rik-thunder 2017-04-23 20:31
finally atleast this works :D
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → SittingDucks
By iak and rik-thunder
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 535 | 3.10 | 31 | |
| Fun | 534 | 2.89 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 522 | 2.85 | 30 | |
| Theme | 311 | 3.57 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 542 | 3.03 | 30 | |
| Audio | 359 | 2.92 | 30 | |
| Humor | 172 | 3.26 | 28 | |
| Mood | 524 | 2.96 | 30 |
finally atleast this works :D
@rik-thunder Thank you for your comment, partner! ;)
Now if I could publish the game, that'd be great. Would like to sleep soon.
-And now that's taken care off, too. Off to bed!
Good job guys :D very fun to play, im enjoying it xDDD glorious LE QUACK GAME!!! xDD
Time for some Criticism and rating :D The art style is really great and animations are very cool and smooth, as expected from Rik :D cheers rik! However, 1 thing i'd complain about is the fact that the world spins around the character not that character walks around the world, and as a person with motion sickness, that made me dizzy and slightly motion sick, not bad to a point where i had to stop playing the game or couldn't handle it but just something I thought would be worth mentioning. Other than that, the couple of different play styles make the game really cool, the art is greatt, the idea is funny and the game has a really great sense of humor. The glorious sitting duck ending is amazing and I love the secrets the game has. However, at the same time I'd say it's a downside because most people will never notice the easter eggs and secrets. Very good. Ohh, almost forgot to mention that the sound effects are really nice!
@vkmicro well most of our games have secret stuff almost nobody will ever see and I doubt we will change that in the future. I have added a link above with hints so people who want to find the secrets, but don't want to search for them at least have the option to check what to do.
As for motion sickness, we mostly made it like this so the controls wouldn't be weird when standing on the lower half of the planet (y'know, left/right reversal). No idea how to tell what gives people motionsickness other than having lots of people playtest it. XD
That game as a really strange vibe. Why ducks? Why protecting the earth? And what are those aliens? That + the hypnotic music and you have a really particular experience.
Maybe having a better feeling of progression would have been cool, because I have no idea how far I went through the game before dying.
Still liked it :p (Why my baby ducks have to die? :cry: )
Ducks! Glad to see more of them, although this time in much more violent circumstances.
The graphics are ok, the audio strangely eerie and a bit off.
I don't think I got very far. Had very little time to lay eggs as jumping seems to be a rather effective measure against the asteroids already. The egg laying is a bit tricky too, there's no indication on when an egg has been laid as there's a delay of some sort. An audio cue would do the trick.
That floating hat probably has something to do with them secrets, but I had no time to deal with it due to them ig bass asteroids.
An ok job, I think.
Some of the graphics are great, particularly the explosions and dug animations though it feels like it's missing some sort of background. Controls feel a bit clunky, perhaps allowing rotating the world while jumping would help that, at the moment you are 'locked in' to a given angle when jumping. As someone else said, an audio cue on the eggs would help a lot. Decent overall though!
Initially this seems neat but it soon ends up being held back by the lack of player feedback (e.g. not knowing how long I'm suppose to sit down for to lay the egg).
|+ The concept of building an army of baby ducklings to protect the planet is fun in almost a very light pikmin kind of way.
|- The lack of control felt with both creating eggs and picking up the ducklings that grow up holds back the feeling of being able to control/manage the situation, and without also having a sense of progression I didn't feel like retrying more than a few times.
? I think if you just added additional feedback, like a pop sound or something when an egg was laid, and maybe pressing down when you're above a grown duckling to pick it up to give you more control it would quickly become more engaging. Still a neat entry with charming art :).
Is this a small world or a big duck? :D
I loved the scene spinning around instead of the character moving. It's a weird feeling, but fits the game's mood perfectly :)
Hahaha I love it.
It got so intense at the end, that giant black thing was coming close and I'm trying to make eggs like crazy.
overall slightly creepy but the ducks made everything better :laughing:. I was unsure when I an egg was laid or even how to on my first playthrough, till I read the controls and saw down.
This was actually kind of fun. It has a few issues like not giving you any feedback when eggs are laid and the incredibly jarring instant world reset upon death. The egg throwing system felt a bit dodgy as aiming without any guide or background is a bit of a pain. However, once I stopped trying to use the eggs and just launch my duck into the oncoming asteroids it was pretty fun. The spawning system also seemed to spawn entities slow enough that it was actually possible for me to get between them in time, which is nice.
The artwork looks nice and the music while repetitive and a little bit annoying at first kind of fits with the gameplay loop so I guess that could be labelled a feature. overall it was an enjoyable experience.
Graphics and animations are pretty good, game perfectly fits the theme. Gameplay, I didn't understand what to do, no indication of when you laid the chick and jumping up throws some of them into space. Then when the hat spams attacks your world dies very quickly. Music and sound effects are quite good though.
This game is haaaaaard ! Or maybe i'm just bad :p Anyway, good game ! This is quite a simple premise but I like the weirdness of it. The music and the graphics are really enjoyable. Aside from that, the game mechanisms are a bit cryptic, and the fast curve of difficulty doesn't help to be used to the controls. But it's a good game anyway, good job !
Great work :) I liked the soundtrack, one thing that would have been nice would be to describe which button is the Jump Button (e.q. the one set in the config, which i didn't touch to be honest). I liked the concept of the gameplay which can get quite challenging. Initially tho there were not enough stones for my taste i had to wait for a few seconds until the action started^^ But a really nice concept tho :)
Nice game, could've done with a score counter or something :)
Nice pixel art, the game was fun as well although when the black hand arrives it gets way to hard!
Certainly and interesting game. Some instructions in the game itself would be nice. It took me a bit to realize how to destroy the asteroids.
I also feel that the difficulty ramps up a little too fast. All of a sudden you are inundated by tons of asteroids.
These funny sounds :D omg to cute
Great work. I would have liked more feedback on egg-laying. I wasn't sure how long to sit when laying an egg, but I liked the idea a lot. In general, the game could use some more indicators on how the player does things (i.e is there a cooldown for laying an egg?). The art style is very nice too, particularly the explosions. Maybe a little screen-shake would have made them feel more visceral, but still very good. The controls were very responsive, and destroying meteors felt good. Overall good job.
Fun idea, definitely hilarious. Couple things. Some kind of icon to indicate when an egg was laid so I knew when to stand up would have been great. Also the rotation made me a little dizzy. I would prefer to have the character move around the planet rather than the whole screen rotate. Especially when it gets faster. Also the sound effects hurt my ears. Music was great but I ended up just muting because of the jump sound.
I wasn't sure what the egg laying was for, sometimes I got really large chicks, but mostly tiny ones which evolved to normal sized chicks. Sitting longer didn't seem to spawn the large version, so I just tapped down and got tiny chicks which eventually grew larger. Jumping seems to fire a chick when it's above your head, although walking it into comets worked as well. I did manage to get to the end (Duckdillion) in one or two tries, even though I wasn't sure what I was doing. Overall I really loved the aesthetic and idea, but I think the gameplay could've been explained a little better. Good effort!
@nervous-composers congrats on finishing the game! you are a minority :DD you thought you were laying eggs but secretly you were hatching the planet ;)
I totally missed the egg mechanic on my first try and now I feel so dumb. I won't comment much on this since it'd be spoiling stuff, but I really liked how the game is actually a lot more diverse than you initially think. I wish the player would move a bit faster, cause to me it felt a little bit frustrating, but it's a subjective kind of thing. I also think the planet HP bar could be a bit fancier. Apart from that I loved it! Great visuals, groovy music and secrets.
Really fun game. So far the one I spent the most time with. I haven't managed to win yet but I chances are good that I'll come back and try again! I agree with everyone else, feedback on the egglaying would have been nice.
It sure as hell was too big responsibility for a only one ducky to protect the whole planet from such a horrifying fate. First time playing I didn't even realize that my duck can lay eggs, and was eaten by the World Eater (or dunno, it reached the planet and the game just restarted, so, naturally, I assuming that was the reason). On other tries I couldn't balance right between defending the planet and laying eggs. Way too hard, IMO. Still was good to play something small yet engaging. Now I'm feeling regrets, that I didn't make something alike on this Ludum. Thanks for the game! Also, was nice to see a fellow Game Maker user.
Cool game! at the beginning is a bit slow but then it turns out very challenging. Also the idea of a duck saving the planet it's awesome by itself!
That's an interesting idea to have a giant duck (that uses her children as meat shields) as the protector of Earth. Gameplay is really challenging and you it's only a matter of time before you won't be able to weaken asteroids by throwing your babies a them. Nice graphics and funny game in overall.
Neat concept, and well executed. The various things attacking the planet were very creative, and it definitely got the "small world" theme across. Good job!
Sadly no Linux version
I enjoyed your take on the world defender theme. It took me a while to figure out that I could lay eggs. the graphics were pretty cool, especially the bigger asteroids and the world eater. I couldn't find out how to defeat it but it certainly looked mysterious, the way it blended into the void of space.
There are a few areas that I would say could use a little work though. The music was fitting, but it's important to create a closed loop without breaks so that the player doesn't notice the repetition.
Gameplay-wise I think the difficulty ramp-up is too slow which decreases replay value. In the beginning there is just so much time where nothing happens. The pacing for laying eggs is also a bit off: In the beginning you can lay a lot of eggs because there is still time, but as the game progresses you barely have time to lay new ones. That is really a shame because I found the idea of laying eggs and using the chicks as ammunition really fresh and one of the strong points of your game.
Also there is no clear indication of when an egg is actually laid. As it is, laying an egg is a huge investment because it takes so long. If you let go a little too early that investment does not pay off, which is frustrating. I think, about half a second might be a good value here, as that would give you enough time to lay eggs later in the game. I think defining a separate key for picking up chicks is important, as it gives the player more control over resources. This is again about investment: If the eggs are precious because they take so long to lay, the player should not be forced to pick them up, as this sort of destroys the game's economy. But even with faster egg-laying, having more control is probably a good idea.
While I liked hitting the rocks with your head until they explode, I think the game may be more fun if you could destroy the smaller ones with a single hit. While at it, maybe increase the rotation speed of the planet a little for faster controls, and allow moving sideways while in the air.
Finally, I couldn't figure out why I would win or lose a round. My first play was a loss, because my planet's energy reached zero. My second play didn't throw me back to the start screen, so I assume I survived a round, but since the round ended with my planet being destroyed I didn't know whether I won or lost. Maybe this could have been communicated more clearly.
These points may sound like a lot, but most of them boil down to tweaking some game constants. That will likely change the character of your game, so please consider them only as ideas for trying alternatives.
Overall I liked your ideas despite some flaws and I think with a little more polish the game improve considerably.
@pschichtel It's awfully late now (almost LD 39!) But I have added an experimental Ubuntu release. It appears to still have some bugs the windows version doesn't have, but I'm working on figuring out compatibility for future Jams.