Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD42 → Balloon Critter
By redhermit
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 616 | 3.37 | 45 | |
| Fun | 572 | 3.25 | 45 | |
| Innovation | 517 | 3.25 | 44 | |
| Theme | 486 | 3.61 | 44 | |
| Graphics | 875 | 3.00 | 45 | |
| Audio | 437 | 3.17 | 44 | |
| Humor | 275 | 3.22 | 42 | |
| Mood | 639 | 3.07 | 42 |
I'm glad to see you tackled your first Jam! Awseome effort and good luck during the voting here!
I hope you take what you've learned over the course of this Jam and join us for the next one-- making something even bigger, better, and badder the next time! :)
Congratulations on the entry man! The graphics ended up looking really good.
I finally run the executable on Linux, worked fine but everytime I lost I had to restart the game to play again :P
Hope to see you on the next one!
All right! Super great first entry! I almost beat the long double one with the red shards flipping back and forth. heheheh i kept flying off and running out of space. So great use of the theme idea in a running game. :D thanks for the fun. :-)
Thank you @rombus and @commanderstitch ! I appreciate you both trying it out, and the feedback!
BTW thanks for the linux build, works awesome!
@rombus You're the first one to try the Linux build, so thank you for the feedback that it works :)
It looks like insanity)))
Had some trouble at the start but once I hit top-speed in the second level it became fun and challenging to navigate. I reckon more speed in the first level!
The weird theme + music reminds me of a fever dream I once had.
At one point the critter model moved out of the balloon model and I suffocated?
Nice work on your first jam!
man I love how much it actually mattered how you maneuvered the balloon to control your speed. like if you move a bit in one direction it bounces at a weird angle and makes you a bit slower. Really makes you concentrate. For a first time using Blender?? The graphics look great!
Cute idea! Reminded me a lot of Katamari Damacy. Really enjoyed the humor behind the Critter being a hypochondriac who needs to stay inside a balloon. Also liked how awkward the balloon made everything. Didn't understand how it related to the theme until I ran out of space and suffocated. :wink: I like your sense of humor, good work!
@tomg Thank you for the feedback.. I agree the first level is a bit slow.. I was trying to gradually increase difficulty and introduce mechanics.. but that first half of the first level I could see losing some peoples attention as you slowly roll along.
Lol @ the fever dream! As for the critter model moving out of the balloon, yes.. unfortunately I wasn't able to complete the coding and mechanics for that before the deadline. I had a solution I was working on, where the balloon gradually just covered/stretched around the critter, and he quit running.. but there were quite a few bugs and I had to cut it out last minute for submission, I'm sure everyone knows that feeling.. but it definitely is my least favorite 'unpolished' bit to the game mechanics.
Thanks again for trying out the game and your feedback!
@Doctormozart Thank you Dr. I'm glad some of my poor humor made it through in the game and was appreciated :) Thank you for playing and your feedback!
@ndhr-productions I'm glad you enjoyed the balloon moving mechanic.. I wasn't sure if it would work right when I first started coding/testing it, but I really enjoyed it myself, so I'm glad to hear someone else noticed and appreciated the balloon maneuvering controls.
As for Blender, thank you for the kind words on the graphics.. I know I have a ton to learn, but the jam was a great time to cut my teeth on 3d modeling..
Thank you trying out the game and providing feedback!
Good job on your first entry. I really like the walking animation on the balloon. I how the mechanics balance going fast and potentially missing pickups versus slowing down and potentially being to slow to get to the end. I thought there was not quite enough horizontal control to be able to react to the obstacles at speed, though.
Ah, these balloons are always out of space! I found horizontal control a bit too difficult, but maybe that's just me (I'm one of those people who likes turn-based games...)
@mrjorts @frank-gevaerts Thank you both for trying the game and your feedback! Horizontal control is a bit squishy/soft.. I'll try it out with more force/responsiveness to see if it's a bit more fun. Thanks again!
Nice, love the idea to add bumps to jump over obstacles and onto different sections of level. Keep up the good work!
Thank you @kurt-roembke - that was one of those accidental ideas.. where in play testing it just occurred, and I thought I might be able to work with it. I appreciate you playing the game and your feedback!
Well that a proper way to use a weak theme like that! What a drama! X) I love your game, it's really nice))
never thought i would have seen a cat in a shrinking egg lol great use of the theme great job
Interesting game. The movement seem a little bit slow at the begin which affect my mood,maybe you could make the movement speed more smootly? But I like this game anywhere :D
Pretty weird concept - cat inside a balloon :D It feels a little hard to maneuver and that is not very desirable imo. The part where you had to jump up the platform was cool. If you had more of those parts, keeping a higher speed maybe and having better controls, i think it would make the game a lot more dynamic and fun. That's just my two cents. Music was chill and fits the cat in a balloon theme :D
@tutaratuta @zayah0-0 Thank you both for trying out the game and your feedback; greatly appreciated!
@yayapipi @fork0 Thank you both for trying the game, and your feedback and constructive criticism. A common theme to what I've heard so far is the movement/controls, and starting off a bit too slow - which is great information to help me on my next project, knowing to get a little more fun action going right off the bat, so thank you!
Overall I enjoyed the game, I wish there was a menu to mute the music though because that little loop over and over started to bother me. Fun game otherwise, great job!
fun gameplay concept! i liked the concept a lot and i felt like i wanted to beat the levels. good challenge. reorienting the balloon by hitting the columns helped me get better speed - when the balloon was on its side it felt way slower.
Great game! Had fun playing. Maybe it takes too long to restart the game once lost or when the level is completed.
Super cute game :3
The kitten is adorable, and my heart breaks each time his balloon gets popped by a sharp object ;_;
Overall great game, I did not get tired of the looping music. The controls are simple but still requires techniques. The form of the 2 terrain obstacles adds to the naive feeling. Good job!
Liked the challenge of rolling on a oblong shape. I think there is potential with adding more balloon type physics like more bounce or even letting air out for a boost.
@boyTurnedRobot Agreed - I ran out of time to add more music and that option, and did worry the single 1 minute song would get repetitive. Thank you for your feedback!
@haberworks @chicodelosmates Thank you for trying the game and your feedback, greatly appreciated!
@chloroplaste Thank you for the kind words and your feedback! As you saw, I named it "Critter".. I honestly tried to model a little mouse, but it came out looking like something else, that could be interpreted differently.. hence just settling on "Critter" - I'm glad you think it looks like a cute kitten :)
@carlos-giraldo Great ideas! I definitely would like to tackle power ups in my next attempt at a jam game. Thank you for trying the game and your feedback!
The game appears to be fun, but not balanced at all.
Own acceleration if the ballon is too small so it is often not possible to crawl to the next air can. And once you catch the stream... the game becomes too random as your steering ability is very limited. And it's all too easy to glancing hit an obstacle and drop out of track. Having some walls on the sides of the track or better steering would have made the game a tad better.
Other than this the concept is good. Also some gaps in the track to fall into going forward could be nice.
Thank you for the constructive criticism @hilvon - the game play could definitely use some tuning along the lines you mentioned.
Excellent! This was a delightful little play xD Great Job!
The description for this game made me giggle :laughing: and hey great job on your first jam game, I had a fun time playing it!!
Congrats again on your first game and thank you so much for including me in the credits!! Here's again my first attempt at playing it. Sorry that couldn't finish it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-osF36Qsiuo