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pkenney

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Apr 27 02:27:34 Labyrinth ♥ 2 Nice - tense action in a very atmospheric setting. I appreciated that this game does NOT waste time. It gets started the second you consent, and the retry starts over from right where you died. Took me a life or to to understand what was going on, but then I got it pretty quickly. It was an interesting tension about where to look. If I look behind me I can see glimpses of the minotaur right as he gets really dangerous, but then I'm backpedaling blindly, and sometimes into a dead end. If I look ahead of me at where I'm going, I'm getting really paranoid about the monster. It created a nice horror movie just-a-glimpse-of-the-monster feeling. From the fact that I was rated on time, I didn't really explore the space. I ended up settling on a loop to memorize and run. That way I could run it backwards blind and know I wouldn't get stuck. And just when I thought I had it beat the floor opened up and I fell into a tiny room I couldn't escape -- that sure showed me!! Atmosphere was really nice, sound was great especially for a compo, and the controls were nice and responsive. Well done!
Apr 27 02:45:47 18m 13s Diamond Hands - YOLO Edition ♥ 1 I got to 2105 before I called it quits. But I nearly went bust -- I was saved by a triple banana on the second-to-last spin I could afford. It was simple but strangely compelling. Yolo was a nice touch, although the chance of winning on a given spin was low enough that I was hesitant to use it a lot. If I could change one thing I would increase the size -- of both the game overall, but especially of the font size of my money. It was small it was in my browser, and I had to use the magnifying glass app to get it to a comfortable size: https://imgur.com/MVpFetb The feel was good - the sounds were enjoyable, and the wheel spinning looked nice and although it felt slow at first I got used to it and I think that waiting was part of why it felt a bit compulsive after a while. Nice job!
Apr 27 03:09:46 23m 59s Dyb ♥ 1 Nice entry! I played to the ending. You have a couple of interesting mechanics here with the hiding, and the spiker guys that drop from the ceiling. The tutorial was effective without being overbearing, and I liked how you introduced the most unusual one first, let me learn it. Then threw the second on in, and finally started blending the two together. By the time I got to the end... oh boy. That final dash under the falling spikes required one perfect jump over a hog and was like threading a needle. The final section with the different environment that was relaxing and led into the final cinematic end was a nice reward after that final difficult section. For critique -- I wished up was also jump, and felt the main character's decel to a stop was a BIT slippery for my taste, but not too bad. I also fell through a floor and got stuck inside the wall on a second playthrough doing some testing, I flew off this big drop and landed here and went straight through the floor and was stuck inside: https://imgur.com/ztO10GZ But you got the most important parts right, like the feel of quickly ducking into hiding, and the important unreliability of jumping over a hog. It was possible, but the hog would usually get you right after anyway, which forced me to engage with your mechanics instead of skipping sections. Art style was nice, very clean and clear and everything fit well together, and the music was enjoyable. Nice job!
Apr 27 22:56:20 19h 46m Jumping Crabster ♥ 1 Very crazy creative controls! Had some fun messing around with them, got to 3328. I never got all the way to really figuring out any valid repeatable strategy, I was mostly thrashing around a bunch and kind of getting lucky... But I was definitely shouting at the screen - GO YOU CAN DO IT ALMOST THERE! Art is simple but charming and effective. The eyes give it personality and the clearly articulated limbs are nice for understanding the consequences of my actions. Nice work!
Apr 28 02:05:49 3h 09m Vile Things ♥ 1 Nice variety of enemies! Played a decent amount.. After a few games learning the ropes, I dug in and made it to a megawave of flying biters that did me in, and didn't have the heart to restart. I liked the controls, although I never got super-fluid with them. On the plus side the character is responsive, has a good non-floaty jump feel, solid air control, and the attack range is nice with a super-clear graphic. The whole playing-lefty thing (arrows + attack w/ left hand) is tough, I'm used to wasd, so maybe that's why I never felt super in the zone. A very interesting element was the directional aiming of the attack. It was essential to the game. A very nice design choice was the amount of knockback, which made me have to chase enemies down and think about movement, as opposed to just being a run-up-and-spam. This was a good all around package, with compelling art, solid sound, and a nice music that accompanied the "vile monsters" theme well. Nice work!
Apr 28 02:48:38 42m 49s Deepz Explorez ♥ 1 Wow, the colors, the textures, and the audio are so lush, warm, inviting. It's really an awesome atmosphere/mood. I would just stand and stare or listen. I took my time, collected the 3 shapes, and hung out for a bit. I also appreciated that although the game's mood was low-key, you didn't shy away from a decent walking speed. That let me choose moments to turbo through a backtrack in the maze without frustration, and still let me chill when I wanted. I did miss that I could get onto the [SPOILER] at the end. I even tried to see if there was an interaction by waiting at what I thought was the high point of the ground is passed, and closely following it a bit, but I guess I didn't find the right trick. (EDIT: I now see that reading the instructions was the trick I missed!) No worries -- a unique and interesting experience. Very nice entry!
Apr 28 03:35:17 46m 39s The Fall ♥ 3 Wow the art was great, all the parallax layering and the details really created an environment. I loved the variety of enemies across the zones. Each looked really distinct, but also played really differently which was nice. The character control was good, too. The inertia gave me a feeling of flying and created a lot of challenge and care to how I had to move. The brutal side was how the sword got smaller when I got hit, forcing me to get closer, which led to more getting hit. But a downward spiral to doom is probably right on theme, right? All of the times I got hit, I felt it was my fault, except one situation: When I was lining up a shot on someone and then the circle of hell changed, the enemy would suddenly "stop" (which really meant accelerate into my face). When I was not doing battle with them, this was a very nice visual effect as the old zoomed away to be replaced by the new. But a few times I was lining up an attack and they suddenly cheap-shot me. I didn't manage to finish the game. I got to Violence a few times, but always with a few hits on my belt. The violence enemy is a good one to test my skill. The other levels, I can kind of just avoid some enemies so it might not matter if I have the impotent sword. But not so with violence: The mini ball goes out and then comes at my side, and demands combat. But it's not easy to reign in hell, and I wasn't up to the task. The blue lost soul guy between levels as a sort of healing mechanism was a very nice touch. So much more flavorful than "here's a free heart". Overall a really strong offering with some great art and atmosphere, and a strong variety of different types of challenge! Nice work to your whole team!
Apr 28 03:41:33 6m 16s Deep Holes To Relax / Study To ♥ 0 Still have fond memories of Radioactive Rumble, so I was excited to try your latest, but the link was a 404. Sorry if this LD didn't go your way!
Apr 28 04:26:40 45m 07s Throneless ♥ 0 You got an impressive amount done, and take heart that you made it playable! My head spins thinking about all of the features you completed: the ability to click into units, select spaces, issue commands, cancel back out of the menus, highlight the paths, the turn-based combat system, recruiting the party, map generation... it's just a ton of features, all done to a point where it can be played. Plus all of the very nice isometric pixel art! Sorry the LD didn't go how you wanted, but it's a badass display of your skills just to get as far as you did. This shit happens. I've done 19 of these things, and just a few LDs ago I overscoped badly and ruined myself, making my worst game ever.
Apr 28 04:55:21 28m 41s Drilling With Dice ♥ 0 This is a cool idea. Couple of small flaws dinged me in the experience, but overall the gist of the game was original and intriguing. A few things that hurt my experience: - Dice tray is far away from the place to put the dice, when trying to play fast this long drag-and-drop dominated my experience. It's not ambiguous where the die goes and I really wished I could double-click it. Or at least have the drill and processing right above the tray, and the text above that. - The game has a LOT of text. Most of it too small to read so I didn't. I think it said "tip" but I couldn't read any of the tips. - I quickly settled on the algo that the other commenters mentioned: drag and drop pairs, click reroll drag and drop any extra pairs, then click drill then drag/drop high numbers, reroll, drag and drop highs again, new day repeat. So those are some critiques but I don't want to overstate the negative. The interlocking system of dice and different sorts of machines was compelling. I just needed a little more wiggle room in how to make decisions. Maybe I need to load dice into the drill and the processing, and my choice is about what dice to use where? "This pair of 5s could let me drill down another 100m but that won't leave me any high dice for the processor" or some tradeoff like that. The vibe was cool, and I enjoyed the music. With just a *bit* more fast-play friendly UX and a few more actual decisions I might have been straight-up hooked. As it was I did play a while (ran out of money). Nice work on making something pretty interesting and ambitious here.
Apr 28 23:21:25 18h 26m The deepest curse ♥ 1 I liked this game! The controls were very tight, although maybe a little TOO tight, so as to feel sharp. A TINY bit of acceleration might be worth experimenting, here is a good article describing the approach I think feels the very best: https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarkVenturelli/20140821/223866/Game_Feel_Tips_II_Speed_Gravity_Friction.php But these controls are good. Much better to be too tight than too loose! I appreciated the expressive jump that cared how long I held the button, and also the generous air control. The dash felt really good, too, and you did a great job with the interaction of dashing, jumping, and falling. It fit together nicely. Wall climbing felt slightly jarring at first but I adjusted pretty quickly, and I'd say it was well implemented. On top of this nice control scheme, you built appropriate challenges that tested my skills. This drew me in. It was a shame the game trolled me so hard. Sending me all the way back to the very start and stripping my abilities made me howl with rage, and after it happened twice I decided I was done. Instead of playing fair, I did this to your game: https://imgur.com/MalqFxD If you didn't brutalize me with having to repeat the game over and over, I would have probably played the whole thing. It's a nice touch that you offered the ability to customize difficulty, but by the time I knew I needed them it was too late, so they didn't save me. Ragequitting at restart aside, I enjoyed the game a lot. Star was the high-quality controls with variety of mechanics. Graphics, although simple, were crisp and functional. Sound was also functional, and the music was a nice bonus. The whole progression thing and the bonus timepieces was a nice feature set that took the game up a notch, and showed you really got a lot done. Overall nice work, although I would have happily spent more time with the game if it wasn't so punishing.
Apr 29 02:09:17 2h 47m 6 Feet Under ♥ 5 This hits a lot of really strong points, very well done. Art is charming, sfx are crunchy and nice, music is just awesome. The core mechanic is delightful and right on the knife's edge of F**K THIS and really satisfying. I nearly ragequit several times, but pressed on and made it and it was always rewarding when I did. The controls are so compelling. They occasionally hit brilliant moments of feeling fluid and elegant. They ask you to make these huge commits in advance, and with zero air control you can do nothing but sit and gape at the consequences of your folly while some signal originating from your lizard brain mashes your finger deeper into the D key to no avail. Glorious. I probably just sucked at it, but transitioning from drillpath to drillpath across open air was what yanked me away from feeling fluid. You're on the rise and trying to transition to a block above you: drilling up, hit space too early and you brake and reverse in the low block; hit space too late and you bounce harshly off the ceiling above. I definitely enjoyed my time with the game. I would have spent longer with it if there were mid-way checkpoints or something else to take the edge off how much I had to repeat sections I struggled with. It's a really charming, unique entry, with a very strong original movement mechanic that's well implemented. And again, bumpin' music. Very nice work!
Apr 29 04:19:24 2h 10m Nuclear Arms 8: Navigate the Hate ♥ 4 You know that old joke about the two guys camping, and the bear shows up and they're gonna run for it, but one guy stops to lace up his sneakers. Pal is like, "you can't outrun the bear!" But sneaker guy is all, "I only gotta outrun YOU!" In this game you still can't outrun the bears, but there ain't nobody else around. And there are like 200 of them!! Oh boy! They even wear wristwatches to taunt you about how much time they're going to take from you, although I think they might actually be compasses. What do bears know, except killing? I really liked the 3 orbs system. It let me opt into 2 levels of difficulty on a per-mission basis in case I got stuck (I mean, maybe I should have tried red just to see, but c'mon I got more pride than that) Really liked the mix of different types of challenge. Some of them were super-intense, and it was good to get a little break with some of the chiller ones that were about platforming or searching, to let the cramp in my hands subside. Really enjoyed how each of them called back to a previous game in the series! Poor Killbane, just trying to do his thing. He's a sport. I finished the first time with 2 yellows and the rest green. And yup, you guessed it: the two yellows were the bear levels! A meltdown, sure, but I had to go back and challenge myself to get a FULL meltdown, so I went back and ran it again going for green on all of them. The Killjane level, with the bears and the trash, was nuts to get green on. I had to try it a lot, an experiment. At first I thought the trash was a problem because it let the bears sneak up on me. And disoriented me. But then I discovered the trasholine strategy. Bears can't hit me if I'm in the sky!! I don't know if that's how you intended me to finish that level, but I shot like the first 3ish bears and trasholine-hopped my way through and back. A couple of small points that dinged me: - The "Press E" on the answer pickup and podium could be a bit more generous. I definitely lost a number of runs to each. I mean especially the answer: hopping up and down on trash thrashing my mouse around spamming E! - OMG the bear sounds. They are always right behind me swinging, and when I turn around they aren't. But then when I don't turn around they are! I think their sounds ignore the walls, maybe? It really increased their danger level because of how disorienting it was. After trasholining the Killjane level the other difficult green was Handsome Wizard, the other bear level. I went back and forth on whether to go carefully or turbo... you did a good job of striking a balance where it was a close call and worth trying both. Having no trach to bounce on in this level, I did experiment with running up the walls, but I didn't get very far with it: https://imgur.com/uBH0ovU Overall this game was really fun! I loved the voice acting, the graphics were great on the enemies, environment, and story scenes, and the controls were tight and action a blast. Great job, glad to see your crew back in action.
Apr 30 02:21:22 22h 01m Dungeon Painter ♥ 2 Wow even an epic boss fight at the end! Really nice work! This is an impressively well-rounded entry. It has an effective graphical style, an interesting core mechanic, nice sounds, and even music. I was surprised to see it's your first Ludum Dare, but I checked on itch and saw that it's not your first game jam. I mostly liked the controls. They definitely didn't get in the way, and were solid. I'll mention a couple of minor things that I would have appreciated having: I always like when the jump is a bit more expressive by letting me vary the height based on how long I hold the button down. The other one is "coyote time" where you can still jump for a just a moment after you leave a platform. I definitely got bit by that one a few times in this game. No big deal, just a couple of minor feelbads that didn't really get in the way of the fun. The slippy-slidey inertia, which I don't like in most games, I think I liked here because the character is a ball of wet paint, so I think the charming characterization of sliding was worth the lesser control. I started out in level 1 by playing carefully and taking specific shots, and moving through areas that still had a lot of dark. But once I started dying to spikes I wanted to get much more coverage before proceeding, so I started experimenting with the shooting controls and discovered I could just hold it down. I probably never let go of the button again, which was convenient but I missed that cool experience of walking through half-painted terrain. I wonder if spikes is really the perfect hazard for this game. Maybe there are enemies that encourage you NOT to paint, like they wake up when they get wet or something, I dunno. This is a really good entry with a strong core and a lot of charm, really well done.
Apr 30 03:31:44 1h 10m Tension ♥ 1 Daaaaaaamn. I actually had a chill run down my spine when I hit the ending. I was all wound up in the atmosphere of the place, the careful climbing punctuated with unavoidable moments of risky momentum, and the slightly disturbing mysterious narrator. First few moments with the game I experimented with the grapple, and I thought I was going to be learning to swing around on it. I've always had grapple game on my bucket list, and when I imagine it the player is grapple-swinging to karate kick guys in the face and it's all about releasing the grapple to chain into the next grapple midair. I tried some nonsense remotely in that direction AND was smacked hard with a large chunk of life loss... and I was like YUP this is a Mullin game, I'm going to be expected to be thoughtful and have a light touch. And man, it really works. I started thinking far ahead, and rejecting risky plans in search of the safest way forward. I enjoyed the methodical climb and got very alert for the wild swings I had to take from time to time. I have captured a handful of moments that created a cool thought process... I stood here for a while, wondering, do I grapple the ceiling? Nah, I'll grapple the floor and carefully lower myself down: https://imgur.com/SVnHpcR Here I'm being super careful, surrounded by lava and not knowing what lies ahead, how can I choose a spot that will keep my options open?? https://imgur.com/h9Fheii This is a part of the game that even you probably didn't get to, when I bounced off lava into the mushrooms, where death seemed to have dimmed my light but mushrooms prevented me from dying: https://imgur.com/iHUbfGx That screen shot probably looks stupid, but this was pretty intense. The voice had just said "the risk is imaginary" so I thought maybe I was *supposed* to have this post-death experience? Anyway, that climb down I could only see dimly for like a 1-inch radius around my character, and it jacked the mood (and yea, difficulty) up to a crazy degree. Vision went back to normal on respawn but wow. Try playing with a tiny ring of light some time, it's wild! And last example: I thought it was pretty cool that you gave me this invitation to show off what I'd learned: https://imgur.com/sxhFLtR If I could change one thing about the game it would be to enable fullscreen. It's so immersive, but I had the task bar and window title kind of intruding on my immersion. No big. Really well done, great physics that forced a style of play that was in strong harmony with the mood. Everything came together to make such a nice experience.
Apr 30 04:06:36 34m 52s Red Archer ♥ 2 Wow, cool stuff - I would have played longer if there were more levels. I liked the clever gameplay design. The problem with an FPS having many enemies is that you can't see enough of what's going on to really deal with much (as opposed to a 2D bullethell game, say). And if you throw the player and enemies up into the sky it gets even worse! But then this game dodges the problem by having the slo-mo mode. The other interesting part was the teleport-to-hit-enemy for finishing them off, and the way that the primary fire action FORCED you to do this, since you couldn't shoot again otherwise. The concept of gaining vertical height from kills was also pretty cool. All of this gave the game a cool, unique core gameplay. It felt a little bit like a 3D bullet hell, a little bit like a midair FPS with a bit of leading your shot (which as an old Tribes player I really appreciate) and a little bit of a turn-based battle system feel. A unique mix! For critique points, I'd say the game could stand to have more challenge that I need to think about, to take advantage of the turn-based feel. It didn't seem to matter what enemy I shot when, no specific enemy was really a threat. Also it was too short! If this idea were fleshed out more, I could really dig in. Cool stuff, although maybe not fully realized. Very interesting entry, nice work!
May 1 04:19:40 24h 13m One-Butt Alien Corridor ♥ 2 Wow, VERY cool game! It's a great mashup of dirty monster-blasting action with tactical planning and experimentation. It had a bit of tower defense DNA but with a lot more personality. The upgrades are a killer feature that takes it to the next level and had me reloading back to the start to try out different builds. Each upgrade was really compelling, although I'll admit I didn't value the health one at first. I was all, "well it lets me restart a level anyway so who cares about camp bonuses?" I learned the hard way when I kept being surprised my front guy was dead so quick... But the large coverage arcs of range were so nice, and the fast kills from dmg... all very tempting. I really needed some sound going on, so I loaded up some remix of the doom soundtrack in the background and it fit really well. I so wished for an indicator on the marine that it was selected. A great many fights went very badly because I went into a downward spiral triggered by accidentally turning the wrong marine. Eventually I figured out that I shouldn't stab the number keys like I would for weapon switching in an FPS, and should just permanently park 1 finger per key and link the finger to the marine in my mind. After I found something that worked for me there, it really helped. After playing for about an hour I managed to get to the gate at the end of level 5. Watching your video playthrough, I learned a few things... Mainly that the tiny enemies are not an emergency, even if they are chomping on your dudes. I was probably overreacting to them. Seems better to set up for the larger enemies. OK one more try, hang on... Haha nope, still not getting past the gate on 5! Still too many marine-selection errors in the heat of the moment. The stylized semi-abstract graphics were really effective and evoked a nice mood. The enemy attack animations and the blood splatters from death gave the circles a nice boost of feeling alive. The aim arcs, gunfire, and grenade explosions all fit well into the vibe. But the highlight for me was the novel gameplay that had me thinking about to get out of getting my ass kicked... and saying ONE MORE GAME. Really cool entry, great job!
May 4 02:05:32 69h 45m Deeper Devils ♥ 1 Great game! I played to the end in 32 deaths. Almost everything is done right here. I found the lo-fi mashup art style charming and unique, and it had a lot of nice little touches like the text-tilt on reload (more basement punk DYI than a gun animation!) and the motion lines when falling. The sound effects you chose effectively communicated gameplay information I needed, such as "am I wall sliding." I thought the core gameplay was very well done. It takes a few ideas from downwell and riffs them into a cool new experience. I liked that you made the game more about movement than about the shooting, and didn't go overboard with the enemies blasting at me, or force me to shoot a ton. I think that was the right direction here, since the movement was the cool stuff. I'm a big fan of games with unusual core movement and good gamefeel, and you did it here. If I could tweak one thing about the controls, it would be that while on the ground (but probably not while in the air) I could have used some acceleration from zero to full speed. When I stopped on a platform and wanted to peek over the edge, it felt really jerky to get instant full speed, and I went flying over the edge a few times. No big deal, though! The difficulty and length of the game were just about right for me. All around very nice solo jam entry, look forward to seeing what you do next time.
May 4 02:20:12 14m 40s Bl*bert ♥ 1 Cool riff on an old classic! I liked the game, but I wanted it to be faster. Everything was slower than I wanted... I was hammering the button three times between each leap, and then when I failed the torturously slow restart was so disheartening. Then I would get back in the zone and be having fun again, but always hammering hammering wishing it was faster. I would probably have played 5x as much if the speed was doubled. The art style was nice, but the way it changed and got darker as I went deeper, along with the pitch shifting -- just great. I also liked the design touch of the yellow per-warning of the incoming enemies. You gave me that, and then if I make the mistakes it's my own fault that I lost! Very nice. Overall enjoyable entry, nice work!
May 4 02:42:10 21m 58s CTRL BASE ZERO ♥ 0 Really excelling at the mood here. Everything cooperates to nail it: the spare visual style, the synths, the way I'm manually opening doors wondering what kind of game this even is and feeling suspense. Loved the little touches like some of the overhead lights being out, and the bots on the ground. Entering the final room definitely stop me in my tracks to just look around. The conclusion felt abrupt and I wished it could have been tied off in some way, but what you did create was really effective. Pacing was well done, too. At first I felt the text was too slow, and at the start of the game I was surprised I had no jump, but after getting a sense of the game I realized both of these were the correct design choice. I liked the little snarky remark about wishing it was a gun, as of course I totally didn't wish it was a shooter, but this was a nice addition to the suspense feel. Really a well-executed piece here, despite feeling a little incomplete.
May 4 02:55:28 13m 18s Trposhi ♥ 1 Calm, chill experience with the nice little sound effects from the dwarves and their digging! I had a bit of fun but I didn't want to manage them for all that long because there wasn't that much for me to do after I'd gotten the systems down. Idle games aren't usually my kind of thing, so just a matter of taste. You did achieve a nice chill vibe though, good work! The graphics were also very nice, and the little funeral was awesome, great touch.
May 4 03:13:06 17m 38s Deep Sweep ♥ 0 Nice work! Very charming graphics, snappy controls, and the sound and music were strong, too. I couldn't help cheating myself out of some of the challenge by memorizing, partly because (unless I missed the right strategy!) there were impossible situations where I had to make a blind guess with all ways forward having a 1 distance to bomb, and no way that I saw to do the whole minesweeper "chains of logic" thing. If I could tweak one thing, I would change it so that when I pick "continue" instead of tutorial, that you wouldn't show me the tutorial anyway. But it was no big deal, I spent some fun time trying to figure out the rules, and playing around with it. Nice entry!
May 4 03:42:44 29m 38s Tiny Dungeon ♥ 1 Cool stuff, effective art style, a few different enemy types, procedurally generated levels, and various upgrades in shops -- a lot to like! I made it to the final boss, but lost the fight. I couldn't tell if I was hitting him. The other enemies I got a sound effect and knockback when I hit them, but it didn't seem to do anything when I hit the boss. I was unsure if he was taking damage, or if I had to do something else to hurt him... if that was the case I could have used a "ping" invincibility sound as a hint. I liked the little green blobs, their leap was a good attack. Easy enough if you are patient and careful, but can get you if you're not careful or if the room gets busy. Nice entry!
May 4 04:17:26 34m 42s Space Dwarf Alchemist Go! ♥ 1 Haha, had some fun with this even though idle/clickers aren't my usual thing. The voice acting was a big part of it, and very charming! At least, until I installed defense turrets and destroyed the audio of the game. First I had to take my headphones off, but then when there were enough I had to straight up mute my computer. I don't know who those people were I was murdering, but I sure paid the price! ;) But once I had the machine rolling, the ultimate goal seemed attainable, so I really had to do it: passing-C.png By the time I sailed past the speed of light, it was no big thing. Nice entry! Definitely got me pulled in.
May 4 04:37:35 20m 09s Delevator ♥ 2 Really enjoyed the dark mood, and how it snuck up and then escalated, gradually consuming the mundane. Was the font hand drawn? I didn't pay careful attention to see if the letters repeated exactly, but either way I didn't mind that was a little bit of a struggle to read. I also think you used some deliberately long speech-advancing delays for a few parts, maybe? The impediments to normal easy for of reading were in line with the game's tone so I definitely didn't mind. Nice pixel art, especially the night scene in the park with my friend there. The audio was also really nice. Great job on achieving a clear, consistent voice for this entry.
May 4 04:48:55 11m 20s EveryDay ♥ 1 Cool subversive game. I'm glad I didn't stop at the first ending! The art is lo-fi but I like how you used everything together to convey the changing mood: art, music, and even game mechanics (using different delays and move speeds etc). I enjoy that LD has some normal games but also some very unusual ones like this. Nice work!
May 15 03:15:33 262h 26m Crash Lander ♥ 1 I thought "WOW this is exactly my kind of game!!" Challenging and interesting main movement mechanic, simple premise, effective art and sound, and (thank you) NO TUTORIAL you trust me to figure it out. I quit the web version and downloaded the windows build so I could really settle in and enjoy it. So I was very excited. But I never made it past the second checkpoint. I didn't really mind the over-the-top difficulty THAT much, but I could not handle the slow restart time with that darn camera pan. It got me to a really bad state of mind and I had to just stop playing. Maybe I just died too much, and restart was way more often for me (55 deaths to get the second checkpoint.) I even checked if you posted source code so could modify it to instant-restart myself! Another tweak to maybe consider is to put the fuel meter on the ship rather than the mouse cursor. If I held the cursor near the ship to see my fuel, then movements of the camera could have a surprising interference as the ship moved away from screen-center (Thus changing its position relative to cursor). If I held it far away and focused on controlling the ship I could not see my fuel. I would have preferred not to even have the cursor at all, and just let the mouse's movement angle the ship directly, but maybe that wouldn't work for some of the fancy flying I saw in gifs above. So this is a really strong entry, with many good things, I just personally couldn't get past the restart delay to dig in as much as I would have liked, sorry. (BTW wow those post-comp art screenshots you posted looks great.)
May 16 15:37:43 36h 22m Dwarven Delver ♥ 1 Nice! This is a well-rounded entry with good music, sound, art, and a kind of nicely "crunchy" feeling to the digging. It made gameplay fast and enjoyable. I managed to get 18 gems, although I pushed my luck a bit at the end and got killed unnecessarily. At first I thought I was supposed to dig rocks and didn't get any gems for a while. Once I realized gems are also in dirt, I pretty much stuck to dirt and dove down as deep as a I could. My strategy on each level was the same: dig to the bottom the shortest dirt-only path so that I could escape in one turn whenever my stamina got low, and then dig horizontally along the bottom row. The experience was good but it felt a little too random; I would have appreciated if something about each new screen caused me to change up my strats, like if I could see that some areas were high-reward that I want to get to, or high-risk of bats/caveins etc. Nice job with your entry!
May 16 15:53:27 15m 44s Space?Space!SPACE ♥ 1 Unique and compelling art style -- never seen outer space portrayed this way but it works and was visually interesting. Snappy controls and some fun dogfights! For critique I'd say that it could feel a bit aimless when it doesn't matter what direction I go -- but the arrow toward fuel was a GREAT feature to include and prevents a lot of feelbad hopelessness because I have a goal. Nice entry! Add some sound to match the nice visuals and it'll really start coming alive.
May 16 16:06:01 12m 34s Let's Go Deeper ♥ 1 Wow, really great vibe here! The art looks fantastic, the sound is strong, and the music is outstanding. It all really came together nicely into an impressively-polished entry. Gameplay-wise I enjoyed the various upgrades and the space invaders were a nice touch. Nice job!
May 16 16:19:05 13m 04s Substate ♥ 0 Love this kind of short really unique entry, great job! The audio is top-notch: voice tutorial is a great way to make it fun to learn this really unusual system, music fits super-well, and the sound effect for moving up/down levels is nice. Graphics were clear and direct. Game duration was great -- let me play around with this system, have a few surprises and test my knowledge, and then ended without me having any chance to get tired of it: ended while I still wanted more. Critique-wise I can only offer one thing: maybe the controls could be simplified, I don't know if there is value to moving up/down with the arrows, so instead of the split arrows-and-WS, you could just have left/right move on the level and up/down switch between. Not that this mattered at all in such a short game. Nice entry! And so different from your soundcloud concert game that I remember playing before, love seeing that variety of types of entries.
May 16 16:45:29 26m 24s Masseuse you Loose ♥ 4 Wow! This feels so polished and complete. The art is just great, I really love the various bodies and some of those horrible tattoos had me cracking up. Whole thing had a great vibe. You really have a clear vision and nailed it. I struggled initially with where on the hand I was supposed to aim, and then I realized the mouse cursor is still on the screen. Once I started aiming with that I did better. Still tons of errors though! Apparently I'm not cut out for this line of work. I don't know if it would intrude on the experience, but some visual feedback on where/how I missed may have accelerated my learning curve. (EDIT: whaaat I just went back to test again and now I don't see the mouse cursor, I guess I got it into a weird state, maybe by alt-tabbing??) The variety of the physical actions and the time pressure combined in a very cool way. After I found myself scanning-and-planning my next move while executing the current action I realized this is really well designed. I know you sourced the music and sound but they were really well chosen and added enhanced the vibe a lot. Really nice job here.
May 16 17:04:08 18m 39s Keyboard to the Depths ♥ 1 Wow this was really complete-feeling. I mean, it could have had more levels, but for a compo game I think you did the right thing and kept the scope small but the polish REALLY high on the scope you did have. Each aspect was strong: the music, the art, the sound, the controls, the little effects here and there like blood splatter or the shaking when a guy is stuck in a block. Really impressive all-around entry. At first I didn't like the structure of the game. During the tutorial I thought "Wow good thing there is an endless stream of guys!" But then in the real game I was disappointed to see I have just 8. Then I got mad that it didn't let me even look at the layout of the level before starting, and I would basically lose the game even before I had a chance to think through. The I got mad again that when I did lose it was all the way back to level one. HOWEVER... all of that feeling went away when I saw how short the game is. It's true that the structure forced me to lose enough to memorize the game so that I could play effectively, but it was completely fine because of how short it was. That said, if you do expand this to have more levels you might want to consider letting the player see the level and hit space to begin, so that they can form a plan. Either that or make the guys infinite so they can experiment (and score them on deaths or something?). Anyway, this is a really interesting entry with a unique concept that was super-well executed. Very nice job.
May 16 18:09:56 1h 05m Nuclear blaze ♥ 1 Very nice! The graphics look great, and the mix of pixel art and the water/fire being in a different style was an interesting take. I loved the character: all helmet, and with controls that made me feel their bulk. Nice that I had to stop to use water and couldn't just spam it. I made it to the point with the purple sparkles that re-create new fire, and after having to restart the 5th time I gave up. The problem was that the restart sends me several minutes backward, which is a lot of repetition for a jam and this in turn made me impatient which made me careless which made me die. Once I entered this downward spiral I lost heart. I think with sound even this would have not mattered because the vibe and environment are really great, so with that extra sense in play I bet it would be amazing. Really nice job on the art and the core mechanics. I also enjoyed the mystery of the story, and was sorry I didn't have heart to make it to the end.
May 18 04:11:07 34h 01m Under the Stove ♥ 0 And here I thought roblox were some competitor to legos! I would have skipped the onerous install process but you're SO CLOSE to getting the 20 that I couldn't just walk away. Hope you cross the finish line in time! This was a fun little experience. I enjoyed that I could restart the dialog and test various paths through the short bits of clever prose. I also dug the charmingly severe transitions between environments. It put to rest the question of which is a scarier hell: the spooky creepy gross bug kind, or the one with puppies. No contest. I was determined to find some glitch to escape Heck, as I could see outside the walls with the camera. But those colliders were too strong. I tried glitching into a superjump by getting stuck between the two signs but that also refused to work. The best I could do was walk left and right very quickly around this spot here, which triggered a restart to the torture-music and provided some much-needed tranquility: RobloxScreenShot20210517_235410521.png Respect for throwing away your usual engines to try out something new, and nice work!