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JSMCAG

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		JSMCAG's comment
Aug 2 16:29:36		FRIEND-1	♥ 1	Loving the use of the three color palette for the game, gives it a very unique and fitting look which, alongside the background noise of the satellite, makes the aesthetics of the game a definitive high-point! Finding the source of satellite transmissions while avoiding asteroids and managing your fuel also makes for interesting gameplay, if rather unforgiving. The big planets, in particular, seemed to have too strong of a gravitational pull, which meant that as soon as you saw one on-screen, it was probably already too late. Congrats on your first Ludum Dare submission, overall very solid! I liked it!
Aug 2 17:16:35	46m 59s	No Sorcerer's Sky	♥ 1	While a respectable management game, I found the UI to be in need of a lot of work. In particular, I find the decision of only listing how many resources I have in the hangar to be incredibly frustrating, forcing me to jump around the hangar screen and the various modules screens in order to do anything. Add the fact that the resources have different orders in different screens, and it really confuses the player. It'd be far more sensible, and would result in a better game, if the resources you have were always listed in the top or side of the screen - check how other games have done it, and you'll see that in games where resource management is a key component of the gameplay, the resources and their quantities are always available for the player to check, even in different screens. As it stands, this really hurts the game experience and potential fun to be had. The game also lacks some kind of direction, and as soon as you get a net positive energy (as in, you generate more than is consumed), then there's no real motivation to continue past that point. It seems that there were more things planned to happen, since there were resources that, to my knowledge, were never even used (apples, ice, coal and diamonds, for example). If you continue to develop this game, maybe making it so that you can ship cargo out for money, and build a trade space station that way, would go a long way to make it very enjoyable. I really enjoyed the music, it was very calm and relaxing, and really set the mood in conjunction with the slowly floating station and shooting starts flying by. Getting a game over also led to a surprisingly humorous scene, so congrats on that as well!
Aug 2 17:56:22	39m 47s	Plagued Station	♥ 2	What an incredible entry! It looks great, it sounds great, it controls great, overall an incredible package to deliver in only three days. I don't really know why you are dissatisfied with this entry, I am blown away with the quality presented! This game wears its inspiration on its sleeve, with it's retro look, jump-n-gun action and exploration gameplay it presents, and you managed to pull it off masterfully. The main gameplay idea that ties it to the theme is particularly interesting, forcing the player to manage their time well while exploring the plant. Yet, if the power does go out, the ambiance that sets in with the nightmares slowing approaching makes for a very tense feeling, while still giving the player hope that they'll manage to reach the main room to return power to the facility. To help with this, the trams offer a very nice way to quickly jump around the facility. The second main gameplay idea - using the gun's recoil to extend your jump (and possibly other uses that I'm not aware of) - not only gave the gun a very satisfying humpf when using in any context, but pulling it off felt really nice... That is, if my keyboard let me press Z, X and Down at the same time, but it appears that isn't the case. As such, it was actually too hard for me to consistently pull it off, which meant that I couldn't advance past a certain point. When I did manage to pull it off (by releasing Z just before pressing Down just before releasing X), I could see how well crafted the implementation was (outside of the specific keybindings), and the potential it has (even for speed-running/sequence-breaking, which is a plus in my book). Finally, activating different systems in the facility, such as the air vents, in order to progress is a unique take on how to design "power ups", as it were. Quite frankly, I would love to see this game developed further and given a full release, with a big map to explore. What I see is the beginning of a really compelling metroidvania game. (just make sure to allow key mapping! 😜)
Aug 2 18:10:37	14m 15s	Funkotron 5k	♥ 0	Hilarious, love it! The fact that the dance is procedurally generated is very impressive! Congrats!
Aug 2 18:18:52	8m 15s	Goo-Boy and the Maw of Darkness	♥ 1	A very unique aesthetic makes this game really stand out, and set a really dark mood. The light effects are really impressive! Short and to the point. Good job!
Aug 2 18:40:51	21m 59s	Exodus: Fleet Commander	♥ 1	While the idea is interesting, the implementation itself is very lacking. There's very little you can do - exploring sectors for fuel and, once you have done so, gather the little existing fuel that there is to a ship of your choice and FTL jump to the next sector. In practice, however, there's so little fuel that you won't be able to power any of your ships (except maybe your little scouts), so the act of gathering fuel doesn't even make much sense, it just felt like a time waster after gathering all fuel I could get and not powering one single ship. Sound and graphics are minimal, but functional for what we have. Overall, this needs a lot of work to make it fun and compelling. It needs some time for balancing, so the game doesn't just throw you an impossible scenario (literally no fuel to power any of your ships to an FTL jump), and after that some more compelling mechanics, such as random events, battles, and such. Keep up the good work, though! Congrats on your first entry, and may the following improve!
Aug 2 18:53:52	13m 01s	A Miner Inconvenience	♥ 1	Not bad at all! A nice, simple idea, that was well executed. The use of precedurally generated levels was a good one, as it allows players to get a new experience as they try again. The narration is quite humorous, if a bit long at times. The option to skip the dialog is certainly a welcome one. The game, however, suffers greatly from complete lack of any kind of sound - it makes the game feel very empty. Even some really simple sound effects using Bfxr or similar would really go a long way.
Aug 2 19:09:45	15m 53s	Dauntless Run	♥ 1	Really impressive! The graphics, in particular, are very well done, some really cool pixel art there! The game also has a really nice sense of speed when picking up fuel, making everything around you whoosh by (adding to the difficulty of the game) I really only have three nitpicks: 1. the controls are a bit floaty, which is both a good and a bad thing - in this case, it needs a little fine tuning; 2. the fuel is surprisingly hard to get, probably because in the attempt to make hitboxes small, you also made them hard to get; and 3. no music is a bit disappointing. Overall, I'm impressed with your work, it is a really solid entry! Good job!
Aug 2 19:18:56	9m 11s	Lost in Translation at Space	♥ 4	The voice commands really make this entry stand out, and is a unique gameplay mechanic that, combined with the robot's jumbled dictionary, requires the player to discover what each command does. On top of that, the 80's cartoons aesthetic is masterfully done, and really got the look and feel perfectly. Great entry!
Aug 2 19:39:16	20m 20s	Energy Tanks	♥ 2	This game leaves a very good first impression: the main menu is quite ingenious, and really well done. The game has impressive low-poly graphics, and a really good music that fits well with the mood of the game. However, I found it to be quite buggy: enemy power bars seemed distorted, I was able to drive off the map, stuff like that. Most glaring of all was that moving up a hill would make your tank never climb it back down, it would just float at whatever altitude it was. This meant that, if you ever climbed any sufficiently tall hill, you'd be unable to go back down to the ground and, as such, you'd be unable to shoot tanks or gather batteries. The controls did confuse me for a tiny bit, but after a few seconds I understood that this was an isometric game and thus UP would be wherever up was in that game (in this case, up and to the right, it changes from game to game). The decision to lock movement to four directions was an interesting one, but definitively what lead to this confusion. Overall, this is a game that, with more time for polish and bug-fixing, would be really really good. The graphics and music are great, and the gameplay is solid outside of the bugs I mentioned.
Aug 2 19:52:16	13m 00s	!SMARTBOTS	♥ 2	This game stands out for its graphics and innovative idea, which was really well implemented! However, the lack of any direction really made me lost, and I couldn't understand what was the objective, what I was supposed to program the robots to do. The description given also doesn't detail what's the objective. Still, very good job at actually making this in just a couple of days, very impressive! If you decide to continue developing this game, do make sure to put some kind of tutorial, or at least contextualize what's happening so the player has a clear idea of what the objective is.
Aug 2 20:36:34	44m 18s	Displaceable source	♥ 0	This one blows me away! Quite an unforgiving puzzle platformer with a nuanced ambiance, and incredibly creative gameplay mechanics. For something that was complete in only two days, this is mind blowing: decently long, decent to good level design, great use of the mechanics, A BOSS FIGHT?! The only thing "missing" would probably even more content and abilities, but the game is great as it is, it could very well be sold for a few bucks in the current state. Incredible, incredible, incredible, I have no words!
Aug 2 20:56:35	20m 01s	Plug Me	♥ 1	Really creative idea, and very well implemented, and very well developed in the 15 levels the game contains. Challenging, but very fair - and the game does give you some help if you're dying too many times. A definitive stand out!
Aug 3 12:01:43	15h 05m	The Dictater	♥ 2	A really interesting take on the theme! This game really stands out with its quirky look and quality music. The gameplay, however, doesn't have a lot of depth, and left my finger begging for forgiveness... It'd be nice if we could place the police where we wanted (with cooldown so we can't place it again and again without waiting), and some other gameplay mechanics would make for a very compelling game. As it stands,it has the looks,but not really the substance. Still, it was a very well done game! Great entry!
Aug 3 12:13:29	11m 46s	Ted Crashed!	♥ 1	Really good, I really like it! The soundtrack is very good, and the graphics are also really nice. The use of an hex grid with direct control over your character is an interesting choice, and it works really well! Resource gathering and placing wires works really well, seeing as all actions are only perforced with one button. One little nitpick: sometimes, when placing a wire adjacent to two other wires, the former would connect to the wire farthest from the ship, making the energy travel unnecessarily long. It doesn't really matter, but if a player likes to min-max, this might be annoying. Overall, very good! Great job!
Aug 3 12:25:46	12m 17s	Faade	♥ 1	A simple concept that was well implemented! Having the energy directly affect how you view the screen, getting not only darker, but trippier as you love energy, was an interesting concept. Specially since, if you accumulated too much energy in Level 4, the screen would actually get too bright to play as well. There's more room to explore this idea further, with more levels. The graphics are simple, but effective. The audio did get on my nerves due to its short duration and distortion effects. Because of this, the mood did seem a bit forced. Overall, a solid entry, no doubt! Good job!
Aug 3 12:47:00	21m 14s	Bulbino's Quest!	♥ 0	The game looks great, and plays great! Really nice job!
Aug 3 13:04:01	17m 01s	Automated Explorer	♥ 2	I love the 4-tone gray GameBoy look! In fact, this game pretty much feels like Link's Awakening in some aspects. The idea was very well implemented and executed, and you manged to design quite the interesting world in such a small amount of time. Getting upgrades feels very satisfying, and the natural progression through exploration is too! It is, however, quite difficult, and sometimes is asks just a bit too much precision from the player. I couldn't finish the game, but I did enjoy what I played. Great job! PS: there's a bug where, after your drone dies and the screen is scrolling to the factory, if you quickly build a new drone and try to move it while the screen is still scrolling, the camera gets confused and will show you other parts of the map. In this case, I'm grateful for this bug because it let me explore the map design without having to complete the tasks, but I don't think that was intentional.
Aug 3 13:23:04	19m 03s	Tornado	♥ 1	Mechanically, the idea of using falling blocks to build a "house" of sorts so you can escape from the rising waters is solid, but it wasn't executed very well. The water level was too slow to rise, the falling blocks took too long to fall, and overall the game felt slow and unsatisfying. Not having any kind of win condition, without any kind of infinite gameplay (for example, the camera kept rising higher as you climbed higher) doesn't help either. The lack of any kind of sound also makes the game feel very empty - even just adding the sound of strong wind in the background, cows mooing as they fall down and loud thumps as the blocks land would help immensely in this department. Personally, I used Bfxr for my game, it's quick and easy to use. I also found the collisions to be very buggy, and I would often get stuck on walls and ceilings. Be sure to read up or find tutorials on YouTube about collisions for a platforming game, it would have helped you immensely in this game, and will help immensely in future compos. On a lighter note, falling cows always makes the game funnier! Keep up the good work, and you'll see your games improve as well! Good luck!
Aug 3 13:59:27	36m 23s	Dryad	♥ 2	What a unique interpretation of the theme! Really creative there, and it lead to an interesting game where the more you progress, the less abilities you have. Quite the contrary of what one would expect from a game, really interesting approach and experiment! The graphics are quite lovely, if a bit muddy at times. The main character is designed quite nicely! The game does need a bit of balancing (your shots feel too weak and slow, and you are incredibly squishy, making the blast the only real way to damage enemies; losing stamina while walking means that I'd have to stop playing every 10 seconds to wait for the ball to slowly fill up again), and some touchups on the collision and movement, but overall I enjoyed the game. Great job!
Aug 3 22:19:03	8h 19m	PowrConnectr	♥ 0	A nice take on the rotating pieces puzzle, with some unique mechanics that make it stand out, and are well developed in the levels presented. The game is never too hard, but does require some slowing down and thinking about how to proceed, given that jumping to conclusions might connect batteries to red cores accidentally and force you to restart the level. A very solid entry, that does everything it set out to, and does it well. Great job!
Aug 3 22:53:27	34m 24s	Jetpack June and the Tower of Power	♥ 1	Really well done game, but incredibly frustrating! Sometimes unfairly so, requiring the player to make a series of frame-perfect jumps without failing otherwise they have to restart the whole room again (the room with the blue card being my biggest gripe with this). No music and annoying sound effects are a bummer, but don't detract much from the experience. Still, very well made! I would just make the character walk less stiffly...
Aug 3 23:06:37	13m 10s	Fart Squirrel	♥ 1	Hummm... Interesting concept... 😆 Seriously though, this made me laugh, specially at the end, so good job on that! The game itself is short and sweet, and its mechanics are fun to play around with. I would only change the first part that requires you to float with spikes over and under you: it's just long enough that one jump is not enough to float all the way (without going all frame-perfect), but it's not high enough that you'd need two jumps to try to make it through. Overall, good job!
Aug 3 23:30:49	24m 12s	Decarathon	♥ 3	Impressive graphics, art design, and music! Each city feels different and unique, and the overall aesthetics of the game are really good. Gameplay way, is a bit simplistic, but that impression might come from the fact that +stamina sponsors are too strong and it doesn't take long until you don't need to do anything else but sprint to the finish. At the beginning though, when you stamina is still limited, having to juggle speed with stamina consumption proved a decent challenge. Very impressive overall!