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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | PhilStrahl's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 26 03:26:20 | Platform Hero | ♥ 1 | Enjoyed it quite a bit. Interestingly, those two genres are quite a match, it reminded me a little of God of War on the PSP: Platforming and then quick time events in between. Liked the graphics, they look comparatively polished for the development time. My only two complaints are the jumping and that I often missed the first keys when it was my turn. Other ideas I had would be that picking up a coin would add another second to the timer, or that harder enemies would occasionally require you to push also the X key. I am well aware that that was just not possible during the jam, though :) Good game! | |
| Apr 26 03:31:25 | 5m 05s | Kelly's Marvelous Adventure | ♥ 1 | interesting take on the theme! I liked how the game asked me to prioritize my mouse clicks from second to second as a barrage of Froot Loops was fired at me as I desperately tried to click myself another sap bomb in the heat of battle :) The gameplay was straightforward, apart from the "click to change rooms" in the beginning but you explained that in the instructions so it's alright. Once I figured out that the number next to the UFOs represented their hitpoints, everything was rather clear. The only thing unclear, however, was the actual radius of the sap bomb and sometimes when bombing a UFO in fast succession, the explosion second bomb wouldn't decrease the UFOs hitpoints. Found the voices very cute, especially the evil cackle when nuking a bunch of cats :) https://youtu.be/UoxXOgp40t0 |
| Apr 26 03:37:04 | 5m 39s | Mouse Shooter Maze Invader.. Aka, Throw the cheese. | ♥ 0 | As you wrote in the description, you didn't have a lot of time, but nevertheless, you managed to finish with something working: Winning state, failing state, decent graphics, and straightforward gameplay. Of course, it's a bit basic, but the random mazes and enemy placement adds to the replayability. Maybe you could have even tried to pull the walls closer together so that navigating and dodging enemies would have been a little more challenging, but I know that you didn't have the time to. The visual effects (glow, particles, chromatic aberration) are very fitting. Also, music and sounds add to the atmosphere nicely. The only thing I don't quite understand why a mouse would shoot cheese instead of hoarding it. ;) https://youtu.be/UoxXOgp40t0 |
| Apr 26 03:45:45 | 8m 41s | Grantchester Meadows | ♥ 2 | The combination of tower defense and clicker game worked surprising well. So much, in fact, that I wonder how well those games would work on mobile in the casual market. I liked the overall presentation, it looks very coherent, and the little animations on the flags and grass are a nice touch. However, there were a few things whose effects on the gameplay I don't quite understand. What's up with the squires, knights, and farmers, etc. Do they earn me more money? Do they add to the defense? Are they stationed in the defense towers? The same thing with the alchemy lab took me a little to understand that it was the prerequisite to get access to the buttons on the left. And as my castle was getting damaged, I wondered how it takes to unlock "+Castle Health," since it constantly displayed "HEALTH FULL" despite it being not the case. Another thing that was unclear to me was how much time I had on the clicker screen. Is it random? Does it depend on my clicking speed or how well/bad the previous siege went? I just had a little too many questions. Nevertheless, it felt like pretty polished and pretty complete game. If you add the option to place towers myself or even modify the lanes a bit, I'm sure it would sell on mobile :) |
| Apr 26 03:51:29 | 5m 44s | Remote Bot | ♥ 1 | Very nice! I instantly took to the graphics as they triggered many buried memories of staring at VGA screens in text mode and move an @-sign around a dungeon ;) The test chamber is nicely designed, slowly ramping up the difficulty and I enjoyed the subtle animations such as the faces blinking. The sound was also spot on; I half expected it to come from my PC speaker ;) I found the genre-mix very original as it turned how to approach platforms on its head: It's not so much about pushing a button for an instant action but rather planning ahead first, typing fast, *and also* push a button the right moment. Overall I had quite some fun with it, well done! |
| Apr 27 23:47:48 | 43h 56m | 'Meme'bumps | ♥ 2 | Hey Aditya and Chetan! I found the focus on audio very original since that's something I tend to tackle last in my games ;) Personally, I am not too familiar (or fond of) memes, so I didn't recognize anything in particular and overall the gameplay was rather simple; a bit like playing Pacman with only my ears. Nevertheless a good concept, maybe just a little rough around the edges. |
| Apr 27 23:56:50 | 9m 02s | The Alphabet Farm | ♥ 0 | Hey, hedgy! I liked the combination of making a farming game with just text. It reminded me a lot of old mainframe games that were only played on an ASCII terminal or on print-outs. I found the gameplay fun at first, although a bit repetitive and cumbersome after a while. What would have helped me tremendously would have been numbered slots, because even with just a handful, I never knew which seeds I had planted where; and I would overwrite them. 49 slots are just waaay too many to process mentally. I liked how you represented the different growth stages of the seeds; once I had figured that out I found it very straightforward that XYZ-seeds only take three days until harvest. Oh, I had a couple of bugs, though. Once I was stuck in the buying screen, then the game wouldn't take any input, and on my first attempt I was able to plant an XYZ seed without even having one, meaning had -1 XYZ seeds in my inventory. One last thing: It would have helped me also if the selection menus would always be selectable by number OR letter, as you type a number for a choice, a character for the seed type, and another number as a value, for example. I never grew accustomed to that. But overall an interesting take on the theme! Good job! |
| Apr 28 00:04:14 | 7m 24s | Fallen Leaves | ♥ 1 | Hey @LemonBalmGames! Finally got around to playing your game (which is also in a video while I'll link as soon as it goes live). First: I loved the overall look and appearance of the game, very dream-like and soothing and Stanley looked like something I'd have expected in Black Mesa's test chamber :) The biggest problems I had was with the jumping, though, and had to give up after finding the first hidden object as I just couldn't make it to the second floating island. Later I realized that probably the "blink forward" mechanic was exactly meant to overcome that challenge, so I'd put a reminder on the screen when the player falls to their death. Or at the very least have some sort of checkpoint before the jumping. I found the idea with the riddles somewhat unexpected but quite interesting at first--until I realized it just meant to find the one object hidden in rather plain sight. So while the riddles definitely give the game some flavor, I don't think they are necessary. The troubling thing with riddles is that either you get them right away you don't (without cheating). Nevertheless: Very good and very polished entry, great atmosphere and visuals, I just didn't make it past the first island. |
| Apr 28 00:09:40 | 5m 26s | Survival Soccer | ♥ 2 | Hello there, Guilherme, Dizzy, Stamblew, Lost Beats, and Marshal! That's quite an interesting mix and I really like how different our games turned out despite both of them being based on "soccer" and "zombies" -- and I love the title card! I tried playing the game but the highest score I ever got was 15, I think it's just too hard for me. More often than not, I'd get the ball stuck in a corner while getting shot to death by the enemies as I tried to wedge it out somehow. And when I had the ball on the playfield, the goalkeeper AI was too strong for me, I never managed to score even a single goal. I think my biggest problem was that I didn't know how to craft or how to defend myself against the enemies, I just tried to avoid them and collect all the air drops, but apparently that' not how the game is played. Oh, and two thumbs up for the mysterious soccer-samba :) |
| Apr 28 00:24:59 | 15m 19s | The Heat Of Battle | ♥ 1 | Hi Charlotte! Before anything, let me express my heartfelt apologies for somehow compelling you to take part in the jam. I just needed my Yorkshire comedy fix. Another amazingly well written and very entertaining game -- I expected no less and I didn't get disappointed! I loved the premise and the amount of writing and pacing (cutting back and forth) that went into it. I've followed your progress on Twitter but I am surprised how much you put in there in the short amount of time. I mean: Even wall jumping? In an adventure game engine?! Come on! And then the whole dating-sim logic you crammed in there somehow! So I played the game for around 20 minutes (I'll post my video here once it goes live, sorry in advance for blowing the delivery of almost every line!) and came to a situation where I was just stuck, where I needed to un-couple some soldiers because in my love guru frenzy I was declaring anybody and everybody a soulmate as soon as possible. So let's note this down as "user error: plays game wrong (quite possibly)". By the way, it said the version was 1.00 on the title screen, so I guess I didn't play the patched one. Nevertheless, the verdict stands: "Press X to apologize" Brilliant! 10/10. BAFTA 2019 finalist. |
| May 3 15:55:54 | 135h 30m | Seaman Sleuth | ♥ 3 | Hah! Had some good laughs with it and enjoyed the writing and the story that the end was quite jarring. Here's also my video where I'm trying my best at doing funny voices. One day late, Jupi beat me again to it! ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 15:57:41 | 1m 47s | Soccer Stacker | ♥ 0 | Hah! At first, I thought I didn't get it but I think it's hilarious how you showed through gameplay that some genres are incompatible for a reason. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:08:49 | 11m 08s | ASCII Space Commander | ♥ 0 | Wow, now that was something different. I had quite some problems with it, though, mostly because I felt like I wasn't given a chance to get used to the unusual control . Before I even figured out what was going on, I was dead. Multiple times. And then I died some more. But I can see how much went into it, never thought I'd play a scrolling space game in a console! I also liked the attention to details such as the visual countdown on the guns or the little jets when moving in a direction. It also was slightly buggy on my end since I never managed to take a single shot, but that could also be a user error on my part. So overall I'd say it has potential but it needs to ease the players in with some kind of tutorial or first mission. This is how I'd design it: First, you are given a visible field on the grid to move to, maybe just something 5 cells east of the starting position, so players can learn how to move and how to stop. Then I'd have them move to a target range with passive, immovable targets to practice coordinate based shooting. The first enemy encounter I'd make also very simple, where the player would need to position themselves with the enemy shots doing little damage. Upon destroying them, they'd drop some cash/XP/cargo you can pick up by flying over it. Repeat this some more but balance it in a way that either a) the player has a chance to win a fight if they make one typing mistake, or b) that players can earn enough cash to purchase stronger shields, weapons, etc. Sorry for the lengthy post, so here's a video of me getting very annoyed ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:11:39 | 2m 50s | Super Slime Slasher Ultra | ♥ 4 | Finally got around posting the video! Very nice and polished game. My only gripes were with the controls (I played it on an XBOX360 gamepad) and that the gameplay doesn't offer anything new after a while. Apart from that, you can ship it as is, pretty much, the presentation is very polished and there's even a talking tutorial! Here's my attempt at playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:12:50 | 1m 11s | Gender Circles | ♥ 2 | Hi Ekko! Here's the video of me playing Gender Circle. Had some frantic fun and really liked the art direction. Good job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:16:04 | 3m 14s | 12Slash | ♥ 1 | Enjoyed the concept very much, after getting used to I played it very conservatively, only moving in for the kill. The presentation is basic but very clear. The only thing that was a little annoying was that I couldn't destroy the stuck-blocks, as you call them, and in later levels, those were literally all over the place. Also, getting hurt by being stuck outside became an issue, personally I'd have preferred some walls around the playfield. Btw, here's my playing the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:20:44 | 4m 40s | ULTROÏD | ♥ 1 | Hi geckoo! Love the glow and the visual effects very much, the game shows a lot of feedback and is extremely clear to read which helps a lot. The angular/round shapes are a nice new touch to the old Arkanoid gameplay, as now the ball bounces around even more, and it's not about trying to get a lot of points by breaking the colored block. Instead, it's trying to avoid them. The downside is that in later levels it feels a bit random; as a player, I can't influence the bullet enough, no matter how well I play, so it's more a question of luck than one of skill. Granted, I played rather poorly. ;) Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:24:48 | 4m 04s | Walter's Well | ♥ 3 | Hi Marcus! Congrats on your first LD game and on finishing! I liked how it was a game of managing the position of the mouse cursor while keeping track of the surroundings. Also, the tutorial messages were a nice and welcome touch, teaching the player in the game how to play it is always very much appreciated :) On the downside, I had a lot of problems with placing the platforms where I wanted them, it seems as if it's very glitchy. Also, the separation between background and foreground could have been better, as on the second screen I didn't realize there was an exit to the right at first. Nevertheless, solid first entry, just a bit too hard for me, I got stuck at the "elevator" part... Here's a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:32:20 | 7m 32s | TypeRacer | ♥ 1 | Now that was a frantic typing experience! Never thought that this would get me break a sweat ;) I noticed that it got harder the further you managed to go and would have liked if there was some kind of breathing room. Here are some ideas I just came up with: For example, after 10 laps, (or some other amount) you'd make a pit stop and make some changes, depending on how well you've played: The faster you type a word, the more credits you'd get which you can spend in such a pit stop. There you could change the length of the words (but shot words don't reward you with many credits) or have longer words (faster, more points, but easier to mess up). You could also buy a consumable item that ignores 5 typing mistakes, or another one that allows you to skip a word. Oh btw, here's a video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:35:14 | 2m 54s | Birbo the Game! | ♥ 0 | Who would've thought that FPS and tower defense would work that well? I enjoyed playing it and didn't find it that difficult (which is fine because I suck at most jam games). Here's my attempt at the game with some thoughts on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:39:11 | 3m 57s | Shadowscape | ♥ 1 | Love the idea! It's very simple and elegant, and probably it's really easy to crank out new levels. Just let the player find the projection point! ;) Sound and the atmosphere was a mix of chill and engaging and once I have figured it out it became quite addictive. Polybius anyone? ;) The only thing I couldn't get used to was the mouse look for some reason. I would have enjoyed it much better had there been the usual FPS-style mouselook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:43:39 | 4m 28s | Dancing Club Bloodlust | ♥ 0 | Now that was a very polished experience and the look of the overworld reminded me quite a bit of Mario + Rabbids. You even had a nicely drawn intro! The gameplay itself was a bit too hard for me, never managed to get to the castle, but probably that's down to not being used to the layout of the button-lanes. Also, thank you for the save-feature! It saved the day as my camera was running out of juice. So the game has a stunning amount of content and polish for that small a team. Good job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:46:06 | 2m 27s | Fluff Piece | ♥ 2 | That was nice. Really liked how many cutscenes you managed to cram in there ;) The jumping and shooting felt fine to me, I liked that it didn't feel to floaty. As you mentioned it's pretty clear that you ran out of time on it, but while it might be a bit short, it was complete with a beginning and an end :) Good job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 3 16:51:27 | 5m 21s | Speed Shooter | ♥ 1 | Hey spenn. I liked the idea but had a lot of questions as I was playing. E.g. that I needed to reload my weapon (which really took longer than I'd have liked) and it wasn't clear that shooting the faces covering their eyes actually sends your car back! To me, the combination of the genres wasn't quite there, as the moving cars essentially acted just as a progress bar for how well you do in the shooter, so there's still some potential there in how to combine the genres a little bit more. What comes to mind is would be to change between driving and shooting at the push of a button, so when you're driving the shooter plays automatically but only if you stay on the road at top speed. When that get's too hard, you switch back to the shooter, for example. Just somtheing along those lines. Here's a video of my playing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md_wmDhaD_w |
| May 5 22:15:28 | 53h 24m | No-Brain Jogging | ♥ 0 | Sadly, I can't get it to run :( notice.png |
| May 8 17:03:52 | 66h 48m | Puzzle Golf | ♥ 1 | This time it also worked with my screen recorder! Had a great time with it, very good concept and polished execution! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:10:08 | 6m 16s | Interdenominational BROwS | ♥ 2 | Ha! I had to play it as a singleplayer game (#sad) but still managed to get the hang of it while I listened to the dev commentary. Regarding mechanics, it was pretty simple, much like a tutorial level, but there's quite some potential with the players having different abilities. In later levels (should you decide to keep working on it) I see some MC Escher like architecture for the top-down player, for example. Maybe a mix of action and puzzling would be fun too, such as figuring out a way to progress, then some frantic shooting and then some exploration for both players. Okay, I'll stop now before I try to turn it into a Zelda game ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:16:09 | 6m 01s | STEW'M | ♥ 1 | Enticing gameplay and I found the walking ingredients hilarious :) I just wasn't too happy with the controls, they felt not "snappy" enough, but that's probably my personal experience. Excellent work on the mini-map, btw, that helped a lot :) Another thing that threw me off a little was that picking up ingredients takes half a second of them scaling down, so I never was confident that I picked them up. Maybe speed it up to a couple of frames, having a sound play, and/or a little particle effect would make it a little clearer. As for the mechanics, how about allowing the player to cook some items, such as heath-packs (but you must get the right ingredients!), or speed increase, etc.? That way the shooting gameplay would interact a little more with the cooking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:20:00 | 3m 51s | Cardcade | ♥ 3 | Very solid entry!! Had great fun playing, even though it took me a while to figure out that/how I had to drop some cards after picking up new ones. It confused me a bit that this is possible at all times, I assumed you can only do it at a cardcade machine. I adored the 80s soundtrack and the overall presentation was very good. Maybe the font on the cards was a bit hard to read, but that's minor stuff. If you want to watch me make it to the first boss (barely), have a look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:25:58 | 5m 58s | The not-so Correct Platformer | ♥ 1 | Very original interpretation of a "3d" platformer :) I liked the minimalist presentation (reminded me of Atari 2600 games) and the pumping soundtrack. Your bullets were a bit hard to read against the green background in the first level, I would have liked them in bright blue or even white, just so that I could see them better in frantic fights. The jumping mechanic is interesting, but it appears very linear, and that made it a bit hard to judge when I was reaching the apex in a jump. I didn't make it far (see video below) so I can't comment much on the content, but the first boss was already a bit hard for me. I would have enjoyed a health bar for it or some other way to tell if I was getting close to taking it down or not. The version I played was the one before you adjusted the controls, so the stuff I am complaining about is probably fixed anyway ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:35:37 | 9m 39s | Survival Dash | ♥ 1 | A very polished experience, that's clear right from the start! And once I started playing, I realized that there's a lot of complexity to what appears to be just a simple runner game; especially for a PICO-8 game! So the presentation was gorgeous and polished, maybe the screen was a bit busy with all the displays and notifications. What overwhelmed me, in the end, was the crafting. Without any guidance, I didn't manage to figure out what torches or arrows did, only that I needed to craft some food to fill up my hearts. So considering how much I was occupied with jumping and gathering stuff, traversing the crafting menus with their sub-menus overwhelmed me a bit and I resorted to just randomly hitting the arrow keys, hoping for a boost ;) I know how tight time is in a jam, but the game would benefit from some tutorial that gradually introduces new crafting recipes and their effects. Or at the very least, please spell it out somewhere, because I feel that my understanding of the mechanics is only skin-deep. So overall: Exquisite little game with a lovely soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:47:05 | 11m 28s | Rainy Day | ♥ 1 | The mood is there for sure (lighting, moody rain ambiance) and it looks very pleasing, overall. But sadly, the game is not for me, I grew increasingly frustrated and didn't manage to get the ball far. Sometimes it just disappeared randomly, and I had to start over... :( Also, the bomb and explosion sound could have benefitted from just being bigger, right now it's just a minor annoyance like someone throwing firecrackers at you and not the "horrible, gruesome explosion." On the other hand, it's good that it only takes a second because if I had to wait a 10-second long cutscene each time before starting over would have annoyed me tremendously. ;) What's a shame though is that I can't freely look around, as personally, that's what I would have associated with a "passive" game, where it's just about taking in the scenery. You did a lot of modeling, texturing and shading that is not in the game; the table has a big drawer, there are hills and trees outside, etc. which is quite a shame, as I can see that on the screenshots. If you want to watch me get a bit annoyed, I got you covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:50:28 | 3m 23s | Elite Beat Zombygons | ♥ 2 | Wow, what a ride! Had a grand old time playing it, despite completely forgetting about the option to trigger the special with the right-mouse button. In the tutorial, I completely missed that info, as I was so focused on moving to the beat, that I had no resources left to read ;) If you want to watch me survive against all odds, then check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 17:58:37 | 8m 09s | Death Fog Dash | ♥ 1 | Wow, it took me far too long to understand what to do, but I managed to figure it out after a few tries ;) At first I was under the assumption that I needed a letter from either side of the gaps and was puzzled as to why that didn't work. Also, in the video, I misquoted the title of the game for half a dozen times until I realized it -- despite reading it! xD Apart from those aforementioned personal issues, I found it very original and the presentation was very polished and concise. Also, the 3rd person view with the mini-map is a nice touch and gives the game a more claustrophobic mood. Great job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjvukr54GQ |
| May 8 18:04:48 | 6m 11s | Bouncy Bullets | ♥ 1 | Hey Rohan! Interesting concept with limiting the number of bounces, reminded me a little bit of [ULTROID](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/ultroid) and [Puzzle Golf](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/puzzle-golf). Also, the moving platforms and the switches were a nice touch. For later levels (should you want to keep working on it) you could introduce additional enemies that move around like the platforms or have a different kind of bullets (e.g., ballistic bullets that are affected by gravity). Just an idea. What I was missing was some background to be able to use as a reference when lining up my shots, just anything that's not a solid color. Oh and I included your game in my final series of playing LD41 games: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/puzzle-golf |
