Day of the Flame - LD 50 by arya-s
Day of the Flame
A mysterious flame drops into the sewers. Can it survive such a damp and rat infested place or will it inevitably draw its last breath of oxygen before quietly dimming out?

Controls
| | Keyboard | Gamepad | |-----------|--------- |----------------| | Move | Arrows | Analog / D-pad | | Jump | Space | A, Cross, B | | Shoot | C | X, Square, Y |
Bugfixes
- Fixed a bug that had the end boss at 2hp.
Known issues
- The game has no real ending after the last boss.
- It is possible to defeat the last boss, die and fight him again.
- Water particles in Level 1 aren't spawning.
- Crash when standing to close to a specific wall in the game.
| Link | https://arya-s.itch.io/day-of-the-flame |
| Link | https://arya-s.itch.io/day-of-the-flame |
| Link | https://arya-s.itch.io/day-of-the-flame |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/ld50-2 |
Ratings
| Overall | 832th | 3.433⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 812th | 3.267⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 773th | 3.225⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1027th | 3.35⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 395th | 4.008⭐ | 62🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 813th | 2.888⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 754th | 3.422⭐ | 60🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 31🗳️ | 53🗨️ |
Platforming felt a bit unresponsive at times. I think it was due to the player collision box being a lot smaller than the visual sprite. You could consider scaling the collision area with the player flame size.
Also quite a challenging game, some places are a bit too cruel with you. But maybe just I was really bad at some parts. Congrats anyway!
- water droplets just blended into the background
- unclear how to defeat the giant rat (it doesn't appear to take damage and hitting it with fire until you kill yourself doesn't kill it either)
- the sfx were interesting
- it would have been useful to introduce that you could wall jump some how that makes it clear you can
- there is a spot were the collision doesn't match the shape of the fire (first spot I had to wall jump as the jump wasn't achievable otherwise)
- overall a good game, just a few bugs to fix up and you have an interesting single resource platformer
Things I loved
- The mechanics of walking, jumping etc. were really good
- The fire effect was great
- The general aesthetics of the sewer was dark and lovely
Things I struggled with
- At first I was stuck because I didn't understand wall-jumping was a thing.
- Everything respawned if you exited the screen and came back, making the rubbish much less valuable
- A lot of things didn't give much feedback to the player, but that's totally understandable considering the time frame
All in all a very pleasant experience - I really hope you continue developing this :smile:
Was hard to see if the attacks were doing something to the boss, but I got him in the end.
I like how your size changes as you lose HP. Also the rat looks cool! There's a small bug with it: shooting it after it dies replays the death animation.
Really is good idea for a platform, my congratulations!!!

Anyways. I really like the way the fire looks and playing as a little fire is a cool game idea. The animations for the player and the rats were well done!
The boss fight was a bit confusing at first, I would've liked to see some feedback when hitting the boss (ex. boss turning white for a splitsecond or having a little bit of knockback on the boss) and also a health bar for the boss.
It can be a bit buggy so shoot and wait a little bit between each shot.
I indeed intended there to be something but ended up not really using it due to time
Background graphics were very clean as well. Took me a while to get used to the movement but had a lot of fun over all! Love it.
I thought the colour palette choice and pixel art for the level were really nice. Platforming felt good and player friendly and I liked the setting/theme you went with a lot. The boss could have been improved greatly by leaving no areas on the bottom level where you can wait forever without getting hit. Maybe instead add some platforms that are in range at any point to give you a chance to get out? Or maybe when you fall to the bottom the boss has a pause/windup animation to give you a chance to quickly get out of there, and I guess a long one after he successfully hits you too.
All in all I think you did a really nice job, congrats :)
The graphics are great, I love the fire and water effects, and the rats look great.
The timer on your flame charges is a great addition.
Good work.
If you want to check the VOD the section where I play your game starts at 3 hours and aroud 7 minutes.
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450162412?t=04h45m02s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
You have an amazing Metroidvania style game there if you want to do a commercial project and it's gonna be really cool :D
Great fun game~!
From start to end it is fun~ Maybe adding something to tell that the rat boss is feeling damage will be good I felt like I was doing nothing to it UnU
overall a good short experience~
left feedbacks on stream, vod @ 3:30:00
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1449593775
The color palette was top notch. I can tell you put a lot of work into the main character - the fire trail looks so nice. Wall jumping was a nice surprise (although it was a little tough to pull off with the keyboard).
I loved that the movement and the fireball ability were both tied to your health. It tied very well to the theme. Perhaps if the player went back to the prior checkpoint, or incurred a serious movement penalty when their health ran out it would feel more consequential. Right now, it felt like it wasn't a big deal to lose all of your health, because it was really easy to get it all back.
Great work overall!