Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD41 → Brainiacs!
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 374 | 3.33 | 23 | |
| Fun | 284 | 3.38 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 394 | 3.28 | 23 | |
| Theme | 332 | 3.61 | 23 | |
| Graphics | 273 | 3.42 | 23 | |
| Audio | 461 | 2.42 | 21 | |
| Humor | 200 | 3.11 | 23 | |
| Mood | 359 | 3.00 | 21 |
Great effort for a solo project, the art is nice. The big problem I had was the audio which was grating at points (the attack sfx). Oh also questions are rather US centric, and isn't exactly General Knowledge. You may want to make Windows version, although I'm on a Mac and glad to see a Mac port. Anyway good choice of genres for the theme.
Hi @GastricSparrow thanks for playing and leaving feedback, I appreciate it! You touched on everything I was worried about. I tried to include mostly non-US questions (there are over 400 trivia questions total!), but I am sorry that wasn't your experience. The sfx was added pretty last-minute, I should have worked to make them better, that's definitely true. As for the port, I struggled really hard with that. I spent the last couple of hours of the compo time trying to make a port, but I couldn't figure it out! That is definitely my fault though: I didn't start learning the tools I was working with until just under a week ago (just for LD41, actually), so I wasn't as comfortable as I should have been. I am used to working in Java, so porting was never something I had to worry about, this time I wrote the game in C++/SFML using Xcode, and I didn't realize until right before the compo started that Xcode only generates an app file.
Thanks again for your feedback, I think you had very valid points for sure.
Awesome concept. This could easily be expanded into a full game, even something free with ads on mobile - it's such a simple but addictive concept. Well executed. I agree about the sound and the US-centric questions (more science! what about pop culture? what if we could pick categories? what if you made a full game and sold extra categories as expansions like Heads Up! does? hmmmm....)
Only for Mac? :cry;
braniacs.png
Pretty cool! I think this is the first time I've ever seen a Mac only game on LD... 🍎
I too got quite a lot of US-specific geography/politics questions which I obviously failed. But did manage to win quite easily because the enemy seemed to be missing (so kinda failing their questions) and the game was throwing me some real softballs like asking about the Doom release date and only having one answer option pre 2000.
The concept is really nice. Dunno if the combat has enough depth to it for it to more anything more than a trivia game. Right now it seemed pretty much like race to X points with the correct answers giving out random amounts of points. Didn't seem like the characters were very well balanced either.
My biggest criticism is about the question/answer box UI and the lack of feedback. The timer was too strict. Few times after reading the question, I noticed I had only few seconds left on the clock and didn't even get enough time to check all the options. I think you were also missing a message for when time ran out, it just showed my previous action again and went to enemy turn.
The appearing messages should scroll in one letter at a time like they do in pretty much every game ever made. That serves two purposes, it focuses the eye of the player to what changed right then and it also gives less of a wall of text right at the beginning. Over half of the screen was the visual combat scene but nothing meaningful was displayed there (except for hp amounts and current turn with the bouncing). Would have been quite simple to add some attack animations (just nudge them towards the enemy instead of just bouncing up and down) and hit/miss indicators (along with sound more effects).
With an addition of more in-depth combat system and hecka lot more questions, it would probably be super fun couch co-op game. Good Job!
@Aaron Nemoyten Thanks for your kind words! I like your ideas. Of course I only had a limited amount of time to do everything, so it's not perfect. I wanted to add categories and what-not, but I just didn't have the time haha.
@ditzel Sorry! I promise I tried to port it in time for the competition.
@Antti Haavikko Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed feedback! I apologize for the US-centric questions, I would patch it if I could, but I don't think that's really in the spirit of LD. I had plans for more depth for the fighting system (critical attacks, missing, more/less effective attacks, character-specific attacks, etc.), but I wasn't able to do everything I had liked, due to the nature of the competition. I like the idea about the slower appearance, shame I couldn't add it.
i like the concept! needs more characters i think :)
@notb Thanks! I would've added more characters, but I was pretty tight on time! Maybe if I work on the game in the future I'll add more characters, I had a lot of other features I wanted to add but simply didn't have the time to do so. Hope you enjoyed it nonetheless, thanks for taking the time to comment!
Adding trivia to a turn-based combat system is a cool concept and nice take on the theme! Would love to see this explored further down the line, with a combat-system with a bit more depth and maybe questions being dependant on state of combat (how well or bad you're doing). I also struggled with US-centric questions a bit, but I could see the fun and potential nonetheless. ^^
Also, there is something that I really like about the characters. Their designs and the names... they have something. :)
@sndr Thank you for the kind words and constructive feedback! I really like your idea of scaling difficulties, I hadn't thought of that. Wouldn't be terrible to implement (other than tagging each question on some sort of difficulty level might be a tad subjective). It's really a shame about the US-centric questions being such a burden, I really should have paid more attention to that. And thanks about the character designs too! That's the point I'm most proud of in the game, considering I'm usually not much of an artist in any way I really enjoyed making them. I think Hank came out a bit rough, but in the end I was happy with my little fellas.
This is a neat idea. Solid design too. Good job!
I love trivia games so this was right up my alley. The combat system could be expanded more when you have the time. It gave me a Undertale feel (which is a good thing).
@fashionbatman Thank you very much! I appreciate your kind words.
@Weston Walker Oh wow, thanks! I would love to expand on the combat system some time, it was definitely something I wanted to work more on but felt restricted by time.
like consept) would like more content for it)
@WalkDiGidong I agree, more content would be great. Hopefully by next LD i'll be more in practice and not as stressed by the time limit haha!
I do wish there were a Linux version.
Nice job with the game! Good concept and the game works well. Well done!
@Blinkenlights I do too! Sorry about that. I tried to get ports out for Linux and Windows but fell short of time.
@RAFFE Thank you very much! I appreciate your compliments.
@Dylan Rainwater A highly relatable problem. Hope I can get a try next time ;)
@Blinkenlights I hope so too!
Good job, nice graphics and concept.
@matt-pattabhi Thank you! I appreciate your kind words.
Nice! Dr Jo is clearly the best :D Reminds me of the old You Don't Know Jack games.
@Ripter Do you mean he's your favorite, or because of the balancing issues he's just better? Haha. I think he is definitely my favorite but would not be surprised if he outranks the others from his special ability alone.
@Dylan Rainwater Both :D
I enjoyed this but some of the questions were pretty much impossible to answer for anyone outside of the US, like what channel is a particular show on, that sort of thing. I'd like to see there being some sort of reason to use defend rather than attack, maybe if you could see what the enemy intends to use... I just felt like defending only stopped me losing health every now and again, attacking caused me to lose health as well... I think with a few little tweaks just to make it feel like the decisions you were making were the right ones would go a long way.
@hexagore Totally valid criticism. The defend function has a very niche use-case (you can predict when the enemy will use their special move, and when that special move is reflection, you don't want to attack so you can use defend or your special move if it is ready). I really do wish I would have spent more time on fleshing out the fighting system, it's one of my biggest regrets (along with not making porting the highest priority). I think I spent too much time trying to get the art right and the positioning of the menus right when in the end that stuff doesn't matter nearly as much as the fighting system. Thanks for your time!
Nice game! I enjoyed it. Won with Dr. Jo vs. Gears. The trivia questions were on a reasonably challenging level.
Thank you @elemel!
Very nice game, missing some background music, but very entertaining, some questions are very difficult :]. Solid effort.
Not sure I liked it
@TomekS Thank you! I definitely would add music and a increasing difficulty if I did it all over again.
@mrwillowb I'm sorry to hear that. I suppose it's not for everyone, but I did try my best to submit a fun game during the Ludum Dare compo. Any suggestions that would make it more enjoyable to you?