LudumData

How the Moon Got Its Colors by Carraka

[raw]
made by Carraka for Ludum Dare 57 (JAM)

logo.png In ancient times, when humankind was yet young and spirits still roamed the land, the world blossomed with deep and vibrant color.

The moon in its gray pallor looked upon the world's rich hues and coveted them. With each passing night, its jealousy grew and grew, until one night, the moon descended to the earth to weep. Its jealous tears flooded the world, washing all color from the land. Before long, the entire earth was dull.

A brave earth spirit heard the cries of anguish and ventured out toward the sound. As it touched the moon's tears, it realized how to restore the depths of color to the world...

ShootIcon.png

All art, music, sound effects, and writing created in 72 hours for Ludum Dare 57: Depths.

Stay tuned for our post-jam version, which will include composer notes explaining how we interwove 17(!) different tracks to represent the blooming and deepening of complexity and color as the game progresses. Yes, the jukebox is for those of you who would rather make music by turning knobs than catching tears.

We hope you enjoy this fable, our love letter to you in these tumultuous times. May we continue to create together.

LD25<em>_story</em>book<em>flower</em>yellow.png

Link https://daring-owl-studios.itch.io/how-the-moon-got-its-colors
Original URL https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/57/how-the-moon-got-its-colors

Ratings

Overall 344th 3.667⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Fun 340th 3.5⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 363th 3.354⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Theme 788th 2.729⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 218th 4.104⭐ 26🧑‍⚖️
Audio 101th 3.978⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Humor 468th 2.717⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Mood 155th 4.022⭐ 25🧑‍⚖️
Given 15🗳️ 22🗨️

Feedback

threegoldeneggs
08. Apr 2025 · 18:43 UTC
This was such a cute game! I loved the aesthetics and the lore, it felt like a classic folk tale. It was so satisfying to slowly see the color come back into the world. My favorite part was using the RMB to suck in a bunch of tears at the same time. Overall just nicely made :)
LDJam user 73887
08. Apr 2025 · 20:24 UTC
I love the idea of recreating the depth of colors and the dreamy atmosphere. Very relaxing for in between, but at some point I was just flying around pressing the right mouse button without dodging the shots. More items that you have to return the color to would be great! Great work!
AlphaBetaSoup
11. Apr 2025 · 19:13 UTC
I enjoyed the mood you created with your artwork and sfx! I was smashing the right mouse button a ton :)
Constructive feedback: I think the collision layers might need to be tweaked because I would sometimes get stuck among the cows. Also, for the LMB attack, I don't think the projectile launches based on the direction you face.

Great work! I enjoyed this alot.
Mamboman
11. Apr 2025 · 19:26 UTC
Very relaxing game play. The cows sound great :)
Samuel Hollywood-Summers
11. Apr 2025 · 19:32 UTC
I had fun collecting up tears and eventually catching the moon. I like the ambition with the adaptive music, and it works well, but more of the time spent on audio could have been used to get more actions and interactions covered with SFX. Thinking about how to telegraph the tears' attacks before they happen might make for a player experience that feels more fair, and allows the player to anticipate what will happen better. Well done on submitting a fun game!
MoD_Wiz
11. Apr 2025 · 19:39 UTC
I loved the atmosphere and ambiance and just like a @threegoldeneggs @joscco and @alphabetasoup i used right mouse button for much of time, its very overpowered. Music is pleasant, very relaxed and poetic game overall and its also very polished, except i had some collision problems with those cows, i was stuck and tears were too.
![Stuck](///raw/b63/46/z/6c055.png)
I also enjoyed the color changing mechanic, how color becomes more vibrant with time.

While i really enjoyed aesthetic and mood i feel this game somewhat lacks in gameplay department, i wish there was some gameplay twist or more depth in mechanics. Strongly interested in post-jam version.
![results](///raw/b63/46/z/6c056.png)
Flying Dog Fish
11. Apr 2025 · 19:41 UTC
Beautiful game! Bringing color to a gray world is a great idea. I love the story.

Using the right mouse button is a bit problematic, sometimes it brought me the browser's right mouse menu instead of sucking in the colors and the controls got confused after that for a while.
MacheteMami
11. Apr 2025 · 19:49 UTC
This was really cute! I enjoyed it a lot! It was fun to watch the game change as I progressed. I didn't get much use out of the LMB attack because it seemed a bit random in how it'd shoot out, but I didn't have trouble completing the game. The ending was very cute. Nice job!
UkuleleFury
11. Apr 2025 · 19:50 UTC
Daww, very cute! Nice art style, and I love the subtle color shifting. The gameplay is also pretty fun. The musice is really great. BUT, let's not overlook the true masterstroke. The cow sounds. 🤌
MoD_Wiz
11. Apr 2025 · 19:52 UTC
Bug report.
Looks like moon doesn't come out after second playthrough without completely restarting game
TopperVideoGames
11. Apr 2025 · 21:10 UTC
Very stylish game! It was cool to see the color come back according to how much of each color tear was collected. The buildup of the effectiveness of each ability was fun, especially with the yellow vortex able to suck up all nearby tears quickly by the end. The percent ranks at the end encouraged me to play again to get 100% in all the colors. Having only the cows have collision was a bit funny, I can see an idea where you can go through obstacles once you have matching colors in an expanded version to make traversal easier. A lot of focus on the audio component, it came out very nicely! Good work!
Dissonance Generator
11. Apr 2025 · 21:15 UTC
@toppervideogames Something like half of the team are orchestral musicians; audio is all I'm here to focus on :smirk:
Moony_91
12. Apr 2025 · 09:10 UTC
Nice game! I like how the world is first all grey and that it slowy turns into a colorful world by collecting tears. I didn't understand exactly what I was supposed to do, I collected tears and the color came back, but why are they shooting at me, while it doesn't do me any damage? And was I supposed to get at a certain spot to finish the game? Other than that, I really enjoyed playing your game.
Eugenik
14. Apr 2025 · 11:43 UTC
Pretty fun games, with good audio and graphics !.
Gossian
18. Apr 2025 · 14:10 UTC
Cute game! I liked powerfully sucking in all the nearby tears - that felt very satisfying. Great that you managed what is essentially a complete game, well done!
ditam
18. Apr 2025 · 15:33 UTC
A beautiful entry! Just as I was about to give up on it ever ending, the moon appeared out of nowhere! I finished it in 5:55 with all colors at 100% - but I'm not sure what actually triggered the ending. Is it something you have to find on the map? Or a certain number of tears you have to collect?

It could use some quick balancing: I got all 3 upgrades in the first ~20 seconds, then I spent 5 minutes just chasing tears. The sucking whirlwind is clearly overpowered, once you get that, there's not much point to using any other skill. Is the cooldown supposed to be just a couple of seconds? I think that could easily be increased 5 or 10-fold.
LDJam user 383013
19. Apr 2025 · 15:10 UTC
some collision problems here and there, the ui was a bit funky, but the visuals were really nice and it was pretty fun
HexStart
19. Apr 2025 · 21:14 UTC
The art is very pretty, and I liked how the color slowly restores over the course of the game. Gameplay itself is a bit janky, movement and shooting/getting hit could feel better. Here's my attempt

![moon.png](///raw/aed/44/z/6c571.png)

The ending was cute :crescent_moon:
Shasaur
23. Apr 2025 · 20:54 UTC
Amazing art and fun gameplay. It had a very beautiful idea and story, reminds me a little bit of The Little Prince :)
fraanns
23. Apr 2025 · 22:23 UTC
Nice game. The collision with the cows sometimes was a bit weird, but otherwise a beautiful game.