Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → Feedback comment stats → WFMG

WFMG

Feedback comments for LD50

Timestamp	Since previous	Game		WFMG's comment
Apr 8 02:42:48		Ydunian Prune	♥ 1	SPOILERS: I played through it and while I won't be sour or all negative, I won't be as blindly positive as others have been. I like the graphics. The mix between more detailed pixel art and flat-shaded stuff is perfect. Best part of the game. The music is really enjoyable too. Atmospheric and rich. However, the game is just TOO SLOW. I had to spend thousands of mouse clicks of my MX 518 to get through the game and there was no way I was going to do a second playthrough to get the other ending. We need to be able to buy more than one unit at a time. At the start, I felt confused because it was so very slow until I started buying a lot of fruit pickers. Then, later, it was too slow to move the narrative along. If this had been a commercial game, the pacing would've been more appropriate, but here, it felt maybe 5-10 times too slow. It's hard in these variable-increasing games like clickers and RPGs to get the progression right, but the army part was just pointless. I had well over 100 guards, a bunch of walls and cannons, and it was literally instaclick to win. Then it was just sit back and wait for the next stage of watering. I didn't quite understand how to water the tree at first, but I figured it out pretty quickly. I'm not sure if watering the tree is necessary to increase the growth rate of the fruit, or to progress the story, and when something requires such substantial effort, that should be more clear. Moving on to the story, I think it's interesting, but I got ending 2 because it didn't sit right with me. I see the euphemism being made and I do not intend to let my political views affect my opinion of the story. However, it just didn't seem believable. I mean, the killing was only for defense. I was employing 1036 fruit pickers and 800 water carriers. I was creating lots of jobs. I can see the water being an issue depending on just where this tree is located, but if this is about the euphemism, the rivers grow larger as the wealth of the kingdom increases. And then, the fruits of this magical tree being the only thing to eat shouldn't be a problem. It is the fruit of our labour and it is everything we gain. If this were merely a literal fruit tree, it would not suck up enough resources to be unprofitable, and it would be far from the kingdom's only investment. We'd be buying orchards along with the aqueducts and walls. It's pretty hard to keep the euphemistic from the literal. In the city they mention, how do the people there create food, before the water dries up? Do they work? Or does it just... grow on trees? Still, I don't mean to end on a sour note. I will again commend you on the art and music, and the idea is very cool. It's just that the story is a bit rough and not believable, and though it obviously isn't a large game, the less you have to say, the more important each word you speak is. Not that I believe myself to be the story master or anything. My game has a pretty low amount of dialogue in its context and part of that limit came down to my imagination. It's pretty cheesy too. :P Anyway, good job!
Apr 8 02:57:48	15m 00s	Snailatouille	♥ 0	The idea is cool, but the execution less so. Sloppy controls, high mouse sensitivity, a bit hard to figure out how to play at first. It took me a while to figure out I was the chef. It's a shame you didn't make the snail's audio 3D with how easy that is in Unity. Just one slider. Anyway, with better controls, more thought out orders that get harder over time (but maybe earn you more money), and more polish, this could be cool, which is why I rated you highly on innovation. Cooking games aren't new. I'm sure they've done FPS cooking games before too. However, this snail element in combination with the rest of it really makes it unique. Hardly anybody is going to play this version for long enough to get to the exit, though. Especially since it's so easy to die and have to restart. The graphics were generally good, but the snail is pretty rough and most models are not animated. I know it's a game jam and everything, but it still affected the feel of the game. The models feel like they were done from photo references, which is a good technique. Good job, but work on polish, the big picture of progression, and finding the fun.
Apr 12 14:39:29	107h 41m	Desert Oasis	♥ 1	The Blubs are very cute and it really feels like an alien planet, but the interaction is a bit diffuse. It took me a while to figure out they're on predetermined paths and will go to eat eventually. It's also very hard to keep track of the predators. There should be a way to switch between each blub/wide view directly instead of just cycling through them. Very innovative game.
Apr 12 14:41:21	1m 52s	AstroPhysical	♥ 1	Interesting game. The post-effects are a little bit extreme, but the graphics overall remind me of '60s sci-fi, early Star Trek, with solid colours and sharp edges.
Apr 12 14:43:15	1m 54s	Neon Meltdown	♥ 1	Haha. I like the "known bugs" section. Now that's a real man's game. Just slam yourself in the opposite direction and the velocity will balance out! It's up to us to straighten it out. Cool game!
Apr 12 14:47:08	3m 53s	Project Timeswall	♥ 1	Interesting concept. Reminds me of that sonic fan game where you're bringing eggs to the Dr. Robotnik creature. A little bit unpolished in some places, like sound effect implementation, but that is to be expected with an LD game. I'm not good at this game, but it's cool!
Apr 12 14:51:34	4m 26s	Airborne Retribution: Legacy: Revelations of Invasion: the Return 4 Deluxe: Gold	♥ 0	"You will not last 20 seconds playing this game!" Absolutely glorious! Hilarious. Love the use of the music. A little simple in mechanics, but I know it's a lot of work to implement bullet hell already. Hard game imo. The confidence and radiance of this masterpiece is brilliant.
Apr 13 10:23:43	19h 32m	Moonshot	♥ 2	This is definitely one of the most well put together games this jam! The presentation is great. Like others have said, the graphics are fantastic and fit the mood very well. Beautiful pixel art. It's also a fun game and not too long, so people have time to finish it during play+rate without no-lifeing it. Great job!
Apr 13 10:38:09	14m 26s	LakseCounter 3000	♥ 1	I don't think I've ever seen this type of game on LD before! Pretty cool, but there isn't much content or feedback. I enjoy being able to track high scores between all players, but the actual gameplay is a bit of a let-down. I expected it to be more like those WPM typing tests, only competitive, and I think it would've been better off that way. It's not very fun to type the same few characters over and over. Maybe you chose to do it this way because it's very hard to correct typing mistakes when you don't know what you've written, but there's a clear and better solution to that. Gotta mimic those WPM tests. Longer texts, WPM result, your typing being visible, and it'd get much better ratings from me. The competitive nature of this game is the best part.
Apr 13 10:50:58	12m 49s	Cussmuss: the ice cone fuss	♥ 1	Good job on getting an LD game done! Not easy! To be honest, I could tell that you're artists first and foremost. I come from the other side of things myself and I wonder who fares better during LD: artists or programmers. Anyway, this is an interesting concept, but the implementation didn't work out. Winning is almost just a matter of clicking once, maybe once more to hold the moose back a little. The grammar can be a bit weird in the level intro texts, but it's still fun to read. Your art is great, though, and you did think of a very cool idea that just needs more love and polish. Individual obstacles, rather than just turning them all on/off at once, some more depth, and it'd be a much better game! Good luck and may your future endeavours be ever greater!
Apr 14 11:34:20	24h 43m	Bropocalypse	♥ 2	This is a pretty fun game exactly as it is. The shooting feels pretty solid and I like there being high scores. You did pretty well all in all, but there is a lot of missed potential. I am reviewing it from the perspective of a game dev and meathead. First, in terms of gameplay: 1. You should indicate in some way which zombros are carrying dumbbells so you know who to prioritise. 2. You should make the spawn acceleration curve less steep, as others have said. 3. You should zoom the camera out farther or make the gym smaller. It's okay if we see zombros spawning. With more time, you could add an animation for that anyway. 4. You could add further attacks using the gym equipment, as already suggested. For example, you could throw weights at the zombros and it'd do more damage if it's heavier. I know that adds a lot to the scope of the game, especially as you'll need to create a generic weapon motor and controller and use polymorphism. 5. Kind of not nice to make the "save high score" button the same as the "replay game" button. Secondly, in terms of graphics: 1. The zombros are NOT NEARLY SWOLE ENOUGH. What are these, DYEL zombies? Pfft. 2. The graphics are pretty crude overall. Some more appropriate sprites to make it feel more like a real place would make the game feel much more professional. 3. There needs to be more variation. You could have barbells, curl bars, loose weight plates, atlas stones, etc. Probably not treadmills because "Pfft, cardio.". Thirdly, in terms of audio: 1. It deserves more voicelines. The voice acting is pretty good and convincing as a swole zombie. It's just way too few. 2. The music doesn't feel good on the ears. It just pops and pops and it doesn't help that the game is loud by default. Finally, in terms of thematics: 1. This game really could have benefitted from knowledge of fitness culture. It is ripe for references to all sorts of people and things: Zyzz, Jujimufu, Brian Shaw, Eddie Hall, Thor (strongman as a whole), Kyriakos Grizzly, Back Guy... the zombies could say "'mirin, brah?", "I'm very excited", "I'm very, very dehydrated!", "I'm gonna knock your 'ead off!", "AAAAAA!", etc. You could put funny exercise equipment in the gym, like 400 kg on a bar atop some chairs and even more plates, for zercher shrugging with, atlas stones, No. 4 CoC grippers, etc. I'll have to admit, it makes me want to make something similar, but then I'd also have to license the rights to each and every character in it. And maybe you'd be mad with me and want to fite me irl, but idk if you even lift. 😎
Apr 14 14:00:38	2h 26m	Summer D[el]ays	♥ 2	Man does that guy walk slowly or what? Hehe, anyway. Nice game! I got stuck on the second level because even though I got both the slingshot and the bunch of roaches thing (the only two collectible things in the level), I was not able to throw anything into the window. I'm a bit confused there. I liked the click-through cutscenes, but there should be a "press any key"-type prompt to make it clear that the game hasn't just frozen or something. The graphics are nice. Most sprites I saw are pretty clean and keep to the same style. Reminds me a little bit of Earthbound. The music fits pretty well. Kind of '80s: very relaxed, innocent, and MIDI. I like it. It really adds to the mood and makes the game more fun. Rest of the audio serves the game well too. It's a conventional but still creative interpretation of the theme. You're not stuck in the current game dev conventions about what's appropriate to make, and you've created something original because of it. I had more fun with this game than with most I've played for LD 50.
Apr 16 11:27:51	45h 27m	Attack of the Inevitable Vine!	♥ 1	I like this! It's pretty fun, but it has quite a few glitches, like the movement bug, and it isn't that clear what to do sometimes. I didn't realise I could attack the moving vines on the tiles as well as the vine guys. I like the range on the sword, but the camera is too zoomed in. The UI is not properly scaled when doing different resolutions (I did fullscreen at 4K). That's not too important, though. I like the music. I think you have experience making music because this was good musically and produced well. It fit the game very well. The growling sound effects are pretty bad, though. This is one of those LD games that could go on to become a proper game on Steam, even if it might be pretty inexpensive once there. Good job!
Apr 16 11:47:34	19m 43s	Evacuation	♥ 1	Pretty cool. It's fun to shoot those aliens despite the lack of gun graphics, but it really seems like the only reasonable strategy is to evacuate right away. These enemies keep multiplying and they never stop. That's an unwinnable battle. The engine seems to dislike DPI scaling. I run 4K at 150% and it didn't work right when I set the .ini file to 3840x2160 and fullscreen. I'll attach a [screenshot](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/477349680586555392/964852130387218482/unknown.png) here to show you what it did with that. I like the art style. The bright white, sort of glowing hills. Even though it's simple and your engine is limited, you managed to make some nice-looking graphics. It was interesting how you showed the pathfinding lines, but it makes sense in this game, especially since you have to patrol such a large area. I didn't like the unskippable intro or it being the only place in the game to figure out how to evacuate people or the Esc to instaquit. Good job!
Apr 16 11:49:27	1m 53s	Desert trip	♥ 0	Interesting and the use of Blender in this way is rare, but overall not a very stable game.
Apr 16 11:53:42	4m 15s	Dont Get Smooched	♥ 2	Funny and creepy at the same time. It's a bit simple and some of the controls are a bit awkward, like the aforementioned right mouse button thing. However, it's a fun idea with cool graphics and it could become one of those trendy horror games that are popular on YouTube with more gameplay features, incentives, and polish.
Apr 16 12:07:45	14m 03s	Banana-Man-Joe Sr.	♥ 1	I had a lot of fun with this! It wouldn't have been nearly as entertaining if you hadn't been aussies! Few minor issues: the gun doesn't scale with the size of the screen, so it was just a picture in a small part of the screen. I didn't realise talking to the banana man over and over was how to progress the game at first. I also [got stuck](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/477349680586555392/964856702635749386/unknown.png) atop the left side of the stairs, behind the columns, once. Anyway, it was fun to move around and build up momentum. Any faster and it would've become unwieldy. The banants were possible to fend off, but it felt like when I got hit, the wave ended, every time. I think the gun is a bit slow between shots and that's annoying. The music is fantastic. At least one of you makes music professionally to some extent. I liked the difference between passive and battle music, but there was no interlude between them. Regardless, I did bob my head a little. SPOILER FOR FEW-MINUTE LD GAME BELOW: I liked the twist and the boss at the end, but I shot him off the side of the map instantly and thought I'd outwitted the devs, but then a bunch of banan'ts came around and the game faded to black. I didn't know what "leaving" meant anyway.