FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD30 → Friendly Baubles

Friendly Baubles

By micahcowan

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Coolness288
Audio1023.61
Theme2153.72
Innovation2363.58
Humor2732.83
Mood4863.07
Overall5963.17
Fun8922.65
Graphics9022.53

Comments

khaibit 2014-08-25 02:16

Very nice! :) Smooth graphics and easy to pick up and play! Congratulations on the successful submission!

khaibit 2014-08-25 02:39

Very well done. Came back to rate :)

robbiehunt 2014-08-25 03:21

Yet another great interpretation of the theme. I think I gravitate towards these interpersonal interpretations because I had an idea like it early on and really really wished I pursued it for the compo! (But ultimately I'm really happy with my creation) Really nice!

sargonius 2014-08-25 05:07

Nice :)

kate-kligman 2014-08-25 05:09

This is a very neat interpretation of the theme.

jas7229 2014-08-25 05:27

Nice concept for connected worlds! (:
Also, I completely fell in love with your light simple music ~ it gave the game a very relaxing and inviting atmosphere. ^_^

snuux 2014-08-25 07:32

Small, but awesome! Thanks!

anshzinc 2014-08-25 10:35

Nice game. Pretty soothing music.

Mezzenstein 2014-08-25 12:50

Yeah, music is great and the idea is very nice. I really like that this is also a game for kids.

pxlcoder 2014-08-25 14:40

Great concept! The audio was perfect for the mood.

laralyn 2014-08-25 15:30

Interesting idea! It might be easier if the controls were spread a bit more on the keyboard--like having grab, connect, etc. on O, P. Great work!

micahcowan 2014-08-25 17:30

Mezzenstein, er, for kids? Not quite. Some of the sayings in the fourth world are a bit PG to PG-13.

Not that that stopped me from letting my 7-year-old play...

sai_aya 2014-08-25 19:40

Nice graphics and music, and this is an awesome way to interpret the theme !

Well done, pretty cool game.

maad9 2014-08-25 21:37

Nice idea. Simple and fun :) good job!

mrtambourine 2014-08-26 00:43

Very clever idea. Most people iterpreted the theme as connection of different Universes or planets, but there are many different worlds around us, which can be connected somehow. I like that mood and humor! :)

thenumberguy 2014-08-26 10:37

Simple, but interesting! Really nice idea. Also loved the music!

lorniebear 2014-08-27 14:56

I LOVE the sound. You are really good at piano. Do you play any other instruments? You should because you clearly have musical talent

badlydrawnrod 2014-08-27 18:29

It took a few minutes to figure out what to do, but then I got into it and enjoyed it. This is a very good take on the theme.

Not a game for kids though. I'm relieved that my daughter couldn't figure it out when she played it as I really don't want to explain certain things to her.

micahcowan 2014-08-27 19:12

Thanks badlydrawnrod: I've updated this page with a PARENTAL GUIDANCE warning.

If I get around to fixing the game's glitches, I'll probably add a "clean" mode that completely replaces world 4. I was shooting for a higher "humor" rating, though, and naughtiness can be funny. :)

micahcowan 2014-08-27 19:13

lorniebear, I tried to start up elec. guitar, but never really got anywhere. Unfortunately, I don't think I have the time to get really good at another instrument, and you can cover so much with just piano/keyboard... :)

micahcowan 2014-08-27 19:16

If you're interested in hearing more, I have some youtube up with some piano stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW7GVad6LQk&list=PLHHHTIsNQayoj53fzX9bJH4eQ7KU1jZfw

thingostudios 2014-08-28 17:00

For some reason, I got the impression that you can connect person A to person B, but not the other way around? I might be wrong here.

micahcowan 2014-08-28 18:49

Thingo Studios: any connection should be able to go either way. Maybe you accidentally hit the wrong person? The glitch where switching worlds seems to mess with the sync of the movement patterns makes it a bit more difficult...

drcicero 2014-08-28 22:34

Well the audio is really well done, and the graphics are okay, but there was no juice in playing, no audio/visual feedback for hitting something for example. Also the characters moved kind of laggy - although i know my computer for its slowness, i wonder why such a simple game would lag.

Maybe you could have tuned the game a bit more to the music: what does this beautiful piano piece have to do with a church, a gaming, etc? Instead maybe watching the stars or a fireplace in a living room, a walk in the park, camping at night...?

micahcowan 2014-08-29 03:12

DrCicero, you really expect me to find time for all that in a 48-hour race to the finish? :D

As to video feedback for hitting something, didn't I provide that? If you hit someone with the talk balloon, they... talk. If you hit 'em with the grabber, they disappear. If you hit 'em with another friend, they talk, and potentially swap and open a new world. There could always be more feedback, and certainly finding time for another sound to put there (especially, one distinguishing connection success from failure), but clearly something happens in every case that you hit something.

A bigger problem, to me, is that when you hit something, they don't always look close enough to be touching. There may be a glitch in EaselJS there, or else in my use of it...

It doesn't lag on any devices I had handy (except for my Kindle Fire HD, but that doesn't do Canvas stuff very efficiently at all), but if I had to hazard a guess, it might be because I'm using SVG for the spritesheet, and if EaselJS isn't careful in its implementation, they might be getting redrawn inefficiently. There's probably some ways I could try to work around that.

Anyway, thanks for your feedback!

oxeren 2014-08-29 11:08

Great idea! Although took some time to figure out how and what to do :)

drcicero 2014-08-29 13:39

@micahcowan Well, i wanted to write a comment and that was the first to cross my mind :)

kiwiboi 2014-08-30 02:53

Solid entry, great use of this gameplay, perfect fit for the theme using same personality in different worlds and lovely music. Well done :)

brodavi 2014-08-31 17:05

Nice! Your interpretation of the theme was very unique. Loved the music, you are very talented :)

diningphilosopher 2014-09-04 23:45

Cool idea, took me a while to figure out how it worked. Very cool how you recorded the music yourself, though it doesn't really fit the game in my opinion.

micahcowan 2014-09-05 16:35

Dining Philosopher, yeah, maybe not. The idea was for the music to fit the theme of "forming connections with friends", but it doesn't really match the energy of the gameplay itself, and certainly doesn't fit the fourth "world". ;)

Thanks for playing/commenting!

endurion 2014-09-07 13:54

Can't vote fairly, music plays, I can move the wand, but the baubles never appear.
Used IE11, shows "Not enough stack space" on the console.

snooze82 2014-09-07 18:13

nice idea :)

fizzd 2014-09-10 08:40

Solid stuff, finished the game. I think this is a great illustration of how the music can completely change the mood of a scene, everything else invariant. The humour was crass but somehow the music made it.. heartwarming? I'd say the graphics are the only weak link - I didn't realise the second world was 'gamers' I thought it was dead people. (probably because of the music lol).

Also the lack of an indication of which tool you were using until you fired it was confusing at first cause i didn't see any feedback when i pressed the tool keys.

But in any case, it's a great original concept, and I stuck around long enough to finish it which says something. 5 stars for innovation and audio here!

micahcowan 2014-09-10 17:36

Heh, yeah, my attempt at humor hear was woefully immature. Still mostly glad I did it (because it made it a little more fun for me), but it probably wasn't worth the exclusion of younger players. It is interesting too how the gentle music sort of tricks you into a whole different feeling while playing the game.

I _just_ fixed all the graphics in the "Improved" version if you want to try it (also worth trying if you hadn't yet, because the friend movements are more challenging).

The lack of tool indication is definitely a big problem. Thinking I'll fix that tonight, and then call the game done (with the possible exception of a "clean" version). I enjoyed making the game, especially the path mechanics (though the code for that is atrocious), and I'm very happy with my novel interpretation of the theme. But it's not actually that inspiring, and I'm not very motivated to make more of it than I have already (in the "Improved" version, that is).