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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | amras0000's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 4 03:07:33 | Blob Hell | ♥ 1 | I love the concept but the controls feel way too floaty for me, and the bullets are pretty hard to dodge. I wasn't able to survive very long. I feel that in a bullet hell it's important that the character stops moving when I let go of a button. Restarting the game is also more laborious than it needs to be. I'm presented with a button, which I have to ignore or else spend a long time waiting for a connection. Instead I need to press R on my keyboard, then press Enter, then reach over for my mouse to click 'Go'. In a game where I'm going to die after a couple of seconds, I need to be back in the game the moment I press 'R'. Still, I like the concept, would have liked more polish but can't expect too much from the timeframe. | |
| Dec 4 11:41:59 | 8h 34m | Cool Hat Mr. Hat | ♥ 4 | Super minor gripe, but I'd have liked a 'press A/x to start' prompt at the start. Also the Xbox d-pad is awful and if you could update the game to allow joystick control that'd be great. I spent more time on this game than I was expecting; really enjoyed it (as usual with your entries) despite the limited scope. I eventually got bored after 276 coins, but that's down to honing in on a slightly exploit-y strategy. When I started the game, I tried jumping between the enemies and collecting their hats. But I soon found that, with my decreased movement speed, I'd tend to lose my stack to enemies dropping down from the ceiling, a bit too quickly for me to anticipate them. However, if I stood right under the coin box, no enemy would drop on me. AND I'd have instant feedback when my stack got tall enough. So I stood under the coin box, and limited my inputs to the jump button. I could even hold A in mid-air to hover long enough for an enemy to walk underneath me. Some hats flew off to the side, yes, but I could reliably catch enough to keep myself alive and reach the coin box. With this strategy, there was a key number of hats where I could wedge myself between the enemies below and the coin box up top, and generate huge amounts of coins. This only lasted for a second or two before I'd collect a hat, become too tall to jump, and lose the stack. But the noise and the numbers increasing were the most satisfying thing, and I kept coming back for more of that experience. I was a bit disappointed at first that there wasn't any music, but the weird atonal sound effects made a really atmospheric tune of their own. The entire game added up to a compelling ambiance which I'm not sure I can describe. All in all, great work. Glad to see you back after the LD hiatus, hope to see more awesome games from you in the future. 276.png |
| Dec 4 12:05:45 | 23m 46s | Curse of Greed | ♥ 0 | The graphics are gorgeous, and the mechanics are interesting to play with; always a trade-off of an easier path vs a long-term loss. The floaty camera has been mentioned already and does take some getting used to, I think the game would've been better with a camera that only moves when the player does. The controls themselves are solid, but because of the camera they feel heavy at first. I only got as far as the 3 tiny platforms with vertical lasers along the floor. Couple reasons I had to stop there. The checkpoints are a bit too far apart, for one, so I couldn't get back into trying that area without a fair bit of repeating what I'd already done. The laser hitboxes are also much wider than the graphics indicate. The damage area seems to cover the entire tile, not just the thin band of the graphics. So half the time I'd lose health and get knocked off the platform without actually being in the path of the laser. The floaty camera also made it a bit hard to land on the tiny platforms when I wasn't being lasered. Finally, I'd always try to get on the first small platform from where the lasers dropped me down to, and the platform was just a bit too high. I'm disappointed I can only review the first area of the game, but try as I might I can't get through to see the rest. What I've played looks great, feels alright, and was pretty fun to play. Thanks for the game. |
| Dec 4 12:19:10 | 13m 25s | boost | ♥ 2 | The graphics are super clean, and I like the way you tutorialize the mechanics. I couldn't really get past the second level though. It really should be split into two levels; one with the initial boost and one with the pair of boosts; I kept dying in the second half and had to wait through the entire first section, with no way to speed through it. More importantly, though, the hitboxes on the boosts don't work at all. On the two boosts, I know I need to pick up one of them but not both. If I pick up the first and jump the second, I don't have space to jump the spikes. If I jump over the first, I can move right through the middle of the second but the hitbox won't register and I won't pick it up. If you get this fixed (totally allowed under compo rules to fix game-breaking bugs) I'd love to have another go. |
| Dec 4 12:31:12 | 12m 02s | Bazooka Arms | ♥ 2 | Just a heads up, the web version doesn't lock the mouse so it's impossible to turn around. without moving the cursor out of the game window. Also, getting to the appropriate color is a bit inconsistent. I eventually got killed because I couldn't find the blue gun for a good 30 seconds of trying to switch between colors. |
| Dec 4 13:12:44 | 41m 32s | Information OVERLOAD | ♥ 1 | The writing here is very good, if a bit preachy by the end. You've managed to make a self-deprecating and self-aware game that doesn't feel like it's doing that purely to justify its shortcomings. I had a good couple laughs, and you managed a very solid gradient of tone in your writing, from the cheesy through the sarcastic to the self-aware to the pretentiously deep. The gameplay is also decent. It's pretty bog-standard run and jump and shoot platformer faire; I think the character runs a little too fast so you can bump into enemies a bit too easily without noticing them coming in from screen right. And I found a slight bug where an enemy could get stuck not moving on the edge of the screen but still killable. But the shooting's pretty fun and the controls are tight, so I was able to have an mechanically enjoyable experience. What stuck out to me was a slight dissonance between the run/jump/shoot and the writing. You were writing for an exploratory contemplative game, but coding for one filled with action. The writing seemed to want you to give me long stretches of art with occasional action setpieces. But what you gave me is a pretty consistent level of difficulty and stable gameplay. It's a bit hard to verbalize and it didn't impact my enjoyment of either part of the game, but playing through Information Overload felt like playing two different games. On the one hand, it's Eversion. On the other hand, it's a deus-ex-machina walking sim. Either way, I really enjoyed my time here. Thanks for the game. |
| Dec 4 15:14:08 | 2h 01m | JobOS | ♥ 3 | I like this take on the 'mash random buttons for code to appear' genre. I've only ever seen it used for random simulated hacking, never for tech support/social media. And I like that you let the player opt in to each round of jobs, letting them skip the jobs they don't like as much. And each job category does feel slightly different. Writing code for a game is a different feeling from replying to customer service requests is a slightly different feeling from hacking. Having the text speed up over time was a really nice touch. Gave me a chance to read the first few lines I was writing then speed through the rest. My main gripe is something I was worried about when the theme was announced. "The more you have the worse it gets" can apply to a gameplay experience as much as to the setting presented. And you added a lot of busywork which after a while just becomes tedious to go through. You put a fair chunk of effort into making realistic text for all aspects of the game, but after the 30th identical customer support email I stopped wanting to read anything the game put before me. In some respects I think this effect is useful to your narrative. Your protagonist is stuck doing random menial work which they must continue even as they goes on their espionage adventures. Someone who doesn't care what they do online, so long as it brings in some cash. But on the other hand, it's not particularly gratifying to have the same text appear over and over, and in my case it actually distracted me from the story. You got me tired of reading before you started showing me the interesting parts. I'm not trying to pass a value judgement here, I don't know what your intention was. If you were trying to focus on the aesthetic of person-doing-random-internet-jobs then I think you succeeded, and I applaud you for your effort. But if you were trying to tell a story, hint at something interesting in the code the player was writing, or make the experience though-provoking, I think you've distracted from that purpose. |
| Dec 4 15:49:26 | 35m 18s | Loom | ♥ 0 | Took me a bit to work out the controls but it's a fun little toy to play with. I do have one complaint about the controls. Because you can't change which strings are lifted while the string is moving left/right, it's hard to get into a rhythm since I have to wait a second between each row. What I'd really have liked is a scheme where strings are lifted while I'm holding their number, rather than a toggle. Have the left/right string move a lot quicker (0.1s or less) and remove the restriction on only changing lifted strings when it's not moving. The experience would probably be a lot smoother. |
| Dec 4 17:53:40 | 2h 04m | Sunshine Simulator | ♥ 1 | The shaders with the color pallets you've created are stunning. Best I can tell all you can do is walk around and change the colors until you reach the roof? Couldn't find anywhere else to go. There's not much of a game to comment on here, but it looks very nice. |
| Dec 4 19:59:07 | 2h 05m | Pirate Cargo | ♥ 1 | The game takes a bit to learn, but the AI is just predictable enough that you can dodge most but not all of their attacks if you know what you're doing. I applaud you for the balance. One thing to note is that the hitboxes on the island are a bit hard to read. The ship combat alone is pretty fun, and while the graphics are simple the color palette is very smooth and satisfying. I don't know that the mechanic of your ship being weighed down adds much to the game. If this weren't a Ludum Dare entry I'd recommend setting up networking for this, though. Higher-scoring players having weaker ships because of the weight of their treasure sounds like a neat balancing feature. |
| Dec 5 16:09:18 | 20h 10m | Snakey Snake | ♥ 0 | Fun little concept and well executed. I think it'd make more sense to fit the entire level on the screen at once, since I was surprised on a couple occasions by an element of the puzzle that was off-screen. And maybe an undo button or an auto-moving snake might have added a bit but under the time constraint you've done enough. Nice work. |
| Dec 5 17:17:52 | 1h 08m | Castle Diorama | ♥ 2 | Beautifully done; simple mechanics and a ton of graphical polish. I did get stuck for a good while unable to find the raincloud, but got through it in the end. There's one red rectangle in the caves down at the bottom that I would've liked to play with too. Some sound effects would also add to the charm, but that's down to time constraints more than anything I'm sure. Very nice work. |
| Dec 5 18:53:27 | 1h 35m | You can't handle my final form | ♥ 2 | I always like a multitasking game. The graphics are fairly interesting and the music's not bad, and I think you got the pacing and balance right; I felt challenged but not faced with an impossible task. I did have some issues with the pong game having a bit unpredictable physics, and when I lost the game I could continue to play indefinitely (though my score was capped at that point), but neither of those were gamebreaking issues. The UI at the bottom felt a bit clunky. Given the really interesting and colorful theme you had going with the rest of the game, I'd have liked the score and strikes to be a bit more thematically arranged. Maybe instead of a 0/5 counter for the strikes, you could have 5 rotating cubes that dissapear with each strike. Maybe add a bit of a red screen flash when one dissapears (there wasn't much of a visual indicator for the strikes). My final score was 128. |
| Dec 5 20:29:20 | 1h 35m | Apokalipsa | ♥ 1 | I'll admit I was intimidated at first by the instructions in your description, but the game explains itself well enough. There were a few mechanics I wasn't clear on, mostly to do with the risk assessment. Each consequence had a number next to it, and I assume higher numbers were more likely (maybe as a percentage chance?) but I couldn't tell what was influencing the numbers, or if they were entirely random. The presentation's solid. All the graphics are clean, the UI is very legible, and the music and color scheme provide a good sense of ambience. I would like to see what resource card I lose when I get a damage consequence. I probably could have done some counting to work that out but it didn't feel worthwhile. I lost my first playthrough because I went straight into the city, but the second time through I stuck to the outskirts of the map until I got enough people to venture inward. This proved a much more effective strategy. win.png Nice work all around. |
| Dec 5 21:35:35 | 1h 06m | The Perfect Halay | ♥ 1 | This was really fun to play. I love the idea, it fits the theme perfectly, and it's something I could never have come up with myself. My one complaint is the lack of gamepad support. Navigating a tight spiral near the end of the game, trying to get those low numbers near the center, is basically impossible with 4-directional keyboard controls. I would have liked to use an analog stick for that, and I know unity can support it without too much hassle. You can also move your character outside the screen, which caught me off guard a number of times; there's no real way to recover if you've forgotten where they were. Keeping the controlled character bounded to the screen would have helped. The music's great. It does loop a couple times through the game but given that you made it during the compo I'm just impressed that it never got on my nerves and set a great folk mood to the game. Great job all around. I hope you go out and rate some games so more people discover this. my best run |
| Dec 5 22:44:07 | 1h 08m | Om | ♥ 1 | The intro sequence is amazing. I spent a good few minutes just listening to the music and watching the animation before I even started playing. The gameplay itself isn't particularly compelling. I didn't feel like I had a lot of control over what was happening, and because the bombs would always go off after the pluses the randomness was always working against me. If I tried to strategise and avoided activating a side with a lot of bombs on, eventually the bombs would just agglomerate there and I'd have to set off a huge chunk of my map. There was a bit of a balance there, where the bombs would create a lot of small islands which the pluses could really easily populate, then the pluses would create big chunks of land that the bombs could easily destroy. So there were definitely some interesting emergent mechanics at play, I just didn't feel in control of any of them, and wasn't able to leverage them to get the 100 tiles. But I still played this game for a good part of an hour. In part for the stunning graphics, but for the most part just for the music. As I mentioned earlier, I liked the intro sequence the most (and wish it was in the game proper) but the entire soundtrack is amazing and I'm in awe you got it done in 72h, even with a dedicated composer. Thank you so much for the experience, and keep up the good work. |
| Dec 7 16:33:52 | 41h 49m | Crunch Time | ♥ 1 | The chatter dissapeared for me as well. Seems like it just stops to loop after a while. The game was a fun challenge, and the jokes on corporate culture got a couple giggles out of me. I should complain that I wasn't able to see the whole puzzle at once, but in fairness I didn't find that an issue. The levels were short enough that going back through them was pretty quick. I wasn't sure what happened with the start of the non-tutorial level. If on the first phase, I put the Target class over Server, I can't place Server over Receiver on the second phase, even though both it and the Source/Sender symbols match up. There's probably some mechanic I missed. Nice work on the title. |
| Dec 11 10:19:22 | 89h 45m | Fortress Escape | ♥ 2 | I like the idea, though I feel like you might have spread yourself too thin building two game modes. The FPS segment had jittery controls (in the webGL version anyway) and was pretty trivial since I could out-range all the turrets and wasn't locked to the enemy paths. The TD segment wasn't particularly gratifying either, since the turret and enemy variety were limited and outside of placing turrets I had very few strategic options. My first run of the game, I didn't realize enemies would be coming from more than one direction so I built up defenses around the first entrance and wasn't able to do anything at all to save myself from the second wave. I learned my lesson and the second run went much better, but I wish the multiple entrances had been better signposted. Maybe start the first wave with enemies coming from all sides. The game's very busy visually, which didn't help the multiple entrances issue. Every structure and enemy are the same shade of blue, the ground is very noisy, the skybox seems unrelated to the game, there's unusable turret slots scattered all over. I think with the simple mechanics the game would have benefited from a much more minimalist graphical style, polished to make something a bit more coherent. I ended up completing the game without too much trouble, and the menu worked a bit differently than I'd expect. Continue would throw me back into the completed game (normally I'd expect it to start a new level). Quit didn't work in the webGL version but that's to be expected. I ended up just flinging myself off the map since you gave me that option. It's not a bad game overall, and it shows that you put a lot of effort into it. I just think you could have focused that effort to make something simpler, but more coherent and polished. |
| Dec 12 18:01:38 | 31h 42m | Mister President | ♥ 3 | A lot of the other comments have mentioned an inflation mechanic, but I was able to beat the game easily without noticing one. I was able to print as much money as I needed, then invest that into making people like me and industry productive. The only problem with that approach was that my hand started to cramp from the clicking, but that felt like a UX issue more than a mechanical obstacle. I understand I missed some core aspect of the game, so I don't feel right criticizing it fully, but from what I've seen of it I think it's too easy to make all aspects of your country happy. No threat really appeared for the duration of the 4 years. |
