Downpour by LDJam user 237623
https://youtu.be/26sh9Qi_LoA
:bat:🎮 Link to game 🎮:bat: (Windows & Mac downloads available)
WARNING: This game includes some white flashes. Play at your own risk.
A young bat is separated from its companions. Help this wounded creature find its way back home. Nom on some berries, glide with grace, and weather the elements as you try to find your way.

:joystick: Controls :joystick:
:keyboard: Keyboard :keyboard:
- Left/Right to move
- Down to drop faster
- Space bar to jump (hold to glide)
:videogame: Controller :videogame:
- D-pad to move
- Down to drop faster
- Face down to jump (hold to glide)
Screenshots
Eat berries!

Get struck by lightning!

Glide!

Walk!

Get killed by spikes!

| Link | https://chris19191.itch.io/downpour |
| Link | https://chris19191.itch.io/downpour |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/downpour |
Ratings
| Overall | 5th | 4.538⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 8th | 4.408⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 126th | 3.923⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 33th | 4.377⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 25th | 4.6⭐ | 67🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 15th | 4.492⭐ | 65🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 7th | 4.625⭐ | 66🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 50🗳️ | 34🗨️ |
I enjoyed it very much! 10/10
My tiny nitpick: It'd be nice if lightning had a different audio cue than wind when it was about to strike. Sometimes I didn't notice the small icon change.
Superb work everyone!
The opening cutscene already broke my heart. I would die for this bat. The way they ate the berry, I'm like tearing up. I'm a sucker for red black and white artwork and this is such a good use. And the music in time with the lightning, it's such a nice touch and the chords you chose are lovely. The way the start of the level is set up to show you the mechanic is just GOLD. Well done, it was way better than the start of that one Mario level everyone crows about.
Well done.
I love the intro, you manage to tell a story and make me care about the bat in a masterful way. The art is adorable, the sound is great. Its simply an overall great experience. This is not a game where you crammed in the theme, the use of the theme actually made the game better.
Fantastic entry!
The visuals were clean and consistent (nit-pick: I enabled pixel-perfect mode but the "squashed" character looked a bit off, not scaled with nearest-neighbour scaling?), it was always clear what was going on and how to continue.
The two different weather events were neat, although maybe some more variation could be added. I was happy to see that the wind was eventually used as a positive/necessary event, not always as something to be avoided. The red clouds for speeding up the next event were a nice way to avoid having to wait the full 10 seconds. On the other hand, I think the game was almost too "perfectly" balanced: there was always plenty of time to get to the next checkpoint or safe area, but trying to be fast or trying to get through two checkpoints in one cycle was almost never possible. Towards the end I wished the game would have been just a tiny bit faster overall :)
The audio was sparse but added to the atmosphere. Playing notes whenever the weather event happened was a nice touch.
A great little jam game. Everything looks good and in its place.
I liked having to think for a moment about how to get past some puzzles. I also liked how the game frictionlessly guided me towards what I needed to do. I just wanted there to be more of the world to explore :sparkles: Perhaps the changes in weather hazards (e.g. lightning to wind) could've been accentuated a little bit more, so I don't miss them while timing a jump.
[Stream vod here!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1618950720?t=00h09m15s)
It should be illegal for a game to be this cute.
Absolutely wonderful job with this one, guys. The game managed to avoid all of the usual trappings of a quickly-made 2D platformer, so it was lovely to play on top of being an audio/visual treat. Super solid entry!
I found your game so sweet! The color palette is beautiful. I know how difficult it is to draw with a limited color palette. The sound design was also great. This silence that from time to time is invaded by a single chord contemplates the player's ear in a unique way. Level design is also challenging and interesting.
I found the gameplay to be slow, but I don't know if it's something with my computer.
When I turned on VSYNC the game crashed and closed. I'm just warning you.
Congratulations!!!
wonderful game!
My main complaint is that I wish the timer would reset when I get a checkpoint. This only happened once or twice, but I died after reaching a checkpoint because I only had 5 seconds to complete the next part. Also, it's great that y'all have a sound slider, but it'd be nice if there were clicks of some kind to demonstrate the volume as you drag it. Otherwise, I don't know how loud a 10% coming thru my headphones is compared to an 80%.
Other than that, fantastic work!
There's also definitely some quite fun mechanics throughout that I would be very interested to see used more, the difficulty it does seem at least to me was kept relatively ow which makes sense for a jam always wanna make it at least playable, especially considering the whole "play your own game" problem. Though personally I would be very interested to see some more intricate levels for sure. Hopefully post jam ? Not sure if there's a plan to update.
The different effects were definitely interesting to find though especially abusing them to traverse the levels, though I will say their "ranges" I guess, were a but vague. I had quite a few times that II though that I was out the lightning because it seemed like I was in the "dark" areas". and I was still hit. To be fair it seems like that's not how the lightning works, but it wasn't entirely clear. I would've assumed that if I was in a "dark" area since they generally lined up with where I was safe early on, that it would be a safe area.
Also one bit of QOL or something helpful would be some way to get up ledges you just barely miss. A ledge grab, or the ability to wall jump and get onto them etc. Cause currently there are a decent amount of jumps that you can just barely miss and then have to wait thr3ough the falling (which even sped up is a little slow for that) and respawn to try again.
Which gets a bit repetitive, especially when it seems like you're RIGHT there. Combine that with the fact that the wall jump gives too much horizontal momentum and too little vertical to get back up and it means you're stuck without much to do every time you miss a tiny bit.
To be fair that might be intended and if so that makes sense, but I figured I would mention it nonetheless in case as a bit of an idea. IT would definitely make a few of the failures a little more palatable. Cause there were some damn close jumps in there.
Overall though a very interesting game that has a really nice bit of polish and a cool feel to it, that also has a really hilarious story of a bat that didn't join it's friends, before it raided all the caves for berries.
I loved the atmosphere and art in general. The 10 seconds mechanic felt good and was just enough time for a platforming puzzle. The ending is also super cute :heart_eyes: Congratulations!
It's beautiful on so many levels!
- The art is perfect, with a lot of polish on all those cute and super clear animations.
- The UI works perfectly.
- There are a lot of signs and feedback on everything. I love the particle effects announcing an incoming wind and making its direction clear.
- The sound design complements all those signs and feedbacks very nicely. The jump sound is crisp enough without becoming annoying (and that's quite rare)
- The platforming controls are well executed.
- This "something happens every 10 seconds" comes with limits, but you found clever solutions to those. For exemple, the red fogs that pass time fast to wait less before wind jumps is a very elegant design.
5/5 on everything for me, good job and thanks for the game 🍓
Here are two details I think could be improved:
- The black areas delimited by dots feel like they should be "Thunder free" zones. Yet one upward corridor in one of the first levels is black but you can get struck by thunder in it.
- The "effect changes" like switching from wind to thunder could be feedbacked even stronger. I know there is a sound and an animation, but it's still quite easy to miss when you are playing.