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ArmchairArmada

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TimestampSince previousGameArmchairArmada's comment
Apr 27 03:09:53 Walls ♥ 1 @busy-games Yes, it's [up here.](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/walls-1) @cakeandlies32988 upload created some bizarre conflicts, so we're appearing as separate entries, even though we actually did collaborate on the game. Sorry for the inconvenience. ETA: You can check @cakeandlies32988 profile now: the real game (with fancy thumbnail) is listed correctly!
May 1 03:58:16 96h 48m Vast Trivia Of The Void ♥ 1 Hey, Whale and Games team! Nice to see your entry again! As mentioned in the stream, I thought the game presentation, and most UX layout to be excellent. While I would recommend a few tweaks here and there on the placement of certain buttons and indicators, for the most part, I was able to find most things by myself pretty easily. Most cards were pretty self-explanatory, and helped add strategy to turn the game closer to your own liking. Given Trivia games are, er, not my thing, I would have liked to see a bit more complexity in the board game design, such as branched paths (though I do believe that was cut due to time.) https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=1025
May 1 04:41:26 43m 10s Deeper Well ♥ 2 Appreciate how this was a really relaxing game to play (especially the music!) Managing resources was probably the most interesting aspect of the game, and I would have liked to see more UI elements informing me of how this sprawling network of numbers is affected by the decisions I'm making. I confess I'm not much of a village-planner, so I didn't really use the roads that much...or really coordinate the buildings in any specific way. And due to my own shenanigans, I often got lost on the map, and couldn't find the well at times. https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=3006 P.S. "Well that was deep"
May 1 04:54:36 13m 10s Excavatris Inc. ♥ 2 Yaaas, *Tetrissssss*. This is my jam! I really like the re-framing of the score system here, clearing the board being the focus rather than creating Tetris, T-spins, or combos. That subtle change really helped give the game a new spin to the old formula. That's really cool. Aside from the 3-power-up, I didn't really take many of the power-ups' advantages. I feel like the controls and implementation of power-ups, while necessary to the game given its procedural nature, needs a little more polish. I would have also appreciated some explanation on certain elements how they behave, and what to do with them (e.g. mines, moving blocks, what blocks fall vs what doesn't when line is made, etc.) https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=5784
May 1 05:04:00 9m 24s Far Gone ♥ 0 Solid presentation that works well with the mysterious story. While I'm probably the worst person to judge a game like this, given the tendency for me to find bugs and glitches, I did think most aspects of the games worked. Personally, I would have liked to see just a bit more hand-holding, so it would have been easier for me to figure out what to do at certain parts. Similarly, I would have been more compelled with the story if there were just a bit more hints and direction on what's going on. Still, I realize the mystery and metaphorical approach was the intent, and it's probably likely I'm just a dense person. Hopefully you've enjoyed (and cringed) watching me play! https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=8513
May 1 05:07:27 3m 27s HELL deep is your love? ♥ 5 Wow, what an extraordinary game. Incredibly high level amount of polish, and very punishing but rewarding levels. Aside from checkpoints, minor hitbox changes, enemy placement, and other nit-picky elements, I really have not much more to recommend improving what's already there. Had a fantastic time, thank you! https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=12721
May 1 05:15:31 8m 04s Crust ♥ 4 Some of the more magical moments for me playing this game was figuring out how to use the grappling hook in conjunction with the water flow movement. I thought those moments where the aim and timing mattered really helped justify the primary form of movement in this game. I unfortunately felt throughout the rest of the game, the grappling hook wasn't all that compelling, given it was just a simple way to get to a point towards a wall very quickly, and not much else. I think if more timing elements were added in, such as moving enemies, or even reducing the drag on the submarine so it would retain the momentum from swinging on the grappling hook much longer, could make the movement system much more compelling and dynamic for the player. The fantastic graphics and music, as well as the clever placements of the pearl, did compel me to play to the end, though, so great job! https://youtu.be/O7jRN1j3y2A?t=11161
May 2 01:54:58 20h 39m Fallumns ♥ 3 So here's a review of someone who already had the game spoiled prior to playing the game, and bothered to, anyway. I think it was smart to develop a game where each level is designed to be relatively easy and forgiving, given how frequently the gameplay changes. The breathers between each level also worked wonders in keeping the player ready to soak in to the next bizarre surprise coming in next. I've said in the TVGS livestream that I thought the twist over-stayed its welcome. I may have been harsh there, given when I played it, I didn't really notice the overstay per-se. It was nice that gameplay themes starting early on (Falldown arcade mechanics, bullet hell dodging) gets mixed together in later levels, mixing things up a bit. Still, I do have some nitpicks. There were parts in the game I thought was really easy to get stuck in, including any bombing levels and the gold collecting segments. I've said in the stream the gold-collecting segments felt under-utilized, and having now played the game, I came back still feeling this way. I take that the boss level was intended to be a sort of callback to the original columns with bullet hell added in, but I did find this part to be fairly weak and uninteresting. It just puts a halt to the momentum of the game, and doesn't "feel" like a boss, so much as a more annoying "*columns*, but with lasers." And the lasers made the segment unnecessarily harder. Ultimately, I relied on the clear-all power-up to finish that segment, and that really didn't feel all that satisfying of an ending. Perhaps bringing back the bomb and needing to time the placement of it may have made the boss more interesting? ETA: Also, might be a good idea to add some notification when the player reached a checkpoint, as well as some simple reminder about hitting ESC to bring up the menu and reset back to said checkpoint. These can appear after the twist has been revealed. Having no info available to them, I wouldn't expect most people to know they can just use the "Restart Level" prompt, or even know from the first place ESC can bring that up. Still, I can't deny the game has a lot of charm; the same charm I see in games like *Psychonauts*, *Nier*, and *Little King's Story*. The constant genre-switching is something I've been wanting to explore myself, so it's nice to see it realized in these tight jams as well. Looking forward to seeing more from you. ETA: https://youtu.be/6TLiMWFpBNo?t=1950
May 2 02:56:09 1h 01m Susane the Sub ♥ 0 Behold: firefox 2021-05-01 (26984).png The general flow of the game played well, and each upgrade felt substantial enough to be worth collecting. I've enjoyed the pace of the progression I was making throughout the game, and appreciate how the game forced me to dive deeper and potentially make me take riskier choices over time. Also, good call on making the process of resurfacing not take any fuel at all: appreciate that gesture. I did think the objective of the game was not clear. While the upgrade system is placed reasonably at the surface, due to the physics of the game, it's hard to *keep* the menu up to access it properly. It might help to pause the game on each resurface, or perhaps require the player to manually bring it up by having a button appear upon resurfacing, thus making the pause justified. It also felt bizarre that the collected items aren't recovered at once: it required me to wait on the surface. It would have been nice to show a list of things collected, and the corresponding price on the side bar instead. Other than that, my only nitpicks are presentation-related, e.g. music, sound effects, splash particle effects, etc. Would have also been nice to add more fish and varying AI. Cool stuff! https://youtu.be/6TLiMWFpBNo?t=996
May 2 03:30:45 34m 36s Where's my dynoMITE? [LD48] ♥ 2 Played both the original and the more polished version. The improvements are pretty stark and appreciated, given my primary frustration was how quickly the rope coiled, then cut off so quickly. The audio and the comical physics of the rope really adds to the humor of the game. In particular, I found the rope physics to be the most interesting part of the game, and would like to have seen more in the level design that would push the player into finding new ways to utilize it. As of the current game state, much of my focus has to be split between keeping the helicopter afloat, vs figuring out where to aim the dynamite. It would be nice if the game allowed more precision in controls, such as removing the gravity on the helicopter controls, allowing the player to focus more on the rope movement and really learn to utilize it. Also, it's still possible to get the tail of the helicopter stuck in this cave: firefox 2021-05-01 (26985).png Our livestream: https://youtu.be/6TLiMWFpBNo?t=6144
May 5 23:53:53 92h 23m Marble Warble ♥ 2 Well, as expected, this game was hard. Discovering shortcuts was really satisfying. I also appreciate the technical achievement on moving platforms, where the marble follows its movement when on top of it. I couldn't unlock the secret end level, though :(. While the controls are serviceable, I did feel the presentation made it difficult for me to internally understand the momentum behind the marble character. In games like *Monkey Ball*, for example, the entire level rotates in the arrow key directions, which makes it easier to "accept" slow reacting controls and low surface friction. I think I would have appreciated just a bit more drag on the marble so it's easier to decelerate and give myself a little more control. That said, the levels *were* designed with the current controls in mind. That really helped make the game more fun. I think the level itself was relatively well-paced, switching between speedy and precision based areas. I also hugely appreciate the lighting being perfectly vertical, as it helps me determine where I'd land using shadow alone. Lots of good subtle polishes in here.
May 6 01:41:48 1h 47m Oculus Leviathan ♥ 1 The presentation on this game is quite stellar. I like the mystery it creates with its stark, high-contrast colors, and the minimalist text to go along with it. The clever use of the color yellow was an excellent way to teach the player what the objective is, including the end twist. For the most part, I appreciate the "play with the story" aspect of the game. I did, however, think the need to catch fish by point rather than raytrace was a significant weakness in the experience. Since the faster and smaller fish already move erratically, eve with curves, it felt very difficult to predict where they would end up. There were very dull and/or frustrating moments where I couldn't catch that one fish, and that really hampered my enjoyment with the game. Still, I appreciate the short, sweet, to-the-point concept of this. It's nice to play something that felt like it didn't need any new content beyond what's already in there.
May 6 02:23:11 41m 23s A Cat in the Aliens' Lair ♥ 1 Uh, oh. I'm, like, the worst person to rate stealth games, since I hate them with a dying passion. So, uh, take that into account when I write my review below. I generally like the dark atmosphere the game provides. The use of lighting and shadows does a great job of instilling the feel of how dangerous this mission is. For the most part, I like the decoy mechanic as well. While it's use is a bit short-lived, it still opens up a lot of possibilities for the player to come up with creative ideas on its utilization.s That said, one of my least favorite attribute is how sensitive the aliens are to your presence. Given each alien is lit with a red lighting circle, I thought that meant the aliens detection system was based on distance. After a bit of testing, though, it became clear to me their detection-system was based on line-of-sight; distance had no effect in deterring their attention. This often lead to moments where an alien off-screen would ambush me, despite me having no way of reacting since I can't see the party-pooper. It would have been nice to add a method to change the camera location, e.g. with mouse or right-stick on the controller, so it gave the player a method of look-ahead. I also honestly think the game should probably be better lit so it's easier to convey the line-of-sight based system you have. I also would have liked it if the alien detection system wasn't so insta-death. Adding a method for the player to improvise would have helped. For example, perhaps add a margin of time where the alien detects your presence, but also stops at that spot before dashing towards your direction. Perhaps one could drop a decoy if they're fast enough to ward away their attention briefly. Still, the experience was short and sweet enough to be entertaining. I can certainly see this game expanded with a few more improvements.
May 7 02:26:54 24h 03m Climber ♥ 1 I like the pick-axe mechanic to slow the fall of the climber. There's a lot of satisfaction in slowly learning how the axe interacts with the wall works. That said, to me, said mechanic made all other movement-related mechanics completely useless. Ropes weren't very useful, and I found the ledge grab too context-sensitive (not to mention the visual design made the sprite look like a wall slide, rather than a ledge grab). I ultimately found the game to be too easy, and with the current level design, wasn't compelled to explore further what I can do with the game's mechanic. To be honest, amongst all the mechanics, I found the ropes to be the most interesting and with strong potential. Perhaps if, similar to *Terraria*, there was a way to shoot them into the walls, as well as gathering more from in-world pick-ups, could make the mechanic more useful. If the pick axe must remain, it might be interesting to add climbing up ceilings of caves to make the item less useful.
May 7 02:40:21 13m 27s Dimensions ♥ 2 Daw, the game was over as soon as something interesting emerged on the second level. I actually enjoyed this a bit: there's a lot of really cool things you can do with dimension swapping. I really liked that the game stored your prior in-game position when you return to said dimension. There were a lot of design decisions I thought were really bizarre given the current lack of content, and certainly would be interested in learning what sort ideas you all had in expanding this. For example, I thought it was unusual despite there only being two dimensions, two different buttons were dedicated to swapping between them. Were more dimensions planned? Perhaps a HUD indicating which dimension you're in would help emphasize that? It would also be interesting to add elements that affected both dimensions as well. Lots of interesting potential here. Just a shame it ended so quickly.
May 7 03:38:08 57m 47s Press Space To Jump The Gap ♥ 1 Took about 17 minutes to cross the gap. I'm wondering if it even was a good idea to add so many red herrings in a puzzle game like this. But anyway... This was an enjoyable puzzle game where, to be honest, the description of the game kind of gave away its surprise factor. My first instinct was to play around with the scroll wheel on the mouse, and I rather quickly figured out there were some controls to change around. Although, I think I first started by zooming out, and playing around with different builds that, for a few of them, didn't allow me to change any of the Vim editors. It took me a while to figure out the original build seems to be the only way to get the controls to change, well, the game controls. But I digress... There are some elements of the game where it's really well conveyed what each thing does. Physics sliders and action drop-downs, for example, worked really well from a graphical design standpoint. I did feel some parts were a little poor, though. The toggle to turn on Vim editors...doesn't look like toggles, especially compared to the enable colliders toggles. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me the jump Vim required toggling two boxes, either. I was also a little annoyed that a beta game engine had to be selected to make the later builds available, the one that's sandwiched between two beta editors that doesn't work. And I thought it was really confusing that enabling an invisible wall works, but not the flag trigger (you had to open a build including the graphic). I would have appreciated more consistency in the visual language the game presented so there were less confusing moments like these. Lastly, I found the act of scrolling in and out really annoying, specifically because the game didn't seem very sensitive on it. It felt like I had to put too much effort in getting into each "screen mode" of the game. Props as always for coming up with something so off-the-wall and unusual.
May 7 04:35:22 57m 14s Sinking Atlantis ♥ 2 The animations are really exceptional in this game. The jump and swim animations in particular reads incredibly well. Controls were pretty intuitive and responsive as well. But when it comes to the physics of this game...boy, it's really rough. I didn't like colliding into a wall, and teleporting upwards. There were also weird behavior when swimming on the surface of the water that made it difficult to dive into the water. I confess bugs like these are a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I also found the lever graphics to be a bit ambiguous. I initially thought they were background torches, so I didn't both to interact with them. Once I did figure out they were levers, I thought the puzzles involving with them were...a bit simple. Like, there's some stuff going on when there were two or more, but much of it felt like just needing to know the right sequence of levers to hit to get to the goal, which I think without another mechanic like block pushing, makes it rather dull to go through said motions. There are some strong Water Temple potential here (believe it or not, my favorite type of The Legend of Zelda temples), would like to see some more features and bug fixes added in to bring the best out of this game.
May 10 02:56:08 70h 20m Roll Deeper ♥ 0 I played this game solo, so take that into account when reading my comment. I think the concept of the game is fairly interesting, and with some extra polish, could become a fun game. Most of the simplicity works in favor of this, including the objective and graphics. That said, I also think it was too simple, and there were many parts where I think changes would be necessary. On first impression, the color-coding of the game was really confusing. I'm used to lighter colors being closer to peripheral view: therefore, my interpretation was that lighter parts of the map = mountains. Obviously, I ended up being surprised it was quite the opposite. I also found that since both player 1 and 2 look exactly the same, it was easy to confuse which was which. Furthermore, it was hard to keep track of which player was winning, since my focus was directly at the player's position instead of the upper-right-hand corner of the screen. It would have helped if instead, there were a P1 and P2 marker, along with their score over each ball to make it easier to track these information. I also I think the objective of the game, to get to the lowest point of the map, is too easy and anti-climatic. Once a player has reached the lowest point of the map, it's actually quite easy to defend, since if they "slip," they can just roll back down to the same spot. This often made the map the biggest determinator on which player won: the player closest to the deeper valley almost always had the bigger advantage. While the theme was "deeper and deeper," I actually think this game would have benefitted if instead, the objective of the game was reversed: getting into higher elevation scores higher points. In this case, there's a very real tension for the winning player to defend their spot: a small mistake could very much cause the player to lose balance and fall down, making way for the second player. Lastly, adding at least one more power would have helped. When two players are fighting over the same ditch, it just feels like a casual bumping match. If, for example, a "boost/tackle" button was added, that could make the game more competitve. There's some potential with this idea: would like to see a more improved version of this game!
May 10 03:26:28 30m 20s Abyss ♥ 1 So, uh, fetch quests are a pet-peeve of mine, and I really hate being told in a game to collect *exactly* X-number of items. Fair warning on my comment: I'm probably biased against it. There are some interesting ideas I liked in the game, including the vertical tubes that inherits the vertical velocity of your player. With polish, such as automatically guiding the player to the horizontal-center of the tube and making the y-velocity up or down the tube fixed, would make this a wonderful mechanic full of interesting opportunities. Having items open new ways was also pretty interesting as well. I found the level that came with the game to be...very bad. I recognize it was created by a random level generator: while that in and of itself isn't bad, it's very noticeable as a human player the level has no sense of narrative or flow. This makes trying to search for keys exceptionally tedious, since 1) collecting a key doesn't tell me which new path has opened, and 2) the key and pathway all feels very random, and consequently without purpose. I admit that, given the intent of this project was a tech demonstration, I'm probably being overly harsh here. I think with more time, some interesting ideas could emerge.
May 10 05:21:13 1h 54m Diacombs ♥ 1 Wow, it took me hours, but I finally figured out the section @connorses pointed out. Eek, despite all the hint slots in there, that section begs for perfection. I really like all the puzzle mechanics presented in this game, from the tried-and-true Sokoban formula to Pikmin-esque command-'em-all movement. I did find the latter mechanic to be rather confusing at the very last puzzle, given that the characters, after bumping into a wall, sticks for one turn. Also, fantastic touch on requiring the player to rely on pieces from other sections of the screen, and even a full screen apart! It really helps make each level feel connected, as well as testing your own memory. My biggest complaint (other than the hard parts of the puzzles; 'tis the nature of puzzle games) actually has more to do with the undo feature. There are turns I wish the undo system didn't record, such as pushing a non-movable object. Most movements where I'm not pushing something, I also wish wasn't recorded, either. This would have made the harder puzzles more tolerable to deal with, given it would have taken less input to get back to where I wanted to be. I also thought that while the sound effects design is quite excellent (realistic, timed well, and informative), the music felt really dull. Even if it's a thinking-game, I think it could have used a few more instruments and a longer composition to lighten up the mood, especially if the player got stuck. Had a lot of fun, great job!
May 11 00:50:35 19h 29m Deeply Organic ♥ 2 I'm quite impressed with the large array of gameplay and graphical elements in the game. There's a surprising amount of content in such a short amount of time! The number of graphics and animations implemented were pretty impressive as well. But I also found each component in the game to be...unpolished. It was easy to hit a (fortunately non-game-breaking) bug in nearly every minigame: * Throat - you can die after the "here we go" prompt shows up. * Pill waterfall - it's possible to cling on the wall. No side-by-side walking animation. * Liver - As noted in the description, die once, skip the level. Stomach was probably the only one I couldn't find a significant flaw in. Although I'm not sure it was intentional that you can cut into another tumor without finishing the first one. When it comes to polish, I'm usually seeking for stuff like how responsive the controls are, whether [juice is properly applied](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_feel) or not, are the sound effects for the same action varied, etc. I think from that sense, the Pill and especially the Liver section of the game had me wanting the most. I'm sure the sword swinging animation on Liver is intentionally slow, but it rarely felt like it had impact colliding into...whatever was infecting the liver. Still, given what's in the game based on the limited time your team had, I have to admit there's a lot more to this game than I first suspected. Good job. ETA: replaced the Juice it or Lose it Youtube vid link to Wikipedia article on Game Feel, as this site apparently unrolls Youtube links into embeds.
May 11 01:03:57 13m 22s Where are my sexy red boots ♥ 1 There's a lot of really cool potential in this concept. I appreciate that some of the visual language the game presents (e.g. the circle-of-influence) helps create a sense of mystery and discover in better understanding the game's mechanics. If I had to guess, though, I assume just implementing the feature took a lot of time, no? The shortness of the game kind of gives away the fact that while the game has great potential, it was also really rushed. A way I can see this game being expanded upon includes being able to move around small objects, once they're at a certain threshold. This could bring a lot of really complex puzzle solving elements into the game. As it is right now, I feel like the game feels more like an I Spy mouse hole game than anything, which makes the game a bit repetitive. Would love to see this game expanded upon. And can I say I really love all the wacky audio effects you've added into the shrinking and growing animation? What a fantastic touch!
May 11 02:18:15 1h 14m Out of order ♥ 2 OK,so it's a point-and-click adventure game about figuring out what can be clicked in the elevator. Hm'K. I guess I'll just have to click on everything.... I'm really impressed by how well this game brings a constant sense of surprise. What once looks like a normal fixture of an elevator being repurposed for something else often put a grin on my face. It was fun trying to figure out this escape room game. Some criticism I have include the lack of reticle in the game made it difficult to figure what I'm hovering over. Some parts of the game is very small, so it's difficult to pick them up. I would have liked it if stuff that can be picked up were bigger. I know surprise factor is critical to the game design, but I would have liked some sort of visual language (highlights? sparkles?) that would tell me what is interactable, and what isn't. Lastly, I would have liked to see multi-step help prompts to provide more hints than what the cryptic voice gives. Still, it was highly enjoyable doing some wacky guesswork and being rewarded with some sort of silly reactions the game gives me. Thanks for the experience!
May 13 00:51:53 46h 33m Mission: Descend ♥ 0 The art and animation is really good. The procedural generation is pretty impressive as well; the levels felt natural for the most part. While the presentation of the game is fantastic, I found the gameplay to be a serious detriment to my enjoyment of the game. When it came to wall-climbing, my initial intuition was to hold the direction button against the wall, then tap the up arrow key. Doing so, however, consistently caused the character to get "stuck" on some geometry; usually, the rock placed on every intersection. Fighting against this instinct on holding the left or right directional key while wall-climbing help avoid this problem, but it took a lot of experimentation to learn to do so. A crucial part of the game I found wasn't well-conveyed was how the extra energy tanks worked. If the energy tank went to red, I first thought having an extra tank would auto-refill it. To my surprise, it didn't. Then on the second playthrough, I attempted tapping N, and it dropped a tank. If I took this newly spawned tank, the red-tank indicator still was red (although it *was* full). This confused me significantly, and ended up trying to surface as quickly as possible. Ultimately, it turned out I had a lot more energy as I finally noticed the red meter depleting. Frequently, the level generated a bunch of levels where, one wrong bomb placement would make the only way back impossible to traverse. Often, said level requires the player to make the bad bomb placement, anyway, to further proceed into the cave. This is very frustrating to go through, since once the player sees it, the only viable strategy is to return back to the ship, and start collecting energy tanks until the player feels comfortable exploring further. There was also at least one moment in the game where successfully returning back to ship resulted in the game not registering, and my character dying as a consequence. I did eventually find a planet where I can find the gear, but I felt it was entirely out of luck. For this rogue-like design, that's not a good feeling to have. I'd like to see this game baked a little more.
May 13 01:09:21 17m 28s Jet Racing 4 ♥ 0 The inclusion of a track editor is quite amazing. And I'm surprised it seems most of the game seems to be made from a framework than a WYSIWYG 3D game engine like Unity, Unreal, and Godot. It's also feels very, very rough to me. While the graphics aren't too bad, I did find the driving sound effect grating and repetitive. The music didn't help the presentation, either. Like @recher, I would have liked to see a control introduction screen. After learning what the Ctrl key does, it makes the game a lot more playable and enjoyable. Other parts I found the game needing some polish is the camera movement. While it's good that the camera pans in the direction the player turns, since I adjust my turns frequently by tapping left or right, the jolting movement made me motion-sick. And as a few people above said, I'd like to seem some strategic mechanics mixed in, like drifting and boosting. It sounds like this is a build-on-top of an existing game, and I certainly would like to see it developed more. It does feel like this entry isn't quite there yet.
May 14 00:18:04 23h 08m Deeper and Deeper in the Woods ♥ 1 Confession: the first time I played it, I was actually surprised at how short and simple the game was. Fundamentally not a bad thing: I did think the game got its point across. I was mildly reminded of the original Paper Mario's lost woods puzzle game mechanic, where you had to make out the different path that lead to the way to the Boo Mansion. Game presentation I thought was fine and consistent. Controls were pretty good. I liked the nice touch of very slowly going through each gate, both allowing the player to hear the full sound effect, and making the choice a commitment. I just thought the "clue" to the right path was...really obvious. To a point where playing the game was really trivial. It may also just be me, but I wonder how many people got "stuck" thinking the locked gates were impassable. While having gates are fine, it might have been a good idea to remove the lock visuals, or else it creates a seemingly impassable graphic. I assume the game's small scope is due to the lack of time (which I'm guilty of as well), so it's quite understandable the game is a bit bare-bones right now. I personally would like to see more unique methods of trying to distinguish the right path for the game in the near future, to flesh out the game a bit more.
May 14 02:26:09 2h 08m Implosion ♥ 1 Wow, this is a hard puzzle game. Though, I've enjoyed and finished all the levels, though, so I guess it isn't too difficult. A lot of my concerns with the game has to do with the onboarding process: learning the controls, puzzle mechanic, recognizing what each tile does, etc. I found the "move lower-layered bots at once" animation to be not very intuitive: after moving a piece, I couldn't make out why the game would suddenly shift to a new level, and I had to watch another bot move. The gate tiles looks less like locked doors and more like lasers that would kill me, so that and the key graphic would have helped the player learn more quickly the purpose of these items and tiles. A tutorial on how to switch between different tiles would have helped as well. I really did think the whole move bots at the same time mechanic was really cool, and think it's actually a matter of graphical design that could help improve the readability and the ease in which the player could use to make out a solution to each level. For example, since most layers aren't very large, I think showing all the layers at once would have greatly helped. Selecting layers in this way would be pretty intuitive, and you can probably flash a marker on all the bots that would move as a consequence of selecting that layer. I would have preferred arrow keys to move said bot instead of mouse. Also, death would have to be readily apparent and perhaps even a replay is warranted to inform the player why they messed up. I think for a game like this, an undo one step feature would be possible as well. Great work, had a lot of fun!
May 14 02:48:56 22m 47s Worm Go Down ♥ 1 Had some good fun with this game, though it's calm music seemed like a false flag to a much more destructive environment my poor worm was getting itself into. Controls were smooth, and I really appreciate the look-ahead camera focusing where the mouse was aiming. I also like the unique health system that also creates a bigger target, thus creating a bit of a risk-vs-reward system, though that sometimes creates some bizarre collision issues when traversing through thinner tunnels. I ended up be expelled out of one of them, for example, apparently because the "gun" has a collision. Overall, intuitive game with some nice game feel. I think my biggest complaints are the over-use of repetitive sound effects and screenshakes. For sound effects, something as simple as randomizing the pitch of the sound being played would have went a long way in making it tolerable. As it is now, I can still hear the firing and explosion sound still ringing in my ear. They get very dull, very quickly. For screenshakes, while a powerful tool, I think they should have been reserved for destroying an enemy. As of right now, it occurs too frequently, when a simple shake animation and sprite flash for an enemy getting hit would have sufficed (similar animations for the player getting hit would have been appreciated). I personally like to add a brief pause in time as well when the hit connects, both at the enemy, and at the player. Having a screenshake when the player is hit is, however, justified, and I'm fine leaving that in. I also didn't like that your own bullets collider into your own tail. I dunno if that was deliberate, but it did make the usual run-away/strafe-away while firing that's the core experience of twin-stick shooters unpredictable and not very fun. I think removing just that interaction would have been more interesting. Still, most of these are nitpicks. I still ended up having a good time!
May 16 02:24:06 47h 35m The power of the deep ♥ 2 As promised, I have played the game on-stream, although it's been two weeks since I've made that promise. https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=814 In summary, I thought the game had an interesting idea, but it wasn't presented in a way that made said idea interesting for me. It first attempts to subvert the idea that power-ups are almost always good. Unfortunately, that's nothing new for most players: even in games like Super Mario Bros. series, I naturally end up deliberately skipping power-ups I don't like. Second, it asks the player to balance between two meters: health and sanity. Since collecting a power-up recovers all health, though, for a number-crunching player, these meters look less like a resource balancing act, and more like just an extension of the classical health bar. For example, I would argue with the inclusion of power-ups, each sanity unit can be equated to 2 units of health. Since the player starts with 3 health and 3 sanity, and reducing the sanity down to 0 is game over, that means the player has 2 x 3 = 6 units of health. And so I end up treating these units as just a representation of 6 units of health. That...doesn't seem like the intent, given the description of the game. I think the idea of increasing power having a serious cost -- often known as risk vs. reward -- is a good goal to have, and a lot of great games can emerge from testing the limits of that balancing act. With more thought and time, I'm sure this game can create something more engaging with its premise. As it is, though, I felt like it was a beginner's platformer game: gravity is too low, jump isn't very high, camera doesn't have a look-ahead system so platforming has a lot of blind jumps, enemy encounters are slow and easily skippable, etc.
May 16 02:47:01 22m 55s HELLEVATOR ♥ 1 Had a lot of fun playing this on the stream: https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=1875 The arcade feel to this game was great: fire rate felt balanced, dash cooldowns feel short enough to make the attack useful without being over-powered, and hitting/defeating enemies were really satisfying. I also really like the variety of enemies in the game that realy forces the player to change their strategy over time. Not much to complain about for the gameplay side of things. I did think there were still a few improvements the game could have made, though. Primarily, having the camera focus where the cursor is, rather than where the player is, would have really helped get a better view of the arena. Typically, these twin-stick shooter games averages the location of the character and the cursor, and has the camera focus at that point. I also felt like the monsters that could take multiple hits were a bit of a bullet sponge, and either reducing their health, or adding some mechanics to help mitigate their sponginess (e.g. making the enemy stagger on each hit, and/or increasing duration of player invulnerability after losing health) would have made the fight feel more fair. Still, the game's strong focus really halps make it quick and easy to play. Well done!
May 16 03:02:03 15m 02s Adelie - Rolling in the Deep ♥ 1 *Goes through the comments section*: Wow, I suck at this game. https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=2936 Had a lot of fun playing this twin-stick-like shoot'em up. It's nice and focused, easy to learn, hard to master. The roguelike structure does a good job of keeping each playthrough feel fresh and interesting. Graphics were great, and the lack of music actually wasn't all that bothering. Great work! Personally, I thought the biggest problems I had with the game was movement. The knockback on each bullet fire didn't feel good, and how swimming up and down had a different physics applied than left to right. I recognize those were added in to distinguish this game from other shoot'em ups, but I personally had a hard time learning to work with these limitations. I also wasn't a huge fan of the short range the poor penguin had when firing. I would have also liked to see the bullets of the fish had a better tell so I can make out when they're going to fire, and where. It may have been nice if the starting enemies could only fire in specific directions (e.g. left or right only), and there were some variance on when each fish fired. Still, I did get better with the game over time, so clearly, I can learn to live with the limitations the game presents.
May 16 03:24:34 22m 31s Deep Drive ♥ 0 Played it on-stream: https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=4990 This game...is really, really rough. I feel like there's a lot of great places the game focuses on: pretty good-looking vehicle models, keeping the vehicle orientation in-line with the course, particle effects that play when the vehicle turns, etc. But I also felt the parts that mattered to me the most, such as the vehicle's traction on the course, actual speed of the car, camera providing necessary information for me to steer properly, and turbo actually having an instantaneous effect speed boost instead of just increasing the acceleration, felt very broken to me. The car were incredibly slow, and I constantly felt like I was driving on ice. The course itself was constantly hostile to my ability to drive. And the camera only shown the top of the hill, but never what's behind it, making it difficult for me to make the right decision on which way to steer. There's a kernel of a good idea in this game, but it was all so very confusing and nothing seemed to come together to create an enjoyable experience.
May 16 04:06:11 41m 37s Orange Diver: The Great Drown ♥ 2 Here's my playthrough of the game. Got to the deepest point in the game on first try! https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=6120 I actually wasn't a huge fan of the physics-based power-up system interacting with the submarine and the rope initially, but I surprisingly got good at collecting them over time as I learned to control the rope a little more, and using it as a net to gather said power-ups. I'm not sure it was intentional, but I do confess learning how to utilize the tether between the submarine and diver was really gratifying. There's a lot of depth from playing around with the rope alone, and utilizing the wonky physics to create some complex and useful behavior. I think exploring more with that mechanic, such as making both the submarine and the diver controllable, would create some really interesting opportunities. I thought the game gradually getting darker was a really cool feature and helped set the mood well. Both the artwork, lighting, and audio really helped the mood of the game. The serious tone, though, did clash with the comical rope physics. Additionally, the lack of animations, and how every sea creature reacts to your boat like an inanimate object damper the presentation a bit, making them feel like mere physics props than actual animals. Would like to see the presentation of the game polished a bit more.
May 16 04:23:16 17m 05s Beepo's Shop ♥ 1 Had a lot of fun playing this on-stream: https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=7155 There's a bit of a learning curve with this game, but thanks to its turn-based gameplay and chill presentation, failure never felt too punishing. I really like that the path you create has serious consequences on the drill's health. It really forces the player to carefully think over the path they're taking, and making measured decisions on using their limited resources. Perhaps my favorite aspect was that it encouraged the player to discover for themselves the many intricacies of the game. Through experimentation alone, learning how straight paths could be treacherous, there are more gold deeper underground, digging tiles gives more money than zooming through tunnels, which upgrades help optimize gold collection process, etc. was all very, very satisfying, even if it lead me to death. It's quite extraordinary how through relatively minimal means, you've found ways to convey such critical details efficiently to the player, all without a tutorial. This was a grand a time. Looking forward to more projects from you!
May 16 04:33:38 10m 22s Subterranean Sub ♥ 0 This game had probably one of the best graphics I've seen from this jam thus far. Presentation, including the audio, was excellent as well. And the controls were nice and reactive, too: zooming through the seas in a submarine was never this fun! I did think the objective of the game was a bit lackluster. Although, I confess, fetch quests are a huge pet peeve of mine, so I'm already biased against collect X objectives. Fortunately for this game's level design, there's no "floating" rock formation to search for, so using the classic following-the-wall strategy certainly worked wonders. At the same time, though, because said strategy is so effective, the game never felt like there were any challenges. Given there's no enemies or significant obstacles in the game, the game felt a bit like a mere vacuum-cleaner simulator where all you have to do is scan through the whole level once, collect all the things, then call it quits. Although it was possible to plan around, I also didn't like the fact that the submarine appears to briefly lose control after collecting something. I personally would have appreciated giving the player a little more control over the camera. Often it felt like the camera lagged behind the submarine's movement, so it was hard to see what's beyond the direction the submarine was already moving towards. I would have liked it to move ahead of the submarine so it makes it easier for the player to make out the path ahead. Alternatively, allow the mouse to control the camera. Overall, somewhat enjoyable, but also too easy and predictable. Some more challenges to spice up the gameplay would have been appreciated.
May 16 07:31:13 2h 57m PANEMUAN ♥ 1 As you know, I've played the game live: https://youtu.be/aHUsWQeZHns?t=10756 My experience with this game has been a bit jarring. For example, I think the mid segment with the platforming was one of the better moments in the game, while the beginning setup was completely forgettable. The last section had a bizarre whiplash for me where the moment-to-moment imagery is really good, but I found the final message to be extremely discouraging. I nearly just quit the game after that. I think part of the reason why the better parts work has to do with the fact that I have a strong reaction to the chase sequence. Furthermore, that "panic" helps the narrative since it's in-sync with the story that's being conveyed. Likewise, the "happy" memory part in the third act works pretty well given it's directly after the chase-segment. So the act doubles as a breather and reflective moment. It's a bit disappointing, then, the first act and the second-half of the third act feels like a disjointed cutscene. The gameplay in the first act does nothing to reinforce the story, and the second-half of the third act is exactly the same as the first, happy half: it's a jarring experience that the gameplay for the two halves are exactly the same. I would have expected the second half's gameplay to have some sort of struggles to convey the more sad parts. I've mentioned the ending of the final act was really discouraging: this is probably a perk of English, but just saying, "No, you're making the wrong decision" is a *really* fast way to drop players' interest. In short, it puts the player in the defensive, since in their mind, the game "made" them make the wrong decision. Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if anyone ended up being insulted by the wording of that final line. I recommend phrasing that last sentence as a question, e.g. "What could have I done differently?" to encourage the player to not feel disheartened or defensive, and consider trying something new.
May 17 00:12:01 16h 40m Pheromones ♥ 1 Played the game on-stream! https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=921 Lots of interesting potential with this *Pikmin*-esque game. I like the idea of being able to switch controls between multiple different ants and scouting the area to find the optimal path. Even the need to sacrifice some ants provides an intriguing experience that, while a little frustrating, still feels like an integral part of the game's experience. Personally, my biggest gripe with the game has less to do with AI or difficulty, but rather, the complexity of the game in its current form. I really do like the very cool experiments this game makes: I think how its mechanics are implemented all needs to be heavily simplified to help the player better absorb the purpose of each of them, and help them come up with ways to create complex strategies this game seems to demand. Some examples of simplification I think the game could use include: 1. Making the game have top-down, 2D *Zelda*-like controls instead of the gravity-based platformer it's like now. 2. Only allow any ant to place exactly one pheremone. If the player taps the pheremone button again, it'll remove the old one, and place the new one to a new place. 3. When selecting an ant to control, pause the game so the player has more time to choose which ant they want to switch to. 4. Add a tutorial section where the player can practice all of the above with infinite amount of time (i.e. no water). I would love to see more of this game worked on, as it does introduce some really innovative mechanics. As it is now, it's a little too overwhelming for me to enjoy.
May 17 02:18:07 2h 06m Bubbly ♥ 1 Had a lot of fun playing this game on-stream: https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=2942 There's a lot of subtle details implemented in the game I really like. I appreciate the balls are programmed to bounce towards Bubbly. The controls are reactive, and the jump arc is satisfying. Lighting and artwork is great, and for the most part, enemy movement are well-telegraphed and predictable. Having all these information and conveniences really helps create a tight and fun platforming rogue-like experience. I'm not without some criticisms, though. I did think the way some enemies spawn was a bit unfair. In particular, the way ghosts and spiders spawn in, I felt, were too quick and easy to die from. I also thought the myopic default lighting and a camera that lags behind the player made it difficult to see very far, creating circumstances where I thought I was making blind jumps. I would have liked to see the camera either provide a better look-ahead algorithm, or allow the player to control the placement by moving the mouse cursor to where they want to focus on. Finally, I thought the dying animation is too long. I would like a faster respawn process so I can get back to the game faster!
May 17 02:38:42 20m 35s Dead End ♥ 1 What a solid Compo game. https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=4186 The game was really laggy on my poor, poor computer, but I can still see how interesting this game's exploration aspect was. Obviously, what's here is a bit bare-bones, but the simplicity of the mechanics and the way the game preys on the player's curiousity created a very compelling experience. I really love the cursor you've created to indicate where one can place a lantern, and with it, how that connects to the last one you've placed. I only have a few nitpicks here and there with the game. I've noticed some bizarre normal glitches in the game (corners seemingly emitting dim lights for no reason), that I think is a bit of a concern. I would have liked to be able to place the lantern attached to any on the line, rather than the last one. I did think the respawn was a bit severe, though fortunately given the slow pace of the game, wasn't a significant concern. It would be nice to see more environmental story telling in the game, to provide the player more incentives to explore the cave. And I got the sense that the adventure was a bit linear in experience: as an alternative to a story-driven experience, it might be fun to experiment with more branching paths.
May 17 03:29:05 50m 23s Deep Dungeon Tactics ♥ 0 Observe the stream below, where I completely exploit unbalanced parts in the game to my advantage: https://youtu.be/PUjYc80SDag?t=6526 Believe it or not, had a lot of fun with this entry. I'm really impressed with what your team was able to create, given tactics games aren't easy to make on a game jam schedule. The simplification of the genre is really appreciated, making it relatively easy to learn and master. Tutorial was informative and not too long. I personally would have liked to see more explanation on the stats, but at least at first blush, I did feel I understood most of economy that the game had to offer. There were some UX problems and stats balancing issues I would like to see fixed in a post-jam version of this game. The level-up dialog isn't displayed as such, making it look like any other stats dialog that often pops-up (not to mention it appears with seemingly no context). I would have liked to see the enemies travel and attack range when I hover over them, so I can make a more informed decision. As much as I like the procedural aspect of the game, the progress in the game did feel disjointed at times. I also thought the healing by staying still was a badly exploitable mechanic, and think having items or healers would have been a better choice (though I can understand the time constraint). Finally, most of my gameplay was just letting my ranger level up like crazy, which might need some more careful observation like adding level caps and whatnot. A lot of these problems, though, are nitpicks to an otherwise solid entry. Made it to around level 7 or 8 pretty easily.
May 17 04:23:16 54m 11s Black Magic, White Cat ♥ 0 Got what appears to be the positive ending. Pretty cute story, if a bit...annoyingly saccharine. While the story length is quite commendable, I would have liked to see more split story paths and choices to make in the game, even if some of them would have no changes to the story progression. Add a little more roleplay, let players be complete jerks and reap those consequences! Still, I appreciate how the world is introduced in a simple way, utilizing our good ol' boring world as a grounding basis for the extra added supernatural. Characters were mostly likeable, if a few (Karth and Inora) felt like they just blended into each other. And, well, I don't especially enjoy playing as jerk characters (even though I'm a jerk player myself), but Furonin wasn't pushing my buttons too much. And...uh, I felt the Japanese excerpt at the end read a bit too much like Google Translate.