FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD29 → Fragment

Fragment

By rxi

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Mood144.31
Audio583.79
Graphics8002.79
Innovation8872.62
Humor9721.81
Overall10462.66
Theme11082.35
Fun12101.94
Coolness187730

Comments

leafo 2014-04-28 04:49

this is what the mood stars are made for

rnlf 2014-04-28 08:44

Exactly. I have no idea what percentage of the story I discovered, but the game conveys the feeling of running out of time and being helpless so intensely.

Nice one, especially for only 6 hours of work. Also, the music fits in really great.

Sorry for not giving you "humor" stars ;-)

zebi24 2014-04-28 12:36

Very beautiful experience.

loxo 2014-04-28 16:23

Nice entry with great mood, a longer version would be nice. But what happened to the other game you started?

2014-04-28 18:07

What happened to your other game rxi? :<

rxi 2014-04-28 18:29

@loxo, @MrMow

Unfortunately, with only about 6 hours remaining, I realised the game I had started had no direction, I couldn't think of what to do with it. It was relatively pretty but unfortunately not much else.

Instead of just giving up I decided to make a small game in the 6 hours. I think it was the right choice because I'm fairly certain if I continued with the first game it wouldn't have offered much more than was shown in the .gifs.

I don't know what I'll do with it, but hopefully it won't just end up rotting away, even if it just becomes learning material for those interest in how it was made. I'll likely write a post about the things I tried in both games and my experience in starting from scratch at such a late point in the competition. I also recorded a timelapse which contains the making of both the games, though I haven't uploaded it yet.

I appreciate that posting the gifs did imply that that game would be released and uploaded once the competition had ended, and I understand how that may have been a bit annoying to anyone looking forward to what the images may have alluded to. I'm sorry if anyone feels let down in that regard.

kerdelos 2014-04-28 19:31

I liked the ambiance but I'm still a bit confused about what I was supposed to do.

pinkmonkeyhead 2014-04-28 19:54

I got lost after the "treated like dogs" text

pighead10 2014-04-28 21:34

Unfortunately falls into the "pretentious non game" category which far too many LD games are doing recently. But mood stars exist for these sort of games!

glowingsnail 2014-04-28 21:41

This doesn't pass as a game to me. A circle slowly moving to text paragraphes. A handful levels of greyness. Broody chiptune.

I know game jams are the place to express your minimalistic, artsy side, but this pushes it too far.

mental-atrophy 2014-04-28 21:47

I don't get it. I've played four times seeing if I missed something, but after the initial text fades away nothing else happens until the timer runs out and the screen reds out. On my first play, I managed to locate another small paragraph, but that's the only time.

drnick 2014-04-28 22:15

Very good! I missed a line I couldn't find in the middle of the text, but then I looked at the source code to read it. Very moody! Nice music

zatyka 2014-04-29 02:48

After trying 3 times, I couldn't find anything but the text at the beginning. I must be missing something. I'll check later to see if there's something obvious I'm missing.

moonkis 2014-04-29 13:07

Very moody, which is something I like! I loved the music, it was prob. what 'made' the game for me.

It was a bit too cryptic, but the text was nice even though it was quite hard to find them all, I had to open up the source-code to make sure I had found them all.

Given the time you spent on this, I'd say very good work rxi, and keep it up!

tobiasw 2014-04-29 15:13

Metal Atrophy's comment fits my experience pretty well: "I don't get it. I've played four times seeing if I missed something, but after the initial text fades away nothing else happens until the timer runs out and the screen reds out. On my first play, I managed to locate another small paragraph, but that's the only time."

Then I checked the source code, and, uh, I have to admit that the story is too cryptic for me to understand. I do know how short 6 hours are, though, and for that it's pretty well done.

PS: I miss your lovely pixels!

boaheck_artgent 2014-04-29 20:12

well it looks nice and has a nice mood but I just don't understand how to play it.

spacechase0 2014-04-29 22:19

I don't understand. :(

tijmentio 2014-04-30 00:45

Very soothing

josefnpat 2014-04-30 01:38

Chilling. Had to tear the source apart to read the words, but none-the-less nice for 6 hours.

roaet 2014-04-30 03:08

As everyone has already said, this is a wonderfully moody experience. Very much enjoyed what it was.

benmcnelly 2014-04-30 17:02

I liked it. ignore the haters.

xaychru04 2014-04-30 20:26

Very nice mood, the music was great too! I don't really get the story though and there weren't a lot of gameplay elements, but the overall game was pretty relaxing! :)

(You're very courageous to start another game so little time before the deadline, I hope you make something off the other game. :) )

therrato 2014-04-30 21:51

Great experience, it gives a great vibe

atmospherium 2014-04-30 21:56

All the mood. All the audio. And also all the humor because of the comments.

But seriously, great job on this. You nailed the sense of subdued urgency. Don't know if I ever got all the text, but I'll try again later.

robber 2014-04-30 22:13

beautifull music and story, which fits the theme well if i understand correctly...would like to have seen some depth in interactivity as well, would call this more art than game..

reactorscram 2014-05-01 00:21

I think I missed some of the text boxes, I only got 4 or so. I did another playthrough where I went straight up and only got the first text box. So until then, I assumed you were spawning them in whatever direction the player was moving, in some clever way.

xrxr 2014-05-01 19:32

I had the honor of witnessing the death of the game that got scraped, too bad that one didn't make it. This is good for what it is done in 6 hrs :D

cakencode 2014-05-03 09:22

The music is really good, and I think it looks really well composed and has a good simple art direction. I wasn't really sure what I was doing, as I kept cruising around and seeing nothing. From other comments there were other text boxes, so I guess I'm out to search for them! After trying two times, I ran into nothing!

make-a-game 2014-05-03 15:50

Interesting submission. Shame that it's very hard to find the rest of the story and make sense of it.

commanderstitch 2014-05-03 18:53

oooo. the heartbeat is my favorite part, or at least i think i sounds like a heartbeat. it goes nicely with the music and mood of what is being conveyed here.

wakka 2014-05-04 19:30

Really great athmosphere, however I couldn't find out where I had to go....

kddekadenz 2014-05-04 19:45

This has a really great mood to it! Could have done great with more hours!

seconddimension 2014-05-05 11:40

I must admit I struggled to find all the text, but I liked the idea and the music was beautiful

clavus 2014-05-07 12:18

Relaxing, but confusing because I don't really get any indication which direction to go into. Or at least I did not notice any.

derosa 2014-05-09 13:54

I played 5 times and only found the second text once. A pity as the mood is great.

snoother 2014-05-11 14:13

The idea of telling a story in minimalist fragments is very appealing, if, sadly, a bit impractical and not always workable. The graceful music, intriguing opening paragraph and austere colour palette set up a perfect mood, but finding another paragraph just felt too infrequent. For 6 hours, though, it's pretty damn incredible.

jsmars 2014-05-16 18:31

Nice music and mood! :)

ashdnazg 2014-05-16 21:22

Starting the game, I had no idea what's going on.
I was stressed, the audio and heartbeats didn't help much either. Oh, there's a wall of text here! hmmm, now I'm not only stressed but also puzzled and afraid, where is this wall of text going, what am I doing? Why is everything red? time's up.

Let's try again.
Still no idea what's going on.
Ok, so the paragraphs appear close to each other so you can actually read them semi-consistently. Still no idea what it is about but I feel the helplessness well.

If games are considered a work of art that tries to incite emotion in the audience, yours is a great success, the combination of audio, wording and general atmosphere makes it a unique experience.
If games are seen as entertainment, or things that attempt to amuse, it's clear that yours doesn't even try.

Thanks for making this, it was interesting!

king_mew 2014-05-18 03:23

Very nice and great mood! I didn't really understand if I got it all, but I think that's the point. :P