LudumData

Bonfire: Darker and Darker by firellon

[raw]
made by firellon for Ludum Dare 48 (COMPO)

Cover.png

You find yourself in an unknown Forest. No idea how you've got here, no idea how to get out, no idea who are those people around - until a Voice says:

  • Night is coming and will grow darker. You are but one of many who must try your best to survive. We shall see what people do out of despair. We shall see whom the Night consumes the last! Ha, ha, ha...

While this message rings disturbingly in your eyes, you start looking around for some spare wood to burn during the long nights you are now to face...

Survive!

Controls: - Arrows - movement - Left Mouse Button - Start a new Bonfire / Add a log to the nearby fire (when unarmed) OR Fire the pistol (when armed) - Right Mouse Button - Switch between armed and unarmed mode - R - restart - Escape - quit the game

P.S. Sorry for the lack of atmospheric music and sounds - compo adds a bit of restrictions here.

P.P.S. Made a small update to fix some bugs and add the sounds generated with Bfxr and Garage Band. Won't ask you to judge me for those, since they were made outside of compo.

Link https://github.com/Firellon/LD48
HTML5 (Post-Compo) https://nebulate.itch.io/bonfire
Link https://nebulate.itch.io/bonfire
Link https://nebulate.itch.io/bonfire
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/bonfire-darker-and-darker

Ratings

Overall 799th 2.889⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Fun 762th 2.75⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 609th 2.944⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Theme 860th 2.361⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 671th 3.028⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 172th 3.722⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Given 30🗳️ 12🗨️

Feedback

Lorwon
26. Apr 2021 · 10:05 UTC
The graphics are simple but the game is really fun, I love the fact that you need to gather some wood logs in order to keep the campfire lit. Good job !
iorena
26. Apr 2021 · 10:09 UTC
Nice DST clone, the other survivors were a nice addition! Really cute graphics, especially loved the bonfire animation and lighting. I would have wanted a "days survived" counter maybe. Also I never saw the ghosts, it was too dark to see anything when I died :(
jaybaus
26. Apr 2021 · 10:20 UTC
I like it :) It's cool that there are different styles of play you can choose - gathering wood, joining other people or shooting them for the wood. Good job!
Hilvon
26. Apr 2021 · 10:33 UTC
Nice game for the first few days. However by the Night 15 it gets a bit repetitive.

Explored the whole forest (at least reachet borders on every side). Figured out that you need 2 or 3 logs to survive the night.

Survived 2 nught without lighting a bonfire just by keeping on the move. The first one was not intentional - I was looking for other survivers, but the second one was just to see a ghost. Decided that ghosts are not real.

I think the game would've benefited from either some win condition, or from gradual increase in difficulty, like nights getting longer, ghosts moving faster, survivers becoming more likely to attack the player, etc.
JaviCoder
26. Apr 2021 · 17:08 UTC
interesting concept. I would have liked the days and nights to be longer. Nice work with the characters. I think the sound would also help the game a lot.
crucknuk
27. Apr 2021 · 15:55 UTC
The mood is so creepy, I pass a night near some firecamp with another lost soul.
At the morning the same guy shot me in my back. xD

The concept is simple, I like the implementation and the mood, well done !
youthfulIdealism
27. Apr 2021 · 15:57 UTC
The day was uncomfortably short. I feel like I'm missing something--is there a way to beat the game, or is it a "survive as long as possible" thing?

I didn't mind the gather-the-wood gameplay. Initially I thought that if I got 10 wood, I'd win.
🎤 firellon
27. Apr 2021 · 16:31 UTC
Thank you all for the feedback!

@youthfulidealism Unfortunately, there is no way to beat the game at the moment. You can survive for longer, if you dare - nights are becoming longer over time. My first try to create something about human psychology - and it did take more time than I'd like to create AI which is still to mechanical to be even considered human-like.

The premise was basically "Prisoners dilemma in a harsh survival setting"
youthfulIdealism
27. Apr 2021 · 16:45 UTC
I actually was questioning the whole way through whether or not the game was online-enabled and I was playing with other ludum-dare-ers. Something about the semi-random behavior made me think that I might be playing with other humans who were also trying to figure the game out. The movement reminded me of something I might see on tanks.io, and getting randomly shot by one person and having the rest of the people neutral reinforced that impression. So, I'd say you actually did pretty well with the AI, if your goal was to create something human-like.
Nisovin
27. Apr 2021 · 21:20 UTC
Cool, game, I enjoyed the art. It definitely got repetitive, since all I was really doing was collecting wood and standing still at night. Reaching the edge tells you to find what you seek deeper in the woods, but I never found anything different.
Pierce Brooks
29. Apr 2021 · 04:50 UTC
What an insightful exhibit!
rawbits
01. May 2021 · 11:11 UTC
Using the gun not helps - they all are quick drawers. Logs are sparse, I have managed to get to day 6 - it got boring afterwards. I like the concept just needs to work on more.
Last Angle
01. May 2021 · 11:29 UTC
The mood in this game is really good! The game reminds me of Don't Starve. I like the concept of finding logs to stay alive at night, but didn't notice any difficulty increase, so after 6 days I got a bit bored. I could only find one other survivor, but lost sight of them when it started to get dark. The next day, she was dead, which was a nice touch, although I wanted to find others to work together with.
coatline
01. May 2021 · 17:27 UTC
I had a good laugh with this one! I don't know why but it was quite humorous to see the people just obliterate you when you pull out your gun. It is a good risk reward concept because if you do not have enough wood, you will die in the night so you can risk trying to kill someone so that you can take their wood. If you are just chillin with a good crew of people at a campfire and they are just sitting there, I just can't help myself in quick drawing to steal all of their wood for personal gain. I had fun with this game great job.
🎤 firellon
01. May 2021 · 23:17 UTC
Hey guys, thank you all for the feedback! I've pushed an updated WebGL version that has music, survived days counter at the end and improved on the stranger humans' AI. They will be more reasonable with pulling their guns on you... but sometimes, desperate situation asks for desperate measures ;)
TigerMouse
02. May 2021 · 19:33 UTC
This is a simple but effective little game. I really enjoyed the concept and atmosphere and had a lot of fun surviving the nights next to my bonfires. Great work!
cheesepencil
07. May 2021 · 01:49 UTC
games like these give me the heebie-jeebies, good job
PiJaMar
07. May 2021 · 04:53 UTC
A lot to like here! The gameplay loop is very appealing, I love the pixel art and the mood set by the graphics and sound. The way you were able to strip down the concept to a bare-bones version of this kind of game was admirable. The only criticism I have is that it might be too dark, even by day, so sometimes it's hard to see where the logs are. Amazing entry, especially for a compo game, congratulations! Hope you keep working on it :wink: