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Feedback comments for LD59
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| Timestamp | Since previous | Game | Skyeward's comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 21 12:11:05 | RedFlag：SOS | ♥ 4 | Lovely art; I'm a huge fan of the music, and the shift in both visuals and audio as you get closer to losing is great. Some bugginess with the click-and-drag machanics for me, but that's the kind of jank that comes with the jam territory, no big deal. My main critique would really just be conveying the goal - I had to come to the comments to fully understand what I was meant to do. "Send an SOS to waiter" is mentioned and that's a good start, but I didn't grasp that I was fulfilling two conditions, both the message and the alerting of the waiter with other actions. I was a bit confused as to why my message wasn't being noticed the next time they were passing by the table. Maybe this could just do with one more meter on the side along with Patience and Suspicion, showing visible Waiter Alertness? On the other hand, this game nails the atmosphere. It starts strong with a lot of attention paid to the main menu, that's awesome (and a great pause menu too). And then there's something about most of the window being taken up with your view of Lanita in full colour, while the person you really want to communicate with is confined to a small dark box in the corner, showing up briefly and then leaving you hanging over and over... You genuinely feel the helplessness and sense of impending doom. It seems like you hit EXACTLY what you wanted with the vibe, and that's super impressive on this timescale. Thanks for the game! | |
| Apr 22 10:53:33 | 22h 42m | Cheeky Cherry Choo Choo | ♥ 1 | Surprisingly fun loop to queue up orders and see my trains working out the rest, and a nice quality of life option to be able to remove actions from the end of your queue. Art and sound effects are very charming (love the wobbly city!); having two-frame animations is a great bit of polish that makes everything feel a lot more lively. The way this could be expanded is pretty straightforward - more levels, more types of materials and nodes, and another pass on UI/backgrounds, but what you got done is solid for a compo-scope prototype! My main critique (and it's fairly minor) is that it would be great to make it clearer that the home station could be upgraded, especially given that's the most fun upgrade in the game! A little icon on anything which it available for upgrade, or a number showing the CURRENT level of a station, could help. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 22 11:25:18 | 31m 45s | Beacon of Hope | ♥ 3 | Awesome job Dubious Potions. This is one of those rare LD games which is such a smooth production that it starts to not look like a jam game any more. Sure, it's a fairly short game, but it's a seamless experience. Great art, animations, sound, puzzles, and no bugs to speak of. I love the collage style, really reminds me of a specific genre that for which I don't really have a name, but Samorost is the main comparison that comes to mind (I wish I knew the name of an old series I played as a kid on Newgrounds that really has this kinda vibe). Super cool to see that the art was physically made and photographed for the game. The animations are lovely, moving around and between the layers of depth is really satisfying. Interacting with everything feels smooth, and the shaking inventory items are a nice touch. The UI in the interactions also looks great, (it reminds me of Rusty Lake). The UI does feel like it comes from a different game than the main art style - it doesn't have the same scrappy collage feel, but that's a very minor nitpick. The pigeon is a good pigeon. 10/10 for the pigeon. Let's get a pigeon category added to LD. I'd love to get some music in here! I'll caveat that with the understanding that some games like this get away without music, but I think Samorost could pass without music becuase of it's particularly weird and abstract vibe, it's "spaceyness", and also having a more detailed soundscape. Failing music, just getting some more environmental sound would go a long way. The forest sounds great and has nice variety, I'd love to hear more of that in the other areas. Admittedly I'm early in my LD59 exploration, but at the time of playing, this has been my favourite. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 22 13:21:10 | 1h 55m | The Sound Store | ♥ 2 | I think the worst thing about this game was me. I am bad at these puzzles. So biggest point of critique: get good, me. Loved the art, physical art put into games is awesome ESPECIALLY on the timeline of a game jam. Character art is super cute. Opening narrative is fantastic and something many jam games aren't able to stretch to, and on a similar note, really solid tutorialization. So far it's one of the games I've played that most embraces the theme - this is game that cannot work if you remove the signal idea, that's always nice to see! Online leaderboards are a great touch and another thing it's always fun to see someone get done on the strict timeline. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 22 13:35:57 | 14m 47s | Long Distance | ♥ 1 | Thanks for sharing this on our stream! I really like the idea of having to move around to keep up with the game... Mechanics that bleed out beyond the game are really interesting. Limiting how far you can plan ahead keeps the tension up, and makes for a fun loop. I did run into some bugs while playing, although at least some of them seem to be to do with the Godot Web embed, so they aren't on you. I believe you mentioned you'd also done a game in the past about resizing the window. Time to go try that one! |
| Apr 22 13:49:39 | 13m 42s | Téloche | ♥ 4 | Lovely game! Really enjoyed the visuals, the character on the couch with hard shadow on the wall behind them looks great, and of course all the animations are great. Clearly a game made with love. Gameplay was really solid, a puzzle with a genuine learning curve which is fun to solve. I really like how animations have subtle clues to help you reach the correct speeds and colour palettes. I don't know what colour this kid's cartoon should be... But I DO know what colour the globe logo in the corner should be! Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 22 13:55:54 | 6m 15s | Into The Nightmare | ♥ 1 | Thanks for sharing this on stream! For a first LD entry from a new dev, there are some really nice details in this game. Directional audio is a really cool way to navigate (sorry my headphones were kinda busted for that one), and I like how enemies are hidden by shadows EXCEPT for their eyes... which blink too! Really nice details. The random map generation is genuinely very impressive, I'm not sure how I would go about making something like this. Procedural maps are very often grid-based patterns, lots of uniformity within the randomness. This map gen is way more reminiscent of The Backrooms, with weird unexpected corridors crammed in uncanny places - it's very cool. Rooms are empty except for the enemies, so that's a natural expansion point for potential future dev. Some different room types with different props, and possibly new enemy types too. It's cool that they already have some pathing to chase you, and there could be more with different behaviours to spice things up. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 22 13:59:50 | 3m 56s | Flirting 101 | ♥ 1 | This is a great puzzle game that crams several layers of discovery into a neat little package. The depth is super impressive design for a weekend project!! Some reveals genuinely gave vibes of Baba Is You and similar games, that's a big compliment. Art is simple and minimal, but in a way that really works. Embracing a limitation and turning it to your advantage is one of those great LD skills, and you've nailed it here. The characters bobbing around, the bow chasing your cursor with bouncy overcorrection, all great details. Cute, funny, great puzzles. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 22 14:09:28 | 9m 38s | MEGAHONK | ♥ 2 | Really pleasantly surprised by how satisfying the driving mechanics are in this. The physics are really fun. I made a comparison to SUPERHOT on stream which I want to reitrate - it's a puzzle game masquerading as an action game. You can go in all guns blazing, but slowing things down and being considered and methodical, taking your time to balance increasing your rage with not losing velocity, is secretly the best way to play. Really nice reveal. Graphics are simple but work well, and have nice details like tire tracks and angry headlights on the road rage cars. Great audio, the car radio is awesome. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 23 12:02:20 | 21h 52m | Router Wilds | ♥ 4 | Fantastic entry! Lots of fun, little bits of emergent gameplay arising from the interacting mechanics, a learning curve that makes it fun to get better and faster at playing. The sound is great - I love the music changing depending on your signal strength. Fun graphics, and I love that you can see the signal interfering with itself sometimes. Lots of innovative and unique ideas. I like being able to grad things around with the mouse while moving the character, and those objects dropping in place when line-of-sight breaks, but a ghosty version still following your ccursor is a super neat mechanic. The signal strengh idea is something I've also not seen before and adds an interesting aspect to the top-down shooter. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 23 13:42:04 | 1h 39m | While You Were Here | ♥ 2 | Lovely game that really feels like it's made with heart. The art is great, I love the particle effects and the shadowy branches which show up in the foreground. I like that the game mechanic very directly ties into the emotions and storytelling, it makes for a good atmosphere. Unless I missed something, I think it would be nice to nudge the player more towards discovering the other kind of whistle. Perhaps it could be possible to design a level which forces the discovery more. As an example, a level with no platforms and is simply a long row of spikes. The player would have little else to try except jumping on the golem and whistling, but could still discover it for themselves without actually being told. On the other hand, the line-of-sight rule being telegraphed by particles traveling between the characters BUT being blocked by level geometry is FANTASTIC. That's one of the best elements of conveyance I've seen so far this LD, genuinely brilliant design. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 23 14:02:34 | 20m 30s | Wow! The Presidential Race Of Glorbus-12B (Signal) | ♥ 1 | As I said on stream, this really feels like a game that's doing its own thing, and I was very much along for the ride. I like the character design, LOVE the voice work and the bizarre dialogue is definitely weird in an intentional way. It feels like the game is enjoying being a little inscrutable. I'm left with a lot of questions after this game... What were my stats doing? What determined the crowd responses? How should I be choosing my responses? Do certain responses go with certain gestures? Nevertheless it was fun to dive in at the deep end and let the game take me where it wanted. I'd love to see what the Planning adds to the game in a potential future update! |
| Apr 23 15:07:18 | 1h 04m | Meina's Train Cruise | ♥ 1 | This is an incredibly simple, minimal game with no music, very few art assets, and incredibly straightforwards gameplay. However... It's going for a vibe and it NAILS it. It's minimal in all the ways that really work. I'm glad this game doesn't have music; the clunking of the train down the track BECOMES the soundtrack of this peaceful, serene, lonely night of travel. This game does an excellent job of recreating a feeling I've had of walking home through an empty city at 4am; or getting out of my tent in the middle of the night on a camping trip and strolling up the mountain to stargaze. This game is a vibe. I really like the character art, the cresting hill always rolling towards us, the little refueling stations breaking up the simple gameplay. But mostly, I like the simplicity. Simplicity can be a negative, but this a situation where it really isn't. I recommend playing this at night with your lights off. Hell, if you can take your laptop out to the countryside and play it under the stars, even better. Thanks for the game! |
| Apr 24 15:12:19 | 24h 05m | Chomp Radio | ♥ 1 | Sometimes you find a game in Ludum Dare and immediately understand how integral the theme was to the desgin. At its heart, this is a game about destroying jamming towers to re-establish radio signals, and it's a joy to see how the game expanded out from that core idea. The graphics are fairly simple but nicely stylized and cogent - I like the variety of designs for the enemies you come across at later levels. Great use of theme, and solid audio too. I love the radio interruptions as you progress. Great writing and performances, I'll probably be giving this game a 5 not just for Theme but also Humour. Honestly unsure if this is a bug but enemies sometimes spawn outside of the map limits. I actually really like this, it makes the world feel like it exists outside the bounds of the playspace. Dynamism in unreachable places is often overlooked in games but it's an effect I think can be great for 'filling in the blanks' of visual interest. And of course, adding the extra dimension to the theme interpretation through the visual storytelling of enemies "Signaling" for external backup forces who are arriving at the edges of the map. To briefly touch on the theme, there is strong ludonarrative consonance in the use of radio towers both mechanically - they are your win condition - but also narratively, allowing more NPCs to contact you as you play. It's impossible for the idea of Signal to leave your mind as you play this game (and though I call it a game for the sake of clarity in this review, philosophically I really think of this project as more of a 'gamified theme'). The difficulty could do with some tuning; I was definitely not playing well if I'm being honest, but a single healing node really carried me pretty far through the game. I neglected upgrades for a significant portion of the game as I was able to proceed with my current turrets; I think I got to around $1700 before meeting enough resistance to require some more investment. Difficulty is always one of those things that's hard to nail on a jam timeline though, and I think it's clear that the priorities lay in adherence to the theme (Signal). I would take this exquisite use of theme over a more difficult game any day. 5/5 for theme, and possibly 0/5 for everything else just to really drive home the contrast in how well I think Chomp Radio executed the theme. Thanks for the game! |