An island of light in a sea of darkness.

An island of calm in a sea of stress.

An island of safety in a sea of danger.

Come take a break with me, if you want.


I didn't have time to properly participate this gm48, but of course the theme ended up being too great to resist, so I spent whatever spare time I could (I think 8 hours total?) making a little vignette of sorts. It's not a game. I hope you like it, for what it is :>

This may or may not call you by your real name, just in case that's relavant to know e.g. before streaming it.

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  • illdie
    Lv. 12

    Wonderful little experience! It's a very nice scene, I sat and enjoyed it for a bit after the monologue was done.

  • goblin
    Lv. 2

    Beautiful little experience. While there was very little gameplay, it was a nice meditative experience. And the art is really lovely. Great work!

  • SpritePainter
    Lv. 21

    I really loved the art! It's really too bad there wasn't more to do. I could see a ton of potential for a nice little game using this as the bedrock.

  • dreamcastgh0st
    Lv. 2

    Very cute, and well polished-- down to little things like the light flickering, and the camera shaking.

    That being said-- hardly a game. I'm sure you know that, it wasn't really meant to be a game, but yeah. It's always fun to see something unique, and I do appreciate the craftsmanship behind it, though!

  • Fachewachewa
    Patron

    Really nice! I love to see smaller, polished projects, even if it's not a "real" game. Glad you ended up making something for the jam :)

    One thing though... it's still too interactive to be considered a meta island of non-interactivity 😥

  • CrashB1111
    Lv. 17

    Nice little game, very polished. 3D models look great! A unique take on the theme also.

  • Fajpaj
    Lv. 5

    wow this is really good! very polished and everthing that is there is very well done. this makes me dislike the rating system of gm48, because like what am I gonna give this for gameplay and audio... I really liked the rating system for GM48 (the 3 categories were fun, originality, and presentation) because it allowed for unique experiences, like this, to perform well in the ratings.

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of An Island of Light

      2yrs ago

      Thanks! Having only spent 8 hours and obviously know what the ratings categories are, I completely knew and expected this to score low in many categories, like sound. This is not a game that cares about scoring high at all.

      That being said, yes I agree, I wish we had fewer rating categories. When it is split up into as many parts as it is, it feels a bit like we're rating individual components rather than the complete picture, in a way. A game that feels like it amounts to more than the sum of its parts might score low, and the opposite could be true, too. It's an interesting discussion to be had for sure.

  • Seltzy
    Patron

    Neat little project, love your style as usual. Recoiled at the game using my full name (kinda glad I wasn't streaming).

  • A-DSL
    Lv. 2

    Love how you managed to center your dialogue around a concise theme using the scenery you made, works very well in regards to a gamejam's time constraints. The models were really nice and clear (3D in GM is still a wonder to me so the fact you made this so quickly is even more impressive) and it felt nice and calming, much like it felt like it was intended to be. I like how you'd probably find yourself asking about the red eyes in the darkness at first and how they then become contextualized by Alice's dialogue (side note; my name is also Alice so playing this game was a very surreal experience to me), and in a similar symbolic and textual fashion I like how the scenery is described as a place of calm for Alice and how it amplifies both the line "I come here a lot" and the detail of the light flickering from time to time. A nice, short, interesting piece. Good job!

  • Mimpy
    Lv. 26

    It's a shame about the lack of time that you had, but this is still some pleasant imagery!

  • Allison James
    Patron

    All game aside, this is extremely pretty and written meaningfully. Lovely work!

  • Om Rane
    Lv. 3

    such a charming aesthetic. I wasn't expecting there to be some deep dialogue when i started it! Caught me by (good) surprise. I love the use of the theme that you have done in this small experience. Such a close topic I wasn't expecting to be reflected and talked about in the gamejam!

  • Luke No Further
    Lv. 14

    Lovely little polished experience. The visuals and writing were good, loved the character design and the personality. Great idea for a mini game jam.

  • Jaspo
    Lv. 16

    Don't listen to the demons, they always lie! (full disclaimer: I believe in the spiritual and as such believe that much of what goes on in my head isn't there because I put it there.) Nice little...art piece (?), impressive 3D modeling for Gamemaker, good presentation, pace & atmosphere.

  • whatthesamuel
    Lv. 4

    I think this is the smoothest 3d modeling I've seen in GM so far! I also liked the speech. Didn't feel too short, nor too long.

    It was a nice and fresh experience!

    Also if anyone feels too scared to try it out(at least I was at first at first), it's not scary at all so go ahead!

  • Hokori
    Lv. 12

    A very beautiful experience. I saw you mention that you were time limited but I'm glad you shared this as I think it's very relatable and a great take on the theme. The writing was well done and I felt captivated by the message and the atmosphere. There was a lot of tension with the flickering light and red eyes in the background, and I was bracing myself for something bad to happen. I feel like you always have a unique take on the theme, great work!

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of An Island of Light

      2yrs ago

      Thanks a lot! <3

      For all of one second I considered using an extension to intercept the player clicking the X to close the window so I could make the light turn off before the window would close—but I realised that would be counter to literally everything else that the "game" is about lol.

  • singleshot
    Lv. 43

    I played you motovation game on stream, now I need them feed backs. heres the link if you want to watch it again, https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1091776398?t=2m56s

    not bad for gm 8 run.

    Ruin Rise
    Submitted

    Ruin Rise

  • Tydecon Games
    Patron

    Very profound, my username on my computer was the first 5 characters of an old email address I'd used when I'd built it online a few years ago, so Alice called me "boom4", which sounded a little out of context given the serious tone of the monologue 😅 but overall, the detail and charm of this is wonderful, great job!

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of An Island of Light

      2yrs ago

      Yeeeah that's what happens when you initially create your Windows user with an MS account, very annoying xD Totally hoping most people did local accounts instead lmao

      But thanks for the feedback!!

  • Katsaii
    Lv. 7

    Really cute art for a minimalistic game that just asks you relax.

    My only complaint is using the username of the computer, since that's my legal name so it caught me off guard!

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of An Island of Light

      2yrs ago

      Thanks!

      Oh no!! I wish I had added a "I'm sorry if that name is wrong" line. The same would've happened for me until I reinstalled Windows a few months back. I wish changing username wasn't such a pain in the ass >.<

      edit: wait I did add a line like that, I'm a dumbass

  • Kwis
    Lv. 67

    That's really cool 3D, too bad you didn't fully participate this time around! I like the light flickering, although it feels a bit... stressful? like i'm scared it might just go off and never turn on

    Not sure what else to add to be honest

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of An Island of Light

      2yrs ago

      Haha, after I added eye blinking I was just like "oh, I can copy/paste this code and make the light flicker" lol. But yeah, there's definitely a tension with it. Like it's supposed to be a safe space, but the flicker makes it feel like it could all fall apart at any time. That's kinda how I feel sometimes. I think it works.

  • 2102
    Patron

    Very cool. It's really neat to see a 3D game made with Gamemaker even if it's more of an "experience". Good job

  • Happysquared
    Lv. 15

    Beautiful 3D work. Your game was very enthralling and evocative. I was hanging onto every word. I was a bit scared that the light was going to go out too! Just shows how invested I was. It was a really nice and meditative experience. I think you really captured my attention by pulling my name in the beginning. One of my teammates had played your game and immediately called all of us to check it out because he felt the pulling your name thing was just super super cool. The dialogue was also very natural and made me want to keep reading. Loved the metaphor of island of light you used to connect to the theme. Whenever I do game jams, I get really excited and then a lot of anxiety/bad feelings kicks in. Fear of failure... of messing up... a lot of feelings that tell me I'm not good enough or of being a screw up. I think your game was kinda the perfect thing to play for me right now. Very chill and I felt better afterwards.

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of An Island of Light

      2yrs ago

      Thanks! I'm happy this seems to connect with people.

      I always wanted an excuse to do the player's name trick and this felt like an appropriate time so I'm happy if people think it's neat xD

  • Ivanbje
    Patron

    Your 3D is always great, I was really invested in the story and dialogue. It felt beautiful and sincere. Not sure how you pulled my name from the website but that was really cool. Could've done with some atmospheric sounds or soft music and/or text sounds, but loved every other aspect of it so much. So simple, yet so complex in many aspects. Awesome job 😊😍

    • baku
      Patron
      baku Developer of An Island of Light

      2yrs ago

      Thanks a lot!

      Your name is actually pulled from your computer! It's your Windows %username%. I'm hoping most people use local accounts, cause I think it is a bit of a garbled mess if you set up your PC with an MS account, like it's just the first 5 characters of your email or something... Was totally just crossing my fingers that it worked at all, since I couldn't test it xD

      I did try to record some outside ambient audio with my phone, but it was so windy that it didn't work out. When I got done adding the dialogue it was 9 minutes past the deadline, so no time for a sfx there either unfortunately 😅

  • Chris
    Patron

    I enjoyed this. Great art and 3d visuals too.

  • AlexInCube
    Lv. 3

    This is not a game