Wow, that is high praise! Can I ask what you like about it?
As for the batteries: I wanted to discourage the player from just leaving the flashlight permanently on. Of course balance is always hard in a jam game.
Viewing post in Midnight in the Mines of Mercury jam comments
I guess it's a combination of several things:
- How it feels like an actual light illuminating the scene instead of just a cone mask like in a lot of 2D games. It might be the blending of the cone's edge idk
- How analog it is with the little flickering when low on battery
- The smooth turning of the light beam with the mouse accompanied by the character's sprite changing orientation. This just works
- The crisp click and clack audio when toggling the thing
There may be value in implementing some sort of ray tracing like the one in Darkwood, but that's another beast.
Thank you. That is extremely helpful.
It's very gratifying to get some love for the flashlight... because I actually spent the *entire first day of the jam* just implementing and tweaking the flashlight mechanics, then basically built the rest of the game around that. 😂
Adding real raycasting would significantly change the way the flashlight works, and might impact game design in certain ways.
But adding directional audio sounds like a very worthwhile avenue to investigate. I'll try to include that in the post-jam edition.