Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD40 → Speed Journey
By kyle-pham
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1062 | 2.78 | 35 | |
| Fun | 1019 | 2.65 | 35 | |
| Innovation | 987 | 2.65 | 35 | |
| Theme | 801 | 3.12 | 35 | |
| Graphics | 950 | 2.71 | 35 | |
| Audio | 613 | 2.73 | 34 | |
| Humor | 774 | 2.50 | 34 |
the visuals are pretty funny, and I quickly realized that I suck at your game It would be nice to have some sort of indication of what the orbs do on the menu screen as I was consistently looking back at the description to get a sense of objective, solid game :D
This game was really fun to play. My only complaint is that the jump did not work 100% of the time. Other than that, this is great!
I have yet to beat the first level, but here are my impressions so far.
Stuff I liked: - Graphics are pretty cute - Music is nice - Powerups increase the difficulty in a tough but manageable way - Creative subversion of typical platforming mechanics
Stuff I didn't like: - Left/Right controls are weird (tapping left while you have rightwards momentum stops you instantly, for instance) - Jumping doesn't work half the time, creating unnecessary deaths
If you're making a high-difficulty platformer (or really any platformer), the controls should be spot on. My advice for Unity is to make sure the player's velocity is not affected by the turning animation (perhaps by putting the Rigidbody on an otherwise empty parent of the Sprite), and having a cooldown which allows the player to jump a few frames after leaving the ground.
@mao and @manan Thank you for your comments. I just found out why the jump sometimes does not work. Apparently it still works in my Unity version but does not work in the HTML 5 and the PC versions. The GetKeyDown did not always work so I change it to either GetKeyDown or GetKey and it works perfectly now! If you like to try again, you can play it on NewGrounds with the HTML 5 version. Again, thank you guys so much for pointing the bug out!
@mao I actually did not use RigidBody2D. I made my own version of collisions and RigidBody2D. But I will take your comment and find out what I could do in my game. The jump bug is now fixed (because of the GetKeyDown in Unity)
Pretty solid first Ludum Dare game! The controls were responsive, the graphics and sounds were cute and it was fun to try to get further. I'd like to see a way to restart with just the keyboard so I don't have to keep grabbing the mouse when I die.
If you play the game for more than a minute, the controls are easy to get used to. Was very invested in beating at least one level but couldn't get past the second (I probably could but I gave up). This game is weirdly interesting. The strange music, colorful graphics and punishing gameplay would go great along a very dark/serious story to accompany the levels. It is a difficult platformer I'd be happy to complete if it had something like that. Very well done. I am very interested in this.
This game is super hard, the juxtaposition of that and the visuals is pretty interesting, but it was too tough for me to get far.
Crazy hard game, but definitely beatable after a bit of practice
love the sound
A clear concept, but damn this was unforgiving. :smile: I think my biggest gripe, however, isn't the difficulty but the fact that I had to lift my hands off the keyboard to do a mouseclick on [try again] to restart each time. In order to progress (since you cannot clearly see the path ahead sometimes) you *need* to die sometimes so you learn how to jump that gap, and having to change controller each time felt a little frustrating. The hitbox on the rainbow seems a little harsh as well. I'd suggest a hitbox that's actually a little smaller than the rainbow itself, so I as a player am more likely to think "wow, I only *just* made that jump" rather than "oh come on, I didn't even touch it!" :wink:
The art is sickly sweet in palette here and there, but that seems suitable for a rainbow world. The music felt a little creepy in contrast though. I'd have expected something more cheerful.
Good job on delivering your first LD game!
Fun game! Should've known just collecting everything doesn't help;) As I saw above, fixing the jumping bug for the web version cleaned up movement. I think the looseness added some extra challenge. The graphics are cute, and the music isn't so intrusive. Taking my hands off the keyboard to interact with the menu was a little disengaging. Otherwise, great job!
I enjoyed the sickly sweet atmosphere, but I wish things has started out a bit slower. I found myself inching along to control the zippyness of the character.
The html version kept lagging out and then I would suddenly appear somewhere else and die. I get the concept with the collectables though.
@b34k3rm33p can you describe the problem a little bit more clearly? I played the HTML version a lot and have never witnessed this. I don't know if there is any problem with your browser or Internet. Thanks for playing the game though. There is a Windows version so you can download (only 3-6 MB I think) and play on that instead. @b34k3rm33p
@klye-pham The bug seems to have been fixed. I am not sure what it was but it was as if the scene would miss a few rendered screens.
Congratulations on your first game jam! It's an achievement of its own to finish a game on your first try.
The game is lovely and the concept is clear (though very punishing).
I think the jump and fly up should use the same or at least similar sound. Right now they're quite different, as if belong to 2 different characters.
There's a bug with the red orb (increase size) that bumps me up when collected, not a big issue but I missed my jump timing some times because of it.
For the design of the game, I think the instruction screen is too cluttered and not necessary: - You can put the control part (arrows, x, z) at the beginning of the game - for example as clouds resembling those shape or even simply as it is right now. Player can enjoy figuring out what they do by themselves. - Touch rainbow & die: they can find out by themselves (it's more fun that way teehee) - Effect of the orbs: you can display them as floating text when the player collect them. That way the information is available to the player immediately when they actually need it. In the current state I always have to re-check the instruction screen to lookup what they do. - Collect lava lamp to win: also not necessary - they're already begging to be collected :smile:
As for level design, I think the game could be more fun if there's more than 1 path. Maybe if you collect too many orbs you can only go through the upper paths - which is harder. If you avoided collecting too many more options are available to you and you can choose whichever is comfortable to you. It encourage exploration and experiment - 1 less level in the game is no problem if each level is satisfying!
Congratulations on finishing a game on your first LD! Something to be really proud of. The visuals are really funny. I liked the background music but I think it doesn't fit with the whole funny visuals and funny sound effects, so it made me feel conflicted: dark game + funny game.
The jump and the fly didn't really make a difference to me, I used whichever key I pressed first. So maybe try and really differentiate them.
Like the other comments, it was hard to remember what each orb did and having to go back and forth was not ideal.
But overall it was a success for a first game and jam, and all alone! Be proud and don't feel unmotivated, with some improvements your first game jam game can be a cool thing that you will look back to in a few years ;)
Graphics are pretty good, the mechanics are really good. I like the overall design and feel (including mood) of the game, the controls were a bit weird tho. I had to read the instructions because I couldn't figure out how to jump intuitively
Nice game dude , thats a cute little entry ! Just a little proposition : make player restart when he is in the menu by pressing enter, because your game is a die & retry, and each time I die, I have take my mouse to click on "restart"... But anyway, thats a nice game dude ! Gj
I overall like the game, especially the game idea with the upgrades but god is it difficult, I can't get past the first level! :sob:
I feel like if the movement was a bit more responsive, I would enjoy the game significantly more. That said, it's a wonderful, cute little game. Well done :clap::innocent:
I agree about wanting a way to restart with the keyboard.
I never saw a single lava lamp.
There's a unique look and feel to this game. Why are you opted out of "mood"? - I think you'd get a good rating in the mood category.
@cubeeo the lava lamp is at the end of every level. I guess the first level is a little bit hard to pass (I am kind of bad with level design). But my friends all passed it after 10-20 tries (mostly to get used to the platformer setting).
I initially associated the "mood" category with something that makes you think deeply about. I can change it, but I don't know if I should, because I still feel like humor kind of fits more. And I don't really know if something will happen if I change it days after the submission date.
Nice work! Graphics are really funny :)