FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD40 → Castle Diorama

Castle Diorama

By abuki and Jan Netusil

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall3043.70152
Fun4733.41152
Innovation1683.69149
Theme11322.08143
Graphics494.53154
Audio1463.78147
Humor6822.70129
Mood923.98146

Comments

grizeldi 2017-12-02 19:56

Uhh, download?

tinyworlds 2017-12-05 00:18

Beautiful game! Reminds me at the early Samorost titles in the way you explore the world. Gave me a lot of "Aha" moments. Plus the artstyle and audio is really lovely :) Great entry!

dlaha 2017-12-05 08:09

Yay! I build a castle :) Pleasant small game. Great mood and fine music.

octopal 2017-12-05 08:56

What a cool aesthetic! Nice work.

alex-bryant 2017-12-05 09:02

Cool game with a neat mechanic! Certainly doesn't match the theme so I had to rate down for that, but graphics are amazing as well as the audio. And the mood is set right from the start!

Overall: I enjoyed it although it was a very short experience and maybe there should be some indicators for what's intractable after a which where the player doesn't find anything

chubby-stick 2017-12-05 09:04

Nice art, smooth animation, really satisfying, well played ! :)

mighty-chebo 2017-12-05 09:04

Perfect aesthetic. It's a fun little puzzle.

rainbowjam 2017-12-05 09:05

Looks gorgeous! Love, love, love it It's a shame that it doesn't last long though unless I'm missing something :thinking:

abuki 2017-12-05 09:11

Hey, thank you all. Yeah, it is kinda short. In five steps you build the castle, and that is it. There is a cursor mouse over / hover indicating interaction, but for sure it could be more polished and giving better feedback to the player. But you know, time... :)

cercle 2017-12-05 09:13

Just incredible! The sense of discovery was something truly special. My wife and I both were blown away by the colors. Well done. I just wish it was longer! 5 stars all around!

jeroenwimmers 2017-12-05 09:18

Hey great little illustration / game!

It's nice to see the castle build up. Spoilers: I think my favorite interaction was pulling the roots down, pretty surprising. I was stuck for a little while before I found the cloud. Then I didn't expect to move the water like that but it worked out.

All in all fun to play around with from start to finish. Great art style and music too. And from reading your description I actually encountered the same problems. Wanted to challenge the players to play as optimal as possible, but it just made things too complicated and didn't fit the game. Lost like 7 hours to it, hope you didn't burn through that much!

jeroenwimmers 2017-12-05 09:19

Oh and is there a key somewhere?

somethinboutgames 2017-12-05 09:21

Very, very nice, clean artstyle. Loved the smooth transition animations and the music. To make audio even better you could've added small soundeffects for turning the waterwheel, collecting sheep, etc. but that's just a minor thing.

Really didn't fit the theme all too well, but it's a good, polished entry nonetheless.

dumivid 2017-12-05 09:26

Beautiful game, easy and nice to play, great work. Also i don't think you should worry about theme, it is only a not necessary choice which does not matter when you make with love YOUR vision of game. P.S. Help please, don't know how to finish. :confused: Almost.jpg

lereveur 2017-12-05 09:28

It took me a little while to find all the pieces of this cute and poetic puzzle, but it was fun to try. It's not a problem that is a little short, it's enough for a LD, but too bad that some elements are unexploited (like the treasure box on the bottom left). Good job anyways, and I would play an enhanced version of this! :D

abuki 2017-12-05 09:28

@dumivid There must be some bug, it looks like you finished everything. Did tou rotate mill wheel and tapped all wolfs?

abuki 2017-12-05 09:30

@jeroenwimmers no there is no key :)

mactinite 2017-12-05 09:30

Wow great art. I played on Android and it was pretty cool. Managed to build the castle completely I think. Some kind of indicator that you are or aren't done would be cool. Just not sure if there is a way to open that chest.... Hmmm..

abuki 2017-12-05 09:34

@mactinite There should be a text box saying you completed it.

Maybe something is not working as it should, so here is some guide ->

!!! SPOILER ALERT AHEAD !!!

five steps to do: - rotate left hill and drag lift - rotate right bottom hill and clean sheep - rotate sun and click all night wolfs - click cloud to rain, then drag hills, then rotate mill wheel - drag roots

abuki 2017-12-05 09:35

@mactinite It is great you tried Android! Thanks!

skigfx 2017-12-05 10:15

epic work here, thank you guys for experience :D

split82 2017-12-05 10:44

Very nice! :)

glock00 2017-12-05 10:48

Stunning music and nice art style!

bitsandcrafts 2017-12-05 11:00

awesome! can't wait for more content at circusatos.itch.io goodjob, thank you.

ondrej-paska 2017-12-05 11:11

Nicely done! Like the song. Still don't know if I won or not.

jeromwaarom 2017-12-05 11:29

What a lovely little casual and smart game! I really enjoyed it! but yeah, like you said yourself it doesn't really follow the theme.

royoyo 2017-12-05 11:51

All the theme suggests: "It's gonna be worse".

But this game defies the theme and became nice piece of light among others :)

fabian-pohl 2017-12-05 11:54

Beutiful Art and interesting Puzzle mechanics. A very statisfying expirience.

oldpeculier 2017-12-05 11:57

This one feels close to my heart: almost like a children's book come to life. If it were longer and there were more things to manipulate, it could become a truly sellable game. Very nice job!

abuki 2017-12-05 12:14

For anybody struggling to finish it (@ondrej-paska), this is how the ending looks :) Screenshot 2017-12-05 13.12.14.png

kieran-newland 2017-12-05 13:34

I like the art!

remco 2017-12-05 14:52

Nice 'n quiet. Appreciated during these busy days :slight_smile:

The art has a very clean and polised look. The day/night cycle was also nicely done.

Both the cloud and the pull-down trees took me what seemd like ages.

If I've any complaints, its that most of the things you could do where 'one use only'. Less 'puzzle' and more 'where's Waldo', to put it in other words.

I _think_ I can see the theme as well, since you're destroying things to make 'more'?

potti 2017-12-05 15:27

It looks beautiful. A nice interactive piece of art.

amras0000 2017-12-05 17:17

Beautifully done; simple mechanics and a ton of graphical polish. I did get stuck for a good while unable to find the raincloud, but got through it in the end. There's one red rectangle in the caves down at the bottom that I would've liked to play with too. Some sound effects would also add to the charm, but that's down to time constraints more than anything I'm sure. Very nice work.

sandpile 2017-12-05 17:26

A fun little experience that lets you explore a beautiful scene. The color difference between night and day is really nice, sadly it gets grey halfway between. It's really difficult to fix that though. I don't know how.

kyrv19 2017-12-05 17:40

Very cool art style ;)

jason-lothamer 2017-12-05 17:43

The graphics are nice, but . . . I didn't really enjoy it. It didn't feel "game" enough. Sorry!!

fskr 2017-12-05 17:52

cool little game idea. most things have been said: nice art, cool animation, beautiful colours, etc. now, go, play and rate some games :-P

nivbeth 2017-12-05 18:48

That's one of a n innovative game idea! :) The gameplay feels smooth and the graphics look polish and aweseome! Enjoyed every minute of the game, but had to read the spoilers to find the cloud with the rain o_o *sigh* I'm kinda impatient xD" Love it!

grey 2017-12-05 19:21

OMG that is a beautiful game, I love it! :heart:

ibrahimshersha 2017-12-05 19:39

small game, great idea and game play. art and music were superb.

roberto-romao 2017-12-05 19:41

A little confuse on the begging, but lovely graphics!! :D i enjoy alot your day/night circle. :)

alterkot 2017-12-05 19:47

Soothing

elanya 2017-12-05 19:56

Thank you for such a beautiful and nice little game. I really liked it. Sad that it doesen't fit the theme.

mr-matt 2017-12-05 20:17

Beautiful graphics and art style! Very good job. I think it needs more feedback when you complete something, its hard to know when you've done something correctly.

reality-blind 2017-12-05 20:59

I build the castle ! Really cool, too bad for the theme but good work anyway :)

gruhh 2017-12-05 21:13

Beautiful game! Congratulations on the mechanics and applied aesthetics. I see a lot of potential in this project!

Lindo jogo! Parabéns pela mecânica e pela estética aplicada. Vejo muito potencial nesse projeto!

thomas-higgins 2017-12-05 21:38

cool concept and relaxing to play except for when you can't seem to find the answer haha

jakub-gemrot 2017-12-05 22:01

Simply beautiful! Nice music too! But in the end it made me click all over the place but I guess that's in line with exploration games :) still, I would prefer to have "highlighting cursor" when I hover over something meaningful.

pavel-smejkal 2017-12-05 23:10

Very nice game :) The art and music work nicely together. If there were even very simple sound effects to player interaction it would have been even better :) Good job!

P.S. (SPOILER) How long it took me to click the cloud, you can't even imagine :D

asellio 2017-12-06 00:14

Yay! I build a castle :) Pleasant small game. Great mood and fine music.

beebo-studios 2017-12-06 02:32

What more is there to say than that this is simply beautiful? I felt like a child again while fiddling with this tiny world.

wermoongrey 2017-12-06 04:50

This is beautifil. Based on the picture alone I would assume different music, but current fits really well =) I struggled with finding the clues so I had to read cheats, but now when I figured it out I wish I had more levels to play.

peachtreeoath 2017-12-06 05:48

Awesomely done game. It must've been pretty hard to design all that cleanly and stay cohesive. Music choice was a little odd to me, but at least it stands out. Really solid experience, and I didn't mind the game length since this is LD after all.

fangzhangmnm 2017-12-06 06:20

Yes. I think this ldjam's theme is putting too much pressure to the player. I did a lot stress-management in my game trying not to scare the players too.

supr 2017-12-06 09:54

Nice and neat game

pcmaster 2017-12-06 10:07

Hi Abuki! Nicely done. I, too, had a problem that the castle was built, everything clicked, yet the "win" screen didn't appear. I like the graphics, animations and the music. I don't like clicking-only games very much (even thought our game design dragged me to making one :D) but I had no problem enjoying yours! :)

stadoblech 2017-12-06 10:51

well crafted, clever and absolutelly wonderfull! Enjoyed it a lot! :) thanks

bluemirror 2017-12-06 11:00

I love the art and music. Maybe the music is to fast for such a slow paced game though, its really nice nonetheless ^^

carlotaesca 2017-12-06 13:20

The art is lovely, cool design! I didn't get it the first time, but then I couldn't stop until the castle was finished! :D

jchaplin 2017-12-06 13:44

beautifully designed game!

eduardo-pras 2017-12-06 16:07

WOW! Really cool concept. I feel like it is a bit distant from the theme. But that is just a nitpick. Loved it! Awesome Art!

poorwill 2017-12-06 22:09

Beautiful music and art and lovely gameplay. I understand your decision to cut out the "the more you click, the worse it is" even though it was your only connection to the theme. I clicked around *a lot* and would probably not have finished if I were afraid to click that much.

abyster 2017-12-06 23:37

Beautiful graphics and amazing choice of color pallets, wished the game was bigger.

pinneh 2017-12-07 00:23

Awesome little minigame. I was art and music went together quite well, good job!

arly 2017-12-07 07:05

Wow, I love love love the art style and game/interactions! Some thoughts I had were that if you click and drag without there being anything interactive, it shouldn't turn into the hand icon. Also, the music did feel a bit off at the beginning when it was only nature - maybe if it started off more peaceful and melodic and transitioned to the more medieval sounding theme as you progressed? The wolves were also a bit hard to find. Overall, one of my favorites!

totsboy 2017-12-07 14:47

Very cool concept, I liked it! Good music and art as well!

angry-squirrels 2017-12-07 16:17

Really loved it. Il love these kinds of game. And this one is reallyyyyy beautiful. The music feels just nice too.

Didn't really get the theme though, but still had a great time !

thanks for making these kind of little puzzle games, i miss those a lot.

gamedevmumin 2017-12-07 19:45

Woaaah, doesn't really have nothing in common with theme, but looks awesome and reminded be about all those flash games i was playing on browser when i was younger! Thank you very much and good luck! <3

emery 2017-12-07 23:38

Though I could not see the connection to the theme. The game itself is definitely the best I have played so far. The graphics are absolutely amazing and the mood is a happy peaceful type of game which I really enjoy. Having to look for all the different puzzle pieces really made this enjoyable. :)

dunin 2017-12-08 12:13

Great game (even I failed to find the link with the theme).

Remind-me "grow" games.

It could be great if it could be a sort of "book", where you can turn page (have an other drawing, and the following of the story) when you finish to found all things, etc.

badly-drawn-rod 2017-12-08 14:44

Like @dunin says, it's reminiscent of "grow". Games like this are excellent for teaching people that clicking and dragging on a screen makes things happen.

ruthiepee 2017-12-08 21:33

Unique, succinct, and fun. I can definitely see this on mobile/tablet because of the way you can push, pull, and spin objects, especially with new levels. I definitely think you should keep developing it. Only bug I noticed was the HTML5 version in Safari for me has a crunchy green outline on some of the assets that spoils your beautiful artwork a bit. Not a big deal, I know HTML5 can be a pain. Nice job.

porcus-pie 2017-12-08 22:23

I decided to play this game on android an I was quite suprised by how well it worked. I managed to finish all the little puzzles and manage to get to the end, which I was quite proud of. Screenshot_2017-12-09-09-16-27.png The game itself was very unique and innovative,and the graphics were simple yet they worked well. It's a game you can just waste some time figuring out. The music was good, although it felt slightly unfiting. I would have liked to hear some sound effects just to really make the world come alive. My only other suggestion in an otherwise well made game was that I would have like the "hit boxes" (for lack of a better word) when tapping to be a bit bigger, as it wouls occasionally take many taps to get something small (like the roots). However this was really enjoyable and congrats on a great game

lexi 2017-12-09 01:05

Great game. I finished it, although I was a bit frustrated that I didn't find a way to open that chest thingy (if that's what it's meant to be in the bottom right).

I really liked the art style with the minimal shading.

At some point, the cursor got stuck on being a "hand" symbol, which wasn't a major issue though.

dx0ne 2017-12-09 12:06

That's just nice little toy. Make more. And I love the day/night cycle mechanism - could be used to do more story telling like werewolf/vampire story or just as a progression mechanic.

saintheiser 2017-12-09 17:34

This game reminds me samporost and more other point and click games. Well made, i think =)

akusan 2017-12-09 22:39

Very interesting experience. The music, art, and puzzle like experience is definitely nothing like I have seen before. It was confusing to figure out where to click though.

What I like the most about this is the visual style. It stands apart most LD games. Great job in creating a really unique experience!

tmpxyz 2017-12-10 02:59

Great artstyle, great job.

mr-madcat 2017-12-10 18:52

I love this type of game. Good job. Pity that you couldn't really cater much to the theme, though.

naminuz 2017-12-10 21:14

I love the graphics, it's very nice to play, maybe the object that can't be move anymore should lose there special cursor (it's not alwayse teh case). Very nice :thumbsup:

vfabien21 2017-12-13 06:40

The art is beautifull, and it is always fun to play these relaxing puzzles. However, it is lacking a little bit of something to create a powerful atmosphere or add some fun. Maybe the castle apparition is not fun enough to fully reward our efforts (for example include some bits of illustrations telling a story...). On the other hand, the cloud/hills/well serie is really cool.

gerardb 2017-12-13 13:58

Amazing art. The game concept is also super original. I really enjoyed this one. Good job!

joror 2017-12-13 23:10

Very clean and lovely art! A little puzzle that lives. I thought it was stuck, but apparently I had already completed it. Well, only so much you can do in one LD. :)

Theme I could not find, but that is fine. ;) Well done!

toboggan 2017-12-14 01:10

Beautiful game! Would probably do exceptionally well on the app store / play store. Really nice colour palette (including the variants). Music is really good too.

I don't really have any critical feedback, it feels like this succeeds at everything it tries to do. :)

satyre 2017-12-15 23:03

Great game, love the art and the level progression. One of my favs!

gistnoesis 2017-12-20 17:50

Nice graphic and audio. I got stuck. Not my favourite type of games, but I enjoyed the experience. Well done.

cerno-b 2017-12-22 12:26

Very short but beautiful game, I could easily see it on an app store, great job!

Cute sound effects like in Samorost would make this so much better.

sand-gardeners 2017-12-23 21:50

Super cute puzzle game! I love the graphics and it was very pleasant to play.

axoona 2017-12-23 23:22

what a beautiful and relaxing puzzle game! the look and feel is excellent. good thing you decided to abandon the click count punish mechanic.

goat-toaster-games 2017-12-24 01:17

Lovely art! Very relaxing and cute little game.

gama-croma 2017-12-25 14:25

Great graphics, no bugs. Maybe needed a bit more feedback when doing something right. Gorgeous night and day effect and animations.

cubeeo 2017-12-27 17:53

I appreciate that this is different. Also, it seemed like more than five moves were necessary, but maybe I didn't need to do some things, like kill the wolves. After I extended the trees, they continued to show clickability, but I couldn't do a 2nd thing with them. I could totally see you expanding on this with more stuff you have to do during night, which then affects the day, etc...

Nice unique experience.

psychedelia 2017-12-27 19:46

This was an awesome experience. The art is beautiful and the music takes it over the edge. Its a small puzzle, but the concept could be easily extended to more beautiful areas/worlds to build castles or other buildings in. Good job! (Can I have more, please?)