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Feedback comments for LD50
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Doctor_Zeus's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 5 04:08:45 | Ava-launch! | ♥ 5 | I think the idea is super neat, but I didn't have a great handle on how to limit damage other than putting ramps directly in front of buildings. I figured that clearing the snow with the plow meant that the avalanche would lose some size / momentum as it passed over the cleared spot, but I couldn't tell why I'd want to pick one row of snow over another - maybe I benefit most from clearing the thickest row? Sending the copter to pick up people was nice thematically too, but it was kinda another case of me not seeing much of a decision each round other than hoping that a couple of people randomly clustered together for the helicopter I sent. Definitely captured that feeling of inevitability, the I enjoyed the music and the graphics all fit together really nicely. The way the opening title crawl gave basic tutorial info made me smile too. All in all, nice work! | |
| Apr 5 05:13:32 | 1h 04m | Extreme Plant Sitter | ♥ 2 | Super nice presentation, and fun exercise in plant-slinging! The goofy physics that resulted from my panicked watering / pesticiding made me laugh, and it made for a fun organizational challenge. I started strategizing around pre-moving my plants to the left countertop to share sunlight and make it easier to address any shared needs in one fell swoop. Making sure I had the pesticide / mist sprayer nearby and dropping the watering can in the sink while dealing with other stuff helped keep everything alive. I had some trouble fixing the dry air thing - at first I thought the little water spritzer didn't work, but I think I was just missing the plant's actual effective hitbox? Grabbing the watering can out of the sink sometimes felt difficult too, I guess because I couldn't click on the can's water symbol through the sink, had to aim for the little part of the exposed handle instead. The game had me hooked enough that I took a few extra plays to try to figure out what I was doing wrong, which was a nice sort of feeling to have. I think the number of mechanics was appropriately scoped for a game jam, and the game felt like it hit a good level of complexity to me. I especially like how the game introduces the new mechanics one-by-one, I always have the problem of just throwing out a difficulty cliff on stuff I make. I think it's possible to become stable in the endgame if you don't make mistakes - I kinda like the idea some kind of nonsense "ending" at the tenth level, just having the countertops filled with 10 plants or something to really lean into the humor of the whole thing. Nice work, I definitely enjoyed playing! |
| Apr 5 05:39:18 | 25m 46s | Dungeon Crawl | ♥ 2 | I looove menu games, and this one was pretty cool. I really like the interplay between damage, potions, and MP - it took me a quick playthrough to really get a handle on the whole idea that +1 potion was like +6 seconds if I was damaged enough to spend it, little things like passing turns in combat with the shield (something I initially thought was mostly useless) was a way to "turn on" potions that otherwise would just sit in my inventory. Having 0 potions when high-time path gives -1 potion is just full upside, so trying to set myself up to benefit from those situations was fun. There were a couple other little things that came up too - at first I saw the "skip time" spell and thought it was clearly the best one, but then I saw the magic slap was 9 + 9 = 18 sec for equivalent mana. Then I came *back* around to realizing that for "skip time" to deal damage equivalent to magic slap I'd have to do at least 1 sword swing - we're back to skip time being 15 + 5 (or more), making it +2 over slap in the worst case. Slap was still good to clear out the worms that could add back to the timer, though. So yeah, thanks for making this little sandbox of comparisons to play in, I had fun! Despite all of my strategizing, I couldn't beat the "hard" mode - I'm guessing there was some fundamental tactic for wasting time that I missed, or else I just had some rough runs of luck. Or maybe it was just the real inevitability of the theme showing itself. Regardless, I had a good time! |
| Apr 5 06:09:04 | 29m 46s | Ultimate Tennis Championship 2K22 | ♥ 1 | I really like how each click just modifies the balls vertical speed instead of replacing it. Leads to some very deceptive feeling "hops" when near neutral speed that turn into gigantic leaps with just one extra click. There was a kind of patience and planning ahead (figure out where your ball's going to have to be on the return trip, rather than just looking at the next one) that felt satisfying to execute for me. I like those particles you put on the ball as it speeds up too, the sound effects are very satisfying and subtle stuff like the way the paddles shrink after the ball collides with it are all really nice touches. You mentioned your aim to keep scope small and how you got to put extra polish on as a result and I think the result was very nice. The actual ability to get high scores feels a little arbitrary to me, though. With how the ball speeds up, I think all it takes is a low-high-low sort of pattern and you won't be able to make the return rally regardless of how quickly you try set up a plan be in the right spot at the right time - you just sail over the second low paddle because there's not enough time for gravity to do its work. If you get lucky and have paddle heights relatively close to one another then scoring higher is much easier/possible. I don't know what sorts of restrictions are in place for paddle heights as the ball speeds up (if any) but maybe having some rule that increased horizontal speed limits the random range that the paddles can move to. Or maybe even more precisely, the bigger the different in heights after one paddle's random move, the smaller the difference has to be on the next random movement to try to make it unlikely players get an unwinnable pattern. Could be that I wasn't really figuring out the best way to play, though. The highest I got was a 28980, but it really was just off of a very lucky series of middle-of-the-screen paddles. Anyway, I had a fun time playing with the game and shooting for a high score. Nice work! |
| Apr 5 06:22:47 | 13m 43s | Space Saw Defense | ♥ 2 | @mgmarlow I haven't thought about Hammerfight in years, but you're totally right! It is very satisfying to get the saw lined up just right to sweep through a line of enemies - nice work, team! |
| Apr 5 16:54:56 | 10h 32m | Simple Harmonic Motion Game | ♥ 2 | Nice work! Like other folks, I really like the movement. There's a sort of rhythm to coaxing the ball to slow down, and that tension of trying to keep a steady hand in a tricky situation was nice. I also appreciate that the graphics had solid utility. The game communicates information super clearly with the mouse line + trail behind the ball, the blocks stand out from the blurred background without any issue. It's not super flashy, but I think it really helps hold the whole game together. Oh, a thought I had - it might be really fun if the game had background music that warped its pitch according to the amplitude of the wave. When you're calm and moving smoothly, things are stable. If you lose your cool and the ball starts to swing out of control then things get frantic. Probably wouldn't work so well if there are obstacles that intend you to be "unstable" to get past them safely, but could add to the trancelike feeling that this sort of play can head toward. |