Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD38 → COSMOMOMOMOº
By nuebomundo
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 296 | 3.51 | 29 | |
| Fun | 402 | 3.11 | 29 | |
| Innovation | 21 | 4.14 | 29 | |
| Theme | 257 | 3.66 | 29 | |
| Graphics | 371 | 3.55 | 29 | |
| Audio | 93 | 3.81 | 29 | |
| Humor | 445 | 2.40 | 24 | |
| Mood | 290 | 3.40 | 27 |
Nice one ! We like the way it moves and the graphics. Special mention to the little "puik" ! The aim of the game is a little bit obscur though, we did'nt really get what to achieve and how (but maybe we just suck :P). Bravo !
Thank you for trying it out! I added a brief description of the objective to solve that obscurity problem. There are actually 5 levels! It would be a shame that players got stuck in the first one because the goal was not clear enough. Sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for pointing that out!
Simple, good and hard game. I only can beat the first level, but I'll keep trying it because it is challenging and I love that.
Ok, seeing the description you added, I see that we had the goal all right after all, it's just that it's a bit harsh ! Rated <3
Wow, your music is really relaxing. I enjoyed the moment. Too hard for me ^^ I'm not really good at it
So the gameplay is innovante and cool. But it's very hard.yes,the aim is difficult to see, maybe add a little description of the controls and the goal ;)
Nice idea !!
I Live-Streamed this game this past evening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfvbUFJnui4
I never figured out exactly what the goal was, or how to play and advance. I'd love to see the goal of the game mechanics you want us to use more explicitly laid out for us.
Thank you for the feedback, everyone! The game was not intended to be hard, specially the first level, so we made a little tweak that should ease the progression satisfactorily, and restore the experience to what was originally intended! Please try it out! I'll add some more info in the description too
Are the controls reversed? When I hold W, I go down etc etc. But still, cool idea! :)
Cute, pretty, original and fun. This is a great entry with a solid level of quality across all areas (sound, graphics, gameplay, et al.) Great stuff.
It took very long for me to get that it is a 3D sphere. I had to watrch a video of someone playing it to get what i have to do. But after i mastered how it works it was quiet easy to win
Biggest issue was the understanding that it is a 3D World Music and graphics are fine.
Good work (:
Now that is something I have not seen before! Cool concept, executed very well.
The only complaint I have is that the world is a little too textureless. It's a little hard to see where the bullets are this way, but that can also be one of the challenges of the game, so no big deal :smile:
Music and sounds fit perfectly and I love the trails behind the projectiles. The player character is the only thing that didn't feel completely right, I wouldn't know what it should look like though, so good job!
Very original, I think that's why I was initially confused on what the goal was, haha. Figured it out pretty quickly after reading your text but I think something about the textures obfuscated the perspective for me. The controls feel very nice and it's fun watching the projectiles circle around the planet. Awesome music.
Excellent entry! I liked the concept of creating your obstacles quite a bit, I've never seen that before. I would try to find a shader for the sphere which obscures whats behind it a little more, as it became very hard to tell the difference between what would kill me and what was the furthest possible thing from killing me.
I've managed to beat a couple of levels, and have a good guess on what the main mechanic is, but it could probably be a bit better communicated. Once you've figured it out the game poses an interesting challenge, and the overall experience is mostly relaxed (even if you need to pay attention to the projectiles).
Graphics are cute and I think the music theme is quite fitting. Nice job!
I like this idea very much (including these little squeaks, awesome :D ), though the goal and UI should be improved to communicate with player better. I'll give you a run-down of my playthroughs to help you understand what I struggled with:
- first game starts: I have a star and a sphere, I know that arrows move and space shoots. Okay, let's give it a spin
- I start flying and notice that something like a trail points in the direction I'm heading in. Okay, that's not intuitive, but I assume that's not a trail after all, I guess after something happens I'll know what it is.
- Nothing happens - in the sense that I don't encounter anything on my way
- okay, let's try shooting. Shot produces a ball which I seem to be attracting. Ball floats my way, through me, and finishes on point opposite to where it started on a sphere. Oh, so it's like a floaty powerup from r-type to block something?
- I start floating in another direction, my ball hits me and I'm dead. Well, didn't expect that. Why did it float through me earlier?
- After a few more tries I manage to float with more balls without hitting myself (usually keeping constant speed and and loop [release one ball while holding down, next ball while holding down+right] works like a charm, and then when I release the final, big ball... I die almost instantly. After > 10 tries i gave up for a while.
** core issue **
The problem is, I still don't know how to exactly finish level 1. A simple tutorial-like level with just one small and one big ball would be a **huge** help, I suppose, to give player ability to complete one level and get the hang of mechanics without concentrating on keeping alive, and to show them what are the win conditions - for now **I know that it's my fault** I die, but I'm still not sure **what to expect**.
Secondly, I find the trail pointing in the direction of travel a tad confusing. If it looks like trail, I expect it to face opposite direction, and it just feels wrong (I find that I concentrate on it too much instead of paying attention to what's happening with the projectiles). Especially since projectiles leave trails behind, not in front of them like the player.
** So, in short: **
- trail: if it's a trail, make it face the direction opposite to travel; if it's not, change its appearance (if it's supposed to be velocity, maybe an arrow? )
- Level 1: make it have just one/two small balls and one big, to allow player to easily finish it and learn what to aim for and expect at the end of level
- add some clear introductory text.
** Regardless, I think you did an awesome job that just has a bit hard time communicating with a player **
I really like your concept, that's why I'm writing all of this. I hope it'll help you address the issues players might have, to allow them to pick up the game more easily. It's clear that you've put a lot of hard work into this game, and it would be a damn shame if players couldn't play it properly. Art is great, audio fits perfectly, spin on the theme is fun, and the gameplay is fluent.
Please give me a shout if you're able to put some update, I'd love to give it another spin. Cheers!
Nice game! The gameplay idea is really fresh. In my first try, I did not understand that you were rotating around a sphere, so I was also confused by the background's movements when I moved. But finally, I started to see that sphere and I was able to beat the game.
I think you could improve the information on the fact that the bubble is a sphere. I have few ideas: - Make a tiled texture for the bubble (so we see that we move arround) - Make a compass that show where is the up-left-right-bottom-forward-back of the universe - Represent the poles on the bubble (just a rod that cross the sphere, or a texture...) - A tutorial in which their is flags to reach at different positions of the sphere.
A small feedback concerning a moment where the sphere has growed while I was playing: it looked "buggy". So I think it would be nicier to make it grow smoothly.
Excepted these small details, I also really enjoyed the mood and the sound design.
Cute - did not get very far since I always ran into my own orbiting shots over and over, but the "Yik!" noise ist too cute, really :) The simple music fits and the graphics are kind a nice, so good work!
Wow, great concept! I got to what was presumably the end. I'd echo the points about somehow making the visuals more intuitive / easier to grok. The gameplay was, although weird to pick up at first, rather simple once you got the hang of it. Given that the orbits of the shots are so predictable, it's easy to shoot them in axis-aligned directions and then move slightly each time.
I think a game in which the "bullets" move more slowly yet are harder to lay out in a predictable way might (?) be more interesting. But of course that's a different design.
Anyways, fun stuff!
Took me a few tries to get the idea, but managed to finish all levels once it clicked. The *reunion* scene has a nice atmosphere to it.
Now there are two issues, both of which have been pointed out before; but let's recap anyways, why not?
The first impression is not clear. It all feels very counterintuitive until you figure out what is going on.
Secondly there really is no challenge after you do figure out what is going on. Shoot everything in the same general direction, move to the side and wait... easy!
There could be all sorts of things to spice this concept up, for instance gravity modifiers, more enemy types, immovable obstacles that the bullets bounce off of, multiple cosmomomomos to keep alive (as in the last scene)... Stuff like that!
Otherwise very innovative and well made. Congrats!
@feltip Oh, yeah, that's a common misinterpretation (totally our fault!), you're not navigating across the universe with a big ball, actually you're the small star moving around a little planet. Sorry about that!
@faemir Thank you for taking the time to leave a message!
@lipsch Yep, we did not make a good job explaining the 3D world to the player, that's probably one of the game's biggest flaws. Anyway, thank you for your feedback!
@somethinboutgames Thank you for your kind words! The original purpose of the textureless world was just esthetic, with an additional visual aid in mind too. Unfortunately, the end result can be improved a lot.
@ruthiepee I'm glad the description was helpful, thank you for your comment!
@kleinzach Such a welcomed comment! Something very similar to what you're describing about the shader is in the making for a post-mortem version of the game, but in any way, thank you for your sharp suggestion!
@ithildin The communication of the main mechanic needs some improvement, most definitely. We appreciate your words about the graphics and music, thank you!
@takusan :O! WOW.
First things first: Thank you so much for taking the time to type such an extensive feedback message, you even gave us a run-down of your playthroughs, that kind of information is priceless to us.
Going through your message, you probably suffered the exact same misconception @feltip fell for (totally our fault, again). The main character is actually the little white ball with a blue star on top, not the whole planet. If you consider trying the game again with this in mind, we'll be truly grateful.
@lukuluk Thank you so much for your suggestions to improve the sphere, we'll most definitively take them into account when releasing the final post-jam version.
Yep, the "grow animation" (so to speak lol) is too sudden right now, that's because we were running out of time and it was a hacky solution to achieve the effect we wanted.
@zondarg Hahaha, that particular sfx sure was popular, thank you for leaving a comment!
@ddrkirbyisq The predictability of the shots you're describing is indeed one of the flaws in the design that we overlooked at first (good job finding it out! lol). Thank you for your feedback!
@huvaakoodia The reunion scene was kind of improvised at the last minute, glad you like it!
The "first impression" needs tons of work indeed...
You found out the "easy mode" too, hahaha. Yep, some of the elements you describe were in our minds while developing the game, but we couldn't really put them in the final product on time, unfortunately. Aside from that, some of your ideas are really cool, superb feedback!
···
We'll try to rate and give feedback to all of you that take your time posting here. Thank you again, you all!
Very fun and interesting game! A bit hard to know whether the shot is behind the planet or going to hit you though :)
Not a whole lot to say that others haven't touched on, but I really enjoyed this. It took me a couple minutes to figure out what was going on, but the music and atmosphere kept me around long enough to figure it out on my own. The music and sound effects really added to the experience. Seriously, well done.
I had a couple thoughts on ways to solve issues others have mentioned - I'll share them in case they're useful to you.
As others mentioned, the goal was definitely a little unclear at first. I think you could have explained a lot by just always having the timer visible, but perhaps grayed out until you took all of your shots. At least for me, the second I saw that timer I thought to myself "oh, I get it now!"
Another thing - as other have mentioned, it was really hard to tell which side of the planet your shots were on. If the planet were less transparent (not all the way though; it's super helpful to see what's coming!) it would have made a lot of difference.
Lastly, the reunion scene was a little confusing to me - I actually thought it was another level. (Unless that was a level, in which case I fail :D) I thought there might be another puzzle element to figure out on there, with the balls smiling when they got close to each other. I actually had to come back to this page to figure out that I beat it. A little text congratulating the user could have made a lot of difference.
(Note: I used the web version on Chrome in fullscreen, in case anything I said was a bug. Happy to give more information if you need it.)
Don't take any of this as negative; this is amazing for a 3 day effort. Thanks for a fun game!
Really love this idea! Very original and well polished game. A little confusing presentation, took me a while to figure out i wasn't moving through space, rather just moving around a spherical planet. Had a lot of fun though :)
Nice entry! Love the aesthetic of the game and good polishing (trail, skybox, etc.) I think the rules are a bit unclear, and it is difficult to see if you will collide with shots when gameplay goes 3D. But I really liked the level where there is already obstacles when level start. Using this, you may do many differents levels and make it a puzzle game! (at the moment, you just have to shoot and move a bit in one direction to finish most of the levels) Anyway, good job! ;)
Really clever game concept, and the bullet trails are incredibly smooth and clean! I did find the puzzles a bit easy because of it being a perfectly round world and the ability to aim straight, so I think a bit of extra challenge could have been added from making the world a bit bumpy, causing bullets to change direction slightly. Also not sure if intentional, but on the last level I noticed I teleported randomly and all bullets I previously fired were spinning inside the planet instead of on the planet's surface.
Very interesting mechanics. Kind of hard, though. I liked the sound effects.
Love the asthetics of this one, I did a little video with my thoughts. https://youtu.be/2E_VB598v2c
Good job! Great visuals, very relaxing back ground sounds. I found it really difficult, I kinda sucked at it hehe. Loved the little squeek sound the star made was very cute.
Great job!
I really liked the game! Only thing that would make it better and easier to play is if you could see if a ball is in front or behind the sphere ;)