Drowsy Drop by barce


Waking up is inevitable but, will you be able to delay those dreams filled with your worst fears?
GOAL
Avoid falling deep into your nightmare as you fight for a good night sleep and prove your parents you are all grown and able to sleep by yourself! Hold your ground for 3 minutes through the 7 layers of your nightmerish dream!
THE TEAM
Drowsy Drop came to life with the amazing skills, hard work and good vibes of Alvaro Infante, Vincent Silva, Daniel Costa and Joaquín Volonte (the restless dev team); Maru Silveira, Nicolás De León and Rodrigo Noguera (the energetic art team); and last but not least, Bruno Arce the game designer/producer.
| Link | https://jvolonte.itch.io/drowsy-drop |
| Link | https://jvolonte.itch.io/drowsy-drop |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/drowsy-drop |
Ratings
| Overall | 885th | 3.389⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1102th | 2.963⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 1032th | 2.926⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 932th | 3.444⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 107th | 4.446⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 353th | 3.673⭐ | 28🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 983th | 2.435⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 654th | 3.5⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 52🗳️ | 38🗨️ |
The art was amazing and I would have loved to see some more nightmare levels!
Things I liked:
- The art was really nice looking and I was impressed by the amount of unique sprites and animations that were in the game. The character designs were perfect and really gave off that creepy Little Nightmares vibe.
- The music fit the mood really well. I loved how things got more sinister as time went on.
- The dash felt good to use and was working properly
- The re-use of assets was done really well by using recolors for new levels
Things that I think could be improved:
- The run felt a little too slidey/floaty for me. I would have liked some more precision. The collision boxes could probably be reduced a little as well
- The goal of the game wasn't too clear to me. Am I just trying to stay alive for as long as possible each level? I eventually figured it out but was confused for the whole first playthrough
- I think it fit the theme pretty well but why would I want to stay asleep as long as possible if I'm having such bad nightmares?
- The gameplay felt a little shallow. All you really do is run in circles and dash when you get stuck on an object
Overall, I think this game is just incredible art and sound-wise. Great job!
The art was great and really went from nice and comfortable to weird and creepy. I think the change of colors was also great and really communicated the feelings of the main character. I liked the idea of the gameplay as well and thought it was really smart that you put those random obstacles everywhere. I tried just going column by column to survive the maximum amount of time, but those obstacles quuickly put an end to that :D
My main problem with the game (others have mentioned it as well) is the slidey movement and the very slow reaction to my input. When I am walking right and suddenly press left the character can easily slide off the platform even though I pressed left. This together with the fact that it is not really clear exactly how far I could walk before I would fall off annoyed me a bit sometimes. For the dash I had a similar problem where it was difficult to judge the distance it would go for some reason. I would often just dash into a hole by accident. Another small problem is that sometimes I died at very start of a new level because I ran straight into an obstacle before I even really had time to get my bearings. Maybe it is just because I am bad at the game though, so do with that information whatever you want :D
Of course all of my criticism is very personal and strongly depends on my personal preference of games. If the game works as you intended and is what you were going for then that is of course the best :) Very solid submission to the jam!
The controls kinda bothered me at the beginning, but what was a bit frustrating to me is that the game itself was very unforgiving. One false move and I was down a floor with little chance to recover.
Other than that, I was rather impressed by the amount of different objects and their details. Good job!
I agree with others that the movement is a bit too slippery. Also, I often got stuck at the border of the level when approaching it and trying to go along the outer platforms. I think it would be better to either let the player fall down at the edge or make the border collision let us slide on it (now it seems to make the player stop or forget buttons held or something).