longchamps 2017-04-25 03:11
Fun idea! It would be great if there were things for the bug to pickup to incentivize moving further on the keys.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Eine Kleine Insektmusik
By davidthelazar, Lukatroopa and panielle
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 493 | 3.17 | 64 | |
| Fun | 438 | 3.04 | 64 | |
| Innovation | 141 | 3.67 | 64 | |
| Theme | 554 | 3.06 | 63 | |
| Graphics | 655 | 2.62 | 64 | |
| Audio | 126 | 3.71 | 62 | |
| Humor | 129 | 3.47 | 63 | |
| Mood | 522 | 2.98 | 62 |
Fun idea! It would be great if there were things for the bug to pickup to incentivize moving further on the keys.
Cool!
Great idea. I feel like I'm back in an old Looney Tunes (or was it Tom and Jerry) cartoon. This would definitely be a fun concept to expand on.
As I was first trying to see if the hammers aligned with the music, I died. Hilarious and fun little game. Curious about if you imported midi's or programmed all the hammers yourself. The River song was hilarious level, nice job!
Fun idea! I always like games based on music. Sadly, the best tactic is to find a safe spot and stand still for most of the game.
@simple-blue We imported midis, but manually tweaked some metadata in the midi files to determine what was used in-game. Thanks for playing!
Interesting idea. It's hard to predict only with the music which hammer will come next so you just look for the vibrating hammers. But this kind of decouples the music from the game play and becomes almost irrelevant. For some of the songs you hardly ever have to move and you are mainly waiting for the current hammer to vibrate and then go to the next spot.
It's cool that you included "For River", I really like this piece.
This is a very cool idea for a game. Sometimes I would click the mouse and my little grasshopper would move in the opposite direction from where I clicked, but that could have just been me using the wrong controls or something. I had a good time though, and the music was great. :)
This is a pretty neat idea :) Nice work!
First I tried (and I think it would be great) if I had to move based on the music but I think it's not the case or I'm totally deaf. This way I only had to stand on one place and sometimes move to another one and back.
Funny concept and good execution. At first it seems chaotic and it's hard to survive but after a while you get used to it and can easily avoid hammers. Music is of course really good and sets great atmosphere for this game. Overall really decent game.
The idea is so good.Game is fun to play :) I wonder who gets 5 stars for audio.
Interesting idea.
I imagine that it would be hard to predict which ones were going to move far enough ahead of time when many of them are moving. I found, however, that for some of the songs I only had to move once or twice to stay alive for the whole song. So, you either need songs that will force the player to move often or some incentive, like extra points, to move.
Like others, it reminds me of some kind of old cartoon scene. Having some kind of incentive for moving around more rather than finding a safe spot and moving as little as possible would be good.
@move127 @wolar @smbe19 @psychead @longchamps Yeah, when we were testing the game it was pretty obvious that "just standing still" was too often the right strategy, but we ran out of time to fix it. I think music composed to force you to move would be too hard, so @longchamps idea of adding collectibles to force you to move around to gain points would probably be the best fix.
One other idea we had was to introduce some sort of enemy that followed you that you had to try to trick into getting squished. That would encourage you to put yourself into harm's way and take chances you wouldn't otherwise take.
Thanks for playing and for giving feedback!
@davidthelazar A neat idea would be to help the musician play the song. Maybe fix some parts of the pianos mechanics as they break or play notes the musician would otherwise miss.
Cool idea! At first I was worried that my tone deafness would be a hurdle here, but I noticed the vibrating hammers as a warning. Then as mentioned above I noticed you could find safe spots that weren't used much. I guess some sort of penalty for not moving would help. Still, love the concept! I hope you find some inspiration to work on it after the compo too.
It's a good game! I think it just needs more content and maybe more mechanics to make it less repetitive. But overall it's very well executed and it feels good to play.
The game was fun to play even though it was very easy. You could make the hammer which you're under hit more often, so the player couldn't sit in the same place for the whole game.
I like the idea. And, cute little grasshopper.
Sure, I feel the game could've benefited with some things that you need to do while the songs are playing, to force you to move around a bit. When I played "For River" bonus song - you can simply just remain on the spawn point and wait until the song is over... that key is never used.
Simple, but cool little game, though.
Cool and funny game. I like the art and the music but I think, like other people say in previous comments, it would be nice to have something to force the player moving to other places. Something like gold or food which can be used as score too. As you said, stand still is the best way to win. I like the idea of an enemy following you.
In any case, good job.
Really cool game my friends. I liked trying to outrun the hammers, and being trapped in between two hammers that were constantly playing was super intense! I died a few times, but overall it was pretty easy. I would like there to be more goals aside from just surviving during the interlude parts. Build on this a bit more and it could be a really fun game for the ages!
Your take on the theme and the game's core idea are just superb, hilarious and unique. Yeah, it's too easy, and maybe the visuals aren't the game's strongest suit, but I had my share of fun. As a side note, thanks for including For River as a bonus song. It's such a strong piece, damn.
Awesome set up, very funny, but the strategy to survive a song is too simple. Probably the vibrating hammers are giving away too much information. Without the vibration indicator (or a much shorter notice), one would need to predict the hammers based on the music.
I love the idea! Musical games are great! @davidthelazar I have a question , are you reading information directly from the song and making the piano keys move accordingly? Or is it hardcoded?
In any case, great piece of work! Contratulations!
Keep up the hard work! :)
This game is really cool. It was a bit easy, with the hammers forecasting that they're about to go down very early. Other than that, I love the idea.
This concept is brilliant; with some work it could be an incredibly enjoyable game.
The title is too funny not to play! It would have been fun having to pick up something while the music plays. Good job!
Oh! it was so funny! I liked this little instect, it is cute. Nice graphics and cool classic music you´ve chosen! Well done :)
Clever concept, but fairly easy to beat by moving to an area with little play. If there was something to gain near the active hammers, that would help. Nice job overall though, the music is obviously good and while the art is simple, the bug is pretty cute.
I got 222 score. I like the concept for the game, very creative.
great work for a first team effort. found myself hawk-eyed in on the hammers and didn't end up looking around much in the jam version. Then in the postjam build I got greedy and died much more haha. I think a little piano screenshake on the hammer downs and a little animation/ opening scene would help set the mood straight out of the gate. great setting and take on the theme, congrats all!
@multiplexor We're reading data from the song's midi file. We export the midi file into a format our game can read and add some of our own metadata into it to dictate which tracks/octaves are used to control the game and which to ignore. We also export the midi to an mp3 and pray to any available gods that the processing and the music stay in sync.
This is delightful. The gameplay feels original. The music fits really well. I could see this evolving into a game called Evil Piano or something where it behaves more like an endless runner. And I do think you could compose pieces that would work both for gameplay and as good music!
My only request would be a sound effect for dying. You could just crash your hands on the piano.
I really like the concept. Made it through on my second try. Pretty fun.
This is pretty cool - an option to play our own midis would have been even nicer! ;) With the lack of an actual reason to go from end to end, I decided to take it upon myself to try going between from one end to the other and back, kind of like a mini Frogger in a piano hahah. I do think giving the player a reason to do this would have helped though - you can essentially just go back and forth between the same 2 tiles otherwise until they shake and then you repeat the same in anotehr 2 tiles. Very solid and fun entry otherwise!
Nice and simple entry, really fun to play and challenging.
Totally like it. More songs would be nice.
FUN!, i know this can be difficult but if the piano strings somehow move in harmony with the music will be much much cool! i don't have much more to say, good music nice art, was simple but well implemented!
PS: my second Ludum Dare to! :smile: this event is so fun, I hope to work with friends in the next one, with a group of friends it should be much more fun
Really cute theme! Enjoyed playing through it. Not much else t add regarding the jam version than what others have said about staying on one hammer for a while. :musical_keyboard:
Nice selection of pieces. As someone mentioned, there could be a penalty for idleness. The main game and "For River" were very easy because of the generous vibration. The game itself is very original and intuitive, with easy-to-learn controls. It's nice to see most of these problems were fixed in the post-jam version.
A great game - simple idea, very well executed. I played both the initial release and the post-jam version. The post jam version is much harder which is a good thing. Fantastic work - high marks from me.
I really liked this one and love the music! I did try to watch the quivering hammers before they came down - but got squished a lot anyway! Loved it!
Clever idea; really fun. Glad to see it's being expanded on post-jam., too! The collectible idea is really cool.
Would it make sense to make surviving give you points like before, then collectibles give you bonus points? It actually felt much less satisfying seeing a score of 1 after grabbing a note, but that might be due to my expecting a score of 20 or so by the time I got to it.
I tend to really like rhythm games and you don't see them often during contests like this, so that was a nice treat. Well done!
I love the concept of this game. It's definitely not something I'd try to make in a game jam. You pulled it off quite nicely.
However it was pretty easy, on the 2nd bonus track you can win the game without moving at all. It might be more interesting to only have hammers for notes that are used for each song, rather than all of them all the time. That would be much more challenging.
Interesting idea! A bit easy but the music is cool!
Well done.
Fun concept. Got a little old too quickly so wish there was more variety.
I liked the idea ! Graphics are okay but could be improved (the bug is cute but its shape is not very "smooth", the background is too simple). The music is very good. I played both versions. Indeed the first version lacked a lot of challenge, and it is better in the post-jam version :) I think the top of the keys is a bit too high compared to the bug, it's hard to focus on both when you can't really see them both.
Good job overall !
An interesting concept and nice to see a game that uses sound as part of the gameplay (or I assume that the hammers are following the song). With bit work and polishing this could become something really great. Some suggestions: Hammers are really tiny, with this cartoony style they could be much bigger. This would make more clear for player where they hit. Some colors are really saturated and could be toned down to make visuals easier on eyes. Also sticking with just one font would make style more coherent, main menu font size is tiny. I also agree with other commenters that this reminds me something out of looney tunes or some other classical cartoon, visual style could be taken more to that kind of direction.
Love the game and the idea! I think it would be awesome for a boss level to add Flight of The Bumblebee!
Great entry! This is a neat concept, though the jam version suffers from the lack of anything to prevent the player from just standing still most of the time. The collectibles in the post-jam version definitely improve on this (though they do feel a bit arbitrary).
I would have liked to see a bit more content, but this is a solid entry nonetheless!
This game is surprisingly fun! I really like how it get tense as the hammers above you start vibrating, and how you subconsciously start moving in time with the music. Watching the music play out visually is always fun as well.
Cool entry!
Okay, that's a clever idea :)
And that clueless, happy bug is surprisingly funny, especially with as sudden death as you implemented. Happy, happy, jump, jump, happy, *SQUISH*.
As a jam game it's spot on. If you plan on developing it further - maybe advertise to musicians, and represent the hammers 1:1 with the real piano? I play a bit and from what I see it's simplified, I'd actually enjoy a game where the knowledge of the real piece would be a factor in how well you'll do in a level.
And making that bug survive Chopin with all his passages, ha - that would be something!
This idea really deserves to be taken further.
Well done, cheers!
First time in a jam I loudly laughed when I died. This combination when dying splat sound and music stop. Great funny entry! Keep up the great work!
Hi, I played the game and made a video, it was a great idea, unfortunately the music didn't match the hits of the keyboard "hammers", but still, pretty nice ^-^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns3gNNBiLxk
Very cool concept, finally a music game :) Thumbs up for the graphics, controls and the whole effort, epic job!