Lamps by qkjosh

Some spaces exist outside of time.
If you're not careful, you might just find one.

When you

least
expect it...
The Team
Developed by Rebecca Harrison and Joshua Hurd.
Keyboard Controls
- WASD/Arrow Keys to move
- Space to bark
- Esc to quit
XBOX/Dualshock Controls
- Left analog stick to move
- A (XBOX)/X (DS) to bark
Note to Streamers / Multi-Monitor Setup
You can press Alt + Enter to exit fullscreen mode, move it to the monitor of your choice, then press Alt + Enter again to return to fullscreen mode.
Hints
(Figuring out the mystery of the game is part of the fun, please only ready this if you're stuck!) - There are three levels of basement. You need to keep going down. - The amount of time the lights stay on is a clue you're on the right/wrong path. - If your light goes out, talk to the ghosts.
| Youtube | https://sparrowhousegames.itch.io/lamps |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/lamps |
Ratings
| Overall | 329th | 3.906⭐ | 236🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1331th | 3.263⭐ | 236🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 298th | 3.812⭐ | 233🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1715th | 3.425⭐ | 234🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 93th | 4.534⭐ | 237🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 268th | 3.885⭐ | 233🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1669th | 2.431⭐ | 190🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 35th | 4.394⭐ | 237🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 17🗳️ | 24🗨️ |
I just wish you had some sort of randomisation for the dog's bark sounds.
But seriously, I found the atmosphere to be considerably spooky and I liked those moments when you walk into a new room, bark, and only get a glimpse of the space, they added considerable suspense to the whole thing.
Please tell me that the dog is ok though, seems pretty purgatorial...

- I'm not good with spooky stuff :( the knocking over of lamps is the only thing keeping me comfort
- At some point, I stopped being able to bark. I'm not sure if that's intentional, but that's also super spooky if it was
- At some point, I couldn't get past a corridor because of a lamp. It's really jives your jimmies when your comfort habit works against you
- Completion time: NA. Got lost in the dark corridors, barkless, and to make things worse, I'd already had all the lamps already knocked over :( Atmosphere was great, even if horror isn't my thing
The only less is I got lost easily. Haha.
Anyway good job
Overall nice job.
The game is really polished, good job!
Hey guys :) I'm so glad you enjoyed the game! From your comments it sounds like you could use a hint though.
-Watch how long the lights stay on for. They'll alert you if you've gone the wrong way.
-If you run out of light, visit your ghost friend.
-There are three levels of basement, and then one level below that...
Thank you so much for playing, and I hope you'll give it another shot to see the ending ^_^
In any case, very stellar job, I liked this a lot!
Better to have some people Love it than to have everyone Like it :P
Haha, seriously, incredibly moody game, well done, was not expecting this kinda of suspense, great graphics and mistery. Well done!
I could use some more hand holding though, as a stayed confused wandering around for quite some time. Congrats on your work.
Wow. Building a basement one can get lost in over a weekend is no small feat! And the graphics are obviously incredibly well done, especially for such a small time frame!
Making the lamps rigid bodies made the level feel more interactible and real, but also got me almsot stuck a couple of times, wich can be harsh if you have run out of braking-juice, but in the end I found the light :D
So glad you found the light ^_^
- you play as a dog
- you PLAY AS A DOG
- YOU CAN PLAY AS THE DOG!!!
5 stars mood, fun, graphs, audio!! thank you for this
- you play as a dog
- you PLAY AS A DOG
- YOU CAN PLAY AS THE DOG!!!
5 stars mood, fun, graphs, audio!! thank you for this
So for my first playthrough I ran around lighting things up properly. The purple glowing doors really confused me, I figured they would open up eventually, but the further I got, the more I questioned if I was playing correctly. I didn't pick up on the light duration as an indication of the correct path to go. I thought I needed an item or upgrade to progress through there (similar to the purple doors) so I made a mental note of it and moved on. Ultimately the thing that did me in was that I thought I had seen the same hallway a few times and was going in a circle in a haunted house. Given my previous confusion in the above notes, I thought I was playing incorrectly and exited.
I read up on the comments here and once I realized there were only 4 floors, I fired it up again and finished it. This is not any bad criticism of any kind, I hope I could outline the thoughts going through my head and what may have gone through the heads of other players. The concept is very intriguing and there really isn't similar gameplay out there (I could be wrong, I do stray away from horror after all lol). The atmosphere most reminded me of the early basement scene in To The Moon. Don't want to spoil it if you haven't played it, but it has an amazing effect of revealing the contents of a basement similar to this game. Also, you get bonus points for creating a nice LD page itself. Creating a little story out of the gifs and markdown was pretty clever.
The dog graphics were really cute, the game idea was clever, the haunting atmosphre was simply awesome and the game was overall quite challenging. I actually had to read the hints on the page to beat the game, on my first tries I got stuck in one of the first basement rooms with lights off and thought I broke the game since good boy won't bark anymore.
I loved this game, kee up your great work
Thank you for creating this ^^
~ MinorSeven from WeAreDev
Overall it's amazing-looking and I loved the mechanics, mood and idea. I did get stuck on the lamps however, if you're going to patch it, I'd advise to add something like a "teleport to...." button so people can get un-stuck : D Great game!
edit: oh and I loved audio as well <3

And the lamp needs some more feedback on what purpose it serves. I got it in my head that it loses power when you bark. "The amount of time the light stays on" as an indicator for the correct path doesn't work too well because we have no comparison for a normal rate of dimming, so you wouldn't notice if it was getting darker faster.
Possibly, the only thing I would change is the ending, to wink a bit more about the theme, although that could reduce the imagination impact on the player.
Other than that, really impressive!
Nice job. The hints about the right path could be more obvious tho.
But i didn't understand what to do. I went to a room and my light dissapear. I couldn't bark and I have find the next room in darkness. I found a guy and my light came back... I'm not sure if this was part the story...
There are three levels of basement. You need to keep going down.
The amount of time the lights stay on is a clue you’re on the right/wrong path.
If your light goes out, talk to the ghosts.
@overmolo Yes that is absolutely part of the game :) Each of your barks uses up the light on your lightbulb. You refill it with the ghost people.
One side note, I'm not sure whether this was a "bad ending" or a bug, but after wandering the basement(s) for a while, I came to a dark room where I could no longer bark, and then when I entered the door in the back of that room, I seemed to fall down off the map into complete darkness...
I loved it, even if I got totally lost. Gosh, I am really bad at this game. At least, I can admire the goodest boi.
[You]: create this wondeful game
[Me, playing it]:

My favorite part was flipping over lamps, made me feel like a real dog :dog:
Thanks to the hint that you wrote in the comment I was finally able to find the door that lead to victory. Great entry!
I really like that it keeps you all the time waiting for something to happen and in tension, but sadly nothing happens, so I was kind of disappointed there.
I can't really see the theme anywhere, your light fading out is barely an excuse to fit the theme.
It was okay overall, thanks for the game!
@g-a-gamestudio Actually we've been holding off on making a Mac build because we aren't able to get notarized by Apple's security. Do you find that most of the LDJam games are flagged by security? Is that normal and acceptable to players with Macs?
Great graphics and great atmosphere. Great dog too.
The atmosphere was pretty immersive. I still felt the lack of more gameplay, though. Or a proper story, even if mechanics were still simple.
Congratz on the modelling!
I made it to the end without understanding the puzzle ... or rather, I thought that there would be more to it, so I was surprised to see ... the way out.
For me, the dog sometimes clips through walls. That is, it went next to a door rather than through it.
Thought I saw an object move without my (well, the dogs' anyway) involvement ... probably a lamp falling over in the near dark, but it was spooky as heck.
The dog sounds was a bit repetitive and jarring at times which sort of broke the atmosphere but everything else was great.
While I haven't managed to quite finish it yet, the game is really intriguing and I really want to find out what's behind those glowing doors!
Great job on creating this in a jam!
[](https://skfb.ly/6S66W)
@zubspace I'm glad you enjoyed it! Actually, we're working on a post-jam version with some story O_O
I think the main reason I gave up on my first playthrough was actually that some of the rooms were a bit similar and I thought I was going in circles. Obviously the graphics and models are amazing for a single weekend build, but if doing more work on it, a bit more variety in the look and feel of the rooms would really help (and perhaps make it easier to figure out the lamp mechanic).
Would love to see this as a full length game with a fleshed-out story being slowly revealed throughout. I can imagine all sorts of powerful endings, and different ideas for the significance of the ghostly human. I could see this being a really beautiful piece of storytelling without using any speaking/writing.
A very nice entry. I would have just a little hint at the beginning, like "try to figure out whats going on" or something like that ;D
I really liked the artstyle, it looked like there's a deep story behind everything, the music was great too!
i also deeply admire peope who rig and animate a whole character from scrach for a gamejam, as I know how much work that is ^^ (took me a complete day for our game, haha)
The movement of the doggie was a bit off as in him moonwalking a lot, I think adjusting the movement speed in accordance to the animation would fix that (either make the speed lower, or scale the keyframes of the animation down if that would make the doggie too slow in your opinion) also I personally would make the whole dog prefab a little bit smaller. Would have been nice if you would've added an animation for him turning around/making a U-turn, but I know it's a gamejam, ain't nobody got time for that ^^
also a bit of collider madness, but again that's the gamejam vibe. tell me about it :D
All in all a great little project, congrats on finishing your game you two! You can be proud of yourselfes
The significance of the lamp duration was also lost on me - I _thought_ it was related to how bright my own light was. I think some sort of audio queue to indicate getting warmer (a pleasant, soothing sound) and cooler (a harsher, less pleasant sound) would subtly reinforce the hint.
The overall atmosphere is still really well created. I really enjoyed playing it.
Definitely one of the more bizarre (and creepy) games I've seen in a Ludum Dare, but also one of the most graphically impressive. Great job!
I really enjoyed your game, here is the VOD from me playing it on stream if you're interested:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/614080096
Thanks!
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615928274?t=7h27m42s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
Loved many aspects of this though :D the visuals, the playable character, the lighting and mood. Good job! <3