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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | WetDesertRock's comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 15 06:20:00 | S.E.N.T.I.N.E.L. | You kept trying to sell yourself short on IRC. Good thing I knew you were lying. <br/> <br/>**SPOILERS** <br/>The background sound was actually quite effective. Although drones are used everywhere in LD games, I'm a big fan of the minimalistic backing track. An idea that may (or may not) spark your fancy is the use of a texture rather than a drone. While the drone sounds nice and I enjoy it, perhaps using something clicky or more mechanical. I know I'm not explaining myself well. Instead of trying to think of it like music, think of it as an ambient aural accompaniment. Players will frequently forget about the music anyways while playing a game, so you can really replace it with anything acoustically pleasing that makes sense with the theme of the game. For an example or two of things like this, look at my LD game Fluidity, and rxi's Fragment. <br/> <br/>Again, I did like the drone and I think it was a good choice, but other accompaniments are possible as well as relatively unused in the LD world. <br/> <br/>Initially I thought the footsteps of your massive robot were underwhelming. However, thinking about it after playing the game, they make sense. You have to think of the footsteps as being heard from inside the cockpit. I still think the footstep could've been modified to be more effective, but I also think you could've added more sounds to put the listener into the spot inside of the robot rather than outside. <br/> <br/>I liked how your slimes were portrayed, and I liked what they represented, however I don't know if it makes sense with the story itself. The fact that they are just representations of whats in the playing field could be portrayed a bit better. Such as overlaying them with a grid, keep the slime but show the quads/tri (triangles make more sense, quads look better) that go into the slime shape would help enhance the effect that you are looking through the computer's eyes. <br/> <br/>Another small thing would be to make the robot's on and off position different. Maybe droop its head or have it sit like a chicken when it is booting up. It would be a nice detail, but also indicate to the player that they can't control the robot. In fact, at the end of the story I stopped controlling before I went to the next area (joke, there wasn't a next area) and didn't realize that I actually lost control until I was idly pressing buttons. <br/> <br/>In the end, your terminal was really well done, it felt real and not faked, it gave a nice bookend approach to the story telling, and it added background information that couldn't be easily shown. Your graphics may of been hacky in the backend, but came across great in the front end. Seeing things through walls was well done, as well as the general white-wall dirtyish style. <br/> <br/>I think you did a great job! | |
| Dec 15 06:48:00 | 28m 00s | Harvest | Had fun, it was hectic, but fun. <br/> <br/>Couple suggestions, your controls were probably one of the hardest things about the game (for as far as I got), because I would always throw the hoe, or would try to pick up something while I wasn't standing on it. A couple ways to fix this would just make it so you don't have to aim to pick things up, just press e to pick up whatever you are above. Not sure of other methods, but I know there are some and that could improve the game a lot. <br/> <br/>Your colors were a bit cluttered feeling, and I have a feeling that may either be a style thing (and I just don't like the style) or a color palette choice. Maybe different colors for tiles and pick ups. Your fourth screenshot and the wheat are a good example of what I am seeing. <br/> <br/>Bug fix would be to prevent the water from eating your gun, or make it so you had to fish it out again. This is especially important since you throw your gun rather than set it down so its much easier to accidentally throw in the drink. <br/> <br/>I really enjoyed the fact that the enemies (save the zombie) were not fighting you, but your crops. Maybe in a a post-compo version (which I think you should consider pursuing) you could make it so if you made fences, some animals would come and hurt your fences while doing non-destructive things, or in general portray the feeling of you against nature rather than you against fighting things. <br/> <br/>Agreed with the other people, more leeway is needed in the beginning, while it would be good for a hard mode, its not great for a LD game where everyone are novices. I think the idea of putting bread or wheat in crates is a good idea, because it doesn't have lasting implications for the game (where as making wheat grow faster or your hunger go down slower would change the rest of the game). <br/> <br/>You were saying things on IRC or somewhere about the ideas you had for your game including traders and whatnot. I think that is a good idea, and think this game has a lot of potential. I really want to see where you go with this in the future. <br/>Wanting to see a full game |
| Dec 15 20:18:00 | 13h 30m | SAUROPOD vs THEROPOD | I enjoyed playing it. I know the programming bogged you down, so a lot of feedback I could give may be things that you didn't get around to. <br/> <br/>Your graphics are pretty simple, and while they may not be a style you would want in the end, I think a few simple things could make this style work for you much better. One thing is the fact that the only things on screen are things you care about. While its true that everything on screen should have a function, not everything has to relate directly to the gameplay. So maybe things like minimalistic patches of grass (pretty easy to make with the simplex noise generator included in LOVE), maybe patches of water, dead dinosaurs, or just various things like that. <br/> <br/>Also, I'm not sure about the background color choice for the battle screen. The battle screen could have some sort of background art to it. <br/> <br/>This brings us to the biggest issue. I killed dinosaurs, but couldn't eat them. I don't care if I'm not made to eat them, if they taste disgusting, or the fact that my teeth just aren't cut for it. I worked hard to kill them, I want my reward. <br/> <br/>On a serious note, maybe some factors could guide your evolution. Like the fact that I tried becoming a carnivore, but couldn't. |
| Dec 16 04:15:00 | 7h 57m | Ascending Roots | I liked it, I think the overall aesthetic worked well for you all, the music felt planty, the graphics had their own unique style which was neat. <br/> <br/>I felt the main thing that could've been worked out was polish. I seemed like things worked, but they _just_ worked. For instance, going up and down plants worked, but going down them seemed too slow, would've been nice to have it so you could slide down the plants. This is especially important because you couldn't really fall down from the plants. It was also hard to start climbing the plant when it was coming up from a one wide gap in the floor. <br/> <br/>The music was nice, however I was kinda wanting more of it. It seemed well done through out and worked nicely for the game, but I almost wondered if you could've made a variation on it (keep the material but change some, kinda a cheaty way to get more music in a jam environment), and used that for the second part of the game, especially when you would spend more time on levels. <br/> <br/>The sound design was nice, but a bit flat. What I mean by this is that it portrayed your interactions with the environment, but it didn't give the environment its own sound. Stuff like wind, leaves rustling, mice, birds, anything you hear in the woods you would add in. Tim, I know you spend a lot of time hiking! Next time you head out into the woods, figure out what conveys your location to your ears. What makes the woods sound like the woods? Not just the sounds, but how do they bounce off the trees and leave their origin? Are they mostly higher or lower frequency? Just kinda close your eyes and appreciate the soundscape. Even if you didn't do the sound design for this project perhaps thinking about this would help you later on. Another thing contributing to its flatness was the fact that it didn't have a huge variety of sounds. <br/> <br/>The art was really interesting, and had its own style which I enjoyed. One thing about it is that it seemed a bit cluttered an in the way of the understanding of the scene. For instance, the leaves sometimes seemed like I should be able to walk on them. It also seemed like the focus was on the whole scene, rather than the foreground and character/gameplay elements. Perhaps these magical plants could give off a glow like the floating water buckets. Consider making the individual palettes for non-important background or other elements less contrasting, that would make them seem less important. Similar to the sound design, I think more activity could've been created. The forest is a really active and dynamic place to be in, there is always activity. You are surrounded by life, that is something that could be conveyed in this game. One way to do this could be making the background flow or react to imaginary wind. Make grass entities that blow, leaves could float by, mice scurry around. <br/> <br/>The level design was interesting as well. The first few levels were really easy and didn't seem to go anywhere. Then suddenly we had "Into the Trees" which was much more difficult than the rest. Made me realize I had to plan out exactly what I had to do. It seemed like there could've been a bigger build up in the difficulty. The later levels also seemed a bit easy, just had to look out and it came apparent the necessary flow to it. I'm no good at level design myself, so I can't really help out. Only thing I've found is that when I'm doing level design, its always the last few levels that are of a difficulty that I wanted them to be. Of course its a jam so I don't know how to overcome this. For a jam game, I think the levels were pretty well designed. <br/> <br/>Props to everyone on the team, I think you all did a good job. I enjoyed the game and thought it well done. What I posted above is places to expand a team member found that they didn't have much to do. Not everything has to be done sequentially (as I'm sure you know), such as the sound design can come before the art, vine climbing can be done before vines, levels can be thought out and drawn on paper thinking of more effective objects to include to make them more dynamic. <br/> <br/>Good job ya'll. |
| Dec 18 02:02:00 | 45h 47m | ScaleFlexes | I liked it. However, it seemed a bit unfair with a small green followed by a big red. Couple ideas: Make the circles appear with the beat of the song, that would possibly give the player more ability to predict what is going on. You could also give indicators of what colors were coming from where so you had a little more warning. Make big circles travel slower than small ones, this is because big circles collide with you much faster than small circles. Maybe you did that already, but not enough? <br/> <br/>Last idea is to make the play field circular, this makes more sense as well as evens out the reaction time needed no matter where the circles come from. |
| Dec 18 19:17:00 | 17h 15m | DUO | Hey, after awhile as the square I couldn't continue placing square blocks, I'd like to be able to play more of your game however I cant progress past the third usage of the square blocks. <br/> <br/>Running the WebGL as there isn't an OSX build. |
| Dec 19 03:47:00 | 8h 30m | DangerGrid | Nice game. <br/> <br/>You could've used music, nothing says DANGER like some DANGEROUS music. <br/> <br/>Glad there is a way to skip a level, because now I might come back and see if I can beat it, but I had to stop because my chicken was simmering (still is, just had to tend to it). <br/> <br/>The graphics were neat looking, I like it. Were the levels randomly generated? <br/> <br/>I think I would've preferred it if in 3rd person mode when getting knocked around that the camera stayed more or less centered on the ship. When it was offset from the ship I felt like I was at a disadvantage because I couldn't see properly. It made it difficult and didn't seem like that difficulty was meant to be there. <br/> <br/>Wasn't sure what the non-tanks were on the tank level (saw them in the second tank level). What did they do? <br/> <br/>The intros into the levels (particularly the tank ones) could be much shorter. I also think you could maybe turn the boost into a fire button during the tank levels. This would up the skill level from just flying by the tanks fast into actually dodging and firing at the tanks. <br/> <br/>I like it. |
| Dec 19 04:39:00 | 52m 00s | Pigeon | I appreciated the interplay of mechanics. The tree could help clear the path, but you had to risk yourself to get the balloons. I kind of wish there were more cheese burgers littered about, the only times that I saw them they were either too hard to get or I was full up on health. <br/>I kind of wish there was less noise in the background. Even if that is what a microphone picks up when it is in a city, the constant background noise isn't what we hear. It would be good to get some isolated traffic sounds as well as isolated bird sounds and lay them on top of each other. I also think music would be a good choice for this type of game. |
| Dec 19 19:44:00 | 15h 05m | Ministry of Growth and Information | I liked it. Probably one of the more unique ideas for this jam. I apperciate the wealth of material you recorded for it. <br/> <br/>One of your main problems is the fact that there was a lot of sitting and waiting. I felt like maybe you should've gave the player more to do rathe than sit and listen to radio casts. Maybe I was just bad and should've multitasked more, but then again there really wasn't a timelimit or a lose condition that made the user more hasty. <br/> <br/>Bu I did enjoy playing it. |
| Dec 19 22:07:00 | 2h 23m | Eager | Doing a clone isn't bad, but you shouldn't really rely on previous knowledge of the clone to help explain the game to people. <br/> <br/>For what this game is it seems a bit unrefined. The things you shoot do not start at the middle of your character, but rather the edge meaning that (especially later on) it is harder to hit enemies on your lower left side. The difficulty curve seemed to be off, as I wasn't sure where I could go wrong. |
| Dec 19 22:39:00 | 32m 00s | SpaceHex | I thought this was a rather clever game, however I think you probably didn't give yourself enough time to balance it. Maybe it was the UI glitches, but I found it really difficult to stay afloat and continue building. Fixing the the UI so it doesn't try to click on a hex when you click on a UI button is probably the most critical. For awhile I think I kept upgrading random hexes because I didn't know it was switch to a new hex after I hit the upgrade button the first time. I'd also give a better indication if you could buy an upgrade or not, such as coloring the text, I'd also put the price right next to the upgrade. This holds true for building a new hex. Just those things would make the game easier to play because they give better feedback to the player. As well as more animation on the repair and shields. I wasn't sure where my shields were holding up, how often they were going down, or what my repair cells were doing. Something like flashing green when repairing, and more shield outlines and changes when the shield is down. I'd also make it so new cells always cost the same no matter how many you buy. And the ability to destroy dead cells (I also couldn't tell what they were before they were dead). <br/> <br/>Sound wise I didn't think everything meshed so much. I felt like your music should've been up tempo or whatnot to go along with the frantic ship fighting. Maybe some cutsey hoppy thing would work quite well. <br/> <br/>I really liked the visual style (although refinements to the UI were needed). The cell animations were fantastic as well as the spinny missiles. The concept is also really wonderful, and I'd like to see it in a full game. <br/> <br/>Oh, also just remembered, I wanted a bigger screen or the ability to zoom out. It got too packed for my taste. |
| Dec 19 22:49:00 | 10m 00s | Thought Garden | Great visuals, I was just hoping for more of a music, or maybe a way to move the shapes and have them drag each other around. The waves were great and made me think about the ways you could make musical beats appear in the visual landscape. I think you had a lot of room to expand here. Love the minimalist style. |
| Dec 31 20:05:00 | 285h 16m | Disassemble | I was really wishing there was music or sound effects, that would've really helped the mood as well as gameplay of the game. |