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Windows Dark Crypt -- Equipped with only a lantern

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Etredal

Guest
Dark Crypt
This game is all about exploring and getting through the puzzles. Right now there is a tutorial level, and the first five levels. All you are equipped with is a lantern, which you are always trying to refill. Most actions that you do will lessen the light emitted.

I'd love to hear what you think of the game and if it works well. Any advice, criticism, hate, and love is 100% welcome!

http://www.indiedb.com/games/dark-crypt

The first five levels of the game with a tutorial level. The art is all placeholder and there is no sound.

Added easier levels (Now a total of 9 Levels -- 1 is tutorial) and particle effects. Also created different shades of tiles for the ones you can walk under.
 

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dphsw

Member
I like the idea - sort of reminiscent of Maziacs, if the light were the food. But unlike Maziacs, there's not much way to find out where to go. I played the first level (after the tutorial) for 9 minutes before running out of light.
And some blocks I could walk through, even though they were identical to others that I couldn't. That means to solve a maze, you have to go testing hundreds of blocks to make sure one of them isn't a secret passage that needs to be found, which gets tedious. And some blocks were one way, which is fine if they have arrows on or something so that you know in advance, but it feels unfair if you go through wanting to see what's on the other side and only find out afterwards that you can't get back to where you were. And some just seemed to have different graphics for no reason - if you're going to use grey blocks 99% of the time, then when I see an occasional black block, I expect it to do something different from all the grey ones, but couldn't find anything interesting about it.

I'd suggest looking into some procedural generation, just because it's going to be a lot of work to keep making levels for something like this, and I'm sure plenty of maze-generation algorithms are available. And try to make it more of a difficulty curve - it's no use making the first five levels, and more besides, if a player can spend 10 minutes on a first level, lose at that point without seeing any reward during that 10 minutes, and hence not get any motivation to keep playing. In fact, if the player runs out of light just by navigating the maze, why even have enemies on the first level, let alone secret passages etc.? Let them get used to finding their way through a maze before introducing other challenges.
 
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Etredal

Guest
Thank you very much dphsw! I have gone back and created a different shading of block you know you can walk under those, and I went through my game to very any block that looks different does something different or is at least obvious that it is still a wall. I am adding three levels before the first level (which will make the first the fourth) that will be much easier and lead up to the challenge. Maze generation is something I have thought about but I plan to use the lantern's light in unique ways and implement different mechanics that would be too much for maze generation (or at least above my skill level). Again, thanks for all the helpful advice, it will make my game much better!

0.0.2
I should be releasing this in the next few days which should include a few easier levels at the start, and particle effects
 
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Etredal

Guest
Working on adding lots of new enemies and blocks as I start to add more levels. Feedback is still wanted, thanks!
 
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