htmichael 2018-08-13 17:53
Not very original? I've seen better platformers
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD42 → Void Incoming
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 349 | 3.61 | 64 | |
| Fun | 140 | 3.75 | 64 | |
| Innovation | 766 | 3.00 | 63 | |
| Theme | 166 | 4.00 | 63 | |
| Graphics | 804 | 3.10 | 64 | |
| Audio | 574 | 2.93 | 63 | |
| Humor | 783 | 2.19 | 45 | |
| Mood | 721 | 2.98 | 54 |
Not very original? I've seen better platformers
^ it's not a platformer, though?
I liked the art. It gives me a very "TI-84 graphing calculator" vibe. (especially with that font!)
I liked the final boss, too, with the different phases.
The collision detection felt a bit wonky sometimes with the cannonballs - like their hitboxes were a bit too big. Also, sometimes it was hard to tell which way a cannon was facing, so it was surprising when they shot backwards through the wall.
Overall I liked it a lot!
Nice old-school graphic.Welcome to this community !
Its pretty swell. Level 9 was a bit hard, level 13 was easy. Boss was fun. Good work.
@cassowary I’m glad you liked the game! Next time we participate, we will take your advice into consideration, trying to make logic for certain features more clear and understandable. (However that may not be until next year because school) Also, I think it’s the player’s collision detection that was wonky, not the cannonballs’. The cannonball sprite uses a hit box the same size as the cannonball itself. Glad you enjoyed!
@rngsilvercraft Glad you enjoyed! We may not be participating again for a while, though. Depends how stuff works out.
Good job, if you clean up the art, add some polish, and 500 levels you could sell it as a full game on steam. These were like mini action puzzles really fun. It took me awhile to beat the game. Though I wish some of the levels would have the void come in from just one side or have it take on a different form Just to switch it up a bit. Also the hit box felt a bit unfair at times. overall great job, keep it up.
@frostbyte4k Thanks for the feedback! Variety would have helped, so I will try to add some more variety next time we participate. Glad you enjoyed!
Very Challenger puzzle! Good Work! The minimal art and the void closing is very very distressing!!! hehehehe Good job!
@plepletier Thanks! So glad you enjoyed the game!
Wow, this is superb. Seems like a simple premise but it's really challenging - the sort of alternating figure-out-the-puzzle then execute-it-without-messing-up pattern is a lot of fun (though I'm not much good at it, haha). Great work!
Great game! Loved the idea and the retro sound effects!
@mahalis Glad you liked the concept! Thanks a bunch!
@foxserranu So happy you liked it! Thanks for checking out our game!
Congratulations for publishing your first game! Actually don't have anything to criticise: The minimalistic black-white style is pretty cool, the concept is interesting, fits the theme and makes fun. Good work!
Really enjoyed the game, although not a fan of having to download it. Can see why given the save file. Nice concept that kept me occupied for a few minutes. Simplistic but makes up for it in game concept and level design.
Nice idea, seems like the concept could be more thoroughly exlpored. Some more puzzly ideas where the order matters. I really liked one level though which was really hard until I realized I only needed to get one of the three keys. Good job :)
Nothing transcendent, but still fun. The room shrinking feels more like a timer than an actual loss of space.
Really good game well designed from graphics efficiency to the mecanic. Boss fight was really really cool ! One bad thing is about difficulty progression, found some early level were way more difficult than some of the end.
Minimalist but very strong mechanics. My favorite so far!
@OadT Thanks! So happy you enjoyed everything our game has to offer! I will definitely publish more games in the future!
@sakanasama Glad you enjoyed! Sorry about the download, the software I used to make the game didn't allow me to put the game directly online. (or maybe it does and I'm just dumb.) Thanks for the feedback!
@oskarolausson Glad you liked the concept! Will and I aren't experts in puzzle design, but hopefully we'll improve in it, along with other things as time goes on. Thanks for the feedback!
@djack-d-donovan I know it's nothing too special, it is our first time after all. I still feel like the void concept fits with the theme. It may not fit great, but I'm still happy with it. Glad you still found it fun!
@kywu Happy to hear you enjoyed the game! I play rage games regularly, so my standards for difficulty are higher than most people's. The levels I designed tended to be harder, we actually had to go back and nerf a bunch of them so that they were a reasonable difficulty. Difficulty progressing isn't perfect, but I'm glad you were able to enjoy it despite that! Thanks for the feedback!
@daanvanyperen Really? Your favorite so far? Thanks a bunch!
Great idea!
Its a really nice game! keep up the good work!
job well done on this, however I couldn't make it past the first level and had no idea what to do next
@earnso Thanks!
@sdrrv Glad to hear you enjoyed it!
@remco-games Sorry to hear it! Did you accidentally skip the tutorial at the beginning?
Nice game! the concept is straightforward and makes for some fun puzzles. I think you taught the mechanics very well too! This would be a fun game to take further with art, music, and theme, but the retro style works well as is! Great job!
@purrfexionator I saw the tutorial mention the black hole you had to go in but I couldn't find it was there more to read after that?
@remco-games yeah, space skips the tutorial. You may have accidentally pressed space at some point and that skipped it. The tutorial is 5 screens that teach you everything. To go back to it just start a new game.
@emily-rizzo Glad you liked it! Will and I worked really hard on this, and it makes me so happy to see people like you enjoying it!
I really liked this one. For the aesthetic you were going for everything worked really well. Only thing I didn't particularly like is the cannons being able to shoot through walls. I feel like the walls that cannons shoot through should have some indication they are cannon ball passable (like a few white dots or something). I also saw that on level 13 you didn't need to collect every key so I figured that was maybe an oversight? Overall though great job. This one was really fun.
@phlip45 So glad you enjoyed the game! All walls are cannon-ball passable. I didn't really consider the idea of having indicators during the time that Will and I were programming the game. Would have been a nice touch, but obviously it's too late to change it now. As for level 13, that was intentional. I wanted to have a level where the player could choose from one of three different paths that lead to the same goal. I felt it also kinda incorporated a puzzle element, where the player would try over and over again to get all the keys, leading to sort of an aha moment when they figured out they only needed one. (At least that's what happened with one of the other commenters, and they really liked that level) I hoped that cleared everything up. Thanks for playing my game!
I couldn't open the game :/ it loads about 80% and then gets stuck Any idea?
neat idea, it's very simple but I like it!
@siridakis Sorry to hear it! Maybe try waiting a little longer, but if that doesn’t work then I don’t know what to tell you. Sorry!
@thedouche Glad you liked it!
I love the minimalism in this one! The art and sfx really help you concentrate on the layout of the levels.
I did find the cannons could be made a bit more fair if they telegraphed their attack and if we were able to see cannon balls when they go through walls (e.g. they becoming white).
I'm pretty impressed by the amount of good quality levels you've been able to make; sure they're all "simple", but no two felt like each other, and each had something interesting about it. I also really liked the fact that you let the player breathe and analyse the level before you start; it's a really nice touch. Well done!
@agecaf Thanks for the feedback! Glad you liked the minimalistic art style. Most of the things people are pointing out is that the cannons being able to shoot through walls didn't make too much sense. Looking back I probably should have made cannon logic more clear to the player, but it's too late to change that now. I'm happy you liked the levels, Will and I worked together on those, we each made a bunch of levels for the game. One of the struggles during development was making levels that were fun and not repetitive, and it seems to have worked out pretty well! Thanks for checking out our game!
Pretty good game! Style is simple but consistent, the idea, thou maybe not too original (which is totally fine, this theme doesn't really allow for that much creative freedon), fits the theme and that's always a positive. The difficulty curve is pretty much on point, which is something I usually struggle to achieve myself. The void is a little too forgiving in my opinion, the hitbox could match the graphics a little better, but that's ok. Overall, a nice simple and fun game, really enjoyed it :)
@d1gital-cuts Glad you liked the style! We actually struggled with difficulty progression ourselves a bit. I play a lot of rage games, so my standards for difficulty are higher. Will and I split the work, so my levels usually ended up being harder than his, so we had to go back and do a lot of tweaking to make sure that difficulty progression was somewhat consistent. As for the hitboxes, I actually couldn't find a way to make the void less forgiving, I did all of the programming and logic, and I can only do so much. Sorry if you didn't think it was too original, but I'm glad you enjoyed the finished product for the most part!
@tilliam-reppets Yes. New York Times rates it 84 radioactive toilet seats out of 17.5 edible dump trucks.
Well, it was just okay. Because of the somewhat strict timer for each level, the correct path is usually obvious from the start, so the only challenge comes in being patient enough to wait for the cannons to fire before you run into them. If different mechanics were added more regularly, it would've been more interesting. But, it was also short enough that I didn't have time to get bored of what there was, so I guess it found a balance.
@sidnoea Yeah, I know it's not great. It's my first time publishing a game, after all! Hopefully William and I will improve in the future. Thanks for trying out the game anyways!
I love this kind of games; They are simple and puts a lot of focus on exploring a small set of mechanics. Although the mechanics are simple, you were able to make 13+ levels (I stopped at level 13 tbh) that were fun and never let me get bored. The art is simple but I like it. The implementation has one problem for me which is the collision. I think all the object collide as boxes with the size of a full tile so it can feel frustrating to move around them especially that the time is limited. May be making the player and cannon collide as circles will help. Overall, It was really fun and I will make sure to continue the remaining levels later.
@yetman Thanks a lot for the feedback! Not everything is full tile collision, cannonballs use hitboxes the exact same size as themselves, it's probably the player hitbox that is oversized. Glad to hear that you plan to go back and beat the rest of the game later, that's why I implemented the save system. If you're stuck on level 13, here's a hint: You only need one of the three keys to get to the exit. You aren't too far from the end, we only programmed 15 levels. Glad you enjoyed our game!
Good work! This was simple but effective. The mechanics were crisp and worked well. My favorite levels were those that didn't have a clear single-path to take. It made them into small puzzles you had to solve in order to get all the collectibles that would get past the shrinking walls. Well done!
The art style in this game is just the sort of thing I like. I will say, though, I think some of the round objects could look a little better if they were smoother and less jagged on the corners. Even then, they're still not bad. I think it's cool that the character design was Scott Cawthon inspired!
The audio was well done. I like the retro sound effects, and I think the footstep sounds that are played while running are a really nice touch.
The theme was used in an effective way. I constantly felt like I was running out of space, which means you did a pretty good job at incorporating the theme into the gameplay.
The gameplay is quite fun. I think one thing that could be improved a little is the collision with the cannonballs. It's also a little hard to keep track of the cannonballs because they blend in perfectly with the walls-- those aren't really big problems, though.
Overall, I think this is a pretty neat game!
@diego-escalante Glad you liked the concept and mechanics! Thanks for checking out our game!
@hunter-towe Hi! Glad you liked our game! The main reason for jagged stuff is that the whole game is a really small game just put in fullscreen. It was the only way we could get it to work, we tried making the sprites a higher resolution and the file got corrupted three separate times! We made all the sound effects from scratch in bfxr, we thought it fit with the whole old school vibe we were going for. Happy you liked them! A lot of people have mentioned the cannonballs being able to go through walls without any indication, we didn't consider it during development, and it's too late now. Thanks for your feedback, man!
@purrfexionator You are right. The cannon hitbox are a bit smaller. I still think circles would make collision smoother near the edges. I also finished the game. Nice boss level; I like how you turned puzzle mechanics into a boss fight.
@yetman Glad you enjoyed the end boss! Next time, I may take your advice and use circular hitboxes, it would problably make for smoother collision detection.
So simple but so addictive... I love this idea. Overall game is so lovely. I like it
very good! simple, intuitive and very fun game to play. The retro graphics are very agreeable and the progressive difficulty is very well implemented. Congratulations!
@timbelion and @alysson-moraes Thanks! So glad you two enjoyed our game!
@purrfexionator
Your game idea id similar to mine. Check it out: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/void-era
@timbelion I just did! Well done! You can find the comment on your game.
This game's pretty good, especially for your first Ludum Dare. I like how you sort of have to ration out the pickups so that you'll have enough left over to make it to the end. I enjoyed the variety of mechanics on display, but I feel that they were all introduced too quickly at the very begging, meaning the rest of the game lacked new mechanics to introduce. Instead of introducing all of the mechanics at the very beginning, it would be better to spread out their introduction so that the player is continually introduced to new mechanics throughout the game. I think this would help with the game's pacing. I did enjoy the final boss as it was a nice change of pace from the rest of the game while still incorporating the main mechanics. The visuals were simple yet effective, although the pixel art looked a bit blurry on my screen. There's probably an anti-aliasing option in your engine that you should turn off to fix that. The sound effects were good, but it was a bit disappointing not to hear any music. Despite some flaws, this is a solid game, especially for your first Ludum Dare. Nice work!
@superpokeunicorn Glad you enjoyed! I actually thought about how the mechanics were introduced towards the end of the competition, and how it could be improved, but by then it was too late to change it. As for the software, nope. No anti-aliasing option, I checked. and it also didn't appear blurry on my screen. Also, nobody else really complained about it, so maybe it's exclusive to certain computers? Not really sure. I used a really outdated version of the software to make the game, so maybe it has something to do with that. I chose to leave the game without music, not only because music is hard, but also because I liked the sort of old school vibe that it gave off with the only sounds being blips and bloops. I'm happy you appreciated our first attempt at a Ludum Dare game!
This is really enjoyable! While it is simple, its well executed and has a cohesive feel to it overall. While the balance could use some tweaking, the game is a fun, complete experience! Very well done! Can't wait to see what you do for your next Ludum Dare! :)
@dylan-shumway Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!
Great fun little game! nice and addictive! congrats
@chronicbite Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!
I really wish I could play using WASD in addition to the Arrows keys and I think making an HTML version of the game would be very appropriate for the size and simplicity of the game play. Theme is very well execute it and the game itself polished as I never really encounter any bugs. I would recommend maybe starting with the void being shrinking slower at level 1 and progressively increasing in speed in the later levels but the items that expand the level expand them even further. I think that builds the sense of desperation and thrill that would give this game a bigger edge :D
@purrfexionator A great addictive game it is. I too wish to have WASD as the inputs. Overall nice simple yet good implementation
@prodigalson Hi! Yeah, we thought about using WASD as an additional control scheme, but I didn't really have the time to implement it. (also I'm lazy) I also feel like this would have worked well on HTML, but unfortunately the game engine I used to make it is super outdated, and it doesn't let you export to HTML. The void moves at different speeds throughout the game to compliment each level and make everything an appropriate difficulty, but it never went too fast, and if we tried a little harder we probably could have made some levels that would work with a higher speed void, but we only had 72 hours, after all. Thanks for the feedback!
@abhis1kadian Hi! During development we considered using WASD as an additional control scheme, but we didn't have much time and also I'm lazy. I'm glad you enjoyed the overall finished product, and thanks for the feedback!
Just played your game - thanks for submitting!
@firesplash-entertainment No problem! Thank you for playing!
I liked this game a lot. Couldn't stop playing it until I killed the final boss. Good use of the theme and negative space. Good level design. The animation of the playable character could be better. I liked the sound effects and the vibe set by the font and the black and white palette. The final boss was a pleasant surprise. For some reason, it remembers me my days playing on Windows 95. Great job!
You guys already played our game: The legend of the looter and the incredible backpack that never runs out of space, so we can't do anything but thank you. 」(￣▽￣」)
@mapedorr Thanks! Glad you liked it! The sort of minimalistic wacky 2 frame character animation isn't for everyone, but I think it works well, and fits the sort of old-school vibe of everything. I did play your game, and I loved it. Well done on your game, and thanks for your feedback on mine!
This was a lot of fun! The tutorial was good at teaching as you go without too many words, and it's nice that you can choose to skip it. I thought levels 9 and 13 were really cool that they seem so hard until the "ohhh, aha, duh!" moment. And I like how you were able to make a boss out of the same mechanic; I didn't expect that! I would have liked a little more to the graphics; I think that could make it easier to look at.
@nandelind Thanks! Glad you liked the game! If this is made into a full game, the main change in graphics will likely be different colors,giving it more of an atari 2600 vibe.
I thought this was really well done! Simple idea, and an impressive amount of levels. The boss fight at the end was a cool surprise. My only complaint is the hitbox on the player seemed wonky. Sometimes I was blocked by a cannon or something when visually the player wasn't even touching the cannon. Otherwise, though, I enjoyed it.
Wow, great entry, I'm loving it so far! While the concept may not be super original and bar a couple of "arrgh" moments because of the collision detection, it's really well executed. I really like the visuals and the fitting sounds that accompany it, but the level design is the key here. Levels are challenging and require some timing to avoid those ***** cannon balls (although in terms of progression sometimes latter levels felt easier than the previous ones).
You've also packed a lot of content to keep us entertained for a while, congrats for an amazing work!
@rusty-bailey Thanks, glad to hear you enjoyed our game! Yeah, collision detection was wonky, the only way I could get it to work was my making the player full tile collision, but obviously this led to wonky hitboxes. Thanks for playing our game!
@ithildin Glad you like the entry! Yeah, hitboxes are wonky, mainly due to me having to use full tile collision to get movement working properly, and looking back they problably should have been more accurate. Difficulty progression isn't perfect, it was actually one of the things we struggled with, but I'm glad you enjoyed the overall result!
This was really cool! It reminded me of some old Atari games I played as a kid, but with more mechanics. Thanks for sharing your game with my stream awhile back. Your game was played around 1:23 into this vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/299925225
Nice game!
@ursagames Thanks for checking out the game, and I'm glad you enjoyed it! The engine was pretty outdated, it was Gamemaker 8.1, since you asked in the stream. I wasn't there when it was played, but i'm glad you sent me the link so i could see it later! Also, you were one level away from the boss. Just thought I'd point that out.
@hellsquirrel Thanks!
Simple graphics, challenging game. I included it in my compilation video series of the Ludum Dare 42 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/F8Gtbi3loPc
@jupiter-hadley Thanks so much for covering our game! I submitted it to the spreadsheet a while back, i'm glad you finally got to it!