Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD24 → Parthenogenesis
By kakuremino
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coolness | 3 | 72 | ||
| Innovation | 172 | 3.31 | ||
| Theme | 249 | 3.21 | ||
| Mood | 255 | 2.87 | ||
| Humor | 350 | 2.11 | ||
| Audio | 392 | 2.35 | ||
| Graphics | 397 | 2.86 | ||
| Overall | 434 | 2.86 | ||
| Fun | 641 | 2.14 |
Bit of a dodgy download service with pop ups, I'd recommend making a drop box account and using that instead next time, it's free.
Some excellent effects in there that made it a good experience, for instance, the death screen.
Some bugs were present, like the player getting stuck if they moved back to the perimeter of the zone.
Good incorporation of the concept, I liked the perspective you took on the theme.
Sorry about the crappy dowload service. If by "the perimeter of the zone" you mean the dark blue ocean then that's not a bug. You do not get stuck, the movement is just slowed down to a crawl. The creature is not a good swimmer (but its descendants are slightly better).
I tried to run it though wine on linux, and it didn't work. Sorry!
[Parthenogenesis]$ wine parthenogenesis.exe
err:ntdll:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 0x111e54 "?" wait timed out in thread 0024, blocked by 0000, retrying (60 sec)
I liked the mood it cast. If you were going for a creepy kinda tentative mood, you nailed it. Good job.
Cool concept, and loved the mood & ambience (it thought to itself).
Interesting plot, but I really hated the clicking radiation minigame (expecially how it just suddenly appears without warning). The circle world thing was really cool though and I feel that you could do a lot more with it.
I felt this game concept had a lot of potential but ultimately it was too vague to grasp. On the first try I didnt notice the brown dot was what I was controlling. Second run, I moved around successfully but was not entirely clear on what to do.. ? Try and grab the drumstick?
The spacebar section blinks too fast to see what it says at times...
I felt the death screen just took too long. I would have played this much more if i didn't have to sit and wait for 20 seconds (approximately) each time I died.
Good effort but please make it more accessible overall & painless to retry.
Thanks for the comments and criticisms everyone.
Josefnpat, thanks for trying. If you or anyone else wants to go through the hassle, the game should probably run from source if some version of Ruby 1.9 and the Gosu gem (both available for Linux) are present.
Mamick, the radiation minigame should probably (unlike now) give some warning and time to prepare when it is about to begin, but it always appears on timesteps that are multiples of 40 (as stated in the beginning) so it is predictable.
Mes, the goal of the game is to make the creature survive and evolve. To survive the creature needs food and water. The only way to get food is to eat the drumsticks (pressing space when close to it) and the only place to find water is the lake (inner blue circle). I'm sorry the game is so frustrating to restart.
I'll try to release a post-compo version with some minor fixes (instructions screen, painless restart, some warning that the minigame is about to begin and maybe some (hopefully) fun additions to the minigame) within a couple of days.
Neat idea. I especially liked the concentric rings for landscape, very original. The game was super confusing, though, focus on clarity first and then style after.
The game has a good atmosphere, it took me a while to work out what I was supposed to be doing - could've done with a bit more help. Original concept, fits the theme nicely, good attempt.
Huh? Did I, wait.. what? Okay? Whatever.
That how the game made me feel. I really began to resent how random the food was.
I appreciate the attempt this game had made: it's seriously impressive in the context of the myriad of identical LD entries without any ambition whatsoever. However, even post-compo edition felt clunky and lagging, with the gameflow lacking any sort of polish, preventing player from having actual fun from playing it. Hope it'll get polished further. Potential is there.
Hmm not sure if I could figure out what to do. I like the graphics though :)
I couldn't do anything in this game. I needed some time to realise that I am playing with the red dot, but it just moves slower and slower as it's gets near the center of the planet or what and that is all. You should explain what to do and how I think - it seemed so simple but apperently it's not...
Oh, and get rid of the dying screen or add a skip button to it. I takes ages to reveal the text.
And where is the button smashing? I was hope I can break my keyboard with this...
Thanks for playing everyone!
Rawbits, the post-compo version contains (among other things) an instructions screen and skippable dying screen. It also indicates more clearly that you are controlling the red dot.
The button-mashing aspect is there. It is useful to mash spacebar when trying to catch food or when drinking, it is also necessary to repeatedly press the left mouse button when playing the minigame.
The food is a bit of a pain to get since it tends to speed up as it gets near me. :/
Nice idea for the game however.