FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD26 → NinjaFlare

NinjaFlare

By 8bitpimp

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Graphics94.47
Coolness299
Mood863.69
Overall1393.69
Fun2343.38
Theme7023.39
Audio7032.45
Humor8941.80
Innovation9082.64

Comments

kortuga98 2013-04-29 02:17

Very, very cool game. Visually pleasing graphics and gameplay, however I'd like to see better control responsiveness (you can only attack/jump/slide when there are no other buttons pressed), but other than that i have no complaints.

invictusv 2013-04-29 02:28

How do you use the grappling hook? I accidentally did it once and became obsessed with finding it out. God I love grappling hooks! Needs instructions on that. I love the aesthetics and visual style. You are truly the 8 bit pimp.

greg-power 2013-04-29 02:39

Absolutely beautiful. Those leaves..! It's rare to come across a legit original pixel style.

I'd agree with Kortuga98 on the control issue though. Could have been amazing with smooth controls.

Also, it's great seeing a game under a megabyte - I've just started using Unity - so much bloat!

follett 2013-04-29 04:08

Controls didn't work some times which was wierd. But the art is amazing!

saampahlavan 2013-04-29 04:11

Really smooth. I like the sun and just all of the visuals. I kind of wish it was just a runner where I tore dudes up and grappled on stuff. Nice job

mire 2013-04-29 04:15

WOW. Amazing graphics. Very beautiful. You run so fast which makes game play almost like an auto-runner.

endesga 2013-04-29 05:43

AMAZING GAME!!
the graphics are spectacular! and the gameplay is pretty sweet too!
I'd love it if you could check out my game :)
thanks man, that was awesome

-ENDESGA

lythom 2013-04-29 06:31

Hi 8BitPimp, here is some feedback.
What I loved :
- art, immersion
- dynamic gameplay
What I think could be improved :
- music ?
- multi input at the same time
- scoring (for a runner it's pretty essential ! you don't even know if you did better from a run to another)
- more explanations on the rules (is there a end ? is the goal to smash ennemies or to run far ? When can the hook be used ?)

I felt a bit frustrated not knowing if there was a end but could not reach it or if it was a scoring game... without score.
Good game overall, thanks for it !

mekuri 2013-04-29 07:11

The graphics and mood in this game are spectacular. The game is a bit too fast for my liking, and the controls are.. weird. I really think you nailed it on the mood though. Good job.

omaromeir 2013-04-29 07:28

Wow, this is an amazing looking game. It plays well too, but sadly it isn't too responsive which makes it really frustrating :(.

chman 2013-04-29 07:51

So beautiful ! Playing this fullscreen on a big screen made me feel like I was back in 1990 !

infin8 2013-04-29 08:44

Really cool stuff and great style. Controls are quite wonky though and i would have preferred that the ninja run on its own.

LionOfOrange 2013-04-29 08:58

Great looking game. Loved the colors, falling leaves, flying pigeons and the randomness.

Best compliment I can give is that I want to see this really finished in a complete game :)

For people wanting music: read the readme.txt

manuel777 2013-04-29 09:47

This is pretty good, except forone thing; it is horrendously hard to control!

lanoiadimuu 2013-04-29 09:54

Wow. Just wow.

niallm 2013-04-29 09:57

This is a gorgeous game, though I agree about the odd control issues. Also, the slash and slide seem superfluous, since if you just run at full-tilt the enemies will never hit you.

jod 2013-04-29 10:38

Loved the colour scheme, the combination worked really well. The Sakura were a favourite!

jhrrsn 2013-04-29 11:18

Looks awesome, I wish I could play it (Mac).

syawqy 2013-04-29 11:37

I like the art,really good!

andygo 2013-04-29 11:44

Beautiful :)

dualtagh 2013-04-29 11:59

Very nice looking game, pretty fun

noa 2013-04-29 12:34

The player is truly a soap, I can't contol it :(

geepit 2013-04-29 13:13

Looks lovely! And was fun. Only thing is sometimes the slash wouldn't work. Other than that though very cool

aquilicoco 2013-04-29 13:28

I love the graphics style. It`s fun.
Good work.

judasbenhur 2013-04-29 13:35

that was awesome but also very difficult! :)

wonderwhy-er 2013-04-29 14:27

Wah, nice!

casimps1 2013-04-29 15:20

Gorgeous game with a minimal color palette. Well done!

coldbrain 2013-04-29 16:13

Cool animation!

kgs0142 2013-04-29 16:14

I really like the ambient!
And the smooth motion,
It's like The Legend of Kage on sunset :p

syner_d 2013-04-29 16:15

very good!

rabbitrobot 2013-04-29 17:01

Loved the graphics. The game was a REALLY boring.

rabbitrobot 2013-04-29 17:02

Sorry my brother messed the last one up >:( Loved the graphics. The game quite fun. I enjoyed it.

kiwiboi 2013-04-29 17:07

Great game! I love the art style! :D The slide worked weird for me though.

kylebolton 2013-04-29 17:42

Your game looks super slick, but unfortunately I wasn't able to rate it (I'm on a Mac). I was a little disappointed that the Web link took me to a Youtube video...because I really want to play this! Maybe consider changing the name of the web link to "Youtube" or "Video?"

orangepascal 2013-04-29 18:39

it's canabalt but with a ninja.. .. a ninja!

kyyninen 2013-04-29 18:53

Stunning visuals! Nice twist on infinite runners, but controlling speed, jumping AND fighting dudes at the same time overwhelmed me pretty quickly and I ended up just speeding past everything.

I found tapping X feverishly before falling full speed the most reliable way to activate grappling hook.

philz 2013-04-29 19:16

A beautiful looking game. The gameplay is nothing new, but it's still fun to play. A little bit music would have been nice.

lucasncv 2013-04-29 20:42

Incredibly beautiful game. The atmosphere and mechanics are clean and simple. Well done!

linuus 2013-04-29 21:01

Love the graphics!

donan 2013-04-29 21:17

Canabal style rules :D. Even using a known gameplay style, the touches to the control, and the awesome graphics make it a really good running game :D

zekyon 2013-04-29 21:28

Very cool! Are very funny seriously

zccc 2013-04-29 23:26

Very nice, I liked the pixel art, even tough the sword slash looks very tiny! I didn't really felt I needed to use the slash and slide, but it's very fun!

sakuyan 2013-04-30 01:18

Great aesthetics! I love the speed and the flow of the game :))

cloudiestnights 2013-04-30 02:26

Wow. Please improve this post compo? The graphics were simple and gorgeous. The gameplay was tough at the start, but really improves on the endless runner formula. This game reminded me of Nidhogg for some reason... A huge 5/5

andrewves 2013-04-30 07:39

The art style of this game is great, controls are not the greatest but overall i really enjoyed it.

zinfandel 2013-04-30 10:36

I love the mood and the visuals - the effect on the sun is especially impressive.
The gameplay is great and polished, though I've found it somewhat difficult to control and respond on time.

hegemege 2013-04-30 13:31

Beautiful game indeed, I would've liked an option for windowed, since SDL always moves my windows around when going fullscreen.

Really smooth game, but lacks a soundtrack.

rujomarco 2013-04-30 14:05

this is cool in so many ways! love in particular the graphics style/palette.
great entry

keyboardthrashingfactory 2013-04-30 14:11

Seriously cool game, run slide slice, simple and yet soooooooooooo addictive

tonbery 2013-04-30 14:26

simple and beautiful! =D really something to buy on app Store and google Play ;)

martijn 2013-04-30 14:46

Love the animation on the sun

arkadydracul 2013-04-30 15:24

Nice one!

jolle 2013-04-30 16:28

Very nice artwork. Could have used some sort of score system (although that would be less minimal, yes).

I found myself usually just jumping over enemies instead of slashing.

cacciatc 2013-04-30 17:32

Slick running animation.

thebenjaneer 2013-04-30 20:16

Great Graphics!
Pretty cool game. How exactly does the grappling hook work?

Also it seemed a lot easier to simply jump over the enemies rather than slashing them ( it seemed like you could go faster and it was easier to time ).

Anyhow, Nice Job!

paulmcgg 2013-04-30 20:33

Absolutely stunning, such style. The controls were a bit unwiedly, but it was satisfying to get a good run going and take down a number of enemies. I would love to something larger in this style honestly.

kevinzuhn 2013-05-01 01:53

Really stellar style and tone!
I thought it was interesting that I needed to stop running to use my sword, although the enemies were slow enough that I didn't usually have to kill them. Running past is just as effective! Or, well, it is until I fall off of a ledge.

murilo 2013-05-01 02:00

Very nice overall! But it seemed a little useless to slash the enemies when could easily jump over them.

markusfisch 2013-05-01 12:11

That's a really nice game! I would love to see this finished! Reminds me of those good old Ninja games on the C64 area and I really dig the mood and atmosphere.

Actually I liked the visuals so much, that I really wanted to play the game; but I don't run Windows so I made it compile on Linux. So if there's anybody on Linux too, here's a patch file (better use "save as" because of the CR's):

http://markusfisch.de/downloads/NinjaFlare.patch

Use it with the original sources like this:

unzip NinjaFlare.zip
cd NinjaFlare
patch -p1 -i NinjaFlare.patch
make
./ninjaflare

So far this is my favorite game of the competition. Really well done 8BitPimp and a thanks a lot you provided the sources so I could play it!

granada 2013-05-01 13:32

When I try to run the game I receive this error: "It's not a valid Win32 application". Judging by the video, looks like a nice game. I would love to play it.

juniorus 2013-05-01 14:45

Really beautiful graphics!
Maybe a later version with a scoring system and your meter bar (and some samurai/wuxia music)?

8bitpimp 2013-05-01 17:29

@Markusfisch
Thats awesome that you made a port of the game. Thanks for doing that.

@GranaDa
Hmm, I might guess that you are running winxp? I did read about support for that being dropped in the latest MSVC++ 2012.I will have a go at building one for winxp.

Also yes I plan to extend this game at some point and really improve the controls vastly after everyone's great feedback.

redwater 2013-05-01 18:21

Great concept, great execution!
It's a bit of a let down to now have some kind of measure of how well you did.

A few remarks on the design:
Artwise it's very slick, love all the variation you put in there, and especially the hazing for the background! Although i'd love to see a change in environment if you advance further.
Gameplay-wise i love how the slashing works, it's fun to use it, but it's also rendered useless by the sliding mechanic which is easier and more reliable to use, and splashes through several enemies.
Otherwise the enemy never got to slash me, which removes much of the challenge. I'd love to seem them evade, jump or follow you for a bit.
Good work overall, lot's of fun to play \o Looking out for a post-compo version :D

uhfgood 2013-05-01 21:40

You need to keep working on it and release it publicly (meaning non-ld for profit or non) looks fairly polished but the combat could use some work. Should also put in some music. Graphics were pretty sweet.

cloudiestnights 2013-05-01 22:41

I've found out that the game is even more minimalistic if you only use z and x to move. It's quite difficult, too.

8bitpimp 2013-05-02 10:19

@CloudiestNights that is such a cool idea :)

granada 2013-05-02 21:39

@8BitPimp: Stills a "not valid Win32 application". I'm running WinXP 32-bit.

minionstudios 2013-05-02 21:54

Great game! Tough to get very far it because of the speed of the controls.

johnnysix 2013-05-02 23:02

Like the simple style of the silhouettes and the white sword/grappling hook. The shimmering sun in the background was a nice touch also.

mesene 2013-05-02 23:27

WEB links to youtube :< !! I had to download win
Nice game! i liked the sun's effect

jorjon 2013-05-03 02:30

Nice atari-esque runner, though a score would be a good addition.

brotherst 2013-05-03 20:44

Yeah definitely could benefit from a score :P Really amazing style, seriously. I like the grappling hook but wish it was more forgiving maybe he should sling it even though it's going to miss, then you can see how much give it has. Perhaps there should be more of a point to killing enemies than just not to get hit, because I just end up running through them and playing it like Canabalt! Really nice game.

cakencode 2013-05-04 09:23

Great mood and graphics. Wish you could have run and slashed at the same time, that would have given me a lot more incentive to do more than just jump over the enemies. Great work!

patrik 2013-05-04 11:02

It seems all right to me that there is no win condition. but perhaps you could add a score based on kills and distance... something like an infinite runner.

Fantastically atmospheric graphics!

phocker 2013-05-06 04:37

very good game, but the controls felt akward -- not sure why -- and it was a bit too hard at the beginning -- great effort. love the effect on the sun

roguenoodle 2013-05-07 14:50

Really nice work - love the animation! Would be cool to see some different scenery if you continue this further. Judging by your blog post, you are taking this further, and that's a really good thing :)

2013-05-08 04:18

Amazing, amazing game.

make-a-game 2013-05-08 16:45

This game is beautiful. I loved it, and I also enjoyed reading your post-mortem.

someone 2013-05-10 17:56

Beautiful graphics. Unfortunately the controls don't seem very responsive.
Plus it left my desktop at a stupid resolution when I quit the game.

monxcleyrproductions 2013-05-12 12:37

The visuals are absolutely fantastic. The controls took a little getting used to, and without scoring/leaderboards there was little incentive to slash through the enemy characters. It was also possible to abuse the grappling hook and swing across pretty crazy distances. That said, this was really well done, and with some improvements I could see it being one of the better entries in the Canabalt-like runner genre.

gremlin 2013-05-13 18:36

Love the look. I had trouble getting the hang of jumping until I realized that I didn't need to run at full tilt all of the time.

Still, some of the jumps I missed felt a bit arbitrary and I can't help but wonder if the game would be stronger if there was always something to land on, so that missing a jump was just a delay rather than instadeath. Make it easier to keep the flow going and stay in the groove. (And it did seem like you could only press one of the buttons at a time.)

Also, there wasn't really a way to tell how well I was doing, since there isn't a score or much indication of distance or how many warriors you've passed, so I played for a while and then stopped after what felt like a fairly long run.

dremelofdeath 2013-05-17 08:55

This game is gorgeous. The sun effect is stunning! Really enjoyed playing it, thanks for the great work!