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Sorry about that. We adjusted the volume of the jumpscare sound for the new Version 1.1 update. It's still loud, but not as loud as before. 

I'm glad you liked the art style! As for the monsters, the idea is that they are hiding in specific locations to mislead you even if you memorize the drawing. This is largely the reason why the art style is simplistic and the drawings are in black and white only; since you can only see lines and nothing is filled in, it's a matter of observation and trial and error using the glowing paint. So yes, the core game loop is essentially a memory game with "on the spot" thinking thrown in. 

The game has a fairness system in place when it comes to painting required areas: if a monster overlaps any required paint areas, said areas become optional. Otherwise it would be unfair if you were required to paint some of the monster to advance. Though, I will admit the monster "detection" areas are far from perfect and could have used a bit more tuning. Also, to make painting less tedious, the "background" part of the drawings are not required, only the objects and scenery are required. However, looking back, I think there should be more information given to the player in regards to that because for some levels it can be hard to tell what is required and what is the background.

Thank you for your feedback! It means a lot to us.

The idea is that the monsters are hiding in specific spots to mislead you even if you memorize the drawing. Currently, the only hint at monsters is with the glowing paint, but it was intentionally made unreliable due to the randomness of the light flickering, which added to the fear aspect. However, I'm not opposed to adding subtle cues to hint that there is a monster nearby to make the "trial and error" aspect of the game a lot less unforgiving and to make it a bit easier to detect monsters (without making it too obvious). I can understand the frustration of having to start all over after spending a lot of time on a drawing, especially in the later levels; fortunately, we have plans to add a "free draw" mode in a future update so players can paint as much as they want without needing to worry about monsters. There are also plans to add a difficulty system, which changes the quota and how many monsters are hiding at a time. We'd like to give players more flexibility with the game to ensure the best possible experience while still providing a fair challenge. 

The visual style is pretty interesting. I wonder what kind of game this will be? 

I like the spritework and the game loop is decent. Though, recharging doesn't seem to do anything because the flashlight never runs out of battery.

The concept has potential in my opinion and I had some fun with the game for a bit. Nice work!

Adding the monsters and their hiding spots for each drawing was fun, even if it got a little tedious in the later levels. Thanks for playing!

Yeah, this game spooked us a few times when playing through it. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you for the feedback. I will admit that the later levels can be a bit too much with the amount of hiding spots I placed, especially levels 5 and 6. It was mainly to demonstrate the difficulty curve of the game, which is far from perfect but it's decent enough for a demo. Despite that I ensured several "safe spots" would remain, in which no monsters are near, allowing players a guaranteed starting point (hiding spots are placed manually in the drawing and only a handful are active at a time). 

Originally there was only going to be one monster that could hide in one of several hiding spots for each level. But this would end up making the game too easy and not really scary in my opinion because once the monster is spotted early on, the rest of the level is basically free. To keep the tension high, levels would have more than one active hiding spot so even if you memorize the drawing, there would still be the risk of not knowing where the monster is actually hiding or how many are hiding at a time. The only exception is level 1, which will only ever have one hiding spot for the monster because it's an easy tutorial level to ease new players into the game's mechanics.

The sound design is really good and it complements the game so well! I love how tension builds up every time the monster moves (cue dramatic chord). It really adds to the sense of urgency and that sort of thing is perfect for this kind of game. The last few levels are pretty difficult and it took me a few tries, but I managed to clear all 20 levels. 

The game's simplicity works greatly in its favor in my opinion because it makes the monster that much more threatening. Great work!

Nice game. I managed to get all the shards first try.

I wish it had sound effects though; that would enhance the gameplay and ambience. Also, the dialogue that appears at the bottom right of the screen is almost always cut off and I was unable to read a lot of it. Additionally, I think a "press Space to advance" or a similar indicator at the very start of the game would make things more clear instead of it being just a blank screen. 

The art direction is pretty nice, I like Batty and his animations (he's cute). I think the gaps should be a bit wider so that it's a bit easier to not collide with the walls. Overall, nice work on your first game.  

Thanks for playing! It was a lot of fun to make.

Thank you for your feedback! It means a lot to us.

During development, Surfball's progression system was meant to be tied to the rival battles since it was an in-universe competition and you are competing against them. The idea was that as you defeat rivals, your tournament rank would increase, which would boost the game's difficulty, and you would then be able to earn more points. The "true" goal of Surfball would have been to win the tournament and score the most points. However, due to time constraints for the jam, we were only able to add 1 rival to the game and there is no proper ending or objective. So in its current state, Surfball is an endless arcade game.

As for the rings, originally there would have been rings placed higher than normal and you would need to jump in order to reach them. Also, at one point I changed the rings to gates, but after a trial test, this led to a lot of visual clutter so I went back to rings. It is true that the jump can be largely ignored for most of the game if you are good at strafing between obstacles and enemies, but had there been more time to add more object patterns, I would have made jumping more of a necessity (like with the out-of-reach rings mentioned earlier and more 5-lane rock formations). Right now, jumping is only really required for Rival #1's second attack, which hits all 5 lanes at once. Because of how the game scene is set up, ensuring that the perspective is readable was our top priority.

The tutorial is definitely one of the weaker aspects of the game in my opinion. I wanted to make it more interactive and hands-on, but again, time constraints. I feel the game can convey information better with a more intuitive tutorial instead of just reading text. 

There currently aren't any plans to update Surfball as of now, but we will definitely take your feedback into consideration when we do. 

I love that description! It's very funny. 

To answer your question: VioletNightro first came up with the idea of a "lame" horror painting game in which you paint a black piece of paper, one that represented "darkness", and then I added the monster twist shortly after. Originally, you would simply paint the picture to reveal a "scary" monster, but the idea soon evolved into what Paint in the Dark ended up being: paint the picture and avoid painting any monsters to not get jumpscared. The game was envisioned to be part memory game and somewhat trial and error without being unfair. 

The "horror" aspect was initially meant to be satirical and very lame (because it's Lame Jam), but we ended up loving the concept so much that the lame aspect flew over our heads, even though "make a lame game" wasn't a strict rule for this jam. We're very happy with how the game turned out in the end. 

Thank you! We greatly appreciate your offer and we'd also be willing to help you out with playtesting and feedback for your games. 

I wish you the best on your creative journey as well. 

I totally feel you on the art style thing and I'm pretty much on the same boat. Like, I would love to make polished, "professional" art, but my skills are far from that level so rather than trying to force "good" art for my personal projects and our games we submit, I instead tailor my art on a per-project basis and use very specific art direction. Basically, I hide my lack of "high quality" artwork behind intentional art direction that complements the mood and theme of the project (the "essence" of it, if you will). I've embraced this sort of philosophy as of late because I've come to realize that drawing is not fun when your main priority is making it "look good" rather than letting it complement your project regardless of how "good" or "bad" it looks (art is subjective after all). In my opinion, it's fun to work within your limitations and that's what makes the learning process interesting and engaging. 

I made a lovely Spooder Web:

A time constraint mode sounds very interesting. It's definitely something we wouldn't mind adding to the game for a future update. Thank you for your feedback!

Thanks for playing! We had a lot of fun making this game even though the painting mechanic was a pain to set up. Is there anything about the game you think can be improved on?

My only issue with the game is that there is not enough time to read the dialogue since it's automatically skipped after a very short time. From the bits that I was able to read, the dialogue has silly moments and is not overly-serious, but it's also not overly quirky and "in your face" which I greatly appreciate.

Despite that, I still got some enjoyment out of the game. For only being made in 3 days, I think it's a good enough "teaser" for something bigger. I'm curious as to what other possible mechanics would be used aside from gathering wood and maintaining fuel.

Also, did you make the sprites yourself? I like them and in my opinion they fit the tone the game is aiming for. Nice work!

Hello! Would it be ok if I mention this game in a devlog I am currently writing? It gave me a lot of inspiration for a game my friend and I worked on this month, and I would like to give credit. 

Alright, thanks. I was just wondering cuz I might be overthinking it due to the depth and complexity of the genre. I'm gonna make extra sure we don't overscope our game (my friend and I will be working together). I feel Metroidvanias have a lot of potential and the possibilities are endless, even with a specific theme. You're absolutely right about player experience. 

This may be a dumb question, but is there a limit or a preference for how long our game/demo/prototype should be? Obviously it won't be a 20+ hour experience or anything like that since it's just a game jam, but I am wondering what an "appropriate" game length would be for this jam since Metroidvanias are on the lengthy side. 

Good job on the spritework! Looks pretty sharp.

Let us know what you think! Feedback is appreciated

Cool game! I like the artwork for the characters and the general concept of the gameplay. Nice work!

I saw your posts on the JamsForDevs Discord and I wanted to give this game a try. Really nice game! The mood and atmosphere is just right for the story it is telling. Visuals are cool as well. 

If I do have one suggestion, I think there should be a run button so you can get by just a little quicker (it doesn't have to be a super fast run, just a little faster than normal speed).

Overall, excellent work! I'd be interested in seeing an expanded version of the game.

Took me a bit of time to get used to at the start but once I fully understood the gameplay it just clicked with me. Cool game!

Good job! Switching the gravity feels nice and satisfying with the up/down blocks. 

Nice game! Though, I think it would be nice if the player's move speed gradually increased as you earn more points instead of being able to move fast instantly. I played a few times and got 142 points.  

Any comments or suggestions? Your feedback is appreciated.

Nice!

I see that the game was made with Godot. For the coconut, you could create an AudioStreamPlayer node (as a child) for it and then whenever the coconut changes direction (whichever function does it) you can play the sound using AudioStreamPlayer.play(). Just make sure the script that controls the coconut has a reference to the stream player so that the play() function can be used. 

For playing the sound when points update, you can do a similar process. Create another AudioStreamPlayer node for the node containing the script and in the function where the score changes, call the play() function. 

I haven't seen the code for the tutorial you followed so I'm not sure how exactly it's set up, but adding sound is quite simple. Hope this helps!

Thank you for the feedback! The difficulty scaling took a bit of time to implement and I wasn't sure how many object patterns I needed to make to keep the game loop from getting stale, but in the end it turned out pretty alright. For context, both rings and rocks are classified as objects and they follow a spawning system in which pre-made patterns are randomly selected and spawned one at a time (though, at high speeds, patterns may spawn on top of each other--unintentionally). As soon as the last object in a pattern reaches a certain point, the next pattern is spawned. In retrospect I realized I never used any red rings for any patterns, so there's only 4 ring colors that appear instead of the 5 that were made...whoops!

As for the rival/boss fight, I mentioned in another comment that there were originally 3 rivals planned, but we were only able to add one due to time constraints. I wanted to add at least one rival to the game since the premise of the game was designed around a Surfball tournament. Had the other 2 rivals been complete, there would have been a ranking system (4th to 1st, rank up for every rival defeated) and that would result in earning more points from rings and drones--basically a point multiplier.

For the art style, I was aiming for a simple, stylized vibe to enhance the arcade-y nature of the game (I used 480x270 as a base resolution). Details such as different drone designs and the player wobble animation were fun to make as well. I'm glad you enjoyed it! 

And yes, it is super satisfying to hit them drones with the ball! (BONK)

Thanks for playing! We had a lot of fun participating in this game jam and we are very satisfied with how the game turned out. 

Those are some really strong sticks. Nice game! Like others have mentioned, sound effects and music would enhance the experience. 

Cute game! Though, there should be a map display that shows where the minigames are located, it took me some time to find all 5. Also it seems there's no point in buying cosmetics since there is no equip menu or anything, unless it is a physical location you have to go to (I haven't been able to find it). One other thing: it's difficult to see the start game prompt when it is night time since the text is black. 

As for the minigames themselves, most are fine. I think the digging minigame could have been designed a little better since no matter what you dig up you always earn a random amount of points. Maybe have it so that each treasure yields a different amount of points--it would keep the randomness of the game but also add consistency and give the treasures themselves more value.

Overall, good job!

Nice game! I like the visual style and the simple, yet intense gameplay. You gotta get the timing just right to really build up your combo, even though I could only get up to 7 (the delayed enemy attacks are trickier to time but I enjoy the added challenge to keep the stakes high).