L1-S0N by Beardmage
You play as L1-S0N, a brave robot which mission is exploring a cursed cave. To progress further, you will have to find three runic stones similar to the ones located near landmarks and activate them to push the cursed fog downwards.
Be careful though, as you go down, so does the lethal fog above you. You might want to plan your journey ahead !
Controls :
WASD / ZQSD / Left Stick : Movement
Spacebar / A : Jump / Jetpack (Held)
Left click (Held) / X : Interact with pedestals
Right click / B : Toggle zoom state
Credits :
Beardmage : Dev, Level Design, Integration, FX
Slurpcanon : 3D & 2D Artist
Aurélien Montero : Music & Sound Design
| LDJam first push ! | https://beardmage.itch.io/l1-s0n |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/l1-s0n |
Ratings
| Overall | 490th | 3.78⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 779th | 3.44⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 651th | 3.44⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 679th | 3.82⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 40th | 4.62⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 196th | 3.98⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 274th | 4.04⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 14🗳️ | 30🗨️ |
Good graphics
I'll try it after😏
@bidentworks Thanks for the feedback !
In regards to feedback, I think the text explaining the objective went away too fast. I’d maybe consider adding a “continue” button so the user can decide when the text on the screen should go away. Or, maybe have the lines voiced?
If you decide to continue working on this, I’d consider adding more environmental hazards that the player must navigate around. I liked the deadly fog above the player, but it never really became a hazard for me while I was playing. More parkour/platformer with the jetpack, please!
@jackbad Thanks for the detailed feedback ! Did you play the 1.1 version or the first push ? Because I doubled the duration of the text, but maybe it's not enough yet. The text is one of the latest additions so it is still a bit clunky. I'll try to figure something out ! As for the hazards, indeed the fog isn't as deadly as we wanted, i'll probably tweak it before adding anything else for now. But who knows, if we feel brave, maybe we'll add the third level we planned for the jam !
I figured out the idea of finding the three symbols quickly, but I was kicked out a couple times (probably due to touching the fog, which I realize now) which was a bit confusing.
Also, the character model is super cute, and the use of diegetic UI to show the jetpack fuel is creative, much better than just slapping it on static UI. Good stuff!
Gameplay mechanics were good, and the controls & character had a nice feel.
Use of colors & bars on the robot instead of ui was also really smart, though the health antenna was not obvious at first (i'll come back to it later).
The downsides :
- The lower fog disappearing after clearing the first level didn't feel obvious and i wondered for a bit as to where i was supposed to go.
- The fog overall lacks a sense of danger, it's hard to know whether you're coming close or not to it, and the warning sign doesn't do a good enough job on that. Also i'd add some blinking or something to the health antenna while in the fog to highlight the damage & health, but that's nitpicking.
It's still a really impressive game for a jam, congrats on managing that much in 72h.
@vladadamm We uploaded a new version, fog is now way more dangerous (And feels much more like it is).
I wanted to setup some custom cameras to guide the player but it takes time.. i'll probably fiddle with cinemachine, in case I manage to get something decent running !
We added a lot of feedback concerning the health of the player too !
Cute robot though I did have some difficulty using the jet pack move, it was still fun to hop around and see the cavernous map.
You can take as much time as you want since the fog only goes down when you do (It records your lowest position reached and goes to a spot a few meters above it)
Also, what caused you issues with the jetpack precisely ?
The fog thingy isn't really clear, imho it needs to scream "danger" a bit more and lacks player feedback when it lowers and when it disappears from below you.
Also, it's easy to forget about the zoom ability which is actually pretty useful.
Globally, I think you need to guide the player more (about the objectives, dangers, etc). But that's easily tweakable, all in all the game feels good to play and that's the hard part done. Kudos.
P.S.: I started playing this on stream yesterday, here's a link if you want to check out the VOD https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1006460625?t=03h09m27s
New fog looks a lot better & more dangerous, but seems to be too gpu-heavy (had framedrops while going through it. Laptop with rtx2060 & ryzen 9, so not a bad config). Also, there doesn't seem to be any possibility of going back higher anymore, which is a bit disappointing as it gives no room for error and you can soft lock yourself pretty easily.
About going higher, I don't think I changed anything related to the fog height (Except that now, if you interact with the wrong pedestal, the fog goes down a few meters instead of cancelling the last pedestal). I'll probably tweak damage values a bit more though, I went a bit too hard on the difficulty when balancing that..
@paulloz I dont know yet how i'll handle the guiding part concerning the fog going down better while keeping diegetic UI tbh, but I'm sure i'll find out ! Thanks for your time :)
- I liked the mist and the stuff to turn on
- I didn't know what I was doing
- Music was really nice
Improvements:
* Camera is a bit too close/near to the character for my taste.
* Controls are very sensitive but you get used to. Ideally make it an option.
* I received "!" warnings but I had no idea why and what they mean. At one point I died, but I did not understand why.