| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun | #164 | 3.590 | 3.590 |
| Game Design | #172 | 3.667 | 3.667 |
| Audio | #176 | 3.513 | 3.513 |
| Overall | #223 | 3.513 | 3.513 |
| Graphics | #288 | 3.718 | 3.718 |
| Innovation | #349 | 3.256 | 3.256 |
| Theme | #387 | 3.333 | 3.333 |
Ranked from 39 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does you game fit the theme?
This is a story about a knight rediscovering his unreal life after death
Along his journey he meets his cloned self, which is his soul that foresaw his death
The game is based around the mechanic of resting, which awakens your unreal soul
The soul helps the knight along his journey to investigate his afterlife
Did you write all the code and made all the assets from scratch?
We wrote all the code from scratch
Assets Used:
https://oco.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-props-pack
https://oco.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-character-pack
https://oco.itch.io/cyberpunk-character-pack-2
https://jesse-m.itch.io/jungle-pack
https://aamatniekss.itch.io/fantasy-knight-free-pixelart-animated-character
https://paperhatlizard.itch.io/cryos-mini-gui
https://managore.itch.io/m5x7
https://edermunizz.itch.io/free-pixel-art-forest
https://ankousse26.itch.io/free-flag-with-animation
I have to say... the sound design is so satisfying. A lot ! I really care about the details and hearing the fire go up in flames, the sound of the clothes in the wind... the mixing is so smooth, I love it.
Visuals and puzzles are really cool. Perhaps we could have a short story about that forest guy beating the death over and over ahah
Nice job
What an amazing game ! I really love the concept, especially because, during our brainstorm for the jam, the idea of "hey, our character could fall asleep/die/coma and have an irreal projection of himself that could do stuff" also came into our minds, but we just couldn't find a way to make it interesting, so we scraped it. Your "fake death" mechanic is genius, and is the final piece of the puzzle that we were not able to find, so kudos to you =) !
The game itself is very incredible. The general atmosphere is enjoyable, the graphics are very good, and I really like the "dream" visual effect ^^. The sound design is also well done : every action has a distinct sound and there is a little background ambiance that is really fitting and help with the game's atmosphere. The only little flaw I see here is the lack of music : I would have loved one, with a variant that plays while in the "dream world" =p. But, to be honest, it's just me being fussy, your work on the sound design makes the absence of music not really annoying.
The level design is also on point : the puzzles are clever and it felt really rewarding to find the solutions. There are a lot of levels for a game jam, and the difficulty curve is managed perfectly. The mechanic is greatly exploited and leads to really interesting scenarios : it completely blew my mind when I understood that I had to lure a guard in a pit for him to kill me. That moment made me say "Oh wow !" out loud, and I had to think about "do I really want to kill that enemy ?" for the next levels, that was soooo cool. A little complain about the puzzles is that I would have liked to know in advance the actions of each buttons, like having wires linking a lever to a door or a button to the spiked ground. My first attempts in a room were always trial-and-error to gather intel about "what does what" before being finally able to think about the puzzle. Games like Portal are a great exemple of this : every button is linked to its action, so the player can directly focus on resolving the puzzle. But, don't get me wrong, once I got all the pieces, it was really enjoyable to put them together and think about the solution !
The gameplay was smooth, dashing through the levels was enjoyable, even if I'm not a fan of the key-binding you chose ^^'. The game never felt unfair, and I always could do want I wanted to do.
Overall, that's a really, really solid entry. It's a great and polished game, and I'm really curious of what else can be done with that concept. I feel like there is a lot of potential for more complex puzzles : maybe having something like "sleeping pills" in later levels that the player could collect to fall asleep anywhere, without the need of a bench, or go full "inception" with dreams being able to dream and have their own projections, for exemple. In short, that is an amazing game, I enjoyed the time I spent playing it, and really I hope you will make something out of it after the jam. Congratulations !
Hey, thanks a lot! :) you have no idea how much it is relieving when people get that aha moment in your game, it's so similar to how GMTK explained that in his video.
Those dilemmas are the thing that makes puzzle games fun, and as a developer, to make a cool mechanic twist that is clear enough that players will understand and challenging enough so that players will not find the solution immediately is the best part about making a puzzle game!
So as for your suggestions, I'll not lie, we couldn't find any song to fit the game, we've tried making some tunes but it had to be atmospheric and not melodic at all, because everything with a melody would just ruin the whole dark and mysterious vibe of the game, we were aiming for something like the Hyper Light Drifter OST, but the sounds there are so hard to create, we'll definitely add background music when we'll update the game, because we're planning to continue it (probably after ludum dare 50)
Wires would've worked with the puzzles, if it was only easy to implement a system like portal that auto-connects buttons and doors easily, I think we'll end up using tile-maps or something for that to show a line between the door and the activators
As for the controls, dumb mistake by us, you can use the arrow keys to move, I don't know if you knew that, out of habit we just wrote WASD even though while testing we've used the arrow keys, this is why we added the screenshot in the home page, but I guess it was too late
Also I agree, this concept has a lot of potential, our ideas include making a second bench that will swap you and your clone, making a clone variant of you that has different abilities, or pausing time when you're resting with your clone or something, the last one is the most promising I'll not lie
Super happy to read your review, really, we'll make something with this game, boss fights and more mechanics are coming, every comment just drives us more and more to continue this game and finish it properly
Also congrats for the 8th place, you totally deserve that!
Hey there!
First of all, congrats for finishing the game! I have to say right away that I love the pixel art, the game looks amazing. I like the sound effects but some music would be great. The gameplay was very smooth, however, it was really hard for me to use WASD to move, C to dash and Z to hit, I had to play with my both hands on the right side of the keyboard.
Other than that, it was a really fun game with great looking assets. Congrats, you did an amazing job!
Thanks! and also, we totally forgot to mention you can use the arrow keys for movement aswell, we've used it while testing and it was the main key combination, Arrow Keys and E C and X, it is also shown in the screenshot of the game
I think the reason we wrote WASD in the game was just out of habit, you don't really think too much about what you're doing at 5 am but oh well, we'll make the keys reconfigurable in the next game, for sure
Great game, excellent audio. I would have liked if the timing weren't quite so skin-of-your-teeth sometimes, and I got stuck on the second rest puzzle, with the lever in the pit. My working assumption is that maybe resetting keeps the lever active? So perhaps I'm not good enough at the skill part to complete the platforming, kill the enemy and get to the door in time to see it still open. But if I'm off the mark there, maybe a little hint?
Hey, thanks for your feedback! you're bringing a lot of great suggestions
First of all, about hints, this is why the torches are in the game, both to add to the story and also to give you subtle hints about the puzzle, it might be vague, but it kind of fits the whole souls like theme of the game so we figured it might be good enough, but you might be right, the hints could've been a bit more insightful
About the rest puzzle in the pit, this one I really like because it has a really cool twist, you have to think of how to use the enemy to get out of the pit to then exit the level, I don't want to spoil the solution because I think it's quite clever.
As for the rest of the game, except the platforming bit at the start, most parts don't require precise timing as much as you think, if you're doing the puzzles right
If you get stuck, I would highly recommend you to watch the walkthrough of the game:
Best game I have played in this jam. I had fun for real this time. You know how to make a game boy.
An excellent game! The awesome pixel art and sound design blended together to make a great atmosphere, and I loved the CRT effect used whenever the player rests. Each puzzle was varied, and I liked the use of time-based mechanics mixed with the cloning function in various scenarios. My critiques are small, but I noticed there was a little bit of stutter between each restart on the Web version (I could notice the scene reset). Also, I think that adding a little bit of music would help elevate the already great sound effects. Still, this is definitely one of the top games I've seen in the jam; congratulations!
Thanks a lot! really, every comment like that just makes you want to work even harder on the next game, and we're so happy to see that no detail went unnoticed!
Just to answer a couple of your critiques, we tried adding music but we couldn't find/make a good enough song to work with the game (everything just ruined the dark and mysterious vibe), so we went with the minimalist approach of adding tons of atmosphere layers, and it kinda worked
Also the web version has a bit of a delay with everything, it is weird and it doesn't say why, we'll experiment with that in our next games for sure
Very fun game! The rest mechanic is really well done, the puzzles are balanced. I had some trouble with the bindings for the controls, but other than that, amazing job!
A really enjoyable puzzle game, I'm surprised the assets weren't all made by the same person, they all worked here. My only real complaints are that there was too much tutorial before the main bench mechanic and that some puzzles felt like you had to be lucky that you wouldn't be blocked by an enemy because you can't see them when you start the timed button, but overall, really impressed!
Thank you! part of the challenge was making the story work with the gameplay, and to summarize the story (you can read the description for the full story) we wanted the knight's journey to be somewhat unexpected, which means you'll have to do a bit of trial and error to understand it, and to see what kills you, similar to how games like inside or limbo do that. It might've been too much trial and error for a puzzle game, we'll consider making things clearer for our next game, thanks for your feedback!
A really solid concept gameplay-wise, none of the assets feel out of place, the audio is convincing too (apart from the footsteps bug), and the visual effect when you rest are really cool. As said by others, the learning curve is really smooth for the puzzles, however, i think you should have teached the dash, and even the basic movement, in a safer environment, but it's a nitpick really. The controls are really not ideal, the dash and the attack should be relocated, preferably on the other hand.
The movement feels really fluid and responsive (maybe the dash is a bit too "smooth", some pause in the player's movement before or after the dash could make it a little more impactful, or even a micro-pause in the game's time). Also, the round bottom of the player's collider has a tendency to slip off ledges, it's not that annoying now but it could be for more tricky platforming sections. I like how you explored the main mechanic, and i think it has a lot of potential, i especially liked when i had to rest twice in a row to use the door opened by my first "ghost"; it felt a bit like inception lol, maybe you could have special benches for the "ghost" to create another "ghost" of himself?
Bonus point for the flag noises and the visible prop behind the last door, it's a subtle and organic way to motivate players. Same for the text going progressively from tutorials to hints to questioning life. Also, the souls vibe is pleasant.
In conclusion, i am eager to see what you will do with it in the future!
Wow, thanks a lot for your comment! you're bringing a lot of solid points about the game, and to be honest I'm impressed you've managed to catch all of the little details that we've added to the game, makes every second of polish worth it when someone catches it like that :)
First of all, control wise, everyone agreed, awful bindings, we want to add customizable bindings. But, we totally forgot to mention the fact that we used the Arrow Keys to playtest the game (and just forgot about it when we wrote the "torch notes",) and it's a lot lot lot easier to control the player that way, we've added a screenshot that will hopefully explain better all of the controls for the game, but we'll definitely update it with better bindings, for sure
As for the movement, pause could work for dashes, but most platforming games are really immediate with their controls, what you press is instantly what you get, apart from the rest mechanic all of the actions were meant to be quick and responsive, we're happy it worked for most of them!
Puzzles we've done last second (in our last day), it's insane that we've managed to finish 5 good levels, but yeah, 2.5 levels for the main mechanic might've been too short, but it is a game jam so the length it isn't that bad honestly, it'll be extended in the future, possibly with a second bench to go back and fourth between you and the ghost...?
I soft-locked myself in the buttons/lever part XP
but from what I played so far, the game is pretty cool. Nice!
The mechanics are very fun, interesting concept, congratulations on the result!
Very smooth gameplay! And the learning curve was on point, well done! :)
Would be great if you could check out mine too ^^
Another game that hits it right out of the park. The puzzle design was fantastic and introduced the puzzle elements at the right pace to allow you to understand them. The artwork is great and the sound design is equally good.
The game is so much fun! The game is beautiful, very fun and I had a lot of fun on all levels. Congratulations. Please continue!
Nice game. I like the gimmick. even though I didn't get to use it much.
There instructed controls were kind of hard for me, using one hand only. Luckily I discovered the other - default I guess - key binds. There could be a list for those in the options or something. There also wasn't any notion of being able to reset, was there? You just have to figure it out yourself.
Also, I think there was a sound bug. I kept hearing the footsteps after I stopped moving.
Pretty challenging and fun otherwise, good job!
As for the key binds, you're right, we should've added reconfigurable keybinds, we've added all of the keybinds to the game in the main page so hopefully it'll clear things up, but yeah, restarting the level was essential for some of the puzzles, it's R
The footsteps are a dumb bug it'll get fixed, and as for the main mechanic, the game could be expanded, this is something we really want to do, thanks a lot for your feedback!
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