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Ernest's Descent's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #53 | 3.395 | 3.395 |
| Accessibility | #71 | 3.026 | 3.026 |
| Overall | #75 | 3.282 | 3.282 |
| Graphics | #78 | 3.632 | 3.632 |
| Theme | #91 | 3.553 | 3.553 |
| Originality | #101 | 3.395 | 3.395 |
| Controls | #109 | 3.053 | 3.053 |
| Fun | #114 | 2.921 | 2.921 |
Ranked from 38 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot Version
4.4
Wildcards Used
BOOM
Game Description
Explore the caves as ernest, dig up chests and fight enemies. However, beware of the darkness.
How does your game tie into the theme?
Chests and enemies are unseen, you'll have to use your nose and clever thinking to outsmart them, as well as the darkness
Source(s)
N/A
Discord Username(s)
luckysheep, pisslover72, lazybones0, oldkingcrowe, mrcedd, sageofthesevenseas
Participation Level (GWJ Only)
Me personally 1, others have more experience
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Comments
It's definitely an interesting concept. The music is nice. However, I think it would have been better to use a more readable font for the journal.
Nice work! Super cute, great art, music and design. Skimming the other comments, the only thing I have to add are an option for a simpler font. I liked how the mini games worked, and it’s good you had the video, initially I thought I wasn’t gettting it but realized there isn’t much wiggle room.
It took me a bit to figure out the goal (find the center of the green particles, hit E to dig, etc) and how to kill the bats (two bombs), but once I did I was able to finish the game. I really liked the light mechanic and the way the green clouds led you to the chest.
You've already received a lot of feedback, so the only thing I will add is that when you're doing the chest mini game, if the lock mechanism is really close to the start position, it's very difficult to time the slider to land on the lock. If the slider mechanism bounced between the 2 extremes so that you could stop it on the way back down, it would make it on par with how easy it is to unlock if it is positioned in the middle/end of the slider. Overall it was a great experience, and I was able to finish the game once I realized how to dig for the chests. Nice job!
You've already received a lot of feedback, so the only thing I will add is that when you're doing the chest mini game, if the lock mechanism is really close to the start position, it's very difficult to time the slider to land on the lock. If the slider mechanism bounced between the 2 extremes so that you could stop it on the way back down, it would make it on par with how easy it is to unlock if it is positioned in the middle/end of the slider. Overall it was a great experience, and I was able to finish the game once I realized how to dig for the chests. Nice job!
First of all, I love Ernest. he looks great! And the torch/dark mechanic also worked nicely! As ObsidianBlk said, the bats were incredibly tricky for me! I couldn't manage to kill them with the bombs, and they never seemed to forget me after they spotted me the first time. I was also confused about the green clouds - i didn't know what they were until i read the other comments, and only then did I learn they were the chests. Plus, them attacking me when I'm unlocking the chest was also a bit annoying, as I couldnt work out how to close the chest to fight or escape. Great idea for sure, and with a bit more polish it this could be expanded really nicely! :D good work on completing the jam!
I thought the music was really nice, the graphics were well done, and the game definitely had a solid atmosphere.
Those bats, though, were a frustration for me! Part of it, to be honest, was that it took me a very long time to equate the green particle effect to “buried” chests. I read the description, before playing, about the “smelly” chests and that you needed to dig them up, but, in game itself, it just did click. As such, for the longest time, I thought all I had were 5 bombs and 20 torches… and those bats were ridiculously relentless! Even after figuring out the chest situation, the bats were still a huge source of wanting to give up. It’s not that having enemies is a bad idea, but…
It takes TWO bombs, on average (at least for me) to kill a bat and that’s when I get them close! When multiple bats are on me, a number of times the bats are spread out, so I can’t always get both with a bomb or two. I often need to lose them all!
The bats home in on the player, and fast! I feel it’d be a little more fair if, when the bats charge at you, they do it in a strait line! This would give the player a chance to dodge when they’re out of bombs. As it stands, those bats are like glue, so if the play isn’t able to get rid of them with bombs, I feel they’re shiz out of luck.
The bats are active during the DIG and OPEN CHEST mini game! This is horrible! As the player, once I start digging, or opening a chest, I’ve lost control of anything else (to be fair, I don’t recall if I tried escaping from the mini-game), then the bats chase me down and attack me while I’m helpless to do anything about it.
Honestly, this is a really cool game! But, at least for me, those bats really were flying up my craw!
For your interest, here’s a link to me playing the game on stream recently.
Hi Obsidian, thanks a lot for playing and especially for streaming our game. It was both exhilarating and teaching to witness your experience. I wanna get into both the things you write as well as what you mentioned in stream.
You're dead on with a lot of your critique, the smell component to the game loop is a bit hard to decipher. We wanted to make a dirt mound as you suggested with a tiny chest appear as you get closer to the scent, but ran out of time.
As for the bats; Currently there is one spawning every 20 seconds in a circle around you, and they do know where you are initially, but you can loose them if they're in the darkness. Which in hindsight is not enough, because it's very difficult to do since the player needs the light themselves. Conflicting design choices on our end. The bats die in two hits, there might be a bug that causes double collision. Also the vector math for throwing is not entirely accurate which definitely adds to the frustration if you're not used to it.
I really liked your intuitive idea of hiding in the shadows, which would've been an amazing element to implement to let the player trade some health for a bit of peace from the bats.
The bats not stopping during the dig and mini game was a conscious design choice, we wanted the player to be scared and have a sense of urgency while solving the minigame, however at this moment you can not exit the minigames, and if you don't open them, there is also no real alternative to dying (like hiding in the shadows). For the journals however, we didn't want the player to be punished for taking the time to read our story which is why we paused the game.
As you're developing, the game naturally becomes extremely easy to you. Now in post, we get some critique saying the game is way too easy, and others saying the bats are merciless or the chests are impossible to find (which is why we added the youtube video, a bandaid for lack of polish if you will). We definitely wanted the bats to be scary and provoke a reaction, but it shouldn't be frustrating.
Bottom line, this was the first project we did together, we did a lot of work and it's not perfect and definitely needed some more polish. We'll definitely work together again in another jam and hopefully craft an even better honed and rounded experience. Thanks for your feedback :)
Thanks for the feedback obsidian, coming from when I played your game it's good to get that opinion, and it's good in context of your abilities. We're definitely taking all this feedback on board for our next jam. Cheers mate
Liking the game idea and it was well implemented. I liked the way you made the lighting system work. One thing to improve for me would be the combat, I felt it was a little awkward to hit enemies and with limited ammo, there wasn't much room to practice. Overall, nice game and good work!
thanks mgaudi, I programmed the throwing system and I agree it is a bit awkward, I just couldn't get the vector math right for aiming. I think if we had more time I would have added a bit of aim assist, or perhaps made the bombs mines that are placed below you, and given the player a slashing attack or other basic attack
Nicely polished game!
Graphics and sounds/music are good.
Great work! There are quite a few systems at place here and they meld and work together very well. I really enjoyed the chest minigame, it was well executed. Art style is fun, always love seeing a hand drawn artstyle for jams. The description of “smelly chests” made it pretty obvious to me where to dig, but putting that info in game in a simple intro text may have given some background to the story and helped understand the goal. Loved the piecemeal story from the journal entries.
I liked how the bombs operate somewhat like landmines, not blowing up until it hits a body. Would have been cool for there to be a burrowing creature that attacks from below the character, but can be led to dig into a placed bomb. It’s understandable that there is only one enemy though, it’s a jam after all.
Nice work!
Big praise coming from you, ColtonTytus and I enjoyed your game. I programmed the chest minigame and I wasn't sure how it was going to land so I'm glad you enjoyed it! Also programmed the bombs and throwing
We've been talking amongst ourselves and we do really wish we had communicated some of our systems better to players. An obvious one is about the smell/gas, but also prompts and general introduction.
Wow, I really like the way the lighting work here! I've tried to achieve something like in a previous project but couldn't manage it. Are you just using"normal" PointLight2d / LightOccluder2D , or something else?
Also, having the faint green smoke to guide the player is very nice design. Game was very fun overall :)
I used 2 point lights, one with the shadows turned on and one with the shadows turned off. It was a bit complicated to set up especially with the normal maps, lot of stuff looks too bright, probably because i wasn't able to set up the layermasks properly.
I love the little mini games
Cool story and good polish! I really like the sounds that the chest makes whenever you're opening it, great sound design there. Luckily I watched your tutorial video and didn't have any problems thinking it was poison but I definitely would of if I hadn't lol
This was a fun little game. As many others commented, it took me a bit before realizing the green gas clouds where not poison, but where to dig.
Yeah we should have communicated this in game. Thanks for playing and giving us the feedback though. We're learning so much from this
Loved the game! As already mentioned had a bit of trouble knowing I needed to dig, but was able to figure it out from the games description page. Once I got the hang of it I was able to beat it.
Really enjoyed the game! I struggled a bit at first, I actually thought the scent was poison gas at first, lol, but thankfully I watched the video and realized that’s where I was supposed to dig. Loved the thrill of the story!
I managed to get all the journal entries and win! I liked the graphics and having to follow the scent trails but I just wish the gameplay was a bit more challenging
I one hundred percent agree, however since balancing would've taken more time, we decided rather we make the game easy and have people actually play it than get frustrated the first time they die in the darkness. Thanks for playing :)
Loved the audio / sound design. The bats gave me a fright lol. I was unable to figure out how to dig.
You can dig with E at the epicenter of the clouds. The radius is unfortunately a bit too small and it's a bit finecky. The rats legs need to be in the center. Some more polishing would've done good in that area but alas, time.
the bat sound is giving me heart attacks XD, the game is nice but i wish the bats don't attack when i am unlocking the chest, and talking about chests, the mini game is fun, also the art is good, i feel like the game lacks variety but that is expected from gamejams anyway, really nice concept and nice execution good job!
Sound idea, however I feel the map is to empty I tried a couple times and couldn’t find anything but a few bats before I run out of torches and can’t explore anymore making it really unclear what I’m meant to be doing
You can find clouds of cheese scent around the level. Follow them towards their epicenter and press "E" to dig. This way you can find more torches, bombs and cheese :)