Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → Home Raider
By rongo-matane, IdinaKloppstock, Eininger, Friedel Castro and Tschennih
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 130 | 3.91 | 37 | |
| Fun | 120 | 3.88 | 37 | |
| Innovation | 135 | 3.77 | 36 | |
| Theme | 84 | 4.14 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 508 | 3.60 | 38 | |
| Audio | 234 | 3.58 | 32 | |
| Humor | 368 | 3.34 | 35 | |
| Mood | 333 | 3.57 | 37 |
Nice game, the basic idea is interesting. For level design, I find houses properly arranged, expensive objects that can be stolen are not easily accessible. The problem for me is that the objects reappear from the level, it is useless to risk the blow to go very far. Perhaps it is necessary to have several entrances (doors, windows) which would be blocked at each passage in the house?
Push you luck games are always fun, and being able to plan your paths just enhanced that. The level design was actually really well done. The people moved around enough to keep you on your toes but without being frustrating. I didn't really find much use for the moss or the smoke though, perhaps if they had a larger area of effect?
Nice idea, I miss more rooms to hide and to have more than one entrances, it would be great to have a plan screen before the game scene. Nice job!
I like this game a lot. It works well with the theme. Great game art, the song is also great. Inuitive controls.
Nice game overall. The npc movements is a bit random and frustrating sometimes, I'd put more visual feedback of their vision range, but is a good work.
I really liked the design of the game. The theme is tied in well by using sound as the part that gets worse (I have yet to see a game using that). I felt like the sound radius could have been made a bit thicker so it's easier to see and it would have been nice if the consumables had some sort of radius description (I used the flash item and just missed the person). Quite fun though.
I loved it ! What I really enjoyed: - The graphics - The music - The game mechanics :O - The simplicity
Every level worked, the sound mechanic was clear and fair but I failed to pass level 3 :/
I had a lot of fun playing this. My only complaint is that it is too easy as you can just enter a level, steal a few objects, leave and do that as many times as you want. But that's not really important in a LD game, I'm just nitpicking. Good job!
Awesome game! Loved the footstep mechanic and the graphics were brilliant. I just wish it was longer :)
That was a very good game, it got me playing the game as if the rest of the world has got to wait. Very fun time spent. The theme is realized 100%, the game is great, too. It has got tension, strategy, grinding (the second map is the best, wish there were more of maps like it). I found challenging to utilize the most of the tools, the flashbang proved itself useful though, you can pass the last stage with just two flashes. Very good game.
Thank you all for your great feedback, this gives meaning to this jam for us :)
@fernandxor I guess you mean the "alterness on sight", because the movement otherwise is very static and scripted with waypoints. I totally get that, it also surprised me sometime, though i'm not sure how to improve it ;)
@citsua Yeah, we had a hard time wrapping up, i wasn't able ti implement the loot permanence - but i'll make sure to add it after the jam ends.
Nice use of the theme! I liked the mechanic and the levels were balanced enough. Some of the items could work for my game too (I was thinking of hiding behind a curtain instead of a box but didn't have time to implement).Good work!
Nice idea. But I was in love with the simple controls (like in monaco) and after being stuck for the third level, I see that we can buy items; but items complicate the controls...
Really like this in context with the theme. Perhaps making the sound area clearer would have been nice. Also, the movement controls got frustrating sometimes. Fun game overall!
I liked the sound mechanics a lot! I would have liked a little more information on enemy sight ranges before they came charging at me, though. Since you asked, the way I handled level 3 was flash grenades. Used like 3 of them (probably could have done it with two but I timed the first poorly). Walked out while the enemies were stunned. Anyways, nice work!
This is a very cool game I like how the audio is an actual mechanic and you can very easily see how the game gets harder the more you steal. I would've just wished there was a little bit more than just 3 levels but if you ever decide to expand off of this idea with more levels or even a big randomly generated level I would definitely play it. Overall, great work
Fantastic use of the theme, well done.
Fun gameplay and the levels made sense. The mechanics were self explanatory and the footstep effect worked really well, easy to see what was going on visually. Well done on that, much better than having the player guess whther they were in hearing range.
Minor gripe, the controls feel a little laggy, movement seems to happen a bit too late after input. Making it hard to run away, but I guess this is a stealth game so that's not what you're supposed to do.
Good job team.
i liked the sound mechanic a lot. levels felt kind of hard for me because the movements of the people you rob seemed kind of random. or at least patterns were maybe too long for me to figure out how to steal stuff from them without getting caught :) definitely well done game! the carton was my favorite. smoke was also cool. moss was kinda meh tbh - felt like the radius was way too small. hope that helps.
Great game! Used just the box once on level 2 and the flash in level 3. It was a bit challenging but not too much.Nice job with the sound mechanic. ^^
This is really cool. It's like mini thief (I don't know if you were inspired by this game) but done in a 2 days game jam, it's impressive. Footsteps mechanic works perfectly and audio is great. Very nice job !
Again, thank you all for your feedback! That's very encouraging :)
@dunin i absolutely agree, 4 buttons for 4 items is not elegant. I'm thinking about limiting the items you choose to 2, thus simplifying controls too. Do you have an idea you like more, on how to use items?
@grentacular i'll add a second of delay until a resident is trying to catch you, as well as an actual line of sight algorithm (right now, it just checks 3 tiles manhattan distance). Does that sound sufficient, or would you prefer an actual line of sight overlay?
@liam-higgo @eldogg I'm not 100% sure what you mean with the controls. The thief moves to full tiles - you hit the key for 0.01s, but the guy will walk the whole tile and only switch direction after that. Were you aware of this and found it frustrating? I ask because i know there is also a small issue with lagginess when just walking in one direction.
@goloso-games I didn't know about mini thief and just checked it out on steam. I think i'm gonna buy it, to see what i like about the design and what not. We thought more about how not the movement could be harder, but your perception of the world gets worse (or the enemies gets better), like less visual feedback the further you progress. The tile map logic existing in libgdx together with the tiled map editor were a great help, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten that far in 3 days.
I've seen this idea quite a bit during this jam but I think this is the best execution of it. The visual noise indicator is incredibly easy to understand. The game looks good and the controls are simple but do their job very well.
Nice entry!
> did the levels work for you?
Sure! The only thing that I felt took away from the game is that you can farm an easy part of a house over and over. I would prefer the challenge to be to clear an entire house before moving on. The store might not be necessary either but instead maybe have a limited number of the items at your disposal depending on the level. > was the sound mechancic clear and balanced?
Yes it was pretty easy to grasp, the visual representation helped and it made sense that you would make more sound the more loot you have. It might ramp up a bit too fast, especially if you want to try to clear an entire house. I also hardly used any items and they might be more of a counterbalance than I realized.
> how did you approach level 3 (if you did)? it is super basic, being created 60 minutes before the finish line which items did you use, and which not, and why? :)
I ran in, did 1 smoke + 1 flash. I think a well timed flash would be enough though. I like that it was a bit of a different challenge.
Thanks for the detailed answer, @rongo-matane. It was an interesting read. Mini thief is an interesting game, but last time I played it, it didn't have a lot of content (not a lot more than yours, actually :D ).
@rongo-matane I really don't know, maybe one button to switch option and one to activate? Or maybe options thata auto-activate, to keep the 4 buttons simplicity?
> did the levels work for you?
Level 1 was a good introduction to the mechanic that let me get a feel for how everything worked. 2 was fun to plan out how to get in and out and what to grab, but there was so much stuff in that one room (with the safe, pokeball, etc) that it didn't really make sense to go through the rest of the house other than just grabbing what I could on the way out. 3 was a nice way to get me to be meticulous with my item use and a good final challenge to end the game on.
I didn't really like the fact that if I wasted some items and then got caught, I had to farm previous levels with no variation to afford the items again.
> was the sound mechanic clear and balanced?
Yes, the way sound carried between rooms made sense and the graphics represented it well.
> how did you approach level 3 (if you did)? it is super basic, being created 60 minutes before the finish line
First I tried luring them to the other side of the map and stunning them. This didn't work well because only one wanted to chase me and he was faster than me. What worked for me in the end was: run in, flash bang, grab oscar, hide in box while the guards recovered and went back to their normal spots, flash bang, run out.
> which items did you use, and which not, and why? :)
- Smoke - didn't really use. I tried it in house 2 and didn't think it slowed them down enough to be very useful. - Moss - I tried it once in house 2 to sneak out of the treasure room without the TV watching guy hearing, and it appeared to only cover a few tiles which wasn't what I needed to get out of that room. - Flash bang - Yes. As currently implemented, they just seem like a better version of smoke with no downside. - Box - Yes. Good for stopping and getting your bearings or planning the next move. Also good for getting everything in the treasure room in house 2 since TV guy doesn't give you enough time to grab & go before he walks in.
Nice stealth game. I love it. My best score for overal so far. Really gave me the feeling of robbing stuff. I especially love this green / red hand icon. The game seems too hard without the consumable and too easy with them. Must be hard to find a good balance point in-between. I think I would have go for a group of level you have to pass with a pre-determined ammount of consumables, best score win. Player would then have to figure out which is the best place to use an item, with different path strategy depending on this choice.
i love the main character, fun game ! nice entry :)
This game was really fun to play! Successfully stealing an expensive item was really fun! The main mechanic is well illustrated to the player, and I found myself strategically choosing which items to go for first and which to quickly grab on my way out. I got into it and it was rewarding! I'm thinking about getting into LibGDX for my next ludum dare project, and this has shown me you can do awesome things with it!
Oh my god
This game is soo good, presentation was great, the idea has so much to extend upon. Truly a gem.
Only thing I could complain is that the ability to "revisit" previous settlements kind of broke the mood. I really think it should be either: - An episodic game (cannot revisit previous levels), or - Permanence result: stolen items do not respawn, broken-in house would have heightened alertness, etc.