FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD29 → Substratum

Substratum

By ianmaclarty

View on Wayback Machine

CategoryRankScoreCount
Innovation134.36
Coolness284
Mood483.98
Audio1033.64
Overall1473.68
Theme2353.63
Fun2973.36
Graphics6003.11
Humor9421.88

Comments

hexagore 2014-04-28 02:24

Really interesting and original puzzle mechanic here. Still got to figure out what the deal with the green is though!

Also the music and the seamless music transitions are awesome btw.

minism 2014-04-28 04:01

hell yes dude, I LOVE this game. The mood is fantastic, i love the harsh sounds with the crazy visuals of this alien planet. And to go with it is a genuinely unique puzzle game. Really nice work.

hyperbox 2014-04-28 04:09

Super trippy atmosphere, the visuals blended very well with the unsettling audio. Pretty challenging too, I couldn't finish it :(

mark-feaver 2014-04-28 04:43

Took me a while to get the hang of, but great idea. Also seizure inducing haha (purple blobs)

iamspencer 2014-04-28 04:49

Floating around reminded me of gravity, it was very pleasing to move as the astronaut. Very fun, and good job! :)

moonmagic 2014-04-28 04:55

Lovely. Enjoyed figuring out the different color rules. Nice spacey audio and acid wash colors.

sharpcoder 2014-04-28 04:58

It took me a while to understand what was going on, but that's understandable for a Ludum Dare entry. Once I got the hang of it though, my mind was kind of blown. This is a really unique idea. Great job!

mess110 2014-04-28 08:47

you just dive right in and love the main char

greg-power 2014-04-28 09:33

Such a great game! Great mood, unsettling audio, and really smart rules. I love games that give me legitimate, mechanic-based surprises. An all round fantastic experience!

ccglp 2014-04-28 12:01

Good puzzle mechanics dude!

jayhof 2014-04-29 10:50

Really cool puzzle mechanics: kind of hard though, too hard for me at least :D. Sometimes I find it hard to see the character I am controlling when he's over the yellow stuff.

metanokid 2014-04-29 11:22

It's got pretty interesting mechanics, took me a while to understand how to continue. It kept impressing me over and over with each type of "zone" but when I suddenly moved through the walls I was blown up.
Pretty nice entry! Loved it!

ezolotko 2014-04-29 12:19

Lags a lot here

theengineers 2014-04-29 13:50

Really interesting puzzle mechanic.

dramentiaras 2014-04-29 13:54

Great puzzle game with challenging puzzles. Very innovative.

blockbot 2014-04-29 14:31

One of the better games I have played so far! Nice work.

marcellus 2014-04-30 02:36

floating around in a jetpack is great, the puzzle mechanics is very intresting. The atmosphere is very nice also. Good entry like i'd like to see more.

christophe 2014-04-30 10:44

Smart level design! That was really fun. Great puzzle!!

thorig 2014-04-30 10:59

The mood and audio are great. Nice game!

lajos 2014-05-01 15:06

Very nice puzzle! Congrats!

kirbytails7 2014-05-02 05:19

Honestly, I just didn't know how to get past the blue part. It might be a bit too cryptic, at least for the very first puzzle. Pretty effects, though!

ianmaclarty 2014-05-02 06:16

Thanks for all the kind feedback everyone :)

If you're stuck at the first blue part, here's the solution: https://vine.co/v/MvXj0tgBLdg.

kiyaku 2014-05-02 23:46

What a weeeeeeird game, very interesting concept and idea, i like it :D

cheesepencil 2014-05-02 23:59

it's tricky!

pixel_3 2014-05-03 04:01

Pretty good, a little weird. Not much going for it in terms of aesthetics, but I guess that's where the term "programmer art" comes from, right?
The concept is pretty cool too.

jadams 2014-05-03 16:20

Super interesting puzzle mechanics that presented a number of really satisfying moments of realization. Going fullscreen resets the game, which was a bit irritating.

gwenn 2014-05-05 19:51

Really great psychedelic weird atmosphere. Reminded me of 2001, A space Odyssey. I love the way you're thrown in this weird colorful experience with just some controls and you have to figure out what to do and how does the game reacts to your action.

photon 2014-05-05 20:01

Shoot, what did I just play?

Very unique and immersive. I mean, just wow. What else do I say? Just great.

pinkmonkeyhead 2014-05-06 04:01

The mechanics are amazing!! But its too difficult and lacks of introduction factor

bekokstover 2014-05-06 07:23

Waow, this reminds me of Corrypt, in a good way. The atmosphere is fantastic, and weird and creepy. I really got stuck, but I like this game a lot. Great entry.

ditto 2014-05-06 07:55

This reminds me a bit of Starseed pilgrim, the weird puzzle mechanics and simple controls just blew me away! Awesome game!

ethankennerly 2014-05-07 04:53

Figuring out that shooting a different colored block allowed me to pass into the block fascinated me. The desolate story, strange tile block logic, bleak sounds created a plausible mood of being in a space odyssey. If you continue to develop this, in the beginning of the green squares I got trapped and felt discouraged from figuring out the strange logic.

neekobus 2014-05-07 20:45

Weird. Ugly. Nice.
Love the idea of shooting blocks to get in, but now I'm stuck.
Can't get the whole logic.
Can't find how to pass the levels with green blocks (the one after your big screenshot).

gfm 2014-05-07 21:16

This was really unique. I (think) figured how yellow blue and purple works... but I still couldn't figure how to progress from a point. XD

Audio was really moody! :)

goerp 2014-05-08 17:06

Brilliant mood. From the screenshot it looked like a kind of H.E.R.O. but it's totally different.
A weird trippy puzzler.
It's hard too! I'm not getting far so far.

goerp 2014-05-08 17:21

Oh: when I quit the game, the music keeps playing for a while and there's a stream of openGL errors. Maybe good to know?

blueberrysoft 2014-05-12 03:52

SPOILERY REVIEW!

I'm pretty wary of anything that looks like a 'puzzle-platformer', but I got a massive satisfaction when I first popped into the grey 'wall' area and the whole thing seemed to open up. That was ace. From then I didn't even bother with puzzles, just wandered about making pretty pictures.

snoother 2014-05-12 18:52

Wow, great concept and music. Got stuck at the green bit, but I'll probably revisit it at some point and (hopefully) beat it. The whole thing was so captivating and immersive, with sooo many pwetty colours!

maniulo 2014-05-17 22:15

Wow. Didn't want to play this at first since I'm not a big fun of puzzle/platformer games, but this game is just great. The mood is great, the mechanics are great, not overly long; one of the best in this LD for me.

mortus 2014-05-18 08:45

Great mechanics! Would love to see more puzzles based on it! As I understood it, much of the world is there just for player's amusement, but it could have all sorts of fun puzzles! But that takes time, of course. I like how every environment has its own music and physics laws, that's great! On of the most unusual (and fun at the same time) games this time.

Jeremias 2014-05-18 21:04

Nice mechanic and very crazy atmosphere.