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scsc

Feedback comments for LD45

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		scsc's comment
Oct 22 10:12:41		Fall of RS-17 Icarus - an Akaban Tale	♥ 2	Great atmosphere, but in my opinion it's just too unforgiving for players who get stuck - the semantics of our intentions could be explained using more hints. Some people may appreciate the difficulty though :) Also I'd add some crosshair change while the user aims at an interactable object, and I have to criticize the choice of a default text GUI of Unity - the font is too small and simple, plus the background also feels unfinished. I think it'd really improve immersion if you used some custom UI textures :) Plus I appreciate how you point cursor at the OK button by default, but it's still just annoying that we can't close it by clicking outside, or pressing Enter/Esc (or just WSAD). One last thing, the speed increase using SHIFT is really vital (and still doesn't feel fast enough) - what about making it a default speed as long as you don't implement any stamina mechanism? :)
Oct 22 10:40:15	27m 34s	Soulful	♥ 1	Nice graphics and audio that really support the immersion. When it comes to the tutorial, I like your implementation, but I must admit that I only properly understood the explanation of mechanics after I gave it a try having only skimmed over the tutorial. Maybe you could work on the first impression, so that your explanation of "good (pickup)" and "bad (avoid)", which you posted as a picture here on LD page, could be visualized during the tutorial itself. And one more thing, I think the pacing could be faster at the beginning - it takes maybe 7 seconds before a first item spawns, and then 10 seconds before any challenge starts. This may make sense for the first run (though it isn't remotely enough to get used to the movement borders and the relative acceleration compared to falling items), but it feels boring after every restart :) On the other hand, it nicely matches the moment music really starts. Thinking about the music, the rate of beats could actually even be used as a spawn timing instead of the random approach. But that's just my thought, maybe it's good enough as it is now :)
Oct 22 10:57:12	16m 57s	Slinger	♥ 1	Great jumping (slinging) mechanics, though the difficulty is really huge. It requires plenty of practice in order to train the reflexes, and I find the key bindings a bit hard to get used to - why not let us use the jump key in order to slinge? :) Also I agree with multiple points stated in comments above me. Good job nevertheless!
Oct 22 11:16:00	18m 48s	Murder On Peacock Street	♥ 1	The intro is truly captivating, I like how you created the effect of driving in rain with 3D text, and then implicitly indicated stopping and getting out of the car without really having to animate it :) When it comes to first impressions in the game though, there are various important details you should fix. The controls are stated in a single line of "I - Inventory Esc - Skip Mouse -", which you should really separate with newlines or commas :) When opening the inventory, the text has very wrong aspect ratio and is of a low quality, you should tweak the UI canvas/text parameters in Unity. More importantly though, Esc is really a terrible choice to skip a dialogue, considering it closes the fullscreen mode :) And I believe the rest of the issues were addressed in previous comments. I believe you are allowed to integrate such minor bugs even before the LD Jam ends :) Your game has a huge potential if you solve the user experience issues, great job!
Oct 22 15:17:16	4h 01m	Little one	♥ 1	A fine replica of the first Spore level, though it feels too easy as there isn't really any risk of losing, imo :) If you continued to work on this game, I would appreciate a greater diversity of skills, as there is really only "one" ability and the rest of the upgrades are simply variable changes. As a biggest criticism, I really missed some GUI to display the dash cooldown - it was always risky to try to dash into enemies, knowing it may be still charging :)
Oct 22 15:44:36	27m 20s	An Egg From Nothing	♥ 0	I was also missing any objectives, and the instructions were too ambiguous - I didn't really understand which creatures were "harmful", what harm can they do, and what are the flowers :) But the rythm mechanics itself was great, it motivates player to time his "third beat" in a safe location before he gets enlightened by the pulse :) By the way, you should have selected the option that your download link supports HTML5.
Oct 22 16:15:50	31m 14s	Inventory Loss	♥ 1	I finished the level with -1 items. The idea and the phrases in the inventory are funny (that is, if you have time to read them), but at times it feels like you were just too lazy to optimize the experience :) The tutorial omits how you have to use mouse + the text doesn't properly fit in square, there are huge issues with physics controller (some of which I understand can be are troublesome to fix, even Unity tutorials aren't honest with themselves as they use various hotfixes :P), and the game can't be Quit without ALT+F4 when you are fullscreen and not in the menu :) Also I don't see a reason not to publish the game also using WebGL. Nevertheless, good job with the first LD game, it will be easy to avoid these mistakes next time :)
Oct 22 21:32:35	5h 16m	Empty Stomach, Empty Toilet	♥ 1	This MS Paint art is a real classic. So simple, yet this game managed to tell a story that mesmerized so many people :) By the way, I noticed your comment "Regarding setting the alpha on the whitespace", just download a free image editor IrfanView, open your MS Paint image, then just immediately save it (CTRL+S) as a .png and keep the transparency color checkbox. You will be asked to click on a color that becomes the background :)
Oct 22 21:57:37	25m 02s	The Thrill of the Loan	♥ 1	Great art and the choice of, let's say, minimalistic design of the mechanics. It really felt like playing some larger game with a complete story. I could imagine it to transition into a different game. By the way, I feel like you have wasted some potential when it comes to a first impression - both the starting screen, and the bank, are hard to really conceptually grasp at a first glance. At first I thought it's some kind of a spaceship game, as the borders were round and there were some "windows", and the character was so pink it felt like a different object :) And when the box goes on fire - you no longer see that it was a box. If you research how the human sight works, your brain doesn't really remember a previous object in this kind of transition, even though it may feel intuitive that we "notice" the difference. I'd propose some animation, like shaking the box / a match falling on it, in order to improve the context. The same with the bank - I believed that I'm in the left-top corner :)
Oct 25 06:36:50	56h 39m	Hubcap Pup	♥ 1	I agree with others that the aesthetic design is very neat. The story feels so sad that it almost hides the technical shortcomings :) On a serious note, the first issue I experienced was that many objects, including the cars, were positioned in such a way that it seemed they are a part of the background. Maybe you could have placed them closer to the camera - so that the dog tries to walk "as if through the center of them"? Other than that, I'm sure you are aware of the physics issues of jumping, and the worst part about it is probably the unnatural animation of jumping. But hey, it's a custom art and I know how much time it can take to fine-tune such a design :) As long as it's one of your first 2D side-view game, it's a great success and you have a great potential when you perfect this kind of graphical design!
Oct 25 07:52:38	1h 15m	Bob the Brawler	♥ 1	Considering practically all comments are overwhelmingly positive, I feel like the only one here who didn't like the gameplay that much, so it's probably just a matter of personal taste :) The main thing I disliked was the need to spam mouse left-click, as it takes just too much effort, I'd much rather hold the left-click and have the character keep doing the punches. Maybe the double-click could be an attack that has some cooldown. Other than that, the gameplay felt too simple, as the only objective was putting walls in a pattern that helps you not to get overwhelmed from all directions. On a positive note, the game design is nice and kinda reminds me of Dyna Blaster :) I could imagine this game being great when you implement some additional features and challenging levels. Nevertheless, if I don't compare it against similar Unity games, it's still a great jam result considering you made it from scratch in JavaScript :)
Oct 26 20:47:51	36h 55m	Lost Temple of the Monkey God	♥ 2	Great design, I like the concept of using coins as key conditions instead of how, in most games, you collect them just to get some score. To be honest, it took me probably 5 runs all around the map before I was able to find the fourth coin, and I was about to give up just moments before noticing the crouching area :) Bug reports: * The aforementioned crouching area could get blocked by the pottery that's destroyed in front of the entrance, and the only solution is to restart the game. I consider this a severe issue. * There is no proper introduction of the controls, e.g. the E key to interact, and the About menu goes against a de-facto consensus, as there are usually just some credits under About. I would expect the keys to be mentioned in settings, as if to re-map them. * When closing the About menu, an accidental double-click causes the player to press the Exit button - that's some unfortunate button placement. I sure hope noone does that in the middle of the gameplay :) I guess that's why people usually do a double-check before quitting the game. * There should be a mouse sensitivity option in the game, as your constant is just too slow. It takes the camera the same time to rotate only 45 degrees as it takes my cursor to go from left to the right side of my screen. (This is a good choice for some pro-games within FPS games, but in a puzzle game it's just annoyingly too slow :) * By the way, I'm not too experienced in occulsion culling myself, but wouldn't that prevent the need to load the next part of the level? (The character sometimes does a glitchy jump after the load. It reminds me of the loading in Half-Life games :p) I hope this'll help you in your post-LD endeavor, good luck! :)
Oct 26 21:11:16	23m 25s	Bruno's Mind Control Project	♥ 1	Truly enjoyable game, though it gets repetitive quickly, but it could be easy to add some post-LD features with various challenges for the replay value :) I could also imagine this to be a neat mini-game as a part of some larger game. I'm impressed with the very efficient graphical approach, and the ortographic zoom-out greatly improved the experience, though maybe the player actually has even too much freedom if he can switch between cameras all the time :) By the way, there are three issues I noticed: the difficulty switch isn't very "easy to grab", the flyers overlap each other on the ground, and the minimap camera doesn't show the entire screen, just the left part of it - I'm currently playing on an old 5:4 aspect ratio monitor, so that may be the cause :)
Oct 26 21:29:26	18m 10s	EVOL	♥ 0	Note that your zip of the game cannot be extracted using a built-in Win 10 zip support (Error 0x80004005: Unspecified error - starting with files like GFSDK_Aftermath_Lib.x64.dll), so make sure that 7zip isn't a requirement :) Overall this game makes a great impression and I liked the choice of music (though doesn't that disqualify you from the Audio rating?), but I must say that the learning curve makes the jumping a little bit too difficult for my taste. Also, it's kind of shame to have to constantly listen just to the beginning of the song :) By the way, I was playing this on a 1280x1024 resolution and let's just say, your UI really isn't optimized for that :) (And as a full-screen game you also gotta add some Exit button.) Good luck with post-LD efforts!
Oct 26 21:42:29	13m 03s	Kobold Simulator	♥ 0	Though there isn't very much to do in the game, you've made a great framework in which it'll be easy to fit more ideas later on. When it comes to the idea of making "yet another C++ engine" though, do you have some specific goal that you wish to accomplish more efficiently than the existing solutions? Or is it just a training exercise to learn the low level rendering details? Because if it's the first case, I'd much rather see it as an open-source project, or as a contribution to some existing one :)
Oct 27 09:12:07	11h 29m	Nothing	♥ 1	Very fun concept, it reminds me of a great DOS game, from which I have wonderful memories, called The Incredible Machine. If I were you, I'd consider making a post-JAM effort to make something similar to that puzzle game :) But when it comes to the first impression, it was not very intuitive that I have to hold the mouse for such a long period (mostly because I accidentally had my wireless speaker turned off), and it felt like I have to actually do something, e.g. draw some pattern, yet the little sparks dissipate if I move the cursor too far, so I was unnecessarily worried ;) Also I remembered a recent show-off post from Reddit, and it felt like I caused the apple to be spawned because of a pattern I drew :) https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/dcc9hu/how_to_turn_a_pineapple_into_an_apple_pie/
Oct 27 09:27:10	15m 03s	Ludarium-45	♥ 1	I don't really understand the objective in the game, as I was only able to collect the LD diskettes, yet the remaining time didn't change after pickup. I also have to criticize the lag on restart (some UI to mention that the level is loading would be nice), and thanks to the lack of mentioning controls, I almost didn't notice the Shift key :) But of course, from a graphical standpoint, the design is very unique and has a great combination of a minimalistic design with some neat animations and lighting effects. It surely leaves a larger lasting impression than many other average-looking games :)
Oct 27 10:05:50	38m 40s	Rescue Hamsters!	♥ 1	I like the mechanics and this game definitely has a potential, but there are some UX issues, which I believe you should be able to fix post-Jam :) First, the ground selection in the top-right corner has mostly the same color as the background, so it's almost invisible on a first glance - I kept clicking on the screen and trying to use the hammer to build something. When it comes to the dynamics of the first levels, I have to assume that it's an intentional part of the difficulty that we have to immediately start to build unless we want the first hamster to die, then we have to quickly delete and re-spawn the ground around him (as there isn't enough resource to build the entire level) - and if the hamster dies, we have to quickly improvise and delete a part of our construction, so that we quickly build it around the spawn once again. Also the difficulty is implicitly increased by the need to be able to easily draw a straight line with mouse (which I'm not really complaining about, but it feels like some players may not enjoy). Also when the player moves the mouse too fast, sometimes an unexpected gap appears (but interestingly enough, sometimes the hamster walks over the gap). On top of that, when I was playing the second level, after I switched the Firefox tab for a moment and then went back, the respawn got stuck and the game did not restart even though all my hamsters died :) Nevertheless, these issues are completely acceptable after 3 days of development, it's just something to think about in your future endeavors :)
Oct 27 10:30:09	24m 19s	Race of time	♥ 1	Just like the previous comments mentioned, the character controls are really clunky and the key latency is terrible, the car easily falls off the road, and the race itself is unfinished. Which is really sad, because the concept contains one of the best ideas when it comes to a race preparation. I would really like to see something similar in other casual racing games - maybe even as a split-screen game competition, where you have to steal the parts faster than your opponent :) I could imagine some interesting dynamics to arise in such a game. By the way, I see that you've really put some effort into making an interesting atmosphere, as you've used so many various objects, boxes, fences, "AI" logic with waypoints, minimap, interesting terrain... so it's far from a neglected game. I hope you won't give up on this... Time Lord game ;)
Oct 27 11:12:24	42m 15s	Build Yourself	♥ 1	Great result for a genre that was new to you, and I like the crafting concept :) I'm not experienced in Unreal, so I can't give you specific tips, but there is a huge number of issues that you can work on post-LD. I'll start with the fact that my first experience was that I pressed TAB multiple times, and I got stuck in a black screen with text, which couldn't be closed until I exit the game. Also the text scaling isn't very responsive, as the beginning and the ending of the full-screen tutorial text isn't visible on my 1280x1024 resolution. Now, when it comes to the gameplay, the car most certainly shouldn't act like it does on the edge of the platforms. The collider also isn't large enough, as a part of the car can enter the wall, and the car rotates around in a way that makes no sense physically... :) The doors flicker on top of them, which is definitely easy to notice and could be solved by making the object shorter by a few pixels. Also, it's not very enjoyable to get stuck under the bridge before exit, where the door is closed, should the player go a wrong way. By the way, there's also some invisible collider making the player stuck right where the shadow is below the platform at this place. Last but not least, the moving platforms are very easy to fail to step on, I believe everyone would appreciate if they stopped at least for half a second. By the way, it's interesting how this is the first game I played on LD that officially integrates and mentions the Win+G Game Bar on Windows :)
Oct 27 17:08:20	5h 55m	Private Universe	♥ 1	Cool gravity mechanics addition on top of a platformer. I got stuck though, when I collected a 3rd or 4th checkpoint that was on 4 white blocks. I kept jumping up and was constantly getting respawned, which I though was a bug, but then I realized I'm hitting dark blue blocks above me, which are under another 4 white blocks. After trying to jump for several minutes, I was not able to land on any other platform, however much I was trying... :) Oh and I also finally managed to jump so far right, that I fell outside of the respawn blocks, so I got stuck even more :)
Oct 27 18:09:49	1h 01m	Slime Slayer	♥ 1	Simple and straightforward implementation of the LD Theme, good job :) I didn't understand the beginning though, why did I have to click 10 times? :) But I liked the idea of an initial fall through all the platforms. One minor issue is that the player can walk on a round corner of a block, which I think doesn't feel natural. @anion-z Which reference was it, just the name of the game? :) Too bad I didn't find any Rimuru reference instead :P
Oct 27 18:34:00	24m 11s	Truth of Nothing	♥ 1	Okay, I really didn't understand what message this game was trying to convey :D I have to complain that the beginning is really too slow, and I only managed to walk over the bridge on a third attempt after some frustration, and even then I didn't manage to jump, as it was very random, so I had to walk over the edge, and managed to do it without jumping :) Overall, the level design is okay and it could contain some interesting story, but I'm sorry that I failed to understand what the Truth was :)
Oct 27 20:27:16	1h 53m	Dream Avatar	♥ 1	Great idea, I believe that a kind of surreal lucid dream sim has an immense potential, and you should really consider to make some post-LD effort when you have more time to plan out some better stories. If you can come up with twists like these, sky is the limit :) To be honest, the riddle was too advanced for me and I wasn't able to notice how you subtly point towards the idea of "If I become a cat instead", nor did I connect the dots when it comes to copying the personal characteristics. Thus I hope that the next time you will make it a little bit more obvious, because nothing is worse than being stuck in the same dialogue, missing out on the clever story just because of some minor misunderstanding :) By the way, I believe that entering a lucid dream is the most efficient way to generate a great story full of novelty and authentic references. Our subconscious has a power beyond practically anyone's imagination, and it is supposed to be the our natural source of inspiration :) I hope you've had more luck than me though, once a person gets used to techniques like a dream log, they no longer function unless one keeps the spark of intention ablaze :)
Oct 29 15:03:39	42h 36m	Seedvilization	♥ 1	Very interesting mechanics, though it takes some time of trial and error in order to fully understand how to control the growth, and which seeds can or cannot be moved. A little tutorial would greatly help new players :) I like the new surprise mechanics in later levels though.
Oct 29 15:34:59	31m 20s	Never Ending Entropy	♥ 0	Very cool design and story, too bad my GPU had an issue and the game has frozen, so I didn't have the opportunity to finish it (though my stability was almost gone, maybe I'd have to restart anyway), an auto-save would be nice :) At first it was very disorienting that there were only a few objects to interact with, but in spite of how much wandering it required, it grew into a game which is hard to believe that was only made in 3 days :) My major complaint is that the text appears too slowly, and that clicking completely skips it instead of first displaying the entire sentence. With text consisting of multiple messages it doesn't make much sense from a logical standpoint - if a player skips the first sentence in the middle, why even bother showing him the second sentence? He won't understand the context anymore. Also personally I hate it when games let players accidentally skip any part of the story - some games solve it by providing a history of last messages, e.g. look at GTA:VC, you get Briefing in the menu :) Also by the way, not everyone will understand the LMB/RMB instruction. If you make some post-LD effort, I'd make sure to remind players if they haven't used it :)
Oct 29 16:13:22	38m 23s	Nothing is my car !	♥ 1	I see that you've made a really great job integrating feedback from comments. Thanks to that, I had practically no issues and managed to completely enjoy the game, thanks to the details like checklist, A/D, names of parts, restart... :) This is a perfect example of a simple clever design which a 3-day jam is supposed to manage! I've managed to find three small issues though... As some people mentioned, there seem to be some performance issues. This also includes a horizontal screen tearing, as small black lines sometimes appear. Also I believe that your algorithm doesn't prevent spawning obstacles which cannot be avoided - but this RNG issue may well reasonably be a part of your design. Also I feel that it's anticlimatic how nothing happens when we assemble a full car - there is some post-LD potential to make it about something more than just chasing inifnite score :) By the way, I've really enjoyed the cow and waving from the tree on the respawn screen, that was a vital part of the experience worthy 5/5 :P