The Sand Thief by Matthieu Riboulot

[raw]
made by Matthieu Riboulot for Ludum Dare 58 (JAM)

Cover<em>Art</em>Base.png

Surviving the End of the World

Design/Code : Matthieu RIBOULOT

Art/Sound: Clément NGUYEN

Arrows or A/D to move

W or Space to Jump

A or Mouse Click to Attack

Gamepad might be possible (untested)

Please download standalone version (exe or linux), it has more features and is more optimized.

Changelog Fix 7/10/25 - Fix camera following / player jump value - Fix some edge case on player collision - Better sprite cache to address lag

Ratings

Overall 361th 3.569⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Fun 367th 3.375⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 618th 2.815⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Theme 528th 3.446⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 217th 4.071⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Audio 38th 4.214⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Mood 243th 3.786⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Given 22🗳️ 29🗨️

Feedback

danicoredj
Oct 06th · 22:29 UTC
looks greate , good job
the soud is a peace of art
Cisco
Oct 07th · 00:03 UTC
Amazing, the art looks really good. Great sound and music. I die particles and the effects on the clock.
ansjofaye
Oct 07th · 00:09 UTC
stunning game, so impressed. beautiful art all round, charcter design is so pretty
Kagegona
Oct 07th · 00:21 UTC
I was blowned away by the amazing music and arts, sooo good work on the overall game :D
LDJam user 280624
Oct 07th · 16:34 UTC
Such an atmospheric game. I'm in love with the character design and the music. Caught myself thinking I'd play a full game based on this concept.
Akerly
Oct 07th · 16:40 UTC
Looks great, good sound effects and atmosphere.
T C
Oct 07th · 20:08 UTC
Nice game! Solid atmosphere, good music, good art, neat idea. The movement is definitely a bit clunky, ceilings tend to be too low, so you head bonk a lot. Combat is a bit clunky as well, and sometimes you attack after spamming the attack button even if you haven't pressed it in a few seconds. But running around the area you made and seeing all the places put in was super satisfying, and I played through it twice to see if there's a secret ending I missed. Didn't find it though :smile: Nice work!
Awanami
Oct 07th · 21:54 UTC
Polish it and will be a diamond
Faust_Mi
Oct 07th · 21:55 UTC
Cool visual style, mood atmosphere, pleasant music.
Unfortunately, the jumping gameplay felt a bit rough.

Overall, it was interesting! Thanks for the gaming experience!
Anderson Job Loeffler
Oct 08th · 02:16 UTC
I was really enjoying the art style and music, until I suddenly noticed the time running out, haha!


Loved the character and monster designs, especially the main character, I like masked chars haha. The time-collecting mechanic was a cool idea! The music was great, it added well to the atmosphere of the game. I did struggle a bit with the timing of the bigger enemy—it felt a little tough to figure out.

Very good entry!
Pigeonescu
Oct 08th · 17:26 UTC
Great art and sound, got stuck a bit with the movement for a moment but nice game overall. Good Job!
🎤 Matthieu Riboulot
Oct 08th · 22:24 UTC
@t-c there is an ending, but you just have to survive enough to see it, nothing else. Maybe you have seen it just wanted to be sure.
LDJam user 417758
Oct 09th · 02:43 UTC
great graphic and nice music!
T C
Oct 09th · 02:50 UTC
@matthieu-riboulot I did see that ending. I was just exploring, looking to see if there was something else hidden in the world :) Thanks for letting me know!
bzz_nsk
Oct 09th · 06:54 UTC
I'm bad at playing platform games, but I had a try with yours because of graphics. They are nice (but why was the opening text shaking?). It really lacked the health bar for player. I saw the time running out, I saw the damage done by sculls and spikes, but how much damage I received - dunno. It's a bit frustrating, but the game itself has a good potential. Great work guys!
Eugenik
Oct 09th · 07:20 UTC
What a fun idea! Feels very polished. GZ!.
Khelian
Oct 09th · 10:20 UTC
Thank you guys for your feedback!

@bzz-nsk The health bar is the timer. Each time you get hit, you loose time, and if it reaches 0, you die. The opening text is shaking for dramatic effect.
Bumble
Oct 09th · 14:37 UTC
A nice little platformer with an interesting premise! It feels a little bit like on of the game modes in move or die, just in single player.

I like how the twist at the end leaves it open if you are just saving yourself or being a greedy bad guy :sweat_smile:
n.feofentov
Oct 10th · 16:38 UTC
Art design and music are great! Platforming could be less floaty though. I liked that your timer is essentially a health bar, it makes you avoid combat and find your way around enemies.
wdebowicz
Oct 12th · 11:51 UTC
Art is really nice, especially the cover image. Interesting mechanism to replace health with time. I wish the jump would be more powerfull.
Septimor
Oct 18th · 20:58 UTC
First thought was that graphics were awesome, then the movement animations were even more so! Attacking and jumping felt little weird and also you can just jump over every enemy so the attacking felt unnecessary. Not sure if I won the game, but it told me so? The atmosphere and and overall feeling of the game was very nice! Time being your health and all, it was nice "collecting time"
🎤 Matthieu Riboulot
Oct 19th · 15:18 UTC
@septimor Attacking not being mandatory is on theme with the game and was designed so. If you read between the lines, you are literally reaping/stealing their soul to last a couple more seconds. Even by self-conservation principles, it's pretty grim. If you had the outro, yes you "won" the game.
Llevelin
Oct 19th · 19:39 UTC
I was immediately drawn to the game's graphics and decided to play it. Now I realize I have no regrets. I like it when music not only complements the game but also evokes the right emotions in the player. Even though I'm not very good at completing games, I still enjoyed the game. Thank you for that!
APDT
Oct 21st · 13:30 UTC
A pure piece of art! This game deserves to be one of the LD58 gems! Continue working on it!
TheLastSlowpoke
Oct 24th · 14:11 UTC
Oh man, the music, sound design, artstyle and animations are from another world. You're really talented. I also loved the level design!

I'm very slightly disappointed you don't get an appropriate ending if you don't kill anyone, feels like it should be there. Unless we're counting the souls I took on the first try ^^

I checked both the standalone and the web versions to compare them. The music tempo changes are a fun idea!

Very beautiful entry, great job!
🎤 Matthieu Riboulot
Oct 24th · 14:17 UTC
@thelastslowpoke You cannot survive the end without harming others, even just collecting hourglasses & such, you are harvesting memories.
The music tempo was a nightmare to code and integrate, let alone taking 100MB of disk space for no reasons, never again xD
TheLastSlowpoke
Oct 24th · 14:44 UTC
@matthieu-riboulot xDDD nice.

Ok, I get it now. It was not obvious for me that those are the memories/time of *others*. It is obvious if you actually stop and think about it, you're called a thief for a reason ^^ I love that little bit of obscurity though, better be a little bit too mysterious than to spoon-feed everything and leave no space for interpretation.
🎤 Matthieu Riboulot
Oct 24th · 15:18 UTC
@thelastslowpoke Yeah, the game narrative and morals are very much open to interpretation.
🎤 Matthieu Riboulot
Oct 25th · 00:30 UTC
Well I'm struggling to understand the results, they are way worse than i expected. The feedback seemed better than that and I did worse that my game jams years ago. Well such is it life.
TheLastSlowpoke
Oct 25th · 05:53 UTC
@matthieu-riboulot

Uh, I'm sorry to hear that you're not satisfied. I don't remember how many stars I gave you, but for sure they were over average on every single category (but tbh I feel like I'm doing over average for everyone ^^).

I feel like worse results could come down to 'innovation' dragging down the rest, the core idea of 'just a platformer' could make the rest feel worse. The 'collector' theme we got this season sucked in my opinion, and I feel like collecting stuff around a map was a common trope this jam (I'm not sure because I played only like 7 games this season), so it could feel boring. You can see that these are your worst categories, they weren't your focus this time, but they may have impacted 'fun', 'overall', and 'mood'. The gimmick of fighting with time didn't feel very impactful to me, because it was too easy, I never felt in danger, so it plays as a very beautifully packed, smoothly working, just a classic platformer, nothing as *interesting* as some other games.

Grim analysis aside, I really loved it! I explored every nook and cranny over a few runs and had much fun!

I know you had some crazy results before and you had high expectations, but having two categories over 4.0, one top 100, and 360th overall are definitely good results. Moreover, with just ~30 ratings on each game you're bound to have some random variance depending on what raters you'll get. For example I tend to rate high ^^ I've also played the Sewer Tales and the Dwarf Looter (I'm yet to check out the others, I really like your games!), and in my opinion the Dwarf Looter was the best of the three. Do whatever you wish with that information xD

Anyway, to me, the comments are worth much more than the ratings. Don't let the numbers get in your head, game jams are not really about them, are they?
Khelian
Oct 25th · 10:08 UTC
Yeah, I reckon the "aura" effect certainly played a role. Maybe the gameplay was too simple, too common and it brought down some of the other ratings. It's hard to go from very high to just high, I guess the ratings could've been the cherry on the cake ontop of the comments. Alright, we'll do better next time o/