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d_m

Feedback comments for LD21

Timestamp	Since previous	Game	d_m's comment
Aug 23 04:06:00		Captive	The game has good feel, and I like boulder dash type games. A digging sound effect would have been nice, as would some music. I though the opening level was maybe a little bit too hard also (I feel like the original didn't have impassable walls besides boulders). Overall the game is definitely playable! :)
Aug 23 04:11:00	5m 00s	Defenses	Definitely a very good first game. The graphics look pretty good. Biggest comments would be about sounds/music (as people have said) and also maybe giving some cannons a cool-down. Right now I feel like the game is easy as long as you mash the mouse button right before one hits, and then becomes impossible when there are too many. Using the keyboard + cooldown might make it easier to control the difficulty (and turn the challenge into one of coordination). Overall good job, I definitely haven't played a game with this exact feel before.
Aug 23 04:17:00	6m 00s	Escaparazzi	This was a really original way to approach the theme. The frantic music was great, and even though the graphics were simple I thought they were cute and fun in a retro way. I'd say the biggest problem is that the gameplay isn't deep enough. I just ran around randomly, it didn't seem to matter if I got hit by cars or not. Maybe if you could get killed by cars, but could also lure paparazzi into them to thin out their ranks? Kind of grim but it might be fun. Overall I thought the game could use a bit more depth, but it was funny and original! :)
Aug 23 04:20:00	3m 00s	Escape Adventure	I like the pun on ESC as well as the different challenges and animations. Well done!
Aug 23 04:28:00	8m 00s	Escape from the Frame	This was simple but fun. Obviously the graphics weren't very good, but I didn't mind so much. The music, while spare, captured the mood and tenseness of the game well. I liked the different minigames and didn't get bored with them. The game wasn't a long one but held my attention. Good job!
Aug 23 04:39:00	11m 00s	Death Game	Good game! I found the controls a bit challenging, but the mood was good and I definitely had some scary moments being chased by the enemies. I had a bit of trouble playing on my laptop and either the block placing thing was a bit wonky or I never totally understood it. But well-done, especially for your first game for LD!
Aug 23 04:40:00	1m 00s	The Blueprints	Game looks cool, sadly I have Linux here so I won't be able to play and rate it (no Unity available).
Aug 23 04:43:00	3m 00s	EvilMegaCorp	A little bit buggy and very short, but it works! I like the sounds, especially the chopper sounds. Obviously the game needs a lot of work still, but it's a promising start.
Aug 23 04:53:00	10m 00s	Rescue Support	This is a great little game. The graphics are simple but effective and smooth, the sounds are pretty good. I found the idea really compelling, and the implementation works well too. My only real gripes are that it seems like the turrets/AI isn't good at shooting monsters on the ground, so I had a hard time setting up a base camp as you suggested. But I played the game for a good while and really enjoyed it. It's easy to imagine all the cool places this game could go!
Aug 23 04:58:00	5m 00s	Reality	I like the walk animations and the drawing. I managed to get a couple different endings but I also got the game into a few weird states. Overall, I like the idea and dialog, but could use some polishing, plus music and sound.
Aug 23 05:05:00	7m 00s	ESCAPE	I agree that the minimal graphics are quite nice. A little bit of work (sound, music, plot exposition, in-game text) could go a long way. I'm not clear if the infinite jumping is a feature or a bug. But it's definitely playable! Good job :)
Aug 23 05:14:00	9m 00s	.SHADOWS.	Really like the feel and graphics. Had a good time. Somehow I didn't find the mouse to be very useful at aiming the flashlight--when my mouse left the game window it caused problems, but since the light is relative to the character you have to keep moving it to keep it in a certain direction. I almost think having the flashlight correspond to absolute position on the board (e.g. when the mouse is at "three o clock" it always points east) might have been better. Also, some tense music would have been great. Very original and cool feel though. Great first game!
Aug 23 05:20:00	6m 00s	Relic Run	I see a folder called Source but it doesn't look like it has source code, only two binaries (Lua.dll and LD21.gmk) and an icon file. Maybe it's the wrong archive?
Aug 23 05:24:00	4m 00s	EscApe	I won't give any spoilers but that was pretty funny :) Would like to have seen your game in Scala though (I do some Scala development myself)
Aug 23 05:30:00	6m 00s	pblob	Neat idea, although I seem to hit bugs where I turn into a circle and fall through the level. But I like the feel and look of it. I'm sorry that you misunderstood the rules :(
Aug 24 13:19:00	31h 49m	Bounce-onium!	Great game! It was fun to figure out how to control the mouse, and to get bounced around like crazy. I agree that some kind of timer or hazards could make it more difficult. That said, it might get too hard since it's difficult to predict/control which direction the bumpers will shoot you (at least, I find it to be so compared to something like Peggle). Great sounds, fun idea, good job!
Aug 25 03:29:00	14h 10m	Black Hole	I will try to come back to this game, but it didn't seem like it would be easy to get it working under Mono/WINE on Linux. Too bad, looks neat :(
Aug 25 03:57:00	28m 00s	Escape from Flatland: an Adventure of Two Dimensions	This was an aamzing game! I managed to escape, but then got stuck not having a partner. The idea was really smart, the controls and breaking were cool, the plot and story were really fun. Minor criticism--it seemed like the other shapes could move/rotate in any direction whereas the protagonist can only "thrust" forward, which is a big disadvantage. Maybe I was just imagining that? Overall amazing game, great job!
Aug 25 04:11:00	14m 00s	Ballin' Basement	I too got stuck on the turret. One thing that might make it easier to see what's going on would be make some of the walls a bit thicker so you could see more of the conveyor belts and springs and things. Also music might be nice... the sounds get a bit tiring by themselves after awhile. But, great graphics, fun physics engine, interesting idea!
Aug 25 04:18:00	7m 00s	Evil Llama: Escape from the death festival.	Great game! Psychedelic Day of the Dead art plus cool music plus evil llama running away from Skeleton Cart == 5 stars from me! :) Kind of hard to get the hang of but I didn't even mind...
Aug 25 04:26:00	8m 00s	Escape from XYZ	I too thought it would be nice to have the character move a bit faster. Also for some reason things were really small on my screen... might have been nice to upsample things a bit and reduce the grid size of the levels. Good ambiance and much though... set the mood well!
Aug 25 04:37:00	11m 00s	Captain Starfire's Great Escape!	I agree with most of the comments here. The story and concept were really good... I had a lot of trouble playing it and kept running into bugs, but I think with a little bit of work you could translate this idea into something pretty good. I also like interpreting the "escape" concept as "there may be no escape". Good job, and stick with it!
Aug 25 05:12:00	35m 00s	Escape the Fate	This game was unforgiving, but I liked it. The puzzles were interesting, and I liked the challenge of figuring out how to die (as opposed to how to get to a given exit or something)... good take on "escape". The music was simple but great, hypnotic and eerie, like the curse itself. I wish the levels were a bit smaller so the graphics could be bigger, and I wish that the controls were a little tighter/more predictable (there is some glitchiness around the moving platforms) but overall I had a lot of fun playing through it. Great first LD game! <br/> <br/>One note: you should provide the source for the laptop version too (or at least a patch/diff or something).
Aug 25 05:32:00	20m 00s	Hell Fortress Escape	Great game... love the (insidious) level design, graphics, feel, etc. <br/> <br/>If you check out my game (Red Rover) and like the music, I'd be willing to write some music for your game. That's my biggest gripe.... no sounds or music. Especially for when ghosts appear, fire shoots out, etc would be nice to have sounds. But overall great game, fun, fleshed-out, etc!
Aug 25 05:58:00	26m 00s	Abigail's Descent	Great game! I really like the story and dialog, the music is fun, and the scrolling tower jumping is something I haven't seen a lot of. Great job! Biggest gripe is that the cliff-hanger is pretty annoying to use... it's very difficult to predict how far you can go, especially given how precisely you have to use the double-jump. It might have been fun to reverse the mechanic... rather than let you jump from past edge, the cliff-hanger saves you right at the end of your jump. Anyway, good game. <br/> <br/>P.S. There are some bugs... you can get power-ups while dying for instance. Nothing major :)
Aug 25 06:10:00	12m 00s	Maze++	The graphics were simple but attractive. The controls were a bit weird at times but mostly fluid and nice. I agree the level design wasn't fantastic but I still enjoyed playing through it. If you want any pointers on maze/labyrinth generating algorithms I've spent some time thinking about them in the past. <br/> <br/>Some music and better sounds would really help this game a lot! :)
Aug 25 14:09:00	7h 59m	Ernest the Plump Adventurer (in trouble)	Really really solid platformer. Kind of straight ahead but it is fun to play LD games that hold together well and feel complete. Great art, fun concept, nice retro music. Good (IMO) difficulty curve. The biggest problems were that some of the levels seemed a bit similar (even different backgrounds might have helped), there was a bug about falling through platforms, and finally, it might have been nice to use a different image for the falling platforms. Otherwise you just end up dying to figure out which ones fall before completing the level. But overall great job! Definitely keep improving it!
Aug 25 14:33:00	24m 00s	Urth	Very fun mechanic. It did make me a bit dizzy but that's ok. The hand-painted text was kind of hard to read, no big deal though. I found the game to be challenging but fun. Sadly the sounds did not work for me under Linux, I got a bunch of JavaSound Minim Errors. <br/> <br/>I wonder how the game would play if the planet moved but the viewscreen showed the whole level? It would probably lessen the vertigo a bit and make it easier to click on planets (right now it's hard because you have to predict both where the planet will be in its orbit and also where that will translate to in your updated viewscreen). If you're taking this idea further might be something to try. <br/> <br/>Anyway, great idea and good execution!
Aug 25 15:09:00	36m 00s	EscApe	Good job! The graphics and animation are nice, and the story is fun. Honestly, I find the game really hard to play due to the bouncy controls. Also, it took me awhile to figure out that 0 energy killed me (in addition to 0 health), especially since I often run out of energy bouncing around. But very well done, especially for your first LD game!
Aug 25 15:21:00	12m 00s	Esca	Neat idea, but I couldn't figure out the commands myself, and am also (apparently) a wuss at typing things over and over again. Good idea, maybe create difficulty levels where the game is in slow-motion and/or lets you know which words are available?
Aug 25 15:47:00	26m 00s	The Cell	Great job! I played this a bit earlier but wanted to actually finish the game before I scored it. Definitely fits the theme, and is a nice balance of fun and challenging. It took me a moment to figure out the cloning ability, but once I did it was definitely great. Reminded me a bit of Lolo to be honest. Great game!
Aug 25 16:35:00	48m 00s	McPixel	This game was amazingly good and fun! The puzzles were interesting and hilariously fast-paced! It definitely solves a problem that some people have with puzzles games... that they take too long. Having the scenes all end in explosions is hilarious and keeps things moving fast, along with the great music. 5 stars for sure!
Aug 25 16:40:00	5m 00s	.: The Escapist :.	Good job for a first LD game! I think your choice of shaky line art was smart, and the sounds were simple but helped increase the feeling of pressure. Some music would have been nice, and I finished it quickly, but it was definitely enjoyable.
Aug 25 16:51:00	11m 00s	26 Prisoners	Really smart game! The level designs were good, it was awesome you were able to write such good instructions and include in-game hints. Controls were a little hard to get used but work pretty well. One suggestion... it would be nice to have a key for "deselect all" (maybe ESCAPE, heh heh).. i often accidentally selected people while trying to select a group. Also, a little bit of music would be great. If you like the music I did in my game I'd be happy to try to compose something tense/mission-impossible sounding for you.
Aug 25 17:10:00	19m 00s	Self Destruct: Activated	First of all, I really like the graphics. Lots of great little touches, like the mega-man death explosion when you hit lasers. Also, I thought the protagonist was really well animated! The music did add tension although it was a big too simple/repetitive, especially without sound effects. The gun and recoil effects were fun. Had you imagined having enemies? I thought it was funny that the character was running around brandishing a gun at no one :) <br/> <br/>I definitely found the game difficult. My biggest criticism is that all the important details are so small relative to the screen size. I feel like you could have upsampled your graphics to be twice as big and just made your floors/walls a bit less thick, and it would be easier to see what's going on and control. <br/> <br/>Anyway, definitely a successful game. Good job!
Aug 25 17:24:00	14m 00s	Smash Shove Solve	Cool idea! I wasn't able to get the sound working under WINE (on Linux) so I couldn't rate that. The game has a good feel, and the graphics were simple but effective. I like some of the little details, like the eyes opening and closing when you change which creature you're controlling. Also, the team-work angle is interesting. <br/> <br/>I agree with Rudy that having an undo button in this game would be huge, although I've enjoyed lots of similar puzzle games that don't have this feature (e.g. LoLo). It might have been wise to have some easier levels first, where only a few blocks are out of place, just to help get people used to the game strategy. I found even the 2nd level to be pretty tricky. Finally, even having some intro text creating some kind of plot would have helped the theme (maybe these are magical creatures imprisoned by a wizard? or aliens escaping a dying world but trapped by their own masonry?).
Aug 25 17:31:00	7m 00s	Slimes!	Looks awesome, sorry I can't play on Linux (it doesn't work in WINE).
Aug 25 17:35:00	4m 00s	Stratus	Looks amazing! No luck playing it on Linux (under WINE) yet, I will try some more later. Just wanted to compliment you on an awesome looking game.
Aug 25 17:48:00	13m 00s	the dream forest	Like everyone says, the music, graphics and ambiance for this game were great! Love2D seems impressive. I really wished there were more places to explore. Part of me wants backstory but part of me likes how cryptic it is... it might be nice to reveal things (either via text or terrain or something) in the terrain. As someone who also made a game which is just about exploring a world I appreciate the time you put in. Really promising, please keep developing it!
Aug 25 18:16:00	28m 00s	Virtual Girl	Fun concept, well executed. The controls were a little too loose given how precise all the block jumping was (at least for me). Save points would have been nice. That said, the sprites/graphics and sounds were super fun. I am probably in the minority but i LOVED the psychedelic background VR mess! Great job!
Aug 25 18:39:00	23m 00s	About Julie's Escape	Graphics were nice, fun idea! I agree that the controls felt clunky. It'd be nice to be able to have more fine-grained controls. Also, I got tired of the light radius circle after awhile.
Aug 25 19:21:00	42m 00s	and just like that	This game was great! Fun platformer with good controls, the right amount of difficulty, and an interesting unreliable narrator. I know you plan to add a timer but I found that I really enjoyed the simplicity of the game... I didn't feel rushed and could absorb what the narrator was saying and the graphics. I think this was a fantastic job, especially when I think back to creating my entry for LD21 and what it felt like. Great!
Aug 25 19:31:00	10m 00s	Ascii Maze	Great coding style--I gave you a high community score for your commenting, sourcecode, etc. I like the ASCII art character (is it a penguin?). One nice feature to add might be to mark your path with a trail of dots. That way when you backtrack you can see where you've been. Maybe you want the game to be super hard, but it would make it a lot easier to play, especially since you can't see most of the maze most of the time. Anyway, fun idea. Incidentally, do you play a lot of roguelikes? I wrote a labyrinth generator for Angband, so happy to see other people in LD using libtcod and generating ASCII mazes :)
Aug 25 20:41:00	1h 10m	The Escape	This game really spoke to me. Striking pixel graphics, palette and ambient sounds/music were great. I found it a bit tough at first until I learned the "rules" of jumping and figured out what route to take. I though it was a really effective game. Somehow the fact that this evil old castle is empty is actually more haunting, especially with the zones given different provocative names ("The Great Hall", "The Maze" etc). <br/> <br/>A few suggestions: it would be nice to allow the player to jump up through pixels, at least 1 pixel thick platforms. Not a huge deal but would make some of the climbing a bit nicer to do. Also, parallax background (as I mentioned on IRC) would be awesome! That said, I really
Aug 25 22:58:00	2h 17m	CRS Escape!	I haven't played a ton of visual novels (although I like interactive fiction, a la Inform/Zork/etc.) but this was fun. The art had a nice hand-drawn look and I enjoyed wandering around the zones wondering where I was and what had happened. Figured out how to escape after a few tries. <br/> <br/>It would have been nice to have a few more zones, and maybe for things to be a little bit less symmetrical. I am still curious who "the woman" was. It might be interesting to have the Raccoon be able to read some things for instance. Some of the audio was much louder/harsher than the music, so maybe it could be normalized a little bit? <br/> <br/>Overall, definitely enjoyable!
Aug 25 23:10:00	12m 00s	Caved In	I though it was fun. Very polished, nice pixel graphics and good sounds. I enjoyed tunneling, building walls, collecting gold, etc. <br/> <br/>I hit a weird bug a few times where I was paralyzed and couldn't move. Also, I don't think having "women" be game objects that you collect is a great idea. Finally, it would be nice to use lighter colors for areas that the player has been to. Sometimes I had a hard time figuring out the path that water/lava would take.
Aug 25 23:27:00	17m 00s	Dungeon Exit	I am guessing this wasn't your plan from the start? :)
Aug 25 23:31:00	4m 00s	Freeway escape	Good first entry! I've played games with a similar feel, but the controls were smooth, the game ran well and things looked good. There did seem to be a tendency to hit walls of cars, which wasn't great. Also, you could imagine having turns which might make the game a lot more challenging. But given the short amount of time I think you ended up with a very playable game!
Aug 26 01:09:00	1h 38m	Rainbow Jail	This game is great! I agree with the previous comment that tension between destroying blocks and saving them to be pushed is great. The large levels are fun. It would be nice to have some instructions about goals and how the other prisoners work, but I figured it out pretty quickly. Great game! 5 stars!
Aug 26 04:48:00	3h 39m	Coin Runner	Fun game, I didn't realize why the game got so hard after I died over and over again. There seemed to be some glitches/inconsistencies with how fast the screen moved. That said, collecting the coins and killing the enemy squares was definitely fun, and the controls were pretty smooth.
Aug 27 04:20:00	23h 32m	Still Dreaming	Fantastic game! Loved the audio/visual puzzles... the music and sounds were great and the graphics were beautiful. Really nice mood. I thought the ghost squids could have looked a tiny bit nicer, and more than 2 puzzles would have been fun, but still, great 48 hour puzzle game!
Aug 27 04:30:00	10m 00s	I Think In A Minute Or So I Will Explode	Really, really nice little game. Hit a a bug where the black/white display was reversed from the block logic, and some other weirdness, but overall controls felt good and smooth. Really liked the edge-hanging mechanic, and the core black/white swapping was super fun. Also liked that I could kill myself by being embedded in the rock. <br/> <br/>Wished there were sounds and music! Let me know if you'd like me to compose some music for you (example music in my game).
Aug 27 19:45:00	15h 15m	Anthony's Psyche: Escape	I liked the music and the mechanic of revealing the story a bit at a time. Reminded me a bit of Today I Die also (http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php if you haven't seen it). I agree that the mechanic of following the figure with the text to uncover it got repetitive. I can easily imagine a situation where you show a scene (e.g. a room) and have to move different words/phrases to different areas to reveal them. Maybe that could replace the main figure? <br/> <br/>I think the biggest change I would make to the story would be to reduce the number of statements that hint at a violent end. Ideally with a game like this it would be one of the very last sentences that completely changes the player's view. I could even imagine having the music change a few times through the game, from sad, to fond memories, and finally to a sinister conclusion. <br/> <br/>It got me thinking anyway. Good job!