Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → SCRAMBLED
By aurel, linear, Thomas Kresge, angiekatneko and James Fisher
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 347 | 3.65 | 31 | |
| Fun | 546 | 3.34 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 797 | 2.91 | 31 | |
| Theme | 837 | 3.06 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 249 | 4.05 | 31 | |
| Audio | 99 | 3.91 | 31 | |
| Humor | 559 | 2.92 | 29 | |
| Mood | 276 | 3.63 | 31 |
I managed to find an egg on a alter at the end of a corridor! ... but an evil knight spawned, pushed me against the wall until I reached a new plan of existence through the wall and above the level ^^
Climbing ladder was not easy but I could workaround thanks to double jump.
I'm looking forward to play the Post-LD version :)
Was Interesting. The Graphics are nice, the sounds for the person walking and jumping were there. Movement was a bit fast but manageable. Didn't get any depth feedback from the environment so using the polearm was a bit random.
Didn't actually interact with anything? Found the alter and though "Let me check the controls" Then 4 kids beat me up :P
Cool ambience, nice graphics and I'm quite impressed with the size of the world. My biggest issue is that the combat is a bit complicated. I managed to kill some birds, but whenever I go to face the knight, he roflstomps me without me being able to do anything.
It kind of reminds me of dark souls when you go to a zone you're not supposed to, but still, would appreciate some more guidance over the combat.
Keep up the hard work! :)
My goodness. This is an incredible achievement for Ludum Dare, even for a relatively large team. I kept thinking that there was no way there could be much more to the map, and then a whole cave would show up and I would be shocked once again.
And I didn't even get to see probably a third of the map, as I only managed to collect 6 eggs (although I saw two more -- one which I didn't bother trying to get because I guessed that it likely needed the jump boots, which I hadn't acquired yet, and the other I saw shortly before I died on my second playthrough).
It would be nice if there was a way to not die so easily. The birds are really annoying and somewhat difficult to kill, especially as the male character. And, as the male character, there's no easy way to heal unless you head back to the forest.
The knights are also super scary, especially given how fast they move. My first playthrough, with the female character, ended abruptly once one saw me. I was actually pretty tense while wandering around them.
The only actual problem I could point to thus far, that isn't just a result of game-jam-syndrome, is that the male character's projectiles do not go anywhere near your cursor once they travel more than a few feet past your character. I'm not sure if this is intentional, but it really makes the weapon more of a long-ranged melee weapon than a ranged weapon.
The other thing, which I hate to criticize, but just to point out -- is that although the textures look pretty good and impressive for a game jam, they certainly are a bit too simplistic / repeating / basic for a more official game. I don't know what your plans are with this game, but if you do want to flesh it out into a much bigger game, I would suggest doing some touchup on the graphics, simply to make them slightly more modern (although, obviously an indie team can't match actually *modern* graphics). The main area I would focus on is on the edges of things. For example, the tunnels are just a brick texture on a polygon which shares an edge with another polygon that has a rock texture. That would look a lot better with a modeled entrance to serve as a transition.
Of course, I might just be patronizing at this point. I'm guessing ya'll know how to make good graphics, because this looks good, especially for a game jam. The fact that there is such a large map with, like, realistic looking rocks / cliffs / caves is really cool.
And, just to mention it, the audio is also really awesome. Although the music doesn't quite fit when you are in the dungeons, it works great when you're in the forest. And the sound effects on both characters are already there, which is really cool. It's honestly a little surprising to see a game jam game that not only has character "voice" sounds, but that has those sounds for two characters!
@themonsterfromthedeep Thanks for your detailed response! I find all of your criticisms entirely reasonable. I admit we've had to do numerous bugfixes after the deadline to get it to the point it is now (if I remember correctly LD rules allow post-deadline bugfixes). The level, the birds, the eggs, everything was already in place at the deadline but it was all so buggy and badly connected that it was basically unplayable. Alastair used Lorelle's jump sounds. The spear didn't even work correctly. The player started with jump boots for some reason.
That being said, the things we didn't fix are the balancing issues. Birds are just altogether too annoying. The spawners for them are hidden in the trees, which we thought would be clever. But instead, it makes the birds seem to come out of nowhere and swoop down. The bird sounds are too quiet to hear them coming, and making matters worse is the fact that they sometimes fly through walls by accident. Bucket knights had similar problems. They have a knack for pushing the player through the level and although they're supposed to deal 2 hearts of damage, they usually just kill the player instantly for some reason.
This is probably our worst-looking texturing/lighting. Ambient light accounts for most of the lighting, which makes all of the textures look like poop. The bloom doesn't pickup anything because there's no point lights anywhere, and we decided to save on time by not making normal or specular maps for everything (to avoid the situation we had last time with our LD39 entry 'Fallen' where we had impressive art but shallow gameplay).
We always choose something ambitious to do and pay for it at the end :)
If you're interested we're going to post a timelapse video sometime soon.
Glitches aside, I really like this game. It's surprisingly immersive for how buggy everything is.
At first, the birds seemed to spawn out of nowhere, but once I figured out their spawn pattern, I was able to deal with them fairly easily. Making them spawn a bit further away would be nice.
When I got to about 5 eggs, one of the knights ran into me so hard I thought my screen was going to shatter, killing me instantly (was playing the character with 3 hearts).
Don't make me press E to use ladders in a first-person game.
Overall, pretty good.
Reminded me a bit of Morrowind with the birds being a bit like Cliff Racers. The weapon occasionally was rendered after the walls, maybe should be on its own camera. Also the guys in the cave would ram me into the walls. I played a few times with both characters, character controller felt alright, fit the theme.
Nice one.
@alexrose Funny you should mention Morrowind. I remembered the issue with Morrowind rendering their weapon to be always in front of the frame, and it looked weird when you approached walls (the weapon appeared to shrink because it stayed the same size as the wall grew bigger). So I decided to shove the weapon on the same camera as the rest of it, but then it clipped through walls. I then went back and tried out other games like Overwatch and Skyrim to see how they did it, and it seems like it *should* be in front of everything else, *but with a low field of view* to prevent the weird appearance when you're up against a wall. Funny how you don't notice these things as a gamer until you have to do it yourself.
This is an impressive entry - while it may be "unfinished" and buggy, it's pretty ambitious for a game jam! The graphics look nice, audio is quite solid, and the map is huge. The only thing I didn't get is the theme, since I didn't have it any worse, the more I collected eggs.
Lorelle really got the short end of the stick though. Even if aiming with Alastair isn't easy, Lorelle dies too quickly and before being able to regenerate. And between flying birds and overpowered knights, you really have trouble getting a melee weapon hit in. That said, both characters have great art and interesting voices (though Alastair's is lower than I would expect).
I had no trouble finding two eggs and the jumping boots. Now, finding everything else took a long time, haha.
Level design pet peeve: try not to overdo it with the ladders. Ramps or stairs work just as well to reach different points of height, and they feel more natural in a forest.
I'll be holding out for a polished post-LD version!
Nice, and very accurate to real bird behavior. Think I'm going to have eggs for breakfast. :)
It is an astounding accomplishment for Ludum dare! There are minor inconviniencies with controls of character, but thats just minor things that are easily changable in later development.
Overall 10/10 on the tips of my fingers :)
Great effort and an ambitious scope for Ludum Dare! Glitches, bugs and annoying birds aside it's actually quite enjoyable once you get down to navigating the interesting level design to find the eggs. I only found 6 eggs then an invisible bird killed me. If you continue to polish the game, you may well have a golden egg in the making ^^
Goodness me this was a surprisingly large game!! I'm very impressed. I loved the music and feel of it, I felt like I was in Oblivion. I felt the combat with the birds a bit awkward and the bucket knights a bit too hard, but otherwise I really really liked this!! Fantastic submission! :grin:
Ok, I spent waaayyy longer on this game than I originally intended to just because I felt genuinely determined to beat it (Which I am proud to say that I eventually did).
However, combat does feel a bit odd for the simple reason that the spear thing (I played as Alistair) shoots at an angle instead of straight forward making it hard to aim.
Overall a great game and I'll probably play the post-jam version
Wow that was a really great entry!
The amount of content which you archived within this jam is amazing. :smile: At first a 3D project for a jam is a ambitiously thing but you did it :) The graphic were really well-made and the effects were beautiful. The audio is really professional fits the mood perfectly. The gameplay itself were a bit glitchy as the others mentions but that didn't affect the great immersive adventure experience for me. The double jump boots were a really cool idea. Sadly even after serval try I didn't managed to get the 10 eggs (damn you bucket knights xD ) With a little bit more work I can definitely see a feature for this game.
Overall I just can say awesome job guys! :grin:
Sorry, can't let a quality review, don't have enough time, just want to help to get out of danger zone. Overall i think game is good, keep going. Happy Holidays.
A great achievement you have done there :) I liked the graphics and the music is really beautiful. The map is vast and that is really a feat for an LD entry.
The main points that kinda hurt the experience for me were the combat system and the idea itself.
For the combat system, it was very hard to kill anything which made me too stressed all the time :D I don't know if it is because I don't play a lot of First Person or not but that is what I felt anyway.
As for the idea, I kinda felt bad for what I was doing stealing the eggs of the birds and killing them; it felt like a bad purpose and especially contradicting with the environment and mood you set. But this is something you can easily change, if you want, through narrative while preserving the gameplay. Like for example that you are collecting the eggs of an endangered species of birds and you need to get them fast before other predatory birds eat them and you only need to change the frying pan into a nest or incubatory or something like that while preserving everything else.
But regardless of this, I felt all the time while playing that this could be something big one day. You should be proud of your accomplishment. Congratulation :)
The graphics and music give this game a really nostalgic feeling. It's a shame the game was so glitchy but I really enjoyed it anyway. The world felt fun to explore and that is a rare feat for a Ludum Dare game. Great job!
Really cool that you came up with a functional first person combat/adventure game. The weapons could have used some fine tuning and I think the enemies move a bit too fast. It was a bit too "floaty". There was no punch to the hits. For a LD entry, this was excellent.
Amazing amount of content, as the others have said! Congratulations!
Just like @furiouswitch, I felt bad for stealing the bird's eggs. :(
Playing as Lorelle it was very easy to kill them, and I felt like an asshole.
The knights are very hard to beat, and my last playthrough ended with one getting to me coming out of the cliff's walls. I did manage to kill two of them as Lorelle though, by jumping around them like crazy slicing at them.
Can't wait for the Post Jam version! Keep up the great work! :D
Agreed with the sentiment others have mentioned. Very ambitious for a Jam game. There's a lot to like about this. The scope of the level, the fact that there are two characters, the amount of artwork, and even the hidden menu that comes up with the tab button.
If I had to critique, I would ask for more lighting, as the level is quite dark even out in the open. I also didn't realize the health was up in the top right until I had almost died, and by then it was too late to grab any hearts.
Well done team. With some refinement you've definitely got a real game on your hands.
Yep, the first look was kinda meh, but then i discovered a lot of map and cool stuff, maybe it was too ambitious or something, but very damn impressive, well done ! Nothing more to add than the others expect I feel like the great amount of work seemed uneven
Liked it anyway !