FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD42 → Sky Dare

Sky Dare

By zchangvx, disak and Miguel Fraga

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall8723.1348
Fun8512.9549
Innovation10002.7549
Theme8003.2449
Graphics9812.8149
Mood8512.8046

Comments

popdaddygames 2018-08-14 03:13

I love the fact that you chose to use an Owl for this Jam! :)

wekaj 2018-08-14 03:21

Nice work, climbing into the sky with that music playing felt pretty epic! The mechanic of your health being tied to the platform size was cool.

burgee 2018-08-14 03:23

This gets hard really quick! I tried a few times and only made it to around wave 8 or 9 at my best (i didn't look at the end because it got too nuts!)

One thing is i felt like sometimes my gun wouldn't shoot - is there a reload or something i'm missing? It would delay for a few clicks then it would work as usual.

I love how the birds at the start drop when you shoot them, it was oddly satisfying and I really (for some sick reason - idk) enjoyed the beginning of the game for that reason!

joseph-manley 2018-08-14 03:23

The game concept is really cool and I think some tweaks just need to be made to the arrow system, add some more sprites to clear up that plain look and you'll have yourself a really awesome game.

Good job! :thumbsup:

ernest-mccracken 2018-08-14 03:24

Keep up the good work!

spudboy 2018-08-14 03:26

I wish I didn't have to mash the click button and destroy my finger. I also wish getting hit didn't freeze me for so long and make it so easy to get hit again.

ganonwarrior 2018-08-14 03:28

This game has potential, but you need to fix some bugs and add some animations to the character, anyway, it's a cool game! I loved graphic style xD

roy-berardo 2018-08-14 03:31

This is a very fun shooter and a very thorough game! While the 'Floor is going bye-bye' idea has been done a lot in this challenge, this interpretation of it is unique with it as your health bar. Also I absolutely loved the art style and the story to this game. Very well done! Just a couple criticisms: The brief period where you could not shoot when enemies hit you isn't a fun period. It's almost a second punishment in addition to the platform shrinking. It occasionally becomes an instant feedback loop, where I would get hit, can't fend myself off, and then get hit again when immunity wears off. The other note I have is that the green enemies felt very overwhelming when they were first introduced. Starting with one and working your way up over a longer time would be the way to go. Overall a fantastic game, one of my favorites so far of LD42!

rvenson 2018-08-14 03:39

Very charismatic character! I really enjoyed the game mechanics, but the arrows fire could be automatic

seafishelle 2018-08-14 03:42

As many others have said, health being your playspace is a really cool idea. I also really like the theme, "animal spirit quests" are a great game genre IMO. It's also really cool that you have an introduction section. Needing to physically walkk onto the platform and "power it with your spirit" (thus explaining why it's your healthbar) was immersive, and very cool.

My problem though, is with the balance. The first two waves are entirely enemies you kill in one hit and who leave the screen after their attack. Then wave three is entirely enemies that take MULTIPLE hits and stay around you until you kill them? That's a pretty big difficulty spike, I must say. Especially when there are 30 waves after this. It feels fairly cheap...

Otherwise it plays well, and I like the music. :)

bobgar 2018-08-14 04:04

I must not be very good because I only made it to Wave 8. Pretty fun though! Good variety, good controls. Getting hit might be a bit too punishing in how long it locks you out but other than that it was pretty fun. Good use of the theme!

cincerteri 2018-08-14 05:04

I definitely liked the idea of having your platform tied to your health. I really wish you could hold the mouse down to fire, though.

shafournee 2018-08-14 05:06

The game was quite fun to play, the graphics were awesome, and the way the theme was tied in with the game was really clever. I will say that it's a little annoying that you need to hold down f to repair the platform. I understand the intent, but it's basically always correct to be holding f, so I'd prefer that it just happened passively without player input. The "hold up your platform with your spirit" is something I really love, it's great. PROVE YOUR WORTH!

joshua-w 2018-08-14 05:15

I had a ton of fun playing this. I was constantly saying to myself "NO, stay the hell away. This is my land!". My right hand did hurt a lot from clicking after I died though.

zchangvx 2018-08-14 05:18

Hey yall! Thanks for the feedback, this is our first Jam and we were certainly not expecting such a nice response, hah!

@shafournee @ganonwarrior Holding F was supposed to play an animation, making it much more costly to repair the platform, but sadly we had no time for player animations. Or any animation at all, for that matter.

Kind of disappointed that it turned out so hard to advance after the 10th or so round, as most people won't get to see some of the content. Awesome reading all of your comments anyway!

doctormozart 2018-08-14 05:28

Agree with the commenter above, that opening is pretty epic. I thought you nailed the theme, having the floor shrink based on health was a great idea! Sprites and music were both nice as well. Only improvements I would make in the future would be holding LMB to fire, my finger started to get sore at the 10th wave! :wink: I might also shorten the recoil time. It can be very punishing at times.

All in all, good work!

ravengar 2018-08-14 07:27

The game is pretty cool, the balance just needs some tweaks :) (I went to wave 8)

bentekiller 2018-08-14 08:15

Danm hard shooting game, and the stun when you get it just make you unable to dodge incoming attacks, maybe a slightly longer invulnerable time could do wonders. And I could still press f when the waves where coming, does that mean you can repair and get it back up in size? I didn't have time for that though, and only made it to wave 6!

shozou 2018-08-14 12:37

The stunlock feels a bit too long, failing to dodge or not killing single enemy in time can result in chain of hits directly hitting the player. Having to left click for each shot is rather tiresome in games where you get swarmed by enemies.

Still, fun little game! Thank you for making it.

blurred-lines 2018-08-14 17:55

Concept was great. I suggest you to slower down the enemies. They are very fast to shoot. Also you can add a player walking sprites. Overall, that was nice and fun to play.

awix 2018-08-15 05:24

Really fun and atmospheric!

newokmyne 2018-08-15 09:42

I think the concept is nice but I didn't liked this game very much. There is no animation at all and the character physics needs improvment. But I think the game could be better. Are you going to keep working on it? If so I am curious to see if you will make it way better. Oh and yes the game itself is a bit fun.

hatchet 2018-08-15 19:26

Great incorporation of the theme into the game mechanics! I liked the background arts and our cool owl hero character, but perhaps some enemies could use improvements. The game controls nicely. Sounds and music fit well. It's funny how his crossbow flips upside down when turning :D I suppose the game thinks the angle of the bow has moved by 180 degrees or something like that? Anyways, great work everyone!

hunter-towe 2018-08-16 06:19

The gameplay I think could be better if you used a smoother transition for the difficulty increase. It's also a little frustrating how getting hit will completely stun you, especially when there are lots of enemies and it seems nearly impossible to recover. The controls feel very smooth and mostly nonrestrictive, with the only exception being that the mouse can go outside the window if you're not careful. If you kept the mouse cursor from being able to exit the window, I think the controls would be perfect.

The theme was implemented in an effective way. The player can rebuild the platform when they're not fighting, and when they are fighting the amount of space that's lost comes down to how much they get hit. While a more balanced level of difficulty would make this better in practice, it's still a pretty fair system.

The graphics are rather appealing to me. The background is well done and the character designs are pretty good. The animation isn't too bad, either. I don't have anything very specific to note about the game as far as the visuals.

Overall, there could be a few improvements gameplay-wise. With all that said, however, it's still a really fun game and I enjoyed playing it a lot!

ursagames 2018-08-17 03:37

I really liked this! I played this on my first night of Ludum Dare streams if you want to watch the vod it's about 4 hours and 15 mins in: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/297052820

I liked the character sprites, it reminded me of starbound characters. I was also amused with the arrow physics building up piles before hopping up on the platform. I do feel like the sky background felt like it was missing something when compared to the forest. Maybe a gradient that changed as you went up higher?

zchangvx 2018-08-17 03:58

@hunter-towe It really is a shame that we didn't have more time to polish and iron out details we knew would bother people. We're working on a postjam version, so hopefully yall like that version better :smile:

@ursagames Hey man, it was really cool to watch someone play our game that way, thanks for that, made our night!

hyprgloo 2018-08-18 07:46

Wow, I'm really impressed with the gameplay, this plays like a polished, finished product! It's a shame there's no walking animation for the player character though, I think even a 2-frame walking animation would have done wonders for the game. I really like the mechanic of having the health tied to the platform size, that's a clever way of having difficulty increase as the game progresses. The soundtrack also fits the game great, and overall I have to say that this was a great experience!