Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD39 → Li'l Icarus
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 455 | 3.31 | 40 | |
| Fun | 279 | 3.36 | 40 | |
| Innovation | 374 | 3.13 | 40 | |
| Theme | 710 | 2.97 | 39 | |
| Graphics | 695 | 2.73 | 40 | |
| Audio | 292 | 3.30 | 38 | |
| Humor | 230 | 2.93 | 35 | |
| Mood | 526 | 3.02 | 38 |
A nice short lil' game! At first I didn't quite understand how things worked, but once I got it, it was entertaining! I'm not sure if you intended it, but it says "has drown" instead of "has drowned" in the death screen.
Simple but effective.
However it feels monotonous, it probably needs one or two extra mechanics (different birds, special moves etc.).
I can't explain it but the controls are REALLY GOOD! I don't know if there's parallex to the sky or something but the movement really feels good. I also like how funny this game is, when he has no feathers on it looks like he's dancing and a force is pushing him to the direction he points to haha and with the music idk man it made me laugh. Oh yeah the music was great too; good take on the theme; good job overall =]
I played a couple of rounds before quitting. The graphics are well done each piece but don't really fit each other. The sound is well fome.
From what I understand about the game the guy slows down each time he hit a bird. But if I don't manage to get hin kill some birds in like 200 meters, the game is basically lost as I have no chance to slow down enough to really hunt for birds and I need to wait and watch that guy drown.
May make the game over scene more satisfying, add some splash particles for the water or something.
Played the Android version by the way.
Thanks everyone for playing and posting constructive feedback!
The controls do feel good, you could re-skin this as a skydiving game. I like that you slow down as you gain feathers and that there is a visual representation of your progress on Icarus, as well as in how he handles in the air. The graphics could be 2D (sprites instead of the model used here) instead and possibly look better, that might not be your preference though.
You could emphasize that you're plummeting to the ground more. I'm not sure how exactly, maybe just make the altitude meter more prominent, then turn it red the closer you get. Just to dial up the tension and desperation in the gameplay (you could up the music tempo too). Icarus, in the myth, is a child too, so even just a couple of sentences to start the game, from the myth, would give some context to the character and make you care about them a bit more.
A simple idea, but it's interesting to play. I played until I won. The controller is comfortable, the music is pleasant, not only the variety of content (birds of different species, for example)
This was pretty funny :D The arm movements of the character, however silly, added quite a lot of humour. In addition to that, maybe a small rotation to the character based on the direction they are moving can add a little bit of juice to the already responsive movement. Besides always glancing at the height meter, there is no real way to tell how fast you are going. One way to represent speed is by having wind particles move up the screen depending on how fast you are falling. Faster particles means you are falling fast, and slow means slow. Overall, pretty funny concept. I enjoyed it!
A nice small game. I like that the character falls slower when he gets feathers.
It would be cool to have some obstacles the character have to avoid. Would make the game more challangeing.
That was pretty fun! It was short and I found myself playing multiple times until I won.
Nice mini game. That parallax effect is very pleasant))
I like that there are not instructions but easly you get the rules. Nice short game, the music is relaxing and fits with the game. Maybe arms move too suddenly.
A pretty funny concept, the parallax effect on the sky was a pretty nice touch. I was left kinda hoping for more game mechanics, but pretty good overall. Maybe a tad too easy, I won on the first go and still had a lot of distance left.
In any case, nice work!
Nice idea! and addictive! Untill Icarus hasn't flight I haven't stopped playing! The Music was amazing!
Graphics. Clouds and birds are fantastic, love the feathers particles. THe main character doesnt really fit in with the artstyle could use some work. 3/5.
Audio. I like the music, didnt like the poor bird sound, I guess it is realistic though. 3/5.
Theme. At first I was like this has nothing to do with the theme but when I started collecting feathers and lil icarus was getting slower I realized this was great take on the theme. 5/5.
Fun. It's a short game but I had enough fun that I played it three times, finally got him to fly on third run. 4/5.
Good job.
This feels pretty good on my phone. Excellent music and graphics. Not quite sure about how it fits the theme, but hey, it's close enough. The gameplay itself is very hard, though pretty addictive. Well done :)
Nice idea. Music was amazing :)
Very clever way to link the theme to a Greek Mythology classic and an effective idea of gameplay. The music is good and the graphics too, but a little effort on the character design and animation to make it more human would be a nice touch. The player would be more involved in saving Icarus. A nice looking game over (you win or you loose) would also be good.
Fun little game! It might be a little easy right now, I won on my first run and then crashed Icarus on purpose to see what would happen...
Cool little game! Got to play it a couple of times to win but i like the gameplay and it looks great. Music fits perectly. Nice entry! :)
At 22m, Icarus flew again! Wow, that was really quite hard game. Those birds just kept not wanting to donate their feathers. Well executed and really fun game. I would really have liked the fall height numbers to be larger though. Also to indicate more clearly if I was going faster or slower downwards. On that topic, some up-winds and other similar effects that help or hurt you depending on how far you've gotten with the feathers would be nice (those probably needs to be visually represented). Maybe different types of birds (an eagle that you have to avoid). But I get those requests would make it more than a LD-game. Very well executed, and as I said really fun game.
The music sounds great and it was really fun to play.. Well, Icarus finally flew again at 70m. (RIP, birds who got their feathers collected for Icarus' sake :P)
The first time I made it he was 34m. above sea-level :slight_smile:
In contrast to some of the other commenters, (IMHO) I *don't* think it would be a good idea to re-skin the game or give it a lot more mechanics: I think it works so well precisely *because* you have little control over the character; you feel powerless (in a nice melodramatic way) and are frantically trying to save poor doomed Icarus. That helps to connect it to both the original myth and our current theme, which is precisely what makes this such a minimalist but powerful experience.
Nice music and smooth controls as well.
The only (small!) criticism I can think of right now is the game-over scene. It's basically just 'you died' or 'he lives', which is a little anticlimactic. In general; just a little but of polish here and there would've elevated this entry from 'good' to 'great'.
I initially played on Android and got frustrated by the apparent impossibility of not plunging rapidly into the sea and drowning. I could not get to the feathers because of a huge time lag between swiping and the figure reacting. Then when I played on a (high end) PC running Windows10 I realised that with keyboard controls rate of descent can be controlled (I think!) and also the time lag was gone. I still drowned, but could grab some feathers in my last moments! I liked the game though from the start and enjoyed it much more on PC when I could control things a bit... :)
Thanks for a fun episode!!!