Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Feedback comment stats → Atomic

Atomic

Feedback comments for LD48

← LD47   LD49 →

Atomic's games and stats for all events →

TimestampSince previousGameAtomic's comment
Apr 26 09:41:51 Subterplane ♥ 2 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it) Let's see... The game runs and didn't crash on me, which is always good. I found a little bug freeze tho: if you crash into the wall pretty soon and your plane turns back, it'll fall backwards forever. subter.png It looked like this. **Breakdown** **Fun:** The controls felt quite clunky. I wasn't able to figure out how to fly the plane properly, or at least I didn't feel like I did. I managed to get into the "flow" a few times (farthest distance 414m, IDK if it's good or bad). But if I understood your game correctly, that's pretty much the challenge of the game. Trying to figure out the controls was the fun part, realizing it takes too much effort without guaranteed results was the frustrating part. All and all I lost the motivation to play pretty soon, but I'm a carrot-on-a-stick guy. I like to know there's a goal I'm advancing towards when playing a game. I don't really know what your intention was with feeling of the game, but from what I assumed I'd advise you to get the unity physics a bit better. IMO a game like this needs a scoreboard. I have no idea what it takes to implement a scoreboard, but I'd at least encourage people to leave their scores in the comments. **Innovation:** I've seen variations on this gameplay mechanic (e.g. Flappy Bird). Not much to say here - you did your twist on the "avoid the obstacles" game. **Theme: ** A pretty basic take on the theme. Not much to say here either. **Graphics:** Visuals are pretty basic. The colors fit together, although there's a lot of room for improvement. I'd definitely look up similar concepts and take inspiration from them. When starting with the visual design, google existing sceneries/concepts and get inspired - or outright steal the visual concept and adapt it to your vision. The light that turns on deeper in the cave is a very nice touch. The UI feels a bit out of place. I can't say why - I'm not too good with that stuff - but the effort that went to it is noted. 👌 **Audio:** Using SFXR or BFXR or whatever sounds would add a bit to the feeling of the audio part. Music is (understandably, it's a 48h game jam) too basic for my taste - but it's better than no sound at all. Try adding a second track (a beat/bassline at least), it'll improve the music a lot. Take your favorite song, and cover it in the music making software of your choice. You'll learn a lot. **Humor:** Didn't find any. Sorry. **Mood:** The mood is improved by the light inside the cave (I'd turn it on from the get-go. There's no reason to pretend you're not in the cave in the beginning of the game. The background says otherwise.). It suffers from the lack of audio. Once again - at least a BFXR generated sound on crash, a second instrument in the music track, and maybe some low humm when the plane is flying would improve the mood a lot. **Overall:** It works, it's consistent, runs smoothly, no weird glitches, feels okay. If you want to see the numeric ratings, just tell me here, and I'll attach a screenshot, or send me a PM on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/dizztalgamedev) with a link to your game if you'd like to do this more privately. Anyway, a job well done friend! Kudos!
Apr 27 08:12:17 22h 30m Hellevator ♥ 2 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it) **Fun** It took me a while to understand what was going on, but it's quite obvious after a few drawn symbols. The character controls are a bit stiff. I'd make the movement discreet, but I understand it might cause trouble with collisions later on, when there's those spikes coming from the floor. It isn't very clear how far can the hands reach - I died a few times when I thought I was safe. I do appreciate the hazard variability that gradually builds up. The symbol drawing, though original, felt tedious to me. It was a struggle to execute the drawings properly. **Innovation** As I mentioned before, the symbol drawing didn't sit too well with me, but I can't say the mechanics weren't original. You had your plates to spin, and "draw stuff" and "use the generator" was a nice addition to "avoid stuff" game mechanics. **Theme** Elevator to hell is an interesting concept. Nothing too wild, but it's a cool idea that's creatively mixed with the game mechanics. **Graphics** Visuals are okay. My personal opinion is that if you use pixel art, it would be better to keep things really low res. Your style seems to me like it can't decide if it's a drawing or a pixel art, but it grew on me I guess. One thing I'd definitely do is add some hilights to as many objects as possible (it really adds dimension) hellevator.png And some texture for the elevator background. I'd add another layer or two for the red dots in the background, and make them go different speed (thinking parallax). The blood dripping from the drawings is a really nice touch 👌 **Audio** The in-game music is pretty cool. Sounds like it has two tracks? The menu music on the other hand lacks 'volume' for the lack of better term. One more track as a background could do wonders to it. A simple percussion or a bass line would IMO raise the quality tenfold. (I do understand the struggle. I made music for my game in 5-10 minutes since there was no more time for that.) The sound effects fit the game nicely. **Mood** The mood is a combination of graphics and audio in my view. Your graphics and audio work nicely together, creating a 8 bittish feeling, but I mentioned before what I found lacking in both categories. **Overall** The parts of the game work well together, as I mentioned in theme and graphics. --- Good job on (and thank you for) finishing. If you want to see my star ratings, you need to tell me explicitly. I can send it to you on twitter, discord, or leave it in the comments. I have no idea how this would affect the ratings from other people, so you decide if and where you want to receive them. If you want them on twitter, tweet a link to your game and tag me, or send me a PM. If you want them on discord, send me a link to your game on discord. [@dizztalgamedev](https://twitter.com/dizztalgamedev) Discord: kuro#4651
Apr 27 10:07:58 1h 55m MilCo. ♥ 1 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it) **Fun** I found the gameplay loop quite unchallenging. You connect the first two to three houses, and then wait a few minutes, buying cows. Then you connect all the houses and you're done. (I do understand that designing an economic sim for a game jam is quite hard.) **Innovation** I played several games like this over the years. Connecting houses would be a nice addition if there was more challenge. **Theme** I don't see any connection to the theme, besides building a road deeper into the forest...? **Graphics** This is the strongest aspect of your game. The graphics are simple, but very effective, and even the UI fits nicely. I suspect the cubes are placeholders for a house asset you didn't manage to create, but they fit so well it doesn't hurt the visuals at all. Not cutting off the map, and placing the mountains around instead is a very nice touch. Game could use some simple movement. Something like "shake a cow once in a while", a bird or a flock here and there, you could make trees wiggle and pretend it's the wind. You get the idea. **Humor** Moo! (moo moo moo moo---moo... moo moo ... moo) Moo! Once you get like a bajillion cows, your farm starts to sound like a buddhistic monastery. The louder moo that plays when you buy a cow made me giggle. It's cute, and you get half-of-a-star for that. (Also I think opting out from the audio category was a right move on your part. I might have done the same now that I think of it.) **Mood** The game is pleasant and funny, but nothing too wild going on here. Some simple banjo/bottle music loop with some movement/animations would have improved this category a lot. **Overall** The game suffers from the lack of a relevant gameplay loop, but makes up for it with it's visual and feeling. I place it a little bit above average. --- If you want to see my star ratings, you need to tell me explicitly. I can send it to you on twitter, discord, or I can leave it in the comments. I have no idea how this would affect the ratings from other people, so you decide if and where you want to receive them. If you want them on twitter, tweet a link to your game and tag me, or send me a PM. If you want them on discord, send me a link to your game on discord. [@dizztalgamedev](https://twitter.com/dizztalgamedev) Discord: kuro#4651
Apr 29 06:30:45 44h 22m The Golden Cavern. ♥ 1 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it/edit) Okay, so let's get into the level desing. Fun is by far the strongest suit of your game, and is slightly above average. Iappreciate that the game doesn't drag on forever, since this is a gamejam. The platforming feels right, isn't too punishing, and has the right amount of challenge. I'm not an expert on level design, but since you speciffically asked for it, I'll try. gold1.png I think the difficulty should be be building gradually. Right at the start, you need to jump from the edgiest edge to land on the next platform, but in my opinion, this should be a little bit easier, since it's a start of the game. Build your difficulty gradually. I understand the level is kind of short since this is a game jam game so there isn't that much time to spread out the difficulty curve, but I'm mentioning this for the future, when you'll be building several levels with growing difficulty. I'd put one more block here for this specific jump (and maybe a few next) before making the jumps more difficult. The hidden areas were a nice touch. The regen+ powerup was a lifesaver. It is placed well, since I didn't notice it on the first try, but it wasn't too hard to find, and it gave you more agency. Specifically: gold2.png When I came to this part, I could take the more dangerous path (red) and risk having to start over, since my HP was pretty low, or I could take the more controlled long way around (green), which I did. The third option was to wait for my HP to regenerate and take the red path. I need to note that waiting for long periods of time is not a good game mechanic, but you're onto something here. If your design included a way to regenerate your HP quicker by sacrificing a resource (or something like that), it would add to the game feeling. Despite that, the game made me think at this point (before down to the worm pit, the screenshot was taken after I passed this area), and I was given several options of approaching this problem, which is what good games should do - not always, but it should happen often enough to give the player a feeling of agency. Then there was this part gold3.png Unless I missed something, I do not see any reason at all to take these jumps and go the long way around. I went the long way on the first try, and then realised it was for nothing. It feels rendundant, and I think there should be a reason for you to have to take those jumps (like spikes or something?) gold4.png Also when jumping down, the player should see where they will be landing, unless it's a really deep fall without hazards at the bottom. The shade overlay in the deeper part of the cave is too dark, and made me squinting at the screen. If this was an aeasthetic choice, you could make it less dark. I faced the same problem in my game, and ended up putting a light source with a large radius at the position of the mouse cursor. It solved the visibility problems, and added a tiny (perhaps even unnoticable) gameplay layer. I'm not saying it's an ideal solution, but I could have done worse. Then there's this part. gold5.png Dead ends are fine if there's something at the end, but this area (with red question mark) made no sense to me - it felt rendundant. Make sure there's at least something pretty to look at, or a piece of lore at places like this. There were some flaws, but I liked your level design. If you want to get really good at it, I suggest reading a lot. Find some tutorials and work your way up. Practice a lot, execute ideas you like in other people's work, execute your own ideas. Practice, practice, practice. [The most important thing you can do is do a lot of work (this applies to everything one can do)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHc3s-MtoUc). There is no way around that, but you'll get there.
May 8 06:46:05 216h 15m Manic Miner ♥ 0 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it) **Overall** I'll start with overall, since the parts of the whole work so well together. I consider your game to be a specimen of Pareto principle at work. I sometimes forget how much can one achieve with minimal resources. I'm in awe. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a perfect game or anything, but I do consider it a work of art. I have to actively force myself not to give it a too high of a rating because of it's simplicity, but the simplicity is really the thing that amazes me the most about your game. **Fun** I do not like the fact that the character works 'on key down' and not 'on key pressed'. My hand hurts from playing. Other than that, it's simple, yet fun. I think the game works as it is. I wouldn't add any additional powerups or whatevers. It's simple, and it's effective as hell - a great game-jam game. **Innovation** It's a pretty generic fun little game with a tiny little twist. Not much to say here. **Theme** You used the theme which is nice, but since digging deeper was my first idea right out of the bat, I see this as a very simple usage of the theme. **Graphics** I totally adore that you achieved what you did with 3 colors and 3 6x6 sprites. It is a bit mind blowing to me, and I'm holding myself from giving you 5 stars for graphics. I went with 4 because I think higher craft should be rewarded more (like painting and stuff). But I'm not saying that I think this is easy to pull off. **Audio** You have four very basic sounds in your game, and they work so damn well with your aesthetics. To me, your game is very confusing rating-wise, and audio is the hardest part to rate. **Mood** You've got that 2-bit feeling really well, and what I kept myself from giving you in other categories because of simplicity, I'm giving you here. 5* --- If you want to see all the star ratings, you need to tell me explicitly. I can send it to you on twitter, discord, or I can leave it in the comments. I have no idea how this would affect the ratings from other people, so you decide if and where you want to receive them. If you want them on twitter, tweet a link to your game and tag me, or send me a PM. If you want them on discord, send me a link to your game on discord. [@dizztalgamedev](https://twitter.com/dizztalgamedev) Discord: kuro#4651
May 8 07:52:48 1h 06m Compulsive Diggers ♥ 1 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it) Hey @rolly. Here's my exhaustive feedback. **Fun** The game was fun to play. Strongest part was exploring the game mechanics, and there was plenty for a gamejam game. I do have some beefs tho: The most painful aspect was the fact I wasn't able to remove the blocks I already built. This made it troublesome to keep ladder/walkways at the spots I really needed them to be, and once I placed a light it pretty soon became a deathtrap. I mean I could work around it with walkways and stuff, but it didn't feel right in the end. There was also no distinction between walkways and ladder/walkways, so I didn't know where the dwarves would descend. I figured out later that they are the same thing, but it took me a while. I couldn't really watch it long enough to figure it out, since I had to babysit these suicidal children of yours \*insisting gaze\* 😄 I ended up doing 2 rows of walkways and ladders near the surface on the second run, and most dwarves ended up just walking around up and down, until they got tired/hungry, and then went up again. The mouse wheel scroll is a very nice touch, and it speeds the game a lot. What I was trying to say is it's a fun game, but it has it's downsides. **Innovation** Nicely done man! I never played a game like this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these mechanics seems very original to me. Original, and fun to play with and explore. **Theme** I mean it's a basic "dig a mine" take on the theme, but the game mechanics add a layer of meaning, so there's a half star right there. **Graphics** Well, you have three separate styles in one game. The pixelated ground blocks, the low poly char models, and 2D vector environment on the surface, and I'm sorry to say they don't work very well together. I'd advise to keep to one unified style. Also the surface colors seem too bright, or candy to me. I can't find the right word for it. Maybe some shading or moving clouds in the background would help? **Audio** I like the music track because it reminds me of "A boy and his ghosts" music, although the instruments used are not my thing, but I'll remain impartial in this case. The game actions are well covered by audio, and all the yawns and grunts are a nice touch. All in all, the audio did seem a bit bland to me. I can't really explain why, but it's a game jam game, so it's understandable. At least in my case, the audio is always an afterthought, not the main focus. What I found out is that adding more bass and trebble to your sound effects make some difference, like having both more high pitched clips and low bass clips can make some difference in this regard, I think. **Humor** The game is light-hearted, and the \*insisting gaze\* made me giggle. It's a half star up above average for me. **Mood** I think the mood is a combination of graphics and audio. With the graphics not working together that well, and audio being more on the bland side, it feels okay, but not stellar. Most of the mood comes from the gameplay itself in this case. --- If you want to see all the star ratings, you need to tell me explicitly. I can send it to you on twitter, discord, or I can leave it in the comments. I have no idea how this would affect the ratings from other people, so you decide if and where you want to receive them. If you want them on twitter, tweet a link to your game and tag me, or send me a PM. If you want them on discord, send me a link to your game on discord. [@dizztalgamedev](https://twitter.com/dizztalgamedev) Discord: kuro#4651
May 8 10:03:53 2h 11m SUBERDEEP ♥ 1 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it) Hey! Mood is great, looks nice save a few nitpicks, but I'm not going to go into those things since you wanted to hear about balance and difficulty. I played the web version, and it was far too easy. Then I downloaded the older windows version, and it seemed kind hard to me. I got killed at the first level where the lights go out. (I was glad I got to see the ending with the easy one, but enjoyed the harder one more gameplay-wise.) I suspect this is going to be a problem of most games with simple mechanics. (It took four days for a friend of mine to finish [my game](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia). It is meant to be finishable in 10 minutes.) We make gamejam games here. A gradual increase in difficulty is not really that of a viable option. These games are not meant to become classics with people spending hundreds of hours with them, so there isn't really much room for a learning curve. The best one can probably do is add a few difficulty levels, and let people go at their own pace. Anyway, good job. --- If you want to see all the star ratings, you need to tell me explicitly. I can send it to you on twitter, discord, or I can leave it in the comments. I have no idea how this would affect the ratings from other people, so you decide if and where you want to receive them. If you want them on twitter, tweet a link to your game and tag me, or send me a PM. If you want them on discord, send me a link to your game on discord. [@dizztalgamedev](https://twitter.com/dizztalgamedev) Discord: kuro#4651
May 8 12:01:42 1h 57m Deep Sea Settler ♥ 0 I played this along with [justcamh](https://www.twitch.tv/justcamh) while he streamed. This is by far the most impressive game I played this LD. I can't express how entertaining this game is once you get into it. I'll definitely be playing more of this later. Great job man
May 8 12:14:58 13m 16s The MindDiver ♥ 1 Man... this is a really well done, moody creepy game. The ending is freakish. Well done.
May 8 12:56:27 41m 29s Corla ♥ 1 This is what I percieve as a perfect game jam game. I'm glad you opted out from humor. It's nice that I could give you 7x5*
May 12 14:37:03 97h 40m Make A Wish ♥ 1 I like the usage of the theme. The mood is great, and graphics work well - save for the HP bar (I too love to create dark vistas and leave most for the viewer's imagination when drawing more complex stuff, but I do it because I suck at drawing) Good job
May 12 15:01:44 24m 41s Capsule Fall ♥ 1 [Disclaimer](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/so-so-phia/done-with-compo-i-might-yet-move-to-jam-if-i-feel-like-it) Given it's a DOS console game, I don't really know how to rate graphics. It's very basic, and it's not an aesthetic that appeals to me in any way. I don't do AArt, but a quick "ASCII art game" google will show you my idea of direction in which this could be improved. That said, it does have it's mood aspect because of it's audiovisual simplicity. It's not mind blowing, but it brings out a certain feeling of nostalgia that I like. Reminds me of the very first games we made with my dad. Gameplay is quite basic, and it gets old pretty quick. I'm not a fan of games where you have to press the directional buttons repeatedly. I'd start with "OnKeyPressed" with a timeout instead of "OnKeyDown" (or whatever the alternative is for the programming language you used here.) I did have a bit of fun with it tho, so thank you for that. Overall it's an interesting idea. It's very different than the rest of the submissions I played, and it gets a little bit over average for inventiveness. (The best category for what I mean by that is innovation, although it doesn't fit it that well.)
May 13 06:02:18 15h 00m RAMnesia ♥ 1 You did it again my friend 😄 I completed it first time I played it in about 15 minutes. I can't for the life of me recall how I completed the 6th level. Awesome great looking fun entry with a very interesting mechanic, and great sound and mood. Too bad we didn't get to hang out more in the voice chat this LD. I hope this was't the last compo. Anyway, well done and awesome job. Hope to see you again next LD m8
May 13 06:35:56 33m 38s Disco Inferno ♥ 4 Oh my god! This was awesome! I stuck around the menu screen for two minutes thinking if you wanted people to actually play the game, you shouldn't make the title music that good. But yeah; the in game music is even better. The aesthetics are awesome and fit with the audio, the story, the voice acting, and the humor so good! Fun to play, and funner (is that a word?) still with everything that's going on with the lights and the sounds. The game got me right at the start, and didn't let me go until it was over. And not even then. I had to play it again right away. 5* for graphics, audio, fun, mood and humor and overall! Great job people, and thank you for making this game! 😄
May 13 07:00:40 24m 44s Adelie - Rolling in the Deep ♥ 1 The game is HARD! But fun as hell. Also looks great, and the audio, though simple, fits the aesthetics perfectly. Too bad you opted out from the mood category. I'd give it 4* minimum. Great job!
May 13 09:00:23 1h 59m Deepest Darkest Double Bogey ♥ 1 Beautiful, fun to play, the simple track added to a great mood. The UI is the weak spot, but yeah... compo 😄 Had fun with this, completed it on 5th (or so) attempt. Good job, and thank you for this game
May 13 09:35:42 35m 19s Mars Cave Explorer ♥ 1 Cool game. Mood is on spot, fun to play as well. The aesthetics are very simple, but it all works together very well with the audio. I did ragequit after getting stuck in the charger upside down. Anyway, good job!
May 13 09:40:54 5m 12s deep bell ♥ 1 A simple game, but quite pleasant. The mood is the strongest suit. It was kind of relaxing just falling down... deeper and deeper 😄
May 13 15:50:29 6h 09m Deep Sea Tycoon ♥ 1 Hey @udo2 I just played your game. In fact I spent way more time with it than I wanted to. The premise seems simple enough, but it is surprisingly well balanced, so it kept me going for a while. rigs.png Anyway, I have gotten filthy rich, so I'm retiring now. Thx for the game. Was fun to play .)
May 13 16:04:54 14m 25s Caverns ♥ 1 Backgrounds are pretty, main char is cute, even if static. Music is pleasant, the mood is very nice. The gameplay... I'm sorry to say I didn't enjoy much. I ended up mashing the spacebar with the arrow keys, and quit out of frustration in the end. It's definitely an interesting idea tho. Nice job .)
May 14 06:04:19 13h 59m Ludum Dare News Network ♥ 1 Hey @secretjuice ! Finally got around to play this game. I was waiting for a time when everyone was out or asleep so I wouldn't embarass myself 😄 And my god, what a gem your game is. I was going into it thinking I'd really hate it, since I'm not too comfortable with my voice, but damn! This was hilarious, it was entertaining, and I loved every second of it! I got a score of 70.something. What is a good score? Would it be higher, if I didn't end two of the promts with "what the f**k"? 😄 Anyway, I really had a blast. I have bookmarked this game to train deep voice with it 😄 Let me know what score should I strive towards 😄 P.S.: I had a lot of fun on your stream. Thanks for that too!
May 14 07:21:43 1h 17m Far Side of the Mirror ♥ 1 Beautiful, chilling, and I think I got at least a part of the message. Thank you.