watdowtal 2018-08-13 19:16
Nice game! I felt it was a bit too slow for my liking, but the visuals were cute, and I like the idea behind the game! I think you could've shortened the length of the timer, though.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD42 → Exhaustion
By notpresident35 and koala-squad
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 732 | 3.25 | 60 | |
| Fun | 730 | 3.09 | 60 | |
| Innovation | 717 | 3.06 | 60 | |
| Theme | 990 | 2.93 | 60 | |
| Graphics | 784 | 3.14 | 59 | |
| Audio | 370 | 3.28 | 61 | |
| Mood | 453 | 3.26 | 56 |
Nice game! I felt it was a bit too slow for my liking, but the visuals were cute, and I like the idea behind the game! I think you could've shortened the length of the timer, though.
@watdowtal Oh! I'm sorry, the game isn't even close to finished in this build! Please check back after three and give it another shot! I just published this to get the link for itch.io to use.
@koala-squad That's okay! I understand that jam versions of games are rough prototypes.
@watdowtal No no, that's not what I meant. I mean that I haven't finished developing for the jam, not that I had a post jam version coming! Sorry for the confusion. The game file that I have currently uploaded is just a placeholder for the full game entry, which I will be uploading by the end of the jam.
@koala-squad Oh, that makes more sense. I'll keep watch, then!
Finished early! The full build is now available! @watdowtal, now you may try.
@koala-squad great job! Lovely little game, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's an interesting take on the theme, but it definitely works. I think you need a way to access the next bit of tutorial text, I might just be a quick reader but it felt like I was waiting forever for it to start! Good job though :grin:
cool and functional game, a few small gripes, for some reason I had to rename the exe to Exhaustion instead of LD42 for it to work :shrug: also the sleep and ice effects get really annoying, as you have to keep clicking your card every turn in hopes that the ice will eventually go away. Also it took me a way too long to figure out how exactly the turn marker thing on the side worked.
@ghastlymicrowave sorry about the exe! I'll fix that! Yes, the sleep and ice effects ARE really annoying, which is why you have access to them! Thanks for the tip about the turn marker. I'll try to explain it better in the description.
VERY fun game, lots of interesting cards. The card slot reduction mechanic didn't really affect me very much though and most of the opponents were quite easy to beat. Once I had heal it's practically all the game gave me until I picked up s'more cards. Also, wish I could skip past some of the text by clicking or something, since I'm a bit faster of a reader than a few people. :)
@unknownevil Yes, the game is rather easy, but it wasn't intended to be impossible. If you pick up the wrong cards though, it can be quite difficult. I was thinking about adding the ability to skip the tutorial text, but I didn't have time. I'm glad you enjoyed the game!
Super cute graphics. And the music took me on a nostalgia trip. The gameplay is quite fun, and is certainly one of the more innovative takes on the theme. I agree about the text skipping, since I had to wait as well. But I know you can't do it all in the given time. Good job overall.
@himadri-sekhar-mahanta I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! The text skipping feature is duly noted and shall be added in the future updates outside of the jam. I'm glad you liked the art too; it's my favorite part of the game!
Nice job! The game is a little bit confusing but still, great job! :D Could you also play my game? :D https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/zero-star
@cristihkj Thank you! I do need a little work on the tutorial to make it clearer, but I was very short for time. I'll try your game if I have time, but right now I'm very busy.
I loved this game, it feels a little bit slow for me, and at first I didn't get it. The music is so cool, and the grpahics are really pretty! Great game!
@punisherxa I'm glad you liked it! Yes, it is a bit confusing at the beginning. I didn't give it a very good tutorial. It does run a little slow, but maybe that's just how I have it working. I was already thinking about turning it into a turn-based game rather than a timed game, and this seems to confirm my suspicions. Thanks for the feedback!
I really liked this game. There was a good variety of different card. The music was very good. I think the theme didn't affect the gameplay a lot and I found myself often drawing a card and immediately playing it.
@timbals Thank you! Yes, I do need to work on some incentives for saving your cards, or just reduce the starting hand size. It would fit the theme a little better that way. Thanks for the feedback!
I like the game, but i would like it more if the enemies would use their cards more often but not just keep them in the inventory, this game looks like a nice prototype for a mobile game, let me know if you will make a mobile build!
I love your game! It was fun to build the deck, it felt like a minimalistic rpg, without needing to think too much, which is a relief and also enjoyable. I think the tutorial is pretty clear and doesn't explains more than necessary. I like it to be timed, so it's more dynamic, but that's my taste. I wish I could play more and defeat more enemies!
@johnyf Thank you for the feedback! Mobile would be interesting. I've never done that before... I might give that a try. Yes, the enemy AI does need a lot of work because they currently are completely random behaviors. I'll put some more work into them as far as playing cards!
@pepelumen Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! We definitely will be adding more enemies once we continue on this game. I had some ideas left over, and we could definitely work on reusing the single enemies to give a more dynamic game. I had some ideas... Anyway, glad to know someone likes the action timer! I realized that I have another solution to make it run quickly but speed up if the player wants to, and that is instantly skipping the timer whenyou select a card. I'll see if that works well.
Quite an addictive game! I was (appropriately) killed by what looked like the grim reaper. Loved the graphics, the audio, the gameplay and for some reason the fact that the game just turns itself off after you die. Not entirely sure why you chose to publish a development build, those tend to be more mbs than a normal build. Also, since you're using unity - why not publish to webgl? Makes it a lot more accessible and with such a cool game i think you want to expand your audience as much as possible. Awesome work!
Yay... exhaustion.png
Yeah, the tutorial wasn't great. I was confused on which character I was and as I had seen the top character on menu, that "map" screen etc, I thought I was the upper one. And obviously because of that, using the cards didn't feel very responsive. So yeah, I died and you straight up quit the game? At least having the tutorial text be able to be skipped would be nice.
Then I went in again and still bit confused about the gameplay, beat the game without even a near failure. It was way too easy and pretty much played itself. The only meaningful act of the player really was the card pick after a victory. And the status cards were the obvious choice because they were op as hell. The player cards always went before the the enemy, by having lots of clubs and those ice things, you were just unbeatable. The whole gameplay loop was just: draw a card, play it unless it's heal, repeat.
So the card draw should be automatic one per turn and maybe you could draw an additional one if you had nothing you wanted to play. Both duelists should play at the same time to tone down the status cards. And maybe add more interactivity between the cards like for example the shield would reflect status back to the one playing it and something more along those lines. Of course it would make it more complex but I think few battles in the player is ready for more complexity instead of same things with different names and bigger numbers.
You should take a page out MtG (aka the king of card games) book and make the actual effect of the card and flavor text look different. I wasn't invested in the lore enough to read the flavor text on the cards I didn't care about.
The map screen was a nice addition for a small change of pace between the battles. Sure there could be a little more to it like maybe sprinkle in some nuggets of story instead of having it in the cards. That would have been even better pacing by separating the lore and action. And maybe not have the character walk in air.
The whole card slots disappearing was a complete non-factor and seemed more like an afterthought to fulfil the theme.
Anyways, good job!
@erikiene The development build was not on purpose. By the time I realized it was a dev build, it was already past the extra day submission. I should have done the web build, but I was rather pressed for time. I might try building to it next time or post jam, since it's against the rules now. Thanks for the feedback!
@antti-haavikko I'm sorry everything was so confusing! Thank you so much for the detailed feedback! I really needed it. Quitting the game when you die was an artistic decision over instantly respawning, although I realize now that this may not have been the best decision. I'll add a decision to quit or try again. Yes, the game's difficulty is a bit of a pickle. You have games where you destroy everything without even trying, and you have games where you draw only sword cards as the enemy uses armor and fireball repeatedly and kills you instantly. I tried to put some balance into the game and tried to make it challenging without making it impossible, but I obviously need a refactor. I'm thinking about some different card drawing and playing mechanics that would really serve to make the game unique and put the difficulty curve on track, and with a bit of confirmation I'm starting to grow on it. Unfortunately, there was no way for the enemy and the player to both play cards at the same time, but the status cards definitely do need to be cared for and I'm starting to grow on a turn-based game. I think that if I add some more cards, such as curing cards for more enemies and a magic barrier against status effects, it would add some needed complexity and style. The lore was a bit of an afterthought; it was mostly intended to fill the screen and give a little bit of interest to the game for those who want to read it. Yes, the map does need some work. I'm thinking about using the map as is, but instead of making each space on the map just one encounter, make it an entire level, with multiple encounters and a walkable environment. It would be a lot more complex, but it would add some interest to the game and would serve as a great way to pace the game. Originally, the action timer moved a lot slower, so the card slots disappeared at times where it did actually cause problems. However, when I sped up the action, I didn't adjust the other timer, which pushed it almost entirely out of the game. I'm glad you actually took the time to beat the game; the feedback is greatly appreciated and really will help put me in the right direction for future development. Thank you!
No need to apologize at all! At least you had a tutorial and as you might know, it's not really all that common to see one in jam games. And just quitting the game as a artistic choice is fine of course but you gotta do it right. Forcing the player to sit through the unskippable tutorial isn't that.
@koala-squad, sorry if i'm misunderstanding either you or [the rules](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules), but i think they specifically say porting is allowed after the deadline: > Porting (especially to Web or Windows) can happen after the initial 48 hours. The longer you wait though, the less time participants will have to play your game.
So I'd say if you only have the time and the motivation - build to webgl now :thumbsup_tone1:
@erikiene Oh! Good to know! I never saw that before... I'll get right on that! Thank you!
@erikiene Your wish is granted! Web version added to itch.io, with one on the way for GameJolt. Thank you for the tip!
It has a lot of potential, if you update the graphics and add a bit more polish the game could turn out awesome. Overall it was a good experience!
@oneiros Thank you! Yes, polish is ALWAYS something that makes a game better, and we will have time to do plenty of that!
The deck building aspect was really fun. I generally loaded my deck up with club and freeze cards whenever they appeared since that felt pretty overpowered. I also really liked how there were different music tracks for different battles.
The graphics were sparse but they worked. I wish there was a way to increase your health pool, since if a monster casts a fireball and you don't have a heal card, you probably are dead.
Overall, this game was fun!
@fakefirefly I'm glad you enjoyed the game! We were originally planning to add a health bar increase after certain bosses, but couldn't think of a good place to add it in, especially with the basic health card being a powerful defense against effect cards and the armor/shield cards taking care of any melee attacks. I'm thinking about a new set of mechanics that will take care of the fact that it's hard to make sure you have a healing card, and I think it'll be a great addition to the game. Thanks for the feedback!
Cool concept! We almost had the same idea, doing a card game and inventory running out of space! My only issue would be the rng aspect, I got 4 shields in a row and lost, lol
I loved the idea, and it was pretty fun. There was a lot of tutorial text, which is fine, but maybe add a SKIP button?
@drums I'm glad you enjoyed! Skip button duly noted!
It's awesome , 5 stars man
@paulo-augusto Thanks, but was the 4 comment spam intentional, or is site lag just killing you?
I really like the graphics. From an aesthetic point of view this game is spot on!
@dancan Thanks! I'm glad you liked the art! It's my favorite part too!
This is an excellent concept - however, I found it a little confusing to get into. The concept of running out of card slots is one which I think makes the deckbuilding experience a much more interesting, but the implementation was a little lacking. On the first two battles, I was able to win before the first loss of a card slot, and in the third battle, I was seemingly dead before I could act. Also, when I died, the screen simply faded to black without any "retry" button, or even any way to get back to the main menu. Is this intentional? Also, I hate to say it, but the graphics just weren't my thing. Simplicity is good, but I think the game really would've benefited from some more detailed art. Overall, pretty well done! This is definitely the type of concept that could be fleshed out into a full game.
It's a great game, I had lots of fun playing it till the end! Audio is really good, while graphics is simple but really cute. The story behind each card adds to the mood tremendously, I could see that you did put your soul in it. So the game overall feels really atmospheric. The gameplay is very diverse compared to some other games here. So many various cards and enemies! I would definitely play it again trying to explore some other deck building strategies.
About the critics, I had a brief look at the other comments here. Yeah, the tutorial would better not be time-based but just clickable. As opposed to other guys I had hard time keeping up with text and missed a couple of important rules the first time I played. Plus every restart you need to go through it again which is a bit annoying. And in my first game I didn't realize that my hand is in the bottom because they were perfectly symmetric. It's just a minor thing though. I really wouldn't say that the game lacks complexity or strategy. Maybe I'm just too bad at card games but in my case it was quite challenging and it took me quite some time to come up with the right strategy for some big enemies. However, sometimes the hand size felt way too small to think ahead and keep some cards for later. Especially when the hand keeps getting smaller. I like the idea of running out of space but maybe it would make sense to start with more space initially. Finally, a restart button would be nice. Every time I died I had to reload the page which doesn't seem user-friendly. Oh yeah, and small thing about graphics, the little guy floating from table to table across walls and stuff was hilarious :smile:
In any case, you did an amazing job and the game definitely deserves a high grade!
@oberon Yes, I need to work on making it clearer to get into, as well as rebalancing the hand size reduction and the fact that the game instantly closes. It was intentional, but a rather poor choice. I'm glad you'd like to see it fleshed out, because we do too!
@mykola I'm glad you liked it so much! More confirmation about old problems is always a good thing because it means that there aren't new ones! Thanks!
Nice game, Love how everything is balanced! Good luck, Don't forget to take a look at ours if you don't mind and see what it's like when we just focused on graphics in this game jam! Game Link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/spacelab-42a
nice entry! It's interesting to have some story in addition to card battles. There's lots of variety as well (maybe even too much variety as I ended having lots of cards, but just one of each type :wink:), I think it could be intersesting to be able to prepare your hand before the battle.
all in all good job, congrat's!
I loaded it up got through the tutorial pressed a button and it closed down, loaded it back up and it tried to make me do that tutorial again, I'm sorry it was just too long and I'm too impatient, IDK if there was but always offer a skip option for the ignorant :D haha, I'm not going to rate it because I didn't really play it but just thought I'd let you know.
@axoona Thanks! I'm glad you liked the story, even though it was very limited. We'll be fleshing that out a LOT in the future! As far as the issues with too much variety, preparing your hand, and all that, we're almost entirely remaking the mechanics, and it will hopefully be for the better!
@coomzy Haha, sorry! The skip button is implemented, but I can't add it for you to rate the game, so if you want to leave a rating, you're going to have to do this the hard way!
@rahim-pxr Glad you liked it! Graphics games are interesting, so hopefully this will be a nice surprise!
Nice game. The gameplay is very unique and fun to learn, the cards are thought well and the theme "Running out of space" is expoited well too. I liked the musics and graphics, and overall, I really enjoy playing it. :D
@synfoniz Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it and had an all-around great experience!
exhaustion.PNG
The game was extremely enjoyable. I didn't understand the tutorial at first, but I quickly got accustomed to the game during gameplay. I loved how you fit the LD theme into the game by decreasing your hand size as the fight when on. It was very enjoyable and I'd to see if you took this idea further.
@keebleryestime I'm glad you liked it! We do indeed plan on taking it further. A LOT further. Hopefully, we can continue with those plans. Yes, the tutorial itself wasn't too well thought out (and was not tested), but hopefully it'll be better the next time around.