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pkenney

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TimestampSince previousGamepkenney's comment
Aug 1 02:17:05 SAP ♥ 1 Cool game! I liked the art style which was effective, with the simple characters and the layered background making it feel like more than the sum of its parts. The jump sound effect also felt nice and lively and the music was pumping me up. The game feel of the platforming, I had two minds on... one thought was that it felt fun that it was fast and powerful and a bit loose. But I noticed early that I was slipping and sliding around a lot. But, well, I got through a good chunk of the game and thought, you know what this slipperiness isn't really holding the game back. However, then I got further into the game with all of the precision single-block jumping challenges and I could not do them. I fell into the pit many many times, and eventually lost heart. But it was great that there were frequent checkpoints! I think I maybe did something wrong, because I never got the shooting to work. In the second area I wasn't sure about going right vs up so I went up, and I came to a room where the sign said space to shoot. I hit space, but nothing. I tried going forward there but there were enemies, so I retreated and tried going right in the second room. I found a purple powerup thing, but I wasn't sure what it did. I got a little lost and went back to the first room by accident, at which point the background music started playing two songs at once which never went away. Anyway, not being able to shoot made a few sections tougher as I had to dodge my way past the enemies - a time when the very quick responsive control came is extremely handy!! You've got a nice all-around entry here, despite a couple of nitpicks.
Aug 1 02:36:14 19m 09s Fuel Frenzy ♥ 2 Best score 2358. Simple idea but this was a cool game with a little of everything - some arcade action, 3D models, sound effects, a variety of hazards and pickups, solid controls, and a happy tune. You did a good job of picking a controlled scope and delivering on all the aspects. At first because the road has 3 lanes I assumed this was going to be one of those discrete lane-switching styles of control, and I was initially disoriented to see that it was a continuous drive-anywhere scheme. So I drove into the side of a building testing my limits. But once I had played a few rounds I actually was glad that it works the way it does. The only nitpick that got me was how the retry menu is accessed with the mouse, while the game is played with only the keyboard. I would have preferred an instant-retry button right on the keyboard, but this is a minor thing. I kind of agree with Sputnik that maybe not every obstacle needed to be instant death - for instance I found myself wishing at one point that the traffic cone just discombobulated me or something, instead of being death. Anyway, that's just other ideas, nothing against the game of course. Nice work!
Aug 1 02:48:23 12m 09s Shy Gladiator ♥ 3 Aw man, I was really pumped about the style of this game, and when I jumped in I thought the graphics were sweet, and really done in a great pico-8 style, and also that the controls were nice and tight. I just couldn't quite get on board with the fundamental idea of waiting out the enemy's power meter like a clock. I had some fun with it, but I really wanted to be a bit more proactive. I would have played a bunch more but when the skeletons polished me off and I saw that I had to wait out the cyclops again, you lost me because there was no agency for me to make it happen faster. If I could chuck spears back with Z, I would have been sold.. but then I guess your whole concept was to try this experiment of the player being too shy to attack! Totally worth trying, but I felt a little too constrained as your player for it to hit home for me. But excellent execution on the idea otherwise. Actually a lot of savvy little choices, for example the radius shown on enemy attacks so it's super-clear when I will take damage. And I shouldn't forget to mention the solid sound that was adding to the feel. So strong marks on a lot of the aspects here, I just wasn't your man for the waiting game - no biggie! *EDIT:* OK I'm leaving my initial comment because I almost walked away feeling like that. But I went back for one more test and I realized there is a whole other way to play it! You CAN be more proactive dealing with the cyclops, even though you cannot attack. Once I figured this out I was able to beat him much faster, and retry the dead a few times until I beat them as well. So I've revised the votes a bit upward and I don't think the waiting game is as bad as my comments above said. But without some care the player, it seems, can fall into the trap of that impression.
Aug 1 03:23:01 34m 38s Exponential Maintenance Engineer ♥ 1 My top score was 1,684,566 - that sounds like a lot, but I'm not sure! I certainly blew up a whole bunch of stuff that time, but then again I also died kind of unnecessarily at the end so I probably could have gone a lot higher without that blunder. I like to play without reading out-of-game instructions. Which maybe was not the best call here... I was confused by many things, notably how to make the - and = commmands work, as I don't think they seemed to do anything. "Where are my crazy rockets?" I wanted to know. And sometimes items were cubes, but other times flat panels. Regardless, I sure liked swinging the planet around to ram a nice tall stack of blocks into a rocket and blast them off into space!! The calm music was a nicely juxtaposed with the explosive mathematics. I played on Windows and experienced no sounds glitches. OK I just read through the instructions and tried again - but I did worse, not better! A fluke? Or is that I became too distracted by stacking in a certain way, and lost focus on making use of the rockets?? An interesting entry that drew me in, nice work.
Aug 1 03:58:24 35m 23s The Road To Power ♥ 1 This was a cool idea - I was hoping someone did something about political power running out, and this was a good mix of tricky choices and humor. I had a good time playing! I am not sure my citizens could say the same, however. Enjoyed the graphic styling as well as the humor. Nice work!
Aug 1 04:02:17 3m 53s Snake out of Power ♥ 0 Nice job making something complete on such a short timeline! A nice twist on a classic fun formula, and the core felt nice with snappy controls. I did feel the pickup sound was a bit ear-piercing but it's impressive you had sound at all!
Aug 1 04:10:57 8m 40s Zone Slayer ♥ 2 Cool retro feel! The way you could either turn or move forward made for an interesting choice... of course you need to move forward to keep the batteries coming but you also need to turn to fight. That plus the slowness of the attacks made me REALLY want to deal with combat efficiently. It was a commitment to turn and shoot, wanted to do it quickly but not to miss! It went maybe a little too far in that direction, and things felt a lot better once I picked up a couple of oil cans. I did find it a little disheartening when I just fell too far behind and watched my energy drain out but then got a turkey but no batteries in the final half block I could still move. But I loved the classic look and sound effects, great job!
Aug 1 04:23:12 12m 15s Depths of Oceania ♥ 2 Nice 3D assets - especially for a compo! You created a cool underwater atmosphere. I didn't realize you were supposed to shoot the creatures with your cannon though, I thought it was more energy-efficient to just avoid them. Obviously that strategy didn't get me to the bottom!! I got to the shark but then I didn't get deeper. Impressive that you have sound, music and 3D all done in compo, congrats.
Aug 1 04:44:15 21m 03s Inconvenient Drone Convention ♥ 2 Now this is what I like! A nice core movement-based idea, with strong controls polished to a shine, let loose on a tough challenge. Very nice work. The movement felt like a fantastic balance of nimble and dangerous, right on point. The boosting and crashes felt nice as well. The art and sound were also good, and supported the game well. I enjoyed the small touch of the whoosh sound when I changed direction for example. I came quite close to the bottom a bunch of times, but WOW when I got past like 90% of the way the horde of drones overwhelmed me, and then it was quite long to get there again. But I did retry a lot of times, and got into a zen with it. Everything comes so fast it's juuuust on the limit, so nicely done. My strategy became to keep the mouse cursor near the ship for fast turning, but my eyes at the bottom of the screen, and just go screaming straight down in flames the whole time. If I had to suggest changes, I think the drone art is a little hard to scan out at the frantic pace of the game. Maybe the high saturation of the blue background sky made it tougher for me. Red is a good contrast color, but something about it made the drones not exactly LEAP into my awareness like I wanted them to. The art didn't really indicate their direction very strongly either, so it was like I had to watch them for a few milliseconds to track their trajectory - an eternity in this fine game. Great work. PS damn that drone that was hiding in the cloud!
Aug 3 04:20:21 47h 36m Buzzy Bee ♥ 1 Took me some tries, but I did get up to a bit over 75%. I thought this was a cool simple game, and you kept it nice and quick to play through so I could want to try again to do better. The different sound effects were key in terms of feedback to let me know when I was doing well, nice work! If I were to suggest one change it would be about adding little more visual impact to the action of gathering a flower, because at first when the flower didn't disappear I thought I had to stay and repeatedly click on one flower. Impressive that one of the other commenters got over 98%! This is a real test of reflexes. Fun quick play with nothing getting in the way of engaging with the game, thanks!
Aug 3 04:36:03 15m 42s LED Adventure -- Running out of Power ♥ 1 Wow great job, especially impressive for a first LD! I played this one through to the end. You had a lot of features, including a lot of art, sound, a cool boss fight and even a dialog system with some story at the end. Great work delivering a lot here. I felt like the levels of platforming were pretty cool, but it was definitely the boss fight that took it to another level. If I would ask for one more thing, it would be a little more graphics feedback on the boss when he takes damage. First couple of battle with him I didn't think he was being hurt and that I was supposed to be doing something different. Also agree with the other commenters that it's a bit of a no-no to obscure my character with the foreground, but it was no big deal and I did appreciate the way the layering brought the setting more to life. Great job. EDIT: Omg I just saw from another comment that this game has shooting! I never realized I could shoot, and beat the whole game without doing so. No wonder I had a harder time with the final boss... So I'll have to add one more to the wishlist: some description of the controls at the start! ;)
Aug 3 05:02:56 26m 53s Ghost in the Machine ♥ 3 This is *really* well put together. It looks nice, and I especially like the shadows and lighting from the robot. The sound effeccts and music are all really great, too. Also, the whole thing is just distinctive, which is great. I think for my personal taste the overall pacing was too slow for me, but that's obviously not going to be true for everyone. I would have preferred to have regular movement instead of tank movement because it was a lot about waiting for the robot to turn. I wanted to zip around the levels more and tank controls make that very hard, especially when I'm doublefisting (I played single player). I also lost a lot of patience when I solved level one but instead of having to move one item to the end zone, I had to go back and forth six times. For a puzzler it was like, well I already solved it and now I have to go through the motions... I would have strongly preferred to move immediately to the next thinking challenge. But I can also see another way to look at this pacing: the mood is there, you've delivered, so it's okay to languish and have a pace where you spend some time in this evocative space. I also see that the tank controls delivered a real feeling of being a robot. So the pacing stuff is not necessarily against the game, just the impression of one guy who likes everything to go faster all the time. Really nice entry here with a lot of quality.
Aug 5 15:48:07 58h 45m Wind-Up Knight ♥ 1 Strong entry hitting all the bases. The audio was particularly good here, with nice sound effects a good background tune. An original concept right on-theme, and I loved how it made for a cool main character! But I do have a beef: I think it wasn't ideal how you designed the overall game arc though. The level was relatively slow to move through, especially with all the stops to be winding back up. Bats were tricky, which was good, but this meant that I felt like my hp was this resource that was a long grindy loss coming in the future... that is, even if I failed on every bat it would be a long time before my punishment but it would be inevitable. I was worried about this while playing. Then after playing a while, I got a little bit impatient one time and didn't wind up my jump enough to take a series of hops I had in mind, and I fell into a pit and died. I said well this is it, the moment where we find out if I'm finishing the game because I like it, or if I'm quitting because it asks me to repeat long long stretches of play... the game sent me back to the beginning, and I was done. The game was interesting/fun enough that I would have played to the end if I'd been sent back to a checkpoint. So high marks for a bunch of really good features, aseets, and design here, but just something a little off in the way you've packaged it up for the player to enjoy.
Aug 5 16:02:48 14m 41s How I Met Your Great Great Grandmother ♥ 3 Wow! One of the things I love here is how different this is from Peach's entry from last time, makin' it work with a large team and delivering some variety, it's impressive. The game is nice in all the aspects, but maybe what I like most is how it sits right at the edge of being a bit too much for me to plan my moves out too far in advance. So the "planning horizon" if you will is in a real sweet spot. I'd have moments of thinking ahead but also moments of saying "oh geez I better make it happen with some pills now or I'll die!" But everything was on point, art sound music and design. Great job, everyone!
Aug 6 16:22:12 24h 19m PARODIANUS II : 致命的な外国人ロバのリターン ♥ 1 Wow - great job! I especially like that you have a nice difficulty curve here. In a few of your previous games I felt thrown into the deep end and had no time to learn how things worked, but not here. In this game I felt like you did it just right, with stuff I could handle easily, then it getting tougher and tougher until it was quite difficult. An example is the progression in weapon systems from the boss. All around strong entry here with distinctive colorful art, a great variety of enemies, music, and sfx. It's a ton to get done in a compo, congrats. I didn't defeat the green-spewing volcano boss though. I felt like I had a shot but and even when I got game over I played again from the beginning because I thought I had a shot. But I kept losing just because I didn't have enough energy... I was spamming out damage but my energy would not last long enough, and I never managed to grab any of the energy that shoots out the top during the fight. So I felt like it was sort of out of my hands and didn't restart again for another chance. If would suggest one change it would be a little bit more feedback when I get hit. It was usually pretty clear, but not as strong a feeling as it could have been. Impressive all around entry, great job.
Aug 6 17:00:08 37m 56s Devil's Curse ♥ 1 This is really nicely done. It has a great retro feel that's really consistent across the art, music, and those great sound effects like the crunchy kill sound. So it's retro, but has none of the baggage. The controls felt nice, and I enjoyed the little touches like the intense flash letting me know for sure that I got hit. The only thing I struggled with was the button choices. It wasn't immediately natural for me to jump and shoot because I'd get mixed up about which button did which. I really wished that the up arrow button jumped, and then I could have had movement on one hand, with a button for shoot on the other. I think then I never would have gotten confused. Eventually I adapted though. The eroding powers thing fit well with the theme and added a nice game arc and some strategic thinking. Great entry!
Aug 6 17:27:29 27m 21s Hungry Harry's Climb ♥ 1 I recognized the icon in your name, and was like what game was that... then I saw your link to doba chaser and remember coming across it before, it was that stomp-and-kick platformer about knocking guys off the level! Anyway, Hungry Harry's Climb is really nice. It has a cool atmosphere and a very nice control scheme. With so many controls and variations of terrain they can encounter, you could have messed that up so many ways, I feel... but this was well done. Most of the time the character did what I expected, but of course there were those times where I made one small mistake and slipped and fell way down. I took many falls early trying to experiment to learn the rules, which of course meant I was destined to starve until I could mentally plan correctly by knowing the rules. I'm afraid I'm not very good at this game though, I never even beat level 1. I would climb and eventually not find a way up, and then I'd have an accident and fall trying to search. So even though the game is really good it created a disheartening feeling of no accomplishment when I kept failing. But a very cool entry here - complex control scheme well-handled, great graphics and sound creating a nice atmosphere, and some interesting procgen terrain, all tied up with the theme nicely. Well done!
Aug 6 17:47:51 20m 22s Shutdown ♥ 1 The look of the whole thing is awesome! Great work with the shaders and the color selection. I liked the core mechanic as well. There were some interesting tradeoffs between waiting for the right jump vs trying to not fall too far down the screen. I felt a little un-present in the world of the game though, because there was no feedback to what I did. I would have preferred sound effects vs music if there was only time for one, I suppose. But a nice entry here with super-slick look and a cool mechanic that's well grounded in the theme... great job!
Aug 6 17:57:10 9m 19s Stargust ♥ 0 The cloud's movements and animation was spot-on, and it felt really nice to be in that character. I enjoyed hanging around and raining on my flowers and collecting stars. But I never quite got the hang of juggling the four different modes and once I learned not to shock my own flowers (oops not again!) I wasn't sure how to deal with the guy that eats them on the ground, or the rocket that blows up my battery. So maybe there was just a little too much complexity, or maybe I just was bad! But a cool idea to do this charging multitasking challenge as a cloud-gardner. The lack of sound was a shame but the little animations were all great. Nice work.
Aug 6 18:53:14 56m 04s Solar Miner ♥ 1 Awesome!! I retired early! This game was a great mashup of a bunch of nice-feeling things from all kinds of genres: a bit of space shooter, a bit of mining, a bit of idle-game style upgrades. The retro feel of graphics and sound was also great, and the simple control scheme was perfect. I appreciated two small touches in the controls especially: first that there is a drag on the player so you do not have to do the old asteroid "turn 180 and counter-thrust" to slow down, instead you can just boost a little and let your speed decay. Second I appreciated the aiming line very much. I don't know about the intended strategy, but I bored a straight path from the start so I could get up to a high speed from the free-energy zone and launch into the asteroid. I could then get pretty deep by coasting, and I knew I could stay until quite low on energy because I had a straight path back. The enemies were not a dominating feature, but I think that was a good choice. They were an interesting sub-element to vary things up a little, and their difficulty and punishment felt about right. They were harder to handle later in the game once I had the rocket launcher, which was an interesting inversion of the usual. There's not even much to suggest here in terms of improvement. One thing I would not have minded was some way of knowing my Y coordinate, because I had bored this path through the rock and wanted to return to it, and once I got the rocket launcher I had blown all the landmarks to smithereens. It was not a big problem at all, but maybe a gradient shading on the background even would have given me some general idea of how far up/down I was. The only other thing I wished for was that I could press 123 to switch between weapons, because the rockets made the enemy fights tougher (self-damage ouch!). But actually I think it's good the way you have it, because it created a few memorable moments where I limped back out of the asteroid into the sun with like 3.5 energy left, even though I was fully upgraded. Fantastic entry, well done.
Aug 6 19:11:59 18m 45s Discharged Automaton ♥ 1 This game did a great job of defying my expectations. The color design is very nice, and the sound and especially music worked with it to create a nice mood. But at first I was like eh, this is a simple platformer, I've played games like this before, and honestly the controls are a little off for my taste with the jump too high and floaty and I'm having some collision issues getting stuck on the corner of platforms sometimes, so this is just so-so. And then it started getting weird in a way I didn't expect. And weirder... and weirder... and weirder. And I was really drawn into this mood it created. I still think some polish is missing from the platformer controls, but it's more than made up for by the subversive weirdness of the whole experience. Played through to the end and definitely was reacting to the strangeness is a pleasant way. Nice job!
Aug 6 20:13:55 1h 01m No Sign Of Life ♥ 1 Nice moody piece here, with graphics and sound that work. Enjoyed the stark story and the chance for bleak outcomes if you make the wrong choices. I played a couple of times and managed to get off the planet. I like how you embraced the dark side of the theme this time around. The sense of something running out can be bad in many types of games but it really works for this one.
Aug 6 21:34:29 1h 20m Quest ♥ 0 Being short and not having sound, it did feel like an incomplete experience. But I liked what you did have! The art style is nice and I particularly liked the animation on the main character. Controls were responsive and felt good. Would have played more if it was there! Nice work.
Aug 6 21:40:19 5m 50s POWERBEAR ♥ 0 High score 49, but I made a few mistakes in a row and deserved to lose. This is maybe too simple a game to be extremely competitive, but it's a fun little entry and a good showing for your first time out. The power bear was a fun idea and I liked the art on the bear. Importantly, there were no real flaws in your execution on the simple game, I always felt like it was my fault when I got hit. It's also impressive that you got music, a variety of art, and sound effects all in on your first compo! Nice.
Aug 9 01:41:14 52h 00m Assault and Batteries ♥ 0 Sorry, I tried to give this a play but nobody was on. I didn't rate because I didn't have the real experience, but impressive that you have multiplayer online and several classes!
Aug 9 12:36:38 10h 55m V-Empire ♥ 1 I played a bunch, and got to 81 victims (8 thousand-something points), the town was absolutely swarming with vampire hunters by the time I was finally cornered / stopped trying. I died to the same instant kill from a spawn that other commenters mentioned, but I just avoided standing near the doors and that worked. Not sure I agree the bar depletes too quickly either. It depletes quickly in bat mode, but you have to just use that very sparingly. And the dangerous villagers are really clear because they have the ring of light. It took me four or five losses to get the hang of all that, but once I did I felt like I could basically go infinite if I was careful enough. The strong elements here were the art and music which created a great thematic mood. If there were also nice sound effects it would have really nailed the feel. The gameplay idea was good, and I certainly had some moments that got exciting. But there was something a little off about the play experience, and I got a little bored eventually. I think it was a combination of small things: core challenge was a bit too easy, but when I did fail it was instant death, and the core movement of WASD walking around was not inherently exciting. Another small nitpick: the game is a 2-handed keyboard game, but then I have to use the mouse to navigate the menu system. So this is a strong entry, it had very good presentation and theme, and the gameplay was interesting to explore even if it had something a bit off. Nice work!
Aug 9 13:19:03 42m 25s Nuclear Arms 4: Fallout of The Mountain King ♥ 1 MELTDOWN, baby! I have not played the prior entries, but I knew I was going to like this game from the very first screen of the story. I was just afraid the craziness was going to be lacking in the actual gameplay, but NO NEED TO WORRY. Yeah, sure, this game had some rough edges, but who fucking cares? They almost enhanced the experience. I mean, you play some heavy metal and give me a shotgun, then you put a barrel in front of me. It's not like I'm going to try to jump over it like some plumber, I know what's going on here. Who cares if my jump is floaty or I turn invisible when I'm about to die, or the game stutters and locks up momentarily when the action gets a little too hot? Stairs a little wonky for ya? Well good news - the jump button checks for the key being down, not an actual press, so you can just hold the bad boy down the entire way up. And let's not overlook that the most important things were covered: I knew when I got hit, every time. And the explosions blew up the ground. And there were ZERO infinite pits (that I saw). I appreciated that the game was hard enough that it mattered when I made mistakes. I tried to just la-dee-da strut my way through this game but those goddamn flying pewpew eyes made my life hell. After surfing the silver three or four times I decided well then I shall stepwise advance and carefully blast each and every enemy. Yeah well that's why they have the nuclear meter, and did I mention that BEAR FROM BEHIND? So I was forced into the hectic fray. The boss was HUGE, and at first I thought his offense was a little underwhelming, then I realized his most potent ability: his sprite layer is set higher than the flying eyes so he makes them invisible! I mean, I guess you could get that nerd from Shadow G to look into the performance issues, it wouldn't hurt to NOT have the game get lockjaw randomly and have big loading screens, but honestly all the splinters just made it feel more like raw underground DIY punk rock. Excellent work.
Aug 9 13:43:51 24m 48s Rocket Rescue ♥ 1 Love the consistent-feeling classic look. It goes well with the music, sound effects, and even the old-school gameplay/challenge. The movement was frustratingly sluggish at first, but I got used to it after a bit. I wanted the controls to be more responsive, but then I saw how that's part of the challenge. So then I was getting into the zone on this. And suddenly it was like NOPE you have to start over from the beginning now. I was stunned. I know that's how it was done back in the day, but for LD it's rough to ask me to replay the entire game up to where I got. But I did it, I replayed the first few levels again and got back to the same spot. It's a place where you have to drop down at the start of the level. There's a wall of spikes to the right and at the bottom. So you have to fall, and then cut left. And the one time I managed to get past THAT, I still had some upward momentum and hit the final ceiling spikes at the end. I just could not get past this, and I would have kept trying the fifty tries it was going to take so that I could see the rest of the game, but because I would have to replay the game over and over just to get there, it was too daunting and I gave up instead. A shame, because this is a nice game with some endearing old-school charm and I would have loved to spent a bit more time with it. Also: yay jetpacks, and I was never able to drop bombs, even though I tried Alt and right click. I played the web version.
Aug 12 15:26:10 73h 42m Flappy Jet ♥ 1 Nice work, the art, sound, and music were all well done and cohesive, and the mechanics were interesting. The difficulty was frustrating but I think that was the point! I liked the randomized variation of the obstacles that kept different runs feeling different. I think there's a bug with dying, twice the game froze instead of going to the restart screen - including the first time I died, where I thought omg this game doesn't have a retry loop?! Difficulty is pretty on point though, I died a bunch of times getting two or fewer coins, over and over, but getting a few more seems really achievable. I kept my eyes on the collisions and I think I lived a few with a verrry slight overlap so I think you did make those fair, despite what other commenters are saying. For the first couple of games I had a few "WHAT" moments where I hit something and was surprised, but after I got acclimated I didn't perceive cheap deaths which is important in this style of game. In the end my record was four coins, but I never got a single wrench. If I could add one feature, it would be what @alxm suggested: a bit of pizzazz around death. Nice work!
Aug 12 15:48:38 22m 28s Bear and Bee ♥ 0 Charming little one-touch game. I wish there was a score counter, I feel like I got pretty far one time! Nice job.
Aug 12 16:02:11 13m 33s Neuropower ♥ 1 Pretty cool idea - I had fun exploring the way the system works. The network/web physics gave a nice tactile analog feel that reminded me a bit of that game World of Goo, and the overall premise of having to expand to survive was a great use of the theme. I think the mental space this game put me in could have created an awesome mood, it's too bad you didn't have time to bring in sound! Would have preferred the tutorial not to recycle when I restarted after learning, but I did die mid tutorial so I suppose that it was good it repeated at least until I totally finished it. The flow of energy through the system, and the way the nodes change their size and intensity, did an excellent job at conveying the information I needed to learn/play. Intriguing entry, nice work!
Aug 12 16:19:16 17m 05s Runnerbot LD39Entry ♥ 1 This is a great skeleton of a game and could be made a ton of fun, I think! Nice job on the overall idea, the art, and just having so many features and so much stuff in the game! It really needed sound to give weight to it, and a bit more difficulty. It was really easy to breeze through just staying alive for quite a long time, just avoiding all of the challenge. Eventually I noticed that all of the scoring items were nestled away in dangerous spots, and started trying to intentionally tackle harder challenges, but I'm not sure that's quite the right formula, it may be better to compel me to face danger rather than merely offering it for me to opt into. Another element that diminished challenge was the way the just two energy squares would totally replenish my energy. And they were so plentiful. A game like this does have to watch out for that awful doomed-but-not-dead state where I am not dead, and I'm running, and I can see the energy square, but I cannot make it there. Ramping up the difficulty on this game while avoiding that might be tricky. Anyway - this is a nice entry, but I think it didn't capitalize on the high potential in its core. It could have been REALLY fun. Next time maybe cut a few features to make time for adding sound! EDIT: played the post-jam version after that. Sound is a helpful addition, one small tip though is that your sound for stepping on the recharge square is quite long for such a really common action. To my ear, I'd have preferred something about 1/5th as long since it plays over and over. The increased difficulty of the post-jam version is welcome!
Aug 12 17:04:31 45m 15s Dear Leader's Love Powered Peace Bomb ♥ 1 Nice job for such a simple game, it feels really good with tight responsive controls, and the music was a huge boost to the feel of playing. The silly theme of the game gave it some extra appeal. Thank goodness you had those drop shadows though, the contrast of the planes being light grey against the bright blue water, it wasn't quite enough for them to really pop out to my eye, but the darker shadow has a nice pop to compensate. Difficulty was good, I replayed a bunch of times but never quite got there. There is one HUGE strike against this game though: It forced me to INSTALL it on my computer. That's a giant no-no in Ludum Dare, and about four times out of five I just don't play the game. I only played because this was your first. Imagine if everyone did this, and I had to go an uninstall forty or fifty games after each LD! Most games simply require a download of a zip file which I open and then run the exe inside.
Aug 12 17:12:31 8m 00s Ten Little Letters ♥ 3 Nice clean design and an original concept here. I was just AWFUL at this game though. I played through four or five times and only got one letter the entire time, an I. I ragequit when I thought I was going to get my second correct letter, an O, but it was a Q. I also am not crazy about the physical act of playing this game, which is non-stop furious clicking of the mouse. So extremely difficult but nicely put together, good work. If you asked my thoughts on how to best make this game more approachable, I would say to quantize the grid. Instead of pixel-level clicking where I have to spam clicks, it could have a visible grid and when I click a cell it somehow indicates the density of pixels within that cell. Perhaps that's going too far afield from the original idea, or too easy, though.
Aug 12 17:33:56 21m 25s robottodor ♥ 1 This is really nice, with cohesive well-done graphics and sound. The control scheme with delayed action creates a slower pace that is unique, although I'm not totally sure how I feel about it. Given the slower pace, I think there's a pretty big mistake here in the design, which is making me repeat the same play area over and over. I played two levels repeatedly, then died to the bee because it attacked me before I could charge my gun. This happened twice and I was sent back to the beginning. And not only do I have to replay the same level, but the disks I have scanned already have come back, so I need to go through "side quests" and not just proceed to the exit. Combined with the slower pace of the game... well, it's a tough mix! Methodical gameplay can be fine, but it doesn't bear repetition well imo. I think there's a really cool sense of unique character to this game and I would have loved to explore more of it. But when I get trapped and my slow-repsonse controls make it easy to die (eg fall in a pit w/ two snails) then it's so extremely disheartening to restart from the beginning. Sorry! Very strong on the execution side here, I'm sad I wasn't able to really sink my teeth in and explore this world some more.
Aug 12 23:24:28 5h 50m Death's Helper ♥ 2 Pretty cool little run-jump-fighter arena type game with some time pressure. My favorite touch was the Last Struggle mode when you're at the edge of death - I enjoyed surviving through a string of three of these by nabbing a bat a couple of times, and then filling back up on a mob of the human-shaped enemies. Very cool. Couple of small things that got in the way of me really sinking my teeth into this one: First, I was quite frustrated by the fact that the way I'm facing is changed by the mouse when I shoot the gun attack, but not when I swing the sword attack. In my opinion if the mouse is used to activate the attack it should control the direction as well!! This was a constant problem because the strategy against bats is to jump away from them and turn around and swing. But turning around to swing was not really controlled with the mouse, it required cross-hand coordination with the keyboard, a frustration throughout the play experience. Last, what's up with the walls? When I jump sideways into a wall, instead of stopping like I expect, I become slowed down greatly and then drift slowly away from the game, to certain death. I appreciated the R key to restart here! This was my most common reason for death for the first bunch of times I played the game. Eventually I just got tired of dying that way and never went anywhere near the edges. OK that's the nitpicks! Overall game was a solid action core, with a few nice flourishes like the dribbling particles emphasizing the timer, and of course my favorite Last Struggle feature. Nice work, especially for a second LD.
Aug 13 15:56:19 16h 31m AAAAASTEROIDS! ♥ 1 Good job, congrats on your first LD! You hit all the factors, having a complete game with nice clear art, good sound effects, and even a nice pumping bit of background music, well done! I liked the tactile feel of this game, with the character being pushed around by the asteroids and bubbles, giving a little extra feedback to the feel... rushing toward a battery and "bumping" around the asteroids on the way was interesting a different. I love when a game has a unique feeling to the controls. Challenge was maybe a little light. I initially had some panic around weaving and dodging through the asteroids. But once I found that I merely bounced around them (and didn't notice them draining my power) I stopped caring entirely and then played on autopilot almost without regard for the asteroids. So maybe they need to crash into the player a little more or somehow be worth wanting to dodge, I don't know. Your #1 sin is something you shouldn't repeat next LD: you released your game as an INSTALLER!! Many people do not accept installers, and just cancel out and don't play/rate that person's game. I make an exception for first-timers, but you will definitely get a lower response rate. Just imagine what it would be like if I had to go and uninstall 30ish games after every LD! So nice work with a cool little arcade game that's well rounded and has nice polish especially for a first time! And welcome to LD, but plz no installer releases.
Aug 13 17:32:57 1h 36m Dwarf Power ♥ 1 I happened to have two people here and was able to do a for-real couch multiplayer on this. Nice work, it feels really complete, with nice graphics, animation, and even if you didn't create the sound/music it was well-selected. Nothing really got in the way of the fun here, I feel like it's nice and responsive. Only a few small issues: I got stuck inside an ore spawn by stepping into it right as it came into existence. I also wasn't clear on whether sleep mattered, I initially rushed to bed but later felt like this just wasted time. Lastly, I slightly experimented with bodyblocking the other player, I wonder if maybe there's a degenerate strategy of getting slightly ahead and then blocking the other player's access to their furnace until they lose? But it's a really strong entry, nice work! EDIT: forgot to mention, I really don't care for it being released as an installer. It's not pleasant to have to uninstall games after an LD, and my computer would become a giant mess if everyone released as an installer. Please make it a zip file which I can expand to a folder and simply run directly. Many times I cancel the install and don't play the game, so you may be losing players this way.
Aug 13 17:54:29 21m 32s Zombies 'n Kebabs ♥ 1 Wow, I think if you can make this game you can make something really good - the art and music are fantastic. But there are a bunch of small design decisions that hamper my ability to engage with the game correctly. I felt a lot of frustration, and not the kind that I want from a hard game but more the kind that felt like it was cheap. Since you've obviously got high potential here I want to list the dings I felt, I hope this is helpful not hurtful!! - There's a hitch when I jump, the character pauses a brief instant before actually jumping, this does not feel fluid. - The portals are activated by the jump button but they are so finnicky. My friend jumped into the big pit three times trying to activate the portal. I can see you also seem to struggle in your gameplay video with smoothly activating the portal. A difficult platformer is ALL ABOUT feeling smooth, so this is the kind of thing to focus on in your game imo. - As you know, the zombies feel cheap when they come up and hit me out of nowhere. Especially in the first one second of the game when I don't even know the buttons yet. - The energy meter is confusing, I still don't quite know what is happening there even after carefully watching it. - In your movie, the flying guys at the end are clear to see. When I played for some reason on my screen they were ghostly outlines. I thought they were background images and had no idea why I was dying. So I think I didn't have as much fun with this as the game's potential had, just because the difficulty was based on small splinters in the controls. If I had smooth powerful control and clear feedback on what happened and why, I think I could have really enjoyed this a lot. So strong marks on a lot of the categories but maybe polish that core more next time!
Aug 13 22:40:39 4h 46m Plug Me ♥ 3 I got to the 404 with 105 deaths and one very tired jump finger. And wow, am I impressed! This is just awesome. The graphics are charming and super-effective at clearly conveying what is going on. The concept of the timer bar being a platform is a very clever use of the theme. The difficulty is really good and curves up nicely as the game introduces additional elements. And whenever I play a challenging game like this I care a lot about the controls, which I have no complaints about... very smooth. I loved the nice touch of changing the music when I was getting killed over and over, too. I have nothing to even nitpick about. I guess the only confusion I had was the opening screen, where I assumed I would use the main character to activate the game, and it took me a few moments to figure out I needed to use the mouse. A+, fantastic and complete-feeling entry, you should be proud of what you accomplished here!