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Feedback comments for LD47
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | anchorlight's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 5 00:28:54 | Corporate | ♥ 1 | I really like this take on the "loop" theme. All in all, well done! My only real issue is that it feels like the transition from orange $$ to red $$ particles can be a lot slower than the actual transition to a slacking employee. I found that I would frequently hover over employees to find them slacking when they looked to still be putting in some effort. | |
| Oct 5 02:17:27 | 1h 48m | Mobius | ♥ 1 | Great work on this! If I had to give any feedback, I'd say my main issues are that the mouse input feels a little temperamental, and could use some smoothing. I also found that I was facing frequent stuttering at the center of rooms, pausing the game for seconds at a time... that said, it's hard to say whether that stuttering is on my end, the game, or WebGL limitations. I also would have liked to see a little more verticality to the game, though I don't know how feasible this would have been for a compo. I'm definitely interested in seeing where this goes! |
| Oct 5 04:49:06 | 2h 31m | Looper | ♥ 1 | I'm going to begin with the negatives, because when I start talking about the positives, it'll be hard to stop. First of all, just a minor annoyance you may want to patch: the game first tried to start up SteamVR, and having to close that was a little annoying. This happens a lot with Unreal Engine 4 games, and you should be able to disable this somehow. Second, just a few bug reports. For one, I think the sniper rifle sound effect has a second sound playing afterwards. It doesn't feel like an echo, and for a while I was under the impression that an opponent heard my shot and was returning fire. I also found that your pieces of paper are invisible when seen from behind, appearing on glass walls as a flying wall of text. I also had one enemy spawn inside a wall, which confused me as I thought for a while that I was fighting some kind of invisible enemy with a floating gun and nothing but a few particles to mark their presence. I probably should have looked closer before burning so much ammo... but what's done is done. As just a few minor suggestions, I would have liked to use 1-8 on the keyboard to pick weapons, though thankfully scrolling the wheel wasn't too cumbersome. I also would have liked to be able to close doors, but Lab/Sec/etc. doors can't be interacted with without the card in hand-- even when already open. Closing normally-locked doors was definitely a huge minor frustration. Okay, I need to get to what I really want to say now. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW YOU PULLED THIS OFF. I like the core gameplay loop, and forcing me to pick between whether I want my basic Lab/Armory keycards or good weapons I've found (especially when you get to Tier 1 and 2 weapons) is an interesting dilemma. Your gunplay feels solid, and while the enemies are a little bit basic, they're perfectly capable of destroying you once you have to fight a group. Ammo is not a problem, until it is, and I can never 100% rely on a weapon type-- I'm constantly checking all my weapons to see what I can reliably use in a firefight. The visuals are clean, and while I can't say I'm a fan of the large voxel decorations in some cases, it feels consistent. The shaders on doorways, custom gun models, it's all just... pristine. I am in awe of ALL of this. I also like the worldbuilding notes, despite the fact that I really have more important things to do than read them-- my particular highlight being a report on an unusual Shotgun overstock. Your enemy models definitely made the most of what you had, and your particle-monsters were a particular sticking point. You did NOT mess around. I'm just going to set the bar unfairly high for a sec, but I would have liked some stronger ambience/combat music with some good synth riffs here and there. As another user noted, an animation on death would have been nice. A sprinting mechanic might have been nice (if there was one, I had no idea), and some kind of right-click function (melee? iron sights?) could have spiced up what eventuallyboils down to shooting at targets. I have all four keycards but have not successfully stopped the collapse yet. I cannot WAIT to play more. Seriously, congratulations. This is exceptional. |
| Oct 5 18:19:41 | 13h 30m | An Hour Long Minute | ♥ 1 | You definitely nailed the atmosphere of this game. To be honest, I'd say you did the whole cryptic theme a whole lot better than I did. The phone message that you can cancel out of was a very clever way of handling a tutorial, as it eats a chunk out of your time on your first playthrough but can be skipped any other. I also like the cryptic messages on the loading screen. My main complaint is that the thermite solution appears to be dead-simple compared to any other solution, and I had won the game before I really understood the rules of it or how I had accomplished it. I also think a slower enemy walking speed would make gameplay more interesting as it makes them more of a lurking threat than an instant death. Unfortunately I had the safe bug you mentioned, only two notes came up with a digit. I assumed that I was supposed to just guess my way to opening the safe, and I think only having three digits revealed is a lot more interesting from a gameplay perspective. I do wish you had put out a Windows executable build, as I tend to run into lots of performance problems with HTML5 games, but I understand the choice from a convenience perspective. That's basically all I have to say on it. Good stuff! |
| Oct 5 18:35:33 | 15m 52s | TRiXIT | ♥ 1 | I'll start with the negatives. I don't like the fact that the controls don't appear in-game, and tried to use arrow keys at first. Alternative arrow key bindings would be nice. I can also see new spheres pop into existence at the edge of the screen, which would perhaps look better if they faded in or rose out of the ground by starting from a low scale or Y position and slowed down as they reached the normal value. Maybe this is just my questionable love of post processing, but a little lens distortion on edges might be nice too. That's just about as much negativity as I can possibly throw at this game. It's a simple game, but it works as intended, and the presentation is absolutely stellar. I appreciate how the ball gets stuck in the middle of the loop on death-- it was a neat touch. The controls are snappy, the movement is pretty well tuned, the default-diffuse objects look amazing with the use of color and moving lights, the background is interesting but not distracting, and the music... OH BOY. THE MUSIC. The sound is this perfect mix; the 8 bit crunchy sounds, lo-fi synth score, vocoder voice announcer, it works so well. And-- DID YOU MAKE IT DYNAMIC? THE MUSIC SEAMLESSLY CHANGES BETWEEN GAME OVER AND PLAYTIME? This is insane. That was the easiest 5 star rating I've dropped, hats off to you. |
| Oct 5 19:00:54 | 25m 21s | The Legend of the Stormer | ♥ 3 | I really liked the artwork and got some strong Dante's Inferno vibes from the game. I wish the combat had been a little stronger-- the delay between attacks is a little excessive, and the enemies don't really react to being struck. I would recommend having them get moved away from the player slightly on hit, and adding a two or three hit combo where the delay between attacks is reduced up until a third hit. The combat also felt entirely unnecessary as enemies don't pose a threat-- I would have balanced this with quick enemies that chase you in a very loose circle, letting you either combat them or outwit them since you're Naruto-running too fast. I get it though, it's a jam game. I like the music for the game, which fits it surprisingly well, but the lack of audio feedback for events was a little disappointing. I would have liked a hit sound effect and portal sound effect at the very least. I also didn't really understand any of the audio in the intro, partially because the music was still at full volume. The flat shaded artwork was pretty strong in some segments, and definitely got its environments across well. I do think there were a few areas that could use a little extra detail, but again... jam game. I scrapped an entire idea because of my fear of getting a dialogue system done on time, so congratulations for actually implementing one! That said, I would probably auto-complete the dialogue when players move away from the speaker. It's strange having to run through the conversation when your character is now halfway across the map. All in all, well done. I really like the spin you took on it, I played it to the end, and I'll admit I got a good laugh out of the upbeat 80s montage music kicking in as I began to narutorun. |
| Oct 5 19:29:35 | 28m 41s | The Hall Of Anubis | ♥ 2 | I like the visual design of this game a lot (especially with the sky visible at all times, giving the recursive rooms a pretty strange feeling when the sky loops back to where it was a second ago), and props to the incredible voice talents of "Gate Slowly Opening with a Loud Rumble" among a few others for a dramatic performance. Jokes aside, I actually stumbled on the solution entirely by accident after falling. I just wonder if the signposting for the actual objective could have been a little bit clearer, since even while knowing what to do for the Gold Key area, I still had trouble finding where to go. A little extra brightness on the area in question might have helped; I would have added a Bronze Key that was hidden behind the Gold Cage, with a lower platform that was a little visible when looking down from the cage and a brighter wall behind it to catch the player's attention. I also appreciated your little ending. I won't talk about it for spoiler reasons, but I liked it. It was a nice take on the theme, the visual aesthetic was great, and I had fun trying to figure out what you had in store for me. Great work. |
| Oct 6 10:47:03 | 15h 17m | Tunnels | ♥ 3 | I dunno, this is pretty solid as far as programmer art goes. I appreciate the fact that the game saves, too. Good use of light sources, an easy-on-the-eyes color palette, unique shapes based on object type... you could have fooled me. I didn't even mention the animation. The ball jump anim is simple but it works! No complaints here, except for the camera-- I appreciate the dynamic way it follows you, but I wish the stop was just a bit less abrupt. The sound is... fine so far, but I do wish there was a little bit of ambience. Water droplet sounds, a room tone, just something to fill the noise a bit. The game was off to a solid start and the snappy controls combined with the nice visual style kept me going for a bit. Unfortunately, I was under the impression for a moment that I'd broken the game. I'd highly recommend changing your geometric shape for power-ups in any post-LD builds. When I saw blue shapes coming from the main key, I assumed that it was an effect showing that I was supposed to interact with the key holder. Once I figured out what the game was trying to tell me, I breezed through it. It's solid platforming, not exactly frustrating. I liked the progression going from a ground-only dash that I disliked to a proper air dash, and all in all the platforming was fairly well measured out. Good stuff! |
| Oct 7 01:34:23 | 14h 47m | Lights Out on Pluto | ♥ 2 | The visuals, animation, and audio here are stellar (har har). I really appreciate the little victory/fail state animations on the ending screen. I do wish there was a little more ambience to the audio, though. My biggest complaint is probably the fact that it seemed like you can't pull airlock switches once you have a flamethrower. I haven't really investigated if this is intentional or a bug. I also got the flamethrower to pick up as an invisible object once, not sure how it happened. I liked the beast AI and how you can successfully outrun it depending on how you approach the environments, and I once accidentally doomed myself by pulling the airlock helm switch and getting cornered right where the doors seal off. I do have one major bug report, however. Your game is launching SteamVR when I boot it up on my system. This is a default behavior to my knowledge and a gripe I have with a lot of Unreal Engine 4 games. If possible, a patch to remove SteamVR functionality would be greatly appreciated. Good work! |
| Oct 7 01:47:38 | 13m 15s | Infinite rails | ♥ 2 | Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhh. These wireframe visuals are perfect, that old school flight simulator look never gets old. Or it does, which is precisely why it works? I don't know. It's a little bit simplistic but the presentation is spot-on and I enjoyed my time with it. Definitely would have liked some PC speaker esque audio but I get it, it's a jam game. Great job! |
| Oct 7 02:53:23 | 1h 05m | Recursion | ♥ 1 | This is the first game I've ever given a 5/5 for every single category. I am in awe of what you've pulled off here. Since I feel obligated to nitpick, the AI felt a little like it couldn't handle quick turns, which worked out in my favor. I also feel like the gun sound effect could have used a little more bass. I absolutely love non-euclidean nonsense, and every aspect of this game down to the aesthetic and tone is 100% on point. I have no real criticism. This is easily the best game I've played on LD. cameo.png I also want to give a shoutout to pushbox.blend for putting in a quality performance for more than one project this year. What an incredibly talented actor! 😆 |
| Oct 7 03:04:05 | 10m 42s | Collective Restraint | ♥ 1 | This is a pretty solid proof of concept! If I had one complaint, it's that the rogue bots really don't pose any threat to the player, and that moving the bots can feel like a chore. Also, thank you for disabling SteamVR. It's been a little bit frustrating having it come online every time I open up a LD UE4 game 😆 If you were to expand on this idea, I would potentially experiment with a faster-paced take on the game. Add a mission time limit, increase the capturebots' move speed, and maybe use the Capture mechanic as a way to actually make use of the rogues' special abilities as a new bot. Building on that, you could have combat bots that pose a direct threat to the player but are immensely useful if captured, and there could be missions that require minimal manufacturer property damage or require that you entirely purge a certain type of robot using your hijacked combat droids. Since you went out of your way to render an entire dome, I wonder if you could also have levels that put robots on catwalks or glass floors above you so that you can capture them by forming up right below them. Just throwing some things at the wall at the end of the day. I wish there were some audio to go with the game, but I like the core mechanic you put together and definitely feel like it has potential. |
| Oct 7 22:36:23 | 19h 32m | S P A C E D O U T | ♥ 1 | Stuck in the loop of a day job with poor equipment. Yikes. X( Great work on this one! The assets and use of lighting definitely give the game a nice atmosphere, and the monotony of trying to turn a profit for that final upgrade hit me with a wave of Flash game nostalgia I wasn't prepared for. I did have a strange problem where the mouse cursor was locked despite being in the upgrade shop. It wasn't a huge deal as I was able to back out of the menu with Esc. I also had the game load up in the wrong resolution, with my UI crossing the borders of the screen. Overall, I had a good time with this one. I liked that old-school browser game sense of progression and it definitely nailed this LD's theme. |
| Oct 8 17:21:32 | 18h 45m | RevolveWare | ♥ 1 | Between that chunky and charmingly hideous 90s CGI, the careful use of programmer noises, and MIDI music, everything about the presentation is 200% solid. That, and being a WarioWare clone, it really nails the spirit of the original though I wish there were a few minigames that went further into the absurd. If you were to extend this, could you perhaps add mouse input to certain microgames? If I had any criticism, I think the hoop minigame isn't particularly engaging, and may be better if there was a longer recovery between swings. This would force you to time it instead of mindlessly mashing a button. I also think there needs to be a little more feedback when the hoop is in range. The music is a little boring and slow when the game is just starting, though this isn't a problem once the tempo picks up with the speed. Just to show you how desperate I am to find **something** to criticize here, the "Speed Up!" sign also has a few artifacts to the right of where it shows up. The glow cuts off just a bit if you pay attention to the sign. Okay, one more criticism. I would have liked another little song during each microgame, much like WarioWare. Bonus points if you get a kazoo cover of a legally distinct Battle of Yavin for the starfighter! I'm really just nitpicking at the end of the day, this was nearly 5 stars across the board. Well done! |
| Oct 19 17:09:26 | 263h 47m | Red Snow: The Thirteen Dwarves | ♥ 1 | There's a lot to love about this entry. I do have a few notes, though. For one, I would highly advise adding some invisible walls to the outer edges of the map. I walked downwards for roughly a minute before turning back. I'm a massive hypocrite for stating this one, but I would recommend giving a better tooltip for the gun-- I had no idea the mouse was used in gameplay at first, and didn't understand how to fight back on my first run. Otherwise, my main issue comes from the fact that a lot of the enemies are rather ignorant. I was able to successfully circle around the boss without triggering the AI until I tried to actually reach a gap in the forest. All in all, I found this to be a very fun mechanic that was rather polished, and both the artwork and the dark humor added a lot to this entry. I enjoyed my time with it, but as some others have stated, both the mines and enemies could benefit from some additional QoL tweaks. I think you're really onto something here, and the potential's definitely there for a post-jam release of some sort. |
| Oct 19 17:22:50 | 13m 24s | Chronic Curse | ♥ 1 | Yep... that's a five star entry. I really don't have much to say for criticism. I got through the entire game and, while its core mechanics _can_ be frustrating, I wouldn't stoop to calling them unfair. Having to recharge your cycle break was an interesting way to balance the feature out, as it would force me to wait a cycle before trying certain jumps again. I found it interesting how you managed to balance out the feeling of fighting against the cycle and using it to your advantage, and the levels were a good mix of carefully curated frustration and some great platforming segments. As some others have said, props for the music. Having a dynamic score added a lot to the loop feeling, especially when it comes to feedback. It helps that the track was actually nice to listen to, of course. I will say that the looping mechanic confused me at first-- I had the idea that dying during the loop was acceptable, but that dying after breaking the cycle had to be this measured risk because dying outside the cycle would leave you dead permanently. I was rather disappointed when my character hopped back up in place as I felt that this additional caution outside of the looping mechanic was a nice twist, though I understand why it was done for the sake of the player. It may be something to keep in mind. Unfortunately I'm just not going to be able to provide much in terms of critical feedback. This was excellent. |
| Oct 19 17:35:26 | 12m 36s | Hudson | ♥ 1 | The moment I understood the upgrade system, I was able to get through this with relatively little trouble. I'm a huge fan of game loops that trap you with one-shot recovery items that stop you from achieving the goal, so being able to use your orbs to replenish health in emergencies was a nice touch. I'm not sure I entirely understood how "gem thieves" worked; in gameplay, it gave me the impression that my powers would deplete over time, as I did not see the thief. I would recommend adding a gameplay sound of some kind that indicates this happening. Good work! |
| Oct 19 17:47:30 | 12m 04s | Ex Aeternum | ♥ 1 | PLEASE make a post-jam release. It's a shame that your time was cut short, and I totally understand with compo and all... but what is here, I'm 100% on board with. My primary complaint is that despite these amazing backgrounds, you don't really apply them into gameplay at all. I would love some animated objects, changing frames, and so on. The line puzzles just kind of existed, but I would have liked to see these actually appear in the environment in some way. Perhaps the lines could have been objects on the wall that illuminate with baked glowing effects or particles when connected? I wish there'd been a bit of music, but the ambience more than makes up for any shortcomings here. It has a muffled feel that really gets the feeling of some greater mechanical system around you. I also don't know if the water was supposed to be used in any way, as I feel like I skipped right past it. To your credit though, it was some very nice pre-rendered water. This is nitpicking to the highest degree for a compo game, but I would have liked a higher-quality render for HD resolutions beyond 720p. All that artifacting and compression just gets in the way of some great looking renders. Props to you for really going out on a limb with this entry. It might not have entirely worked out, but aside from a commendable effort, there's some genuinely solid ideas I'd love to see more of here. |
| Oct 19 17:59:33 | 12m 03s | Fleder Flopin | ♥ 1 | That was chaotic. 😆 It took me a second, but the gameplay loop worked pretty well. I'd say the platforming felt solid enough, but by the end of the game it's just a wall of giant glowing capsules and spheres designed to cause pain... which is entirely fine. As most have said, the visuals are a serious high point for this entry-- particularly for a compo game. Your sound design is also very strong with all the unique flanged sounds; that said, I would have liked to see the music get a bit more hectic once you've made enough mistakes to warrant it. More than anything, I appreciate the fact that a higher and more difficult path was usually available for players, often becoming the only option when things get crazy. If there was one gameplay tweak I would make, I would try to tone down the number of obstacles on the first lap and put up some large signposts to guide the player forward consistently. I think it would add something to the game to have a more clear course at first with in-your-face directions before it gets cluttered with all sorts of nonsense. As something to consider for postjam releases, you may be able to tie successful laps to an obstacle cleanup that takes care of one or two spawned objects, or alternate between different course obstacles as you continue. Great work! |
| Oct 19 20:55:37 | 2h 56m | WHAT I SAW | ♥ 1 | This was incredible. From the start, I can tell you that the aesthetic and audio design are basically faultless. I appreciate the ambition on this jam, and the levels were interesting to explore. That said, I wasn't a huge fan of the starting enemies as they were very unpredictable in movement. There was also a frustrating behavior of theirs where they could spot you the moment you exited a mirror and charge. I'll get a little more into the things that I would have liked to see improved on in a bit, but I will say that I found the character designs and level layouts to be incredibly engaging and distinct. I can't say I've played a single jam entry like this one, and the mirror looping mechanic kept the game from feeling too linear without getting overbearing. It was a nice balance between difficulty and nonlinearity in an area where these games tend to fall short design-wise. Most of my narrative complaints boil down to this; I found it slightly frustrating that with every major story beat, the player is mostly handheld and forced to take certain actions (e.g. ignoring the shriveled figure). I wish there was a little more open-endedness to how you respond to some of these events. -- Aside from this, I do have a few bug reports that I hope to post screenshots for in a bit. I'll try to keep it as spoiler-free as possible. - I was able to break the story slightly by moving past the first major mirror without actually breaking it; the story didn't actually account for this, so I'm assuming it was supposed to be forced. - There is a section right before the "midpoint" of the game where walking into the wall will force you under the level. - A little bit after this midpoint, if you jump over a gap in the terrain with certain enemies chasing you, they will fall into the pit and continue to audibly jump in place for the rest of the section trying to reach you-- you may want to despawn any enemies that fall like this, similar to how player respawn is already treated for these gaps. -- All in all, exceptional work. |
| Oct 20 01:20:44 | 4h 25m | Little TV Escape!!! | ♥ 1 | My only real confusion with the game was that I never felt like I truly understood how the color change tool worked. It also took me a moment to realize that there were more than two screens available to the player to use. This game has some very neat puzzle concepts behind it, and I can definitely see some potential in expanding on what's here. I know it's been stated before, but the screen transition animation is also very well done. All in all, I don't have too much to say on this. I really appreciate how unique your take was on the jam, and it's executed fairly well in practice. Great work! |
| Oct 20 01:46:56 | 26m 12s | Alter-Nate | ♥ 2 | I'm a huge fan of the artstyle here... the music is no slouch either. The floating office equipment and piano score definitely give the impression of something just a little bit wrong. Well, that and the fire, of course. I like the door unlock approach to progression and remembering passcodes from past lives, and the alternating character sprites really sold the gameplay loop for me. That said, I wish you were given more of an idea of what interactibles affect when they are used. I also wonder if the graphics style would benefit from molten terrain geometry that was chunkier (unfiltered textures with a lower resolution) to fit the style of the sprites. It's a shame that some of the bugs are in the way, but these things happen in a jam. I really enjoyed my time with this entry, and I'd definitely be interested in more for a postjam. |
| Oct 27 04:43:10 | 170h 56m | Purgatory Hospital | ♥ 1 | This one kept me on my toes. The moment I figured out the physics system it got a little too easy, but the Reapers gave me a 'lil fright as I had no idea how they worked. The way it turned to face me, I wondered if it would chase me... then more appeared... Bah, I'm rambling. Good stuff! I got a big stupid smile when I saw your little ending, just waiting for this to tie into the whole loop theme... and tie in it did. Great work! Dig the atmosphere and the kinda realistic but-not-really setting, and the sound design kept me in the mood the whole way through. |
| Oct 27 04:52:38 | 9m 28s | Endless Assault | ♥ 0 | It's a nice and functional tower defense, and considering how I bailed on my own tower defense idea, I respect the work it took to not only get everything functioning but creating a good and well-balanced game flow. I appreciate the pressure between trying to support long-term income upgrades and affording new turrets. If I had one major complaint, it's the fact that airborne enemies can be an instant failstate if you have not deployed an anti-air turret. This feels like an oversight, as a single drone enemy can carry more weight than an entire army as opposed to being a nuisance you weren't prepared for. I also would recommend adding a night-time music track, as the peaceful ambience works great for building but is rather out of place when the lights go out. The fact that you even included QoL features is awesome! I greatly appreciated being able to increase the simulation speed during combat, though I wish this automatically reset back to speed 1 during the building phase. I'd love to see where this project goes beyond LD! |
| Oct 28 07:09:39 | 26h 17m | Hamster Dash | ♥ 1 | I like the simple models and solid game loop. That said, I wish there were more low hurdles to jump in the early game, as it feels like the game is more or less wasting your time a bit when you only have A/D. This complaint does NOT hold water in the late game as your levels have speed modifiers and more intense obstacles, however. I know this is just time constraint stuff here, but a little bit of music would be nice. Good work on this one! I sure wish I ran across this during the jam! 😆 |
