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A Flame in the Dark's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| How well the theme was used | #13 | 3.144 | 3.909 |
| Narrative | #18 | 2.486 | 3.091 |
| Overall | #26 | 2.596 | 3.227 |
| Audio Design | #30 | 2.340 | 2.909 |
| Originality | #35 | 2.413 | 3.000 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
What Synty asset packs did you use in your submission?
POLYGON - Dungeon Realms
POLYGON - Dungeon Pack
POLYGON - Nature Pack
POLYGON - Adventure Pack
POLYGON - Samurai Pack
POLYGON - Vikings Pack
POLYGON - Particle FX Pack
ANIMATION - Base Locomotion
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Comments
Wow! I clocked in late for work cause I couldn't stop playing.
Really fun game! Gotta try test it again to finish it!
I love the concept!
thank you! I plan to keep working on it and fixing many of the design issues so more to come if youâre interested!
I'll keep an eye! Feel free to follow up!
Great submission! I really wish I was better at platformers because I wanted to take this all the way to the end, but I just have such terrible timing. I really love respawning as a new character each time! I the persisting bodies is hilarious and surprisingly helpful. With how terrible I am, I could have definitely used more checkpoints, but that's mostly a skill issue on my part. Overall, awesome work!
thank you! I agree, the level design needs work
Neat game. Game could really use some coyote time though. It was very difficult. Even after reading about the checkpoints I never figured out how to do it, but then I don't think I got far enough to even try. I only averaged about 5-6 jumps per life. lol. I think I gave it about 20 attempts before calling it quits.
Thanks for the feedback! I have coyote time on my to do list. The jumps are all completely doable from farther away than you think but I completely agree that the intuition is to jump a little later than the game currently allows. The first checkpoint is before you get to the cube pushing room, you are able to skip the first parkour section completely once you complete it one time (if you know what to do, which is another issue lol). My biggest mistake is level design because it turns out the hardest part is the first part as well as not telegraphing enough about the checkpoints so that's all being redone as well :)
The character swapping was a cool idea, it's a nice concept but a bit unforgiving due to lack of visibility but I guess it's part of the game. Good job!
I think I needed to include more of a tutorial. It isnât meant to be unforgiving once you get past any specific part because before your torch runs out you can create a shortcut so you donât have to redo any section once youâve completed it.
The lack of visibility is definitely important to the vibe of the game, but perhaps turning the brightness up by a small amount might help. I appreciate your feedback!
For those who are struggling to progress, read the following (I should have included a tutorial!):
You can unlock shortcuts so future explorers can get further. If you are going as far as you can and your torch is burning out, you probably missed a shortcut that you could have unlocked. Skeletons and sparkle particle effects are hints as to what to do! :)
I love the fact that your character changes every time you die. Trouble is I died. A lot. But your game is good, I'm just bad at platforming, lol.
thank you! And no worries, youâre supposed to die a lot ahah. Hopefully once you got past the platform if you were able to open the shortcut to skip that part with future lives. If not, no worries, Iâm thinking I could have done a better job telegraphing that to the player
It's dark deep in the dungeon. Nobody can hear your terror screams. I enjoyed this. A slight bummer, my monitor is 3440x1440 so some of these games have wonky ratios on my end. This one was zoomed into the right side. I was able to choose a game and everything no problem. One only issue i had in game was the mouse input was barely there. It would take me about 10-15 seconds of mouse dragging to position the camera. Is anyone else having this issue or just me? I liked that its just barely visible enough to see the jumps. Sometimes it isn't though, but you think you see something in the distance so you take a leap of faith. I took a lot of those haha.
Overall great submission to the Jam and its fun to play. I layered some dungeon ambience over it for an awesome feel and effect.
Good luck I hope you win or at least get recognized!
EDIT: Adjusted my monitor resolution and was able to play much better. The issue was that the res was so off that 'Settings' menu was not on screen. One of my favorite games so far. I love how you need to use your memory.
hey, thanks for playing! Do you mean mouse sensitivity? You can hit escape in game to get to the settings menu and/or adjust sensitivity on the main menu. I realized too late which is why I put that as a note in the description. Basically I have the default set wrong and didnât have time to correct it.
Iâd love it if you could try it again after setting mouse sensitivity so I could get more feedback on the gameplay.
EDIT: realized you played more than a few seconds with the mouse issue lol. Disregard unless you cut your game short due to the mouse sensitivity
Weird monitor size for sure! Something Iâd try to fix if it werenât a game jam haha.
It was the resolution. I was able to re set it on my monitor and play. I posted an edit to my OP
thanks! I realized that simply having it forced to windowed (or a fullscreen/windowed option) would have fixed the problem for players with different aspect ratios but I didnât think of that until you brought it up. Thanks again for playing and the great feedback!
What a great entry!
The idea is very original. I like how the bodies persist and how they hint "that is not the way!"
Unfortunately I couldn't finish. The last part the light is so dim that I couldn't see where I was supposed to go. I've tried too many blind jumps, to the left, front, straight down, far right, right and nothing.
I've tried other things, but I don't want to encourage anyone to "cheat" đ .
The level design is cool though, I like it a lot! đ
which part do you mean by the âlast part?â I included hints throughout the game to indicate where to go and what you should do next so that info will really help tell me if either I need to include more or if the hints are too subtle
â ď¸Spoilerâ ď¸
I assume it is the last part because the light is already very low.
So when you get to the other side of the water, you go up the stairs and there's a hole you can jump to, that's the farthest I could go. I can see what it looks like a wall in front of me but I can't see anything else. I've tried random jumps in that direction but no luck. I mean, having to replay the whole level to try a random jump it's not ideal.
I even tried to "cheat" a little by making a "human bridge" because when the character is dead, its body still has a collider, but still couldn't see where I had to go. đ
So Iâm trying to make sure I understand exactly where youâre stuck. At that part there are two sides to the water. From the left side you canât progress. You need to get to the other side to do something (thereâs a hint as to what you need to do once on that side, and a way to get to that side that doesnât involve the water room). Then another person can go to the left side and use what you did to get across. Hope that makes sense. If not, I will explain further!
also: stacking up bodies is not cheating at all! I included the bodies because I thought it would enhance the story and feeling that these were many different people sacrificing themselves, but when faced with the fact that they could be stacked into platforms or even block your path and soft lock you, I decided to keep that in intentionally. If 5 people go in and throw themselves down to help the future people get further, great! Itâs not necessary, but a âharderâ option for those who canât progress normally so I feel your intuition was great to try it but itâs definitely not âcheatingâ in my opinion :)
lol I thought of better advice. If youâre running out of light, you probably missed a shortcut that you can open. Look for visual clues for interactable objects. Run against them to push them.
ah okay, maybe it got missed in the final version i shipped but go ALL the way up those stairs, and look at the big builder. You can push it. Then it will allow you to jump on top of it from the left side.
Also it looks like you missed a shortcut you can unlock. The opening of the shortcuts is the main concept of the game. One person gets far enough to open the shortcut so the next person can get further.
Try going slow and exploring between the pushing blocks room and the water room.
Also youâre not quite finished. 60% maybe lol
what i mean by âmaybe it got missedâ is there is SUPPOSED to be a particle effect of glowing sparkles on the pushable side of the boulder. Glowing Sparkles and skeletons are hints in this game