Red Riding Hood by Jiri Hysek

made by Jiri Hysek for Ludum Dare 50 (COMPO)

Red Riding Hood

Hi! They call me Red Riding Hood. I like our forest, I walk through it for ages. It would be perfect if there weren't those bloody wolves. When I was young I was scared of them. Grandma thinks it's too dangerous to walk through that forest. She always says: "They will eat you alive, it is inevitable, young lady!". But I'm not that little girl anymore. I have learned a couple of tricks.

Mini post-mortem

It's my 11th Ludum Dare and this time I just wanted to turn the outside world off and have fun. Since it was still 48 hours I just cannot do everything as great as I wanted. I have spent a lot of time on graphics and audio and in the end didn't have as much time for level design and polishing gameplay and fighting as it would deserve. It is a bit obvious that that part is weaker.

I'm aware of it. I'm not even looking for honest feedback:) Could you just tell me what you liked instead of what can be done better? :D

What went well (for a compo jam)

The main character - I have spent an unreasonable amount of precious time on drawing and animating the main character and I'm super happy with it. It's definitely the best character of all my compo games.
My weakest part was always music. So this time I gave it like 2,5 hours and it turned out "good enough" which I consider a great achievement :)

What didn't go well

Time management / scope. As always :D But I deliberately worked on that what I enjoyed. So I didn't have much time for level design and polishing fighting mechanics. I'm not that happy with it. It's kind of good enough for Compo but the rush is too obvious.

A wallpaper!

It somehow happened that I made a wallpaper by screenshotting one of the game scenes.. so if you like it, take it :)

Controls

WASD / arrows - movement
Down / S - hiding in a bush
X / P - attack
Space - alternative jumping

Used Tools

Godot Engine
Inkscape
Bandlab (music)
Audacity

Link	https://jhysek.itch.io/red-riding-hood
Link	https://jhysek.itch.io/red-riding-hood
Link	https://jhysek.itch.io/red-riding-hood
Link	https://github.com/jhysek/LD50
Original URL	https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/red-riding-hood

Ratings

Overall	138^th	3.74⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Fun	224^th	3.54⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Innovation	478^th	2.896⭐	26🧑‍⚖️
Theme	523^th	3.06⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Graphics	45^th	4.22⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Audio	217^th	3.42⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Humor	181^th	3.262⭐	23🧑‍⚖️
Mood	42^th	4.02⭐	27🧑‍⚖️
Given		34🗳️	14🗨️

Feedback

milq

04. Apr 2022 · 03:16 UTC

Interesting mechanics! Maybe the player rescaling is not good. You didn't think about the final resolution of the character? Good game!

JCMonkey

04. Apr 2022 · 04:38 UTC

the shanking was a good idea. though i wish the combat felt smooth with the wolves. having the ability to jump down and stab would have been a nice feature.

Iluvatar

04. Apr 2022 · 07:44 UTC

Hello Jirko,
I've just finished your game and I have to say it has an amazing atmosphere. You really did a good job with graphics and overall mood of the game. I loved that "dark beat" playing, it gives that little girl a nice badass character.

My favorite thing was to hide in bushes and stabby stab those furry mother-f**ers when they passed by haha.

And the ending is cool as hell :) good job

kromeboy

04. Apr 2022 · 09:03 UTC

Loved the art style. Combat could be improved

Lawrence

04. Apr 2022 · 09:49 UTC

Lovely game and nice humor. The webgl version has most of the level missing though, but managed to play the downloadable version.

The game is fun and funny. Physics were kind of janky, but that's understandable :smile:

Good job!

🎤 Jiri Hysek

04. Apr 2022 · 13:06 UTC

@jcmonkey Hey, I had that feature in my to-do list but since it's possible to do it anyway, it stays at the bottom of the list and I didn't make it till the end of the compo.

PetTurtle

04. Apr 2022 · 18:28 UTC

The wolves look really cool and are well animated, the character has good controls but I don't like how attacking stops all movement.

William Corrin

04. Apr 2022 · 23:47 UTC

I very much enjoyed the art style. You got the nice Limbo-ish aesthetic going on here, and it works well with the animation of the wolves as well. I can tell you are a very good artist!

The gameplay I think could use some tweaking. The jumping didn't feel super smooth, the attack animation stops the character from moving (and the collision between the wolves felt inconsistent), and sometimes its impossible to tell between what is background and non-collidable and what is in the foreground and part of the map that is interactable. The hide mechanic is a nice idea, but I didn't really find it too useful considering you can just stab the wolves instead.

The physics overall just felt not very tuned, and kind of elementary - but it is a game jam, so its understandable!

I also wasn't the biggest fan of the music - i see what you were going for, but it just kind of felt dissonant and not very cohesive.

Its tough to focus on making everything solid in a game jam, but you definitely made art that is above and beyond solid. I would just say next time try and also add the same level of polish to the gameplay, and it will provide a more unified experience.

Nice work overall though! :)

AFlatThrasher

05. Apr 2022 · 19:21 UTC

So, to stick with your request and only talk about the things I liked. :) First, the art was amazing. Loved how this game looked. Also, the sound was great. I thought the music worked very well.

Also, the only bug I encountered (twice) was hilarious. I was lying face down and could move around and jump around like that, stabbing down. Both times I tried to stab a wolf from above, it didn't work, but I laughed at it.

I thought it was a fun little platformer. Not perfect gameplay, but still satisfying enough to play through to the end.

Finally, there was a lightsaber!

Yngvarr

05. Apr 2022 · 19:46 UTC

I feel clickbaited by the page's header image. >_<

Your effort to make the game moody payed out! I could feel the darkness of the forest, the chill, as if I was there. The mechanics and the mood reminded me of your other game, Deep Blue, but this one is a step forward in terms of gameplay and storytelling. As for a combat mechanic, I managed to land a stab from the air and it felt just good!

Here's my playthrough, if you wanna see it. :)
https://youtu.be/SMG5gWxO9gI

🎤 Jiri Hysek

05. Apr 2022 · 20:07 UTC

@yngvarr Thanks a lot for a playthrough! I'm so happy to see that movement and controls are OK - I was kind of proud of how it felt when I was developing it. It's not my first platformer so I used all my experience to do just great controls. I was a bit disappointed when people told me it's not good - and I also saw it on the stream of Elysia Griffin. But I think it was "just" performance issues and controls are good. That's a relief.

I can see you encountered a couple of funny bugs, nothing critical, fortunately :)

Thank you again!

🎤 Jiri Hysek

05. Apr 2022 · 20:12 UTC

@aflatthrasher Hi, that's very kind of you! :) Yeah the bug is quite funny it happens when you start moving too early after death. Nothing critical fortunately this kind of stuff happens in the game jams (at least in my games:)

Too bad I got the idea with a lightsaber so late, it could be cool also in the main gameplay. But at least the Red Hood reminded me Arya Stark from Game of Thrones a little. Sneaky badass killing everything with her little knife ;)

Anyway, I'm happy you liked even the music, I suck at creating music but this time I really tried.

🎤 Jiri Hysek

05. Apr 2022 · 20:23 UTC

@william-corrin Thanks for your feedback! I'm happy you like the art, I spent an unreasonable time on it so I have less time than necessary on the gameplay...

Anyway, I'm not happy to hear that physics and jumping didn't work for you very well. I felt the controls and jumping especially is really well done. But I noticed on a stream there were performance issues, especially in the HTML build (I have already removed it because of this). Check out the walkthrough by @yngvarr it looks it behaves as I wanted. It's maybe a bit faster but I personally don't like when movement and jumping feel slow and floaty.

So I hope it didn't spoil the experience that much.

As for the music - it's my biggest weakness. And believe me, this time it's the best music I ever made :D Sometimes I just do ambient sounds in the background to avoid music at all but this time I tried to face it :) I fully agree it's not perfect but I made a progress, that's important for me :)

Thank you again!

William Corrin

05. Apr 2022 · 20:36 UTC

@jiri-hysek no problem! Sorry, I just noticed the note you left above talking about avoiding the more critical feedback. I wish I had seen that before I left my comment!

Hope I didn't come across as rude. There were plenty of things I enjoyed about your game!

🎤 Jiri Hysek

05. Apr 2022 · 20:47 UTC

@william-corrin No problem at all! Don't get me too serious :) I was exhausted when I wrote it and even then I didn't mean it that serious :) But sometimes when you just want to hear "good job", you just need to ask for it :D

coyotethursday

06. Apr 2022 · 03:50 UTC

I really liked the way the environments in this game looked, especially the wolves. Trying to sneak up on them was really fun! My only big critique is that it didn't really feel like Red Riding Hood matched with the art style of the rest of the game--she looked good on her own, but since she was the only character not in silhouette she felt out of place. That definitely made her stand out, which is good for a player character, but I would have liked it more if the contrast was more subtle. For example, just the fact that she has red in her color palette would have been enough for me to differentiate her from the rest of the environment.

shieldgenerator7

06. Apr 2022 · 06:16 UTC

this game is so cool! one of my favorites so far!

She Wrote

06. Apr 2022 · 14:06 UTC

Fun game. I like the music, the story, the atmosphere is great. And thank god she has a lightsaber, I was scared for a second

Suchista

07. Apr 2022 · 08:49 UTC

I think it's great, I love the art and the atmosphere it creates alongside with music. The platforming part felt right, I like the addition of checkpoint. And the outro is cool :)

Etherion

08. Apr 2022 · 21:45 UTC

Interesting game! Loved the music, and thought the artwork was incredible. Jumping and attacking felt a little clunky, but still enjoyable.

commanderstitch

09. Apr 2022 · 01:22 UTC

Moody, creepy, interesting mechanics, fun time just shanking, jumping was fun. Checkpoints felt right on. There were levels! Great work!!!

elysiagriffin

09. Apr 2022 · 01:35 UTC

Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my stream!

If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1450188475?t=2h29m59s

Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D

💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady

https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin

antonsem

09. Apr 2022 · 12:31 UTC

Nice visual style and fitting soundtrack. The only visual problem is the tree ladder thingy. I would make them out of branches so it looks more natural. Fun little entry otherwise :)

LadyMistLeaf

09. Apr 2022 · 13:38 UTC

I find that the game was short, but that is only because I loved it so much that I wanted more :) The main character felt very polished and I love that the enemies are represented as shadows in the game. Killing the bad guys felt very satisfying and I loved the stealth mechanic. Very enjoyable game!

Lomna

09. Apr 2022 · 14:17 UTC

I really love how that one wolf is afraid of you when you kill the big wolf in front of him. The ending was also funny. Increasing the range of the knife and making platforms look a bit more natural is the only criticism I have.

gord10ahmet

09. Apr 2022 · 19:13 UTC

Short and fun game. Great visuals and music!

Applestreet Games

09. Apr 2022 · 22:14 UTC

Control felt a little clunky but overall I enjoyed it. I like how Red stands out against everything else in the game being silhouettes. The ending caught me off guard and gave me a little chuckle with the lightsaber thing. lol

Frank Gevaerts

10. Apr 2022 · 12:49 UTC

Looking forward to the sequel! If the theme ever ends up being "Inside the enemy", you know what to do :)

As usual, very accessible for platformer novices like me, with enough checkpoints to keep frustration well away. I need a while to get through, and I only fully realised how to double jump properly fairly late, but I got to the end!

🎤 Jiri Hysek

10. Apr 2022 · 18:08 UTC

@frank-gevaerts Yeah! I also thought about a sequel - I thought it would be cool if she has the lightsaber from the beginning. But it a lightsaber idea occurred to me too late so it's only in the finale. I don't have time for it, though. So let's hope that the next LD theme allows for creating a sequel :D

Anyway, thank you, I'm glad you liked it!