aterlamia 2017-07-31 10:13
pretty graphic and the music adds to the experience i thik
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD39 → AI Overlord Runaway
By agecaf
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 166 | 3.60 | 45 | |
| Fun | 109 | 3.65 | 45 | |
| Innovation | 234 | 3.32 | 45 | |
| Theme | 319 | 3.53 | 45 | |
| Graphics | 255 | 3.46 | 45 | |
| Audio | 52 | 3.74 | 45 | |
| Humor | 337 | 2.25 | 38 | |
| Mood | 197 | 3.29 | 43 |
pretty graphic and the music adds to the experience i thik
Nice! I'm usually horrible at these kinds of games, but this was quite fun nonetheless.
Half of what you wrote went completely over my head, and I think 80% of people won't read 50% of it. That's not to say don't write stuff that's interesting about your project, but try not to bury the TL:DR so that people who don't want to have a choice of skimming/skipping and not be completely confused. For example, first you have to read 3 paragraphs before finding out about the pause menu at the last sentence of its paragraph, when it's your most important piece of info for people to start playing your game. Then in the pause menu there's a whole whack of text before getting to the basic controls. All those things should come first.
From what I understand, you're trying to make an engine for bullet hell games? Sounds rad, hope you get to something easy to use for the average joe :)
The game itself: There's almost no feedback on gameplay - It's hard to tell when the ship's been hit, and that's really important to know. The three hearts in the corner of the screen isn't enough.
The whole interface to the right doesn't make sense, there's a list of names, you can click them to... turn them off? Then they have batterie things next to them, you click them to... use it? But then you have to still press keys? Not sure how it all works. It needs to be much, much clearer, and probably simpler, like click to deploy power. I'm not a fan of mixing control schemas (obviously the common FPS is the exception), but it seems like it might work here.
@tuism Thanks for the feedback! It is quite unfortunate I was running out of time; what I was planning on doing next was adding sfx for the player collision, but had to prioritize making the easy mode.
This game would've benefited greatly from a tutorial, but there was not much time for that... Instead the textwalls had to come. I certainly turned up the complexity a bit too far this time too, I'll keep this in mind for next time.
As for the engine, I too hope it gets easier to use, it certainly isn't at the moment : ( Especially when it comes to error messages, that could've increased my productivity by a lot.
Edit: I've added some gifs on the description. Could anyone tell me if they found them useful/confusing?
Nice game. You should be proud of your entry after so long time of not being in.
I love the interpretation of the theme! There's a great amount of depth here too with the difficulty settings. Lunatic was true hell hehehh
Game played as a nice bullet hell type game.. couldn't figure out how to actually use the powers or if they actually did anything. Some sound/other feed back on taking a hit would have been nice. Took a while to figure out that the energy bar was going down.
A really interesting game, there's definitely a lot to it. I don't think I ever fully grasped the mechanics, but I definitely enjoyed myself!
The powers were a nice touch (reverse time was easily my favourite), and the story was pretty interesting and unique, even though I never got to end. The best part of the game has to be the music though -- it's rare to see music of that quality in a decent Ludum Dare compo game. Good job!
Overall, my only suggestion for improvement would be clearer instructions on some of the more complicated gameplay mechanics. Keep up the good work, and I hope to see a project from you next Ludum Dare! :)
Really like the atmosphere created by the music. Also like how you have to decide when to regain power or lives by disabling power ups. I think that the fast forward power up is a bit too over powered, you can just use it all the time and then sacrifice another power up to be able to keep using it.
@wevel Both Fast Forward and Phantom Move are objectively the ~~best~~ *second best* power ups, which is why, to compensate, they eat your power bar like no other power up. You don't have enough to complete the level by only fast forwarding, so it becomes basically your "I don't want to deal with this" bomb, to be used tactically for the parts you find the hardest.
Many of the harder patterns are a breeze with, for example, Leave Ghost (Cause bullets no longer target you), which is much more power efficient, so you might want to consider which power up to use at each time : )
The game was fun, and a challenge. The graphics were stellar, and it had good music. Overall it was a great game. A few pointers: changing power ups should be more seamless, certain powers are unusable on higher difficulties, and I'd prefer to control with the mouse. Other than that, it's really good.
I really love the idea here. This feels like a prototype for a bigger game, which is exactly how a Ludum Dare game should feel. I would love to see an expanded version of this where powers get introduced slowly over time, that way you could get a better feel for them instead of trying to juggle them all at once at the very beginning. Overall really great work.
I think there are some good ideas there, but there is a need for a game design work. I enjoyed my plays, but if all the information was ordered and well executed (as a game design feature) this would be much better. Just ask yourselfs what are the mechanics that ths game NEEDS better than add a lot of options that hide the real good ones. Nice graphics and details. Good work!
Wow very nice entry. The graphics went together well. I am a sucker for a nice bullet hell and this scratched that itch for me. Really enjoyed this game. Great Job!
I appreciate the amount of work that would have gone into this in 48 hours. The Bullet Hell mechanics, which I gather is your main focus with this, all work as they should. I did find the collision detection with the purple triangles to be very forgiving (for lack of a better word), as many times I was sure I was hit but didn't take any damage. Though, as has been said above, there isn't much in the way of feedback to know when you've been hit or not.
There is a lot of great content here, especially all of the different abilities you have. The delivery of said content is a bit overwhelming though. You have so many different abilities but deploying them accurately is difficult because you're so focused on avoiding the bullets (I found the game difficult which didn't help). This meant that I just traded most of them for shields when I was trying to reach the end because I knew I wouldn't utilise them all. Perhaps drip-feeding the abilities to the player over a series of levels, then letting them equip 2 or 3 at once only, would make them more manageable for the player. Also, I'm still not sure what the focus key did, it didn't seem to restore my power, it just made me move slower; whatever it does, it could be made more obvious.
This does feel more like a tech demo than a focused game experience, though it does succeed as a tech demo; I'd like to see the content you have repackaged as a game. Nice music too.
I finished playing, then came back to make sure your name wasn't Zun. You really got the Touhou feel down with the art, music (Damn good btw!), and bullet patterns. I thoroughly enjoyed this, and am incredibly impressed that you were able to accomplish this in a game jam timeframe(I have struggled with trying to make a bullethell of my own in the past, and that wasn't even for a game jam). Also like a true Touhou game, Lunatic mode kicked my ass hard. Phantom Move was my favorite ability, though the others were pretty neat too.
This is extremely impressive. Like others, I was reminded instantly of Touhou - the soundtrack isn't too far off and Lunatic difficulty is iconic. The game contains both a solidly constructed stage and a substantial pile of player powers. That said, I found it was easier mentally to just pick a power and roll with it instead of swapping them around. I did like how the system required more detailed resource management than I'd expect from a bullethell. The purple triangle based patterns did feel much easier than those around them, but I think the breather was nice to have. This game is certainly not without its flaws - it took me a little while to get the hang of hitting the right buttons and the player does not give strong enough feedback when hit. It took me a few tries to clear Normal, as expected. Going into Lunatic, I wasn't sure I was going to clear it at all. I was surprised, then, when I managed it in a single try. The responsiblity for that lies not with my dodging skills, but with Phantom Move, which I used to plow through everything. Excellent work!
The music was great! I caught myself humming along several times while switching through all the dope powers. I loved the various time control powers. Felt kinda badass to freeze time and avoid all the bullets!
I really liked the music of this game. It fit very well with the rest of the game.
This is....really impressive. How did you make this in 48 hours O.o
I see the the previous reviews mentioned quite a fair bit, so i try not to repeat anything they say.
The music was surprisingly similar Touhou music and was really good overall, one minor nitpick I have about the music is that there isn't more/ another separate one for bosses and the current one is easily forgettable.
The powers were pretty unique for a bullethell game, but made the game have too many buttons and too easy on lunatic mode. Perhaps make the powers cycle-ble with 2 buttons.
The art was great, though the bosses could have more oomph.
Nice take on the bullet hell genre. You managed to preserve the challenges of bullet hell despite giving the player all these amazing powers because now the player has extra aspect to manage. The music was amazing, would be nice to have sound effects in addition. Graphics is great as well, very vibrant and colorful and well drawn. I found myself being confused for not knowing how to activate the power. I know I can hit P to pause the game but i thought it would just show me the same thing the game initially showed me (which did not contain control scheme). I also found that switching between power in the heat of dodging bullet is quite hard and I tend to just stick with one power instead. Maybe allow player to pause the game which switching power would add more strategic element to it? but it might ruin the intensity of the bullet hell.
Overall, very nice game. Well done!
That music sounded like it was taken out of a retro JRPG and I loved it! The aesthetic was very visually appealing and I feel like you did a wonderful job stitching all the models together. I think the game play was pretty easy to pick up on, however challenging and fun. Great job! I've actually saved the link so I can come back to it and play it again!
I loved the concept, and the game's pretty cool, but a little bit more feedback when you get hit would be good. While it may seem obvious to avoid all the incoming shots, when one passed right through me I wasn't sure if they actually did anything. Took me a while to realise that you went semi transparent and your power bar at the bottom depleted when you got hit.
That is a really cool mix between bullet hell game and powers like reverse time, ghost etc. It is pretty cool how every power has energy meter which is also a nice balancing mechanic and forces player to use different skills. Gameplay is really engaging and challenging. Graphics are decent and easy to read, you can clearly see all bullets, they don't disappear on the background. Music is neat and gives a nice mood. Pretty fun game in general.
Funny thing, I though about making a time bending dodge 'em up (using Unity's new Timeline feature) before the jam, but ended up scrapping it as the theme didn't seem to fit. Well, you found a way to make it fit!
While initially confusing, once I got the hang of it switching powers became a breeze. Conserve energy, switch to slowmo, back to eco, then a few seconds of time stop, now leave a ghost... Brilliant stuff! I'm not a fan of the "super powers", but hey you can sacrifice them later. If only there was a hotkey for sacrificing too.
Here's an idea for that. You can set a priority number for each power. When you press H it will sacrifice the lowest priority power. Maybe even do it automatically if you run out of energy?
Challenging (and as such fun!). I didn't quite manage the normal boss yet, but I will keep trying. And you keep working on this; it is an interesting project.
I love the unique time-based powers!
Cool idea, pretty well executed. I'm really not good at bullet hell shooters but I still had a fun time with this. I think the selection of powers was too much to get my head around. I would have perhaps limited the player to two or three power "slots" that could be assigned to their preferred powers, and then have those powers activated by easy to find keys. That aside, I think the concept is fine. Nice music and visuals!
Pretty cool bullet hell game. It's not really my type of thing but I am sure there will be people that will love it :) .
One thing, you have added to many powers, 2 or 3 would suffice.
So super impressive! Great idea, executed well! Also, hey fellow bullet-hell lover <3 Excellent technical notes as well, super impressive for 24 hours!!!!
Agecaf...say, would you happen to be the same Agecaf who made a game for the Nitrome Jam? *I sometimes dream...* was one of my favourites from that jam. I loved the music there, and I love it here, too. The melodies and progression overall; it's not the kind of music you'd expect in a bullet hell, but it works in this one mostly because of the aesthetics and the experimental vibe of the game.
I loved the various powers. It was really interesting to see how they were all based on dodging elements, rather than defeating enemies. While I was intrigued by my abilities, I also found myself not using that many of the powers in a single playthrough, not only because of the power limitation, but also because there were just so many that it was hard to keep track of them all. Still, that just got me to replay several times so I could get a feel for them all.
The game is really great given the time restraints. There's a lot of potential to take this further. Although, if you would put this into different stages, it might be more ideal to introduce the powers in smaller groups per stage. Either way, I truly enjoyed playing this.
@random-storykeeper Hi! Yes, it's me : ) I remember you from the comment section back then! It's my third LudumDare, but my fourth gamejam counting the Nitrome Jam (That was great. I love Nitrome; while others remember games in the N64, my childhood games were theirs, it was essentially a dream come true). Since entering University I haven't found the time to participate, so it's great to be back.
To be honest, as @Kodiqi found out, the game is pretty much a tech-demo-turned-game for an idea I've been playing with. At the cost of losing the ability to distinguish bullets individually (for damaging enemies, for example), you gain the power of messing with time almost trivially. I really wanted to showcase what was possible in the engine, which left the player with many powers to play with, but which couldn't be introduced at a tutorial-ish pace. In practice, I think you'd choose a character with a single power (or two), and you would unlock more characters as you play the game.
I think over this time I've gotten better at music and coding... But I forget about the basics of gamedev (I should have placed SFX...). I really ought to get back up to speed!
Neat concept! 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=Jtt-Piir6X0
Very nice game! In some aspects (like the energy bar) your game reminds me my Shoot 'em up entry for this Ludum Dare.
The weapon system was very interesting although I don't understand it the first time that I played. I may be wrong, but I guess that some powers are a little unbalanced. I beat Lunatic on second try (after played a little the Hard mode) only using the stop time power. I tried again only with Phantom Move and I only lose two lives. On other hand, I couldn't find a use to Fast Movement.
The life system make a little sense to me, since as far as I understand, exchange your power per energy was very more effective than per lifes.
The "Back to Main Menu" button needs a confirm dialog! I constantly mistake it with "unpause" button. I probably lost at least three games this way. I also get annoyed to do an F5 for reseting the game.
The graphics and music are good, but I missed the Sound Effects.