FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD40 → Good As Gold

Good As Gold

By prodigalson, Drums, Noble_wolf and Cheveasy

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1623.8644
Fun2653.6444
Innovation1443.7544
Theme84.4444
Graphics2704.0144
Audio943.9242
Humor3813.3140
Mood2413.6842

Comments

mizelfindi 2017-12-06 19:40

I love the idea : it fits the theme and it's quite innovative ! Took me 4-5 tries before I found out the main feature of the game lol. I love the graphics too, the sand is very well rendered. Music ans SFX are really good. The gameplay is nice (I like puzzle games too). The statues are a bit slow to move, you lose some "dynamism points" here but that's minor compared to the rest. Also, you can fall off the bricks and wander around in the sand, I don't know if it was planned :p Overall it is very nice, thank you for this and well done ! :)

prodigalson 2017-12-06 19:46

@mizelfindi thank you for the positive feedback. I was afraid that we made the "curse" not too obvious :P and the falling off was not indented so thank you for pointing that out so that we can address it in a future build. Glad you had a good experience and thank you for playing.

joror 2017-12-06 19:49

Nice twist on the theme! I went blindly into collecting coins... but then. Oh! :D

ksbdude 2017-12-07 20:14

Love the game over animation haha

miltonnh25 2017-12-07 20:25

Good job with the game. I loved the subtle transformation you get every time you collect one of the coins. The music fit well with the game and the graphics were nice. It left me wanting more levels to solve. One thing that could be improved a bit was the statue movement because it can feel a bit awkward at times. Overall very nice entry.

andro 2017-12-07 20:30

While the game has really good graphics, it feels like the implementation is a bit messy. Not moving the camera will make you not be able to see very well, but moving it is laggy, thus you have to spend a lot of time on avoiding the obstacles. The controls don't feel very natural, they feel a lot like a grid.

Other things that I would've liked, would've been some sort of settings, or at least a way to change the volume of the music, as it gets in the way a lot of the times.

As for the "curse", I think you guys have done an amazing job. When I first played it, I ran straight in all of them and died. The second time, I collected the first set, then I ran on the thing that makes some of the coins disappear. It was then that I realized what I need to do.

One thing that I saw, was that the coins just feel like an obstacle, which does fit the theme, but I think there should've been an amount that you can collect without turning into gold and slowing down.

A suggestion that I have, add a coins gui to show the player how many coins he collected so far.

You guys have done a really great job at making this, I hope to see more Ludum Dare games from you.

prodigalson 2017-12-07 20:56

@miltonnh25 Thank you for playing and I agree, the movement of the statues needs to be more smooth and responsive.

@andro Thank your for playing and for the feedback. We want to add a settings modal to control volume and we do want to make the controls more smooth and responsive. There was moment were we were thinking of a grid based movement but then switched to free-movement. Looks like remnants of that still remains in the game. :D Thank you again and I'm glad that you were still able to enjoy it.

happysloth 2017-12-07 23:58

As everyone my very first action was to take a bath of gold before realizing that all those years of videogames taught me avidity. :D

It's a simple yet effective gameplay, I like games with strong puzzle components and some action/platform elements. I can see me playing a complete version of this on my 3DS while on the move.

And the gold effect on the character is awesome so I tried to play the whole level at only one coin from game over but it's really hard. :)

prodigalson 2017-12-08 01:53

Thank you for playing @happysloth. I completely agree that this would work well as a handheld and want to port it to mobile devices once we polish it more post-jam. We weren't sure how some would feel being told to go against what Nintendo have taught us. Happy to see that most are liking it. :)

hydro-games 2017-12-10 02:46

Amazing game! I hope you add more to it! I love it!

lumasi-games 2017-12-10 13:37

Really cool entry! The theme execution is very original, although some places in the level was a little bit weird. At first I did 3-4 coins runs to the purifier before I realized that I need to move the statue. At first I though that I need to collect coins and run to the purifier to proceed in the final chunk of the level. Maybe it's just me afterall. Great game!

iluvatar 2017-12-10 14:10

Shame it was so short. Loved the music and environs. The gameplay was very original, but also classic (with greed comes a bad time). I really enjoyed it.

prodigalson 2017-12-10 14:28

@lumasi-games thank you for playing. We did intentionally wanted to lure you into a false sense of security, perhaps the execution could be better. ;)

@iluvatar I feel you. We decided to focus more on the experience as we noticed we wouldn't have time for a hearty level. Thank you for playing and for catching onto the theme. :)

kleinzach 2017-12-11 00:09

The animations, art, and music were all excellent. I love the effect of the character turning to gold. I would love to see how else you can explore this mechanic, as how it stands it isn't that much different from a health system, though thematically it is handled amazingly well.

I would love to see more levels and more twists on your idea!

prodigalson 2017-12-11 00:17

@kleinzach We do have some ideas we want to integrate post jam :D. Thanks for playing and for the feedback

asilva4000 2017-12-11 18:05

This is an excellent game, although somewhat "unforgiving", at least for me, which I guess I am too much greedy for this game :) Anyway, I loved the way you handled the possible camera positions and the music and sound fx integrate very well with the game. Good job!

Edit! Oh and I loved the statues of other players lol :) That was a nice touch!

prodigalson 2017-12-11 18:10

@asilva4000 nice catch! So far you've been the only to say something about it. Thanks for playing :)

creamybacon2 2017-12-12 02:13

In the words of Tenacious D "He is more than a man he's a shiny golden god". I really liked your game, especially for the ability to change the camera angles! And the other statues of golden explorers that came before you! Very nice touch. Wish it was longer, but Great job!

prodigalson 2017-12-13 04:03

@creamybacon2 Nice! Thanks for playing :D

tweedle 2017-12-16 20:49

great idea, really enjoyed this - the added victory/cutscene was awesome! :smile:

kodiqi 2017-12-18 00:32

The mechanic of getting heavier as you go isn't an uncommon one this jam but I think your implementation of it was really good. It even had a little story to go with it but mainly the effect of your character becoming solid gold and slowing down just worked very well; both the visuals and gameplay communicated what was happening to the player and the slower movement gives the player a real drive to avoid it.

The graphics were good - quite sparse but the 3D was functional and more than just giant cubes and spheres, not bad given the time frame (I assume the models and animations were made during the jam as there is no outside credits). The music fit the setting and there were good, clear sound effects for every event.

The puzzle mechanics themselves are fine, dragging could be a little smoother and using objects to set switches is fairly standard. It's a shame there is only one level, the game is quite short. Still, I enjoyed playing it while it lasted.

prodigalson 2017-12-20 01:36

@tweedle thanks for playing! I'm sure our animator will enjoy your comment :D @kodiqi thank you for playing and for the feedback. We wanted to bring a little twist to learned gameplay mechanics and wanted to communicated it as clearly as possible with little or no text. Sounds like we got pretty close to it. :) I do aim to expand more on this idea and improve upon certain mechanics such as the statue movement. Thanks again :D

andrew-white 2017-12-23 22:58

Really cool puzzle game!

wh05herlock 2017-12-24 00:28

Pretty cool idea,

At first I didn't realise that you didn't want to collect the coins, but I soon figured it out.

It's a little bit fiddly to get the statues onto the pressure plates, and I would've liked if this feature had been expanded on a bit more, e.g. you had to push the statue whilst dodging coins or something. Idk.

Other than that, it's a cool game :).

riemann-integrable 2017-12-24 03:37

It's a really interesting idea that the more coins you collect, the worse you are off since it's the total opposite of what we are usually presented with. I liked how the coins were used to create the puzzle. Time permitting, I would have like dot see some more levels, as I think that the puzzles could have been developed more, and the complexity increased as you go along. Nice job :)

prodigalson 2017-12-24 05:34

Thanks for playing @andrew-white, @wh05herlock, and @riemann-integrable. It's always great to know that the concept behind the game was communicated with little to no words. As time permits, I want to continue to further develop the different puzzle pieces and present them in an ever increasing, but fair, difficulty. I agree that the statue manipulation needs to be smoother and incorporated into the main mechanic of the game (avoiding the coins). Thank y'all for the feedback. :)

justinooncx 2017-12-24 11:07

A short and sweet game~ A little odd that you put the instructions on how to play AFTER you die... And the flavor text of you winning and dying is incomplete / wraps out of bounds. Still, the effect of becoming a golden statue is neat, plus the existence of other golden statues of the poor saps before you was a nice touch. Might be interesting if you expanded on the idea a little more!

prodigalson 2017-12-24 15:09

@justinooncx Thank you for playing and the compliment. :)

baconinvader 2017-12-26 12:03

Nice use of theme, managed to catch me out when I realised that I had doomed myself by collecting those coins. I liked the idea of moving statues to activated switched, and I wish that it had been a bit longer so I could play around with that idea a bit more. Still, great game!

querk 2017-12-27 00:16

Great Game. i love idead. It gives a lot of fun :D Graphics and music is very good . Very good job :)

mennchen22 2017-12-27 22:00

the Idea with gold is nice

dragonzlay 2017-12-27 22:02

This was a very innovative use of the theme.

multiplexor 2017-12-28 00:03

Awesome! Best use of the theme I have seen yet, and the face when you die is hillarious! Also I like it how the mechanics punish you but are not killing you right away!

This is certainly an awesomely designed game! Also the character art and the music is very fitting! With some more work on the environment the game would be 10/10

Keep up the awesome work guys! :)

prodigalson 2017-12-28 00:29

Thank you @baconinvader, @querk, @mennchen22, @multiplexor for playing the game and commenting. Glad ya'll enjoyed it. @multiplexor thank you for the kind comment which I'm sure our animator/modeler will enjoy reading. This idea is something we want to expand upon more and make at least one solid lengthy level :D

explorer 2017-12-28 02:47

Looks good, I especially love the audio and how it feels when the character turns into a golden statue, feels like you control something very heavy.

blueman 2017-12-28 03:11

One of the best I've played this Ludum Dare. I really like how you guys implemented the theme into a clever puzzle game. The graphics were excellent and the music fit perfectly, great job.

prodigalson 2017-12-28 16:09

Thank you @explorer and @blueman for playing and commenting. Glad we were able to convey the feeling of what was happening on screen. :D

prithvi-shewakramani 2018-02-28 00:15

Really enjoyed the idea of the game, it gives an idea of how greed works. I think that the functionality of the game can be improved, pulling and pushing stuff using the space bar is not great. But overall it was really fun seeing the animation of the character in general.

prodigalson 2018-03-21 03:48

Thanks for the feedback @prithvi-shewakramani. We are working on improving the controls and adding a little more meat to it before the next LDJAM. Thanks for playing