FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD42 → My first Ludum dare - Astro Swing

My first Ludum dare - Astro Swing

By michelle

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall7012.4721
Fun6762.4421
Innovation6962.2121
Theme7072.2321
Graphics6202.5222
Audio5172.3320
Humor2.0618
Mood5192.5520

Comments

justinsix 2018-08-13 16:45

hey man, the itch.io page isn't showing the game for me http://prntscr.com/ki4rzl

divotionthebest 2018-08-16 18:26

Good Game

tymus 2018-08-23 03:34

Hey, we need the _data folder to play and you only uploaded the .exe on itch

pnghasemi 2018-08-23 06:14

Hey, I couldn't run the game. The astronaut in the picture above looks funny actually.

goffmog 2018-08-23 10:48

Hi, I really wanted to play this but as others have said, you're missing the data folder from your Windows distribution :(

lilkrit 2018-08-23 11:25

I couldn't run the game, sorry :(

michelle 2018-08-24 01:53

Oops I'm sorry, thanks for letting me know. I'm new to all this, so I wasn't really sure how all this downloading stuff works. I'll upload it as soon as possible!

michelle 2018-08-24 02:00

just updated the page on Itch, so now it works.

adrisj7 2018-08-24 03:03

Swinging games are always fun, and I appreciate the piano!

It felt a little bare bones, but the game was there! I did feel like you could have made the swinging a little bit more fair though, since sometimes I'd get stuck between two planets/islands and I couldn't figure out how to swing out of it. Not sure, maybe if you could shorten or elongate the rope with W/D or something it would work better (or not, just a thought!).

Swing away, and keep it up!

michelle 2018-08-24 11:36

@adrisj7 Noted. I will need to reconfigure the stars. I'm glad you liked the piano :)

samusoidal 2018-08-25 23:02

This was a neat little game! I only encountered one bug which was not being able to select Play Again or Quit after dying.

I liked the art and the music a lot, they both added to the sort of surreal concept of swinging on stars and boosted the mood a lot.

I think that the camera could have been zoomed out a bit more, and some animation would have been nice as well. Perhaps putting a lower cap on the max fall speed would make it a little less challenging as well.

Overall I gave this one a 3.5/5, mostly due to this particular interpretation of the theme not quite striking me as super original. Though I guess after Phil Strahl's interpretation of 'Running Out of Power' during LD39, a lot of people would probably lean that way.

Good job on your first Ludum Dare and I hope to see more of your entries in the future!

michelle 2018-08-26 00:15

@samusoidal I tried to fix the Play Again bug by having the 'g' key also allow you to play the game again.

Thanks for your advice and comments. I will consider adding some animation next time.

not-the-real-mark-zhang 2018-08-26 02:56

The swinging was difficult but once you got use to it, it's easy to launch yourself across the map. The swinging was kinda fun sometimes, especially when I get launched far distances. I hope you take this experience positively and join more LDs in the future!

abhimonk 2018-08-26 02:59

Solid work. A few things to think about: The actual swinging feels a little imprecise. I think it's because the rope is just slightly elastic. It might be better to either - Make the tether VERY elastic (to allow the player to slingshot) or - Give the rope a fixed length to allow for normal swinging

I think this would help, because currently when you are horizontal relative to a star, the elasticity of the rope pulls you towards the star a little making you NOT swing in a perfect arc, which is how swinging usually works in these types of games.

Another strange thing was that I wasn't able to progress without immediately grabbing the top star BEFORE the camera panned to the ship. Also, if I fell to one of the platforms it was basically game over, since getting back up off the ground is very difficult. If I were able to change the length of the rope at will, it would have helped in situations where the character was on the ground without a way to stand back up. All that said, swinging around was fun, and after I got used to the slight elasticity of the rope, I was able to fly across the map, which was pretty fun. This is great for your first Ludum Dare. Keep it up!

leom 2018-08-26 18:10

Nice concept and mood but need a lot of balancing to be playable. I was blocked, hanged to a star near the ground with no way to get on it... The elastic need some ajustments. Still nice for a first compo

glock00 2018-08-27 14:10

Access restricted

erikiene 2018-08-27 14:21

Hey, nice work for a first compo entry! I think a lot of the feedback above is very good and have said the main things. I haven't read all of them, so hope I'm not repeating anything, but apart from the rope-related tweaks, I would suggest removing or doing something different with the sliding of the player, i'm not really sure what it adds and it did unnecessarily kill me a few times. Otherwise, the graphics and audio are very nice, even more so considering this was done in 48hrs AND the mechanics were coded in. Good work!

(just a tip regarding the itch.io page - I think the website generates download links to individual clicks, so the link you currently give doesn't really work. Change it to https://miiparty.itch.io/astro-swing and people can click "download")

frogcheese 2018-08-27 16:12

Fantastic job on your first entry! The swinging mechanics were a bit difficult to use, especially if you fell onto the ground it got hard to get back up. Maybe some way to reel in the rope would help, so you can get yourself off of the ground? Either way a tremendous job! Well done!

rahim-pxr 2018-08-27 16:19

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-42

michelle 2018-08-28 21:23

@erikiene Thanks for the tip! I have done as you said.

grigory 2018-08-29 03:42

Physics is great! I already tried to pass the game 3 days but still did not succeed. I think it means that game balance is good:) Note that when I start a game a first time, I get a different stars configuration than when I restart the game. It looks like a bug for me.