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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | ArmchairArmada's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 5 22:52:24 | Black Friday Shopping | ♥ 2 | As a simplified turn-based RPG, the battle system was easy to comprehend. The strategy of the game was clearly indicated, making it a thinking a game (a good sign). Since the instructions were pretty sophisticated, it may be worth putting a tutorial in at some point. I also feel that the battle system is too simple. It has a, what I like to call, "optimization problem" where the same strategy works in every single battle. It might be worth adding elemental weaknesses, new weapons/party members that support those weaknesses, resources, etc. to add variety to each battle. | |
| May 5 23:40:51 | 48m 27s | Risky Life | ♥ 1 | What's in the game is quite impressive. The platforming controls were tight and predictable. Firing bullets were fine. I do think the level design was a bit uninspired; in particular, the lack of variety in enemy movement made the combat very simple. I also thought it was interesting that most levels were horizontal in nature. I assumed with the jump powerup, there would be more vertical levels, but apparently not. I did find it strange that 1) taking a power-up would turn your character into a glass-cannon (instant kill), and 2) bigger bullets is even an option. Since power-ups is mostly necessary, the first thing forced the player into one-hit kill situations, which...I have mixed feelings about. And, well, bigger bullets didn't seem to do much? |
| May 6 04:32:17 | 4h 51m | Jukebox Panic! | ♥ 2 | I really liked playing this game on-stream. The concept is simple and sweet, easy to get into, and adds new challenges to each level that encourages progression. Personally, I thought some new mechanics added in a level could have used a smoother introduction, such as having a level devoted to each mechanic for the player to slowly get used to them. I also wanted a bit more control over how the coins bounced from the cursor: my original suggestion was to make the circle larger. Not saying that would solve the problem perfectly, but it's something I think is worth experimenting. I also had difficulties moving coins stuck on the sides of the screen to move out of them. Lastly, some colliders, like the legs on the tables, could use some smoothing. Definitely looking forward to a mobile release. Just remember to compensate for the finger that will inevitably cover the screen! |
| May 6 04:49:32 | 17m 15s | Emergency Economic Envelope | ♥ 1 | I think I've beaten the boss. Not sure; the boss played a particle effect, and the game slowed down. There were no end screen to greet me. I thought that needing to recollect your..."bullets" was actually a clever mechanic. It adds a significant depth to the fight as not only is aiming but also positioning becomes vital to your player character. There were a number of weird strategies I've experimented with various degrees of success that made the game more unique than most others I've played this jam. I think the full 8-direction controls were a little strange from the aiming perspective. I never found use for shooting in angles, for example, since it's already difficult to do that while still. The game was a bit too bullet-hell for me to enjoy; I really don't like games that feels like it's too focused in dodging. Still, the concept has potential. |
| May 11 17:38:47 | 132h 49m | Rising Dawn - First Blood: It's Brunchtime | ♥ 1 | This game is pretty hard! The controls were simple enough to grasp, and elements such as "no reflection" and "transforming in front of people = no good" were introduced in intuitive and non-obstructive ways. I think the tutorial, while could use improvements in introducing buttons presses, were thoughtful and well done. You've also managed to create this simplified experience of a stealth game: the thrill of being under-powered but also having enough tools on-hand to handle the situation. I think my difficulty from playing the game stems from the fact that there are just a lot of people, and it's far too easy to give away your location. It's hard to figure out how to get away from the cross people, since it's a double punishment for detection, and they hunt you while you're hiding (which mainly is due to your character walking slowly, and the health bar makes the bat form untenable). At numerous moments, I simply reacted with a "I don't know what to do here" face. Some improvements in level design slowly teaching the player how to crowd-control would be great. |
| May 12 20:58:35 | 27h 19m | bird food | ♥ 1 | As a puzzle game about optimizing the path to travel, the game experience was interesting. I really like the interesting twist added into the snakes game. The levels were clearly presented, and I didn't have too much problems piecing out the best path to beat each level. I personally struggled with the reactive-ness of the controls. It didn't feel "tight," and at many times, died for tapping the directional keys at the wrong time. There were a bit of "depth perception" problem as well, in particular the guillotine. It would have been nice if the shadow appeared on the snake itself. Oh, right, and the half-movement thing, like everyone said š https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8 |
| May 12 21:32:12 | 33m 37s | PATH, a game of life | ♥ 1 | This is an interesting take on trade-quests in Zelda games. I did think the fact that time *also* slowly erases your life was a stroke of genius. It forced me to make interesting decisions, such as whether to continue the path I'm taking, and whether to listen to a character. Some of the clues given in the game is a little too obtuse for me to figure out. I did feel a little tired after trying to find some of the endings, largely due to the high reliance of trial and error. I'll give it another go after the stream to see if there are any pathways I missed (after 3 endings or so). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8 |
| May 13 00:06:54 | 2h 34m | Life Merchant | ♥ 1 | Aw, the game ended *just* as it started getting interesting! I actually really love this puzzle game; not too hard, has enough Sokoban challenge, but has a neat character switching mechanic that really forces you to think. I think the improvements of controls would have been nice, perhaps having a proper walk animation from one cell to another so holding down the arrow keys has meaning. Some of the text in the game implied some mechanics that didn't seem to make it into the game, e.g. "you body doesn't fit through these steel bars" seems to imply that you could regress in age. I did really like the levels, though; they ramped up in difficulty smoothly enough that the whole experience was pleasant. Would love to see more coming out of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8 |
| May 13 00:15:21 | 8m 27s | Sword of Hearts | ♥ 1 | Had a lot of fun playing the game. The idle animation of the character spitting blood was a nice touch. Puzzles were introduced well enough that I didn't feel the game was unfair (except potentially the no-death run). The ghost-jumping (or coyote time) as a puzzle solution to some of these might have been a bit much. Obviously as a convenience feature, I did enjoy having that feature at all, but at times, I felt I needed to know how that aspect of the game was programmed so I can time my jumps properly, which isn't a good feeling. I'm not sure I'm a huge fan of the idle animation forcing the player to stop momentarily, which creates an occasionally stutter to the movement and gameplay. These nitpicks didn't ruin the whole experience, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fg6h6NSyd8 |
| May 13 03:02:32 | 2h 47m | Grim Adventures | ♥ 0 | That game turned out to be longer than I expected. The upgrade system is really interesting, and certainly gives a bit of a Metroidvania feel to it; though not by too much, as I quickly discovered. I had the most fun trying to beat certain levels without having certain power-ups available. That said, I did struggle with the boss, so I guess that was one thing I felt forced to have power-ups (edited-to-add: this isn't a bad thing; it was only an observation). I'm glad I had a controller at hand, since the game had parts that were difficult with keyboard (narrow pathways in particular). Dashing across the low-ceiling, lava pits proved to be more difficult than I expected as well. I'm sure you already know about the depth-perception issues: I would have appreciated a free-form camera that would let one observe the gaps between platforms at any angles, thus making it easier to calculate my jumps. Controls felt a little loose, too: moving is slow, and the jumps felt very floaty (definitely increase Unity's gravity, or scale everything to be smaller). I also felt the attacks had no impact, partially due to the simple animations, but mostly due to lack of juice: hit-pauses, camera shakes, screen flashes, etc. Some of the moves could also use extra flourishes as well, including jump, land, double-jump, and dash. Those were my thoughts. |
| May 13 03:15:06 | 12m 34s | Super Powerup Dash | ♥ 1 | Phew, got past the menus. As commented in the Newgrounds site, hey, nice job getting something out for this Ludum Dare despite things not working out midway. The level design, though short, was completely fine in my book. A little difficult to navigate, but not too intimidating. Controls were pretty tight, though it took me a while I could push down to swim in water. Obviously, the lack of features is a bit of a bummer. I can see this becoming a larger game where the player needs to commit to a different play style. As of now, the double-jump is totally over-powered. Looking through the comments, it seems *all* power-ups are over-powered, so maybe some balancing is in order. |
| May 13 03:34:41 | 19m 35s | F_NULL | ♥ 1 | So...I had to play this game because I am indeed working on an F-Zero-like anti-gravity racing game (shameless self-promotion [here](https://omiyagames.itch.io/prototype-airwaves)). But anyways... There are a few things this game does nail: the sense of speed is palpable, and the high-bloom, strong contrast minimalistic art are quite extraordinary. I did think given the speed of the game, the track itself felt too thin. This was particularly unfair in areas with many bends on the road. The minimalistic graphics also made it hard to predict when the next tight turn was coming, so it did make it difficult to stay on the middle of the road. I think you're on the right path, but the game does need some polish here and there. |
| May 13 04:19:29 | 44m 48s | Baby Benjamins | ♥ 1 | Yikes, this game makes my carpal tunnel worse. Had a pretty fun time playing this gravity simulation. I did like the joy of tossing things around. I was a little annoyed that the money won't compound until the one being dragged was touching another like-item. I guess it would have made the game too easy, but I was half-expecting things that just happened to touch each other also combine as well. Still, there's an inherent joy in seeing those numbers rise really, really fast. |
| May 13 04:36:07 | 16m 38s | CurANTcy | ♥ 1 | This game is amazing. I love the presentation and the simplicity behind the game. I was half wondering if one could play with just the audio alone, but that doesn't seem to be the case: the drumroll doesn't seem to scale with the coin height. Still, the purity of the game is incredible. That drumroll really makes the game super-intense. |
| May 14 03:44:49 | 23h 08m | Assault on Crown Archipelago | ♥ 0 | Confession: I could only get through 2 or 3 levels before feeling motion sick. This was even before I realized I could drink booze in the game: something about the game's controls and dark graphics makes it hard to stomach the camera movements. That, and probably the low framerate my poor computer can muster. I did get up to the harpoon, and I find it fascinating it operates as a platform. It is a very thin platform, so it was a bit frustrating to figure out where I can land on the harpoon. Perhaps adding some "ghostly platform" effect would help aid the player on the size of the harpoon's platform. In addition, the angle of the harpoon seem to be based on the direction the player aimed, which made the whole thing very fickle; I would have liked it if the harpoon angled to the normal of the surface it attached to. It might also help to put a clear highlight on the harpoon so that it's recognizable from a distance, and most definitely from the wall it's attached to. Another confession: fetch-quests are a pet peeve of mine. I'm not a huge fan of needing to collect nearly all the coins within the 2 first levels. I often felt like I needed to read the level designer's mind to get as many as I can. Combined with my motion sickness, I couldn't really play for too long. Sorry. |
| May 14 04:03:46 | 18m 57s | CorrupSoul | ♥ 0 | Haven't played the game yet, @odlog-oglog, but since the topic of "Juice" came up, I couldn't resist: here's a playable game I made that covers the same topic. Hopefully you find that educational as well. https://omiyagames.itch.io/make-it-juicy |
| May 18 23:49:36 | 115h 45m | GARUA | ♥ 1 | Neat! The game had a pretty decent pacing, despite all the "it's balancing is broken" comments throughout the stream. As usual, well done in the presentation quality. Graphics are solid, and music is fitting. The metroidvania part was probably the more interesting aspect of the game. I felt the combat became trivial over time, as most of my focus eventually turned into tanking every hit. Personally speaking, I think the sword attack didn't have that much impact; the only feedback I noticed was the enemy knockback. |
| May 19 00:13:31 | 23m 55s | Slimevery | ♥ 1 | The most cynical implementation of *Boy and His Blob*. There's not even a hug button. How dare you! Joke aside, it was a pretty simple puzzle platformer, though I couldn't help but feel it was too simple. The slime AI is pretty good and their bounce even has a lot of character. It's a little sad the only application they seem to have was dying on spikes and getting trapped into switches. Then again, I didn't have any slimes following me at the end, so I guess joke's on the final hooded person? On my retina Macbook screen, the game ended up being very small. I thought the jump was awfully short; it made jumping over gaps very stressful due to the required precision. I would have liked checkpoints, too, since very frequently, I ran out of berries to feed slimes. |
| May 20 03:33:32 | 27h 20m | Shadow Seekers | ♥ 0 | I confess that I was too confused with what I was supposed to do with the game to even finish it. I liked the graphics a lot, but the initial time I walked into the dungeon, there were literally no way out of the first room. It wasn't until the second playthrough that I realized the level was supposed to be procedurally generated. I did get lost in the maze, too: there didn't seem to be an obvious objective and items to guide me to a specific direction. I know this is more difficult to implement in a procedural game, but something to keep in mind next time. Other concerns include the attack animation, which I thought didn't do a good job at conveying the range of the attack. This made the combat difficult often. A couple of times, the attack button didn't seem to register, and nothing would happen; at other times, the down-attack seems to play two different animations, with one visually having poor range. I also couldn't figure out how to throw things in the game. https://youtu.be/299GvZrjyZk |
| May 20 03:56:33 | 23m 01s | Battery Life | ♥ 1 | Had a lot of fun playing and streaming this game. It's a fairly well-paced game about resource management, which did frustrate me at earlier levels, but was much easier and generous in the later ones. I personally had a hard time figuring out how much fuel I needed for each conveyor belts and yellow doors, so ended up experimenting with bits and pieces for the most part. Some sort of hard limit in either would have been useful. I would have also like to see more elements besides just enemies, conveyor belts, and yellow doors; though to be fair, this is a game jam and all. I also thought the way the camera rotated, it felt a bit drunken. It would have been nice if the camera followed the mouse, at least when combat was involved so I can see ahead where I'm aiming. Obviously, I hit into some collision bugs which you already knew about. Still, I was impressed with what I played. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk |
| May 20 04:24:18 | 27m 45s | The Last Duel | ♥ 0 | I really enjoyed this entry despite the confusing UI design and rather dull presentation. It felt like the game was really well balanced, with the AI just barely being beatable. I really appreciated the game taking its time to explain the turn order, improving the predictability and the strategy the player has to develop. That said, I did think some added graphics and effects could have helped what the effect of said turn was (e.g. shooting laser animated the shield number going down). It wasn't difficult to figure out the one card to play, one card to hold onto concept per turn, but I would have liked to explain what and why the player would want to take these options. For example, I didn't know the AI and player shared the same deck. I didn't know the ratio of how many cards are in the deck, so it would have helped to know that information prior to playing. Lastly, I realized it's possible to end the game with a tie where both the player and AI dies at the same turn; not sure how the game deals with that. Still, I do think it's cool the game was designed with a constantly depleting resource in mind, and figuring out how to make the most out of that situation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk |
| May 20 04:35:49 | 11m 31s | MoneyBag | ♥ 1 | The controls were responsive and mostly smooth. I like the simplicity behind the concept as well. The gradual loss of the coins wasn't too punishing, though it was a bit more rapid than I expected. And I'm glad the quick restart button exists, since I abused the heck out of it. As a physics based platformer, though, I didn't like the clumsiness in the game. It probably comes down to taste, but I felt less in control than I would have liked, especially with the lack of aerial controls and short jumps. Everything, consequently, becomes a strict commitment: I'm looking at you, evil stairs! I can see this game as requiring a sort of mastery to its physics, but I didn't feel compelled to replay it often. The game simply didn't feel like it was for me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk |
| May 20 20:40:57 | 16h 05m | dunkin' dogoos | ♥ 0 | Excellent *Marble Madness*/*Super Monkey Ball* game! The checkpoint system is a god-send. They're well-paced, and makes the game difficult enough to be satisfying, but easy enough to be tolerable. It kept me motivated to play the game to the very end. The game definitely needs to be played by a controller: I can't imagine using the keyboard. As mentioned by everyone, I did find the camera to be unwieldy. I also found the "splot" sound effect really annoying; it could have used variations each time it played. I appreciate the rain components was well balanced, but it was difficult to tell when it applied, and when it doesn't. A little strange, given that the rain's intent is to encourage the player to speed up in a game that asks for careful play. Still, these are nitpicks (except the camera) to an otherwise great game. Nice job! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk |
| May 20 20:48:36 | 7m 39s | A Moment To Reflect | ♥ 1 | > ...Iām on vacation so this was scoped pretty minimally. Oh, yeah, been there, done that. Given how short the game was, I didn't feel like committing to a specific flower was...particularly meaningful. I mean, the game resets in a super-short time, so I could just replay the game again; that kind of makes the decision-making process trivial. I just went with farthest flower first, then gradually chose closer ones to see all the dialog ('cause I'm weird like that). There just wasn't much consequences in choosing one choice over another. It did feel like the game was not for me. Which, to be clear, is fine. Random bugs I found: tutorial kind of shows up out-of-order, especially if you figure out how to move and approach the sheep early in the game. I also noticed that by tapping the X button over and over again while on top of the flower, it resets the fade-out animation, making it easy to just not commit to a decision. Maybe that last one was on purpose š ? |
| May 21 01:31:19 | 4h 42m | Ludum Dare 44 Entry | ♥ 0 | Nice job getting 3 games done this Ludum Dare. While I don't pretend any single one felt polished, I'm still very impressed at what you were able to achieve in such a limited time span. Of the three, I think the *Bejewled* game was the one I enjoyed the most. I'm a little annoyed the game doesn't register the 5-color combo, but eh, nitpick. I did think the UFO game was...odd, to say the least. It doesn't keep track of score, and it was kind of easy to get away with UFO tractor beams. I did eventually get caught, but it was strange... If the triple jump worked more consistently, I would think the first game would be more fun and interesting, but without it, the game feels a bit unfair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=299GvZrjyZk |