FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD29 → The Loudest Ballerina

The Loudest Ballerina

By whalebot

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness369
Humor373.90
Audio463.87
Innovation584.03
Overall1103.77
Theme1163.83
Fun1343.63
Graphics2023.78
Mood2253.45

Comments

ntr 2014-04-28 06:22

SO MUCH JUICE

kirbytails7 2014-04-28 06:29

Silly and fun concept, and it's fun to play. Well done!

javadocmd 2014-04-28 06:37

I knew I was going to love this just reading the description. Hilarious concept. Gameplay is pretty difficult because it can be hard to get across the stage for your next move. Also I had to make a control cheat sheet to remember which move was which color. But it doesn't make me love it less. Dying is half the fun!

furrikira 2014-04-28 06:53

AM I JUST DANCING ON... OH MY GOD.

terraco 2014-04-28 07:02

Really good. The controls were not clear at the start. Ended up mashing the keys to get the right combo.

hissssssssss 2014-04-28 12:19

This is incredible. It's funny, of course, but the gameplay is solid too!
I love how much you've been able to convey visually with the chunky pixelated style, too.

whalebot 2014-04-28 15:54

Thanks everyone to has played it so far. Glad you enjoy it. If it helps you remember the controls:

(from left to right)
Z X C
jump spin bend
Red Yellow Green

Now go make dad proud! (and don't get eaten...)

whalebot 2014-04-28 15:57

Well the formatting of those controls got screwed up so let's try this:

(from left to right)
Red: Z (jump)
Yellow: X (spin)
Green: C (bend)

tanner101010 2014-04-28 19:02

I really liked this game! It was very hard and the controls took some getting used to but overall it was very well done.

anny 2014-04-28 19:04

SO COOOOOOOOOOOL. Loved the graphics and the music and the theme. So much fun

dragonxvi 2014-04-28 19:08

17298 before I was violently eaten in what might be the most original concept I've played so far. Bravo! :D

burgerdare 2014-04-28 19:44

Brilliant idea. The color coding feels a bit vague/arbitrary, so it would've been nice to have reminders of what corresponds to what in-game, but other than that this was superb.

tijmentio 2014-04-28 20:54

Awesome concept and awesome game! I got really good at it, got 113651 points!!! Woohoo!

miltage 2014-04-28 21:07

Very well made, probably my favorite entry so far. Original concept and well executed. I love the spot lights and the screen shake.

Hard to remember what action to perform in each spotlight though, and the meaning of the UI bars were a little vague.

Overall, great work.

kragnir 2014-04-28 21:19

The game is very well put together. The gameplay is lacking though it could use some more depth.

whalebot 2014-04-29 04:28

For those interested, my high score is 158227. 1000 imaginary points to anyone who can beat it!

nightshadow0 2014-04-29 16:34

The spotlight colors aren't very color-blind friendly. Really fun concept, though!

eerongal 2014-04-29 21:46

neat little game. Really enjoyed the graphics. It's a bit rough to start to remember which move to do in which spotlight, though.

zutty 2014-04-29 22:29

Wow this is really excellent. A brilliant idea well executed.

jujule 2014-04-29 22:36

A great concepts perfectly executed and exquisitely spiced up with a brilliant sens of humour. The best entry so far for me.

afal 2014-04-29 23:48

Really silly. Love it :)

tomvert 2014-04-30 12:11

One of my favorite game so far, I haven't played much since I'm at work but I'll play it more tonight. Fantastic idea!

ceosol 2014-05-01 03:29

Good stuff. Excellent job on the animations.

againey 2014-05-02 17:22

Great attention to details that added to the experience.

I would have appreciated some options, however. Mostly I was just following the lights. Having some choices to make could have made me feel more engaged and involved. For example, the jump seemed to make the crowd extra happy, but could be made as a high-risk/high-reward option. Or more strongly play the monster against the crowd; that is, placating the monster often works against pleasing the crowd, and vice versa.

Also having some heads up about where the next light would be could help. It felt pointlessly frustrating when the next light was clear across the room and would be gone before I got to it.

whalebot 2014-05-02 19:48

@Andy Gainey

Thanks for playing! You actually do have some choices (although they aren't made completely obvious I'll admit).

-Doing any move at any time will win over the crowd (unless it is done in the incorrect spotlight, they really don't like that...). However, doing the move outside of the spotlight makes a ton of noise that will wake up the monster.
-As you realized, the jump wins over the crowd the most, but it also makes the most noise if you don't land in the spotlight. It is also worth the most points. (high risk/reward)
-You *can* placate the monster by simply not moving (making less noise) or doing fewer special moves. However, this tends to make the audience very unhappy (especially your dad, who worked so hard to make those shoes for you...)
-As far as the spotlights go, I realize that this game is not incredibly deep (due to the 48 hour limit). So you'll notice that as the game progresses, it gets harder and harder to get to a spotlight. This was intentional, so you don't get a stupidly awesome high score and then never play again.

I will be implementing online high scores in the future, so that should add more incentive for replay :)

baykush_figtree 2014-05-04 15:56

One of the most original entries around here.
Bravo!

gfm 2014-05-04 18:37

Amazing! Everything is so good... graphics, audio and gameplay...
The game was also really well balanced. At times I thought it was quite easy, but then I'd be to far from the spot light and everything (noise+anger) started to build up... until I was able to control everything again. It was fun maintaining this balance. =D

snoother 2014-05-04 22:07

Really cute concept that's very well executed. I love the dichotomy of pleasing your dad and the audience v. not being killed by the monster. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere. Oh, and it's a wonderfully innovative use of theme. Loved it!

ddrkirbyisq 2014-05-04 22:26

Hahaha, this is so awesome. Your concept is just...both ridiculous and amazing at the same time.

buriteam 2014-05-04 22:45

Great game! I just wished it wasn't so difficult to remember what to do in each color. It was cool that the leap can be used to travel faster around the board.

mechabit 2014-05-04 23:50

brilliant

baykush_figtree 2014-05-05 00:39

Hey! Ballerina is featured on my "favorites" post

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2014/05/04/my-favorite-ld29-games/

tchem 2014-05-05 01:50

Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!,,,, the theme is perfect to me... great graphics and mood,,,,, really fantastic....

jupiter_hadley 2014-05-05 23:18

Funny interesting game. Nice use of theme as well! I included it in part 12 of my Ludum Dare compilation video series! http://youtu.be/O5O979VlwyY

zyxer 2014-05-06 14:59

Haha this game is really funny! Well done!

danialhyatt 2014-05-06 18:05

I just kept on playing it. highscore : 55459

Really good work!! This is excellent.

mcapraro 2014-05-08 00:33

very cute concept, i totally woke up the creature - doh!

radmars 2014-05-08 00:45

Hilarious concept, I love it! The risk/reward mechanic you run into with timing the red jumps is amazing :D It's obviously hard to learn the controls - some kind of indicator onscreen would help a lot. (Actually you could do something similar to one of our older LD entries: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=18627)

Also did you really do the music yourself in the 48hrs...?

paps 2014-05-09 17:10

haha nice concept

myyyvothrr 2014-05-14 09:54

Great idea!

maniulo 2014-05-17 22:23

So fun! Although I kept mixing up yellow and green lights.

sonnybone 2014-05-18 03:03

Man, this game is really really rad, but just so you know... you should've entered the Jam and not the Compo due to the inclusion of pre-existing audio assets (Waltz). Rules mumbo jumbo: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2014/04/25/rules-and-guide-re-written-for-maximum-clarity/

Just for future reference since your journal doesn't show any previous entries, so I assume you are new to Ludum Dare.

Other than that, really freakin' awesome entry. There really isn't much to say that hasn't already been said. The absurdity of the premise really seals the deal for me. I played with a gamepad and mapped the colored gamepad buttons to the proper spotlight dancemove to make things really easy to remember. Got to about 100k with no end in sight so I just jumped up and down to see what would happen and WHOOOOMMMM I got ate lol

franklins-ghost 2014-05-18 07:02

Fun game and liked the way you used the theme with the dancing danger from below.

jsmars 2014-05-18 07:52

Really fun concept and really well executed, good job!

klianc09 2014-05-18 09:17

Really fun and well executed. The most interesting part was jumping from far away into a red spotlight.

I'm gonna claim your 1000 imaginary internet points, because I got a highscore of 201694.

I noticed that the crowd gets angrier faster, the longer you play. So at that point I was, the crowd was actually getting only slower angrier when doing a pirouette instead of making it happy. The only thing that could really effectively please the crowd were jumps, but sometimes I had 3 red spotlights right after another, and than I had like 20 times only yellow and green spotlights.
And the waiting times between spotlights should get shorter too (or at least some indication for the next spotlight), when the crowd is getting faster angrier. Because else you can't do anything while no spotlight is present (because you have no idea where you should walk and everything makes noise).

But that are just my rants on the difficulty. Overall it's really well done and feels like a complete game.

PS:As SonnyBone pointed out: If you made the music yourself, good job. If you used preexisting music, then it should be a jam entry.

PPS:Also, I think selling those noise reducing spotlights instead of making games would be far more profitable.

diptoman 2014-05-18 09:23

That was a really amazing entry! Everything was spot on. The gameplay was so much fun! And the arbitrary story to make up for the gameplay setting was just...too funny.

Jeremias 2014-05-18 20:43

Oh my god. If someone asks me what I did/played today.... I hope nobody asks me what I did/played today. Many stars for you :D

paveldlouhy 2014-05-19 22:47

:-) Good job! :D