Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD31 → Feedback comment stats → local minimum
Feedback comments for LD31
local minimum's games and stats for all events →
| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | local minimum's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 9 14:36:00 | Near Jay Objects | I like the simple controls yet very challenging game. The graphics were nice and the dizziness effect really suitable. It's really hard to stop spinning once you've started though. <br/> <br/>Some potential things to consider: <br/> <br/>Warping around screen if you fly out of it or some visual warning when you are approaching one edge, like a fuzzy red flash along that edge. <br/> <br/>It could have been cool to have a radar/sonar that indicated closeness to object. Even better if there was a soundtrack and the music became hectic as object approached. <br/> <br/>On complaint, or something I didn't understand: <br/> <br/>The score said something like 4-5k but gamejolt didn't show any high score for me... <br/> <br/>And to sum up. Sweet and well worked game. | |
| Dec 9 14:48:00 | 12m 00s | Guns & Bricks | Simple instructions, interesting combo of skills and really sweet music in the menu. It would have been great if that tune played in the level as well. Great work on the art on the character. I've tried it five - six times now and my record score is 1... so I think it's too hard to start. My suggestion would be to give much more time at start. Say ten times as much, and then let the blocks to be collected give as much bonus as they do now. That way, everyone, from leet to noob gets a fair chance and a challenging experience. <br/> <br/>I didn't get to understand what the shooting was for, but that may have been me failing too soon. But for the bricking I was experimenting with more interesting patterns than the one image you have above and it feels like it would have been nice to be able to control where around the player the brick would appear. Maybe with mouse aim. <br/> <br/>But I think you have the basis of a really great concept and you are obviously talented with those pixels so hope you give the difficulty a tweak and have a round with the controls. |
| Dec 9 15:02:00 | 14m 00s | neven | Wow that game demanded full concentration. I love the animations on the snowmen, in fact, the entire game has seriously well worked graphics. I got to nine twice and that I'm going to consider a feat. <br/> <br/>Things I would consider: <br/> <br/>It felt like the random progression of flakes was a bit too random and hence evil. At least for being so early on in the game. What I mean is that if felt like it could happen that there came two flakes of the same color to close in time but distant in space that they'd be impossible to collect. That's not good, it's important to keep the illusion of that it's the player's fault. So I'd put some restriction on that. <br/> <br/>I would consider starting with three snowmen or even two and introduce the others as the player progresses. <br/> <br/>I think I got a bug, because when replaying some snowmen wanted to run to the right without me pushing that button and they continued until I pushed right. <br/> <br/>Then finally, to make this game as addictive as it could be, I think it needs a catchy tune. <br/> <br/>I think this was a really great entry, so hope you take these comments the right way. And I think you could make it work with touch controls *wink* *wink* (tap to select and swipe to move). |
| Dec 9 15:17:00 | 15m 00s | The Swarm is All | Fantastic graphics and sounds. The controls took me a while to figure out, especially since the controls settings in game seems not have related to how I was to control the game. So I think that could ave been clearer when the game started. Like the little bug saying "click on me" or something. <br/> <br/>The swarming was really neat too, unfortunately the game crashed after a while without much information about what was wrong. Just the standard Windows thing about it having stopped working. <br/> <br/>The gameplay is really interesting though, but I think picking up all bug pieces should be optional and that after killing the last bug it should just give 2-3 seconds until level stops. |
| Dec 9 15:27:00 | 10m 00s | Deadly Dungeon | Deadly hard but fun and that's a great lot of game fit into one screen and one Ludum weekend. I never did rescue the pet but I had fun running around getting slain. It was great that it was so easy gaining levels. And great that the game allowed for click and hold. <br/> <br/>One thing you could try is to give the character some awareness of where enemies, potions and coins are on the map in the area close to the player and visual feedback on picking up the the trail. Because I was at least a bit too stressed to read the thing about the scent. <br/> <br/>Some suitable music on top of everything at you have a very good game. |
| Dec 9 15:35:00 | 8m 00s | Crime Prevention | I think I never played a surveillance camera before, and I think that is a neat idea. Given the extremely short time you spent making this game it is really impressive. I think it would have been good to have put a light source in the scene though and just some different colors on the materials, because it took me a while to understand the mechanics of the game because it was a while before I at all saw what was happening. <br/> <br/>One thing that could have been cool would have been to have some characters not steal stuff and some top down camera where you only saw who was leaving and you would get big minus for all that you stopped that weren't thieves. But that would have required more than 1.5h dev. <br/> <br/>So for time spent, good results. |
| Dec 9 15:49:00 | 14m 00s | Android Attack | I generally suck at tower defenses but I could manage this one. That I found very nice. The graphics were nice and it was all rather intuitive. <br/> <br/>Some thoughts: <br/> <br/>The green color for the cost was really hard to read. It would also have been really nice if one got a visual feedback on the icons for which one affords. Also, if I'm not mistaken they don't come in cost order, which was a bit confusing. <br/> <br/>It would have been great with some feedback on the health of the base. <br/> <br/>When I got to install the most costly defense the enemies died by one shot which made me wonder what happened as I didn't get to see that I hit them. Of course, adding some shooting animations for all defense systems would help, but also adding an explosion on all killed enemies would have been great. <br/> <br/>Also, when I got to that stage of protection the game sort of played itself, which is to say that the later waves need to have harder enemies to keep the game interesting. <br/> <br/>But it is a great start and hope you are happy with your game. |
| Dec 9 16:23:00 | 34m 00s | Death Heap | I liked the graphics a lot. I didn't get if the game had an objective. The clock and kills kind of implied that but I killed enough to fill the entire screen and it seemed not to make a difference. Getting that many dead also made me notice that I would collide with the UI elements (clock and kills) which was sort of surprising. I think if the dead attackers were clearly lighter than the player it would have been easier not to get stuck in the mass of bodies. If not getting stuck was important to the game idea, then that would have needed some more tweaking of the stuck mechanics and the over all objective. <br/> <br/>But all in all a quite enjoyable game. |
| Dec 9 16:37:00 | 14m 00s | Kaleidoscope | Insane controls and great fun. Some times it was just impossible to get my head around how to get from where I was to where I wanted to go and then when they all started spinning as well... oh so hard. Hard, but fun. <br/> <br/>I think the game would benefit from more psychedelic effects, e.g. have the painting you do on the background work not directly on the seen background but as it would if seen through a rotating kaleidoscope. <br/> <br/>It was a little too much trying to keep an eye on the lower right corner so maybe add an up direction arrow at the center of the screen. <br/> <br/>Though nice that the enemies pushed you forward to the next level and that time's up didn't punish you more directly was a bit confusing, maybe better to have enemies spin the world orientation or something... <br/> <br/>Great and well worked game. Had loads of fun playing. |
| Dec 9 16:57:00 | 20m 00s | Entity Unchained | I like this game a lot. The minimal music along with the graphics was a perfect combo. For some reason the music and sounds went away after a while though, but the fact that I managed to make it to the second floor of a game like this. I usually die instantly means that you balanced the difficulty in a very good way. And that takes a lot of skill. <br/> <br/>One thing what was a little odd to me was that it seemed like it was OK to collide with the plus shaped enemies. And it was really hard to read in the menu and introduction. Other than that, a really solid entry. |
| Dec 9 16:59:00 | 2m 00s | Build A Turret | I get dll error, so unfortunately I can't test your game. Let me know if you get a fix on that. |
| Dec 9 17:09:00 | 10m 00s | Chance Encounter | I like the idea of the leaver, and the attempt to fit an entire rpg in a weekend. <br/> <br/>I think though that you needed more space for the "And..." or maybe even better remove it entirely and have the and stuff attached to the end of fight etc in the main area. <br/> <br/>A health bar would have been great and some way to play it smart and recuperate health. Now it was a bit too random and sudden death for me to be able to progress in any serious manner. <br/> <br/>Plus one for three genders. |
| Dec 9 17:21:00 | 12m 00s | Prison Riot | Amazing work on graphics and nice type of gameplay but I didn't really get the strategy and how to use my defense UI. I completed the first two levels without a clue about what I was doing. So if you would consider further development I would suggesting introducing fewer items in the first levels and maybe some hover info about each as you mouse over. Great use of theme though and it really seems to be a solid entry with loads of care put into detail. Something few of us ever manage to do within the confines of these few hours. |
| Dec 9 18:35:00 | 1h 14m | Rocket Jump Rampage | Great fun. Very well made game and great effort put into animations, characters and props. The particles and camera shakes were also more or less perfect. <br/> <br/>Things I would consider: <br/> <br/>Remove the ability to jump. It seems not to serve that great of a purpose and caused me to wander around aimlessly a while at the first level because I though rockets were for shooting things down. <br/> <br/>Actually it would be good to have the character run across the menu/title screen and execute a rocket jump so that all players know what to do. <br/> <br/>I only played the first and part of the second level and what kept me going was the frustration of not being good at controlling the character. I think this is exactly the feeling you should be aiming for. But what struck me as odd was the order of where the targets were. Especially for the second level, the third position was clearly the most difficult place. <br/> <br/>All in all a very solid game and I hope you feel very satisfied with what you accomplished. |
| Dec 9 19:05:00 | 30m 00s | Dark Vaimanika | Nice game, really hard to navigate that ship but I did get quite far one time. Since it's a game where you die a lot, I would highly recommend having space rather than P start the game from the menu so that the player doesn't have to move around on the keyboard. You want the players to keep trying. <br/> <br/>Getting time to shoot the ships was hard too, I found it a distraction and that the best option was to fly past them quickly. It doesn't matter so much though, but maybe reward killing them more by having them die faster. <br/> <br/>A solid entry all in all. |
| Dec 9 19:13:00 | 8m 00s | The Robot Gardener of Donut Planet | Fantastic graphics and a great idea. My donut was clearly spinning out of control quite fast though, partly because it was rather hard remembering what did what as well as even though I was spamming D, I failed to remove weeds fast enough. <br/> <br/>I think having some UI at the top or bottom with icons and keyboard buttons would be good. <br/> <br/>For the weeds and probably seeds as well, I think the hit boxes should be larger, maybe 1.5 or even 2x the sixe of the sprites. Else it become too hard way to fast. At least for me. <br/> <br/>But all in all, I found this a really interesting idea and great artwork. |
| Dec 9 19:23:00 | 10m 00s | Rringo | I was also quite lost with the way the controls worked. I tried three times with little luck really understanding the game mechanic. If I understood it correctly, the color coding explained how I should interact with the ppl. I think it would have been easier to understand if each color type had a very clear effect once one had clicked on them and that the effect would give me a clear understanding of what just happened. Now, all I got to was click on red. But that didn't really help me understand how to succeed. <br/> <br/>The graphics was great and the sounds fit really well and made a very good mood for the game. |
| Dec 9 19:42:00 | 19m 00s | Slidey Box | It was a really hard game. It is however OK that it is. I would put it in the fold of flappy bird-likes, if there is such a type of games. They should be hard, and have controls that are all but easy to handle. Maybe you should try and port it to phone and use the gyro as control... <br/> <br/>I got to 5, and I'm going to be happy with that. <br/> <br/>I liked that thorough simple esthetics's. |
| Dec 10 13:32:00 | 17h 50m | ProtoBot | Great game, really fantastic and nice use of those pro effects too. I never did manage the first wave but I had fun dying and though I was failing miserably I was having fun. Music was really superb in combination with the aesthetics and mood. <br/> <br/>Things to consider: <br/> <br/>Esc to quit the game. <br/> <br/>Have the menu/introduction disappear with mouse click or add instructions on what button to click <br/> <br/>Add a recharge meter under the hexabot for the blast. <br/> <br/>Maybe add some repair kits as well for us less talented players. |
| Dec 10 13:51:00 | 19m 00s | SL1M3 | Nice take on the classical sokoban type of puzzle. I like the 3D effects on it all and the difficulty progress was really nice, though I got stuck after a while. Sounds and music also very nice match to the game. <br/> <br/>Things to consider: <br/> <br/>It took me a while to understand the mechanics of the many of the intractable objects. E.g. the blue and those that canceled each other. I think it would both be clearer and cooler if you added some lerps or tweens and some A and B negates each other effects. That way the mechanics should become more accessible. <br/> <br/>It was nice with a retry button and really nice that the levels had checkpoints so retry didn't always mean from the beginning. The graphics of the button didn't really match the rest of the game though (very minor detail), and more importantly, it would have been nice if 'R' invoked the button. Some levels you want to hit it often and you shouldn't force the player to use the mouse when it's not used in game. <br/> <br/>Finally, it would have been cool and clearer if the tiles of the playing field flipped over at the end of each level (rotating 180 deg on whatever axis, maybe by random or some order) to expose the next. At the end of the first level I was kind of confused by one of the disappearing symbols and though I was supposed to remember their positions. <br/> <br/>All in all a great game and some fun playing time. |
| Dec 10 14:28:00 | 37m 00s | Neural Connectivity | Very nice little odd adventure. It would have been disturbing with the floaty controls and not too perfect collisions (e.g. turning around close to wall) if it had not been for the trippy plot. In fact, the game might even have benefited by even weirder way of walking. <br/> <br/>Thing to consider: <br/> <br/>The proximity to the radio to be able to interact with it was rather short, I was about to give up before I walked right up next to it. Volume could be cranked up quite a bit. <br/> <br/>Upon completion it would have been nice with something clearly happing on the screen. Maybe actually a game like pong appearing. <br/> <br/>More random stuff throughout the world that didn't aim towards completing the game. Like ears that wouldn't listen, some rude bears and so on. Some of them with options in the interactions, like the radio. The option don't need to mean anything. Just more stuff to explore and experience to distract away from the quite linear and straight story. |
| Dec 10 14:59:00 | 31m 00s | Last Call | Very nice game indeed. Played it for quite a while, didn't get to the end of translating everything but it was a really nice combo of space flight and communications. Mood just fantastic and in perfect tune with the sounds and music. Character animations were also very cute. <br/> <br/>In the beginning it took me a while to realize what was buttons and that things actually happened when I clicked stuff. If there was a tint effect on hover or similar it would have helped a lot. For changing the aim when clicking planet, a clear visual feedback on that the aim was changing would have been nice too. <br/> <br/>Equally it took me some tries to understand the language rune system. That I think could have been solved by a vertical etching running through each column and then bending to the position in the rune display relevant for that column. <br/> <br/>I don't know if the coords meant anything. I took them as mostly atmospheric, and nice as such. So if they were important, maybe they need to clearer indication of their use. <br/> <br/>I very much enjoyed the game, so I hope you take the comments the right way. I've been yearning for good explorative and non-fighting focused space games. Being an interplanitary messenger rather than just space mining astorids in EVE might be on the track of what I was truly longing for... |
| Dec 10 15:18:00 | 19m 00s | Unicycle | I think I got to the end of this tread mill story, but it is hard to know. I found it really enjoyable and interesting to play through. The music effect was very nice too. If it was playing in reverse going backward it would have been fantastic. <br/> <br/>It would have been great if the game was a bit more forgiving for when it was allowed to jump and not. On the other hand it sort of fed into the story that it was a bit awkward. <br/> <br/>If you had allowed for voting I would have like this in several categories. As I said on twitter some days back, I think this looping of platforms could be really good mechanic if one wanted to make a more typical skill based game. There are so may of those though, so I was rather happy noticing that this was not. |
| Dec 10 15:36:00 | 18m 00s | Piano Racer | Got to about 15-16 but had a blast playing. Really quite fantastic and extremely well executed game. Music, graphics, controls all came together more or less perfectly. I try priding myself in these comments to have some constructive critique, but it is a bit hard this time around. There's not much I would consider changing or tweaking... <br/> <br/>If anything, I failed to understand the controls the first two times around, but since the game was so quick at restart it didn't really matter. You could test having the first two passes in a slight slow motion. Or even have the whole tune be one of those that increase in speed over time. Might be so now, but that I didn't get far enough. <br/> <br/>The second thing I came to think of, though it clearly wasn't an issue for me was that the paths existing now seems to be rather few. It could be possible to add 360 turn around and some other paths while still keeping the style, width of path and general resolution of the game. <br/> <br/>Full starts all way through. |
| Dec 10 16:49:00 | 1h 13m | Adventure Cows | Much fun farming simulator cow tower defense or what exactly the classification of this game should be. I'm not very good at that type of 4D aiming and not very good at the wave defense games either, so the fact that I managed to survive quite long (according to my book) and still feel challenged means it had a great difficulty progression. I didn't get much time over to feed or shelter the cows, but I suppose that was sort of the balance you were aiming at. <br/> <br/>After a while I noticed that the cows had levels and that it actually mattered. So I would suggest having a clearer visual feedback on cow level up and at least for me it would have helped to give the player a breather by a short slow motion passage as that happened. <br/> <br/>If I got it right, the cows would die if they got pushed out in that black void. If would have been nice with some animation for when that happened (maybe there was one but I was too focused on the remainder of my herd). And maybe hurting cows could have a "Moo" speech bubble or something to assist player in where the most pressing trouble is. <br/> <br/>All in all a very nice game to play! |
| Dec 10 17:08:00 | 19m 00s | The Dinorawr Tales | I like the games I play to objectify beards, all sorts of beards, not just dinosaurs'. It was a nice game, but some things I didn't manage to figure out: <br/> <br/>When or what made the dino turn around? <br/> <br/>When was the dino hurt? It seemed like colliding with opponents was not a problem. Also tried having several blobs waving their swords at me and for a while I was staying at three hearts unaffected and then all of a sudden I was dead. <br/> <br/>In that respect, warping to next level, it would have been friendly with a bit of a safe zone around where you ended up. <br/> <br/>In all though, a nice game. |
| Dec 10 19:37:00 | 2h 29m | Glow Drop | Nice execution of classic bejeweled type game. I think all parts, music, graphics and game play came together nicely. <br/> <br/>I, of course, got really stressed quite soon and never obtained any great score, but one thing (I think) I noticed was that the balls seemed more and more reluctant to register my clicks the harder the game got. I don't know if that was by design, if it was just my stress speaking or some quirk of having more balls in play. If it was meant to get harder, maybe visually display the shrinking hit area on the balls. <br/> <br/>Also, maybe due stress, I never figured you if the magic balls were surprise balls that you couldn't know what they'd produce or if there was some way of being smart about them. If the latter, maybe have a ? on them or something... |
| Dec 10 19:52:00 | 15m 00s | birdsong | Yep, really, really great. As usual. I've never quite seen a game like this. Graphics well much more perfect than can be expected in a jam. I did however give up quite soon because the combination of the screen distortion and quite demanding controls to start with... I simply fell at the same place too many times. By demanding controls I mean that they didn't give much air control to adjust a bad jump. I'm not sure, but maybe also a bit unforgiving in that it took the bird a little bit to stop the momentum. I mean, that's how it should be, but with the distortion it got a bit too much for me. I didn't really agree with the twigs either. I managed to build one nest but couldn't manage the second or failed to remember how to pick up twigs. Could be just me, but maybe twig introduction could be a bit clearer...or a friendly help for recap for us forgetful. <br/> <br/>The whole idea and how to fit a lot of content onto one screen (though to be honest the mechanic would work fine even if everything didn't fit on the screen) was just brilliant. |
| Dec 11 18:08:00 | 22h 16m | Toy House Attack | Really nice game and some serious character animations done for a jam! I really like you could hold and shoot, but it was a bit hard to see the shots, and maybe they should have been themed to fit with the snowmen. But that's really a minor detail. <br/> <br/>What made me give up was that the box shoving felt unnecessarily difficult. I would have opted for a much wider box collider that only collided with the boxes one were supposed to push around. <br/> <br/>Other than that, a really good game. |
| Dec 11 19:03:00 | 55m 00s | Disco Kitty Nightmare | Great music! I liked the little cat too. Sometimes it felt as it had two heads when moving through the dark areas. I think those dark areas need to be much less dark so that you can see the area around you. Maybe have a light source over the cat or something. <br/> <br/>The game was quite too hard for me, got to 1k as a record. So I think the mines and such were too many, at least in the beginning. <br/> <br/>Never saw any recharge either, so I think the disco floors should recharge health much faster and as a counter effect they could themselves have a timeout so that they go dark after a while and you have to get to the next floor. That would also better justify the whole reason for moving around. Top that off with some killer cat dance moves if player stands still on a dance floor. <br/> <br/>Difficulty can be successively increased with denser enemy spawns the longer the cat survives. <br/> <br/>I think that could make for an interesting dynamics. Good start for a game though. |
| Dec 11 19:20:00 | 17m 00s | Stay Frosty | I really like what you did with the lighting. And the assets all looked great. <br/> <br/>I died quite a few times in the beginning and it was a bit annoying having to wait for the level to reset. I wanted to fast click, space something back to get to try it again. <br/> <br/>I think the controls were OK, though I missed quite a few shots and died from not remembering how to walk. When I finally got the hang of it a bit and survived to kill off many it kind of became apparent that the difficulty progression was rather reversed. It started quite hard and then for a long time (since I'm not that good of a sniper) it just kept getting easier until it got really hard again. Maybe there's another spawning mechanism possible, with smaller waves of enemies and have the waves go per shots fired or time or something so that difficulty in the beginning works more intuitively. <br/> <br/>I was also surprised that several features was possible to walk through for the enemy (like the house and guard tower). <br/> <br/>But in general a really well made game and I enjoyed playing it! |
| Dec 11 21:39:00 | 2h 19m | The Ball | Hehe that sure was some programmer art! It was fun playing though. Tried quite a few times until I finally got to 165. It really was quite a fun concept. <br/> <br/>Since it's a really fast game where you have to retry a lot of times, I would not have a specific start button but click anywhere to restart feature. Keep the players playing! <br/> <br/>I would also consider making the hit circle for the ball (not for colliding with object but registering the force) about 1.5x the actual size of the ball for it to be more friendly. To elevate difficulty as the level progresses, just decrease the size of the ball. Make the room smaller, add another loop or a ball bouncer. You could also play with physics dynamically, rotate the room with the camera a bit so that the player doesn't see the rotation happening. <br/> <br/>Then, the loop, I'd consider randomizing where one the x axis it starts. It also was a bit friendly in giving point even if the ball didn't pass through, so maybe place a trigger on either side, well separated and require it to enter one, then both, then only the other. <br/> <br/>I can imagine this to be perfect for touch interaction. With some visual feedback on where the force press appeared. Camera shake when ball is bouncing against walls and so on. Get yourself someone to do the graphics, add some music and work on difficulty progression and that juice and I think this could be a great game. |
| Dec 12 00:08:00 | 2h 29m | Walled | I really enjoyed the combination of being in one place and pushing walls apart. I'm not a fan of having to spam buttons though, and whould have wished for an option of just staying in the zone to get points rather than hitting space. <br/> <br/>In the beginning I found the wall pushing placement kind of counter intuitive as up meant horizontal push. I get why you opted for that solution but maybe if it was possible to hint before placement so one could regret the decision. Say give it a 2 second delay before it starts to fold out, during which you may redirect it. Maybe also using IJKL rather than arrow keys to let hands rest symmetrically on keyboard. <br/> <br/>The target positions for gaining points could also move around during later phase of game. Could be fun. <br/> <br/>Great game though, tried it until I got more than 1k score, even though the space hitting. |
| Dec 15 22:53:00 | 94h 45m | Fido, Fiona & Fidel | I didn't really understand the animals' instructions, I found some warm spots, but I suppose those were not the targets. Basically it is way to hard first level, how to interpret the characters need to be introduced with very easy mazes before something as complex as 19x19. <br/> <br/>That thumping sound that comes (also now when writing since web version is embedded) is really quite horrible, I'm sorry to say, and what it is supposed to indicate is all but clear. <br/> <br/>From the, what I think are brain displays of the cat and the dog, I guessed I should listen more to the lazy cat, but it too was not agreeing with itself, so even though I tried to use the hints of the animals, I was basically just pushing different directions. Maybe the parrot should say things like "Bad" and "Good" instead of "Cold" depending on what how good the player's move was. |
| Dec 29 15:01:00 | 328h 08m | The Mosquito Effect (mosquito simulator) | Flying a mosquito was awesome. It was a bit hard to get a grip on the position of the mosquito and direction of flight in relation to the humans. Part of it may have been that I never use inverted Y axis on mouse... so I would recommend adding the ability to toggle that. I also suppose the way the camera moved around is optimized for VR? <br/>I liked the panic screams and the work on the graphics is really great. |