Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD35 → Feedback comment stats → Wan

Wan

Feedback comments for LD35

Timestamp	Since previous	Game	Wan's comment
Apr 18 06:32:00		Doodles	Nice work, especially for a first entry. The game works well and has good ideas. <br/> <br/>For open-ended platformers like this the level design can make or break the game though, and in this case I found it a bit flawed: on my first attempt I ended up blocked at the bottom of the map (red zone) without any ability, having me restart the game. I think you should have prevented the gates from opening if you don't have the required powers to play through them. <br/> <br/>Other possible improvements would be to make the orbs easier to catch, and maybe ramp up the difficulty more progressively (or add more checkpoints). <br/> <br/>Otherwise graphics a quite good and especially benefit from nice little effects, plus having these little keys to help to players figure out the controls was a good thing :)
Apr 18 06:42:00	10m 00s	Shapes Attack	My score: 51 <br/> <br/>Good idea and execution! The game becomes hypnotic after a while :P <br/> <br/>My only nitpick would be to use more comfortable controls like something WASD/arrows-based. Also this game screams for a chiptune synced with the shape sounds (a-la-Super Hexagon), but I reckon it would have been required quite some work.
Apr 18 07:00:00	18m 00s	OBfu	Haha that's the first game I've ever seen where I get punished by having to replay the previous level! I reached level 6 twice but went back to 4 each time. <br/> <br/>Honestly this "go back and train on easier levels" thing could have been interesting if used carefully, but here it's game breaking: usually in puzzle games the idea is that you take your time to figure out what's going on, but here every time we reach a new puzzle, we only have 2 seconds to analyze it. <br/> <br/>2 seconds is very small for a puzzle where literally anything could happen, and especially for level 5 when even losing 1 second before acting will make you lose. Not mentioning that without some training, 2 seconds is not even enough to play, say level 5 right after you lost level 6. <br/> <br/>Too bad because the art style is awesome and the game started pretty well! I would love to play a post-compo version where this issue is fixed. <br/> <br/>For your next game I suggest having a friend play through it to see this can of issues in advance! <br/> <br/>Congrats to Halleflux who reached level 8 btw, that must have required quite some nerve and patience ;)
Apr 19 09:06:00	26h 06m	Shape/Shift	VICTORY :D <br/> <br/>Actually 18 levels is plenty for a Ludum Dare entry! Like a couple others said, the suggestion would rather be to improve/reorder the existing ones, since we're being a bit overwhelmed at first with all these different blocks, and we keep jumping from an idea to another. I guess you were a bit in a hurry to add all these levels in the last hours ;) <br/> <br/>Now game was clever, fun to play and the difficulty well balanced, so frankly it's a very good entry. Except for the above remark the only issue I could see is regarding the controls, that you could have made more comfortable by for example automatically showing the control arrows when hovering a shape. Or maybe having players "focus" a shape then be able to move them with the keyboard? <br/> <br/>One last thing, a funny glitch is that you forgot to reset the shapes rotation after passing through these 90° angles triggers, turning the shapes into weird blobs ^^ <br/> <br/>Anyway the game was fun to play, and the graphics are clear and cohesive (they remind my of the GemCraft games). The "add/remove angles" mechanic was brilliant. Impressive entry overall, so congratulations! <br/> <br/>(PS: I answered to your comment on my own entry!)
Apr 19 10:17:00	1h 11m	Trisquircle	Interesting arcade game! Keeping your eyes on the small grey thing while having all these shapes and color fill the screen in music is a strange experience... The score text could have been made bigger though. <br/> <br/>On a side note this game got me my first BSOD in years, I think there's an issue with memory management (the game uses 500mb at launch?). Using Sandboxie helped me play the game without issues. I'm on Windows 7
Apr 19 10:31:00	14m 00s	Pheee Strew Quest	Graphics are awesome, especially for the characters. <br/> <br/>From what I've seen the map generation worked well, instead the one big flaw was indeed combat. <br/> <br/>Not only fights were very long & repetitive, but the cursor not remembering who you just targeted nor what you just did makes you press a lot of keys unnecessarily. Also the delay between two combats even more annoying than in early Final Fantasy games - I ended up ragequitting after 3 long fights in between of which I barely had time to walk. <br/> <br/>Too bad because these problems boil down to balancing issues... Otherwise it would have been an excellent entry. I'm curious about the amount of content hidden after level 2.
Apr 19 10:59:00	28m 00s	Shift 'n Drift	Solid entry, I finished the game and really enjoyed it :) <br/> <br/>The main criticism I have, and it's the very first time I'm saying that for an LD entry, is I found the game has too much hand holding: for maybe half the levels you don't have to think at all but just follow the instructions. I'm pretty sure the game would have been playable with only the two to three levels having hints by default: except for the ring maybe, most shapes are pretty self-explanatory. <br/> <br/>Otherwise it was very fun to play, the mechanics were original and absolutely fitting for the theme. The physics worked well, I liked how things were balanced for a slow, relaxed progression through the levels. <br/> <br/>Good job! <br/> <br/>(PS: The music was pretty cool but it seems like it wasn't made during the jam, so I didn't rate it)
Apr 19 11:31:00	32m 00s	Do-od	The idea is very original, the graphics are pretty cool and the whole thing is fluid and well-polished, nice job! <br/> <br/>After playing for a while I have mixed feelings about the gameplay though. While moving around the floor and ceiling is pretty fun and satisfying in itself, I'm sitting at level 20 and... to be honest I have no idea what I'm doing. I may be playing it wrong, but I have a hard time predicting how do-od will react to my moves, and I feel like most of my wins are luck-based rather than skill-based. <br/> <br/>Now, having a mostly luck based game can be a valid direction to take, but I can't help thinking the game would have been more satisfying if the controls and player behavior were tweaked to make them more predictable. <br/> <br/>It was still fun to play anyway, and I would love to read about how you implemented the curve-bending thing. Nice work everyone!
Apr 19 11:39:00	8m 00s	Egg Clegger	I would have rated 5/5 but I yield 400k+ eggsp/s and still saw no eggplants. <br/> <br/>Then again... dat Fryed Egg...
Apr 19 11:54:00	15m 00s	JaJa's Bizarre Transformer	Awesome game, the graphics in particular are an epic win :) <br/> <br/>Plus you just made me discover this strange Rainbow Dragon Eyes thing, of which the track you picked is indeed CC-licensed, nice find! <br/> <br/>If I had to nitpick something, the allowed angles for shooting feel a bit arbitrary, and caused me some frustration when aiming. Opening it to [-90;90] could have helped?
Apr 19 12:14:00	20m 00s	Corrupted AI	I love the very stylized art style for this game, nice job! <br/> <br/>You found a nice balance with the "puzzles", each step got me slightly confused for a while but I eventually managed to beat them all without issues. <br/> <br/>On the downside, the music helps setting the mood but grows tiring after a while. Other than that (and the fact that I wanted more!) it was a pleasing experience, and certainly a very respectable entry for a solo work!
Apr 19 12:44:00	30m 00s	Creased	I won! <br/> <br/>The core mechanic is well found and fits the theme nicely. The levels are all well balanced and interesting. <br/> <br/>On the downside it really lacks polish, as the controls were confusing and frustrating (can't cancel a folding line) with a couple glitches here and there. Also, having more contrast to distinguish the "layers" of folding would have been useful. <br/> <br/>I rarely open the sources for a game but I ended up skimming through yours! You got me confused for a sec by embedding Phaser for a SVG-based game, but I soon realized you weren't using it. It was interesting to see how the game was implemented :)
Apr 19 13:09:00	25m 00s	SImple Shift	Wow that was much harder than I thought at first! I reached 30s twice but I could not handle what has coming next :P <br/> <br/>The idea is intersting and its implementation pretty polished (fitting graphics and audio, no bugs found...), especially for a first entry made in a day it seems. So nice job! <br/> <br/>If it were me I would have made the difficulty ramp up more slowly by having hints displayed 2 beats rather than 1 beat before, at least for the first minute or something. <br/> <br/>But even as it is, the game is fun to play, and quite addictive in a masochist way like Super Hexagon was :)
Apr 19 13:25:00	16m 00s	Dawn of the Shapeshifter	I didn't rate the game because it freezes everytime I touch the stairs at level 2 unfortunately (I'm using Java 8) <br/> <br/>To still give some feedback I agree with the others, in that we don't understand clearly when we're supposed to use each animal, or what are the specifics of each enemy. This makes the game a bit confusing. <br/> <br/>Other than that the game looks and plays fine, it reminded me of Realm of the Mad God :P
Apr 19 13:46:00	21m 00s	RoboRob	Impressive entry! <br/> <br/>The core mechanic works brilliantly, and though I didn't check the later levels, the first ones have enough variety to keep things interesting. Plus their difficulty is fair, making you observe patterns and act with a good timing. It's stealth gameplay brought back to its roots :) <br/> <br/>The only issue I have is that since the levels can be quite large, some checkpoints would have made the game more enjoyable. Level 3 in particular was a bit frustrating to me. <br/> <br/>Other than that I have no big issues, unlike CasualCat I found it polished enough for a game jam entry. <br/> <br/>Congrats :)
Apr 19 13:54:00	8m 00s	Shape Soup	Wow! This is a small game but it does what it does perfectly. <br/> <br/>I loved the abstract graphics and their animation, the soundscape, everything. Played through it 3 times to appreciate all the little details. <br/> <br/>I assume all the sounds were made with the same instrument?
Apr 19 14:31:00	37m 00s	The Professional Shapeshifter	You're faced with the issue of having to list every possible answer to a series of questions... So the concept is inherently a bit flawed TMO - in my case it didn't accept most of my answers! Or maybe I'm just a bad shapeshifter :P <br/> <br/>It was fun to play though, the music was awesome and the game in general was well executed, nice job!
Apr 19 15:00:00	29m 00s	GeoShift	Finally, a game I can play with my controller!!! :D <br/> <br/>The art is excellent, the gameplay was fine, but... I felt the level design didn't live up to the cool game idea. The difficulty ramped up quickly from easy to split-second precision, and I found it confusing that technically there's not 3 worlds, but 6 (the colors change every 2 beats, but blocks can appear/disappear every beat). Also there was little use for accelerating time I think? <br/> <br/>I guess time was lacking a bit to have enough polished contents, fortunately the awesome art + the controller compatiblity save the game ;)
Apr 19 15:13:00	13m 00s	Cloud Sculptor	It's a very small toy, but why not: the idea is interesting, and could yield something really nice and abstract like Proteus was. <br/> <br/>Except right know it feels a bit incomplete. If only the blue background was replaced with a moving/looping texture, it could have felt like a painting... But sadly, here it feels just like a solid color with a couple sprites on it. The cropping effect on the clouds is interesting though!
Apr 19 15:29:00	16m 00s	Turbo/Glide	This game is soooo hard... But there's some charm to it, something with the car/glider animations and the overall feel of it that made me come back for more despite messing up my controls and crashing every 5s! <br/> <br/>After checking the last gif on your entry page I confirm that you car animation is pretty sexy :) <br/> <br/>I didn't manage to get the hang of it though, I don't know if it's the keyboard mapping, how unresponsive the glider is, how I couldn't get to build speed before switching, or how the physics behave in general, but I just couldn't get used to it. Good thing the crash animation is fun to watch! <br/> <br/>I managed to finish levels 1, 3 & 4 still. <br/> <br/>The game was really fun to play, and the art style is both unusual and charming in its own way. The music & sounds were fitting and reminded me of DOS games. <br/> <br/>Good entry, congrats!
Apr 19 15:44:00	15m 00s	ADAPT	The game looks good, plays well, and having procedural levels is a nice bonus (though it didn't feel like there was a lot of variety in the level blocks). Controller support is a cool thing too, too bad I couldn't play solo with it - except for the tutorial. <br/> <br/>The music and choice of sounds creates a nice atmosphere that fit the art style well. <br/> <br/>On the downside I found that it plays a bit too slowly for me, as even the first shape is a bit slow. The levels also don't take that much advantage of the core mechanic: there's a few good ideas but after the neat tutorial I expected a bit more contents, more difficulty and more surprises. <br/> <br/>Overally it's a well polished entry that was still quite fun to play, nice job!
Apr 22 08:37:00	64h 53m	SEMILUCID	Nice job, the game works fine, I reached level 4 without issues. Turning into a monster and kicking butt to all these things I was evading is pretty satisfying :) On the other hand I found the collecting of trinkets a bit repetitive and almost annoying since the levels are quite large and trinkets are often spawned all around the same spot. Also I didn't care that much about the different types of enemies since all I did was run around and evade everything without thinking. Maybe some balancing could help make enemies more interesting? <br/> <br/>Now the visuals are pretty fun & original, and the audio helps setting the mood quite well. The shapeshifting animation is cool to watch too, plus the level generation worked quite well for me. Congrats!
Apr 22 08:44:00	7m 00s	Green Knight	Controls were a bit heavy, and hitboxes during fighting occasionally made me rage, but I otherwise had fun playing your entry. <br/> <br/>The core idea is pretty funny and interesting, and the knight attack animation is well done. Though I prefer killing enemies by picking at them with the bird form :-D
Apr 22 08:53:00	9m 00s	Amelie the Amazing Amazon	Nice work! The game works fine, and having different weapons throughout it is a nice touch. I would have enjoyed better feedback on fighting, like particles/sound effects when we land a hit or take damage, maybe some text indicating the damage we did... <br/> <br/>The game looks good and the graphics are quite cohesive for a mashup of existing assets! And having metal music on top of that amazon fighting game reminded me a bit of Xena: Warrior Princess :P
Apr 22 09:03:00	10m 00s	Super Shapes	Nice job, it could have used some ramping up difficulty (at 50pts I didn't felt the game was getting any harder?) but it worked fine. <br/> <br/>Physics engines are horrible :P I'm at my sixth LD using one and I still pull my hair out for hours every time! I'm curious what you were aiming for at first?
Apr 22 09:18:00	15m 00s	Warping Ninja	The core mechanic was surprisingly fun and interesting to play, nice job! The whole game was easy to pick up and using our shadow as decoy to then kill the turrets from behind was pretty satisfying. <br/> <br/>On the down side I found the level design didn't to the gameplay justice, as some "warping zones" and checkpoints were placed in or close to plain sight of the turrets, making everything unnecessarily hard. Having to collect daggers was a cool idea, especially letting the shadow version collect them. <br/> <br/>The graphics were good enough to make things fun, as everything was clear and intuitive. <br/> <br/>Honestly, all this game really needs is some level design love. <br/> <br/>(PS. I have a feeling the music wasn't made during the jam, maybe you should opt-out of Audio?)
Apr 22 10:13:00	55m 00s	Booba Loomba	Nice job! I remember seeing your post about issues with the physics engine, I see you found a solution for when the player gets stuck between walls :) <br/> <br/>I played, enjoyed and finish your puzzles, it was really fun to play! The graphics and audio worked well together and gave a nice atmosphere to it. Too bad you resorted to JS alerts to display some messages, I found they broke the immersion a bit. <br/> <br/>Congratulations for your entry, I'm impressed by the stability of your game given how heavily physics-based it is! Had zero glitches playing it.
Apr 22 15:04:00	4h 51m	Shifter	28! It took me a while to understand how things work too, a short in-game tutorial could have helped. Otherwise it's a good idea implemented & balanced very well, the difficulty ramps up pretty nicely. <br/> <br/>Overall the game is pretty polished, graphics-wise I would have suggested to fill the screen a bit more with animated stuff or something ; a cheap trick could have been to just tint the passed shapes instead of making them disappear. <br/> <br/>But it's just a minor nitpick, overall is a solid entry, and probably a more accessible one than the Temple was ;) Good job!
Apr 24 10:06:00	43h 02m	Rubik's Plane	Interesting puzzle game, I played a dozen levels before getting bored due to repetitiveness. After a couple levels it quickly gets easy actually, once you have a strategy that fits all cases (mine was to build things line by line and moving the finished lines to the side). <br/> <br/>A restart button would have been nice, since at some point I lost a pink figure far on the left. Since a glitch prevents us from scrolling too far on the left or top I had troubles retrieving it. <br/> <br/>Having no borders nor move limit makes this game a bit unexpected game design-wise, but it's still satisfying to play, a bit like easy sudokus. Nice entry!
Apr 24 10:19:00	13m 00s	Facade	Excellent compo entry, the story is cool and the original mechanic is intuitive and interesting to discover. We both made similar choices for our respective entries (platformer with simple art but cool mechanic, short game with a story to fit everything together, etc.) so I can only agree with yours :) <br/> <br/>In particular I found the art style minimal in its own way (let's call it..."16 color MSPaint art"?), and it was really well executed. <br/> <br/>No real downsides to this entry, the only nitpick I'd have is that maybe it could have used a couple more lines in its ending to make the story more complete. Good job!
Apr 24 10:27:00	8m 00s	Scientist clicker	A solid and polished incremental game. The attention to visual details is impressive!
Apr 28 06:55:00	92h 28m	SandShifter	Nice job! The game is well polished, worked perfectly for me, and the core mechanic is really awesome. I found the level design underwhelming though: I couldn't wait to see how this mechanic would translate into puzzles, but the first 2 levels felt just like a tutorial, and level 3 was just more of level 2. <br/> <br/>For 48 hours that's an impressive amount of work though, if you had only one more day to add interesting levels this would have made a top 25-worthy entry I think!
Apr 29 09:31:00	26h 36m	The Ooze	One of the best games I've played from this jam. Amazing 48 hours entry with interesting puzzles, solid graphics and animations, fitting audio, and an actual ending on top of that. Humbling!
May 5 12:20:00	146h 49m	Do not play	Why do you not want us to play the game? Was it because of the rough first comment?