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Feedback comments for LD48
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Shell Pirate's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 28 10:20:07 | Deepest Sword | ♥ 0 | Good work! I found the graphics, sound, mood and overall aesthetic really charming and the take on the theme is fun as well (both in the sense of going deeper into the cave, but also driving the sword deeper into the dragon). So great work on that! The main mechanic was also rather interesting and innovative in its design. However, this is also where I find my main issue. It is always hard to balance wacky physics based antics with controls that feel fun and responsive. And although you have gotten quite close, given the time frame, it's not 100% there yet. I found myself often feeling at the mercy of the game's physics with my character having an unnecessary amount of slipperiness to them, resulting in the feeling of kinda just getting knocked around uncontrollably. The reason why I think this is an issue is because the main mechanic has a lot of potential to be something really fun. Imagine a game about timing your sword swings just right so that you get more and more momentum by using your environment. As it is currently though, it feels more like awkwardly trying to wiggle your way around a cave that is not designed much with the mechanics in mind. Maybe that sort of slow paced experience is your intention, or maybe there was just way too little time to iterate on levels, but either way, to me personally it doesn't feel as fun as it could be. Perhaps with more pixel perfect movement, more momentum gain from the sword and level design made to facilitate that momentum, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. Overall, though, I think that you have accomplished everything one could dream for with a Ludum Dare entry: polished, complete, technically well-executed and despite having flaws: really showing potential to take this idea and make something truly great out of it. Good work! | |
| Apr 28 13:58:23 | 3h 38m | I'm So Deep | ♥ 1 | Good work! I enjoyed the simple relaxing music and although the graphics are by no means "high-fidelity" they hold a certain old flash game charm that I can't help but enjoy. I also like that you made it humorous as well (rolling animation got me and the So Deep! is also pretty funny). The core gameplay is quite interesting and innovative (also a bit ironic because our entry is also about poetry to impress a character lol). However, I don't really feel it is very well explained what earns you points. Maybe I'm too good at poetry but every time I tried I got a "So Deep!" by just providing something that rhymes and vaguely matches the context. I do like the idea though, it just needs more actual "game" to it, as now there is not really a win condition or any clearly communicated challenge (since I don't really know what makes the poems good or bad). Overall, really fun idea and impressive execution on a technical level, just wish there was more to it, but that's for a potential post-jam version. Good work! |
| Apr 28 14:17:38 | 19m 15s | Swan Forest | ♥ 1 | Very nice polished experience! The graphics and music were really cute and perfectly captured that NES / Gameboy aesthetic that I enjoy a lot. I also like how committed you were to it. For example, the game will never play two sounds at the same time, which I think is a lovely touch, as a lot of old hardware was unable to play multiple sound samples at the same time as well. The sound and music itself, although limited, was catchy and really authentic to 8-bit compositions as well. Even the controls felt genuine, because of their slight (I assume intentional) clunky-ness. Overall, fantastic job on setting a good mood and aesthetic! Gameplay wise, I also had a good chunk of fun with it for what it was. The actual interactions were really limited (basically walk up to the right thing and press Z), but the good writing and solid narrative kept me hooked. What's more, I think you had just the right length for the limited mechanics, because just as I was about to get bored, you wrapped things up nicely with the ending sequence (I got the good ending and saved Swan Forest btw). Really, the only issue I had was that the collision detection on the grass was quite awkward. I eventually had to look here in the comments on how to do it. Also, another track for the endings wouldn't go amiss either. Overall, great job on a very charming entry! |
| Apr 28 19:17:07 | 4h 59m | The purpose of a worm | ♥ 2 | Absolutely adorable! You had me hooked from the very first seconds of playing. The art is really cute, the music is fitting and the writing is good with a simple, but strong moral at the end. Everything was unified aesthetically and it really felt like I was experiencing a children's book, even down to the voice acting, which was admittedly amateur, but because of that it felt like it was just my dad or something reading me a bed time story. It was super charming! I honestly have no real critique, to be honest. Just a big thank you for putting a smile on my face with your cute game! |
| Apr 28 19:46:54 | 29m 47s | Through Dimensions | ♥ 1 | Really good work! I think the obvious first "wow" factor of this game is that it runs on actual NES hardware. You see a lot of LD entries that aim for an "old school style", but you really went the extra mile on making that happen, didn't ya? :D What's more, the game not only runs on the NES hardware, but also feels like something that could have easily come out in the NES era as well. The simple design, the choppy Megaman style screen scrolling, the repetitive chiptune music - it's all as if it came straight out of an NES game designer's rule book. Basically, it really shows that you love this hardware and are very keenly aware of it and how to make something that is not only _on_ the NES, but something that is _for_ the NES. I enjoyed the game in general, but I do agree with some people here that said that discerning what is solid and what is not was rather difficult. I think this is an issue that also could have easily been in an actual title released back in the day, so in a way it is authentic to the era, however, that doesn't make it suddenly not a problem. It resulted in me quite often flipping a little mindlessly between worlds because I couldn't really easily commit the changes in layout to memory, due to those changes not being visually distinct enough. Another point: although I like the music, I do feel it gets a bit repetitive and while it is a nice touch to have different music for the different versions, I would suggest to keep it the same tempo throughout, but simply change instrumentation or mood. This is hard, I know, especially with the limited sound waves and channels you can work with on the NES, but as it is, it's a little jarring to switch rapidly between worlds and get totally different tempos and energy levels in the music. Finally, the death screen is a bit too slow for my liking, especially considering how quickly some of the enemies move sometimes. It is easy to die, so I'd like to be able to quickly get back into it to offset the speed at which my character denigrates out of existence sometimes. I think this balance is something we've picked up as good game design practice over the decades though, so if you want to be technical, this is probably how an 80's NES game would do things :D Overall, I love your commitment to the NES on all levels. It has made for a great entry! Although this commitment has of course come with a few of the NES' less desirable aspects as well. However, it is easy to overlook them in an otherwise good game. Lovely work! |
| Apr 28 20:05:43 | 18m 49s | Corona 69 | ♥ 1 | Good work! The graphics were solid and the music was really nice and somehow reminded me of Sonic Mania in a way. It definitely made me immediately tense after infecting that first person, so great job on setting the mood. The gameplay was solid as well, with a good amount of fun to be had. However, I do feel like some things could be tweaked to improve it. For one, the game has quite obvious invisible walls, which most of the time is not a problem in games, but with this one the collisions function in a way where your movement is pretty much halted fully when running into a wall. This resulted in me quite often wanting to avoid enemy fire, bumping into the invisible wall and then eating a rocket to the face because of it. I'd suggest either tweaking your collisions so that you can more smoothly slide along walls or simply placing something like houses, or heck, even literal brick walls where the invisible ones are currently. Another issue I had was that the enemies could be quite a ways away off screen, but still hurl rockets at you. This didn't really feel fair to me, because I had no way to anticipate them, as I know nothing of the enemy's position if they are not on screen. Finally, I feel the game was a bit too hard, so I didn't really get to see the "getting deeper and deeper into trouble" bit. But maybe that's just an issue of my skill level ha-ha. Regardless, you could maybe make the charge up time on the rockets a bit slower. Or if you want to keep it challenging, but fair: simply decrease the charging time over the course of the game, so the longer you play, the faster things go. I'm just spitballing some ideas. With all that said, I feel like all these issues could easily be fixed and overall you have put a good effort forward this LD. Solid work! |
| Apr 29 10:51:10 | 14h 45m | Bucket: A Space Odyssey | ♥ 2 | What a lovely game! Your graphics, sound and especially writing were great and I had a lot of fun experiencing the story. It's genuinely impressive how fleshed out and polished the whole thing was. Great work! I honestly don't have much criticism aside from some minor points. Perhaps a few more sound effects to reinforce the impact of the story? Increasing the text speed a little? Making it so players can scroll back in the text to reread in case it went too fast for them? Changing the font a little so it fits the space theme better? It all honestly feels like picking at straws though, considering how fantastic this entry is. Great work! |
| Apr 30 10:38:22 | 23h 47m | It's o-fish-al! | ♥ 2 | Very solid entry! Your graphics and sound were simple but worked rather well. I would have perhaps enjoyed a slightly less cheerful song (think something more ambient to match the depths you are going). Maybe not initially, of course, but as the game gets a bit darker a second more ambient track I think could be well suited. You can maybe even achieve this with the use of a low pass filter on the original track? I know if you use Unity you can implement FMOD to dynamically alter your tracks while in game, for example. All beyond the scope of the jam, of course, but just suggestions for an even better mood in a later version. The gameplay was simple, but tricky as heck. I really had quite a bit of fun with it for a jam game. The only things I think you can improve have to do with game feel (again, stuff for a post-jam release). For one, the physics felt pretty damn wonky when it comes to the rotation of the submarine. I would try to hug corners (which years of racing game experience have taught me to do), yet oftentimes this would result in the little scope (I think that's what you call the thing you use to see on a submarine?) getting caught on a corner and my submarine getting stuck and spinning around maniacally. This didn't really feel like a fun challenge because I felt I did nothing wrong, but the game punished me for it because of its physics. Thankfully, you can easily fix this by just making the collider of the submarine be only its body and not the scope. If you want to take it further, you can make it slightly in favor of the player by making the submarine more "slippery" on curved surfaces, instead of the clunky-ness it has now. I know Godot has a move_and_slide function for this, and I'm sure the same is achievable in Unity or Game Maker, for example. The rest is more minor game feel stuff. Firstly, I feel like it takes too long to restart a level after you run out of fuel (I played the web build just for reference). The bubble animation is charming, but it also takes some seconds to get it started and with a game that is as tricky as this, every second invested into getting back into the action can be detrimental for the pacing. Furthermore, restarting should also be possible with the keyboard, in my opinion (just map it on the R key, for example). Secondly, I see no reason why I would not be able to keep going with no fuel. I had a situation where I was comfortably parked under a platform and could feasibly slide to a fuel tank, despite having no fuel currently. Yet I couldn't do that, because the game treats running out of fuel as a game over no matter what. I honestly think you wouldn't lose much by not having a fail state enforced by the game at all and just letting players manually restart if they so choose. So, basically no fuel related game over, just let players restart themselves when they have deemed the levels "uncompletable". This may also result in funny situations for them where they set a challenge for themselves to waste as much fuel as possible and coast along to the end on an empty tank. Finally, a very small issue. Often I would reach the bottom with no fuel and then end up winning still. This results in a bit of cacophony because I hear the winning sound but also the no fuel sound. You should probably disable the latter. Furthermore, the hole I need to go down, I don't always reach fully, yet I can still pass the level by just touching it. This is visually rather weird, so you could maybe make it so you get sucked down the hole as soon as you have touched it. All minor things, but I figured I'd mention them for the sake of completeness. Overall, very solid entry! I had some fun and I really think if you take my (and other people's) feedback into consideration you can make a fantastic arcade game out of it. Great work! |
| Apr 30 11:17:35 | 39m 13s | The Icarus | ♥ 1 | What a fantastic use of every aesthetic element you possibly have to set a mood! The visuals were amazingly simple yet 100% conveyed what I imagine a radar system would visualize. What's more, the fact everything lagged behind a bit (due to the view only refreshing at set intervals) played a role in the gameplay as well, making movement clunky and really fitting to someone with nothing but just some way points and whatever limited view they have of the world. The 3D effect was executed in a fantastic way as well! The soundscape was fittingly minimalist and the slow, low droning reverbs of the hits to your hull really made them impactful and reinforced the loneliness. Overall, this is the best use of aesthetic and mood I have seen so far in the jam! As far as the gameplay goes, I enjoyed it, but I do feel like it is rather minimalist. Navigating is a fun challenge in and of itself, but after a while it does start to become a little draining. Basically, in the last third, I was kinda just waiting for something exciting to happen. I feel like you would need to implement some more mechanics and interactions to mitigate that. Maybe use the flare a bit more proactively for some light puzzle solving? Or maybe make the events that do happen a bit more interesting, because although the many question marks are a good way of indicating unknown horror the first time around, I would have loved to see a bit of that horror at least later on so the game has a build up to it. Imagine you go down minding your own business then suddenly some organic barely distinguishable creature parts pop up on your screen, but it's maybe too late to dodge them now due to your radar's delayed vision. It would be nightmare fuel for me and many others, I can imagine. Regardless, these are all things you can explore in a post-jam version and don't take away from your fantastically polished and unique game! One last point I have has to do with the story. I wasn't really engaged, honestly. I think that's because there wasn't enough of it and also because it didn't appear consistently. I kept expecting a new chunk for every way point, but that wasn't the case. This made the amount of story there not enough to truly grip me and also the rate at which it appeared not consistent enough for me to care. Additionally, due to the latter, I also felt it was a bit intrusive. I didn't have a flow that I could get into, I had to constantly be on edge for a new story segment and then stop whatever I am doing currently just to read it, instead of knowing: "Okay, I am at a way point, I can take a breather now and read the story bit that I just got". All worthy of consideration for a post-jam version. Overall, fantastic work! All my criticism is basically just that I want more of it, and that is the best criticism one could get. Great work! |
| May 1 11:02:50 | 23h 45m | Autumn Hike | ♥ 3 | I liked this one! It reminded me a lot of Undertale. I liked the simple 1-bit graphics, they were charming and worked well for this mini-adventure RPG. All the musical tracks by themselves were really good, but I don't always feel they fit the mood of the silly lighthearted adventure you go on. Some of them sounded really somber (almost Silent Hill-esque) and some were unnecessarily tense (for example the one that plays during the labyrinth). I was kept on the edge of my seat for something sad or terrible to happen, because the mood felt inappropriate. Still, the tracks were great, if examined on their own, just maybe not the most fitting. I enjoyed the gameplay as well. You had enough "going deeper" to keep me amused and interested as to what other crazy thing I will have to enter next. Furthermore, I loved the idea of going into your shell as a snail, that was really cute. Aside from that, I don't have much to say about the gameplay. It was simple, polished and quite enjoyable to experience. It even had me a little puzzled at times. I didn't know what to do with the nut, but had a small eureka moment when I realized my pet crab is named Cracker and he is what I need to solve the puzzle. I feel like for a future version you should definitely focus on these types of puzzle moments, because it's really where this simple gameplay shines, in my opinion. Overall, this is a fantastic entry. I have nothing overtly negative to say about it, it's just a bit of a shame that the music felt so unfitting to me, because with the right mood I easily think this game would be a 4.5 to a 5 in all categories. You've done an amazing job and I hope to see this continued! |