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

Papabirb

Feedback comments for LD43

Papabirb's games and stats for all events →

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Papabirb's comment
Dec 4 03:56:08		Spare Parts	♥ 2	That was pretty fun! I downloaded the wrong file at first, I thought V1.0 was a post-jam update and the LD43 download was the jam release, not the source code. I'm not sure if the background is supposed to look flickery while moving & sometimes it seems like items disappear from view if you're too far away from them, but I'm not sure. I will comment that the controls feel like I'm wading through molasses and sliding on ice at the same time. It's very difficult to get where I want to go and I had to do a lot of fly-by parts installation. It's also difficult to find any credits at all - I found about 3 enemies in the first month, and only one had any coin. Actually, two of the enemies found me, then I struggled to find another one or two. So it's difficult to actually do anything. I had to end on month 2 because I sold my main thruster and couldn't move anymore. Being able to go into negative bank account dollars that makes your debt worse mid-level might help with that - buying emergency parts with money you don't have so you can still play, or otherwise having some way of getting out of that situation. I still had fun though, even if it was difficult. I quite liked chasing the enemies down after they'd perform fly-by shootings like the cowards they were - come back here and face me like a space pirate! It seemed like the enemies definitely had better control over their ships than I did though, so this captain has a bit of ship envy going on. Good job!
Dec 4 04:05:54	9m 46s	Into the Storm	♥ 0	I don't understand the objective. If I don't hit any origami birds, the cube loses all dimensions and the level restarts. If I do touch birds, I expand, but the health bar? goes down, and the level restarts. I don't know what "find your other" means, and the jump button that the itch.io page says there is, doesn't work. I like the layout and atmosphere though, even if I don't understand what I'm doing or what's being sacrificed (or if it even follows the sacrifice theme).
Dec 4 04:49:57	44m 03s	Love is Sacrifice	♥ 1	Pretty okay game! I couldn't read all of the dialogue, though possible due to playing in windowed mode, so that's probably on me. Some dialogue went very fast though, but most of it was pretty sluggish. Moving and interacting was frustrating, because attempting to interact with things would sometimes click on new spots for the AI to path towards. I struggled with the Christmas food, I didn't understand that scene very much since I missed some of the dialogue, and I ended up picking up the cake? instead of the sweets? and I struggled to interact after putting it down. I got stuck on doors a couple times, or just walking in place while trying to move - the pathing seemed a bit too circular in movement, maybe? I was also very unsure what I was sacrificing in the job offer scene, because giving up a job for love and giving up love for a job are both sacrifices; but I also got the bug of not being able to progress past that scene anyway, so I guess Liam will forever be indecisive about his job offer.
Dec 4 05:17:56	27m 59s	YOU CANNOT SACRIFICE HER!	♥ 1	This was pretty fun! The check mark flags were really cute, and I like the player character still moving their legs when moving while jumping. I really liked the song at the beginning too, even if the game just jumps right into everything very suddenly and a little confusingly. At some point the music just abruptly ends however, replaced with an ominous chiming clock sound. I was confused by the abrupt change in mood, as well as the introduction of slightly transparent versions of things - the only ones that could have caused extra difficulty, in my opinion, were the transparent block platform boxes and the one very transparent spike - that one almost got me! Also, for some reason my computer thought your game was a virus. It kept trying to "protect" me, haha. :)
Dec 4 05:50:22	32m 26s	Omelettes	♥ 1	This was really cute! My brain got tired on the last level so I didn't beat it, but it was really good. The puzzles were very well-designed, the buttons raising up when you hover over them was a nice touch, and it was a very solid game. My only complaint would be that it's hard to tell the platforms apart when higher ones are in front of lower ones, as the brown panels and height difference don't stand out very well, which makes solving the puzzles harder since I can't really "see" the puzzle as well. Still, I enjoyed it a lot!
Dec 4 19:15:08	13h 24m	Bird Butt Battle Royale	♥ 5	I think I stayed on the intro screen for a while just appreciating the graphics and interesting musical composition - somehow both incredibly erratic and chaotic yet in its own way harmonious. I guess doing some music appreciation homework about the Contemporary Period right before playing this was a good idea - primed me to appreciate the music pretty well, haha. A little difficult to tell I was moving the egg at first until I got some momentum and fighting going, very much a "which egg is me?" sensation despite the obvious hint of one white egg vs several golden eggs. Pretty fun, could use a bit more of a feel to knocking the other eggs around though watching them go flying is fun enough on its own - strangely both a sensation of impatiently thinking "this is too easy, is it over yet?" while playing followed by "aww, that was too short" after winning. Overall, hilarious game to look at and listen to - good work!!
Dec 5 01:41:19	6h 26m	Abortion Boy	♥ 6	Amazing atmosphere and sound design, but difficult to control. There's not enough time to orient yourself when a level starts, which means mostly blind running around trying to find the next room opening and hoping I don't run into walls and get caught by the hand. Which would be fine if the level design were clearer, but it's all just a red and bloody void, and it's difficult to tell the difference between shadows and paths for me. I'm not sure if there's a point to the "Take The L" mechanic or not besides being funny, I don't know enough about Fortnite memes to understand it other than that it's probably one of the dances you have available in that game. In the end I gave up after level one, as it was difficult enough to get to the exit with legs, let alone afterwards when the speed was much slower and the hand was constantly haunting me, making it really hard to move the camera and find a path instead of dead-end running into walls again. Overall, though, good work!
Dec 5 02:04:51	23m 32s	Head Over Hooves: My Heart Bleats For You	♥ 4	I've been excited for this since I saw a blog post of the title screen during the jam. I gotta say, in the places that do have audio, it's absolutely phenomenal - but overall, there's a lot of silence that leaves me feeling empty, and while I can't blame you for not having enough time to make a tutorial for the minigame, I'm unfamiliar with the Mastermind board game. It was intuitive enough to figure out that red = wrong spot and green = right spot, but I have no idea what the yellow squares I got meant, as I only encountered thoseo n I believe day 2. (Having a counter for what day you're on would have been helpful storytelling wise, as the days are so short and I feel like I spent more than a week with Goat before God took them from me.) It would also be nice if there was a return to menu or restart button on the endings, or at least on the one I got - I'm not inclined to hunt for endings right now when I have to close and restart the .exe for each one of them, but I might play it for fun later just to see what else there is and if I can figure out better strategies for that minigame. Overall, very strong visuals and concept, and great that there were options for text speed and music! A bit out of place in contrast to how much dead silence there was, though, and it seemed to me that text was put up instantaneously anyway, so either the speed slider is too sensitive since I wasn't even close to maxed out on it, or it's just an aesthetic slider that does nothing but look cool. I'd love to see this as a full visual novel in the future. I'm not really sure if I'd play it myself, since visual novels aren't generally my cup of tea to play, but I'd definitely watch some Let's Plays of it.
Dec 5 02:28:21	23m 30s	Jesus Take the Wheel	♥ 3	Amazing little game - I love humor based around the song of the same title, so this immediately caught my eye on the games tab! A little too chaotic for me in the end though, too many warnings going off at once for me to control my pitiful 3 or 4 cars at a time, and pedestrians were the biggest sacrifice because even changing lanes didn't always save them since they were sometimes crossing from other lanes. Slowing the game down a bit more in the beginning to get used to everything might be a big help to players adjusting and learning to strategize before the speed things up. My only comment would be that a better song could probably be found - while the style of religious gospel music fits the theme and the game nicely, I'm not sure that particular song's energy levels are high enough to be the best match for how chaotic and energetic the game feels. Good work on everything though, I love the arms! I didn't notice Jesus making any faces while I played since I was focused on trying to save people, but the screenshot that pkenney put in their comment is an absolute Big Mood.
Dec 5 02:37:19	8m 58s	Fallen Girl	♥ 1	Love the art and sound! A little bit difficult to control the jumps accurately since the height depends on how long you hold the key it seems, which meant it became a bit too difficult for me after losing a leg. My only comment would be that there needs to be some sort of exposition or otherwise more threatening spike for the orange seaweed-brambles of doom, as they're visually very non-threatening other than that they're a complimentary color to the rest of the palette and thus stand out as "other". Great work though, I enjoyed it!
Dec 5 03:34:39	57m 20s	Sacrifices Must Be Made	♥ 1	This game is absolutely fantastic! Other than the Warren bug, as many others have already mentioned. Although, a check for if you've used the knife or not in round 2 would be useful - both with and without cheating using the Warren, I won that round without having to sacrifice my eye, and yet my eye was missing in round three. A little bit frustrating, since losing an eye does of course make it harder to see, and using the knife in round three is optional to the story it seems compared to the eye that's expected to be lost - or at least, I don't know if I had a hand or not when I got to the ending, so I'm thinking positive. Really amazing though, absolutely phenomenal! I love that the game closes itself at the end, although if there was a menu I think an abrupt return to that for easier replaying would have been better - but since the game is abrupt in starting too, that's fine. I wish there was a way to skip the tutorial on replays, though - or at least speed it up.
Dec 5 04:07:03	32m 24s	Sacrificio Inc.	♥ 1	Amazing art and sound design! The puzzles are well thought out, I loved it! I enjoy the variation in villagers' designs and sound personalities, although I will admit that (on PC at least, it may feel different coming out of a phone speaker), the villagers and especially their death yells are the weakest link in the sound design. Still, really great overall, I beat everything with three stars (and then went back for a star I didn't notice I'd missed). I do have a comment about the menu: After unlocking everything, you can cycle back to level 1 from clicking the right arrow up until you're beyond the last level, but the reverse of getting back to the last level from clicking the left arrow isn't true. It feels a little asymmetrical, but I'm unsure if it's intentional or not. Great work though!
Dec 5 04:24:04	17m 01s	FTD : Fixin' to Die	♥ 2	Amazing! I love the voice acting, perhaps a little overdone but definitely a strong Movie Trailer vibe to start! I was a little confused on how to start the game in the beginning since the on-screen instructions are geared towards the controller compatibility, so I tried WASD/any key before I tried pressing space based on the description. I got stressed out and had to quit on day three since there wasn't a volume option and I couldn't hear someone that was trying to talk to me while I was playing because of it, but it was really fun! I loved the screen shakes caused by the war going on outside, it really upped the Action Movie vibes.
Dec 5 04:59:56	35m 52s	Eternal Home Floristry	♥ 1	I had a feeling from the start that the not-divisible-by-3 amount of flowers meant I'd have one left over for something at the end. It was so good, though! At the beginning, I feel the cutscene was a bit too long, as I was eager to get to the meat of the game - but I also feel that it was the perfect intro, narrative-wise. There were some issues regarding what I'm gonna call "text popping", where dialogue would be on the side of the screen but then jump to the top when choices or flower arranging needed to happen - very jarring to see the text suddenly latch on to the top-middle like that. A lot of typos/wording errors as well in places, but pretty cool. I like how well the base music loops even with the addition of new elements for the different parts of the game. A bit more of a time sink than the other jam games, but it felt great to play! Good work!
Dec 6 11:19:22	30h 19m	Oxygen Levels Critical	♥ 0	The voices were pretty amusing at times, after all Nothing Bad can happen at the back of the ship. It was a bit confusing to figure out that I could turn off the airlock venting, though. I wasn't able to figure out how to lock doors, but since it sucks you through the walls, I just assumed the best plan was to jettison everyone and try to turn it off before you get sucked out too. Didn't really work out. Pretty cool idea though, love the faces, although I was able to highlight the faces (accidentally) since they were text, which was a little jarring and confusing when I just wanted to make them go to the cargo hold.
Dec 6 11:27:39	8m 17s	water ruins escape from cultist	♥ 1	I love the art and sounds, but it felt frustrating to play as the constant dialogue prevented me from making any good progress as I was constantly having to hit the arrow keys in order to get through the text. The platforming was difficult, I kept getting stuck where this little cultist demon was at, but unable to get back up after collecting it. I eventually found a big fountain and a gate and apparently nothing happened when I drank the water, so the game restarted. I'm not sure how to get to the other 3 endings, or if that even was an ending.
Dec 6 11:39:06	11m 27s	Kaiju Attack	♥ 3	Pretty fun, lacking some music though to help keep it from being just "run around and spam click til the boss or city is dead". Sometimes my robot got stuck running forward (my W key wasn't stuck, though, I don't think, since I kept tapping it to fix the movement and it felt normal. The robot just felt like running post-input). I like the graphics, some variation in the monster designs would have been cool, less wait time between the spawning or otherwise city regen between spawns would been nice.
Dec 6 11:47:54	8m 48s	Suicide Sanctum	♥ 1	I got frustrated and briefly softlocked by some of the arrow puzzles, it's very difficult and annoying to time those correctly, so I didn't play much beyond 7 levels. I like the atmosphere though, and the gold bag being red when you're not ready to leave yet vs glowing green when you can continue to the next level. I think the very first level which required no deaths was a bit unnecessary; the second level does a well enough job of both communicating the gold bag = goal message as well as introducing the stepping on your own bodies mechanic.
Dec 6 12:02:00	14m 06s	Toothless Speed Dating	♥ 1	It felt like either jumping through molasses or going uncontrollably fast, with no consistent in between to help with the platforming. It was a bit frustrating, but the background was pretty, and I quite enjoyed the second checkpoint girl accidentally launching me into space when I landed on top of her.
Dec 6 12:12:13	10m 13s	Shepards Island	♥ 0	Very relaxing and adorable, except that killing sheep without actually seeming to need to made me feel sad :( so I didn't do that and just kept breeding green ones with horns for a few minutes. I didn't notice any particular bugginess with the WebGL cursors on my end, as far as I know.
Dec 6 12:37:23	25m 10s	the big bad burger (browser playable)	♥ 0	I love when the burger gets you - it makes me laugh a lot. Pretty fun for a one-button-game, a bit difficult to time things as the jumping is lacking a sense of weight to it - the third level was almost impossible. I'm not sure I felt very surprised by "Thanks for saving me from the burger", but I sure did feel appreciated.
Dec 6 12:53:12	15m 49s	C'est la vie	♥ 0	I liked that the butterflies said hello to you in the ordinary life game mode. I don't really understand why following my dreams meant brutally murdering my former friends. I also don't know what Meteora is. I love the art though, and the dream mode controlled pretty well, even if it wasn't clear that it was a distance game rather than an "eventually there will be an end" game since the ordinary life mode crawls to a stop over time, whereas there was a lack of indicators of purpose or goal in the second one. I ended up making a goal of trying not to land on the flowers and butterflies, not that I did very well since at first I killed quite a few before I actively tried to not do that. Could have used a little bit of music (unless there was and it was so quiet I forgot, or didn't play in WebGL), but the sound effects were lovely.
Dec 6 13:22:24	29m 12s	Passage Home	♥ 1	I loved it! It was really relaxing, and I felt compelled to keep trying even though at first I didn't understand how to play well & I didn't realize I was sacrificing my crew (I misinterpreted the pixel as a mountain/volcano to steer clear of at first) so I kept dying after sacrificing the last one. Eventually I made it home alone, then played again a few times to try and get home with more than 1 - I managed to get 4 people home. The secret technique is cruise control ✌️
Dec 6 13:35:09	12m 45s	Sacrifice my farm!!	♥ 1	Dying didn't seem to matter much as it appeared to keep where I was at, not sure though. It was difficult to find the animals, but I love how goofy the farms looked. The footsteps of the player were rhythmic enough to almost be a soundtrack, I liked the sound effect in general too.
Dec 6 13:40:15	5m 06s	Goats of Wrath	♥ 0	I feel like the intense chaos of the fire and meteors starts way too fast and way too strong - more like something that should increase with the gods' wrath, I think. That, or the fire being low enough to jump over. I kept spilling my goats everywhere waiting to cross the fire. I love the music and goat bleating, though! Cute art, too.
Dec 13 23:54:24	178h 14m	Cultist's Quest	♥ 0	I love the graphics, personally - the title screen and sprite art was very cute. The music had some kinda mood to it and good looping, but otherwise fell a little flat and as others have said, repetitive. I know that part of my boredom was due to both the rng of the map generation and my own brain chemistry's rng of what paths to take, but I agree that the whole thing coulda been scaled down a bit or at least look less same-y so that you can tell where you've been before without having to check on open doors and memorize the locations of the doors in relation to the rooms - I think, had I not stopped on floor 2, then I would have been just as lost returning with the amulet as I am looking for the way down. The text colors were a bit too bright, I think - in-game, the purple/green/yellow were generally fine, though the purple was ab it harder to read since it was actually less bright; but the menu's bright red was quite a bit painful to look at. A button to see the controls again in-game would have been nice as well - the only things I managed to memorize were S for sacrifice, G for grab, I for inventory & U/D for Up Stairs and Down Stairs. A way to identify what effect potions might have in order to make educated guesses on drinking them would have been nice. Personally, I wasn't able to tell what items did what, other than obvious food = hunger, so I can't say for sure if I had the duplicate effect bug since I pretty much ignored potions as inventory space-wasters. Congratulations on learning to write a dungeon generation algorithm, though - especially the "making sure keys are accessible to the player's starting point" part! That's something I want to learn in the future, too. So even if the game was a bit boring to play, I'm glad you were able to learn what you set out to learn. Good luck next jam!
Dec 14 17:52:43	17h 58m	Horde of the Demon Lord	♥ 0	That was pretty cool! Buggy, but cool. I lost the ticking timepiece immediately after I got it because I couldn't do anything except use it as a weapon, some kind of amulet? Once it was used up from I guess dying (which wouldn't be a problem if I'd been able to attack normally tbqh) I was able to attack normally again, but w/e. The towns were kinda buggy too - taking the middle path, I couldn't go to the top row when I got to the middle village that's connected to all three rows, but I was able to take the bottom path, so I did. A few typos in narration and could use some "you beat the demon lord!" music, but the music and art was super good! I'd love to see this as a full game with animations! I also really appreciate the options menu being available in-combat, as well.