givemeallyourcats 2014-04-28 11:43
I liked the art style of the game
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD29 → The Last Beacon
By katamori
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coolness | 1 | 100 | ||
| Theme | 212 | 3.66 | ||
| Innovation | 283 | 3.47 | ||
| Overall | 323 | 3.43 | ||
| Mood | 420 | 3.14 | ||
| Graphics | 420 | 3.37 | ||
| Fun | 649 | 2.92 | ||
| Audio | 699 | 2.49 | ||
| Humor | 769 | 2.15 |
I liked the art style of the game
Everything works, there's a minor bug when laser will not go through ruins that were just destroyed but I didn't mind. Good job!
Really cool game, made it to the end screen (which is a little bit buggy, text was too far to the left). The blocks could die a little bit faster. But great work though!
Yes, I know about the buggy ending. I'm gonna fix it ASAP.
I must be stupid, I am stuck in the second level ! I use the hook but how do I step above the block on the ground ?
Some really cool ideas. Some puzzles seemed to just involve waiting for a laser to cut through a dozen rocks, or had simpler solutions than the level seemed to suggest, but a lot of good puzzle pieces, with more polish than this time limit allowed this could have some really challenging puzzles. Controls for moving around felt a little awkward, like trying to get into a gap while climbing meant pressing space to let go of the rope, then quickly tapping left to try and get in, unless I was doing that wrong?
The game ending text was cut off as the text started at the left of the screen, but the status/time/level box was still on screen, so I missed the first couple words on every line :(
Tifu: you have to know that I absolutely suck at finding out logic puzzles. You're right, time may help, but that doesn't mean that I'd be significantly better I'd have more time.
Ending will be repaired soon, I promise - I just have enough of updating since this is the second one today.
Really really liked the graphics! Honestly they're some of the best I've seen. Good work!
Nifty little twist on the ol' laser/mirror puzzles. Puzzles a bit basic - Lot of waiting around waiting for blocks to be destroyed, but very well presented!
I really like the art in the game, as well as the feel and theme! I really like the robot and he kinda reminds my of the Android bot xD Great Job! GameGrape Corporation: http://www.codingrevolution.blogspot.com
Really liked the visuals. As other people have mentioned the breaking through blocks took a while and my laser kept seeming to get stuck so I'd have to repeatedly fire it to get through multiple blocks.
Nice concept! I like how the game slowly teaches you new concepts/gameplay mechanics. One room for improvement is at the beginning I had no idea what to do or what buttons to press / if anything was working. I saw the info on the right but was still confused as to how to complete a level. Overall nice job!
Nice little puzzle game! Great art! It all fits really well together! The laser sound can get irritating after a while, and perhaps music would have been a better alternative. Regardless, great job!
The art is really cute, and I like the premise behind it. There's a few bugs though, including the laser sometimes not working, dead blocks sometimes still stopping the laser, and also when a block is right up against one of the blue laser emitter things the block isn't damaged by the laser that should be coming out of it. It also takes too long for blocks to break, I got bored quickly just waiting around for the laser to go through. The other big problem is just that the puzzles don't really feel like puzzles, there isn't much challenge to them. But I think this game could be fun with some improvements, it's a nice concept.
Really awesome game, amazing entry.
Penguincat: thanks for mentioning the mistakes.
Fortunately, the game has way less bugs than I expected, but I could not eliminate the "dead blocks sometimes still stopping the laser", even though I tried.
The time you need to wait would have been decreased easily, I just didn't expect for that it's gonna be too long.
About puzzles: I suck at making puzzles, but I wanted to try making a logic game, as far as it may improve me and this skill.
looks great and really interesting, but the second level was really hard to control :(
@Katamori: As a specific suggestion, I think a great way to add more complexity to the puzzles is for the player to have to place or move some or all of the laser redirecting blocks, and then come up with a variety of ways to interfere with that so the player has to consider many different factors to figure out where the best place to put the blocks is. I think with a few ideas like that to spice things up this game could work really well!
I also encountered the "no-laser-through-ruins" bug. A novel game idea, however!
without jumping the controls are really frustrating.
Such a lonely robot.
You've created a good atmosphere and I like the retro styled graphics!
I like it! The graphics were a little dark, so it was hard to see sometimes that there were blocks that hadn't quite been destroyed. I like the laser mechanic, and the different ways you used it in puzzles, though the level with dozens of portals was more confusing than difficult.
Overall, it's very polished and complete feeling for a 48-hour game. :)
@AtkinsSJ: thank you! It was my primary aim. I feel that a game must be complete.
this game looks and sounds so retro! i love it!
most of the retro-style game (mine included) clearly reveal that they've been made today.. not with this one! great job!
@rujo: it's OK, the matter is that your game was polished, not an unfinished stuff. Thank you BTW
Nice little puzzle game. As others have said, sometimes the blocks don't go away after my laser has dug through them. Still, well done!
The art and concept were pretty cool. I only played until about level 5 or 6 because it became too tedious. If I could offer some critical feedback, it would be the following: It is not fun waiting as long as it takes to burn through the dirt blocks with the laser. Let that burn through go a lot quicker. Next, there is an annoying bug where the laser won't continue on its own after it burns through a dirt block. You have to keep toggling it on/off and that is tedious. The third thing is that the level design often makes is so you can bypass a lot of the laser relay blocks. You can just go way further in the chain and activate your laser. This just makes the levels not as satisfying. Anyway, I enjoyed the concept I just think it needs a bit of work still post-compo to have a chance to shine. ;) (Pun intended.)
Trying to get better at Löve and Lua so I took it as a personal challenge to identify why the laser sometimes stops after destroying a block. Your code was... passionate :D. Took me quite a while to understand the way you are handling things (I still don't understand why your map arrays in mapX.lua files are flipped 90 degrees and mirrored, wouldn't it be easier to just make it so that the top left of your array is also the top left of your screen ;)).
The problem is this (can be repeated 100% of the time at the end of level 4):
In physics.lua inside Mirror_Behaviour the mirror pieces use an if - elseif - end, meaning that they value the other possible direction as an input over the other, because it gets checked first. The right-down mirror (line 81) happens to favour beams coming from the left (x + 1). Then we have a beam coming from beneath, going trough the mirror and "hitting" the block on the way. On the next check the mirror notices that there is also a beam next to it on the right (the beam it just projected!) and shoots a beam DOWN and then exits the function, never updating the projected beam. Restarting the laser works, because now the beam reaches the next mirror on the first try. I "fixed" it by changing the if - elseif - end into two separate if - end -blocks. While it doesn't get stuck anymore it now gets projected into both directions, so that when you shoot a mirror block it also shoots back at you :D. I'm not sure how you would go about fixing this bug because you don't store the direction of the beam anywhere. You could probably just store the points where the beams collided with something and keep polling if they get destroyed, after which you start a new beam going from there.
Ah, yes, there was a game to review! Some of the mechanics felt a bit silly (couldn't fire right next to a block etc.) but obviously the game would be too easy without them in place. The game was still somewhat easy, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing for a Ludum Dare game. I would've preferred if S-key just dismissed the rope instead of descending, I don't like using spacebar as a control key :P. The audio was pretty annoying, especially when you just had to wait for the beam to drill you a nice hole.
Damn. That's a long comment.
Anssi@MooseflyGames
@Moosefly: the funny thing is that even I don't know, why the stored maps are flipped :D I used the same technique for write it out that I used in my first attempt, and I still didn't want to change that because of bad experiences in this field.
Thanks for trying to fix my bug, though the way you did is still not a perfect solution, as you mentioned. I still appreciate your attempts and that you even checked the source code. I'll definitely find out something in the future, when I remake the game - if there's gonna be a demand for that.
Also, I know that there are silly things, but I'm rather a kind of "closeted-into-my-room-and-make-game-without-knowledge-about-gamers" type of guy, so I suck at making user experience things, such as proper control... :D
Fortunately, both controls and audio can be changed easily, so I'm gonna give the player an option in the future for that.
Also, without S, how would you be able to descend on the rope? :P
Thanks for your comment anyway.
@HybridMind: I suck at making logic puzzles.
@Katamori: The rope travels and retracts instantly so I think gravity would be enough for going down ;).
@Moosefly: yes, but you can't shoot the beam while falling down. :P
@Katamori: That's why you hook to the ceiling like a robot ninja while falling, or approach the point by going up the rope :D.
@Moosefly: haha, you're right, I didn't even think of that.
Great presentation (cool opening title !) and nice crunchy little sprites. You've really nailed the retro arcade style, and the UI layout is nicely conceived. Like jojocarand, I got stuck on level 2 for a while - I think the "IN AIR THERE'S NO FLIGHT" threw me off, suggesting that you couldn't move sideways onto ledges when falling. I agree with you about the logic puzzles - they aren't great. The basic foundation is good (bugs you know about aside) but the puzzles definitely need to be more interesting (even if that requires introducing some new element).
I really like the graphical style of this game! Great job!
Nice gameplay. Interesting use of the theme.
Good game concept and nice use of the individual elements. The levels are well thought-through, though the difficulty of the levels is a bit random. The last two levels are a bit too complex to solve strategically.
I like the weird story. (Why am I anubis?)
Overall, good job!
A little bug: The light beam doesn't update sometimes when braking through blocks horizontally.
Pretty fun. The puzzles were generally a bit on the easy side. Some background music would have been nice as well. Other than that the game looked good and played well.
@ZXYer: It's actually just a hidden homage; the main enemy of my LD#27 game (Hackfield) was also called Anubis.
This is a cool little game, I think you created an interesting world with a good atmosphere. I found the laser pretty satisfying too, although it would have been nice to have some other sounds. Really nice game overall
Really cool, one of the best (if not the best) puzzles of this LD. Smalls bugs here and there (laser not updating especially) but nothing too heavy. I like the fact that for some levels there are multiple solutions. Great work!
I enjoyed playing this game. The vertical gameplay was a bit annoyed (having to manage the grapple to perform jumps). I understand that you were have to do it like this to match the theme. Perhaps, regardless of the theme, a top-down view like a sokoban would allow for more design possibilities.
I got stuck towards the beginning but I included it in part 22 of my Ludum Dare Compilation video series! :) http://youtu.be/7oB_8pUypJo