Our Lighthouse

I found myself immersed in the poignant, poetic writing. I would love to hear it voiced, if you ever come back to add to this project. You built up the atmosphere skillfully through the sound design and camera panning, and captured through words the emotion of being lost to a painful memory. I adored the ending, where the uplifting music fades in and hope shines through! 

A thoughtful and touching experience.

Oh.... oh i didn't expect it to hit me THAT hard, i'm actually tearing up :") really loved the atmosphere, and the sounds fit in so nicely! The writing is beautiful, I want to give the main character a hug <3 what a meaningful experience, I love this a lot!

Absolutely drowned by the melancholy vibe, this is a beautiful writing! <3 I could feel the MC's blurry feeling, the ocean waves sound was actually very calming and keeping me (or MC) stay in thought. I somehow also thought that MC is describing about the lighthouse inside us, the one that we all can rely on to find our ways when it's rough. It's a beautiful reassurance for all of us that somewhere inside us, something, or someone, will be there for us, leading us to the road ahead. May MC find solace in the weary heart. Have a good rest, the storm will pass by.

Thank you so much for making this! I enjoyed it. ^-^

This was so calming 💜 Loved the soundscape very much. The illustration style reminded me of a certain tarot or oracle deck, but I can't remember which one. A lovely experience!

This was a very serene, thought-provoking game. I presume it's meant to be kind of a metaphor for the daily struggle of real life with some real moments mixed in (and mixed in very well). I chose to look left first, and that allowed what came after looking right to hit even harder than it might have otherwise. I would love to dig deeper into the full meaning behind the lighthouse and the other elements of the story.

A beautiful and sweet game! I loved your use of the camera to tell the story of our movement around the lighthouse and focusing on different elements of the amazing artwork to both enhance and reveal story beats. Wonderfully done! 

Looking both left and right was so touching and the sincere grief of loss struck a chord in my heart only to be brightened and lifted with the powerful message of hope! 

Amazing job, well done!

Ahhhhh... I started crying at the end...

This was really beautiful...

I loved how you set up the game. Using the beautiful painting of the lighthouse and moving around between different spots. How in the beginning, all the movement was quite limited, confining almost, as though trapped. But then at the end, zooming out to reveal everything, together with that soft music... Just like how grief and heartbreak can make us feel so trapped. So isolated and alone. Confused. But sometimes a moment of catharsis can shine light on things again. Help us see more clearly. Find those things to latch on to to help us back into the light and allow things to make sense once more.

It was so beautifully atmospheric. The painting itself. The music. The sound of the sea. And I loved your choice of having the transparent text box and just positioning the words at various points over the screen together with the moving camera. It kept the attention on the visuals and the immersion. Almost like being inside the painting itself and looking around.

A really amazing job. I'm filled with so many emotions now... Just really beautiful.

Oh, this made me teary-eyed alright.

The story, through the writing felt foggy, confused, grieving. Appropriately, the art showed only parts of the lighthouse, the fog, and an infinitely blank horizon. And then the fog clears, and we see more of the picture, literally and metaphorically, and that moment of realization and clarity was just *chef's kiss*

There was this massive feeling of catharsis when the image zoomed out and revealed that it was more than a quiet, empty lighthouse, and the great unforgiving ocean. See the parts of the picture we couldn't see before was a feeling i couldn't quite express, and especially the realization that we weren't alone was so cathartic and wonderful. 

I chose to look at the left first, when I did, a part of me worried that looking to the right would only yield an open emptiness, but I'm glad both routes lead towards catharsis.

The art is wonderfully atmospheric, and so is the soundscape! 

Amazingly done, thanks for making this!

This was a very atmospheric game. I particularly enjoyed the different zooms on different parts of the background, to accompany the different lines. It really helped the player, I think, to get a grasp of the space, but also to get personally involved with it, which makes the endings even more striking. They were all very well implemented, and the use of NVL mode was absolutely appropriate. The background itself was also absolutely gorgeous. The sound design was great too. I didn't even notice it while playing, but when I think about the game, I can hear it all again: this is saying how immersive the game was!

The story was engaging: foggy at first, clouded even, but the game shows it well: it is cloudy, because there is no light. And we need to see clearer: we need to come to peace. It was a very powerful story which was absolutely appropriate for O2A2! Congrats, this is an amazing first game!

The game made me think of a poem from Alphonse de Lamartine, a French poet, named "The Lake." Our Lighthouse is more optimistic: but somehow, I think there is an interesting connection, as if Lamartine were the version of the protagonist who lost a lover instead, and never came to peace (the translation is by Peter Shor):

Towards new and different shores forever driven onward,
Through endless darkness always borne away,
Upon the sea of time can we not lie at anchor
For but a single day?

Oh lake, the year has scarce run once more round its track,
And by these waves she had to see again,
Look! I have come alone to sit upon this rock
You saw her sit on then.

Beneath those towering cliffs, your waters murmur still,
And on their ragged flanks, your waves still beat,
The wind still flings those drops of spray, that last year fell
On her beloved feet.

Do you recall that evening, when we sailed in silence?
Upon your waters a great stillness held;
The only sounds were those of oars that struck in cadence
Your harmonious swells.

Then suddenly, accents that from the earth have perished
Made echoes ring from your enchanted shores.
The waters paid attention, and the voice I cherished
Gave utterance to these words:

“I beg you, sublime hours, pause in your headlong flight,
And time, suspend your race;
Allow us to savor the fugitive delights
Of our happiest days.

“So many souls down here in agony implore you
‘Fly fast!’ For them, flow on.
Carry off with their days their worry and their sorrow;
Forget the happy ones.

“Just a few more moments, I ask — in vain, for time
Eludes me and takes flight.
I tell the night to pass more slowly, and dawn comes
To chase away the night.

“Then let us love! Then let us fill each fleeting hour
With joy and ecstasy!
Man does not have a port; time does not have a shore.
It passes, and so do we.”

O jealous time, why do those moments of drunkenness
When love flows over us in joyful waves
Have to fly far away from us at the same pace
As our unhappy days?

What? Can we not retain of them at least some trace?
What? Vanished as though they had never been?
Time, that gave them to us, and then took them away,
Won’t bring them back again.

Eternity, unbeing, dim past, profound abyss,
What do you do with the days that you engulf?
Tell me, will you ever return those hours of bliss
That you have stolen from us?

O lake, mute rocks, thick rushes, hidden caves, dark forest,
You whom time spares or can rejuvenate,
Beautiful nature, keep forevermore at least
The memory of that night.

Let it be in your slumber, and in your fierce storm,
And in the features of your laughing banks,
And in those dense black firs, and in that wild scarp
That above your shoreline hangs.

Let it be in the sounds that echo from your borders,
In the fine spray your waves throw to the wind,
And in the silver star that shines upon your waters
And in their depths is twinned.

Oh, may the plangent breeze, the softly sighing reeds,
The balmy fragrance of the air above,
May everything one sees, one hears, one feels, one breathes,
May all proclaim: they loved!

***

I hope it was a nice read! Either way, I really appreciated the game, thanks for making it!