Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD39 → Escape from Solar Sea Fortress
By designernap
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 64 | 3.88 | 36 | |
| Fun | 264 | 3.29 | 36 | |
| Innovation | 143 | 3.52 | 36 | |
| Theme | 154 | 3.82 | 36 | |
| Graphics | 13 | 4.44 | 36 | |
| Audio | 13 | 4.14 | 36 | |
| Humor | 1 | |||
| Mood | 7 | 4.44 | 36 |
Excellent graphics, idea, mood and music. Great execution. The game was fun, sadly the batteries where very frustrating to handle and the puzzle that required three of them was practically unsolvable because of the finicky batteries.
Still almost a 5/5 from me. I think you should opt out of the humor category so it doesn't affect your score, as the game doesn't have anything do with humor.
Thanks for the advice! I will change the listing. And yeah, the three battery puzzles causes issues some times. Ran out of time to fix it though as all the core mechanisms are intertwined in a mess of sleep deprived spaghetti script ;) thanks for the kind words though and for taking the time to play my game.
This game looks and sounds astonishing! Gameplaywise, it plays very smoothly + logic games are my thing so kudos for that too :)
I experienced one kind of annoying problem though and that is whenever i bump into something with the battery it falls. I think this was intended but it kind of breaks the flow.
You definitely deserve more ratings. Kinda sad people are not checking your game out :/
Anyway,GJ and keep up with good work! :)
Best looking and sounding game I played so far! My only problems are not being able to strafe and dropping the batteries on accident. The mood was fit the setting well and felt great!
Amazing game, the graphics and music are spot on for the mood you create, however there were some lighting bugs on the top floor. It sticks to the theme really well and the gameplay itself was relaxing and puzzling. My biggest complaint and I see in other comments is that you lose grasp of the lamp/battery as soon as you bump into something. In some of the more tighter rooms this got fairly annoying, but not enough to stop me from playing. Overall a fantastic game, especially for 2 days, good job and best of luck!
Thanks @uzyfeo and @Dankypants! My choice with the dropping of the batteries was either allow the battery to get stuck in objects and fall through the world OR have it drop when colliding. Ran out of time to do something with more finesse so ended up with a "be careful with the battery!" solution :D also, for some reason I never figured out, turning quickly and strafing too quickly drops the battery too. no idea why! :D Thanks for playing though!
Thanks @roka-josh! :D yeah, really wish I had spent more time on the handling of the physics, but as it went, I ended up having to cut the last two floors. Still, they add a nice empty feel to the escape! :)
Well I made it to the end. It seemed like the last couple floors were unfinished but really excellent on all fronts. The only thing that was frustrating was that I kept dropping the batteries, especially while going up the stairs. Best mood so far that I've played.
Neat, ambitious, nice art, and moody. Definitely the best "style" out of the 6 games I've played so far. However, it was VERY frustrating to play between the darkness (which I'll let slide since it's kind of the point...), and the buggy interaction with the containers. That killed a lot of the fun for me; the game kind of became "Don't bump into anything: The Game"
Wow, very cohesive! The music, lighting and scenery all come together for a calm, contemplative atmosphere; which I should say is what you want for a puzzle game. I think disabling physics on the batteries while holding them would do a lot to reduce frustration. Despite that, the puzzles worked well with the overall experience. Great submission!
Very great graphics, particularly the shadows. You'll certainly have to play around some of the more annoying bugs, but if you do there's a surprisingly long and fun puzzle game.
Wow, excellent work for 48 hours, the batteries were infuriating to control though. And I found the easiest way to escape some solar sea fortress was to simply jump off the edge.
Graphics and music are amazing. Gameplay seems very fun but I couldn't play much cause it was very buggy, I couldn't pick up the objects easly and it was kinda laggy. This is probably the only flaw. I have watched the gameplay and it really seemed like a good puzzle game.
Good morning all! Thanks for the feedback. Yeah it's disappointing how the physics on the battery turned out, but you can probably tell from the last couple of floors I ran out of time! I appreciate everyone's time to give it a go though and thanks for watching the video to see the full experience and final ending :) now to reply to each of you...
@thorneto - Yes! thanks for playing to the end. I was hoping those last two floors wouldn't stand out so much... but I guess they did :)
@sputnik3d - The darkness bit I am not so worried about but yeah, the handling on the batteries is the killer. Believe it or not, it is the lesser of the two evils i could have chosen :) Thanks for playing though!
@Whatfruit - Thanks for the kind words, I kinda feel like I sacrificed the gameplay to get the visuals this time around but glad you enjoyed it.
@Nekusoul - Thanks! And yeah, I try to make my game jam's feel like full titles :D
@Pyrosneak - Thank you and yes... Infuriating is the right word. IF you jump off the top you don't get the final ending though! ;)
@perdom - yeah, there are issues with it for sure. Have seen on machines that struggle to run it, the physics are worse and the battery drops a LOT! thinking I am going to have to make a post-jam version with a different system for the battery carrying.
Thanks again all! heading off to check your games soon :D
G
World was much too dark, I kept losing the batteries! They also handle quite bad (picking up/dropping), but I won't dwell on that as others have pointed it out already.
Right at the beginning I don't think the battery hole (circuit?) was signalled enough as I immediately took the first battery downstairs... it took me a while to realise it was there and had to carry the thing back upstairs - woops. Also the box/levers that you can click - didn't know those were clickable until seeing the video.
Didn't manage to get to the end because of said handling but really enjoyed the mood of the experience. Having watched the video, I can see what you were going for, and I can tell I would have really enjoyed solving things and getting there myself. :thumbsup:
Thanks @Gwinnell! I am getting to the stage where I think the video walkthrough might do a better job of explaining what I was going for! ;) But alas, we don't get judged on the video! Thank you for persevering though and for the feedback. Very tempted to to a post jam version where I overhaul the pickup system and add better telegraphing of the mechanics.
Thanks @Gwinnell! I am getting to the stage where I think the video walkthrough might do a better job of explaining what I was going for! ;) But alas, we don't get judged on the video! Thank you for persevering though and for the feedback. Very tempted to to a post jam version where I overhaul the pickup system and add better telegraphing of the mechanics.
Really interesting game ! I love the atmosphere, we can really feel the loneliness of this place (the music emphasize this feeling well!). The gameplay is simple but clever, and make good use of the theme. Too bad that moving the batteries is so annoying due to the collision bugs. I loved the unexpected ending too.
Good job !
Thanks @yvanor and yeah. Them batteries are making ZERO friends ;)
Great mood and music and visuals! The controls and physics were a bit wonky though, I lost batteries out of bounds a couple of times and had a really hard time picking them up.
Very good game. The puzzles are great. Although, as other people mentioned, the batteries/lamp/thing was hard to manipulate and keep falling to the ground whenever accidentally I hit something. Nevertheless, very good job!
Awesome work on this one! I've always loved little first person puzzlers, this game reminded me of Riven in a nice way! The graphics in this were top notch, some of the best I've seen in a jam ever! As others have said, I had some issues with the batteries, but it didn't take me long to get the hang of how to hold them. Hope to see you in the next LD, this is some crazy good stuff.
Awesome entry! I am impressed what you managed in 48 hours, and if you were to make this a full-length polished game I would buy it.
My only frustration has already been mentioned: the battery handling, I kept losing them while walking the stairs and then had to find them in the dark again.
Thanks @lycaon @Acoto87 and @Futil for playing. Also for the Riven mention! I hadn't thought about that whilst making it but when I played the final version it jumped out at me along with themes from Bioshock and the Truman show :)
Hey @Drakryttare Thanks for the kind words! Tempting to explore the concept further and make a full game out of it :D I am definitely going to make a post jam with the pickup mechanics changed for sure. Will see how that goes and maybe look at up scaling it :D
Beautiful, I love the design of the machines and the tower as well as the gameplay concept.
BUT I got really, really frustrated with the handling of the batteries. Every time I moved above anything but a crawl or turned to quickly they would just go flying and bounce all over the place. Even trying to pick them up more often than not was an issue, with the battery suddenly dropping from the ceiling every time I clicked on it. I think I'll go back once I'm not quite as angry anymore and try to play it to the end.
Still, everything except the physics is very nice. Well done for such a short amount of time!
That's a really ambitious game for Ludum Dare and you participated in Compo which is even more impressive. Art style and audio are pretty great, together they set a nice mood and there is this feeling of mystery to it. Gameplay is neat and engaging, simple puzzles that you go through are not really a challange but i think that is not the main focus of the game at the moment. Impressive game in overall.
Napper, you have blown it out of the park this time. The only thing I could criticise is the difficulty in holding the power sometimes. Other than that top marks across the board! One day I want to grow up to be a designer just like you :)
you are definitely one of the hugest competitor of most of the categories for this compo for me.
- Awesome modelling - Awesome ambient music - SFX Totally fits the noise object should do - Awesome mood throughout the game - I am totally jalous of your lightning and shadows, they are beautilfully calibrated.
My computer unfortunately was so slow that the battery was dropping at each step but you already know that and it totally does not make your game less valuable. Incredible job on that one!
Thanks @Jin47 I really appreciate the kind words. Worked very hard on this so it is lovely to hear such nice things :) you made my evening.
5 starred audio, graphics and mood just because you did an excellent job on all those fronts, especially the modelling, that was really impressive. Was stuck at the second floor trying to find another battery though, and I dropped the battery outside. Jumping outside the window got me stuck as well. Seems like there's more to this from the video, but the gameplay seems pretty basic though.
I got tripped up on finding the second battery, it was too well hidden I thought it was part of the mechanism at first. The overall feel of the game is good the mood and sound. a nice puzzle game. I did enjoy the trade off of light and power. Great job.
The most impressive game I played so far. Amazing job!
Wow! thanks for such positive comments @randomphantom @Hijomo and @gilborn :) Kinda frustrated that the gameplay lets it down so much but glad people are pushing through.
Unfortunately I found this game to be really buggy. The interaction is super touchy, whenever I was holding something if it even slightly touched another collider it would go flying. When I tried to pick things up, it would pick them up for a split second and send the item flying if I didn't hold down the mouse button. And on the third level I got stuck because I couldn't get the battery to fit in the socket, it kept getting sucked in then spat out instantly but the audio as if it was working would play (but no lit up connections or anything). Another thing with the sockets is that they are super touchy, too frequently I would go to retrieve a battery from a socket and it would instantly get sucked back in again. I am quite disappointed by what I was actually able to play because I saw this on a lets play and it looked really cool! The one thing I really loved about the game though was the audio, the music and the ambient sounds of the waves are really immersive. Would have been nice to see some kind of moving water shader as well but in 48 hours I can understand why you might have left this.
Hi @sarrixx, yeah everything you described has been reported by people with slower machines. Even on powerful machines though it does ping off too delicately. The walkthrough video above shows it in a more positive light but sorry to disappoint you.
Lovely graphics and lighting!!! I included it in my Ludum Dare 39 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk50HLqX0cU