FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD28 → Tether

Tether

By compostface

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness357
Mood953.54
Audio1233.34
Graphics2173.54
Innovation4502.98
Theme5452.79
Humor6231.98
Overall6972.77
Fun8922.19

Comments

silentbunny 2013-12-16 03:13

love the color palette

ossah 2013-12-16 03:14

Nice mood and graphics. A little buggy and didn't know what I was to do.

archaeometrician 2013-12-16 03:16

I love the graphics ! I really love that style of art :)

calahagus 2013-12-16 03:18

Interesting, but it feels like the theme should have had more prevalence in the mechanics.

mrblade 2013-12-16 03:25

This a great game. Reminds me a lot of Edmund McMillen's game "Aether", that alone in space, drifting, feeling. Amazing graphics, wonderful sounds, great calming music. Keep it up!

ratboy2713 2013-12-16 03:25

Interesting take on the theme, though it was a bit too minimalist (not quite sure what I need to do or how to do it). I really liked the art and music.

broxxar 2013-12-16 03:57

Like others have said, awesome looking and sounding, great feel, but not really clear how to play.

compostface 2013-12-16 04:06

@ Everyone. Thanks for the feedback...

There isn't very much to do in the game, but I'm not sure where people are getting stuck?
Can you move anywhere at all? Did you find the jellyfish?

Besides what wrote about the controls in the description, all I can really suggest is keep trying... Moving around is hard, but it's doable.

alanzucconi 2013-12-16 04:51

That's so nice! *_* Did you use Hinge joints for the cable? ;p The audio as well is very immersive... I wish I could have used something like that for my entry! What did you use to make it?

lyje 2013-12-16 11:41

Really nice aesthetic, sound, music and atmosphere. The concept is great, although I couldn't quite get to grips with the controls.

snail_man 2013-12-16 17:12

I almost did it! I grabbed my jellyfish, and jetted off to my spaceship, missed it by an inch, and was left floating forever...

Background could ave been a bit more interesting, but it really was a fantastic game.

adventureislands 2013-12-16 21:43

nice graphics, sounds and feel, although the theme doesn't really show up besides the single use boost. Could perhaps be easier to control as it's very easy to screw up.

sink 2013-12-16 22:08

Really nice feeling from this game. However I didn't find the controls all that great, I felt very constricted (Which might have been the point in which case I apologize). This game really shines in the graphics and music department though!

abeing 2013-12-17 02:18

I dont understand the game but I like the graphics, mood and sound

integershift 2013-12-17 02:56

The graphics where really good!

zkenshin 2013-12-17 03:47

Very atmospheric.

mistertubbs 2013-12-17 03:49

I loved it! It was a little hard at first, but I got the hang of it.

seagaia 2013-12-17 04:23

nice ambience with being in space - i think - i feel hard to connect with the player avatar through movement. that's not a bad/good judgmnet just my feeling!

adonaac 2013-12-17 04:31

Would have been great but controls are really weird and unresponsive. Kinda nice graphics and mood, though.

pjchardt 2013-12-17 05:13

I agree with others that the game has a really nice mood and atmosphere. Tough to understand how to play though. I enjoy the idea but as it is the penalty for error is too steep. It would be interesting if the level was procedural each playthrough but had more stuff to move in between. The idea of lining up and "shooting" to the next object is really cool.

darkcoder 2013-12-17 06:17

It looks great, but after running it three times and making sure I read your instructions correctly, I still have no idea what to do. Pressing the arrow keys does nothing for me, pressing x sometimes thrusts, and cutting the tether seems to be the only thing that works as expected. Maybe this game is amazing, but with completely unintuitive controls with close to zero feedback from the stated inputs, it's unplayable.

thatguy 2013-12-17 07:11

Very well done artwork and music. Good job!

lorniebear 2013-12-17 07:49

The music was relaxing.

ace 2013-12-17 07:57

Looks and sounds pretty good, though the controls are a bit strange and an indicator pointing in the general direction of your pet would be useful.

finefin 2013-12-17 10:38

Oh I really like this!
I found the jellyfish but was lost in space with it. will try again later. graphics and mood really pleases me. good job.

bukaneerz 2013-12-17 11:21

Cool atmosphere and graphics !

therrato 2013-12-17 12:09

love the setting, would recommend to try to do an intro in game menu / help section so people can find out in the game how to play it

voidqk 2013-12-17 13:05

4 stars across the board! very nice game, simple, great graphics, great mood... I ended up cutting the tether almost instantly -- it's a good concept, but not really necessary... perhaps some other way to make it more useful...

gungnir 2013-12-17 13:32

Nice idea, inertia based with the tethering. Wish the default player size was larger - and if there had been some simple tiling background element, the relative movement/speed would have been easier to read. Love to see you evolve it post comp. Something quite chill about letting yourself just float off... especially to that music.

triplevisiongames 2013-12-17 19:29

Couldn't work it out for a while, but the music was beautiful and kept me playing for long enough to sort of figure it out. Top score audio and mood for me. Don't worry about bugs, they add 'challenge' ;p

pele 2013-12-17 19:34

Well done minimalistic choices. The mood is great!
Didn't get any prompt when I got back to the ship with the Jellyfish. Would be nice to receive a bit more input about the controls during the game. Controlling the character is difficult but that fits the game perfectly. Nice sounds.

burlapjack 2013-12-17 19:39

It's very mysterious and lonely, which is cool. I felt almost too much out of control for my liking though. Maybe if there was more space junk floating around to interact with.

ultravisitor 2013-12-17 20:37

This is amazing. A perfect entry.

halfire120 2013-12-17 21:13

Very well done! Loved the colour palette and the audio, gameplay could have done with some work, but this is very nice :D

atomicvikings 2013-12-17 22:09

Remainds me on this new movie :) Thank you for sharing this *love* And I love the pixelart style too <3

keithe 2013-12-17 22:56

love the colors and the rope animation. Was kin dof lost on what I should be doing. Could have maybe used a little more tutorial but very interesting.

several 2013-12-18 00:37

Neat! But also very rough! I think the biggest thing it's missing is a way to see beyond the tiny screen (e.g. by adding a minimap, the ability to zoom the camera in/out, or by adding markers on the edge of the screen to indicate relative locations & distances of debris).

Re: the confusion:

Since the game always seems to start with the player bouncing/flailing around randomly, there seems to be only one button that does anything from the start: 'c' to cut the cable. While you're attached to the cable, you can't use the boost, and seem to be unable to land on anything. So really, there's only one button to start, and it only does one thing. Once.

Since you start out bouncing around randomly and you can't really see any of the pieces that you want to latch onto, there seem to be low odds of cutting the cable and not immediately dooming yourself. So you'll finally discover the one button you can press, and cut the cable, and just end up floating forever, or until you press the reset button. There's no major game feedback that tells you that you lost, you just have to decide that yourself.

How do you decide that? By a lack objects passing by, I think. It's the same if you stay latched on. You'll see a few things pass by, and then nothing. In both cases, you've missed your chance, and you don't even know it. You don't see what you need to do.

So the confusion is probably:

- Why am I suddenly bouncing around? That looks kind of glitchy. Is it glitchy?

- Why can I only press one button? I thought there were other controls?

- Why is there so little to see? Is this a game over? Should there be more to the game?

And so forth. Those 'known bugs' don't really help, either.

I hope this doesn't come off as too negative! I'm just trying to explain my own initial confusion, and perhaps explain others' as well. Once I realized that I had a narrow window to jump onto a small collection of debris and try to scuttle across it, I quite liked the game--I'd even like to make something like it! (Or something a little more like Gravity, at least.)

Alas! Picking up the jellyfish results in the little bastard bumping into me & knocking me off debris, and I've no idea where the ship went, so I just kinda gave up.

Kudos on the graphics!

danielsnd 2013-12-18 00:47

Very challenging game.

compostface 2013-12-18 01:57

Thank you all for the feedback! I appreciate it. Many of the suggestions are things I also wanted to add/change. I just wasn't quick enough to do it. :(

I might end up eventually making an updated version of this game and fleshing it out a bit more.

jupiter_hadley 2013-12-18 03:01

Awesome game, I didnt get to far into it but, I included this game in my Ludum Dare Compilation series, if you'd like to check it out :) http://youtu.be/6i2NO94dPrk

before-light 2013-12-18 05:12

I did it, found and returned. Does it mean I win? Besides great work.

brotherst 2013-12-18 20:20

I've been trying for 5 minutes and I'm still no closer to figuring out how the hell to play this game :P

alchiggins 2013-12-18 23:04

Great atmosphere. The idea has a lot of potential. I had difficulty figuring out that the player character was the player character and what I was supposed to do, and I had difficulty making any progress. I'd be curious to see how you flesh this out.

venks 2013-12-20 07:12

Decent graphics and interesting atmosphere. I'm curious what this would be like if expanded upon.

eskivor 2013-12-21 04:05

It's the same kind of sensation as Gravity, you are lost alone in the void of the space, you don't know where you're supposed to do... the ambient sound is great ! ;)

mamoniemm 2013-12-21 09:11

Loved everything, except never been able to succeed ;(

undonedevs 2013-12-21 19:13

Very interesting concept, but really difficult to play. Good work anyway!

diegomachado 2013-12-21 20:32

Excelent graphics and mood because of the music and atmosphere. Gameplay was a little confusing. I managed to get the jelly but couldn't be back home.

rezoner 2013-12-21 20:58

The art looks so lovely. Wish Linux could into Unity Web Player

daveloper 2013-12-21 20:58

The gameplay feels a bit broken, perhaps the bugs restricted the game from communicating it's design. lesson learned!

lacutis 2013-12-22 01:16

Interesting game and idea. I think it could use some fleshing out. I couldnt figure out when to cut my tether in order to get where I needed to.
The theme seemed a little tacked on as well.
Nice graphics though! Good entry.