Flare in the Dark by Jony

[raw]
made by Jony for Ludum Dare 56 (JAM)

Flare in the Dark is a fast-paced endless runner where you control a glowing firefly navigating through a dark, mysterious forest. The goal is to survive for as long as possible while collecting glowing orbs to increase your score. As you explore the forest, you must avoid various traps, such as falling water drops and randomly appearing dangerous obstacles. Each trap or hazard takes away a heart, and the game is over once you run out of health. Featuring a dynamic score system that rewards both survival time and orb collection, the game challenges your reflexes as you aim to achieve a high score.

Ratings

Overall 1022th 2.818⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1057th 2.341⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 1048th 2.25⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Theme 816th 3.295⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 583th 3.614⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Audio 459th 3.295⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Mood 808th 3.205⭐ 24🧑‍⚖️
Given 12🗳️ 26🗨️

Feedback

AdrellaDev
07. Oct 2024 · 23:35 UTC
Good concept, I enjoyed it!
Megurt
07. Oct 2024 · 23:45 UTC
I really love art of this game! Especially backgrounds :heart:
But one thing I didn't like is that the character control feels "Uncontrolled", it's like it's being carried away
oldzombie14
08. Oct 2024 · 02:54 UTC
nice work
plasticsword
08. Oct 2024 · 08:48 UTC
Overall nice little game. I like the death animation, the controls are kinda hectic on a keyboard. Might be cool if you did some sliding mechanic for movement.
Chocolat-Endive
08. Oct 2024 · 22:41 UTC
Cute little game! The only issue I have is since everything is static on the screen and the controls are super-sensitive, the safest way to achieve a high score is to just wait in the middle of the screen and only move when needing health. Pretty sure you can play the game forever like this.

I get to 500 points and decided to leave the game.

![Screenshot 2024-10-09 00.40.34.png](///raw/477/91/z/681c9.png)

But I really dig the art, and the butterfly animations are flawless.
LDJam user 260720
09. Oct 2024 · 22:17 UTC
Great art! I feel like you add some effects on the character itself to increase the feeling of speed, and maybe add more obstacles after some time. Nice game still!
milq
09. Oct 2024 · 22:21 UTC
Super fun game! I love the concept of collecting hearts, dodging lightning bolts and raindrops, and earning more points. For me, the graphics are the game's strongest point, and the music sets the perfect mood and atmosphere. It's true that controlling the tiny creature feels a bit 'uncontrollable', as some have mentioned. In my opinion, I would suggest tweaking the character's speed. I'd recommend faster acceleration and deceleration, but with a lower maximum speed, making it more controllable while still not too slow that it feels sluggish. You could also introduce power-ups that increase speed, gradually getting the player used to handling higher speeds. Overall, it's a great game. Congratulations!
🎤 Jony
10. Oct 2024 · 08:27 UTC
Thanks for all the reviews. I was in big rush so had to omit lot of the things i wanted to do. In the end i just wanted to make it work and put it there :D
Zomk
10. Oct 2024 · 08:46 UTC
Cute game. The art and sound are really great. I found the controls a bit unresponsive, but still a good entry to the jam ^^
Angrybeard
10. Oct 2024 · 17:10 UTC
nice game, the art is very atmospheric, with nice touches like swaying grass. i think you could improve the general feel with more responsive controlls, and a fixed parallax effect for the backgroundlayers.
VoraciousGhost
10. Oct 2024 · 21:07 UTC
Nice game, the graphics are really good, I love the glow effect on the hearts and orbs.

I think it would be cool to see the lightning telegraph where it will strike about a second before it does, so you have a chance to dodge, as well as if the obstacles ramped up in difficulty more over time!
Sharky3188
11. Oct 2024 · 03:27 UTC
A fun concept that i think with a bit more polish could have really shinned. I think one of the biggest issues for me was the floaty controls, if i pressed forwards it was hard to gauge when i would stop, making it some what difficult to predict. I also sometime got stuck unable to pick up objects as the amount the character would move was too far.
I think you could solve this by either making the character constantly moving, or change up the controls so its much tighter and speed up all the projectiles over time.
The art was ok, a lot of the trees had some really bad aliasing which was quiet distracting.
Overall though great work for completing a game.
pepnou
15. Oct 2024 · 18:24 UTC
Nice art. The parallax effect is awesome. It would have been nice to have warnings before the lightning strike as you cant do anything and the inertia of the fly is really weird. Nice entry overall, good job.
Fractal
17. Oct 2024 · 17:17 UTC
I really like the background and the atmosphere. Too bad that the controls are a bit too difficult and that the difficulty doesn’t seem to increase with time. I got to 1000 points and then got bored.
Jack S.
17. Oct 2024 · 17:19 UTC
Really nice art ! Congrats.