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JoeShanahan

Feedback comments for LD48

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		JoeShanahan's comment
Apr 27 21:49:07		Jimdinant to the core	♥ 5	"I must go now, my planet needs me" Screenshot 2021-04-27 at 22.14.22 (2).png
Apr 30 19:59:08	70h 10m	Reminiscence	♥ 1	Love the aesthetic and the music, both of them "reminiscent" of a particular game that I've been listening to the soundtrack a lot lately 😉 The game has a great mood to it too, I just wish I could move a bit faster. Even if that meant getting through the content faster, it would've raised the percentage of the playtime that I was actively doing something, rather than waiting for the character to get somewhere while I hold down a button.
May 1 10:19:35	14h 20m	LD48: Down the Rabbit Hole	♥ 2	Had a lot of fun with this one! There was a good risk:reward kinda thing going on with needing to leave the ship to get resources, vs stay near to protect it. I ended up getting to level 5 before dying. It would've been nice to see some kind of indication that the player was getting hurt other than the bar going down, most the time I didn't notice - but other than that, solid entry! 😄
May 1 12:52:43	2h 33m	Fore!	♥ 1	This was absolutely fantastic! The game made me feel very smart, although I did feel like I was exploiting it a bit because any level where I could use a 0 (or make one) then I could solve the problem using very few digits, and then multiply all the rest of the numbers by 0. For example, on one level I got to 17 by doing `17 + ((3-3) * 2245677899)` which felt like cheating 😅 The levels where I had restrictions like no subtract and no zero made me think the hardest, and they were the ones I enjoyed the most too. Really clever game idea, really funny too! Thanks for making this!
May 1 18:20:07	5h 27m	In Too Deep	♥ 1	Managed to beat 5000 before the timer ran out, was very satisfying to get enough money to surround all my mines with a boatload of turrets and then watch them all freak out when an enemy came near. I noticed that the world was pretty big - but I didn't build much further than the first screen worth of space because going back and forth to check what needs fixing was a hassle. Also, great game name 😉 Sincerely, a dev on ludum-dare/48/in-too-deep-2
May 1 18:24:30	4m 23s	Depth of Death	♥ 1	Great mood, and I loved the effect created by the textures and the walls - really evoked those early shooter games like DOOM. I died in the room with the waves of enemies before the timer got to zero.
May 1 18:28:05	3m 35s	all the king's men	♥ 1	Woah, really incredible mood achieved here with such simple visuals. I have to confess I died probably about 30 times on the first level because I didn't know about the sprint. The tutorial for that is on level 2, so perhaps there needed to be an even more basic first level where you don't need to sprint? I liked going back through the levels and not having any difficulty with them any more, I got the feeling that was part of the metaphor? If that's the case, I think it would've been cool to leave the gravity-sucking things in, but have them affect you much less (maybe not at all) to show that the problems are still there, but they don't affect you any more.
May 1 18:41:32	13m 27s	Catryoshka	♥ 3	Wow, this game has got a lot of detail! And a pretty unique mechanic too, I've only seen one game with stacking dolls before (Stacking, 2011) but that was more adventurey than pure puzzle. I'm a fan of the design that goes into puzzle games so this one intrigued me quite a bit. I ended up feeling quite split, because the later levels turned into more trial and error than anything. Since I can't see the whole level at once, I would try to step on the first buttons I could see, and if they weren't correct then try again with a new set of buttons. There was no way to change my previous positions without restarting and I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, you have to factor it into your solutions, you can't move once you've split off. On the other, I can think of so many more puzzle opportunities if you could rejoin with a previous doll to move it. You could open up a gate, move a doll through, leave one behind on the button, and then join back with the original and lock the previous doll on the other side of the gate. You could have smaller levels that are still more difficult than the existing large ones, and the player can undo any decision at any time by tracing their steps backwards, rather than restarting entirely. Right now the difficulty seems to come from obfuscation, you can't see everything at once so it's harder. I think the real strength in your idea is about pressing buttons in the right order, and implementing the size of the dolls into the puzzle too (need a large doll to press a big button, a small doll to fit through a small gap). Anyway, sorry for the ramble! Just some thoughts on how your clever game idea could be extended to have a bunch of new things to think about! Thanks for putting in all the work to make this!
May 2 10:20:28	15h 38m	Gold clicker	♥ 0	I'm a sucker for Cookie Clicker so this was my kind of game! Idle games are actually pretty difficult to do right, because it's almost pure progression design, and if you get it wrong then the game is just incredible boring to play. I think you did a great job with the progression, although I think a couple of small changes could make it a better experience. The UI was all just a bit too big, I think you could've fit a lot more on screen and had it feel less cramped by shrinking down some of the text. Being able to see exactly what current "events" (like worker strike) were happening rather than a log message when they start would be useful too. I thought it was interesting that the buildings needed maintenance, but they broke far too often. Sometimes I'd just finish fixing one and it immediately broke 😅 Overall, you designed a solid idle game loop, great job!
May 2 10:36:47	16m 19s	Dig Deeper	♥ 2	I reached a point where there wasn't anything below me but I couldn't go any further down, was this the end? If it was, would be nice to have some kind of in game messaging that let you know you got to the end, so it doesn't feel like a bug.