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zuf

Feedback comments for LD45

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		zuf's comment
Oct 7 01:20:57		Dispel The Nyxion	♥ 1	Really nice! At first I played randomly and couldn't win, then I read the instructions and figured out a strategy. Great art and animations. The only issue is that the tile highlight covers the number.
Oct 7 02:01:25	40m 28s	Orb Override	♥ 1	Just completed the game. It took patience. The command line part was pretty clunky. Having a few shortcuts (e.g. command autocomplete, up/down for history, etc.) might help streamline things, but would still be hard to pick up for players not used to command lines. At the very least, being able to scroll up to see more of the history would be nice. It's slightly annoying how the `help` command clears the console by taking up all the space. Also, you should reduce the space between lines so more lines can be seen. The GUI upgrade was weird because I had to figure out the controls again. (Left click to toggle select. Right click to toggle target) After some time, I realised that the GUI strategy boils down to selecting all your orbs and targeting a non-owned orb. Repeat until done. The visuals here could be improved for clarity. The selecting/targeting highlights are not great because they obscure the ownership of the orb. It would also be clearer if each orb had its own population number instead of only having one number in the corner. On the whole, a solid attempt at a game. Polish is needed.
Oct 7 04:25:52	2h 24m	Console >_	♥ 1	Nice concept. The hints are helpful. But for some reason the text is really small on my device. It's a tiny thing in the corner. console-text.jpg
Oct 7 04:59:41	33m 49s	REWRITER	♥ 1	Fun game! Nice job with all the upgrades and animations. Easy to pick up and hard to master. But if I leave the browser tab for even a moment it says "WebGL context lost, please reload the page" and I have to restart.
Oct 7 05:34:18	34m 37s	Tactical Bodybuilding	♥ 5	Fun idea and nice sprites. The bodybuilding mechanic worked strangely though. Some parts never seemed to attach to my torso no matter how many times I tried. And there was another time where I seemed to steal the entire body of an opponent instantly. Some things could be done graphically to make things clearer. e.g. Body parts not attached to anything could be shaded differently.
Oct 7 06:51:29	1h 17m	Garden Circuit	♥ 1	Great work on 3D models, and I liked the exploration.
Oct 7 07:45:18	53m 49s	Cave People Exosdus	♥ 0	Extremely well done. You implemented an impressive amount of content in such a short time. The great visuals, music and world design make it an immersive experience. A lot of spelling mistakes though.
Oct 7 11:21:56	3h 36m	Monochromacy	♥ 0	Nice concept. The platforming physics could be improved though. It's possible to jump up walls and sometimes jump in the air if you spam jump.
Oct 7 11:47:11	25m 15s	Delta Test Site	♥ 1	I liked the sprites, boss battle, ending and background music. The other levels had too much walking back to get upgrades though. They could be designed more compactly. Performing those 4-button combos was also a bit tricky.
Oct 8 10:30:05	22h 42m	The Legacy of a Loser	♥ 2	Wow, nicely done. It teaches some valuable life lessons: prioritise your goals, call her back every three months (especially if she's pregnant), and always play rock paper scissors. Some ways to improve: Add more phone/park scenarios. They repeat a lot. Add more jobs, and I agree that it would be good to see other jobs before quitting yours. (Or maybe there aren't any. What a tough job market.)
Oct 9 10:04:13	23h 34m	Unlock Everything	♥ 1	I love the music, art and mood in this game. 5/5
Oct 9 10:32:16	28m 03s	Survivor Slots	♥ 1	Really enjoyed this. Fairly strategic and the randomness (risk and reward) adds replayability. I agree with the issue others described about not being able to see how many days I took on the end screen. And some audio would be nice, but time is scarce the jam. Edit: My lucky turn 10 win turn-10-victory.jpg The initial state of turn 10 was close enough that I could spend 8 actions to move everything into place.
Oct 10 11:39:26	25h 07m	Fields Of Amplidi	♥ 0	Go, and you modularised your code too. Nice. The manual was helpful.
Oct 13 09:25:48	69h 46m	FOREST NINJA WIZARD GHOST	♥ 0	Felt pretty strange. The down button didn't work for me, so the trees were a bit annoying. The cats didn't seem very hostile, so I thought they were allies at first. (A possible direction for this game is to collect an army of cats)
Oct 13 10:01:25	35m 37s	Battleground Command	♥ 1	Would be nice to have signs showing that the area ahead was off limits. I had to do trial and error. I also didn't find a use for F.
Oct 16 10:19:33	72h 18m	Untitled Sandbox Game Where You Throw Sticks	♥ 1	I played this on Chrome. Very impressive. It seemed to run quite smoothly compared to the other 3D web games I played. I liked the smooth controls. Building the character randomly on respawn was a nice touch. There wasn't much to do, but a post-compo version with more content would be great. This is an entry I'd want to tinker with.
Oct 16 10:53:38	34m 05s	Soul Avenger	♥ 0	I like how you pushed the theme a bit more by also making the protagonist start without life. The combat was mostly just walking into the opponent and spamming attack. I found a way to defeat the final boss that seemed exploitative: using a sword, run into it and attack once, then immediately back off and wait until it stops flashing. Repeat.
Oct 19 08:30:19	69h 36m	SOMtHINGa from NoThINGa	♥ 1	One of my favourite entries in the compo. I spent a long time completing the levels and then more time optimising the solutions. I got Opus Magnum and Portal vibes (from the leaderboards/optimisation and the layered music). Also, great work with the [analytics](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/somthinga-from-nothinga/statistics-about-chemistry).
Oct 19 11:49:39	3h 19m	You Lose. Good Day, Sir.	♥ 1	Great work on this. I liked all the custom responses. I'd really like some keyboard shortcuts though. Being able to type the words would be much less tiring than moving my mouse and clicking so much. An idea: Allow typing the words and backspace to delete. Enter to submit and to advance dialog. Maybe also a shortcut to clear the input (e.g. Space?)
Oct 20 00:30:17	12h 40m	Poor farmer	♥ 0	Nice art. Possible next steps: * Show how many inputs items there are in each producer (e.g. how wheat does the mill contain?) * Fix bug: Can jump repeatedly when carrying something * Fix bug: Can place another building if you jump. (Or is this a feature?) * Possible: Add way to delete buildings. (Only necessary if the game becomes long) It could be an incremental growth game if the farmer didn't have to micromanage so much. A possible direction could be automation. e.g. hire workers to transport wheat to the mill.
Oct 20 01:05:24	35m 07s	Sand&Sea	♥ 0	Nice sand shader/texture, and I liked this interpretation of the theme. The UI could be improved a bit though. The icons at the bottom could be made into more obviously-clickable buttons, and a placement preview along with an indicator of whether the spot is valid or not would help.
Oct 20 01:27:44	22m 20s	Nothing to Say	♥ 1	Great interpretation of the theme and cute art. Nice dialogue. I'll have to try Ink some time. And it's nice to see another lightweight game using just JavaScript and DOM elements.
Oct 20 02:02:51	35m 07s	Millions of Minions	♥ 1	Good interpretation of the theme, but needs polish. The physics definitely needs to be improved. There's noticeable clipping when the minions are near walls and sometimes creatures can go through them. It might help to disable collisions between minions and other minions and the player. I even had a minion push me into the enemy it was targeting. It's also strange how minions often seem to appear out of nowhere. Maybe they're overlapping, so you don't know if you're going to collect one minion or more. Clicking on the enemies was a bit annoying. The brown one had a smaller hitbox, so it was harder to click. Maybe change it so that clicking somewhere orders one minion to walk towards that spot (for a duration long enough to get there) and then walk back. And each click iterates to the next minion in your ring. Any contact with an enemy makes them fight. (This would also prevent the brown ones from walking through) Sometimes enemies spawn too close to the player.
Oct 20 04:57:51	2h 55m	VaultSmith	♥ 1	Nice game. I played it to the end. The UI could be improved in some ways: * Need indicator of what resources you pick up. * Show the player's current stats (e.g. attack power) somewhere I agree with the need for balancing. Need more wood and less string. Some items (bow, gun) don't seem to be worth crafting. Also, once you get enough health it becomes viable to run into all the enemies. A possible extension is to add more enemy variants. e.g. some with ranged attacks and some with different movement AI.
Oct 21 10:39:37	29h 41m	Singularity	♥ 1	Pretty fractals and satisfying level-complete animation. And nice work on designing 20 levels for it. But it devolved into guess and check for most of the levels. Swapping added more possibilities though. Reminded me of [Blek](http://blekgame.com/).
Oct 21 11:34:58	55m 21s	Entanglement	♥ 1	Great work. I found it very challenging but managed to finish all 20 (or 21?) eventually. I think I got stuck on 15 for the longest.
Oct 26 00:39:30	109h 04m	No Control	♥ 2	Nice interpretation of the theme, and the coding aspect lets players explore different movement schemes (but the strategies are limited). I like how the incentive to press less buttons forces the user to optimise. The line numbers need fixing. They shouldn't be part of the same text field as the code. Put them in another not-editable text field on the side and make sure they line up correctly (with appropriate line wrap). Maybe jumping to line numbers could be removed entirely because it's not done much in practice. And the rotations seem flipped. The script I ended up with: ``` #A# // Slide up. turnRight step turnLeft #B# // Slide down. turnLeft step turnRight // Step forward 1, 2, 3, 4. #C# step #B# step step #D# step step step #F# step step step step ``` Possible extensions: * _Must_ fix the line numbers * Highlight parsing errors (better UX) * Allow scrolling the editor * Consider removing the warped graphics around the editor for visibility * Add functions (better than goto line) * Add API with functions for detecting obstacles -- allows users to implement more advanced tactics * Consider more traditional coding syntax and keywords. (e.g. skipping letters in symbols like `st` and `jmp` doesn't help much with developer experience) A power-user strategy would be to implement a script with pathfinding that plays everything for them, but we don't have the API for that.
Oct 26 00:53:31	14m 01s	Claimbeer	♥ 0	Nice idea with gathering powerups. Some scene transitions were glitchy. The scene above this one was pretty weird. If you jump down in a certain way you can get stuck in the wall. I was able to escape by spamming dash. claimbeer.jpg
Oct 29 11:28:12	82h 34m	The Tale of Earl	♥ 2	Nice mechanic of possessing opponents to get to the top. I look forward to playing a more polished post-compo version. Getting insta-killed was annoying. There were two main ways it happened that could be fixed: * When you finish possessing an enemy they can kill you immediately. I ended up dealing with this by always finishing above a hatch and going into the hatch immediately. A way to mitigate this issue could to be add a post-possess cooldown/sickness that briefly prevents the victim from doing anything. * When you jump up to a hatch from underneath you also pop up to the next floor. Maybe add something (debounce?) that prevents the player from going up again immediately. The physics were a bit glitchy. It can do things like make the player pop through the floor when walking quickly over a hatch, or make your possessed character get stuck half way through a floor and never be able to get out again. Could also add more telegraphing for enemy attacks. e.g. a brief ! reaction before they start chasing and attacking. Make it clearer what each scientist is carrying. Also, the "possess" text is flipped when the target is flipped. I ended up winning by abusing the mercenary's ability to kill things at range and through floors.
Oct 29 12:43:42	1h 15m	Starting From Nothing	♥ 0	I liked the art and music. And you made the bubbles work with the serious themes. Good job. That second level was brutal. Couldn't even get close to 12. But the other levels were doable.
Oct 30 09:18:48	20h 35m	Finished Raccoon Bikini Game	♥ 1	Nice hand-drawn aesthetic and choice of music. And I liked how you designed so many levels. Very fun. Things to improve: * player sticking on sides of objects. Either get rid of it or make it into another game mechanic. (Maybe wall sliding?) * In level 16 you can even abuse it to push the moving platform in the opposite direction. * Consider adding overlays to the dragged items. e.g. sometimes I want to place something as close as possible to the bottom without it going back into the drawer. And sometimes I misclick because I'm not sure which part of the object is draggable.
Oct 31 09:57:31	24h 38m	White Starts With Nothing	♥ 1	(Played post-compo only) Great game. Like auto-chess with actual chess pieces. I played many rounds. I found Human Wave the hardest. It's easy to lose early on if you're not careful, and in the late game it's common to start with a large group of pawns but then they get destroyed by the opposing queen and rooks. In Double Nothing you can make it easier for yourself by getting into and advantageous position early on and then passing for the rest of the game to avoid placing any more black pieces.