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

YYZ

Feedback comments for LD46

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		YYZ's comment
Apr 21 03:53:09		Find my friends	♥ 1	I liked the ambience and having the enemies' eyes glow is a nice touch. The gameplay however is pretty simplistic and could use improvement. The "enemies" don't really hinder me much personally and I would have liked some kind of bonus or drawback when you get more friends so the gameplay gets spiced up as you progress. For example, more friends = increased radius for your light, but you attract more enemies toward you. This makes the gameplay not so repetitive at least and introduces variance to break up repetition. Nonetheless, since this is a short game, I understand it might not be one of the priorities. Since there's not much to do in the game, I would appreciate a counter for how many friends I need to find. I wasn't sure if I had found all of them, or if the game simply didn't have an end for finding them. I couldn't see any more on the map. Having a counter would also give me a clear goal to what I have to work towards in the game. About the map, I think it should not allow infinite scrolling with the arrow keys. Given the game screen is mostly darkness, it is easy to accidentally pan too far and lose your sense of space and direction especially since the game encourages you to "explore" the map. Overall, good job on the art and mood. Edit: I have to add that the movement broke the first time I tried it, which confused me for a few mins on how to play until I read the comments that it breaks at random, so for those who have trouble, refresh the page. Not sure if dev is able to fix it.
Apr 21 04:16:04	22m 55s	Rebooting Flowers	♥ 3	You need to clean and name your build folders properly. I've only managed to play because I'm familiar with Unity and renamed your data folder so that I could play. Anyway, about the game, I think it could use a better designed tutorial. The UX feels bogged down by the long, unskippable dialogue. Especially since I had to go through it twice after the game restarted at random at one point when I approached the wall, and couldn't skip it even though I've already gone through the "tutorial". I also personally find it breaks my experience when the game constantly interrupts me with dialogue and takes away my control. As a game designer, you should try to minimize these occurences. People don't like having control taken away from them every so often. I didn't get far enough due to the above issues, but some suggestions would be to have the keyboard controls/instructions appear when you get near the water tank/seed dispenser, as a world UI instead, easily done with triggers. By the time I got to the next step of the game, I already forgot the shortcut keys, and whether I have to use spacebar, or left mouse, or right mouse. Considering the game seems to have some depth in its mechanics or gameplay, and a number of interactions, you should try not to make players memorize shortcuts especially since there's no on-screen button/instruction. It was a confusing experience which is sad beacuse it looks like a unique game and growing flowers seems like it could be a cool concept to explore. Nonetheless, all the best to your game! :)
Apr 21 06:10:06	1h 54m	Torcher	♥ 1	I liked how the checkpoints in this game work, it's creative aesthetically. I think controls could be a bit better in regards to when I'm trying to use the propulsion to jump to certain places. There are also times when I thought I would for sure be hit by the water because of the visual droplets, but I actually am able to get through without getting hit, causing some ambiguoity in when I can go through and when I cannot. I think the area could be defined a bit clearer visually, maybe the water droplets should not fade out across a long distance. Other than that it's pleasing, I enjoyed the new mechanics that got added as I played. I didn't manage to finish it because I got stuck at one of the parts and it got a bit frustrating. I think some playtesting might have helped to identify parts where people get stuck at, so you can adjust the difficulty accordingly and create a more enjoyable experience. Good job on the game!
Apr 21 06:19:46	9m 40s	Repair-it Roger	♥ 4	Great job on your first game! I have a few suggestions that can help improve your game. Firstly, the character sprite is hard to see - black strokes against dark grey backgrounds lacks contrast, making it hard to see, consider making it white since he's a ghost. Holding down the mouse button should fire the weapon constantly, instead of having to click rapidly. The minimap is nice but again it is difficult to see my avatar due to the contrast. Same for the score text, didn't know it was even there. The Up or W arrow key should also make me jump unless it has another purpose. I only discovered I could jump very late on. I also then discovered I could go down by pressing DOWN, and only after I saw the minimap had platforms below me. Maybe some in-game text should appear for a few seconds at the start to establish the game controls. Not everybody will take time to read through your ludum dare page or game page description for controls. Personally, I would like a smaller map and greater spawn rate so it's more action packed. Later on I spent more time walking around the map than killing stuff, and it's hard to keep track of your home when the map is large as well. The weapon swap is interesting but maybe what would help are different enemy attack behaviours, so certain weapons are more effective against certain types - for example, some enemies spawn in groups so you have to wait for the shotgun to go and combat them, and you fight other enemies in the meantime. This would add strategic depth to your game, rather than just run and kill, run and kill, which gets boring really fast. Lastly, the sounds should stop when I've lost. I keep hearing lasers even though I've already lost, and the laser sound can be rather ear-piercing when a lot of them are shooting at you. Once again good job and keep improving! All the best for your game.
Apr 21 06:46:12	26m 26s	Cowboy and Robot	♥ 2	The game needs in-game instructions. I wasn't sure what spacebar was doing or what I was supposed to do. I understand that you write the instructions on your description page, but not everybody will read your page before launching the game and you can't assume all visitors will do that. Displaying some in-game tooltips would have gone a long way to alleviate my confusing starting experience, especially when first impressions of your game are crucial to the audience. The map design isn't too interesting. I get the feeling that the map should be smaller OR my player needs to walk faster. I spent more time walking and finding things which isn't very exciting. The game also needs to provide me with objectives or some points of interest on the map, or some kind of feedback to let me know I'm going the right way. Otherwise players will easily feel lost and unsure what to do. I liked the attention to detail in the player sprite. The cape fluttering is a nice touch. The pink robot contrasts very nicely against the dull, brown background, and it's bright colours helped me establish that he's a friend not foe, which is subtle but much appreciated. Overall, I can imagine if the same effort on the characters went to the map, UX and gameplay, this would make for a very lovely game. Nonetheless, good job and all the best! :)
Apr 21 07:14:52	28m 40s	Planet Defenders For Hire	♥ 0	I like the concept, I like defend games and this is the first one here I've played. Mouse wheel might not be the most intuitive control. Not only does it scroll the webpage up and down and deterioriates the experience, it also isn't the most obvious way to control the game. I personally didn't read your page and assumed the instructions would be in-game. I read the in-game ABOUT page in the end but there is no back button to exit the ABOUT page and I had to refresh. I think there's some kind of progression system with the coins but I always lost so I never got to explore that, and I also couldn't really figure out how to play the game correctly as I always die, which is a waste as it looked like I could purchase upgrades. I think the first stage (if there are stages?) should be easier, else it is demoralizing to keep facing defeat. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to destroy my shields or not, and since the large rocks destroy an entire shield, it feels like it's unavoidable that the shields will all be eventually destroyed in time. The satellite was quite distracting at the start of the game. Before I knew about the mouse wheel, I kept trying to click it. I think the game could get rid of certain elements to keep it clearer at the start so I know what I'm supposed to be focusing on, what I need to look at and what I need to pay attention to. Some explanation in-game definitely will help, as most people will hit the PLAY button first before they click ABOUT. The UI is the most well done part of this game and I liked that the game had a very consistent style in its visuals from the Earth to the UI. It looks very complete. Overall good job on the game!
Apr 21 07:29:49	14m 57s	Creature Coraller	♥ 2	Good game! Spacebar to reload one bullet at a time isn't very intuitive, my first instinct was to press R to reload my gun all at once. But I got used to it. I also was unaware what the black spider was. My first thought was to try to kill it, but I could not. Then I had no idea why I was losing lives even though they weren't touching me. Of course I figured it out later when I came back to read your page, so it was confusing at the start. Not everyone will read your ludum dare page before they play so it's better to flash the controls in the game momentarily at the start, and the game objectives. I'm mixed about the reload mechanics - I understand that you need some kind of pause when reloading/shooting to balance the game, but at the same time my reload speed has no cooldown and is also based on how fast I can mash the button, so the pause ends up interrupting my combat experience. I'm not sure personally what would work best, so this is just my personal thoughts. I stopped the game before I was able to lose because it got too repetitive to play and it was not challenging once you understood the reload mechanics. I'm not sure if the enemies spawn faster. Do they? Some challenge and change of pacing would help the game be more enjoyable. The game at the start is the same game after 2 minutes. Most people won't play very long after that once they figure that the game is not changing significantly, unless they are aiming for a high score. I personally don't really see a point to high scores and prefer something more tangible. Maybe some goals, like maybe hitting a score of 1000, you get more bullets at once, or having different enemy types or stronger enemies that require more hits to kill. Or maybe your score is a currency that can be spent to boost my player's speed or number of bullets I shoot at once. Some kind of progression would go a long way to make me feel more powerful, like I'm owning the enemies, otherwise it's just click kill click kill and not very innovative. Nonetheless the game does a good job of keeping a consistent retro art style and the UI is very clear and readable. Good job on the game and all the best! :)
Apr 21 22:25:16	14h 55m	floweressence	♥ 1	I'm a tower defense fan so this excited me when I saw it! It's a cool concept to play with the inverse TD mechanic, but I think it can be explained better. I'm mixed about the slow tower, since it gave the mindset that I was supposed to STOP the particles from reaching the end point seeing as this game borrows many TD concepts. Also after the slow tower is upgraded, it becomes a haste tower, which is a completely different tower type from its base tower type, so I think the initial tower should just be a Lv 1 haste tower since I completely avoided slow towers until late-game until I put one for fun and realised that its behaviour changes when upgraded to be useful. It's definitely a noob-trap for first-time players. I wasn't sure what the colours symbolise since the recolor tooltip didn't explain anything. I thought it was purely aesthetics and didn't see the point of it, but a waste of money. It was only until I selected a particle that I start to get a hint it had some gameplay element, so this could be explained in-game. I think this was the most confusing aspect for me when I played. The TD part is pretty clear since I've played TDs, but the colours is something unique so I wasn't sure what "recolouring" did. Even now I'm not so sure. It also didn't help that I wasn't aware of the ability to select the moving particles. This makes me feel like the bars should be displayed above each particle by default so I can gauge visually without having to click on each particle, but I understand this may clutter the screen so I'm unsure about this. So then I figured that you had to balance the colours to keep it alive I think? Midway through I wanted to quit and re-read the instructions on the menu because I didn't understand what the colours do so maybe adding a help button in the map scene will be nice so I don't have to leave the game for help. I also wondered if the amount of life gained from each particle depends on how far the coloured bars are filled so I can plan better. I think this mechanic really needs more explanation, but it's just my personal opinion. Since you have a contextual menu, you can make use of it to explain more stuff in-game. I was wondering why the number at the top was decreasing by itself even though I seemed to be winning. I think hovering over the pollen and life numbers at the top UI should say what those are - at first glance I thought 10,000 was the currency and 50 was the lives, since in TDs the currency is usually the bigger number. Something as simple as saying "This is your life, it decreases over time, and recharges when light particles reach you" will greatly explain the game mechanics to me since not everybody will read your ludum dare page before playing, and hovering over things players don't understand is a more intuitive action. I think the default path could be more interesting, adding some corners and turns will add strategic depth to tower placement like most TDs. Otherwise, I just cram all my towers at the row adjacent to the path and the rest of the map space is not used which isn't the most fun way to play a TD. Definitely has potential for improving the fun factor there. The presence of tower types did help to combat this slightly. Shortcut keys (1,2,3) would be a nice QoL since this is a strategy game and it gets cumbersome with the mouse to place or upgrade multiple towers. It becomes a chore to build/upgrade later on. However, I appreciate the speed up buttons. Music is relaxing. There are some moments where the music lets out momentary high pitched squeaks that sounds broken/ear-piercing, but it's a small issue. I liked that the music "changes" during battle (seems like an overlay of 2 sfx tracks instead of a change). Nice nontheless. Also, is there an end point to the game? I think that would make it a more complete experience, with the option to continue endlessly after that if you want to keep the infinite waves. Overall it's pretty creative and the colours mechanic is definitely something cool to explore with a bit more explanation to the player. Great game! :)