wheffle 2018-08-14 03:31
Seems like there might be something wrong with the link.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD42 → Freezing Sky
By zeriver
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 97 | 3.95 | 42 | |
| Fun | 170 | 3.70 | 41 | |
| Innovation | 195 | 3.64 | 41 | |
| Theme | 250 | 3.89 | 41 | |
| Graphics | 367 | 3.76 | 41 | |
| Mood | 59 | 4.02 | 39 |
Seems like there might be something wrong with the link.
Wow, can't say I've ever seen a game like this (maybe I should buy Frostpunk if it's similar...) but I love the concept, it's really inspiring. The idea of continuing to build a city as a wave slowly swallows the backend. I could see a lot of potential with this if it had tech trees and further mechanics. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out why I couldn't build new buildings in the lower levels. I know that's how the game is supposed to play since I can see the build outlines but something was preventing me from building, maybe it's cuz my resolution prevented me from clearing out the side-rocks? Not sure.
The graphics could've used a bit more uniformity but I actually really liked the color scheme. It was a bit surreal and just kinda gave off a pretty intense mood, especially once the sun rose. SUPER ambitious game for a solo effort and some true potential for further work.
Really cool, it reminds me a bit of quill18 game for Ludum Dare 29. It has similar game mechanics. It was fun to clear out the space to be able to build, but it was somewhat limiting because it was quite slow to expand downwards. Because you couldn't get the necessary resources and build new buildings I could only maintain one level at a time.
Also it would be nice if the game tells you that a building can't be completed because there are no free workers. Also when you dig down you can put in 20 workers but sometimes you don't have enough resources for 20 workers, maybe the game could limit the amount of workers based on the amount of resources you have.
Very solid entry overall, nice graphics. I had a few visual bugs with workers being freezed in the rocks and I couldn't get them to move but it didn't affect the gameplay I think.
Great job! :smiley:
I like the Frostpunk inspiration. The audio queues and voicelines give it that feel very much.
It was a bit of a unique take. I initially didn't realize that I had to dig the shaft and then keep going. I was saving up enough to do it once cause I thought that was it haha. But once it went down one layer it all opened up :P.
Good job!
Can definitely see the Frostpunk here. I didn't have a ton of time to play it but I saw that I did drill down to the first level and saw I had to clear rocks to get more buildings. Artwork is good and music fits the mood. I felt that the night phase didn't really need to be there unless it showed up in a mechanic down the line that I just didn't reach (since you can pause the game freely there is no need to make the player wait during the night phase really). Overall this was fun and a solid entry.
Have fun out there!
@wheffle Thanks for the heads up! I fixed the link, sorry for the inconvenience
@peachtreeoath Thank you for the detailed feedback! About building in the lower levels, did you clear out the rocks? After destroying them you should have space to build. And you should totally check out Frostpunk it is incredible game.
@linus I didn't explain it in the game, but in the nighttime, workers do construction works (or dismantle buildings) if there is any. Good idea about limiting the number of workers working on the shaft, i could really indicate it better to the player. And thank you very much for the expanded feedback, glad that you liked the game.
@logicon211 Yeah, you have to keep going down to escape constant freeze waves :D I wanted to make small intro which would explain the story better and set some mood for the game but i ran out of time.
@phlip45 I didn't explain it in the game, but in the nighttime, workers do construction works (or dismantle buildings) if there is any. It is quite useful later in the game since you can dismantle buildings and get some resources from the layer that is about to be frozen. And I added 'speed up' time option which i hoped would help with idle moments in the game. And thank you for the detailed feedback, glad you enjoyed the game!
I did clear out the rocks but not all of them in a row. I couldn't reach some of the side ones due to resolution. It gave me the building preview where it would kinda place it but turn red.
Nice game! Its mechanics are well designed, and quite complex to implement in a 3D environment (it seems to me), but you execute them quite well! The in-game instructions and objectives are a really nice touch for new players too; well done!
I'm a huge Frostpunk fan so I have to like this game. It seems like a ton of work to do all of that just by yourself, so congratulations already! The sound design is cool and the voices add personality to the game. One very small detail that could be improved is that fact that you can select a building and decide where to place it even if you don't have enough resources. I'm not 100% sur how they fixed this in Frostpunk, I think the building stays red so you can never place it. One last thing, sometimes buildings are selected and you can't deselect them very easily. I tried to deselect everything by pressing Escape and my whole game was lost :( I know it's a tradition in LD to quit the game just by pressing Escape, but a little confirmation wouldn't hurt sometimes ;-) Keep up the awesome work! I'll check your steam game and I hope you can use your steam money to support more projects in the future.
Thanks so much for sharing this game with me! I loved the gameplay and artwork, and think if this was expanded it could be a super popular mobile game!
you fellows. you have a good game. but I did not understand how to play it, maybe I'm too stupid for that. you did a good job. problem in me
It can be a cool facebook or mobile game :) good job.
Everyone survived! This is a solid management game. I enjoyed the mechanic of having two levels open at once, but knowing that the top one wouldn't last forever; even with the small set of building here, this offered a lot of depth.
It's a very nice game, I enjoyed music and gameplay. It's a pretty nice start for some bigger game. Adding more buildings or waves of another survivors would be great. Nice job :)
Great game! Very cool and interesting! :D
Nice blend of _Frostpunk_ and _XCOM_ :laughing: I liked the graphics and the voice signaling the start and end of the day.
Very nice graphics and mood in general. Good job for 1 person. The only problem I had was with the night where there was basically nothing hapening which in the end ment that I've spent half of the playtime waiting for the day. There is also bug in sync between day/night cycle, actual game time and time on the clock which we off the sync as I have played but that was not a big deal.
I very much enjoy this style of game, and this one is well done. There was one big problem though: I build a quarry on the rightmost space, and the button to add workers to it was off the screen! I mean, this may have to do with the resolution I chose (I chose windowed mode at the default resolution). Also, the day cycle is too slow, and nothing is going on at night. I end up having to wait for a couple minutes while nothing is even happening. Anyways, great game overall!
Really nice visuals, and I like the voice acting for the start/end of the day. A very bold genre of game to make for LD but you did a good job. Could make a really nice game if you took it further!
Really love the entire concept and the aesthetic, the mental image of a freezing sun and freezing world is very evocative. The gameplay is pretty solid and though I normally don't really play or enjoy management games of any kind, this was simple and straightforward enough that I could actually form some semblance of strategy. The lack of need for certain buildings was perhaps a flaw, it would have been nice to have more buildings, or less space both to fit the theme and to require more micromanagement.
The art was really cute but I would enjoy seeing the UI style being a bit more consistent. Tutorialisation is also a difficult thing to make time for in an LD but is also quite important. The balance was surprinsingly good! It wasn't back soul crushingly difficult, but you couldn't just afk either. Thank you for being so patient on my stream and really well done!
Really interesting concept, the mood was set really well with the music and the setting. After I got the hang of the controls I had fun trying to manage everything. At first I thought it was too easy, but I soon realized the growing amount of resources it takes to dig and the oncoming freezes makes it very challenging to get deeper and deeper. Obviously a better in-game tutorial system would have been nice and maybe some better button feedback (except for the clock, that was very well-done), but ain't that the way with game jams. Good entry, really enjoyed it!
Hey there! This game was played on www.twitch.tv/arjendesign just now! Great entry!
Very nice entry! A little rough here and there, but still very impressive what you managed to accomplish under such a short time.
Just played your submission thanks for reaching out and keep up the cool work! Really enjoyed the game!
You must have played this game !!!
@agecaf Thanks! I hoped that the objectives list would help someone if never played this kind of game
@spacemonkey Thanks for the detailed feedback! You are right about the building preview turning red when you don't have enough resources is not the best way to do that. Watching some streamers, it was somewhat confusing to them. You can press RMB to hide all building options, i know it is not intuitive but the deselection on any LMB click that is not on the building was kinda glitchy and i ran out of time to look at that. And thank you very much for all of that feedback, hopefully you will also like the Steam game ;)
@sokuaisushi Thanks for playing the game on stream! It was really fun to watch the game being played live and hang out in the stream!
@gleb-shishov Thanks, sorry for the confusing starting part of the game, still glad that you liked the game, it was fun to watch you play on Stream and later see some 3d modelling action ;)
@ventura @cristihkj Ayyy thanks!
@ixchow Congratz on completing the game, I am glad that you liked the game! And yeah, the game did offer a lot of *depth* ;)
@lealoo I was going to add more mechanics and complex systems but as it is, the whole coding stuff took a lot of time. And thank you for the feedback very much!
@digital-bacon Ha, i somehow missed the similarity to X-Com until you pointed it out :D Glad that you liked the game
@wolar I agree, the night time was supposed to be more busy since in the 'free time' workers work on construction / dismantling the building but in the end most of the nights were pretty uneventful. I added option speed up time so the nights wouldn't take that long (20 seconds in the max speed i think). And yeah the sun was kinda desynced with the actual time, i made some last hour changes and noticed that too late to fix. And thank you for the detailed feedback and glad that you liked the game!
@belowparallel-ian Thanks for the feedback! Sorry about the resolution 'bug', i forgot to add resolution restrictions to the game which as you pointed out can be pretty game breaking. I agree, the night time was supposed to be more busy since in the 'free time' workers work on construction / dismantling the building but in the end most of the nights were pretty uneventful. I added option speed up time so the nights wouldn't take that long (20 seconds in the max speed i think)
@ryanjavanshir Heh thanks, in the second day of the game jam i realized that i spent A LOT of time on coding and yet there was still ton of stuff to do, i had to cut a lot of planned stuff :D Glad that you enjoyed the game and please check out the voiceactor's YT channel, he is pretty chill and actually wants to do some more voiceacting stuff if you are interested
@pickens-inc Thanks for the very detailed and thanks for playing the game on stream! You are right about the tutorial, i realize how important it is for LD games yet i really couldn't find time to make one in the game (hence the objectives list to guide the player at the beginning of the game), I already cut a lot of stuff, like different areas have different resource income potential (underground roots give bonus to sawmill, underground lakes give bonus to farm etc). Thanks again for playing the game and long feedback and good luck with expanding your game!
@wheffle Thanks! You are right, the game kind throws you in the middle of it without any tutorial, hopefully objectives list was helpful enough ;) And you are right about the button feedback, it feels kinda 'blank' to use the UI, adding some effects to it def would improve how the 'experience' is received. Thanks for the detailed feedback, glad you liked the game
@kapiteinkoekwous Thanks for playing the game on stream! Watching the VOD was really entertaining and you gave a lot of interesting feedback, glad you enjoyed the game!
@drauthius Thanks, and yeah game definitely could use some serious polishing ;)
@firesplash-entertainment @honigkuchenpups Thanks for playing the game on stream, it was entertaining to watch the game being played, glad you liked it. And good luck with expanding your game!
I love the mood/tone in this game. Watched @Sokuaisushi play it live and downloaded a copy for myself :D
Wow, nice atmosphere, especially with the audio. The mix of working, audio cues, dog barks, and the music, really brought the place to life!
I managed a win, and I felt like the game ended at just the right time. I had experimented a bit and figured out the rules, and was just about to start just repeating my plan each level to get down one more, and I was just starting to feel like maybe I was done when the game congratulated me.
I did have a few graphical issues. Some of the game graphics would appear above UI elements, I grabbed a screenshot of an example: https://imgur.com/3gs53gz
I also felt like I was supposed to be able to use some of the slots at the edge, here is a whole-screen shot: https://imgur.com/1DZkEqX
I don't know if that black zone to the right was intended, but there seemed to be a slot there I could almost build on (I built a farm there on the top layer) and then on the left I cannot select that pile of rocks to clear it.
Nevertheless I was able to make a working system with just the available slots, although it helped that after my initial farming I didn't need to do any more. I had 2 houses, and 3 more slots. I'd do a sawmill + quarry, and then the third would switch depending on what resource became the bottleneck. It was usually wood but sometimes I would demolish the second saw to put a second quarry in.
It was interesting to navigate the tradeoffs between assigning crews to resource creation vs drilling (which consumes). I usually tried to do as much drilling as I could in order to get down to the lower level early, so I could have the rocks cleared out in advance.
It was cool that I felt like I was ahead, but then suddenly the freeze would come and it seemed like I'd just barely made it in time to rebuild without being homeless for a night!
I really got drawn into this one, very nice job!
Second strategy builder I enjoyed a lot this LD, great job! Especially for a solo developer. I liked the core loop of juggling a limited amount of workers between different facilities, can definitely see it expanded into a bigger game with more buildings, upgrades of those, and a variety of events aside from the freeze. I haven't played Frostpunk yet, maybe it's somewhat like that, and if it's anything like your game, then it's even more interesting than I thought. :P One thing I'd change is add more speed levels - I dunno if it's because I'm playing on a potato laptop or if it was designed that way, but even at the fourth speed the game seemed rather chill and slow-ish for me; I'd appreciate like double the speed, especially for the night-time. Just in case it's just my PC - 4 minutes of game-time (x4 speed) lasted around 1 second irl for me. It didn't detract from my experience and I enjoyed playing it though, thanks a lot for the game!
Oh, and I've checked out Godly Corp steam page as well. It seems like a hilarious game, haha. Something like Octodad but first-person. I don't have much feedback, just a small piece of advice - I'd re-order the screenshots a bit so that each of the first few screens was with a new level/background in it; with how over-saturated the market is, you have to go all-in on the first impression your page gives, so more variety early on/less variety later on is better than average variety all the way through. If it makes the second half of the list look too similar, you could always just remove some of the screenshots altogether. But yeah, it's just an opinion, of course.
Well done! Both with the LD submission and the steam game - I see a lot of soul poured into your works, keep at it, I hope to see you making it big someday!
I really like the idea of worker placement games, and this game does a good job of that. It's interesting to balance the different resources, and the pacing of the game looks just right. The addition of time speed control is really nice so that people can balance the game to play at their own pace. You got a lot done in just a couple days! Good work.
> Start moving, the sun is up!
> Mate, we are underground. I can't see anything!
Neato management simulation. Having to abandon the surface and push further down the depths is a thematic idea and could be expanded with hazards (cave-ins, monsters, etc.) and additional mechanics (light, heat & water management once entering the mines)
For me the biggest issue is the visuals. While alone fine, put together I don't find the colors, models, GUI and lighting very appealing. Elaborating: - The GUI textures clash with the flat shaded 3D models. They also lack cohesion among themselves. - The lighting over saturates the colors. Using linear color space and reducing the intensity would do. - All of the GUI elements at the bottom are bigger than they need to be, taking space and cluttering the view. - Workers without animations look like ghosts gliding around (they sometimes bug out too, flying through floors!). In the end they aren't really needed, so maybe dropping them altogether would have been a good idea due to the tight jam deadline.
Good design, interesting to play, oozes potential, visuals lack polish.
This was a really cool concept! Great artwork and motivation to keep going deeper! Would love to see this expanded. Thanks for sharing your game with my stream awhile back. Your game was played around 5:31 into this vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/299401837