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Feedback comments for LD42
BoltKey's games and stats for all events →
| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | BoltKey's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 12 23:50:41 | Celestial Lacuna | ♥ 1 | Nice clean bullet hell. The entropy system took me a while to understand. There is nothing super innovative or new, and the use of the theme is quite meh. | |
| Aug 13 00:02:23 | 11m 42s | Gunventory | ♥ 0 | I love the idea. I don't think I understand the column clearing system correctly. I though that I should make full rows just like in Tetris, but I had full row (or in this case column), and the guns didn't reload. Then, some guns reloaded seemingly randomly. The idea is very innovative and fun, the game not so much unfortunately. No sounds, gets quite repetetive, and the line clearing is seemingly bugged (or I don't understand it correctly, could you please explain it?). The difficulty curve was very slow for me, it started getting challenging in the last 30 seconds. What a shame about the audio. It would add a lot to the experience. |
| Aug 13 00:40:10 | 37m 47s | Floodtown | ♥ 1 | The graphics and overall look and feel are really nice. After a few tries and actually finding out how stuff works (exact production of buildings and bonuses), I got what I think was a decent run with score of 25466. I would love it if I saw which bonuses are going to appear next. |
| Aug 13 00:59:32 | 19m 22s | Sirkulphage | ♥ 1 | Just to let you know, using third party sounds (or really any that you didn't make during the jam) is forbidden in COMPO. I think you should either switch to JAM or upload version without sound (although I think they are nice). You should at least opt-out of rating in Audio if nothing else. Also, you are missing out on so much fun making sound effects! To the game. Classic concept, but in interesting and new theme. I didn't really understand what was going on when I got infected and whether it was a good or bad thing. Anyway, I got 261624 after several tries. |
| Aug 13 11:30:07 | 10h 30m | Binary Odyssey | ♥ 0 | The gameplay is not very innovative or fun, gets very repetitive after a while. I got negative space on my disk - I guess I won? |
| Aug 13 13:32:58 | 2h 02m | Memories .inc | ♥ 1 | Great atmospheric music, good job! A bit confusing at first, but eventually I got it. |
| Aug 13 16:45:43 | 3h 12m | MondrianCraft | ♥ 1 | I like it! Nice little relaxing puzzle. I still have no idea what are the rules for what can be merged and what cannot. Is that the point? I would like it better if I knew the combinations and had to carefully decide what to combine when so that I don't lock myself out. |
| Aug 13 16:50:31 | 4m 48s | Ludum Dare to be Messy! | ♥ 0 | I got an error during the loading screen. A TDR has been detected. The application must close. Error code: 7 It may be an error on my side, but I did not experience it with any other games. |
| Aug 13 18:54:01 | 2h 03m | Postman | ♥ 0 | Very neat idea and execution! It looks really nice! The controls were for some reason very unresponsive for me. My W got registered only about 70% of the time. And picking up boxes was quite annoying too - why can't I pick up a box that I am standing on, but I can pick up a box that is on the other side of the screen? |
| Aug 13 19:36:04 | 42m 03s | Rainforest | ♥ 2 | I love the game, the idea and the execution. Graphics are great, like everyone said. And I loved the comments of the worker. There however was one detail that made it very frustrating for me and drew away most of the enjoyment. That is that I have to be precise with my clicking when loading boxes - especially when the screen moves. Maybe it would not be such problem if the screen was still. It felt like the main part of how much score I get was how accurate my clicking was when loading the boxes. This game, in my opinion, should reward time management and quick planning, rather than first-person shooter skills. I would give each box much bigger range where it can be clicked and make them glow when the mouse is near enough. It would be nice to have them glow green when you can pick them up, yellow when you can't reach them and red when they cannot fit your cart. If you made those changes, I would love to return to the game and hunt the high-scores. --- It took me quite a while to understand that the numbers on the boxes were their size. I thought I had to read the number on each box and based on that deliver it to the correct shelf. If instead of a number you had a picture of the correct box above the shelves, it would be much clearer. --- I would prefer mouse controls for movement rather than wasd, but that may be personal taste. --- Also, the high scores didn't work for me. |
| Aug 13 20:13:19 | 37m 15s | Oddblock | ♥ 1 | I really liked it! It is clean, simple, compact. And challenging. There are obviously some tiny problems, like lack of time and score display, but I see you are very well aware of all those. The core gameplay is very well polished. |
| Aug 13 23:35:51 | 3h 22m | Super Responsible Parent | ♥ 1 | As always, the game is perfect. Very fun level design, very fun gameplay, nice polish. Absolutely on-spot audio. I really hope for you to get some top 5s. You deserve them. |
| Aug 14 00:41:22 | 1h 05m | Compactory | ♥ 2 | That was very fun and challenging. It took me a few runs to realize I don't need to actually push the box into the deposit space, so I could have multicolored belts. I then tried the strategy of just drawing one big circle around the edges just to find out that doesn't work. After about 15 to 20 runs I finally won. Towards the end, I was pretty much just hoping that the new routes work with the belts I built so far. Also, my factory wasn't *technically* fully functional, because I had to manually split a belt once in a while. Aaand, I just found out about the possibility to pause the game. That made things a bit easier :). It would be nice to have all the controls on the left side of the screen. I got another very nice factory which works cleanly and rigidly. But why, oh why does it pause when it says that my factory is functional! I want to see my baby move! I want my number of boxes go up indefinitely! What did I make the factory for if not to make a number go big?! I didn't really find a good use for splitters - they just mess things up. You didn't use them in your example either. Also, kudos for small download size. That's why I don't even care about the lack of sounds. |
| Aug 14 02:23:02 | 1h 41m | Happy Space | ♥ 1 | Loved the sound effects and overall style. I definitely prefer this over 8-bit. Level design was nice. Game was a bit short though. |
| Aug 14 13:15:57 | 10h 52m | Bad Trains | ♥ 1 | Already said my comments in the Elysia stream. Level design is extremely clever - solving the puzzles was very satisfying. And I am still stuck at 13. |
| Aug 14 14:01:13 | 45m 16s | Seasaw | ♥ 6 | Highscore! Ping me if anyone dethrones me and wants to challenge me! That was one of the most intense experiences so far in this LD. I got very lucky with my grabs early, and knew that run was it. I had one last spot empty on the very left side of the boat with score of about 2050 and 15 seconds left on the clock. I started grabbing garbage. I knew I needed value of at least 150 to hit the top. I then grabbed a ~$180 fish but accidentally dropped it. I knew I had to stay calm and hope for the best. There were 5 seconds left on the clock. Then it happened. A $198 whale in my hand. I immediately put it in the left most spot without second thought - I should have held it until the last second. I placed it and freaked out. My ship started to tip over. With about 2 seconds left on the clock, the ship headed to its doom. Those two seconds were so intense - will it make it? Will it tip over? I didn't know. I screamed "SURVIVE! SURVIVE PLEASE!" At that point, I knew I had the highscore. The ship just had to survive. I think that half a second more would be enough for my ship to sink. Then the victory screen appeared and I was so happy that I made it. --- The game is very good. All the aspects are so nice, it plays very well. And of course the lovely *splash* screen. And the puns. I am very sparse with my 5/5 ratings, but I think this game is the one that gets 5/5 overall and fun from me. |
| Aug 14 16:09:31 | 2h 08m | Hell's Highway | ♥ 0 | What is the goal of the game? It is very unclear. |
| Aug 15 08:12:42 | 16h 03m | Defragment VR | ♥ 0 | One of my initial ideas was defragmentation too, but in more light and 2d style. Glad to finally see someone else use this theme, but I don't have VR sadly. |
| Aug 15 10:04:44 | 1h 52m | Quicksort | ♥ 3 | I did almost exactly the same game for LD 37 (one room), just to give up and start over :) crcr.gif |
| Aug 15 14:02:35 | 3h 57m | Beat These Games! | ♥ 1 | While I really like and enjoy the game, I think there are some fundamental flaws. First, the wrapping game design. I didn't like the system of penalties for failing games. It is frustrating. That may be the point, and it makes it more thematic, but it takes the fun away from the game. There comes a point (after 21 completed games) where the speed is so fast it is impossible to keep up. I don't think it is a good design decision to make things harder when dying. Penalty for dying too much should be game over, not making the game impossible to actually complete. Maybe if the game speed was based not on games complete, but games remaining? Meaning when you die and get GLs into your drawer, it gets slower again? That way, it would be always possible to complete even on the first run. Minigames sometimes were impossible, particularly breakout, where the ball went directly into one of the lower corners. That's pretty frustrating when it is one of your last games. Also, I didn't like the transition between instructions and minigames. I had no idea when the switch happens. Especially when the instructions last different amount of time for different minigames. This was frustrating particularly in the acid minigame. I would like for example if there were instructions with a countdown timer in form of a bar or a circle, and the initial minigame state would be visible in the background. |
| Aug 15 18:49:13 | 4h 46m | Red Square | ♥ 1 | Nice little puzzle game, I liked it! I don't think speedrun really makes sense in puzzle games like this. Nice level design, I enjoyed solving some of the puzzles! I found the sound effects to be a bit annoying and distracting. |
| Aug 15 19:17:32 | 28m 19s | Blocks | ♥ 1 | Simple idea and okay execution. In a runner-style short survival game that is controlled exclusively with a keyboard, it is very wrong to have to click *twice* and *with your mouse* on *buttons that have no feedback* to restart. Also, both buttons are literally the only clickable thing on the screen, so it could as well at least be "click anywhere to continue". Returning to the starting screen is so unnecessary. I know it was probably a bit simpler to restart the whole game including the title screen, but it makes it so much more annoying to restart. It is very little detail, but these details can add up in bigger games and can spoil the experience although the core game can be perfect. Making it in 3d is just unnecessary for this concept imo. |
| Aug 15 19:38:19 | 20m 47s | Flood | ♥ 1 | I like it! It felt quite thematic. I would love if there were more flood levels and the water would rise gradually. I found an exploitable bug - if you keep alternating between two screens, your food and health will stay at max but the time will keep counting. If you get up on the big elevated piece that spans over two screens, you can use this for infinite time. The arrow and bow/rocks didn't feel too powerful, perhaps I just suck at using them. It felt wrong that I could not shoot from the high ground to the low ground. Chaotic movement of the foxes was a bit annoying :D. |
| Aug 15 19:48:47 | 10m 28s | Ode to Resilience | ♥ 1 | I may be badly missing something but there's a part which I just cannot get through. "and jump more pitfalls and dash through [something something] your home to". I always hit the "your" with my head while dashing and fall into oblivion. |
| Aug 15 19:56:00 | 7m 13s | Viral | ♥ 0 | I really liked it! Fun light theme, clever gameplay. It took me way too long to realize I could scroll the windows. |
| Aug 15 20:00:18 | 4m 18s | Space Equations | ♥ 1 | Alright concept, clean execution. The "pop" sound was too sharp and not very satisfying. |
| Aug 15 21:15:28 | 1h 15m | Master The Space | ♥ 1 | Got 670 after few tries, Initially, I was very confused. I had no idea what was the goal, what are the controls, nothing. And no, I didn't read the game description here on LDjam or itch.io. You should not expect people to do that. I then opened up the "help" section of the game, but that didn't contain instructions on how to play the game either - just the controls which were of not much help. I then randomly got pieces of same color together and they cleared out. The game ramped up very slowly. I think one run of a game in this format should take about 1 minute to play through, 3 if you are good. My runs lasted usually around 6 minutes, which is just far too much. I cannot think of a better example right now, but a game from this LD [Seasaw](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/seasaw), which I think is in the similar style of "time-limit-based high-score puzzle action game" does this really well - I just wanted to keep returning and try to up my high-score. The time limit there is set to exactly 1 minute, and it is just enough. I know setting hard time limit may not work with this game, but you could set other things to get closer to that mark. I think time bonus for placing pieces could get smaller (or if it does - get smaller faster). Another thing - feedback. That is an important thing in most games. You need to let the player know when he did things right and reward him. Placed a tile adjacent to same color? Play a small rewarding sound and make the tiles glow a bit! Player cleared some blocks? Play a sound, make the blocks explode, add fireworks! It may seem like it takes long time, but for example graphical effect of coins in my game took me exactly 30 minutes to make, and it was so much just because I wanted fancy stuff like gravity and the coin rotation (which you don't need). And I think they look alright and reward the player. Also, the "active" block should be visually distinguishable from the others. There is a great talk [Juice it or lose it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg) that explains these concepts very nicely. Next, the timer. I think it is an important enough timer that it should be more visible. Also, visual timers > text timers. A bar at the bottom that counts down until the next black hole. Blocks at the edges slowly getting darker. Pie-chart timer in the background. A timer with at least one decimal place displayed just above the block. The possibilities are endless. Also, this way it would be more obvious that you get extra time for placing blocks. I didn't really get the "story". It was very unnecessary and didn't make sense. Black hole... but it is around the play area? It doesn't even attract anything. And... I make planets... which are not round? From pieces that randomly appear from nowhere? I would just scrape it. It is obviously duct-taped to an abstract game because "like, space, get it?". Phew, that was a lot of things to cover. It may seem like I didn't like the game, but I really enjoyed it! The core idea is very fun and engaging. Hope I helped. |
| Aug 15 21:49:27 | 33m 59s | Alive | ♥ 0 | Unfortunately the game was running at about 10 fps for me so I stopped trying after 2 runs. I wanted to cheat and see what the game looks like but apparently I need the paid version of the Clickteam fusion engine? Anyway, I really like the atmosphere - from an unsuspecting everyday commuter to a desperate fighter for life in mere seconds. |
| Aug 15 22:14:23 | 24m 56s | Running Space | ♥ 0 | Ok, I rage quit after dying just before the end of level 6 for like 10th time. I found it unfair that the robots could shoot through walls but I could not. Also, the extra weapons didn't feel too much more powerful than just my basic pistol. The controls were very hard, but that's because I am not used to that control mechanic. Great work with the graphics for a compo game, they look really nice. |
| Aug 15 23:08:11 | 53m 48s | The Void | ♥ 0 | I completed sector 19 with total score of over 54 000 and the game froze and then crashed wiping my progress upon clicking the "next sector" button. ☹️. I absolutely love the game. Usually, attempts at real time strategy games for LD fall flat for me, as the decisions get easy and it all is just eh, but this one was pretty good. But boy, would I kill for a pause. I understand that modern rts mechanics like control groups are out of scope, but you should replace those with pause. After around level 15, I was limited by how fast and accurately can I click at small objects (which I hate to do and suck at), not by my resources. It was simply frustrating to see 5 ships idle while I try and queue up as many people to rescue as I can for the one ship I have selected. And I never knew if I queued up to save the people on the planet or whether I missed by 2 pixels and didn't queue that up! It just became more fps than rts! Also, at the level start, I could not look at the whole map and carefully decide where is it optimal to build new ships and which people need evac asap. I knew the clock was ticking, fast. I just delivered the first resources I saw to the first factory I saw. It didn't feel like rts at all. I didn't optimize my resources. I would enjoy this game about 5 times more if there was a pause possibility. Please, make it happen. I know it cannot be that hard. This. Game. Needs. Pause. Everything. Else. Is. Perfect. |
| Aug 15 23:19:37 | 11m 26s | Rocket Girls | ♥ 0 | What... the hell... did I just play. This is one of the games where I would switch to porn if someone approached me, because that is easier to explain :D. Gameplay was not that interesting. But I guess that wasn't even the main goal with this game :). |
| Aug 15 23:30:55 | 11m 18s | DOS: Deletion (of) Old Stuff | ♥ 1 | Finally finished with 100 deaths flat, most of whose were on level 3, which I just could not figure out for a while. Lovely concept idea. Physics were quite wonky. What a shame there are so few levels, this idea could be much more flexed out. |
| Aug 15 23:36:17 | 5m 22s | Pick up space toys! | ♥ 1 | Man! That was so cute! That's all I have to say. |
| Aug 16 00:04:02 | 27m 45s | We Need Space! | ♥ 0 | I wanted to make something very similar for LD38. I wanted to make it strategic, like yours, but ended up skewing towards a [skill-based game based on gravity](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/earth-3568). |
| Aug 16 04:05:47 | 4h 01m | A Blob's Life | ♥ 1 | I won... I guess? I got to size 10/10, and after eating some more, the game over screen appeared. I love how it feels squishy even on the square grid. The key thing to realize was that when the pink snake eats, he is immobilized for a second, leaving enough time to mobilize to the other side of the map, sneaking just under his teeth. |
