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piscythe

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		piscythe's comment
Aug 2 00:34:27		Constellation Exploration	♥ 1	This game was fun. I wish it had lasted longer. I really liked the implementation of the power idea, and the visual indicator of it was very strong. My instincts told me that the dash mechanic was going to lead to a bunch of self-induced trainwrecks, but it turned out to be beautifully intuitive.
Aug 2 00:35:55	1m 28s	The Crown Prince	♥ 0	This one was short, but sweet. The mechanic behind it is both innovative and fun. It felt punishing at first, and I botched the first scenario several times getting the hang of it. However, once I understood what I was doing I was able to do the second two scenarios in a single attempt each. The gulliotine moves quickly enough to make the game feel hectic - a suitable way to provide challenge in a game that demands precision. Though the character models aren't much to speak of, the backdrops look cool and the music is excellent. Well done!
Aug 2 00:37:05	1m 10s	Light On Light	♥ 1	This kind of light based puzzle has a lot of potential. In this case, I found it to be a huge exercise in trial and error. As the player is given such a small amount of knowledge, the puzzle is reduced to a matter of trying paths until one works. To say that this game is pure trial and error is to do it a disservice, however. There is a comprehensible design language and the mechanics are designed to allow a player to come back from poor decisions. After a certain point, I began to get a feel for how to avoid paths to nowhere. The relaxing soundtrack went a long way toward preventing the experience from being frustrating.
Aug 2 00:38:55	1m 50s	Power Ring Facility	♥ 2	For 11 hours of work, a short and sweet challenge platformer is pretty impressive. The game's cleanly constructed visuals allow a player to focus on its strong core mechanic. I'll admit that it took me embarassingly long to realize that the overload mechanic was based on the number of power rings collected and not a time limit. This was despite the deliberate visual cue of the rings turning the same color as the deathspikes. Though at first I felt that I was working with tight platformer controls, I did occasionally find myself slipping off platforms. The distance between checkpoints felt punishing, but to a reasonable degree. Well done!
Aug 2 00:41:46	2m 51s	A Mr Mom Quest	♥ 1	Well done! You absolutely nailed the mood with this one, the mood in question being 'hectic Sisyphean labor.' The art style is appealing and cohesive and the maddeningly upbeat soundtrack nicely complements the gameplay. I found myself scrambling around, mistapping, and completely losing track of the notification log. I suspect that there's a high skill cap here. Notably, my score improved massively between my first and second attempts - from 9485 to 15245. It's an overwhelming game, but it's one I suspect I could become quite comfortable with if I played for long enough. I'm not a parent myself, but it seems to me that the commentary here is deeper than you advertise.
Aug 2 01:53:48	1h 12m	Into The Darkness	♥ 1	This game has a good atmosphere of tension. The music is creepy enough to be fitting and the effects used do a good job of inducing an escalating panic in the player. However, the gameplay itself feels basically luck-based. There is little obvious strategy besides 'cover as much ground as quickly as you can.' I don't know if this was an actual mechanic, but the last couple bars of power felt like they took much longer to tick down than the rest. I scored 75, 65, 75 on my three attempts.
Aug 2 02:14:30	20m 42s	Not Like This...	♥ 1	That was certainly interesting. Even with the instructions painted on the screen, it took me a while to get a handle on exactly how to play the game. Tellingly, my score went up dramatically between my first and second attempts. I scored less than 10 on my first try, but made it to 40 on my second. There were a few rough edges, such as the vanishing batteries, and the jump pads take a bit of finesse to use well. I thought for sure that the system was based on not running completely out of power, but on my second run I died with only a single battery below yellow. The control scheme seemed a bit awkward to me. I think it would have made more sense to have w as jump and space for batteries. Still, it was hectic fun once I understood it.
Aug 2 02:41:09	26m 39s	Tycoon	♥ 1	This was the most inventive game I've seen so far. The mechanics were a bit tricky to control at first, but once I got the hang of things it quickly turned into a fun game of measured speed and precision. The final boss proved himself to be a powerful opponent, and it was only on my third try that I managed to defeat him. Importantly, I can say in retrospect that I lost the first two times because of a strategic error - I was too worried about skulls and didn't put enough energy toward keeping him from winning by money. It's not too often one runs into an LD game with voice acting, as well. Good work!
Aug 2 02:56:03	14m 54s	The King's Saviour	♥ 1	The whole time I kept thinking that the queen's horse is way bigger than the bats and should be able to just plow through them. It was certainly a fun game, and I liked the idea behind the shooting mechanics, though I agree with the other commentators that one-button shooting could have worked fine. Also, I frequently found myself wishing that I could shoot backwards. It wasn't always obvious that certain obstacles could be broken by arrows. The music is nice and fit thematically, but it was too relaxed to set the mood for a timed mission. I experienced no bugs (WebGL/Firefox). I did enjoy the use of 3d backgrounds.
Aug 2 03:23:35	27m 32s	Circuit Runner	♥ 0	This was certainly something. I tried to play the game in Firefox, but for some reason the game would not respond to my spacebar so I couldn't actually move the charges. In Chrome I was able to play. I did find it a bit odd that even a pixel overlap between the charge and the conveyor can carry a charge away. Also, there were a few times where I somehow managed to drop a charge outside the screen and had to go fishing in the dark to get it back. The worst issue, however, was the sticky, stuttering, inexact controls. On the 12th level, I got completely stuck. I could move around in an inverted L shape, but I could not get out of that path to go deposit the charges. I will give you due credit for an interesting idea and functional procedural generation, but the implementation leaves something to be desired. Selection_019.png
Aug 2 06:02:42	2h 39m	End of Time	♥ 0	Excellent work here. I got the 'universe dies of entropy' ending about 10 times, and honestly after the first few I was tempted to go rogue and try to wipe out humanity in a timeline. If you intended to make humanity come across as incessant, you certainly achieved that. After my winning run, I actually did try to wipe out humanity, but I couldn't figure out how. The 'defeat entropy' run is hard enough as it is. Though there are many paths through the research tree, it seems that most of them are dead ends. I tried reading the Asimov story for hints, and when that failed I looked at the source code. Except I somehow messed that up and ended up hitting the 'universe dies of entropy' ending one research away from victory twice in a row. I won't spoil the route for other people here, but I will note that there really isn't much room for error. Well done, and all hail Steve.
Aug 2 06:21:07	18m 25s	Mecha Warriors	♥ 1	This was really interesting. I didn't comprehend it instantly, but I caught on quickly enough. There's certainly a balancing act to be struck with this one, trying to keep all the different stats in line while fending off enemies. Fortunately, since it's a turn based game the player has as much time to think as they need. I did, however, find it unclear when I was and wasn't allowed to attack. Sometimes I would walk right up to an opponent, but the attack command would never materialize. Maybe that's just what I get for using the WebGL version. Good work! First run: Level 15/Turn 32
Aug 2 07:08:06	46m 59s	AI Overlord Runaway	♥ 2	This is extremely impressive. Like others, I was reminded instantly of Touhou - the soundtrack isn't too far off and Lunatic difficulty is iconic. The game contains both a solidly constructed stage and a substantial pile of player powers. That said, I found it was easier mentally to just pick a power and roll with it instead of swapping them around. I did like how the system required more detailed resource management than I'd expect from a bullethell. The purple triangle based patterns did feel much easier than those around them, but I think the breather was nice to have. This game is certainly not without its flaws - it took me a little while to get the hang of hitting the right buttons and the player does not give strong enough feedback when hit. It took me a few tries to clear Normal, as expected. Going into Lunatic, I wasn't sure I was going to clear it at all. I was surprised, then, when I managed it in a single try. The responsiblity for that lies not with my dodging skills, but with Phantom Move, which I used to plow through everything. Excellent work!
Aug 2 19:14:00	12h 05m	Trump Clicker	♥ 1	Selection_020.png I like the aesthetics here - the excellent and fitting soundtrack, constantly rolling news ticker, and chattering Trump all add nice flavor to the game. However, I did have issues with tooltips not appearing a lot of the time, so I had to make some blind decisions. Perhaps as a result of this, I kinda stalled out at Anti-LGBT/Build a Wall tier. Also, I honestly don't see the connection to the theme. That said, this is a fairly covfefe
Aug 2 19:34:58	20m 58s	Decaying Card Game	♥ 1	This is a really interesting idea with quite a bit of depth. While the soundscape is nonexistent and the graphics serve as little more than a vehicle for expressing the mechanics, the mechanics themselves are very interesting. I like the decaying card mechanic, one of the better uses of the theme I've seen so far. Additionally, the burning and wall effects made me think a few moves ahead. I did find myself wishing for a 'pass turn' button, so I could maximize the effects of my huge blasty cards. Though I played without reading @boltkey's comment, I used the same strategy of holding on to a global 2 damage card for an emergency. This lead me to exactly the same result that @boltkey had, a turn 38 loss on my first try. Well done!
Aug 2 21:16:53	1h 41m	Death of a Mage	♥ 1	Lasted 12 rounds on my first try. The game is interesting and aesthetically pleasing, and I really like the reverse skill tree idea. I wasn't exactly happy about having to sacrifice my skills, but I never really got the hang of the Ice Rune anyway and the icicle is tricky to aim. I think my favorite part about the player powers was how I could use the ice beam and glacier wall to push enemies around the battlefield. Being able to sculpt enemy formations like that effectively conveyed the idea that my character was a powerful wizard. Well done!
Aug 2 22:07:16	50m 23s	PLASMAGUN!	♥ 1	I like some of the ideas here, but I found that this game grew dull quickly. I was expecting to need to be careful around enemies while lining up shots with a powerful plasma weapon, but I found the weapon to be a little underwhelming, while the fact that the enemies did so little damage meant I could simply walk or dash straight through them. My enemy was not the enemies themselves, but the ticking down of my power count. I won several levels by accidentally walking into an enemy. The difficulty curve is not nearly steep enough - I went through 20 levels and didn't really feel that it was getting more challenging. Also, I found that the mouse controls are bugged in the fullscreen web version. The art style is mostly good and I liked the intro.
Aug 3 21:47:06	23h 39m	Drone Supervisor	♥ 1	Very nice work here! I like the amount of finesse that can be involved in rigging the drone chains combined. It's the sort of game that can be tricky to pick up at first, so making a tutorial stage was a very worthwhile investment of time. Though I often found myself coming up short on cash, I found it quite satisfying when I got the assembly line for a diamond ring together, let alone the masterpiece in level 2. It was very nice to be able to rewind time and sell things for full price so I could try out all sorts of different combinations. I did run into a number of situations where I had to combine resources that come in different quantities and ended up with resources wasted sitting around at the crafting station. Still, it's a mechanically interesting game with a lot of nice quality of life features.
Aug 4 04:22:06	6h 35m	Dauntless Run	♥ 1	This game is certainly appealing. The sound effects are well done, the art style is cohesive, and overall it feels pretty good. Mechanically, I have some questions. I had problems with powerups spawning on the sides, out of my reach, and even more problems with how easy it is to boost right into enemies. Even when you're not boosting, it's hard to avoid slamming right into one of the formations of 3, though it feels pretty awesome to slip through such a formation. I made it to 223km from the finish on one run, and I suspect that had more to do with luck than skilled flying. The three power boosts were essential to stay in the game, as I would often crash with a boost bearing down on me. However, I felt that I should be able to boost closer to death than was actually the case. Regardless, I had quite a bit of fun playing this. Good work!
Aug 4 05:14:53	52m 47s	Flying Aces - Going the distance!	♥ 2	This game's strongest aspect is its graphical presentation. The excellent title screen is backed up by an appealing art style. I liked how, in contrast to most games with this control scheme, the focus was on collecting powerups rather than dodging obstacles. It was a fairly relaxing experience, except for the incessant buzzing noise that came from my plane's propeller. Not having the distance counter reset when the player runs out of fuel seems like an odd decision to me. I used the HTML5 version and didn't have any issues. Did I mention how much I like the title screen? Well done!
Aug 8 03:31:39	94h 16m	Operation Lambda	♥ 0	I like this one. The core mechanic here is interesting and the puzzles are fun and engaging. I especially liked how I needed to position myself carefully to avoid gibbing myself with the lasers. I did, however, find myself wishing for the ability to turn in place instead of always facing the direction of movement. I didn't really feel like I was under pressure to not run out of power - perhaps a timer would have done that job. Also, the life counter/back to start on gameover thing seemed like a really odd choice for a puzzle game. I think the more conventional unlimited retries / r to restart setup would work better here. That said, the clean aesthetics and solid puzzle design make this a worthwhile experience. Well done!
Aug 8 04:50:07	1h 18m	Nuclear Arms 4: Fallout of The Mountain King	♥ 0	I love the premise here. The gameplay is mostly solid as well, though the jumping felt kinda floaty and enemies sometimes fell from the sky and landed on me. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover the rocket launcher after several switches between the rifle and shotgun. The soundtrack and storyboards were cool, but I have some reservations about the art style. Destructible terrain is cool and many of the individual graphics looked good, but the game's art lacked a sense of cohesion. The 'boss' was cool, but gameplay-wise simply amounted to a swarm of normal enemies. I really liked the implementation of energy here - it both added time pressure and encouraged judicious use of specials without being stressful. The enemy variety, special attacks, and destructible terrain made for solid gameplay. Well done!
Aug 19 23:15:28	282h 25m	Glitterwing VS Apocalipsaur	♥ 0	It's a shame I don't have an android phone and can't get the full experience. The opening splash screen is excellent, and the tune is certainly fitting. I'm convinced I've heard it somewhere before, but I can't think of where. Who knew that a mighty super robot could be laid low by outlet physics? Juggling the outlets was a unique challenge, and I often found myself neglecting charged meters as I fiddled with the things around. At times it felt that the pluts simply would not go in, and on a few occasions I had to jiggle the plugs that looked like they were in so they'd actually start charging. I'm just glad I didn't have to deal with five of the things. I did eventually hit the win screen, but it took me several attempts. Well done!
Aug 19 23:26:30	11m 02s	Power Run	♥ 0	This is a heck of a balancing act you've got here. The graphics aren't exceptional, but they're enough to show the player what's going on. It took me unsettlingly long to realize that I wasn't at risk of running off, and even then my score wasn't nearly as impressive as what others have achieved. I did find the player's ability to stay on track left a little to be desired, especially when I had difficulty hitting the triggers that spawned more path. Still, it's a refreshing departure from the traditional endless runner formula. Well done!
Aug 20 03:24:04	3h 57m	Guardian Stone	♥ 1	Not quite the direction I was expecting that story to go. I did like having decision points, though I wish there had been more long-term effects than "my face is green for the rest of the story." The soundtrack was fairly solid - especially the regal-sounding castle tune. The book puzzle took me a moment (I tried putting them in alphabetical order first) before the solution hit me, clear as day. I do think that the buttons would have benefited from a distinctive style. Still, I ultimately did find myself invested in the outcome of the story. Well done!
Aug 20 05:09:53	1h 45m	Run and Slash	♥ 1	That was pretty sweet. The art style was cogent and appealing, but the game's visuals are really sold by the zoom cam for attacks. It's quite satisfying choosing the right attack to blow through a horde of enemies. The leap attack's animation didn't seem quite as fitting as the others, though, and I did find it a little strange that enemies that already hit me wouldn't get creamed by my ulti. The sound effects are also well done, and the music is fitting for a dungeon crawl. Though I felt fairly stable for most of the game, I ended up squeaking across the finish line with less than 20 power remaining. Good work!
Aug 21 19:11:15	38h 01m	The Liberation of Liberatia	♥ 1	Huzzah! My cell of ~~terrorists~~ brave rebels has successfully overthrown the ~~government~~ evil overlords. The ~~7% of the population remaining~~ brave citizens who supported my cause will surely lead the city to ~~doom~~ a new golden age! Let us rejoice in this victory, which we achieved ~~on our second attempt because everyone died the first time~~ in a single glorious battle that was decided by ~~the random number generator~~ my cunning strategy! The three brutal overlords were eliminated ~~after dozens of failed assassinations~~ quickly and efficiently after we ascertained their weaknesses. Now, we can walk into a new golden age! ... What's this I'm hearing about a movement forming to resist my rule? This cannot stand! I want them all executed immediately!
Aug 21 20:41:55	1h 30m	Apprentice	♥ 0	I like the idea here, but I found the gameplay to be simply bizarre. The graphical style is quite appealing, but the controls are an odd choice. Left/right to rotate and up to move forward feels sensible for vehicles, but I cannot say the same for a running human. Furthermore, the player's attacks have basically no weight or feedback behind them - I couldn't even tell if I was hitting my targets except when they went flying away. At least the wizard blast was considerably more satisfying to use. Some kind of health indicator for the enemies would have worked wonders here. There's a lot of good work here, but I don't think it quite came together.
Aug 22 01:12:05	4h 30m	Robot Invaders	♥ 0	This is a pretty solid take on the theme. I like the sunglasses robot. The art style itself is a little lacking, but the audio is solid and the screenshake and knockback add very welcome juice to the game. Once I understood how the recharge mechanic worked, I found myself planning around it - for example, I would try to kill an enemy closer to the computer so I could make the trip with the battery shorter. It's a mechanic with a lot of potential. I got 51 kills / 173 time / 36 batteries on my second attempt. Well done!
Aug 22 01:37:46	25m 41s	Ancient Palace	♥ 0	This is more of a tech demo than a game, but it's a heck of an impressive tech demo. That might be the most creative control scheme I've seen in an LD game, regardless of event. You may be interested to know that this didn't work in the first browser I tried (Firefox for Ubuntu) but did work in my other browser (Chrome).
Aug 22 02:09:12	31m 26s	arena.sim	♥ 1	This is sweet. It has a very solid art style, a good soundtrack, and solid core gameplay augmented with a good variety of powerups. While others have praised the responsiveness of the AI, I found its limit when the AI got blocked off from me with a wall and I tricked it into ringing itself out over half a dozen times, leading directly to my highscore of 17. Still, I think exploitability fits in with the theme of this game - there is a wallhack powerup, after all. Also, I may have ringed myself out twice before I figured out that the game had ringouts. Well done!
Aug 22 03:59:52	1h 50m	LDJAM39: Power Brawler League	♥ 2	My word this is amazingly done. The art style is excellent and well-executed and the game's mechanics do a good job of backing it up. The controls and projectiles felt very solid and punchy (though my bot always would go kinda haywire during the victory screen.) I wish I had a friend around to play this with. As it was, I learned to exploit the AI's docility, and the last couple maps were complete stomps in my favor. My favorite map was the one with both power stations in the middle and the batteries in the corners. I like how it encouraged a different kind of interaction than the convention followed by the other four. All in all, I had a blast playing this. Well done!
Aug 22 05:19:39	1h 19m	Argon	♥ 1	That was really fun. The sword and rifle both felt like effective, meaningful tools, and the combination of the two was a good foundation for gameplay. You also nailed the feeling of escape - rushing through areas was almost always a better option than trying to stand and fight. The visual aesthetics are strong and cohesive, while the soundtrack gives the game an almost meditative edge. However, the sword did feel like it would benefit from being sped up somehow, and I occasionally found myself failing to take shots because the plasma bolt materialized inside a wall. The game provided a good variety of enemies and challenges. I especially liked how I could use the sword to deflect enemy shots. Strangely, the most awesome I felt during the game was one particular instance where I got hit while spinning around to shoot one of the fast enemies and took the killing shot in slow motion. Well done!
Aug 22 07:10:40	1h 51m	Flask of Destruction	♥ 0	I find this game to be a bit of an odd case. It has a very strong graphical presentation, fitting sound effects, and decent ideas behind its gameplay. Yet after a certain point, the underlying logic appears to break down. On each of my several runs, I would bash together an army and destroy a few villages. For that portion of the game, it felt like everything was working as intended, and it was fun. After that, the whole thing seemed to break down. Specifically, the game seems to start glitching out when I attack the large village on the bottom screen, below the first castle. The description warned me about not getting feedback when I lost fights. I was not prepared for when I stopped getting feedback for winning fights. For when I lost the ability to move my troops around. For when the troop counters at the bottom of the screen stopped matching up with the actual numbers of troops I could locate in the field. If this game appeared to be in full working order, I would consider it a flawed masterpiece, with its mysterious combat mechanics and questionable use of time pressure (I think @dob hit that particular nail on the head). As it was, I'm afraid that a game-breaking bug has prevented me from getting the full intended experience.