Thanks for the honest feedback, that's really useful. More variety is fair, it's mostly one loop right now. Was there anything in particular you missed, like different enemies, more to find, or something else? I'll give The Long Season a go too.
NEEDaFIX
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Thanks for the detailed answer! Good to know the walls are on purpose. Saying it on the page would have helped me.
The shadow in the light was on floor 3. Its eyes moved over the lit area and just floated around me while I was standing in the light. For the flash, I honestly don't remember if the torch was already cracked, but if the flash shrinks with the cracks, that's probably what happened. A small hint when the flash gets weaker would make that clear.
Thanks, that means a lot coming from you, and "cousins" is exactly right. I really enjoyed Torch the Sky and your write-up of how you built it.
On deadlocks: the shades back off from a strong torch and stay away from braziers, so a fresh light pushes them out of a corridor. They only come at you hard when your torch is dying. Passing the torch also leaves a lit brazier behind, so the path you've already made stays safe.
The way you built it, playing, writing a note, letting Claude fix it and playing again, is pretty much what I'm trying to build a place for. I run a small free Discord for people making games with AI, where members post their games, play each other's and trade notes. It's a few dozen people, small but active. You'd be very welcome, and your write-up would make a great post there: discord.gg/waw7dmS3Kb
Played for about 20 minutes on desktop and made it to night 3. The cat is such a good kitty, looking after its human like that.
The best part for me was keeping the balance between watching the monsters and reacting to them. I also liked how they creep forward slowly and then suddenly they're right there. It surprised me in a good way. The descriptions of what each monster reacts to made it easy to get into, and I didn't run into any bugs.
I'd play it again, it was a really enjoyable experience. Your jam page says you used Claude. What did you use for the 3D models and the art?
Thanks for the explanation! It helps me understand it better. I didn't realise it was the Gloam that ended the day, so next time I'll explore more and check the drawers.
One question: can the Gloam catch you while your torch is lit, or only when it's out? A few times I got close to it and only my torch went out. The day didn't end and I got away.
Played on desktop and made it to floor 3, where the shadows were on me like syrup on pancakes :D
The art style is lovely, especially the little rat. Lighting a lamp and seeing the colour spread is a great reward.
A few things I noticed:
- At first I didn't know the shadows could go through walls, which caught me off guard.
- The page says nothing in the dark can enter lit places, but in my run the shadows did go into the light, and they seemed to hang around the middle of the map.
- The flash didn't seem to push them away for me.
- The minimap doesn't fully fill in when you look down a hallway.
One idea: have the shadows run away from the light, so lighting lamps feels like taking ground back. I'd play it again after a few of these mechanics get tuned. Is the walking-through-walls part intended?
Played up to level 20 on desktop. Lighting a match and watching the fire crawl along the wick is really satisfying, and the game ended up much more enjoyable than I expected.
At the very start I didn't know where to click, until I realised the brown trails were oil. Once I got going it felt very intuitive.
A few notes:
- Some of the early levels have kegs with no wick leading to them, so there's no way to fail and they feel a bit like filler.
- I couldn't find a way to get a 1-star result, so the star rating doesn't say much at the low end.
- More kinds of obstacles would keep it fresh. I'd happily play again if it got expanded with more variety.
Played for about 20 minutes on desktop. It's genuinely creepy, and the horror atmosphere works. That face got me :D
I found the key but didn't know what to do with it, and eventually ran out of matches. At first I also didn't understand why my day ended. A small hint about where the keys are (and what ends the day) would help, unless it's already in there and I missed it. No bugs that I noticed in my run.
I'd play it again to see how it ends. Was the key meant to be used somewhere close by, or further into the house?
Played it as promised! About an hour on desktop, got to night 8.
I love the art style, and the music is pretty good. The best thing for me is the enemy design. What surprised me is how many different games are in this one game: tower defense, bullet hell and a shooter.
Biggest problem: too much going on at once without a clear explanation. My character would level up for apparently no reason, from mundane things like looking at something, and a lot of the mechanics are unexplained. My suggestion would be to slow the game down at the start and make it longer, showing all the mechanics properly, more like a tutorial.
Bug: the right side of the war table sometimes gets cut off at the right edge of the screen.
I would play it again, the game shows real promise. What did you use to make the visual assets?
Thank you, that's a really helpful catch, and thanks for testing it that carefully! I just tried it on a real phone and "Take up the torch" starts the game with a tap, so it looks like it only happens with emulated touch in DevTools. I'll keep an eye out in case any phone players run into it. Going to play Wickline too!

