sheepolution 2017-08-01 11:16
I like the pallet system and how you have to make choices on what to spend it on and what not. The music also made for a great mood. Good game!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD39 → No Sign Of Life
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 50 | 3.94 | 38 | |
| Fun | 114 | 3.63 | 38 | |
| Innovation | 227 | 3.33 | 38 | |
| Theme | 33 | 4.19 | 38 | |
| Graphics | 203 | 3.58 | 38 | |
| Audio | 29 | 3.97 | 37 | |
| Humor | 310 | 2.34 | 28 | |
| Mood | 12 | 4.33 | 38 |
I like the pallet system and how you have to make choices on what to spend it on and what not. The music also made for a great mood. Good game!
I really enjoyed this game, the music really sets the mood, the art is pleasing to the eye. All help set the mood, which is great. The theme is front and centre os the game. To top it all off it rewarded my kindness :) (I wasn't kind the first time)
If I have one issue it's that it wasn't obvious what impact some of my decisions had. Although that might be part of the design.
"If I have one issue it’s that it wasn’t obvious what impact some of my decisions had."
Yeah, some decisions have no impact at all. Sadly didn't have time to do everything I wanted. I still left some in just for the illusion of things for the player to do :P. I'm also not completely satisfied with the "dead end" if you make a particular mistake. I originally wanted multiple solutions and multiple ends but again I ran out of time.
I do think I'll keep working on it at some point to flesh it out more.
Anyway thanks for your comments. I'm currently away for a week but I'll check out your games when I get back.
Great atmosphere, really liked trying to figure out the optimal route to not run out of pellets.
Agree with @tifu, atmosphere is great. Sound/music is great. The dialogue interface seems to match the space theme. I got a bit bored wandering around the map... which may be part of the intention to emphasize the loneliness on the planet? I'd have liked a mini-map, a scrap of map, or something to get started - just wandering around finding things until I died a few times and started knowing where things were isn't really my personal preference :-) Good job. Oh one other thought - when the space person is moving I'd suggest having the background pic move at a the pace the animation on the person appears to be walking at.
@johnnwfs There is a map in the space shuttle right at the start (just interact with the shuttle and pick it up). You might've just missed it :P. It takes one power pellet to power and acts as a minimap. The slow walking speed is kinda intentional.. for better or worse. I wanted to have a "low gravity" feel to it. Without the map though I can see how it'd be pretty frustrating.
The pellet system and using them for moral decisions is pretty clever. That moment in the crystal cave was startling in a kinda jump-scare way, nicely done there. It took me three playthroughs to figure the game out and escape. A shame you didn't get around to making some of the decisions resolve into something at the end, but that's how Ludum Dares go. :D
The music sets a good tone to add some atmosphere. The graphics are basic but everything is clear. Nice one!
Very engaging, I really had fun even though I died.
Neat little adventure game forsure! I really enjoyed playing this game, I though it had an interesting story and it was paced very well. I would suggest putting more boundaries in you game, I was able to walk off the screen both on the planet and in the caves/rooms. I actually failed the first time playing through because I did not stay the night with one space man in the cryo room and he died before he could give me his half of the code. Luckily this game was short enough that I was able to play through it again no problem and complete the story! Really liked the audio too.
Congratulations on making a complete game!
@johnny-turbo Yeah, the boundary thing completely slipped my mind and it's missing in a few places. Cryo man's death is intentional but I agree it's a bit harsh. If this was a longer game I would probably avoid any kind of fail state and just change the narrative depending on your choices and just punish your conscience >:D. I'm really glad you played it to the end, I'm not sure how many will :).
Very engaging! I managed to make it all the way to the end with no pellets left on my first try. I enjoyed uncovering the narrative in the other astronauts you find. The crystal section really piqued my interest since I went there right before getting to the ship. The music was perfect for that part. I would have loved to see a darker/more interesting expansion on that plotline. Overall I think it was really entertaining and well polished into a complete package. Great job!
I agree with everyone, the atmosphere is very well done and effective. The music fit perfectly as well as the graphics, and I kept feeling a rather dark, horrifying, undertone throughout the story.. creepy! :) I think that's my favorite part, too. The story was interesting, effectively expressed, and fun to discover! And I can't not mention the pellet mechanic, which was really innovative.. A more memorable LD game, IMO.
That was enjoyable. I liked the puzzle aspect of the narrative, and choosing what was worth spending a power pellet on. Just short enough to fail and retry a couple times to solve it.
This is one of my favorites so far!
I thought the pellet system was very well-balanced. My bleeding heart died twice trying to send out messages at the comm tower. Although it was short it was very immersive, the dialogue and writing was very effective. The music really set the mood and it turned out darker than I thought it would for the cute whimsical art style.
Overall it came together very nicely and everything made a lot of sense. It was fun exploring the little planet and the sound-effects were really well done. The only bothersome thing I noticed was being able to enter the caves/areas from the top or the sides, I got stuck in there a couple of times, but that's just a nit-pick. It was a great little puzzle, well-done!
Really good mood/atmosphere. The pellets were a great idea, and really reinforced the theme of power running out - definitely felt very tense when they started running low!
That was a lot of fun. I was rather upset that I couldn't save the other guy though. Maybe that was a failure on my part but I felt bad leaving him to die. One really great feature of this game was the way that you could beat the game easily if you just didn't feel those pesky HUMAN emotions, but it almost killed you to do those things that you wanted to do; like tell your family that you love them. The humanity of the game is what really sells it for me. A great entry. Thank you for making it.
Very nice!
Loving the sci-fi mystery story a lot! It came across as very atmospheric with excellent mood throughout. The ambient soundtrack really helps add to the experience. Well done!
Really cool! The ambience is really well made and the story got me hooked till the end! Really nice game! The system with the pellets was also quite interesting!
Great Job, keep up the good work!
Nice little game. I enjoyed the story! I made it too the space ship with not pallets left. Something weren't clear though. Why was the person in the station dead with crystals in his body. Why did the spaceship run on crystals. And what happend to the shaking astronaut, did I leave him or take him with me. But then again, you only had 48 hours too make this game and in those 48 hours you made a really intresting game. Well done!
@stupidpawn > Why was the person in the station dead with crystals in his body. Why did the spaceship run on crystals. And what happend to the shaking astronaut, did I leave him or take him with me.
Really makes you think, no? I guess you just have to stay tuned.... **for SEASON 2!** :P
The story is great. I wish I could had saved the green one from the cryo station! Is the crystal some evil lifeform, that's taken over the dead astronaut? Is there a connection between lying to Red's family and the crystal? I guess we'll never know. Music simple, but very fitting. Good idea with minimap. Collisions in rooms - you must've run out of time ;D Character sprite animation is forgiven due to fantastic story. I enjoyed it very much.
Nice moody piece here, with graphics and sound that work. Enjoyed the stark story and the chance for bleak outcomes if you make the wrong choices. I played a couple of times and managed to get off the planet.
I like how you embraced the dark side of the theme this time around. The sense of something running out can be bad in many types of games but it really works for this one.
Does the particular mistake happen to be only giving the guy one pellet instead of three, and then he dies? I got to the crystal part, and learned the code, but it still said that I couldn't get in to the locked place, so I eventually died. Fun game though. I really like the atmosphere the audio gave, and the art had a common theme which was nice. Good job :)
The map was also helpful, because without it I would have been wondering around for a while.
@secondthread Yup, that's the one. You need two parts of a code and you only got one half because of it.
Top marks on mood and really impressed with the character that came from the animations. Love it! good work!
Wow, i did not expect to get sucked in like this. It is very moody and the story is intense! I feel very inclined to progress, but not overly rushed, which is perfect. The cave was sooo creepy, and the music was very nice too. I did not escape - i think i missed the second part of the code, maybe from the guy at the cryo station. The game is really special in a sense that it reached me farther than those few minutes of gameplay, which extremely few LD games do.
Overall a great entry, with bonus points for a 21 year old hamster :D
PS: Only one question. Why can i toggle the map? Is there something specific connected to it?
@rongo-matane: Are you asking if there is a reason you can toggle it on and off? I added it just in case you want the map out of the way (although there is really no reason to turn it off as it's pretty small and doesn't block much of the screen).
Cool art and very moody.
the first time I gave the guy only one pellet and when he died I was like "lul what now?"
Glad to see I'm not the only one who let the cryo-dude die during the first playthrough. One pellet was such a nice middle option.
On topic: you really nailed the mood, with the walking around the planet, the music and the intriguing storyline. There were hardly any games in this Ludum Dare that made me as immersed as this one. Gonna play this a third time now to let Red's family know he died a hero. Anyway. congrats, you really made the most out of those 48 hours!
Really liked the atmosphere of the game. Made me want to play more. Good job! :)
Art and sfx were good. Music was great. You already know about the bounding box issue and the unwinnable game positions which were the main missteps I feel. I didn't message the guys family but I also feel like I went out of order cause it still gave me the option to message his family before I had met him (maybe it was gonna be my family or that I had known him on the ship.) I really liked the 'jump scare' in the cave. Great game with some room for improvement!
This game is one of the best I've played this LD. The atmosphere is perfect and the game itself is intersting and inovative. Though, as said before, it was a little hard to understand your decisions effect, I found it helping the "lost feel" of the game.
Enjoyed this and liked that I was able to play it completely through in such a short time. The different scenes with their own unique information and look was nicely done and liked how the pellet system was used to increase the tension.
Creepy and well made experience! 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=ZUoaduptLak