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tddawson

Feedback comments for LD44

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		tddawson's comment
May 2 02:30:58		Crumb	♥ 1	I like the different levels of strategy that emerged from relatively few rules. For example, trying to "trap" a number of pieces in your base at once. I agree that it would be fun to have a 1v1 human version of this. Good work and good luck with future dev on it!
May 2 02:48:32	17m 34s	We Pay In Blood	♥ 2	This is an impressive compo entry! It feels really full in the sense that there's a real main menu (with settings!), music and sfx, multiple enemy types, bosses, varied weapons with different abilities and visual effects, etc. I actually don't mind that you lose weapons between each round, but maybe that could be explained or conveyed more clearly. I agree with @mrtnldm that some knockback could improve the flow of the combat. I liked that you could attack in all eight directions, but because the sprite was only facing one of four ways it was sometimes difficult to tell where I'd be attacking. Again, I'm impressed with the breadth of the features, mechanics, and extras you've added in just two days.
May 2 03:07:38	19m 06s	Nexcidium	♥ 1	You did a great job at exercising restraint in a lot of areas of game design here. By making it a shorter, digestable experience that wasn't artificially difficult it made it an easy decision for me to play it all the way through. The graphics, colors, and music were all subtle in the right ways for the experience, too. Another thing to consider while balancing the game could be to make the first level a bit shorter to have it essentially serve as a tutorial. That level in particular was easy enough where I just found myself standing still and shooting waiting for it to end. If that level was a bit shorter it would show what a full level was (and make sure people knew they needed to shoot haha) and get them right into the rest of the game. One minor nitpick I had is that because I was so focused on my player and the incoming obstacles I never really was able to keep an eye on the progress or health meters. Maybe there'd be a way to represent that information closer to the player so you don't have to lose focus to see it? Again, well done and I'm glad I played it through!
May 2 03:21:42	14m 04s	GERYDAS TOWER	♥ 0	Best soundtrack I've heard yet! I noticed the little flashing animation when I got hit, but sometimes in the heat of the battle it was hard to notice. Adding something like a sound effect, camera shake, or other effect around the edges of the screen might give some valuable feedback about that. For the most part, I did just run around to avoid enemies and look for the exits instead of seeking out fights and shops. A few shifts in the balance or designing specific areas that you have to fight your way through enemies are a few ideas about how to encourage combat if that's your goal. Nicely done!
May 2 03:30:04	8m 22s	Robyn Hüd	♥ 1	I really like how you interpreted the theme and what you did with it! Very creative. I also had a little trouble seeing the cars through some of the power-ups when they started to come more frequently. It was also sometimes hard to judge the speed the power-ups and cars were moving, but I probably just needed to practice more. A literal idea to expand the game could be to have wider streets in later levels so you have to traverse multiple lanes of traffic to make it rain. Good work!
May 2 03:37:34	7m 30s	World Class Track Meat	♥ 1	Very creative implementation of three different minigames with simple and distinct controls. I thought the music, graphics, and humor all fit together really well! I also felt compelled to try all three different modes. Maybe some way of comparing your results or tracking your high scores overall would be a fun way to motivate repeated play-throughs. "Ba, da da, duh da da" is now stuck in my head.
May 2 18:38:11	15h 00m	Ballsy Escape	♥ 1	Well done! It was hard to know how best to ration my life without knowing what was coming up next. That made some levels impossible as soon as you got there, so I just found myself reseting or buying myself to death to be able to move on to the next level. A few of the hitboxes seemed off on the spikes. I liked the different uses of the boxes and all the different types of switches you implemented in such a short time. I also liked the "a box" label :D. Fun all-around puzzle-platformer!
May 3 00:28:43	5h 50m	Nine Lives	♥ 1	Lots of variety for just a weekend in terms of mechanics and level design! I'm genuinely impressed with how far you got. I also thought there were some really creative levels that forced me to think but were very rewarding once completed. I found a number of levels required really precise placements, but the controls were just a little too loose to do what I wanted to do. I'm sure practice is the answer, there. Some of my halos I placed next to the "no halo zones" were considered inside of it even though visually they appeared fully outside of the zones. One other piece of feedback is that some stages were all about using the halos in creative ways and some were just about strict platforming (no extra hearts to spare). I thought the strongest ones involved full use of the the unique halo mechanic, so I would double-down on designing stages around that. Great work!
May 3 00:50:35	21m 52s	God All Smitey	♥ 1	Well done! I found myself "just one more time"ing despite (or perhaps because of) the initial difficulty. Looking at a few tips you and other commenters gave helped me out a great deal. Sometimes I'd spawn with a lot of tanks underneath me and feel like a good chunk of my health was taken before I could get out of frame or load up my first attack. I think it would help to have an audio or visual effect cue the user when their next strike is ready. That way, they can keep their eye on the action and be ready to strike immediately without just mashing the mouse button.
May 3 01:02:36	12m 01s	Headbutter	♥ 1	For what it's worth, I also was unable to get the past the start screen in Firefox, Chrome, or Safari (I'm on Mac if that makes a difference). I downloaded the Mac app and played through it as well. I really liked the song! I would also say not to worry about the length of the game, especially for a game jam. For me, I enjoyed having a simple experience that I could play through in one sitting without getting frustrated or bored. I liked the take on people commenting about wasting life and how that's a form of currency. Simple graphics, but they worked well for the mood of it all. Good work!
May 3 01:12:52	10m 16s	Peak Myths	♥ 1	I liked the message and your interpretation of the theme :) Was there a way to see how many years of my life I had left before buying more credits? Sometimes I would go back and mash out a lot of games and then forget how many I had left.
May 4 22:17:28	45h 04m	Depths	♥ 1	I echo what everyone else has said about how cool it is that you made a game for the NES and one with meaning in such a short time. I was able to beat it (normal) my first time, but I completely agree with your reasoning for the difficulty level. I love being able to play through a complete LD game. One minor issue I experienced was getting "stuck" on the edges of the rafts/animals when they were in close proximity to each other. I was eventually able to all the way up and around the raft in reverse. Just a small thing, didn't affect my enjoyment. Good work!
May 4 22:35:33	18m 05s	Contract Cleric	♥ 1	Good work, super unique! I think what you mentioned in an earlier comment about gradually introducing the abilities in-game would do wonders. It felt a little overwhelming at first, but once I actually started playing it made sense how it all worked together. This may just me being stupid, but after a few games I'm still not quite sure when/why to move my character? I found myself mostly just managing the spells and the damages which was plenty to keep track of and a lot of fun to try to figure out. I liked that I felt like I was constantly performing quick cost/benefit analyses and making decisions, even when spells were cooling down. Great job!
May 4 22:45:25	9m 52s	Monolith	♥ 2	I also basically did a spin-and-fire technique in each room, which was actually very visually satisfying :) It sounds like you've got some great feedback in terms of options in the future already. My two cents is I like the suggestions, but don't try to do them all. Find out what you want to be unique about it and run with it, whether it's a more frantic shooter, a resource manager, etc. You've got a good start, so good work!
May 5 16:50:20	18h 04m	Soul Exchange	♥ 1	I'm a bit blown away by how cohesive and fun your entry is! Everything works together very well, from the audio and graphics to the core gameplay mechanics. I also liked how you built off the theme but didn't let it distract from the game itself. I only have two minor pieces of feedback I could think of from playing it through. The first is the exact issue @dennis-jeong described in his response. I'm afraid I don't have a great solution to it, but it did feel a little wonky sometimes when transitioning from one side to another and then trying to go back. The second was that while the arrows guiding you were a great idea to serve as a tutorial in a bite-sized jam entry, as you continue to develop it I think the level design itself should nudge the players in the right direction without explicitly telling them. Might add a bit more of a fun puzzle element to it, especially with some of the other character ideas you mentioned. Again, super minor details that didn't detract from the overall experience and how fun it felt to land a perfect double-jump-to-transform-to-stick maneuver. Great work!
May 5 17:08:12	17m 52s	The strange Life of Bill the postman	♥ 1	Good work! The graphics style is unique and fits the game well. The GUI is clever but straightforward and easy to understand. I noticed that you changed the triangle to an arrow based on earlier feedback. I think it's awesome that you're updating the game and taking feedback seriously, but I think it would be helpful to raters to at least include a post-jam change-log so we can base our ratings and reviews off of the jam entry. I certainly won't knock any points for that, just a thought. The only other thing I'd add is that after a few minutes it does start to feel monotonous. Different challenges or areas or puzzles (like with the crates) that open up at certain letter counts (or time, etc) could keep it fresh and give a greater sense of accomplishment. Obviously that's hard to do within the constraints of LD, but something consider if you keep developing the idea. Once again, thanks for your entry and best of luck!
May 5 17:19:54	11m 42s	Paylife	♥ 1	I agree with a lot of what's been said. Super impressed you made it within a day and using your own framework. I think it could make a fun mobile game. It has some self-balancing that's really cool with the increasing cost and the increasing rates of hearts which can come back to bite you if you get greedy. I feel like because buying too many things made hearts fly so fast towards the end, I generally ended up avoiding the bottom cards for a good portion of the game. Maybe a way to keep those options interesting would be to allow you to buy upgrades that weren't just increased release of hearts. For example: maybe an upgrade could occasionally release items that gave you more time, or golden hearts that were worth more, etc. Something to keep users making decisions with the cards throughout the whole game. I also wasn't sure what exactly made up my final score. Great start and could easily be a fun, addicting mobile game.
May 8 00:59:51	55h 39m	Knit Worth	♥ 5	I didn't read the other comments so as to not sway my views at all, so I'm sorry if I end up repeating too many other comments. First of all, the word wow comes to mind. For sheer craziness and uniqueness from concept to art to sound and for how it all came together into one cohesive game. I love all the little details and flourishes throughout. Also, wow at whoever got that high score. I played three times and... I didn't get close to that. But, I did get better each time which shows you've made a game that has learnable strategy and feels good as you get better. For that reason, I would have also loved to see a local high score tracker so I could see my own progress. I also love the core gameplay tension between going as fast as you can while also being patient and safe. The fact that a quick tap on the keyboard isn't enough to cause the crochet hooks to hit the targets adds to it: you can't just mash buttons, there has to be some semblance of timing and rhythm to your play. Small note that I was initially a little confused that just tapping the key didn't cause it to hit the target. I'm not sure if there's a way to train that or convey that other than just playing the game. This goes back to the details: great work on having an in-game tutorial to teach the mechanics. The cut-scene was fantastic as well. With the dark blue neurons it was often hard to tell when they'd stop being targets. I know they flashed, but with the other visual feedback happening it was easy to miss. Maybe some sort of audio cue (though tricky with two sides) or something more clear than different rates of flashing. Then again, after my first round I just learned to be patient and the lack of certainty added to the tension I talked about. A quick typo I caught, too: it should be "Testament" with an a, not an i. But the fact that I even bring that up shows how well-polished the whole experience was. Fantastic job!
May 8 01:16:57	17m 06s	Stilts	♥ 2	In case this helps anyone else, to get the menu on the left to work, I had to enter full-screen mode. That's a bummer about the theme, but I think you ended up with a great interpretation of it. I really liked your explanation. The opening scenes and closing scenes do a good job of conveying that. I laughed out loud at parts of the "winning(?)" message and then the animation leaping from the stilts. It would have been fun to see some of the higher you are, the harder you fall message built into a game mechanic like you mentioned, but I understand with the time limits and trying to figure out the theme.
May 8 01:35:38	18m 41s	TimeForYourSouls	♥ 1	Well done! I love the music and visual effects, particularly with the time reversal. I also was confused by the automatic reversals that happened when I ran out of time the first few times. Maybe differentiating between the lever-triggered and timer-triggered reversals would help. Even just a message after the "watch out for time" message that said "Time's up, try again" would have helped me understand. I think you have a lot of awesome potential with this idea for some really cool levels. I had a bit of a problem with the trial-and-error nature of some of the levels. As far as I could tell, there wasn't anyway to tell which levers would trigger which platforms to disappear, or where i could safely place the black box before triggering the timer. As a result, it felt like I was doomed to fail several times before working it out. I like puzzle-platformers where you can reason out the solution more than trial-and-error, but I'm sure that comes down to personal preference. I watched your video to see the ones that I wasn't smart enough to get to and it looks like you have some really creative ideas of how to use the mechanics already. Great work!
May 9 18:38:08	41h 02m	Leech Weapon	♥ 0	Good work! Two of my games also ended when the shop crashed and I couldn't get out. I love the idea and execution of the theme. Controls were tough to get used to with a trackpad, but that's my own fault for my lousy gaming set-up. It was satisfying lining up the perfect shot to use as little life as possible.
May 9 18:47:56	9m 48s	Till Breath Do Us Part	♥ 1	Good job of using the theme to influence the mechanics! I agree with a lot of feedback that has been given and that you've already taken to heart: increased player movement speed, smaller maps or a way to locate enemies when they're off-screen, and a little bit of balancing could go a long way. I wanted to be able to experience more of the upgrades, but it was hard when I was barely staying alive from the get-go. At the end of the day, I had fun playing, so great work!