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Local Minimum

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TimestampSince previousGameLocal Minimum's comment
Aug 11 08:29:47 Placeholder ♥ 11 'Placeholder' could almost relate to the theme! 😎
Aug 13 11:50:08 51h 20m Insufficient Space ♥ 1 First it was a bit confusing with how the rooms didn't stitch together in the expected way but when I figured that out it was just a matter of finding the path that unlocked new areas. The lighter tiles were really inviting to try and walk on, and perhaps it could have added to the fun if they weren't walls.
Aug 13 12:02:36 12m 28s Tetrolled ♥ 1 Evil and fun. I got 1400, and sometimes the game actually helped me. The only gripe I had was that dropping the pieces with space didn't always work. There should probably also be a clear way to try and play again
Aug 13 12:22:49 20m 13s Hidden Hearts ♥ 1 I managed to pick up everything except the cup, I simply could not find it. I like the idea and how the game structured as a continues story you scrolled. The interaction with the image was a bit hard though.
Aug 14 19:56:23 31h 33m Asteroidvania ♥ 0 I know the link above just says linux, but when I check on the itch-page there were versions for windows. For some reason they crash though. Says something about `Python.exe` missing.
Aug 14 20:30:37 34m 14s Writespace ♥ 4 What a brilliant puzzle. It started to get really interesting after a while but the uneven cross that perhaps is called "Dead End" was too much for me. I hope the name means it was impossible to beat, but it was still a bit evil in that case. Maybe there was some rule I hadn't figured out. Or maybe I just wasn't smart. Great fun and challenging. It would of course be even better if there was a wordlist or something so that you weren't allowed to type nonsense. The sounds for the typewriter and the graphics/music set a great mood. In general very well made and nice game.
Aug 14 20:39:54 9m 17s Polar Panic! At the Disco ♥ 3 I enjoyed myself even if I had a hard time coming up with a successful strategy. My best bet was to get some penguins lying down on the side as that made them not jump into the water. But other than that, I think I would really have liked some way to affect the direction of the spinning of the ice. And maybe be able to make a larger wave by holding button pressed longer and/or having the force decrease slower by distance. Anyways fun and interesting game mechanics.
Aug 14 20:56:37 16m 43s Boxcorp Employee Training ♥ 0 Interesting. I really like that hand. It was really hard getting up to the right level even on the first level and when I did, I couldn't find my way out of it, I was stuck next to the roof in a corner. Like some workplace hell. 👷 The instructor voice was a really nice touch but he sounded a bit on the kind side given to working conditions that followed. I think making the first level a bit easier, making sure to reward the player for success. and giving a clearer way out of the room when reaching the goal. Maybe that voice could say something about loitering and taking breaks, and rush the player to the next room.
Aug 14 20:58:11 1m 34s Blaze From Outer Space ♥ 1 consider marking the windows download properly on itch so it's playable through the itch-app.
Aug 14 21:14:22 16m 11s Humanagement ♥ 1 I think I got about 12 as score. In the beginning it was a bit slow and then it got really quite fast towards the end. It was very hard to keep those strange character sequences in memory and then to not have access to backspace. That was evil. 😉 I think the need to use mouse/touchpad didn't add much fun to the challenge so I would opt showing all available codes without needing hover. I think it would also be more fun to the player if it was easier to keep the codes in memory. E.g. if they were three sets of three character blocks and maybe also limiting the consonant-vowel patterns in the blocks to things that frequent in many languages like `cwc`, `cww`, `wcc` and so on. That could also add the potential of randomly getting fun codes with strange meanings. It would allow for typing in the codes faster and thus staying in game longer.
Aug 15 18:57:36 21h 43m SnowOut! ♥ 1 I really like the idea of the theme and the reload mechanics. The game was way to hard for me playing with only a touchpad but it did help that I could use space to shoot at least. It would have been nice with full keyboard controls. It was hard to notice when the monsters were hurting and they were a bit too quick on the attack. So I really never got anywhere near running out of space, I just ran out of life. My suggestion would be to have the monsters take bites rather than continuous damage and have a clear effect each time that happens. Also make them easier, at least at start, so that the challenge is actually the management or space/reloads. The tiles ought also reflect how damaged they are with cracks or similar. So I like the ideas quite a lot but the feedback and balancing needs some work to make them shine.
Aug 15 19:09:49 12m 13s SpaceOut ♥ 0 Cool game. It was a bit on the hard side playing with touchpad and took a few ships getting used to all the different mechanics. Finally I managed to collect some humans but I didn't understand the saving bit until afterwards. Dying was a bit too easy and sudden. I think I would have liked to have some hurt/shield that slowly regenerated or something. Music was nice. I would have liked keyboard bindings.
Aug 17 20:08:04 48h 58m running out of emptiness ♥ 1 It was a sweet experience. I felt perhaps that some turns in the mood between the different dialogue pieces can a bit drastically, that perhaps it shouldn't have been transitional dialogue to build up for the change, but just more space. A bit of walk in the near void. On the final screen, the empty room. I would really have loved it if there was a timer outside of Bitsy monitoring that I as a player followed the hints of the instruction and let the character rest for a while and on that event just dissolve the character by shifting the color, or editing the sprite. That would of course go beyond the capabilities of core Bitsy and as someone who put that limitation on themselves I shouldn't really suggest that you had broken them 😉 Anyways a really nice game.
Aug 18 11:01:00 14h 52m Misadventures of Crowley Flatcheeks ♥ 2 really well made game. I like how the ground texture got glitchy as pieces started to break off. I managed to get to the end and it was fun all the way. The challenges came kind of naturally, which was nice. The camera control on the mouse was a bit hard to control though. It was really easy to have it spin half way around and get lost as to what direction I was heading. The other small issue was the timing of dialogue options. Well actually they weren't option, but just your replies (I think), and it made it a little odd that they appeared at the same time as the NPC started to talk. And since my option was much larger. It was often that I read my reply before I read what they were saying. So I would suggest having dialogues from the player appear in sequence to the NPC dialogues. However, in general, a very well made and good game.
Aug 18 11:31:05 30m 05s SuddenlyBunnies ♥ 0 It didn't work on Firefox for me but I could play it on Chrome. I like the glitchy chaos of the bunnies, but the game-play was way to hard for me. I read the tutorial and then I started clicking on some stuff but I didn't really understand what was happening and it didn't feel like I was doing much of a difference. My mouse button is a bit slow, so that might have been part of it. I got the impression from the tutorial that there would be carrots, but I didn't see any, so I clicked on the pie button because that one was lit up. So I would suggest slow down the initial pace and then let it build up momentum as a way to making it accessible to more player.
Aug 18 14:25:13 2h 54m Bleach Beach ♥ 1 I really like the graphics! And how the physics really didn't bother trying to imitate our world. I forgot to bother about the aim of the game, just having fun with it until probably half of the timer, then I started capturing fish. The other boats got stuck upside down to the far right, but I didn't really mind that too much.
Aug 18 14:50:11 24m 58s Mindlapse ♥ 3 Fantastic game. I really love the graphics and the humor in the audio. Really well done. My only concern is that even if the redness on the floor indicated when it was getting dangerous it was kind of hard to know exactly when the tile would disappear. So I would suggest something like the redness flashing a second or two before it would go, then I would probably have been able to be strategic about it. Now that part felt a bit unfair. It was also a little bit hard to understand what happen as the breaking down of the tile didn't give any visual feedback. And give how well made the rest of the game was, I was really expecting it 😉. But I get, it's hard given the time restriction.
Aug 19 06:49:59 15h 59m Cloudfull ♥ 0 Really nice game. The audio was really great. The visuals nice too. The my life = my space was a good use of the theme. It got a bit too hard for me though, and part of it could be solved by the enemies shots having a bit more limited range or if you killed them by fewer shots to make it easier to get rid of them (maybe allowing them to spawn a bit more often). I realize now that maybe I was supposed to be shooting away their space rather than shooting them? As a side note, you might want to mark the download on itch as for windows so that it can be installed through the itch-app natively.
Aug 19 07:23:21 33m 22s Unfamiliar ♥ 1 It was a while since I worked in care with some of the elderly being very close to what you managed to capture here. This was a very beautiful game, sad and beautiful. I cried a bit, which happens way to seldom playing LD games. The audio, graphics and the environmental story telling in the little bits lying around was really great. The only thing I can think of from my own experiences working with dementia is that what I saw then was more frustrated, violent and angry but in your game I also didn't explore selecting those answers so maybe the game had that involuntary darker loop in it too. Anyways, very happy to have played this.
Aug 19 09:35:23 2h 12m Summer's Lease ♥ 1 I quite enjoyed this adventure. It was well written and engaging. The plot twist was kind of abrupt, but I get the need for it, wanting to stay with the theme. Perhaps there could have been some foreshadowing sprinkled earlier on, though I'm not sure exactly what that would have been.
Aug 25 08:37:40 143h 02m Decal Royale ♥ 1 Fun little puzzle. Even if I'm not young anymore and don't hang on tumblr, I consider my self quite versed on internet culture and could spot quite a few of the references in how to combo things up to make stuff look cool. Still, the game almost required you to fail in the beginning to learn the mechanics of it and I think it would have made it a somewhat better experience if the first level had much fewer stickers (3-4) and sort of the easiest ones that everyone should know. Pineapple and pizza. And very low requirement. If you'd run out of backgrounds to stick stuff on, just repeat them. Because there were so many combos I had to learn basically on the first level it became more of "Oh that also gave me points" "Why didn't that?" when I just comboed something without thought. But in general a very good little puzzle. It might also help to start each level with a sticker in hand, that way space is only "place sticker" and not "activate first" too.
Aug 25 08:59:57 22m 17s Outta Space ♥ 0 That was a really ambitious scope for a LD and it sort of hurt you a bit in the end 😉 But what you managed to get in is still impressive. Some things I would consider: * The task list, since it updates each return to shop it be good if it showed itself for a few seconds when leaving mothership * If each item being returned indiviually gave a visual feedback of its worth and if there was a bonus for completing the task list, that it show too. The flying was mostly smooth, but perhaps it would have been more fun if the craft lowered itself slowly unless up was pressed, making it a bit harder to keep a vertical level. The vertical speeds were also a bit to fast I think.
Aug 25 09:25:23 25m 26s Oh no! This is monsters! ♥ 1 Fun game. I'm not that great at these types and my left mouse button don't work too well (but I was pleased to notice I could keep it pressed). I kind of forgot about different weapons, being too occupied with staying alive. I mostly died from falling off, and this wasn't really because I was running out of space, but because it felt like the edge wasn't where I expected it to be given the visuals. So I would suggest having the edge-collision or however the game works be a bit further out compared to now. If the red thing is supposed to burn rather than be the edge of the world, then I think it would be better if it didn't insta-kill but instead delivered hurt per second.
Aug 25 10:01:23 36m 00s Tunnel Racer ♥ 0 nice game. I didn't survive for very long. perhaps it would have made it easier if I didn't touch the mouse... but the controls were a bit hard to get a hang of, as well as the size of the ship/collision sphere around me. I think I would have liked that one smaller, or actually seeing the ship a bit from the behind.
Aug 26 08:32:39 22h 31m Zero Star ♥ 1 I liked the sound effects the most in this game. Quite cute. It was a bit hard knowing if I was doing things right. If the missiles hit or got dodged, but the enemy disappeared after a while and I was still there so I guess I wasn't doing too bad. But the feedback of the missiles were hard to understand. And if all hit me, then it was way too hard to dodge them. The game also ended very abruptly and got me back to the menu which left me wondering: "Did I win?". So a simple "Yay you made it" would have been nice.
Aug 26 08:48:22 15m 43s Eblobla ♥ 2 Really nice card game. I really like the idea of card count being what triggered end of turn. I was also interesting that the position of some card were important, but that also made it a bit vague at times what 'next' meant and where cards should be played (on another card, or on an empty slot). So it would have been nice if there were two types of highlights, and if they weren't only the card slot but the area around the card too so that it was visible when there was a card in the spot. For two colors I'd like a green to say "this card could be useful here" and yellow to say "this card can be played here but will have not effect" (playing damage on empty slot or playing a 'next'-card on a slot where there's no card next to it). Since I only drew up to 6 and 5 meant end of turn and if I remember it correctly I carried cards between turns, it would also be nice if I could use an entire turn to swap out all (or any number of cards). Anyways, with some balancing, some better feedback and animations of the actions, it could be a very nice pastime mobile game.
Aug 26 08:59:55 11m 33s Running Out Of S.P.A.C.E ♥ 1 kind of tricky puzzle with how the movement worked. I got something like 5-6 levels in, didn't count but then it got too precise for me in what needed to be done that it sort of lost the fun, so I think there is a balance there between ramping up the difficulty and making sure that the game stays fun and I'm not sure that having narrower openings with less blocks to push off from is necessarily the best way to go. Perhaps moving things would add more fun. Maybe something that limits the player like time or power in the jetpack.
Aug 26 09:12:00 12m 05s Puzzle Out VR ♥ 1 I played without VR as I have none. And I didn't really understand the interactions. I saw some shape spawn in a room, then clip through the floor and disappear, on the back-side of the room was a cat but the one shape I managed to grab before it fell to oblivion wasn't obvious how to stick it in the cat and when the color of selector changed and I figured something must be at least semi-right, the shape was released and fell away too. My issues might have been due to not running in VR, but they made the game very hard and quite confusing. I like the description/story and idea though.
Aug 26 10:04:45 52m 45s Get Off My Boat, You! ♥ 1 Hello, welcome and congratulations on completing and submitting your first game to LD! Before I get to the comments about your game, I'd like to talk about the rating process that we are now doing. I'm both a veteran and one of the people making this site. The 3 weeks of playing is a vital part of LD. To many of us it is even more important than the making of the game. Some like to see what score they get. Competing against others as much as competing against past own records. For that to work well, we all have to strive as a community to give every game we play a real chance or two or three and then give fair grades based on the merits of the game. Some don't care at all about the score and just want to get as many good comments as possible. And by good, I mean thoughtful, specific comments that relate to the game they made. They don't have to be all positive, they shouldn't I would say. But respectful, fun, insightful, useful. Something like that. You might see where I'm heading with this... 😉 When I see that you have played a lot of games and left very short generic comments, many identically repeated... and on mine you had a little more elaborate than on some, but you praised the audio in my game... My game has no audio, it is silent. Well, I get a little worried. So if you appreciate the feedback you are getting here so far. Both the good and the bad feedback. Then please consider the games you've rated this far -- if it wouldn't be a more positive action towards the community to go back and make sure that the grades and feedback you gave on all those games you've graded this far are valid. To us that have been around a while, the repeated generic comment is kind of easy to spot... we've seen it before. And, well... some might not take too kindly towards that type of behavior since a sloppy grading/commenting on a persons game is basically stealing their visibility and destroying the effort they put into thoughtfully playing and rating others' game to get good feedback themselves. You can use https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/my/grades as a means to easily go through the games you've graded so far. I'm not trying to call you out. First time on LD can be quite confusing, I didn't even realize I should vote. I just want you to know the vibe your comments give. Now to your game, and I want to point out that I've tried my best not to be influenced but my worries above in rating and commenting: When I started the game and read the instructions about using the wheel, I thought I would be able to use the mouse wheel. It didn't take long to figure out that this was not the case, but it left me wondering if it wouldn't have been a fun/odd interaction to bind mouse-wheel as a way to control the ship too. I also got issues with dizziness playing on full screen. I usually never have that and I'm not sure what triggers it here exactly, but it might have something to do with that the boat if absolutely fixed, which also takes away a bit of feeling of turning, as well as with around what point the world rotates, and the slight stutter in the waves animation. I played for a while, first turning here and there going in circles and such, but then I decided just let it go straight for a while (also so I could keep playing more without nausea from the turns) and that seemed to be a better option than my first strategy. You said that you were working on improving swimming AI so that might solve it, but if you add islands and stuff that needs avoiding... and I don't think I ever saw any gas, so it would be nice if there was a radar UI indicating direction of proximate gas. Well those two things together would force make the player not just run straight. Fixing these core issues, I think the mechanics could make it a quite fun game. But the setting, running over swimmers in the ocean with your boat... you might also want to consider that in some parts of the world where we have a migration crisis, like in the Mediterranean, it can be rather offensive. The mechanics should be easy to re-skin to other settings though.
Aug 26 17:34:54 7h 30m Drown Drown Revolution ♥ 0 Really well made game. I'm not good at these types of games, but I was happy to complete the easiest level the second time I tried. The idea of growing up the arrows due to the pile of trash making you have a shorter time to react and I presume have to catch them out of sync with what might else have been easier was a really cool idea. First time I played I lost after having filled up only the bottom two levels and the game didn't give me any warning that it was a fail condition. Maybe it said something to the side, but I had no attention to spare, so if there's a limit where you loose that is further down than the top-most possible, I think there should be something of a dashed line to let the player know what type of margin they have. It also helps staying more focused if and make it more exciting if you _know_ that you can't afford a single mistake.
Aug 26 17:48:44 13m 50s Running out of Space ♥ 0 Hi cool game idea to play the alien. I didn't get very far even with the help of the console. Not escaping the lower levels. A tip about spoilers. The markdown supports `!> Spolier` !> Like this But you need to leave extra blank line after a spoiler or else it will be included. I couldn't open the grate and I couldn't pickup the weapon nor did I figure out how to drop anything so I got stuck. I would have liked depositing my eggs in warm bodies. With regards to the language. Since the player is the alien, I think it would have made more sense and perhaps been more fun if I understood the alien but the human English was all weird.
Sep 1 06:12:38 132h 23m Nuclear Arms 6: Waste Wizard's Tricks ♥ 0 I'm a bit unlucky that my mouse's left click is more or less wasted, slow and sluggish so the game got really hard really fast. But I like the cut-scenes and how the game cut back to them mid-fight too. That's something you don't see very often in LD. I must also say that I'm a bit envious that you've made a series of games with the same character. Sound effects were nice too. And the way the game spawned you right back at the start of the fight when you died urging you to have one more round, also a really good detail.
Sep 1 06:20:25 7m 47s Greenie Goes Right ♥ 1 Very simple but much fun. Surprisingly hard too. One time though it felt like the game really didn't give me any chance to win when it dropped hats on 5 columns in a row. My guess is that the drops were random and so maybe it would be good with a restriction there. Also the visuals got me thinking about loop synths, and it would probably add to the experience a whole lot if sound was based a bit on how the hats and green were landing and such. Maybe also increase the speed of the drops or frequency a tiny bit on each multiplier wrap pass thing.
Sep 1 06:52:06 31m 41s SpaceLab 42 ♥ 5 Hi. I found the game disorienting the first time I played it. Basically because the oxygen meter is a tiny thing in the left corner and as you start playing the world spins around and well there's nothing that draws the player's attention to that corner. So the game felt very unfair. I also wondered how I would use fire-extinguishing tubes when there was no fire. Until I saw that they said oxygen, which was strange. And then they didn't seem to do much about the oxygen level anyways. I also agree with that movement is too fast or at least too controlled. Then there are the two issues that a lot of people have discussed. I'm a LD veteran and part of the dev-team behind the site. It doesn't mean I decide how the rules should be read, but please concider that you are asking way too much of the player to give you a fair rating in the categories you've not opted out of. Let's say you used someones music track but did a whole lot of audio fx recording and audio design during the event so you really want to stay in the audio category. The way I'd do it, and expect it to be done is to have a large (almost blinking) text in your description stating exactly what should not be rated and what should be rated. As it is done now, you leave it way too easy for someone playing the game to miss that all is not your work and then grade you not based on your efforts. And that's why we urge participants as a general rule to opt out (it's still not too late). I'm not sure what I liked, that you made yourselves unfortunately. But I'm a sucker for scifi and I don't mind the brevity or "lack of gameplay". Games can be short and whatever they want to be and shouldn't be criticized on those two conditions. The worse problem is that which have been reported about generic comments on other's games that indicate that you might not even have played their games. That is way worse, because that is actually stealing other peoples visibility. Degrading their efforts, both in that they don't get valuable feedback they deserve on their game that they made. And because you are now forcing them to play and rate extra much to regain their ranks in visibility. Even worse for those who care for their final position/grades, a single off vote in a category will have a rather large effect in the end if you only got a few votes. So I sincerely hope it was all a misunderstanding, and if it wasn't you really really really ought to go back to all those games and replay, re-vote, and write new comments! Use https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/my/grades to get a list of what you've played so far.
Sep 1 06:58:30 6m 24s Personal Space ♥ 3 Nice and simple mechanics. My left mouse button kind-of almost doesn't work, so it got really hard. It was easy to understand the objective and I had managed to build a nice little thing to catch the enemy in. But my mouse's functionality was in the way. It would have been nice with keyboard binding for the clicking.
Sep 1 16:12:03 9h 13m Gel Break ♥ 2 The puzzles were a bit challenging but at last I managed to get 3 crystals. In general very well made and structured game. Not really much to complain about, except perhaps that it was punishing sometimes, that if you explored down one alley you had to loop back and redo some old puzzle again before reaching the fork in the road where you accidentally took a wrong turn.
Sep 1 16:19:34 7m 31s ARSONIST ♥ 1 Graphics in this was fantastic. I had a hard time grabbing things (might be my mouse button), but even so I think it would make sense if you pickup whatever you walk into and have an easy time throwing it. Most time I could win without being the arsonist though. Really cool concept that could be further explored in many ways.
Sep 1 16:27:53 8m 19s Garbage Collector ♥ 1 Cool idea. It was a bit confusing with some stuff like a TV that if you picked up, there seemed to be no relevant space to place it. And as some others have discussed, it was a bit slow and repetitive at the same time. So one way I would go about fixing that would be to make it more of slapstick, having the character run around at full speed knocking around stuff, grabbing and throwing whatever, more chaos and mayhem.
Sep 2 06:28:33 14h 00m Grave Heart ♥ 2 Very solid entry. It didn't work in Firefox for me (just a black screen), but in chrome it ran without a glitch. The pixels were a bit blurred which made the text somewhat hard to read, but on the other hand, there was actually a tutorial. Very nice. I was more of a chaotic gravedigger who was appalled by straight rows of graves and that made the business of keeping corpse count low rather hard. And well that could be something to explore in the expanded areas. To have non-destructible obstacles that one has to plan around. It was a bit vague too when grabbing the corpse to pull it to the grave, so some little feedback there could have helped. In general though, very nice game.
Sep 2 06:39:15 10m 42s Not Enough Space in Space ♥ 0 I got as far as filling up my cargo with level-ups, maybe I could improve things there too by discarding old and replacing them, but when I reached that level I was already doomed by the thing I was running away from. As some people have commented on, it would have been nice if the movement was a bit more fluid. Not full speed - full stop. The mechanism of being stunned was interesting too, but it was a bit too easy to get stun-locked and then die. Basically it felt like if I got hit once I was dead. So the components are there for a really nice arcade game, but the core mechanics would need a bit more work to really hook the player. The line graphics, I really liked too. Not often you see that in LD.
Sep 2 06:57:05 17m 50s Break-in ♥ 1 Cool idea. It could really get me hooked, but I feel that it would be a better loop if score wasn't simple time, but perhaps you got 100 for each first row brick, 200 for next and so on. Maybe a bonus for when you manage to build up many bricks in one go without the ball returning to the ground that sort of thing. And highscores. Personal and online.