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Feedback comments for LD51
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Shaolin Dave's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 3 22:10:56 | Pupu Pew Pew | ♥ 4 | Nice to include the source, maybe I can port to Mac and Linux later. | |
| Oct 6 22:08:14 | 71h 57m | FifteenRooms | ♥ 2 | - First off, thanks for a Mac version. Just a note that it includes a folder called "FifteenRooms (MacOS)_BurstDebugInformation_DoNotShip", I assume you didn't mean to include that. - The description says to not skip the dialogue. But unless I missed something, there wasn't any dialogue? Oh well, jam games shouldn't need stories anyway, best for a quick playthrough. - Speaking of which, it took me almost five minutes to beat this, which is pretty long for an LD game. At first I wasn't sure I'd actually finish it. - One big thing this game is missing is visual feedback. The games seemed to shuffle around at random. Actually animating them sliding into place would let players know to anticipate what they see on the edge of their screen. - Another visual feedback thing, there wasn't much indication of what was/wasn't intractable. Highlights would be good. - The "interact" animation did nothing for the first half of the game, and always played when I pressed "E" for the second half. Having the animation play whenever theres something to interact with, and only if there is, would also be better for visual feedback. - More detail to the animations would be nice - Having to stand in an EXACT spot to interact was a bit tiresome. If the player is within a certain range, it'd make sense to have them automatically move to what they're trying to interact with - Having to use WASD on the menu but using ENTER to select was a bit weird. E should select as well to make it consistent with the rest of the game. Mouse should be usable here as well - Alternate control suggestion: Your character only moves left and right, so what if you made it so clicking on anything intractable will have them do that. Holding on the left/right side of the screen would have them walk that direction. This would make your game mobile-ready. You could keep the same keyboard controls too - On sound design, I liked the ambient sound. It make be feel uncomfortable, but in a way that was good because it fit the mood of the game - The character muttering was a bit distracting. I couldn't tell what was causing it, if I was causing it, if it was a good or bad thing, or even if it was the character making the noise or some off-screen NPC. - The door opening was a bit too subtle. I actually thought it was a sound from a different window on my computer. Also, a lot of people play without sound, so you should probably have an immediate visual cue to go along with the audio one. - On design choices, I think the UI was a bit messed up on my screen because I'm on an ultra-wide. I think you can avoid this by not checking "other resolutions" in your player settings. If you're not going to tweak your visuals for anything other than 16:9/16:10/whatever, you shouldn't check anything but those. - I suggest researching color theory. Purple and grey doesn't look horrible, but complementary colors might make it more appealing. Yellow complements purple very well, so maybe having the backgrounds that instead of grey would help. Or, split-complementary, keep the player and key items purple, and have the backgrounds be a combination of orange and lime. One color for intractable things, one for scenery, maybe? |
| Oct 6 23:16:15 | 1h 08m | Foodmnesia | ♥ 2 | First off, I noticed the Mac version of this game has a common issue that prevents it from opening, and I have the solution : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/$304157/an-important-notice-for-mac-players-repost-for-51 The second thing I want to mention, it appears you checked the "other aspect ratios" options in your player settings, without actually modifying your UI to support other resolutions. You should probably uncheck it and just support the standard ones (ie 16:9). The UI cuts off on my ultra-wide, and I have a feeling I'm missing some important information. I tried playing the game, but I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I could run around, there was a lot of sliding, I could fall on banana peals... and that's it. I saw GUI elements over some food and tried pushing space bar next to them, but nothing happened. Again, I'm thinking some stuff was cut off because of the aspect ratio issues, so I might have to revist your game when I'm on another monitor. |
| Oct 6 23:23:06 | 6m 51s | Kitten Sittin' | ♥ 0 | Maybe a bit easy. Beat it on the first try, although I did have some close calls. Still, a jam game that's too easy is better than one that's too hard. I didn't see what the purpose of the jump mechanic was. This is actually the first time I've seen a game embedded in the actual LD page before, I think I might have to do this going forward. |
| Oct 7 17:33:21 | 18h 10m | Bots, Bots, Bots | ♥ 0 | Mac version seems to run fine. Graphics and music are great, but the game is overly complicated for a jam. Jammers typically spend a couple minutes on each game so that they can play and rate as many as possible. The best jam games are ones that require little to no tutorial. My personal mindset is to develop it like an old coin-op arcade game: super-easy to learn, super-quick to the action. |
| Oct 7 17:52:53 | 19m 32s | Rush Hour | ♥ 1 | - Music is very catchy - Graphics are really good - Concept is nice and very well implemented. - The screen zoom was very annoying, the challenge in getting the ingredients was already there, but the zoom makes everything move at crucial times - The multiple ingredient selections seemed less challenging and more tedious. I think by default, each other should have you grab one of the selected ingredients, simulating the normal amount that would be on a real order. At later stages of the game maybe you could mix it up by having a customer want "extra" so you have to grab two of a single ingredient. - skip 's' to skip, why not any key, or click-to-skip? the rest of the game uses mouse controls so no reason to deviate for a cutscene - keyboard controls actually might've improved this game. imagine if the 9 ingredients were placed in a 3x3 grid so that the game could be played entirely on the numpad? 1-9 places an ingredient on the sandwich, 0 starts over if you mess up, enter/return gives the customer their sandwich. just another way to make the game simpler but more fast-paced, as is probably more comfortable to play. - more visual and audio cues would be helpful. maybe a screen tint when you're about to lose, or sped-up music? - maybe chatter from the customers. voice samples of them actually placing their order in addition to having the visual "current order". or at very least, grumbling as they get more and more angry, sounds of gratitude when they get their order fast. - Just looking at your screenshot I was wondering if it'd look better with a grayscale background, only having the UI be in color? |
| Oct 7 18:06:53 | 14m 00s | Light and Dark | ♥ 1 | I like the concept for the game - WASD to move, mouse to aim/shoot. Every jam game should be simple and intuitive like this. - Game flow being interrupted by pop-up text isn't great, especially in jam games that everyone wants to experience quickly. - The physics pulling me into the dark in the knife room happened without warning so I thought the player movement was glitched. Visual feedback on these unique effects would be helpful - There wasn't much guidance on where to go, and a lack of visual landmarks makes it hard as well - The clock, while clever, is a bit distracting. Having most of the play area obscured is a bit odd. I think having the whole screen visible with the clock (or just a timer) in the corner would be easier on the eyes. |
| Oct 7 18:13:22 | 6m 29s | RoomZ | ♥ 1 | Your Mac build is broken. I have a way to fix it, as well as an explanation of what caused it: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/$304157/an-important-notice-for-mac-players-repost-for-51 About the game itself, I actually didn't get very far. I first noticed that the mouse sensitivity was way low and without a way to adjust it, it's pretty difficult to aim. After that, I think I only had enough ammo to kill 2-3 enemies, then couldn't find a way to get more. |
| Oct 7 18:34:45 | 21m 23s | Run Grandma!Run! | ♥ 3 | - Loved the simple WASD controls, every jam game should be just as simple to start playing - I'd say go a step further and remove mouse controls from the start and game over screens. just "press any key to start/restart" would work fine. - The circle of darkness seems unnecessary, why have half your view area obscured at all times? Maybe have a semi-transparent area outside the circle so you can at least see SOMETHING there. some camera-post processing affects might work better than a simple circle. - Random placement made the game seem more luck that skill based. I'd suggest invisible GameObjects that can act as spawn points for collectables and items. You could have more of a "smart" selection, like start out every game with the demons far on one side of the play area and the first item close in the opposite direction - Music is good but a bit loud, and having it play through a persistent GameObject would allow it to transition from scene to scene uninterrupted. |
| Oct 7 18:44:13 | 9m 28s | Home R.I.P.airs | ♥ 1 | I think I got more of a hang of it the second time. - Arrow/WASD controls are vert intuitive, just curious why instructions only mention arrows? - X and C are a bit less intuitive, but at least there's only two actions. - It might help to make the game more self-explanatory or with in-game instructions? "Press X to fix" popping up over items is better than having to read about it before playing - I have no idea if I used the salt correctly, I was leaving it at the door but it didn't seem to influence anything. Again, a pop-up explaining where/when/how to use it would be helpful. - Randomly occurring events are great, but it gives different players unpredictable first-time (or ONLY-time) experiences. I suggest having the first few events scripted so that jammers can experience and learn the game as quickly as possible, and have the random ones occur later for those who already got the hang of it. |
| Oct 7 19:09:32 | 25m 19s | GHST-PRTCL | ♥ 1 | My impressions on seeing the screenshots and reading the description (before I noticed there was a web build): - WASD, spacebar, and mouse: good simple controls. Lots of games here require a wall of text to explain their mechanics, it's better that you kept yours simple. - Bright characters and obstacles on a flat black background is actually very appealing. It reminds me of classic arcade games. - ... but it looks like the main character deviates from that? I think the player should also be monochromatic, or maybe with two solid colors, but should at least have a design sytle consistent with the rest of the game Impressions from playing the game: - Well, it said "Write your name", and didn't allow me to. I had to restart. - The left-stick broom attack is a bit weird. It took me a moment to notice that it goes the direction of the mouse. having your attack change direction because you ran past your cursor (which happens a lot in a game requiring you to run quickly around the whole screen) isn't very intuitive. - Seems the attack isn't even really needed because you can just touch the ghosts? I abandoned it entirely on my third play. - Never got a chance to use the right-click attack, I'm not even sure it's real. - The randomly spawning ghosts makes it seem more like luck than skill. Sometimes they spawn in a place that makes it literally impossible to win, A few times I had the wrong ghost spawn directly in my path as I was falling and there was nothing I could do about it. - A little more player bias would make it fun. I say you should grid-arrange spawn-points on the level, never spawn an ghost close to the player, unless it's the next ghost they need, and increase the chances as the time is lower - The controls are actually a bit too loose. Immediate acceleration/deceleration (like you see in classic MegaMan) would be much better suited for a game that requires such speedy precision. - Some of the mechanics seemed accidental, like the wall-climbing. I was also able to ceiling-climb. |
| Oct 7 19:50:43 | 41m 11s | Tentris | ♥ 1 | - I like it, definitely as addictive as the original. - Could use a bit more player bias. Not having lines to clear is already a penalty, so having another one just cascades the stress - move visual/audio feedback of the penalty would also be helpful. Trying to play games to test intuitive design without reading all the instructions, the penalties seem more like glitches. It should be clear that what's happening is intentional, and it should be clear WHY it's happening. - I guess you need to refresh to restart? |
| Oct 7 20:08:37 | 17m 54s | Cure Casimir | ♥ 1 | - Couldn't get the pill so first think I tried was jumping up the wall, wound up walking right off the edge of the world. looks like it's a trick you can cheese a good portion of the game with. - I get that the sneeze plays into the theme of the game, but losing control constantly is a bit annoying. Maybe if he sneezed while moving, it wouldn't distract from the game so much. - The character is well made, but it's a green character on green grass so he doesn't stand out much. If he were red or purple, the colors would complement each other much better. - The cloud level doesn't have much of a sense of scale or movement. More scenery would help. |
| Oct 7 20:11:38 | 3m 01s | Gottschalk | ♥ 0 | I'm clicking the web player and all I see is a dark screen with a blinking face. Even scrolling around it looks like it's just a huge face and I can't progress any further. |