New Horizons by Noctuaris12

[raw]
made by Noctuaris12 for Ludum Dare 48 (JAM)

Screenshot_954.png

New Horizons is a 2D platformer with a 3D environment that follows the journey of Mr. Anderson, whose psychiatrist advises him to go on a vacation to change his mind after the passing of his wife.

Screenshot_971.png

On the Island, Mr. Anderson will spend time swimming, diving, and exploring the area to try and change his mind, and try to carry on with his life. Surely he'll be able to make peace with his situation, right? And maybe, by exploring the depth of the island, he'll be able to through these tragic events. Or will this vacation that was supposed to help him process the death of his wife uncover something hidden deep within him?

Controls

You can play either with a controller or a keyboard, simply chose which one you prefer in the options menu.

Keyboard

Use A/D to move left/right and SPACE to jump

Controller

Use the LEFT JOYSTICK to move and press A/X to jump (ps5 controller support is hazardous at best with unity it seems, but it mostly seems to work, although controls are mapped differently, use the LEFT JOYSTICK to move around and press L2 to jump)

Tools

We used Unity to make the game, and pixilart to create most of the pixel art you can see in the game.

The music was 100% found on youtube and is royaltee free.

Ratings

Overall 1714th 2.904⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1833th 2.404⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1063th 3.096⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Theme 1404th 3.231⭐ 28🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 1136th 3.481⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Humor 892th 2.696⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 969th 3.46⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Given 31🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

Ethanthopkins
27. Apr 2021 · 01:31 UTC
Typewriter text would have benefitted greatly from a way to press a button and make it all apear at once. The sound got a bit monotonous and was a bit slow paced. I noticed a few clipping errors in the first swimming sequence. Other than that I enjoyed the plot twist and the story.
Vulcan
27. Apr 2021 · 01:31 UTC
It took a long time to enter the game intuitively. Look forward to simple improvement.
CorbenG
27. Apr 2021 · 01:40 UTC
This isn't animal crossing... but a very weird and cool experience. Was very interesting exploring the 3d world in 2 dimensions. Would have liked the ability to finish the word typing by hitting space or something, felt like I was just watching it most of the time. Overall great work though! well done :)
Drew Long
27. Apr 2021 · 13:04 UTC
Interesting plot!

I believe you could read some articles from Thomas Grip (Frictional Games). They can be interesting for you.
GarethTheDestro
27. Apr 2021 · 21:59 UTC
I love 2d and 3d combined and the game is gorgeous, that effect of the office unfolding when (enter spoiler here) is super cool. Lots of polish, awesome job. The story is weird and twisted and I'd love to get deeper into it so I hope you all continue. The platforming controls are a little sensitive but the underwater caves are so beautiful and cool to explore. Awesome job, this is super unique, congrats :smiley:
DesertMawTobi
28. Apr 2021 · 09:25 UTC
Great idea to combine 2D grafics in 3d game, I like the art and the gameplay, well done.
jaybaus
28. Apr 2021 · 21:20 UTC
Really enjoyed the 2D in a 3D setting style! I liked some of the details such as when the character automatically switched to scuba diving when you hit the water. Kept me interested to find out more, nice job :)
blaster391
28. Apr 2021 · 21:22 UTC
The 2.5d style mixed with the pixel art graphics were really nice! It's a shame you didn't manage to finish it, I'm interested to see where it was going. The only improvement would have been the ability to speed up the text, as often I would finish reading and have to wait an awkwardly long time for the next bit of text

Also Tom N, I see what you did there ;)
Bungalow
30. Apr 2021 · 09:08 UTC
This game was so sick!! the art was adorable, the gameplay was intuitive and the controls were responsive! Very impressive for a jam game! You should be proud!
BarelyEvenGames
30. Apr 2021 · 22:38 UTC
I played your game! Check it out!
https://youtu.be/DHfy_7ZtjHk
TomBuston
30. Apr 2021 · 23:19 UTC
My major issue with your game is the global rythm of the game and the balance between narration and gameplay.

The narrative sequence are too long in my taste, the text speed is very slow with no way of accelerating it and some dialogues don't really feel useful (they just summarize what something was said before). I think if there were more of those sequence but they were shorter it would be better for the global rythm of the game.

I feel like you maybe wanted to do something bigger and you didn't have the time to?

I quite liked the artstyle, the pixel art is really nice and the animations have a lot of personnality. The 3D shaders and post process are good work too, the amount of work that went into this art direction is actually quite impressive.

The controls were really fast I'm not sure if that was intended (maybe they aren't framerate independant?) but otherwise they work nicely, the transition from walking to swimming is smooth and that's not easy to do right.

Regarding audio, I would have liked the background music to stay during the gameplay sequence, it felt a bit less polished with no audio or sfx whatsoever. I also quite liked the talking sounds you made with the text appearing it had some nice nintendo vibes.

The story was deep. I liked how you made fun of the theme with it. The twist was a nice touch and even tough the story is quite dark, the humor was there nonetheless.

To sum it up, it was a nice entry, and a lot of work clearly went to this. Congratulation to the team and keep it up, I had a good time playing it :)
lesinvisible
01. May 2021 · 22:47 UTC
I liked the plot and 2D/3D graphics. This game has a very nice atmosphere and appeal.
zoarfy
05. May 2021 · 00:03 UTC
This is probably the best graphical style I've ever seen in a game jam game - you should be extremely proud of how well you implemented it!!
I would say, while I liked the story, you really need to either speed up the typewriting or add a button to auto play it, because the length of the opening almost made me stop - I'm glad I didn't though because the rest was really wonderful!
Congrats on submitting!
Aune
09. May 2021 · 15:24 UTC
Wow well done !
Sounds like a cool story with a rather cool surprise ;)

Game jam makes games with story very complicated to achieved in time

I like the idea to go deeper in mind and deeper in an environnement these are beautiful images in my opinion.

I really love your image shader for the swim part
Narom42
11. May 2021 · 16:49 UTC
Graphics are good, loved the style, and the idea too. Main problem is the pace, the dialogs are too slow and repetitive. Good job though