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Remco

Feedback comments for LD57

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Timestamp	Since previous	Game		Remco's comment
Apr 11 10:02:11		DEPTH CHARGE	♥ 2	Nice simple arcade game. Also neat to see people still using their own frameworks. By simple I mean the concept is simple -- I didn't think it was simple to control. At first I thought that was because I wasn't using a controller, but when I dragged out my old controller and hooked it up, I was worse. I think I did best when I just didn't bother aiming (separately from moving the ship around) -- you can get pretty far if you just leave the aim pointing down. That does exacerbate another problem though -- since the charges lobbed at you by the subs only explode quite slowly, they can essentially box you in (especially at the sides of the screen. I do appreciate the voice-clips (other sfx) and the hi-score table though (and the menu's, but that's part of the framework). (Nitpick; It's nice that it's possible at all, but it feels a bit odd to have to save the hiscore table manually...)
Apr 11 11:02:45	1h 00m	A Quest To Bear	♥ 2	Very sweet -- a little oasis of rest when compared to most other LDJam games (very much appreciated when reviewing a bunch of them). When it comes to presentation, I could talk about the graphics, or the animation, or how well it works with the sounds -- but I think the most impressive is how it all comes together, which would be polish. Interesting puzzle mechanics -- I mean sliding is an old one, but to have an 'inventory' (of sorts) and making health part of the puzzle is inspired. OK, nitpick time (a.k.a. it's easier to talk about the bad bits, even in a good game ... sometimes _especially_ in a good game): That said, (talking about the 'drop rock' bit) I'm not always in favour if introducing time/skill based mechanics in what otherwise looks like a 100% puzzle-game. Now, if you're careful with this --like I think you have been in the released levels-- I think you'd want make sure the intended solution never follows a route where timing is important. Still, it's annoying to not place the rock in the right spot, even if all that this means is that you have to backtrack -- which is made a bit worse by the long slides, and the perspective/roundedness of the corners you need to line up to. (Now that I'm picking nits anyway, I'd like a 'redo level' in case you didn't pick up all of the points.) All in all, well, if you add a bunch of levels, add the point-total to the completed levels, and made a slightly better win-screen, you could sell me this as a completed premium game for phones and I wouldn't blink an eye.
Apr 11 12:19:57	1h 17m	Welcome to Veinridge!	♥ 2	Ah, just as it was getting good. Short, in a way (I mean, I can imagine it's hard to write dialogue with such a large cast of characters), but polished enough that I don't think many rough edges jumped out at me this time around. A few things I did notice: - I didn't even have to bribe the bartender -- maybe a bit _too_ much of a cliche? - I think it's 'xeroxed', not 'zeroxed'. - There's a bit in the 'Miners Market' that feels a bit disconnected because you talk to the people in a separate sub-menu than you inspect each of their places -- giving the impression that you have three empty buildings and then a marketplace where a waitress, a post-office lady and a taciturn hardware store owner are standing around. - A cat missing, and maybe down a shaft in an old mining town -- a bit of a stretch, but is that a 'Night in the Woods' reference? - Instead of ❌️ in the top-left corner, the maps have the unicode placeholder character (for me at least). - The text that has _'... circled in red: 10/3' near the end has the choices partly overlapping them.
Apr 14 07:27:17	67h 07m	The fate of Carl	♥ 2	It's a vibe! ... I'm not sure how much fun I had in the end though. After a few rough starts where I didn't realize the guns where making the money (mostly because two times I had bad luck or something and the gun or flamethrower didn't bring in any before Carl died) -- I got the hang of it. It's also a bit of a mood, the audio works well in context. It does have a bit of a dominant strategy, where you should just mostly 1. buy any guns, 2. upgrade, 3. focus on repairs and getting the max up, almost exclusively in that order (though you may need one or two repairs or max-ups before that point). Also, when playing, you're missing out on most of the spectacle, as nearly all time actually playing the game is spent in the blocky menu, not looking at the carnage behind you, where most of the graphics TLC went.
Apr 14 13:09:41	5h 42m	AdventureGen	♥ 1	Disclaimer; I have some distaste for AI when used in art (and will not even use it even for code if that code ends up in a game, just to keep the line clear for myself) -- for reasons I won't go into here -- despite that, I wanted to give some of these a shot, even if just to see how they measure up to current non-AI efforts. I've to say that I'm not impressed. Maybe I got unlucky, but only one of the games I generated was playable to the end (which was a completely linear bunch of rooms with 1 item usage; adding an oxygen tank to an escape pod), the other ended in the first room with an unusable item, and the most promising one I got also stuck in after finding a bunch of items that seemed they might be usable, but did nothing (although I admit I was so bored by that point that I didn't bother exhaustively trying all of the possibilities). The art gave the impression that each picture was by a different artist, or even that different parts where done by different artist. It also doesn't fit to the writing; beyond the florid description of what basic functionality a room has, it doesn't really feel like it connects to anything you're doing (little as that is). I usually try to have something nice to say, but I honestly struggle to come up with anything the games themselves have to offer (at least the ones I tried) that I can use for that. In some contexts it's important to give feedback regardless though -- such as gamejams. I guess it's nice that you allow people to play the games others' have generated?
Apr 14 15:24:41	2h 15m	Slow Decline	♥ 3	You've got a lot of detailed feedback already, so there's not a lot for me to add. I do really like the overall atmosphere, very much supported by the graphics and the intro, and subtle things like the camera panning into the direction the game wants you to proceed. I guess if I have a point of criticism it's in the linearity? Not just in the level design, also in the way you have to approach everything, while the general speed of the game, and its vibe suggest a more strategic approach -- I think that's also why you got at least one person above saying they lost all motivation when starting over.
Apr 14 16:06:02	41m 21s	EchoAbyss	♥ 2	I like the general idea of the sonar (and the visual effect), though, maybe I'm missing something, but since there isn't any way that it shows the cooldown, and there isn't any penalty to spamming the mousebutton, I found the easiest way to play was to do just that. (Oh, and I had to start the version on the itch website, the version here is either bugged, or otherwise the support isn't there yet; even if I press the full-screen button, there's a huge blue area overlapping my view...)
Apr 14 16:39:33	33m 31s	Feast Thine Eyes On Flowers	♥ 0	I'm not sure there is 'more to this than meets the eye' or whatever, but when I looked up --- from my attempts to furiously figure out what the gem is (center of the earth? ... there's more sky down below there), and why I can't go down further, by crossbreeding flowers for length (maybe if I go up more, I can go _down_ more) or 'hardiness' (maybe surviving lower down is a breedable skill) ... etc etc... ... when I looked up again, I saw I had accidentally created a beautiful garden, petals and leaves swaying in the wind. Maybe sometimes a flower-planting game with neat procedurally generated flowers and a harmonious pastel color scheme really _is_ just a flower-planting game with neat procedurally generated flowers and a harmonious pastel color scheme.