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Sean

Feedback comments for LD36

Timestamp	Since previous	Game	Sean's comment
Aug 30 19:57:00		Obsolete	Great game! The illustrations are gorgeous, and there were some good jokes in the "talk" battles. <br/> <br/>It seems like you can sequence break by just walking up to where Konia should be. On my first playthrough, I only fought mePhone, then Konia, and then the end cut-scene was triggered. <br/> <br/>Like a couple other people mentioned, the 3D overworld feels a bit disconnected from the 2D fights/cutscenes, but overall a great game!
Aug 30 20:12:00	15m 00s	Accidental Adventure: Ancient Technology	Nice intro and menu design, but I found the platforming to be kind of floaty. <br/> <br/>btw, the controls should probably be included in-game as well as just in the game's description; it took me a couple minutes to realize you could double jump. <br/> <br/>There are also 3 different fullscreen buttons (one on Ludum Dare's site, one on the itch.io embed, and one in the Unity webgl export). You should probably try to set it up so that you only need one.
Aug 30 20:28:00	16m 00s	Stoneheart	Great little puzzle game! The relation to the theme feels a bit loose, but the puzzles were really well-designed. They challenging, but not so challenging as to be frustrating and did a really great job of teaching you what you did wrong on previous attempts. <br/> <br/>btw, your game page doesn't quite fit in embed on the Ludum Dare site; I'd recommend editing out the line breaks in the generated html file or moving the buttons to the top so that people can see the "fullscreen" button right away. <br/> <br/>The artwork's pretty nice too!
Aug 30 20:52:00	24m 00s	Elsa, Caster of the sun stones	I tried playing a couple times, but both times slipped off the platforms and fell forever. <br/>This looks like it could be a decent game, but I think it would be substantially improved with a bit more polish.
Aug 30 20:57:00	5m 00s	Ball Shui	I found the gameplay a bit boring, but art and audio were nice. <br/> <br/>There seems to be a bug in the intro section which makes it so that you have to click twice for each dialog prompt. <br/> <br/>There are also 3 different fullscreen buttons (one on Ludum Dare's site, one on the itch.io embed, and one in the Unity webgl export). You should probably try to set it up so that you only need one.
Aug 30 21:03:00	6m 00s	Touch the Monolith	The graphics are a bit simple, but it's a cool concept. <br/> <br/>Bit of a tonal whiplash at the end though.
Aug 30 21:11:00	8m 00s	Sumer Game	It's a decent concept, but like others have said it's very tedious. The "overcooking" also seems way too sensitive; it's especially annoying to fail after having spent so long working on a single tablet. <br/> <br/>Also, I tried doing a quick run where I didn't put any marks before baking and ended up with a 68%. That's some pretty lenient grading for 0% of the work!
Aug 30 21:18:00	7m 00s	Colossorama 36	This is surprisingly complete and polished for a jam game! <br/> <br/>I didn't really understand what the purpose of having two weapons was, and I found that the jumping mechanic kind of just got in the way since you can't effectively hit people while you're above them, but other than that there's not much to criticize. Great job on getting so much done!
Aug 30 21:30:00	12m 00s	Rolin Stone	Simple but well-executed. I was a bit surprised to find that the level was the same every time and got bored pretty fast. Maybe if there were checkpoints it would be a bit less tedious? <br/> <br/>A tip for people getting stuck on the columns: hold up instead of pressing it and you'll bounce on the top of each one. It still takes some luck to land the first jump, but once you do you should get past all three.
Aug 30 21:35:00	5m 00s	Dying in the Snow	It looks like a good start, but the lack of variety made it get boring fast. If it were fleshed out more, I'm sure it could be an interesting game! <br/> <br/>Also, I found that sometimes it got stuck on a blank screen and you had to click on the area where text would go before it would progress.
Aug 30 22:45:00	1h 10m	The Huckster	Great audio and atmosphere. It's rare to see a voice-acted game for Ludum Dare which isn't grating to listen to! There were a couple minor English errors, but it's still well-done despite that. <br/> <br/>I found the audio log placement a bit annoying: they're placed near the end of sections as a reward, but they get cut off when leaving the area so it forces you to stand around doing nothing if you want to listen. <br/> <br/>Using WASD to move while holding E is also kind of awkward, it probably would be better with a toggle to grab things instead of holding the key.
Aug 30 23:07:00	22m 00s	The Machine	I played up until the third module "puzzle", but it got stuck on a blank blue screen when I messed up. I was going to retry from the start because it was an interesting story so far, but waiting for each line to finish before advancing was going to take too long. It would be nice if you could click to advance text immediately.
Aug 30 23:15:00	8m 00s	Ancient Dungeon	It's a solid start for a roguelike, but there doesn't seem to be any end goal or difficulty curve. If you're planning on doing any post-jam updates, adding more variety as you get further into the game would go a long way towards adding replay value.
Aug 30 23:18:00	3m 00s	Sling Fling	It's a decent start, but you should probably have given the sling a maximum length or something to prevent the player from just spinning the egg fast enough to hit the chicken without releasing it.
Aug 30 23:34:00	16m 00s	Gear Kitty	Amazing pixel art! <br/> <br/>At first the little "You can do it!" message was cute, but it never went away and actually covered up a couple of the platforms in one of the puzzles. <br/> <br/>It would've been nice if the checkpoints saved your progress when you walked past them; there were a couple times I fell and had to redo section because I forgot to save, especially when I was on my way back from hitting a switch or getting a powerup. <br/> <br/>This is hands-down the best entry I've played yet!
Aug 30 23:55:00	21m 00s	cognizance	The concept, the visuals and the puzzles are all great, the only area where I wasn't totally sold was the audio. Amazing entry as usual!
Aug 31 00:37:00	42m 00s	ASHZAR	I found this one veeeery obtuse, and couldn't really figure out what to do in the 20 or so seconds I could play before losing. It seems like it's a tower-defense/roguelike? Maybe? <br/>I think it would benefit a lot from a tutorial of some sort!
Aug 31 00:56:00	19m 00s	Generation 0xDEADBEEF	Great concept! I really like how the in-game mechanics literally reflect the game world, both mechanically and through the story. <br/> <br/>I think it might benefit from a slightly more direct tutorial though; it took me longer to figure out the basic mechanics than I would've liked. I may have missed it, but I don't remember it ever pointing out that the position and value of the tile you're standing on are shown at the top of the hex table. I imagine someone without any programming experience would find it even more difficult and would need a bit more "easing in". Then again, I might just be bad at hexadecimal math :P <br/> <br/>Overall, a very clever entry!
Aug 31 01:26:00	30m 00s	BRICKS	Nice entry! I would've liked to see a bit more animation at the end (e.g. have the bricks move to form an actual pyramid) but it was pretty great nonetheless! <br/>My high score was 28 ('glorious').
Aug 31 01:46:00	20m 00s	Pulleyrope	Very solid and polished entry! The mechanic is simple, but fun and well-executed. Cute graphics too! It seems like it'd be perfect for a mobile port.
Aug 31 02:01:00	15m 00s	Ode Anew	Great visuals on this one; I love the robots in particular. Unfortunately the gameplay feels a bit clunky. The screen transitions are cool, but I think they would've been better suited for more self-contained areas. In particular, it seems weird that walking into the wall alcoves in a hallway triggers the transition, since you're just going to walk back a few seconds later. The lack of checkpoints near items was also really frustrating, and I often found myself having to repeat areas because I got caught on the way back. <br/> <br/>If you're doing a post-jam version, hopefully you'll be able to fix the fps drop, because I bet it would feel a lot more playable without it!
Aug 31 02:58:00	57m 00s	Double puzzle dungeon	From a game design perspective, the first sconce is really misleading: if you miss the ground plate, you walk around the corner and see a closed gate and a conspicuous white block on the wall next to it. Most people in that situation are going to assume it's a switch to open the gate. The actual puzzle isn't hard to solve, but the way in which it's presented easily leads the player to the wrong solution without giving them any idea as to what they're supposed to do. If it was placed on the other side of the gate, it would probably fix the problem.
Aug 31 04:24:00	1h 26m	Phone Inventor	Nice physics mechanic, though it's a bit complicated to use. It might be a bit easier if the extend/retract buttons were mapped to the mouse or at least to different area on the keyboard so you could play it with two hands instead of one. <br/> <br/>It seems like there's no reason to wait until the player manually resets after they hit something. You can't do anything to recover, so you might as well reset automatically. This would also make it more accessible for people who glossed over the instructions and might assume the game is stuck when they die. <br/> <br/>On that note, I really appreciated that each pole checkpointed you; it would've been an easy thing to overlook but the game would've have been intolerably frustrating without that!
Aug 31 14:03:00	9h 39m	Trireme	Nice entry! I found the painting part to be really frustrating though, because everything else is button mashing I pretty much always picked a colour accidentally when finishing the previous step. My high score was 18620 points. <br/> <br/>I think you mixed up the buttons btw; The PICO-8 "O" and "X" buttons are usually mapped to "Z" and "X", not the other way around. It's still a bit confusing that Z is O, but at least X is X!
Aug 31 14:09:00	6m 00s	Baba Yaga	Like a lot of the other people, I thought the game had crashed as soon as I hit play, but while I was in the middle of writing a comment it started working. I think you need to add a progress bar or something to show that it's loading and hasn't just frozen. <br/> <br/>The artwork is nice, but the controls are very difficult! I think it might have been easier to play if up/down just controlled your speed, and left/right controlled your angle instead of tying the speed to the angle.
Aug 31 14:23:00	14m 00s	Sacrifice	I feel like it should have been a bit longer in order to let the player establish a strategy. If the choices actually do anything, this would make the choices a bit more interesting and you could've made it about balancing the level of devotion and famine in the community. If they don't, the added length without any change in outcome would help to sell that you're just killing people for no reason. Overall, it's a nice simple entry though. <br/> <br/>Also, minor complaint: I found it kind of weird that the sacrificial scene had a whole bunch of people regardless of how many you had left.
Aug 31 16:37:00	2h 14m	The Museum	Really cute entry! I though it was a little weird at first that you only get 4/6 exhibits, but in retrospect it sort of encourages you to retry on ones you've already done and come up with a new description. The only thing I'd suggest as an improvement is to add some simple audio.
Aug 31 16:53:00	16m 00s	The Last Blacksmith	The art is nice and it's an interesting concept, but I found the controls to be kind of bloated. I feel like you could probably have dropped the throwing mechanic and just had the player auto-pickup and auto-drop ore/bars when you walk over them. It seems like this game has a lot of potential though! <br/> <br/>btw, there are 2 different fullscreen buttons (one on the itch.io page, and one in the Unity webgl export). You should probably try to set it up so that you only need one.
Sep 1 15:19:00	22h 26m	No Mario's Sky	Great entry! The concept and graphics are rock-solid, and the remixed soundtrack and different goomba "species" were really nice touches. <br/> <br/>The actual platforming element felt a bit rough. It was surprisingly difficult to jump on goombas and hit bricks, and the collision was wonky enough that I found occasionally myself getting stuck in walls and falling through bricks. Those are fairly minor issues though, with more time I'm sure they'd be fixable. <br/> <br/>A lot of people seem to be commenting that it doesn't fit the theme, but I disagree: Mario's pretty ancient by video game standards!
Sep 1 15:33:00	14m 00s	Grampy Katz in: The Big Date	Gorgeous artwork and animation! The film grain and vignette really help to sell it too. <br/> <br/>Minor complaint: it took me a three tries to get a perfect date because I didn't realize that you had to interact with the picture multiple times to straighten it; that might've been more clear if it went to a new incorrect angle instead of going back and forth the first few times.
Sep 1 16:08:00	35m 00s	pipe	Really great entry! The graphics and environment design were really pretty, and I loved all the little details that helped make it feel dynamic like the physics-enabled vines and animated leaves (I'm also a sucker for nice palette swaps). I'm surprised you had time to do so many extra details like that full intro sequence and the little leafy robot on top of the rest of the work! <br/> <br/>The controls were fun to use, though I'm glad you made it so that getting hit doesn't penalize you much; if I had to restart at a checkpoint every time I got hit this would have been waaay more frustrating. <br/> <br/>I never managed to find the last heart, but I had a really good time looking for it!
Sep 1 16:17:00	9m 00s	Olympic Dreams	It's a good start, but I found that relying on the physics to determine the javelin's angle made it much too random. On some throws, the javelin just starts off pointing downwards so it doesn't really matter how fast you go. <br/> <br/>There are also 3 different fullscreen buttons (one on Ludum Dare's site, one on the itch.io embed, and one in the Unity webgl export). You should probably try to set it up so that you only need one. <br/> <br/>P.S. There are no ratings on the games for this Ludum Dare (see here for why: http://ludumdare.com/compo/2016/06/08/well-this-is-awkward-2/) which is why there's no opt-out.
Sep 1 16:44:00	27m 00s	Kvetch-A-Sketch	Cool concept, and the visuals do a good job of conveying the etch-a-sketch aesthetic. <br/>I would've liked if the "cursor" moved a bit faster though, on some of the puzzles it was really tedious just navigating to the right spot.
Sep 1 16:48:00	4m 00s	You Invented Fire	I'm not really sure why ghouls are so intent on putting out your fire, but this is a cute little game! <br/> <br/>I noticed that you sometimes seem to be able to jump in mid-air after hitting an enemy, but couldn't figure out if that was intentional or a bug since I couldn't do it reliably. I did manage to kill 8 in one jump though! <br/> <br/>There are also 2 different fullscreen buttons (one on Ludum Dare's site, and one in the Unity webgl export). You should probably try to set it up so that you only need one.
Sep 1 17:07:00	19m 00s	Come Forth by Starlight	Solid entry! I had a couple collision issues in areas with the boxes though and got stuck in the ground at one point, so I didn't get through the whole thing. The hitboxes on the little burrito slugs are also pretty unforgiving. <br/> <br/>Unusual choice of controls btw, is there any particular reason you went with "L" and ";"?
Sep 1 17:17:00	10m 00s	Dinosty Warriors	It didn't feel like there was any challenge to the game, but it was so chaotic that it probably wouldn't have been as fun if it was challenging anyway. <br/> <br/>Nice pun btw.
Sep 1 17:38:00	21m 00s	Storm O.S.	So stylish!! This is one my favourite entries I've played so far, both in terms of presentation and mechanics. The music's really fitting too. I'd be really interested to see this one expanded into a longer game. <br/> <br/>Minor issues: The WASD + E controls seemed a bit clunky, it might have been better suited to a point-and-click interface, especially since that's how the in-game computer worked. I also had a bug where I launched the network program multiple times and then couldn't move or close the old ones, but the upload still worked so it didn't break the game at least.
Sep 1 18:01:00	23m 00s	Trading Post!	The graphics/UI need some work (especially the coins location, I couldn't find it for the first little while), but this a decent little economy game. <br/> <br/>I had a bug when I was playing fullscreen which made it so that all the stores were blank and I could only ever see the town background. There are also 2 different fullscreen buttons (one on the itch.io embed, and one in the Unity webgl export). You should probably try to set it up so that you only need one.
Sep 1 18:20:00	19m 00s	Wheel Warrior	Interesting concept, though it was (by design) frustrating to play and so not actually very fun. Great implementation of the theme though! <br/> <br/>Adding some keyboard controls mapped to the handheld buttons might make it a bit more accessible, took me a little while to realize I had to use the mouse to play the game.
Sep 1 18:49:00	29m 00s	STONECONF 12,016 BC	This is a great entry! That stark menu intro being timed exactly to the music was such an especially good start to the game. It's a minor thing, but it really gives a great first impression. <br/> <br/>The level of difficulty seemed just a tad too high. It seems like you need to drink water every other turn, and since you get more thirsty when you take a break to eat I found myself stopping often to drink, eat, rest, then drink a couple more times to offset the thirst from eating and resting. Even though it does make sense that the other stats would change when you take time to fix one of them, I feel like it put an unnecessary level of strain on your resources. <br/> <br/>The instant death events were also kind of annoying, it might have been a bit better to have the chance of death be based on your current stats (i.e. if you fell down the mountain while well-supplied and healthy, just have them the player lose some supplies and get tired instead of dying). <br/> <br/>These are just fairly minor balance complaints though; overall the game was great!
Sep 1 19:03:00	14m 00s	Agent 3310	This was a clever puzzle game, though I had to refer to the solution guide to get through it.
Sep 1 19:27:00	24m 00s	Cave (man) Story	I was expecting a fairly simple run-of-the-mill platformer, but this was actually really great! The puzzles were deceptively tricky (they weren't so challenging that they were frustrating, but they often made you overlook an obvious 'catch' on your first try), the little jokes and references were funny, the music was good, there was non-terrible voice-acting, and it had a decent amount of content without overstaying its welcome. Very solid entry in all aspects. <br/> <br/>Misc. notes: <br/>-I was bit annoyed that you couldn't attack and move at the same time, but I appreciate that it was probably easier to get the mechanics working without having to worry about the player moving around mid-swing <br/>-I liked how the menu selection doubles as a simple tutorial <br/>-The passive aggressive dialogue from the caveman in the first screen is funny, but it seemed a bit weird that he says it even if you already smashed the blocks <br/>-On the first puzzle where the background transitions from cave to outdoors, it's possible to jump over the walls on the edge and get stuck <br/>-The randomized block paintings are a nice touch
Sep 1 20:36:00	1h 09m	Traanimus	The puzzles were nice, but as mentioned in the other comments I found that the ghouls were kind of a nuisance; they weren't particularly interesting to fight and there were so many of them that it distracted a lot from the core gameplay (though it did make for a good moment at the end: "Oh hey you won, now you get MORE GHOULS TO FIGHT"). <br/> <br/>With some polish and a heavier focus on the puzzles, I think this could be a much better game!
Sep 1 21:37:00	1h 01m	Something is Wrong with this Museum	A nice little platformer! It ends kind of abruptly, but it was decent while it lasted. My major complaint is that I felt like there was a pretty big disconnect between the cutscene and in-game art styles. They both looked good on their own, but they didn't blend very well in my opinion.
Sep 2 15:58:00	18h 21m	The Ruins of Cuglatr	This was a great entry. I really liked how the theme was used to inspire the setting, gameplay, and presentation. <br/> <br/>The ending felt a little rushed/anticlimactic, but the content you do have is impressive given the time frame. <br/>The lack of time spent balancing unfortunately shows: I found it very easy to get from the village to the ruins, but died fighting against the robot on all my unsuccessful runs (btw, the game crashed whenever I died). On my winning run, I only got past the robot because I had the strange device and sidestepped the fight. It was still fun to play though! <br/> <br/>Very minor nitpick: it would've been nice if the cursor was blinking at the end of the last statement instead of in the top-left corner.
Sep 2 16:41:00	43m 00s	Fireworks Grandmaster	A weird but cool entry! I sort of felt like I had no idea what I was doing, but none of the customers complained so I must have been doing it right. I did find the font choice made the customers' text a bit hard to read though.
Sep 2 17:08:00	27m 00s	Trapped in Egypt	The art's nice and and it seems like a good start, but the controls and player physics made it almost unplayable for me. It's much too floaty: the players fall at a very slow rate, and slide around a lot when you try to move left/right. <br/> <br/>Kudos for doing local multiplayer though, this is the first one I've seen this LD!
Sep 2 17:15:00	7m 00s	The Crush	It's a decent concept, but because simply touching the walls crushed you, it ended up being pretty frustrating. It would've made more sense to only kill the player if they're touching both walls at once. Like the other comments mention, the physics were also kind of unpredictable and floaty, so the only way I managed to progress was by carefully arranging a couple blocks in the center, then jumping on them and hoping for the best. <br/> <br/>Nice effect on the menu screen btw. <br/> <br/>There are also 3 different fullscreen buttons (one on Ludum Dare's site, one on the itch.io embed, and one in the Unity webgl export). You should probably try to set it up so that you only need one.
Sep 2 18:48:00	1h 33m	The Operator	Very polished and mechanically interesting, though I found it a bit tedious to play. Like others suggested, a more fleshed out version with more story elements could be really cool!
Sep 2 19:42:00	54m 00s	77 Years - A Game of Expansion	Deceptively challenging and interesting game; at first I was completely lost and thought it was too random, but I once I realized that there needs to be a flint next to a square in order to place other types it made a lot more sense and I did a lot better on my second playthrough. <br/> <br/>The music is nice too!