Foon →
Ludum Dare Explorer →
LD43 →
Bob the Reaper
Bob the Reaper
By flashviper
View on ldjam.com
| Category | Rank | Score | Count |
|
|---|
| Overall | 646 | 3.28 | 42 | |
| Fun | 677 | 3.06 | 41 | |
| Innovation | 453 | 3.22 | 40 | |
| Theme | 476 | 3.52 | 41 | |
| Graphics | 786 | 2.96 | 43 | |
| Humor | 380 | 3.11 | 38 | |
| Mood | 725 | 3.05 | 39 | |
Comments
Neat idea! I like the concept of a "cursed form" that you only have a limited amount of time with. It's evident that you put a lot of thought into the level design, with how you slowly teach the player new mechanics through the obstacles.
There were some things that confused me though. For instance, I felt it kind of strange that the creatures you could kill with the Reaper to gain health are also used to complete a level. So you can essentially soft-lock yourself out of beating a level if you just kill everything in sight, and it's not exactly clear that that can happen until it's too late.
Other than that though, I like the art style and the puzzle-esque feel to the game!
@coleslaughter Thanks for your feedback! You are right, the sacrifice mechanic isn't very intuitive, which is what I get for starting the project with a half baked idea. But I'm glad you liked the level design. It's probably my favorite part of the game, which isn't saying much considering how the game turned out.
budark
2018-12-05 01:08
Have you worked alone in this project? Really nice and really good game idea man. You have my 5 stars
@budark Whoa! Thanks for the compliments. And yes, I did work alone, and the only assets I didn't make were the sounds, some of which I edited a bit.
blarfnip
2018-12-07 01:32
I like the idea of two forms that compliment each other, but the controls were a bit hard to figure out.
The art was charming and I liked how you balanced the swapping by making the coins obtainable by only one of the two forms. The puzzles and platforms were nice, but I found the movements were a bit too "floaty" in my opinion. Great job overall!
@blarfnip Thanks! I agree, the controls are very unintuitive, even after being redesigned about 17 or 18 billion times. It is playable in a (slightly) more intuitive form on an Xbox controller if you have one available, but if you have any ideas for how to map the controls to a keyboard, I'd like to hear them.
@legavroche Thank you for your feedback! I did notice the 'floatyness' (if that's a word) in the player's gravity, but I didn't think it was a big enough problem to fix before shipping.
Anyway, I really appreciate you both stopping by!
lyrcaxis
2018-12-07 05:01
Nice idea. Few quick improvements: - Human should be able to detach the rope. - Level manager should check for how many uh.. cows are active in the level before changing. Got in many situations when I either got transported to another level by sacrificng just one cow (on 3rd attempt or so), or sacrificed all of them and nothing happened.
Nice idea. I think that the reaper form should not be killed by obstacles (but still could not pass through them, that would be too easy) that kill you in human form: you already sacrifice you health when you are in this form. Other ideas were already given, especially by Lyrcaxis
wevel
2018-12-07 10:32
Interesting game, the controls feel a bit slow, but I like having the two forms that you can switch between.
@lyrcaxis Thank you for your ideas! I did think about having the player be able to detach from the rope, and I honestly have no idea where that idea went. Maybe I discarded it because it would allow you to play some levels without ever switching to the reaper form, or maybe I just forgot. IDK, but its a good idea for a quality of life improvement. The level manager is a little crazy too. Since I can manually set how many whateverthecowthingsarecalled are required to end the level, I originally varied the number from level to level. I thought I went back through and changed the numbers required to 3 in every level, but I might be wrong. Another problem could be that the whateverthecowthingsarecalled have 2 colliders on them: one for detecting ground collision, and one for detecting a collision with your scythe. This could cause the portal to trigger twice in one sacrifice. As for just sacrificing one cow thing or all of them, then your guess is probably better than mine.\
Whew! That was a long way to say that I basically have no clue what is causing that problem. I'll look into solving it for the post jam version. But thanks for your suggestions, and have a good time playing other people's games!
Sorry for the double post, the publish button lagged out...
@vivien-fargette I did think about not damaging the reaper with spikes. It does feel kind of weird that you are literally death, and yet you can still die. Maybe I can do something similar to the coins, where some obstacles can only damage you in human form, and vice versa.
@wevel I agree, the controls (especially the gravity) feel a little too slow. But I'm glad you like the idea!
lyrcaxis
2018-12-08 01:05
> Whew! That was a long way to say that I basically have no clue what is causing that problem. I’ll look into solving it for the post jam version. But thanks for your suggestions, and have a good time playing other people’s games!
@flashviper lmao. If you're using Unity you can use `bool isLevelActive = FindObjectsOfType().Length>0`.
lyrcaxis
2018-12-08 01:05
also, since it is a bug, i believe it's way within the rules to update it
@lyrcaxis I'll give your method a look. The main problem I can see here is that in some levels, you don't need to get all the cows. In fact, maybe I need to make it more clear in the game: you only need three cows to finish a level. If you didn't notice this, that's fine, I definitely did not do a good job of conveying it. Maybe if I have all of the remaining cows explode once you have delivered 3, this will come across as more clear? Let me know what you think.
lyrcaxis
2018-12-08 03:31
If it was up to me I would just specify the maximum amount of cows that are allowed to exist in the level before triggering the change. Making them explode still sounds good..
Also... give me karma :P
@lyrcaxis Consider the karma given! :)
lyrcaxis
2018-12-08 03:51
Haha I meant the little hearts you're supposed to give when you like the feedback people give you :P
They're on the bottom right of the comments
meldrian
2018-12-08 22:12
Had a blast figuring out how this works :D a nice little plattformer with a twist. Playing as 'the reaper' is kinda cool, even if it's draining the healthbar (but it's all about sacrifices, right? ;-) ) Would love to see more of this. Good job!
@meldrian Thanks for the feedback! You're right, it does take a while to figure out how everything works, which is one of the main problems with the controls... :P Anyway, I apreciate your rating, and wish you a good time rating other games!
I had fun playing your game :)
Loved the idea and how to theme was applied to the game. Got a little confused on the first 3 levels, didn't know you had to sacrifice the animals to the portal, and when I knew you had to do that, got stuck again because I didn't know you sometimes had to sacrifice more than once to advance. Other than this, it is a solid and fun game. Well done!
@mobiledev I agree, as discussed above, there are some bugs that sometimes allow you to complete a level with only one animal. I'm glad you liked the rest of the game though!
Good game. Pretty interesting idea. Additional mechanics and weapons can be added to the game. Spawn other mobs and npc. + Add different reaper skills (different skills depending on the shape)
worai
2018-12-10 20:49
Seriously struggled with the controls in the beginning, but it's incredably satisfying to figure it out :D The design is cute :3
@sumathbrod Thank you for the suggestions! I don't know how I could implement new weapons into the game without breaking the flow, but mobs and NPCs I was thinking of doing anyway.
@worai Sory about the controls. I've mentioned it before, but they are really bad, especially on keyboard. On an XBox controller they are a little better, but not much.
sthor726
2018-12-11 01:33
Nice Work! overall the game felt pretty solid! it would be nice if the health bar moved down at a constant rate though instead of doing big leaps of damage
@sthor726 The health bar does look kind of glitchy. I thought about making it decrease smoothly but didn't have enough time to implement that. Thanks for the suggestion!
raphael
2018-12-11 09:42
Controls are pretty wonky, do I have to switch to the reaper form to unhook myself from the ceiling or did I miss something? Being able to hold a zorg and transform at the same time seems to yield strange behaviour. I managed to throw a zorg into the portal via strange means several times but it didn't trigger the level ending, not sure whether that's good since it plays the animation of the portal being used but doesn't bring me to the next level.
Overall there is a lot to improve but its not a bad game
Funny concept. Controls are a bit strange. Cool mechanics of switching between reaper and bob. I could really see this turning into a full length platformer.
syrok
2018-12-11 23:07
it's cool for a solo project, the idea is very good, the graphics are cool, the gameplay is intuitive, sometimes there is not enough time to let go of the rope, but it still remains a very good level of the project, thank you
@raphael Yes, you do have to switch to a reaper to unhook yourself. I thought it was a cool way to tie the two mechanics of grappling and transformation together, but if you think it feels awkward then that's good to know. The portal does bug out a lot, and for that I apologize. However, I am glad you can see at least some fun beneath all of the game.
@eatatjoes The controls are really strange. If you have any ideas, let me know. I was thinking that this would make a nice full length platformer, maybe tied together with a story about Bob trying to regain his humanity from the giant face god?
@syrok Wow! Someone who thinks the gameplay is intuitive. (IDK, maybe I'm associating gameplay with controls)
Thank you all for your time and feedback!