Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → Feedback comment stats → fae.pdf
Feedback comments for LD50
fae.pdf's games and stats for all events →
| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | fae.pdf's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 5 15:49:55 | Timeless | ♥ 1 | Very good game! I enjoyed the puzzles a lot, although some of them were a little too based on timing, and a little too finnicky, for a game with controls that are *kind* of clunky. I just wish the character didn't feel as floaty, and you could stop and start time more dynamically, that would drastically improve the game feel for me! But other than the character movement, the puzzles were clever, and there were a few "AH-HA" moments. Kept me hooked till the end! Loved the last puzzle. Also, the art is just delightful, wonderful job on that front! Excellent, polished entry, with lots of little juicy details and smart design. Maybe kind of off-theme, but awesome work! | |
| Apr 6 01:52:51 | 10h 02m | Mad Wizard's Attack | ♥ 1 | [image_2022-04-06_035222.png](///raw/2c8/24/z/4cf54.png) Very cute offering. The graphics have this nostalgic charm, reminding me of old flash games! I enjoyed the gameplay, the idea is rather simple, but it has to be fun since I've been obsessed with trying to survive the +70 surge for what, half an hour? Maybe 45min actually. As others said, the balance seems rather off, though. Some feedback about the balance: Stone is the most limited resource, and things require so little wood that you barely need to build any sawmill (and since the game is so fast and dense, you can't waste anything, and sawmills are super expensive). Booster towers don't seem to be really worth it, as well, not even for space compression? I've managed to build like 4 in a game (lucky roll on stone mines), all completely surrounded by 21 regular towers (if I remember correctly), and still couldn't get past +53 in shieldgen, which is barely any better than you get by just spamming regular towers, and the game doesn't last long enough that space would be a concern (on normal difficulty anyway). Note after further testing: they don't seem to be working properly, actually. I monitored my shieldgen as I built one surrounded by regular towers, and it only gave me +1! ! The portals seem really enticing, but the stone cost is so prohibitive, that you basically build it, then die for lack of shields. The fountains are cute, but it's hard to justify building them, because when you lose, you lose so fast that your reserves barely matter anyway. It also feels kind of awkward that you'd have to build a portal before you gain any points, and that you have no basic point generation? The pacing of the game is extremely fast, which is good because it makes you want to play again right after you lose, but it also makes the game very reliant on your APMs, and the shortcuts are a bit awkward on AZERTY keyboards; and it also makes learning the game a bit harder, since you have to always play so fast and be on top of things, so you can't really take time to read the tooltips and think about things. I'd love to play again on a rebalanced version! You did a great job! |
| Apr 6 02:31:09 | 38m 18s | Barbar-chicks | ♥ 3 | image_2022-04-06_042712.png What a nice game! It really clicked after a few tries, and I really enjoyed airdropping knights as bait to divert the chicks' attention to make an escape and/or using them to mitigate the dangerousness of the random spawning into my territory (bait + deleting an inopportune enemy? Yes please!). At first I felt slightly underwhelmed, but getting the hang of it really allowed me to see how smart the design is! I almost managed to clean up the top right quadrant of the board! Rather simple, but incredibly effective, and so well executed, and oh my! What polish! And the theme really shines through! That king, though, is a cold blooded killer. He *should not* be waving his arms helplessly like that. (Unless of course, it's a brilliant act to get his adversaries to let their guards down?) In my last run he killed about 40 barbar-chicks. What a warrior. Thank you for this wonderful entry! |
| Apr 6 03:41:34 | 1h 10m | Cold and Alone | ♥ 4 | image_2022-04-06_052528.png I shall not know death but from sickness, old age, or crushing loneliness. Damn david, what a *game*. What old-school charm. What an efficient and to-the-point design. The writing is in equal mesure cute and touching. The dialogue really has this energy of fending off the despair through humor. And that's kind of what it's for, right? You laugh because you can't afford to just sit there and face the reality of your situation. Incredible atmosphere, *welcome to Klaxxon-9.* The numpad control scheme is actually pretty smart and works well for the isometric perspective. I found the game kinda easy, but man, that only makes it hit harder. It's not the cold that's gonna take you, in the end. You're just delaying the inevitable. You'll die alone, on this rock, and there's nothing you can do. I love that you can take breaks or just go to sleep, even though there are no mechanical incentives to doing so. Klaxxon-9 felt like the new home, the new normal, a familiar prison, and being able to just take some breaks and rest some days because I had so many resources felt like this: a small victory. You keep your eye on them, to forget the fact that behind looms the inescapability of death. You pried these five-star ratings from my cold, stranded hands. I hope you're happy. |
| Apr 7 00:13:20 | 20h 31m | We Need To Talk | ♥ 4 | We Need To Talk by Doot, dorirandri - Opera.jpg Oh my, you two!! I loved welcome Googoo, and now, this!! What a wonderful game *again*!! This is guaranteed to be a smash hit, look at these glowing reviews. And you deserve all of them! The idea is rather simple, but executed so well, so effectively! It's beautifully polished and juicy. And the graphics are very pretty, there's sort of a Scott Pilgrim vibe, it's adorable. It's all *so* smart, *so* well done. It's about tiny details: the clever, coloured words to signal the element of the attack? Great piece of UI. But now, you draw hands of 3 cards and you have to choose which attack to use, based on the length of the combination? But *now*, the elements have specific effects, and they're contextual. Wind is useless if the bubble is super far or too big, fire is useless when it's small, frost is the best but only if your situation is already good. I like to think that one of the ways to gauge the quality of a decision space is to look at how much of the context it takes into account. And this system is so contextual, so simple yet brilliant in its elegance. For its minimalism, the actual depth it has surprised me, when everything clicked together in my mind after a few games. You want to chain-freeze the bubble, but what do you do when there's no frost attack? And it only works when the bubble is not too big, so you have to get it back to the right size with fire and keep it at bay if you can. But every decision has to be split second. It's great. And I haven't even mentioned that the elements have a unique feel because of the recurring arrow combinations in their moves! And the various combos recreate in a lovely way some of the feel of the fighting games, with the quarter circles and all of that... And I love the way the keys light up on fire when you start inputing a combination! And the risk/reward of losing your concentration if you miss just one move, but of delaying the use of it so you can get the best value from it! Beautiful work. What a gem. And it just takes 10 minutes to enjoy properly. Thank you very much. I hope you get the rankings you deserve, and I can't wait to see what you make next! |
| Apr 7 13:45:14 | 13h 31m | Some Heart For Your Boyfriend | ♥ 2 | Sweet game! I enjoyed the traversal very much. Using the lateral attacks and the many jumps to zoom through the map and murder big files of zombies felt super good! The theme shines through as well. I like the lore snippet, love that weird aesthetic. I guess zombie hearts aren't very nutritious for a demon though, because with how much he's chowing down it's a wonder he was still alive! 😆 I kind of wish that the upward and downard attacks had more range and gave you momentum like the side ones, to really supplement the movement toolkit of the character. Would give even more weight to the heat management mechanic. (Because you'd have more utility in your attacks, so the competition between them for your heat gauge would be fiercer. As is, it's mostly the side attacks that feel "worth it".) Also it would be nice to have a total heart counter? It felt a little empty collecting so many but not seeing any "progress", since time was endlessly ticking down. Really cool entry, great job on the feel of that character! |
| Apr 8 00:40:18 | 10h 55m | Video Games : the game | ♥ 2 | What a nice blackjack hack! Very visually appealing, I love the testers and the characters on the cards, it's all so charming! The theming is smart, very meta, very cute. Everything about the visuals is incredibly polished. And this is such a complex game as well, there is so much work put into this!! You did an incredible job. Some mechanical/game feel feedback: Adding cards to the deck was slightly weird as is because you add cards maybe twice or thrice in a run, so you can't really build any synergies. I did enjoy getting a holiday card once run, really strong, felt good. Not being able to check the deck was slightly frustrating, because you can't really make informed decisions when calculating risk/reward with each draws or when adding cards. The malus of poor management felt rather opaque too, and it was frustrating that it would add bad cards to my deck while I didn't see what I was doing wrong - bad cards that made me lose, and it kind of felt like I had had no control over it, which felt kind of bad. I'm slightly frustrated overall, but it's mostly because I crave for more now that I caught a glimpse of what this game could be. Clarifying those elements, maybe adding slightly more control to them, a way to earn money, maybe a shorter card-addition cycle/some ways to have more control over the deck, and well, I'd buy this as an actual blackjack roguelike deckbuilder now! Even if it's short, like, it's not that far from something I'd actually buy for maybe 2-5$. Thank you for this great entry! |
| Apr 8 01:10:05 | 29m 47s | The Ultimate Martian Roulette | ♥ 4 | Excellent work! Lot of polish in many places, like the character expressions, the charges they were convicted for, the subtitles... The whole set for the game(show) is pretty good, pretty cinematographic. Nice work with the lighting! Also, the way the characters just keep the same pose and wobble back and forth on the ground in their chair after their death absolutely murdered me. The name of the cards felt a little bit like they were trying too hard to be pop culture references, so it didn't feel super aesthetically cohesive overall, but the game is pretty fun! I like that you keep your cards and can choose not to play one, to save the really good ones. There are some avenues for smart and strategic play, and they are welcome. It's all pretty light though, the vibe is very much "party game with friends", which is not necessarily my cup of tea, but I can recognize something that could make for a very fun discord-hang-out-evening for some crowds when I see one. Good job, I think you did what you set out to do very well! |
| Apr 9 14:35:37 | 37h 25m | Save Gogo | ♥ 1 | I had no plans to, but after finding myself coming back now 4 times to feed gogo, almost despite my intentions to the contrary, I have to say that you did an excellent job. The execution is extremely simple, but you obviously perfectly captured the theme of the jam. There are a bunch of very smart decisions here, though, deceptively so even. The exponential increments, the diminishing returns, the little counters on top, it's all very clever. The "game" is not fun, but it doesn't have to be. This is about death, its inescapability, and delaying the inevitable. Your work is so simple and so effective at what it does, no frills, no fanfare. Just the ticking of the clock. To me, it's more like an interactive art installation or a poem of sorts. A poem about death that we all take part in. Obviously, you used a bit of manipulation and emotional leverage, like, "oh no, this cute pet is going to die if YOU don't feed him!" I'm not necessarily a fan of that, because it feels like a mobile game engagement tactic, and maybe, mechanically, your game didn't need that kind of cheap strategy to be effective? But that's fine, it's par for the course. Great work nonetheless. |
| Apr 9 15:32:45 | 57m 08s | Rise n Time | ♥ 1 | Wow! What a game! The online version on your page is significantly faster than the one you can download, which made me think that it was a very bold choice to make such a fast, responsive, but challenging game. But actually, the game in its normal speed is just hard enough, not as brutal as the, what, x2.5 speed version is? But I've enjoyed my time with it so much that after downloading the game and finishing the normal version, I went back to the faster one to try and finish it too! I did use the safe spot in the Eye of Sauron, but I did black hole without moving from my starter spot, which felt good. (You only have to dodge the green and yellow clocks there!) Suuuper polished game. I wish there was a cutscene at the end that showed us what we were dreading so much! It felt like a weird oblique Zelda ref, what with the sprite kind of looking like link and the "waking up" theming of it? Awesome work, top marks all around. I love everything about it. The clocks synced up with the music, with the dots on the beats at the bottom? Yes please. How good the various clock colours look? The little salto when you jump? That cute retro aesthetic? The fact that restarting the level when you die is entirely painless? It's all so good! There are bits of juice everywhere, and the gamefeel is excellent. Also, great job with the level design. I hope you have a great day! Thank you for making this gem! |
| Apr 9 17:50:19 | 2h 17m | Battery Low | ♥ 6 | image_2022-04-09_194058586.png Booyah, sub 30 baby! Really sweet entry! I loooove the voice clips that play during the game, like the startup "Hello!", the elated "science!" when you pick up an artifact, or the tiny "ouch!" when you hit a wall. I really like the interface design. Gameplay is very simple, but suuuuper engaging! It's like, the unit movement part of a RTS with poor pathfinding, but distilled into a game! And it's *fun*! No frustration on my part here, every mistake made by the rover feels like a feature. The pixel art is amazing, the music is really good, everything is top notch. That short intro rover animation loop is sooooo good!!! And I love how you get to learn to optimize your energy usage and clicks and find the right balance between greed and speed. The tracks from your last run are a nice touch, although they seem to remain the tracks from your first run instead of being like your "best time ghost" or something, but that would be my main complaint about the whole thing. This is so well scoped, it feels like you were really in control of your project. Congratulations to the whole team on making such a tight experience! And thank you for your work! |
| Apr 9 21:05:20 | 3h 15m | Gods of Divine Stuff: RAgnarök | ♥ 1 | W200.jpg Haha wild hunt goes brrr Level 42 Artemis and her huntresses aren't messing around. What a super cute game! Short and sweet tower defense, reminds me of ye old flash games of my youth! Also lil defender's quest vibe as well. Quite a lot of content, and rather polished for a ludum dare game! I like that the level ups carry on from one level to an other, there's a decision space in there around risk/reward of putting units down, and how much money you can save to level up your gods. (Because obviously if you're not spending money to buy units, esp gods, it's money you can spend upgrading.) Unfortunately, it also makes the game extremely easy (at least it did for me) since you can just focus on levelling up Artemis and just plop her down and a bunch of huntresses every time and mow down everyone. I'm not complaining though, Artemis is the best ❤️ But yeah, it feels like there's a first order optimal strategy, and you can't really justify the cost of the other units (either because the comp wouldn't be as effective using any minions that aren't nymphs, or because it takes away levels from your minions to use other gods, and if you have to level up 2 gods you can't just power level everyone alongside Artemis.) Nice going, as far as inevitable goes, to use Ragnarok. The ludo-narrative consonance was a little weak though, except at the end. Love the irony of Loki being like, "yeah yeah after that I'll help you when Ragnarok happens" but the endless wave of monsters is defo Ragnarok. I had fun! Very well executed game with cute writing and adorable artwork. Also that Ra design made me feel things. Thank you for your work, and congratulations! I don't think I'm going to lose that endless run anytime soon, though. |
| Apr 28 02:01:24 | 436h 56m | RIITA | ♥ 4 | Wow, you nailed it! That intro has an insane Zelda vibe. It's so moody, so pretty, the music, the artwork..! It absolutely blew me away! But the rest of the game is really good as well! I believe it's quite hard to make a well adjusted, responsive rhythm game in a jam, especially because of the content you have to make, and you did a great job at that! I'd say the day side feels a bit more polished and enjoyable music-wise, but it's also much harder than the night side. I love that you can see the cumulative delay durations for each side at the end of the game. I know it's just a collective scoreboard, but it's still a neat touch. It's all so polished. And it's rather fresh as well! I enjoyed the cheekiness of the dialogues. The gameplay loop is sweet, and does just what it set out to do. Talk to a few inhabitants then perform the ritual, rince and repeat. I think talking to inhabitants and failing makes the next ritual harder, which adds to the "delay the inevitable" idea. Awesome work everyone, I had a blast! Thank you for making it and congratulations for the well deserved super high ranks ❤️ |
