Crimson Night
How long will you last? How many demons can you banish back to hell?
This is my very first attempt at making a game.
It’s been a challenging but incredibly rewarding ride—lots of trial and error, learning as I go, and plenty of moments where I got stuck. But I’ve finally managed to bring it to a playable state.
I used AI-assisted coding mainly for repetitive tasks, debugging, and a few small things where I was stuck and couldn’t find the right solution on my own. But zero AI was used for the visuals, sprites, graphics, animations, SFX, or music. Those are all made by me.
Still a long way to go, but getting it this far feels pretty damn good.
🎮 v.1.5 — The Crimson Ascension
You asked. I listened. The darkness has been improved.
🦇 Level Up Banner: No more accidental power-ups. Choose your fate like a proper supernatural hunter.
💀 Damage Feedback: Getting hit now actually looks painful. You’re welcome.
❤️ Blood for the Bloodthirsty: Every 50 kills, enemies now drop Hearts to restore your HP. You should still pick it up, but murder has never been so nutritious.
🏃♂️➡️ Dash of the Damned: Dash now doubles as a dodge. Slip into the enemy line and become briefly untouchable. Because getting hit is for mortals.
🎵 New & Extended Music: More gothic atmosphere. More tunes to die to.
🏆 High Score Board: Challenge the Dark Lords and show them who really runs this night. Screenshots only, because apparently we're not made of money.
⚖️ Difficulty Rebalance: You might actually survive longer now. No promises, hunter.
✨ Quality of Life: Polished some visuals, squashed some bugs, and generally made the night slightly less crimson.
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🎮 v1.0
- Full Version is now live
- New Enemies and animations
- Fixed the waling animation
- Many bug fix and improvements
🎮 v0.8
- Improve SFX and Music
- UI improvements
- Gameplay improvements
- Enemy animations
🎮 v0.5
- Better start screen
- More challenging difficulty
- lots of small but impactful visual tweaks
🎮 v0.4
Survive as long as you can.
Collect XP gems, level up, and unlock powerful abilities.
Nice! I like the style, the art and animation is great, but the current map/background makes it harder to see and enjoy that (maybe fewer colors and objects would be good?). I love the dash effect and it's really cool how it gets the fire effect once you get that upgrade.
I was wondering what it would be like if the moves could be more controlled. For example, I really like deliberately shooting the gun, but what if you actually and to aim it too? And what if some of the upgrades were a special move you could with X? (maybe dynamite could be one). It would be less automated but I think that would make the game unique compared to others of it's genre. Another instance of how that could be interesting is when I got the mirror-shot upgrade and I was thinking it would be fun to aim the shot once I lined up enemies on either side of me.
Thanks for reading my ideas, great job so far!
Hey, thank you so much! Really appreciate you taking the time to write all this — it means a lot. 😊
I’m glad you’re enjoying the style and the dash effects! And yeah, totally hear you on the map/background — that’s a great point. I’ve been thinking about simplifying it a bit so the characters and effects stand out more, so your feedback really helps confirm that.
I love your ideas about more control in the gameplay — aiming the gun, triggering special moves like dynamite, or even using the mirror-shot more strategically — that’s super cool. It could definitely add a fun layer of skill and make things feel more unique. Definitely going to play around with that and see what feels good.
Thanks again for the kind words and the awesome ideas — really glad you’re enjoying it so far!
This looks really promising. I like the choice of shooting that a lot of these survival games don't have and having to time when to go for a reload. Graphics are great. It feels good. I'm sure your aware that in your demo, the balance is off and its easy to get to a point where you are an unstoppable killing machine. But there is plenty of promise here. Can't wait to see how it develops.
I must be a total wuss - I don't know that I could get more than 2 or 3 minutes of gameplay as every time I dashed it was into an enemy that was just walking onto the screen. Having the same movement speed as the first waves of enemies can make it a little frustrating to gain any momentum if you don't draw just the right upgrades. Or - or - I am a wuss.
@YAMdash Actually you have a really good point and 2, 3 minutes is an amazing record IMO!
Yeah balancing enemies, upgrades, speed, and... is really hard, but I'm working on it to make it both fun and challenging. Thanks for your feedback that means a lot to me.
Had a lot of fun playing it, and it's definitely got an addictive hook :) One thing I thought would be neat is if it showed you a summary of the power-ups you took at the end of a run.
Great survivorlike! Definitely up there with Bunny Survivor and Beckon the Hellspawn, imo. The shooting / reload mechanism is great. Blood spatter that fades is great! Overall great look and feel. It's very difficult for me. I have yet to become an unstoppable killing machine. In fact sometimes it's a little hard to tell when I've been hit, and I can't tell what hit me, so maybe a more overt sound effect or UI shake when being hit?
Great soundtrack, gorgeous sprites, I can not believe this is your first game! The gun sfx is top notch, is it a custom waveform? Congrats on this great first release!
Great name! Quick first play and it feels good, awesome for a first outing.
Few things hit me right away...
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Took me a bit to find/see/notice the cooldown for dashing, especially in the midst of running around.
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Mind the repeating input. I flew by a few of the "pick your upgrade" moments because it kept registering since I was holding down the shoot button.
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Getting hit isn't very noticeable. I kind catch that the guy flashes but some sort of bigger sound or shake or something would be helpful.
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I might also suggest a little grace period after taking damage, especially since the HP is low to start. Either that or give more HP to start so that every hit even from level 1 isn't life altering. And I can't tell if the harder baddies hurt more or not, or if every hit is just one heart damage. Eitherway...feels like a too quick death.
- Maybe some sort of halo/radar for where baddies are coming from? It would give me some hints as to which direction is less dangerous to dash into or something. Especially since our viewport is so small anything like that would help if it doesn't just register as clutter.
I'm always down for a good survivor game and you're on the right path with this. Looks great, sounds great...just balancing and some HUD stuff and this'll be even better.
I would like a better notification when my dash is ready, also the diagonal speed is way faster
@Coko Thanks for the feedback, I added teh dash indicator to the bottom left, and fixed the diagonal speed
for being a first game this is really good! great little survivor like reminds me of bunny survivor but w its own twist with the revolver, great stuff :)
Nice! You really managed to convey the weight of that impressive hand cannon :)
Really great for a first game. I was under the impression this was an experienced developer. How long did this take to make?
Wow, packing this into the pico8 limitations is really impressive. The game is really fun and reminds me of 20 minutest till dawn. I agree with not being able to tell when I got damaged easily; maybe some freeze frames and a more impactful sfx can help this?
Безумно интересная игрушка, но как будто что то с хитбоксами(очень часто вообще не понимаю за что получаю урон, а уж тем более не понимаю когда я его получаю), но тем не менее играть очень весело
Great game! I joined pico 8 today and for your first game this is AAA game quality. Good work :)
I like this game. It has a lot of elements. I've played it, but it's a bit difficult. Overall, it's okay.
This game is very promising and great. One thing I would add tho is a maybe 2-3 second wait when leveling up, just so if you were pressing (X) for dashing and accidentally upgrade something you didn’t want. It’s happened to me multiple times so, maybe it’s something to consider.
Really fun atmosphere here. I especially liked the shooting and reload mechanic — it makes the game feel a bit more active than most survivor-style games. The art and sound work together really well too. Hard to believe this is a first game!
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