abundance by Aurel300

Play now (HTML5) | Map (spoilers!)
abundance
A lone survivor hides in a warehouse as a plague spreads amidst a supposed plant growth revolution. Now, a few days after the worst has passed, what kind of world is out there?
Explore the world in this 2.5D metroidvania platformer. Can you find all 14 log entries and unravel the plot?
controls
- arrows (or WASD) to move
- X to jump
- C to use knife
- Z to interact
- P to open PDA to read logs etc
- U to toggle fullscreen (also available from the PDA)
| Link | https://aurel300.itch.io/abundance |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/52/abundance |
Ratings
| Overall | 59th | 4.08⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 162th | 3.8⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 357th | 3.38⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 601th | 3.37⭐ | 25🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 91th | 4.32⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 171th | 3.68⭐ | 27🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 32th | 4.25⭐ | 26🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 15🗳️ | 20🗨️ |
I did not expect myself to play a metroidvania in this game jam for sure, and also finishing it.

Missed 2 logs, not sure where else I haven't explore :thinking:
Thanks for the game!
F Pressers pay you respect
There was only one thing which bothered me, the placement of the P button is pretty far on the keyboard, it was a bit frustrating for me, but it didn't take away the value of the game! :)
Happy to tried it, thanks!
Oh and the animation on the plants were so coool

But since obviously missing a log is a deal breaker so again we go...

Very solid work. Super stylized look and it works well. The swaying plants and lighting really brought the world alive. Some minor dithering issues here and there and some transparency glitches like this plant but nothing major and didn't really spoil the feel at all.

The controls were on point! Mega generous coyote air you got there, it never blocks you from jumping when just falling off. No wonder I didn't really mess up any jumps for that reason. Oh but overall I did mess quite a few jump. Can't blame the controls really, they were tight enough. But those death beams were brutal! I often took several hits when just getting hit once because of the knocks and then there were some instant death traps where you couldn't even get out anymore like this one where you just kept bouncing between the beams.

Well dying wasn't really a punishment but losing the logs and needing to backtrack again for those wasn't that much fun. And in my opinion the logs should disappear from the world just like the items do, as you can always just get back to them on your PDA. Do the kids nowadays even know what PDA is? On repeated runs closing it with P felt awkward. Could have been just like the final door at least that you could just git Z again to continue playing.
The 2.5D aspect really made my misjudge my jumps in places like these at first and I kept hitting my head. But then I got used to just staring at the "front bits" and judging my position from there. Which didn't really like to fit to my head as usually you'd think the character is in the middle of the z-axis.

Really would have needed some music or some ambience at least. That could have fit the mood too I guess. The sound effects already had some variation it them it seems, nice touch, often overlooked.
And finally a comic relief...
https://youtu.be/5KL7M6p41wA
Good job! 👍

I love the art style you've got there, the 3d perspective and especially the lighting. It made me want to keep going. I got stuck at the jumping sections wondering if I was meant to go that way yet, but I powered through. Excellent game!
@zwodahs Well done. It feels like 2 logs are indeed harder to get than most. Maybe I'll release a spoiler-ful map for the game.
@silentphil Thanks! F pressers? :D
@zahkros Yeah, I should have used another button, or allowed multiple controls (just like the movement scheme).
@hmrpf Hah yeah, I think I made the protagonist accidentally a bit like Conrad.
@joshedev Maybe there originally was meant to be a (late-game) reason for the vine cutting, but you know :) I'm also glad I kept it.
@daitli Yeah, maybe a controls summary tab on the PDA would have been good!
@klinsmannhengles Thanks! The engine is my own, mostly just WebGL and shader set up on top of Haxe. I also spent maybe a day this jam setting up shadow maps for the light effects ^^
@antti-haavikko Thanks for the review! Re: the graphics glitches, I didn't even notice this transparency one, whoops. By dithering I guess you mean shadow acne? I noticed than and partially solved it by casting three different lights from the player at slight offsets, but I couldn't get rid of it completely. I'm glad you noticed the coyote air, I made sure to implement it properly this time :D I remember you were upset in your Levitatium comment that it didn't work (but actually there was exactly 1 frame of falling *before* the coyote time was allowed). I didn't notice that particular death zone, I even hoped the bounces + iframes were generous to the player in most cases. Re: the logs, it's only the items (knife, double jump, suit) that need to be picked up again, the logs remain in your PDA. Re: the 2.5D aspect, yeah, I can see how it is a bit confusing. It is a bit clearer when the camera is always centred on the player, but then it is harder to set up separate "rooms", everything feels a bit more mixed together. The player is in the very front with the actual terrain because that's the layer that is pixel perfect, and I would have hated to see the sprites get squashed in ugly ways. I guess I could have had a bit of "3D" also in front of the player and made the middle layer be pixel perfect. Next time :)
@jeremyfa Thanks! Sorry to ask but, have you already collected the knife before hitting C? I listed the full controls in the game description but at the beginning of the game you can only jump with X. When you find a log or item the game lets you press Z (or Y on a QWERTZ keyboard).
Yeah shadow acne and some weird light/shadow bleeding where it really shouldn't (I guess). And some weird colored pixels on corners at least. But yeah, didn't make it look bad per se, could have been sold as an artistic choice too. 😜
Platforming felt really tight with some jump requiring high precision but the game was very forgiving and edged towards rage but never massively close to it.
Thanks and well done!

I really like having the hint text permanently displayed outside the playable area, too. Great idea having multiple save points around the more difficult energy beam areas, and the flickering "Warning" holograms posted periodically. A lot of these things are small details, but they add up to a really solid, polished game. Great work all around!

@kuviman I fixed the crash you discovered during the stream :)
@tricky-fat-cat I added a link to a (spoiler-ful!) [full map](https://ludum.thenet.sk/ld52/minimap.png) of the game, if that helps :)
@accatosh You can, the fullscreen button is "U", or you can also enable fullscreen from the options menu in the PDA.
Here’s the start of your game if you wanted to re-watch initial thoughts youtu.be/OTjgGbVpf7g?t=1697
Great work on including a full story, great level design, and cool visuals! Such a polished game, congrats!
Super impressive how much you got done. Not a bad metroidvania, nice sound and graphics, cool story and mechanics. Logs were really neat, tho I wish they'd been sorted by date rather than type 😅 Ending felt a bit lacking but I can't imagine you had much time left to work on it after all of the other stuff!
Great atmosphere with the lighting and the sound effects and environmental storytelling alongside the logs. Some music or ambient track would've made it even better of course. Platforming felt fine but the control scheme was a bit wonky, with the P key needed to close the PDA yet so far away from everything else. Since you could also jump with up or space I didn't use X for it, so putting the PDA there instead might've been better.
Overall a very well done game, congrats! 🌿
The game was so frustrating though. I'll try it again when I'm not too tired to read throught the logs.