Mike_W
Love the game - hate the user interface - 3d tilted hex map I just have a hard time with
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD14 → Wall of Locust
By ondrew
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Innovation | 28 | 3.60 | 20 | |
| Theme | 71 | 3.32 | 19 | |
| Overall | 90 | 2.81 | 21 | |
| Fun | 97 | 2.45 | 20 | |
| Graphics | 44 | 3.45 | 20 | |
| Humor | 78 | 2.25 | 8 | |
| Polish | 85 | 2.75 | 20 | |
| Audio | 86 | 1.00 | 5 | |
| Timelapse | 3 | 4.20 | 5 | |
| Journal | 18 | 3.92 | 12 | |
| Technical | 34 | 3.25 | 20 | |
| Food | 1 |
Love the game - hate the user interface - 3d tilted hex map I just have a hard time with
The hex picking was _painful_. There was one hex in the first level I just could NOT click on. A visible cursor would've been a big help.
The second level, I just couldn't figure out at all! But just now I see someone mentioning moving a windmill... you can move them!?
The controls are weird for me. A visible mouse pointer might actually help.
Rotating the view would be nice.
I like the idea and the looks.
It REALLY annoyed me not having a mouse cursor visible, though. The rotating of the windmills felt odd to me; sometimes it would rotate more than once, when just clicking. It might actually just have been my mouse messing up, though.
I think this was great technically, but the gameplay needed work. As mentioned by others, the missing mouse cursor was very annoying. Perhaps a click and drag would have worked better to set a direction quickly?
Cool idea. I had a really hard time controlling it, I think that a more intuitive UI where you could maybe visually drag and drop the windmills would work better. It was hard to align where the cursor was with where the mouse was moving. I had a hard time getting the fire to do what I wanted although that was probably part of the challenge.
Maybe the same concept but like, on a continuous field where you are sort of painting with wind to try and get the fire to gobble up the locusts?
Good job anyhow, quite technically impressive!
Nice idea and good game, but I have to say that the control scheme hurts it a lot. I've spent way too much time trying to get my cursor to move to the correct grid cell. A visible mouse cursor would indeed help.
I didn't get very far because I didn't understand one thing: once the fire is out but there are still locusts, is there anything I can do or do I just have to wait it out?
Graphics are nice; technically well done too.
I made it to the level with the narrow passage. I disliked how every level had me starting with fire right at the edge of the map where I couldn't find any room to place "fans". Also, the wind should perhaps have had a longer range, to prevent micro-managing where you place lots of blowers in the same area and move them around to follow the fire. Often a session would end with all fire put out and you just sitting there waiting for the locusts to starve themselves to death. By far the most annoying thing though was the controls - why no visible mouse cursor!?
Reasonably interesting idea overall but needs a lot more tweaking to be enjoyable.
Hmm, the range of the windmills is really short.
As for the control issues, I think others have covered them. Also, the fire tends to be very random, which makes the game difficult in a bad way - since it moves too fast for you to take control of the situation.
The visuals are kind of cute though. And I found the game a lot more interesting once I realized it was possible to create firebreaks rather than just killing the locusts directly. I got to the level with 4 farms.
Also, windmills don't work like that :)
The interface killed this one for me.
The worst problem is the cursor. Why did you decide to make it invisible? And worse, it's even blocked by some obstacles so you have to navigate your invisible focus point around them. You do get used to the controls after a bit, but it still feels finicky and annoying, like controlling the game is a chore. Not good.
That would be bad enough in itself, but then you've got the 3d perspective projection.. which may make the game a bit more interesting visually, but it's just completely unnecessary for this. The gameplay is all 2d, so the perspective adds nothing except maybe a little more vertical range, but a minimap could've done that. An isometric projection would've been much better.
Combine these and, for me at least, the game becomes almost unplayable, not very fun at all. Sorry =(
I don't think I can say anything other than what's already been said: the cursor should be visible, that is the main problem.
fires+locusts != bff
I couldn't pass level 2, I really suck... I get the idea I needed to fan the flames over to the right side but couldn't quite make it happen.
Cool idea
Great idea! The multiple factors involved reminded me a little of Yellow River Kingdom on the BBC Welcome Disc. Shame about controlling the windmill. If that had been moved over onto the cursor keys, it would have been a lot more enjoyable.
Good concept, and nice graphics. As others have said, the interface could use work. I found controlling the fire to be kind of weird because the speed it spreads and dies is a bit unpredictable.