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TaoPhoenix

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game	TaoPhoenix's comment
Dec 13 01:00:00		become a game developer in 60 seconds	Hysterical parody of the LD process! <br/> <br/>It's a pity though that 60 sec is just a little too fast for me!
Dec 13 07:14:00	6h 14m	Hexirus	Cute little strategy game. <br/> <br/>The initial spread is random so my highest score was 125 because the virus was trapped in a lump and some spreads you can't beat at all. <br/> <br/>But one of the better early ones.
Dec 13 20:08:00	12h 54m	Grow the herd	You can grow your herd! <br/> <br/>But it's tricky, I only got a few sheep, it's really easy to get jammed into a corner (but they have bump detection) but in-game that top cul de sac next to the herd pen is really tricky.
Dec 13 22:35:00	2h 27m	Terror Plant from outer Space	Hi Gang. <br/> <br/>Thanks to Tetha for the shout out! <br/> <br/>Tetha said it was okay for me to give y'all a couple of VERY basic tips just to get a handle on what's going on. But you'll need a bit of cleverness to beat hard level! <br/> <br/>- The soldiers can sometimes move diagonally to auto-attack in horizontal or vertical directions, and it's the same move, not "attack next move". <br/> <br/>- Except for strategic gameplay, "nothing happens" until a soldier gets to your source saproling. About mid game, when you get time, station a ManEater kinda near your saproling just to help prevent last minute disasters and buy you some time to think. <br/> <br/>- You have to maintain invaders at all the towns to win, so if they break free you're not done yet. <br/> <br/>-- Strategy tip. You don't have to spend all your points every round, so bank some points Because it's all about the ManEaters. <br/> <br/>Good luck!
Dec 14 06:11:00	7h 36m	Stavros the DAVROS	Yeah, all that art work, for me only to be "ruined" by trying to jam it into the 2 keys bit. The controls were very strange.
Dec 14 06:44:00	33m 00s	Crabby Puzzles	Very pleasant little game! <br/> <br/>Great example of a game that rides on the character art, so it's crisp and well done. <br/> <br/>It has a slow learning gradient so people who like leisurely pacing will like this one. The last level or two is tricky though! <br/> <br/>And don't forget the dev was wise enough to have no lives, no timer, and infinite level restarts by holding down both left and right keys. So it's all about the puzzle, without "artificial" external pressure. <br/> <br/>Nice! : )
Dec 14 07:13:00	29m 00s	Plantagone	The question of difficulty is tricky here. The first several levels were like a tutorial with little risk. Then I got in real trouble with one of the ones with the spikes and gave up because it's just getting late. But really cute graphics indeed!
Dec 14 20:25:00	13h 12m	World Grower - Growth of the civilization	It's important to separate what might be an "Easy fix" vs harder stuff. I'd think stuff like the rising prices of everything is a snap to change, and I'm with amras0000 when you build cities, (except maybe small "yearly" increases), the units stay the same, so you start with little houses then build bigger stuff. With the price of everything increasing every purchase and the "time to wait for a sane time to buy land" is in realtime, he's right that maybe a good concept got crunched into the "clicker" category that's an imitation of the fun like cotton candy, but then you sour on it REAL fast. <br/> <br/>I know this is LD, but even something as simple as "build enough money to build Hotels and become a millionaire" is a goal. 1 more bldg type, but it's closer to the city build genre not the clicker "increase forever until a house costs 400,000 and you wait half an hour to buy land".
Dec 14 21:44:00	1h 19m	Yarnful Days	Yeah, I'm in the crowd of really being impressed at the art and quiet music too, and it actually runs on my undead monster of a comp!
Dec 14 21:59:00	15m 00s	Full Metal Democracy	I'm new to your games, and it's Compo not Jam, so you def have a talent for art! This is a quick post that the concept is a lot of fun, and I'm building a list of games to go back over in more detail over at DonationCoder.com so I'll post back again in a few days during voting with more!
Dec 14 22:23:00	24m 00s	Frog Well	Fun little jumping game. Crisp simple graphics, looks like he stayed in scope for LD (mostly? : ) <br/> <br/>If you get stuck with bad movement falls, just reload the page.
Dec 15 04:47:00	6h 24m	2 Growing Buttons ...	Extremely simple game but per the site notes the guy isn't a coder, but found something and gave it his all, and made a game and I don't see any / many bugs. <br/> <br/>And it is the closest I've seen to a private joke about a program I made as a child some 28 years ago and now it reminds me of "avoiding random people here in New York City wandering around looking at their cell phones and you have to dodge them" : )
Dec 15 08:06:00	3h 19m	PINGROW	Logicon, yeah, the point is when you're small you basically gain nothing for points. <br/> <br/>So the whole point of the game is kinda pseudo-psych-warfare trying to "outsmart" the bullets when to grow and your points skyrocket. <br/> <br/>But a tip is you gain the same points "1 step shorter than max" so you grow and then shrink 1 level so you're only two taps from being small then you can jump the grounders. <br/> <br/>Difficulty ... a little strange. This LD is producing a lot of games that are "both easy and hard". <br/> <br/>I know, it's prob random gen, but if you "pseudo-treat it as psych-warfare" if you think you see "1 opening to grow" don't fall into the "trap". Stay small and deal with the 7 grounders! <br/> <br/>Then when it looks like you've got a legit window, grab points. <br/> <br/>I made it over 10,000 a couple times before I began to do other things.
Dec 15 09:13:00	1h 07m	Double Jump	Some of your games are skull bending! But I played Unconventional Earth a while back (though my comp is misbehaving now!) and I think I recall that one being fairly easy to grasp and beat. <br/> <br/>(I think it was some kind of defend and slowly push an advantage kind of strategy.) <br/> <br/>This one is too hard for me because I'm no good at visually assessing complex angles and stuff!
Dec 15 09:54:00	41m 00s	Super Square	Yeah, per sathorn and the others, this is a prime candidate for a Post Compo version. I'd think some kind of width addition check in pairs should work. <br/> <br/>And I just rolled my critter to very small and left it that wsy. I didn't see any incentive to get bigger.
Dec 15 22:42:00	12h 48m	SpaceHex	------------- <br/>Hey guys, for all of you who got frustrated with the first ultra hard version try it again. It's balanced much better and while I still lost first try, I'm gonna go back and try a few times because at least it feels like I have a fighting chance this time!
Dec 16 01:47:00	3h 05m	Learning to Dance	Yeah, pretty good stuff. <br/> <br/>There's a couple of big font comments per "act" that don't move, so that might help a little to stay anchored and it's holistic, so if you miss a fragment it's not like a game where you lose your character-life.
Dec 16 05:44:00	3h 57m	Ascending Roots	By the overnight into Wed Dec 16 2015 US East Blackbird put up a different build that can sometimes help players running XP avoid "invalid app" errors so I got to play it just now. <br/> <br/>I'd call this game a really solid entry, easily 3-4 on a lot of categories. <br/> <br/>There's a couple of different types of puzzle games - the ones with "sneak shots" where a player can get really frustrated (some like it though!) with obscure things to do to advance the action along. <br/> <br/>This one tries to "play fair" in that it's about the pattern sequencing of the water vs the max capacity 6 drop cap and which way you go which direction and so on. <br/> <br/>So I just ran through it with the help of the devs and with one exception once I got past "some funny stuff" I did just fine on all the levels except one. <br/> <br/>More detailed stuff in a second post just to avoid walls of text. <br/> <br/>The art is solid, there's some soft music, and the puzzles are ultimately very doable. There's one level in the middle Into the Trees that some of us think is actually harder than some later levels so don't get discouraged!
Dec 16 07:36:00	1h 52m	Sphere Co.™	I think the game is a bit better than the pics might suggest. <br/> <br/>The difficulty seems doable for anyone with shooter experience - I'm terrible at those and I got to near the end. It's a short game. <br/> <br/>I didn't see many outright bugs - it was just awkward trying to snipe at the robots. So the "gain health as you shoot" is actually an interesting mechanic, so I ended up discovering you can "stand on top of the robots" and your health comes out as a tie, so you save that if lucky for the last round and it could be tight but feels winnable. <br/> <br/>In the chat we went over it could have used with a couple of level saves, and a fast option to skip all the dialog, but a pleasant little game!
Dec 19 07:59:00	72h 23m	Interview at Incredible Inc	Yes. in fact <br/>i play chess. <br/> <br/>Ya gotta know (on paper!?) about 7 equations then you win. <br/> <br/>52 cards per deck is 4 x 13 so nothin' near 54 <br/> <br/>And the prog likes to ask it twice
Feb 9 09:52:00	1249h 53m	Natura	Very cute indeed! <br/> <br/>The balancing looks decent - I'm no platformer but I made it to level 2 just past the whale.
Feb 9 12:00:00	2h 08m	Z4KM4STER - Zookeeper DJ	Very pleasant! <br/>There were old skool handheld Nintendo games before they got into hi-tech that mechanics a lot like this, except the ones I remember used falling items and not a curve bounce. <br/> <br/>And it's nice because I am a casual LD gamer, so I liked not getting crushed on level 1! And I'm terrible at most speeds of DDR type games so I could mostly pass this one at least the silver trophy within a few tries though I had to work a bit at the last one. <br/> <br/>And really clever music note placing, that had to take work!
Feb 10 03:59:00	15h 59m	2Door	I agree with most of the above, nailed the presentation. I think it's not at all a clone of Simon because the distraction factor begins to get to you! I believe this could actually have use with psychologists! <br/> <br/>And it has a Phoenix!! :)
Feb 10 11:04:00	7h 05m	Flutter	Whew! <br/> <br/>I beat the game with only 88 retries! (Yikes) <br/> <br/>Some tips for players: <br/> <br/>Some of the moves are pixel sharp. But they all work. <br/> <br/>In my opinion there are 2-3 "scorcher" levels near the end; the early levels are to demonstrate the mechanics. <br/> <br/>There is no "gravity penalty" as found in some games of this genre. <br/> <br/>Good luck!
Feb 10 13:13:00	2h 09m	Walter the Wise	Yep, me too! <br/>Sometimes it's nice to have a game that just is lots of fun even when it is super easy! <br/> <br/>Contrary to some opinions, there are plenty of hard games on LD, I probably would have been frustrated if there was a "fatigue meter". <br/> <br/>For once I just liked doing two air raid bolts then hailing down wings of fire!
Feb 10 14:08:00	55m 00s	Drez-eX	I wish there was a way to know where the boss was. I kept fading into the distance! <br/> <br/>But at least I got my serpent the right length in the post compo versions, but still had trouble finding the boss so I couldn't even try to figure that out! <br/> <br/>... For 20 hours work! (Plus Post Compo)
Feb 10 14:31:00	23m 00s	Family Tree	I agree very strange! <br/>I couldn't figure out how to get past the wolf though!
Feb 11 04:50:00	14h 19m	Pigeon	Hmm, Interesting but I had some trouble with the strategy.
Feb 11 11:09:00	6h 19m	Go, Go, Radzilla!	Haha, my counterpart Phoenix849 has the comment I want to echo, that the "2 button" theme has kinda tricked some of the devs into a playability trap but after a little practice you really get into your "weapons of various destruction"! <br/> <br/>I got 25,000+ on about my second try. <br/> <br/>Re ElliottD's note, the way I got into it was noticing how long and far the missiles went, so you can prepare "cover fire" to crunch the planes at the beginning of their range. <br/> <br/>I plan to write this one up over at my favorite other site DonationCoder.com !
Feb 13 15:44:00	52h 35m	Growth Control	Yep, I had a lot of fun on easy level, I'll repeat the comments above about simple but effective graphics and a nifty concept I'll liken to de-energizing your opponent's nodes. <br/> <br/>I glanced at hard-mode and it does seem to be firing more accurately, so I'll think about that later the next round of playing.
Feb 14 11:52:00	20h 08m	M.A.R.E.M - Mind Annihilation Retro Explosion Massacre	Yeah, just left and right shooting and not a lot of strategy so I kept dying about half way through Gatling Gun and didn't see what else to do.
Mar 13 11:01:00	671h 09m	Growees	I rather like the lack of "pressure" like #moves or a time limit etc, because if you don't have the pattern down to a science but just know the basics you can afford to mis-step and then fix it the 3rd time around or whatever. <br/> <br/>So maybe it's been done, but it's all where you look, and since my main focus is on LD, this is the first exact copy of this I've seen! <br/> <br/>And like the other people were saying, sometimes it's nice to have a nice presentation on top of a simple puzzle, because in other contexts you can possibly "separate and sell" the graphics engine to be put on top of other games in the same class.