Finished my game, Cat Planet. Check it out if you like cats and planets I guess.

Have you played our game Arrow of Light yet? https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/arrow-of-light It's an action-adventure platformer with cute graphics, catchy music and a fun shooting mechanic. And you can play it in your browser! Wow!

Did you know that this website has a super secret hidden feature that lets you view all the games you previously rated, as well as stats about your ratings? Here's how you unlock it:

Or skip the 4-step process and just go directly to https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/44/my/grades !

P.S. Check out our game Arrow of Light, it's really cool! 1, 2, 3, 4!

Experience a world never seen before in a video game.

Master amazing arrow techniques in Arrow of Light, playable in your browser or as a Windows download. 1, 2, 3, 4!

Arrow of Light is an action-adventure epic developed by myself and my friend Hubol. I did the game design, programming, story and art, and Hubol did the sound and music.

Post mortem is the Latin term for “after death”. So what happened to this game after it died? Let’s hop right in & find out!

Chapter 1: Game Too Hard

Arrow of Light is a game that requires a high level of skills to play. Players must master the art of shooting arrow to succeed in this harsh world.

However, when starting the game, players only have 10 HPs. The first enemy you meet is flying high in the air and fires waves of bullets that do 5 HPs of damage! On only the third screen of the game, players are tasked with learning how to shoot while dodging the deadly attacks that will cause a Game Over in only two hits.

After you collect some Heart Flowers (an item which increases your Maximum HPs by 5) it becomes easier to survive. However, the introduction is very hostile to newcomers and may give a bad impression. If only we had allowed players to learn how to shoot the bow and arrows in a more forgiving environment!

There is another quite large difficulty spike, and that is in the final area, but we don’t want to spoil it ;-)

Another issue is that there are a lot of secret passages in the game which contain progress-critical items. The first passage most players will find is very obvious but some are quite well-hidden! Without careful searching, some players will simply get stuck in the grass area without realizing that there are secrets to find.

Chapter 2: The Lava Puzzle

There is an area in the game with some deadly lava. In Arrow of Light, this hot and familiar obstacle can be overcome by solving a puzzle, rewarding you with Heart Flowers and a special key that is needed to progress.

Now, if you are a game designer you are probably familiar with the concept of “conveyance” in level design--this means when the level design tells the player where to go in a natural way. If you look at the picture above, it really looks like the player is supposed to jump across the gap to the key. This is not the intended solution to the puzzle, as the gap is too large and the player will fall in the lava.

However, due to a development oversight, the lava does only a fairly small amount of damage! This means most players seemed to skip the puzzle completely by jumping into the lava. I think this was a confusing moment for many, many players!

Chapter 3: Ballons and the Unique Role of Humour

In this game, ballons are a major theme. The first enemy you encounter is riding a ballon, there is a secret area with lots of ballons in it, and more.

“But wait”, you might say. “Isn’t it spelled, baloon?”

This is actually a subtle bit of humour on the part of the developers Sylvie and Hubol. It is sometimes funny to intentionally mispell words. Most people would instead opt to spell “ballon” correctly, which is why the subversion of the trope is funny to us. Simple touches like this create a more playful atmosphere in the world of Arrow of Light.

However, it seems many people did not understand the joke. Some players, when they see the word “ballon”, simply correct it in their heads to the right spelling which is “baloon”. A few have even gone so far as to not rate the game in the Humour category. Personally, we think the game has some cute jokes in it but we understand that everyone sees humour differently.

Chapter Finale: Conclusions

In conclusion, we had a lot of fun making the game but there are some clear points of improvement. In the future games, we will try to balance the difficulty, design puzzles more carefully and spell words correctly.

If you haven’t checked out Arrow of Light yet, be sure to play it in your browser or as a Windows downloadable!

Check out the awesome soundtrack by Hubol too!

Recently our game Arrow of Light reached an important milestone: over 100 ratings given and received!!

To celebrate, we made an amazing lyrical version of the ending theme from our game. Sylvie wrote the lyrics, and Hubol sung them, remixed the music, and even made a cool music video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-22ubIgEiaM

WARNING: The above video contains spoilers! Go play Arrow of Light before watching the video!

Thank you to everyone who played and rated our game! You are great!

Don't forget to check out the postmortem and Hubol's soundtrack writeup as well. 1, 2, 3, 4!