FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD42 → A New Kingdom

A New Kingdom

By 2lol555 and WaSPie

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6473.3338
Fun4563.3638
Innovation10822.6037
Theme8223.2238
Graphics9162.9438
Audio4823.0938
Humor4842.8027
Mood3413.4037

Comments

dylanbr 2018-08-13 14:45

When I press left (a key) it gets stuck and I keep going left until I am sadly overcome by the lava ;-(

2lol555 2018-08-13 14:49

@dylanbr What do you mean? Could you please explain your problem in more detail?

cannonperson 2018-08-13 15:00

Interesting game, i like the overall look and feel of it. I can definitely see potential here. It however gets frustrating the way the lava rubberbands so fast and without any notice. You end up jumping to another platform, and suddenly the lava has sped up and is covering the platform you thought you could reach. Perhaps make the rubber band a bit less effective, and instead increase the speed of the lava flow? perhaps also make it start a bit further down so you have time to orient yourself when you start the game for the first time.

dylanbr 2018-08-13 15:01

If I go right by pressing "d" it works fine. When I press the I go right when I let go I stop.

However if I press "a" it goes left, but when I stop pressing I just keep going left without stopping.

Jump seems to work of too but can't really play much without going left.

I'm playing on a Mac in Chrome if that helps.

All I have to do to reproduce the problem on my side is press "a" once and then I just keep going left -- nothing else required.

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:05

@dylanbr I cannot seem to see why that would happen :( The game should run consistently on all HTML5 enabled browsers no matter what OS. It has so far worked on 7 PCs tested with 3 different browsers including Chrome, Opera, and Mozilla. Check if the issue is not on your end. Maybe a program altering input?

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:08

Thanks, for the feedback @cannonperson :) I can adjust it a bit. The reason for the quick slingshot effect on the lava is to push the urgency and the "Running out of space" aspect of the game. When the slingshot was not in place, the player quickly outran the lava and it was nowhere in sight.

donitz 2018-08-13 15:10

I feel the message of this game is: "Don't help people".

Joking aside, it's a fun game! It's actually quite a challenge to safe 25 persons. The graphics are good, the camera feels smooth and the music is quite pleasing.

dylanbr 2018-08-13 15:15

@2lol555 I loaded it in an incognito tab and it works. Maybe one of my plugins triggering off the issue.

Anyhow, if anyone else hits this issue, try incognito (or a different browser).

drunkardwolf 2018-08-13 15:15

Nice audio and art work. Gameplay is solid, but I feel like it would have been nice if the player had a head start before the lava started moving up. Solid entry though, well done :)

trozen 2018-08-13 15:15

I found this game very hard, but fun! I quickly realized that you needed to abuse the fall faster (s key) in order to platform quicker.

This was a good use of theme, and I found the plot pretty funny. What are all the members of this tribe doing *inside* a volcano?

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:18

@trozen Living there of course :D

Thanks for the feedback :)

dylanbr 2018-08-13 15:19

Now that I can play I'm enjoying the game. I like the urgency of it and agree with @donitz - those other people are on their own 😂

One small suggestion is to reduce the jump height a bit or have the jump end when you let go of the jump key. If I jump and there is no platform to stop me I feel like I'm losing a lot of time waiting to start falling.

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:20

@drunkardwolf Thanks for the feedback :) If you notice, the lava slows down when it gets close. This also stops the point counter up in the corner. When the fast sling effect is applied, the points add up faster in return.

antti-haavikko 2018-08-13 15:20

@dylanbr Mac Chrome ran just fine for me.

Jumping felt quite inconsistent to me. Controlling the height of the jump was way too hard to be useful and even when trying to do full jumps, sometimes it did weird baby jumps and I felt to my doom. Also could use some classic safety net action of allowing the player to jump for few frames even after running off the edge of a platform. Also, same technique could be used for buffering the next jump while still midair to help when the player is hitting the jump key few frames too early. And now after writing the whole thing, re-checking what I wrote I went for another run to find out that you can actually hold down the jump button and it will jump as soon as the character hits the ground so you can scratch that whole mention about the jump buffering. But even so it sometimes did those weird baby jumps.

Arrow keys as alternatives would have been nice. I'm not left handed so just dedicating my main hand for just pressing jump button seems inefficient. It's a preference for sure but adding alt keys is fast as heck. Or better yet, stick to using Unity's own input system so even controllers would work with 0% additional effort.

It was quite damn hard. Dunno if there is more levels but it could have started off a bit easier to ease the player into the gameplay. 80% of the people saved (especially so if it was only just the first level) seems quite a lot to me. I completely forgot about the key to fall faster right after the intro (because it's so rarely seen mechanic) so that made it even harder but that's totally my own fault. :smile:

Anyways, good job!

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:21

Good job sorting it out @dylanbr :)

superpokeunicorn 2018-08-13 15:21

This is a fairly simple game, but there a lot of small touches that really elevate it. I like the fast fall mechanic, as it adds an extra layer of depth to the movement and contributes to the fast paced, manic feeling of the game. Having optional people to save is a smart design decision, as it creates a tension between going slow to help the people and going fast to avoid the lava. The color pallet really helps to contribute towards towards this hot feeling and the up tempo music makes me want to go fast. Even though the premise and gameplay are pretty basic, all of these small elements help reinforce the the fast paces, hectic tone of the game. Overall, this is a solid entry. Good work!

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:34

@antti-haavikko Thanks for the extensive feedback. The baby jumps are a bit of an issue I tried fixing time and time again but it still kept on appearing. I think unity has some weird way of handling Forces applied to an object on the frame it stopped. The current behavior is as if the player had not stopped on the moment the jump was applied even though I am checking for Y movement in the code. With my limited skills, I just scrapped fixing this bug and moved on to other aspects of polishing.

I also added arrow key alt options (Will upload shortly), even though it won't be displayed in the intro tutorial because WaSPie had to leave already.

Thanks for the awesome feedback!

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:35

@dylanbr The S key should help you a lot with your problem :)

2lol555 2018-08-13 15:37

Thanks @superpokeunicorn for the feedback :)

antti-haavikko 2018-08-13 16:20

Oh it's an easy fix for the jumps then, just do `body.velocity = new Vector2(body.velocity.x, 0);` to reset the vertical speed before adding the force. And if you're using continuous forces instead of impulses, gotta remember to do them on `FixedUpdate` instead of `Update`.

tybantarnusa 2018-08-13 16:26

This game is challenging. I get it until the collecting fish part (I think people only did the lava part and get frustrated xD). And I like the story. For the feedback, I think the physics is sometimes weird, sometimes I got a very low jump that I was not able to progress. The control is kind of awkward, I think arrow keys would be better. Overall, a good game.

proud.png

And I'm so proud with this achievement XD

ngupsilon 2018-08-13 16:33

Waaa it's really hard x)

Still graphs are lovely and music is really cool! It could be good to maybe have a few seconds without the lava rising at the start of the game to be able to test the physic of the jump?

Big GG anyway o/

2lol555 2018-08-13 16:52

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

@antti-haavikko Thanks, added it and it reduced the small jumps drastically but one or two sometimes appear.

@tybantarnusa Thanks for taking the time to get further in the game :) I hopefully reduced the small jumps in the newest update.

@ngupsilon Added a 1.5 second delay before lava starts rising.

gord10ahmet 2018-08-13 18:04

Such a nice game with a great idea. I don't know if that's only me, but sometimes he didn't jump when I was running at edges. It felt like a bug to me. You don't read input in FixedUpdate, do you?

2lol555 2018-08-13 18:25

@gord10ahmet No. Unfortunately when I try to rewrite the code to check on fixed update something just does not work right. Sometimes the player just stays glued to the platform which does not happen when using Update. I think it might just be some sloppy programming on my part but I don't have enough time to fix it now :(

Thanks for the feedback though :)

themonsterfromthedeep 2018-08-13 18:49

Man. This is a hard game. I never beat the first level -- one single time, I got twenty people, but then I died.

I think the controls just need to be better. I'm not entirely sure *how* to make them better, but my two primary sources of death were a) trying to jump, but running off the edge of the platform by accident, and b) pushing down but missing the platform and going straight into lava.

I think the main thing that would help is if pushing down wasn't necessary. I think the best way to do that would be to reduce the jump height, and then perhaps give the player a double jump. This would result in better control, I think.

I like the overall atmosphere of the game. It seems pretty polished, aside from some small glitches with the jumps that happen sometimes.

2lol555 2018-08-13 19:06

Thanks to all the movement feedback you guys provided!

I have made the down key (Fall faster) a lot less mandatory to use. The player now starts falling faster and feels less floaty but if you need a higher jump you need to hold down the jump key!

(Uploading in the next few minutes)

p1nkmaria 2018-08-13 19:16

This is the kind of game that you just can't stop playing! I really like it! Well done :D

2lol555 2018-08-13 19:19

Thanks @p1nkmaria :)

jepdraper 2018-08-13 19:32

I really like the Atari 2600 feel of the game. From the graphics to the sound effects and the music. I love the art, the music and the sound design in general. Great work. :heart:

Was kind of frustrating but then you were going for easy to play but hard to master and I feel you did really well with that. So great job. Keep it up!

2lol555 2018-08-13 19:44

Thanks @jepdraper :)

yukki 2018-08-14 03:29

It's simple and addicting. I especially liked the mood the music gave. Overall nice work!

2lol555 2018-08-14 05:03

Thanks @yukki :)

metju 2018-08-14 07:00

A very cool and a simple game! I enjoyed playing it!

2lol555 2018-08-14 09:51

Thanks @metju :)

nattress 2018-08-14 11:13

Game is cool and difficult enough to be fun, love that you can press s to go down quicker.

2lol555 2018-08-14 11:34

Thanks @nattress :)

paprigames 2018-08-14 11:44

Simple but fun game! It was a nice surprise that the game didnt end after first level :D

jgower0502 2018-08-14 12:03

Fun game, very challenging but rewarding at the same time, links to the theme well and looks good, great job!

2lol555 2018-08-14 12:41

Thanks for playing @pabricka @jgower0502 :)

corbak 2018-08-14 14:16

Not very inovative in the concept but well produced, smooth controls and a cute setting and fits the theme perfectly. Well done overall!

yulia 2018-08-14 15:03

ahahahahahahha....nice work, I love it

l-s 2018-08-14 15:08

Oh my... I died a lot of times but I couldn't stop playing. Good job!

batlordz 2018-08-14 21:24

A little funny game! Always want to make a better score. Nice job ;-)

zicboy 2018-08-14 23:24

Great game to pass some time.

awix 2018-08-15 07:44

A good game idea, the music should be improved. The graphics are good. Try our game too, maybe you'll like it)

guladam 2018-08-15 09:00

I liked the feel of the game. The intro and the art style is really charming. :) The first level was really challenging to pass (at least for me), but I loved it. Nothing too innovative, but executed perfectly.

One thing that would improve the gameplay for me, if the jump through the platforms when he is below them. ^_^

Nice job anyways!

2lol555 2018-08-15 11:46

Thanks for playing our game everyone!

@corbak Thanks, the main goal we had set in mind was to make an enjoyable experience, and the theme was one of those that didn't hit home very well... We had a bit of trouble thinking of something and settled on this because it was simple to execute but pushed us as we are both beginners to game making.

@yulia Thanks for playing!

@l-s I'm glad you found it addicting!

@batlordz Thanks for the comment!

@zicboy Thanks for spending the time!

@awix Thanks for the feedback. Yes definitely, the music was basically my first attempt to make something for a game. I will try and get better at it!

@guladam Yes that was a thought I had too but didn't really know where to start. Now I may have a way in mind but it is after the deadline so I cannot change the game further. Definitely, something I will look into when I make the first patch after review period is over. Thanks for playing!

One more thank you to everyone who had the time and played our game!

mike-inprinciple 2018-08-15 20:04

I had trouble jumping off of platforms when I wanted to. I would recommend you look into tricks to make the jumping mechanic more intuitive to execute. I though the standard non-charged jump was sufficient, and even excessively high to cover most distance. In fact, I often felt like I was hitting platforms above me.

miggyg 2018-08-15 20:28

The game was overall enjoyable! The saving people mechanic adds a nice challenge! The art and music fit well together! Good job!

nufflee 2018-08-16 16:57

Cool game, good job! I'm no good at these retro games but I enjoyed this one! Lava looked really cool too.

nerzal 2018-08-16 16:58

You basically had the same idea as we had :D (flooding the level) Well done! :)

avavt 2018-08-16 18:53

Hey there, I'm the guy who asked for multiplayer tester before the jam :)

About your game, what I liked: - Simple, light-hearted theme: the story is easy to sympathy with, and very "pure". I can see my son playing games like this when he's a bit older. - Catchy tune. idk about other people but I find it funny, which is what you truly really need when you die for the 123617826948124 time. - Hand-crafted levels. For games like this it's easy to see randomized level (because it's quicker), but random spawn platforms feel cold and machinery.

What I didn't like: - The control: I see other player already mentioned it, but some times the character doesn't jump while expected, leading to frustrating death. - After the first level, it looks like I've finished the game (the first dialog looks like a "the end" screen). Only when I came back to this page did I realize there's more. - I think the 2nd and 3rd level is easier than 1st level? I think there should be something new here, since player have grown a lot after finishing level 1.

2lol555 2018-08-19 15:52

Thanks for the feedback @avavt :)

lastleaf 2018-08-20 05:23

Cool! The audio is very nice! I love the art of the prologue. In comparison, the in-game graphics are nice enough but can be improved. What I should complain about is the control, making this game difficult from the most beginning.