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Mars

Feedback comments for LD39

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Mars's comment
Aug 2 12:35:59		RulesQuest	♥ 0	I really liked this game, it was short and sweet. It took me a little while to understand how the power-ups worked. At first I thought I needed to pick them up and then that was it, but when I saw there were so many I expected there to be something more to it. Once I found out, I grew massively powerful. If I have any complaint, it's probably that the other kings were pretty terrible at powering up. I just needed to find a monster spawn point and farm it for a little while, then grab some pick-ups, and all of the kings ended up being really weak in comparison. The combat system was quite nice, the auto-attack was an interesting mechanic. Very satisfying once I built up some speed too!
Aug 2 13:09:06	33m 07s	Super Helpful Man: An Old Man Super Hero Handy Man Simulator	♥ 1	Very nice little experience. The music and dialogue go well together to create a very cozy, slice of life atmosphere. So the mood was excellent, and I liked the story and how it interpreted the theme as well. The graphics were very consistent throughout as well, it felt very complete and not at all rushed. The gameplay was a little lackluster, it felt less like playing a game and more like a roadblock for narrative progression. Which is fine if that's what you were aiming to make, but personally I feel like the gameplay might as well not have been there. It kinda felt like this project had no reason whatsoever to be a game instead of just an animated short film. I also got stuck on the last puzzle because it took me ages to realize there was a tool outside of the van too. You might have intended this, to make the last puzzle harder to guess, but this way it didn't really feel satisfying to figure it out, it felt more along the lines of "Wait, really?". So as a game, I didn't really like it that much. As an experience and story though, I absolutely loved it. I do not regret finishing it!
Aug 6 19:55:08	102h 46m	Bolt World	♥ 2	Nice little game! Reminds me of those popular web games with the same premise of eating to grow larger. I wouldn't say there's anything particularly good or bad that stands out about it, it just works at a familiar and base level. My only gripe would be how my hitbox did not grow proportionately to my size, making it hard to eat smaller balls when I was much larger than then, since I had to guid them to somewhere around my middle. Otherwise, I liked it!
Aug 6 20:11:38	16m 30s	Fairly Wizardly	♥ 0	I love the character animation, and the music is great too. I found the controls to be very clunky, they didn't feel particularly good to use. The way the camera lagged behind also made it kind of unfair to go into new areas, as there's virtually no reaction time to be had when you can't see the area you're going to beforehand. I think you'd be better served with a camera that's static, or if you want a dynamic one at least make it move forwards in the direction of the characters velocity instead of lagging behind. Having to cross your fingers that the area you're landing in won't be spikes or an enemy isn't very fun, especially not when it turns out that the area is just that. Nice concept though, the mood and feel of the game was nice. With some polish, I think it'd be a neat little game for sure.
Aug 6 20:44:28	32m 50s	Night Light	♥ 2	I really liked this game! I just had to beat it, but I gave up on hard and went to Normal difficulty. The lack of checkpoints on hard was just too damn brutal! The controls felt pretty tight! I could sort of feel where Emma would go when I was pressing the buttons, and that's the hallmark of well tuned controls. In other games the controls have had me over or undershoot, but in this game it felt just right. It made those nearly pin-point precision jumps needed for the small blocks pretty overcomable with practice. The music slowly fading in as the light goes out was a nice touch, it really added to the urgency of it all. It made me feel the tension Emma felt as her light was going out. If there's one point of criticism I have, it's that the cutscenes feel a bit slow and they're not skippable. This made changing difficulty sort of a pain, so I just minimized the game while doing other things just to wait the intro out. Really good entry though, one of the better ones I've seen so far! :)
Aug 6 21:02:01	17m 33s	Flicker	♥ 1	Very nice audiovisual aesthetic in this game! I love the style, and the puzzles were fun too. Since HTML5 games aren't quittable, it was a little bit weird to just be able to freeroam after the point where the game was supposed to end, but it wasn't really a big issue. Well done, I liked it!
Aug 7 11:37:49	14h 35m	Night Driver	♥ 1	What an excellent game! The visuals are stunning, the neon 80's tron style is absolutely great and the music goes very well with it. The car physics felt very good, and the controls were slick. It was a lot of fun to play! My biggest issue with it is that the "running out of power" part seems like it's just kinda tacked on to a racing game, and it feels kind of unfair when only the player needs power. The AI cars just keep on driving without needing to refill their power, so it's pretty much just a tacked on mechanic that obstructs the player because otherwise it wouldn't fit the theme. I think you should've made it a little bit more integral to the game than it is. I also got a bug where I was always 8th place, regardless of what position I finished at. I still really liked it though. Extremely well made considering the time limit.
Aug 7 11:53:22	15m 33s	Zombies and RVs	♥ 1	I really like this game! The style of gameplay is quite fun, and having things to upgrade always feels satisfying and rewarding. I didn't find any glitchy or buggy behaviour, it was an all around very finished and complete game. You should be very proud of being able to make this on your own in 48 hours! However, after I beat the game I had a sneaking suspicion that I just had to check out, and I was right: It's completely possible to finish this game without doing anything. I tried to not touch a single key, as in, not move or shoot or do anything, and I still won the game. The zombies couldn't get to me on the RV, and I didn't fall off. So while it's fun to play it as intended, right now there's no need to do so. You're pretty much just shooting the zombies for the fun of it, not because you actually need to.
Aug 7 17:27:47	5h 34m	Danger Forever	♥ 1	I like it, it's a good start for an infinite "runner" game. I feel like the hitboxes were a bit unpredictable, and as others mentioned there's some issues with crashing/quitting when hitting certain buttons like W and Shift. It also seems like the rotation/orientation of the ship is not entirely reset upon death. Otherwise fine entry though, the controls felt good and overall aesthetic was decent.
Aug 7 17:46:32	18m 45s	Sperms and Passwords	♥ 1	I really like the presentation of this game. The humor, the music and the setting all incite a particular spacey mood, one that I'm very fond of. The game itself was quite simple, I sort of expected some sort of puzzle for the passwords but it was pretty much just talking to people and then it was done. I think I'd like it more if it had been a bit more challenging, given that the power was still at 85% when I finished, and I felt like I'd been slow. I didn't mind the lack of gameplay much though, because I enjoyed the atmosphere very much. Games don't always have to be mechanically complex to be enjoyable, and yours is a good example of that :)
Aug 7 20:23:03	2h 36m	TITAN, Defend Earth before it's too late	♥ 1	Awesome concept! I really like the idea of this game, it's a refreshing new concept that's unlike anything I've seen before. The controls felt pretty slick, so the jumping around was quite fun. Difficult as well, the shifting between seats offered significant challenge at first. It seems like the kind of thing you get the hang of over time though, so it's not a bad thing. I see some complaints about lack of training, but personally I found the whole concept very intuitive. I found it quite easy to ascertain the location of the player character by looking at both the zoomed in view and the zoomed out view in unison. I never had to look for the seats, I found them quite easily.
Aug 7 20:38:11	15m 08s	ANSWER ME!	♥ 0	Nice little game! I tried my best to type fast, but with a Norwegian keyboard all the damn symbols took too much time. I needed to switch between alt and shift clicking all the time, it made things take so much more time than necessary for me. I think the sound was a little bit lacking, but otherwise the presentation was fine. The graphics were alright, your take on the Running out of Power theme was interesting too. I also realize you probably didn't account for the fact that keyboard layouts are different all over the world, so I won't hold it against you. Programming with a Norwegian keyboard is a pain too, because all the symbols used in programming were used because they were easy and accessible keys. Not so much on our keyboards, where pretty much anything outside of letters and numbers has us hold shit or alt =P
Aug 8 12:52:15	16h 14m	batteries included	♥ 0	Nice little game, but it was frustratingly difficult.. On my computer just a small tap on the right arrow made me run almost 3 blocks across, the controls were way too sensitive. I pretty much just gave up after 5 minutes on the second map.
Aug 8 13:09:46	17m 31s	Low Battery	♥ 2	Awesome game, I liked it a lot! The puzzles got difficult after level 15, but I made it in the end. Very well designed puzzles, the way they gradually got harder and introduced new concepts was very well thought out. The art and the music were good too, it properly captured the style of the 1980's 8-bit era. The little particle effects and the UI also served to make the game feel very complete. A lot of LD jam games feel like prototypes, but yours felt like a finished game, and that's a huge plus. Making this on your own in 48 hours is impressive, great entry!
Aug 8 13:23:57	14m 11s	Station 5723: Reactor Down	♥ 3	Great game, I love puzzle games! The puzzle wasn't too difficult, but it wasn't 100% straightforward either so it did take me around 2 minutes to figure it. I loved the hint for the password, nice little bit of humor there. The graphics were pretty decent, quite the detailed 3D environment. The music was a nice addition to make sure the game didn't feel too empty. Overall the audiovisual experience was pretty good, I generally like the mood of spacey themed games. Well done, good entry!
Aug 8 14:19:59	56m 02s	I'm Not Your President	♥ 0	Haha, this game has surprisingly many similarities to mine! Made in Unreal Engine, you're a robot on the run, glossy 3D graphics, scary security cameras! I'd say you did it best, though! The gameplay was pretty nice, I liked it.. at first. Later on when all the lasers and stuff came around, I kinda just started to feel dread. Those traps and walking into felt a little bit imposing, and it got so tense that I kinda started enjoying myself less, just hoping I was close to the end so I wouldn't have to do it anymore. I didn't get to the end though, because I fell through the floor and I couldn't be bothered to start from scratch. I think there's an impressive amount of levels and content in this considering it's a compo entry, so well done on that part! Your take on the theme is pretty interesting too. The graphics and audio were both quite nice, it had quite the futuristic feel to it. Overall a good entry, well done!
Aug 8 14:28:52	8m 53s	BloodyVampy	♥ 2	Took a bit getting used to, but I managed to win once I got the hang of things. I enjoyed the mood of the game, the music and the graphics went well together. Controls felt fine too, it felt quite intuitive to play this game. Overall a nice entry, good job!
Aug 8 15:10:32	41m 40s	Static Man	♥ 1	Nice game! First person I've seen to try and make a horror game, and I'd say it panned out just fine. First time I fueled the fire at the same time as I died, so I kinda startled myself. Thought it was a jumpscare when the burning sound and the death happened at the same time, haha. After I played it a little more, I ended up not being able to survive the night. That static man thing has too many hax, going through tables and all. Anyway, it's nice to see a horror game. While I personally didn't find it that scary, mostly because of the lack of sound, it's a valiant effort considering it's a compo entry. Good job!
Aug 8 15:28:16	17m 44s	Winding Woods	♥ 1	I really liked the whole changing of layout as I went on, and all the little landmarks I discovered as I went. The level design was pretty good! The walking sound did get a tiny bit grating after a while, but it wasn't too bad. I'd suggest maybe adding some music or other ambient noise to make the walking sound not so overpoweringly present. The graphics were just fine, having some basic 3D models makes a lot of difference. It's something my own game sorely lacks, and it suffers for it. Overall nice game though, I loved the mood of the game.
Aug 8 15:35:46	7m 30s	Mr. Blue	♥ 0	Fantastic game! I love the mood of this game. The happy music reminded me of the classic Tom & Jerry style of music. The animations were surprisingly fluid and their little happy faces were adorable. I did have a little bit of trouble with the controls. Hitting the spot where the gesture would actually connect was a bit difficult and sometimes frustrating. Especially with the office workers. I think your take on the "Running out of Power" theme is a lot of fun, though. Great entry!
Aug 8 15:45:23	9m 37s	#relicsofpast	♥ 1	I'm guessing this is a prototype, because I didn't really get the point of most of this game. Why was the lamp even there? If I can only move in dark, but there's no advantage to having the light on, why is there even an option? Also, it seemed to just be an endless series of randomly generated maps.. some with impossible jumps. The music and the graphcis were nice, but that's about it, unfortunately. Considering this is a 2-person effort over a 72-hour jam period, I can't really rate this particularly high. This seems more like the basics that should be in place after the first day, not the result of an entire 3 day period. I don't mean to sound too harsh, but there are even 1-person 48-hour compo entries that has more work put into it than this game. It's not a bad start, but as a jam entry I feel like you should've gotten further than this.
Aug 9 08:14:55	16h 29m	SPACEJAMMED	♥ 1	Great work! Took me a little bit of time to finish it, but I generally enjoy puzzle games so it was definitely worth the effort just for the satisfaction of completion. The controls took a little bit getting used to, but otherwise playing it felt just fine. The graphics were great, and the low-key ambient music felt very "puzzle game" like. I loved the little intro as well. I don't think there's too much to say about this game. The colorings on the tubes made it quite intuitive which tubes went where, so at its core the game was simply a straightforward little puzzle game. If there's one point of criticism it'd be how obscurely it ties in with the theme. I understood that it was supposed to be about the ship running out of power and doing the puzzle fixes that, but you could've potentially made a little more obvious. I had to do enough mental gymnastics with the puzzle itself, no need to make the theme require some as well ^^ But it was a well done puzzle game. Good job, nice entry!