Redeye

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Revised controls ;)

Arrow keys to move, z puts out/ lights the torch

The torch is your only weapon, though it’s hardly a weapon to begin with. If the torch is on, they come for you, if the torch is off they ignore you, but you can’t see.

Plants work as checkpoints as well as giving you fragments of the story. Causing red eyes to disappear rewards additional story fragments. Red symbols are generally bad, but sometimes good.

You have 3 lives, but sometimes just one.

Like this game? You can buy me a beverage of your choice:

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Rating: 8.0/10 (2 votes cast)
Redeye, 8.0 out of 10 based on 2 ratings
  • Anasastu

    Interesting concept. I really like the death for when the eyes get you.
    Personally, I would make the jumps easier (decrease vertical speed?). I think this game is played to reveal the story, and thus that it shouldn’t focus too much on gameplay elements. That’s my take.
    Also, when I put out the torch just as the eyes get close, I still get killed. There’s some kind of delay before I hear the last gasp of breath, and then another delay before official death. If there’s a collision radius for the eyes, I would shrink it.

    How do you make the eyes disappear? Every now and then I just get snippets of the story by walking around. Not clear why.

    Are there different stories to discover? When I start the game over, it appears that way. If not, I think discoveries from the player’s previous playthroughs should be recorded and shown at the next death. Basically, I don’t think death should come with a ‘clean slate’ where the player must rediscover part of the story.

    I like what you did with this game. It can make you run away and use some strategy, but remains quite simple.

    • http://software.o-o.ro Andrew

      [This comment contains spoilers]

      When you hear the two breaths after you put out the torch, if the death screen has any non-gray color, then congratulations! You’ve found the third way you can lose the game. It’s intentionally undocumented and is meant to shed some light on the nature of the red eyes. I’d rather not say more in the comments but can provide clarifications via email if you wish.

      When the red eyes collide with the red symbols they disappear, much in the same way you do.

      There is only one story which has 40 or so fragments, and is obtainable within a single playthrough. I considered saving the already discovered fragments through deaths but that had the potential of being easily exploitable(players could essentially ‘farm’ two or three plants). To counter this I could have given the player endless lives or assigned each plant/ red eye an unique fragment.

      Giving the player endless lives would have went against the ‘horror’ theme I was aiming for and would have removed any real sense of danger. Giving unique fragments would have made the game slightly too linear. There are more plants and red eyes combined on the map than fragments, giving players some degree of choice of which way to go, and how to handle the various areas.

      I’ll keep your suggestions in mind for any future updates, thank you for taking the time to comment.

  • http://dark-acre.com Jack Nilssen

    This is very well done. I’m enjoying the resurgence, particularly in independent games, of the difficult challenges and somewhat esoteric presentation of story.

    Great work. Have you considered an auto-map/mini-map function?

    • http://software.o-o.ro Andrew

      I’m glad you like it, or at least parts of it :D

      I did consider the map, but eventually decided against it. Of the 5 or so themes this was intended to follow, horror was one of the two which I tried to reflect in the game experience itself rather than story(text), so I tried to focus on the general feel and ambiance of the game which, unfortunately, made the gameplay shaky. For example I spent a lot of time tweaking the blur and the torch fade for when the redeyes get close, thinking it would alert players subtly or make them feel uneasy. I sincerely doubt anybody noticed subconsciously or otherwise.

      Long story short, the reason there’s no map, no life counter and no clear instructions is to preserve an air of mystery of sorts. The lack of polish on the game makes these sound like random excuses of the “uhm… I meant to do that” kind but I guess that can’t be helped.

      • http://twitter.com/DarkAcreGames Dark Acre Games

        Yes, I’d guess that and it’s good to hear that you explored the options.  Thanks for taking the time to reply!

  • http://www.webdesignnet.co.uk Helmuts

    nice one… this runner got me involved for 2 minutes :)

    good luck, Helmuts

  • Anonymous

    Very WELL-MADE!  The missing light is such a FRUSTRATING CHALLENGE.  I Love it!  I’ve spent a bit more than 45 minutes playing and exploring.  I love how you can jump over the pit of scorpions and the ‘red eyes’ fall in and die.  Ha ha..  Nice touch.  Good app for $0.99 for platformer.  I’d buy.

    • http://software.o-o.ro/ Andrew

      Glad you like it :)
      I could polish it up a bit and put it up someplace. Would you like it on mobile or pc? Not sure if I’ll charge for it though. 
      Meanwhile there’s always the donate button on the fornt page ;)