Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD23 → Feedback comment stats → VDZ

VDZ

Feedback comments for LD23

Timestamp	Since previous	Game	VDZ's comment
Apr 23 17:15:00		Tiny Room	The game does not run for me. I get http://i.imgur.com/SkIFM.png twice, then http://i.imgur.com/ompmc.png, then the game just closes. Using Win7 64-bit, dual core 2.8 ghz, 4 GB RAM, NVIDIA Quadro FX 770M.
Apr 23 18:01:00	46m 00s	Zoomed Out	Interesting idea, poor execution. <br/> <br/>A major design flaw lets you push Tiny into a corner of the screen while Big shoots all blocks in that corner, making dodging unnecessary. This remains a valid strategy until the difficulty suddenly ramps up to a point where it's simply not humanly possible to dodge and shoot at the same time, as shooting by itself already becomes near impossible. At this point, it's just a matter choosing between shooting (when Big's health is low) and dodging (when Tiny's health is low). Due to this sudden jump from too easy to too difficult, you always lose at the same point once you get the hang of it. <br/> <br/>The scoring system only rewards shooting, not survival. Not only does this make Tiny's role mostly irrelevant, it also makes scoring mostly a matter of button bashing; as you always die at the same point, the only way to get a high score is by clicking as much as possible in that time span. <br/> <br/>The lack of fair challenge and the flawed score system make this game unfun after the first three or so times you play it. <br/> <br/>Graphics are simple, but effective. Music is okay, but the repetitive shooting sound is grating. <br/> <br/>Inclusion of the tutorial was very useful; after reading the tutorial, how to play the game came naturally to me.
Apr 25 16:19:00	46h 18m	It's A small world	The link does not work. It gives a 'file not found' error.
Apr 25 16:35:00	16m 00s	Tiny Globsch alone against the sandstorm	(Note: The following text will make me sound like an ass, but I just prefer to be brutally honest when giving feedback.) <br/> <br/>Shallow, basic gameplay, consisting only of pushing right to walk over a completely flat surface with some holes and jumping. Gameplay was very repetitive; if there was anything like increasing difficulty, I didn't notice it. The goal of the game (to run away) and the controls were clear (assuming there's no buttons I missed other than walking and jumping), but the rest of the game was not. What are those hearts and other thingies for? You also barely see them at all; I'd attributed the random stops to software bugs until I re-read your description and figured I had likely run into almost invisible poison. <br/> <br/>The crude style of the background art is somewhat charming, but the background itself is very minimal and repetitive. The foreground art and character art are just crude and ugly. <br/> <br/>The sound was minimal and did not add anything to the atmosphere; though I was running from the sandstorm, there was no excitement and the wind sound left me completely unconcerned. <br/> <br/>I was unable to see any connection between the game and this LD's theme.
Apr 25 17:14:00	39m 00s	AdventuresInTinyWorld	A simple get-from-point-A-to-point-B, which however has several major flaws that make it no fun to play. <br/> <br/>The biggest detrimental point is the buggy physics system (or implementation of it - either way it doesn't work). You constantly get stuck in walls or floors, making jumping (the main gameplay) very frustrating. The collisions are also handled either improperly or incomprehensibly, with snacks simply being bumped away when you touch them half of the time and cats walking on top of you, making it impossible for you to jump properly. <br/> <br/>The AI of the other cats is the second biggest flaw. You said 'annoying kitties', but I haven't seen AI this unfair since Mortal Kombat. They will chase you as stubbornly as they can and have no qualms about ganging up on you. With the broken physics system (see above) and frustrating controls (see below), it's often impossible to get away without receiving any damage regardless of how well you play. <br/> <br/>The controls of the game are the third pressing issue. Although the 'don't jump until the button is released' system is often a nice change of pace, it simply does not work in a game where you have to jump quickly to avoid enemies. Adding to the frustration is the fact that you have no indication of how high you'll jump other than gut feeling - there is no visual aid to show how much you've 'charged' the jump. Due to the broken physics, however, even gut feeling won't get you anywhere as your jump is usually interrupted by either a wall you get stuck on or another cat. It's also impossible to see where you're going - I've often jumped off the level simply because I had no indication there were no more blocks where I was heading. <br/> <br/>Graphically, the game is very minimalistic. I like the abstract style, though, and the background does look kind of nice. However, it's still very minimalistic, and everything looks the same. <br/> <br/>The audio consisted of a generic jump sound and a grating tune. The jump sound was okay, but the tune was grating. It was completely lacking any other clear kind of auditory feedback, such as a sound you'd expect to hear when hit by another cat. (There might have been some kind of sound, but it still was never clear when exactly I was hit and when I wasn't.) <br/> <br/>The implementation of the theme could be described as 'novel' or 'lazy'. I'll go with the latter; slapping the word 'tiny' on a game does not automatically make it fit the theme.
Apr 25 17:36:00	22m 00s	dLeIaFtEh	This is definitely a difficult one to rate. I wouldn't call it a game myself. It's more like an interactive...something. <br/> <br/>The gameplay is simple, but it mostly just works. Controlling the whatever-you-are feels just right. The requirements for the endings are unclear, but can easily be found by exploring. <br/> <br/>The graphics are very nice. The world looks interesting enough that exploring it is worth it by itself. There isn't much to say other than that I just like it. <br/> <br/>The story is completely random. It's vague enough that the messages you see throughout the game are kind of ominous, but the nonsensical endings kind of ruin any potential it has story-wise. <br/> <br/>Considering the incomprehensible/random/nonsensical nature of the game, I'm unable to give it a theme rating as I simply don't 'understand' the game and its world. <br/> <br/>The music is kind of generic, but it adds to the atmosphere, enough that it bothered me when it didn't loop; something which took away a lot of the atmosphere. <br/> <br/>Overall, I found it worth playing, especially considering its very short length. One suggestion, though: For games like this, you should consider using Flash or some other no-download-necessary platform; people are more likely to play a three-minute game if downloading it doesn't cost two minutes. <br/> <br/>The low overall score is because I rate LD games as 48-hour games; if it had been a 5-hour game contest, the rating would be much higher.
Apr 25 18:43:00	1h 07m	Hero of Rain	Wonderful game, you should definitely finish it. Still, it gets -1 overall on my score for not being finished, despite the amount of polish. <br/> <br/>The gameplay was pretty simple, but it was very well made and provided an actual challenge - I died multiple times, yet none of the deaths felt unfair. The controls worked perfectly, and the amount of polish is amazing for an LD game. <br/> <br/>Theme-wise, this game was brilliant. It's an innovative way to use the subject, and it's completely central to the game. I couldn't ask for better. <br/> <br/>The graphics were clean and charming, and functionally they were perfect; despite the abstract style it was clear who was an enemy and who wasn't, you could instantly see where you could walk and where you couldn't walk, and the simple effect on the transforming enemies clearly conveyed that you were fucked if you were too close. My only complaint is that it might have been too abstract - if hadn't been for the text, you wouldn't know you were in a raindrop. For that matter, I never really know what exactly my allies and enemies were, other than 'those star-shaped things' and 'those round things'. <br/> <br/>Sound-wise, the game simply does its job. There's no background music, but the storm sounds do a great job of setting the atmosphere. Everything that needs a sound has a sound, and the entire thing just feels right. It wasn't revolutionary in any way, but what it did, it did perfectly. <br/> <br/>The story was interesting and fairly innovative. I wanted to continue through the game to find out what happens next, which is always a good sign. <br/> <br/>The game lagged significantly, which might have been caused by Flash. Still, the game was playable, even if most of it was in slow-motion. <br/> <br/>It's a damn shame the game isn't finished, otherwise this would be an easy 5/5.
Apr 25 19:26:00	43m 00s	Disregard All Humans	Very nice. The game is simple and it doesn't really do anything new, but it's a very solid game. Simply very nice. <br/> <br/>Gameplay is very basic, but it mostly just works. (I say mostly because the collision detection sometimes messes up and won't allow you to stomp a building.) It's fun to play and try to improve your time. Unfortunately, your time isn't saved (or even shown - after you've jumped, your time and score become invisible and you have no way to tell how well you just did), but keeping it manually isn't too much of a hassle. This is the kind of simple game I'd like to see online high scores for, so I can challenge others to beat my time. <br/> <br/>The graphics are neat and fun. None of it is mind-blowing, but it's all just very solid. Buildings look like buildings, monsters look like monsters, humans look like humans, and it all just looks nice. I loved the simple helpless animations of the humans, it really makes you feel like eating them. <br/> <br/>Audio-wise, it was very, very solid. Catchy tune in the background, sounds for everything that needs a sound, and none of it is ever bothersome. Perfectly done. <br/> <br/>Theme-wise, well, it was one of the two really obvious interpretation (either you are tiny in a large world, or you are large and the world is tiny), so there's nothing spectacular there. Large monsters stomping buildings and eating humans is nothing new, but hey, it's still fun. <br/> <br/>A fun game to play. I'd have kept playing for longer if I had a direct goal to compete against, such as time posted by others, but it doesn't look like anyone else is posting times. If anyone wants to try to beat my record, my fastest completion was in 110 seconds.
Apr 25 20:00:00	34m 00s	The Moth and The Menace	An interesting platformer. <br/> <br/>It takes very obvious inspiration from Megaman, and the metroidvania elements are pretty standard, but it's fun nonetheless. Beating enemies felt like a chore, though; they're not harmful enough to actually harm you, but they're still in the way and it takes too much time to kill them considering how trivial they are. The bosses were a bit too easy; once you figure out how to beat them, it's just a matter of hammering the Z button until you win. <br/> <br/>The graphics were amazing. Although the tiles themselves look pretty generic and bland, the characters, the animations, the background and the opening cutscene all look awesome. The face in the background was pretty creepy, and was a very nice touch. It was lacking death animations for the enemies, though. <br/> <br/>Theme implementation was one of the two blatantly obvious ways (tiny character in relatively huge world or huge character in relatively tiny world), but the terrarium theme was a nice spin on it. <br/> <br/>The game contained almost no audio, and what audio there was, was pretty annoying. I was missing a lot of auditory feedback on many things; you don't hear when you get hurt, you don't hear when you hit an enemy (as opposed to swinging and missing), et cetera. Don't underestimate the importance of sound, it takes away a lot from the game. <br/> <br/>Overall, a nice game, but it's pretty clear it's rather unfinished. Practically no sound, enemies just suddenly disappearing when killed, the nonsensical ending, lack of spawn points - many minor flaws that subtly harm the game experience. I'd say scale back a bit and add more polish next time; it's what turns a good game into a great game.
Apr 27 14:13:00	42h 13m	Predicament	I don't have or want Chrome on my PC, and I feel I wouldn't be able to fully enjoy it without audio, let alone rate it...is there no other way to play it with audio?
Apr 27 17:35:00	3h 22m	Gale Axile	Holy shit. This game is brilliant. <br/> <br/>Did you seriously have no test players around? The game is almost perfectly balanced to have you slowly progress while struggling to remain alive and keep the planet at a good size. I had no problems with the learning curve (other than being stupid enough to plant a uranium fire on a small planet in my first playthrough, but that serves me right for not reading the build menu), though that might be because I read the instruction menu before playing (AFAIK most players generally skip optional instructions). The difficulty is good for the first minute or so of the game, but after that (assuming you don't make really stupid mistakes), there is no sense of impending death (other than the occasional moment where you realize your warmth is running low and you're pretty far from your uranium fire, but that's only occasionally and only if you're playing with uranium fires instead of wooden ones). Still, the game keeps challenging you as it's harder than it looks to keep the planet growing; this is an especially challenging aspect when you go for a speed run. <br/> <br/>From what I can see after 1 failed and 2 full playthroughs (so I might be wrong on some things), there seem to be a couple of elements that are superfluous, adding very little to the game. I never had any problems with enemies, as they could easily be dodged or avoided altogether (you can generally also find the resources you need on different planets). This also makes the two weapons rather useless, unless it's possible for the random generator to create a situation where enemies are unavoidable. The rake sounded good at first, but you quickly realize that growing time doesn't actually matter if you keep planting until plant/tree #1 has fully grown. Even if you don't have enough seeds to keep planting that long, the time it costs to use the rake doesn't seem worth it. The good news is, none of these elements are harmful to the game, only useless. <br/> <br/>The balance of the food bar, warmth bar, campfires vs uranium fires, planting vs harvesting are all practically perfect. You really have to work to progress, but making the right choices and thinking quickly allow you to get further in the game more quickly. <br/> <br/>The game's also very innovative; although growing/shrinking is an increasingly common element in games, it's rarely used like this, allowing you to shrink or grow areas to travel between them. The idea of making tiny worlds grow big also fits the theme perfectly. <br/> <br/>Graphics are simple but functional. They're nice, but nothing to get blown away by. Sound consists entirely of a short music loop; although the music isn't bad at all and it can be looped pretty often until it gets boring, it does get rather boring if it's the only loop in a game of this length (first full playthrough took me 560 seconds). Although the lack of sound isn't jarring (to the point where I was unsure whether it actually had sound when I closed the game after playing for ~20 minutes), sound effects could add a lot. A little sound when you plant, harvest, or do some other thing just gives that little extra push that makes it feel rewarding. <br/> <br/>Overall, brilliant game, by far the best I've played so far. I really should get back to this game at some point to improve my score. (In case anyone else wants to beat it, my second full playthrough took 363 seconds.) Do you have any plans to continue developing the game beyond its current state? If so, you should definitely add sound. Seeded generation (perhaps giving the player the option between a list of pre-seeded galaxies or a completely random galaxy) would also allow fair competition between players (as it is right now, you could just spawn in an easy galaxy and nobody could beat your score until they got lucky too); if you want to take it even further you could have players compete with an online high score list. You could also greatly boost the replay value by giving the player a list of pre-seeded galaxies, ordering them by difficulty and challenging the player to complete all of them. It's an amazing game, and it has the potential to be even more amazing. If you decide to develop it further than this, I'd be very interested.