Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Feedback comment stats → Remco

Remco

Feedback comments for LD46

Remco's games and stats for all events →

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Remco's comment
Apr 21 10:08:45		🌸 Conway's Garden Life	♥ 2	A timely homage to Conway! Sad to hear about his recent passing. It's certainly an intriguing idea, but patterns in the game of life are hard to predict (for us humans anyway), meaning you either have to look up some generators or just hope for the best. There isn't a lot you can do, especially if you're in a losing pattern, leading to a lot of restarts. I'm not sure if that's what you where going for? Props for actually gamifying 'The Game Of Life' though 😄 and the scoreboard certainly does it's job when it comes to 'I wonder how that high-score got started', especially since you can view their solution! That last bit is a really nice addition that's easily overlooked.
Apr 21 10:16:13	7m 28s	Dr. Statnil's Dodo Egg	♥ 1	I had some issues with the game cutting off the lower fifth of the screen on my linux (also mint) machine ... (maybe something to do with having two screens of different sizes), so I had to switch to the other laptop for the windows edition. It's nice to see a game with (what is technically) a working AI, handling physics, in a compo submission. It may be very simple, but you just don't see that everyday 😄 ... also I'm tired; I lost to the AI 5 to 21 against. That said, the AI can get stuck in a holding pattern very close to the net. Luckily the ball is close enough by then that you can touch the ball and get the AI out of the pattern. (... or even standing _on_ the net.) I find that I don't have much more to say, except that I'd have appreciated some music. Some nice beach tunes?
Apr 21 10:23:18	7m 05s	Keep Math Alive	♥ 1	The speed is _just_ right that I want to keep playing, and I got the feeling that I _could_ keep playing indefinitely (I gave up on purpose in my runs) ... on the other hand it feels _very_ repetitive, leading to the familiar 'I'm not having fun anymore I really should stop playing' feeling, while continuing the game. I question the choice to put an ad there in the jam version. What does it add for reviewers? I appreciate that the scoring is just based on time, not on the number of numbers, which incentives play like '+5 then -2' instead of just hoping for a +3 (which isn't there, but you get the idea).
Apr 21 10:26:14	2m 56s	Balloon Operator	♥ 1	Jealous of the tutorialization you got going on here 😄 This has a lot going for it... It'd have been easy to go for just the base mechanics, but you also introduce the water & valves mechanic & decently polished on top of that. The art itself is already fine, but you're doing a pretty good job of animating the sprite, I think (disclaimer: I can't animate at all). Maybe introduce the valve mechanic with only one balloon in the stage? This could really go with some music!
Apr 21 10:31:29	5m 15s	Shashou the Panda	♥ 1	The level of polish surrounding the title screen brought a smile to my face. The range of your weapon unclear, it worked better when I pretended it was a knife and just ran up to the hunters (this managed me a hi-score of 3880). The speed & difficulty is high enough that the repetitiveness doesn't really matter _that_ much (for the amount you play a jam game anyway), but I can imagine that, combined with the simplicity of the basic gameplay, will get quite boring after extensive periods of play.
Apr 21 10:36:07	4m 38s	Flower Defense	♥ 0	First a minor nitpick: You named your zip 'LDGame'. A lot of people do that, and if you're reviewing games, it can get very confusing very fast. The art is cute! The level ends abruptly after you lose, there isn't even a sound. I know from experience that this can confuse players. ("What'd I do wrong?", "What just happened?") In that same vein, it'd be nice to see some visual confirmation of the hp of the critters and I don;t even know if the main character can get hurt or if the red-hues damage they appear to take is just for show or not. Some music would really spice this up! Oh, for others playing: the left mouse button was slash for me, not space as is written in the description.
Apr 21 14:57:05	4h 20m	Hydro-Carbon Rescue	♥ 2	So cool & atmospheric! 😄 I really enjoyed this one. spoilers There's some really cool ideas here, the beginnings of sort of top-view metroidvania, the way you both move and build-up your bot with the squiggly arm, which you also use for the puzzles (well, puzzle). Also scanning objects is a nice way to reveal information, makes you feel you've earned it somehow rather than just being told. The atmosphere is excellent, especially in the beginning, when you truly do not know what you'll run into. I do have a bit of a gripe with the light though: your grabber needs to be close to objects, but the light beam is a point source a little bit away, making very close objects harder to see sometimes. I'm not _quite_ sure I completely understand how the mechanics of the little drones work. It seems the brightly coloured ones (either red or green) can recharge you when you grab them, but the red ones will try to take some of your energy and the green ones move away, while the grey ones are (have become) just duds? Is that it? I know what you've already got here must've been a _lot_ of work, and this is _really_ nitpicky given that it's a jam game, but it somehow feels a bit short? I think it's just that you only use the power-beam once, and that the girders don't go to unexplored rooms eventually, but just permanently block things off (which is not what you'd expect, since you can go through the blue door once you got the right McGuffin module). Maybe also because you attach the plant in the beginning, and then only attach _one_ other module? ... I should stop since you're probably well aware of this. I tried a run without the lifeform as well. Nice to see you got a message for that! Though if you complete the run, and then run out your own battery, it still says that the lifeform will perish. Could just be a bit of a dark end though, not uncommon in some SF 😉 Lastly, I wonder if you can get it into an unsolvable state... I think you maybe can push the powerbeam module to the wrong side? Then again, this is meant to be a bit of a trial and error thing, if I read between the lines.
Apr 25 22:45:40	103h 48m	You Have One Job	♥ 1	While I usually like my choice-less games with a little bit more of an unfolding story, and this one could've used that too, it does have some polish going for it. (Or maybe I just like buttons to have functions 😛) To be completely honest, I was a bit surprised when I scrolled back up and this turned out to be a jam game, not a compo one. It feels more that scale to me (not that this is _always_ a bad thing). I like that the punishment for missing a button is smaller when you just missed it! The long grey button is pretty sneaky, it tends to be forgotten even if you know it is there. Someone else commented about the 'secret orange buttons', so I had to keep playing to see if that lead somewhere. To be honest they're hard to miss once they pop up. I can't hold on all _that_ much longer afterwards though. Maybe you could make it so that the health slowly creeps up again the longer it goes alright?
Apr 25 22:50:22	4m 42s	Egg Mother - Keep It Alive!	♥ 1	I haven't seen this kind of control scheme in a while 🙂 I like the funny sound effects ... except that the 'agitated bird creature' one plays _constantly_. This has already been mentioned, but still: Also props for putting an accessibility feature ('i') in a jam game!
Apr 25 22:57:12	6m 50s	Feed me!	♥ 1	I like the colour-scheme, but I really couldn't stand the music. I tried to keep up by first serving the far-away bones, but such tactics don't really work for the other resources. Then when the timer grew very close and the tasks where supposed to be handled too quickly I just let a few tasks go and stood by with some bones -- unfortunately at that point it was already in the 'more sludge' stage.
Apr 25 23:01:20	4m 08s	Rewilding: The Story of Wolfhead Valley	♥ 0	The theme is very on point here! (I love all the wildly different nature based games that we get with 'Keep Alive'.) I like that there's not just one way to do things, and that those tie together at the top of the food chain. That you can try to do so much with so little elements is the hallmark of a good strategy game, I think. From the looks of it, some other people got quite far with 'only meadows & rabbits'. Monoculture may not have been your intent when designing this game though.... In that case, I think it would work a bit better if there where penalties, or if score didn't go up linearly. I didn't even miss sound effects that much, but I'm always surprised when people leave those out, since simple ones are quite easy to make.
Apr 25 23:09:50	8m 30s	Protect the Pup!	♥ 1	Not a bad start. - Consider not starting zoomed in - Maybe some sort of high-score or other 'progress' element? - I could hide under the trees for a long while...
Apr 25 23:17:42	7m 52s	Lamps	♥ 2	So impressed by the rigged model & the atmosphere. I made it to the end without understanding the puzzle ... or rather, I thought that there would be more to it, so I was surprised to see ... the way out. For me, the dog sometimes clips through walls. That is, it went next to a door rather than through it. Thought I saw an object move without my (well, the dogs' anyway) involvement ... probably a lamp falling over in the near dark, but it was spooky as heck.
Apr 25 23:24:07	6m 25s	Sunlit	♥ 1	Loved this concept & the art! Kept playing until the end and then spent a good 5 minutes trying to get higher than 292m., but it was the end of course. I can't decide if I'd prefer a version of this in which the tree would have some weight to it (a single branch can grow to a ludicrous extent in the current form) or if that would either mess with the thematics or the gameplay too much. I wonder what decides what 'route' the growing leaves take? Would it make it better or worse knowing that precisely while playing this game?
Apr 25 23:29:48	5m 41s	Pitcher and the Whale	♥ 3	This was so much fun! The little fox character is so cute! It seemed a bit hard at first, but I got some confidence after the first day ended (which happened very abruptly). I love how restructuring the game completely around the needs of the whale, water, & the bucket changes a lot of the normal platforming conventions. (Caring about someone else sure changes things, doesn't it?) Like that the character, and the opponents, are just straight up invulnerable.
Apr 25 23:43:05	13m 17s	Stranded	♥ 2	Wow, that atmosphere... It's not just the graphics or the doable but somehow still _very_ tense gameplay, it's also the _excellent_ audio design. Like the way that the sounds shift when you get further along (or the light is dimmer). I think I found that some of the monsters got stuck on a wall sometimes, which made them unable to flee the light, which in turn made them a bit hard to avoid. Also, I know this concerns AI in a jam-game, so it might sound really nit-picky, but I found that, especially in the beginning around the bonfire, the monsters clump together so strongly (right outside the light, closest to your position). This means you never really have to worry about that they sneak up _behind_ you.
Apr 25 23:48:34	5m 29s	Rampage	♥ 2	Very fun and colourful! Tight design. Short, but you probably know that by now. I've read through the other comments, and the only thing I couldn't find (but maybe I skipped over it), is that shift + WASD + space can give your hand a bit of the cramps 😄 (Especially if you use the wrong shift for this, but still...) (Also jealous of the excellent tutorial... One of these days, a game of mine is going to have a playable tutorial, one of these days...) Edit: Just remembered: - It's a zip bomb (that is 'extract here' puts all files in the current folder). - Some of the passageways where a little small, which could let the cat get stuck between a rock and a hard ram. Maybe you can do something with shadows to better indicate where the character is viz-a-viz the obstacles?
Apr 26 14:21:03	14h 32m	Frostbite	♥ 1	Well that was fun. The balls of eldritch energy or whatever it is you shoot feel very immediate and powerful, even without the audio (which I normally am a bit of a stickler for). Nice touch varying the spread pattern as well. I found a very easy strategy for my first play-through. Just stand in the middle, keep the mouse-cursor very close to the wizard and blast away! You can press space very quickly if you don't have to WASD after all. I worked around the visibility problem by keeping the top fire at the top of the screen and just continuously fire in that direction, then mop up anything that comes for the bottom two fires (because they're in the middle of the screen & I can see everything around them). I think some sort of score system would also work very well with this.
Apr 26 16:47:15	2h 26m	Morose	♥ 1	Neat! A lot of work went into this, and most of it shows of! It felt a bit weird to be fighting bees and other pollinators as a gardener 😅 A lot of the flower attacks felt the same for me... Perhaps it's also since you can't really see the strength, especially since it takes multiple hits to make on heart go away (my health never seemed in danger, or even lower than 3 hearths ... what's up with that?) It also think maybe leaving the flower, and harvesting it yourself, after a victory, would increase the sense of ownership of the player over the garden. (Also... +- 140 games & 100 karma feedback. How? How doe you manage to play, judge & comment all of those in just one week?)
May 3 16:55:19	168h 08m	YAB	♥ 1	The sound effects are very fitting (if not always ... tasteful to listen to 😄) and help with the atmosphere. Simple gameplay doesn't have to be a detractor necessarily, but I found myself wondering what the point is of the 'alignment system' with respect to gameplay. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but it seems you just pick an alignment, feed as much of that type of food (and it wasn't always clear what does what ... a sausage is neutral apparently?) and then hope you don't get stuck with _too_ much food of the opposite alignment. Still, it was a nice little experience, and didn't overstay its welcome.
May 3 18:52:48	1h 57m	Fire Up	♥ 1	I was pleased by the lively menu's, and given that level of polishing, a bit surprised by the lack of sounds. It's really easy to generate sounds with a program like [BFXR](https://www.bfxr.net/) for example (warning, requires flash). One time, it took me less than 10 minutes. The pixelart had a pleasing effect, there's just something about isometric pixelly city- & nature-scapes that really clicks for me (see also the icon of course). That said, I struggled a bit with the goal of the game. Well, to burn stuff down, obviously, but besides that. Was the goal merely to burn as much of it, or to keep it going for as long as possible? Given the theme, I guess the latter, but that isn't really clear anywhere else. And _if_ that is the goal, why not just start it somewhere, and when it's nearly out, plop down the next thing you have? (That is, I think there's an easy to deduce optimal strategy.)
May 3 18:58:25	5m 37s	Super Survival Ball	♥ 1	Simple doesn't have to be bad! I liked this entry. It was somewhat addictive, and had a nice tempo & ramp-up. I think it worked best when I focused on just one or two balls to 'keep alive'. (Also the different audio effects on the different balls was a nice touch.) Other than that, I don't have much more to say, but I did notice that while I didn't make it into the top 10, I could still fill in & submit the name-field. Edit: One more thing: It _could_ just be me, but very occasionally, the balls seemed to get briefly stuck in the text on the screen.
May 3 19:28:46	30m 21s	Herblore	♥ 0	Oof, it's very hectic! Keeping my tools in the middle and only focusing on one or two plants seemed to help, but you might want to focus on having a little more gentle ramp-up (even though the tutorial/guide & what the plants are saying is already very clear). At least the experience is quite smooth, the interface always does what you want it to do. I think I'd visually distinguish the manure and the medicine though, as I occasionally grabbed the wrong one.
May 3 19:53:02	24m 16s	Friendly Fire	♥ 3	I've not seen a lot of games with humour this time around, so this was a welcome change. Of course the tree-lyrics where the high point for me as well 🙂 I also loved the menu's & animation. I had some trouble with the double-jump (not the infinite one) though, while getting through the game was no problem (though the hitboxes on the moving clouds in the mountains could stand to be a bit more wide), I could somehow not make it work when I was on the highest tree (though it was nice to realise you could 'climb' the trees). Oh, I also could still hear the jumping sound on the end-screen when I pressed jump.
May 3 20:41:58	48m 56s	Dumbulance	♥ 1	Can't have been easy to develop for a limited system, so props for that! It's challenging but certainly not impossible. I'm not sure how easy it would be to put sound in the format you used, but it would've helped a lot (you can use generators like [BFXR](https://www.bfxr.net/) (warning: flash)). It seems that you can only initiate an action; if you press up or down, you cannot do so a second time for the same animal (or ball). IS this intentional?
May 3 21:04:31	22m 33s	juxta.LINE	♥ 2	Oof! I'm really bad at rockband style games, so it won't come as a surprise that this was _way_ to hard for me 😅 It has a nice atmosphere, and I'm impressed with the tutorialization. You put a lot of work into grading my game, so I feel bad for leaving you with one and a half paragraph, but this is really all I can make of it at the moment 😓 (I like the lefty-flip that you implemented ... I'm not actually left-handed, but I mouse with left most of the time anyway, so the IJKL controls where appreciated at least!)
May 9 08:55:09	131h 50m	Servant Snake	♥ 1	There's a lot going on here and you're managing it admirably. I like that it seems that you really thought about the ramifications of the alterations you made to the basic snake formula, all feeding into the risk/reward strategy. (Like for example, turning back into yourself would have make the original snake very boring, but here not colliding into yourself isn't the main goal anymore. Or the way the opponents also die when they bump into your side, giving you a reason not to just try to avoid them all the time.) That said, I do think the difficulty ramps up rather quickly, and the tutorial, while very welcome, feels decidedly unpolished. (The 'active' menu is a nice touch though!) Also my screen seems to dim when playing the game sometimes? Could really use some sound effects as well. You can easily add these by using online generators like [Bfxr.](https://www.bfxr.net/) for example (requires flash to run!)
May 9 09:02:01	6m 52s	Save It	♥ 1	I think what I like the most is the way the difficulty only slowly ramps up, very smooth. The feel of 'clunkyness' is, I think, in large part due to the fact that the overhead view is isometric, making the cardinal directions (up, down, left, right) not map to the same (up, down, left, right) on the screen. Sound effects are easy to make with online tools like [Bfxr.](https://www.bfxr.net/) (requires flash!)