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Feedback comments for LD55
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Doctor_Zeus's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 16 18:24:29 | Stay Away From The Summoner | ♥ 1 | I like the plate-spinning play of optimizing mining uptime, placing imps, and avoiding that pesky summoner! I think I'd really enjoy a version of this with reduced cooldowns (and maybe more summoners chasing me), something that gives me extra room to optimize my movements and decision-making. Oh, or maybe having some risk/reward where mining more times in a row yields extra crystals - something to make me want to stick to a crystal as long as possible even as the summoner approaches. As it is, I spent most of my time in the late game looking for crystals. The spawn rate deficiency issue you mentioned is certainly the culprit there. That aside, I appreciate that the graphics were easy to parse, and the audio did a good job of communicating gameplay information. There was some good humor in Big Mike's writing too. It's a lot of variety to implement in the scope of a couple days, I can appreciate the challenge of juggling a variety of priorities. | |
| Apr 17 02:01:06 | 7h 36m | Make New Friends | ♥ 2 | I thought the style of input was very innovative while still achieving that "flow" kind of feeling I always want from the genre. The presentation and music were both awesome too, and the way things go well until they wildly spin out of control made think - okay, just one more play. Good stuff all around, a very enjoyable play experience. |
| Apr 17 02:56:22 | 55m 16s | A Grave Mistake | ♥ 2 | I gotta say it, ya got me. I saw this get played during a friend of mine's stream, and I had fun unraveling the concept with him. He was finished when he got across the finish line but I could see a tantalizing bonus objective just out of reach - that, and the mysterious presentation of the game kindled a hope in my heart that there'd be even more secrets to unravel. Watching secondhand wasn't exactly the same as playing it myself! The way that I was able to build upon understanding through experimentation did feel very good (just like you said in the description!) and I ended with a very clear understanding of the rules. It gave me renewed appreciation for the 'history' that the game tracks for me (I figure you know what I mean) as I experimented to see what I could do. I'm not sure the best way to ask (since I don't want to spoil things for other folks) but is there a way to validate if I found all of the hidden stuff? I got to a point where I couldn't find a way to proceed but I wasn't out of things to interact with, if that makes sense. The fact that I'm asking about it here definitely confirms that your design had the right hooks to pull me in (and it still hasn't let go!) After thinking about it in post, my one wish is if it was a bit faster to dig. There are other parts of the gameplay that were memory testing in a way that isn't my most favorite, but I now understand and appreciate that it's all pretty much necessary to make the process of unearthing the mystery more interesting. The time to dig seems like it's not absolutely critical to me, though - maybe a compromise would be to make digging take one shovel swing (rather than the usual three) after dealing with one of the main objectives? Maybe you've got different perspective on this, I'm curious if it was something you considered. Regardless, that's a minor piece in a rich gameplay experience. Thanks for making the game, and I hope to see other cool things you might make in the future! |
| Apr 17 04:26:47 | 1h 30m | Summoners Incorporeal | ♥ 2 | First off, the writing, art, and choice of music all did a great job of selling the feeling of a lighthearted world where this apparently affordable-and-socially-acceptable summoning service is the norm. I tend to let the flavor my games get the axe while staying fixated on mechanics or technical issues, so I extra appreciate when it's done well. The puzzles were fun, and the environments for them were designed in interesting ways. I liked a room I encountered where the starting circle was completely covered with carpet, for example. It was fun discovering what new items existed too. I really liked the kinds of emergent strategies that came with the glass chess pieces, and I liked the different "variations on a core mechanic" thing you had going on with all of the different item re-skins. I didn't end up interacting with the items that involved destroying other items, but that whole idea seems cool too. Oh, maybe having different classifications of items being popular / morally acceptable in different regions could be a fun way to push more variety in an expanded version of the game. Like, this place is cool with animal sacrifice, this place doesn't like fire (no candles!) etc. And the summoner might have to dress the regionally-appropriate part for the role. It's fun to imagine stuff like this, which really speaks to the strength of the concept. Big point of feedback - for the sake of the jam, I think the mode of interaction (tile-based movement, lifting and dropping items) was a really good idea. I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of SokoMaker, but I imagine that it helped set up those fundamental pieces more quickly so you could focus on your specialized gameplay logic, creating different environments, writing witty dialogue, etc. etc. (the scope of stuff you put together in the limited time frame of the jam is definitely impressive!) In practice, though, I think the character's movement was a little clunky, and the time spent shuffling items around rooms didn't engage me too much. The initial exploration was fun, and the surprise of what I could find in each room was nice, but I spent the whole time walking items back-and-forth wishing I could get to the puzzle - which was reliably a lot fun! - sooner. Maybe there's something to be said for "distance makes the heart grow fonder" as I wandered around people's basement halls wishing for the summoning to start, but I'd be interested to see what this game would look like with mouse control for direct pick-up-and-drop gameplay. Or maybe an inventory of items that we can store / retrieve many items from would be cool, if you prefer direct character control. I know these things aren't really feasible in the space of the jam, but if you plan on giving the game more time (and the concept and execution convinces me it'd be a good idea) I'd love to see how those alternate modes of play would work. Secondary thought - the semi-randomized nature of the levels makes the sting of defeat a bit painful, especially if you end up just short of your goal due to a miscalculation (or an incorrect description - looking at you, cupcake candle!). Maybe a sort of gradient of success: failure/mixed success/great success could be a nice way to give a player extra-high goals to shoot for while still rewarding a near miss. It's not really necessary (and maybe the feeling of a close loss is what drives the excitement of the summoning ritual) but it might be worth playtesting if you've got extra time. Alrighty, I've almost certainly rambled for far too long about everything. Again, awesome work on the game! It was fun from start to finish and I'm glad I got a chance to play it. |
| Apr 17 05:51:40 | 1h 24m | Dachi in the Game World | ♥ 1 | Dachi did it, he finally escaped: Untitled.png Now he can be free of from his eternal torment |
| Apr 17 17:40:46 | 11h 49m | SAKURA | ♥ 2 | This game's sound and visual appeal (all of the UI, art, and layout stuff) was well done. I really appreciate the tutorial info that plays when it starts too, it made it pretty easy to figure out how to get things started. I agree with what other folks mentioned about gameplay feedback: it's hard to know where to look while playing, and the steps of combat resolve very quickly. Even though it has nothing to do with the actual mechanics of gameplay, the easy-to-miss information makes it harder to interact with the strategy of the game. I think it's extra challenging for games of this type - games that are turn-based or have more "indirect" control have to do extra work to show the player how their actions impact the state of the game. If we play as a ninja in a 2D platformer game, pressing right moves the character right (we did it, the result of our action is clear!). In a card game, clicking a button to end our turn triggers a lot of gameplay actions (our characters attack each other, get hurt, die or retreat back to the hand) and none of that gets communicated automatically. All that is just me trying to say that it's a hard problem. Having the "dodged" text was nice one you did that was definitely valuable - without that it would've been really, really hard to figure out what was going on. Gameplay-wise, I think the idea of a rock-paper-scissors kind of strengths-and-weaknesses system is cool in theory, but in practice I didn't have a whole lot strategy to my play. I could make guesses at what's best on average based on what the opponent has left, but I didn't really have any extra considerations (mostly came down to "play my strongest card"). Having some kind of effect that carries over between turns (cards get tired for a bit after they're played, that might be a relatively simple one) could be a good way to get new strategies without having to make the game way more complex, but there are definitely lots of ways you can expand. You've done a lot of the hard work already, you made a game that executes all of the logic of a card game, a CPU opponent to play the other side, and a bunch of cool art and music to pull the whole thing together. It'll be exciting to see how you could expand it if you want to take it further. Nice job! |
| Apr 18 04:49:06 | 11h 08m | From Dust | ♥ 2 | The method of player control is very flavorful and unique. I really like the kind of spatial logic that I was using to try to understand how optimize my summoning strategy! It was a challenge I really enjoyed solving. I quickly picked up on patterns that felt like they'd be pretty common, but later on (after getting level 2 or 3 marks on the board) I found myself hunting for more unusual combinations to get the most out of the board. I did find the difficulty of fighting later opponents (after getting to the teens) to feel impossible pretty often. From a practical game-making perspective I can imagine totally legitimate reasons it works this way - the arcadey randomized nature of the opponents is an efficient way to give variety, and it's okay for some enemies to be too strong - the game's gotta end sometime. From a player's perspective, though, it wasn't so fun to get stacked up against an opponent that I could easily tell I'd have no way to beat. I know it might not have fit well within the jam's constraints, but having some kind of planned "end point" (win the summoner of the year trophy after 10 victories, show a little splash screen / pop-up with congratulations) with the option to keep going afterward is something I would've liked. Like hands of poker, I think it's not too hard to accept that you won't win them all - having the push to win just enough make reaching for a tough victory even sweeter. One other chunkier bit of feedback on gameplay: I appreciated that the stats were kept in ranges that made mental math easy. The numbers and modifiers were were small enough to make comparing lines of play pretty easy, and scribbling out part of a plan to spot-check the idea was quick (and good call on having an intuitive way to cancel out). All of those were big positives for me, but a significant drawback (for my tastes, anyway) is that it was very hard to evaluate what the stats I got would actually do. I get that communicating detailed information like that inside the game interface isn't free (and I think the single-screen UI design of this game is really well-done, by the way!) but having tooltips, a collapsible "help" panel or something for the stats would've been awesome. Being able to know "power 8 = 8-12 damage per attack", or "defense 5 = reduce incoming damage by 30%" would've given me a path to get really engaged with evaluating the tradeoffs of different summonings. I was able to make up some of my own heuristics (speed is incredibly good, I want to try to be close to my opponent's numbers in other categories) but I have a lot of gaps in my understanding. Do health and defense complement each other in a multiplicative way, so doubling down on both is better? Are there diminishing returns at higher levels of a stat? What were the odds that the opponent dodged three times in a row?! (just kidding about that last one) I can see downside to communicating too much information (players might sink into analysis paralysis trying to make sense of the math behind the scenes) but maybe it's possible to find a sweet spot where folks like me can get what they need to fuel deeper engagement without any big downsides. Okey dokey, sorry for rambling on for so long. Again, I think the concept and implementation of the core mechanic was super cool, and the presentation of the game was very clean. You did a lot of great stuff on this project, and I can see lots of ways you could expand a concept like this if you'd like to take it further. Thanks for making the game! |
| Apr 24 00:13:17 | 139h 24m | Nerdfence | ♥ 2 | It took some tries, but I became a winner! I enjoy this kind of control style a lot - Magicka is probably my favorite version of it, but there's also some similar (in spirit) mechanics in games like Helldivers. There's something cool about slamming a combination of keys that's perfect for the situation. I guess the appeal is that it's how I imagine it'd feel to really cast a spell. When playing this game, I enjoyed splitting my attention between running away from enemies & typing out the summons. Executing both halves at the same time was satisfying, and it gave me a good feeling of control. About the game's presentation: The fact that you have a variety of options to summon (and the fact they all look so different in entertaining ways) is really nice. The book at the bottom of the screen was difficult for me to understand at first, but I eventually figured out what each part represented. I know it can take a lot of effort to make the UI communicate game information in an intuitive way, so I appreciate the work you put into the summoning book at the bottom of the screen. Playing a sound effect and making the pictures of your available summoning options glow when ready were both really helpful. By the way, the art style was cool! The music was too, I was rocking out as my 6 dads put the smackdown on those bullies. Gameplay-wise, I've already mentioned that I like the core mechanical concept. The gameplay that sits on top of it ended up being pretty bare-bones, though, and the way fighting works (everything stacks on each other and attacks immediately) meant that either my summons or the enemies would eventually turn into an unstoppable ball of death. The times I won mostly came down to getting Dad down early and snowballing into additional summons until the enemies were always completely overwhelmed. Having more obvious tradeoffs between different summoning options would be cool to have, or having enemies with varied strengths & weaknesses. It's definitely possible that those kinds of plans were in your original designs - the jam's time limit always leads to things getting cut, in my experience. I can imagine lots of ways to add variation (enemies spawn in different assortments, or allies / enemies move in unique ways that prevent them from stacking up as easily, hand-designed scenarios with objectives like 'go get this special thing') which is pretty exciting! If you decide to expand the game I'd be interested to see what you do with it next. To summarize, I thought the look and sound of the game was very cool. I appreciated some very handy (though initially tricky to understand) UI elements as I played, and I thought the core mechanic was fun and has a lot of potential for expansion. The gameplay itself didn't have a lot of longevity to for me, though, and the outcome (whether the forces of good or evil became an unstoppable blob) usually got decided pretty early. You did an excellent job getting the "complete package" of gameplay together with really nice presentation, and the gameplay offers lots of ways to expand in the future! Nice work, and thanks for making the game. |
| Apr 28 18:46:53 | 114h 33m | Colormancer | ♥ 1 | Nice work! I'll echo what other folks have been saying - running in the terminal is very cool, the music complements it excellently, and the process of mentally mapping out a solution to each puzzle was fun! I especially liked levels 7 & 8. The "order of operations" kind of puzzling really shone in those puzzles, with the right kind of "gotcha!" feeling when I realized I overlooked something. I do wish there was a way to identify which key interacted with which gate. I don't think it's a trivial problem to solve, but a level whose challenge hinges on me intuiting invisible connections (attempting a little level-designer mind-reading) is not as satisfying to me as one that depends on me "decoding" the information that's clearly presented in front of me. I could guess what switches corresponded to which doors in level 9, but that's not me interacting with a game system, that's me making assumptions. I do think there could also be a way to keep the information hidden while still being satisfying, though: maybe it's right for the player to consider the "gathering information and testing behavior" phase of a level part of normal play. If that were the idea, it'd be super-duper cool to have some kind of note-taking feature built into the game. Like maybe I can select characters in the level and replace them with my own text (which is still given its matching underlying color). That's all hypotheticals, though, and definitely very subjective. The game you made is a fun concept packed up in a sweet terminal-based package. Thanks for making it, I enjoyed playing! |
