The Last Swarm Warden by pickens-inc
The temple of the swarm wardens was once bright and peaceful. You wake up, alone save for the guiding light of the fireflies... and the shadows that lurk at the edge of your vision. Let the fireflies guard and guide you as you venture out into the darkness to find the sacred lanterns.
We're quite used to making snappy action games, so this was our deliberate first foray into something more tense and narrative-driven. Please be kind to our jank and forgive my one-take voice work!
WASD - move SPACE - interact with beacons and levers when close LMB - click on lanterns to light them
This is a tense and languid game. There's minor horror and creepy elements but that's it. Just letting you know!
Design - Smartwilliam and pickens-inc
Programming - pickens-inc
Art - Smartwilliam
Sound/Music - pickens-inc
VA - pickens-inc
Update 13/10/24 - v 1.01 has been released. Consider whether or not you wish to play this version. It is identical, aside from the following:
- Crash and softlock fixes
- Controller support (it's not great but it exists)
- Subtitles
- Frame-rate optimistation
Accessibility is important but is often missed during the jam. It was important to me to include a version with subtitles. If you struggle with hearing or have issues with the frame-rate, consider playing v1.01, which has no other changes beyond accessibility and optimisation.
| Link | https://crossguardinteractive.itch.io/the-last-swarm-warden |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/56/the-last-swarm-warden |
Ratings
| Overall | 245th | 3.867⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 328th | 3.65⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 228th | 3.69⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 833th | 3.259⭐ | 31🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 246th | 4.145⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 27th | 4.25⭐ | 32🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 19th | 4.419⭐ | 33🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 22🗳️ | 53🗨️ |
I will say, the game was quite laggy for me, and I had difficulty at first getting the interaction and lighting mechanic to work.
But overall, very unique take, good stuff!
Quite insane to have this much done in so little time!
I love it! Great atmosphere and quite interesting mechanics. Graphics is really stunning (and lighting) and fits into overall atmosphere.
Thanks
@batisdark Thank you for playing! Absolutely you're right, I have a habit of making my games too loud, so I didn't want to risk that here, but I was really hoping to have time to add subtitles. Unfortunately accessibility sometimes gets left out when time constraints hit. I'm working on a post-jam version that just adds a few accesibility settings, controller support, and a better mix! Thank you for playing!
@kscerri Thank you for playing! Would you mind telling me what soft-locked you? I'm trying to nail down each possible soft-lock scenario. And you're right about the voiceover! As the classic saying goes, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter :) it's very clunky in places, but I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you to everyone else who played and commented!
The game might need more hints at the beginning but I figure the mechanics out. Great stuff!
I really enjoyed the controls also.
This was really fun to play, keep it up!
@stuckne1 Glad you enjoyed, was super fun to make use of the lighting! Thank you for playing!
@nazariglez I appreciate that very much! Conveying direction was tricky but I'm glad you liked my VA!
@renier Thank you for playing!
@wouterk12 That's very kind of you! We'd have a long way to go but I'm very appreciative you thought so highly of it! Thank you for playing!
@buianovavaleria I find it very disappointing you think you can pass off an AI generated review on me, and yet not even do the courtesy of hiding that you just fed it the screenshot and description. That's just sad.
The audio and overall plot were also well-done. I'm curious how you did whatever the music was in the back -- it was implemented well.
Overall: great work. Make this into a full release; I'd pay money for it!
Great effort from both of you! I'm happy I got to play it!