Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD21 → When I Was Human
By thegrieve
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fun | 72 | 3.32 | ||
| Theme | 73 | 3.61 | ||
| Community | 81 | 3.25 | ||
| Audio | 125 | 2.82 | ||
| Overall | 149 | 3.19 | ||
| Graphics | 161 | 3.16 | ||
| Humor | 205 | 2.00 | ||
| Innovation | 250 | 2.77 | ||
| Coolness | 311 | 1 |
Wow I really love the dna unlocking system. The music is great too and I can't wait for Story Mode.
One complaint would be that whether the game is impossibly hard or ridiculously easy seems to be entirely up to the random level generator. Also super speed actually makes the parts of the game that require precise jumping *harder*.
In any case, really cool game, and I love the atmosphere of the whole thing. Looking forward to the post-compo edition.
Awesome game, well worth a go! Certainly distinct from most of the other entries!
Very nice. The ability unlocking is a nice feature. The odd difficulty/impossibility spike but I think it adds to it.
Not sure I've ever seen checkpoints in a survival mode, not sure that it works though either.
Interesting, seems to demonstrate there's a lot you can do with the canabalt concept that hasn't been explored that I've seen. I liked how there seemed to be explicit "puzzles" here and that some of the power ups (like cheetah mode) hurt more than helped you.
Small things: The fact distance could kill you was not well telegraphed, the checkpoints remembering that you've lost health seems a little mean, it seems odd the game seems to go out of its way to give you "easy" stretches to build up distance but then as soon as you die you seem to lose all your distance?
Hi, thanks for the comments!
My intention with the power-ups is story-bound, in that whatever modifications have been made to the player character might not all be for their benefit. (Thus cheetah mode being a double edged sword)
Also, you only lose life when hit by the bombs, the intention here being that pitfalls only serve to bring you back to the checkpoint - closer to the bombs.
Your comments are much appreciated and definitely will help me with my post-comp updates. Thanks again!
I think mixing health and checkpoints like that is a bit weird. health should refil when respawning- I don't know why I should get a game over when running out of hearts vs just respawning for falling off a building.. it makes falling off preferable to being hit, which I think is the wrong way round. anyway, it was pretty good fun :)
oh, on a small note: I think putting a hole right after the speedup powerup is pretty cruel!
It's weird how right after the player gets a speed boost, the level design becomes more about nimble jumps. Luckily there were some wide open spaces to run in after that.
Hi ointment, thanks for playing.
The level generation runs off three sets of level segments, initially all segments are pulled from set 1, levels designed for slow methodical play. Once you unlock Frog, levels are pulled from the set 1 and set 2 pools, with set 2 containing larger jumps only possible with Frog.
Once you unlock Cheetah, the generation switches to set 2 and set 3. Removing the creation of anymore set 1 segments. Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of "read-ahead" in the generation. So some nimble jump segments can show up immediately after unlocking Cheetah, but should be gone after another segment is passed. (Each checkpoint marks a segment)
"Also, you only lose life when hit by the bombs, the intention here being that pitfalls only serve to bring you back to the checkpoint - closer to the bombs. "
Oh! Now that actually makes a lot of sense. It would be helpful if this were better communicated in the game-- if I'd realized this was the exact rule when playing I could have planned strategy around it.
Made it almost 400 meters on my first go. I was happily surprised when I got the first dna unlock and thought, 'oh cool!' Had a good time playing and will try again since I've only played once so far. I eventually reached a weird set of ascending stairs that even with frog and cheetah I couldn't double jump high enough to escape the bombs.
I usually hate games that resemble other games, but I think you added enough really cool features to make this a nice homage. Good work!
I liked the power ups. With cleaner graphics and a bit more speed this could be really great. worth continuing with. good work
The checkpoint and health system were very odd. Falling in a pit only delays you but getting hit by bombs may cause permanent death?
The DNA upgrades were a nice touch. I would like to see a higher variety of these in future versions.
Nice game, nice polish. Make the controls a little more solid and it could be great.
Very simple, but very fun. As others noted, the difficulty varies quite a bit and it seems like once you fall in a pit, there's little hope of recovering. The music is very fitting. Great job!
Great game. The level generation could be improved in my opinion, sometimes it creates really annoying segments.