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piscythe

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TimestampSince previousGamepiscythe's comment
Dec 5 02:19:36 The Fast and Fastidious ♥ 0 I really like the grainy art style and the classic cartoon backdrop. The core gameplay is very simplistic, but it fits the theme and does involve some optimization skill. The music works with the mood and pace of the game, but I'm less convinced that it fits the idea of high-speed racing. The background scrolling is nice, but I think there's more that could be done here to sell the idea of speed. Also, I think this game would benefit from having a countdown at the start rather than just throwing the player into the race. I lost a few seconds on my first attempt just trying to get my bearings. Nice work! Scores: Attempt 1: 120411. Attempt 2: 148617.
Dec 5 02:32:10 12m 34s Billy the giant hates dancing paragliders on a boat ♥ 0 I was not expecting this but I'm glad I found it. The retro art, music, and sounds mesh together into a cohesive aesthetic and the gameplay was simple and intuitive enough that I was able to pick it up despite somehow failing to read the control explanation. Except I missed the shiny forehead, the knowledge of which was what allowed me to actually clear the game.
Dec 5 02:42:04 9m 54s Revenge of the Samurai ♥ 1 I like the clean, simple art style here, though I really found myself wishing for some kind of soundscape to go with it. My fighting style was to move cautiously into range and then cut my opponent before they had a chance to react. I felt a little bit of a rush going into each engagement, fearing that it might be my downfall, but the passivity of my opponents proved their undoing and I cleared the game in a single attempt. There's certainly potential in the combat system if you wish to develop it further. Good job!
Dec 5 02:50:58 8m 54s Apocalypse2D ♥ 0 My favorite part about this game is the dynamism of the environment. The graphics are simplistic but expressive and the combat involves a lot of clicking, but the moving and spinning platforms are what adds the extra dimension that the game needs to be entertaining. Good work!
Dec 5 03:08:36 17m 38s The Beforlorne Wander ♥ 2 Legitimate boss fights in an LD? I don't care if you don't follow the theme if you have bosses. I found the graphics to be almost too abstract, but the music made the whole thing come across as almost mysterious. The platforming dynamics aren't quite as polished as I'd like, but I had fun fighting even against normal enemies. Oddly, I found the second boss easier than the first - the dodging and weaving that the first boss did was much more interesting than the simple routine of shoot and dodge I fell into with the second one. Good work!
Dec 5 03:38:58 30m 22s Gladiator Monsters ♥ 2 Ludum Dare 40 12_4_2017 7_31_32 PM.png I did manage to beat your highscore on hard, and I'm sure a more dedicated effort could blow that score out of the water. The player's range felt awkwardly short at first, but I got used to it eventually. Still, I found the shotgun awkward to use and quickly settled on the rifle as my weapon of choice. The core mechanic is excellent and the range of available upgrades allows for a lot of different strategies. The strength of this mechanic is enough to overpower the relatively unimpressive core gameplay. Bonus points for the graphics option and the quit button.
Dec 5 04:08:51 29m 53s BANANA BOI EVADING YA TRASH ♥ 1 Lovely projectile pattern you have here but there seems to be a minor ⑨ with it.
Dec 5 04:45:04 36m 13s Dungeon Boy! ♥ 3 That was certainly interesting. The music is excellent and the dungeon theme is very well established with the game's strong use of lighting. The combat, however, is not up to par. The lack of knockback or visual feedback when the player attacks and the lackluster animation make for rather unenticing action. In practice, I found the core gameplay to consist of dashing around avoiding fights and grabbing everything I could get my gauntleted hands on while trying to land difficult-to-time bomb hits. However, this was plenty of fun, especially with the ability to switch between two visually and practically distinct environments. My score: 5302g/2nd attempt.
Dec 5 05:11:41 26m 37s Matchy's Kooky Cookies ♥ 1 This game's strong art style belies its relatively weak fundamental gameplay. When you said "clicker game" you weren't kidding - the gameplay consists of incessant, nigh-mindless clicking. Perhaps with a soundscape and more juice this could have been satisfying, but as it was I found myself rather unengaged. I made it to the end, but didn't feel especially accomplished doing so. The damage markers are a nice touch though.
Dec 5 17:49:07 12h 37m Pumpkin Massacre ♥ 1 I like the idea behind this one. I'll admit that's partly because the same thing occurred to me during my brainstorm, but I ended up going with something else. It's nice being able to see how it works in practice. In this implementation, I didn't especially feel that it impacted the gameplay aside from how often I found myself decided to skip pickups. The controls didn't feel quite as good as I would have liked and I kept getting stuck on doors. The procedural generation for the dungeon was nice, but I felt that there were too many rooms with no enemies. Still, I was entertained during my run. Good work!
Dec 5 19:55:35 2h 06m BaconMan ♥ 2 Well, I suppose that's one way to go down fighting. The core mechanic here is interesting and requires a good deal of awareness and coordination, though I didn't always quite understand what counted as a hit on an enemy or why the bacon would sometimes reach its "overcooked" state almost immediately after reaching its "cooked" state. The full voice acting certainly adds to the entertainment value. I won on my second attempt.
Dec 5 20:13:43 18m 08s Heist of Kharon ♥ 2 Solid entry you have here. The graphical style is appealing and goes with the arcade music, and the gameplay is the kind of fast-paced frustrating test of skill that marks many good highscore-based games. It took me a few tries to figure out how not to get telefragged by the slimes that spawned in, and the fact that the player, but not bullets, can move through platforms on Nightmare led to some deaths. Walljumping and wallsliding are cool, but I wasn't always sure how my character was going to react when I was performing those actions. Weirdly, I didn't find my Hard performance to be better than my Nightmare performance. Good work!
Dec 5 21:49:54 1h 36m Super Treasure Hunt ♥ 1 Having to manage and throw around treasure adds an interesting new dimension to traditional platforming, especially once I got used to the physics of it. It does strike me as a bit odd that each level has a locked door, but you never actually use it - though I'm thankful for not having to cart all the treasure back through the entire previous level. During the first level I took the wrong approach, grabbing every chest I could find, but by the second level I had learned my lesson and mapped the place out before claiming anything. After that, all that stood between me and victory was an easy boss fight. I wish I had just been able to throw treasure at the bats, though I did figure out how to bridge spike pits with it. Good work!
Dec 6 00:38:41 2h 48m Overrun ♥ 2 It was certainly interesting going through so many different environments and soundtracks. The combat was pretty basic, but the nature of this game made combat counterproductive anyway. Also, what the point of having a sprint key if there's no reason to not just hold it down constantly? While the ideas behind the theme implementation were interesting, the core mechanic seemed to be trial-and-error running around the map while trying to keep yourself from being cornered by a wall of mobs. I doubt I would have stayed engaged as long as I did without the story.
Dec 13 04:10:45 171h 32m The Exalted ♥ 1 This just might be the best version of the "self-inflicted bullet hell" concept I've played. From reading the comments, I can see that the powerup system allows for different playstyles. Mine was to grab health and damage pickups and trust my dodging skills to keep me ahead, allowing me to hammer down the core in my first attempt. It was hard for me to burst because of some control issues that were almost certainly WebGL's fault and not yours. The graphics are appealing, if simplistic. Unlike some other reviewers, I really enjoyed the soundtrack. Good work!
Dec 13 04:26:33 15m 48s Like a Boss Rush ♥ 0 Interesting. I'm a bit too young to remember the golden days of text adventure, but I was certainly able to imagine what they were like from the level of immersion I got from something so simple. That is, as long as the parser decided to agree with me. While I'll admit that "flap arms" is not really a substitute for "jump", I found the fact that I couldn't substitute "rocket" for "missile" a bit more disconcerting. Thank goodness for hints. Nice job!
Dec 13 04:56:40 30m 07s Stealy ♥ 2 Really interesting idea. I really liked the cutscene art and the basic mechanic, but I got bored relatively quickly. The progression definitely felt slow at times, and once I got a good sense of what was and wasn't worthwhile rushing through the houses began to feel repetitive. The gameplay soundtrack was nice and mood-setting, but I was not especially thrilled with the shop music. Still, the sheer variety of items make for some interesting decision points. My performance: one loss on the road to max upgrades. Good work!
Dec 13 05:43:38 46m 58s Golden Valkyrie ♥ 1 While the number of frames of art created for this game is relatively low, the level of quality is indicative of an excellent craftsman. This crafsmanship is matched by the game's tight, skill-based mechanics. While merely having the player grow bigger with the amount of gold collected would be a fairly standard take on the theme, allowing the player to drop gold creates a mechanic that results in an engaging game of calculated risk. This effect is enhanced by the player's weapon. The boomerang axe is a satisfying tool in itself, and it is quite satisfying to catch an enemy on the rebound, but having it grow in size and power with the player's gold complicates the dynamic further and enhances the temptation. Also wow my evil twin is brutal. There are certainly elements here that feel missing or incomplete, such as the lack of feedback when the player dies, the relatively unpolished score and gold display, and the lack of a backdrop for the upper half of the screen. Despite these flaws, I found this game to be exceptional.
Dec 13 07:19:04 1h 35m Bob the conqueror ♥ 1 That was certainly an experience. The game has a lot of mechanics and content, but I'm not convinced that it all comes together into a cohesive whole. The level of detail in the combat mechanics is undermined by the fact that most strategies lead to more or less the same outcome and the player's overall impact on the battle is offset by the player's army. I like the music, but it doesn't seem to fit the whole medieval fantasy aesthetic at all. It's also nice to see what appears to be the work of a fellow vector artist. I ran into a few different bugs, most notably one where I couldn't clear level 2 because even after I claimed all castles, there was an unallied, unattackable town. I did clear the other two, with a few deaths. Good work!
Dec 13 08:13:13 54m 09s Bat Dose ♥ 1 This was nice and relaxing, especially after I realized that it wasn't possible for me to get big enough to eat the snakes. I was a little worried that the owl was somehow going to pop out of nowhere and mess me up, but that never really happened. The difficulty was too low for the core mechanic to come into effect, but I'll give you points for style.
Dec 13 20:54:34 12h 41m Cthulhu Writer ♥ 1 Interesting. I'll admit I wasn't terribly excited about a typing challenge, but the ever-increasing distortedness of the text I was trying to type kept it interesting and the over-loud audio at the end only enhanced the effect of escalating madness. And bloody old god names aren't exactly easy to type to begin with. It seemed that at times the strategy was to just pick a couple of gods and alternate between them - almost like some bizarre form of worship, I suppose. I went mad at exactly 69 points. Make of that what you will.
Dec 14 00:26:01 3h 31m Crimson Assault ♥ 0 Interesting. I liked the idea behind the game. That said, the controls are a bit fidgety - both player and enemy soldiers get caught on walls easily and the enemies are small enough that right-click targeting is tricky. I found myself wishing for auto-targeting of some sort. Also, I wish I'd been able to move the screen around my moving my mouse near the edge rather than just with the keyboard. I wasn't really fond of the sound effects. Still, the basic dynamic behind the game was engaging enough to keep me playing all the way through. I cleared all three levels with a total of 17 deaths. Good work!
Dec 14 00:41:39 15m 38s The Montiest Haul ♥ 1 So there I was, sitting down to play LD games instead of studying for my physics final. And look where I ended up. Watching crates fall into spike pits, getting crushed by non-moving boulders, and utterly failing to get a perfect record on every level. Also the name really confused me because I kept expecting to discover that some of the treasure chests just had goats in them. Yeah!
Dec 14 01:43:14 1h 01m Nuclear Arms 5: Orphan Overdrive ♥ 2 Can I revoke the driving licenses of everyone in this city? I know you put in light effects to get around this, but I was still annoyed that the doors kept getting blocked by cars and I couldn't tell which doors were open and augh! I failed once with one door left and at least twice with two doors left just because I could not remember which door I missed, let alone find it in the mess that the level became. On the bright side, this is some of the strongest 3d modeling and voice acting I've seen in LD. Good work!
Dec 14 02:06:13 22m 59s ArenaBots ♥ 1 I don't know if it's my relative inexperience with 3d gaming acting on me, but I really had trouble getting the hang of the controls for this. Honestly I found myself wishing for a top-down perspective. Though the models look nice, I found that, like others have said, there wasn't all that much pulling me into the experience. With the lack of sound and "juice" I felt more like I was watching on a screen than involved in the action. The ideas here are excellent, but I just wasn't able to get engaged with this one. Still, good work!
Dec 14 02:14:29 8m 16s Cat Basket ♥ 0 I really like where this is going, but it feels incomplete as-is. The basket isn't that big of a deal, but the fast ricochet bullets came as a nasty surprise and I quickly ran out of health. Since that didn't mean anything, I happily pranced along listening to cute kitten noises until I had two kittens left to find. Then I walked into a room with three kittens in it. I don't think I was supposed to end up having to search for -1 remaining kittens. Still, I like what has been done here.
Dec 14 02:42:21 27m 52s Squire! Where's My Sword?! ♥ 2 A really fun take on inventory management. Fast-paced, challenging, and visually appealing. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and I died more than once against the final boss. As such, I felt rather accomplished at the end of the adventure even though the good ~~Baron~~ Sir Münchhausen obviously did most of the work. The music was nice and fitting, and I like the cutout art style. The randomness did get a little frustrating at times - such as when a slime shows up and the player has no daggers or blunt weapons, but the enemy and item variety adds substantial depth. Good job!
Dec 14 04:22:08 1h 39m Fuurbal ♥ 1 I've never seen a physics puzzler with quite this mechanic before. The presentation on this one is cute as well. However, after playing for a while, the game began lagging to the point of unplayability on my Win10. That's a shame, since it means I didn't actually get to play the post-compo levels at all. Good work!
Dec 14 05:23:55 1h 01m Daku ♥ 0 Interesting. I really liked the shuriken effect. The fact that the second level consisted of a room with a bunch of pretty stuff and nothing to do, not so much. Still, it was fun while it lasted. Good work!
Dec 14 05:45:25 21m 30s The Harsh Life of Terry the Homeless Dude ♥ 1 The Harsh life of Terry the Homeless Dude 12_13_2017 9_37_59 PM.png Yep. That's 904,383,500 points. This was my second attempt. Eventually I walked off the world and the game told me I'd been caught by the cops. Anyway, this is pretty impressive for a first LD. Your pixel art style is promising and I laughed at some of the voiced dialogue. Gameplay-wise it seems to come down to just grabbing everything except black blobs, but I love the theory behind it. Good work!
Dec 14 18:32:49 12h 47m Booyah Bass ♥ 1 Nice work! Things did feel a little slow at first and I was a bit confused by the pickup key that only needed to be used once, but the pace of the game certainly accelerated as I ramped up my fish count. I got busted more than once because I overestimated my ability to grab those last couple fish. The soundtrack is very nice and fitting - I'm a little worried it's just going to be stuck in my head now. Also I loved how any of the random boxes and barrels in the scenery could potentially conceal an enemy cat. My highscore: 37124 points/ 40 fish / 4 bouillabaisses. Good work!
Dec 15 02:07:17 7h 34m RuneLight ♥ 2 Really interesting, though I kinda botched it the first time. I like the rune magic system once I got the hang of it, but that was after I somehow managed to waste the only two yellow rune drops in the game and thus reach an unwinnable state. Made me wish that runes weren't expended when failing a spell. I liked how I needed to collect and expend green runes in order to get a red rune, so it struck me as odd that this pattern didn't really continue at all. The shield skill seems like more effort than it's worth when all that's really needed to fight yellow enemies is the triple shot. Still, the graphics and presentation are excellent and the music is suitably atmospheric. Well done!
Dec 15 05:14:30 3h 07m Tabletop Farm Simulator 20,000 ♥ 0 I'm confused. I like the idea and the setup required, but I honestly don't understand what the lose condition is. I seem to be doing fine, and then suddenly I just...lose. My last run I had a bunch of farms, lots of water, lots of supply, no visible threats, and then the game over screen happened. I like the premise, but I'm not convinced the rules are explained well enough.
Dec 28 02:08:56 308h 54m Attack of the Killer Zombie Veggies from Outer Space ♥ 1 Interesting. I like the basic idea here, but in practice the core mechanic seemed to manifest as "hit the weapon switch button until the annoying clicking noise stops." The enemies presented no credible threat whatsoever, but they did have a certain style to them. I enjoyed watching the way they moved, especially as they flailed about while collapsing when killed. The shades were a nice touch too. Good work!