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Sean S. LeBlanc

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Sean S. LeBlanc's comment
Dec 4 04:47:42		The lost strawberry	♥ 5	Interesting mix-up on the Celeste mechanics! - I like the idea of having the pickups obstruct your vision more, but I found that in-game this effect wasn't noticeable enough to be effective; it could have stood to be exaggerated a bit more. - I found the boss fight to be pretty frustrating. The most difficult obstacle on that level wasn't the enemies or the boss itself, but actually the platform which just carries you into spikes if you don't jump off quick enough. - the default palette is pretty low contrast; I think one of the brighter ones would probably be a better choice since there will likely be players who don't bother switching it. The scope of this is pretty impressive for a LD entry, congrats! btw, the source you posted errors out after a couple seconds of running, and it's also just the code itself; you should probably put up the actual p8 file so that the rest of the game (sprites, sfx, map) are included.
Dec 4 04:58:53	11m 11s	Little World	♥ 1	This is adorable! The outside music is particularly great, and the faux-3d characters are also pretty cool. Would've been really interesting to see what this was building up to! A minor criticisms: the transition between areas is always a slide-up, but would probably look a bit better if it was a slide-down when the player is moving up into a new area.
Dec 4 05:51:49	52m 56s	Cute Cats Daily	♥ 2	Cute entry, but I found that it had a few too many issues for me to be able to have a really good time with it: - Biggest issue is that picking up cats seems to be bugged: I assume this is how you're meant to send them off for permanent adoption, but since you can't pick them up you kinda just get stuck with more and more cats (it's also a huge let-down to be told how to pick up a cat and then not be able to, haha). - Another issue was that the progression of time feels way too fast. Having days pass by really quick makes it feel more stressful, which supports the theme, but I found that I barely had time to figure out what I was doing before I'd already adopted three cats. It might make sense to have the first few days start off slower, and then ramp it up over time to give it more of an approachable difficulty curve. - The audio distortion was a nice touch, but I couldn't tell what it was tied to; it was grating even when I thought I was doing a pretty good job. I think this could be a fun little management game if a few of the issues were fixed!
Dec 4 07:03:45	1h 11m	BURROWED TIME	♥ 1	Nice entry! Only managed to make it to round 6, but this was a pretty solid dungeon crawler. Some minor criticisms: - I found that the light mechanic didn't seem varied enough; enemy damage was the only deterrent that affected my decisions about how much time to take. - It could just be that the previous weapon fit my play-style better, but going from getting 2-for-one kills in one shot to the peashooter with a messy low-damage spray felt like a downgrade. - The skull dudes felt a tad too quick; it was pretty much impossible to dodge one if you were walking towards one it off-screen - Dungeon generation occasionally created big empty boxes, which felt a bit out of place for the visual style
Dec 5 01:59:34	18h 55m	escape🥚hatch	♥ 1	Nice entry! Wasn't particularly innovative, but the music was great.
Dec 5 02:17:12	17m 38s	Xmas: Sorted	♥ 1	Oof, this was a tough one! Simple but sweet.
Dec 5 02:34:28	17m 16s	Curse of Greed	♥ 0	This is really good; one of the best entries I've played so far! I did have a little bit of trouble with the walljump (the area with a bunch of vertical lasers got me more than once), but other than that it was really solid as a platformer, and the incorporation of the theme was pretty clever. The attract mode was also a nice touch!
Dec 5 03:35:42	1h 01m	Alchegator	♥ 2	Cute little puzzle game, but I the logic was a little bit too obtuse for me near the end. I had to resort to the walkthrough after melting my box without having enough sand leftover to make the mirrors (it seemed kinda like a bug that the glass box could only crush into metal though; was that intentional?). - making the mirrors was kinda buggy, and ended up making metal panels instead sometimes - at one point I agitated a bottle and then threw it, and the fizzing noise never went away - reading the note interrupts the laser beam (this is a super weird one, haha) - I would have liked there to be an easter egg for using the mirrors to angle the laser at the mouth :p - occasionally after picking something up, the directional controls would reverse until I put it back down It could stand a bit more polish, but overall it's a pretty solid entry!
Dec 5 03:53:07	17m 25s	A cozy winter walk	♥ 2	This is adorable! Cool to see a bitsy entry too! I really loved the use of items for the cat, having it run ahead of you and making you pick it up each time. Some minor issues: - The tree and Susan's house are missing walls so you can wander around in the void - the final sentence of the ending is a character too early (the "a" from "a game by..." shows up in the previous page) - I also ran into the issue where the player would walk forward in the last pressed direction. I haven't seen that bug in a bitsy game before, and it didn't happen again when I refreshed; might be a good idea to ping adam and see if it can be fixed. Great entry!
Dec 6 04:45:43	24h 52m	Captain Alexia	♥ 1	Nice entry! I would have liked to see a bit more depth, but this is pretty solid as-is. A few criticisms: - The zombie ship bug definitely detracted from it, but kinda hard to hold a couple bugs against an LD entry, haha! - The difficulty seems to cap out pretty quickly; my guess is this was done for performance reasons (just tossing more bullets and ships on the screen has its limits) but it only took a couple minutes for it to feel like I was just cruising through. - Being able to instantly move your ship anywhere with the mouse felt a bit over-powered - Just losing your buddies instead of having a "death" felt a bit lack-luster Really dug the art style on this one!
Dec 6 05:05:44	20m 01s	Mushroom Délicieux	♥ 1	This is gorgeous! I found it a bit too hard to play to completion (made it 6/7 like four times before giving up, haha), but definitely nailed the feel of the theme. It manages to have a look-and-feel very unlike most pico-8 games too; it's an interesting progression in art style from your last one!
Dec 6 05:26:06	20m 22s	Spearfisher: Blood in the Water	♥ 1	Hey, nice entry! - Controls are definitely the first area for improvement: the turning would have been greatly improved if the speed was based on mouse distance from center rather than being relatively binary. I also saw from the comments that the spear was based on where you click, but probably wouldn't have figured this out just from the in-game feedback. - I would have probably scoped out the terrain generation: the procgen aspect is cool, but it's hard to appreciate it as much when there are gameplay issues getting in the way. If the scene had been static and more time had been spent polishing other parts, I feel like the end result could have been better overall. - Out of curiousity I tried playing on the lowest graphics setting, and found myself sailing through islands at super speed and couldn't find any fish; you may want to restrict the quality settings a bit, haha! The shark was definitely my favourite part; great job on the swimming motions!
Dec 6 05:40:14	14m 08s	Sunken	♥ 1	Nice entry, though I do agree with most of the criticisms laid out in the comments already: there's far too much RNG for it to feel like your choices as a player are making much of a difference; the double-tap to move seemed unnecessary; travelling up instead of down would have been more consistent with the premise. If a few of these issues were addressed, I think this would be a lot more compelling as a roguelike. The RNG issue is especially holding it back: giving the player more agency would go a long way (the only real "tactic" I came up with was to take advantage of floors with meat to get s kill in then heal immediately after).
Dec 6 06:19:15	39m 01s	Glitched	♥ 1	Cool entry! Looks like we went for a somewhat similar idea. - I found the transition from level 2 -> 3 was a bit too quick in terms of the "level" of glitchiness; it goes from a few rectangles out of place to every single texture being replaced with a text atlas, which ends up making it feel a bit too artificial IMO. This would have been more effective if there were more intermediary glitches. - I would have liked to see more glitches that affect gameplay, either like the little stretch+pop that moves the player, or even just things that are visually distracting or deceiving enough in order to make the platforming a bit more involved - Audio would have been a plus (there's only so much you can do in 48h though, haha) Also way to make me feel super old by being a whole decade younger and still making competent games :p
Dec 6 06:36:06	16m 51s	BaconMan	♥ 2	Digging the overall goofiness of this! The character designs do a really great job of selling the style. - I found that once I got into a good rhythm, it wasn't actually that challenging. Idk if the monster spawn rates ramp up over time to eventually make it impossible, but I felt like it could have been made a bit more difficult if you made it so that you can only punch them when not holding bacon (or maybe you just lose the bacon if you punch with it?) - The audio got pretty grating after awhile. I imagine that was at least partially intentional for the voice-over, but the music was more the issue for me (it seemed to get louder and quieter for no real reason) - The time for a cooked strip becoming burnt seemed really sporadic, to the point that some pieces are basically just a lost cause if you aren't already on it when it cooks - Making it so you can open the controls and exit repeatedly to repeat the starting line was an A+ decision
Dec 6 06:49:56	13m 50s	crowglary	♥ 0	This feels like more of a proof of concept than a fully realized game, but it's very cute nonetheless! I imagine there was supposed to be more for you to do once you've spawned a few little birbs (as it is I'd argue it only gets better as you have more, haha), but it was still fun to run around in the field for a little bit.
Dec 6 07:21:05	31m 09s	Babies! Babies! Babies!	♥ 2	Wow, every time I feel like you folks have hit a new high for creepiness, you go ahead and top it in the next LD :p I've seen a couple takes on theme which were simulation game approaches to "kids/pets are nice but too many is stressful", but this was certainly a more interesting interpretation, haha. The foreground babies were definitely the best part.
Dec 8 03:29:52	44h 08m	Happy Marshmallow Factory	♥ 1	Cute little clicker game! The narrative was a bit heavy-handed, but it was also more than goofy enough to excuse, haha. I think some audio would have gone a long way towards making the assembly line feel more satisfying, but there's only so much you can get done in a jam :) The news ticker was definitely the best part.
Dec 8 03:53:53	24m 01s	Cybercage Battleground	♥ 1	Interesting concept! It had a few issues, but this was a pretty solid entry. - Mouse controls didn't work in fullscreen (this may just be a limitation of PICO-8 though; can't say I've tried that before) - I think the difference in bullet power needed to be exaggerated more: I played the first round "as intended", purposefully keeping ammo count low to try to do more damage, but on my second run I did much better by just picking up ammo as soon as I killed enemies. - It bugged me a little bit that there was a visual indicator for health, but just a number for ammo, especially when the ammo is far more important/dynamic than the health is. Really nice use of a simple graphical style. Using circles and lines for everything probably gave you more time to work on other aspects, and the few little details like the flickering text helped add a bit of polish.
Dec 8 05:26:03	1h 32m	Maze Trudger!	♥ 3	Nice entry! It would have liked to see a few more options for interaction though, as it stands the muck is unavoidable and the enemies are essentially just minor obstacles to run past. I also agree with the other comments that the audio was pretty repetitive. The maze generation was interesting, but I think the gameplay would have benefited from a starting with a smaller maze as well; it's pretty challenging to get to the end just due to the sheer scale of the map. fyi the \s in your game's description (in "A\") are turning sections of your description into italics because wrapping a block of text in them is the markdown syntax for that. You can put a \\ in front of them to avoid that.
Dec 8 05:44:43	18m 40s	Save the Hats	♥ 1	Interesting concept, but I found it really difficult to get the timing down and didn't make it too far in. I wish I was better at playing this, because it seems like a pretty polished entry! It's cool that you added an intro sequence too, but it would have been nice to make the little bit that plays when you restart skippable (especially for people who suck at the game like me and have to see it multiple times in quick succession, haha).
Dec 9 07:36:26	25h 51m	Kids, Don't Do Wild Magic	♥ 2	Interesting concept! I think there are some solid ideas here, but also that the implementation ended up making it far more challenging than intended. - The lack of a fluid camera control makes both the navigation and aiming much harder. Having it move smoothly based on mouse movement would be a big improvement. - I agree with the other comments that the controls are pretty awkward. Since both spells are press+hold to cast, I think having an explicit "spellcasting mode" was redundant; simply blocking movement while casting either spell would have accomplished the same thing. - Given the clunkiness of the player's moveset, the AI opponent's abilities felt fairly overpowered. I found myself often getting sniped by boulders with very little time to react and get out of the way. - This is more of a technical point, but whatever was used in order to do the mouse aiming made it so that in the web version (on firefox at least) pops up the browser warning for an element having taken control of the mouse every single time you right click. This could probably be fixed by capturing the mouse all the time, and handling the different modes internally to the game if needed. Overall, I feel like this would have benefited from a fairly reduced scope, but you did manage to make the battle feel pretty hectic, haha!
Dec 9 08:45:05	1h 08m	Stay Alive	♥ 1	Nice job getting a full crafting system working, but the graphics in this could use some work. In particular, one issue which could be fixed without spending too much time is colour: I'd recommend going with a palette that has a bit more harmony in the future to avoid having such a harsh contrast on your tiles/assets. One kinda funny bug I noticed was that the player is able to continue playing after "dying". That could actually be an interesting way of giving them the freedom to experiment with mechanics, but given that this is a survival game, I'm guessing that wasn't intentional, haha!
Dec 9 09:25:04	39m 59s	Complicity Inc.	♥ 1	Really great entry! Even though the concept was strong, I was half-expecting this to be a massive slog to play (which would be thematically appropriate despite being boring!), but it turned out that it was actually really well balanced such that you're doing each new task long enough for it to be stressful, but not for so long that it feels too repetitive. A couple criticisms: - The profit forecast didn't feel anywhere near as transparently sinister as the drone, censure, or disposal tasks; I think it would have made more sense to put this as second to have the ramp towards complete lack of personal ethics a bit smoother - Got completely thrown for a loop on the population one and got fired before I had a chance to figure it out; I imagine this one was near the end though, so it may just be purposefully much more obtuse, haha - I would've really liked there to be a couple more interactions between different elements of the OS. The evidence -> trash interaction was cool, and it would have been interesting to see more elements that took advantage of that sort of thing instead of having so many which were contained within a single window. One of the best uses of the theme I've seen yet!
Dec 10 07:09:35	21h 44m	I'll Take You To Tomato Town	♥ 1	One of the best entries I've played so far! Only complaint is that the interpretation of the theme felt a bit like an afterthought, but the game itself is fun, funny, and has a great goofy style to it.
Dec 10 07:34:56	25m 21s	Boiler Room Defense	♥ 1	Great entry! The main mechanic is a clever use of the theme, and the risk/reward of taking the different shot powerups adds some interesting depth to it. I think the sprites could have been something that better represented the gameplay (it's a bit weird that a boiler would be shooting ice), but that's a fairly minor criticism. Nice job!
Dec 10 08:05:37	30m 41s	The Last Stand at Epsilon Tauri B	♥ 0	Nice entry! It was fairly simple, but a nice take on combining asteroids with the theme. I did have a few issues though: - The first wave with the asteroids felt far too long for a tutorial level - I agree with the comments that the lasers could be a bit more visually distinct, and that having more feedback when getting shot would be helpful - It'd be nice if the threat controlled a larger range of difficulty; even with maxed out threat, it was relatively easy to win by just putting your ship into a slow horizontal slide at the bottom of the screen and constantly shooting up. I stopped playing after wave 3; I'm not sure if there was more progression after that point, but given that there was zero indication of anything having changed between 2 to 3 and 3 to 4, I assumed it just repeats the same level. If that's true, a good way to make people play a bit longer and experience the game at a few different difficulty levels would be to make the different weapon levels unlockable, rather than giving free access to everything right off the bat.
Dec 10 08:15:55	10m 18s	Vacuum Invaders	♥ 0	Really cool project! Reminds me a bit of Arduboy. Having an emulator would have made rating the game itself a bit easier, but completely understandable to just have a video instead.
Dec 10 08:27:47	11m 52s	Let's mix some drinks!	♥ 1	This is such a good entry! The cartoony artwork is great, the theme is integrated well, and the audio is phenomenal! There's probably a version of this game which would have made losing a bottle/glass a fail-state, but I think having it simply respawn them was a great decision and made this a much better experience. One of my favourite entries so far; great job!
Dec 10 08:50:05	22m 18s	CrudeCarnageCars40	♥ 1	- the loop point in the car engine audio clip is pretty noticeable on the main menu (I did really enjoy all the pitch-shifted "vroom-vroom" sfx when you're passing the AI in-game though) - the car selection on the main menu started out at 36 on the slider, but the text next to it said 200 until I actually moved it - out of curiousity, I tried driving off the map and found there was nothing stopping me but a relatively long + boring drive; I'd recommend putting in something to prevent the player from just driving away - Given that nothing happens when you reach lap 3 and that the AI isn't particularly challenging to pass, it probably would have been better to just ditch the lap/position indicators and keep the focus on causing chaos in sandbox mode Overall, a pretty great entry!
Dec 10 09:03:57	13m 52s	Infectious Void	♥ 1	Interesting entry! It's a bit rough around the edges, but the art style and audio do a good job of conveying the atmosphere. - noticed a bug where if you die while standing close enough to the teleporting potion, pressing space will teleport you and kill you again instead of respawning - given that the primary mechanic is mostly interesting as a puzzle mechanic, the enemies seem like a strange addition. If there were more ways to interact with them it might make a bit more sense, but as it stands all they really do is test your reaction time. - the health values seem to be a bit fudged; the lever would always kill me after using the teleport potion, but didn't kill me after skipping the teleport and getting hit by an enemy along the way. Would have been interesting to see more of this!
Dec 10 09:34:31	30m 34s	Mo Money Mo Problems	♥ 1	Nice entry! The stress mechanic felt a little strange (if you're making thousands of dollars, you're probably not going to be "stressed" over an abundance of loose change), but other than that it was an interesting take on the theme. - I agree with the other comments that it'd be better if click + drag was supported, and that the bags are a bit too finnicky about what counts as a deposit - The magnifying glass was a really cool idea, but I found that the hidden costs were usually small enough that it was simpler to just sign everything to keep things moving - There were a couple minor sorting issues: if you had multiple contracts overlapping, the text from both would show up on top of the background of both; if you had a contract overlapping a coin, clicking the coin (which is visually underneath it) would pick up the coin rather than the contract
Dec 10 09:52:39	18m 08s	Micro Trooper	♥ 1	Digging this 1-bit art style! It wasn't particularly deep in terms of gameplay, but it's still a solid entry. It's interesting how differently the compo and post-jam versions feel due to the firing modes. The latter is definitely easier on the wrist, but I may actually prefer the former due to the strategies available: in the post-jam version, I found myself getting further mostly just be standing on one level and defending, which ended up being more boring. The diagonal shots during jumps and being able to jump at any point after walking off a platform were both nice touches.
Dec 11 04:21:48	18h 29m	Life's A Glitch	♥ 2	Nice entry! I see we went for similar interpretations of the theme, haha. I did find the gameplay in this a bit simple; I would have appreciated a bit more depth to the game or a bit more use of glitches to impede the player's ability to survive.
Dec 11 04:26:09	4m 21s	Sword Collector	♥ 1	The joke was a good one, but delivery left a bit to be desired. It was pretty strange that even when the player falls over mid-battle, you still get the "you defeated your enemy!" win message.
Dec 11 04:48:47	22m 38s	Ominos	♥ 1	Great entry! This was a surprisingly interesting take on tetris; played it multiple times trying to beat my previous scores. It does feel like the difficulty ramps up a bit too fast (my best was 22 lines). I think the difficulty came mostly the increasingly awkward shapes you have to place; if this part ramped up slower in relation to the size of the board it might be a bit more approchable. Some audio/visual polish would also go a long way towards improving this, but still a really solid puzzle game as-is!
Dec 11 04:59:09	10m 22s	Do You Mind If My Buddy Joins the Band?	♥ 0	Interesting idea, though I found that the timing of the key presses and the audio felt really disjointed and made it a lot harder than intended. Cool that you recorded your own audio for this though!
Dec 11 05:11:06	11m 57s	The Crushed Sky	♥ 0	I found this a bit too challenging, but it's a solid entry! Nice work. - It's pointed out in-game that tapping X is more effective than holding it, but it's left to the player to manage this, which ended up being a bit frustrating to control. I think it would have been better if instead, you treated it like a multi-jump system and had each individual X press do a single boost instead of being a press+hold control. - If you're going to have text which animates in, it's best to have the "next" button first cause it all to appear, and then have the second press actually make it progress. I ended up skipping some dialog when trying to read faster out of habit.
Dec 11 05:26:13	15m 07s	Exploding Golf, with Lovable Piggies	♥ 1	Great entry! The explosion mechanic is a cool twist on the basic golf puzzle, and there's a nice level of polish to this. It'd be interesting to see a more fleshed out version of this with even more mechanics! - Exploding the cue ball seemed a bit too powerful and let me solve levels in ways that didn't feel intentional at all: e.g. on level 7, you can simply shoot directly into the center island and then explode the red ball into the hole. - The connection to theme was fairly loose - I found myself getting a bit turned around on the controls pretty often; I got through it without too much issue but I do wonder if having it simply move the hit point instead using a polar system would be a bit more intuitive - I killed too many piggies :(
Dec 11 05:39:33	13m 20s	Black Hole Star	♥ 1	This is a really cute entry, but unfortunately I found the gameplay a bit boring. - There was no real indication of where to go to find each star; it was pretty much just wandering around until you found where the little guys were congregating (some positional audio on the black hole sound effect could have been a good subtle way to lead them) - 12 stars seemed like far too many for the variety of gameplay available; it could have easily been half of that without sacrificing much of the experience - The player is never in any real danger, as simply holding the light over top of them is enough to keep the little guys at bay even towards the end I would really like to see a version of this with more depth though; gameplay issues aide, it is a nice entry with a great visual style!
Dec 11 05:53:12	13m 39s	Mo' Gold, Mo' Dragons	♥ 2	Nice entry, though it could use a bit of polish. - the UI is fairly basic, especially ending the game with an alert window, haha - the music didn't really feel like it fit the premise of the game - the hitboxes on the dragons seem really forgiving - the dragon sprites were nice, but having better visuals for the player, coins, and ground would have made them feel a bit less out of place
Dec 11 06:01:41	8m 29s	Pooch Parade	♥ 1	Really cute entry! I found that the AI for the dog you're chasing could stand to be improved though; it often got stuck in a corner or beside a bench and ended up being far too easy to catch.
Dec 11 06:14:43	13m 02s	Orbits	♥ 0	Cool entry! One of the most interesting uses of the theme I've seen yet. Only ever managed to make it to 4, haha! A minor complaint: having the short delay between taking your last hit of damage and actually blowing up feels a bit weird; I think it'd be better to have immediate feedback for that.
Dec 11 06:20:45	6m 02s	Catastrophic Cities	♥ 2	Interesting visual style, but this game is kinda impenetrable to play, haha! It's very hard to get a sense of what effects your actions are actually having, and even harder to get a sense of what they'll do before committing to them.
Dec 11 06:33:51	13m 06s	unrogue	♥ 1	Really cute dungeon crawler with an interesting risk/reward focus! Only major complaint is that there doesn't seem to be an end goal beyond seeing how high you can get your score: I'd be a bit more motivated to try and make it further if I knew there was a defined ending at some point. Loved the little "walking down the stairs" animation btw.
Dec 11 07:02:29	28m 38s	Deadline	♥ 1	Fairly simple, but fun little game! The gameplay does start to get boring after a little while though; having powerups definitely helps add to the variety, but it's hard to stay interested after you've written a couple dozen pages.
Dec 11 07:46:03	43m 34s	LORD BASKETBALL	♥ 1	Great entry! The idea is solid, though I did feel like getting a basket was waaaaay too hard (forgiving mode probably should have been the default, haha). The crowd throwing things was the best idea in this imo; it would have been nice to see that part emphasised more with even more ridiculous amounts of increasingly distracting objects being thrown.