That's awesome how much stuff there is in here! congrats on making it feel so deep (heh) in such a short amount of time.
The vibe of the game felt like a newgrounds/spelunky mish-mash to me.

Interesting concept with lots of ideas, using sound to navigate through pitch-black caverns and avoiding various obstacles. Unfortunately I would frequently glitch into the ground after rappelling and pressing E to release the rope, so the only way out would be to turn on the light and jump/wiggle my way out. Once I ran out of lighter fluid that wasn't an option anymore and I couldn't progress.

Wow! This game is incredible! Nice art and audios and cool game design. It is the most friendly game I played for now. With a well made tutorial, I am quick to know how the game works. Though the light stick kind of looks like sausage hahhhh... Still, the game is a little bit hard for me. I am quickly running out of light sticks and power which makes so hard to move forward... Maybe I am so bad at these kind of games. In all, the game looks really compete and awesome! Good job!

really cool game although it took a while to actually get to the cave. it would be nice if there was a way to refule your lighter and glowsticks. the repel feature was very cool and overall movement felt nice

Cant figure out what those texts say, not enough contrast. Also takes too much to really start. Good job with cover art tho, art style got my interest

Very nice cover. The game is very atmospheric due to the music, sounds and art. I like that the further you go down, the darker it gets.

It would be great if the game could use the light longer or find more this items on the level.

The music is like a variation of the main theme of the film "A Cure for Wellness". If you were really inspired by it, you should write about it.

If the matches are accidental and you do not want to associate game music with something else, then you should think about how to make your melody more unique. The film is very famous and because of this there are unsolicited associations. The end of the melodies and their sequences are very much the same, it is better to change the end of the melody in your compositions.

Hi @shumarie
Thanks alot for your comment! Well, this similitude is unintentional since I did not watch this movie nor listened to the OST. I just listened to it now, transcribed some parts and well I'm still unsure which passage you are referring to?

The process for this OST was simple. For the introduction, I wanted an epic/easy/memorable melody, and then harmonized it.
The part in the cavern is only a variation of this theme: I used the same progression but added those horror elements : slower tempo, low strings, glockenspiel, filtered voices and so on (I should thank Spitfire for that ahah). Maybe that's the part that sounds like " "Nobody Ever Leaves" or the beginning of "The Rite" from "A cure for wellness" ? The textures are indeed similar, but I couldn't find more similitude.

The last part of the OST is also just another variation, for piano, of this very first theme. Here again, I don't see a resemblance with the film's ost.

What do you mean by "The end of the melodies and their sequences are very much the same" ? Is it a comparison between the theme of the speleologist and the one from 'A cure for wellness'? If yes, I'd love you to be more specific, which track from the movie you're referring, I'm quite lost here.

Also, the part where you say that the melody should be more "unique" interests me. Do you mean more complex rhythmic patterns, less repetition, more variation? I'm still learning, and I take any advice

I'm not familiar with Wallfisch's work (yet!) and I'm happy for this discovery, thanks!

@lsdlx,I have thought about it and will try to tell you to the best of my knowledge.

I think that the “A Cure for Wellness” reminded me specifically of this passage: B F# B A G#. In the film, the musical phrases of the main theme periodically end as follows: F# C# E E D# B (for example, here: "Hannah and Volmer", 00:16-00:20)

Plus, I think, the fact that in both cases the piano periodically performs the theme (sometimes it is not in the main part, but still it sounds somewhere in the background of the voice). It is also similar to repeating music or parts of it through a half-tone (?) lowering and some similar little things, although all of these are quite common techniques among composers in themselves. Unfortunately, my knowledge here is not enough to indicate something specific. :(

Probably, i think, it is also affected by the fact that at one time I listened to the soundtrack to the film a lot, and I firmly remember the main musical theme. X) The melody is very easy to remember, while it is very expressive and atmospheric. Probably, therefore, in general, a fairly standard move for music is strongly associated with this film.

Sometimes proven methods are very, very necessary and without them in any way. However, maybe here some other move will create the same mood, but in itself will be more new and unusual ones.
I think, in a particular case, you can make a more unusual variation for the end of the phrase.

Unfortunately I couldn't read the explanation text in the game due to a lack of contrast :cry:

I played the original version. I got stuck in the floor when descending the rope! Oh no! Tutorial could be spread out over a longer period of time and give you a chance to experiment with the different elements. Good luck!

I liked the music and the character animation.
An interesting idea using sounds, though I felt it could have explored this concept further. The only time I found the audio cues useful was avoiding the second cart.
I also got stuck in the floor at the bottom of both the rappel points in the dark.
I got to the end with plenty of fuel and glow sticks to spare.

I really liked this! The mechanic of only temporarily having vision in order to work out where obstacles are worked really well. The game felt very atmospheric with the music and the changing volume, as well as the effects indicating obstacles.
I had a few collision issues in places, but other than that my only complaint is that the controls are a little unintuative. Control to crouch feels a bit far away from the WASD buttons I'm using, and originally I found myself using the right Control button - until I discovered I'd also need the mouse. Then there's R for the light and E for the absailing... Feels like it needs a bit of a rethink. I'd have preferred jump on W, crouch on S, and you could have doubled up the left mouse button so that it takes place of E when absailing - just leaving the R for light, which I think could have been the right mouse button - since the mouse is used for the glow sticks anyway.

Still, that said, great entry. Nice work.

Nice game! I like the light management idea. Good art and really good music!

Hey that was really nice! The music, the sounds, the atmosphere! It does a great job creating a claustrophobic feeling! It took me a while to get used to the controllers. Good job!

Really enjoyed this -ended up getting stuck in the floor on the jam version but made it pretty far down!! Had a lot of fun playing this! Fantastic work! :D

The controls are a bit troublesome given that the game runs in the browser. Ctrl+D, for instance, is the shortcut for creating a new bookmark in Chrome, Firefox, etc. I'm surprised that others haven't pointed this out.

If you had control over the code of the website where the game runs, you could prevent the default shortcut behaviour, but given that the game is on Itch.io, I would consider revising the controls.

I would also avoid using text-based tutorials, people tend not to read them. It becomes especially difficult when you try to be fancy and make them look like a part of the backdrop. Ask yourself, for what reason would you want the tutorial texts to blend in with the background? I, for instance, know that I had a lighter (right?) but I didn't know how to use it :smile:

It'd also be great to get to the cave a lot quicker. We want to play your game, so let us get to it asap! :smile:

There's a lot to improve, sure, but I think this was a fun and interesting take on the theme!

Once you get used to the controls it's really fun game! Good job.

I never read game descriptions in itch io or ludum dare and found it hard to know what to do at the start so some controls right away would have been good.

Pressing R would have been nicer to show your character holding a torch.

Looks you didnt have time to add sound, some nice explosions, footsteps and moody music would have added a lot to the game.

When I was climbing down the rope I managed to get my character stuck in the floor once.

Also some more tile transitions were the blue to black tiles would have been good.


Overall with a little more polish this game would have been good. Nice effort.

Look at him run!)) I really wished for that guy to collect flowers and jump with them throwing petals around with a fine giggle. At first, I thought that you decided to make a deep tutorial game (like some game designers say: a game is a one big tutorial). But then, the cavern... challenging... music could be darker then. At some pointed I needed a goal, maybe some cavern were-princess lurking in the deeps, so you've to romance her to save her, or something like this. Anyway, nice entry!