given it 5 stars, but the overall darkness of playfield and the amount of moving objects makes it difficult to see what's going on. Gameplay wise I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. First I tried to move away from the place but got stopped by a invisible wall (or lots of enemies, I'm not sure :D), then I figured I should just defend the starting point, but that just drained my health/mana/whatever. Running around in the forest I bumped in to something that made me teleport all over the place. I found one altar on my aimless running around.
I would say add some sort of indicator where to go.

I got some "princess mononoke" vibes, got to think of the deer god :smiley:

Graphics are really nice, and it is cool to see entries that spend time to make an intro and have a story. Great job!

I can only agree with everyone else, the art is amazing! Good job!

Hello @SplitPainter Im a bit fan of "a Link to the Past" but dont like the new zeldas ;) The light deers are inspired of my own sculpture artwork I do on the side
Many aspect of the gameplay were developed by us during the jam, its for this reason its very unpolished for now and we did many hotfixes. but with all the feedbcaks we are improving step by step, or should I say @1stepcloser at a time xD

@simon-rahnasto indeed Mr Hayao Miyazaki is a huge influence for me !

The mood, graphics and audio are reaaaaally really good. I enjoyed a lot this part. Once I've gathered all the deers and beat the monsters, I did'nt know what to do next. Is ther some kind of ending that I missed?

Again, you made a very nice job with the mood of the game. And I liked the intro too.

Was there an ending? I killed all the octos, stood on their ruin, and had a bunch of glowing deer but the game just kinda kept going. Art and sounds was awesome.

I was really looking forward to playing this :(
web version did not work. and on PC I got stuck at "press C" . when I do the app crashes :(

@AbdurrahmanKhallouf sorry to learn that. http://www.miragemakers.co/thelightwielder try this link ? yes I have the same problem on mac with the press c thing. try this HTML link and tell us if its ok, lets find a solution. ;)

Guys @krapht @chocolat-endive choux fleur de lys Im amazed you win so much because even we created it I can barely survive to meet the octopus haha... kuddo to you for being good gamers. we didnt have the time to put the end, I did made the end cut scene (lost or won) but we didnt have time to implement it unfortunatly, but will will add it in the future. also chocolat endive is funny french name ;P

Haha, that's what we thaught about it. :-)

Such a pretty game with really nice audio :D

Loved the artwork - the top down pixel art trees reminded me of hyperlight drifter!

I've got to hand it to you, the combination of stunning pixel art, effects and gloomy music is really effective. Solid entry for sure!

Amazing pixel art and sound! That game is really something you could screenshot and put on a poster or a screen background :smile:

I had a little problem with selected control scheme though. When moving with WASD, ZXC are not very convenient. Plus, I hit C several times instead of X. Maybe it makes sense to move pause button away from the main controls.

I love the universe and the mood of the game ! Graphics are stong and epic music is nice ! :)

@chromaphase Hey this looks very clean and has a cool artstyle, will you continue working on this?

I had some feedback i wanted to give:

1. I love the ideas of a flock of cool animals surrounding the player, this is a very pleasing mechanic. ->For the start of the game, i think it would be cool to let the text stay on screen a bit longer as it does right now, i had trouble grasping it all.
2. The lightwielding could be communicated a bit better through more obvious feedback, maybe the lightbursts or objects can move more directly towards an enemy or could get casted in the direction in which the player is facing, i'm not sure what is happening at the moment, at least it is not all to clear when playing.
3. I do not think that too many things are moving or happening on screen as some other players have pointed out though, just as stated above things could be made a bit more clear.
4. The darkness sarkening aorund the player makes things very hard to see and organise when things are getting serious, so maybe just leave a small lightspot lit up always around the player, which then itself could shrink. This would let the player see more of what is happening immediately around him and give more sense of control over the situation.
5. It has some "bullethell" character which many find enticing (you should check out "itta" a recent indie release in case you don't know it yet)
6. loved the sound and graphics! MORE haha

All the best!

Absolutely stunning graphics, but yes, it took me ages to figure out what was going on and what sort of effect I was having on anything. I really wanted to get invested in it.

I was especially lost in the beginning as the html version initial stuck me into a little black walled box with just two deer, and I just hunt out for some time shooting light into the darkness for no apparent reason, so that was weird. Was able to figure out more once I reloaded, but the mechanics and objectives were still pretty opaque. Again prancing about, wildly shooting light at shadow blotches without it having much of an effect Some better tutorial aspects would go a long way towards making this a more enjoyable and immersive experience. But it's very pretty, and I'd love to see it fully developed.

Astonishing artwork and music makes this one a masterpiece! So glad I found that one to play. Gave me strong Diablo feelings and I love Diablo haha! Very strong entry for the Ludum Dare event well done!

Incredible graphics and atmosphere! Loved the music and sound effects. I wasn't sure what I was doing when all the black shadows appeared and my attacks didn't seem to do anything to them. Would have liked it to be a bit clearer what was going on. Otherwise, great stuff!

The game was a bit messy with lots of things going on, but appart from that, THIS WAS AMAZING. I loved it! So cool to walk around with your herd.

As others have said... graphics and atmosphere were great, but I had very little idea what was going on.

I walked over a bunch of runes, ended up with tons of deer, made my way over to the octopus... but shooting light seemed to have little to no effect and I was dead within seconds.

It's not clear why the deer are there... I kinda like that they're following you around and stuff, like you're amassing an army... but the instructions say you need to stop them going astray and it's not clear A) If they are going astray, and B) What I would do to stop them.

The shooting light mechanic doesn't seem to have any clear feedback as to whether you're hitting anything. I thought I saw bits of the octopus light up, and assumed I was hitting that bit... but again, nothing much happened aside from instadeath.

Overall: Beautiful, promising, but ultimately confusing.

Intersting. The art was gorgeous as well as the animations. Very detailed and lush. The tilemap too, artistically, this has a very high production value. good job! Loved the audio as well, especially the music was very atmospheric.

Game play wise, I had some issues. It was never really clear, what was happening and why. Shooting seemed to work automatically but the enemeies just spawend endlessy and therefore there was no satisfaction in killing them. The screen was so cluttered that I didn't even see when I beat one. Not that it mattered anyway, since there was an endless army of them. So i just ran around the map like a maniac colleting dear and touching those shrines. Then, I found some kind of boss in the corner, which I couldn't beat. Standing next to him and attacking did nothing to his healthbar, but his attacks killed me in just a few seconds. The projectiles were hard to make out and, again, so many of them that dodging was not an option. So I ran away and died shortly after because my light went out and I already touched all shrines in the proximity. That was my experience with the game.

If you can balance out the game play a little and make the combat more transparent and satisfactory, this would become a really awesome entry! The rest already clicked naturally, but game play is king!

Keep it up!

The mood was really strong in this one! I didn't get bored for a single second, while trying to figure out how to complete the game and how the attack works :P

After meeting with my herd, I finally found the darkness thorns and brought light upon the world of the Lightwielder!

I must admit, I didn't get the theme at all on this one.. I enjoyed playing it, though :)

Amazing graphics and amazing sound! Especially the 'grrr' sounds got me chillin. Was able to defeat the kraken by spamming x, but I was not sure if there was supposed to be an endscreen or i was missing something. Overall a great artistic achievement.

This game have amazing graphics and the atmosphere is intense !

I could not kill the final boss, but anyway, I liked playing your game. This game is very polished !
The map is too repetitive so it's difficult to know where space has been explored. With more variation, the player will be able to recognize specific area and it will be easier to explore the map.

Overall amazing job !

Very cool graphics, intro and sound. But seriously, what am I supposed to be doing? I've played it twice now and I seem to be locked into a small space of woodland with nothing obvious to do. Perhaps some more information and a more obvious goal will go a long way in making it playable.

At the moment it's a terrific demo. Please continue working on it and make it special! :)

Amazing pixel art!! Reminds a bit of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery, beautiful game btw. Your entry is enjoyable despite it has no ending. Sound is also good and contributes to create a magical atmosphere.

One more thing, you should add a changelog if you're adding more cutscenes and bugfixes to the game, and maybe also keep a link to the jam version. Anyway great work!