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[AdventureIslands]

Check out the Ludum Dare page!
http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-28/?action=preview&uid=11391

STORY:

Kingdom of Solaris has always been protected by the light of the holy lighthouse. One day however, the lights disappeared, plunging the kingdom into darkness..

All hope is not lost. One day a young wizard Lucia arrived, and used all her strength to create a ball of light powerful enough to lit the lighthouse again!

While the orb is very powerful, it's also very unstable. A slightest bump can cause the orb to explode! Lucia needs to use the orb to light her way, while trying to keep the orb intact. Will she be able to end the age of darkness?


CONTROLS:

Use Arrow Keys or WASD to control Lucia. Press down or S to enter doors.

Use mouse to control orb of light. Beware that it explodes if it hits walls, platforms or goes off screen.

Esc returns you to main menu and skips the intro. M mutes and unmutes music

SCREENSHOTS:









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I would like to hear some thoughts, how are the controls, levels and difficulty? I aimed to create my most polished Ludum Dare entry yet. Challenging, but not too hard. Difficulty has always been the most difficult part for me to balance, but this time I think I did pretty well.

[.swishy]

This game is so cool! The level designs are really good.

[tirso]

Agreed. I thought the game was not that original until I started progressing through the levels. Great job

[William Chyr]

Very unique mechanic! Really nice spin on the 2D side scroller genre. I was using a trackball, which I think made it a little more difficult to navigate the orb through tight spots.

[pglinker]

Very nice...

- concept is cool
- there are some challenging spots early on, but that could be a pro, since some games drag on with easy stuff far too long before ramping up the difficulty

Thanks for sharing.

[joe_eyemobi]

Great work!  I really dig the retro graphics and sounds. 

However there are 2 things that could make the game even better:
- Make some way points so that when you die you don't have to go back to the very start
- Do a bit more with the light mechanics.  I think it could get a bit monotonous after a few levels.  Perhaps have some abilities on the orb like being able to permanently light up other things on the screen, or be able to use it to fight.

[PeteHuf]

* I wish I could use space to jump, I've always found using up to jump awkward. (I would find it more intuitive to use up to enter a door.)

* My first death was in the second area because I thought maybe the orb could pass through the wooden platforms like the player could (I didn't remember reading the red text at the start calling out platforms). I was a little frustrated but I'm not sure how you could communicate it. Maybe present the player with that bit earlier in the level so they don't have to repeat the jumping over spikes part when they fail?

* I wanted to see if I could turn down the volume so I hit Esc.

I liked all the assets, I'm afraid I found the main mechanic to be too tedious to get into though. The combination of limited visibility and controlling two things at once was a bit much for me.

[AdventureIslands]

Great work!  I really dig the retro graphics and sounds.  

However there are 2 things that could make the game even better:
- Make some way points so that when you die you don't have to go back to the very start
- Do a bit more with the light mechanics.  I think it could get a bit monotonous after a few levels.  Perhaps have some abilities on the orb like being able to permanently light up other things on the screen, or be able to use it to fight.

I would definitely want to explore the light mechanic bit more in depth in some improved, non-LD version. Originally I wanted there to be stuff like you could light up torches or burn certain things with the orb, but I had to cut those off to be able to finish the game on time. I could also see the light being used to keep evil spirits away, block dark projectiles, etc.

When I started to work on the game I mainly wanted to just test if the whole light orb concept would be any fun, and I really like how the game turned out. It's a good base to build something truly great on.

[joe_eyemobi]

I definitely see potential for this game with the art style and unique.  I don't have an exact idea, but this could work well on a mobile platform where one touch could control movement and the other the light.

Great work!  I really dig the retro graphics and sounds.  

However there are 2 things that could make the game even better:
- Make some way points so that when you die you don't have to go back to the very start
- Do a bit more with the light mechanics.  I think it could get a bit monotonous after a few levels.  Perhaps have some abilities on the orb like being able to permanently light up other things on the screen, or be able to use it to fight.

I would definitely want to explore the light mechanic bit more in depth in some improved, non-LD version. Originally I wanted there to be stuff like you could light up torches or burn certain things with the orb, but I had to cut those off to be able to finish the game on time. I could also see the light being used to keep evil spirits away, block dark projectiles, etc.

When I started to work on the game I mainly wanted to just test if the whole light orb concept would be any fun, and I really like how the game turned out. It's a good base to build something truly great on.

[JokerDen]

Looks awesome.
Can't believe that you made it alone for compo not for jam.

[almightyzentaco]

Fantastic work. You should release this as a full version, and include a two player mechanic. One player controls the girl, and the second the orb. You could make some really difficult levels if you include two player support. Maybe port it to OUYA, since there are like zero games on there. I'd buy it. :D

[Dr. LudoS]

As I said on LD, I really love your game, and I think it deserves a spot in the top games of the compo!

I love the gameplay mechanics idea, alongside with the art style and its overall mood. Regarding the difficulty, the game is well balanced for me except during the "auto-scrolling" level, that I find way too hard compared to the other (I'm the kind of people who have an hard time moving the character and the orb at the same time).

Maybe slowing the autoscrolling down a bit would be good? (because the level design is excellent and challenging, while the fast-moving autoscrolling is rather frustrating IMHO)

[woodenrabbit]

I played it and it was good especially for a LD game. I had a tough time playing it with my laptop's mousepad but it was still good.

I love the art too!