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A jam submission

Expedition NoirView game page

A walking simulator about isolation, perseverance, and the faint light that guides us forward.
Submitted by lethalgem, ChapoTheGoat — 48 minutes, 47 seconds before the deadline
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Expedition Noir's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Audio#1032.6673.556
Graphics#1182.7503.667
Theme#1212.7503.667
Controls#1342.2503.000
Overall#1352.3453.127
Accessibility#1412.0002.667
Originality#1462.3333.111
Fun#1531.6672.222

Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

Godot Version
4.4.1

Wildcards Used
N/A

Game Description
Expedition Noir is a first-person walking sim set on a stormy mountain at night. With only a dying flashlight to guide you, navigate a crumbling path in total darkness to reach and light the final beacon.

How does your game tie into the theme?
The player must make a perilous expedition to the top of a stormy mountain. It’s an atmospheric adventure filled with darkness, danger, and the faint hope of lighting a distant beacon.

Source(s)
https://github.com/lethalgem/godot-wild-jam-81

Discord Username(s)
N/A

Participation Level (GWJ Only)
4

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Comments

Submitted(+2)

This was a really immersive experience, and pretty spooky. Backpacking in the mountains can be scary even without darkness and rain, I think this captured what that can be like. The lighting, sound, everything really came together here. Great job making such a cool experience!

Developer

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

Submitted(+2)

This one was so moody and cool. I loved the idea and the execution, I would maybe just add checkpoints or something so it's not so punishing to get back. 

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much for giving the game a try and sending over the VOD link. It was so awesome getting to watch you engage with the game exactly as we envisioned it! AND having a smile on your face while doing so :)

Definitely with you on the checkpoints. For a walking sim, it's pretty punishing.

Submitted(+2)

Pretty good walking sim! I just wish the flashlight was brighter as I kept stumbling through my way and died many times due to falling into a hole that I never would've seen except for the lightning. Other than that though, very atmospheric.

Developer

Thank you so much for the kind words! We can definitely give the brighter flashlight a try. Thanks for the feedback!

Submitted(+2)

Great concept, and great sound design! I truly felt immersed in the scenario while playing.

A few things to consider for the environment.  The dark of night is almost never truly pitch black, there would be something enough to know you're moving at a specific speed, but still ambiguous enough to not know exactly what's there.  You could add some small glints to hint the player how much they've moved in the darkness.  Additionally in a game there's no kinesthetic awareness, so dead reckoning through the dark is doubly hard.

The instant reset is nice as it allows for immediately retrying, but there should be some feedback to know that it happened.  The reset itself seems pretty punishing though.  I'm not sure how long the trail is, but depending on the time invested this could cause players to instantly bounce.  I love the concept and the tension, but I wish the tension came from another source or manifested in a different way.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2464249643?t=1h32m44s

Developer

Thank you so much for the feedback and taking the time to stream the game :D

We agree with all of your points. We really wanted to implement puddles along the path that could act as a small reflectors. And some heart beats as the player got closer to the edge. I feel like that would have helped a lot in alleviating the issues you saw. 

Submitted(+2)

Incredible work on the atmosphere. The sound, the mechanics, and especially the graphics come together very nicely to create a foreboding ambience. I especially loved the look of how the flashlight interacted with the environment, how did you go about creating the rain? This invoked a lot of the same feelings as slender and other games of its ilk, and I felt some real despair as my flashlight ran out of battery on a particularly steep incline, forcing me to navigate (unsuccessfully) by lightning (which also looked incredible). I thought the brief flashes of the whole environment were the perfect length, giving you just enough time to get some bearings but short enough that the mystery stayed intact.

Developer

Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm really glad the emotion hit :D It's our first time stepping into creating an atmospheric experience, so there was a ton of learning on the fly.

The rain was created by following along with this tutorial. We just upped the density and lowered the particle size to make it look more real and less cartoony. Then we lowered the roughness on the terrain textures to make it feel more wet.

Submitted(+3)

Same problem as Crotaro, nice splashscreen though

Developer

It should be working now! Thanks a ton for letting me know it wasn't working :) And of course, thanks for the splashscreen compliment.

Submitted(+4)

Game doesn't work on windows. I suspect it's because you only uploaded the .exe without the .pck

Running the .exe briefly shows a Godot window with some "missing texture"-pink screen and then closes it.

Developer(+1)

Thanks for letting me know! Will get it fixed ASAP

Developer

It should be working now! Thanks so much for letting me know about the issue :D