badram 2017-05-01 04:53
nice job! I love the art style, everything looks so friendly. the jumping and rotating mechanic is very clever. the sound design is solid, and difficulty curve is great. great work.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → rovR
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 269 | 3.56 | 67 | |
| Fun | 217 | 3.49 | 67 | |
| Innovation | 196 | 3.50 | 67 | |
| Theme | 286 | 3.63 | 67 | |
| Graphics | 465 | 3.29 | 67 | |
| Audio | 3.25 | 6 | ||
| Humor | 135 | 3.44 | 65 | |
| Mood | 243 | 3.50 | 62 |
nice job! I love the art style, everything looks so friendly. the jumping and rotating mechanic is very clever. the sound design is solid, and difficulty curve is great. great work.
I thought this would be much different. Then when I started the game, the term "what the hell" immediately popped in my head. Not sure why or anything. Maybe the floating space infants? Interesting concept. The gameplay was a ton of fun yet really challenging what with the heads of the space babies. Ah, space babies. What a wonderful term. Good job, you managed to make a fun game and freak me out.
Wew, maybe I just suck at this. I really couldn't tell how I was supposed to manipulate the planet thingies in order to get where I wanted to go. In many cases I ended up "cheesing" the level and trying to thread the needle between a bunch of 'em to get to the finish line. Sometimes it felt like it clicked, and I knew what I was doing, but most of the time, the heads were ALWAYS in the way of what I wanted to do. :P
Despite my ineptitude, I finished it to the end, and actually enjoyed it quite a bit! It's definitely a fun little concept while remaining deceptively simple.
Wow, the way you navigate around the levels is pretty unique and interesting, but can be pretty punishing if you get far and accidentally miss a target planet. Maybe a trajectory line of sorts would help? But it's pretty satisfying that the puzzles seem to have multiple solutions. It makes the player think and experiment, which I like. I loved slingshotting my way around the planets to get to the destinations, haha.
The art's pretty funny too. You just now that this is a face that's been through a lot: rovR_v1.0.1_2017-05-01_10-47-45.png
Like I said, my only criticism is that the game seems to recommend experimentation to solve the puzzles, but sometimes doing so can be pretty punishing once you're far in a level. Many tears were shed through hardship on the final level... so maybe there could be some kind of aid like trajectory lines. Maybe even quicksaving and loading?
This is not helping my babyphobia. Not only are these things ugly, they also make space exploration so hard. Is that an allegory to your life ? Were you on your way to be an astronaut but you got pregnant ?
Great game. I just wish the babies would let me maneuver just a little bit more easily! Feel free to check out our game, which is set in space too !
@badram :: Sounds like I achieved what I was going for! Thanks, and I'm glad you liked it.
@codyhansen :: I feel like "What the hell" is a pretty explainable reaction to space-babies. PS: I'm stealing that term from you.
@coleslaughter :: I'm glad to hear that you made it to the end, despite the difficulty. Designing levels that are hard to cheese (yet still beatable) was pretty tough for such a short time period.
@orbitalblueprint :: A trajectory line was one of those things I tried that turned out to be deceptively difficult to implement within the time frame. If I were to do a post-LD build, I'd definitely play around with that idea more.
@fufi :: I like to think that the baby would've been fine in the centrifuge, but NASA just **had** to put the kibosh on that. Your game was great by the way. I left you a comment.
Great idea, and hilarious too. My only complaint is similar to what someone else put. A lot of times I felt like the best way was to just try and skip some of the level and get to the end the easiest way. Maybe you were going for that. ;D My favorite level was the Uranus level with the 6 kind of right next to each other. I felt like on that level when I messed up I actually could see it and understand what I did wrong. Overall great job, music fit, graphics were perfect.
Really like the art in this game. It really achieves the modern info graphic simplistic style.
Great sense of humor and clever use of game mechanics!
@TomBishopSPG :: Thanks for the feedback with the Uranus level! And yeah, you're right, a lot of the levels are able to be skipped a bit. That was a consideration during development, but in the end it felt like they were all difficult enough to skip that it didn't detract from the gameplay too much.
@PixelFormedStudios :: As the artist, I'm really glad to hear that you enjoyed the art style! Thanks!
@MorbidCamel101 :: Thanks! And thank you for playing it on your stream. It was a total blast to watch.
A really unique puzzle concept!
I had a hard time at first but for some reason I didn't think of bouncing back and forth to manipulate things (being vague to avoid spoilers).
Once I started thinking in those terms it got a bit easier. I found a bit of frustration when I got myself 'stuck' a few times with no safe place to jump to and no way to realign things to where I needed them, but that's my fault - not the game's.
If I had one complaint it would be that the text appears juuuust a bit too slow. It's minor, but I wanted to give you *something* that's hopefully useful!
I really like the idea and the unique puzzle game mechanics! Nice sounds, graphics are special and entertaining.
Great LD game, really fun!
@burgee :: I'm glad you figured it out ;) It's definitely a different way of thinking. And thanks for the tip on the text speed. All those minor things add up, so that's a good note for next time.
@aviv871 :: Thank you!
Really dig the art style, cool concept and game mechanics. Well done! :)
I liked this a lot. Cute artstyle paired with some good sounds made for a good atmosphere, punctuated with some amusing humour. The gameplay was enjoyable too, it felt original and well executed as an idea for a jam which can be particularly difficult for puzzle game entries in jams.
Art is really awsome! :D
Great idea! The concept and the mechanic is really cool. I love the title screen. Good job!
@feltip :: Thanks! I played through your game and left you a comment ;)
@faemir :: Thanks for the praise. We definitely felt the burn of making a puzzle game when we went to design/test levels.
@neurohacker :: A sincere thank you from the artist!
@kalm004 :: Glad you liked the title screen :) I definitely wanted to do something more unique than I usually do when it came to the menus.
Fun little puzzle game - nice humorous art and simple rewarding gameplay!
Amazing game! Loved the mechanic, you explored it well to find different challenges. Love the whole funny theme too. Well polished. I know how hard it is to create interesting puzzles after you get the mechanic nailed down, good job!
That was fun. It actually seemed more fun to try and cheese the level than to figure out how the baby heads wanted to be rotated. Would have been nice to keep the baby heads to a minimum and have an alternative piece for the inbetweens. That last level was infuriating - too many baby heads! Good job overall!
I Played this on Livestream Today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_6NTcovuI0
Really solid puzzle mechanics, I enjoyed myself with it. No real complaints and def. worth polishing up.
@chunkybrewster :: Thanks!
@yyam :: Thank you! Yeah, designing the puzzles was probably the hardest part of this whole thing. Spot on.
@huminaboz :: Yeah, sometimes playing with gravity is more fun. It was hard to make that reliable and maintain the puzzle aspect, though.
@occultone :: Wow, thanks so much! I really enjoyed watching you work through those early puzzles. And yeah, good call with the text speed. I believe that was brought up earlier in the comments as well. Notes for next time.
Cool concept, good choice of music, and purple planet people. Good stuff... I really enjoyed this!
Looks fun and unique I will definitely try this one.
This game was so much fun! Specifically, finding new ways to beat the levels faster. I feel like the game could even be expanded to include new solar systems with different level features or abilities.
@samusoidal :: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.
@kristian-david :: Woo! Play away!
@squatch :: Yeah, with the way that final level ends, I could definitely see another set of levels. Thanks for the input, and I'm glad you liked it!
It´s a well known classic mechanics (oldie but goldy mechanics). I have played this kind of game to many times, but it is always fun. :D Congrats!
I'm afraid to confess I spent some time trying to pass over the strange-turtle-planets' heads to reach the goal. Then I realize I couldn't xD I love the idea of having different ways to pass through levels. I think you made a cool game. It's a good idea with nice mechanics, nice music and funny graphics. Congrats!
First screen made me chuckle. Following the controls, ok A D go left...Space Ju...Holy shit the little robot is floating away!
Really liked the little faces on the planets, and conveying different planets personalities through them. I thought the core mechanic puzzle jumping was really fun and well thought out.
I liked the ramp up in difficulty, and the game became challenging after Jupiter.
"Uranus is pretty dirty!" *drum roll* lol.
I think it would have been fun to toy with the idea of planet orbiting a bit more, maybe some well aimed shots properly sending you into orbits around things to get you to your goals but it's a jam and time is a factor! Apart from that a solid little game with a fun core mechanic that works really well!
The ending text was cute. Was expecting 2001: A Space Odyssey quote :D
Thanks for creating and sharing. Good job!
I dig the puzzle like design of the levels. Stupid space babies with their giant heads ruining my plans ;) One critique is that I jumped on the title screen, and if I hadn't read that r resets I would have thought the game was broken. Nice game.
I dug the game, i think the idea is nice, but my brain always took me in the direction to have the only option to go to the depths of space (lose ) maybe the planet babies should let you rotate a bit more (not a best case scenario my play-through) i still cheated (or felt like it ) and found alternative routes (kudos on that regard) . The r to reset should go in the main screen or use boundaries to reset. otherwise enjoyed the experience , nicely jamd!
@selbryn :: Glad to hear! Thanks.
@ethereal-psyche-games :: Hah, yeah I spent a lot of time trying to make the levels at least *somewhat* hard to cheat through ;)
@binaryferret :: Good input with the gravity-well mechanic. That's in there right now, but you've got to get *really* close to use it, so it's not really viable. Thanks for playing!
@those-30-ninjas :: Yeah, I've seen nearly every streamer do that so far. It's kind of funny to watch but I always hope they read the instructions...
@pyokoanarogue :: A more forgiving rotation speed could be interesting. Also, good call on the boundary reset. That was supposed to be in the final game, but I ran out of time. So far everyone has remembered 'R' resets. Knock on wood ;)
also. re-uploading the compressed file with just the exe and the data folder will make the file lighter (it happened to me all of the time, tested that the game works without the pdb or pbd file and been making lighter games ever since)
@pyokoanarogue :: Ah! That's a great tip! I'll probably have a go at that tonight and see if I can upload a separate, more compressed version for folks. Thanks so much.
Wow, this game was serious fun! I feared the puzzle mechanic might get old really fast, but it didn't! Also, very nice progression of difficulty: it felt very satisfying to finally solve that last puzzle.
Nice game. I like the goofy planet art. I skipped most of the levels by using the gravity of the planets and just jumping towards the end in one or two jumps, but it's pretty fun if you feel like you can cheat your way through it. The planet gravity thing was really nice. Awesome job.
Amazing game. Fun puzzle game with efficient mechanics. The main aesthetic is unusual - why babies? However I love them. Bravo ++
I like how the rover imparts rotational force on the planets! Also the localized gravity was cool, I like how you could "sling shot" around the smaller planets sometimes. Great entry. Feel free to rate mine [Not So Small (HTML5)](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/not-so-small)
@whatsagaym :: Thanks so much! I'm glad to hear that the mechanic held up throughout the game.
@merel :: Ah! I'm the goofy planet artist, so thanks! Yeah, some of the levels definitely don't require that you use all of the planets. That's part choice and part difficulty designing levels with this mechanic.
@geckoo1337 :: Thanks, and good question. The babies are actually a carry-over from the first idea I came up with during brainstorming. They somehow stuck with me... I'll probably go more in depth about this in the post-mortem, so keep your eyes peeled ;)
@codechomper :: Thanks! The sling-shot effect is a little unreliable, but it always makes me laugh when it works out. I've got your entry open in a new tab, so keep an eye on your comments!
Interesting puzzle mechanic, haven't seen that before :thumbsup:
Humor was alright, especially liked the mouth on Uranus haha
I think this would be cool as a speedrun game, trying to find the fastest route, maybe using blind shots over the whole level to finish as fast as possible :smile:
A bit strange, but cool. One of humorous games, which I like, mechanic was pretty cool, too. Nice work
This was a very fun and interesting game. The art was charming, and the music fit well. I really liked the mechanic and it made for a nice challenge. The last level was especially tough, but I did manage to make it into the black hole.
One thing that I think it needed is a prompt to press 'R' to reset once you break past the boundary of the system. I was reading the instructions on the start menu, hit jump, and promptly few off the screen never to come back. (The instruction for R was after the instruction for Jump). I had to alt+f4 the game and restart because I didn't know how to get back.
Other than that, well done. I had a lot of fun with this one.
@somethinboutgames :: Thanks! I'm pretty proud of Uranus' mouth, actually. And interesting thought about the blind shots! Like scouting...
@epicsoft :: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
@archimagus :: Thanks, and I'm glad to hear you made it through! You're definitely not alone in shooting yourself off into space on the main menu -- I see that every time someone streams this game. Good call on the boundary based prompt, though. That's actually a really good solution to that problem.
This is a great idea, though like several prior commenters I found the space baby heads a bit frustrating, they just give you _so_ little room to maneuver that I also usually found it much easier to cheat and skip as many planets as possible.
That said, I really like the concept, and played all the way to the end! It's a fun experience, even if it was frustrating at times.
Oh, a great entry ^^ I love the concept, it's un fun puzzle/plateformer game :)
Graphics are not amazing but they are effectives. (The mouth of Uranus is hillarious)
You have a great concept and mechanics, good job !
A cool little game. I like the concept, it could lead to really interesting puzzles. The only donwside is when I miss a planet I just float into space infinitely. But aside from that, good job it's a cool game !
Wonderful game, I played through to the end. The mechanics are simple and clever, and the atmosphere is fantastic.
The planets made me laugh, Uranus' mouth looking like, well, you know. haha. The music was nice too. The game play though was really solid, I had a lot of fun with this. Some stages were pretty tricky. I kept trying to just get a tiny bit of gravitational pull from a baby and sling shot to the planet for an amazing trick shot but I never pulled it off, but had a lot of fun trying. I think you have a really fun idea here.
- Wow creating such Gameplay is really difficult with in 72 hours Congrats for that . - First level itself took me more than 20 time to finish (I am really bad at playing games ) - Just one suggest for replay if you could automatically create an ai which detects that know you loose and the game restart again would be nice because i accidently clicked "R" many times - Also i like the way it attacks to the circular body in a circular fashion
@philomory :: I'm glad you had fun with it! Good point on the baby heads. They would definitely need some tweaking if I wanted to do anything more with this.
@harusame :: Thanks so much!
@toulou :: Yeah, level boundaries ended up getting cut due to time restrictions. Would've been nice though, eh? :)
@stevenjmiller :: Thanks! It means a lot.
@poffle :: A sincere thank you from the artist :) And yeah, those trick shots are pretty tough to get, but they always make me laugh when they work out.
@sagarpatel25700 :: Are you suggesting to remove the 'R' to restart bit entirely? I hadn't thought of that. I feel like it's important to keep it casual, but if you're hitting it accidentally maybe I should've used a different key. Good note, though. Thanks!
A wonderful feeling of exploring a wide, weird universe. I really liked the atmosphere and how you just spin off into the universe for ever when you muck up. I agree with others on the nature of the puzzles, I never really felt that aha I solved it moment, just like I was bumbling through to a solution. I found the humour a bit cloying at first but it won me over in the end and I laughed at Neptune's trident despite myself. Great work!
Really cool, was pretty confusing at first not knowing what to do, but then I realize you can bounce off of stuff. The art style was interesting... Haha. The floating babies are kinda weird, but cool.
Ya, the baby heads are really hard, but that's part of the challenge I think right?
Anyways, congrats on a very interesting game!
I've had a lot of fun. The gameplay is great. The time in which you float from one planet to another accompanied by that music creates a great atmosphere. I like it free which is every level. In the end I always tried to get almost straight to the final point making big jumps looking for a fast road, although I often lost in space xD. Good job!
I also tried jumping before reading press r to restart. I got pretty good at skipping planets at the level before the warp hole level I finished with only 1 jump! The final level with only 1 jump I made it to the planets right before the warp hole. Once gravity made me do a ~180!, to my death though.
Gravity doesn't feel quite right, it seems like if you are a little distance from the planet you will receive no gravity, but if you are a little closer the gravity is powerful. Also a easy solution to the problem of people not knowing about r to restart is to pop a message if they have been flying for a long time.
I liked the method for exiting the game. I found the game to be really enjoyable.
My Game: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/planet-or-die
@flipsy :: Thanks! And yeah, it was really hard to shoehorn the player into one solution with the mechanics we went with. Glad the humour got you :)
@ajayajayaj :: They're supposed to be challenging, but they were... tough to balance. And thanks!
@vidinu :: Thank you! I tried to make it tough to shoot straight to the goal, but by all means try! Sometimes it works out ;)
@timeracers :: That's awesome. Were you using the gravity to slingshot? And yeah, it's not really *true* gravity. Good call on the restart message, and I'm glad someone noticed the exit method. Thanks for the feedback!
Challenging game. I included it in my Ludum Dare 38 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYiOXlTKNb0
Pretty good entry! I liked the comfy mood, very good fit for a puzzle game. It doesn't let you be frustrated too much. Speaking of - one thing was really annoying. Because of the plain background and rotating planets I quickly lost orientation. Background would help. Graphics are simple but good. Overall I enjoyed this one.
Planet exploration! Here’s the quick rundown of my thoughts:
PROS - Very nice atmosphere - Controls are smooth
CONS - Still a little confused as to how to manipulate the baby moons - Gravity swinging around planets wasn't explained well? Not sure if intentional
For full criticism and breakdown of ranking, as well as candid reactions to gameplay, do check out the video~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4107L2DLog
That was certainly interesting. I found the concept of setting up the planets in a way that lets you solve the puzzle without their heads getting in the way quite unique.
The graphics and music choice was very amiable, overall a relaxing experience. I found it a bit difficult to estimate how I had to setup the planets and at what angle I could blast off safely. Not sure whether this was deliberate but I once managed to use the gravitational pull of the planet to slingshot myself around it. If it was deliberate I would have liked to see this feature more pronounced as such a move as pretty hard to pull off.
Overall a solid entry.
Awesome Game ! This one of the best games I have played on this jam. The planet to planet platforming is a very original idea! And the music perfectly fit the mood. Well done!
This seems like a really fuzzy puzzle game - I'm not sure if there are actually intended solutions, only a few of the levels feel like solutions were designed into the puzzles. Still, mostly entertaining to solve the problems, except where it's particularly troublesome. I really like the continuity where the ending planet for one level is the starting planet for the next, and the visuals and story ideas are pretty entertaining as well. In particular the representation of the planets is pretty stellar
I played this on stream at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141022066 - time 3:04:10
@jupiter-hadley :: Hey, thanks so much! I always look forward to your Ludum Dare coverage. Great video.
@pit :: Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely have to play around with a setting up a background if I come back to this.
@inventroom :: Thanks for making a video! Your feedback was really honest and helpful, so thanks for that, too.
@cerno-b :: Thanks! Yeah, the gravity slingshotting was half deliberate and half sheer chance. Overall I'm glad that it's there, but it certainly is hard to pull off and it can feel a little cheat-y.
@devpaul :: Thanks so much! That's high praise, indeed :)
@sgstair :: Hey, thanks for streaming it! And as the artist, thanks again! But yeah, designing puzzles for this was pretty tough. Some of the puzzles (I think) are real winners, and others sort of tread water. What can you do, though? 72 hours is a bitch ;)
Interesting concept and good art, great enty!
@morrilet, nice work, good atmosphere, cool graphics. And a music, I just love it. It's relaxing. Check and rate my game, hope you'll enjoy :)
This is surprisingly challenging! I love the gravity when the rovR skims near a baby planet - by shear luck I managed to complete a level using it which made me feel skillful!
The music fits the game very well and some of the sound effects remind me of the classic "Paradroid" which was a nice callback (even if not intentional).
Excellent work!
Nice work! Love the planets (especially the Neptun ^-^). I'd appreciate it I could see a bit further - at least to the next planet I want to go..? But it's nice and calming ^-^
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9tRgmWtsjc
I like the mood of the game. At this point in the jam I've had my share of "around the planet" concept, but the puzzle aspect adds something different which makes this one of the more memorable entries for me. Keep it up!
@finlal :: Thanks!
@dmit :: Hey, I left you a comment! Glad you liked the game :)
@richard-michael-smith :: Thanks! I've never played Paradroid but I'll have to check it out.
@molpe :: Hey, thanks for making a video! It was super fun to watch. The zoom level is something I've received a lot of feedback on. Definitely should've made it bigger, methinks.
@thelonelynug :: Yeah, this isn't the most innovative take on the theme but I'm glad the mechanics managed to grab you.