Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Feedback comment stats → Honey Pony
Feedback comments for LD48
Honey Pony's games and stats for all events →
| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Honey Pony's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 10 18:49:00 | Ziggurat | ♥ 1 | This is a pretty neat game! Most of it works pretty well. I like the music and the graphics--I especially like the variety of tilesets present throughout the game. As other people have mentioned, I had trouble figuring out how to wall jump... in fact, I still don't actually know what the control is for walljumping. I usually just spam the jump button and directional inputs until something happens that seems useful. (note: when referring to levels I'm going to use "level 1" to mean the first level with the key, not the tiny initial level) At first I thought that the level design in the second level is a bit tedious--it seemed like trying to run over one of the crystal-shooters would always result in taking damage, so I always had to wait--but I realized in level 3 that it is possible to jump over them right as they start shooting. I'm not sure if there would be some way to telegraph this strategy to the player better, as it would make the game flow a bit better in level 2. Perhaps I didn't try jumping in level 2 because the enemies first show up in a hallway with a low ceiling? Something to think about. One small nitpick I have is that some of the tiles look like they are going to be background details but end up being platforms (e.g. the tiles that are just a 1px outline in level 1). This didn't end up being an actual problem in any real sense, but if you want your tiles to consistently read as "ground" some of them may need to be changed. I think that's all I could really think of to talk about... overall pretty good entry. Everything is nice and tied together and well polished. | |
| May 10 19:19:00 | 30m 00s | So Below | ♥ 1 | I really like this. At first, the exploration seemed pretty normal. Then, the scale of the catacombs started becoming more apparent, as I kept dropping down staircases and through those brick cylinders. But then, at some point, the scale just become incomprehensible--it no longer seemed like the catacombs could seem any bigger. Perhaps this is just because I knew that this environment would literally go on forever, but I still think it's an effective game. I do think that the part I enjoyed most was when I really could feel the raw enormity of the environment. I'm not sure if it's possible to capture that feeling for longer, somehow--I think one thing that could help is more variety in the component parts of the dungeon. The suspension of disbelief becomes harder once the same parts have been seen twenty times rather than three. I especially liked the walled-off tunnel sections that had light coming down. I think having a couple more sections that indicate that *there is something else here* just out of reach could really add to the feeling of scale. I'm honestly not sure whether this game actually feels like it needs sound. I think it might be possible to make it better with sound, but right now it feels pretty good nonetheless. I might even give it four stars or so in the audio category simply because the sounds in the game are pretty appropriate... I think I would disagree with other commenters in that I don't think this game really needs anything else in terms of gameplay or story, etc... the pure atmosphere of "exploring a huge place" is hard to beat with extra gameplay, I would say. So yeah. Great entry! |
| May 10 20:07:39 | 48m 39s | The Limbo Runner | ♥ 1 | I think my favorite part of this game is the control scheme. Mashing the spacebar is an intrinsically rather awkward and volatile control scheme, and although I do not know how professional limboers feel about limboing, I would say that "awkward and volatile" certainly would describe any attempt I made at limbo in the real world. This control scheme also makes the gameplay pretty interesting despite how straightforward the concept is. In order to win I need to mash the spacebar fast enough, and start mashing at the right time. It's pretty neat. Unfortunately I'm not sure I can beat the last level. But I had fun beating the other two. |
| May 10 21:06:40 | 59m 01s | Pescuit Pe PlajΔ | ♥ 1 | What I find very interesting about this game is the contrast between the framing of it and the actual depth of the mechanics. In particular, the art style is somewhat disjointed, and moreover, not animated or "juicy", or any of the other things one would expect from a video game. The art creates an expectation of non-game-ness, to some degree. Then, the initial fishing mechanic reinforces this idea. The bobber disappears and the fish meter shows up, and it doesn't seem like a particularly deep fishing game. But then the game throws a curveball and makes the fishing game completely different from what was expected. The fish speeds up a little bit and this doesn't seem out-of-place, but then it speeds up so much and the game changes entirely. I really thought this was great. I was not even able to time the fish meter with my eyes once it reached the fast fish. The best I could do was either close my eyes and hit the spacebar at a random time, and hope I caught the fish, or I could try to really intuit when I should hit the spacebar. I did manage to pull off the second strategy a couple times, and it feels really interesting. I essentially had to look away from the screen and just sort of feel the internal pulse of the fish meter, and that was a super interesting kind of interaction. And then, at the very end, the fish meter becomes even more unusual. The fish starts jumping around without a constant velocity, and so it is now impossible to time the fish based on pure rhythm. At this point I have a really hard time actually catching any fish, although I managed to get a few. This contrast between the uneventful framing and the actual difficulty squeezed into this fish meter is really fun. This might be a weird comparison, but this reminds me a lot of the game Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby--a game that was developed, almost certainly, to be a kid's game, but ended up being ridiculously difficult to the point that it spawned memes about Christopher Robin being an eldritch god. I don't think I have much to say about the rest of the game--I'm sure there are interesting things to say about the variety of items or the music, etc... but to me the fishing meter mechanic just really stood out, and really made this game something quite neat. |
| May 10 21:32:59 | 26m 19s | Shrink and Destroy | ♥ 1 | This was a super fun little game. The story was easy enough to understand and pick-up-and-play, and then the variety of levels plus the shrink ray idea was just a really fun idea. I especially enjoyed the voice-over cutscenes with the rest of the game. I do think that the invincibility of all the enemies in the second and third levels is a little weird. It makes the shooting mechanics pretty much meaningless in those two levels, which seems like a shame as it's fun to run through and shoot everything. It was fun to go back through and try speedrunning the game. I think the leaderboard is a pretty cool mechanic for a Ludum Dare game. I think the graphics are on some level a bit inconsistent in terms of style, etc, but I am quite fond of them. I enjoyed the music a lot. Overall this game is I think the most fun game I've played so far. Everything else sort of just complements the basic fun gameplay of running around and shooting stuff inside the framing of a silly story. |
| May 11 00:25:07 | 2h 52m | Excavatris Inc. | ♥ 1 | This is a pretty nice entry. It's definitely best new take on Tetris I've seen in a while. I really like the art, especially all the grass, and dirt, and rocks surrounding the Tetris board... and then the music--or at least the music that I got to hear--was pretty good too. Unfortunately I am simply not very good at Tetris. My first game took maybe 15 minutes and I lost with the laughable score of... 1. My second game I've been playing for maybe 45 minutes and I've gotten to around depth 40. It seems like, at least with my skill level, the time it actually takes to get further down is just a bit too much. The game ends up being really slow-paced, which clashes with the sense I get from the presentation of the game that it should be more fast-paced. I did find that as I learned to use the new abilities I was able to get farther faster. I think that the abilities are a really useful addition to the game, as they do help give it that sense of destruction and speed that might be expected from a digging game. I do find that the way the abilities work is a little annoying--if you don't use them right away then all the lines you clear are wasted in terms of charging up abilities. Ultimately I think this is fine, as they would be way too powerful if you could, say, bank up a bunch of the explosion ability by clearing a bunch of lines, but it does feel a little bad. I think that problem in particular could really be mitigated just by adding more juice to the ability UI. If the abilities really popped out when they were ready, so that, for example, I could use the earthquake without ever wasting any lines charging it, I think that would be better. At it stands it actually took me a long time to realize that the UI included a charging bar for each ability and that lines cleared while an ability is charged don't contribute to it. Ultimately I think this game is still pretty incredible. Now that I understand it as a slow-paced game (at least how I play it), I think it is a pretty nice game. If I had a couple of hours to spend playing Tetris it would be a very good way to do that. |
| May 12 03:19:57 | 26h 54m | Backwards Quest | ♥ 1 | My understanding is that this game is based on a sort of reverse-time narrative? It seems like a pretty neat idea -- I enjoyed trying to fight the boss both forwards and backwards in time. I also agree that the death at the very beginning is a pretty neat moment. One other note: I enjoyed the music. |
| May 12 03:30:19 | 10m 22s | Turn of the Tide | ♥ 1 | Strangely, on my system, I can select units and give them orders, but zooming and panning do not work at all. I tried avoiding the mouse until after the cutscene plays, still no luck. :( |
| May 12 03:44:17 | 13m 58s | Deirdre & Pedro | ♥ 1 | This is a very solid entry. The concept is simple and interesting, and a nice use of the theme. It leads to very frantic gameplay that is quite nicely suited by the music. A couple random thoughts: It seems like the paper planes are by far the hardest obstacle to dodge, as they can appear and hit you within a very small window, giving almost no time to react. I wonder if this situation could be improved somehow to give the player a bit more control. Ultimately, though, un-dodgeable planes are not actually a problem, as the player can simply pour more upgrades into the frog before the beaver, which is an interesting strategy that the airplanes create. Still, might be worth considering. I also think that the umbrella upgrades should do something different from the health, just to make the system a bit more interesting. One thing I think would be neat is if umbrellas didn't slow you down when you take damage--so they would essentially be a better form of extra health. In that case their upgrade cost might need to be a little bit higher, but I think it would still be a good change. I like that the game eventually reaches the space environment a bit after the actual winning score. It seemed that perhaps the music is split into two slightly different pieces, one "for" the beaver and one "for" the frog, panned left and right respectively? If so, I think that's pretty neat. It makes a lot of sense to make use of stereo panning a lot in this game because it is so cleanly split down the middle. Overall it's a pretty good game. Very strong concept for a game executed quite well. |
| May 12 04:05:50 | 21m 33s | Salvage | ♥ 1 | This is a really cool puzzle game. I definitely would not have figured out the last level so I'm glad I didn't spend too long agonizing over it π but I did manage to beat the rest. I think that the weight mechanic of the gold pieces is interesting but would probably need to be communicated to the player better. I think really all this game needs is a couple more levels to really have a learning curve for all the possible mechanics. Note that I did realize when looking at the last level that I really needed some way to move over to the right without changing in height... but I simply had no idea what I could possibly need to do to do that. So I think that the level design does communicate a lot about what needs to be done even if I couldn't figure it out. But yeah, really neat puzzle game. It's hard to articulate exactly what, but it just seems like a unique sort of puzzle game--something rather novel. |
| May 12 04:16:09 | 10m 19s | You are Queen | ♥ 1 | I enjoyed playing through this. I really dig the straightforward graphics--combined with the hands-off gameplay, this gives this game a really chill vibe. Then, adding the goal of building the population, etc--kind of gives this game a feeling akin to a building game, all about exponential growth--and I think that combination is really quite fun and relaxing. I think I would have liked a bit more understanding of the interplay between the various factors. Do I need to dig the nest before the eggs can grow? That's what is seemed like. Do I need food before my eggs can become ants? That is what I guessed, so I set the slider to forage, but I couldn't actually tell for sure. I think that the food resource in particular could be expanded on just a little bit--essentially, make the ants unable to do the other tasks if the food isn't kept stocked. (Maybe this is how it works--I don't know π ) On the graphics: I enjoyed the particle effects. I think that the holes being dug would be better if they were, maybe, expanding circles/ovals? The chopped-off ovals seem a bit unpolished. Anyways, here's my scores (the clipboard button doesn't seem to work): Total - 2:05 Dig Nest - 2:05 Food Supply - 1:57 Population - 1:52 |
| May 12 04:38:17 | 22m 08s | The Moore Contingency | ♥ 2 | The platforming in this game is very cool. I really like swinging around with ropes, especially the sections where the ropes wrap around parts of the level--and all this is made even more effective by the graphics, which really give the feeling of climbing around a cave, etc. I was unable to figure out the control scheme particularly well, but I think this is partially due to the physics of how it works--for example, sometimes you have to push the W/S key for a long time before the rope will actually start to change length. Other problems I had include shooting out with a bunch of momentum after holding down S right after placing a new beacon--it seemed like I would sort of slide along the ground but then suddenly be able to extend the rope, and it would come out all at once, or something? I think that the question of checkpoints is also worthwhile. It can be rather tedious to lay out all the ropes and then have to restart. That said, I think that the system as it stands is not really wrong as it essentially requires care and mastery of the rope system--and that's not a bad thing. It's just not what I find fun, I suppose. So yeah, overall, a pretty nice platforming game. |
| May 12 04:55:19 | 17m 02s | drillerROBOT | ♥ 1 | So I really enjoy this game. Running around and breaking the blocks, as well as playing the cards, is just a really fun combination of mechanics. The interplay between the card system and the physical map of blocks to destroy is really interesting and just seems really fun. I think it really just needs a bit of polish. There were a couple small (and maybe not small) issues I noticed. So the not small issue is, this game really lags a lot on my computer. At least, I think it's lag. Everything seems a bit slow and sluggish, and sometimes pressing a number key does not play a card, or sometimes a bunch of cards will be played because they moved into the slot and I guess I didn't release the key fast enough. Even just moving the robot is a bit laggy. I'm not quite sure what might be needed to make the game less laggy but I would say that's its single biggest issue. The other things are just small things: Somehow I misused a bomb card when I didn't have enough energy and I ended up with -2 energy, and the game didn't seem to detect this. I'm not quite sure what happened there. It would be nice to include a note about how lava works, as I lost my first run to lava that killed me because I drilled next to it... I had no idea it would do that. But yeah, aside from that, I really enjoyed playing this. It was a lot of fun to see how far I could dig, and I definitely see how the post-compo content you've worked on could make this even more fun. |
| May 12 05:04:32 | 9m 13s | Alice's fall | ♥ 1 | The use of the lighting system here is really nice. It's always interesting when a 2D game incorporates a lighting system. I think that having the lighting be important for figuring out when you need to dodge is a really good mechanic. At first I did not realize that the orange flames should be grabbed instead of avoided, even after reading the description. Not a huge problem, just something to note. I think that it is pretty tricky to actually dodge the platforms even when you can see them. This did lead to a pretty neat moment where I really felt the adrenaline after just barely missing the platform. The thing is, it is really hard to dodge the platforms--but it is possible. This makes *actually dodging them* a super interesting feeling. I really kind of felt like I was falling down a well--if I was actually falling down a well it would almost certainly be mostly luck whether I collided with any obstacles in it. I think this is a super neat way to encapsulate that kind of experience--and so I don't think it necessarily needs to be changed if that's what you're going for. So yeah. Kind of a small game, but does have some really strong moments nonetheless. |
| May 12 05:15:33 | 11m 01s | DRILL AWAY! | ♥ 2 | This game kind of reminds me of an Atari 2600 game... the music in particular, being beeps and boops, combined with arcady-gameplay... perhaps an unexpected comparison, but hey. Anyways I agree that getting stuck in the drilling animation seems kind of annoying. However, I think it is actually a potentially pretty good game mechanic. I had a moment where I got stuck into one of the pebble-dirt blocks when I was headed in a different direction, and because those blocks take three hits, I was able to move away after completing the drilling. To me, this suggests the drilling animation as a pretty neat game mechanic. It's sort of like, you accidentally ran into this dirt, and now your drill is stuck, and your only option is to dig the block. It's an interesting way to force the player to move with precision, but it also opens up new options when you have the blocks that take multiple hits. One problem I did encounter was somewhat glitchly collisions with the solid rocks. At one point I sort of teleported partway across the map, which actually helped me a bit I think--but then at somepoint I got really stuck and started gliding up rather fast and then glided off the screen entirely, at which point it seemed I couldn't do anything--I suppose I was stuck above the screen, maybe? I'm not sure. In total I think this is a fine little drilling game. If you wanted more depth in it you could add more block types, maybe even drill upgrades, etc, but there were at least some interesting aspects in it as it stands. |
| May 12 05:35:00 | 19m 27s | Cutting Edge | ♥ 1 | This is a really nice puzzle game. Something I liked in particular is that, whenever a new concept was introduced, the first thing I tried would usually fail--this was a cool way of making me learn more about the game. I honestly didn't think level 5 or 6 were bad at all. Still working on level 7 though. π EDIT: Just figured it out! It was good too. A couple small thoughts: - I like the graphical style here. Really crisp and clean. - I enjoyed the little quotes before the first two levels. I imagine you were planning more..? Either way it was nice. - I think it would be nice if I could hold the undo key and get multiple undos. Right now undoing is very tedious. - My computer is high DPI and so the game is a little small--I told Windows to scale it up and it's fine, but it would probably be nice to just make the window resizable. |
| May 12 05:51:57 | 16m 57s | Dwarf Bros | ♥ 1 | I really like the split controls between the NPC and the player character. Unfortunately I think they would only really apply particularly well in carefully engineered scenarios... I think this game could possibly work pretty well as a puzzle game with pre-designed levels where the goal is to get all the diamonds (or at least, some proportion of the diamonds). That is, I often found that there was not a lot of point to try to figure out where to direct Luiz to, as I could usually just dig down and grab a couple diamonds, and then dig to the exit. It was certainly fun when Luiz interacted with me in interesting ways, however. Especially when he managed to grab a couple diamonds. I like the pixel-art graphics. They certainly complement the digging theme quite well. |
| May 12 19:12:13 | 13h 20m | Dungeoneer | ♥ 1 | This was an enjoyable little game to play through. The combat was, I suppose, the core aspect of the game as it stands, and it was fun enough. I definitely like having the random upgrade system. My first playthrough I got no items at all on the first floor, but my second playthrough I had fire most of the run. I definitely think that a larger variety of weapons would be even better, but I think that's pretty obvious... The combat system was actually surprisingly deep--the rooms with the flying head + bat + skeleton in a tight space were pretty tricky. It might make sense to put them later in the game as they are, I think, the hardest room. My first playthrough I got a number of that room in a row which was rather hard. I wonder if the room selection system could be modified to use, maybe, a grab-bag sort of RNG like Tetris? (Where you are guaranteed to only get a small number of duplicates in a row) I did run into one glitch that ended my first run: a bat flew off the screen and I couldn't kill it, or go through the doors. I had no choice but to suicide :( But yeah, a straightforward little game. I enjoyed playing it. |
| May 12 19:21:34 | 9m 21s | Delitor | ♥ 1 | The point I think is most interesting about this game is that there is a theoretical maximum score. That is somewhat unusual for a high score game, but I think it works really well here. I can't fathom the routing and execution it would take to get that maximum score, so I am stuck still trying to just get *a* good score, based on random chance, more or less. I think that is pretty neat--a skill ceiling, but not one that is actually really visible for all players. I noticed in the comments someone reached the "top" so I had to go back and look for that, and I think that is also pretty neat--having a sort of secret in the game. I think there is some sort of theme buried here... you can either rest here at the top, forever, but never get any score, or you can try for a high score and meet your inevitable mortality. I think there's something there. So that's what I found most interesting here. Nice little highscore game. By the way my highscore is 82 |
| May 12 19:41:59 | 20m 25s | Colors of the Universe | ♥ 1 | I did manage to reach the end although I'm not quite sure how π but my strategy was, essentially, to explore the game along some arbitrary axis for a while and see if anything happened. However, this is actually really cool. The game does not give any real direction from what I can tell, it just says there is a puzzle and leaves the player to try exploring and see what they can find. I think that, chasing notes that fit some pattern, and then switching patterns some time, is a method of exploration that the game essentially incentivizes, and this is very cool because it results in the player having to just, try random things and see where it takes them. One thing I enjoyed trying in particular was hitting several of the notes before traveling deeper. Creating these little non-rhythmic melodies along with the rest of the soundscape was cool. And even though it didn't lead anywhere in a *game* sense, I still enjoyed it--and I think that's the point. |
| May 12 20:10:29 | 28m 30s | D. R. I. L. L. | ♥ 1 | The use of the music and the rhythm in this game is super cool. It's just a lot of fun to have the drill move on the beat, especially with the beat moving faster and faster as time goes on. And of course, it means that directional inputs have to be timed with at least some care, which is pretty fun too. I like the tradeoff of trying to go deeper to get more valuable ores, but leaving the earlier ores behind. This works even better with the varying density in ores. I managed to get a score of 915 just digging straight down until I got to the very low levels. On that note I do really like the sense of depth. When I end some runs and see that there is a whole section I never reached, that makes that unreached area quite tantalizing. I did find that luck played a large role in the score I got. My highest score, 1295, came in a run where there were like 5 skeletons all grouped together--so that accounts for half of the score right there. It would be pretty hard to beat in any run that didn't generate any skeletons. It's a somewhat interesting question because I think that, playing and hoping for good RNG is kind of fun. It's really fun to see those five skeletons and grab them, knowing that I'll get a good score. But the tradeoff is that means some runs are intrinsically going to be less fun. I like the medal system at the end. Overall this is a really good entry. I played it a number of times due to the variety of mechanics and just to try to push my score higher. Very fun. |
| May 12 20:31:01 | 20m 32s | Dig Box, Dig! | ♥ 1 | So I actually think that requiring a button press for each dig is a very interesting game mechanic. It certainly is not very accessible--even my fingers are a bit worn out now--but I do think it is promising. In particular, the distinction between moving through already-dug tunnels, where I can simply hold the button, and digging new tunnels, where I have to painstakingly dig each block, is a *meaningful* distinction in my opinion. It makes digging a literally physically challenging task, which, you know, digging through rock is physically challenging. It certainly seems unhealthy to actually spam a button with my finger for this long, but perhaps that idea could be incorporated in some way that is a bit less actually straining (and more accessible). I thought it was neat how the gems became a bit harder to find as the game went on. I do wonder if there is anything else that could be done to make the game change a bit as it goes on, as it does get a bit repetitive despite the ramp in difficulty. Something I really like is how there are essentially no consequences to messing up. The game is just about digging and finding gems, and it is not necessary to fight through zombies or be careful not to let the roof collapse. It makes for a somewhat relaxing, and in any case, very distilled experience. I like the graphics and sound effects on the gems in particular. Very crisp and crystalline. |
| May 12 20:45:49 | 14m 48s | U Cave | ♥ 1 | Neat little game. I especially liked the variety of interactions--there's boxes, bridges, the pickaxe stones, the chains with the gun, and the sand with the shovel. Then there's also the various water interactions. All of this is really cool as it means the game is constantly providing new interactions--which I think is pretty fun. I did run into an issue where the first time I played the box that is supposed to be on top of the sand either disappeared or got stuck in the ceiling with the sand (I'm not sure exactly what happened). Either way, I was stuck, and I had no idea there was even supposed to be a box--I had to restart and then I figured out that something had definitely gone wrong there. One other thing I liked was dropping down the cliffs and having the camera desperately try to catch up. That was pretty fun. |
| May 12 21:10:01 | 24m 12s | Heart of Forest | ♥ 1 | I think the graphical style of this game is quite neat. I have a very hard time completing most of the puzzles as the character is not particularly agile... when the game wants me to move between two spots quickly it seems almost unreasonably difficult to actually execute the intended movement. The way the character sticks to walls and sometimes floors makes precision movement difficult, especially when trying to move quickly. I really enjoy the use of the different flowers as puzzle elements. The lighting-up flowers are definitely a lot of fun, although I sometimes had a hard time figuring out which one I could interact with. I also like the target flowers and the switch flowers, although it took me a long time to figure out what the target flowers are. I may have somehow skipped the level where they were introduced, I'm not sure. I think the use of lighting with the 3D graphics really makes them more effective. I have previously seen lighting applied to 2D graphics in a 2D game but lighting applied to 3D graphics in a 2D game seems more effective, I would say, so good job there. I enjoy the knife, especially the knife throwing mechanic. Throwing it into the target flowers is really satisfying. Overall I would say this is a nice platforming game, just with a little too sticky of movement. |
| May 12 21:31:29 | 21m 28s | Capsule Fall | ♥ 1 | This game very strongly reminds me of an Atari 2600 game. The graphics and the audio certainly give this vibe--the audio especially, being straightforward beeps--but more than that, the gameplay itself gives this vibe. It's a rather simple game, with an arcadey sort of premise, and the game supports a couple different modes based on the same core gameplay. These all remind me of Atari games. Then, on top of that, there is the sort of space vibe, with a bomb thrown in for good measure. I'm not sure how useful this comparison is, but I really do think this game has a strong Atari vibe. I'm not sure if that's what you were going for, but I think it's worth pointing out. |
| May 13 03:35:49 | 6h 04m | Wizard Dungeon Escape 3D | ♥ 1 | This was a pretty fun little puzzle game. The various ways that the ball could be positioned to start and stop doors, platforms, etc seemed pretty interesting and relatively intuitive once I sort of figured out how to control the ball. I was a bit frustrated with how, often when I would try to activate a particular switch with the ball, I would click right when I heard the activation sound effect, but I would be too late as the ball would be immediately destroyed. I'm not sure exactly how to fix this--maybe when the ball hits the switch, there could be a window of a couple frames where, if the player clicks, the ball will teleport to where it entered the switch and lock its position there? I think that would make the game feel a lot better. I had to re-do the entire purple and orange door puzzle a couple times because I simply couldn't get the ball to stop on the purple switch. That said, I enjoyed figuring out the puzzles even if the mechanic execution was a bit tough. I think traversing the environment is also a nice component of the game--I like having all the puzzles sort of in one big world. |
| May 13 03:44:02 | 8m 13s | Associated Arguments | ♥ 1 | I like how this game centers on the idea of conversation. I think that the word bubbles resetting your position, while simultaneously being sub-goals, is a very interesting puzzle mechanic, especially given that this teleportation feature has to be used to solve many of the puzzles. I think the idea that you can lock yourself out of the conversation if you go down the wrong path is pretty clever. I certainly can relate to it in any case. I will agree that the navigation around the map can be a little finicky due to apparent hitbox issues. The game would definitely be a bit smoother without that problem. Overall though, this was a pretty nice puzzle game despite its short length. Good job! |
| May 13 04:23:30 | 39m 28s | Drill City | ♥ 0 | I enjoyed playing through this game, but there are a couple things I couldn't figure out. I never managed to understand exactly what the requirements were for upgrading the drill. I think I had to have a full power bar but I'm not precisely sure. I find that the game ended up being mostly stockpiling uranium for several minutes and then buying more power plants. I think that, generally in this kind of game, I would expect to be able to significantly ramp up my uranium output at some point, at least if things are going to cost 999 uranium. I ended up covering most empty squares with mines but it still took a long time for uranium to build up enough. Especially when I need even more to actually upgrade the drill... I couldn't quite figure out what the bar on the right is supposed to mean. I think the first upgrade for the drill changed it a bit, but I wasn't sure what most of the information on the bar meant. The game was a bit laggy and ultimately crashed before I could win. If it helps: I was playing the 1.2 version. One aspect of the game I found rather enjoyable was juggling between the different building types. I would often destroy all my mines so that my energy budget was large enough so that I could tear down my wind turbines and build a power plant in their place. I did ultimately decide to do a second playthrough, which I managed to complete a bit faster than the one that crashed. It does help to build a bunch of wind turbines instead of trying to get a lot of power plants, but ultimately I think the cost for power plants is still probably a bit too high. Either way, it is still fun to build all the buildings and try to figure out a plan for getting the drill upgraded. I also found the audio clips that play to be quite fun. The game overall has a really nice lighthearted vibe that I found quite enjoyable. One really tiny change that I think would accentuate that is unlocking the camera. I really like the title screen which shows a different environment from the city itself, and I think having the camera unlocked so that I could rotate it around and see the surroundings of the city would really make it feel like I was building this city, and help me appreciate it as a whole 3D place rather than a single view. So overall, this is a nice little game. I enjoyed it enough to play through it again after it crashed, and I found the art and sounds charming. |
| May 13 05:54:24 | 1h 30m | Deep Below Ground | ♥ 1 | I had a good amount of fun playing this--I kept playing far past the point where it became quite repetitive. Even though there isn't too much variety in the enemies, there is enough variety in the spells that I found it worthwhile to try them all out, and to try swapping between them more often or less often, etc... One thing I really appreciate about the game is how much detail it gives about how to play it. It was super easy to play just because of how clearly annotated everything in the game is, and that's despite it having quite a few different mechanics. It's often pretty hard to learn how to play a jam game that has as many mechanics as this but this game was super smooth to pick up and play. In terms of the gameplay, I definitely liked the different weaknesses that the spells targeted. It is quite obvious which enemies have what weaknesses. What I find interesting about that, is that I often don't take advantage of systems involving different enemy weaknesses, simply because I don't care to learn which enemies have what weaknesses. I think broadcasting the weaknesses so clearly, like they are here, can be nice. It allowed me to choose rather at random whether I wanted to fight the enemies more effectively be swapping to the best weapon. A boring note: I think music is the biggest missing component here. Music adds so much atmosphere to a game. I'm sure that's an obvious point, but this is the first game I've really felt it missing... the game is so engaging otherwise that I think a bit more sound, but especially music, would really make it pop. Overall: A rather small game, becomes repetitive, but has enough variety in content to keep me playing for quite a while. Nice entry. |
| May 13 07:00:05 | 1h 05m | Hell is yellow area | ♥ 2 | This is a pretty silly game. The amount of depth you've managed to pull from this concept is pretty awesome. The liquid mechanics, as well as all the various interactions that the pee has with various objects, really do make for a pretty unique sort of platforming game. Some of the platforming did seem pretty tricky... I only managed to salvage 5 pee drops by the end. I lost a lot of pee trying to get it out of the cauldron... perhaps it would be nice to allow the cauldron to rotate or something? I'm not quite sure. I did manage to get to the end despite how hard some of the sections seemed, so it seems to have worked out. Pee as a protagonist is honestly, like, one of the most novel concepts I've seen out there. I admit I don't particularly enjoy thinking about pee, so playing this game is a pretty interesting experience... I have to essentially put myself into the shoes of... pee? The idea is extremely funny. I think this thematic core is really emphasized by the gameplay mechanics, and I think it is a surprisingly worthwhile idea. Despite the obvious humor of the game, it really does ask me to play a game in a way that is a bit different from other games, and I think that's pretty neat. Overall, a nice game, strong humorous foundation, nonetheless gives a unique and novel experience. |
| May 13 21:36:48 | 14h 36m | Deeper | ♥ 1 | I can see that the slow movement is a common complaint here. I definitely agree. I see two possibilities for improving the movement: 1. Allow the player to click anywhere on the screen that they are allowed to move. I think, in this case, the game should also draw the path showing how the player is moving, so that the rules of the movement become clear (i.e. have to move as a series of vertical and horizontal movements, can't move through walls). 2. Cancel the movement animation when the player clicks on a new spot. E.g. I could click two tiles to the left then immediately click two tiles above that, and the player character would move to both of those spots in quick succession -- I wouldn't have to wait for the animation to complete to make my second click. Aside from that I loved the graphics and music. I got a sort of Stardew Valley vibe from the game--the music and environment remind me of the mines in Stardew Valley. Either way I think this game might have some of my favorite graphics I've seen so far this Ludum Dare. I liked how the game tutorialized the different mechanics. A particularly fun moment was when I learned I could teleport into the walls--I especially like the slightly darker wall tile as it suggested I should maybe click there, and then I realized I should try to keep clicking farther into the wall. I think that the puzzles could perhaps use a bit more depth. I didn't really have to think through any of the puzzles that were in the game as it stands. I enjoyed the ending of the game. Very nice. Overall this was a nice experience. The graphics & music really sell the game, even if the movement is a bit frustrating. |
| May 13 21:43:56 | 7m 08s | Vertigo | ♥ 3 | I absolutely love the animations in this game. Some of the best pixel-art animations I've seen this jam, I think. I thought fighting through the enemies in the single-player mode was quite enjoyable. I think the non-lethal combat combined with the knock-back systems makes for a pretty nice form of gameplay. I can definitely see the potential as a multiplayer fighting game. The statues are a particularly nice feature, I think... the requirement to hit them multiple times makes them a nice source of competition. |
| May 13 22:02:34 | 18m 38s | Blue Square and the Mystery Cave | ♥ 1 | Pretty nice game. Perhaps the most interesting remark I have is that I completely missed a normal part of the game. In particular, the places where I have to jump down blindly into two pits--I did not realize at all that I should check which way to go using the ball. I thought when playing that that part of the game seemed a bit strange, as jumping blindly into pits isn't very interesting. I think it might be interesting to try to teach the player this idea at some point before then... I'm not sure. It seems most people figured it out... I guess I am an outlier. Oh well, hopefully that data point is useful! π Either way I enjoyed the rest of the game. It seems like a platformer but I would say its much more of a shooting-puzzle sort of game. I think that's pretty neat--the genre of the game is sort of blurry because the main mechanics of the game are placed into a context where I would usually expect different mechanics. I enjoyed the ending as well. I can see a number of ways of interpreting it... very neat. Overall this was a good entry. Solid gameplay, solid ending. |
| May 14 01:01:03 | 2h 58m | Dahla's Journey | ♥ 1 | This is a very interesting game. The randomized nature of the combat means that the only way to actually kill enemies is to stall and hope that they decide to do a dumb move. It also seems to me that the combat can essentially trap you in unwinnable situations. I think, then, the question is: how much control you want the player to have over the outcome of the game. The thematic implication of RNG dominating the outcome so strongly is that the player's decisions and skill is largely insignificant--and it seems to me like that fits with the rest of the story in the game so far. It also could be interesting to give the player more and more tools as they complete more runs, and tie that progression into the story somehow. I think a strongly RNG-dominated game does give a lot of thematic material to work with, if that's what you want to do. Aside from that: I liked the graphical style of the game, especially the introductory text. The gameplay of the game as it stands got a bit repetitive by the time I died (floor 12 or 13)--I'm sure adding more enemies and other things would help there. I did enjoy the combat despite its RNG nature. It's kind of fun to keep dancing around the enemies until they make a bad move. |
| May 14 01:11:04 | 10m 01s | Micronaut | ♥ 3 | This game is built on a really solid idea--the recursive maze is easy to understand and quite a bit of fun to solve. The execution of this idea is also quite good. The graphics are clean, and their simplicity aids nicely in recognizing the individual maze screens. The incorporation of platforming challenges where the failure state was going backwards in the maze was, I thought, a very nice usage of the different mechanics. My only real criticism is that, the one point where I had to jump on top of a maze-entrance block, it was surprisingly difficult to land right on top of it. I think the platforming physics could be adjusted a little bit just to make them control really smoothly, as there's no real need for difficult platforming physics in this game, I don't think. |
| May 14 01:30:32 | 19m 28s | Nanna | ♥ 1 | This is an intriguing game. For me, the essentially hand-drawn graphics plus the somewhat surreal yet straightforward story suggests that the game is somewhat meta. It almost feels like the main character of the game is narrating a story, even though there is no narrator in sight... it almost feels like the main character here is the "creator" of the game, so to speak. I may be way off the mark from what is intended here, but that's my reading. In any case, on a more descriptive note, I really dig the music here. It is moody in a way that complements the rest of the game pretty well. |
| May 14 03:46:15 | 2h 15m | Deep Sea Mining | ♥ 1 | I enjoy the core mining-upgrade game loop. It is, I think, susceptible to a couple problems which I want to discuss, but it was pretty fun for most of the game. The post-jam version in particular, where combat becomes a bit more doable, is really nice. One problem I ran into on my playthough in the post-jam version is, I decided to buy the rocket launcher first. However, I found I couldn't really use it, so then I bought the machine gun. But then I was down $5500 and so it took me a very long time to get enough money for a fast ship--so I had to keep going really far down and mining crystals with a slow ship. I think a selling system would help here, so I could sell my gun or my old submarines, even at say half price, so that I wouldn't be punished too much by selling things out-of-order. My first playthrough, on the Ludum Dare version, I died once, and that was the point that I quit... I lost around $2000 plus several hundred at least in crystals, and I was in a somewhat similar situation where I had a slow ship. So, at that point, I would have had to go even deeper to get more money, and it would take just a ridiculous amount of time to build up all my money again. I think that the punishment for dying is too much--it should probably be a fixed cost, like $400 or so. It also seems like it might be possible to burn through so many crystals that the game becomes outright impossible? I'm not quite sure. One thing I found frustrating about the combat is that often, a very large number of enemies would spawn, and I would essentially have to go back up to the surface--trying to fight them off would result in a great loss in health. Especially when I was stuck with the slow, unupgraded ships, going really deep for a couple more crystals, I would often lose like 3/4 of my health in a matter of seconds and just have to pray that I don't die before I can upgrade my ship, as that would result in a ton of lost progress. In any case, I finally managed to push through to the end, and I thought that was one of the best moments in the game. Digging a couple crystals and then getting a few million dollars... it was pretty fun. Overall I think this game is a pretty solid game. The core gameplay is pretty fun for a while--I just ran into a couple roadblocks in the mid-late game that I think could be somewhat mitigated. I also think the graphics and audio are pretty nice, especially in the post-jam version. |
| May 14 04:07:40 | 21m 25s | Jupiter II | ♥ 1 | I absolutely love this game. It really gives this great feeling of exploration and adventure, exploring this deep underwater environment. Learning new things about nature, even though a bit of an alien nature. Just a really great vibe. But what really sells it above all else is the music. The music just sets the mood so unbelievably well, giving that feeling of exploration and adventure... and with a tinge of melancholy. I just love it so much. I also think it's great how the potential of each game mechanic is really utilized. The scanner serving as the research device, but then it becomes your only protection from the hostile fish... but then the scanner beam *also* has to be used for protection! Super awesome double use of the mechanics. I also saw that in the post-jam you made the fish interact with each other... that's just great. Other comments: - I felt bad about shining my light on the poor light-sensitive fish... at least, the ones that weren't gonna attack me. Not really a problem with the game, just thought it was worth mentioning. - The way the scanner dialog interacts with the radio transmission dialog is not too bad, but it did kinda confuse me my first playthrough. I wonder if it would make sense to have two separate dialogs? Or even add a new dialog box for each scan that occurs concurrently? - I did laugh at the hard mode ending. I admit I was hoping for something a bit more substantive though! π |
| May 14 04:30:01 | 22m 21s | Deep space | ♥ 1 | Neat game. Right now it is quite repetitive, to an almost extreme point... but, of course, the player character *is* a robot, so repetition is just natural, right...? To be completely honest: I think there is quite a bit of legitimacy to making a robot game that ends up being very repetitive and mechanical. I certainly have a pretty good idea of how much I want to be a robot after I played this game. That sort of storytelling through mechanics can be pretty powerful--if that's the direction you want to take it. I did find that the way I started completing tasks ended up as a sort of algorithm. I would dash to one station, dash and charge up, dash to the other station, dash and charge up, etc... it seems some commenters were unaware of the dash key? It definitely adds to the game, I think. I did end up beating the game, although I too was not sure if the game was going to end or not. I think the main graphics for the spaceship and the robot are pretty nice. I definitely like that I can see the charge of the robot and the status of the radar so clearly in the pixel art. I agree with others that I didn't find a way to read the nuclear reactor. Overall I think this is a neat game. Right now it is very much a taste of being a robot, which I personally find a worthwhile experience, even if most people might want a more exciting game... |
| May 17 03:49:00 | 71h 18m | Space Trench Miner | ♥ 1 | There are a couple interesting facets about this game, for me. First is, although the mining gets a bit faster, it seems that the rate of progress stays slow essentially the entire game. I eventually decided to stop playing after getting all level 3 upgrades and one level 4 because I was spending so much time on the game and not getting anywhere. The first upgrade seems especially slow simply because it requires 500 block hits at minimum to get. After that upgrading does become easier, but eventually I ended up just being in the mines for a very long time, even though I could dig a lot faster and get to the more valuable ores. This speed of the game, where it stays rather slow-paced seemingly the entire game, is a hard sell, to be honest, but it is unexpected too. One surprising aspect is that it is almost pretty engaging, in some sense: it always feels like fast progress is *just out of reach*. This feeling is I suppose somewhat universal to clicker-type games, but I definitely felt it here. I kept thinking I was going to start speeding up the game quite a bit but I never could. I think if the game was just a tiny bit faster, this feeling could carry me through the whole game quite easily. The second interesting thing is the fuel upgrade. So, of course, because I am so impatient, I immediately go for the speed and power upgrades. But to actually make progress faster the fuel upgrade is absolutely vital due to the ability to mine a greater quantity of valuable ores per run. This is a really neat interaction between the different mechanics. Overall, I think that particular thing is what I like most about this game. It is kind of like an idle game, or whatever, but the mechanics it uses to do that are really quite neat. It has a lot of the same progression curves I might expect from an idle game, but instead I have to do mining instead of clicking, or whatever, and the choices I make in my upgrades manifest as physical differences of how I can navigate the mine. I think that's pretty cool. |
| May 17 04:28:52 | 39m 52s | Catlantis | ♥ 2 | I thought this was a pretty nice game. It did take me a long time initially to locate an oxygen plant after the first one, and I had to swim back to that initial plant. I think there's like, a whole side of the map that doesn't go anywhere (the left side)? But it also doesn't have any plants so I was kind of confused. I think that the gems that follow you around could potentially move a little faster, as I was kind of confused if I had lost some of them at first. However, I do kind of like the way they move, so it could go either way. One thing I really like about this game is the way that the game makes use of the ocean theme. The use of fish swimming around as a health source, was, I thought, a really neat mechanic. Most games will have a static health item, so having fish that can move around and are sort of just part of the environment, be the health source, was a really cool way to do that. It also seems to me that new health fish could easily be spawned in, etc, making the game able to be very reactive to the player. I think that if other kinds of useful fish were also added it could be really fun to interact with many types of fish. But, as it stands, it was still a pretty fun game. Good job! |
| May 17 04:46:29 | 17m 37s | Street Spark Racing | ♥ 2 | I gotta love how many twists the game has in it. Like, okay, I can accept that making my car lower will make it faster. But then the game immediately throws a curveball and the guy starts pushing his car... but then I don't even get to *push* my car, I get to *kick* it! It's like, the most my expectations have ever been subverted. I feel like it might even be worth it to take that idea farther... the next round, your car is so deep that the wheels are sticking through it, it seems like that could lead to a whole new mechanic! That said, I feel like the game makes good use of the kicking mechanic. The level design is exactly what it needs to be... the second level shows you that you can shove your car through other cars, and then the third level has a shortcut that consists of pushing through the other cars. It really doesn't need much else. Overall, really good entry. Short, to the point, still has some super incredible moments. |
| May 18 03:19:47 | 22h 33m | Anatomically Correct Human | ♥ 1 | I think the best aspect of this game is the surreal anatomy. It is pretty funny to see a game about constructing a digestive tract using brains and lungs... it is quite interesting how it severs organs from their actual function and repurposes them as arbitrary chosen game mechanics. It reminds me of some vague philosophical concept or another but I can't quite remember what... either way, it is a good way to completely change the meaning of the human anatomy. |
| May 18 03:32:42 | 12m 55s | Depths Mining Co. | ♥ 1 | What this game needs most is more upgrades. As it stands, the only upgrade is more oxygen, which has one fatal flaw as an upgrade: it doesn't *really* change how the game plays. It lets the player play for longer, which is *important*, as that lets them get farther down in the map. But to really *engage* the player, there needs to be something that really feels worth working towards. Right now I don't particularly want to upgrade my oxygen all the way, as I don't really want to slowly dig all the way down to the bottom of the map. If I could upgrade my movement and mining speed to be really fast, however, I definitely would want to do that! I would be super interested in playing if I could make myself faster and faster, and I would then definitely play long enough to get to the bottom. Because that kind of progression where things feel better and better to play is *really* like, a good incentive. Even if the total cost of all the speed upgrades would be way more than the total cost of the oxygen upgrades as it stands, I would definitely do all the work to get those upgrades. It is just more engaging to get upgrades that make the player character more powerful, as it is enjoyable to feel powerful. At least, that's my analysis of the upgrade system in this game. I hope you find it at least somewhat useful! π |
| May 18 03:59:05 | 26m 23s | The Tree | ♥ 1 | I really think the base idea here is pretty good (at least for a short game). I thought it was quite enjoyable to switch between building the roots and building the branches--I really don't think the game needs much else, in the form of new mechanics, or even really a losing condition--the idea of building was enjoyable enough for me. The only real problems I had were quality-of-life issues--there's a number of these so I'll just do a list: - Sometimes the user interface would be a little laggy and wouldn't stop showing me a root I had previously selected. - A lot of the roots themselves were not visually drawn. One way I can think of to fix this is to remove the user choice of where the next roots will go. That way, the entire root tree can be generated at the start of the game, and new parts of it will essentially be "revealed" when the player clicks on a new root. - The tree started to drift off the screen, making it impossible to grow new branches. I ended up with just hundreds of thousands of water as I would just keep adding roots until I could add no new ones, while waiting for the tree to come back on screen. But if the game was polished to fix these issues, and maybe juiced up a bit with snappy UI and some SFX, I think this would be a really enjoyable short game. If you want a longer game you could definitely go the route other commenters are suggesting and add new stuff--but I did have fun with what was there, only hindered sometimes by small UI annoyances. To be particularly clear: just the two things, roots and branches, plus the space background, are easily enough to make me want to play this game as long as it takes to fill out the root network and reach space. Just the presence of those obvious goals were motivation enough, and the gameplay was pretty fun working towards that goal. (I suppose my one idea to solve the root drawing issue conflicts with the presence of the clearly defined end-goal root network... that rendering problem might need a different solution) |