LudumData

Guard the Forest by Phobos

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

:fuelpump: Summary

Those damn tourist have no respect and leave trash everywhere in my forest, I'll clean it all well !

:joystick: Controls

  • Move -> W/A/S/D
  • Sprint -> Left Shift
  • Interact -> E
  • Pick up -> Left Clic

:exclamation: Disclaimer

  • All code is made by me
  • All sounds and visuals assets are free to use
  • The web version takes a bit of time to load and need to be played in full screen (UI is broken if not). Also it might lag a bit and visuals are a bit darker.

Image Sequence<em>001</em>0000.jpg

:star: Credits

Julien MACHADO - Developper / Game Designer / Level Designer

Nicolas SAUSSOL - Level Designer

:notepad_spiral: Patch Notes

07/10/2025
  • Fixed walking sound persisting after blocking player movement
  • Added smoke particle to campfire to indicate them better
08/10/2025
  • Modified trash models on day 6 and 7 for visual clarity
Source Code https://github.com/Saturn1B/LudumDare58.git
Web Version https://phobosrandom.itch.io/guard-the-forest
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/58/guard-the-forest

Ratings

Overall 497th 3.367⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Fun 661th 2.845⭐ 31🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 537th 3.017⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Theme 140th 4.1⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 197th 4.1⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Audio 282th 3.446⭐ 30🧑‍⚖️
Humor 597th 2.42⭐ 27🧑‍⚖️
Mood 110th 4.067⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Given 38🗳️ 36🗨️

Feedback

Mihu
07. Oct 2025 · 15:18 UTC
Game looks great, too bad I can't play it as I'm not on windows.
MRjasperDR
07. Oct 2025 · 15:35 UTC
I really liked the mood of this game. It had some nice horror vibes, and the creepy elements like picking up organs and the blood trails were a cool touch. However, it was quite hard to find the trash you need to collect, and it started to feel boring and repetitive pretty quickly. I played until day 5, but it took me a long time to find the trash each time. The map might be a bit too big, or maybe there should be some kind of indicator to help locate the trash. I’m not sure if I missed anything that happens after day 5.
🎤 Phobos
07. Oct 2025 · 15:41 UTC
@mihu I can try doing a Linux build if you want to test it !
Mihu
07. Oct 2025 · 15:43 UTC
@phobos I think a web version would be preferable in general for everybody in the jam, but a linux build would be nice as well
🎤 Phobos
07. Oct 2025 · 15:43 UTC
@mrjasperdr Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it ! I feared the map was too big, one of my friend suggested me to add smoke to the campfire to see them better. Might add it if it's not against the jam rules. Also game goes only to day 7, you didn't missed a lot.
Andreyvhc
07. Oct 2025 · 15:46 UTC
The theme of the game is good, which helps to think about the purity of nature.
Alekcey Ovalnyi
07. Oct 2025 · 16:01 UTC
I've completed your game. And I can say that it's quite problematic to find garbage. Also, I was quite confused by the cloud wall, I thought it was considered a terrain limitation. I wasn't too stressed when the black silhouette appeared, but in the following days, I perceived it as a background. I think you can add teleportation to the player when they're not looking at it.
zircon123
07. Oct 2025 · 16:19 UTC
Was a bit difficult to know what to do early on
🎤 Phobos
07. Oct 2025 · 16:38 UTC
@alekcey-ovalnyi Thanks for the feedback ! I really wish I could have made the dark silhouette more stressful, making them teleport as you said or even spawn when just walking but I ran out of time. I'm curently adding a small smoke effect to make the campfire easiest to find, as it's the problem most mentionned.
stolvann
07. Oct 2025 · 20:41 UTC
I love loved the graphics and the overall atmosphere! I played up to day 5 as well, had fun just exploring around. Some of the trash I found were a bit unsettling, but overall the game felt more peaceful than scary. My computer was heaving a bit loading everything though.
outstar
07. Oct 2025 · 20:47 UTC
I couldn't find all the trash past night 5 unfortunately, walked all around the campfire (the one after the hill one) and only found about 70% of them, seemed to be nothing else :( But the game kept me on my toes, the dark silhouette was scary - at least up until I just walked through it and nothing happened, I became more relaxed afterwards :)
🎤 Phobos
07. Oct 2025 · 20:53 UTC
Thanks @stolvann and @outstar for the kind feedbacks. Just saw that some trash on day 6 and 7 completely blend with the ground espicially in the web version. If you move the mouse around the campfire you might see the interaction text, but I'll swap the models as soon as I can to make them easier to see !
iDeNoh
08. Oct 2025 · 04:36 UTC
The *atmosphere* holy crap. Some of the trash is pretty difficult to see (near black on black) but I absolutely loved this. very creepy vibe.
GuyInGrey
08. Oct 2025 · 04:48 UTC
I couldn't get through the whole thing because I can't do horror games, got terrified the first time I saw the silhouette. Very good atmosphere, and I LOVE the aesthetic. I did get a lot of lag/lag spikes as I played, though.
breadstick
08. Oct 2025 · 04:52 UTC
Super eerie in the best sort of way! I loved the visual aesthetic and atmosphere... I'm usually good with horror games, but something about the crunched graphics and hostile color palette gets under your skin, and then when you see the silhouettes, it really feels frightening.

I do wish there had been a little more to the development over the several days--I wanted to know what happens next!
🎤 Phobos
08. Oct 2025 · 11:53 UTC
Thanks @idenoh @guyingrey and @breadstick for the amazing feedback, love to hear that you liked the game ! I've tried to fix the trash being hard to see sometimes.
Shram
08. Oct 2025 · 17:37 UTC
I don't think it's clear which fire to run to, but it would be nice to add some smoke to the right fire. I also didn't quite understand the plot.
🎤 Phobos
08. Oct 2025 · 18:51 UTC
@shram thanks for the feedback. It's weird, there is smoke normally on the right campfire. Can you tell me wich version did you play and when you downloaded it ?
KafuuChino
08. Oct 2025 · 20:00 UTC
Well done on the post-processing dither effect and the atmosphere! Footstep SFX are also consistent. Took me quite a while to see the campfire at first though, maybe adding some guidance would be helpful?
JonasOlsson
09. Oct 2025 · 10:50 UTC
Good job! Would be nice to have the option to invert the Y axis for the mouse (I am totally lost when I have to use regular). Took me a great while to realize that there isn't trash scattered everywhere and I went in the wrong direction at first. Over all a nice entry!
🎤 Phobos
09. Oct 2025 · 12:03 UTC
Thanks @kafuuchino and @jonasolsson for the awesome feedback, I'm glad you appreciated my little game.
Coda Highland
10. Oct 2025 · 01:14 UTC
The dithering effect is an interesting choice of aesthetic. Unfortunately I got kinda motion-sick while playing it, and it didn't help that several days I had to wander all over before I found the trash. (I did notice the smoke. That helps.) Sound design works pretty well.
cartmouse
10. Oct 2025 · 16:29 UTC
Unfortunately I couldn't play this. There was a dither texture rendered over everything (I could see the UI and some movement in the background but not enough to actually do anything). Just thought I'd let you know. Happy to provide more info if you need for any debugging or anything, just give me a shout.

![Screenshot 2025-10-10 at 17.24.33.png](///raw/c78/56/z/6f32f.png)
Eugenik
10. Oct 2025 · 16:31 UTC
haa thats hot.
🎤 Phobos
10. Oct 2025 · 17:45 UTC
@cartmouse AH, interesting bug, never happened to me and I have no idea how to fix it. Do you have any particular screen resolution or something. Maybe try the windows version if you want to test the game.
someone
10. Oct 2025 · 18:36 UTC
Interesting art style. The forest is now clean.
Not sure who these fools are who keep leaving stuff in my lovely forest.
It took me a while to find the trash at first, I ended up wandering most of the map before I spotted the campfire.
Some of the items are almost impossible to discern from the background.
Patatje
10. Oct 2025 · 20:44 UTC
Duuude i was constantly waiting for a jumpscare but it never came xD Nice game overal very good atmosphere.
🎤 Phobos
10. Oct 2025 · 22:12 UTC
Thanks @someone and @patatje for the review. Isn't the fact there is no jumpscare the real jumpscare (not trying to find an excuse at all)
zestymachine
11. Oct 2025 · 08:40 UTC
premise makes me think of friday the 13th and i really love it for that
robert18
11. Oct 2025 · 15:16 UTC
I always love low-res 3D games, though I would have liked if the gritty filter was a bit toned down. Also I struggled to find the trash, marking the location of day 1 with smoke was a good idea. Athmosphire is great I was already on edge expecting jumpscares
Samuli
11. Oct 2025 · 16:09 UTC
Great mood and style. Pacing was quite slow and boring, but at some point I noticed that strafing was faster than just running straight, which made it more tolerable. Really digging the dither!
jk5000
12. Oct 2025 · 10:03 UTC
An okay little horror game.
Wouter52
13. Oct 2025 · 19:25 UTC
Oh this was great! Just enough horror to leave me engaged. Just subtile enough to not let me close the game because I'm a wuss haha
Love the graphics, I'm a sucker for these kind of visuals!
🎤 Phobos
14. Oct 2025 · 10:59 UTC
Thank you all @zestymachine @robert18 @samuli @jk5000 and @wouter52 for the feedbacks and reviews ! I'm glad you enjoyed the game even though the pacing might feel slow sometimes.
eloc
14. Oct 2025 · 15:51 UTC
This game's beautiful, and I was genuinely startled when it started getting stranger. Didn't expect that for some reason lol Some music/ambience would have been nice however!
Daniel123
15. Oct 2025 · 02:49 UTC
I really like the art of the game and the idea of reducing the game’s file size. My laptop doesn’t have a GPU, and it usually lags when running 3D games. But it didn’t happen with this game — that’s really great.
Maybe it would be better to add some background music in this game.
Catusfelony
15. Oct 2025 · 16:03 UTC
The dither effect is really good at making you imagine things where there is nothing. I actually freaked out when the first shadow figure showed up, but then I ran into it and nothing happened so they became my friends. When I picked up the body on day 7 a whole bunch of them appeared and I greeted them with love and warmth. Got to keep the forest clean!
5H08
Oct 20th · 00:48 UTC
At first I was wondering why a game about picking up camping trash would have such an ominous tone, but then it came clear. Good job on the horror build up! Other than the framerate being a bit choppy it's a solid psych horror experience. The dither shader works really well in building up the atmosphere.