Lex Temporis by ImmanentDeath

Reach the top of an active volcano before it’s too late.
Lex Temporis was made for Ludum Dare 51 and its theme “Every 10 seconds.” It features a hostile environment where fire rains from above and rises from below, and whose inhabitants seek to expel you from their territory. You must reach the edge of this inferno before the music ends and time runs out.
Play on Itch.io | Play on Newgrounds
If you enjoyed this game, you might like that one game I’m making.
How to play
- WASD/Arrow keys = Move/Select
- Enter/Space/K = Attack, if enemies are nearby
- Esc/P = Pause
- Back = Unpause
Changelog
v1.0.1 - Fixed a bug where parallax scrolling of falling ash wasn't set correctly - Fixed a bug where sometimes the player would switch back to an idle frame after being defeated - If there are no enemies nearby, the player now switches to their attack animation and stops moving for a moment like normal, but doesn't create a fireball - Made shortcuts a little wider and easier to walk through, as well as the path in the last scene - Added another shortcut to the second to last scene - Added a few more safe tiles to the last scene
Screenshots

| Itch.io | https://immanentdeath.itch.io/lex-temporis |
| Newgrounds | https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/859587 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/lex-temporis |
Ratings
| Given | 19🗳️ | 4🗨️ |
Other than that nice work! I didn't make it to the end but you can't say I didn't try a lot :P
The lava coming up through the cracks looks really nice.
I noticed there was an audio/visual cue every 10 seconds, but beyond that couldn't figure out if the theme was otherwise implemented.
The enemies made things a bit too hard, IMO. The fact that you stop moving when you shoot makes it too much of a challenge to dodge their attacks *and* chase them away, *and* you're losing even more time all the while, *and* if you're standing on cooled lava, you'll invariably get caught out when it heats up again and lose *another* chunk of health before you have time to react. The fact that they're only chased away instead of being killed also feels rather unsatisfying.
I have no idea how close I was to the end, but there's a section where you have to walk on cooled lava and get to a safe spot while avoiding the enemies' attacks and shooting back, and I simply could not juggle all of that *and* the rapidly-diminishing timer, and died with less than a minute left on the clock.
On top of that, I also found it very hard to tell where you were meant to be going sometimes, as there are some areas that look like paths but aren't, and some areas where the path is only one tile wide and you have to spot where it is and thread yourself through it, and all the while that's wasting even more time.
Overall, this is a game with some great presentation and a strong central premise, let down by (IMO) unsatisfying, overly-challenging gameplay. It needs some balancing and level design tweaks to really bring the best out of it.