I Want To Explore

mrgussio 2017-05-01 10:52

The old school graphics were amazing, but the game wasn't just really fun to play.

cerno-b 2017-05-01 11:00

Your game looks nice, I will play and rate it later.

Just a comment: Please mark the game as Windows-compatible on itch.io, otherwise it won't be playable from the itch client.

joekinglake 2017-05-01 11:04

Thanks for the feedback @mrgussio - definitely agree that I lacked gameplay and placed a little too higher emphasis on the artwork in this jam. Thanks for playing! :-)

joekinglake 2017-05-01 11:05

Thanks @cerno-b - i hope you enjoy when you do play. I've marked the game as Windows compatible on itch.io, thanks for the tip, i didn't know that was the case!

undefinist 2017-05-01 11:16

I really like the 1 bit art! My biggest concern is that I didn't know what to do at first. I spent a solid 30 seconds of just clicking around until I watched your video and realized I had to click on the right side of the globe. Maybe an arrow on the left or right would be good (or at least just on the first screen). I also really liked how it ended (or should I say did not...) that again brings it back to the theme. Great job!

eveningwayward 2017-05-01 11:47

What a nice little idea, just like the world that's presented to the player, though the previous LD theme "one room" suits the game better. The start was also confusing and unintuitive to me because I witnessed the same problem as @undefinist.

I understand the 1-bit aesthetic that you tried to recreate, but overall darkness of the scene hurt my eyes a bit because of the palette. It would probably be better if the game was stylized for LCD display with sort of greenish color for the background and black color for the foreground, though it's just an assumption.

cerno-b 2017-05-01 11:58

Thanks for updating, I just played it and it's awesome!

I love minimalist graphics in general and you pulled it off very nicely. It's hard to make low-res, low-color graphics look expressive but it works well in your case, especially with the blinking indicators you added. I wish it had a fullscreen or zoom option, as it would be less straining for the eyes.

The music is really good and creates a dire, eerie atmosphere.

I would really suggest you added arrows at the bottom of the screen, since it is not really easy to figure how to advance. The arrows would solve another problem as well, which is that the mouse pointer indicator vanishes whenever you display text. Of course you want to prevent the player from advancing while an animation plays, but the way you do it is a bit confusing, since it is not clear why the indicator doesn't react. If you don't like arrows because they disrupt the mood, you could incorporate items in the graphics that need to be clicked to advance.

Also an ending screen would have really helped to make clear that the game is over. Once you leave via the boat, the game is over and just restarts. Since it restarts with a boat, I would think that you deliberately wanted it to be a cyclic experience, in which case I would have loved to have the second playthrough to be sort of different and the task would be to break the cycle somehow, but I guess one can only do so much in 48 hours.

So besides these comments, I really enjoyed your game and think you created a wonderful little experience.

joekinglake 2017-05-01 14:02

@cerno-b - Thanks so much for the feedback. I definitely agree with the colouring after playing on another computer (I think my brightness / contrast is set overly high on this monitor!).

Good suggestion on highlighting how the moving works on the first screen - i think as well something that would definitely help is having the marker update when animations finish playing so the player can move.

Definitely if i had more time i would have changed the second playthroughs but as you said, time was limited :-)

Thanks again for playing! Very much appreciated!

joekinglake 2017-05-01 14:03

@eveningwayward - definitely agreed on the colouring! I think i'd like to drop the black back a little and then add some greens to the grey and also lighten it up a bit to contrast the colours more. Thanks for the feedback!

And good point on the starting location - as i mentioned to cerno, i think adding some help on how the movement works initially would definitely help. Thanks :)

r8berto 2017-05-01 21:05

Very clear pixel art for such a low resolution, nice job!

obvious-san 2017-05-01 21:34

I'm impressed with the pixel art and the idea is quite creative. It was a bit hard to figure out how to play it actually, and sometimes I wasn't sure were the 'click area' is now when I want to go left or right. Except these minor issues, the game is really enjoyable and the atmosphere is chilly. I like this game alot :D

junjunlowpoly 2017-05-01 21:44

Love the 1bit pixel art. Just not easy to figure out how to play.

frodewin 2017-05-01 21:46

The graphics implemented the small world theme very well, but the dark and limited graphics didn't invite me to play for an extended time. I liked the retro sound, although its a bit repetetive after some time.

redpanda 2017-05-01 22:15

Pretty dope game, I'd love more content! Awesome art style and music.

Btw, I and @quaternius made a snow globe game too, if you wanna check it out, head here: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/hibernaculum

nyanmatt 2017-05-02 06:50

I love the art style and the puzzle to get around the game, great job! :)

eric-florio 2017-05-02 23:28

Cool game! The concept is really unique. Makes me want to play more =D

The art style is simple but very well done.

Good job!

flipsy 2017-05-04 00:02

Nicely done, could easily be extended into a deeper experience.

My criticisms mirror those above: - Colours very dark, I had to crank up the brightness on my screen and zoom it right in. - I didn't know what to do at the start until I read the comments. - I didn't know what happened at the end the first time I completed it. I thought I'd died from going into the water (but maybe the cyclic uncertainty was deliberate?). - The cursor is hard to see / a bit confusing at times.

Great graphics, I like the atmosphere and the stripped down aesthetic. The music matched the overall feel very well. Great job!

joekinglake 2017-05-06 13:55

Thanks everyone for the constructive criticisms & kinds words! :-)

powerspark 2017-05-10 23:13

Nice experiment here, great retro feel and music. I had the exact problem as @undefinist, and the game was pretty limited in gameplay, but the art was still impressive. Well done.

takusan 2017-05-14 21:21

While I did struggle with the controls a bit, I personally wouldn't change it. Your project has such an oldschool vibe, that it actually fits - I remember to this day working with trial and error on hundreds of Amiga games I got with no instructions (and for titles like 'UFO enemy unknown', 'Settlers', or even friggin' 'Reunion' and 'Utopia'), so for me it's really a part of the game. And the struggle wasn't that annoying to make an issue out of it :)

I like it very much. Nice take on the theme, I find the little, but endless world really spot on. While there could be some more gameplay, I can see that your aim was to get the vibe and theme right, and you did indeed.

Great pixel art, I actually went through the whole thing three times and sometimes just played with the pixels (very good job with the cursor!). Music is also just right, while the loop is short it's never annoying.

This was a surprisingly nice experience, for me it's a very good project. I expect many people will find it lacking gameplay, but hey, you can't please everybody, especially in compo.

Cheers, and stay awesome!

veksell 2017-05-16 11:03

Nice game. Lighter color maybe need to be more bright, and gameplay not very big, but anyway good job.

joekinglake 2017-05-16 11:08

@Takusan - Thank you very much for the kind words, i'm super glad to hear that you enjoyed playing! I was definitely headed in the direction of the older Amiga games (Though some of the restrictions in the game came from running out of time rather than from technical limitations simlar to those of the era!).

@Veksell thanks for playing, definitely agreed! I think the problem became a lot more apparent when i played on another monitor to my own haha. Gives me something to think about next time ;-)

porcus-pie 2017-05-16 11:20

It's a very unique, yet fun game, and rather simplistic in it's presentation and gameplay. I like the subtle puzzle elements you have around the place, and I wish there were more of them. The audio fit the style quite well, however I feel that maybe two different colours could have been used, as grey and black are not overly contrasting. The game could have also had slightly more direction, giving the player a bit more knowledge on how to play. You managed to execute the pixel animation and look fluidly however, and it worked well. Despite all this however it was still a fun game to play, I enjoyed it

joekinglake 2017-05-16 11:23

Thanks for the feedback @porcus-pie. Definitely agree on the colour, since replaying the game after the LD weekend i've wanted to revisit the colour and contrast the two colours slightly more. As for gameplay, i think you're very much right, there's not enough direction given to the player - I was aiming for the old adventure game style as @takusan mentioned with that feel of experimentation but i think i didn't quite reach what i was aiming for. Thanks for playing and i'm very glad you enjoyed it! :)

2017-05-20 15:33

Very interesting 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=xNjIIPVrvYI

joekinglake 2017-05-20 16:38

Thanks for playing @jupiter-hadley! I hope you enjoyed it, seems you ran into the same issues a lot of others mentioned. Food for thought for the next jam :-)