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funkyjive

Feedback comments for LD16

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game	funkyjive's comment
		Soundscape	A great idea; I strongly feel, however, that you should have switched the 'UI' so that pitch indicated distance to the exit and beep frequency indicated distance to an obstacle. I think it's much easier to discern small changes in pitch than small changes in beep frequency, at least without busting out a stop watch.
		SEEK*TOR	This was an awesome first-time LD entry. I did find it frustratingly easy to run out of flares though, and at times it seemed basically impossible to get any turret to shoot far enough to reach where you knew another turret/the red one were hiding. Adding a 'zen mode' where there were no flare limits would have suited me a lot. <br/> <br/>Also, for some reason, I could never switch to the turret in the upper left; whenever I clicked it, it would just make a my current guy fire. Somewhat frustrating. <br/> <br/>Anyway, complaints aside, this was quite an original game that I liked quite a bit!
		Forest	It's a kinda neat idea, but, is there any goal, here? The sounds could have been better, too, some of them are a little jarring.
		5 Colors: Pandora	A "game about colors, and their consequences." Absolutely brilliant. This absolutely embodies exploration, like towlr but good. <br/> <br/>This game needs only three things to make it absolutely perfect: first, it cries out for some sort of ambient soundtrack. Second, I'd have liked it if at the end, after Blue, you made your way back to the Color Room for some final room before the credits. Third, motion could have been smoother. Sometimes it looked a little jerky when you moved around. Those three things aside, this game is still pretty much 5 stars all around (I dinged one graphic point for the jerky motion rendering). <br/> <br/>I liked this game so much that, when I accidentally quit the game by hitting escape trying to pause when I got a phone call near the very end, I played it all the way through again just to finish. <br/> <br/>EDIT (Beware of spoilers): I have to come back and note, after watching my girlfriend play this game, and watching the video walkthrough... there are a LOT of bugs in this game. In town area, for instance, several of the buildings present in the video walkthough manifested only as invisible walls when we played it. We also occasionally got stuck in walls, and in the last room, where you're supposed to go through the ceiling, neither of us ever figured that out, but we didn't have to because if you just exit the room and enter again, it puts you in the top half with the colors. <br/> <br/>I'm not going to subtract any points from the score I gave, because these things honestly didn't detract from my enjoyment of the game... at the time I thought they were intentional, and took them in stride. None-the-less, it does make me wish there was a 'technical' category to vote in.
		Age of Exploration	This is a pretty fun little casual game, though on a laptop with a 'scroll zone' instead of a scroll wheel, zooming in and out was rather awkward. It'd be neat to see you take this to the level you discussed in your blog post, adding a Civ element to it. <br/> <br/>As it stands, it reminds me of my favorite Homokaasu/GasGames game, Gravity: http://homokaasu.org/gasgames/game.gas?21
		Little Worlds 4k	With a bit more polish, this would be really awesome. As it stands, it's still a very good game. My main advice would be that it should be several levels, each much smaller than the one currently in place. That, plus a little tightening of the controls and maybe the addition of some sounds, and this'll be a really winner. The basic mechanic is interesting enough that I think it's worth putting a lot of polish into this.
		Dark Fire	Frankly this game looks like it could be really awesome. And I was able to get it to play, by editing the ini file. But, even during play, I was unable to accomplish anything at all; my ship is always destroyed by enemy fire within 20-40 seconds of starting the game, and the rate of fire is far to slow to be able to defend myself. This may be partly due to the fact that the game can only run at ~15fps on this machine, but even so I'd generally recommend, in a game of this genre, allowing the player to explore a little before springing full-consequences combat on them. <br/> <br/>I can see where this was going, and I thoroughly approve, but as the game is now it's too difficult to play, both from a technical and a gameplay perspective.
		Where is the Cheese	The song is hilarious, it reminds me (a bit) of the "I'm in a cave!" song from LD15. Also odd, when I clicked to begin this game, I happened to be eating some cheese! How odd! <br/> <br/>For all the ridiculousness, the combo aspect actually makes this a fairly ingenious puzzle game.
		Finding Her	This was a very good game, I played enough to find one ending, and I fully intend to come back and find the second ending later. <br/> <br/>My only suggestion, is that it might be interesting to add some platforming elements, to give the player a challenge as they uncover the story. Just a thought.
		Fuck Oregon let's go find El Dorado	First of all, this game is flipping hilarious. The name is great right of the bat, and the messages during gameplay are quite amusing, too. Also, there's nothing quite like accidentally sailing your Conestoga wagon over El Dorado and into a bottomless pit to put a smile on you face. <br/>The audio isn't really anything to write home about, but I gave a bonus point for the amusing cow sound. <br/>Also, I didn't think the gameplay was that spectacular myself, but my girlfriend played it for 45 minutes straight and only stopped because she received an important phone call. So I think that counts for something. <br/> <br/>EDIT: Two days later and I still giggle every time I read the name. Awesome.
		Tree	The basic idea is neat, though I couldn't find, more than one of the endings. I like the graphics a lot, increpare has it dead on saying it has 'character'. The controls weren't the smoothest I could wish for, but all in all it's pretty fun. Some more obvious goals at the start would have been nice.
		Apocalypse Adventure	The comparison to fallout is apt; like fallout, this game is awesome. The one problem is that you have to start over every time you die, from scratch. That, and the control scheme is pretty awkward, making it easy to die a lot. But it's still a load of fun, and one of the more impressive games I've seen so far. Kudos!
		Cat Planet	This is a really fantastic game. It starts off slow, and at first I sorta wondered if it was more just a physics toy than a game per se. <br/> <br/>And then I found the Jungle... <br/> <br/>The music is the crowning glory of this game, but, really, there's very little that should be added or removed from any aspect. Saving would probably be good, a mini-map (filled in by the player as they go, of course) might be good... other that that, my only complaint is that at times the game was kinda laggy and it made it hard to steer. All in all, an excellent showing.
		Robot Wants Kitty	An excellent if rather simple MetroidVania game. I had a good deal of fun playing it, though the controls sometimes crapped out on me (that may have been this machine and flash's fault, not yours, though).
		The Europa Arcology Incident	This is pretty sweet, a 48 hour roguelike always impresses. You're right when you comment that it needs balancing; it feels like there are way too many items laying around and not nearly enough to do with them. The high enemey respawn rate is nice when you need that one keycard; when you're trying to run around picking up some of seemingly infinite equipment lying around so you can sell it for $4, not so much. <br/> <br/>Nonetheless, very nice! Enough of a draw that I'll definitely come back to finish the game, though not enough to make me finish it in one sitting :-p <br/> <br/>Also, the windows download link doesn't seem to actually go anywhere. But the web version works.
		CMYKave	First, I have to say, the graphics and sound here really killed me. They were cute at first, but both were headache inducing after a few minutes. <br/> <br/>That out of the way, this game was actually fairly enjoyable. I liked finding the different endings, although I could only manage 8 of the 10 advertised.
		the light at the end of the tunnel	Ippa! I too share your love of Ruby, Gosu and Pixels! I do like the game, though there wasn't enough branching for it be really 'explore-y' to me. But otherwise I liked it. Chingu sounds awesome, I might check it oout (though I, like you and I think most Gosu users, have rolled my own to suit my needs, I may find parts in Chingu to steal).
		Lost?	Lost?'s Metroid heritage is fully evident here, and, since I absolutely adore Metroid in all it's incarnations, I can't help but enjoy Lost?. The music is my favorite, it's spot-on for the genre, works very well. The graphics are decent but could use some more variety to keep them interesting. My major complaint, however, is that this is a game desperately in need of a health meter. Having no gun, and dying any time you bump into anything at all, is a major downer. The other complaint I have, is that given the ubiquity of ladders in Lost?, there needs to be a method to get off of them (and from one to another) other than the 'fall off at high speeds' method that the jump button currently achieves. <br/> <br/>With a little tweaking and polishing, I can see this being a really excellent game.
		The First Frontier	I had fun playing this game. Mind, I had more fun just flying around dodging shots and seeing how far I could fly than I did trying to kill the boss or get a high score, but fun is fun. I found that the control scheme made it incredibly painful to try and shoot anything when using a laptop trackpad. It may be easier with a real mouse. In particular, I found that when I right-clicked to try and shoot the boss, I did shoot him (once), but then immediately crashed into him and died. I tend to prefer WASD to move, mouse to shoot, or vice versa, for games where both moves and shots need to be aimed.
		In The Field	A pretty interesting, if small, game. Engaging enough to play through several levels, and it works fine.
		Winter	The game concept here is interesting. I collected some rocks, then found the scrawled note in the house. Immediately the game got more eerie, which is always good. Then I wandered around some more, found the giant eye, got told to bring him 59 stones. But I knew better! Explored some more, found a pyramid, and was told I had earned my freedom at the cost of my life... so I'm a little confused, I must admit. But it was kinda fun nonetheless.
		...Deeper	The game gets boring pretty fast, but I really dig the look of it, and the sound of it. The title music is awesome, but part of it I'm sure I've heard before.
		Xplorer	This is a pretty interesting idea, and I think if there were a bit more for the players to do during gameplay, it would be a lot of fun. This is probably an idea worth further development.
		Legacy of HYDON	Ok, so, yes, you clearly spent too much time on the graphics. It shows. The game suffers. But... the graphics are gorgeous. Easily the best graphics I've seen so far for LD16. Would have been even better with animation, but even without it's still 5 stars.
		Redwalk	It's kinda fun to bop around on a jetpack on mars... it's a pity there's nothing to find yet.
		Soulspark	The graphics were very nice, as other commenters have noted. The game has a very explore-y feel to it as well, though at the end looking back one realizes that there was not a single branching path choice anywhere, which somewhat detracts from any actual explorations. Also odd, you cannot add horizontal momentum during a jump, but if you let go of left/right, you stop moving horizontally in the jump. That's a little weird. If the jump starts with horizontal movement, it should continue with horizontal movement until you land.
		Jimmy's Adventure	The graphics were cute, but would have been helped immesurably by having an alternate, left-looking sprite; even a simple reflection of the right-looking sprite would have sufficed. Also, the hardest jump in the game seemed to be the first big one. After that, everything was pretty smooth sailing.
		Massacre at Misfit Toy Island	Was able to download it successfully finally, but now I get the problem where the blitzmax window opens and then crashes. Alas.
		Bees n Flowers	The graphics in this game have an awesome Dr. Suess-esque feel to them, and the little sounds are cute. The flower distribution was pretty aggravating, though. After the first set of requests, which was fairly entertaining, I got a request for a single pink flower. It took me quite a long time to find one, I explored the full length of the field and back before I did; frustration was compounded by the fact that the game inexplicably seemed to lag whenever I got too far away from the hive. Otherwise a neat idea, though.
		Missing	The audio in this is made of win. Really funny stuff. Also, the animation before the game is pretty awesome. The game could use a bit more to do, and also, the map could do with some improvement, but if you made a 'full' game in this style, I'd play from start to finish.
		Rex's Junk Hunt	This game is adorable. I especially liked the 'rawr' sound effect. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot too the gameplay and some of the objects seemed to be impossible to find. But it's a good start.
		Hole Jump	Ok, this game lacks any sort of staying power whatsoever, but for the 1-2 minutes it held my interest, it was really pretty amusing! Nice music, too, but what really did it for me was the crazy scientist dude. Silly scientist, you should know you can't change your trajectory in mid-air!
		The Medicine Hunt	This game is adorable - it reads and looks like something a five-year old would make (if they were a five year old talented enough to program a game, of course) (I actually mean that in a nice way, I like the graphics and sounds a lot). That said, there is absolutely no exploratory elements in this game... next time I would make sure to focus more on the contest theme.
		Gallery	It's a really interesting idea, it's too bad you weren't able to build on it more. I can see this going interesting places with enough games to explore.
		Authentic Space Exploration	This is a brilliant idea; I'm tempted to actually leave it running long enough to reach Centauri, but, this isn't my computer. Ah, well. The achievements are funny. <br/> <br/>I'm betting the 4th achievement is reach Centauri, and the 5th, turn around and return to Earth? Just a guess. <br/> <br/>(Edit: After playing with this some more, I realized, you've created the Desert Bus of Ludum Dare! Except if this were desert bus it would be mandatory to sit and press a button every once and a while or you'd have to start over.)
		LoneStranger's Explore	Ok, so, not much of a game. However, of all the games I've judged so far, this is the first that takes the exploration theme completely seriously (as in, the player actually must map out an area they're exploring), extra points for that.
		Asploreheim	This is such an awesome idea, I wished it had actually worked for me. :( <br/> <br/>The registration and login went ok, and I loaded the game world and heard the music and could walk around, but as soon as I walked onto an unclaimed hill, asploreheim.exe spiked my CPU and never went down. I had to force quit. When I tried to log in again afterwards, the game immediately crashed on login. Alas.
		Sunday Hiker	It's an interesting mechanic, and I like it. But, it needs more game :p. If you expanded it, you could end up with something neat, though.
		oil exploration	This has promise as the beginning of the game. As it stands currently, however, there isn't a lot to do. A few things that might help would be some sort of strategy to the probing based on either patterns in the oil or hints on failed probes, and tangible goals besides 'rack up as much money as possible'. If 'rack up as much money as possible' remains the goal, then there needs to be a threat other than simply running out of money, because otherwise once you start making more money than you're losing, the challenge is gone. <br/> <br/>Anyway, those are just some random ideas. All in all it's a pretty neat idea.
		Chip 1234	This is a pretty cute, game, the graphics and audio are cute and the exploration is pretty fun. However, there's no feedback to tell you you've successfully saved, so I thought it wasn't working until later when I was done I saw the save file had been created. More importantly, if you fall in the spike pit which is too tall to jump out of (which I did), you're stuck forever; not even game over will save you, because when you're reduced to 0 HP, you don't lose. <br/> <br/>Otherwise a fun little platformer.
		islomania	A neat, sandbox explorer with a defined but leisurely goal. A bit hampered by the fact that there was no consistent 'space' being explored as far as I could tell; What is west of an island at one point may not be west of it next time you go. <br/> <br/>I like the little touches like people (or are they mermaids?) swimming in the ocean not near an island. <br/> <br/>Incidentally, I was able to get 17 points, the readme says 16 is the max. Do I get a prize? ;)
		Oblivious -the darkness within-	Ok, I rather like the idea here, and the visuals are very, very nice, for all their simplicity. I really liked the way the light flowed around the corners. One thing that would have improved the gameplay somewhat, I feel, is if you had used a non-strict maze generation algorithm, i.e. allowed for loops.
		Shoot For The Stars	The game is pretty fun in it's way, but the controls feel extremely awkward. I did love the music, though.
		Mine	This game is actually pretty cool, I liked the gameplay and the whole thing worked very well. Sound would have helped immeasurably. That, and it's a little short, are my only complaints.
		The Wooden Fleet	This had potential, but the interface is really awkward; not so much the using the arrow keys, that's fairly obvious, but even after picking up engine parts you move so SO slow, it's agonizing. Also, I was entirely unclear on how the boats you build are supposed to help. They pick up crew members for you faster than you can do it on your own, but they never seemed to return; I had to chase the boat down to get the crew back, which ended up taking longer than picking them up myself in the first place. <br/> <br/>Still, an interesting idea, even with flawed execution.
		Boboil's Adventure	This game seems like it wasn't very fun, although it did have that odd quality some games have where you want to keep playing and playing even if you're not sure why, which ends up being kind of fun after you get into the flow of it. However, this game had one major balancing flaw which severely detracted from the fun by adding a huge frustration element for me, which was the tripping and dropping gems (usually all of them). This made it effectively impossible to accumulate any meaningful number of gold, amethyst or ruby gems, which meant that all but the lowest level of equipment was only accessible by long strings of very good luck. Ah, well. An interesting idea anyway. I would probably have kept playing for quite a lot longer without the tripping, though.
		Scouting only!	Okay, so this time I was able to download the game, and I played it. Pretty fun, though there are a few complaints: the map could have used a bit more variety, but more importantly, the controls could use some tweaking. I found I would often jump forward two or three spaces when I was trying to move only one, which dumped me into mosquitoes who immediately killed me :p. So that could do with tweaking. Also, if the tigers had moved around, that'd be cool. Otherwise, I rather like this. I always loved the first part of Civ as well.
		PATHWAYS	What an extremely odd game. It actually reminds me a little of a Don Hertzfeldt cartoon, which is probably a compliment. I like it.
		Mars Rover	The game idea here is a good one, one I'm fond of, as implemented it leaves a lot to be desired. In particular, the animations seemed to skip some steps or otherwise move in a jerky fashion, so that it wasn't always clear that the robot was following my instructions. Two things would have helped a lot: a button to return the robot to his start position so you could see for sure where you start from, and a mechanism to display, as the robot moves, which of your instructions he is following at a given moment.
		Number Explorer	Unforunately, I can't test this as it is Linux only. If you upload the source, I may be able to compile a Mac version.
		derelict_	I have a soft spot for turn based strategy, and I know how hard it is to do it well since I tried to do it for LD15. You noted that skills don't work in the post-mortem, but, I couldn't get weapons to work either. Ah, well.
		Colonial Age	I rather like the idea of this game, but the controls are pretty awkward so it was hard to play. Also, it wasn't entirely clear until after playing a round what, precisely, the goal was. I knew I had to 'get' the islands before the AI did, but I thought I had to sail over them until I realized I'd won :p
		Ruins	This has the makings of something absolutely fantastic. Really, please, please keep working on this. As it stands, it's obviously somewhat rough; in particular, more readily available healing would help a LOT (or, when you die, you have to start the current room over, not the whole game). But really, this is heading somewhere awesome.
		Exploration of Space	I like the basic idea here; this is something worth building on. The controls are pretty touchy, though, that should probably be fixed.
		Road	The huge map is neat! The game became much easier once I saw the single grey pixel in the center of the screen and realized that it was 'me' and that the reason I was getting stuck was because the pixel was bumping into things :-p <br/> <br/>The music is pretty ear-hurty, though I appreciate the effect being aimed for. If it tended a little bit more towards the 'drone' and less towards the 'squeal', it would have gotten more points. <br/> <br/>I got stuck at one point, near the broken road, and could no longer move in any direction. Alas.