FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD40 → Black Hole Star

Black Hole Star

By wowa

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2393.7744
Fun5553.3345
Innovation2913.5145
Theme3463.7045
Graphics2064.1245
Mood1393.8845

Comments

goxua 2017-12-05 09:17

Really cool art! Maybe i should include something like a dash to dodge. Congrats!

britt-henderson 2017-12-05 09:25

I loved the little sounds effects given by all the dudes! Really well done on the mood, the theme, and everything. I gotta say, the sheer number of dudes scared me, even tho i am pretty sure they posed very little threat. Nice job on everything, really really really really really well done :D

ponker 2017-12-05 09:45

Impressive work! Artwork is really nice and cute!

Got 10 stars after a couple of tries but the darkness got me when a "black hole" spawned almost right on top of me :cry:

wowa 2017-12-05 10:58

@goxua Thanks! @britt-henderson Thank you very much! :) @ponker aaaaww ;( .. yeah the black holes are THE WORST!

reizoukin 2017-12-05 14:00

That's an adorable game! I really like the idea here, and using the light is intuitive. Lots of fun :D

bigblackbeard 2017-12-05 16:30

Really nice ! I love the way you control two "characters" here. It's very intuitive and smooth.

retrospecter 2017-12-05 19:17

I love this! The art and music are amazing. Good work!

spaceturtle 2017-12-05 22:22

This is fantastic! Gorgeous art and fun gameplay. I think it might be better if there was slightly earlier warning of where a black hole will appear.

smiley 2017-12-05 22:46

nice one! I liked the graphic and the mood and the easy controls of "two" characters

dr-binary 2017-12-05 23:04

This one is extremely well done! Artistically this game is cohesive and makes me wonder about the story. The black holes were definitely difficult, but I love how they start ominously appearing more and more frequently.

wowa 2017-12-06 10:39

Thanks guys!!

@spaceturtle yeah, i tried to visualise it better but didn't had enough time to figure it out .. so i add a sound effect

aman1822 2017-12-06 12:15

Very nice game, I liked the asthetics and fluid controls. But, it would have been nice if the spawnrate of the black holes was high, and if they have spawned in "non-star regions". There were moments when I was completely block by those lil guys in "non-star regions", but the black hole didnt took advantage of that moment.

cawrtz 2017-12-06 12:36

Very fun game, very intuitive. I liked your graphics and your mechanics with the bad guys. The mood of the game is very nice too. Great work, cheers!

wowa 2017-12-06 16:28

@cawrtz Thanks! @aman1822 Thanks! Yeah, this could be an improvement, i'll test it soon :)

fluidvolt 2017-12-06 17:36

I like the art a lot! Very cute and storybook-like. The gameplay is cool too, I like swooping the camera around to view my surroundings while trying to avoid the black holes, and swatting those little creatures around.

pixel-maniacs 2017-12-06 17:57

Lovely, one of my favs so far!

n3bul0sa 2017-12-06 21:38

Fantastic idea! I liked the mechanics and the mood. Really great job!

wowa 2017-12-06 23:45

Thank you very much guys! :)

pareidolia 2017-12-07 01:57

The music and sfx was quite nice. The graphics were a nice touch, well done!

happysloth 2017-12-07 12:35

I played on Windows 10 and reached the 12 stars at the 3rd try.

- Graphics & audio are truely awesome. - Controls are smooth. - Death is unforgiving, losing all stars is really frustrating epsecially when you don't anticipate the black hole apparition under your feet. Maybe only losing half of the stars or a fixed number would be more encouraging to retry? - On the first launch I had a bug with resolution, it displayed in 1920x1080 without going full screen and no way to resize it. It may be a problem with the cached data on my computer but still I don't think that absolutely enforcing a resolution without asking the user for permission is a good idea. - By the way, in this resolution the black rectangle limits were visible and I could see the game space overflowing on the left and the right.

Globally I enjoyed those few minutes of play and would love to see this extended upon and more polished. :)

honest-dan 2017-12-07 13:43

Really liked this, had fun playing it through on stream. The mechanic of keeping enemies away away whilst still shwoing yourself the way is interesting. It made some tense moments trying to get the stars. You feel overhwlemed by enemies, but you are able to control it well - its a nice balance. Would hhave liked a larger area to navigate, even a procedural based level, so there was more of a focus on watching where you're walking. Good job!

junber 2017-12-07 22:11

Nice game. I beat it on my second try. Just holding the light over your character seems to be an OP strat. The end got kinda tedious with all the shadow creature but I guess that's the point of sorts. Graphics were really well done except that you could see beyond the shadowy part of the screen. Good job

wowa 2017-12-09 12:07

Thanks guys for the feedback, this is great! :) Yeah you're right, it's far away from being player friendly and it has a lot of flaws, but that's why we join the jam! ;)

forrest 2017-12-10 00:30

The little dude sound effects were a little annoying. I would advise dividing it into two separate sounds: a) a low-pitch movement sound each one (or a group of them together) makes, b) a much less frequent vocal sound like the one currently played. Higher pitch sounds become annoying to players when they are too frequent. Add a bit more stuff the little guys do as their actions are currently not very interesting.

Overall, good music choice for the application of it, great atmosphere, adorable characters, good animation, and nice premise.

huvaakoodia 2017-12-10 10:21

Tried the Linux version first. There is no fullscreen option and the ball of light is not visible. The windows version has neither issue. Weird.

The graphics and audio are great. The instructions are more than enough as the interactivity is simple. Problem is, it is all too simple. The only danger is posed by the black holes and even then chances are you are not going to be hit by one dead-on making them a trivial obstacle to sidestep.

Collecting stars is so easy that it becomes boring after picking up just a few. Having a cluster of creatures blocking the ways isn't a hindrance due to the light orb's power. They don't really matter at all, which is a shame as that is the only thematic connection here.

If the creatures stuck to you, pushed you around, or lunged at you occasionally they might introduce a slight challenge. They could also pick up the star and move it around to make things even trickier.

High quality production, the interaction design is too drab unfortunately.

Overall: *Above average (3.5)* Fun: *Bad (2.0)* Innovation: *Above average (3.5)* Theme: *Below average (2.5)* Graphics: *Great (4.5)* Mood: *Great (4.5)*

sean-s-leblanc 2017-12-11 05:39

This is a really cute entry, but unfortunately I found the gameplay a bit boring. - There was no real indication of where to go to find each star; it was pretty much just wandering around until you found where the little guys were congregating (some positional audio on the black hole sound effect could have been a good subtle way to lead them) - 12 stars seemed like far too many for the variety of gameplay available; it could have easily been half of that without sacrificing much of the experience - The player is never in any real danger, as simply holding the light over top of them is enough to keep the little guys at bay even towards the end

I would really like to see a version of this with more depth though; gameplay issues aide, it is a nice entry with a great visual style!

fusionnist 2017-12-11 15:38

The gameplay is pretty repetitive and even though it does get harder over time, it's just frustrating to have such a slow character, and the black blobs don't represent much of a danger. The rest of the game, its visuals and sound, lighting and ambience are its biggest plus in my opinion. Very cute game, you've got my cheers!

aeveis 2017-12-12 08:59

Nice art! Really like what you did with the environment borders. I liked how the shadow blobs got mean in the dark, and how they would try and rush to the next star once they saw it to try and prevent you. Could see you doing more with the light as a mechanic with with movement options (timed this part is lit up or maybe needing to expose shadow blobs to light before they get too dangerous) or puzzle-type things (light switches, needing to traverse the space in a certain order, etc). Keep up the good work!

2018-01-08 14:17

Nice graphics, interesting game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 40 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qheLSmToOo