spacedoubt 2017-05-01 20:30
Hooray for Godot! This was my first LD with it, too. Game is cool. Simple, but cool. I love Frederick and throwing little people through space!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → A giant called Frederick.
By anudin
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 658 | 2.84 | 21 | |
| Fun | 685 | 2.47 | 21 | |
| Innovation | 422 | 3.05 | 21 | |
| Theme | 393 | 3.42 | 21 | |
| Graphics | 521 | 3.10 | 22 | |
| Audio | 1 | |||
| Humor | 300 | 2.82 | 19 | |
| Mood | 678 | 2.52 | 19 |
Hooray for Godot! This was my first LD with it, too. Game is cool. Simple, but cool. I love Frederick and throwing little people through space!
Cool idea that suits the theme perfectly. Simple and intuitive. I use c# in unity which I recommend eventhough I'm a python fan.
Hard but very very good. An addictive gameplay. At start I didn't understand anything, but further I had fun playing your game. It could be really interesting to export it on mobile device. Bravo ++
Fun little management game! It took me a while to figure out what I had to do though, some in-game instructions would've been nice :)
As for criticisms: The game was completely devoid of any gamefeel, some particle effects, sound effects, animations, screenshake or something would've really made the game feel much more polished. Right now everything felt a bit slow and dull.
Oh and just something I picked up on this gamejam myself: Space is purple! You'd be surprised how much better your space background will look if you make it slightly purple instead of completely black ;)
@geared-games Thanks for the feedback! That's exactly what I wanted. Others: bring it on! I need more!
Hi, I have a screen issue: first the game open in a too big window, then it is automatically reduce to a simple bar and I can click on the button to fit the window with my screen. But then the aspect ratio doesn't seem to be good...
Here is my thoughts about your game.
Good: - The graphics is simple, fun and super cute. - The game idea is overall okay, but it could have been better explained in the game. - The player movement and collecting the humans is super easy to understand and it works perfectly fine.
What could have been better: - Give the game some music and some sound effects. Without this the game world feels a bit cold and emery. - Give the player character some walking animations when he walks around the planets. - To me it was super difficult to hit the planets, when I try throw them from planted to planted. - I would really have liked some in-game tutorial. - I do not understand the score system. - I would consider giving the game a end goal. - A simple intro story would also have been great.
I hope this helps.
I like the idea of the game. You have to save these small planets from overpopulation. I liked that you took something that is a current problem and made a fun little game around it. Sadly, the execution could have been better. Like most people already said, the game was confusing in the beginning. I didn't understand what I was supposed to do. Only after I went online to the itch.io page I understood the game mechanics. A small tutorial would have gone a long way. As for the gameplay, it didn't feel 'right'. You were the very slow character and the shooting humans away mechanic was just annoying to use. In stead of flying to the mouse it flew in the way how your character was aligned. This just made it too hard to aim when you need to be quick. Furthermore, I didn't like the way the percentage system worked. I think you should have just used numbers. Like when you have 5 people on a planet and the planet can only host 10 people it would show that this planet hosts 5/10 people. Then when the planet has 11/10 people the would die. This way it is easier for the player to understand which planet he or she has to focus on. And even more importantly he or she understands how much people have to be thrown of the planet to make it save again. Lastly, sound would have made the game much better, but I think you already know this. I like the idea, but it had poor execution. Still, well done!
@dunin Thanks for the feedback! I added the bug to the list of known bugs on itch.io and will come back to it later.
@jk5000 Great feedback! Those were exactly the points on my mind. Thank you for taking the time.
@stupidpawn "Poor execution" - ouch! That hurt. But I knew this before - development was a bit slow because I never used the Godot engine before and therefore there was not alot of time for tweaking my idea. So you're absolutely right! Thank you for being honest to me because honestly your comment is worth more than 100 three liners praising a game that is not very well put together. Especially the point about the percentage is interesting even though I'm not exactly sure I need to change that. Maybe a good ingame tutorial is all that is needed on that side?
Again thank you all so much for the feedback! I read every comment and take notes on how to improve - so keep the feedback comming.
You wanted a roast? well, here it is. :stuck_out_tongue:
Even after reading the itch description (which should be here or better in the game) I had no idea what am I supposed to do. the mouse wasn't registering most of the time, and I have absolutely no clue why is more percentage worse than no percentage. I saw no logic in the game logic :smiley: maybe there is some, but it's not obvious (to me at least :smiley:)
Also, there could've been more visual clues as to what to do, maybe some animations...
Anyway, the game looked OK and maybe, if it was explained better, it would've been better...
P.S. you wanted a roast and I like roasts. you can roast back if you want (there's a plenty of material for you to roast) :smiley:
@dunin What resolution does your monitor have?
@dejvo Thanks for jumping on the train of bashing my poor soul :) A friend of mine actually experienced the same issue with the mouse not registering most of the time - he was playing on a laptops touch pad. Using a hardware mouse the problem vanished and at the moment I assume it's a driver issue I can't fix (at least thats a good excuse - isn't it? I will investigate on this though). Is there any chance you were using a laptop touch pad too (even though it works on the touch pad of my laptop - strange issue)? The point of not knowing what to do is also very interesting. I will update the game description - which is admittedly shit - both here and on itch.io to better explain what is going on.
@anudin: My main screen resolution is 1280x1024. (and I have a second that is 1440 x 900). I'm on windows 7.
I respect the roast me post about wanting hard feedback and would love the same reciprocated. If you do, make sure you explain why you're being super critical, haha. So giving you critical feedback for improvements as you asked.
Screen size - the game stretches to whatever the window size it when loading the page but does not resize until you refresh. (browser itch based)
Was expecting to be able to throw people back onto Earth again.
Game seems to have an infinite state if the dead planets still produce people.
Consider adding some sort of tutorial or helper information - even just a simple arrow with a slide bend around the planet to show the giant can move. Something to help people get started.
I'm currently typing this with 1 planet empty and the others dead and my score is just going up and up. Seems easier to do nothing and wait then try?
The art style is nice, cute player, but something is still missing to really connect the art. Bold thick line on the character, thin lines on the people pins, no lines and blurriness on the planet - not too cohesive in art.
It looks like the people do not go straight up from the player. I won't complain about the difficulty of trying to get the player on another planet because that's the challenging game mechanic, but the expectation of the person throw to go straight up from the arm, not at a slight angle over your head.
@simple-blue I'm awfully sorry! You just testet an HTML5 version that I just uploaded and removed now because of the bugs that you stated... It was just there for me to see if the HTML5 exporter actually works - bad timing :( Dead planets now work again as they should - no infinitly increasing score etc... Still some points you made are absolutely true for the fixed version aswell (I left out the point about ingame tutorial because it was already stated a few times by others):
- You can't throw people back to earth. That's not a bug but since I have no ingame tutorial and the game description on itch is fucking terrible you can't know that. - Thanks for the positive note on the art style. This point is actually interesting - you're the first to bring the mix of outline / no outline up - and I already noticed it too. I will propably remove the outlines from the giant. - Finally I think limiting the player to throw humans straight up adds to the game but I should indicate that either in an ingame tutorial or add an arrow pointing up etc. I'm also thinking about making the planets move - which should add an interesting aspect combined with the restriction of the throwing angle.
I'd love to fix all the points I received and I will in the future but I'm very busy at the moment. And one even bigger problem: I discovered a game design flaw in my game that basically requires me to completely redesign the gameplay which has to be done before I apply the rest of the feedback points I got... That's what you get for not prototyping correctly during LD.
@anudin yes, I was playing with the touchpad, but that shouldn't be a problem, since it gives basically the same numbers to the game as does normal mouse. also, I've tried it now with a normal mouse, and it is still kindof unresponsive. I think, you have programmed there some restrictions as to when you can click. but I might be wrong
Everything I am about to say is pretty much exactly what @jk5000 said. However, in case I manage to add anything new, I will go ahead and say it anyway...
* The art style is great * Some more animation would be nice * Although I was able to figure out movement and throwing very quickly, I had to lose twice before I figured out the main objective - a brief introduction would have helped. * The lack of audio is, as already mentioned above, a huge mistake. I'm a big believer that music and sound are absolutely key to a great game. It can instantly improve any experience because you are engaging the player via more of their senses. * I couldn't understand why my score got to 20 and then wouldn't change no matter what I did. Perhaps this is just a symptom of the game being unfinished? * Kudos for making a game with a socio-political message!
Despite any of my criticisms - this is a fine piece of work! Well done!
This entry is very cool and unique. Really like the gameplay idea. It give a special game feeling when the small worlds get overpopulated and you trow away the people to save the planets :) and also when you have the last human in your hand!! Bonus points for godot engine!! Very sad it has no sound.
@richard-michael-smith @puppetmaster Thank you both for the kind words - it means alot. Especially on this ludum dare as there are alot of things which can be improved on my entry and me explicitly asking for a bit more harsh critique that is more than welcome. I think anyone who delivers something on a ludum dare takes pride in his work even though he might realize that it's far from perfect (or even good). So again thank you both!
Personally I think some heavy change on the gameplay is needed besides some other major points but I still like the direction my idea took alot and therefore will continue developing this game - possibly also porting it to android (I can easily imagine the throwing mechanic to be really cool on a tablet). So stay tuned :)
It's a cool idea, but I'm kind of lost as to what the ultimate goal is. I can't ever have more than 20 people, so is that the highest score? The graphics were good but the lack of music hurt it some. Good job, though!
L:heart:VED the art and your original idea !!! Keep going man :smiley: !!! Pls check mine also : https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/ghost-cat
So I don't understand what I'm supposed to be doing, how I'm supposed to win, or what the overall point is. I put people on planets, they destroy them, and then die. I think you may want to retool the core gameplay as I had a lot of trouble fully understanding it. Thanks for the submission!
Nice idea and good take on theme, but i wasn't sure what the win condition was. A way to aim the humans that's faster would have been nice or to have them grow in pop more slowly.
Hey,
Took me a while to figure out what to do, but eventually I got it and is was actually fun! Your idea is really original and fitting!
Maybe for next time: Try adding some juicyness to make your game look a little bit more completed. I understand that you didn't because you were, like everyone, on a very limited time schedule!
@occultone That's actually exactly what I'm going to do once I get some free time on my hands. I fully agree that the fundamental gameplay needs a biiiiiiig change. I just have to think about how that change will look exactly :D
@richard-weug Thanks for your feedback! I will eventually rate all the games of the people rating my games but I'm very short on time right now. As for the juicyness - I'd love to! But as you already mentioned the time frame and the fact that I was learning the engine while doing this LD (first time with Godot Engine) held me back on that. Next LD I'll be more experienced and maybe have a friend of mine join me - so that could turn out quite well!