Waking Gerald by funemaker

Gerald awoke in a strange and unusual environment. Where was he? As he scanned the world around him, he became faintly aware of the scent of fruit. His giraffe nostrils twitching, he turned to face the largest banana he had ever seen!
You've been placed in a dream! Don't let the scenery distract you, there is danger about. You would do well to avoid the nightmares and fruit for as long as you can. After all, it would be sad to die in your sleep because of a giant banana.
Navigate the dream, kill the nightmares, and stay alive for as long as possible!
**** Waking Gerald ****
Game Objective: Stay in your dream for as long as possible
Controls: A and D to move with Left Shift to dash, SPACE to jump, LEFT-MOUSE to shoot
NOTE: Triple jumping is possible, so keep hitting that space bar!
Programming :: Jon Fisher
Art :: Sophia Fisher
Audio/Testing :: Adrian Fisher
| Link | https://sophiacats.itch.io/waking-gerald |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/waking-gerald |
Ratings
| Overall | 928th | 3.346⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1103th | 2.962⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 880th | 3.115⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1148th | 3.174⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 500th | 3.88⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 341th | 3.692⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 567th | 3.125⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 320th | 3.84⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 25🗳️ | 32🗨️ |
I had fun playing it, liked the graphics, the narrator and the banana monster. Well done!
Your audio is fantastic, the voice acting really pushes it over the top, and the music intensifying as you progress really adds to the atmosphere - the rain does as well! Overall, just really great mood/atmosphere, and I love the silly story.
My biggest complaint was the controls, I really hate having to use my pinky for the dash and my hand just didn't feel natural on the necessary keys. I would have had lot more fun on a controller, I think it would have added a lot and I would have played a few more rounds. (I still played maybe 5 rounds though!)
One other area that could be improved for me is vertical movement. Despite the triple jump, I still found it challenging at times to get up on the clouds. A nice feature maybe could be jumping through the bottom of the clouds to get up.
You have a great little game here, very impressive for a weekend!
I'm not sure if there was any way to actually delay the inevitable, or whether it was just a case of surviving until the time ran out.
Plus, the camera could probably have done with being made smoother, rather than making it rigidly follow the player (this demonstrates the concept, don't know if there's a tutorial out there for KGE) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd54vNc2N4E
Good job :slight_smile:
Unfortunely the controls didn't feel very snappy and I struggled the jump where I wanted. But I guess it helped build the tension towards the end until you wake up.
Unfortunately, the game was really upsetting to play. I had no clue that triple-jumping was a thing until I died four times and checked back here. Then I didn't get much farther without lots of deaths and gave up. Maybe it could feel more dreamlike and be more forgiving?
But great work on the art!