firehawksoftware 2012-08-27 23:28
Your web link should load the game, not some page that I have to hunt around to find how to start it.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD24 → Gems of the Evolving Land
By rawbits
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coolness | 1 | 100 | ||
| Innovation | 332 | 2.94 | ||
| Humor | 387 | 2.04 | ||
| Theme | 476 | 2.62 | ||
| Graphics | 529 | 2.49 | ||
| Mood | 590 | 2.19 | ||
| Overall | 604 | 2.52 | ||
| Audio | 606 | 1.17 | ||
| Fun | 625 | 2.19 |
Your web link should load the game, not some page that I have to hunt around to find how to start it.
And how should I know how you want to play the game?
Why you call finding the big ass 'Play' text in the menu 'hunting'?
But all right I choose 'Applet' then for you...
I love the idea here- modifying an evolving land to build resources and obtain goals. That's really well thought out, and it did draw me in for quite some time just clicking around and exploring.
But the downside of using an involved game mechanic is that it's harder for players to jump into and start playing. I had some trouble understanding exactly what I was supposed to be doing. I know you had the help screen and I did read that, but a tutorial level or on-screen hints would have explained things a lot better. Maybe in a post-compo version?
All in all, this is awesome especially for 48 hours! I love the idea of the evolving land, and I'd be curious to see what you do with it after the competition.
Well I actually was thinking about this but I settled with this game is about tactics so it's in the game that you need to find out how to achive the goal. The goal and the rules are clearly stated on the help screen - I hope - and I hate tutorials and stuff like that I bore myself to death and end up exiting and never play that game again. You know Quake hasn't got a tutorial either...
Thank you for playing! I'm happy about you got involved and that you love the basic idea. You've made my day with this comment! :)
About post-compo... if it's get good feedback I may improve the graphics and add sound and music too. Mavbe some I do some balancing and difficulty settings would be nice too. We will see but currently I have other - demoscene releated - projects going.
loads game, but will not let me get past first screen DX
Nice Game! Awesome work for 48 hours! Noticed how you used Processing too... but also how much more organised your code is -_-
lurkingshadow: Maybe it hasn't got the focus - try clicking on it. Or maybe you didn't read the description below the game you need to use W and S to navigate and SPACE to select menu option. Sorry I haven't mentioned it here too.
Nickolai51: Thanks I'm trying to be organised as much as I can. Normally I would do a better OOP design but in these LDs there are not so much time to think about that or redesign... :)
There doesn't appear to be a real win condition, I believe? I guess I can say I beat it then! The controls were not exactly intuitive, in fact, they were a bit confusing, in my opinion. But this game is decent, and I encourage you to keep working on it!
The game I made is designed to be played with one hand as well, but I'd say this one is lots more fun.
Hi! That the environments changes after few steps is a nice idea. Here is my feedback:
- There is not really a need to use the car. The mountains should be bigger and a kind of penalty should be there for making too many steps or reaching the next evolution, so the player needs to make less steps.
- I think you should rework the dependencies in some way (if I got it right): To discover diamonds, I need diamonds?
- I got a little bug where I had -1 of the stuff which is needed to blow mountains away.
- If you want to make a post-compo-version, I would improve the graphics (even if they have their charme as programmer-art)
Interesting concept anyway, keep going :)
Hey really interesting game and impressive you finished this in 48 hours pretty awesome. Really need to see the help screen without exiting and reloading the game, to go back and forth while playing.
When playing this game, I was rather proud of myself for discovering how to take down mountains, by slowly picking away at the dirt around. Then, after amassing a nice pile of diamonds, I looked at the help again, and found out about the "Discover" ability. This caused me to waste all my diamonds getting more diamonds. However, this left me with a lot of gold, which I used to blow up mountains. Within no time, the entire map was covered in forest and I help like a right moron.
So congratulations: You have created one of those games which gives the player so much space that they can start making their own stories. I now know that I am terrible at looking after the environment, and I should never EVER get employed by a mining company.
Nice use of the theme, too. Nice that it's neither animals evolving nor Charles Darwin going on a gun rampage. It's refreshing to see cool ideas.
I won't go into any more detail, because some of the other comments have made my points better than I ever could :P
Have a tip of my hat!
Thank you guys your feedback means a lot! :)
Puzzlem00n: There is a win condition! You have to find all of the diamonds. :) Watch the walkthrough video!
Rex Peppers: Checking yours shortly! ;)
Jeremias:
- There is a chance that you can't find much sulphur in the beguning and traveling through the map will cause evolution so in this case you may be glad you have oil and a car. :)
- You can get the diamonds wihout discovering them using up diamonds. This is just for helping the progress and preventing you from stucking. Obviously you don't want to use them all up! :D But because ther is no scoring implemented it really doesn't matter now...
- Oh, okay found it. Thanks!
- Well it seams people likes the game so I may improve it. Will remember you then!
Richard Matey: It's also on the help screen that you can press F1 to display it on any screen.
Wish I Was an Astronaut: XD Thank you! The yellow thing supposed to be sulphur btw but yes, if you let then nature will rule the land! :D
I simply loved the concept behind the game. Though it took some time to get in to after I understood everything I enjoyed the game quite a bit. Very impressed at what you did in 48 hours.
TwilightFlandre: Thank you! :)
The one handed controls are great, nice job on those. The idea and concept are great too, and I think a great base for a game, but I didn't feel enough pressure to keep me interested for longer than finding about 20 diamonds. It felt like I could just go on and on, since the changing landscapes didn't offer any new challenges. When I didn't have any oil, I could just not use a car for a while until I did. When I didn't have any dirt (never happened) I could just not fill up lakes for a while, etc. I guess for me there was a little too much freedom to do things without getting in trouble. This does make for the perfect game to play with a glass of beer in your hand though.
JaJ: Thak you! Yes, you are right. Everything in the game is balanced so the player can play no matter how bad the generation is. The evolution can reveal or hide resources so there is a potentional problem for the player, but right now the game is only kinda a showoff until levels or somthing like that is implemented. ;)
Really ambitious project to take on over 48 hours. Was a bit confused to start with so watched some of the walk through and then got to grips with it. Very nice work.
BumpkinRich: Thank you! Glad you watched the walkthrough. After all this is what differs from the old era - you can find information on the internet of a game if you are struggling and share tactics with each other. :)
The controls weren't great. These would be better if you made them two handed. Idea - simple but interesting. This would make a nice phone game I think.
I liked the evolving world and the graphics, but I would have liked a goal that was a bit more clear.
I like the idea, I really like the mechanics. Gameplay-wise, I think it's playable, although may be hard to get into (also because of kinda awkward controls - I get why they are like that, but when I'm playing, I'm not drinking/eating/etc. so I prefer to use both hands). Graphics are good enough: some animations would be nice, as well as some audio, but these aren't really major flaws. It's an interesting concept and could be expanded into something more. Nice entry!
vigrid: I tell you I myself need to think sometimes what key is what but it's like when you set keys for the guns in Quake - you will get used to it with time. I really don't like using 2 hands to control a game where you shouldn't. I like to hold my beer and drink while playing or grab some chips... :)
Sanguine: Getting all the diamonds is not clear enought? 8O If I continue the developement then I want a mission/challenge mode or something. ;)
marudziik: Yes, animation would have been great but gfx was made in a hurry and I don't really have tha patient to do that. I thought that I could get some audio in but I never done an audio engine before so I used the time for other things instead to ensure the game will be playeble at least. :)
Thank you all for viewing my game and for the opinions, I really appreciate them! :)
It was a little fun game! I liked the concept of an evolutionary land.
Jorjon: Thank you! :)
Good idea but moving should've been a lot smoother and maybe visually it could've used some animations or something. Missing quite a lot for an appealing game.
RobProductions: I am as much of a programmer as an engineer so consider yourself lucky to se some programmer art from me! :D Anyway I may improve this idea and then it will be more visually and acoustically appealing. :)
That was quite enjoyable. Thank you. :)
Syarahsy: I am glad you enjoyed it, thank you! :)
Waaaaaait why am I in a car? Oh well. I liked the main character.
evilseanbot: because I can't draw a Jeep... :D
Hey. I tried the applet version. I like the car and I really like the random generation, it's done well so it doesn't seem too random. What are you planning on doing with the game now? Are you looking to expand it further or leave it as it is?
@RawBits: Uh, hey, this is a bit off topic, but I have no way to contact you, and I'm sure you regularly check these comments.
First of all, I just found out you reviewed my game. Thanks a lot for that! Your comments on it were interesting.
Secondly, those glitches you found were... Very odd, to say the least.
The one in the hidden mode was easy... It seemed you won so fast because the bullets moved way slower than they normally should, and this allowed them to stay around enough to hit the spawning enemies before they even went on screen.
The ship one had been reported... It seemed to me the bullets were going slow there, too. Only the bullets.
And the enemies in the platformer? Weird. Very weird. So, I started to think: Maybe my timesteps are the problem. Slow computers could mess it all up. Of course, I have no way to verify this without someone to play a fixed version for me, as again, my computer doesn't glitch. So, do you mind, I don't know, playing it and telling me if the ship glitch still occurs, for my learning purposes? Here's the download: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/74538317/Adaption%20%28fixed%2C%20maybe%29.zip
Again, sorry for the off topicness!
tripleVisionGames: It seems everyone like the basic idea and the flaws prety much had been pointed out, so I thought after the Function demoparty (28-30 sept) I get it into the October Challange and make a real game out of it. I need a graphician and a musician for it though.
Puzzlem00n: No problem, but the zip has a password set. :) Well I have set almost all my contacts here but I'll put them in my about box too.
Puzzlem00n: Oh, it's empty. 22 byte. I think there is something wrong here. :)
What the... Sorry about that, it's fixed.
So, is it working?
Puzzlem00n: It's the same as before it seems. Let's use e-mail to continue this testing now on. ok? It's in my about box.
Played this before but never got to rate it.
So yeah...its one of those games..... Well, Heres the rating!
Mood 3+
Humor 2+
Audio 1+
Graphics 3+
Theme 3+
Fun 2+
Innovation 3+
Overall 3+
mohammad: Thank you for rating but next time try to be more constructive in the comments. ;)
Spend some time wandering around. Didn't found any cars :/
Anyhow, it would be better game if some rewards would appear sooner :)
Nice take on the theme - I like manipulating the landscape. There needs to be some more gameplay, but I could certainly see this being the basis of an interesting game. Good work!
michax: From the ingame help - which is also in the screenshoots: "E - toggles vehicle mode"
mdkess: Thank you! I hope it will bacame a real game soon. :) Details comin'!
Thank both of you for playing my game! :)
I would have preferred to have some of the controls available for my right hand. (i.e. the mode switching keys.) I found it very awkward to play with my non-dominant hand.
SusanTheCat: Next LD I will have a base code specially for this purpose I swear! :)
Got an error trying to extract the Linux zip.
kddekadenz: I never used Linux in my life and never want to either so I didn't tried the release on that platform. The ports was done automatically by Processing. As for the zip, I used PeaZip how I used to use it. If you or someone know what is the problem then please tell me!
The controls were weird and I couldn't find the help screen. I kinda felt like there was nothing to do in the game.
SFX: Try 'Give me some help' from the main screen maybe... Also it is in the screenshots.
Wow, big map, mature game idea. And I like the what looks to be hand-drawn art.
Just noticed this is a Processing app, if you want something to help with the keyboard controls, this should do the trick
https://github.com/heuermh/gamepad-processing
Oh, and someday you will want to use linux. :)
heuermh: Oh, and someday I never. I have some Linux System Administrator friends and they hate to use Linux. They all say Windows is more reliable, stable and easy to setup - so I'm sold on that! :D Anyway thanks for the library I was going to make my own for gamepad support but with that it will be easier. Btw the gfx is - digital - hand drawn! :)
Cool to see more Processing out there.
And Linux is totally different on the desktop versus Server admins... though I do find it a bit odd that your friends would think it's hard(er) than Windows to admin. That's pretty much unheard of.
Anyway, I pretty much agree with the others that this would be a great game for mobile.
I liked the game. It had character, and the graphics weren't bad. It feels well thought-out. I especially enjoyed driving about in the car, but, alas, I ran out of oil fairly quickly.
Overall: nice job, feels very finished!
Nice and interesting game. Good job.
davidwparker: Yes, for the same reason the first entries I tried was made in Processing. ;) I like how easy to make any kind off application in it. It is really the best environment for any kind of software rapid prototyping.
iandioch: Thank you, although it isn't finished. I just didn't put anything in it that hasn't got a reason. It was hard to get just those features in what can show the most out of the idea.
Misfit: It will be soon I hope. I still need a gfx mage...
Thank you all for trying out my game! :)
Hey RawBits, nice little game, and I enjoyed specially the random terrain generator, we've actually tried to build something like that for an early prototype of the map in The Journey of Eko (our main project) but it didn't work that well. And you did that and everything else in 48 hours, amazing! Congrats!
BTW, thanks for the compliments on Singularity! :D
I've explained how our random level generator works here: http://www.pixelcows.com/2012/09/the-singularity-arrived-grab-your-clubs.html
If you ever use this for anything, or if you wanna share how you did yours, pls tweet me! @pixel_cows
Cheers from Brazil
Gabriel: Thank you! :) I enjoyed your game too and love the random level generator in it. I will let you know if I am going to use it but I'm a guy who writes his own from everything from ground up. ;) As of mine, I will not make a detailed article about it because I want to develope this idea further - I need a gfx mage for that though. But the source is there as it's need to be according to the rules... ;)
Good ideas, the game could be more fun but there's more depth to it than you usually get from an LD entry. Always nice to see people doing procedural worlds, I spent half of LD getting my own terrain generator to work but didn't really take advantage of the fact that I had it, by making a game that only took place in a small space within the world.
Coudln't really get the point.
goffmog: If I haven't got the idea of minerals by the time I have done the terrain generation then it wouldn't get any functionality so I was lucky I guess. :)
Datw: Is this mean that the help is not explaining the rules very well? The only goal for now is to get all the diamonds. It is like this so you can get the idea and the possibilities in 10 minutes of playing.
This has some potential but totally lacks some challenge or goal.
tcstyle: Yes, as I sad before everything is balanced in a way you can play and try out the features and not for challenge. :)
Pretty neat visuals, and I like the old school "1 block at a time" controls. However, I couldn't quite figure out how to play properly (or at least I don't think I was playing properly). The minimap was cool.
whilefun: There is no real proper way to play this game now. There are a set of rulez and you free to roam the land. The maximum you can get is a goal of getting all diamonds! :) Thank you for taking a peek on my entry!