darkwalker by BoClow
Hello!
This is my second ludum-dare game. I knew that I would not be able to work on computer all the time during the jam, so I made a game where I use lot of sounds. I recorded most of the audio on the first day, before I even knew what kind of game I was going to make.
I wanted to experiment with how much you can make a game around just sounds and this is what I came up with: It is a game where you follow some sort of transmitters like breadcrumbs towards power supply and try to avoid something that lurks in the dark.
As I was not going to be putting so much of the actual game play on the screen, I took this opportunity and tried to make clear and easy to read UI. Hope you like it and have fun.
UPDATE:
Managed to make a post jam version this time around. It is not so major and I don't think I do much more with this game. Maybe in the future I will do a similar game with a little more thought put on it. (postjam version on itch.io page)
What I did do:
-fixed some typos.
-moved the goal closer and made it's position random
-marked the goal position on ending map
-added "can throwing" mechanism to get the "something" away
What I did NOT do:
-Fix the AI (I should do it from the start with more coherent plan in mind)
-Make the sound stereo (I need to learn more about the sound systems in Gamemaker)
-Make the traffic hostile (I thought it but I don't believe it serves any purpose on this one)
| Link | https://boclow.itch.io/darkwalker |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/darkwalker |
Ratings
| Overall | 683th | 3.534⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 843th | 3.241⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 26th | 4.276⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 1136th | 3.19⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 730th | 3.6⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 75th | 4.138⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 1133th | 1.86⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 43th | 4.35⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 26🗳️ | 40🗨️ |
Thank you for playing.
@dustya29 Thank you for feedback. It is a slow game and it turned out to be quite long for a jam game (I tested it later and took me 30 min to get the "good ending"). I was planing to shorten the game some, but didn't have time for that. However, I think you can get the main feel of the game pretty fast. Thank you for playing.
Great stuff!
@fosf0 I am glad you liked it :D
@mr-kitkat Thank you for the praise and I am quite pleased with the hair blending myself as well. Gamemaker for the win!
@sagiii Thank you for the feedback and I am happy you enjoyed it. And yes, this is definitely something I will have to do more developing with at some point.
@dirkinz Thank you for the compliment! Stereo sound is definitely something that this game needs, but it is beyond my skills at the moment.
Yes. A little long within the gamejam, unfortunately. And it's hard to figure out how to play.
But the authors are cool! Give me five!
@sofignedova Sorry you had hard time with the game but glad you liked some aspects of it :) High five...!? :D
I think the "creature" managed to get somehow "stuck" on me once or twice and I had to wait quite a long time for it to lose interest. The main drawback for me was a lack of depth in what you could do to interact with the creature and maybe keep it at bay. I'll admit, I don't know how I'd fix that issue myself, but in fairness, the road noise to distract you and the things you could step on to draw the creature closer to you by accident went a long way towards making the concept feel more fleshed out.
Overall, great job! It'd be interesting to see if there's anything more you could do with the concept post-jam! :grin:
(Oh, the map you get at the end was a great touch, too!)
The "something else" getting stuck near you is an "AI feature" that I should have ironed out, but I ran out of time.
I could make so that you could throw a rock to distract hostile entities. I also have some other creatures that I could ad post jam and also other soundscapes but I will have to see If I have time and energy to do post jam stuff.
(glad you liked the map :) )
I loved the mood, moving only using sound really build up the tension.
Good job!
Very interesting concept and good game!
@uboretsky Thank you for playing and congratulations for beating the game :D
Does the traffic pose a threat? I tried to avoid blindly wondering into a road while cars are passing, and I either crossed safely or it wasn't actually an obstacle.
There were quite a lot of transmitters and around mid-way I was wondering whether the game had an ending or not :D Maybe there could be less of them due the slow pace. Or indicate somehow where you are in the progress every now and then?
I thought I beat the game at power supply but got the game over screen instead. Didn't hear anything near me.
Good job, very different approach than usual!
Overall, well done!
@nullval Thank you for playing and glad you liked the atmosphere :)
@sine-nomine Thank you for playing, feedback and for the kind words. Traffic does not pose you any threat but originally I planned to have sort of an death wall where the cars go.
@coderaurus Thank you for feedback. Length of the game seems to be the biggest problem yes and if I manage to do a post jam editing, I will adjust the length a lot. Also, as much as I like the idea that you are helpless to do anything but stand there, I might ad some sort of distraction system, so you could do something for the almost endless sniffing.
I am also sorry for what must have been a bug with the ending.
@sarah Thank you for playing and glad you liked the art :)
Also, I really like the character design. Nice work.
@awsumpwner27 Thank you for playing and I am happy you liked it :)
@lilkrit Thank you for playing. Yes, i wanted to go bit on the creepy side with this one.
@sulo Thank you for playing and for the feedback. I would be very interested to play it if you tried to make a version of your similar idea! There are great suggestion in the comments what could be done differently and what would be nice to ad.