FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD23 → Nematode

Nematode

By danblack

View on Wayback Machine

CategoryRankScoreCount
Innovation2663.29
Theme5572.76
Audio6661.80
Overall7722.41
Fun7722.12
Mood8171.91
Graphics8521.88
Coolness93626

Comments

pixelulsar 2012-04-24 20:15

It was something that I've never seen before, but I personally found it very confusing, I never got a single point.

nocturne 2012-04-24 20:52

Most confusing... I read your description before playing and even then I found the game incomprehensible! Too random and not explicit enough in how to play. Gave it two plays and didn't manage to score a single point...

telluse 2012-04-26 14:31

Wonderful idea :D

The randomness of the worms aside (as you've mentioned), I dig the "reverse Snake" style. Maybe if you have several patterns going at once, the single-queued food might be easier to work with (or one could simply create completely random worms and hope one would come up :P)

Neat work, dude.

zzzev 2012-04-26 14:32

Unfortunately, I had a similar experience as the other commenters here. Maybe if the worms moved in more predictable patterns, it would be easier to form them?

excitemike 2012-04-26 14:36

Wow. So hard to make them eat the food I want! I think it's a really slick idea, but it like needs clearer rules for how the worms move (seems to be random?) and/or zoomed into a smaller game world maybe?

tomalla 2012-04-26 14:36

Great idea! It only needs a little tutorial for the very beginning though, I needed quite a time to figure out what was going on. It was fun until I needed a one-dot-worm which simply was not on the board. What am I supposed to do then? Apart from that - that is a good one! Cheers

danblack 2012-04-26 14:47

@Pixelulsar, @Nocturne, @zzzev - I have updated the desctiption to try and make it clearer. I accept that it's really tricky to play though.

@TellusE - Thanks and glad you liked it. I think there is milage in this 'reverse snake' gameplay but it probably needs longer than 48hours to iron out all the gameplay issues. Adding more target worms though would be a start though. Thanks for the feedback.

@ExciteMike - Yes the worms movement is random and this is the largest I could get the resolution and still be able to diplay text. I aggree about the size though and if I get time to revisit this idea I will defeintely try to make the pixels even bigger. Thanks for your feedback.

@Tomalla - I agree, it does need a tutorial. Not to mention lots of tweaks to the gameplay to make it less fiddly / frustrating. When you run out of small worms you have to feed up the bigger worms to get rid of them. As longer worms die off new small ones replace them. Thanks for the feedback.

morgawr 2012-04-26 15:21

Really confusing game, even after reading the instructions... the sounds are a bit annoying.

angrygeometry 2012-04-26 15:23

i liked the aesthetics a lot, but even with the updated instructions i still couldn't work it out. maybe post a gameplay video?

caranha 2012-04-26 15:25

That is a VERY interesting game, I like the concept a lot.

The biggest problem, in my opinion, is that 1-sized worms, and food are identical. So it is very hard to keep track of the worms.

The game would be much easier to understand if worms were somehow different from food. Some ideas: Make the worms bigger than the food, give the worms a black "head", give the worms an outline?

murrayl 2012-04-26 15:28

Quite enjoyed the game - didn't have a problem understanding how to play after reading your updated instructions.

I'd suggest making it a lot more likely that the worms keep moving in the same direction (so it's easier to get them to eat), and display the next coloured block as well as the one you are currently about to place (to allow for planning).

dokidoki 2012-04-26 15:37

Cool idea, now that I understand it. :)

drabiter 2012-04-27 11:51

Both windows and web links not work :(

danblack 2012-04-30 07:33

@Drabiter - Do you have Flash installed? If you have Flash it should work.

azurenimbus 2012-05-05 00:50

Really unique, I enjoyed it a lot. It can drive you INSANE (in a good way). But I can't say anything about that :D

Great job!