Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD34 → Feedback comment stats → local minimum

local minimum

Feedback comments for LD34

← LD33   LD35 →

local minimum's games and stats for all events →

TimestampSince previousGamelocal minimum's comment
Dec 16 12:14:00 Blob Schmlob (BS) It was an interesting feature that the enemies stayed dead between plays. And uncommon way of killing them with the dashing. It was quite hard though, I didn't get very far. And as that, it would have been nice with a little quicker death-sequence to respawn. If the game would have started a little easier too, it would have been better. Being surrounded by 3 enemies right when you start isn't very friendly ;) Nice entry though.
Dec 16 12:29:00 15m 00s yaschiki I very much enjoy the style of this game. The controls felt very well made too. Very smart reload-feature. It might have been good to make the modality be even more visually obvious, e.g. like tinting the entire game red. I found the enemies quite hard though, never got passed the first encounter. So I would urge to make it easier, with only one or possibly two (the flanking) enemies in the first encounter. The sound for it was fantastic though, so I didn't much care that I kept failing -- like some sort of scare-joy.
Dec 16 12:52:00 23m 00s Psychra First time I played it I was like "it would have been really nice if the music and the world was like building up the more of those white things you collected". Second time I played I found out how marvelously it did just that. With that in mind though, I would consider making the pick-up collider for the white things a bit larger, because it would seem to me it is a game about soothingly drifting around and experiencing the evolution of the surrounding. And as such should be very easy. I don't know if I got the biotope maxed out, but in any case. If you consider doing some more work on this entry, I would recommend adding more progression to the music. Including adding a evolving the ping on collecting the white stuff. I'd loved some rain as well as budding flowers on the bushes and trees. Maybe morph the ship too, giving it more and more complex shape? It would be neat if the evolution of the game progresed over some sort of narrative phases: From deserted waste planes, to basic topology, rocks, small shrubs, trees, weather, wild-life. And then maybe decay after that. And who knows what. Also, maybe add Esc to quit the game. <br/> <br/>After this inconsistent rant, to sum it up: I absolutely enjoyed the experience of playing the game.
Dec 16 13:07:00 15m 00s TAMAGROW Fun little idea for a game. Since one could press the red and green buttons many times while the dino was presenting its ideas, it would have been really nice to get some feedback on that it had at all accepted my suggestion. Also to make it more playable, if there had been some sort of reaction from the dinosaur so the player can learn what was helping growth or not it would be nice. And a meter showing the time left (maybe one should get a little extra time each time you answer a correct answer). Just some suggestions.
Dec 16 13:12:00 5m 00s The Daring Entrepreneur I can't click on the shout in the street button, I get the hover for the buy a sign. I'm running FireFox. Disabling uBlock doesn't seem to make a difference.
Dec 16 13:18:00 6m 00s GROW I think the game would have benefited from an interactive tutorial explaining how to build a plant and some stronger feedback about the resource economy I figure was at the base of the game. Like a clear meter for water uptake capability and a clear meter for energy production. Do green stems produce energy for instance.
Dec 16 13:39:00 21m 00s Hyperdemocracy It was a very fun start on a game that feels like it wants to become something much bigger. Nice work. It would have been nice if the interaction with the voting machine was mapped to buttons close to the keyboard controls so one didn't need to use the mouse. If the chat didn't clear on voting would have felt more "natural" too, but maybe insert a status into the chat "* You voted YES on prop 1420" or something. I would love to see this voting economy-dystopia continued into a full adventure/exploration game.
Dec 16 14:00:00 21m 00s Infinity Monkey Autocorrect My monkey wasn't very talented, but I had fun never the less typing away. Brilliant entry.
Dec 16 15:23:00 1h 23m Cideogen It was quite difficult to get a hang of. After a while I did get at least to the place where you drop down in the underground. Had some really large weapon, but it didn't seem to hit the enemies anymore. I think for controls you should consider turning up the gravity some and for physics remove the friction (or make it like ice) of the rigidbody so it doesn't stick to walls.
Dec 16 15:35:00 12m 00s treadmill OK this was evil to have to survive to get the score... but then when I finally made it (161 score) I was not logged IN! Good entry. Frustrating as usual. It would have been nice to be rewarded a little more when you made it to the end of the timer. Oh, and here's a crazy idea: time runs slower if you are really quick on the treadmill!
Dec 16 15:53:00 18m 00s Ethereal Very nice simple and soothing game. I enjoyed the feeling of floating around the the world. It might have been nice if the targets sent out a long-range ping of sorts to help guiding towards them, but it was easy enough on the levels I played that it wasn't necessary. The ease of flight, I would say almost made me feel like there should have been a negative effect on colliding with any wall, not just the spikes. The shooting seemed a bit wonky right if one got hit first, but that was no big thing. Also the particles kind of felt like they didn't come from the engine of the ship (especially when turning). Besides those small details, it was a very well made and enjoyable game. Great work.
Dec 16 16:02:00 9m 00s Crow Wing Interesting way to build up a puzzle and make the most out of two buttons. The stomping/heavy drop was really nice. Great work on models in general. I didn't really get if the game was meant to look a bit glitchy on some tiles or if it was a technical issue. I'm all for glitch though, but the game didn't look like a glitch game. A way to exit the game would have been nice too. Interesting start for a puzzle-type platformer, it'd be nice to see where you take it if you decide to continue dev on it.
Dec 16 16:14:00 12m 00s Sproutsong I downloaded the windows-version but when I click on the magic-garden executable all that happens is a Chromium window that says "NW.JS". I couldn't get the web-version running either.
Dec 16 16:45:00 31m 00s Slash Quest I sincerely dislike those bunnies. They are evil! Great game. Quite hard to manage the controls and I think as for the quality of the game, it would improve and become even better if you make a version with more than two buttons. I liked the progression. Art style is just fantastic. The thing that was a bit annoying was that if you had managed to cut down your sword really short you had to wait for spawns before you could activate bridge to next area. Or so it seemed. <br/> <br/>In the title screen I had the feeling that some of the text might have ended up outside the display area/camera. Probably just a small fix. It would also have been nice to exit the game somehow. <br/> <br/>Great entry all in all though.
Dec 16 16:49:00 4m 00s Hanami - Push-Up Farming It was really hard to get anywhere playing solo. Graphics is very well made and though it is an exercise game (I generally don't enjoy such), the circumstances here are very forgiving. It would have been nice if the shift keys also got the game started, so one could be prepared and ready.
Dec 16 17:23:00 34m 00s FRUITWOLF Fantastic entry. Just fantastic. I enjoyed playing it very much. Music and graphics and game content working smoothly together. If there was one thing, it would be that the controls were a bit hard when carrying stuff. And possibly, the marker for picking up stuff felt a bit of a contrast style-wise compared to everything else in the game. Really great though. Fantastic work
Dec 16 18:18:00 55m 00s Wyst Nice game with generally interesting puzzles. I got frustrated with the clouds jumping though and gave up. Good use of the theme.
Dec 16 18:31:00 13m 00s Concrete Jungle I took me some to get started but then I was off and away. Really great game and interesting mechanics. The visuals, with time passing as fast as it did, was really nice. It would have been interesting if stuff could interact with the vine. Like for example, birds. Or if day-night cycle was important. Weather. Etc. It got a bit repetitious while climbing alternating balconies, and after that it got dead hard. So maybe some more variation to about equal difficulty sections and then a slower progression towards the super tricky. I really enjoyed playing it, if there was a reasonable way of making the interactions for mobile and maybe add an elevation-score... it would be a very nice relaxing game for the commute to work.
Dec 16 18:41:00 10m 00s Hybris Great graphics and solid game. I'm not very good at those games it would seem though so it is much too hard for me, even the first map. Maybe it would be more encouraging to keep on failing if the same level just quickly restarted as soon as death sequence played out.
Dec 16 18:50:00 9m 00s DangerGrid I really enjoyed the visual feel and flying in the canyon was cool. Though it was a bit slow in the beginning, it picked up pace/challenge quite nicely afterwards. The second phase was very confusing and after being destroyed (?) there was nothing I could do but exit the game. It is a very nice start for a racer-type game though so hope you dev some more on it.
Dec 16 19:02:00 12m 00s Puff Enuff? Well made game. The controls were a bit hard to get use to though and that made the whole finding all the enemies quite a job. So I guess my suggestion would be to make the levels smaller and/or make the enemies easier to find. But all in all a very good game.
Dec 16 19:30:00 28m 00s I've Bean Stalking You I really like the style and the idea behind it. There are obvious issues with collision and the fact that the "enemies" just stand there minding their own business. That aside, I played for 6-7 levels because I enjoyed the feeling of it so much.
Dec 16 19:46:00 16m 00s A years growth I liked the mood and most of all the painted style of the game. It might have been nice if the character moved a little faster and that one didn't have to repeat as many times during the quests. But in all a nice experience.
Dec 16 20:02:00 16m 00s Be A Man It took me a little while before I realized I could swap stuff all over the board. Fun little game. A bit confusing that it could give very happy comments about leveling down though.
Dec 16 20:15:00 13m 00s Longbeard Cool idea and in general interesting concept. I enjoyed playing through the game. Graphics and music worked flawlessly together. My one concern would be that the beard and character controls weren't very easy to get right. I'm not sure what exactly felt lacking there, but I couldn't really get the feel. Then of course it would have been great if the game had been longer. But given that it must have been rather tricky to implement that beard mechanics, it is very understandable. Hope you find time to continue work on it.
Dec 18 12:36:00 40h 21m Drill Fight I must admit this type of game is not really for me, though I played my fair share of it as a kid. The controls work nice. It would have been great to have a combo for blocking too. That way it'd be more dynamic of a fight.
Dec 18 12:49:00 13m 00s BOOST Very competent arcade game with nice controls. It took me a while of playing level 1 to realize that it is in fact a very short level I you just fly fast. I was flying carefully just above the death-cloud collecting all that came at me. So maybe add a level-progression meter somewhere. I didn't really get what the collectibles were, but once it felt like I ran out of juice, so maybe that was it. The second level was very much harder than the first for me. And though several attempts, I failed to get past it. So maybe have fewer balls in the second level. To build up the feeling in the player that 'maybe I could get a little longer next time'. If the thruster-meters have some problem-state (e.g. out of fuel), it probably needs to draw even more attention than the current version since the game is rather stressful and I at least didn't really have much over to notice what was happening to them. <br/> <br/> <br/>I did have a very good time playing it. Great entry! <br/> <br/>Btw now we have a Mac version up an running of out game if you want to give it a try.
Dec 18 13:17:00 28m 00s Spinning Around Very very very good puzzles you've made here. A nice cylindrical structure to explore. I sometimes got the feeling that maybe if I hadn't understood the puzzle correctly that could have pushed a block to where it wasn't retrievable. Maybe it wasn't true or you'd thought if it. But in any a case, I think it is important that the player can't end up in a fail state. The difficulty was perfect for me. Having to think some, but not getting frustrated anywhere. For there teleporters, it would have been nice if there was a trigger around them a bit larger than them that displayed some 'awareness' effect so that the player could know where the player would end up before jumping in to it. My one reservation would be that, while the effect of the other character following you up as you go up was really nicely done, the plot felt quite unnecessary. And even if deciding to keep the lovers' embrace in the end, if the player didn't know if it was a lover or an enemy monitoring the players progress, it would make for a more interesting story-dynamics while playing. <br/> <br/>Great game though.
Dec 18 13:36:00 19m 00s A Bullet Hell Style Shooter Where One Button Controls Both Shooting and Moving, While Another Button Gives You Slightly Sarcastic Motivation. Interesting way of implementing the two-button control in a way that really only needed one button. I like that. Fun little play-through.
Dec 18 13:44:00 8m 00s High-rise Vine I dig the music and how it fits with the game! Enjoyed climbing the face of the building too. Took me a while to realize one could destroy some of the feature though. They could maybe have had a hint or something on them. I clicked up the "How to play" on the webgl version but then couldn't find a way to get back to the menu. Small thing, but easy fix. More importantly, I really didn't understand exactly how my actions made the vine grow slower or faster. I got that if I did turn it turned. Of course. But as for speeding up the vertical climb I didn't really get it. So that probably needs some better feedback too in the game. That said, I'm not really complaining. It was a really good game!
Dec 18 14:00:00 16m 00s Solito 6890 (share that with someone else I see)! So first time around I totally missed out on how it worked, but that was fine. Second time I started upwards and was thinking like, "this is a neat idea, but it is a little bit simple". Then came the wind...and after a while it started to become very hard. Great game. Stunning graphics. A pity that you didn't have time equally stunning music. Because that would elevate this game quite a lot. I could also see the potential for a mobile game. Either tap on left vs right side of screen or have the vine on auto-growth and use the gyro (and have wind push what is up according to the gyro) to define grow left and right. Of course there could be other annoyances than wind too, like a bird temporarily resting on the vine pushing you down a bit. When it comes to the score/energy system, I think you should consider not resetting energy to 55 upon collecting a sun, but instead give a +30 energy. Or even +20, cap energy at 95. Because as it is right now the only thing that matters right now is the number of suns collected. How efficient or fast or slow you were for each "stage" has no effect. And that I think lessens the urge to play again. <br/> <br/>Great game!
Dec 18 14:41:00 41m 00s Don't Clog the Arteries Really tricky controls to get the hang of even if they were simple. I liked the game though. Fun and all. The heart section kind of needs tuning though as when you grow bigger it is actually impossible to avoid the white blood cells most of the time. Music really great.
Dec 18 14:50:00 9m 00s Drone Racer I tried, but only left side stick was reacting in the game. The right side did nothing, so I could only fly up and down and look around.
Dec 18 15:04:00 14m 00s trosor Fantastic art-style. I can see the similarities to the other game you are developing, though much happier and brighter here. The first two levels were kind of easy, but on the third I just never got high up after passing the person/cloud so I just kept jumping back down. It got to be a bit too frustrating, so maybe the controls could have included the ability to turn by oneself. E.g. by shooting right before landing. Also the wall-climbing for us with lesser button skills felt a bit too hard, if one gained a little more hight each jump would have been nice. Those things apart, the game really looked fantastic (as expected). And it was fun playing it.
Dec 18 15:25:00 21m 00s Reap I built myself a raft and headed west. Towards home. But weeks later and no turnip in sight, I'm starving and utterly lost. Poor and lost without an island in sight. <br/> <br/>Great entry as usual. Very stylish. Controls worked fine, though it was a bit confusing in the beginning with the same button for use and drop. The whole instructions part was a bit scary and really, since the in-game help was so good there wasn't that much need for them. <br/> <br/>The way the brightness in the day-night cycle clips your field of view is brilliant. <br/> <br/>For the growing bit, maybe because I didn't take the treasure hunting seriously enough, there was way more food than needed. 16 days without eating before it becomes a problem may be a bit too kind. The sleep cycle maybe also should in part depend on how far the day has passed. If you don't move you have full energy in the morning hours. <br/> <br/>Great game in all though.
Dec 18 16:13:00 48m 00s ＵＰＳＱＵＩＤ I much enjoyed this game. The controls took some getting used to but then they were really nice. It was interesting with a game like this to be able to play it quite slowly without that causing any problem. On the other hand, it also quite removed the feeling of it being an actual challenge, so I think there needs to be something more in the game that successively makes it harder. The one thing that comes to mind is to have a counter-current that progressively becomes stronger so that you are forced to become more and more rapid in-between your strokes. Great entry though.
Dec 18 16:54:00 41m 00s Growees The puzzle was quite hard, but seriously so well made that it didn't matter. I just kept swapping around and enjoying the whole thing a lot. It would be super crazy cool if the tiles kept track of how often they had been turned and so if someone like me isn't doing that well the game would present novel variations on the graphics of the tiles. If the music also reflected the relationship between the two tile types... As for the levels, since I was playing so badly, all three first levels became equally hard and the next one too difficult. I would suggest increasing difficulty more slowly and starting with simpler levels. Like starting with a hex tile that only has every other neighbor possible (4 tiles in total). Great game though. Really stunning. I guess you've though about it, but in case you haven't... controls would work very will on pad/mobile.
Dec 18 17:04:00 10m 00s Forklift Man Really cool idea! I'll have to try the post-jam versions later because it was really a bit too hard to maneuver around for me. I got past the first puzzle easily enough, but the second one stopped me in my tracks. Way to early for such an original and cool-looking idea!
Dec 18 17:12:00 8m 00s Lands of TSR Lore I think I usually end up attempting to do way to large projects for LD, but this is quite insane. Very impressive to have drawn and implemented everything that made it into the game. It brought back memories of EOB. I got to a place like the final screenshot above, but it felt kind of random how I got there and I couldn't move while I was getting killed by some invisible enemy. Other than that. Great game.
Dec 20 16:17:00 47h 05m EVERYTHING'S ON FIRE It was kind of fun flying around, but not knowing exactly what I was doing the first time, I was kind of helpless as I got a bad start. The second time I wiped out the fire really quick and then just had to wait for the end. So I think there could be some balancing in difficulty somehow. Like for example that a tile recently burnt but put out can't burn for a while again. Second, I think the win-condition should trigger on extinguishing the last fire. On that topic too, it would have been nice to at least be able to return to the menu or so after the game was over. Nice little arcade type game though.
Dec 20 16:22:00 5m 00s fungus fungus fungus I really like the idea, even if the controls was one furious wiggle-session (not typically to my liking). Really enjoyed the art style and the setting. Would have been so nice to have some growth-related music. Maybe a tune build from four tracks, one per player and have the current score be reflected on the volumes. It would also be interesting if there was a way to increase the level of dynamics in the playing field as there's a very short early phase when one grabs land (very important) and then one defends that land. More or less. Cool entry though.
Dec 20 16:34:00 12m 00s V BALL Very well made and quite hard game. I got to the end, but was close to giving up at an early stage. I would recommend easing up the difficulty acceleration in the early part a bit. The first level that introduces the red blocks is rather hard for someone still struggling to manage the controls. Equally so with the up and down moving balls, quite a bit to get through especially since they are moving vertically and thus when the player pushes a button to move past them the player will go up a bit and before you are used to it, timing it is really difficult. I wish there had been some music to it though. And finally, if you make left-side of screen go left and right-side to right, then you have yourself a mobile game!
Dec 20 16:54:00 20m 00s Zolander Bebop The game had a good feel to it, and I played it to the end (3-4 tries before I got it). However, though the use of the theme was obvious, the game felt like fighting the controls. And not in a good way. Like the theme destroyed the quality of your game. The amount of enemies was also rather large with respect to how hard it was to steer the little character. I did enjoy the graphics a lot and those camera moves where really great. It did happen though that the camera went one way and the character another at some stages... and that would need to be fixed. So, I think the basic layout of the game, its stages, the hit and run type of dealings with an hostile alien world. I think all that could be a marvelous setting for a game like yours, just with more normal controls. A good entry though.
Dec 20 17:02:00 8m 00s Snowman Builder Extreme That was fun. I was trying to only collect hats but it was really hard. In general it was very hard to actually collect stuff too, so it might increase the fun if the collision-boxes of the pick-ups are a bit larger. Entertaining entry.
Dec 20 17:12:00 10m 00s Avalanche Played it on windows. Liked it. It was a bit slow, it could have been nice if holding both buttons would have increased the speed a bit (maybe at the cost of increasing in size). Another cool thing would have been if there wasn't splatter from hitting the skiers, but that they got stuck and for a while made the ball a bit bumpy (until new snow had rounded it off again), making it harder to control the path. Also, of course, different types of skiers: some slow like those you had now. Some faster than the ball coming from top of screen. Etcetera. Good game though.
Dec 20 17:26:00 14m 00s Button Bugs I liked the game. It was quite challenging. One of my main objections though is that it was hard to see the score I got since the game reset so fast. A little delay would have been sweet. Or a screen, with high-scores and such. As for the pattern matching, it was quite hard when you accidentally erased some other worm than the one you were focusing on. Typically trying to get rid of the closest one of a certain pattern and triggering a kill of some worm hardly in sight. So maybe the game should have a proximity zone and not kill the first matching worm if there's a longer pattern still matching for the proximity zone. Just a though. The rotational controls, since the buttons were so close, made it hard to use the rotation to avoid the worms. That way I just let them stand still and focused on clicking. One way to make the rotation more worth while might be if the buttons were further apart. Or if one could adjust the distance (maybe actually have them always rotating and the keys only adjusting distance between the buttons). Have a look at the ld30 entry for an example of the rotational control http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-30/?action=preview&amp;uid=21449 <br/> <br/>Very nice game entry though.
Dec 20 17:37:00 11m 00s Space2Start.Up2Jump (The Pink Things Are Portals) I never quite got the hang of how to time the jumps. Somehow I managed to get to the second level but there it became impossible for me. For one thing, the view ahead was really short. I think it would have been nice if the character was placed about a fourth of the length from the left. There was some odd ability to glide in the middle of platforms too (it saved me many times). Nice little start for a game.
Dec 21 18:23:00 24h 46m Are you grown? Great graphics and an original take on the theme. I didn't manage to tease out if there was sort of better or worse paths through the game, which I think, for the purpose of the effect the game tries to evoke was nice. I didn't much care for the audio. The sound of a clock could have been a simple replacement. More interestingly to have sparse sounds from the different stages of life as one progresses through. The game, true or not, kind of teaches you to say no to certain questions about death and I liked the twist that one of them gave. But it would also be nice to play that twist the other way around. As for the questions. Graphically, I think another font would have suited better. To fit the style better. To me too, life isn't all or sometimes not even much about the types of questions your game poses, but much more trivial and mundane questions. It would have been nice to have these in too. I liked the entry, good job.
Dec 21 18:30:00 7m 00s Rotate And Match It was a pretty hard game. I only got to level 3. But I liked it. The thing that was bugging me the most was that there was no snapping to the balls so it was hard to know what was within the tolerance of the specification. I think too it could be made more fun if set in a proper setting, like building molecules. If the number of angles the new ball can attach to previous balls the problem could also become in which order the balls need to be attached for it to work. It would be nice too if the evaluation if it is possible to build the target was done after each new ball so one doesn't have to play the level to an end each time. Good entry though.
Dec 21 18:56:00 26m 00s Huebot Mazerunner I played for quite a while (think I got around 50 crystals before giving up). The main problem really is that it is very hard to know if you missed some and to remember on what level they might have been. Especially since the 'level id' was easy to miss (only noticed it after about 30 levels). In fact I only understood the concept of the hue and that the portals told me which direction I was going based on their color. All these things could have been helped by having difficulty-modes. Start out by giving the player 8 colors to collect. Next difficulty, give them 16. And so on. 64 is a big commitment from the player and since the player will be a bit lost in the beginning backtracking and getting everything right makes it even more so. Other than that, I liked the controls. The game could have done with some music and effects. Consider porting to mobile devices?
Dec 21 19:16:00 20m 00s Weight Control I played well over 10 levels, didn't get to the end though. It was kind of nice game. Would have been more so if the player had better controls. I'm mostly thinking of the power in the jump. It felt much like the Time.timeDelta was too important or something like that. At times I could jump so low I didn't lift off the ground and at times roughly the same duration landed me a jump that was too high. If a jump-power meter was included it would help with that. I also didn't notice at first that the jumping could be extended by holding the button down. So the meter would kind of help the player realize that too. It also felt like the spikes had too large of a collision area (or the player). At times the spikes were facing the wrong way. And maybe most of all, if I had known how far into the game I was by some "Level 13/24" it would have been nice. Those things aside I did play it for quite a while so there's something nice about the challenge it presents. And as with all two button control games -- have you considered doing the left side of screen jump left and right jump right and port it to mobile?
Dec 21 20:33:00 1h 17m Interstellar Cruise I wish this game was much easier. It looks like something I'd like to play for a great while, but I have no chance. First off, I think it would help a lot if the player was given a priority listing making the most critical problems clearly stand out. Second, I think it must be much easer. Especially in the beginning. Sometimes it felt like I didn't get the type of piece I clicked on. If this was a critical fail at e.g. building entertainment, then there's a need for feedback saying that. I think the basic idea is very promising. I would have liked to see different dynamics to different types of problem too. Like entertainment isn't that fast acting, but makes people grumpy for a long time. Maybe they don't like having to walk too far between their food and home and entertainment. And so on. In space, the space shouldn't be the limiting factor really. Great start though and very ambitious for a LD entry.
Dec 25 16:09:00 91h 36m Eda Very well made visuals and fitting music. Really appreciated that there were different bowls to grow from. There were some interaction-issues though. One you did mention about clicking the stem too early. I would suggest adding a delay upon resetting the game during which the game doesn't respond to clicks to avoid the state where it looks like the game is stuck. Also I think that if you had left clicked something and then tried to left-click another branch. If you missed the second branch, you would grow again on the first branch. This could probably also be fixed with some minor adjustment. Finally, it did happen that I grew out of view. It would have been really nice if the camera enlarged its view when parts where starting to fall outside. In all though, a very nice experience.
Dec 25 16:19:00 10m 00s Heart Murmurs Very interesting coop game mechanics idea of doing mutual avoidance and then finally matching up the pieces. It felt a little empty and/or short as it was now though and I think it would add a lot to the suspense if each play-through has 3-5 hearts to start and if you have levels with increasing amount of obstacles (and potentially larger in size too) so that it is not only the matter of one single matching but also deciding if it is worth squeezing out some more points on the level while risking a heart or collect the points and move on to the next level. The sounds were really nice and the graphics did their part nicely. And again, very interesting concept for a coop game.
Dec 25 16:29:00 10m 00s Inflatobirds I enjoyed the idea of the inflatable birds very much and I suppose being more than one player would have made it more fun. It did seem to me though that there was a sure way to not loose and that is to never inflate yourself. So I wonder, given that, if the controls shouldn't work in some other way, e.g. that pressing your button boost the inflation speed. Also the birds were pretty good at tipping backwards and out off the island on their own. I figure they shouldn't be too forward heavy, but it would probably be nice if they weren't that suicidal. Interesting entry though.
Dec 25 16:52:00 23m 00s Kawaiiju Great walking game. It took me a while to at all grasp the controls though, in general they were not very precise. It would have helped to lock the mouse cursor and tom have a collider that didn't get stuck on small height differences. Simple way would be to have a capsule collider and set physics material to have no friction. I was really about to give up getting across the water due to this. When I got there, the camera got glitchy/started fog most things out because, I suppose, of the max distance it rendered. Besides these small tweaks that could easily be fixed. A very enjoying experience. It would have been really cool if you when little got pulled by Dr. Madman if you didn't follow in the circle and then progress to a stale-mate when a little bigger and both were equally strong to when really big you are out walking with Dr. Madman dingeling in the air.
Dec 25 17:15:00 23m 00s Parse The Sky Amazing. I played with a 360-controller and though I have no flying skills and little controller skills, it worked very well. I much enjoyed exploring the world and navigating it. It was a bit strange that it wasn't the glider, but the camera that should collect the orbs, but once I had figured that out it was OK.
Dec 25 17:24:00 9m 00s Conga Master The only thing I can't understand is why you wouldn't want to have pigs in the conga. But seriously well made game. Took me a try before I figured out how to circle people to lure them into the line. There might be a need for some tweaking though to make it perfect as a game because it was really hard (if not impossible) to come back from capturing a pig. It could also be interesting if the entire conga helped draw people near but that the momentum was dropping faster the longer the conga got.
Dec 25 17:39:00 15m 00s ORB LORDS Great game and great twist to pinball games. I much enjoyed playing around and it sure had me fighting myself over switching color and using paddles. In a fun way. It was a bit disappointing that the game considered it "Game Over" and not "You made it to the top". A high-score (if only local top 3, would have been nice). It was nice that the game was so forgiving toward not being talented, but it also made it a bit tedious to get stuck half-way. Tedious and not very exciting since there was no real risk. In that sense, maybe a kill-floor that is raised as you progress (starting to be below the lowest point) would be nice to keep the excitement up even when struggling through somewhere in the middle. Great entry though.
Dec 25 17:46:00 7m 00s F-L-O-I-D Nice little game. It was a bit kind and/or evil at times right at the start because you could have an enemy or food come up you within the first second of play. So having a safe area around player spawn would probably be recommended. If one opted to warp around the playing field, it felt like one was out of sight rather long (especially if using the corner where the HUD was placed). Other than that, relaxing little arcade game.
Dec 27 00:11:00 30h 25m Aazelchi's Messaging Service Built upon, I think this could become cool. I think the basic concept needs expanding a bit to be come more fun. If, for example, the problem of the game is to keep several conversations going in parallel and not send the wrong message to the right recipient. Maybe identify the target of a message by shape. Or maybe even better to use several types of information (color, shape, fill-pattern) on each message and each target and have to send to receiver that matches one. Upon reception mutate that feature of the receiver. Or something. Anyhow. The simple layout and focused style was really neat vehicle for illustrating a conversation.
Dec 27 16:50:00 16h 39m Macosa and the Cave by: Stefen Menzel/Andrew Herbst Fantastic art and music. I hope you get around to tweaking the controls. Especially making the character stop faster and not keep the momentum up. There were glitches about where you got if you left some rooms too, e.g. got back to the beginning of the game. Only got to the 4th room, but would have enjoyed playing this game for its style, if only the controls were more manageable. Great entry though.
Dec 27 16:57:00 7m 00s Tango Manos I go 0 score, didn't really get the instructions and the feedback from the game. But other than that, a fantastic visuals and a great idea.
Jan 2 14:25:00 141h 28m Growing Trees! It is a very interesting start for an interactive experience or more gameified experience. But without having any restrictions on planting the palms and no variation or dynamic events reacting on what the player does, it feels a bit bare. I would suggest considering button press be inducing 'growth' and that 'growth' would be context dependent on (a) color/type of surface under the cursor, (b) surrounding growth, and possibly also (c)duration of play. A really neat scenario would be if growth would mean increasingly complex ecosystem so that first you grow vegetables of a variety of sorts and then when enough of those exist and you press 'growth' some grazing animal would spawn. When enough of those, predators and so on. Maybe also humans and civilizations. Of course this could not be done fully within LD. But it would be the direction I would go with what you have here. Finally, I think a game like this really needs music that reflects the state of the world for the mood to be well established. Nice entry though, especially the graphics.
Jan 2 14:40:00 15m 00s Hanabi It really looks stunning and I liked the atmospheric sounds, however I tried a full game and half without managing to make a single firework explode. So I think that there's a desperate need to either make the game more forgiving/increase tolerance, include visual instructions on how to do it, and/or have dynamic feed-back while playing showing when you are on the right track and when you fail.
Jan 2 14:49:00 9m 00s Growing In The Ground I got to the second level but then got a bit bugged by the narrow platforms in combination with the floaty jumps. I would suggest you increase the gravity to make it easier/more "normal" jumping behavior. The first level had quite nice design, I would kind of have liked some "Follow the lights" instructions because before I figured that out there were a lot of jumps that needed to be done in blind faith. Good start for a game though.
Jan 2 14:59:00 10m 00s The King is Dead I found it interesting yet confusing. I couldn't really work out what the color-coding on the actions and the action below the action and stuff like that meant. I started reading the instructions before playing, but they were kind of long, so I would suggest having a step by step introduction while playing instead. Since it was very seldom I got a chance to move forward at all it seemed very hard to reach the goal. It also was very confusing why the armies scaled differently when entering battle mode compare to how they were represented on the playing field. Other than that, an interesting game. But sincerely I think the game, given the number of instructions possible, would do better outside the 'two-button' theme or have the controls reworked so one gets to select between slightly more options.
Jan 2 15:10:00 11m 00s Row Row Row Your Goat The graphics were really stunning, and I played it a few levels. Mostly to see more of the graphics. The dialog and such was also nice. The controls however I simply never got to get a grip on. And fighting the controls felt frustrating rather than fun. Sure I understood their premise, but the way the boat reacted if doing e.g. left and right in swift succession... Also with the controls frustrating, I think it would have been nice with the triggers for the checkpoints a bit larger. So while I like the idea and almost all the stuff you implemented... it is a really very well made entry, I don't feel like the theme at all helped the game you made. Not complaining at all about you not using the theme, just saying that I think your game would have been much better without the theme.
Jan 2 15:19:00 9m 00s Pikki Cool idea! It would have been great to have some clear feedback on all eat-decisions. If they were productive or not. But I get that would have been a lot of work. Maybe have the bad (if they existed) or neutral ones have a small screen-shake or such. The game kind of ended a little abruptly too, would suggest adding at least a end-screen. Great entry though.
Jan 2 15:28:00 9m 00s Crusher Escape Race Very well implemented sloppy controls! I really mean that. It is very hard to make controls that are this annoying yet it feels like it is my fault I fail. Managed to get through the level. So the obvious things would be that there should be a win-condition. There should be more levels. Sounds. Bump effects and the work. I think it could be well adapted to mobile too. Hope you continue working on it. I could see myself addicted to it. Maybe add different vehicles. Have moving blocks and maybe actually don't have just blocks but a city grid with pedestrians and traffic and roadblocks and what not. Or some other setting, but a setting. Still very great as it is.
Jan 2 16:03:00 35m 00s Sickle & Sword Very nice graphics! The narrative worked nicely as the game progressed. I didn't get very far though. Something about having only 2 people thus why they would require more than one hut and when the snakes came everyone died. That part felt a bit too sudden. The first encounter should basically be safe I think, and if huts produce offspring independent of population size, then that kind of needs to be explained I think. Great entry though.
Jan 2 16:11:00 8m 00s Vine Very fun to play this entry. Hard controls, but in a good way. Something not very easy to achieve. It would have been nice with some sense of progression (how far up the level one had gotten) or if it is an eternal runner kind of game, just the altitude (including high-score). Also, I would suggest adding a way to exit the game nicely when running it it fullscreen (esc to pause and in pause mode ability to close).
Jan 2 16:19:00 8m 00s Nomads Very strong entry. I really didn't fully grasp how I was to play to resolve the troubles that faced the characters, but I enjoyed it never the less. Great graphics and sounds.
Jan 2 16:24:00 5m 00s Cluster Junk: The Secret of Trash Island Very good entry! Great use of the theme, lovely graphics. I swam around accumulating a bit here and there enjoying myself too much to not think about the timer and game-mechanics. It would have been nice if it was easier to get more varied topologies of the trash-self. But in general very fun game.
Jan 2 16:39:00 15m 00s Void Gate I found the idea quite interesting. The UI was a bit confusing, before I realized that some cards were skipped due to not being applicable at the moment. This could probably be helped if the arrows around the current card weren't visible all the time, but only when the action was permitted. Also the color coding wasn't very helpful on the arrows (red is so often associated with cancel and quit). I would have liked words 'play' and 'save' next to the arrows to assist the understanding. (At least in the beginning) Another thing about the cards/scrolls was that I found myself almost only read the center text which made it confusing when there appeared minions on the board at times. So probably the title part of the card should attract more focus (maybe glow). <br/> <br/>It was nice to be able to build a deck, but as I didn't know how many I kind of felt like quitting it after 10. It would also be nice to be able to randomly assign a full deck or rest of the deck. <br/> <br/>The indicators at the top and bottom that I suppose reflected the size of the deck or something wasn't at all clear. And in the end I just got single cards drawn from the side. Not sure what that was about. <br/> <br/>I enjoyed playing though, and I won my match.
Jan 2 16:59:00 20m 00s Let Me Explain I really liked the graphics in this game! Very much. The setup with the controls worked nicely too. However it felt like the game was a bit too brutal on the player (not the contents in itself necessarily), it was way too easy to die in the beginning leaving the player with a sense that there really was only one way to play the game and that was unfortunate. I get that the combinatorics of a fully branching story is just very quickly impossible. But I think a better way to solve it is to allow the story to converge on the same points throughout the game and allow the player to take different routes in between these. Thus giving the player an illusion of writing their own narrative. And only have a few deaths along the way.
Jan 3 12:55:00 19h 56m Charge! Great controls and nice graphics. The timing of then enemies was also really well made as well as the difficulty progression. I got to 19 kills. Would have been cool with some global ranking for it of course, or at least personal high score. <br/> <br/>That one actually had to kill the archers were a bit surprising first time I failed to do that, though it makes great sense from the difficulty perspective. It would help with some animation of the archer whipping the character over the head as he falls down. To make it more logical. <br/> <br/>One thing I would urge you to fix too would be to either automatically with a bit of delay just restart the game upon death or have either of the two buttons used to play also allow to retry. I find it critical in these types of fast play-fail-retry type of games to minimize the effort and time between plays. Don't let the player escape wanting to just play one more time. <br/>In general a very solid made entry.
Jan 3 13:12:00 17m 00s Great Nation Very nice entry. I kind of figure that the point of the game is that you can't win. I'm all for that. But it would have been nice if the illusion of the possibility of managing the country was a little stronger. Basically coming down to having more cards and just making sure that there's a general surplus of negative effects. I played a few cycles and it might be I was unlucky but I never got any chance to gain power. Right off the start I lost one and then I never saw any +1 power card at all. Good entry though.
Jan 3 13:22:00 10m 00s Go On Very well made. Simple and well made. Much enjoy games like these. Possibly, it would maybe increase the experience if there were variations on the ending-text depending on where the Z button was pressed. But it's probably not necessary.
Jan 3 13:38:00 16m 00s Rayban Really cool idea and ambitious to try and pull off for a Ludum. I really would have liked some camera snap type of effect for when storing a space-time position and some indicator showing that the next action would be a rewind. An easy level reset button would have been nice since there where ways to get quite stuck and the space action failing to do anything (pressed like 5-6 times without anything happening). Finally the controls were hard to deal with. Maybe the colliders should be extended a little for all platforms, maybe lack of grace-period allowing jump shortly after left platfrom, maybe there was some momentum in the character or a lack of gravity. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was slightly off. So if these things were attended to, I'd say you have a winner concept for a puzzle platformer!
Jan 3 14:30:00 52m 00s Jeff is having issues controlling his appetite Great graphics and very ambitious project. Walked around trying to eat the various things. Generally nice written dialog, but it would have been nice to be able to skip forward with space when you happened to repeat something.
Jan 3 14:47:00 17m 00s Velociraptor Cyborg Post Apokalypse! Great graphics and generally well designed games, though the controls were really hard on the first and last chapter.
Jan 3 15:13:00 26m 00s Mon Démon et Moi Absolutely fantastic job. Very well made. I quite didn't figure out, or actually didn't really want to understand the actual mechanics of the game. I just wanted to enjoy it. That was how good it was. The jumping really didn't feel like a necessary addition to the game and with it you had the vertical drops in the landscape that kind of felt like they broke the general awesomeness of the style of the game. For post jam version I would remove those and if need be for variation would make a topology that can be walked without the need for jumping (most of the time) and built from grassy stuff that fits nicely together. Great job though. Seriously great job.
Jan 3 15:17:00 4m 00s itch Hi. I'd love "Random LD34 game" collection (working on tag). Maybe actually trending tag or something in general. It is a bit annoying to have tabs open in the browser as it works at present, but I guess this is just an interim thing. Great work though.