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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Florian van Strien's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 12 23:38:36 | Mail Room | ♥ 1 | Nice idea and the game was fun to play! The powerups really helped to make it more fun. It did become a bit repetitive after a few play sessions, but I don't think that's a big problem for a jam game. I didn't notice the mail room shrinking the first time I played, but it does actually seem to affect the game, so the theme has been used nicely. One time I did end up under a big pile of mail and couldn't really do anything anymore: bigpileofmail.png While this was quite fun to see, especially as the room shrunk further, it was a bit less fun that I could no longer do anything useful in the level. But maybe that was my punishment for playing badly. I liked the graphics; nice and colorful! While I agree with EvanM that the movement speed could have been a bit higher, I really liked the detail that you move slower when you carry something. | |
| Aug 13 00:17:52 | 39m 16s | Boxed | ♥ 1 | Pretty nice game! I really like the graphics; they might be a bit simple but work really well. The game is very relaxing, but also a bit repetitive. I stopped after level 2 because I began to feel a little bit bored. Maybe you could solve this by introducing some new mechanics after a while, like different boxes for different customers, and maybe building up pressure a bit faster. The controls could also be improved as you said; I think one button for picking up/dropping and walking would've worked better. It was not a big problem, though, and overall, the game was still fun and relaxing to play. I liked how you could use a box to push other boxes towards the customers! |
| Aug 13 09:47:49 | 9h 29m | Block Smash - Ludum Dare 42 Entry | ♥ 0 | When I started playing, I thought the game would be quite boring, but fortunately, that was not the case! It does start out a bit slowly, but after a little while you're mashing on the arrow keys, trying to avoid the ever bigger blocks that come at you. There's menu music, but no in game music - why? Also, I quite liked the graphics, except the flashing blocks - I would tone down that effect a lot. |
| Aug 13 10:19:11 | 31m 22s | Running out of Keys | ♥ 2 | Interesting idea, and good execution! Overall, I really like the game, but there are some things that could have been improved: The game was quite hard for me, maybe you could've added some simpler levels as an introduction. Right now, you already introduce no less than three special mechanics just in the first level (bombs, points you have to take in a certain order and portals) and then two more in the second level. It gets a bit overwhelming. Also, it seems a bit unfair that other blocks suddenly appear in the third level, making it necessary to restart just because you took a key earlier than you needed to. I always like to plan my moves before playing and this made that impossible, just like the keys that didn't indicate the door they belong to. Also, I would've preferred if you simply prevented the ship from going to keys you'd already been to instead of having to restart the whole level, especially as it was sometimes hard to keep track of where you are. To end with some positive things: The graphics were really good and crisp, it's nice that there's sound and I thought "Ground Ctrl" was funny. 🙂 |
| Aug 13 10:36:34 | 17m 23s | Void Knight vs PEST | ♥ 2 | The game looks really good and has nice audio and a nice, dark mood. The combat was fun, but there doesn't seem to be that much variation in enemies and gameplay. That's to be expected for a compo game though, especially with so much care put into the graphics and sound. Great job overall! |
| Aug 13 11:13:52 | 37m 18s | Colony | ♥ 3 | The art was really amazing! The audio was good, too. I think the gameplay was quite fun, but could have used some improvements. I understand the issue others have with the controls. You fall very quickly, plus there doesn't seem to be a jump grace period, or maybe only a very short one. I also think failing is much too punishing; having to restart the whole game after just three times is really too much. You have to repeat a lot of easy stuff just to get back to the harder part. I would even say that checkpoints within the level would've been a good idea. Overall, great game and there's even still time to improve the controls a bit in the jam, which I would really recommend. |
| Aug 13 15:18:03 | 4h 04m | Overpopulation | ♥ 0 | I like the graphics and back story. It's also nice that you generate a random universe, although it doesn't seem to matter too much for the gameplay. The game is quite easy and not very complex, but fortunately you only have to launch three times, so it doesn't overstay its welcome. I think it would've been a bit better if the instruction manual had been available in-game. Good job overall! |
| Aug 13 23:27:25 | 8h 09m | Dystopia Tycoon | ♥ 1 | I really like games like this, and this one doesn't disappoint. It's fun to play and gets harder after a while, which is nice. I liked that you really get punished if you try to build up too fast, using too many resources and too much power, but can still recover with some lives lost because of the $500 you get each time and because it repeats the same mission. I thought the graphics look pretty nice too, although I would've preferred them to be a bit less gray in places (like the background). But hey, it is a dystopia simulator. :) I also would've liked a few more building options, but maybe they are unlocked further into the game than I got. |
| Aug 13 23:37:00 | 9m 35s | Greenie Goes Right | ♥ 1 | While quite simple, this game is really fun, and deceptively challenging. I think the audio could've been improved a bit, but the graphics worked really well. Good job! |
| Aug 14 15:15:56 | 15h 38m | Small Pack | ♥ 2 | I really like the graphics. You've opted out of graphics so have probably not made them (all) yourself, but you've still selected the right ones to make the game look really good. I also like the slow down when you shoot an arrow, it makes it feel nicer and also a bit more doable. I still think the hitbox should've been bigger, especially for targets in the early game. In general, I think the game was too hard and deaths were too punishing. I'm not great at platformers, but I can do most of them okay after a little while, and this became somewhat frustrating quite quickly. Having to restart completely after being hit once is very harsh, especially as you then have to hit the target again (always taking a few tries) which makes restarts not fast at all. I would give the player a chance to properly see some of the cool mechanics of the game before introducing more difficulty, and add some checkpoints too. As it was, I didn't get too experience the inventory management much at all before giving up. If I had at least seen some of the cool mechanics you probably have first, I might have spent more time learning the game. Also, the one item I did find didn't have much of an explanation. I could guess it, but it would have better if you'd put in a quick description or at least give the player some more space to experiment with it instead of such a small platform. To end on a positive note, because the game is actually not bad at all: the platforming feels good, everything works well and I really think this could be a good game with some minor changes to the difficulty. |
| Aug 14 16:19:00 | 1h 03m | Writespace | ♥ 3 | The game looks and sounds absolutely amazing, and the idea is great. The puzzles are quite good too and it is fun for a while. After that though, I found the gameplay becoming just a little bit boring. Most of the levels were not too hard to figure out before playing and after that it was mainly counting characters to type the direction in the right place. Maybe a few new mechanics (like other magic words to type) would've helped. I quit before the end though (in a level where I would've had to redo a large part of the level just because I forgot to place the right characters somewhere), so maybe they are there. Still really nicely done overall and a great entry to the jam! |
| Aug 14 18:51:08 | 2h 32m | No Room! | ♥ 1 | The game initially didn't work because the OpenAL dll was not found; I could simply download and install it but I think it would be better to include it. There were more DLLs I did not have for the debug version, but the normal one worked fine with that one extra DLL. The game itself was quite interesting and fun. I liked the "only one item at a time" mechanic in principle, but I didn't like the "learn the items" part of it very much. I don't think having to play the same rooms all over again is a fun mechanic. I think it would have worked much better if the chests were transparent, maybe with a few more rooms and more interesting "what item do I take", "do I take this bad item or defeat an extra enemy" or "in what order do I do these things" puzzles. The sound was pretty good, but the music a bit repetitive after a while. The graphics were quite nice. |
| Aug 14 21:06:14 | 2h 15m | Spacebars | ♥ 1 | Nice interpretion of the theme. The game itself is fun to play. I don't really like pixel perfect jumps, but at least they're easy to pull of here as you can glide quite slowly. Retrying could be a bit quicker. I like the idea of the menu in principle, but it gets a bit tiring after a while. Also, I'd like an option to retry during the level when you know you've already used too many jumps. Double jump is very weird here like @sekwah41 said. If you press space twice quickly, you go very fast, but if you use it at the top of your jump (like you normally need to in games) you don't go high enough. This might be a mechanic, but it's not explained and actually got me stuck for a little while. I do like how pretty much everything is a keyboard key, it really has a nice theme going. Also cool that you added the source code even though it's a jam game by the way! Not going to use it myself, but it's a cool thing to do anyway. |
| Aug 15 17:17:34 | 20h 11m | What To Do When Your Drive Is Full | ♥ 1 | The game looks interesting and is quite fun too, but it could use some usability improvements. This probably has to do with the little time you had to make it, but I will still mention some: - Please add a next level button. Going back to the main menu takes you out of the flow, and you have to remember which level you played last too. - It took me a little while to find out that I could click on in- and outputs to see the file type. I think the main issue is that you always show the tile you have currently selected with full transparency below the cursor over the tile you're looking at, even if your current action isn't "build this here" at all. If you simply hide this tile while hovering over a hard drive/input this would be clearer. It's also not possible to deselect something (could be right click for example). - It's not possible to rotate a tile after you placed it. This would be a good feature to have. - Please allow replacing a tile by simply clicking once instead of removing+adding. - I think in-game explanation is better than having to read all the info here. The graphics were pretty good, although there was a bit of a strange mix between pixel graphics (the tiles for example) and full-resolution buttons and font. There were some interesting levels already, but as you already mentioned they were not very challenging yet. The level Some looked quite interesting, but in the end I didn't use any of these fancy zippers there at all. I think it is very impressive to make this with level editor and all in less than two days, and I really think this could be a very good game with some minor improvements and of course a lot more levels. |
| Aug 15 18:16:28 | 58m 54s | Space WithoutSpace | ♥ 1 | Unfortunately, I didn't like the gameplay very much as it is right now. I think the main issue is the launch button that seems to re- or deactivate at random moments, or maybe simply on a timer. This is probably a gameplay decision, but it doesn't seem to work out very well in my opinion. Basically, it makes it feel like the controls are unresponsive. You start just mashing the button until it works, which completely defies any gameplay this would add. You can only launch when you're in the correct direction to a planet anyway, and there are the asteroids too, so I don't think an additional timing element is needed. If you simply remove this, I think the game could be pretty fun. I like the idea of the asteroids blocking you as you progress, but it didn't work very well together with the mechanic above. I think this would work a lot better and also make it feel the theme has been applied better if that mechanic was to be removed. To end on a more positive note, the graphics were good and I really think this could be a good game with some gameplay tweaking. Also, it could be pretty cool as a competitive multiplayer game. |
