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Ember of Life's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Originality | #688 | 3.720 | 3.720 |
| Overall | #754 | 3.560 | 3.560 |
| Presentation | #770 | 3.720 | 3.720 |
| Fun | #1157 | 3.240 | 3.240 |
Ranked from 50 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the theme?
Characters join together to bring the flame to their goal. When reached by the smoke monster, they join it to chase down the flame.
Did your team create the vast majority of the art during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the art during the game jam
Did your team create the vast majority of the music during the 48 hours?
Yes
We created the vast majority of the music during the game jam
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Comments
Great game, awesome idea of passing the torch no matter the cost to yourself. The jumping is a little finicky, but otherwise great job.
Aw thanks so much!! Glad you liked it!! :D
For sure, we'll take care of those finicky jumps as soon as the jam is over!
-Sasha
Lovely art and excellent sound design. A really interesting concept for a game! You could polish this up further by adding a bit more leniency on the ground check for the jump, sometimes you feel like you input isn't quite being registered. A great entry overall :).
Aaaaah so glad you enjoyed the sound design! I was struggling with some serious composers block with this one, probably cuz of the time crunch, but I'm really happy with how the sounds and music turned out in the end.
And great note on the jump thing! That's deffs pretty high on our priority list with post jam fixes!!
Glad you enjoyed!
-Sasha
Concept's really nice, reminds me of tag racing (i think that's what it's called?) where runners have to pass the stick to the next runners. The controls feel nice, the art is great, could use a bit more animations but it's still really nice. I liked this a lot :)
Relay race of the little spirits!!!!
For sure, more animations would be really neat! Mayhaps after the jam! :P
So glad you had fun with this! Thanks for playing!
-Sasha
Hey again! I'll be playing Ember of Life tomorrow on stream along with several other games from the GMTK jam at 3:30pm EST. I hope to see you there for a good chat about design and development!
And I took a peek at the game, thankfully it seems less cursed than your SBIG entry :P
Yesssss! I can’t wait! Unfortunately Gordon Ramsey didn’t seem to have a nice place to fit in this game
- Josh
Don't worry, I used real instruments to make the music this time :P Can't wait for the stream!!
-Sasha
Love the concept and how it was implemented with the art, and damn if it didn't make me feel bad for all those sacrifised ghosts :( So yeah, great job!
Thanks so much! I'm so glad you thought the art delivered on the concept :) Poor ghosts indeed!!
-Kati
What happens to the poor ghosts left behind? D:
They get added to the swarm :)
We meant to make it clearer, but you can see more of the masked figure things the more they get taken
Sorry about that, but thanks for playing!
- Josh
Especially like storytelling in this one. It makes me want to find out more about the characters and their mission.
Very cute and well presented! I like the idea and the art a lot! I felt sad when my slimes were eaten :(... but good evocation!
To echo another comment, I did have a couple small issues:
1. A lot of lag on respawn; probably just the number of entities
2. Once the "next slime" had slid off its branch, so passing it didn't actually make progress!
3. I wasn't sure if there was a choice or pattern involved in passing them... it seems like there isn't, but if you work on this more that would be really cool!
Very cool! I think it would work well on mobile as an endless runner. Nice spooky vibes
Ooh, that'd be a fun pivot! Give it dedicated jump and throw buttons, I like it!
- Josh
Or swipe to throw!
Ahh true! Then you could use it to choose which one to throw to!
- Josh
Very atmospheric and the idea of passing on a flame is cool! I also liked how the spirits got smaller and smaller though I'm not sure if they ever eventually vanish? It feels like there could be really interesting lore developed from this :)
Gameplay-wise I think experienced some lag, especially after restarting after a death; I'm not sure if it's a result of too many entities in the scene? Maybe things should dynamically load in as they go on screen and get freed when they go off screen, if that's not being done already. And it felt like my jumps weren't registered sometimes on the rocks but I'm not entirely sure.
I liked the curve ball thrown in towards the end where you have the double-back to the left on one of the tree branches!
Danke for playing our entry!
I'm glad you liked the concept + atmosphere!
Eventually the characters will shrink to the point that they will no longer be able to move. I went for that instead of disappearing just in case they could still be in throwing range of the next character.
The lag was for sure due to the number of entities! I was kinda throwing them in willy-nilly and I didn't think the performance issues would catch up with me for a 48 hour jam. I ran a profiler on it during the last 2 hours before submission and it was like 70% physics, 25% rendering. Thanks for the optimization suggestions, if we do an update that's probably what I'll tackle first.
There was plenty I could do to optimize with the background as well. Ending up cutting a quarter of the game ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thanks again!
- Josh
Great concept ! The ambiance and design is well done ! I liked that we can pass the flame even when jumping or near death to continue, there is something to do with that !
Loved the ambiance! Really dark and creepy! I would love to read some lore about what's going on in this world. Good job :)
So glad you enjoyed and that the dark creepy ambiance came across!! Now that the 48 hours of frantic deving are behind us, our seeds of lore are growing into plants of story ideas, some of which will be elaborated on after the jam! :P
-Sasha
Short and sweet.
Really enjoyed the concepts and the theming, but admittedly was unfortunately not a huge fan of the execution.
Really shines at the start, where you are passing the light just as the darkness is about to engulf you, in a noble sacrifice.
In terms of game design, was definitely expecting a lot more puzzle style mechanics, as well as the possessing of multiple types of characters with different abilities. In the end, unfortunately it just ended up being a fairly straightforward platformer, just with one checkpoint-esque mechanic in the light tossing.
Technically speaking, I was quite satisfied with the intelligent arcs the light was passed in depending on the positions of the two entities. Unfortunately I had lot of performance issues whenever I respawned, leading to a lot of failed inputs on jumps shortly after respawning.
The art style felt a bit inconsistent to me though. Some things were detailed, while others weren't. Some things looked too realistic while other things looked too stylized. The animations felt a bit stiff and choppy at times.
Quite enjoyed the audio on its own, though maybe a little too heavy on the ambient sounds given the style of game. Wasn't expecting that much ambience in a 2d platformer. From a mood perspective though, it didn't feel like it quite matched the gameplay either, which felt like a frantic scramble to safety, versus a mysterious adventure through the woods.
Thanks so much for your detailed feedback!
Having characters with different types/mechanics for some reason crossed our minds, but that's a great idea! We did a little tweaking to their starting sizes to balance the "stamina" mechanic. There was a a couple more puzzle segments towards the end, but they had to be cut due to the growing lag.
I think if we were to revisit this game, we'd go for clearer distinctions between level segments. Like a torch you can light that holds off the shadow swarm, but slowly goes burns out. That way we could still have a slower puzzle aspect to it, but still have a pressing need to go forward. That'd also help with the music dissonance (my bad on that one, I pushed pretty hard on it.)
For the animations being stiff and choppy are you talking about the
Anyway, once again thanks for the feedback! It's a nice motivation to revisit a lot of our original design and run thought experiments on it!
- Josh
#1 and #2 certainly, and I'd say they felt more stiff than choppy. In particular, I think the fact that the main character animated the same no matter how fast your character was moving, or if your character was moving at all added to the stiff feeling.
The shadow monster didn't feel particularly dynamic because the sprites seemed to just constantly rotate in a circle at a fixed speed, as opposed to potentially slightly more varied movements.
I think you have a pretty significant choice to make in terms of the direction of your game. Do you want it to be a level based puzzler using possession mechanics, or do you want it to be more of a steeple chase, where you constantly are passing the torch?
I'd lean towards embracing the latter, simply because I think that one interaction has a lot of emotional impact that can potentially be built upon in tons of interesting and varied ways.
If you lean towards the puzzle genre, one potential mechanic that might work well could be to make the darkness only move when you do. That way, the player has time to think about their next move, but also has a constant impending sense of doom.
Cool thanks for the insight on the animations! Linking them to speed is a good idea!
I don't think we'll do a large revamp of the game post-jam, but it'd be fun to think through. I had a maze-like level in mind that had about 4 distinct heights that that you would pass the torch between thorns. It was pretty simple, but it also had the player kite the shadow monster around so they could make snap, simple decisions.
So I guess that direction would be heavier on the platforming side, but with some smaller puzzles built in. I for sure would want to lean into the tossing mechanics since it's what makes it somewhat unique. There's still room for the unique character types in that to add more level possibilities.
- Josh
This is such great feedback, thanks for taking the time to go through everything! Developing an art style for games is something I'm very new to, and I've had to do a lot of experimentation. As someone who has a strong background in realistic painting, it's been difficult trying to find a consistent style that balances a painterly style with outlined, stylized objects. Hopefully I can strike a better balance between detailed and stylized in the future!
-Kati
No problem! Keep in mind that art style in games is not limited to just illustrations. Animations, models, particle effects, shaders, and other VFX can all play extremely important roles as well. Good luck in the future!
Loved the game concept and the level design. If this had some instances where the light had to be transferred back and forth more like some puzzle elements it could have been even better. The jump did feel a little off though, like sometimes I felt the control didn't work. And there were lags on respawning. But these are just technical things. Overall, a solid submission. The feeling of passing the light at the last second is too good.
Thanks for playing!
We planned more puzzley elements in there, but the respawn lag starting getting worse and I had to cut the final 1/4 of it. Totally agree on the weird platforming feel. It's a bit slippery with the collisions on the rocks. I'm glad the "last ditch throw" feel came across well!
Thanks again!
- Josh
Joined together in a spiritual sense (literally?). Very nice, beautiful in a philosophical way. Sacrificing yourself and giving to another, it's a powerful message. Unfortunately, I got stuck partway through (you're on a branch, and there's a spirit below you with thorns between. There's only a drop onto more thorns) - so I wasn't able to reach the conclusion. Or maybe the conclusion is that sacrifice is meaningless in the end?
I liked it. It's a very basic platformer, but the difficulty curve is decent.
Thanks for playing!
There is a definitive ending with a little cutscene. The part you got stuck at for sure could definitely been designed better. The one person I watched play this also got stuck there. Probably a clear indicator that going down isn't the correct way to go.
If you happen to give it another try, or for those reading this here's a little hint:
When a character catches a flame, it's size and stamina are recharged. I should have introduced it in a clearer way beforehand.-Thanks again for checking it out :)
- Josh
I've just finished it. Very nice conclusion.
Yeah I think the problem is you've never had to pass the torch back to the sacrifical lamb before - that section is the only instance of that.Cool idea, I like the dark look and the idea to pass the lamp to the next one.
Glad you enjoyed!! thanks for playing!
-Sasha
The idea is very good. Of all the ideas I've had, a game of passing the bat really didn't come close to me. The graphics are very well done. I think the song could convey more of the chase idea. It's very quiet. There's something about jumping I don't like. A certain inaccuracy that gets in the way a little.
Congratulations for the game.
Thanks for playing, I'm glad enjoyed the idea!
I agree the platforming itself could be tweaked since the rocks are pretty slippery and the hitboxes are a bit rounded (an no coyote time.) We were originally planning on having the chase be slower and more dramatic, but the swapping and shrinking mechanics didn't seem to mesh well with that.
Thanks again!
- Josh
Art was great and the music really soothing! I was really suprised by the amount of polish, well done.
Original and fun game. Kudos on presentation, it was polished and pleasing to the eye.
Hey thanks for playing! See ya at the next NDJ ;)
- Josh
art looks really nice and the game is kinda hard but fun