FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD38 → Solitary Freedom

Solitary Freedom

By cmlsc

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2593.3358
Fun2613.1758
Innovation2873.0858
Theme4232.8958
Graphics1823.6459
Audio1983.1355
Humor3572.1944
Mood1773.3555

Comments

cmlsc 2017-04-24 04:58

My record is 0:12.718. :P

richard-michael-smith 2017-04-25 23:59

First thought - it's difficult to read the purple text on the dark blue background!

Second thought....AAAAAAAAAAHHH THAT SECOND LEVEL!!!!!! I've lost count of how many times I've tried to do it!!!!

huvaakoodia 2017-04-26 19:55

Well, I don't have a lot to say. The audio strangely reminds me of the SNES, that's a positive I guess.

The mixture of a puzzle and realtime movement is a bit weird to me. Having to time your movements with such precision after already figuring out the puzzle itself doesn't really tickle my fancy.

Then again I cannot even figure out the second level so.... Have a :snail:

cmlsc 2017-04-27 16:53

@richard-michael-smith @huvaakoodia I'll add gifs for the completion of each level at some point. xD I've showed other people the game and they didn't have a hard time though.

burgee 2017-05-01 06:35

The second level took me SO LONG TO FIGURE OUT but when I did it was stupidly obvious. Nice use of the barrels to make the player look in all the wrong places!

This is a really cool puzzle game, very satisfying to finally 'get it.'

richard-michael-smith 2017-05-01 10:01

Just came back to rate!

automatonvx 2017-05-01 12:23

Nice little puzzler. Also agree with @HuvaaKoodia not so sure i liked the combination of puzzle and trying to get the timing right on the spikes, maybe if it was more forgiving. From a puzzle point of view its frustrating to know the solution but not be able to execute it. The thing with the limited food is an interesting idea, but it was really confusing me why i kept dying till i went back and looked at the instructions, the health meter is pretty hard to see. If you could just scale up the the whole window it would probably help quite a bit. Liked the scene setting from the intro, but you need a way to skip it, users might play your game more than once you know :P. Good entry

mr-field 2017-05-01 17:57

The music strongly reminds me of Metroid, I also love the use of colour and theme.

Gameplay wise, I like that the puzzle mechanic is very easy to understand, but difficult to master, and the screen shake really accentuates each move you do, whether or not it was a good move.

A short and satisfying game, but with a painfully difficult learning curve.

I only wish it had more (some easier) levels and veriety to it, but I imagine it was quite difficult to design them in the first place.

candlesan 2017-05-02 07:24

That was fun thanks! Music is good. Puzzles were really interesting It was a bit hard to figure out what all the board elements meant and movement rules were but I got it eventually. I liked the little subtle touches like the screen shake sync'ced with the sound and the smoothness of the motion of my character.

Solitary Freedom.png

geared-games 2017-05-02 14:28

Gotta say, that second level was pretty difficult all of a sudden. But the art and sound effects are both really good! It was overall a pretty polished game.

connor-mcgrory 2017-05-02 14:44

got difficult real quick, I like a challenge though :) nice work!

maldo19 2017-05-02 14:55

I finished it like on 0:23? I closed the last screen too fast so I'm sorry for the time thingy. If I had to say some critism it would be that the spikes are turned on and off too fast, It felt more unfair than challenging, It's more of an issue on the last level. Overall a fun little game.

cmlsc 2017-05-02 15:26

@maldo19 there is actually a reason for the speed of the spikes, because if they were slower, it would make it easy to pretty much ignore pits of spikes and stuff like that. The spikes were actually faster for most of the development, but I slowed them down as much as I could while still making sure spike pits were something I could use in level design. :P

Although, I could've made it so that there were also spikes that didn't ever go down. xD

tomdeal 2017-05-02 16:50

Good entry. I am really bad at those puzzle games, so thanks for including a guide :-) Nicely done and fun to play

le-slo 2017-05-02 19:48

I completed it on 21 seconds. It's true that real time and puzzle doesnt match that well, and i also believe taht the second level it's a bit "easy" in spite of all the red bubbles. Nice sounds and graphics. Maybe some easier levels at the start who teach better the point of the game, and also the "energy" bar i thinks its too small, i took a while to see that it was something important for level 3.

Good work!

zebrainflames 2017-05-02 20:02

Loved it - great visual style and audio, nicely tied in with the effects too (the camera shake). Could perhaps have matched the theme a bit better - now it seems mostly just a common type of puzzle game. Overall still one of my favourite entries here. Perhaps the best level of polish I've seen here so far!

smooth 2017-05-02 23:10

ooooo! I liked this one, and especially since it was done in Python! I had fun playing it :)

craighasdysentery 2017-05-03 00:08

Nice graphics dude. I got to level 3, then got frustrated because I seemed to die on something invisible. Maybe you need to destroy all the blocks before you can leave, but that wasn't the case on the previous level. Anyway, good-looking game with decent mechanics!

cmlsc 2017-05-03 00:12

@craighasdysentery you ran out of food. Look at the bar on the top right. It is also mentioned in the description of the game.

spinaljack 2017-05-03 00:31

Very nice NES style graphics, the effects are very juicy giving it a bit of impact.

nandemoguy 2017-05-03 00:45

Great game. I was hoping for more than 3 levels. The move meter probably could have been more obvious as it took me a minute to figure out why i was randomly getting killed. Overall great job. Give our game a try if you get the time. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/belaruse-panic

dagothig 2017-05-03 01:06

Solid game! Had quite a bit of fun. My time was really bad so I didn't note though :P. My only complaint would be that combining puzzle and timing can be somewhat frustrating but that's not really a point at all.

kakureta 2017-05-03 01:12

A decent entry, the mechanics are somewhat weird but original and the audio and graphics is of good quality It's quite satisfying to finish a level and although the game lacks content the intro is a nice touch.

emarcotte 2017-05-03 01:14

I'm so bad at this game, but it looks great. Would never have beaten second level without the guide :(

nickavv 2017-05-03 01:57

This was great. Once I got the hang of the mechanics each puzzle was very well constructed. My time at the end was 34.30. The sound was great but the music was a little bit grating. Wish it was longer too. But good work overall!

cmlsc 2017-05-03 02:20

@nickavv the music was made with beepbox.co, so that was kinda bound to happen. xD Most people seem to like it though(possibly for nostalgia related reasons).

seth 2017-05-03 06:33

Couldn't beat the second level! Nice take on a 'sliding' puzzle!

philomory 2017-05-03 09:05

I _really really really_ like the art style. A lot. Enough that I really wish the game window could be bigger so I could see it all better :stuck_out_tongue:

Here's my wishlist:

* Fullscreen-ability (any sort of zoom, really) * More levels * More forgiving timing on the spikes * A clearer indication that it's actually possible to pass through the spikes when they are in the down position. * I initially mistook the game for turn- and grid-based, and thought the spike animation was just a visual effect. I only discovered I could pass through them by accident.

My best time is 0:12.916

Addendum: I can confirm, it's a lot easier to tell what's going one when I use my OS's accessibility features to zoom my screen in on the game's window. And the graphics still look really nice :smile:

diptoman 2017-05-03 09:25

Pretry cool art and sounds, give the retro feel to it. I'm not sure if combining a puzzle mechanic with real time movement(having to time the movements to dodge the spikes) was a good thing. The Took me a while to figure out the 2nd level, the 3rd was easier, I think.

mar3k 2017-05-03 10:33

Nice game, the art is great (love the saturation that adds a lot to the whole feel of the game). Also the music/sounds were quite nice for compo entry. And having the start screen with loading text (story) and the music it has adds so much to the game. Oh also it is pretty hard to figure out the puzzles. Good job!

aeveis 2017-05-03 12:30

So difficult! The timing of landing on retracted spikes is pretty small. I was able to beat it though! My time was 18.135. The art is pretty interesting, is it some of of pixel interpolation scaling thing going on?

UI-wise, the health meter I think could have been made much bigger because it was a bit hard to see. In general it was readable, but as mentioned the color of the text could be adjusted so it stands out more.

Good job!

palemachine 2017-05-03 12:41

I didn't have much trouble finishing the levels without any tips, so it's definitely doable. Loved the game, honestly, and I'm kind of sad it was so short! Would definitely want to play an expanded version. Super stylish limited palette pixel art, moody background music and a mix of puzzle and very tight platforming for gameplay. I think the difficulty is pretty much where it should be and the idea that you have to both memorize the solution and excel at the precise platforming seems super cool to me. Great game, well done.

takusan 2017-05-03 12:48

Difficult, with retro feel, polished (it's good you decided to work on what content it has, instead of trying to squeeze in more, sacrificing working out the kinks).

Solid in the puzzle department, more content would mean just designing new levels, since the mechanic - partially knwn, partially innovative - is pretty much spot on.

'p' button doesn't work for me, neither in compiled version or with the source, unfortunately.

Good job overall, leaving my rating. Cheers!

cmlsc 2017-05-03 16:40

@aeveis Yeah, I just used a random screen doubling function I found that made the pixel art smooth. xD

@takusan whoops, I meant Q. Idk why I wrote P. Fixed it though! :P

caryoscelus 2017-05-03 17:26

The idea is fun, but as others said, having such unforgiving realtime mechanics in a puzzle game can become frustrating quickly. When i first figured out the solution of 2nd level and trying it for a few times i even suspected it's a wrong one and had to check the playthrough and then fight the timing a bit more.

studiocraftapps-developpement 2017-05-03 20:38

Do you have any pixel art/graphical trick that you know about? My game looks... Awfull. I want to know your secrets!

cmlsc 2017-05-03 21:56

@studiocraftapps-developpement Your pixel art in your game was actually pretty good, but the problem was that you had a bunch of tiles and other things at different sizes. You have to keep the pixels sizes consistent when using pixel art. It also helps to stick to a palette and not use gradients(or any other filters).

I used my own version of this palette: http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb320/jwkv/MYPALETTE2.png

furazin 2017-05-03 23:51

This game is hard as fuck with simple and good graphics. The music makes a good sense while I die over and over, with 8-bits sound effects pretty amazing. By the way, I admire creating the game with python: Contratulation.

primitive-concept 2017-05-04 03:37

Absolutely dig the graphics, music, and sounds. Great sense of mood. Immediate difficulty spike on level 2 was a bit much, but I did feel compelled to keep playing (and dying) repeatedly. Good entry!

2017-05-09 19:24

Very solid entry into the momentum puzzler genre. I liked the difficulty of the game mixed with the simplicity. Sure the timing was very brutal, but it felt all the more rewarding when you eventually did reach the exit which took me a little while.

I feel like more than other games like this that Ive played very recently, that you should expand upon the game and the story. There's something that's always super compelling about a lost civilization that is falling to ruin. Couple that with the only survivor of this place is a radioactive looking slim monster and you've got a great setting. This could lead to all sorts of great tie in mechanics. Like environments that explore what happened to the world, and other creatures that might want to eat you as you try to escape. I think you should run with it.

Otherwise very nice work. Loved the graphics. Enjoyed the simple yet challenging mechanics, and the concept of a small world decaying in the sky was interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE-Jd01zDgs

blackrose 2017-05-12 14:00

I like this game ^^ Its fun and cool! Congratulations :3

m-1 2017-05-16 21:47

Nice combination of a puzzle + action genres. Before playing your game I would have thought it was impossible :-)

occultone 2017-05-16 23:18

I Played this on Livestream today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YtyZ8Rudok

Great job with the submission, I always struggle with puzzle game like this, and that glitch in the first level threw me. I think I would make the spikes a bit more forgiving, it's not immediately clear to folks when they are damaging and when they aren't.

jdmazz 2017-05-16 23:21

I liked the game. I thought the pixel art was very good. I cannot believe you used paint for it given the quality. The game was short but a fun little puzzler. I was not sure of the falling mechanic so something that explained that would be helpful I think.

dejvo 2017-05-17 10:54

Here I am thinking that it's a puzzle game, but it's actually skill based, which I don't appreciate as much. It was still fun but would be better if I shouldn't time my moves to the spikes (that could be for extra points if someone were to do that). really solid LD entry though. good job!

fiery-squirrel 2017-05-18 05:14

I think that the concept is very nice but I think you could impove the difficulty curve a little bit. The game from the very beginning is hard, I think that the puzzles are good but at least there should be a nice way to introduce the game. Besides that, graphics are very cool, sounds and soundtrack fit the game well, good entry!

samusoidal 2017-05-19 22:48

I played this weeks ago when the judging started, and I came back to rate it (because I forgot). I really liked the concept, graphics, and gameplay of this game, but the levels were insanely difficult for me. Overall, one of my favorite entries, is it all right if I port this to my Raspberry Pi and set it up for Wii Remotes?

cmlsc 2017-05-20 00:35

@samusoidal Do whatever you want with it. As long as you aren't selling it, I don't care. :P