pwroff 2019-04-29 11:18
Got me a while to understand how to play it. Overall I like the concept! Havent seen many similar games for this theme.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD44 → Rising Pyramid
By boltkey
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 215 | 3.40 | 29 | |
| Fun | 150 | 3.44 | 29 | |
| Innovation | 81 | 3.61 | 28 | |
| Theme | 453 | 2.56 | 26 | |
| Graphics | 454 | 2.51 | 29 | |
| Humor | 330 | 2.25 | 22 | |
| Mood | 378 | 2.76 | 27 |
Got me a while to understand how to play it. Overall I like the concept! Havent seen many similar games for this theme.
Nice entry - was a bit unsure as to the mechanics of it
I played it after the instructions were added. It still took me a few tries to really understand how to play. I may have read the instructions too fast.
I find the mechanics are well thought out. I like the progression: One tile dispenser starts. It's slow. You cash in matches (I like that you chose when to cash in), and buy new dispensers (1-4). The new dispensers are slow, you cash in matches, and speed up those dispensers.
At best, I only made it half way up. It's a good challenge.
Very interesting game! I like that the mines become slower so you have to hurry up a big in the beginning, deliberately making bad combos to get some quick money. Very good idea. It seems to be just enough time to be able to make it after several tries. Quite hard, but it makes you want to try again!
@martomate Wow, your score is absolutely amazing! Is it legit, or did it glitch out or something? I thought my 490 was good, lol. How big was your biggest group?
EDIT: So it turns out I somehow forgot to reset score and money on reset. Fixed.
Also, @martomate, I will have to adjust your score as it was added up over several games. (sorry)
A bit of a hard concept to wrap my head around.. don't see much of a connection to the theme
A challenging game! Even after reading the instructions it took me a couple minutes to process the mechanics but once i did, the game became fun! Maybe adding some better art and adding sound effects can really benefit your game but as it stands, its still a very solid entry! Great job!
@Lubaka Thanks for feedback! It lacks a lot to be an actual game, and based on the feedback, I will probably end up properly finishing it up. I simply ran out of time as I began making this game 9 hours before the deadline...
@generalanimal You are right, there is a bit of a stretch. Initial idea was trading slaves. I abandoned that, and wanted to make it about managing slaves building your pyramid. Then, I stuck with the pyramid theme.
Great Game!!!
Interesting game, though admittedly I got a little confused while playing. I think that adding in some music would have made for a better experience. That and some sound effects for matching colors.
quite difficult to understand, I had to come back read here to understand the different parts of the playground;
then I found it slow at start, (not possible to accelerate the first mine ?) but after unlocking the mines I found it too quick :D
Mind you, my comments are not unkind: the game is surprisingly addictive, well done! 90 sec it a bit quick, even after playing many times and grasping the keys, maybe 120sec for a first level, then shorten the time for difficulty. :clap:
Super difficult to understand. But lost track of time once I got the hang of it. Really solid once you get past the learning curve.
great idea !
Cool game! I love that it is a challenge. Often I see games that are not well balanced, they give you too much time/life/power but this one has a really nice learning curve. Really basic mechanics that make a really good game in combination. I only managed to get a score of 102 even after trying out different strategies so I wonder how you can even reach a score of 200. Is this legit or was this from an earlier test version or something like that? If it is legit, I wonder what your strategy is.
The graphics are fine and serve their purpose, a little sound would have been great :-)
I see that the emphasis here was put on mechanics and balance and that really paid off. This may not look or sound very polished but that gameplay really is, I feel. Great job on that!
Keep up the good work, following you to see your future LD games!
@gonutz
Thanks! I find the game design to be the main part of any game, and that's what I put the priority on.
Glad you enjoyed it and congratulations on finishing it!
In the scores, it turned out that I didn't reset score or money on reset, so some of my scores were probably not legit. I just cleaned up the database a bit.
I just played several runs, and could get around 150 consistently with 261 high.
I think it is important to really rush the opening of the first mine. Eg. place first two blocks, cash one double and two singles and open the second mine right away.
You obviously don't want to have hanging blocks, especially if there are many blocks yet to come from that mine. This requires some planning ahead and you should know exactly where the stone goes the moment it arrives for all the mines.
Sometimes there are situations when you want to keep the stone ready for a while, but you should check that there are not many stones left to be delivered from that mine.
Once you have all the mines up and running, you want to start building your main combo. If you can get a combo of 10 symbols at the end, that's 110 points extra (if you don't use the money gained from it).
Also, some macro management is important, as you ideally want to dry out all your mines at once. Upgrade speed of the mines that will take the longest to deliver all the stones and don't just blindly upgrade the mine from which you need the current stone the most.
designed well. i played 3 times and i liked it very much idea is interesting. The way you need to the switch between slots and make a pyramid is also cool. nice entry for LD 44... good luck.
Really fun to play. Honestly when I saw the screenshot and read the description I was like "well, this is going to be boring". And it really surprised me. Yes the graphics is bad, there is no audio, no polish and not really much connection to the theme. But the gameplay is really really fun, I kept playing it for quite a long time until I have beaten it (I think that so far I have play your game for longest amount of time). The only issue I had was the very short time limit. I had basically 0 time to think and I was just randomly placing blocks and cashing in any combos that poped out randomly. I can imagine this to be really nice successful casual game but with no or very long time limit.
Holy crap man, this was an awesome game. From the initial looks of it it seemed like you just threw together a bunch of random ideas, but when you play it they all work together in tight unison. It's really rare for me to stumble upon a speedbased puzzle game I like (my fave is still Tetris Attack with its high skill ceiling). I could see a LOT of depth to your game where players plan ahead different routes based on the 4 blocks that are entering their space and trying to quickly maximize the output in their head. Also like you said, I loved how there was a macro element to it. I definitely haven't played a puzzle game where I had to manage multiple resource node production vs combo points like that so it added another element of frenzy to this game. One of the most innovative games I've played in any LD, I'm glad you didn't let the loose themeing affect your decisions.
Bah I can't beat your score, so close!!! FYI I can't input my full name cuz I have a P in it lol. I'm convinced the next level strategy is to build 2 chains, 1 on each side as much as you can while juggling upgrades. It's super hard though I've come close to the top a lot and just die at the last second. I want to reiterate, this game is brilliant and you should definitely look into taking it further. If not for the graphics I'd give this a perfect 5.
@peachtreeoath Thanks for playing and congratulations! If you manage to beat my highscore, ping me so we can start a little high score battle!
The high score is embarrasingly bugged, and thanks for pointing that out. I just had to get it working with 30 minutes left before the deadline.
I really do hope to make a post compo polished version. I just have absurdly many projects right now that I have open and would love to finish, but school and life get in the way :smile:.
I can't finish it!! Will have to take a pause from it.
Really good game I think, right in my alley. I feel like the upgrade controls should be improved somehow, not sure how. Maybe even move the controls completely to the keyboard - place by arrows like tetris (left right to move, up/down to swap), space to drop, 1-4 to select, shift+1-4 to upgrade.. only the conversion could end up on the mouse? Maybe it can even be played without that mechanic, not sure. But that's just me guessing, you probably know better.
The visuals are not that great, but they are clear enough and certainly don't take anything from the game. So that's good. I did not get it right away after reading the tutorial, but could play it a after few tries (took me a few more to figure out I could rotate the blocks).
Overall a really good entry, albeit a bit niche.
Hey BoltKey! Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/421747576?t=01h49m45s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin