There is a lot to like about this game! The pixel art design with a very nice colour selection creates a clean and simple look, which helps present the game information in an intuitive way. I really had a feeling of tension in those moments when you are trying to just eek your way past an eye- the flashing and shaking is very effective and I'd love to know how you acheived it. The level design is well thought-out and offers a good level of challenge. Right now I'm stuck on the level with 2 eyes, 2 blocks and some narrow corridors (the level after the one with the 3 blocks in a row). I'm pretty stumped, I won't lie! I think a little bit more in terms of music and sound would go a long way, but since the game seems somewhat horror-themed, the silence and the footsteps alone is quite effective. I had a lot of fun with this one (as you can probably tell) and would like to see you push the idea further with new mechanics and levels in the future.
Thank you so much for the kind words! Very appreciated. I think I know the reason you're stuck in that room, and it's not exactly my proudest moment in puzzle design. I'll put a spoiler at the end of this comment in case you want some help.
The palette I used was the Sweetie 16 Palette by GrafxKid, so praise for the color selection should mostly go to them. If you're interested in the technicalities of the fear effect, the shaking is just a sinusoidal camera displacement in polar coordinates. For the flashing, I used an additive blend to render the scene onto itself with +/-1 pixel displacement and low alpha values, then iterated that process a couple of times. Then I just had to tweak some parameters until it felt just the right amount of unsettling. Glad to hear that the effect worked for you!
To be honest, I would have loved to add some music to the game and even started writing a theme, but I was running very low on time already and decided to just lean into the silence as if it was a purely stylistic choice.
Also very happy to hear you enjoyed the level design. I knew I had given myself a pretty limited design space, but I still found it more challenging to come up with puzzles than I had expected, so I'm pretty happy that at least some of them seem to have turned out alright. Still, if I continue working on this post-jam, I'm strongly considering moving to a completely grid-based system and maybe even turn-based instead of real-time, though the fear effect probably wouldn't work as well in that setting.
As for the room you're stuck on: I suppose you have problems even reaching the other side? If you hug the top wall of the second-lowest corridor and then run right, you can make it across the danger area just in time.
Thanks for the tip. I actually had managed to find my way across that area and blocked off that lower eye, but I was stuck at how to reach the end from that point. I came back to it today though and managed to figure it out. I got to the end of the game and I have to say the end-screen is very cute.
Thanks too for the info about the fear effect. There's some really interesting stuff there I'm going to have to try out myself.
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this game is really fun and heart racing i want to get past it so fast haha. great game
There is a lot to like about this game! The pixel art design with a very nice colour selection creates a clean and simple look, which helps present the game information in an intuitive way. I really had a feeling of tension in those moments when you are trying to just eek your way past an eye- the flashing and shaking is very effective and I'd love to know how you acheived it. The level design is well thought-out and offers a good level of challenge. Right now I'm stuck on the level with 2 eyes, 2 blocks and some narrow corridors (the level after the one with the 3 blocks in a row). I'm pretty stumped, I won't lie! I think a little bit more in terms of music and sound would go a long way, but since the game seems somewhat horror-themed, the silence and the footsteps alone is quite effective. I had a lot of fun with this one (as you can probably tell) and would like to see you push the idea further with new mechanics and levels in the future.
Thank you so much for the kind words! Very appreciated. I think I know the reason you're stuck in that room, and it's not exactly my proudest moment in puzzle design. I'll put a spoiler at the end of this comment in case you want some help.
The palette I used was the Sweetie 16 Palette by GrafxKid, so praise for the color selection should mostly go to them. If you're interested in the technicalities of the fear effect, the shaking is just a sinusoidal camera displacement in polar coordinates. For the flashing, I used an additive blend to render the scene onto itself with +/-1 pixel displacement and low alpha values, then iterated that process a couple of times. Then I just had to tweak some parameters until it felt just the right amount of unsettling. Glad to hear that the effect worked for you!
To be honest, I would have loved to add some music to the game and even started writing a theme, but I was running very low on time already and decided to just lean into the silence as if it was a purely stylistic choice.
Also very happy to hear you enjoyed the level design. I knew I had given myself a pretty limited design space, but I still found it more challenging to come up with puzzles than I had expected, so I'm pretty happy that at least some of them seem to have turned out alright. Still, if I continue working on this post-jam, I'm strongly considering moving to a completely grid-based system and maybe even turn-based instead of real-time, though the fear effect probably wouldn't work as well in that setting.
As for the room you're stuck on: I suppose you have problems even reaching the other side? If you hug the top wall of the second-lowest corridor and then run right, you can make it across the danger area just in time.
Thanks for the tip. I actually had managed to find my way across that area and blocked off that lower eye, but I was stuck at how to reach the end from that point. I came back to it today though and managed to figure it out. I got to the end of the game and I have to say the end-screen is very cute.
Thanks too for the info about the fear effect. There's some really interesting stuff there I'm going to have to try out myself.
Nice, congratulations! And thank you :)