Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD43 → Feedback comment stats → chrismcmath

chrismcmath

Feedback comments for LD43

chrismcmath's games and stats for all events →

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		chrismcmath's comment
Dec 5 17:35:23		Alpaca's Redemption	♥ 1	What an accomplishment- I've the idea of taking powers from the player in a few other places this jam but none have executed it as well as you guys. This idea has a couple of design issues that are difficult to resolve. One is what others have mentioned- how to design levels that can be traversed in a number of different ways. That alone is some really good level design, but what I think is even better is how you've taken something which could be draining for the player (removing their abilities and thus agency) and made something positive by allowing them to choose/gamble with how they'll play the next level, essentially making them authors of their own fate. Great stuff.
Dec 5 18:38:50	1h 03m	Exploding Sport	♥ 1	Nice spin on an old genre. I found the two functions on one button (shoot and explode) a little frustrating, especially when I was trying to react quickly to something. Also not feeling the theme but the mood and whackabout style was fun.
Dec 5 18:46:16	7m 26s	Mount 'n' Glory: A Glorious Grail Quest	♥ 1	Right from that stylish title screen I knew this was special! Great idea, fun mechanic, hilarious snippets from the moribund followers, this was great. Only issue was fiddly platform and my failure in one level carrying onto the next (thank god for new followers). Good stuff!
Dec 5 20:43:32	1h 57m	Be The Bridge	♥ 2	Really solid idea with some great potential. I'd suggest removing 'space to drop' and just letting players drag a piece from the outer layer of their armor as the mouse is used anyway. This would also allow for puzzles passed around of the shape of the armor selected. Great work, keep it up!
Dec 5 20:56:02	12m 30s	GameJam Sacrifices	♥ 0	I feel that cat was all take and no give.
Dec 5 21:02:05	6m 03s	Out Of Power	♥ 2	I really liked the mega man vibe, although I would have liked to feel more powerful at the beginning. Having the enemy only require one hit to be defeated would have helped here- it was frustrating to dash attack then have to wait to completely off them. Quite a few of the abilities I didn't know I had! Perhaps you could have a way to introduce them?
Dec 5 21:08:29	6m 24s	My Little Daily Sacrifice	♥ 2	This is hilarious, the tone is so perfect. Those cute sound effects, icons and characters, played against a deal with the devil. Excellent!
Dec 5 21:13:52	5m 23s	Yoshi's Sacrificial Island	♥ 1	Glad Yoshi was the first thing someone else thought of too! I laughed out loud when the pentagram scrolled in screen right. Humour is pitch perfect.
Dec 5 21:28:11	14m 19s	Desert island... or dessert island?	♥ 0	Oh god it was all kumbaya then everyone but Anna died in the last few hours of the final night of dehydration. Anna is going to be haunted for life.
Dec 5 21:33:45	5m 34s	Sacrif's Ice	♥ 0	I was a little confused as to whether I was holding a cone or not- interacting with them seemed to do nothing (but I was still able to deliver the ice cream). In general I could do with a lot more feedback as a player- what the current state of the ice cream is, how satisfied the customer was etc
Dec 5 21:37:30	3m 45s	We Fight "Together"!	♥ 1	So fun to send army men flying across the ravine, just wish the loop of fetching soldiers and and getting them to the cannon had less friction.
Dec 5 21:47:48	10m 18s	Ursa	♥ 5	The warmth of this game hits you as soon as you start it up. I was hoping the constellation theme would eek into the mechanics, which left me a little disappointed. I gave up my dash, and then couldn't seem to pass the next level- am I missing something?
Dec 5 21:56:32	8m 44s	Auto-Freeze! 3000©	♥ 3	Really nice twist on the 'recorded platformer' genre; adding the ability to die and lock yourself in a position opens a lot of possibilities which were fun to see. In general though I found the some parts of the design resulted in tedium, for instance in this level the 'safest' course of action is to traverse it a ton of times. 2018-12-05_21-52-18.png
Dec 5 21:59:00	2m 28s	Make a Wish	♥ 0	Nice mood, respawning at the beginning of the level is a little harsh though.
Dec 5 22:03:49	4m 49s	LD43 Journey	♥ 1	Great mood, I felt almost like I was in the FTL universe. Skipped the text at the beginning, but still had fun zooming around and picking up ore. Wish there was more exploration! The fog of war is so fun, I'd like to have my choice to take out a few extra blocks rewarded. Showing the ORE locations through the FOW was super smart too.
Dec 5 22:06:10	2m 21s	Broken Knight	♥ 2	Love the art here; the vines and character design in particular. The physics did make me feel a little disconnected though from this lush world you've built.
Dec 5 22:14:24	8m 14s	Ascend	♥ 1	It's amazing how much you were able to do with just primitives, lighting and space. My only complaint is that even though I was controlling a (major) part of the experience, I didn't feel like I was interacting with the experience. I almost felt like I had been rushed on stage with a script and told to play the part as best I could. Allowing the player/user to take ownership would only make it stronger.
Dec 5 22:23:34	9m 10s	Revolver Curse	♥ 1	Super competent platformer- this obviously isn't your first rodeo! The introduction of enemies, placement of checkpoints and room design were all tight. I was waiting for the mechanic to really 'kick in'; as I got my health back right after off-ing an enemy it just felt like a regular platformer to me. The only slight difference (apart from accidentally killing yourself, which seems a little harsh) was with that floating octopus, but fighting it close quarters allowed me to rally off a ton of shots in succession.
Dec 6 13:37:03	15h 13m	Neon Tank Warrior	♥ 2	Great fun, I really liked how (it seemed at least) the 'deck' of sacrifices were random, luck making the experience feel more dynamic. As someone who thinks parallel parking is a fun challenge the driving controls were perfect 👅 Only change I'd suggest is getting rid of the wall of text at the beginning- most people will skip it and your aesthetic tells more about this world than text anyway.
Dec 6 13:43:14	6m 11s	Potty Panic	♥ 1	I also got an Earthbound vibe! Love the cute art style and chilled music, went really well with the absurdity of the objective. I wasn't sure what the stacking mechanic was adding to the gameplay, it confused me a little especially as picking up and throwing were mapped to different buttons. You could either flesh it out, or remove it and have everything on one button 😄
Dec 6 13:46:46	3m 32s	Grauby Grauby	♥ 2	Really like the mechanic here, it's super effective and fun to use. To combination of timing and trajectory planning felt freeing to play. Only gripes are I couldn't see far enough ahead of me to plan effectively, and it's hard to tell how many 'jumps' I have left before I'll expire. Personifying the slime more might help here, using expressions rather than just the size to visualise 'health'.
Dec 6 14:12:56	26m 10s	Diortem	♥ 1	Nice Metroid Prime vibe with this one, especially as I got totally lost! The graphical style is really compelling and the scale of content you've managed to create is huge! Unfortunately I couldn't remember all my abilities from the title screen, so when I was prompted to give up an ability there were a few of them I didn't realise I had. This made the decision easy and meant I didn't have to change my play style. As some of the abilities are OP (i.e. grappling vs very tricky jumping) I can't really take ownership of what abilities I retain either. This could be fixed by creating rooms with a number of different paths through, all of which are valid. It'd be a real time sink though so you'd lose the impressive sprawling map you've managed to create, but I think this might be a case where less is more. Super impressive for a weekend's work!
Dec 6 14:20:24	7m 28s	Ranch of the Gods	♥ 2	I like how you turned something potentially dark into a light hearted romp. Would it be possible to see the altars from the pen? There's already a lot to think about so having to remember which animal is which symbol each round is a little overwhelming.
Dec 6 17:31:12	3h 10m	Aetherspirit	♥ 1	Love this, it feels like a complete experience. The character switches (with humourful lore) are well paced, and I loved how the rooms were inter-woven with each other, opening up with new abilities. Some parts felt a little unfair (the rainbow badge next to the spikes when you're Mr. Double Jump is especially easy to miss) but I was compelled to see everything the world had to offer. Great stuff!
Dec 6 17:35:02	3m 50s	Don’t eat CHICKEN !	♥ 0	I laughed out loud at the premise, and laughed again when I read that it's based on your friend while she’s eating fried chicken! It'd be great to see this idea fleshed out with some animations and sounds so we can really feel for the plight of these chicks!
Dec 6 17:45:52	10m 50s	Sacrificial City	♥ 1	The the first disconcerting notes of the music I knew this was going to be a good 'un! The gameplay is super polished for a jam game, having the ability to sacrifice was also a nice twist. It would have been nice to had placement have an impact but already the scope is huge!
Dec 6 17:52:15	6m 23s	Paper Space Program	♥ 0	Your passion for space exploration really shines through and gives the game a wholesome, loved feel. It's clear you know a lot about this subject and sometimes that can be a little overwhelming, but your charming vocals and visual effects soften what could have been a dry affair.
Dec 6 17:58:09	5m 54s	SLAP HAPPY	♥ 1	It was fun to figure out how to get 100%, but that comes pretty quickly! And it also restricts the player from using their main action- slapping! The humour is great though, that opening monologue had me cracking up. I mean as a work of art it's mad problematic but the memory of those bruised faces is just another I'll suppress indefinitely.
Dec 7 11:16:14	17h 18m	Dark Villagers	♥ 2	Lack of any onboarding meant I struggled to figure out what was happening/what I was meant to do but the mood and pixel art in particular are wonderful.
Dec 7 15:57:32	4h 41m	Sacrifish (Local multi-player)	♥ 1	The ambience is well done, with a nice feeling of scale. Rather than having many drop sounds in the background music however, it might be better to have them as sfx for collecting plankton. That way you can still have that wonderful watery feel, while also providing aural feedback for collection.
Dec 7 16:01:16	3m 44s	The Grassland Kings	♥ 1	Sometimes my fov would shrink and I wouldn't know why, but link that to taking damage (I think) is a wonderful idea. I especially like that the protagonist is blonde, not that I'm biased or anything.
Dec 7 16:04:50	3m 34s	Workspace	♥ 1	Loving it so far, I follow Trump and got stuck here though, anyway to get out/restart? LDJAM-43-Workspace_2018-12-07_16-04-14.png
Dec 18 14:15:04	262h 10m	Colors of Your World	♥ 0	The palette was what first attracted me to the game- that first zone is gorgeous. I'd love to read a post on how you went about decorating the level. The gameplay was pretty fun, although I gave up at the same spot @franfox mentioned in their post, as having to replay that whole room multiple times started grating on the nerves! I really enjoyed the level design up to that point, slowly being given new mechanics and toys to play with at a captivating pace. My only issue (except for perhaps the later difficulty) is the lack of adherence to the theme. It was fun to have a palette swap but I didn't feel like anything was being 'sacrificed'.
Dec 19 11:44:19	21h 29m	Berrytales - Fracture Flight	♥ 2	Beautiful art and a nice Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime feel. I found it pretty hard to plan ahead while multitasking (although my chugging mac was certainly working against me here) I can see how this could be expanded into larger experience, especially with multiplayer support.
Dec 19 22:30:02	10h 45m	The Gods Are Angry	♥ 0	Great atmosphere created with deft use of Pico 8's capabilities; by the last stage I was hooked. The lightning effect and parallax backgrounds added a lot to the sombre mood. That did however make the ending a little anti-climatic. I presume you wanted to underline the fact that the sacrifice can never know if their sacrifice was worth it, but I don't think I was invested enough at that point to feel anything but my inflated expectations drifting away.
Dec 19 22:36:41	6m 39s	Lost In The Flames	♥ 1	Perfect take on the theme, I think most of us have played the (hopefully theoretical) game of which possessions they'd save in a fire. The grid movement was a bit awkward at first, but I love the isometric view so much it was a small hurdle to get over. I would have liked more rooms and items (necessitating more choices and risk/reward) but I enjoyed this as a short and sweet experience all the same!
Dec 21 10:25:45	35h 49m	Lastcrifices	♥ 0	I love the 80s vibe here, and the messages of the kamikaze pilots sold the theme well. The difficulty ramp was nice and steep (although perhaps a little too easy at the beginning, and with no checkpoints/live unforgiving in the final stage) and I appreciated how you focused on simple controls rather than trying to add more features (i.e shooting). One thing I'd suggest is using a particle system to great the feeling of speed- a few times I didn't feel like much of a rocket! Good work.