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Feedback comments for LD49
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | ninjacreeper47's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 4 06:52:28 | Dreampoint Collapse | ♥ 2 | I really liked the alternate paths! The place unstable tiles mechanic was a lot more interesting than I thought It was going to be. Nice music track as well! | |
| Oct 4 07:10:27 | 17m 59s | Elemental Storm | ♥ 1 | I am really impressed by the graphics of this game! The particle effect in the background of the title and gameplay is really cool. The pie chart area control effect is quite clean as well. It's pretty hard to click on the little guys, which adds a lot of frustration. I feel like the gameplay is missing another mechanic to make it more strategic rather than jailing whoever you have the most off and releasing what you have the least off. |
| Oct 4 07:36:38 | 26m 11s | Flip the board | ♥ 1 | This is quite a fascinating concept, I like the strategy of attempting to force a bad move on the opponent. Also amazing use of the theme, it is really cool to see unstable used as your goal instead of a force opposing the player. Finally the animation for the actual flipping is a great touch! I'm glad you included the par scores, first time through I brute forced some of the levels, but replaying to think through the par score was pretty fun. Also managed to beat the par on Star :) ParStar.PNG |
| Oct 8 04:43:49 | 93h 07m | Labarnas — A narrative board game in ancient times | ♥ 3 | This is an interesting design! I quite like the feast of gods mechanic, and how you can dynamically distribute your workers based off what you know has passed and is likely to come. Also I'm personally a big fan of the historical theme, and a struggling empire definitely feels unstable. I think I have found a strategy that successfully breaks the game. Firstly is the feast of gods distribution: The most important part is to allocate 0 onto sea people raid, as they are the most dangerous in the early game. Then 3-1,2-2 or 3-1 onto famine-assyrian aggression (not sure which is optimal because famines are eventually good in this strategy but there is an argument for wanting an early aggression, In the game where I tried this (2nd play of the game) strategy I went for 3 famine-1 aggression, but I probably got a bit lucky, and I think 2-2 might be better. For worker placement never place on Nuhasse, it is useless and redundant. This makes you less spread out, giving you more workers. The weakness of this strategy is the small chance of getting unlucky in the early game and rolling a sea people raid on this territory. This weakness will disappear as soon you draw your first Assyrian raid, which makes that territory no longer a vulnerability. Then you have the workers to something along the lines of 3-4 Hapalla, 3-4 Kizzuwanta, 3-4 Hatti. This gives you a reasonable enough defense in the frontier territories that you actually care about, and hopefully a chance at getting a decent worker income. Next you wait while hoping you don't get really unlucky. Your goal is to have at least 13 workers (which should be pretty likely in a reasonable amount of time given the amount of prosperous years in the deck), at which point you can shift to the next phase which is the actual core of this strategy. In this phase you have enough workers to have 6 in each of the 2 frontier territories you actually care about, which is the maximum amount of defense you can get while still having the 1 worker to field hatti. It is now very unlikely for sea people raids to harm you at all, and the Assyrians have to get the lucky 6 to be able to make more progress. They key to this strategy is to now always leave only 1 farmer in hatti. Famines only make you lose farmers, so if you have only 1, each famine can only give you net -1 workers in your pool. You should still be able to have a semi net positive worker gain over the game because there are more prosperous years than famines (which will both now have a magnitude of 1 regardless of roll). Additionally you are immune to civil uprisings because half of 1 rounded down is 0. If at any point you have surplus workers dump them in Hapalla (so that they are not farmers which are too vulnerable and so they are not in the path of the Assyrians which has a low but non-zero risk of you losing the entire stock). Now the game is staple, anytime you lose your 1 worker in hatti you should have extra workers lying around in hapalla to fill their place on the allocation. I was able to reach the stable point after about 10 cards, and for the rest of the game I was bored, because I had already won (as long as I didn't get absurdly unlucky). The game no longer felt like managing an unstable empire after I hit the critical mass of workers. The existence and possible effectiveness of this strategy shows some design problems in the game (like leaving only 1 farmer in hatti being optimal doesn't feel right, because the intent of the game is to make you balance farmers and soldiers but farmers are just too vulnerable. Anyway, Great job! The first game I had the intended experience and watched in horror as everything went wrong and I didn't have enough workers anywhere and I enjoyed the time I spent thinking how to optimize this game during the 2nd play! |
| Oct 8 05:38:51 | 55m 02s | Dizzard Wizzard | ♥ 3 | Graphics are amazing and concept is neat but gameplay is really boring because you are functionally invincible. Just spawm water shield and then you have no concept of taking damage. Even if you do, you eventually get a free heal spell. Then at the end you get the insta kill combo (chicken ring -> fire ring), which isn't even challenging because you can constantly pause to bring up the spells so you know what to type |
| Oct 10 19:26:01 | 61h 47m | Proton Pilferer vs. The Particle Police | ♥ 2 | I like the atomic justification for size changing! Quite odd how the levels just loop and after you beat the 10th level, you are just kicked back to the first level. I replayed the ten levels again and couldn't notice if there was a difference, so the game definitely needs a "You won" screen. |
| Oct 10 20:03:12 | 37m 11s | Project Earth | ♥ 2 | First of all the graphics are just fantastic. Being able to rotate the camera and at any time gaze at the glorious sun that is coming for you is great. I also love the effects as you the sun gets really close to you! Alongside the great graphics is just a great concept, it's hilarious to see the planet with a rocket booster attached boosting through space (this along side with the planets with faces and the description of converting fuel makes me wonder why you opted out of the humor category) I love the intro tutorial, it's so funny how the message is at first like "oh by the way that's the sun, you can ignore it" and then it shifts to OH NO WE HAVE TO GO STOP THE TUTORIAL. Great mood setter for the urgency in the game. It's also pretty interesting to have a tradeoff between wanting to go fast and wanting to have time to scavenge at planets. The game has a nice mix of strategy of deciding what to build and gameplay of piloting the planet, although it's probably a bit too easy: if you begin right then it seems pretty hard to lose. Even though mechanically I had the run in the bag after a while, that didn't bring it too much because of the mood and graphics are still urgent. (Also the game ends at the perfect time, right as I was starting to get bored). I think choosing which tile on your planet to place a building is pretty jank, and it clicking from the shop should either automatically place or you should commit harder and have placement location actually matter (say give certain buildings adjacency bonuses or penalties). Additionally on my first run somehow all the future planets disappeared at some point, which seemed unintentional |
| Oct 10 20:24:14 | 21m 02s | Slippery slices | ♥ 1 | I like the art of the main character, it's a simple style but he's pretty charming. Especially his death sprite is just great. The main gameplay concept is cool, I love games where you have to balance multiple tasks at the same time (here moving and literal balancing). Unfortunately the control scheme really isn't suited for this. Since there are only 2 tasks to control ideally you would be able to control each one with one hand. Therefore I think the Q and E keys for balancing are a really poor choice, as they make it really hard to effectively use both hands. The gameplay was still screaming for me to use both hands, so I ended up having to make both hands occupy the same space and it was really awkward and uncomfortable (but to me seemed necessary to progress because it was really hard to do everything with one hand). Though, I am really glad you made the pizzas balance by a separate input rather than the momentum or direction of your movement , which I makes the concept vastly better. Also shoutout to the NES style jumps with no air control that lock you in a certain arc. They are a uniquely frustrating thing to see in games, but it's not as bad because it does fit the style of the game here (and gives you a chance to focus on just balancing). |
| Oct 10 20:41:24 | 17m 10s | Drifter | ♥ 2 | I like the tension of managing your fuel, and having to master jumping off the platforms with good arcs instead of boosting everywhere. Additionally I really like how you have to out of your way to get score, and It's interesting but it gets boring/predictable after a bit. So the core mechanics are really interesting, but it needs some way to vary other than just platform and shard placement. Also shoutout to the background audio track that's very atmospheric |
| Oct 10 22:15:35 | 1h 34m | Ark | ♥ 3 | Great puzzle game! I enjoyed beating all the levels and a lot of them are quite good. The plates were you put down animals for them to be later picked up are a very clever mechanic and add a lot to the later puzzles. I also agree with the choice to make animals picked up by going adjacent to them rather than through them, which makes it more interesting The presentation is wonderful, the graphics are perfect for the type of game this is. With the element of timing in a lot of the puzzles I think there should be some kind of indicator where other paths are when you are at a certain point (say all paths are by default darker, and then they fill up with the lighter version of their color with how much that path would have progressed at the point you are building your current path). Counting path sections is really overatedc |
| Oct 10 22:30:32 | 14m 57s | Reactor | ♥ 2 | Neat game! I appreciate how you put thought into the visual design of each atom so they would have a distinct color and interior design, makes the readability very good. I really like the idea of the gameplay but it is pretty frustrating to control due to the way angular momentum is implemented. I feel like the player should have more control over rotation, with a shorter acceleration time. The current rotation system make is pretty hard to intentionally place an atom anywhere, especially once you have a mega structure (which should be when the game is the most fun and hectic, but right now it's when you basically lose all control). Although you losing control as the structure spirals into chaos does fit the theme well (and that's on top of the very good use of the theme with atoms decaying). |
| Oct 10 23:49:58 | 1h 19m | Towering Dice | ♥ 2 | This is a fantastic design centered around a crazy innovative idea. I can't believe I've never seen the idea of having to stack dice and cover up pips like this, it's genius. I am really just blown away by that mechanic. It doesn't just fall into the trap of being an interesting gimmick mechanic, because it actually is also fun, I love the mix of strategy on deciding how to build your structure/which dice in your pool to use along with the dexterity of actual executing and never toppling your tower. I usually despise dexterity games but I really appreciate how this one can still be played without a need for incredible precision. I also really like the scoring system, it encourages you to build risky and tall while still appreciating the value of survival. I can not stress enough how good the design of this game is, this might become a staple game I attempt when I have a spare few minutes since I always carry a bunch D6 with me anyway (for making decisions). As a fellow board game designer I would love to hear about the process of making this game, since the end result is so elegant and beautiful it would be very interesting to see the journey of how the game progressed throughout the weekend. My primary problems are involving the rulebook. Firstly you did not clearly define the lose condition. It would have been nice for a line to directly and clearly state that the game ends when your tower topples. More importantly you must define what a topple is. Obviously if the whole structure collapses that's a topple, but what about individual pieces falling off?. (If individual pieces don't count what's the threshold for counting?) If I hit dice off with my hands accidentally does that count as a topple or only actual structural failure causes dice to fall? If dice get significantly moved, but none have fallen off the structure completely and somehow the pips are all still legal is that a topple? If your tower falls while rolling/planning for next round do you still score last round (which gave you a delayed failure)? I had all of those questions while playing, which need to be cleared up by a very explicit rules section on the lose condition/ definition of topple. Next the example graphics and diagrams are not the best. They are really hard to read, although with some effort I was able to interpret them. I would recommend using 3D diagrams, either made in some 3D program or with real life pictures. Additionally your examples heavily suggest that you are limited to a ~line, when in fact you have a whole plane of a surface area. There should be an example showing a more spread out build. Finally I really like the freeform nature of this game, that spawns a bunch of variants. You can vary the surface area size, amount of dice, size of dice and get different experiences that still all maintain the core of the game. It really suggests that this can become a like a game that gets passed around because there isn't any strict playing requirements, rather it adapts to what you have on hand (assuming you have at least a reasonable # of D6). It would have been really cool for the rulebook to have some kind of chart that standardizes scores (or just suggests scores to beat) across all these vastly difference playing conditions, but that would have been really hard to do and highly testing intensive. I think it does end up being fine that your first play sets up the standard of how hard playing in your specific conditions are, and then you just try to beat your score. |
| Oct 11 00:35:46 | 45m 48s | Emily vs the Unstable Creatures | ♥ 2 | Going to pile on with everyone else saying the graphics are just amazing. Really cute and looks great. The splash art on the top of the page is cool as well and made me immediately excited to try the game. I love the dialogue and upgrade descriptions, and the flamethrower is just so incredibly satisfying. Are the grenades implmented? I bought the grenades but never got one, my grenade counter was always at 0 |
| Oct 18 22:58:41 | 190h 22m | Just 3 Blocks ! | ♥ 2 | It seems unintentional that you can clear any type of block just by shoving and rotating blocks into each other. I was able to keep a clear board just be constantly shoving the next piece into what I just placed. |
