LudumData

NINE LIVES - Harvesting of souls by jan5366x

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made by jan5366x for Ludum Dare 52 (JAM)

Nine Lives - Harvesting of Souls - Ludum Dare 52

Short Description

Welcome to Nine Lives.

Oh dear, poor Mikesch have you hurt yourself?

Don't worry about your lost lives - We got you covered.

Visit the spirit realm, gather souls and make an offering on the great health altar.

Just make sure you have a firm tread - there is no safety net!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khm_0GDtX8Q

Play HTML5

https://kormarun.itch.io/nine-lives-harvesting-of-souls

Default Controls

Keyboard:

Movement: A/D or Arrow Keys Jump: Space / Shift

Controller:

Movement: JoyStick Jump: Y

Long Description

You play the character of Mikesch - Everyone's favorite cat.

Mikesch has fallen from way to high and has lost almost all of his nine lives.

Help him regain his hearts by offering cat spirit souls at the health altar.

To gather hearts you must solve jumping puzzle.

Once you find a portal to the spirit realm you can go ahead and harvest cat souls from their eternal slumber.

Once you have collected all spirit souls necessary you can offer them an the great health altar and restore Mikesch to his 9 lives.

Screenshot 2023-01-09 203858.png

Tools

Software

  • Unity 3D
  • Affinity Designer 2
  • Affinity Photo
  • Aseprite
  • Krita
  • Magix Music Maker Pro
  • Paint.Net
  • JetBrains Rider
  • Visual Studio
  • Audacity

Special Hardware

  • Nektar SE49 USB MIDI Keyboard
  • Wacom One 13 Drawing Tablet
  • EMEET USB Conference speaker/mic

(All assets are produced while 72h game jam!)

Credits

  • @Jan5366x: Art & Assets & Programming
  • @Kormarun: Programming
  • @mehran.net1: Programming
  • @Nina92HH: Feelgood management and playtesting
  • Mikesch: For being a good cat
Link https://github.com/Jan5366x/ldjam52
Link https://github.com/Jan5366x/ldjam52/releases/
Link https://github.com/Jan5366x/ldjam52/releases/
Link https://kormarun.itch.io/nine-lives-harvesting-of-souls
Link https://github.com/Jan5366x/ldjam52/releases/
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/nine-lives-harvesting-of-souls

Ratings

Overall 737th 2.868⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Fun 657th 2.868⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 786th 2.342⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Theme 797th 2.447⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 620th 3.026⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Audio 384th 3.083⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Humor 420th 2.861⭐ 20🧑‍⚖️
Mood 552th 3.184⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 15🗨️

Feedback

MidoriMelody
10. Jan 2023 · 05:17 UTC
This game was pretty cool
SvenErik
10. Jan 2023 · 06:13 UTC
Cute plat former with a meditative vibe to it. That cat's ability to jump is top notch, Mikesch could win all the jumping competitions. Awesome work!
Afrasiab352
10. Jan 2023 · 11:58 UTC
I enjoyed how wonky the player movement was.
Glimmer
10. Jan 2023 · 12:17 UTC
I like the idea of going back to the start of the lvl. Because of that the lvls dont feel that small. The movement is a but too wonky for my tast and I dont like the slow down when you land. Also the faster the cat is the less is visible in front of the cat. The feeling of going fast is very good. Therefore I sugest to focus more on the gona go fast part of the game: Timer, not insta death, no mandatory pickups, Run ratings, ... you get the idea.
Loig
10. Jan 2023 · 19:13 UTC
The physic is very difficult to handle. But the concept of the game is very nice. And I liked the global feeling of playing it.
theHerborist
10. Jan 2023 · 19:37 UTC
Very cute platformer. I like the chill vibe, even in the spirit realm. Controls are a bit iffy, too much sliding for me, but very intuitive and really easy to understand.
🎤 jan5366x
10. Jan 2023 · 19:55 UTC
Thanks for the input so far :heart:

In regards to the sliding, this was caused by a issue where the unity physics/input behave strange on differnt screen sizes if gets modified in "Update" instead of "FixedUpdate" ... so we had blanced it but it was behaving different on every machine, as we figured that out and switched to "FixedUpdate" we had no time to rebalance it again in the same quality. :sweat_smile:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55365647/unity-different-physics-behaviour-in-different-screen-sizes/

@theherborist
theHerborist
10. Jan 2023 · 20:44 UTC
Understandable. I didn't think it would make that big of a difference. I'll keep that in mind for my own games XD
🎤 jan5366x
10. Jan 2023 · 21:54 UTC
I use a 49 zoll DWQHD screen ... so the difference was like I was playing a differnt game after all @theherborist :smile_cat:
Ale
10. Jan 2023 · 22:51 UTC
That was really immersive! The music really helped create a creepy/mysterious mood, and the super fast/slippery cat was fun to control. The camera didn't look down, so a lot of jumps were just leaps of faith, which is scary for a cat who only has one life left.

Nice game!
JormaRysky
13. Jan 2023 · 21:05 UTC
I do consider voting this down for being manipulative. Who does not like cats?

I appreciate that you put effort on teaching the player as game went along. I do wish that spirit realm and collected souls would have had more immediate effect, worked as lives or something to sell that name.
CaptAndrey
17. Jan 2023 · 11:35 UTC
➕clear goals

➕good level size

➕interesting sound effects

➖ really hard controls

➖ It is not clear why at the beginning of the level there is one of nine lives. I understood about the reference to the nine lives of cats, but I did not find the meaning of hp

➖ I was surprised that the level changes when you pick up the portal, it may have the same landscape
TheJonu
21. Jan 2023 · 13:45 UTC
I loved the graphics, music, sounds and the general vibe. My only feedback is that the cat movement shouldn't rely on physics so much (makes it floaty, instead of snappy) and when moving fast, the camera stays far behind and you can't see what's in front of you. Apart from that, good work!
🎤 jan5366x
22. Jan 2023 · 11:46 UTC
Thank you all for the feedback!

@thejonu true, but the manual control we have implemented was to buggy related to the complex surface shape ... we just run out of time and swiched the the physics based control very late :sweat_smile:
smilewood
22. Jan 2023 · 20:47 UTC
A very cool platformer, although the movement controls felt very inconsistent. I really liked how you had a run through the general level layout then a return with a few changes when I had to actually collect the pickups. I found the frictionless(ish) movement and extreme air velocity to to be a bit inconsistent for the level of platforming that the game asked of me. I also had an issue as I started where after jumping off of a stack of boxes I clipped into the ground and was unable to move; I had to reload the game.
Generally I found this to be a well thought-out platformer, the parts that did not work well for me did not hide the good design. Well done!