Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → Kanjo
By kataware
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 375 | 3.08 | 27 | |
| Fun | 493 | 2.40 | 27 | |
| Innovation | 439 | 2.60 | 27 | |
| Theme | 473 | 2.62 | 26 | |
| Graphics | 306 | 3.12 | 27 | |
| Audio | 4 | 4.48 | 27 | |
| Humor | 357 | 2.19 | 23 | |
| Mood | 53 | 3.88 | 27 |
You really sold yourself short with your descriptions and disclaimers. Yeah, it's rushed and the combat is random, but you had more ambition than most people and managed to pull off an emotional core of a story even with the downsides. You should be proud.
@steve-johnson Thanks for the feedback! I am currently rebuilding the game and hoping to give better gameplay with an exact or similar story experience.
Overall an emotional and interesting story. The music is super amazing and it fits really well to the game. I would have liked a bit more game mechanics and the fighting system could also have been more interesting. But it is great little LD game. Well done.
Feels like something bigger is going on here, I'd like to see your version with more time to develop the concept!
Oh yeah, the music was great!
Intro worked fine on Mac OS 10.10.5, but at the end, the game stopped responding. Would have liked a way to skip the intro, though. Would also like to know the controls.
The concept seems interesting, but it feels like it was way too ambitious for the limited time available. I liked the introductory narration, but the rest of the story didn't really click with me. A bit of rewriting and proofreading would help, as well having time to see everything happen so it doesn't seem so rushed. The graphics are nice for the most part - I really like the pixel art for the characters. However, where the game truly excels is with the beautiful music. It really helps to sell the mood.
Hello! Wow I'm very impressed with your soundtrack! It's amazing to me that one person could create a game and compose and perform original music in a single weekend!
Really excellent audio; it's some of the best I have heard so far for compo. I especially liked the introductory sequence with the words slowly appearing with the music accompanying. The story and combat was a bit rushed like you say. But the polish on the non-interactive scenes is really impressive.
Very good entry for a compo! Excellent music and nice mood! I hope I would play all the emotions levels! Would be very cool! Nice job! :)
The sound and the storytelling were both very good. Yes, it had to take some abrupt turns, but that is to be expected with a 48 hour effort. Great job, and I hope you expand this further and fill in the middle chapters!
The intro makes you want to know more. It sets up the mood of the game and yes! The music is really good. I didn't quite get the fight mechanic though, sometimes, the game just say that it's not my turn, but there's no indication that tell me if it's my turn or not?
The intro was somewhat interesting … But the cutscenes were (almost) too much :)
I'm not saying you should not try to develop a story, however complex … But in some cases, including a game like this, less is more – for example, I would have enjoyed this game a lot more if the story was played through, not just told in somewhat incoherent text on black background :) Maybe even try to tell the story without words? That would make the cringiness, as you put it, less strong!
The sound track and art style you've put together here are amazing, great job!
I agree with your assessment that this is pretty unfinished - the cutscenes lay out the framework of a really interesting game premise, but the game just isn't there. I hope you do keep plugging away at this, as you've started in an good direction.
You were too ambitious with this game, and I think that's a really good thing! You actually managed to implement a lot more than others, and made a fully functioning demo of a very interesting game with a nice story! The artwork, while simple, it worked really well with your concept, and the music really helped with the whole mood. I didn't mind the combat segment, I thought of it as something that could be implemented in a fuller version of the game, but maybe in a way that fits the story more. I also really liked the way you used the text to tell a story, not just as a block of text but as something more interesting. And knowing Unity's UI system, I think this must have been annoying af to make :P
Overall, I think you did a great job, especially since you were solo. You managed to make something that works and that it's decently polished that you can expand upon and make yourself a really nice storytelling game. Well done! :D
-> Nice intro narration -> Great Music -> Great Story and concept -> time management was bit complex -> I thinks many things are left uncompleted Otherwise a solid entry. Nice work @kataware
Really good music and mood. But I had no clue what was going on.
So sad :c I wanted to play your game, seems really awesome, but I have a black screen after the intro, it doesn't go further.
@mindtricks Hmm I never had that problem. Its possible a bug slipped through. What version did you play, and did you hold down escape after the opening?
Really really ambitious! It's not a great entry, the link to the theme is a bit clunky imo, but it's the most personal piece of art of this jam I've played so far. Really touching, nice mood and beautiful musics (kinda feel like Undertale). The gameplay is not really important for these kind of games, I loved To The Moon and it's mostly interactions or mini games.
Anyway, it's clearly a huge work for a jam, and with some more work I'm sure you could transform this cheesy love story in a little gem! Well done :)
Quite a big story for a game jam! Feels a lot like a visual novel. The music is excellent, and you did a great job establishing mood. The gameplay is pretty nonexistent as I would expect with this kind of game, but I still was hoping to do more than I was able to. I think having more to pay attention to and interact with while the story is being told would really help. I didn't feel particularly like I was part of the story as a player.
It's great for compo. Very cute art and good sound. Great job!
First of all congrats for that, you managed to finish your game and deliver a full story which is great!
As you said it, it feels a bit rushed, but if you take the take the time to work again on some parts you could make a great game in the genre, like more about the mechanics/gameplay, because the art and sound design are great!
The combat thing is little bit of the genre I think, but I guess that's a personnal feeling, maybe reworked or better introduced into the gameplay it could turn great! The second cutscene felt a bit too fast in my opinion. And just another thing, having a small transition between two songs would be nice!
But actually the best part is the music. To be honest at first I thought it came from an anime, tryed to Shazam it but no results, and then I understood you did it, and I'm just like wow. I saw on your post-mortem you recommend to listen to Tranquil (which is great), but there is one I really love, and that's Flagship, I've been listening to it several times until now on your bandcamp.
Honestly, I do believe for your next Ludum Dare you should try a game based on music, or maybe you can keep with visual novel or Life Is Strange style and some emphasis on the music (it deserves to be heard!).
Nice work again!
And thanks again for the amazing feedback you left me! :)
@mewsoul You basically summed it up, and thanks for really going into depth! I am reworking the game in a project that will take a few months, and I hope to use it in the future. I am also reworking the combat system, but keeping the music and story.
I did spend a lot of time on music, almost 8 hours xD
very pretty and neat game. totally love it, plus you included the source code, it was honestly, great research material for me. thanks a lot <3 and im quite glad to hear you're making this game a full fledged project. totally looking forward to the full more fledged out version.
the only weakish part in the game is probably the combat. it feels just off. can't put on finger on what feels off, but it does feel off.
but besides that , everything is totally spot on. great work man. love the game :)
This game is a little weird to judge as it is, I was entrigued by the description and the setting, I would liked to see it with a little more polishing. It felt really weird having to press Esc to advance the intro and the cutscenes.
The audio is superb I really have nothing to say about that, you really did something special with it, you know how create a mood with it. That combined with the scenes with only text made a really good mood. I think that the only thing bad with it is that you need to learn that you don't have to put it everywhere (I know that is confusing) ,but what I mean is that you could have put just background noise in the loneliness segment to really emphasize the mood on that part, sometimes not having audio (or having just background noise) is fine to add to your mood.
Now on to the writing, I'm not a writer by any means (I'm just a hackfraud one, so this will sound a little nitpicky), but I found it weird that you had a player character that doesn't have dialogue at the beginning and it's just implied with the blonde guy but in the loneliness part she talks. The blonde kid has a problem of having too much exposition to tell, you really want to take those parts of the history of your game and reveal them as little as you can, you need to create intrigue with your lore so the player cares when the history is finally revealed (why exactly did your world lost emotion? Is this a test from a God? Or is this a punishment? those are questions that people want to know the answer but they want to earn them). But it is really weird considering that you did that really good on the text only parts. The text only parts and the character only parts really felt like two different narratives. So they really clash at the end when you see the two characters struggling to be together while showing their dialogue.
For the graphics part, my only nitpick here is the palette that you used, the colors where too close to each other, so the details that you wanted to add were lost. Try practicing using limited palettes to get a grip on what colors you want to use to make details. Your graphic effects were on point, the text effects and the sakura blossoms were nice. And I really liked smiley man and his "death" animation (I saw it twice as the first time it appears that it doubled KO'd me.
I'm sorry if this comment looked too harsh, but I read that you want to keep working on this so I wanted to give you the best feedback that I could, You really have good bases to work on from now on I hope that you achieve your full vision in the future. Good luck with your game and Good work!
@maldo19 I appreciate the really long comment, and you going into depth with your review. You addressed most of the problems with a lot of detail, and yes, I really do need a lot more exposition. I hadn't really planned the story out too much, but over time I have a little. And in my English class, I might have to write a narrative, so if I do, I will probably use that opportunity to plan this out.
What you said made a lot of sense, and I'm glad you did say. So I will keep your information in mind for my future version of the game. Thanks!