FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD23 → Phi

Phi

By thomasbowker

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness372
Mood353.71
Innovation973.72
Overall1043.60
Theme1143.67
Graphics1363.69
Fun3213.02
Audio3672.62
Humor4712.14

Comments

mpc174 2012-04-23 14:48

Just beat it! Wonderful little exploration/puzzle game with a nice atmosphere. Good job.

kevinzuhn 2012-04-24 06:12

Phew, that was some exercise for an otherwise simple door! I loved using the stars as guidance, and the solar cycle, and running into little hoppy critters, they made the planet feel alive. It seems like whenever I hit a point of interest, there was a road or a light beam within sight, so I never felt lost or without purpose.
Math!

tequibo 2012-04-24 10:17

I liked atmosphere, but I did not beat the game. I presume I had to visit all buzzing poles under star signs that pictured behind the tomb, and write down/screenshot signs on them then do some kind of math(arrgh), but walking is slow, and I am lazy and stupid. It would help if walking was faster and clues would save somewhere in game.
And green hopping cubes are adorable.

shelby 2012-04-25 19:46

No clue what I'm doing, but I love it.

jhelle 2012-04-25 19:55

Didn't manage to beat any puzzle in it. But I can see a lot of effort went in to it and liking it a lot.

bitbof 2012-04-25 19:58

Pretty interesting and challenging. Mouse sensitivity is too high for my taste though.

bubuiic 2012-04-25 20:04

I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I could only interact with the red thingies in the screenshot and I suppose I have to enable them in a certain order... I didn't found anything useful in the world.

Your timelapse video is quite nice, just watched it.

benswinden 2012-04-25 20:05

Was an interesting experience. It kept me engaged till the end, though when i saw the diagram it was immediately obvious what the code was, so i was a bit dissapointed i had to do all the work of collecting information without really feeling like i figured anything difficult out. The movement speed was kinda slow started to get tedious walking around and the sound design was very irritation. Nice work! : ]

codexus 2012-04-25 20:20

I won! Nice game. A bit frustrating at first when you have no clue how the game works but once you get it, it's information gathering and then brain power ;)
It reminded me a bit of those old Freescape games like Castle Master.

jiddo 2012-04-25 20:43

Fun puzzle! It was cool starting out near the end and having to figure out how to open the door through exploring the tiny world :) Atmosphere was great but I got disoriented a few times and getting back on track took ages with that walking speed. The whole thing reminded me of Myst with a twist and was very fun to play! I spent about 45 mins in it which is a lot more than many other jam games I've played :)

I just have to mention that the sound that the pillars make is horrible and I had to turn the volume down not to get a headache from it, but sadly that also lowered the lovely sound from the small cube creatures.

smvilar 2012-04-27 14:05

Awesome!

caanonfodda 2012-04-27 14:25

Really cool. Loved the abilty to navigate by stars. Also liked the day-night cycle with the cool lighting effects.

The symbols on the light beams were hard to see, it took a bit before I saw them, which meant I had to start traversing them and writing them down by the time walking had started to become tedious,

But a great entry.

guzzungo 2012-04-27 14:33

Easy as 1 + 2 = 3 ;)
I appreciate it

sdwil2k5 2012-04-28 00:29

Liked exploring the tiny world and finding the cryptic clues laying around. The day/night cycle having an effect on the visibility of the stars was a clever game mechanic really added to the atmosphere.

LOL I was thinking like a programmer and thought it was binary encoded, but it just wasn't working (Where's the pole with a VII on it? damn it!). Then I started thinking like normal people and solved the puzzle.

Very well done.

sdwil2k5 2012-04-28 00:38

Also, just so you can laugh at how much I was over thinking it. Just before I worked it out I thought maybe I had to use binary algebra to combine them into the answer. I even started a truth table... Oh man I need to get out more...

mikelovesrobots3 2012-04-28 05:42

Not sure what to do other than interact with the pillars at the start. I tried catching hoppers for a while to toss into the lights, but of course that didn't work. Beautiful game though. Love the things appearing over the horizon.

ointment 2012-04-28 11:32

Even if one can't solve the puzzles, it's fun to just explore the planet, since it feels alive.

wyzfen 2012-04-28 11:50

Solved it - lots of walking! I hadnt noticed the pillar bases initially.

rodomont 2012-04-29 08:00

Similar to a lot of the commenters, I didn't really figure out how to get started with the puzzle. I really loved the atmosphere and graphical style though. The frogs in particular are fantastic, and I love how you could tell the skybox was a box ;)

There were heaps of little aesthetic details like those that really made this game work atmospherically for me.

rodomont 2012-04-29 08:02

Oh also, reminded me (in a good way) a little bit of Mirrormoon, a cool GGJ game that was shown in the Experimental Gameplay Sessions at GDC.

gritfish 2012-05-01 13:30

It feels like a mix of myst and the puzzle side of fez... god I wish that was my thing. People have mentioned the move speed, but I don't think that's quite it - there's just so much DISTANCE between everything. On one of the screenshots you can see it's 90% empty - If it'd been smaller, the world could have felt so much more tiny as well.

I'm going to come back to this when it's not so late and I've got more time to explore this fully.

triplefox 2012-05-05 11:29

Struggled for at least an hour to understand the meaning of the clues. Couldn't get it. Maybe I'm too sleepy.

nanolotl 2012-05-06 03:04

Managed to beat it. Really great concept and atmosphere!

incredible-ape 2012-05-07 01:54

Excellent! This is the first Ludum Dare game I've taken notes for! :) The Fez and Proteus inspirations were quite apparent but I love both of those games and think games like that (emphasis on exploration, puzzle solving and decoding messages) are woefully underrepresented so you got high marks! The way you worked the day/night cycle into the clues was a nice touch too.

incredible-ape 2012-05-07 01:59

The only problem I had was with the footstep sounds as they were quite loud and abrasive, especially for sounds you hear constantly throughout the game, and I though they worked against the otherwise sparse and serene mood created by the other sounds and visuals.

chaoseed 2012-05-07 06:20

Pretty fun! Good: I've never seen navigation by constellations before, that's awesome. The puzzle wasn't too hard, as long as you found all the monuments. There was a neat atmosphere. Less good: There wasn't much to the world, I would have liked to see more landmarks, more strange things to contribute to the atmosphere. This also made it a little boring to walk around so much.

Good job! I'd like to see an improved version sometime.

zillix 2012-05-07 07:42

Loved it. Had a lot of fun piecing together the puzzle bits. Also liked the random details, including the black square ant things and bouncing boxes.

alex-k 2012-05-07 12:09

Nice game, with a nice mood! I liked the exploration part, and trying to understand the rules, but the tiny world is too big! It takes too long to walk from one point of interest to the next one, and it's easy to get lost!