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DDRKirbyISQ

Feedback comments for LD43

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		DDRKirbyISQ's comment
Dec 15 02:19:42		Nature is Harsh	♥ 1	Really fun! It was a bit tedious in the later levels having to keep jumping on the babies to flatten them, wish there was an easier way to do that. That's a minor complaint though and I admit that it is pretty cute stomping on them. Maybe if there was an easier way to pick them up once they are flattened or something? Anyways, great job!
Dec 16 16:31:26	38h 11m	Rabbit/Wolf	♥ 1	Pretty interesting concept. The resource-management aspect of it was fun. I wish the battles were a bit easier and that something happened at the end depending on which townsfolk you spared / sacrificed, but as is I found it quite necessary to use all of them up (though I guess one or maybe more of them give you the upgrades when you spare them for long enough too). The "event" on the 4th day was sort of interesting, wish there was more to that too. The battles were as I said pretty challenging and mistakes were punishing, but the enemy varieties were good and I liked how different upgrades helped you in different ways against the different enemy types. I wish that combat was slightly slower paced, especially enemy movement, so that a single quick mistake was not as punishing, but I can enjoy difficulty too! The orange enemies can often get stuck off-screen if you happen to be near that edge of the screen, which makes their bullets not fire -- I needed to abuse this to great effect to easily clear some of the waves.
Dec 16 16:47:09	15m 43s	Twist of Souls	♥ 1	Pretty neat short game! Like others I have mixed feelings about the game concept, in that I think it's not providing a whole lot gameplay wise BUT on the other hand also makes sense in a cool way. shrug It feels like with some more time and planning you could probably come up with some better execution of the general idea, no idea what that would look like though. It does feel like the game would start to get repetitive after a while (so, it was a good length as is, actually), but on the other hand, maybe there could be some cool new mechanics and obstacles introduced to spice things up. Perhaps something along the likes of weighted platforms that change their height based on whether you are flipped or right-side-up! Thus forcing the player to switch in certain spots for a reason other than the health timer. Or anything, really. The jump sound effect felt a bit odd to me (?), but the overall presentation is pretty nice, and the checkpoint visual + bell audio was a very nice touch, probably my favorite part of the entire game. Overall, good job on another jam entry!
Dec 16 17:01:34	14m 25s	Rogues Like Beer	♥ 1	Nice work! Took me a bit to wrap my brain around the gameplay, but once I did I found the puzzles quite enjoyable to work through. The open-ended nature of some of the levels was pretty fun too! Props also for for making a physics game that "just worked" and was fun to work with as opposed to blowing up in any number of inane ways that physics games tend to. (Thank you for opting out of the Audio category like a good LD citizen! :D)
Dec 16 18:21:56	1h 20m	FTD : Fixin' to Die	♥ 2	There's more mood dripping out of this game than the blood dripping out of the soldiers I'm operating on! Super well made with a hefty heaping of polish. The explosions and shake effects really add to the mood of the game and the sound effects were on point. The voice acting was top notch...inspirational. Played both the compo and post-jam versions, with level 4 being too difficult for me to beat in compo (despite my best efforts), whereas the post-jam version (1.0.1) I actually found to be too easy as I was almost able to save every single soldier (sacrificed one, maybe I wouldn't have needed to if I had been a little more aggressive). I have no way of knowing whether the game uses a true RNG (and thus you could get incredibly lucky or unlucky on a given run) or whether it's more of a pseudo RNG where unlucky outcomes get "balanced out" by higher chances later on, but if it is truly random it seems like it might be difficult to balance. If you haven't already it might be worth considering some sort of pseudo-randomness, or at least a sort of cap on how bad things could get. The mechanics themselves were quite enjoyable, though I think it's a bit difficult to directly notice the effect of the handwashing when it's only a couple of percentage points. Logically I know that it's making a difference, but in terms of player perception it can be a bit tricky to tell yourself that it actually is (but maybe that's part of the point, trying to make it more of an art of deciding when it gets bad enough that it really matters). Overall, fantastic job!
Dec 16 18:36:35	14m 39s	Subway Crisis	♥ 1	Short and to the point. I appreciate the detail put into the "extra" flavor descriptions and such that didn't actually have any gameplay impact. Some minor/trivial bugs and/or things being weird like the note for the safe being called "New inventory item" but otherwise playability was fine. Not much else to say about it...I guess one thing is that the "bad" ending didn't really seem worthwhile as a choice since it offered almost nothing in terms of the actual game, so I question the decision to even allow that as an option. But maybe it would have made more sense if things were more fleshed out!
Dec 16 18:56:51	20m 16s	Slime Parade	♥ 1	Played and rated the downloadable (windows) version. I think my score was 440 (?) if I recall correctly. Kind of odd that it doesn't just give you a direct count number of the fruits, but whatever! Pretty clever approach to the theme! I applaud your level design efforts, that must have been a huge headache to account for. There were a few minor polish issues -- some rendering artifacts, and I feel like the camera behavior could have been a little less abrupt, but the game was still fine in terms of playability despite that. Probably the biggest thing I'd point out is that when you first get to the eating screen it's difficult to remember which slime corresponded to what function. I'm sure you guys were well acquainted with the 5 little guys by the end of the weekend, but I wasn't able to internalize that after only a minute or two of gameplay. Even a simple reminder graphic could do the trick here.
Dec 16 19:08:39	11m 48s	Boonioo	♥ 3	Looks cute! Could you maybe write some instructions about how to properly play the game in your game description?
Dec 17 00:53:19	5h 44m	Apatanat: the benefit of all.	♥ 0	Hi there! I attempted to play your game, but it doesn't seem to be properly designed for aspect ratios other than 16:9. I'm an old dinosaur running at 5:4 (1280x1024) or 4:3 most of the time and the left and right portions of the game are cut off, leading them to not be visible and thus almost impossible to interact with. Please consider other aspect ratios next time!
Dec 17 00:59:29	6m 10s	Penance	♥ 0	Short, but to the point, I guess. I "did the penance"! Hooray! My main (pretty minor) visual complaint is the rendering seams between some of your tiles. It's not a huge deal at all, just sort of off-putting. My main design suggestion is that this sort of game seems like it would work much better with individual (checkpointed) levels as opposed to one large map. Feels like it would be much easier to balance the difficulty as well. Good job!
Dec 17 02:20:58	1h 21m	Quest for the West	♥ 0	The whole frog thing was almost really funny, maybe just needed some additional backstory to really set it up. I am apparently very "bad" at this game as I started to lose people from my group left and right, but on the other hand, that made it feel quite faithful to the Oregon Trail experience, lol!
Dec 17 02:27:24	6m 26s	Corn Field	♥ 1	It looks pretty interesting, but I'm not sure I really get it. Maybe include some instructions for your game in the description...?
Dec 17 02:39:04	11m 40s	Miko Quest	♥ 0	Cute! Though I seem to have trapped myself between two mushrooms, unable to complete the game or restart the level =( As already mentioned, a simple transition effect could do wonders to make the level transitions feel better.
Dec 17 05:46:44	3h 07m	Keyboard Twister	♥ 1	"pretty much requires a mechanical keyboard or a keyboard with N-key rollover" -- agree with this statement. I was extremely proud of myself once I got a green key though. ...I had to use my other hand to force the last finger into position. xD
Dec 17 06:06:45	20m 01s	Be Near My Little Ones	♥ 0	Well, it seemed cool, but after the first relic and altar I couldn't for the life of me find any other relics, despite running around for quite some time, finding the two other altars, as well as finding the "exit" of the map which simply seems to lead to losing a life. I did run into a monster once. Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe provide a gameplay video or some more signposting? =/
Dec 17 06:14:11	7m 26s	Take Your Soul Away	♥ 1	Hm, interesting, if a bit light in terms of actual substance. One weird issue is that it's possible to lose from the timer as you are opening the gate to the end, so you never see the ending =( It took me a couple tries to fully understand what was going on but it made sense to me in the end. Good job!
Dec 17 06:33:30	19m 19s	Altitude Sickness	♥ 1	Wow lol. Some of the later levels were definitely a bit jank when many climbers were required (limbs flying around everywhere and other physics oddities...I've had similar things happen in Unity before when 2d physics settings and joints aren't quite tuned properly), but this was super fun lol. I also experienced a similar bug in the last level with one of the "tornado limbs" finishing the level, but I feel like I got to experience pretty much all of the game anyways. Would love a post-mortem devblog writeup about how you architected the physics ragdolling movement and limb attach points!
Dec 18 04:02:51	21h 29m	Sacrificio Inc.	♥ 1	Simple but short and sweet. There's a nice package here to expand upon! - Changing to a move counter (as you are already planning to) would definitely provide a lot more replay value for people who find the base puzzles to be on the simpler end. Figuring out the general solution to these puzzles was generally quite straightforward, but optimizing for move count seems like it would be very nontrivial! - I know this was totally outside the scope of the jam itself, but if you plan on improving the PC version, I think keyboard controls would handle quite nicely, with a single key (space or something) to "pick up" and place an active piece, and arrow keys to move it around. I'm sure I could blaze through most of these puzzles with that option. Small feedback aside, I love the theme and look you guys have managed to deliver on. Great job!
Dec 18 10:30:18	6h 27m	Ethereal	♥ 2	Phew! I finished all of the jam levels as well as the post-jam content. Some of them were quite clever! I think (in my humble opinion) you really ought to consider easing into the introduction of all of the new obstacle types and mechanics, especially since you are going for the route of "show them to you and let you figure out exactly how they behave" (as opposed to handholding the player by telling them exactly what everything does). I think that is a fine approach, but I think it started to break down a little bit for me because I felt like there was one too many things I didn't understand in a given level at the same time. I think it would have been nice to have easier levels that show a new component in relative isolation, so that I can grok their purpose, interspersed with more difficult levels that weave the different obstacles together in clever or unexpected/tricky ways. I guess in other words I would have liked to see the same general difficulty, but more levels to spread it all out. For example, the "barrier" level introduces not only the two different colors of "goal" blocks but also the laser barriers at the same time. They're not shown in isolation so it's easy for me to come out of that level without fully understanding what the barriers actually do (for example if I just happened to pass through them the right way), especially since it seems like you can pass through barriers N times or something?. Similarly in "Hurt" we get introduced to both the holes that need to be filled as well as the blocks with movement restrictions, etc. Sorry, I probably belabored that point more than I should have, I'm sure you get the idea and of course YMMV. Anyhow, aside from that, the minimalistic UI works just fine, though I think some calm and soothing sfx would have really been nice as well, something like gentle electronic sounds, or maybe chimes or light percussive notes. Overall pretty fun game despite seeming (understandably) a bit rushed! I am also always impressed at people who can design clever puzzles during a jam timeframe, so props for that.
Dec 19 07:14:43	20h 44m	Sheeps Empire	♥ 1	Got on the leaderboards with a respectable score of 23. Probably could have scored more highly if I had known about the flag affecting sheep differently based on proximity. Maybe say something about that in your description or game instructions?
Dec 19 07:44:53	30m 10s	Documentia	♥ 1	Whoops, couldn't run the game! Running into a similar issue as donmai on the itch.io page. My OS is Windows Server 2012 (not that that will really help diagnosis). Feel free to give me a ping if you get an updated version up!
Dec 19 17:38:48	9h 53m	Unnecessary Evil	♥ 3	@mertios: Actually, you don't have to sacrifice any characters, if you do things perfectly. Hence the name of the game, "Unnecessary Evil". That's the point! I thought the controls were "fine", I really don't think the complaints were warranted. That said, my personal suggestion would be to have a separate key dedicated to each person, for example the number keys from 1-5. That would make things more consistent since it's difficult to remember what the rotation order is, especially since it changes once you have less than the full 5 remaining in a given level. I liked the spin on the theme. People should be a little more open-minded about how the theme is interpreted, clever subversions of the theme or ways to incorporate the theme in ways other than the standard "sacrifice HP/abilities/..." should be encouraged! The fall speed of the characters was a bit unexpectedly fast, especially for the little dude, I think I'm used to more parabolic jump arcs with lower terminal velocity, but the platforming wasn't really the focus here so it didn't really detract from the experience, just something a bit unexpected. The music was not super amazing but worked well enough. I found the mechanical sounds a bit distracting, but YMMV. Good job overall! Hodor hodor hodor
Dec 20 00:41:24	7h 02m	Sacrifices Must Be Made	♥ 1	Dang. I personally found the 2nd-to-last round harder to navigate than the final one, but they were both plenty interesting. Great job, I don't really know what else to say. I guess one small comment is that the growly audio synth "voice" clips, while cool and effective, felt like they could use a bit of cleaning up at points (??). Not sure if just my imagination but I felt like there were some audio pops and clicks. They were also quite loud comparatively to the environmental audio, maybe could be toned town a notch. That's pretty minor though, honestly.
Dec 20 01:07:40	26m 16s	Super Sellout	♥ 2	Played and rated the updated WebGL build. Great job for the jam timeframe. My high score was $8883 while selling out to ALL the sponsors! It was definitely funny seeing the poor guy in action with dogs and lamp posts chasing after him, barely making jumps as he slips through puddles... Controls should definitely be split across two hands if possible. You already have bindings for arrow keys so you might actually just want to indicate those in your instructions rather than WASD (it works just fine, I found). The gameplay obviously isn't the tightest but it's not bad for LD. That slot-machine-like sound for rescuing really helps add to the arcade feel of the game and makes you keep going. I especially liked the way that the speed gradually increases and how each successful rescue adds a bit to the timer. There were a few audio clipping issues (not sure if asset-related) and other minor things but again, good job on general execution.
Dec 20 01:15:51	8m 11s	The Gods Are Angry	♥ 1	Nice! Short and sweet, I think it's just short enough to avoid overstaying its welcome. I liked the interspersed bits of plot narrative, I feel like I would find it really enjoyable to see that combined with some actual platforming challenges. I was wondering when the lightning would come in and then ended up assuming it was something you added post-jam until it finally happened in the last screen...WOW it's pretty loud compared to everything else, haha.
Dec 20 01:30:33	14m 42s	Way of the Dodo	♥ 1	I appreciated the approach to level design (that you outlined in your post). This mechanic was interesting as well but as previously mentioned, the platforming physics really need some iteration. As is moving around the level was too frustrating for me to feel motivated to search for collectibles, which is a shame because obviously there were alternate paths and nooks and crannies to find them in which would have been a neat exploration challenge. Even when I did find collectible items they proved difficult to collect -- for example missing the collectibles while jumping down a long chasm, which meant having to backtrack to attempt that jump again. As mentioned by another user it was also easy to accidentally doublejump off of a Dodo without meaning to. If you are using some sort of stock physics engine for your platformer movement I would highly recommend trying to implement your own movement instead as 2d platformers just tend to not conform to normal rigidbody physics well. I did this for our team's LD43 game to great effect and was able to end up with a very tight and responsive movement system [/end shameless plug] Hopefully jumping around and walking should feel less awkward than actual Dodo birds =P
Dec 21 05:46:19	28h 15m	Esus	♥ 3	Has a lot of potential! You can tell this is unfinished, there is definitely a lot of stuff missing and/or sort-of half there, but that's also sort of understandable since it seems like you guys tackled quite a lot (especially for a first time game!). Since you didn't get to implement everything, I think it would help to detail some of your intentions in your game description so that we can at least see where you were going with the mechanics -- I think some of it is a bit confusing as is since it's hard to tell what is unfinished and what is not. Congratulations on your first game!
Dec 21 06:33:04	46m 45s	Welcome to the North Pole!	♥ 1	Great job, this was a real breath of fresh air to play! I disagree with pretty much all of the criticisms noted above except for the camera focus issue, which seems like a Hard Problem (tm) to solve, as I like the spirit of controlling all of the snowballs, but this can cause issues when they get split up. You could try putting in some functionality to reduce the likelihood that the snowballs get separated, but that's sort of against the flow of the game and also wouldn't even work well in all cases. There's no way to read the player's mind and figure out which one they "want" to be the focus either. I don't like the suggestions offered about controlling only a single ball at a time as I feel like that really strips the game of some of its character. The only thing I can really think of would be to come up with some smarter heuristics about where the camera focus should be. If this were a console-only game you could maybe do something around using one analog stick for movement and the other analog stick to help hint the camera, but I'm not sure that would translate to PC controls as well. Perhaps the camera maybe should be conservative at first and try its best to frame all of the active balls, but start to disregard balls that are being left behind based on some heuristic involving the player's movement directions/inputs. In terms of level design I think (???) this also means you might need to be careful about having drops that are too tall since having one ball get separated from the group very quickly by falling a long distance could be a difficult situation to handle. Anyways, going to stop talking about that not as I won't pretend to have a magical solution to that problem. Overall this was very charming and fun. The music track worked great and was definitely a highlight of the entry. Obviously it would have been even better with some added variation (a B-section of some sort) but this is a jam entry after all... The level design was quite sensible for the most part, though some of the extra challenges involved quite a bit of backtracking to get back to the main path; I think that would be on my wishlist to see if it could be eased a tiny bit for a polished version. The various gate puzzles were okay but I think it was sometimes a bit awkward to roll around back and forth in a somewhat narrow space (sometimes with spikes on one side) trying to roll up more snow. It worked just fine, but I feel like it sort of broke the flow of things. I think rolling around more freely and having fun with growing large and then splitting again is a real strength of your game so IMHO it felt like some (not all) of the gate puzzles as well as some of the more mazey challenges broke the flow a bit. The visual design was great and all of the details (snow particles, layered backgrounds) really helped bring things to life. The snowball behavior itself was quirky, but in a good way that lent itself to experimentation and having fun, rather than feeling like a fight against a physics system. This is very rare to see pulled off successfully -- great job! Last but not least, the writeups on implementation details are much appreciated. Thank you for writing those!
Dec 21 18:29:00	11h 55m	NoooooMan	♥ 2	Noooooooooooooooo..... This was amazingly fun despite being simple at first glance. It definitely took some getting used to the different mechanics in terms of managing jump height, but once I wrapped my brain around it I enjoyed the strategy that it brought to the levels. I wish there was a better way to judge depth, perhaps some shadows on the floor or something, but I guess it's fine as is too. Nice job!
Dec 21 18:45:34	16m 34s	Into the Catacomb	♥ 0	Played and rated the compo version. Apologies if you've already addressed any of this feedback in the updated version! Cool start to a game. I finished the level and collected all 16 coins. The character can mid-air jump without limit with the jetpack unequipped though, meaning you actually get more vertical travel power without the jetpack, which is sort of amusing, as @g12345 noted. The sword seemed a bit inferior to the blaster; perhaps it would be more interesting if you started with the sword and found the blaster instead? Since you didn't really get a chance to explain most of the mechanics around unequipping in-game, maybe you should write something about that in your game description? As mentioned above it's pretty unintuitive to need to open up the "pause" menu in order to advance in the game. Health restores quite quickly with the helmet equipped; I had to try for quite some time intentionally to ever suffer a death, which you already noted.
Dec 21 19:05:12	19m 38s	Abortion Boy	♥ 3	Well, that was something. The game has some odd balance issues that I think if worked out would make the experience a lot more enjoyable. For starters, at the beginning of the game when a player is still trying to figure out the controls, the surgeon hand spawns right at the starting position, so if the player didn't already know what to do they would instantly get a loss, which could be confusing. The "take the L" animation was funny but ultimately really confusing as I tried repeatedly to figure out if it had any gameplay purpose (as far as I can tell, it didn't). I would have been more inclined to use it if it actually did something, or if the gameplay actually had any break points (which it didn't). As already mentioned, the movement speed in level 2 seems to be slower than the surgeon hand. I was only able to complete the level by speed-strafing (https://speedrunwiki.com/Speed_strafing), since moving diagonally moves you at a faster rate than moving in one direction. This was the only way I could outrun the hand, so I had to play the entire level with an offset camera view. I think I got rather screwed over by the level generation in level 3 so I couldn't complete it. I couldn't discern the purpose of the ramps with arrows in them, besides slowing me down. The physics in that level were rather confusing as normally the head rolls around very quickly but when it hits certain obstacles it grinds to a halt and takes a bit to get started again. Anyways, gameplay gripes aside, the music certainly does a good job of bringing an "intense chase scene" feel and the disembodied hand is aptly frightening; makes me quite thankful that the Wallmasters in Zelda didn't run around chasing me. The shaders and textures used here obviously had a bunch of thought put into them, though I feel like that effort is a bit wasted since there is really no time during the game to appreciate any of those visuals aside from a passing glance. The uniform red lighting really works to cement the mood of the game but at the same time makes the level layout a bit less readable. Some sort of more clear lighting or shading difference to indicate entrances into other rooms might work well for better readability. I honestly wonder if this would have worked better as a stealth/horror-type game instead of a constant chase sequence, as that would allow the frightening nature of the hand to add suspense and allow some more of the visual details to really shine through. Ah, but it's not really my place to tell you guys what your game could or should be! Great job on your jam game and thanks for the devblog writeups as well!
Dec 21 19:16:14	11m 02s	Bloop Bloop!	♥ 1	Hi there! It seems (based on your description) that you've used 3rd party audio assets (music) in your game that you did not create yourself. This is perfectly fine, but as stated in [the official Ludum Dare rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules), you need to OPT-OUT of the Audio category due to this usage: > "You’re free to use 3rd party Artwork/Music/Audio assets, or assets you previously created, but we ask that you OPT-OUT of the respected voting categories (Graphics, Audio). You can opt-out of a voting category when you submit your game." You can still modify this setting post-submission, so go ahead and do it now. I will be downvoting you in audio as an enforcement of this rule. If I'm mistaken, please reply to me so I can change my vote! ===== That aside, this was simple but kind of fun. The combo bonus provides a weird dynamic where the best way to grow your population is actually to let clusters of them become sick first so you can heal them all at the same time. That's a bit unintuitive but I wouldn't say it is crazy, as several puzzle-type games employ the same sort of dynamic. Good job!
Dec 21 19:29:00	12m 46s	Cult Fever	♥ 0	9765! I'm sure I could break 10k if I tried again. I'd agree with most of the feedback given above. Music synchronization is very very rarely implemented correctly (especially factoring in audio latency) so I'll try not to fault you =too= much for not getting it right in a jam timeframe. I did find myself trying to rely on visuals, as you often have to do when note charts are off-sync. The control layout was a tad awkward to map visually, but I found it much easier to process when I....tilted my head sideways. I would recommend not spacing out the controls across the keyboard though, please place them adjacent to each other! Anyways, the game itself is super thematic (reminds me of [Samurai Shaver](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/samurai-shaver)!) and the visuals and music choice are great. Of all the entries I've played I think this one has the most obvious potential to become something really great with some additional post-jam work put into it (if you so desire). Great job on your first Ludum Dare game! Thank you also for being a proper LD citizen and opting out of the audio category. High five!
Dec 22 05:14:09	9h 45m	Long Live The King!	♥ 0	Nice, a game written with good ol SDL! I didn't manage to finish as it seemed way too tricky to figure out; I'm sure I could do it given enough time though! I wish there were some easier levels to ease into things instead of starting with the full 9 windows which was quite overwhelming. I'm at less than 1920x1080 on both of my computers so that may have made things a bit more difficult. The game didn't seem to properly capture my desktop wallpaper but I'm running Server 2012/2016 so I won't really blame you for that. Anyhow, a pretty creative idea! I think what I mentioned about having some easier levels would be my main wishlist item, along with the other things already on your bucketlist like lower resolution support, bugfixes, etc.
Dec 22 05:22:13	8m 04s	Death Metal Crowd Pusher	♥ 2	Haha, this is a fun concept for sure. Props on a great idea. Agree with the comments about the design needing...something (?) a bit more to get the gameplay to be a little more involved. Something that feels a bit more pinball-ish would be great fun, if you could manage to achieve that. I also wish that the 666 "fever" mode would let me push guys at a much faster rate; feels like that would really get players hyped up!
Dec 23 01:34:35	20h 12m	CAt 666	♥ 1	Quite difficult to control, like trying to drive an F-1 racecar on ice. Maybe that is the point, though? I feel like this could be really fun if there was a way to control the cat a bit better (spent several minutes trying to chase down mice only to veer very slightly off course since the steering controls were so awkward), and also if there was a 3rd-person camera. I like the sense of speed and scale that the 1st-person camera offers, but it is a bit weird to have the camera so dang close to the ground (maybe intended?)
Dec 23 02:11:17	36m 42s	De-Railed	♥ 2	Finished the game (with the "Good ending"). It's a pretty neat idea! Definitely a bit rough around the edges. Here's some assorted feedback: - Resolution is quite large for a web game! Not all of us have 1080p monitors, please think of us plebians who are running at 1440x900, or 1280x1024! - Controls and mechanics were a bit unintuitive -- should you maybe at least list your games' controls in the game description so that people aren't stuck at their keyboards hitting every key like I did? - Felt weird that I could shoot/attack with keyboard if I wanted to, but only interact with the confirm dialogs with the mouse. Maybe add a keybind for that? - The enemies had a cool visual design; unfortunately it was quite trivial to jump right over them while running at full speed, so I only ever interacted with one or two of them before I decided it would be faster to just skip them altogether. I can't really speak to whether you achieved your dark souls-like feel or not since I didn't really participate in combat. - The large "boss" at the end was a cool idea, but unfortunately I was able to cheese it quite easily by coming from the upper route and simply staying on its right side and attacking -- it was never able to hit me. - The platforming sections were...alright. Because of the visual scale and camera zoom, the actual platforming jumps involve =several= blind jumps where you can't see the platform you need to land on. I managed this fine since my reactions are quite good, but I can imagine this being quite frustrating in the later levels. - Backtracking all the way back to the train after finding parts got really old, really fast, and got progressively worse as the levels got longer =( - The platforming physics were a bit odd, especially the acceleration which seems to be stepped instead of using a smooth curve. It didn't really cause me any issues, just felt odd that you start moving slowly and then suddenly speed up very quickly. - The snow landing noise was a nice touch, but why only a landing-from-jumping sound and no footprint sound? It felt like 75% of the game was either spent running to the right or the left, so some nice footstep sounds would have at least broke the monotony a little bit. (I do understand that nice footstep sounds are hard to find and vary, though) - This is more minor, but the very bright upper portion of the background was a bit much, especially against the snowy tops of the platforms. + The snow particle effects really added a lot to the visual look and feel of the game. + The parallax scrolling of background layers was also much appreciated. + The vocal track at the end of the game was quite a pleasant surprise! That together with the main level music definitely set a sort of somber tone for the game, which I'm assuming was intentional. Quite effective. + I think overall the snow terrain combined with the somber feel was one of the strong points of the game, which is a good thing since there was so much mindlessly running through the snow with nothing else to think about! Thanks for writing up a post-mortem! Always nice to see people's process and lessons learned.
Dec 23 02:35:52	24m 35s	Reverse Quest	♥ 0	Great concept! I only completed 2 of the mini-dungeons, but finished the game otherwise. The gameplay itself was fine, but felt a bit sluggish in general. I feel like it would have been more fun traveling around to all of these different dungeons if the game was a bit more fast-paced. As is, it felt like more of a chore than anything. As other users have already commented, I'm not sure why there is so much inertia for the player movement; feels like it would have felt like a much tighter game with potentially much more interesting and dynamic combat if you didn't control like a fat rhino on ice. This would also make the arrow aiming a little more sensible, as right now it doesn't make sense to take the last-pressed direction because you need to float around so much. I'm sure some small tweaks could go a long way toward really showcasing the potential of your design.
Dec 23 04:40:21	2h 04m	As Of Yet Unnamed	♥ 1	Reporting in on the input/click detection issue! I'm on Chrome 71 using a resolution of 1440x900 and though at first it seemed like the clicking input was entirely unresponsive, I realized after a few tries that the click area for each bodyguard seems to just be offset to be entirely above the bodyguard. So, clicking on the bodyguard directly does absolutely nothing, but clicking on the air directly above them consistently activates them. Hope that helps! Once I actually understood how to get the darn clicking to work, I got 5 stars and traveled 1210 feet! It was pretty fun, feels like it would be even more fun if the click detection was a little more generous, of course. I found the "reverse swipe" angry birds-type controls to be quite counter-intuitive...It feels like it would be more satisfying / more intuitive to instead drag the bodyguard in the direction that you want them to jump, rather than in the opposite direction, as I don't really imagine any sort of "slingshot" effect here. But maybe that's just me? Things may or may not be different on a tablet of course. One thing you might consider is having the bodyguards placed more closely to the car so they are centralized. I know it might be part of the design to have the bodyguards spaced out (which is fair), but I think I found it a bit difficult to keep on trying to move my mouse to different places to launch the different bodyguards, especially as gameplay got faster. But take that with a grain of salt. Again, I could see this being much easier with a touchscreen. Great theming and aesthetic, I really love the mechanical implications of the helicopters. Thank you also for your post-mortem writeups, it's always great to read writings like these!
Dec 23 07:17:28	2h 37m	The lord of Possessions	♥ 1	Played and rated the compo/jam version. Really solid base engine with a good clean engine! I really appreciate the palette you used, as well as all of the visual details you put into the game -- decorative bushes, particle effects, etc. The whole leveling system, inventory and equipment management, and sacrifice aspect isn't quite working out in its current form, it probably needs some design rework to really get something that makes sense (perhaps you addressed it in the post-jam version already!). Great job overall! Again, I really appreciate how solid the implementation and execution is despite the design flaws.
Dec 24 00:33:16	17h 15m	EagleSong	♥ 0	Any particular reason why you opted out of the graphics category?
Dec 24 00:53:59	20m 43s	Overslept	♥ 1	Kind of fun! Played with a friend and got to 50 points before we tired of it since it didn't seem like it was getting faster, we kept on top of all the orders once we got a nice rhythm going. Capture.PNG It was quite difficult to figure out what was going on at first. The colors were especially confusing as the "blue" dye looked purple and the "pink" dye was easy to confuse with white (took us a few minutes to figure out that white means no dye...in hindsight, that was a "d'uh" moment). The movement speed is quite slow which made things much more slow-paced than a game such as Overcooked, so once we both understood how to actually play the game, it wasn't really very challenging or frantic. It was kind of peaceful actually which maybe (?) was what you were going for? So it was a nice mood, but gameplay-wise it didn't end up being very interesting. In the end the ideal strategy most of the time was to have one person focus on dying cotton and putting it in the oven and the other person to deliver all of the completed sheep. It was nice to have defined roles, but I think part of what makes this sort of game fun is having the roles shift around dynamically. Overcooked does this quite nicely with their level and mechanic designs, forcing players to adapt to multiple roles for maximum efficiency. You may want to think about some of their designs and see if you want to take a page out of their book.
Dec 25 19:45:05	42h 51m	Fallen Girl	♥ 1	Rated the jam version, but also played the post-jam version. The mid-air jump was quite unintuitive and took a while for me to discover -- you sort of addressed that in the post-jam version. I love the story illustrations and rhymes that you added in the post-jam version. I couldn't get the good ending though, it's really easy to slip up and miss a tight jump timing. I think if the checkpoints didn't cost life, it would be a lot more feasible. I know the idea is that the checkpoints are supposed to be a tradeoff, but that means if you are going for the good ending it means you are incentivized to not use any of them, which in turn means that if you ever mess up a screen or two it's all over. In the compo version as well, it was quite easy to use a checkpoint with little health remaining and find myself locked into an almost impossible situation. For anyone else playing -- the volume of the music and sound was quite soft, so if you don't hear it, maybe just try turning the volume up!
Dec 26 23:33:17	27h 48m	Ursa	♥ 5	Short and sweet! Some additional polish would really help this game shine more, in terms of just some small things like nice level transitions, some additional quality-of-life improvements, etc. What you have works well though. The music and narrative combine to make a very heartwarming mood, which was very effective IMHO. I wish that the ability sacrifices were a little more tied to the narration (as you did with some of the other mechanics), but that's not a huge deal I guess. Thank you for sharing! We also made a platformer, if you'd like to give our game a go :)
Dec 29 01:25:01	49h 51m	Rainbow Cats	♥ 2	Nice job! I had a lot of fun going through these levels. Would disagree with the complaint that the mechanic was unterutilized, but I guess to each their own. I did finish the last level with two extra red cats rescued, not sure if that is a known thing.
Dec 29 01:33:44	8m 43s	Chicken sexer	♥ 1	Well, that was amusing. If only female chicks actually wore little pink bonnets in real life, that would make this job so much easier (haha). The uselessness of this crane makes the arcade crane machines seem absolutely easy in comparison! However, there is a trick to it -- forget trying to grab the chicks at all and just use the crane lever as a slide/ramp to guide the chicks to the correct side: Screenshot 2018-12-28 17.28.30.png This ended up being the "winning" strategy ("winning" in quotes because it didn't seem like the game would ever end).
Dec 29 01:43:30	9m 46s	Alpaca's Redemption	♥ 0	Hurrah! This was great fun, I enjoyed it and I feel like it was the perfect length. I liked the open-ended level design. Decided to sacrifice jump first as I felt like that would be pretty uncommon! My order was Jump, Gravity Change, Hook, Dash, Climb Walls. Great replay value for this one too! And the alpaca is really cute :3
Dec 29 01:49:09	5m 39s	Crush/Burn/Sacrifice	♥ 0	Looks cool, one of the only entries I've seen that has an actual intro sequence, wow! Wish the game was a bit easier!
Dec 29 01:54:00	4m 51s	SLAP HAPPY	♥ 1	I am....glad this game exists.
Dec 29 04:22:22	2h 28m	Traffic Jams and Hand Grenades	♥ 2	Pretty fun! I have really fond memories of playing this game (minus the grenade...) on long road trips. Trying to use only the one grenade really added a new layer of thinking to it. Nice!
Dec 29 04:38:44	16m 22s	Total Party Kill	♥ 1	Played and rated the WebGL compo version. Great job! The puzzles weren't fiendishly hard but were enjoyable to think through and execute after planning a solution. Fun!
Dec 29 04:43:35	4m 51s	Don’t eat CHICKEN !	♥ 0	Hehe, a fun idea. Congrats on your first LD!
Dec 29 06:48:27	2h 04m	Inked warrior	♥ 0	As mentioned, I don't think your WebGL canvas is sized appropriately? Had to fullscreen the game in order to see the UI. Made it to wave 8 sacrificing only my movement speed (who needs movement when you have DPS???). Kind of fun for what it was. Pretty sweet metal tune, which one of you was the one that made that during the jam?
Dec 29 06:53:32	5m 05s	remembertonamethis	♥ 0	Lol, reminds me of my old game http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-37/?action=preview&uid=7285 Anyhow, this was short but fun, wish there was a bit more to it, but it was enjoyable for what it was. The UI was a bit unintuitive but no biggie, I got it.
Dec 29 07:10:42	17m 10s	Hamster DRUMA	♥ 1	Wow, a full intro sequence! This was super unique, clearly you guys have a lot of experience working with 3D environments which is really cool to see. It definitely took me a bit to figure out how to best direct the hamsters but I'm not sure that's so much a criticism as much of part of the experience. I guess more direct visual feedback would be nice as mentioned. Nice job!
Dec 29 07:31:38	20m 56s	Effigies	♥ 1	I'm always impressed by the puzzle designs that are able to be created under a short timeframe. This one was really difficult to wrap my head around, in a great way, but I slowly started to get the hang of it. Level 8 (the last one) was by far my favorite, I really enjoyed going through that one. There was an initial phase of experimentation, followed by some more concrete guesswork, then actual directed planning as I realized what constraints I needed to meet. Thanks for a great design!
Dec 29 07:46:01	14m 23s	Goodboy Advance	♥ 2	Could have dug out my ol NDS fat but decided to just run it on VBA instead. Great job, I love this and it hits all the right notes especially with the music. Thanks for reminding me what a glorious system the GBA was. I'm not sure what else to say here, obviously the actual game is a bit short but it's still interesting. I wish you could see just a =tad= more of the level at once but I understand zooming out too far would kind of be an issue. The different music variants though, top notch... Any chance of some devlog/post-mortem writeups?