puzzlem00n 2012-12-18 19:30
Crow's nests, slower computers can't play this game at all. I'll have to count the fixes as porting. Luckily, no one's tried it yet.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD25 → The Button
By puzzlem00n
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coolness | 3 | 62 | ||
| Mood | 42 | 3.52 | ||
| Theme | 111 | 3.53 | ||
| Innovation | 217 | 2.63 | ||
| Overall | 219 | 2.78 | ||
| Humor | 237 | 2.10 | ||
| Fun | 246 | 2.41 | ||
| Audio | 251 | 1.78 | ||
| Graphics | 263 | 2.47 |
Crow's nests, slower computers can't play this game at all. I'll have to count the fixes as porting. Luckily, no one's tried it yet.
Nice to see an entry with a bit of story in it. The platforming was fine if a bit floaty, and gives the player something to do while reading the story. Having the player act in the last room to progress the story was nice and reminded me of the narration in Bastion. The story-player interaction would be interesting to see developed further.
What a nice progression respective your previous games! Really! If you want to make a post-compo-version, I would improve the following:
- Walking animation (I know thats hard, but it flickers a bit)
- Tweaking the jumping (height, jumping speed, falling speed, response to pressing the keys etc.). It's a bit too slow paced.
- The "hunted by a good one" is a nice gameplay mechanic. Perhaps you should focus on this and try to program a little AI which follows the player through the level?
- Try to make save areas after entering a screen. I jumped through a screen change and landed into spikes ^^
Thanks to both of you. Story was really my main goal for this one, yes, although I wasn't sure whether or not I'd pulled it off.
Oh, and if either of you read this comment, note that you missed out on the right screen at the beginning (see note 12/19), but it's the same thing quoted in the description, so you get the idea. =)
I really liked it! The platforming was a bit floaty, but manageable. I loved the story, you managed to be serious without seeming like a douche. Excellent! (some really atmospheric music would've been nice, and yeah, the last room was the best by far)
Solid story, this was a nice change of pace compared to a lot of actiony entries. Nice job!
Thanks for the last room being best comment. Actually, as I was thinking about ideas for a fight with the hero, I found a boss fight article on Gamastura. It said that boss fights should be based around what you've taught the player in the game. And so I said to myself, "Self," I said, "all you've taught the player is jumping and avoiding spikes. How the heck do you test that?" Then it hit me, and voila, we have the game you see before you. ;)
Hey Puzzle, nice to see faster movement than last time but still it's a little slow :) Was just about to ask if there actually a was to get past the room with the really long line of spikes and then it occured to me! Then I figured it out. Still havn't figured out the buttion though. Your games sure do leave me guessing (which I love).
-Rob
Ah, BrothersT, there you are! Thanks for the positive comments. And yes, I really should learn to make it all less floaty already, I just never find time to tweak it.
Ah, and anyone who can't figure out the boss: Don't think about pressing the button. That's not an issue. You've got to get rid of that blond goody-goody so he won't kill you as you just after you stop to press it down! (The fact that the button wasn't as important as the enemy was meant to be made more clear, but you know, near-the-end cuts.)
Did not work on my mac. OSX 10.7.5.
Oh, man... Don't worry, I'll fix it soon, but I don't have the time now. For now, Mac build is down.
Alright, new Mac build up. Sorry, I've run in to this problem before, it's just that I'd thought I'd done the solution right this time. It should work now.
Works for me now!
I saw all those X's and I kept thinking that my X key must be the button.
An elegant boss battle.
it would be really great if the IA would follow you through the room, it'd add some difficuly !
Cool. The mood of this game was really cool. Very fun to play and the stor was great. A little more to do, a little more gameplay mechanics, and this would be even better. Way to go!
Nice concept. I don't like the platforming being as floaty as it is, and the gameplay doesn't have much depth, but I like the storytelling aspect of things. When we did our game, it was more so the before and leading up to the "Why did I do all of this" thing. I never thought to make a game based on the aftermath, brilliant. Keep up the good work!
ATTENTION PLEASE, ATTENTION PLEASE. ALL THOSE WHO CAN NOT PASS THE LONG ROW OF SPIKES, HEED THE WISEMAN'S WORDS:
"In reality, spikes, despite what the traditional platformer will tell you, do not kill you from any other side than that of the point."
Nice story. I really liked the transition between the 3rd (or something scene) and the first scene where Mr. I'm Going-To-Stop-You Showed Up where the color went from the rusty stuff to cleaner white - it was indicated really clearly "this is the past!" I also thought that although you didn't teach much (as you say, jumping and spikes), you did a good job of teaching it without instructions.
The gameplay does leave more to be wanted. It might be more compelling a game if there was more of a challenge to causing doomsday.
Alright; I got around to playing your game, and I really liked it! The storytelling is interesting. The world has its own character, and these two combined give off quite the unique vibe. Personally, it made me feel like on a far away planet, or space station (because of the floaty physics). Bit of a 'doom' / post-apocalyptic feel because of the colors, but not scary! I love these kind of games, reminds me of one of mes's entries, dream forest.
To sum it up:
+ unique, mysterious atmoshphere
+ interesting storytelling (leaves questions open, maybe space for a second part?)
- the spike mechanic was only really "abusable" by killing the boss, so a few more uses might have been implemented
Sum up: Great entry that stays in the head of the player for a bit. Well done!
A space station? I SHOULD HAVE PUT IT ON THE MOON! Bah, what was I thinking! That would have made so much more sense than an underground base where he'd be shielded from the bombs... Wow. Thanks for your comments, dek, probably the most helpful one I've gotten. =D
Hey Puzzlemon, thanks for the game.
I liked your theme decision. A villain's reflection after the end of the world sounds interesting. It reminded me a bit of the "war of the brothers" series of Dragonlance books.
* The sprites are nice, but the animation is a bit messed up - it looks that they are just twitching while walking.
* The lack of sound works to set the mood of the game, but maybe some appropriate musical score would have been a better choice? But I know how hard that is to pull off.
* The platforming part was pretty solid.
* On the last room, to make people realize that they don't need to press the button, maybe you should make the button less proeminent? Maybe a very small (2-3px) button on the top of a small pixel pedestal? Then the hero would stand out more.
Thanks for the game!
A pedestal. Hmm. Now that you mention it, I realize how much more that fits in.
Oh, and the animation twitches more the slower the computer is. I think it all has to do with the collision.
Good work! Nice to have a bit of storyline.
The story was good and original, but, at the end, I didn't understood that you couldn't press the button without killing the good guy.
Moon physics drove me crazy on the back-and-forth screen, but overall not too bad. The text on each screen disappeared before I had a chance to read it if I happened to pay too much attention to my guy at the start of the screen. I did like that you taught me how to play by giving me seemingly "unsolvable" puzzles. I knew there had to be a solution so I started to think of the non-obvious solutions first.
The story was good, and the revelation of each piece came in manageable chunks which is always appreciated :)
As others have said, the movement was very floaty which means it felt a bit slow to control sometimes but they really came in handy to beat the final boss because I could float for a bit over the spikes and lead my nemesis to his doom.
The mechanics of being able to sidestep spikes was really cool! Forced me to think outside the box when trying to get past them sometimes.
Great work Puzzlem00n :3
The remorseful villain is an interesting twist.
Decent writing. The low gravity on this planet made jumping fun-time.
Probably due to the incredibly low gravity jumps, this game has a very unique and serene feel to it. I'm not entirely sure that was intentional, and I'm not sure that the slow jumping worked very well. It got a little annoying for me. Not because I wanted it to be a fast-paced action platformer. There are many slow, contemplative games out there and they're great. I just feel that it didn't go well with the way the levels were designed. It seemed like the game was begging to move faster. And in a way that kind of heightens the feeling of agony, but like I said, I don't think it was intentional.
Still, it was a very interesting take on the theme, and I felt a little inspired by it. Good going!
I kinda liked it, kinda hated it.
First off there was the fact of the graphics, the games level design consisted of either one type of block or another or just spikes. That's it, no background nothing. Just rusted blocks or chrome. Kinda bland and disappointing. Second was the game itself. There are points in the game where the blocks are placed in such a manner that the only way for me to advance was by a glitch. Not the best level design. Third was the failure of alternet endings, of course, since this follows through flashbacks, the ending will be the same. But if, just if, you miss that button, and outsmart the enemy in such a way that he falls to his death it just gives you the ending where he pushes the button, when he really did it. Can't say much more, so good job.
I don't mind the jump mechanic in fact, I would have liked longer jumps, to get over the impossible parts of the spikes.