Lighthouse Diaries by Tomssuli
A long time ago, in 1912, Nestori was summoned to face a grave task. An accident had struck at the sea. One ship had already sunk, lost to a fatal signal error caused by Nestori's grand father.
Now it fell to him to prevent further tragedy, to guide the remaining ships safely through the darkness.
Before him stood the lighthouse, long abandoned yet defiant against time. Its towering silhouette loomed into the night, nearly swallowed by the darkness, as if the sea itself were trying to erase it. It had belonged to his family for hundreds of years. And now it was his turn to light it again.
Now it is your time, Nestori! Can you step up to it and save human lives?
" - .... .- - ... -. --- - --. --- --- -.. . -. --- ..- --. .... - .... .- - ... -. --- - --. --- --- -.. "
Controls:
Mouse scroll to zoom in and out.
Mouse to aim and control the light. Left click to interact with cannons and smaller beacons.
Space to use Sonar. (levels 2 and 3)
Backspace to skip dialogue.
WASD to pan camera
Left click/Enter/Space to advance the story in the diary.
Right click to abandon your current tower/cannon.
.-- .... -.-- .. ... - .... . .-. ..- -- --. --- -. . ..--..
"The beacons are lit"-Aragorn. You can click on the smaller beacons to activate their lights. When a ship is illuminated by the light, they can see where to go. So keep them in your view.
"Cannons are ready Captain!"-Random Pirate#469. You can take control of the cannons by clicking on them, to shoot at the enemies.
-.-- --- ..- -... ..- .-. -. .- .-.. .-.. - .... . ..-. --- --- -.. - .... . ... .... .- -.. . - .... . .-. ..- --
Guide the ships wherever they need to go.
Prevent the pirates from sinking your friendly ships.
There are many things in the sea that you might want to avoid..
Stay vigilant.
Never surrender.
You CAN win.
"- .... . -.-- .- .-. . - .- -.- .. -. --. - .... . .... --- -... -... .. - ... - --- .. ... . -. --. .- .-. -.."
Huzzaah!
| Link | https://blackenter.com/ludum59/download/LighthouseDiaries.zip |
| Latest post-jam web version | https://blackenter.com/ludum59/webversion/ |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/59/lighthouse-diaries |
Ratings
| Overall | 390th | 3.61⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 555th | 3.2⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 291th | 3.58⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 297th | 3.96⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 384th | 3.82⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 151th | 3.94⭐ | 52🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 251th | 3.304⭐ | 48🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 298th | 3.847⭐ | 51🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 64🗳️ | 75🗨️ |
I now serve 🫡
The credit song is a banger. Please release the ~~kraken~~ vinyl!
.--. .... / -. --. .-.. ..- .. / -- --. .-.. .-- / -. .- ..-. .... / -.-. - .... ..- .-.. .... ..- / .-. .----. .-.. -.-- . .... / .-- --. .- .... / -. .- --. .-.. / ..-. .... - .- --. -.
If you liked the song, you should try our previous games... They all have similar style credits rap song from the same music team :sunglasses:
I really liked the difficulty curve being explained through the story as the waters were harsher in ye olden days. What a clever way to weave the story and gameplay!
I recorded myself playing to provide as much feedback as possible. Cheers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjICH4nUOVk
I was pulling my hair through the video as you managed to evade most of my tutorial! :sweat_smile:
- In the first level, if you had lighted the smaller beacons in the first level, you would have gotten tutorial texts for how to link the beacons to each other.
- In the second level if you scrolled outwards AND inwards, it would have triggered the next tutorials for how to use cannon and the sonar
- -> so in the third level you didn't know about the beacons NOR the sonar yet... And it was the hardest level. I feared for a rage quit, but you just found everything on your own :heart:
As you might guess, we had planned more levels... Total of six, but they had to be cut down to three when time was running out. I decided still to put all the story in, putting multiple pieces of story in the same transition screen. Dialogues from the three missing levels were left out and all the elements were put in the game in bunches instead dropping gradually one new thing per level.
Even if it was now more rushed than originally planned, I think we knitted it pretty well together :sunglasses:
Well, this is something I haven't played before. It has the coziness of an RTS of the turn of the century, but it's not an RTS. I think the difficulty curve was just perfect. I never found the rock with symbols.
Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, and with a bit more time, I can see it becoming a great game to casually spend time with. For a game jam, it more than delivers.
Congratulations on your work! :octopus:
I loved the mechanic of "connecting" multiple lighthouses between them to reach further. So simple, and yet it works perfectly.
You did an amazing job, congrats!
It was a little confusing switching between the cannon and the signal, and I also didn't know what the crosshairs on the screen were for, but nothing that stopped me from playing.
It's funny to see the little faces and hear the random voices, haha.
If you have a moment to rate my game, I would appreciate it.
I loved the outro song, the voice lines, the graphics, the story, the gameplay... nothing negative I can really say about this game other than that I would love to see the story progress and play more levels!
EDIT: Update an hour and a half later -- still vibing to the credits and clicking repeat every time they run out
First i had some problems to understand what to do but on the big map it was clear and fun :D
Also sweet art style and music^^
I felt that there was not really any point in using the closer zoom modes, other than admiring the art. The fully zoomed out view worked nicely for me the whole time.
I had weird bug that my fps would drop staying on the web build browser tab for a long time, luckily it fixed itself after switching tabs and coming back to the game. Anyways, that what I get for using firefox and not something chromium based...
Amazing song at the end too :)