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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | panzermancer's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 27 00:54:00 | Geomelution | That was pretty fun, but really difficult; I could only get up to the septagon level in all my runs. I think it's a bit too easy to die - especially in the later levels. Other than that, this was pretty good. This was the first game I've played from this dare so far, so I can't give a proper verdict, but I can at least say it was somewhat enjoyable. Good job! | |
| Aug 27 01:04:00 | 10m 00s | Natural Selection | It seems really cool, and I really like the music, and the sense of humor. <br/> <br/>However, the mouse controls weren't that good. I honestly couldn't aim at all; my view just kept floating up to the top. I kept trying to fight the controls, but it just wouldn't work. I gave up on the first level. <br/> <br/>Sorry man, the game really seems cool, honest, but the aiming, unless I'm horribly mistaken, doesn't work at all and sort of ruins the game for me. It's a real shame, because from what I can see, it genuinely seems like a cool little game. |
| Aug 27 01:48:00 | 44m 00s | Evolution VS 1000 kittens | After a while it would lag from all the kittens, somehow. I could only get to about 600 before I stopped. It was pretty fun while it lasted, though. |
| Aug 27 01:59:00 | 11m 00s | Badass | Ummmmm... evolution! <br/> <br/>That was actually really fun and silly. |
| Aug 27 03:06:00 | 1h 07m | The Evolution of Time | I got stuck on the first level where you play as a cube. That platforming bit on the end is absolutely hellish. |
| Aug 27 03:23:00 | 17m 00s | Megavolve | I wish I knew which parameters determined the gun I'd get on the next level. <br/> <br/>Also, those turret things are the worst, you're pretty much required to get hit by them if you want to deal any damage to it. <br/> <br/>Also, I respawned on the boss for some reason. That made what could have made an interesting battle way too easy. <br/> <br/>I really did like the concept, though. This isn't bad for 48 hours; good job. |
| Aug 27 03:36:00 | 13m 00s | Prance Prance Evolution | I didn't know you could get that kind of surgery for horses. <br/> <br/>http://www.64digits.com/users/Panzermancer/horsiemitosis.png |
| Aug 27 03:40:00 | 4m 00s | Just Evolution | Yeah, I had the same problem, actually. |
| Aug 27 03:53:00 | 13m 00s | Tactical Binary Evolution Combat (TBEC) | I really couldn't see how Evolution really tied into this - trust me, I was bashing V pretty much the whole time. I feel like a clearer explanation of how Evolution works in this game would be needed. I do like the graphics, however, and the idea of one big, sprawling nonlinear map with weird things to deal with on it. I don't know why, but those have always piqued my interest; probably just because I see something, am curious about what it is and how it works, and get pleasantly surprised when I do figure out what it is. For example, I'm really curious about that giant cat thing at the bottom, I wonder what it does :> |
| Aug 27 04:02:00 | 9m 00s | Cellular Division 101 | Apparently, you actually loosely used the concept of natural selection into the gameplay (even if I couldn't interact with such mechanics myself). It would be nice to have a background of some sort, so I knew where exactly I was relative to where I began. At first I thought I was just sitting still and twitching everywhere. <br/> <br/>Don't get me wrong, watching Doctor Who is a wonderful pastime, but I personally think it would have been worth it if you worked on this a bit more instead. |
| Aug 27 04:07:00 | 5m 00s | Pink Swarm Evolution | I LOVE cellular automata! :D And this one is really cool. Totally gonna play around with this a bit more when I have the time. <br/> <br/>The one thing that bothers me, however, is that you can't get rid of pink cells by clicking on them again. Oh well, it's still awesome! |
| Aug 27 04:17:00 | 10m 00s | Ultimate Plant | Very well put-together. I can see myself coming back to this one sometime very soon. |
| Aug 27 04:29:00 | 12m 00s | Goo | I really liked the music for this one. <br/> <br/>The element of choice was really well-implemented in this (reminds me of Effin Worms, or that other game that's like it but better except the name totally escapes me right now), up to a point at least. The goo cannon seemed a bit OP; maybe because he's firing parts of his own organic material at the enemies, it could cost HP to use it, to balance it out? <br/> <br/>Also, the eyesight evolution messed up the aiming and made the text unreadable. Definitely fix that one :C |
| Aug 27 04:42:00 | 13m 00s | Die, Motherfuckers! | I don't know how, but this game managed to be charmingly dull. And I mean this entirely in a good way. The premise is just so completely ridiculous to watch unfold that it's more than worth the simple gameplay. Like Tom 7 said, the exponential number thing was just great. <br/> <br/>DIE, MOTHERFUCKERS! |
| Aug 27 05:12:00 | 30m 00s | Evolutionary Designer | Pretty fun to mess with, even if most of my designs just end up tangling themselves up in a ball. |
| Aug 27 05:27:00 | 15m 00s | Monster League | The battles were really boring to watch. I lost when this one fucker ran the clock by dodging. There's virtually no upgrade variety, and the fact that it costs points to turn an upgrade off is just bad design. |
| Aug 27 05:35:00 | 8m 00s | 1000 Evolving Kittens | This is so adorable, but I seriously have no idea what's supposed to be going on. Here's my thought process: <br/> <br/>"WHAT DO I DO." <br/>"D'AWWWW" <br/>"WHY IS THAT KITTEN A RAINBOW." <br/>"ARE BUTTERFLIES GOOD OR..." <br/>"D'AWWWWW" <br/>"WHAT DO I DOOOOO" <br/>"D'AWWWWWWWWWWWW" <br/>"WHAT DO I DOAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" <br/> <br/>And then I spiral into unspeakable madness. Fuzzy, adorable, 8-bit, unspeakable madness. |
| Aug 27 05:41:00 | 6m 00s | SEW | Besides the whole "do I listen to this awful noise on repeat or play in darkness" thing, it was pretty decent, considering, as you said, you made it over the course of 7 hours. Although I'm pretty sure bouncing off the walls like that isn't really a thing. |
| Aug 27 05:46:00 | 5m 00s | ROCK EM SOCK EM DARWINS | Ladies and gentlemen, introducing: THE MONKEY WHOSE PUNCH TRANSCENDS TIME AND LITERALLY GOES ON FOR ETERNITY. I chuckled when you-know-what happened to you-know-who after you hit him three times in the face. <br/> <br/>This was an absolute blast to play, even if it was really short. |
| Aug 27 05:50:00 | 4m 00s | Darwin Games 2012 | Best game I've played so far. <br/> <br/>I JUST WATCHED A MAN WITH TWO HEADS USE HIS HEADS AS PADDLES TO SWIM. <br/> <br/>HE HAS NO ARMS SO HE'S THE MOST STREAMLINED. <br/> <br/>This game is fucking hilarious. Great fucking job, man. |
| Aug 27 06:11:00 | 21m 00s | Entourage | The ideas were really cool, but I feel like they weren't executed all that well. I'm just watching a bunch of things flutter around aimlessly, unless I program them specifically to attack someone, which, in reality, that's pretty much the only thing you'd need them to do. The (essentially) perfect AI to make: <br/> <br/>-if weak <br/>-follow goodguy <br/>-if alone <br/>-follow badguy <br/> <br/>There just aren't that many strategic options, really. Plus, it's an absolute chore to give commands to units one a time, especially with so goddamn many of them, and with so much time put into giving the commands. <br/> <br/>In short, a great idea, but terribly executed. You get an A for effort, but better luck next time. |
| Aug 27 06:16:00 | 5m 00s | Conway's Revenge | A cool idea, especially with the sandbox, but the battle royale option doesn't work out so well. In the end, I'm just watching what essentially looks like a bunch of pixelated jelly wobbling around until one color takes over the others. That could be remedied by maybe toning down the starting density, and putting families of different colors in their own little areas to start - you know, a dab of blue here, a pile of green there. That way there's a better chance for something less chaotic and more entertaining (to watch at least) to emerge. <br/> <br/>As for now, I'm gonna say, while this isn't terrible by any stretch of the imagination, it could have been done a bit better. |
| Aug 27 06:27:00 | 11m 00s | T.R.E.E. | It's an interesting idea, but the controls are terrible for the upgrade screen. We should just be able to click on a node to read it. <br/> <br/>Also, there isn't much of a point in making three different "currencies," seeing as they don't really show up in different ways; you just end up seeing a bunch of them in one spot, of different colors. My assumption (and this would have been a lot cooler) was that the different colored blocks stood for different resources (ex. a yellow slab could give both green and blue energy) and you got small amounts of that as you harvested. <br/> <br/>Also, the generation, although cool in concept, is more than a bit buggy. Stuff just pops up right in front of your face, killing the sense of exploration and replacing it with the sense of "oh well that's there now." And I can see the energy hidden in blocks for a split second, so I just run right in there and dig it out. <br/> <br/>It's a cool idea, but not very well-designed. I'd say, revise what you've got there, think about what makes procedural generation, upgrading, and general exploration interesting to work with, and go from there. For example - would it be more interesting if you could find any energy anywhere, or if there were whole regions of only one color, so if you wanted it, you'd have to specifically find it? |
| Aug 27 06:31:00 | 4m 00s | Evergen | An interesting concept, if not a bit simple. It would have been cooler if there was a bit more micro-managing, in my opinion. |
| Aug 27 06:49:00 | 18m 00s | Involucion | I can't entirely tell what is going on here, but I'm guessing it's supposed to be some sort of a life sim. I think this game highly detriments from not having a proper explanation; I'm literally just clicking random places and putting stuff down. I don't know the consequences for doing anything, really. |
| Aug 27 06:54:00 | 5m 00s | Pirates and Gorillas | That was momentarily entertaining. You die way too quick, though, and there doesn't seem to be any sense of progression, just more gorillas. |
| Aug 27 07:07:00 | 13m 00s | The Life Tale | A decent idea, although there definitely is a problem with pacing. It definitely looks like it takes way too long to get anything (I say "looks like" because I didn't play long enough to manage it). The combat system (by which I mean literally just throwing yourself at people and hoping they die before you) seems really counter-intuitive. There are a lot of cool ideas here, but the actual implementation of them is a different story. Still, not that bad, really. Good job, but better luck next time. |
| Aug 27 07:19:00 | 12m 00s | Darwinphony | What an interesting way to use the theme of evolution. Really fun to fiddle with for a couple seconds, although for some reason I can never get the creatures (or whatever 3 produces) to move anywhere horizontally, or place them where I want to. Definitely confusing, but still. |
| Aug 27 07:34:00 | 15m 00s | Tribal Warfare | The ideas are great, and I did enjoy what I played, but for some reason (it might just be my computer), the game gets hung up and freezes a lot, especially during combat. It's annoying, because I can tell this game is well-designed and would be genuinely fun to play to the end if it worked fully. From what I have seen, however, I did enjoy it. |
| Aug 27 16:44:00 | 9h 10m | The ducks are taking over!! | This was actually a pretty cool concept, and executed quite well. I just wish perhaps there were more levels. |
| Aug 27 16:53:00 | 9m 00s | Evoroid | It's a damn shame this game doesn't run well, and that I have to refresh in the Newgrounds version every time I want to respawn. However, I do like the graphical style, I'll give it that. <br/> <br/>I feel like the problem here is that you might have gotten a bit too ambitious, considering your available time. There were a lot of awesome ideas in this one, although, as with many other games, it was rather dubious as to how the mechanics worked. <br/> <br/>I personally think you should keep working on this one post-comp; there's potential in this idea yet. Just make sure to fix those nasty bugs, though. |
| Aug 27 17:02:00 | 9m 00s | Eve | Between the acoustic music, the mining, and the whimsical graphics, this reminded me of Dwarf Fortress, very much in a good way. <br/> <br/>I wish I knew more about how the game worked, though - am I supposed to dig out the green blocks (which I assume are food), or leave them there for the creatures to eat them? I tried both methods, and everyone died of hunger really fast, regardless of what I did. <br/> <br/>I feel like besides that, this game is quite interesting, for something made in 48 hours. Definitely do something with it post-comp; I'd love to see this idea further fleshed out. |
| Aug 27 17:37:00 | 35m 00s | RED PLANET | That was a really interesting story, actually. It reminded me an awful lot of something Ray Bradbury would write, in a good way. I half-expected some sort of a HAL 9000 deal, but thankfully you didn't go through that overused route. The graphics were well-done, and the music was astounding. I just wish perhaps there was a bit more interactivity; I was essentially just walking around and pressing space. Still, that was a very compelling interactive story, great job man! |
| Aug 27 17:49:00 | 12m 00s | evolving | This definitely needs tighter controls, like everyone said; besides that, it was a very interesting game, with a really cool use of the theme. Good job! |
| Aug 27 17:58:00 | 9m 00s | cuboidAI | I don't know why (could just be my computer), but when I ran the game, the actual creatures didn't render - all I saw was a gray screen with the interface. It's a crying shame, though, because it looks like a really, really cool concept; this is definitely a proper way to implement natural selection in a game. It looks like it has the same potential as Virtual Creatures did: <br/> <br/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUXc6mckGLE <br/> <br/>(download link in the description) <br/> <br/>Sorry for the shameless plug of some random thing I found a while ago, but this concept definitely reminds me of it, and I feel like you might get a kick out of it :P |
| Aug 27 18:05:00 | 7m 00s | EvolBots (not EvilBots) | Is it just me or do the robots look something like golfballs from Hell? <br/> <br/>The theme definitely wasn't used very well here; there was no obvious effect the evolution played on the robots. I just kind of roll them around and grab stuff regardless. <br/> <br/>Also, one of the bots got stuck in the world on the purple valley level, so I had to quit :C |
| Aug 27 18:13:00 | 8m 00s | Darwin's Little Pink Worm | I loved the whimsical little pseudo-haikus you get upon evolving :3 <br/> <br/>I just wish there was a bit more of an element of choice when evolving, though; that's what really would have made this game super-replayable. Still, impressive, for 48 hours raw in javascript. |
| Aug 27 18:58:00 | 45m 00s | IO VUOLE ZEN | That was completely and utterly insane. Easily the most creative game I've seen yet; it was just so silly and ridiculous, but still was hanging on by the single thread that was its batshit narrative. Great job, man, seriously! We need more games like this, for sure. |
| Aug 27 19:06:00 | 8m 00s | Robot, paper, scissors: Evolution | I found it becomes far too easy to just plug up that little hole on the left and keep shooting where they spawn. After a while I gave up on that and confined myself within the middle corridor; even then, this was too easy. I got about halfway through round 3 before I got bored. Good effort, but better luck next time, man. |
| Aug 27 19:18:00 | 12m 00s | Swarm | This was a cool concept, although, like quill18 said, it sort of kills any flow if you're stopping every 20 seconds to evolve everything. <br/> <br/>The graphics needed work; not so much from an aesthetic point of view (I'm usually fine with a game that looks charmingly unpolished), but more so in the sense of clarity. For one, I feel like the camera is zoomed in far too much, and the cyan boundaries are too hard to spot, so I end up crashing into them more than I should. <br/> <br/>After 5 rounds, there's no new spawn page to enable, so it seems like that's the unofficial end of the game. <br/> <br/>It's a good effort, and could be more interesting with some extensive post-comp work. |
| Aug 27 19:23:00 | 5m 00s | Goat Boxing | There definitely needs to be more clarity as to which stats do what. Also, it doesn't save the goat's name after you leave the stable :( |
| Aug 28 00:15:00 | 4h 52m | The Omnicide Genotype | Once I caught on to the core mechanic, this got deceptively interesting. Most things that at first seem like design flaws (like the hellbeasts greying out after a while) actually work out in the game's favor (punishing the player for waiting too long). Great job, man! |
| Aug 28 00:24:00 | 9m 00s | ContraEvolution | Definitely add projectiles next time - it got rather tedious having to constantly run around and cockblock all the rainbow asteroids. |
| Aug 29 03:23:00 | 26h 59m | Dragoneticist | Yeah, there was no explanation as to how changing a dragon's genes actually worked. It's a shame, because the concept seems really, really cool. <br/> <br/>I just ran through the whole game with the basic dragon. When I fought the final dragon, it immediately jumped so high it went off-screen and died, leaving me the victor. Hilarious as that may have been, I'm sure that wasn't intentional. <br/> <br/>It was a cool idea, though. Good effort, but better luck next time! |
| Aug 29 03:47:00 | 24m 00s | Pincers | Really well-done. I had no problems with the controls, really. The game was challenging, yet rewarding. I went mostly for speed and attack and scavenged around; it's surprising how often the creatures end up killing each other :P But that's a good thing, that gives life to the AI. Great job, man, really! |
| Aug 29 05:19:00 | 1h 32m | Rings of Evolution | Alright, constructive criticism time. Where to start, where to start. <br/> <br/>By the way, there might be spoilers in this, so don't read this if you plan to play this game. <br/> <br/>I just want to let you guys know, I'm not writing all this to be mean. I'm just trying to give you advice, from one designer to another. I saw that there was a lot of effort put into this game (especially considering it was done in 3 days), but ultimately, there was a ton that could have gone better, even in that given time, and some stuff you could have just thrown out altogether, which would have probably freed up enough time to fix other aspects of the game and make them decent. Plus, a lot of these criticisms are things I've encountered myself in previous efforts, so trust me, I've been there too. <br/> <br/>Alright, so I guess I'll start with the start. The storyline is kind of cool, in a pulp science fiction kind of sense. I liked how you played as what was essentially the antagonist. However, whoever you got to do cutscene art, really doesn't know proportions all that well. The first thing I saw of the antagonist, whose name escapes me (in fact, the way you had so many weird names to learn in so little time, nothing else really stuck either), her arms literally stopped at her waist, and her hands must have been at least the size of her entire head. After that panel, I sort of skipped the rest of the intro, which, as everyone said, was far too long. You see, first impressions are huge. There are exceptions with extremely well-written opening cutscenes (which, although not terrible, this game's writing was in fact not well-written), but, especially with an indie title of a smaller magnitude, we really just want to see the gameplay first. I'm cool with opening cutscenes in these, as long as they're brief and to-the-point. This was most certainly not that. <br/> <br/>I wish this game was a bit more non-linear, and we could have obtained the first four evolutions in any order we wanted. Obviously, that would have had to been something you guys had planned from the onset to implement correctly, so I get why that's not in here. <br/> <br/>So, the space-shooter bits, they're kind of sub-par. I guess my main problem with them is that everything comes at you too fast, and there really is no opportunity to dodge a lot of stuff, simply because we're not aware of what's coming up, and by the time we see it, it's far too late. This is something I've encountered myself a while ago when I made a shmup, and this is something I refer to as "programmer's difficulty." You see, if the programmer is the one testing the game (especially with something as fast-paced and twitchy as a shmup), he already knows what's coming up, and so subconsciously knows how to avoid things from the onset. He'll consider the game too easy, because he's beating it so effortlessly, that the programmer would then tend to amp it up for a challenge for themselves. This is a big no-no. It doesn't matter how much you try to intentionally "dumb yourself down" when playtesting, you'll still know subconsciously, and you'll see it affect your gameplay. This leads to a whole bunch of things which, quite frankly, would need either inside information or outright clairvoyance to dodge the first time. And like I said, even then, everything moves so fast anyways that there are times where there's literally no possible way not to take damage. <br/> <br/>The most annoying part about the shooter bits, is that they come right after acquiring a new evolution. That's just bad pacing. When someone acquires a new ability, of any sort, 10 times out of 10, the first thing they want to do is test it out; they don't want to go do something else first. The shooter bits just felt unnecessary to me; I feel like if you instead worked solely on the platforming parts, then we'd have one decent mode instead of two sub-par ones. <br/> <br/>Alright, now the platformer bits. First off, the walking animation looks silly, but that's a minor thing. The controls are pretty weird; you jump way higher than you'd expect yourself to, and you can't move that far horizontally in mid-air, so it's pretty difficult to judge your jumps. The enemies are just pests, and if there's any platforming involved at all near them they're just impossible to avoid. <br/> <br/>The evolutions, for the most part, don't feel very powerful, with the one exception being the lasers. Besides that, the others just feel sort of, well, weird. The spikes don't have the oomph you'd want them to have, the energy balls are an outright pain to control, and the weird energy blast thing, I don't even understand what that's supposed to do, besides just be a standard horizontal attack. I'm guessing it does a spray thing when it hits a wall, but the effect for that looks the same as the shield things, so it just looks sort of weird. <br/> <br/>Now, the bosses are probably the weakest part of this game. You see, the main game design error with these, is that they often perform attacks that are just outright impossible to dodge, again unless you happen to know the pixel-by-pixel optimal playthrough, in which case you're either the programmer or a robot. It's just terrible, there's literally no mathematical way to dodge all the stuff that's being thrown at you. The boss might as well take away ten of your continues. <br/> <br/>The music, strangely enough, is what I consider the strong point of this game. It just has this science-fiction action feel to it that I feel was lost with the era of all those free indie space-shooters that cropped up in the 90's all the time. I'm not kidding when I say my favorite part in this entire game is when your ship goes down onto the planet. I genuinely liked those parts. <br/> <br/>The ending, although somewhat predictable, was nonetheless pretty cool. I did like that part, to a degree. This is probably just me, but I personally feel like it would have been cooler if she literally flipped inside-out and the entire universe rested inside her. That would have been ironic, because this evolution led to her possessing the entire universe, but being unable to really do anything with it. Just a thought. <br/> <br/>I think the main problem with this game, was that you guys tried doing far too much for 72 hours. This ended up making everything feel really rushed, and instead of 5 to 10 minutes of something really interesting, we've got 45 minutes that just feel strung together. However, I will say this: the game has soul. It just emanates this feeling, this strange feeling you don't get in many other games, even most classics. I don't know how to explain it, but the game has character. A lot of the flaws I mentioned, they give this amateur feel, but in a very unique way. I could tell it was your guy's first game from the get-go, but I could also tell you had a lot of fun making it. I guess it just sort of made me feel nostalgic for when I first starting making games. Don't get me wrong, I'm still quite a ways away from where I want to be in game design, but I could sense humble beginnings in this game, in a good way. Who knows, you guys might make some great games, after all. Everyone makes mistakes on their first few :) <br/> <br/>Alright, that's definitely the longest review I've ever written for an indie game, and possibly the longest ever written in Ludum Dare history (although I definitely could be wrong). I hope you guys don't think I'm some grouch that's just pointing out your every flaw, I just want to see you guys do better, because I feel like you're genuinely capable of doing that. Whatever you guys do, don't give up, keep going with this. Just make sure that every project is also a learning experience; trust me, that's pretty hard not to do :3 |
| Aug 29 05:56:00 | 37m 00s | Reckless Abandon | I really liked the controls, even if they were a bit awkward at first. I kept playing for as long as I did just trying out different robot's limbs. If you do anything post-comp, I'd say keep the same formula, just add more variety in the different robot limbs. Great job, though, seriously! |
| Aug 29 06:29:00 | 33m 00s | Coin-Operated Afternoon | This was pretty fantastic, actually. It made me see board games in a different light. You should definitely put it somewhere where it'd get noticed, instead of on the Ludum Dare, where you didn't even follow the theme :P |