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VDZ

Feedback comments for LD25

Timestamp	Since previous	Game	VDZ's comment
Dec 17 15:28:00		(Tie One Woman to a Train Track and Suddenly) I'm the Badguy	Fun game. Neither the interpretation of the theme nor the game itself are very innovative, but it's fun and that's what matters most. Reminds me of old Commodore 64 games.
Dec 17 15:48:00	20m 00s	Crazy Evil Laptop	The game's idea is interesting (though not very innovative - it does little to differentiate itself from DOS-era puzzle platformers), but I did have some issues with the game. <br/> <br/>As others have mentioned, the controls are very slippery, which makes precise platforming difficult. <br/> <br/>The effects of the switches are not always clear, and this mainly presents a problem in this level: http://i.xomf.com/zfnpk.png. You keep pushing the button, but the blocks seem to move almost randomly in response (there is a pattern, but it took a long time to find it - it was especially confusing due to all other buttons toggling between two states instead of six or so). <br/> <br/>The level after that was what made me gave up on the game, though: http://i.xomf.com/xrbzs.png. Clearly there is a puzzle there, but as you're thinking about the puzzle you are hit by errors leaving you absolutely no time to think (as death means you have to start all over from the beginning). There's no clear way to dodge the errors (looking at the readme you could apparently duck, but I had no idea at the time, and many other players will likely face the same problem), and if you try to move forward to seek shelter from the errors you screw up the puzzle - and get hit by even more errors. <br/> <br/>The sound also felt very repetitive and became grating after a while. <br/> <br/>On the other hand, I did like the graphics, and the idea to start by bashing your keyboard was nice.
Dec 17 16:04:00	16m 00s	Apocolypse Virus	I don't want to be an asshole, but I'm afraid I just can't really say anything positive about this game. <br/> <br/>The game starts without any explanation whatsoever, leaving you confused about what to do. The gameplay is extremely simplistic. There is no difficulty; you can just hold Z after starting and win automatically. The graphics are ugly and unclear - you don't know who you are, you don't know what that thing on the side of the screen is, you don't know what those things flying past you are, you have no idea how much life you have left (I assume the bar at the top is for that, but it's too small and hidden to read during gameplay). There's no music or sound (not even a simple pew-pew-pew shooting sound), which is often essential feedback on sidescrolling shooters and would be very useful in this game. The victory screen is sudden, ugly, underwhelming and doesn't really give the player a victorious feeling.
Dec 17 16:55:00	51m 00s	Dig for Me	Awesome game! Killing heroes is always fun, and the monster and trap systems are great. <br/> <br/>Though the system is easily broken with a good strategy (such as just killing all heroes on the surface with cannons, taking their loot and digging out the treasure yourself), coming up with such a strategy is a lot of fun, and you can always keep challenging yourself by choosing not to use your previous cheesy strategy. <br/> <br/>Unfortunately there's no audio, and victory is pretty underwhelming, but the game is fun enough to make up for it. <br/> <br/>I agree with jsmars that this game would probably be a lot of fun in multiplayer.
Dec 18 20:45:00	27h 50m	We Drive Unto The Fortress	Interesting combination of Turn Based Strategy games and Worms, making it really different from either. I liked how taking cover and general unit placement was strategically important. <br/> <br/>However, like others I was confused at first (turn order and worms-like fire-and-retreat were never explained, for example), and I was disappointed with how easy the game was. Except for the last level you are always starting with an advantage against a dumb-as-bricks AI (does not retreat and unstrategically blows up blocks), so most of the game had no challenge and I completed the game without losing even once. <br/> <br/>One thing I'm wondering though: why is there no simple Worms-like multiplayer? From your game setup it doesn't look hard to do, and it would've added a lot to the game. <br/> <br/>(By the way, I think I found a bug (not 100% sure). In the final round, I once moved my tank in the last second of retreat time. Retreat time ended before I finished moving, so I think it got stuck halfway between tiles (it's hard to see where a tile starts and ends). AI shots seemed to deal no damage to it and I was unable to move back to the tile after moving the tank.)
Dec 18 21:12:00	27m 00s	Maiden Muncher Hero Cruncher	The concept of this game is interesting, but the way it's executed is unfortunately not much fun. <br/> <br/>The two biggest issues I had with this game are the lack of strategy and the slowness of the game. The idea is that you attack the hero with the most fitting enemies/traps for that situation, but since all three recharge separately and the enemies are barely different, it becomes just a matter of spamming everything you have. <br/> <br/>It becomes even more of a problem in the battles, as your only options are 'attack' and 'dodge', with 'attack' just dealing a set amount of damage (unless you're low on HP and the hero has priority), and 'dodge' randomly either dealing or not dealing twice that much damage, and only if the hero strikes that character - in practice, dodge is completely useless except for that single situation described above where attack is not useful. This lack of strategy makes battles a matter of just mashing the attack button until it's over. <br/> <br/>But what really makes the first problem stand out is the second problem, the slowness of it all. When you're about to fight the hero you can pretty much calculate the entire result in advance - the hero will lose between X and Y health and you lose the battle, regardless of what you do in-battle. But every time you attack the hero, you have to play a complete battle, having to watch the same slow animations over and over again. I just stopped using monsters at some point because of how slow and repetitive it all was. <br/> <br/>Adding just a bit more strategy to the battles would've gone a long way, but as it is now, I'm afraid the game just isn't very fun.
Dec 19 03:33:00	6h 21m	The Cards Never Lie	For a Jam entry, my only remark is that it doesn't really fit the theme very well (the protagonist is more gray area and acts like the 'good guy'). Other than that, top marks for everything. I did not expect to see something like this as an LD entry. <br/> <br/>Due to its quality, I'll critique it as a normal visual novel instead of a jam game. <br/> <br/>The writing is really, really good. Seriously, I don't think I've ever read such good writing in an OELVN before. It was really interesting to read and had a lot of charm. The style and atmosphere were also fantastic, using limited resources to great effect. <br/> <br/>However, while the plot starts off promising, it ends up being incredibly shallow and disappointing. The detective work is limited to reading each person's profile, having a single conversation with each person and getting a couple of lines of information from Archie. While in a mystery you'd expect some hints, foreshadowing, red herrings and the like to keep you guessing for a bit until the answer is revealed, The Cards Never Lie presents all information so clearly you make an immediate correct guess as to who the culprit is, and the story never adds anything to it - in the end, you have to 'solve' the mystery with the vague guess you get as soon as you have the relevant information. There are no suspicious people and there are no misunderstandings - there's some information implicating someone (the kind that usually is either a misunderstanding or a part of a larger whole), and all of that information turns out 100% accurate and can be taken at face value. <br/> <br/>For that matter, none of the other suspects matter to the story, only serving as a distraction. Nothing of what they say or do has anything to do with the case, their backstories not only never become relevant but are never really revealed (why waste the reader's time with something that both isn't relevant and will never become interesting?), and they don't even serve as convincing suspects. With the little character interaction you have with each character, most feel very shallow as well - their personalities are limited to the things that happened in their backstories, and they don't really feel like more than walking plot devices. <br/> <br/>Still, I again have to commend your writing skills - with a better plot and characters (probably more likely when you aren't on a strict time limit) you'd probably be capable of making a masterpiece. I'll definitely have to check out your other works. (Though it may be a while until I do, since the next translation patch for Rewrite is just around the corner and that will probably eat up a LOT of my time.)
Dec 21 03:25:00	47h 52m	Rise of Evil	Not my cup of tea. <br/> <br/>Normally I post a wall of text here pointing out flaws and suggesting improvements, but in this case I just don't like the game for what it is. It's the kind of 'LULZ SO RANDOM XD'-ness you frequently see on forums, except in game form, with no story to speak of, no humor other than the 'inherently funny' randomness and a couple of references, and there is no gameplay to speak of to make up for its lack of story, writing quality and humor. <br/> <br/>I guess it's kinda harsh, but that's how I see it.
Dec 21 23:51:00	20h 26m	Dungeon Warden: Rise of the Goatman	Interesting game. The only thing I have to add that hasn't been said before: The interface and stream of information to the player needs some work. You can't drag dungeon windows out of the way, you can't have multiple dungeon windows open, it's easy to misclick when trying to add a monster to a dungeon, getting no feedback whether placement was success or failure (a sound and a simple visual sign would do), you can't see from the map whether a dungeon has monsters or not, you get no notification when all enemies in a dungeon are defeated, etc. Improving that would make the game a lot more fun to play.
Dec 29 17:03:00	185h 12m	Horizon	The story started out interesting, and I was really curious who the protagonist was and what he was doing, but the conclusion to the story was just disappointing. What little answers the story did provide were generic and uninteresting, while major questions (who is the protagonist? Why is he looking for that artifact, what does he plan to do with it?) remained unanswered. In a story that seems simply made to make the reader curious to those questions, it's very disappointing that they are barely answered.