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Feedback comments for LD45
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | JoeShanahan's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 8 10:18:26 | Hobo Sapiens | ♥ 2 | Wow, those police officers are not messing about! The mood and humor of this game is great, and the art is fantastic too. It wasn't super fun but I get the feeling that "fun" isn't really the intended experience of this. Hiding behind the dumpsters from a police office while the garbage truck slowly lifted each one was intense. | |
| Oct 8 11:43:48 | 1h 25m | Building Keys | ♥ 2 | YEAHHHH! I beat it! Took me a while to understand the mechanics. I didn't realise you had to sacrifice a building to power the other buildings, but once I understood that it made sense how to play. I like the keyboard control stuff, but it's awkward to play. This could work really well on a touchscreen, and you could have different shaped layouts that aren't tied to a keyboard. Different shapes would require different techniques for powering awkwardly located structures. Great job! |
| Oct 8 13:48:39 | 2h 04m | Untitled Goop Game | ♥ 0 | This game is so cute! It has a really high level of polish, the puzzles are well designed, the mechanics introduced in an intuitive way, and super satisfying to complete! Managed to get all the way to the end, and I can see already how much potential these game mechanics could have for a full game. |
| Oct 8 18:10:46 | 4h 22m | LD45 | Scrap from Nothing | ♥ 5 | Didn't have anyone else to play with, so just played as one character. I really like the idea of creating your loadout from scratch each match, so you can have a different experience each time. With the farming phase, it took me maybe three attempts to even work out what to do. I'd suggest putting the controls, and maybe an objective on screen to let the player know what to do at any one time. For example, when you start you could have a prompt FIND SCRAP and then once you've picked up a piece TAKE TO FACTORY. Once you get to a factory you could have a button prompt to let the player know they're going to add it to their character. I'd already forgotten the keys by the time I got to the factory, had to alt-tab back to this page to find out. Also I wasn't clear what any of the parts other than the gun did? And I couldn't seem to attach two guns even though the instructions say I can. If it was clearer what the parts did before I installed them, then it'd make me feel more in control of my gameplay experience. Another thing to think about would be having a single screen rather that split screen, and just zoom out as the players move apart. It might make the map easier to understand as a player (or it might suck, never know until it's tried I guess). The fighting stage could also take place on the same map, since the farming map has a lot more going on in terms of places to cover and hide than the fighting map. Some really cool ideas in this game already, just needs a bit of tweaking to make it really great! |
| Oct 8 18:49:51 | 39m 05s | LD45 - Start with nothing | ♥ 1 | I love idle games, and this has the beginnings of something really cool! It does need a bit more work to make it really fun though, there's a few things that came to mind when I was playing. First off, it's SUPER intimidating to have everything available at once. Cookie clicker has the thing where buildings aren't available until the first time you have enough resources to buy it. Not only would this make it easier to get started, because the options are more obvious, but it adds a hook to the game, in that you want to know what else you can unlock. As it currently stands, there are no surprises. Something this game has over something like Cookie Clicker is that you have the arrangement aspect, you've got to work out how to fit everything. This could be really awesome if you had a grid system, and different shaped buildings too. Then it could become almost tetris-like in trying to efficiently lay out buildings. I'm a big fan of Anno 2070, and there's something super satisfying in that game about managing to slot all these obscurely shaped buildings into neat and efficient patterns. It'd also be cool to have some kind of upgrade system for the buildings, so you can then make the choice over whether it's more efficient to build new buildings, or upgrade the existing ones. The final thing could be awesome is some kind of completion state. I saw a city builder today where the goal was to build a rocket and escape. That was great, especially for a GameJam game, because it gives people a jumping off point. If you don't have that, people just play until they get bored. And if they can see the goal is just a few minutes away, they might be more likely to play those extra few minutes. Hope this was helpful! ^_^ |
| Oct 8 19:16:50 | 26m 59s | Revelator | ♥ 1 | Wow! This has been my favourite game I played so far, and in only 12 hours too! Fantastic music, smart levels, and cute pixel art too! There's so much polish too, this feels absolutely great to play. Had a lot of fun. |
| Oct 8 19:32:59 | 16m 09s | Palette of the World | ♥ 4 | This is really cool! It reminds me a bit of De Blob, with the painting the world. I love the atmosphere created by the music and text in the world. If you had time to slowly layer the music up as you got further instead of just cutting in, it could feel even better. By using fancy shaders, you could have the paint effect spread out over time. I don't know exactly how to do it, but I remember seeing someone do a cool tutorial that had a shader effect spread out from a point. https://twitter.com/minionsart/status/1005590210476900352 Also, for a 3D platformer you could benefit from having the shadow of the player directly under the player. Check out Mario Odyssey, where other characters will have shadows at an angle, but Mario has a shadow that is always directly below him. smo_06.jpg I kept missing jumps because my shadow was in front of me, so I couldn't line things up. You'd want to do some kind of double light setup, one for most the scene and another for just the players shadow. (Also, I cheesed the gates by making the floor green and then jumping round the outside of them) Enjoyed this one, great job! |
| Oct 8 20:50:16 | 1h 17m | N O T H I N G | ♥ 1 | Really creative use of the theme, but I couldn't get past the guard threatening to punch me. I wish there was a way to get more clues if you wanted them, because otherwise it just feels like brute-forcing the solution by guessing random letters. |
| Oct 8 21:13:56 | 23m 40s | Becoming Something. | ♥ 0 | Wow, this was really great! The music and the soft transitions give it a really great mood. The puzzles were enjoyable, and the solutions often quite funny too. I love the "nimnimnim" noise that some of the people make. The game is sometimes a little hard to control, being able to "become something" sometimes took a couple of attempts, but that's only a small thing. Also, not sure if it was a choice or not, but I would prefer things like turning the light on/off or barking to happen only once every spacebar press, instead of every single frame. Would just be the difference between Input.GetKey and Input.GetKeyDown. Overall, I liked this one a lot! Fantastic job. |
| Oct 9 11:55:42 | 14h 41m | The Singularity | ♥ 1 | I think I'm missing something, I wasn't able to absorb anything? It's really difficult to work out if you're moving, or how far away things are. I think you need A LOT more objects in the scene (debris or rocks or whatever) so that you've got reference for which direction you're moving. I saw something in the distance, and I couldn't work out if it was getting closer or not because it was so far away. When I finally got to it I just went straight through it. If you're able to explain what my first steps should be, I'd like to give this another go. |
| Oct 9 12:03:09 | 7m 27s | Kitty Litter Defence | ♥ 1 | Looks really great, from the models and lighting through to the animations. There's just not all that much going on in terms of gameplay. You walk up to the enemies and attack, even the abilities don't change how you play, just the damage values a bit. With how great it looks, this could be really awesome if you could work out a way to make the gameplay fun. Even just variation on attacks like slow-heavy attacks and fast-light attacks gives the player a bit of flexibility with how they handle the situation. If the solution to every level is always just walk up to enemies and spam the one attack button, it makes it feel more like a chore than a game. You've got the presentation down, a bigger focus on the game design for next time might go a long way. |
| Oct 9 12:09:47 | 6m 38s | Bedroom Battle | ♥ 0 | I got to round 6 before losing. I didn't understand what the criteria was for the towers disappearing was? It seemed like the round would end and then just a random selection of towers would disappear. Because of the disappearing towers, it didn't feel worth investing in the expensive towers, I'd get just as good results from just using LOTS of the cheapest tower. The ground pattern also made it a little difficult to quickly work out which row an enemy was on. If you had a simpler pattern, or alternate colors for the rows (like Plants vs Zombies or something) then you could at a glance easily tell which row an enemy was on. Spending even a second trying to work it out might make the difference between getting a tower down in time or not. 51e7a4305c3e171aba5f8ab1600aa672a78695a5_hq.jpg |
| Oct 10 11:45:03 | 23h 35m | Chronicles of the Mattock | ♥ 1 | Wow, super impressive with the 72 hour limit. There's a lot of places where you've been really smart to make less work go further, but even with that it's crazy good. Also I love the writing, the vegan and the tree got me good. It would've been nice to have some info abou the enemy health? At one point, I got a big skeleton to hit a little skeleton, and I wasn't sure if it was doing damage or not because it was hard to tell. Fantastic job! |
| Oct 10 11:47:12 | 2m 09s | Spectrocity | ♥ 1 | I really like the effect of coloring in the world! It would be even better if more of the world got colored in though, the backgrounds are a bit simple right now. I really struggled with some platforms at around the 80% mark, there didn't seem to be enough friction so even if I landed properly I just slid off the edge as if it was ice. I liked the character, always used to love the Sonic games when growing up! |
| Oct 10 12:04:59 | 17m 47s | Nothing Engine | ♥ 3 | Thank you for the meme option, much fun was had. meeme.png |
| Oct 10 18:32:51 | 6h 27m | Cute Farmers | ♥ 0 | This is great! I got 382 before stopping. Really relaxing, and I love the art style too. One thing I think would be a great addition is some kind of jumping off point, something to aim for. In Stardew Valley you have the two year thing, where after 2 years you're given a rating. You can keep playing after that as long as you want, but for people looking for a goal they have that to aim for. Perhaps trying to reach as much notoriety as possible before a certain date? And then players could have a reason to go back and try again with a different strategy. If you have no jumping off point, the reason every player will stop playing is because they got bored, often it can be better to finish before reaching that point. But I think that some people WILL want to carry on past that point, so it should be an optional jumping off point rather than forced. Great job with this! Really strong entry! |
| Oct 10 18:43:03 | 10m 12s | Dead End Job | ♥ 1 | It would've been nice to have upgrades to the clicks too, so that each click could be worth more money, as after you get a minion or above there's no point in clicking on the button any more. Cookie Clicker has a mechanic where you can earn a percentage of your total cookies-per-second (or in your case dollars per tick) by clicking. This means that clicking is still worthwhile even later on in the game, especially with multipliers active. I liked that you had something to aim for, but there wasn't really enough variety with the unlocks to make it feel worth waiting all the way through. This kind of game is really difficult to balance so it hooks people, I've never been able to work out quite how Cookie Clicker does it. |
| Oct 10 18:50:09 | 7m 06s | Nitchs the tank | ♥ 1 | I really like the premise, of a tank who can't shoot but wants to still join in, it's super cute. Fits with the cute art style too! I have to agree with some of the other comments, those bullets are too fast compared to the tank. The tank really needs to be faster, or maybe have a boost button to be able to get out of the way last second. I managed to find a tactic that worked, which was get behind the bullet to give me some time, and then go find the tank and just sit inside the other tank until the bullet caught up. Seemed like cheating, but otherwise I was dying within seconds of spawning. Sometimes I would die in less than half a second after spawning too, which wasn't great, maybe having an initial few seconds before the first bullets are shot could help? Really cool idea, just needs a bit of balancing. |
| Oct 10 19:15:05 | 24m 56s | The Dolphin of Sooth | ♥ 2 | Obviously bad guy: "Please help me destroy the world" My dumb ass: "OKAY" I really liked this game! There's so much world building you put together in such a small amount of time. Not only is the world that is there big, but there so much MORE world implied as well. The music was great, and the art was great too. And the ending was clever (although I would've missed it if it wasn't for the comments). Agree on the too much backtracking, and agree on maybe adding shortcuts after the first time. I did even more backtracking because after getting the first two items I went back to the cave. But with that in mind, this is still one of my favourite games of the jam. Fantastic job! |
| Oct 11 11:36:51 | 16h 21m | Geary Grinder | ♥ 0 | I wasn't able to connect more that one gear to a gear, and wasn't able to connect a belt to a gear that was connected to another gear. Was this by design? It felt like I should've been able to do that. It would also be nice to see how fast gears are spinning maybe when hovering over? A preview of the speed any newly connected gears would be would also be nice so that you don't have to build it, connect it, see if it's the right speed, delete it, repeat. This is a really cool idea, and the music and presentation is great. It just feels like it won't let me to the things I need to do to solve the level. Oh and it hard-crashed before I could beat level 2. |
| Oct 11 11:45:40 | 8m 49s | ZomPunch | ♥ 1 | Cool idea, I almost feel like the zombies should be appearing in time with the music, something like a Rhythm heaven game. Didn't think the camera jumping around when you moved worked that well, it just made things disorientating. Also I found it basically impossible to tell which zombies were which, and so couldn't tell how many times to hit. I think the sprites need to be REALLY different in order for people to be able to tell as they're approaching. Maybe single hit zombies aren't on motorbikes, and the three hit zombies are HUGE? |
| Oct 11 11:55:56 | 10m 16s | Bacterial | ♥ 1 | This was really well made, I enjoyed it a bunch! The tutorial was really well done too, making sure the player had understood before moving on. The sound effects were also great, and overall the game felt very polished. One problem I had was working out if I was moving horizontally. When moving up and down I was okay, but because the background is kinda samey - I couldn't tell if I was actually moving side to side. Maybe some variation in the background could give reference to the player moving? |
| Oct 12 11:35:12 | 23h 39m | We Are The N-O-T-H-I-N-G | ♥ 1 | This game feels really good! It's a shame there isn't all that much to do but that's the reality of the time constraint! Hopefully you learned a thing or two to be able to get further next time. I like the camera shifting system, reminds me of old Zelda games. What I would suggest though is that if you're going to have this system of "screens" then you probably shouldn't be able to walk off at ANY point. If you have borders then it makes each screen feel more hand crafted and intentional. As it currently is, the cut off points for each screen feel arbitrary, that you're on one big screen but it's only showing you a bit at a time. If you wanna go with the screen system, I'd suggest making each one a bit more self contained, so that each one looks distinct. Check out The Legend of Zelda and how they funnel the player through one or two specific exit points. Together the areas can feel like a full world, but each individual one should have its own thing going for it, if that makes sense? the-legend-of-zelda-history.jpeg NES_01.gif |
| Oct 12 11:52:34 | 17m 22s | Sugarship | ♥ 1 | Wow, really creative game mechanic! The "bullets" don't hurt you, but they ruin the recipe for the thing you're going after, so you still need to avoid them. It's easy to avoid the colours you don't want, just by not shooting those enemies. But eventually the enemies start piling up so you HAVE to shoot it, and then suddenly the gameplay switches to needing to avoid the bullets. Great job! |
| Oct 13 19:25:00 | 31h 32m | MINUTES TO SHIP | ♥ 1 | I loved this so much! Reminded me of this game I played when I was a kid, Orly Draw a Story. She'd be telling a story, and then every minute or so would stop for you to draw one of the important parts of the story, and then the rest of the story would play with your artwork. But this is even cooler because the end result is playable! It's mad libs video game generation. Genuinely laughed out loud several times at the crazy situations you came up with. Not only is it impressive that you got such a solid drawing mechanic implemented, but you also made multiple different games inside this game! You must've have needed to make 2 or 3 of those per day to get it done in time. Really awesome job! |
