The Headless Horseman by datadazer

made by datadazer for Ludum Dare 49 (JAM)

Description:

The world has fallen into an Unstable state! Massive cursed pumpkins crash into the Earth bring death and disorder. The Headless Horseman is on the hunt for his head and must reach it before the Grim Reaper catches him.

Jump past the Cursed Pumpkins.
Avoid the Grim Reaper.
Reach your real head at the end!

Controls:

Spacebar / Primary Button on Gamepad ("A" for xbox controller).
Esc to Close Game

The idea for this game can be credited to my wonderful wife Brandi <3 and her love for spooky frights on Halloween nights!

Things I learned:

It is important to develop a fun prototype with good game design early on before you work on graphics, music, etc. Mechanics come from exploration with prototyping, so don't save that for the end when you are out of time! Also I need to have someone else playtest early and often to dial in difficulty and design assumptions. Overall proud of what I built and learned more about unity 2D workflow and pixel art!

Link	https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S_-3XYvDkL8ICsEX_e3GKzlmsm6-zT9n/view?usp=sharing
Link	https://emberdev.itch.io/the-headless-horseman
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/49/the-headless-horseman

Ratings

Overall	945^th	3.375⭐	42🧑‍⚖️
Fun	849^th	3.338⭐	42🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	1490^th	2.263⭐	40🧑‍⚖️
Theme	1500^th	2.205⭐	41🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	349^th	4.038⭐	42🧑‍⚖️
Audio	247^th	3.808⭐	41🧑‍⚖️
Mood	445^th	3.679⭐	41🧑‍⚖️
Given		39🗳️	55🗨️

Feedback

Knipsch

04. Oct 2021 · 05:23 UTC

The art and music are fantastic. I especially love the moon, the character animations, and the parallax effect in the background! Also, I'm happy to see a spooky game, and I like the concept a lot. Great job!

Sabine

05. Oct 2021 · 02:15 UTC

the art and music were fantastic!

LDJam user 230963

05. Oct 2021 · 03:47 UTC

Good music! I kept jumping just to hear the piece to the end. Good work!

Moonlher

05. Oct 2021 · 03:47 UTC

I like the game a lot, congratulations for the song, it's very nice

Ashley GB

05. Oct 2021 · 03:48 UTC

An interesting and well executed game. Really enjoyed the visuals along with the music! :)

kalevrk

05. Oct 2021 · 03:51 UTC

I really like the artwork, the parallax effect with the scrolling, and the music. The gameplay is straightforward, but I would love to see this expanded into something more.

circle

05. Oct 2021 · 03:53 UTC

Very fun! I actually felt like I was playing a rhythm game. I wonder if that was intentional or not? The art was amazing as well. I absolutely loved the atmosphere. The color scheme was delightful as well. Like the palett was really good. Concept was fun too, I'm glad I found the horseman's head.

Nillard

05. Oct 2021 · 04:24 UTC

Death comes at you faster and faster with each passing moment.

FromTheChasm

05. Oct 2021 · 14:38 UTC

The rhythm got me, too busy trying to jump in time rather then avoid the pumpkins. It all fit together well, having some varied pumpkins (size/colour) would help to mix it up. I loved the manic riding pumpkin dude. And horse!

Wbertrand

06. Oct 2021 · 23:40 UTC

I really liked how getting stuck on a pumpkin moved you back closer to the grim reaper, helped build some suspense! I'd love to be able to gain some space back, maybe by hitting a coin/powerup on on ajump or something? I also loved the art!

DDRKirbyISQ

06. Oct 2021 · 23:52 UTC

Pretty simple, but the colors are nice and those pumpkins look really great! Also, that smearing on the player's sword!

Marshal

07. Oct 2021 · 00:09 UTC

The theme I think was a little lost, but in technical and art terms the game is fantastic!

🎤 datadazer

07. Oct 2021 · 13:51 UTC

Couldn't agree more with all of the constructive feedback here. Thank you all for taking the time to play and comment <3

OhioBustdown

07. Oct 2021 · 16:07 UTC

Really fun, could see it ported everywhere, even apple watches 😂😁

coryru

08. Oct 2021 · 02:13 UTC

The graphics are wonderful, the beats are jammin, plus a mix of Halloween vibes. I wish there was more gameplay but it's a gamejam am I right?

fortey

08. Oct 2021 · 09:10 UTC

Pretty fun. The graphics are great!

Emaigualmc2_art

08. Oct 2021 · 15:41 UTC

I really liked the art, maybe I would add more layers to that parallax so that the moon is not so static. Very good job!

TTU_HASAN

08. Oct 2021 · 15:48 UTC

very good art and music also really good concept

MichaelGameRus

08. Oct 2021 · 15:56 UTC

game is not bad, enjoy the grafics

Jackaljk

08. Oct 2021 · 20:22 UTC

While the theme is implemented only in the lore behind the game, the art and music are actually good! The gameplay is solid too. Some special sounds and ui effects on deaths and winning would have made it even better. Nice job!

LuhUchiha

09. Oct 2021 · 01:51 UTC

Great art and music!

Jupiter_Hadley

10. Oct 2021 · 09:50 UTC

These graphics are so good! I included it in my Ludum Dare 49 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/QOqT7v58gqA

Derlan Almeida

10. Oct 2021 · 20:42 UTC

Simple gameplay, but fun. Art is nice!

Arlwin

13. Oct 2021 · 10:00 UTC

Both the Art and Audio is really awesome!

AlmightySocrates

14. Oct 2021 · 16:58 UTC

I love the mood this game sets! Art and Sound are on point. As for the gameplay, I would suggest a bit more varied and interesting obstacles, because I was getting bored of the gameplay loop after a while.

Denatus

16. Oct 2021 · 08:23 UTC

Nice art! I tried to reach the end a few times but grim reaper got me evert time. Is it even possible to beat the game?

🎤 datadazer

16. Oct 2021 · 16:55 UTC

@denatus it is possible to beat, though I definitely made it a bit too long for such a shallow mechanic (literally jumping and that's it).

You reach the end after ~2 mins of surviving, which is a pretty long time to be doing an extremely uninteresting and repetitive action.

I should have built the gameplay first, but instead I focused mostly on art and audio before the foundation of a good prototype.

Thank you for playing and the feedback! :)

kurrik

18. Oct 2021 · 00:13 UTC

I thought it was a smart idea to make it a one-button game instead of letting players move left and right. Jumping on top of a pumpkin to ride back a little bit seemed like an interesting idea which could be fleshed out some more - I found myself thinking some of the double jumps were a little unfair since there was such a short lookahead distance. Visuals and especially music were really great!

Bearacus

19. Oct 2021 · 20:43 UTC

It's even halloween themed! The music is a bop and the pixel art is very well done. But in the end i'm playing the "chrome offline dino jump over cactus" minigame with a halloween skin on.

Matias Correa

20. Oct 2021 · 04:39 UTC

simple but catchy game! nice ramping speed difficulty, made me play a few times consecutively but couldn't get to the end... cool pixelart graphics!

LCStark

21. Oct 2021 · 11:11 UTC

Lovely little runner game! I love the artstyle and music, the pixelart animations look really fantastic here (I especially like the horse's run cycle ;) ). The Halloween theme is nice, I loved the pumpkins falling out of the sky. One thing I'm not so keen on is the size of the game - when you start the game, with the horseman near the right edge of the screen, there isn't a lot of time to dodge the pumpkins. It actually gets better and easier after a few collisions, and even though the game speeds up, I felt like it was easier later on. A bit more room on the horizontal axis might do wonders here. ;) All in all, great jam entry. There's a lot of ways this can be expanded upon, like adding more obstacle types, and maybe some pickups that allow you to "speed up" for a while and gain more distance on the reaper. I hope you'll keep working on this one, it's worth it. Well done!