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Feedback comments for LD24
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Gabriel's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 29 05:41:00 | Eat or Die | Hahahaha, the beheading hunger concept is AWESOME! And I got a kick out of the oppressively short time to get to the next chicken leg. Nice! :D | |
| Aug 29 14:30:00 | 8h 49m | Seed 1,801,360 | Your game looks great, but I can't seem to open it :( <br/>Got this error message: "Unable to load mono library from C:/Documents and Settings/Gabriel/Desktop/LD 24 Seed/seed_Data/Mono/mono.dll". I'm running on XP, any ideas? |
| Aug 29 14:46:00 | 16m 00s | Dragonkin EVO | Nice! <br/> <br/>I REALLY liked the idea of the underwater current. The 'collect goods while being swarmed by enemies' mechanics has been used a lot, but this really adds a very nice twist to it! In fact, I'd considerably increase the current strenght, make it affect enemies as well, and make this into a game of taking advantage of the currents while managing the risk of moving in high speed through the enemies. Seriously, that has the potential of being really fun! <br/>As others said, though, the huge backtrack (restart the game) summed with the long time to beat the 1st level descourages a second playthrough. Also, I feel the second level mechanics is too standard comparing to the first one, why not make this a game entirely about playing with new gameplay elements added to the core mechanic of the 1st level? <br/>Good job, let me know if you ever make a post-compo version :) |
| Sep 13 19:41:00 | 364h 55m | Evolve and Conquer | I really LOVED this entry! It's very simple, yet fun, intriguing and has an elegant risk versus reward system through the possibility of splitting military units into more workers (a nice twist to the genre) and the rock paper scissor element logic (which combines nicely with the idea of the elements being resources spread through the map). <br/> <br/>Here are some things I'd suggest: <br/>-Scrolling doesn't help in this game, maybe it should fit in one screen to enhance the effect of seeing everything moving at the same time? <br/>-Collision boxes could be much smaller, since movement precision isn't supposed to be a core challenge for the game <br/>-Movement speed and walking distance per turn are kinda redundant balancing factors, so I'd accelerate the moving pace of everyone in the game for rhythm's sake, and use only walking distance per turn to balance the units! <br/>-The IA is impressive for a jam game, but still lacking as it seems to completely ignore what I'm doing - and action / reaction is everything in your game's concept! Maybe you could add more enemies and make that a battle against quantity (the classic 'zombie attack' shortcut to IA). :D <br/> <br/>Once again, I really loved the several natural risk vs reward game systems, which means a very elegant difficulty design. I truly hope you keep working on this game. Actually, if it's not too much to ask, please let me know in Twitter (@pixel_cows) if you ever make significant improvements on this idea, I'd love to play it! :D <br/> <br/>Cheers from Brazil |
| Sep 13 20:14:00 | 33m 00s | Assimilation | Really cool, congrats! It is difficult to judge what it could become if expanded, since it is so short and the content / amount of features is just right for the actual gameplay duration. I definitely like the mood and the core idea. Hope you keep developing it! |
| Sep 13 21:30:00 | 1h 16m | Slime Slayer | This is the entry I've played the most time so far! :) <br/>I liked the idea, and the first level really challenged me. It's always fun to decide which upgrade to get! <br/>However, at level two I discovered you can actually farm the slimes - aka letting them grow in numbers and them killing 90% of them, then going away and letting them reproduce again and killing 90% of them again... For the upgrades, after Speed got to about 10, I'd always improve Attack, except when my health was really low, in which I'd pick the health upgrade for healing. At some point, my attack was at least twice the HP of even the strongest slimes, so I started accumulating XP to use as health potions when needed, and would only use them when my HP was below 20. I then rushed until level 12 without problems, and turned off because it was clear to me I had found an exploit. :( <br/>The reason I'm giving this detailed description is because I'd REALLY LIKE to see a post compo version! I love this kind of game, I actually played Desktop Dungeons and other dungeon crawlers quite a lot (hell, our main project, The Journey of Eko, has several dungeon crawler elements!). To avoid the farming exploit, I'd increase A LOT the slimes' evolution rate in a level, in order to make it less worthy to farm them. Another approach would be to add some fog of war so that you can't really know what's going on in all the labyrint (that would make it riskier to let slimes live), and/or make slimes have an increasing chance of spawning slime-bosses, which are unworthy for farming (low XP but difficult to kill). Anyway, just suggestions! ;) <br/>Also, since killing slimes is a major part of the game, I'd work on making that visually interesting. Maybe a few particles will do the trick! Notch said that Minecraft's main action is to destroy blocks, so he made sure that doing that was visually pleasing (with the gradual cracks and particles). I loved that advice and employ it all the time! Our games usually have a lot to do with running and jumping, so there are always particles associated with those actions!. ;) <br/>Another point: it would be great if there was a visual indication of which "type" the slime offspring is becoming (stronger, faster or more resistant), as well as which level they are. <br/>Anyways, congrats, I hope you put the time to finish this! If you do that, I'd love to play - maybe you can let me know in Twitter or something? @pixel_cows <br/> <br/>Cheers! |
| Sep 13 21:41:00 | 11m 00s | The Debate | Haha, loved the concept! Had some laughs as well! Even the Pong mechanics got a nice twist with the acceleration thing, which makes it more interesting and difficult. <br/> <br/>On non-game-design-matters, I don't think Campbell's quotes really belong to the religions' side, since his ultimate meaning is that 'god' or 'spiritual' are just ways to understand what is beyond rational understanding, but if these things really exist or not are a matter or personal faith. I think he should be in the middle. And I'd love to hug him. hahaha <br/>Oh, and the dinossaur's quote is AWESOME, really got me laughing here! <br/> <br/>But here's the greatest thing: most people make excuses to not participate in Ludum Dare. You actually dedicated the 4 hours you could in the jam time and did *something*. That's the right attitude man, you have my respect! ;) |
| Sep 13 22:04:00 | 23m 00s | Diverge | Nice little game! I really like metroidvanias, and this one does it well! Congrats! |
| Sep 13 22:14:00 | 10m 00s | 42 Stories | Nice concept and beautiful visuals! It really is way too easy though, but I think you can make this a really fun game with some balancing, IA enhancements and maybe one or two new mechanics to make the interaction between the towers a little more complex. I'd love to see a post compo version of this one, drop me a line if you ever make one! @pixel_cows |
| Sep 13 22:53:00 | 39m 00s | Robo Rancher | Nice concept! And the graphics are awesome too! <br/>It kinda reminds me a mix of tamagochi with Tower Defense, I think it definitely has potential specially if you add a challenging progressive difficulty (right now, it's impossible to die due to lack of ability or poor choices). Hope you keep developing it! ;) <br/> <br/>Cheers |
| Sep 14 18:41:00 | 19h 48m | Beyond Our Sacred Sun | I spent some time trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, and then had a BIG surprise and a moment of total despair when I understood in the hardest way what the hell was going on. hahaha <br/>Congrats on the idea! As a game, it needs some time invested in more mechanics, some sort of evolution, win / loss conditions, etc, but it's a really interesting concept. ;) |
| Sep 14 19:10:00 | 29m 00s | Colorlies | Wonderful aesthetics and mood! It reminds me of Flow, or maybe Spore's first evolutionary stage (although in that particular case it's about survival of one cell). <br/>Here's an idea: maybe you could add some rules a la Conway's Game of Life. If actual structures actually start forming as the music slowly evolves, I think it would have a wonderful aesthetic effect, of 'seeing life growing'. Great submission, loved it! |
| Sep 14 19:46:00 | 36m 00s | SURV: Evolve to Survive! | Very, very good entry, congratulations! What I like about this is that it is really a game and nothing else. You don't play to see the next graphics, to hear the new music or to know more about the story. It just has you playing it because it's fun to survive while intercalating moments of stress (when totally surrounded) and relief (right after getting an upgrade and feeling a sensible enhancement in your own power). This is the best entry I've played so far on what regards playing by itself, this is pure gameplay! <br/> <br/>Things I'd suggest if you ever wanna make a post compo or complete game out of this: <br/>1. As Mes said, visual recognition is an issue. Maybe you could have visual effects that have no effect on gameplay (like smoke, blood, etc) at a low saturation color close to the background; enemies and their projectiles in another range of hue, and so on. The most common problem I had was red enemies versus particles of blood, and my own homing magic bubbles versus the blue enemies' bullets. The mouse cursor was pretty easy to lose track too, specially in later waves. <br/>2. Upgrades make a big difference at the beginning but you lose interest in them after a while because the 'power leap' you feel when you gain a level decreases. I feel that both your power and the enemies' don't keep escalating at the same speed after a while, so which power up you pick becomes kinda irrelevant in later stages. <br/> <br/>Still, one of the best entries I've rated. Congratulations, and PLEASE tweet me if you ever develop a complete version out of this! @pixel_cows <br/> <br/>ps.: You might wanna check out our entry, it's very gameplay / upgrade based too! ;) <br/> <br/>Cheers from Brazil |
| Sep 14 20:42:00 | 56m 00s | How Mosquito Became Human | Wow, very nice! It's simple but I really couldn't let it go before I finished. And the ending is well worthy it! :D <br/>The dark humor is awesome, but what I really enjoyed the most was the absolutely nonsense science notion. hahaha <br/>The part with the frog almost made me give up, not because it's hard to control (I understand THAT is the challenge after all), but because the wall to the right (right after you become frog) is just tall enough for you to not reach it for a few pixels. It makes it seem like I was doing something wrong or the game had some bug. The tiny hole that led to the left made it look like I was going somewhere I wasn't supposed to go, so I didn't insist on that at first. Once it became clear that I had to go back, I enjoyed everything else. Congratulations, very nice entry! :D |
| Sep 14 21:14:00 | 32m 00s | Gapaos | I like the game structure! The idea of going around on the map and "discovering" locations is fun, I think it just needs some more explanation to the player so that he understands what he's supposed to do. Also the boss is the only action oriented part, which is a rather shocking way to even introduce the player to the shooting mechanics. Maybe an easier combat could be presented in an earlier level, so that the player knows how to move and shoot before the final fight? <br/>I liked the unusual aesthetics, it really causes a sense of strangeness. And touching the father envy theme was interesting! I got the 'family structure' message, thought it was pretty cool. Congrats, and keep participating to keep evolving! ;) <br/>PS.: Your game's structure (moving around a topview map to discover locations which you then explore in a platformer view) is similar to the one we use in our project, The Journey of Eko! Actually, our blog's description for the game literally is "platforming action and combats in a physics-based environment with exploration on an old school topview map" (http://www.pixelcows.com/p/the-journey-of-eko.html). I loved to find an entry here that follows the same structure! ;) <br/>If you happen to keep developing this exploration system or add new mechanics to it, pls tweet me or something! @pixel_cows <br/>I'm always looking for novel ideas about this concept (which was actually the structure of Zelda 2, for NES. Neat!) <br/> <br/> ()! If you happen to develop this game or this exploration concept further, please |
| Sep 15 07:49:00 | 10h 35m | EvFighters | Very nice entry, Fred! It's awesome that you can make a nice feeling 3D fps gameplay for the 48 hours category, really impressive! I liked the combat system, really the only problem was with understanding what the upgrades did. Still, I can't get past the 3 enemies level. I'm always amazed at how much I suck at first person shooters. Man! hahaha <br/>I'm definitely giving it a try again tomorrow, I just can't accept that I can't go past that god damn level. Anyway, nice entry, good luck buddy! ;) |
| Sep 15 20:45:00 | 12h 56m | Fend off waves of zombies with your evolving gun DELUXE | Nice little game! I like the minimalistic approach, it really is all about evolution. :D <br/>Audio and visual feedback for core events such as being hit, hitting enemies and having different graphics for evolved weapons would help (it took me a while to even know I was being hit when I jumped over the zombies). <br/>Also, The way it plays right now, mouse aiming is irrelevant for the gameplay and could be simplified to a 'go left to shoot left, go right to shoot right' scheme. Or, even better, to add some emerging complexity, make the zombies fall from the sky real slow, like if parachutting, so that the directional aiming system can be useful, and the player would tend to try creating 'holes' in the zombies formation before they hit the ground, so that they could them jump between them. Anyway, good entry, best of luck! ;) |
| Sep 15 21:21:00 | 36m 00s | Bot-Volution | Good start! Definitely needs more interaction and gameplay, but I like the mood and can imagine a good game emerging out of this. Keep going! :) <br/>One cool thing I noticed, not sure if it was on purpose or not: despite my ability to kill the robots, I don't WANT to do that because they seem very pacific to me! I still need to kill them because that's what all the years playing videogames tell me that is what I must do to win in the game, so I kinda do that against my will, but it almost reminds me of the horrible sensation of executing prisoners in Blackthorn (oooold stuff, remember that one?)... And then the ending has a message exactly about that. Nice little touch. ;) |
| Sep 15 21:32:00 | 11m 00s | Human 2.0 | One of the best moods I've seen so far! Good atmospheric music does a lot in that regard, but I also really enjoyed the strangeness of the graphics. The humans 2.0 flying to the black hole as if 'transcending' was pretty creepy specially the first time! :D <br/>Congratulations! |
| Sep 16 05:54:00 | 8h 22m | Involucion | Nice entry! I agree with most comments, the only problem is that it is a little cryptic as it is right now: difficult to understand what is going on until you get used with the several abstractions. Maybe if you placed graphics and clear measurable objectives so that players can gradually come to understand the inner workings of creatures and resources, and get used to manipulating it, it could become even more satisfying and accessible. Anyway, good work! ;) |
| Sep 16 06:08:00 | 14m 00s | Evidently | Very fun and funny indeed! :D <br/>I liked the fact that the archeologists arrive by car and the car works as a barrier for the player's shoots. It's an elegant, naturally evolving difficulty mechanism. Good work! |
| Sep 16 07:23:00 | 1h 15m | Ulovetion | Congrats, I think this is the compo game I've rated higher so far! I really liked how the portals and mutated lovis interact in an organic way, and through experimentation you can start figuring out what does what. To be honest, I didn't find out myself all the actions / reactions, so I was unable to win, but I found this to be a cool, procedural thing that feels like an alchemy or magic system. Could very well be tweaked to that! On the constructive criticism side, things are TOO cryptic! It's really hard figuring out what's going on, even in the post compo version. Still, very good work! <br/> <br/>This is one of the entries I'd love to know if it ever gets developed into a bigger or more complete game. Please drop me a tweet if you ever continue development! @pixel_cows <br/> <br/>Cheers from Brazil! |
| Sep 16 07:41:00 | 18m 00s | Emergent Dungeon | The text part really reminds us how powerful the player's imagination is as a tool for the designer! In some ways, your graphics for that section were as good as Skyrim, since I imagined that while playing. ;) <br/>Unfortunately I gave up after dying on the rat combat, due to not being able to identify the right command to attack (use stick, attack, attack rat, etc). But it's cool, reminds me of the first games I designed, using paper and pen while on school. That felt very nostalgic to me. :D <br/>Congratulations on your entry! |
| Sep 16 18:59:00 | 11h 18m | Gems of the Evolving Land | Hey RawBits, nice little game, and I enjoyed specially the random terrain generator, we've actually tried to build something like that for an early prototype of the map in The Journey of Eko (our main project) but it didn't work that well. And you did that and everything else in 48 hours, amazing! Congrats! <br/> <br/>BTW, thanks for the compliments on Singularity! :D <br/>I've explained how our random level generator works here: http://www.pixelcows.com/2012/09/the-singularity-arrived-grab-your-clubs.html <br/> <br/>If you ever use this for anything, or if you wanna share how you did yours, pls tweet me! @pixel_cows <br/> <br/>Cheers from Brazil |
| Sep 17 10:01:00 | 15h 02m | Strike of Rage ! | AWESOME game! Congratulations! This is by far the most well polished entry I've seen in terms of graphics. The visual feedback of the punches is awesome and the main character movement feels very natural (more than most SNES beat-em-ups too). <br/>By the way, I'm definitely keeping a link to this entry as a reference for combat visual and audio feedback. It's one of the next areas of enhancement in our main project. <br/>Congrats once again, and good luck! I bet you're running for the top positions here this time! ;) <br/>Gabriel - @pixel_cows |