FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD26 → DownGrade

DownGrade

By barkergames

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness1100
Innovation2023.20
Theme2833.22
Humor3161.96
Mood3172.78
Audio4082.11
Overall4522.66
Fun4872.24
Graphics4892.35

Comments

kewry 2013-04-29 17:23

The text is quite hard to read the art style is quite interesting.
The game however starts quite hard and confusing, you die and spawn someplace different feels weird

destroyer40k 2013-04-29 17:39

I like the basic idea of the game where it becomes progressively harder as you pass the levels, but it's pretty hard from the start. There's just tons of guns firing at you and you have a huge hitbox without a possibility to even crouch. Otherwise the gameplay is good and I think I recognize the audio effect for punching a wall from Unreal :)

dalbinblue 2013-04-30 02:11

This game starts off quite hard, and controls of space being jump and the use of the mouse made my hand hurt very quickly. As a suggestion, use up as your jump, and put the speed dash on "E" and "Shift" then you should be able to hit all the controls comfortably on one hand for keyboard and one for mouse.

mystify 2013-04-30 02:15

it is a pretty good idea, but the gameplay is not that fun. Its a platformer, where you are slow and clumsy with a huge hitbox

manax 2013-04-30 02:19

Yeah, agree respawn was weird. 3rd area I was in was particularly difficult, kept hitting these stationary spikes and falling back a long ways, didn't see any way to get past...

Good concept though.

moomoo112 2013-04-30 02:22

the character felt too big for the levels..

dagamesta 2013-04-30 02:25

Nice and interesting concept, stripping down to the essentials is very much minimalism. The fact that you created a level generator of this complexity is somewhat impressive, but the first level I spawned in was unbeatable, I couldn't fit through. The gameplay leaves much to be desired, the graphics were all right, no music. I'd say it's a good start, but you might want to remake the core mechanics if you go any further.

avrec 2013-04-30 02:56

Went until I hit a point where the level wouldn't let me go any further; I couldn't fit through the only open space. Are the levels procedurally generated? That might be the problem.

hayawi 2013-05-01 01:52

Felt unfinished and untested, even for an LD game

hamster_mk_4 2013-05-01 02:02

I like the idea, but the game became more frustrating as it continued and I eventually gave up. In-spite of the labels on the downgrade screen I had a hard time figuring out what would happen when I selected on.

cybearg 2013-05-01 22:43

The idea of downgrading as you go is a clever twist. I like it!

Personally, though, I found the level design to be too cruel to actually be much fun. There are lots of unavoidable hits and very difficult precision platforming segments. In the end, it's not a very fun game, but the concept behind downgrading as you go was a clever one.

Maybe if the levels were done differently, it could work really well.

cheesyramen 2013-05-02 02:10

I really enjoyed your implementation of minimalism in this one. Good job! :)

hardycore 2013-05-02 02:21

Removing upgrades is a good concept for the theme and the story fits extremely well with it. The ever-shrinking instructions page before each level is a good touch.

The levels felt like they were made for a slightly smaller character, but overall they worked well enough. Some levels are hard or even impossible without certain upgrades; good thing the game generates a new stage each try.

The game is very enjoyable with quite a lot of content already considering the LD timeline, and is very scalable; by adding new levels, new implants, and a layer of polish, there's not really much of a limit to how good this game could get.

barkergames 2013-05-03 01:45

Thanks for all the constructive criticism everyone.

Sadly we didn't get enough time to play test as much as we would have liked :(

I agree that the levels and a bit of the game play need some work.
Music needs to be added as well.

ryusui 2013-05-03 03:06

I think it's a clever idea, but I wish the level design involved more than just tricky jumps and dodging gunfire.

minionstudios 2013-05-03 18:53

A great entry! Powering down different parts of your super character is a great idea.

netmute 2013-05-03 19:20

I'm on a Mac, sorry :(

tainted_code 2013-05-04 21:05

VERY strange respawns but awesome concept and nice sound effects!

itszn 2013-05-04 22:13

I like the concept, but the gameplay is a little difficult. I don't get why it keeps teleporting to random parts after each death.

brotherst 2013-05-05 19:40

I love the Cheetahmen-style controls, graphics and difficulty level. All that was missing was the funky soundtrack ;) That said, it was a bit too difficult, especially after I accidentally reduced my sight range! It became almost impossible to play after that, since I kept falling down holes.

killerstarbunny 2013-05-07 01:24

Fun, great idea a couple times the spikes didn't work though.

andrewtwest 2013-05-07 04:35

Sorry, but this crashes immediately when I try to run in on Windows 8 64-bit.

lioneljitro 2013-05-07 07:24

Really cool concept.

I didn't quite understand the level generation and re spawns. The difficulty tended to fluctuate a lot.

It was really hard to make a choice about what to downgrade. I liked that mechanic a lot.

kibertoad 2013-05-08 05:39

Impressive entry, but character movement feels painful even with all of the upgrades. Maps should more open space for stuff like hovering to work properly.

cakencode 2013-05-08 05:46

That was pretty darn difficult but a ton of addictive fun :D

The sound effects were obnoxious at first, and the whole way through really. Definitely the weakest point of the game. I also sometimes clicked outside the window when trying to aim down really quickly, confining the mouse to the window would have helped.

The level design was challenging, especially with the very stiff controls, but it was hard in a good way. Kept me trying to get better at it, trying to master it. Having to downgrade a component was really cool, if a bit of a nail-biter decision (which is good!).

Holding down shift and having the power drain while not doing anything was a tad annoying but I got used to it pretty quickly.

All in all, great game! I think you've got something really cool here and you should definitely keep polishing it! :)

dremelofdeath 2013-05-08 09:38

The audio in this game is really well done. I was a super fan of it. Unfortunately, I found the controls really hard to use and didn't really get far enough to see the theme execution.

davedobson 2013-05-11 02:33

Really interesting idea, to give up powers, and lots of variety in levels. I like the instant restart with a changed level - means that you can't get stuck on one thing for long. I made the mistake of giving up far sight early on, and that made the game muuuuch harder. Good backstory with the text, and cool sounds. Game physics was a little wonky, but once you got used to it, it was cool. There were some obstacles it was just impossible to jump over or avoid, which was a little frustrating.

jellycakes 2013-05-11 02:45

Was a really nice game. I started out running and gunning everywhere but the more upgrades I got rid of the more it encouraged careful gameplay. Everything was a bit fidily to maneuver around though as the character seemed giant and it only got a little easier when I got rid of seer sight. Other than that, great job!

avidgamernino 2013-05-11 07:23

When die am I suppose to start at different levels? A little away from the theme, but it was an addicting game.

snakeeater 2013-05-12 22:45

It felt really confusing and hard. As someone already said, the character is way too big compared to the level.

komradus 2013-05-17 10:02

Really difficult to get a grasp but damn, I could not stop playing, good stuff.