Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Feedback comment stats → Random-storykeeper
Feedback comments for LD38
Random-storykeeper's games and stats for all events →
| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Random-storykeeper's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 25 04:26:22 | Little Sprout Garden | ♥ 0 | That little seedling sprite is super adorable. | |
| Apr 27 09:15:18 | 52h 48m | For A Small World This Place Sure Has Big Problems | ♥ 0 | The only big problem I'm having is that I can't find a link to play this game. :P |
| Apr 29 06:28:22 | 45h 13m | Cataclysm of a Potted Plant | ♥ 2 | That was a very quick but cute playthrough. I would have personally liked to have the character be respawned from the start of the stage rather than closing the game upon losing. Having open up the game again each time is annoying, especially if you have a task for the player where it’s relatively easy to lose (one hit equals instant death). I do think the art is the best part about the game. I love the combination of realistic looking soil with the cute worm and rock. The inconsistent art style adds to the charm. I am curious as to why the worm starts as a bunch of blocks and then suddenly transforms into a more cartoon-like worm once he reaches the top. I guess it really is a special worm after all! The music is all right; I like the "sunflower_soiree" track; it’s got a bit of a wondrous "I wonder what’s up above" feeling. I only wish it captured a bit more of that feeling of "rain" in it, seeing as the game is entirely about avoiding raindrops. Oh, the dialogue was also pretty good, albeit there wasn’t too much of it. My heart goes out to that poor rock, who totally got rained on and probably fell off the leaf as I was climbing up. :P |
| Apr 29 06:40:00 | 11m 38s | Tiny Colonies | ♥ 1 | This game has a great colour scheme with a cute pixelated art style and satisfying sound effects (love that “clip” sound when a tree is cut). I found it a bit slow to play, however. I’m glad you gave tips on how to start, but I found myself confused as to why I needed a farm, and what the third icon from the top-left HUD is supposed to be. I think it’s wheat, but I can’t see how it factors into the gameplay. Mostly, I just found myself waiting a lot to generate the right amount of resources so that I could construct more things. Ultimately, the time for waiting was just too long that it wasn’t fun after I started off following the guide. That being said, I do like how this game interprets the theme, and it’s pretty cool how you can see this small planet from a distance away, with your character walking only around the outermost perimeters you can see. If there was anything this game could have improved on for the future, it would be the balancing of how you generate resources vs. the cost of placing them down. |
| Apr 29 06:41:46 | 1m 46s | Raven Delivery Service | ♥ 3 | This game has a very Diner Dash feel to it. It took me a while to get used to the gameplay, but after a couple of tries, I did get into it and kept playing to try and beat my record. In the later levels, I had to think a lot about where to place the witches, as I had a habit of putting them in close proximity of each other and wasn’t maximising my efficiency. I did try co-op mode with my sister, and it was a lot of fun. I just found it easier to coordinate with another player rather than trying to multitask between two characters. But each mode presented its own, slightly different challenge, and I quite liked that. I love the art style, and the music was pretty good, too. The track feels very “Match Girl” meets “Standing Here Alone” from Melody Muncher, which I can kind of see in the game, considering the co-op mode requires players to follow on-screen arrows to extrapolate the ingredients. I was kind of surprised that there was only one track, but I saw on your track listing that you were short on time. Still, it was a well put together track regardless, and also a big standpoint of the game. I mean, the only things I can really see on how this game could improve is more levels, and perhaps having a certain number of potions required to proceed to the next level? Or even so, just recording the highest score for each mode would be nice. The game overall is very polished and the four levels offer something different in each of them. |
| Apr 29 07:50:50 | 1h 09m | Dwarf World | ♥ 0 | Man the Dark Riches level...I almost forgot how much time I was spending playing this because I was so invested in trying to beat it. The puzzles are pretty well designed; they made me think a lot and got me a bit frustrated, but in a good way. I like the sound effects, and the tutorial is well paced. The levels themselves increase in difficulty really fast, but with the amount of levels you currently have, it's well rounded for a game made in 48 hours. Specifically, sound wise, the gold mining and dwarf completing the level sound effects were satisfying. The background music is all right; it's simple and not annoying after it loops. I do like the art; the rocks remind me of crinkled paper, which goes with the rest of the character and component designs. (I still didn't beat the Dark Riches level btw. I know I can skip levels, but most of the time I prefer to proceed to a level by beating it, and this is one of those cases. :P) |
| Apr 29 08:13:10 | 22m 20s | A Relatively Small World | ♥ 3 | The art in this is very interesting and the music track goes very well with it. I like the sound effects; they are amusing. The theme is quite prominent in this. I'm afraid I found the game too hard to understand. It seems you have to pick up things and place them in certain areas, but the game seems very picky about where you stand when you execute this action. Even a really small pace off can make all the difference between whether you pick up things or not. Secondly, I haven't a clue what to do with the aliens. I had assumed you had to pick up buildings and move them elsewhere, but I wasn't fast enough to save them all. Additionally, one of the hints states that aliens don't like wool, but I wasn't able to pick up or find anything that was wool related? It would have been nice if the game had a faster respawn time, rather than getting the player to wait for the quote each time they restart. Which, by the way, I felt the quote really helped tie together the game to the theme perfectly. |
| Apr 30 00:37:06 | 16h 23m | Pocket World | ♥ 0 | Not bad. I like the idea of collecting resources so that you can add new areas. However, I found resource collecting to be very slow and tedious. The art is pretty neat looking and the music, while fitting, is irritating to listen to after a while (with a longer loop with more variation, it could be less annoying). I like how the game saves info after resetting the resources, and being able to meet new characters with each area I unlock. I also found that I had to click so many times to collect certain resources such as sand and stone, and that got pretty frustrating over time. |
| Apr 30 05:58:40 | 5h 21m | Bugyard | ♥ 0 | I was led to some area where it took me to an A Bug's Life clip on YouTube. Is this the ending? If not, it's a very frustrating secret, as it reset all my upgrades. :P Things I like about this game: - The art is cute (love the backgrounds). - The areas are quite vast and varied, visually. - Creepy as heck bug dying animations for one of the bugs (that bug head lying on the ground...super awesome) - The music track has a catchy melody and some nice chord progression. - The controls feel smooth. Things I had issues with: - As mentioned in one of the above comments, I got stuck on the opening cutscene a couple of times. - Hanging at the edge of the screen but not crossing over to the other screen sometimes causes enemies to respawn immediately in the same screen. In one area where I was supposed to be able to change screens, the game had an invisible wall or something, and it caused a whole bunch of enemies to spawn in that area and kill me. It was just before the lower cave ish area. - It's possible to go to areas that require powerups before you get said powerups. The first time I played, I went to the underground cave area that starts with you falling down a long passageway so you can't get out of it. It was frustrating because I didn't have enough jump height to reach the platforms, and I had only acquired the gun. - While I do love the music track, it feels a bit too...islandy for the game. The xylophone sounds have a tropical feel that doesn't quite suit the backyard bugs, underground style. Especially when transitioning between certain areas, it would be nice to have a contrast in music tracks between certain areas, and maybe spend more time in the same areas before transitioning to the next. - Acquiring certain powerups causes the gun powerup on the Abilities list to disappear. I do like the game overall; exploration platformers are just my style. It's mainly the bugs (not the characters) that get me stuck that make it frustrating. But I kept coming back to play it, so I guess that's a good thing. |
| May 1 06:38:36 | 24h 39m | Little Mouse Planet | ♥ 2 | Cute game! The sound effects in the game go really well with the game's graphics. The game was pretty straightforward, once I understood how to play it. That cat really loves to teleport, man. I like how the small world theme is approached here; the camera is focused in a close view of the mouse, and you can see that when you walk in a straight line, you end up right where you started. I like this perspective. I managed to survive for 36 days, but the difficulty plateaued pretty early on in the game, and this made it more of an endless game of patience, which means dying of boredom to see how many days you survive. :P Some issues: - Pressing the C key twice results in this screen popping up: little mouse planet 01.png - If you press the C key again at that screen, it cycles through a bunch of numbers in the centre of the screen (with the Game Over text gone), from 0 to 9, before sending you back to the titlescreen. - Like I mentioned above, once I understood how everything worked, the game didn't really offer much difficulty. I think there are several ways to approach this (and if you wanted to continue working on the game more after this, the progression of difficulty in an endless game like this would be the best thing to focus on imo). For instance, sleeping in the house lowered my tired metre, but also restored my health. This was probably the thing that made the game too easy. Maybe over time, the speed of the cat could increase and more bushes could be added, etc. These are just things you could consider, but you definitely don't have to do exactly that. The game, aside from those issues above, is solid. The titlescreen music, by the way, sounds like it was made in ORG Maker. I was surprised, when I looked at your game page, that this was not the case. |
| May 1 07:06:28 | 27m 52s | Daydreaming Island | ♥ 1 | I didn't mind the controls too much. Despite the fact that it was sometimes confusing as to whether you preferred the left click or right click, but since there were only two buttons involved, it didn't take much to figure out. A lot of the sameyness looks with the notes was a bit frustrating, especially at the start, where you have to find the key and the icon for it looks exactly like the notes. I totally dig the 1bit style. Black and white pixel graphics in a minimal style are so my thing. I love how it starts from that outer view and then goes to a closeup of the character once you get into the lighthouse.. That really gave me a feeling of becoming immersed into this universe slowly. Musicwise, it's very well done. There's a lot of emotion in the tracks that gives this simplistic art style a lot of depth and matches the tone of the narrative. I liked interacting with the telescope, thought that was pretty cool. The days counter HUD, while interesting, didn't really mesh with the graphics, gamewise. The white text meant that anything on the white floor made it blend in with each other. And yeah, like everyone said, the movement was a bit choppy, but it didn't really stop me from being curious as to how this game would conclude. This was simple, dark but emotional. I like it. |
| May 1 08:56:16 | 1h 49m | To do list | ♥ 5 | # This comment will contain a lot of spoilers, so please beware. *To do list* truly is an impressive feat, even aside from it being made in 72 hours. From the tone, I could already tell something was off about this character, but I wasn't exactly sure what. Then it came to the end and I was like, totally in shock. It was definitely unsettling, creepy and just the right kind of creepy. To have music for each of the days, done within the time limit? That's amazing! I loved all the chiptune tracks; there was a very nice contrast between them for the different days, and the soundtrack contributed to this sort of distortion of reality as to what you're actually doing that this game needed. It did manage to get creepy at some parts when needed. I suppose this game actually goes in reverse, and the ending is actually what you started with? Loved the hints of foreshadowing too. The glitchiness at the end freaked me out. Here's a couple of issues I had: Four Quarters To Do List 01.png - The game's hit (collision?) detection is a bit odd. When you have to interact with things, the character ends up at such a far distance from the actual object. I suppose this helps in knowing which items you can interact with, but it's a bit weird and initially made me think I wasn't supposed to interact with said object. - The game's screen is taller than mine, and cuts off where the bottom of the screenshot is. I think it's worth knowing, but it wasn't such a huge deal that I couldn't play this game. - It was super confusing, especially at the beginning, knowing what to do. I got stuck on the trash part because I had no idea that the white things (again, in the screenshot) were trash. I thought they were rocks! - It would have been nice to be able to interact with key objects and have the character say something about the object with hints. All in all, a great game with a chilling payoff. |
| May 1 09:10:55 | 14m 39s | The Grass is Always Greener | ♥ 1 | That was short! I think I beat the game; it did close after I got the grass and the goat gave a little heart. It was very adorable; I love the tiny size and the colours are very pleasant. The sounds are great. You made me hungry for Honeycombs cereal after I read your game page. :P |
| May 2 02:18:25 | 17h 07m | Wake Up ! | ♥ 3 | Neat work. The graphics really carry the mood here, and the music is fitting. I like the idea of switching between two different "dream" dimensions, and the choice of art portrayed in the graphics. It was pretty short, but well rounded for a game made in 72 hours. The ending had a nice choice of visuals. Most of my gripes with this game you seem to be aware of already. A combination of spacebar and arrow keys can make one of these controls unresponsive; an experience I've had playing multiple browser games with this issue. Some games like these map alternate keys for a spacebar function (eg. a letter key) and they tend to work better. Backtracking because I fell through a hole or something was not too bad because it was a smaller game, but if you are to expand this game, I think it definitely would become a larger irritance. Other smaller things: - When I first landed on the box and hit E, it started to sink into the ground. This stopped immediately when I left the box though. - The controls do feel a bit slippery as well. I dunno; it felt like sometimes I couldn't stop myself from moving when I wanted to. - More sounds, yes! I could picture this with some LIMBO-esque sounding rustles for walking on the ground. I was getting a lot of LIMBO vibes from playing this, actually. I see LIMBO is one of your inspirations, and it shows in a great way. - It was hard to tell what was a solid platform, as both the background and foreground elements could be in a black silhouette. Some rocks I thought I could land on, I couldn't. - I can't exactly see how this relates to the theme. It's about a girl stuck in her dreams, but the world itself seems kind of big, as even though similar elements appear, there are different puzzles, and it felt like a different part in the same area of the "world". I guess the whole gist is that the world takes place in the girl's mind which is small compared to the *entire* world? :P Overall, good job. |
| May 2 04:08:59 | 1h 50m | LD38 - Big Dreams | ♥ 4 | Super Crate Box meets Toy Story - I like it! There's a good variety of enemies and weapons. All the platforms and weapons seem to match the tone of a child's playroom. The only thing that seemed out of place was the look of the powerup pickups, which looked like candy bars. I guess they sort of tie in to the tone, but it would have felt more consistent if it was all just toys. I like how you put the menu buttons as candy bars like the pickups, though. The music has a melody that plays well with the "child and his toys" concept. Pianos and bell sounds were a good sound scheme. Some other things: - I was unable to face and shoot in the left direction. Whenever I walked, it was always with my character facing the right. This also happens with the download version, so I assume it was intentional, but it doesn't seem like the ideal character movement for a game where enemies can spawn all around you. - I wish the top of the screen wasn't solid so that the player character wouldn't have such a stunted jump. (the player should be able to make a full jump when they go off the top of the screen. - Because this is about a child playing with his toys, it would have been interesting to incorporate child-like sound effects - like when a dinosaur dies, have a childlike "RAWWWRRR" sound. I think it would add to the humour/charm. - Sometimes standing right behind a bucket will cause an enemy that spawns at the opposite end to immediately die, and you never even get to see that enemy come out. Overall, this was a small but all right entry, with a good whimsical tone. |
| May 2 05:09:26 | 1h 00m | Daylight | ♥ 3 | It's a simple but frustrating game. There is a good choice of colours in the art, and the character, while just a box with a single black dot, has this "cute" look to it. The backgrounds are also quite pretty looking. The music has a choice of instruments that make it very warm and calm sounding, which is great for a game of this demeanour. I actually like the idea of the mechanic itself, and how you gradually get more jump height as you progress upwards. It made the ending really satisfying. Oh, also the 8bit sound effects are good. To me, it looked like the character was a cloud who fell to the ground and was jumping to join the other clouds in the sky. I know it wasn't the case, but the character really did look like one of the clouds. :P Some issues: - The energy limitation on the jumping seems useless. Despite the frustrating platforming, I never found myself running out of energy, even after multiple tries. - I also didn't get the point of having more than one enemy in the same platform in later areas. Both of them grant you energy, and once you kill one, you can just stand at the E point and you become practically immortal to the other enemy. - I wasn't a fan of the enemy combat. It took too many hits, in my opinion, to kill an enemy, and I almost always inevitably got hurt in the process. The energy bar for the monsters goes down too slowly to notice that you're actually landing a hit. Daylight 02.png - The platforming was ever so frustrating near the end. Lots of tiny platforms, ceilings to limit your jump, arrows that point you in a vague direction but you're not exactly sure how far you have until you land on the next area - all these things can cause me to *just* barely miss a platform and hug it on its side. When I miss, I basically find myself trying to fall all the way down so that I can die and be reset. - I will give you this though: I'm very glad the character respawns at the last E point. - The main character is nearly the same colour as the clouds in the background, thus, when one of the clouds is behind the character, the two practically blend in with each other. This makes it harder to fend off enemies, and just see the character to position it properly for platforming altogether (see below). Daylight 01.png - Like others say, I think the platforms that are about the same width as the character should be wider, too. That aside, I thought this game was pretty good. One just requires a lot of patience to get past the jumpy controls. But the gradual shift in gravity and day to space-night sets a nice mood and leads perfectly to a satisfying end. |
| May 2 06:01:11 | 51m 45s | ATLANTIS | ♥ 4 | The first time I played, I was completely confused. I read the instructions on the game page and I just had no idea what to do. But I started playing, anyway. I vaguely understood that I had to interact with certain characters and to move them, but I had no idea what the towers were, or what my objective was. Thank goodness for the video, which did help to outline what I was supposed to do. I tried a second time and couldn't understand why my characters weren't allowed to move, what Mana was and why my characters just moved to a subsequent square when I tried to execute an action. I tried to use the Druid's action, but most of the time, this character moved to another hexagon and only sometimes allowed me to undo some tiles from their flood state. Anyway, I was just getting the hang of it and even unlocked the ship, but my scout sunk beneath the waves before I could get to it. Well, I did get to a tile and tried to interact with the ship, but the game didn't do anything and it kept bringing up the notification that the place was flooding. I think it was taking into account the other turns of the units I had lost. I tried playing the game again, but the issues with the interaction and actions were frustrating. Finally, I used a scout to interact with a Tower and got this nasty popup: ATLANTIS 01.png thus leading to the game freezing and not letting me do anything else. At that point, I decided I was done playing this. Not that it's a bad game by any means; I just don't think it's the kind of game for me. It was definitely interesting though, since I don't think I've played one of these board game-esque type browser games before. I like the look of the game overall; the pixel art style characters on this sort of isometric board. It's very pretty to look at. I also like what you did with the music, what with the extra layers to the same loop being added as you light up the towers. That was a great touch. I can echo the comments above that this isn't really the kind of game one could learn just by reading the instructions on the game page alone. Without the video, I think I still would have been super confused as to what I was doing. |
| May 2 06:21:18 | 20m 07s | KeyPuppers | ♥ 2 | PUPPERS that's such an adorable name! From the looks of the screenshot, I thought this was going to be a typing game, but the way this game works makes it seem a lot less of a typing game than it actually is. Sure you have to hold the corresponding keys to repair them, but each pupper always seems to move the same direction: left to right (Q to P, A to L and Z to M). Since you can only repair one key at a time, it's nearly impossible to quickly repair a whole row of keys, what with the constant wave of puppers walking through constantly and only getting a minimal amount of time to "fix" each key. Personally I think this would have worked much better as a typing game. You could have puppers jump from key to key, at different distances between the keys, and at different paces. With these variations, it would seem a lot more like a typing game. But that's just my personal suggestion. Here's some other thoughts: - Freezing the puppers should not cause other waves of puppers to come onto the screen while said puppers are still frozen. Without this, it barely serves as a cooldown time for the player to repair keys while still being reasonable. - Holding the shift key and then said targeted key does appear to be superfluous. Consider letting the player hold down just the letter key to repair. Those things aside, I think you've got some fine ideas here. The graphics are really cute (I mean who can say no to colourful puppies anyway? :P), plus the music is upbeat and fun, and I do find it suitable to the graphics and overall tone of the game. The only thing that I don't like about the sound is the "hover" fx for buttons; it just sounds really scratchy and unpleasant against the pleasant sounding soundtrack. Something that's more "bwoop"y or maybe more lighter, gentler and shorter than the effect you currently have is an sfx I could see working as a suitable alternative. But yeah, congrats on your first game jam you did a fine job (final score was 260 for me...hehehe). |
| May 2 06:46:35 | 25m 17s | Step-Squish | ♥ 1 | Hahaha! I like the concept. The art was cute; I love the look of the ants and the different varieties of feet that stomped by. The text was pretty amusing and it seemed like you were having fun with that. The sounds were also good and satisfying, especially that win one. Couple of issues: - The ant can die just by touching the part of a foot and not when actually being stomped. Which, I dunno, in a *realistic* perspective, makes no sense. I did find myself losing a lot because I was touching the side and wasn't even under it. You did allow plenty of space so that this wasn't too huge of a problem, but I imagine it would be if you were to continue this and the feet stomped by faster, etc, then it would be frustrating for players to have clipped the sides but not actually get stomped on (and die in the process). - I have to admit, I don't think I won the game the intentional way. Since it's way easier to dodge just after the foot stomps down, I lingered more to the right and stayed there for the majority of the game. The crumbs that fell to the left stayed there permanently, so I waited in between stomps to collect all the 8 or so crumbs I had remaining in one fell swoop. I suppose, to make this more of a challenge, crumbs can disappear in between waves, or maybe the feet stomping down can move the crumbs around? Those are two things you can consider. The game was worth playing for a few minutes of enjoyment, and is generally well put together for a 48 hour Compo entry. |
| May 2 19:24:24 | 12h 37m | Tribes of the Turtleland | ♥ 3 | This is the kind of game that demands levels. I quite enjoyed playing this; I especially love the design of the turtle, and the little tribe figures with their permanent >:O expressions. I like the music too, maybe the in-game more than the menu screen, which had a tendency to sound a bit staticy at parts, but it had some good flow and tune to it. The main area track had a very floaty, world feel to it, which was great. The sound effect for placing the tribe members was also cute, and I would have loved to hear maybe some collective sound effects for when the tribe members fall off the island. I appreciated the game hints, which served as a good guide on how to play without being super intrusive. There were also good indicators with the cursor as well, telling you why you can't place certain tribe members wherever you want. I played until the third "make it harder", of which it seemed the enemy tribe was multiplying super rapidly and I had trouble keeping up. Aside from this, I can't really pinpoint any other major problems I was having, except maybe that sometimes, the tribe members could end up inside the water, which caused them to shake back and forth and sort of pop around the pool. Oh yeah, and it would have been nice to also map the WASD keys as well; I found myself using these by mistake when playing instead of the arrow keys. Or maybe have them configurable for letter key combinations. The game also had a tendency to lag when lots of tribe members were in place, but it wasn't so bad that it took me out of the playing experience. Overall, I liked what I played and would *love* to see this with a levels system and different coloured turtles, because the way you've designed the "turtle" world is so intriguing. |
| May 3 00:13:34 | 4h 49m | The Mother of All Games | ♥ 5 | Hi. :) This took me back to the days when I had those old handhelds that had 30 or so mini games in them and I loved that. Some great things: - Monkey birds are so adorable. - I love the music. For some reason, I'm getting Aztec-esque vibes from the puzzle track. - The puzzles are pretty well designed. They were easy enough for me to pick up without a tutorial, even when I'm not familiar with the game they are based off of (if so). - I love the cat. - I love how the cat gets scared when you summon another puzzle piece. - The puzzles are consistent in their design, but different enough that you can tell them apart from each other. Some issues and such: - In the snake game, perhaps the player should not start moving until they press the arrow keys. I also agree that the immediate feedback of the game is confusing and - In the platformer with the keys, I'm not really a fan of the player bouncing when they land on a platform. Not to mention the jump sound effect seems to go overboard as I am walking through a passage that is exactly one block high. - There was an option to Continue on the menu, but the game doesn't seem to save. I completed 8 of the 10 mini games before quitting. - An option to restart within a level would have been helpful. - It appears that you can summon a different puzzle in the same spot once you beat the previous one. Essentially, I could summon a bunch of puzzles within a short distance of each other and not have to move. This is really a minor nitpick, but I would have liked to have the different puzzle games spaced out around the world so that there is a reason to actually move around the world instead of staying in one spot. But I suppose it does make it more convenient to start playing the next game with your current mechanic. Imo it just defeats the purpose of the theme. Other than that, this is certainly one of the more polished games I've played in this LD. The art, audio and variety of gameplay stand out for me here. Awesome work! |
| May 3 01:44:21 | 1h 30m | Save that small planet | ♥ 1 | My highscore was 8900 before I decided to quit. I found it hard to move around the planet and aim at asteroids, and ended up spam shooting most of the time to get rid of most far out asteroids, all while trying to aim for the ones that actually got close to the planet. I'm glad the ship is invulnerable to asteroids, which gives a bit more time to react and hit. Artwise, the planet and asteroids designs are really good. There's a lot of fine details on the planet, nice colours and a bit of humour in that the cities are monstrously huge in relation to that tiny planet - or so it seems. Couple more nitpicks: - Some details in the "space" area could be used. Maybe some white dots of differing sizes to give a "starry" look, thus evoking more of the idea that this takes place in space. - I'm not really a huge fan of the sounds - the shooting sounds are much louder than the sound of asteroids getting destroyed, which gets quite annoying after playing for a while. Maybe something more Sine wave or Tom sounding could be more suitable. The asteroid sound effect is a bit clicky and could use some more punch, but it wasn't as prevalent of an irritant. - A button to restart directly into the game rather than bringing the player to the menu screen would elevate this game's replayability a lot, especially since the only other option on the menu is to quit, which you give as an option on the Game Over screen anyway. Overall, it's an all right, workable game with some nice graphics. You also nailed the theme pretty well too. |
| May 5 17:33:25 | 63h 49m | Ascension: A God's Test | ♥ 5 | The biggest detriment to this entry, I feel, is that it's not really the type of game that can be picked up and learned, but it presents itself like that. I think this is also the reason why it feels so slow. For my first two playthroughs, I was expected to build a temple and create villagers, but was given no indication as to how this was supposed to work. As a result, I was always losing the first round. I actually don't think I even won a round when trying to match the objectives, because collecting resources and making stuff required mana, all of which you don't get very much per round to start with. There was just a lot of guessing and checking involved with playing the game, which I couldn't find myself enjoying here. A tutorial, maybe even integrating narration with it, would have made it a lot more engaging from the start. (also the text gets cut off here) Ascension 01.png That being said, the combination of 3D and pixel art in the game really works in your favour. And of course, I love me a game with some voice acting in it. If you were more dramatic in your inflections, I think this could have made the game more charming. And maybe more voice acting in between the rounds when your turns get all used up, eh? The music also is fitting enough; I like how you seem to have two different tracks in game to switch it up. |
| May 6 22:49:10 | 29h 15m | The Perfect Sandwich | ♥ 2 | Mm what a perfect sandwich. I enjoyed the game for what it's worth. Simple platforming and fetch quest; I really love the look of all the components, especially the mayo jar. The colours look good in your game, too. It seems the best way to play this is to start with the wheat, however, I got it last and had to sit around waiting for this wheat to become bread. Your controls are fluid and overall pretty responsive, and there was a nice variety of things you had to do in order to obtain the ingredients. A couple of issues I had: - The jump is a little too floaty, but since this wasn't really a platforming challenge game, it kind of worked in this game's favour. - Some of the dialogue boxes don't close; for instance, solving the dog riddle gives you the tomato, but the dog still displays the riddle. Ideally, dialogue boxes should disappear when the player is not near the area in which they recently interacted. - The player's behaviour around ladders seem to cause the player to interact with them even if they aren't going up and down on them. As such, jumping very close to them (but not directly on them) can cause the player's jump to become "stunted". If the player is jumping past the ladder, they should not be walking on the ladder as they are doing their jump. Overall, you have a good sense of humour, which adds to the charm of the text. I wish you had some audio in your game, though! Text Me Later's audio was the best. :P |
| May 6 23:35:40 | 46m 30s | Suds of War | ♥ 1 | HAS A BOOBOO oh my gosh XD I wanted to like this game, because I really like games that try to turn children's play, for example, bath toys, into an epic war game. And there are parts here that I think work. The 3D art is a good choice for turning simple toys into an epic premise. I like the visuals in the titlescreen. The music and sound effects are simple but fitting. There are also some creative choices, what with incorporating duckies, boats, bathsuds and sponges. However: - The game's performance seems to be overall choppy in both the download (Windows) and the browser. The browser version yes, was laggy throughout, but in the download, at least the titlescreen worked like a charm. - There isn't enough...automated action(?) to make the game feel more fluid. For instance, when all three of my boats make a move, I can't move them anymore for the rest of my turn, and yet I still have to click the "End turn" button for the enemy to proceed. Unless I'm missing something that can be done after my boats move, why not automatically proceed to the enemy's turn? - When I lose all my boats, I'm basically a sitting duck (haha), waiting tons of turns for my ships to respawn and I have to click "End turn" each time waiting for my inevitable demise. I feel like the sponge could also have some sort of attack of its own - maybe not as strong as the boats, but something that you still have control over so that when it dies, that's the end of the game (but you can do something at a great disadvantage regardless). Otherwise, when all my boats are down and I'm waiting, say, nine turns for my boats to be respawned, I'm probably going to die and there isn't anything I can really do except forfeit. - I love the idea of having suds in the battlefield and uncovering the ducks as one moves along. But I don't like how the enemy base also seems to be concealed in the mist as well, and that enemies can't uncover that mist as they move along. Quite frankly, it might have been a bit more strategising to allow the enemies to uncover the mist as well, such that the only mysteries are the ducks. The AI can already see the enemy, and it just...I dunno, feels a bit unfairly balanced to have it be able to see you but you can accidentally stumble upon an enemy while finding its base and thus you end up dying as a result. Overall, there are some great ideas being explored here, but it just feels a bit slow overall. I dunno, maybe it's not really my type of game. |
| May 6 23:50:21 | 14m 41s | WHAT A SMALL WORLD! | ♥ 3 | Wow that was a quick sit. The graphics and music are definitely good in this (could have used some chiptune but you captured a good feeling in this); I love the tiny pixelart of the outside world. And I agree with the others that you set the music cue up great in this. I also love the sounds of interacting with things inside the house. The video game bloops were super satisfying. Despite the presence of an NPC, I'm surprised you don't get to talk with this individual. My only huge issue with the game overall is that whenever the character runs into a wall or solid object, the screen goes crazy and quivers back and forth like there's an earthquake going on. I don't know if this is intentional - it doesn't seem to be, and is really disorienting. I did like the dialogue, but the text boxes should really linger until the player moves away from said object they just interacted with, imo. Overall, it was a short and sweet game with a rather unexpected ending. |
| May 8 01:36:55 | 25h 46m | K.R.A.B.S. | ♥ 1 | I played this with my sister. It was overall fun, but kind of slow. Maybe it's just my computer, heh, but it seemed like players just moved sluggishly throughout the arena. And it was confusing to know what the particles in the sky do. Other than this, the metres and score indicators were clear but not intrusive, which is great. Probably my biggest issue with this game, other than the slow performance, is the controls. Even on a download build, using the Ctrl and Shift keys for either player can still mess around with changing the player's keyboard language, etc. Sure that can be changed back, but then again, mapping shoot and shield functions to the letter or punctuation keys, for example, can also resolve this to some extent. I've played some multiplayer games that have movement and shoot/jump (aka two functions), and the defaults usually are WASD and the G and H keys for player 1, and arrow keys and </, and >/. for player 2. Even the ability to remap controls would be a great touch. Other than that, the game was fine for what it was. I like the robotic voice and the music. The background art was fascinating as well. |
| May 9 21:29:27 | 43h 52m | M^3 (Moon Mining Manager) | ♥ 1 | I think you've tapped into something interesting, even if the final product (for the jam) is a bit bare bones. The zooming in and out was a good feature because it gave the impression of how small the world is. For some reason, turning the world constantly doesn't allow me to go in a complete 360; it just stops after rotating for a while, which sort of ruins the impression of this being a "round" world, where you can spin it continuously in one direction and end up where you started again. The rotation mechanic should be continuous, imo. As for the game, yeah, I tried playing it, but I couldn't really get into it. It was confusing how everything worked in this game, what you were supposed to do and there were lots of placeholders such as "New text" and buttons labeled "Button" at the start of the game that I wasn't sure what to press. I feel bad, because even the video had me confused of how to work the game, but maybe I didn't listen intently enough to it. Overall, I will give it to you that the mini map looks all right, and I do like the fancy names given to the resources. The video you use to promote your game at the start of the page was charming. I saw some nice looking graphics for the resources at the bottom of the screen in the game, but they weren't really integrated into the game itself. It felt unfinished and wasn't exactly pleasant to look at; too many grey and yellow tones, but I get that it's supposed to be the moon. I'm curious about the post-jam version, so I may check that out some time. Props. |
| May 11 07:19:34 | 33h 50m | Humanity Simulator | ♥ 1 | Well my disaster escalated quickly. One playthrough and this was my score: Humanity Simulator 02.png I thought it was pretty easy to pick up and understand how to play. There are some interesting things that pop out for me, like how this resource gathering game is about destroying the planet rather than building from it. Or rather, creating structures, make dough, destroy planet. It works humourously for this game. It's also strange, but in an intriguing way, how this planet is cube shaped. It felt like an odd choice altogether, but I was with it. I was trying to leave one side unscathed, but I guess I forgot which side it was and ended up cutting too many trees and resources, resulting in the storms catching up. I can't say I was a fan of the movement in this game. The planet would automatically start rotating when I was quite far away from the edge, and it really made it hard to focus on gather money or maneuvering to a forest that was near the edge. Even though it does make it so that you can see the next side of the planet without having to actually move there, this was too disorienting to try and collect resources, which I guess is just the downside of having such a box shaped planet as opposed to a round one. Also, the timer in the top corner loses its 0 digit when counting single digit seconds. It may be more consistent to allow for 0s to come before a 1-9 digit when counting seconds. (For instance, a time of 6 minutes and 4 seconds is displayed as 6:4 on your HUD, while it would be more consistent and intuitive to have it displayed as 6:04.) Other than that, I thought the rest of the game was fine. The sound effects were satisfying (though I would have liked to hear more added, such as when chopping down trees or creating buildings) and I thought the colour palette was all right. I think the clouds obscuring my vision as the planet got more polluted was a great touch. |
| May 11 09:30:57 | 2h 11m | Meteor Jam | ♥ 1 | Can I just say that you have one of the best looking titlescreens so far this Ludum Dare? In general, I feel like the game has a great premise, but a lot of the problems I have with it involve all the parts working towards making it enjoyable. **Gameplay** - I thought the idea of mining ore by falling meteors was a clever idea. It combined a hazardous game element but also made it very useful at the same time. - As others have pointed out, this game is quite exploitable. I maxed out all my upgrades early on in the game by purchasing whatever I could and then dying, which kept my upgrades. I didn't realise this worked for the rocket as well until I read the comments. (I would just buy all three parts together and then take off as fast as I could.) I ended up using this exploit for the rockets to beat Planet X. - It wasn't until Jupiter that I realised this game was super glitchy. It's way too easy to get stuck inside the ground, and I don't just mean the parts with holes (though yes, those too). There were parts where I was directly in front of a ground tile, and had to rapidly tap jump to wiggle my way out. This makes the more difficult planets more frustrating than fun (screenshot below). Meteor Jam 03.png - I love how you go to different planets per level. For a future build, consider having each planet with a varying gravity, which would affect jump height and speed as well as how fast the meteors fall. - I actually didn't hate that you kept the upgrades upon dying, mostly because this game would have been unbearable without its exploits. That's not exactly the best way for players to beat a game, but if you are to have harsher consequences for dying, the game has to be a lot less buggy and a lot more responsive. - I know people have already mentioned the pause thing, but even though the rocket can protect you from meteors, it's extremely unstable and can tip over as a result of a meteor hitting either it or ground underneath it. And when you're bringing up the upgrades screen, it disappears the moment the rocket foundation moves away from the character. Oh yeah I laughed out loud when my rocket tipped over as I finished building it and launched it. The game acted as though I was moving somewhere fast, but I was just coasting along the side. XD Meteor Jam 02.png **Other elements** - It's nice how you managed to make six different tracks for the planets. Chiptune was a fine choice for the art style, but since this isn't 8bit art, I think it would be fine to take more liberties with the chiptune and not be so "GameBoy" sounding. "Mars" and "Jupiter" are the tracks I enjoy the most, but some of the later tracks get a bit too annoying, but I think it's more because the loops are too short, which I get because, well, 72 hours. - I wasn't really fond of the sfx in the game. The jump sound is a bit too high pitched, and the rock collection sound is barely heard against the music and sounds too much like a bass drum. You would need something a bit more resounding for the collection to be satisfying. - The graphics in-game...I have mixed feelings about. The background colours are nice, but the protagonist is kind of too small in comparison to the screen imo and their walking animation looks awkward. I do love the title and ending screen graphics, though. I've probably said too much, but this game had quite a bit to offer that was worth commenting on, so I guess that's good. I think when better executed and less exploit-dependent, this could be a lot of fun. |
| May 11 09:56:48 | 25m 51s | Terraform: a Small World | ♥ 0 | The game is a little too tall for my screen as well - I have to zoom out quite a bit, to about 65%, and even then, I have to put my browser on full screen in order to play. The game itself isn't too bad - I haven't played that many story based, choose-your-own-adventure type games, so it was a nice experience. I was quite resistant to terraforming, which I guess was the goal of the game. But when I was offered the option to restart, it printed out a "dev console" at the bottom left corner of the screen as such: Terraform a Small World 02.png Overall, the story seemed okay, but the text scrolled up pretty quickly in some parts and it was too fast for me to completely read what the other individual was saying to me. The appearance of the speaking and the player's response texts look too similar; I wish the distinction was more obvious. Aside from this, the aesthetic choices in the text, backgrounds and graphic of the "small planet" were good. I noticed you are opting out of the graphics and audio categories, but you have them enabled, so I will not rate in those categories. Make sure to opt out as confirmation though. PS I like the reference to Ludum Dare 37's theme. I don't know if it was intentional, but I did get a chuckle out of that. ;) |
| May 13 22:04:27 | 60h 07m | Chuck and Bull | ♥ 2 | Fitting music, nice colours. The pixel art is pretty good, but it's a bit hard to see the looks of some of the items and characters. The text box also looks really out of place in comparison to the graphics. This game could have also used some more sound effects for certain actions; it would have really added to the charm. As a game, there isn't much to it, as stated by the other comments. I don't think that there necessarily needs to be a survival element, but if it's going to be like an interactive piece, there does need to be a lot more to do. Chuck and Bull 01.png I think the item circled in red was what others were referring to as "booze"; when I interacted with it, it just started the music over from the beginning. I'm also not sure if the chicken's text is supposed to be humour or a typo. Considering the other piece of text is with the wife, I couldn't really tell. |
| May 13 22:35:17 | 30m 50s | REDBOW | ♥ 1 | Well, I got to level 11, so I guess I reached level 10. I was expecting an ending for some reason before I remembered that these levels were procedurally generated. Things I like: - Good art - Good sounds - Being able to hold a key down to continuously shoot. - Being able to shoot diagonally and have enemies also shoot diagonally. The things I was hoping to see worked on a bit further seem to be issues you're already aware of. The variety, for example, where difficulty only seems to increase by length and just more of the same two enemies, for example, didn't make the game super easy, but it did get to the point where I found myself wishing this had more variety. There were also a couple of tiles I was able to pass behind, and I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, since it was only a few select tiles, but they looked the same as the solid ones. Bigger levels did make it confusing to find the exit, so it would be great to have either a map or a beacon of some sort to lead to that exit. However, for 48 hours, you did a superb job. btw if you do make a postjam version, do include some music. :) |
| May 13 23:10:36 | 35m 19s | Chroma | ♥ 2 | Dude that was badass, the music was badass, I was badass with my gun, so badass that I crashed the game upon my first death. Chroma 01.png (that's the message I got when I first died.) Aside from this, I was reminded of a game I played in a previous Ludum Dare that did something along the lines of this, but somehow, I think this one is much more well put together than what I remember the other one being (I can't remember what it's called). The graphics and lighting are so good, the music was excellent, as were the sounds. Really pumping up the atmosphere. And I love the various enemies, the pickups left by enemies being attracted to the player - that element worked really well for this game. And the boss battles: while the first was pretty easy and the second I had a little more difficulty with, I thought both were good boss battles. The game was pretty reasonable with death as well. Okay one thing I didn't understand was collecting the key, which I could later use to unlock a cell, but that didn't seem to do anything. This was when I died shortly after I did this, which caused the error message I got above. But I thought I might have had to save this key, and it ended up having no use. I kind of laughed when the first boss was attacking me because the bullets looked like Christmas lights...not sure if they were supposed to be, but it was such a weird out of place look that didn't really mesh with the rest of the aesthetics. Some other things: - Pressing the E key felt unnecessary to acquire certain weapons. Most of them, if not all, are placed in their own secluded area that it's nearly impossible to "accidentally" obtain them, and it surprised me that I had to do this in order to pick up weapons and such. And even if one did accidentally obtain a weapon when they didn't want to, it's not like you lose your previous weapon in the process. - As a lot of people mentioned, I didn't like how I had to dash in the direction I was shooting. I don't necessarily agree that the dash is not needed, as I can see it working for certain rooms and bosses. It's just a matter of having the player dash in the direction they are moving rather than shooting. Other than that, this was a treat. Great tutorial, by the way. And thanks for reviewing Terraform. :) EDIT: I looked at your (@Megalink's) blog feed and only just now realised you *were* the ones who made Area 51, which was actually the game I was talking about. *facepalm* Yeah, this is a drastic improvement and I think it fit the theme way better than in LD37. Clearly it was different enough that I almost didn't realise I was looking at almost the same game. 😛 |
| May 13 23:43:56 | 33m 20s | The Tiny Astronaut | ♥ 1 | I like this concept a lot; the planets are varied, and I like how you're told what can harm you and what's okay, and how these can vary from planet to planet. The art is pretty, but I felt like the text was out of place. It was a good choice of colours for the text palette, though. My biggest frustration came from the hitboxes. It seemed it was too sensitive, in terms of being able to clip hazardous ground was very frustrating, as I couldn't tell what killed me on the last planet. I actually didn't manage to beat it. Other than that, I thought it was a sweet little game. |
| May 14 00:09:55 | 25m 59s | Carefulzilla | ♥ 0 | I had a lot of fun with this. It was definitely one of the more funnier games I've played. "so you think death is funny" says my friend "yes" Well you know, some people have to die for the greater good... Anyway, my only real issue is that I couldn't tell what I had to be careful with and what I could step on. On my first playthrough, I got to a pedestal, for example, thought I could crush it so I tried avoiding it and crushing the buildings around it instead. On my second playthrough, I decided to be less careful and try crushing that brown pedestal, but it turns out, I could step on it. There were some white buildings I mistook for the background that I kept crushing. Aside from this, I really enjoyed playing this. I love the humour, and the art, dialogue and concept suit it very well. |
| May 14 00:41:53 | 31m 58s | Insect Attack | ♥ 3 | "I'm sure there are more than a few bugs." Hey now...this game *is* a major bug infestation. XD I like the idea of linking the life to time, and shooting bugs gives more time. I didn't really think it was smooth enough to incorporate penalties such as taking away time for missing a bug. If you're going to do that, I would suggest starting with some bugs with bigger hitboxes, and then gradually adding in bugs with smaller hitboxes to make it harder. And I guess there's nothing wrong with using the right mouse button to shoot, but it's just like, *why*? Well I think maybe Mac users might have trouble. Also, the bugs spawning not on the outsides of the screen was quite irritating, but most of the time, I couldn't really tell what was going on. Overall, it was an all right idea. It did feel a little rushed, but I can see that you were scrapped for time in this. At the very least, you have something playable, with sound effects to boot. |
| May 14 08:46:10 | 8h 04m | SnowGlobe Warrior | ♥ 0 | The three stage setup really makes the spike in difficulty enormous, which is a shame, because I think this game has something special. In general, I really love the snowglobe setting; it was a great interpretation of the theme. The pixel art is super attractive. The music is fitting, seeing as it is chiptune; it's a little tragic sounding and somber, but this kind of made sense to me considering I was fighting snow enemies and had a fighter with the slowest reaction time ever. :P And overall, I think that's the most frustrating part about the game. If the attacks are going to be super close range, they need to be more quick. In pretty much every instance I played, my enemies were always quicker to attack, no matter how much distance I gave myself. The only time I could land hits if I was lucky was to position myself where they would get stuck trying to chase me in the centrepiece, but even then, this technique didn't work very well for the snowball throwers. It would have been great if I could move around while preparing the sword attack, so it would allow players to strategise and dodge more efficiently. Oh speaking of the dodge, I did not find this technique useful for the game. I did, however, like the variation of enemies, and how the sword can kill groups of enemies at once. I kind of feel disappointed that you spoiled it all on your game page, though now, I guess I can't say I was confused on what I had to do. :P I agree with @ajayajayaj that there needed to be way more sound effects for actions like deploying attacks and killing enemies. But the one sound you used for transitioning between levels was great. If you were to make the response time of the character's attacks instantaneous and allow moving while attacking, I think I could forgive the difficulty of this current version. But for 48 hours, you've done a fine job. The graphics, music and idea were the high points for me. |
| May 15 09:02:35 | 24h 16m | A World in a Jar | ♥ 2 | I really love seeing these kinds of games on Ludum Dare, and this adds very nicely to the experimental, growing plants type of game collections. The highlights for me are the art, and the various plants that can be grown are super creative. I actually like how, towards the end, I can really see "worldly" type plants appear and that felt a lot closer to the theme than I expected. If I could pick out few couple issues I had, they were: - Some of the hints are misleading. For the cake pops, for instance, you mention that the plant involves something "colourful", which led me to believe that I had to breed a seed with the candlebra in order to make a colourful plant with fruit. But nothing was working, and I could not for the life figure out what else the hint could be for. I actually looked at your timelapse video in the end, for the clue. It would have bee more helpful to the player if the descriptions of the plants were a bit more relevant to the hints in the plant-o-pedia. - While I think the sound effects are well done, there's something about the music that doesn't really sit right with me. Although calming, the loop feels rather short, and since this game is quite lengthy, the music starts to get a bit grating after a while of playing. Maybe I was just too into this lol, but I dunno, a game of this demeanour needs background music that is longer in length and not as repetitive. I know you've opted out of the audio category, but this could be something to consider if you were to continue working on this. - I didn't like how the plants weren't ordered, in the seeds menu, by the same order they are in the plant-o-pedia. I guess it does allow the player to see the plants in the order they've collected them, but it makes it a bit confusing when it comes to trying out different combinations. Often, when following the hints, I would end up with a plant that was completely different from the one I was trying to unlock. It seems, on the plant-o-pedia, that you have it set linearly, and having the seeds on the seed selection screen ordered in that same way would have made it a lot quicker to try various possibilities without being confused by plants you've unlocked after. I don't think this would have been as big of an issue if the hints were less ambiguous. Overall, I was quite engaged in this and probably spent a lot of time with this than I should have. I just have to unlock all those plants, lol. Good art, good sound effects and nice atmosphere. |
| May 15 20:50:17 | 11h 47m | Rock Hammer | ♥ 2 | I can agree that this concept would work really great for mobile, so it's nice to see that the game is also built for that. The art is fine; the colours look nice, but something about the main character looks a bit out of place in comparison to the background. It's not super noticeable though, especially when the character is moving constantly. I love the logo you have for the game page though. Honestly I don't think I can say anything that wouldn't have already been said in the comments, as this is a relatively straightforward game. You have the tools for this basic concept, and I really think it could work as a fun arcade mobile game with more content added to it (plus sounds and music). The one thing I did find myself wishing when playing this jam version is that there was a button for restarting the game, like pressing the spacebar, instead of having to click on the Retry button. Also I was able to pause the game on a game over, but it only brings up the pause screen, and this goes away once I hit "Retry". Finally, maybe you could consider varied widths of target areas, which also would change up difficulty. All in all, good fundamentals, and if you continue to work on this, I can only see additional content benefitting the game. |
| May 15 21:24:21 | 34m 04s | Turing Compete | ♥ 2 | This is a neat concept and I enjoyed flying over the world when zooming in. I thought the UI text was fitting, and the colour palette was well done. The snow graphics look a bit pixelated for some reason, which was strange. As for the game, it felt like a nice sandbox game. The instructions were a lot to take in for me when first playing, so I spent most of it autogenerating terrain and then deleting random conditions as I went along. I even managed to terraform the entire board, which was cool. I'm not really sure why the orange generating contraption stops moving once you set in new conditions, even with the speed set to something that is, say, medium. If I save my changes and it stops moving, I have to click the speed button rapidly to go back the desired speed. Well, I did think the fastest speed was very funny, especially when the generator is only terraforming in a very small area and the squares just go flying off the board. XD It's an interesting game, though it would be in need of an in-game tutorial for casual players, especially if there is going to be a competitive mode. |
| May 15 22:27:16 | 1h 02m | Flicker of Hope | ♥ 1 | Argh I keep dying on the second stage. What a trip that was, though! I love the mood set by the lighting, graphics and UI. The game itself is pretty straightforward, but you have some good choices for enemies and mechanics overall. The spell for running seemed mostly useless, and I wasn't really a fan of health not regenerating, but because the game tells me I'm close to finishing, so I guess that means the second stage is the last one? :P I thought the music was pretty good; very ambient but sets the tone well. The only issue I had with it was that it was too loud in comparison to the sound effects. I would have liked the sfx to be a bit more in the foreground, and have that background music actually be background music. Sound effects were great too. I couldn't understand how the health worked in this game, particularly with the guys that blew arrows at me. Sometimes when they hit, I lost health, but other times, I didn't lose health until after a couple hits. Another thing is that on the game over screen, it seems the game automatically restarts despite having a "Try again" option, and it's not really the kind of game that should have automatic restarting, as the player needs to be prepared for the coming attacks. Overall your game has a wonderfully dark mood, and I love the play with the lighting. |
| May 15 23:07:51 | 40m 35s | Shovel vs deforestation | ♥ 2 | Those lumberjacks make me think of Canada for some reason :P. And their eyes on the outside of their face make me think of a snout from a distance - like they're animals or something. Overall, I think this was pretty well put together. You have a playable condition, some nice looking art, good sound effects and a music track to boot. The musical loop is catchy, albeit it does start to get a bit annoying after several repetitions. As I was playing, I noticed I could actually hit lumberjacks that were quite far away from the character if I rapidly pressed the E key. It got to the point, in one level, where they looked as though they were randomly dying, but I guess the game was still inputting my attack even after I let go of the key. - I would have preferred to have the attack key mapped to something opposite WASD, like K or M, etc. This would give more control with the attacks rather than having to sacrifice jumping. I found myself using my right hand to press the E key at times. - There was also a bit of a bug where lumberjacks could get stuck on the top of a tree, and they wouldn't move until that tree got cut down. Shovel vs deforestation 01.png I enjoyed the humour and it was a sweet little game. |
| May 15 23:33:51 | 26m 00s | Group Traffic Control | ♥ 1 | There was a time when I could disable traffic lights for my path, but constantly put the other player on a standstill by having a traffic light constantly on the red light. The orange car opponent got stuck for a long while. Additionally, when making money, it seems that I was hitting the maximum 5/5, but the money counter rarely went up. I don't know if you have to wait longer to make more money from the workplace, but there needs to be an indicator of some sort to let the player know how many times a car has to go into a workplace in order to make the cash. Other than that, I thought the graphics looked pleasant, colourwise. The music was okay; very minimalistic and didn't really work for a game of this demeanour. It needs more of that traffic/city vibe to it. Sound effects for the cars, making money at the workplace, etc, would also be great. I didn't see any players when I played, but I might try to play this with my team later. ----- All right, I tried to join a multiplayer game with a teammate and me, but it says the game ends in 47 minutes. So we have to wait an hour? How do we ensure we're actually playing with or against each other? |
| May 15 23:57:01 | 23m 10s | The Ludum Show | ♥ 2 | Nice graphics. I was wondering why the moon and sun were attached to a string; I thought that was pretty neat. It was a bit hard to find certain items; there was nothing intuitive about some of the locations. But once all the pieces were collected, it was easy to put them together. I liked the different scenes and the lighting. As others said, it could use some audio. I was also concerned, from the background, that the details in the background would be too distracting, but they weren't too bad. |
| May 16 05:31:39 | 5h 34m | drone | ♥ 1 | Well I finally checked this out...it's an interesting concept, it seems, but the one thing I question is, *is* the game supposed to look like this? Drone 01.png I've tried reloading the game several times, tried different settings for the scales and patterns and such, but I only see this blank screen with no hexagons as seen in the screenshots. Am I missing something? The audio is pretty interesting, how you can contort the melody into different iterations and even input some notes yourself, but I don't know if there was supposed to be more of a display than that, which is all I see. |
| May 16 06:01:13 | 29m 34s | Samhain: Fly Away Home | ♥ 3 | I agree with everyone else that you've managed to combine many different art styles together very well. It was quite tough to get into the gameplay itself, as it seems very unforgiving if you mess up by falling into water (and the controls did not make retracing my steps very fun). The music was quite nice; it definitely conveyed the chilly winter effectively. I liked the different types of enemies, and there were some interesting elements in the underground areas that weren't explained. There is a lot that can be skipped, however, especially with the floating mechanic. I do like it, but yeah, it felt like there needed to be more to encounter along the way to make this an effective journey. |
| May 16 18:42:26 | 12h 41m | Super Tiny Adventure Game | ♥ 1 | It's a nice platformer and the game is overall well put together, but there are just little components here and there that make it off putting. The graphics are really detailed and colourful, but the highly detailed backgrounds makes it hard for the main character to stand out, especially in the first world. I liked some of the instrument choices in the music and that you seem to have different themes for the different worlds. Some of them matched okay, and others were a bit too repetitive, particularly in places where you had to spend a lot of time in. Other things: - I didn't like the camera movement being fixed to the character. It's a bit nauseating to look at after a while (since this is a pretty large scale game), especially since the character can make drastic movements like stomping when dashing in the air. - The side quests, while okay, were placed oddly such that I could obtain items before I even knew what I was doing. In the case of the bogs, I was obtaining the batteries, but I didn't find the NPC who gave me the quest until much later. Which makes me think, I was probably supposed to obtain those pairs of pants back in the island world for an NPC. - Something about the jump is strange to me. Like, it's super floaty at times but others, it's really grounded. I think this is affected by how long one holds the jump key, but the second jump is a super small distance. I dunno, it's probably just my taste, but it feels like the second jump could be a *bit* higher. I really like how the worlds actually are continuous, ie. I can walk in one direction horizontally and end up in the same place I started. That was great in giving the whole "small world" impression. I'm not really sure if this fits the theme, since it's concerning a number of small worlds rather than just one small world, which the theme clearly states. But that's neither here nor there, I guess. Interesting stuff. |
| May 16 18:59:01 | 16m 35s | Neon Genesis Pluto | ♥ 2 | When the music started I was like, "oh my gosh; is this going to be ORG?" because that starting instrument sounded very ORG like. But I'm glad there's more of an 8bit sound to some of the instruments. Wish some of those running notes would continue though. But anyways, the game...what did I just play? The tone was so weird, but strangely, it came together well for this game. The cutscenes reminded me of the old TV games I used to play when I was a kid. I liked the humour for the most part, but man the tone was all over the place. I gotta give it to games that give me legit math questions to solve, though. Since it was pretty easy to die, I wasn't really a fan of the record skip sound effect. It was also hard to tell what could kill me at first, since it seems aliens are collectible (for what purpose?) and some of the planets can be touched while others kill me instantly. Mars had the most unexpected attack. I quite enjoyed this ironically, even though I'm not really America. Ayyy lmao 😂 |
| May 16 19:23:45 | 24m 44s | DEFEND YOUR SMALLEST OF WORLDS | ♥ 2 | GAH, they turned the Earth into Mars! Heh, I haven't seen that many games use slingshots for self defense. It's quite hard, having to aim opposite yourself to hit targets. The game has a humourous concept, and I like how you have the most random items to throw, from a car to a factory? to a cow. I felt like the UFO ships are too small, especially when starting out with such inconsistently sized items. Aiming was quite a pain, especially with the rapid speed the UFOs moved at. I also feel there would have been more of a sense of progression if all the items you threw were more or less the same size to start with, then changing it up gradually as the game goes along. Different sized UFOs too, would have been great. Well, maybe that's something to consider for a post jam. And, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think an entry can [opt in](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules) for audio if they use a royalty free loop, which appears to be what you've done. Granted, it's a nice sounding loop (very reminiscent of Pebble Dash) but as someone said above, it doesn't really go for the right tone. It is very "nighttime" sounding, but nighttime music does not necessarily fit into the space theme. I think your sound effects were fine, but unfortunately, I don't think rating audio is proper even if you generated your sound effects because you got the music from somewhere else. (You could, however, remove the music entirely, next time in an entry so you can be rated in audio.) Also I know this sounds weird, but I like your UI. 😛 |
| May 16 20:55:05 | 1h 31m | Mr. UN and the small world village | ♥ 1 | An all around solid entry for a Compo entry. It's short, but effectively simple, and fun to play. I love the sound effects, the little guitar riff when you purchase an item, the little sound effects when converting people. This was a lot of fun, and I think a lot of the humour comes from the prospect of making conversion to peace this simple. It would be interesting to see this premise taken to other planets, maybe. But generally it was a short but satisfyingly good playthrough. |
| May 16 21:30:06 | 35m 01s | My Other World | ♥ 1 | I love the choice of mini games; playing with words is often hard, but it works for this narrative. By the way, great poetry, which really tied in with the music and worked to set a good mood. I like the designs of the bosses, the map and the background a lot, but the only design I had issues with was the main character. It might just be me, but the cute chibi design didn't tie in with the unsettling look of the bosses. And while I like the idea of the mini games, the best one really was just the first game. Part of this is because the game's tutorial only briefly flashes on screen. If it was like the poetry text that allowed you to continue, this would have improved the gaming experience a lot, imo. For most of them, I didn't even finish reading the tutorial text before it flashed right to the game, and I had to die several times before I could read the remaining bits. This was especially an issue in the third stage, where I actually had no idea what I was supposed to do, and losing health was too slow. I eventually took it to be that "ohh you have to match words that are the opposite of the negative words?" but even as I beat it, I wasn't entirely sure if this was the case. So yeah, a more static tutorial text would have made this all the more better. Aside from that and the main character's design, I thought this was a pretty unique overall put together game. |
| May 16 22:47:14 | 1h 17m | End of a World | ♥ 2 | I can see what you mean; at first I was confused about what to do, but realised that certain contraptions, when enabled, can work together to produce the right amount of resources. I had issues with the energy allotment for searching, but realised it wasn't as huge a deal when I could figure out how to generate energy. I didn't quite understand why resources exploded, but it was kind of funny when things just magically combusted. I liked the explosion effects quite a bit in this game. The only significant areas I could really see in need for improvement are the UI buttons (probably like that because of the time, I'm guessing; the text in the menu and help buttons was great) and also pausing the timer when the player is reading the Help menu. (Why does the clock keep ticking when the player just wants to figure out how to play the game?) Other than that, I really like the black and white icons, and like I said earlier, the explosion effects. I can also echo the comments from earlier that the game takes a noticeably long time to start up (on Chrome) and even freezes a bit. Also, nice music choice; it's calming but still has a sense of urgency while being somewhat outer spacey. |
| May 16 23:20:36 | 33m 22s | Asymmetry | ♥ 0 | After several rounds of playing, I managed to score 322. This game really needs a static score screen so you can get a proper screenshot. 😛 Asymmetry 01.png This was a really cool idea. Love the colours and behaviours, and how the music is affected in each area. (The music also had a chaotic feel to it, which was great for a game like this that continually gets more and more chaotic as you go along.) I like how you play not only with speed, but also size. There was also some strategy behind each of the various areas - speed for faster health, but also faster enemies and inducing faster rounds. Yeah overall, this was cool. One thing I could point out is that starting a round with no enemies was pointless. The player isn't scored by how many rounds they last, but by the number of enemies they kill (or so it seems), so having the player start in that area without any enemies is something I didn't really see the point to. Maybe if the rounds were also taken into account, as a separate score, or just starting with a few enemies. It's pretty easy to pick up what coloured areas do what, even if you have to fend off enemies while doing so. While strategising, I found myself making very little use of the bottommost areas, except when I was first playing. The top part seemed like the just the right amount of speed, with the slower areas for more precise dodging. |
| May 17 00:19:01 | 58m 25s | Newbie God | ♥ 1 | Well that was short but sweet. The control scheme was a bit unexpected, and only being able to shoot fire seemed a bit out of the ordinary. I liked the sounds, but I felt like maybe there wasn't enough audio overall in the game - the first shooting sound scared me. However, I did enjoy the art, and the outcome ending text was very cute. It was indeed a very tiny world. Not sure if it will flourish if all that exists are two people and a cat, however. :P |
| May 17 00:39:10 | 20m 09s | Anger Birb: World | ♥ 0 | It was a rather unexpected twist on Angry Birds. I love slingshotting the bird up into space or making the bird go around the world twice. The sound effects did make this funny. I was only able to get up to 63 km close, and yeah the positioning seems quite random. If it is consistent, it would help to have some more details in the background or something so it's easier for players to gage their aim. Other than that, this was a fun little time waster. |
| May 17 00:52:54 | 13m 44s | The Village | ♥ 0 | The travelers saying "WTF" and YEAH" were just the right amount of humour that didn't make it seem over-the-top. I didn't realise you had to continually shower travelers with gold, and thus I ended up losing as I was focusing on upgrading my buildings too much. Nonetheless, I got some enjoyment out of this; I really love the art; the colours are just beautiful and makes for a very relaxing atmosphere, along with the choice of the music. I would have liked to hear some sound effects, which would elevate this entry even more. The game was fun for the time I spent figuring out how it worked. (the tutorial was good) |
| May 17 02:13:18 | 1h 20m | Something Something | ♥ 1 | I dig the Minecraft aesthetic. It was fun clicking around the map area and getting a good perspective on the little map. It's a shame there wasn't really anything else to do. I had a look at the Map Editor, which was interesting. It seemed to have a mind of its own when it came to zooming in and out. There was also a time when my cursor wasn't quite aligned with the in-game cursor (my actual cursor being lower), so I kept putting the game out of focus trying to place certain tiles because I kept hitting the Start menu instead. Overall, it's a cute experiment, and it would be interesting to see where you are going with this. |
| May 17 02:33:26 | 20m 08s | Spike Spire | ♥ 1 | Hey Acuity; I remember you from OHC. :) Oh heck, this game is pretty tough, but it's actually kind of fun. Part of this is because the music is quite good. I love the contrast of a buzzy bass with delayed piano and a metre that sounds like a beat of 3 followed by 5 - I don't know what that metre would be called, but I like counting uneven beats like that. The game actually kind of benefitted from not having a lot of sound effects, but the one dying sfx was a bit too loud, but I guess it startles the player into realising that they've lost. I agree that the game needed a lot more frequent checkpoints, and perhaps a bit more forgiving jump height, especially since a lot of factors can go wrong in terms of unresponsive controls, lag, that is not necessarily within the player's control (my game was skipping a couple frames and it made some passages frustrating to go through). Regardless, this doesn't seem like it is one of the most difficult of these sorts of spike platformers, particularly because it is very small scale, but I have yet to beat it, so maybe it will frustrate me if I was to try and beat it (which I might, later. :D). |
| May 17 20:49:38 | 18h 16m | Last Breath | ♥ 2 | Last Breath 01.png Text getting cut off is one of the biggest issues I have with this game, especially since the instructions are only included within the game and not anywhere on the game description. I can see, however, that you've done a good job ensuring playability, such as instantly killing the player when they fall off the edge of the island. And no, that's not sarcasm - it's good that I don't have to wait so long once I can't get back on the island and so I just die instantly so I can restart faster. I thought the art looked all right; there was some interesting use of lighting on the ground that was pretty cool. The sound effects are also good - I like the groans and the shooting sound has a nice pitch and isn't too annoying when spammed a bunch of times. Some other suggestions: - It would have been more helpful to see bullets being shot out of the gun and hitting said enemies. If not bullets, then lasers, etc. But there should be at least some feedback on the trajectory of where the projectiles are being headed. - I would have liked to press and hold the button to shoot rather than clicking rapidly, because the gun doesn't seem to do all that much damage. - The enemies seem to remain completely static if they are spawned far away from you, which allows for the player to just launch grenades as they seemingly regenerate and obliterate enemies with ease. You could have both sorts of enemies, ones that walk back and forth on the island, and some that remain stationary until you approach them. - If you are to continue upon this, do make the text smaller so that it fits on the screen, and also, have the in-game text could match the titlescreen for more consistency. (I like the menu screen fonts a lot.) - The UFOs also look very out of place in comparison to the rest of the graphics (like 3D ish?), so consider redesigning them so that they have the same sort of style as the enemies, characters and island. Bugs: - If I launch a grenade very close to me and then stand on it, the grenade doesn't ever detonate. I also am unable to jump when I'm on a grenade, but I can still move (see screenshot below). Last Breath 02.png - As also seen in the screenshot above, enemies can get stuck in the ground sometimes. - Pressing the Alt key also allows me to launch a grenade. I'm not sure if this is in the controls, but from what I saw in the Instructions, it was only mentioned that the mouse buttons were used for deploying weapons. Which makes me wonder if the game also has a button mapped to the shooting key. Overall, this was relatively well rounded, especially for a first Ludum Dare entry. I'd love to see what that Story and Instructions text on the menu screen say in its entirety. I'm always a sucker for stories and in-game lore. |
| May 18 22:42:53 | 25h 53m | Ghost Cat | ♥ 2 | I don't understand why this game needs an installer (why not ZIP if it's a Unity game?), but I downloaded it and am ready to play. 👍 Well that was interesting. I'm a robot that defends myself from ghost cats by throwing garbage at them...I think... 😛 I guess the overall concept of this is fine; I like how the items dropped can pass through multiple cats, the musical cues are pretty good and the art, although inconsistent in design, has a nice colour palette that isn't disturbing to the eye. It seems as though it is possible to walk off screen, and I'm not sure if that affects the cats as well, as there were some points where I was losing health, but I didn't see any cats on screen to attack. The sound effects were also used inconsistently in the game as well; I heard a bit of a "hitting" sound effect, which I thought was for when I hit a cat, and then thought it was for when I got hit myself, but this effect did not play consistently on either action. You'd want to give more attention to the sound effects and overall consistency of the art style. Other than this, the game is all right. I like the design of the robot and that titlescreen music you chose was cool and jazzy. |
| May 18 23:47:53 | 1h 05m | Here Be Fish | ♥ 0 | Great sound effects and art. I love the detailed pixel art in the background and the lighting that comes from the top of the tank. The fitting is quite fitting, and the sound effects work humourously to your advantage. I think there are some interesting things to take away from the game, for instance, why the people worship you and build a statue of your hand. All this was very interesting. I'll admit I did find the game a bit slow; collecting coins was a major impatience. My people were demanding trash, but the trash always got caught in some of the background scenery so I wasn't sure if I was doing anything correctly. I got a good laugh out of the animations of the little people bowing and falling over. Overall, I had a somewhat good time playing this. |
| May 19 09:39:46 | 9h 51m | Tooth decay | ♥ 1 | A fun, fast paced game. It really brought me back to the days when I played [Snowmuncher](http://www.neopets.com/games/game.phtml?game_id=412) on Neopets as a kid. I like the graphics, and I like when the person popping up in the corner when drilling through a large group of coloured blocks to say, "It doesn't hurt at all." I can see the expression really matching this dialogue, and it's quite charming. I was also really impressed by the sound effects because you have sounds for the drilling and since drilling is the core essential of the game, it could become annoying very quickly. You, however, managed to make it so that the drilling sound is not annoying at all. All the other sound effects were very well chosen. Of course, some good music would definitely elevate this. A couple of issues/suggestions I can think of off the top of my head while playing: - Instead of having the timer begin once the player starts the game, allow the timer to start when the player starts moving. - The drill detection seems a bit unforgiving for a game of this demeanour. Unlike Snowmuncher, the character can be positioned freely between two blocks, which makes it possible to drill and get "stuck" - ie. not falling on a block they've drilled underneath them, as seen below. Tooth Decay 02 resized.png What I would suggest is either having "fixed" player movement so that they can only be at one block at a time, or leaving the current movement scheme as it is, but allowing the player to drill through the two blocks at once. As it is, this was probably one of the biggest issues that I got caught up on when playing the game, and I feel that if the player drills blocks directly beneath them, they should be expect that they are going to fall upon doing so. (the challenge should be in strategising, not testing the player's pixel-perfect positioning) - At some points, if I was a little off centre of a block when drilling downwards, but still completely a single block, I still wasn't able to drill it. - Despite this not really being an issue in fullscreen, I think it would be more ideal if playing the game in its original, in-browser size was at least a viable option. That is, I hope you will be able to find a way to allow the arrow keys to be "fixed" inside the game such that when the game is in focus, moving the arrow keys won't also scroll the window. I've played HaxeFlixel games where this is possible, so I think it would be feasible. I did play through this quite a few times; my highest score is currently 720. I might come back to it though, because I do really like this concept (and you mention on the game page that this is beatable. I wonder at what distance?). I see that you're planning a post compo, and I'm already very excited for that. 🙂 Tooth Decay 01 resized.png |
