Lightshard is a game that revolves around resource collection and management. Find lightshards and build beacons to expand the lighted portion of the world. Rinse and repeat.
Lightshard
Collect lightshards and bring light back to the realms
Collect lightshards and bring light back to the realms
Lightshard is a game that revolves around resource collection and management. Find lightshards and build beacons to expand the lighted portion of the world. Rinse and repeat.
Fun to build and get resources
Playing this game made me realize I really like building bases.
The way you mine resources from trees and huge boulders was really neat! I loved the big boulder models. The crafting system was unique, and I liked it.
It was also super scary when I was minding my own business crafting, and in the corner of my screen I saw a creature moving! Fortunately those creatures didn't turn out to be overly hostile--Until I realized they can dig through your structures. I thought I was safe in the walls of my base, but they were just chewing right through!
I haven't finished the game yet; I still need to get more crystals and try out crafting all the different things. I also haven't yet made a network of beacons... maybe I should have done that before reviewing.
But in any case, I think it's really neat!
Too much of a grind
(DISCLAIMER: This review was written for the game jam version of the game, written by a participant.)
I think I played this for about 30 minutes then became bored after I managed to craft the first "light towers". You are thrown in a dark random world full of dead trees and must progressively collect materials and craft buildings to proceed, most importantly the towers of light. You can gather stone, wood metal and most importantly lightshards.
Unfortunately, this game turns out to be too grindy: It seems the only way to get the important lightshards is by killing the bug creatures but you need to kill a LOT of them. It doesn't seem you can mine for lightshards. The fact this game also doesn't have an end or any sense of closure is unsatisfying. Sandbox games only make sense when you have a lot of things to do (like a large list of crafts). For smaller games like this one, adding some mission, goal or closure is key to success, I suppose.
More frustratingly, the bug creatures randomly destroy your structures, so say bye-bye to your furnace you have grinded 20 minutes to get. :-( I don't mind difficult games, but I mind games that are difficult by being annoying.
The bug creatures don't really behave well either: Their movement is not fluent at all.
Also, the game is lacking in atmosphere: No music, no sounds. And the landscape overall feels a bit too repetitive as well so it's unfortunately not immersive.
Conceptually, this could have become a nice game. The idea sounds very interesting on paper, but the excution is sadly not. If the grind was not so bad, it was more atmospheric and the core gameplay would be more focused towards an end.
Hunting wombles beneath a broken sun o_O
Interesting. I'm not a big fan of >16x16 texture packs, but this still holds up. The wombles are a little glitchy, speeding up sometimes ridiculously fast, but thankfully they are not aggressive, only damaging you when you get close after attacking. As other reviewers noted, it is very slow gameplay, and chasing down wombles gets a little tedious after a while. Also, light crystals aren't as satisfying to place as it seems in the description. Overall, though, it fit the theme well, and it had a kind of cool story.
Scores rate how good different aspects of the game are.
Effects is mostly how the game looks/feels. If a game doesn’t have good-looking textures, particle effects, or architecture that is actually plot-relevant, it can get a low Effects score.
Gameplay involves how good, fun, interesting or effective the gameplay is. If a game doesn’t have well-designed puzzles that are something a gamer actually feels they can figure out with obvious end results, it can get a low Gameplay score.
Plot is how good the plot is, how well it fits with the game itself, and whether it is actually interesting for players. If a game doesn’t have an obvious plot or goals, it can get a low Plot score.
Theme is how the game feels and is laid out. If a game doesn’t feel right, doesn't have a theme that fits its plot or gameplay, or is too bland, it can get a low Theme score.
Game Jam Theme is how well the game fits the theme set (this year is "line of sight")
All of these are rated out of ten (#/10), and the final result will combine all these scores out of fifty (#/50).
Effects: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Plot: 7/10
Theme: 8/10
Game Jam Theme: 9/10
Overall: 37/50 🔗
Interesting mechanics, slow gameplay
The first thing you see is a big wall of text, though I appreciate the lore. The intro kinda leaves you hanging, it's basically 'Don't die, craft some beacons, careful of the monsters.'
For the first few minutes I was breaking about 10 wooden pickaxes to get stone. I eventually figured out that there's no such thing as a stone pick, though there are stone axes and shovels (prefectly reasonable from a logical pov, but also perfectly nonsensical from a progression pov.)
The Wombles (or whatever they're called, sorry I forgot lol) are exceptionally stupid - which is fine because that's what they're supposed to be apprently - except they can also fly, glitch up mountains at 10x their walking speed and generally do some really odd mob ai stuff.
Caves seem to just be a red herring as there's nothing in them (as far as I saw at least.) The mapgen is just V7 (which isn't a problem and I understand the reason behind it, but it would be interesting to have smth more.)
Quite boring
You place little beacons, kill the occasional buggy monster that comes to destroy them, use their drops to make more beacons. That and a small progression system with resource nodes on the surface. I think the idea is that you spread your network of beacons across the land, but it doesn't seem to work since as the network gets bigger, you become unable to protect all of them at once - remember, the monsters destroy your beacons and torches.
Don't want to read an in-game wiki to understand what to do
The title says it all, basically. In general it seems yet another MC-like game with different graphics and (of course, due to time) less fun gameplay.