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Feedback comments for LD47
Honey Pony's games and stats for all events →
| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Honey Pony's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 6 00:42:21 | Loop Deleter | ♥ 1 | Very solid entry. I got to level 13. The puzzles that I played were, for the most part, quite engaging. One nitpick is that the difficulty curve is not super consistent: level 9 takes almost no thought while level 8 was quite hard. And, I would say level 12 is pretty straightforward too--although it is subverted in level 13, so I guess it makes sense. Of course, this is just a nitpick. 😄 Overall, very nice and interesting puzzles. | |
| Oct 6 02:38:58 | 1h 56m | Press the Buttons | ♥ 1 | Very interesting game. The requirement to press the buttons adds a somewhat novel little challenge, but much more interesting to me is the psychological aspect of it. When I actually played all the way through the game, I kept pressing the buttons *without knowing whether I actually needed to or not*. You could have made the solution for winning the game be to let the timer tick down and I still would have completed the rest of the tasks first! This is of course because I had already put some time into manipulating some of the objects in the game and so I didn't want to waste that time by needing to do it all over again, if the buttons did end up doing something bad. As a nitpick I will say I felt the tasks in the game felt a little uninspired... a series of keys and numerical codes. But I think that the central concept of the buttons is interesting enough that the rest of the gameplay doesn't really matter per se. All in all, a very unique experience! 😄 |
| Oct 6 03:44:54 | 1h 05m | Hyper Racer | ♥ 2 | This game looks absolutely incredible. I was honestly so impressed when I saw some of your posts during the jam and it looks even better now that it's out. I also absolutely love the music! 😄 I'm not sure if I experienced some glitches or what, as for the most part I only saw a single ghost every lap, and it was moving really slowly? I think the first time I got to, like, lap 4 there were a bunch of ghosts, but then I usually only saw 1, and even restarting the program didn't fix it... (I did download the "Latest" version FWIW) In terms of the racing aspect, I think I would really like some sort of speeding up / braking like in Mario Kart, or maybe a jump feature, or just *some* additional controls for the car. I had fun playing the game, but I think it felt a little non-racing-game-ish because I didn't have any way to speed up. But that said the game fits the theme very well and has superb music and graphics! Well done! |
| Oct 6 04:14:51 | 29m 57s | LoopBots | ♥ 2 | Very cool little game! I thought that the different concepts all contributed in their own ways. It was a very interesting moment when I realized one of my robots died as I had taken one damage to a spike when recording it, and it had just gone through multiple loops... I do think there are a couple little annoying things in the UI. For example, sometimes I accidentally hit Z near home when I didn't want to finish recording, and so I was forced to throw away my progress. My biggest point of ...confusion? is the time limit. It seems kind of out of place to me. As it's impossible to know where different things are in the level, you don't know what you should do until you've explored a bit... which ends up feeling like wasted time, because you could have been recording a robot to mine that ore! That said, I can't say I actually ever ran out of time, so it isn't really *unfair*. You *do* have enough time to do all the exploring and then separately record your robots. But it still makes the game feel really high-pressure and, in my opinion, this game doesn't seem like it should be a high-pressure game, which makes the time limit feel out of place. But, despite that, I had a good time. I think the game fits the theme pretty well, and the combination of platforming plus resource-collection-automation is a good combination. 😄 |
| Oct 6 04:42:32 | 27m 41s | Carman | ♥ 4 | I didn't entirely understand what I was doing the whole time I played this game, but I did eventually get to the win screen, I think. 😄 I did almost get completely stuck at one point--I had the "world" stuck in the corner with the graveyard, and I couldn't push it to move it out, and picking it up would not work either because it would get stuck in the ceiling. Eventually I managed to get it out somehow and from then on it was not too bad. I do think the placement of the graveyard could be made slightly less inconvenient as I also accidentally sent my Diploma over there (twice!) and had to die to retrieve it. 😆 Anyway, once I began to sort of understand that the game was a puzzle solving game, I started liking it quite a bit. I think the idea of manipulating all these various objects in different ways, and re-exploring the world as different characters, is a pretty good idea. And, I have to say the aesthetic of carrying around remorse the same way you carry around a diploma, is very interesting. Figuring out what the win condition was, based only on not being able to jump, was a cool moment of realization as well. As well as figuring out what to do as the snake. That was nice. One tiny thing I liked is that it's possible to get some very large jumps by jumping off a platform in mid-air (although it requires very precise timing!). I'm not sure that that's intentional but in my opinion it's a cool little thing. So overall, very interesting game. I like the general idea, even if it took me a while to grasp. |
| Oct 7 03:15:57 | 22h 33m | Have A Nice Day | ♥ 3 | So I played through all 7 days and then walked into the green square, and I think at that point the game restarted the loop? I don't know for sure though. The first couple days I was really sold on the visual appearance of the game. The office looks normal, to some extent, but the colors and lighting are very bizarre and remind me of a bad dream. I'm not sure I found the rather conventional horror tropes super interesting, however. I don't see what's very relatable to the average office worker about "blood coffee." The one I think was effective was the darkness effect on the 7th day, because it demonstrated that you were able to navigate this space pretty efficiently, even without really being able to see it. That said, I almost feel the game is effective enough if it just contains a day that loops over and over. After all, that sells the point well enough, I think--a player who plays the same day over and over, will think, this is pointless, I shall quit now. But in the real world, you can't just quit. If you do want to augment the looping mechanic with additional changes day-to-day, I think you really just need to introduce them sooner. I was very much ready to write this review as though the game repeated the same day with no changes ever. So to summarize: I think this game is thematically pretty effective, all told. I just think that the more conventional tropes fall flat when I'm *already sold* on the repeating day concept, from having played through a bunch of repeating days. Hopefully that makes sense. 😄 |
| Oct 7 03:46:16 | 30m 19s | Stuck in a Timeloop | ♥ 4 | Pretty solid entry. The levels are all interesting enough--I think that jumping off of yourself in midair is a very interesting platforming idea. I don't love that you lose all your progress if you touch a hazard. In my opinion this is rather annoying. For example, on the last level, I had collected everything but the particle across the lava bridge. It would be very annoying to have to re-do all of that just because I miscalculated when the bridge would be activated. I also had a feeling that the platforming just feels a little off, but it took me some time to figure out why. I think there are a couple of small problems. One, I think, is just assigning up to jump--I think this might make it feel a little worse to control. The second is I think the gravity could be turned up--although this could be unfeasible due to the requirement of jumping off some of your guys. Finally, I think your player should have a little bit of horizontal acceleration / deceleration--it feels very weird to stop moving horizontally immediately after releasing an arrow key. But, these problems are all minor enough. I had a good time beating all the levels and would have enjoyed playing a couple more. 😄 |
| Oct 7 04:16:42 | 30m 26s | Splines 'n Shapes | ♥ 1 | This is an incredibly solid entry. Very nicely done. I like how I became more aware of the symmetry properties of the Bezier curve, as I could always just start solving each puzzle at any point in the curve. I also liked how my conceptualization of the directionality of the curve evolved over the game--at first it seemed like an important thing to be aware of, while at the end it was closer to, "put the point that's first in the loop at the first shape". 😄 I suppose the game sort of makes you think about how curves work. The nice properties that curves have become more obvious as you begin to develop systematic ways to solve the puzzles. I think looping the game instead of ending it makes sense, although I thought it made have been a nice "final moment" to have the game end after it goes back to three dots and you send them through the single triangle again. The only other thing is that, sometimes it seemed like the dot should have connected with the shapes and it didn't? It seemed like maybe the extra speed the dot got would sometimes slightly affect its range where it would hit the shapes? But I could be wrong. It only seemed to happen on one puzzle so my perception might just be tripping me up. Overall I'd say this is the best entry I've seen so far. Takes a good, simple concept and executes it beautifully. 😄 |
| Oct 7 04:47:09 | 30m 27s | LittleIC | ♥ 1 | Note: I played on the "Fixes some problems" version. So for a very long time I was very confused because, apparently, on the beautiful graphics setting, the game will not despawn the first cube when you throw it in the cable, and it will therefore never spawn a second one. I spent just minutes wandering around looking for the second cube. Once I switched to fast graphics everything worked properly. I think the graphics are nice. I certainly love me some reflective and glowy shaders. The walking animation seems a little stiff. The music is, in my opinion, not really there. It's much too short, and it's honestly just kind of harsh sounding. I honestly don't know where I stand on the gameplay. I have a generally positive feeling toward the idea of an area becoming increasingly more difficult to navigate as time goes on. I think just having a bit of a more interestingly designed level would probably go a long way. I also think the game would be well served by a more mobile player--I think moving around very efficiently would be fun and thematic to an integrated circuit. I should say that the repetitive gameplay does fit the theme very well. So, all told, I think your entry makes sense, it has nice graphics, and it has a solid enough concept. It just would need fixes in a couple areas to really feel solid. |
| Oct 12 01:03:44 | 116h 16m | Escape! | ♥ 1 | I have to agree that the music is quite nice. I'm honestly not sure what to say about the rest of the game--it ended before I really felt like I really knew what I was even doing. I think the mini puzzles were a fine enough concept, although the puzzle itself I've seen a lot before. At first I thought solving the puzzles might require exploring the ship to find clues--I think that would make them more engaging, if the goal was to make the game actually require exploration and puzzle-solving. But that being said... I do think that the narrative of this game as it stands right now is rather interesting. It almost gives you the feeling that you know exactly what you're doing as you make your way to the escape pod, despite me, the player, never having seen the ship before. The linearity of the narrative does evoke a sense of competency, which is an aesthetic I haven't thought about much. Anyways, hopefully some of these thoughts were helpful. 😄 |
| Oct 19 01:45:57 | 168h 42m | Awesome Ludum Boat Race | ♥ 1 | Fun little racing game. I like the idea for the controls although I have to say in practice my hands got tired extremely quickly... might incentivize players to hurt their fingers in the effort to be the fastest. 😅 I think the graphics are nice, and I really like the physics based gameplay. Adds a bit of interest as the interaction with the wall is unpredictable and potentially even useful for turning around quickly. Overall, a nice simple game. |
| Oct 19 02:14:59 | 29m 02s | Pi's Great Escape | ♥ 1 | By the time I got to the end of the game, I was enjoying the platforming. I think it is a solid concept, and the level design makes sense. The problem, to me, is that it is very hard to control, and I don't believe it's even very easy to learn to control. I could never figure out how to jump consistently, and the amounts of momentum and even jump height I could get could vary wildly based on all sorts of inscrutable factors. The places where jumping was required took me forever as I tried to get the game to give me a jump... But as I said, once I finally got the hang of just kind of praying and pointing my buttons in the general direction of where I want to go, I did have a bit of fun. The physics and controls just need to be much more predictable to really sell the experience. And, as a data point, the game did make me a little motion sick too. 😄 |
| Oct 19 02:25:46 | 10m 47s | Stuck in a loop-Puzzle Game | ♥ 1 | This is definitely a similar concept to my game lol. But, given that I made a similar game, I have to appreciate how much you did with so little! This game really effectively explores all the possibilities for getting a robot from point A to point B. Of course that idea isn't big enough to make more than the ten levels present in the game, and even then some of them felt a little redundant, but I have to say that overall I didn't feel like the game was too repetitive. Of course additional mechanics and things would be great--maybe having multiple goals, or obstacles, or anything else, really. But I have to imagine you already know that. 😄 In terms of relatively mundane feedback, I feel like the robot could potentially move faster. Other touches would be nice, like a turning animation, and of course sound and other graphical flair. That's all just somewhat self-evident polish stuff though. Overall good job! |
| Oct 22 03:55:11 | 73h 29m | Hulagain | ♥ 1 | This game makes really good use of the theme. The idea of having to move back and forth in a rhythmic way as well as try to platform is an interesting and very difficult challenge! The problem is that it is such a difficult challenge I am incentivized to try as hard as possible to avoid it... and so, on every level except the first one, with the disappearing blocks, I simply ran through the level before my hoop had time to fail. I really just don't see how to successfully move through the level *and* hula-hoop at the same time... any forward motion you gain is immediately canceled when you move the other way. And so this means that the only possible strategy is to build up some time to let your hoop fall, and do some normal platforming, and then hula-hoop for a while. But this is really hard! I could never really get the timing down if I wasn't hula hooping for an inordinate amount of time... I think, really, the way to fix all these problems is a two-step process: 1. Make it straightforward to get the hula-hoop rhythm going, for the player 2. Design the levels around having designated places to hula-hoop to build up platforming time, that the player must locate and use appropriately I think that would really make these mechanics work. As it stands, when I tried to hula-hoop on the first level, with the traps--I kept running into the traps. This is, I think, an unfortunate intersection of too many things at once--I had to keep track of hula-hooping and keep in mind the hidden platform! Had I been able to simply hula-hoop safely, I might have gotten more used to the game mechanics. IDK. This comment is kind of rambly, but hopefully it's something to think about at least. 😄 |
| Oct 22 04:17:11 | 22m 00s | Toucan's Revenge | ♥ 2 | I really like the graphical style going on here. It's pretty unique and looks good. And I could tell what a lot of the objects were without even having to read their descriptions, so that's convenient. The music and sound effects are very nice as well. Of course as this point you've heard many times the complaint about losing all the progress... I would concur there. However I do have to say I kind of like the idea of these larger chunks of the game that you have to complete without messing up--getting to the room after beating 5 puzzles in a row is a nice feeling. I'm just not sure what an effective way to lose progress would be that isn't boring and very slow--moving back through all the rooms takes a very long time! Perhaps the game could have a queue of all the possible puzzles, and if you fail one at a given point, it doesn't reset all your progress, but it gives you a new random puzzle and moves the one you failed somewhere else in the queue? At least that's one idea. Anyways, besides the progress-resetting conundrum, this game is very nice and has some nice adventure game vibes to it. |
| Oct 22 04:27:30 | 10m 19s | The Impossible Room | ♥ 1 | This is an awesome game! Definitely one of my favorite entries. These kinds of non-Euclidean (if that's the right term) games are always super interesting! And it's certainly a nice take on the theme. If I'm going to be honest though I feel like maybe the first level is actually harder than level 4? I could be wrong here, but in level 4 I could actually see myself and could just aim and shoot directly. Level 3 also seemed easy but I don't necessarily think it's easier than level 1. Hard to say. I think an introductory level that was just a repeating hallway could be nice. That way it's immediate and obvious what you have to do--it took me a little bit of thinking to figure it out on level 1. Although, on the other hand, having one of the puzzles be to literally figure out the objective of the game is fun and interesting in its own right. 😄 Either way, I did love level 2. I literally said "nice" once I figured it out because it was so satisfying. One small note is I was initially somewhat annoyed by the choice of splat sound effect for the gun... although I did get used to it pretty quickly. So yeah! Great entry! 😄 |
| Oct 22 04:41:04 | 13m 34s | Multitasking | ♥ 1 | Very nice game! In terms of graphics and audio, I think both are pretty neat, but I especially like the graphics style as it feels very unique and definitely reminds me of other puzzle games. The gameplay was pretty engaging too! I was actually super shocked when the game ended as I was starting to really get into it. If I were to make any changes to the game, it would be adding some extra levels. I do have some thoughts about the gameplay: The first minor thing is it took me a surprisingly long time to figure out which object was the player. 😄 I also felt that one thing was unintuitive: if, say, I am to the right of a clone, and that clone is moving left, I cannot move left *at the same time*. I have to wait for it to move left, then I can move left. So there's always this gap between player clones. This isn't a *problem*, it's a mechanic that makes sense, but it is kinda hard to *feel* so to speak. It feels weird when pushing left doesn't move you left even though it seems like it would be possible to move left. Anyways that's all I really thought when playing the game. Super solid entry overall! 😄 |
| Oct 22 05:39:25 | 58m 21s | I Will Eat A Apple | ♥ 2 | I played this game for a very, very long time, and I want to complain about how it is tooo looooong. I'm not sure if you were going for a long game or not, but I want to go over the ways in which it was so long, for me, that it became grating... The first problem is I didn't even know there was a way to get checkpoints for every challenge. So I died somewhere like halfway? And then I was going to write my rating, but I saw there was an option that might help, and so I had to play through that whole part of the game again... A bunch of the later levels honestly seem kind of redundant. Like they're just the same levels as before, but a little harder. I'm not sure there's any reason to even include them--there's not even really an evolution in the dialog boxes past a certain point. Then I finally got to the boss, and I could not figure it out. I survived for a while but I didn't see any way I was going to be able to win. So I thought maybe I could turn on invincibility, as I saw that was a setting too... and lost all my progress. Welp. One final note is I don't see any reason to have every level repeated twice. Now that said, I can see the legitimacy in an absurdly tedious and hard game. That what makes Getting Over It great, for example. But I really don't see what the goal is with how long this game is? Like, it's a game jam entry. I have to imagine I'm the first person who's even gotten to the boss... So... what do I like about this game? Well, I was intrigued enough by the concept to play through the first half of it twice, as I said. I think the idea of a weird story that has some absurdly hard gameplay tied to it is a compelling kind of game. I thought that the graphics and the music were both pretty nice. I like the player sprite and it's outlined-humanoid style. This game also has a good mood to it, it really projects a lot of emotion. So I think the question you have to ask is what your goals are with this game. If it's intended to be incredibly tedious and very, very difficult, you have very much succeeded. And that is a fine goal to have! When I was playing through without the "instant restart", this game was more stressful than almost any other game I've played. And that's very interesting! But if that's not what you were going for, you probably want to re-think parts of your game. Whew! That's all I can really say. I really hope I'm not coming off as too harsh--I'm just trying to be honest and descriptive so you can know whether or not your game met *your* goals for what it should be. I hope you got something out of this feedback, in any case... 😄 Addendum: I was thinking about *why I even cared* that this game is so long, and I think there's a reason: the game is based on a story, and so there is presumably some sort of reward for getting to the end--you get to see the end of the story. If this game did not have a story that I cared about, I actually would probably not mind at all that it was so long--I would just quit and call it a day. It's specifically that I poured so much time in and still didn't get to actually see the end of the story, that made it a frustrating experience. So hopefully that provides some context! 😄 |
| Oct 22 06:03:39 | 24m 14s | Guntasy | ♥ 1 | Pretty solid entry overall. The graphics and music are both pretty sweet. The gameplay feels pretty good for the most part, the guns are fun to shoot, which is always a plus. The platforming definitely feels a little iffy though--some jumps are just a little more precise than I would expect. I'm probably not too familiar with the genre conventions so this might not be very helpful but: I really couldn't figure out a way to engage in combat with a lot of the enemies without taking damage. If there was somewhere I could hide I could usually duck there and shoot, but sometimes it seemed like I needed to be in the same space, and at that point there was nothing I could really do. But perhaps that's intended, as I said, I'm not too familiar. I also think the way that enemies are invincible when off-screen just feels a little weird. I also wasn't too happy with some of the blinder enemies that show up in the top of your screen without any warning, but I suppose they do serve an interesting gameplay purpose. Overall though I would say my impression of the gameplay is as very fun to play. As I said, the guns feel great, or at least the ones I got. So yeah, solid entry! 😄 |
| Oct 22 20:37:55 | 14h 34m | Fire Exit | ♥ 0 | I really like this kind of puzzle game and I definitely enjoyed trying to figure out the right placement of the boxes and springs for each level. However, it simply becomes untenable to actually win most of the levels due to a convergence of two issues: - The required position for each object is very very precise. I kept restarting level 3 just to try to get the first spring in the correct place. - There's no way to move things around if they're out of place! Once you finally get one element down, if the next one is wrong as well, then you have to restart--and then you might get the first one wrong again. There's no way to *just* re-do the part that needs fixing in the moment. As such I really don't think I'm capable of beating level 3. Especially because I got booted back to the beginning of the game after killing a guy by accident. There's simply too much trial-and-error randomness--it basically becomes a question of placing down the boxes in the approximately right position, and then seeing if you managed to hit all four pixel-perfect spots or not. For what it's worth I thought the music was quite nice... although restarting it every time I restart the level meant it restarted very often. 😄 So yeah, I think this game is pretty strong, it just needs some tweaks to the level design, and a way to not lose all your progress, to really round it out. |
| Oct 22 21:02:14 | 24m 19s | Routine | ♥ 1 | I had a very confusing time playing this game for a very minor reason. So early on I got stuck on the level with one fan and two eyes, where apparently it's not possible to jump over the second eye. And so I read on a comment here something about dragging a black platform, and I found that platform and used it to solve a bunch of puzzles. It seemed to me like a really arbitrary solution to have, that also made many of the puzzles seem kinda meaningless. I now realize that that platform was a debug element or something along those lines--it was not the intended solution to the puzzles. I went back and figured out that the actual solution to the fan-and-two-eyes puzzle was to move the bed. And I replayed the other puzzles that I had "skipped." So one minor but important piece of feedback: don't leave the debug platform in the game! 😅 Incidentally while re-playing the game and writing this review my computer blue-screened. I don't know if that's related to the game but it's kinda funny. --- So aside from all that, I enjoyed the game. It's a fun kind of physics puzzler, and I think fits the theme pretty nicely. The physics were a little glitchy in places, but I still enjoyed pushing the player around and figuring out what to do with each of the fans, and all. I can't say I entirely understood the ending of the game, it seemed like I was supposed to do something, and it seemed like clicking was causing something to happen. So perhaps that could be made clearer? I do like the weird rag-doll-ish player graphics. Very silly. And in general I have some kind of fondness for weird mismatched photographic and hand-drawn graphics. Probably comes from my days with MIT's Scratch but it's still an aesthetic that I think is legitimate and kind of neat. A fun game overall. 😄 |
| Oct 22 21:20:54 | 18m 40s | Loop Dream | ♥ 1 | This game is definitely difficult as other people have mentioned. At first I was trying to just keep the ball in its nice loop while I built a simple path, but that strategy did not end up being very feasible. Next I tried to sort of place pieces in front of the ball and just pray that I got a compatible piece before it died. I actually got relatively good luck and I almost won--I was one tile away but then I died, and then on my later attempts I couldn't get nearly as far. So yeah, it's probably too tough. I think maybe having an option to just play on a slow speed would really help make it more winnable. Probably also the game should be balanced in some way such that you will never get a particular slew of bad pieces. I don't know if you're familiar, but Tetris games will, for example, guarantee that you won't get too many S-pieces in a row. Anyways, this is a pretty cool take on the theme, and is executed very nicely. It's just too hard! 😄 |
| Oct 22 22:12:44 | 51m 50s | Atomic Orbital | ♥ 0 | I really like the vector graphics, and I like the idea of a space-shooter tower-defense kind of game. I think, however, that the difficulty of hitting enemies really makes the game feel kind of arbitrary. Like, as far as I can tell, the only way to obtain an extra weapon is by killing an enemy. And enemies start to show up in really big clumps very very quickly. But it is really hard to kill any enemies with just the starter weapon, so most of the time you just die immediately. I think the game really just needs a way to have more control over being able to hit enemies. I think a good solution to that would be giving all the bullets slight tracking ability, so you can hit enemies that are *approximately* in front of your gun, rather than *directly* in front of your gun. Anyway I did have fun once I figured out how to sort of get past the beginning stage more consistently. The game has some very nice space shooter vibes going. 😄 |
| Oct 23 03:55:24 | 5h 42m | Locomotion Commotion | ♥ 3 | I love the idea of a train shooter. I think there could even be more cars, with a whole bunch of different possibilities. Or even a customizable train. Lots of possibilities. Trains are always a good time. 😄 I tried playing on both the difficulty settings, and I don't think either was particularly hard. I did feel swarmed a little bit at times on the adaptive difficulty, but I managed to pull through. I think the upgrade system is a little awkward, though. There are a couple awkward things. First is it's not really clear what each upgrade does. Health and damage are somewhat clear, but the numbers are pretty meaningless--I would thing 800 health would be a lot, but apparently not? And I have absolutely no idea what the fire rate system does. On an endless game I cranked it up to around 100 and yet there was still no apparent change in my rate of fire. I think maybe it effects the bullet velocity? In which case it should probably not be called rate of fire. I found that a lot of the time I would hit the whistle instead of actually opening the upgrade menu--particularly when I was trying to grab health when swarmed by a bunch of guys. The upgrade menu should probably be very easy to open and the whistle a bit more incidental. As it stands right now, the endless mode doesn't feel particularly meaningful. The exploding enemies start coming so fast that you can just keep shooting them and killing everything, and then buying upgrades... I ended the game with 100s in every upgrade, and 40000 robot parts. I mean, I think it's relatively self-evident that a true endless mode would probably need a larger variety of enemies and scenarios that involved those enemies, so there really isn't too much to say there. One nitpick: the player momentum feels a little weird, not like a person walking around. But all this is to say that I think this is a very solid foundation for a game. I think this game naturally fits the idea of an endless shooter sort of thing, and it's somewhat obvious that an endless shooter probably needs more than two kinds of enemies. As I said, a shooting game on a train just seems kind of intrinsically fun to me, so it's definitely a game that could be developed into a bigger project if you wanted. Anyways, I hope there's something useful in this feedback! 😄 |
| Oct 23 06:06:40 | 2h 11m | (Nu) Da Drum | ♥ 1 | This is a really neat game. I have to admit I probably didn't entirely understand the narrative, partially because I probably wasn't paying quite enough attention, but I at least related to some of the frames taken out of context. The atmosphere of the game certainly puts one in a contemplative mood. I think I would rather talk about a couple of purely practical things: essentially, things I thought about the way the game accomplishes the game-y parts of the game. Or something like that. 😄 So, it took me a surprisingly long time to figure out that the bear was, sometimes, supposed to not be on the screen, and that at that point you were intended to push 'r.' At first I thought it was just my resolution was wrong--and it turned out it was, Windows had it set to 1920x1080, but zoomed in. So I fixed my resolution, and tried again, and then the bear kept disappearing from the screen. So I tried messing with the resolution some more. Then I started pushing 'f' every time I needed to put the bear back on the screen, and pushing 'i.' But then I pushed 'esc' by accident and had to start over, and it was at that point that I finally realized that, in fact, the bear being ungrabbable due to being off the screen was an intended mechanic, and that that was the point where I needed to press 'r.' (By the way, I used 35 restarts getting to the end. 😄 Although I must admit I used a lot of cheese, which feeds into my next point...) The other thing I want to talk about is the physical platforming of the game. I feel like this is a tricky thing to get right, because by the very nature of using mouse-based drag and drop, the amount of distance you can get is unbounded right out the gate--there's nothing stopping the player from moving their mouse all the way across the screen and just dragging the rabbit to the exit point for each "level." Which is of course where all the cheese potential comes from. And I feel like the amount of time you have to actually try to drag the rabbit around the obstacles is astonishingly short. One I recall is the level at 1:37 in your video--where you very quickly drag the rabbit all the way to the right and then back again. I never considered using such a violently fast strategy, likely because I was trying to give it an honest, non-cheesy attempt... I was trying to methodically drag the rabbit in a big loop and land it on the upper platform, but I really couldn't get it to work. I think cheese-proofing the physics and maybe giving the player a littttle more time to move the rabbit around would help. In fact, I think maybe limiting the max speed of the rabbit would be a good idea, so you *have* to move it carefully and consistently (...but still pretty quickly, of course). I can appreciate that perhaps the very short amount of time you're able to grab the rabbit serves a narrative purpose, but at this point I think it might be getting in the way of players actually caring enough to not just go for the cheese strat. Or, perhaps the player is intended to use very very fast mouse movements, but not through the platforms? That would also make sense. I honestly stayed away from mouse movements unless I was specifically trying to cheese, because, well, I thought that fast mouse movement at all was considered cheese. So when I was trying to play legitimately, I always went for the slower movements. So maybe this is just a problem of communication, who knows. 😄 One small other thing is I didn't understand when the game ended: on my game I got sent back to, I think, the beginning of the game, but everything was grayed out--but I could still move around and eventually I somehow landed myself in this big gray void, and I believe that is the ending of the game? But it looked different on the video, so I don't know if I got a glitch or something. Anyways, aside from this very long description of how I experienced the pragmatic gameplay elements, there's a couple extra notes... (continued in another comment, apparently!) |
| Oct 24 03:34:00 | 21h 27m | Stuck in a Round | ♥ 1 | It was somewhat difficult to figure out what to do. At first it seemed like I got marked down for collecting notes in the wrong order, but eventually I figured it out. However, it took me until late in the game to really connect the dots that "completing the song's scale" also implies that the obstacles will only fall on the spaces where notes will spawn. I thought it was unnecessarily mean to send the player back to the beginning upon losing. It ended up not being a huge problem because the game isn't too hard--but when I first encountered that after dying on the second level I felt like "ugh, I don't want to have to do this again, if I get to level 3 or whatever." When multiple obstacles fall in one column, it becomes difficult to tell where the shadows are sometimes--perhaps a color differentiation would help. However, I suppose part of the strategy might be to learn the patterns, either by watching the top of the screen or by ear. Really, I guess this just depends what you want there. Sometimes the gap between the obstacles was exceptionally short, to the point where it didn't seem like I would be able to walk on the square safely--but then once the gap between obstacles became longer, the note objects that I needed to collect would usually have despawned. I don't know if I just got unfortunate RNG or if this is an intended effect--so I guess just making the intention here clearer would be good. I really like the graphics on the platforms wiggling around. And I like the sound effects of the platforms and the jumping around. And the game is surprisingly fun once you actually figure it out. Trying to decide whether to rush in for a risky grab, and running in fear from a bunch of obstacles right over your head--it has a nice pace and energy. So yeah. Hard to learn, but nice once you do. I hope some of my specific feedback with respect to gameplay was helpful. 😄 |
| Oct 26 01:38:23 | 46h 04m | Space duck: Platformer with space Hussites | ♥ 2 | I love the shifting music for each loop. I also like the way that, when you die, any enemies that you had killed will still stay dead. That's a nice touch that builds on the theme of looping. I find the grisly animations--in particular the death animation--notable. I don't really have an opinion on them, I mostly just find that they stand out--they are very important to the characterization of the game's aesthetic and atmosphere. So yeah. A nice simple game, makes good use of the theme. 😄 |
| Oct 26 02:21:10 | 42m 47s | Loop Trap | ♥ 1 | I found this game much too difficult. It seemed like I really just had to rely on luck. For example, the farthest I got was about 70 seconds into level 2, and I lost my second life when the crystalline loop got trapped inside a set of metal blocks. I couldn't push it out, and I was out of bombs, so I just lost. I also lost a lot of lives to the loop re-spawning nowhere near a platform, and directly above the spikes. I think the levels really need to be more specifically designed, or have an RNG system that specifically makes sure they are always feasibly winnable. I also think the levels should be much shorter. I played this game around 16 times, but only got to level 2 around 4 times. It simply doesn't seem like it's worth spending a minute and a half just to get another shot at level 2. OK, here's a weird glitch. The first time I played through this game, no music had started until level 2. I opened it again while writing this review, and lo and behold, there is actually music for level 1! I honestly thought there wasn't any music for level 1, and I had written that that was a strange choice. I like the player moveset. Being able to fly around freely is an interesting mechanic for a platforming game. I think the bomb is a very nice move to have, and it definitely saved me a couple times on level 1 when I was in tricky spots. (incidentally, one time the bomb didn't destroy a block for some reason?) I like the idea of an invincible player character managing a destructible resource. I don't think I've played many games like that. Now that I've seen the music working properly, I also like the evolution of the music and the background graphics through the different levels. And I do think that it's fun to play through the game, once you sort of figure it out. I went back and played it again for part of this review, and I was enjoying myself quite a bit. However, it's simply not fun to go back all the way through level 1 again after you have just done so a couple times in a row. So yeah. That's my verdict. Fun once you figure it out, but too difficult for me to see myself completing it. 😄 |
| Oct 27 02:40:27 | 24h 19m | Hall of Infinity | ♥ 1 | I had a very hard time with this game. I was only able to figure out one of the levels without referring to the walkthrough. So I guess the most helpful thing I can do is just describe my experience, so it's clear where the game might not have worked as intended. So the first room with the looping right turn hallway--I figured out pretty quickly, based on the line next to the exit door, that I was probably supposed to walk on the wall. However, I still kept failing the level over and over and thought I must be missing something, especially because I was apparently getting game overs somehow. But no, it turns out I was right, I do have to walk on the wall--but I actually have to start walking on the wall at the entrance to the room. I never saw the change in elevation at the entrance because there was simply no reason for me to look at the floor there, and it wasn't very obvious. So I don't think it's really possible for a person to figure out that the entrance and the exit are both elevated without simply being told. I should say that making the floor lava here would definitely help. Or just making the elevation change actually noticeable. The second room took me a long time too, but I was able to figure it out. However, it was really hard to tell if there was a wall or a ceiling or a floor in any particular part of the room, because it was so dark. To add on to that, the room quickly got even darker over time, so I really couldn't tell where to go. It was mostly by luck that I eventually found the side hallway that led to the exit door. The third room I had no idea what to do. I tried running on walls, on the floor, I tried walking vs. running, I tried many many things, but I could never win--and so I had to refer back here. I don't think having "walk through a door a bunch of times" really works as a solution to any of the puzzles here, because the very nature of the game design makes you believe that that will never be a solution. So all that said, I hope you can tell what the game is like to play for somebody who didn't design it. Namely, it doesn't really feel like it's actually feasible to solve any of the puzzles except for maybe the one in the dark room. And I should stress that this is just my experience--it is possible other people would be able to solve these puzzles. But I am writing this comment as though almost nobody would be able to, as that was my experience, so take that as you will. Now what you do with this information is totally up to you. I should say that I, as an art nerd, think a puzzle game with arbitrarily difficult puzzles that most players would never solve, is a very legitimate kind of game. In fact, a game with essentially unsolvable puzzles, especially that third one, has a very very menacing atmosphere, which I think is what you were going for. (And yeah, having a player repeat something 47 times goes against practically all conventions and expectations--which makes it a very powerful narrative tool). But most people will probably not have a very fun time with such a game--so it really just depends what you want from your own project. So yeah, I think this game has great atmosphere. The aesthetics of the game contribute a lot to it as well. All grayscale with ambient noise rather than music, it's a powerful aesthetic. That's really all I have to say, I think. I hope this feedback is useful. 😄 |