wekaj 2019-05-01 06:36
Cool game, there were some creative levels! It took me way too long to work out what to do on the long fading block path one :P If I would change anything, it would probably be those super unforgiving spike hitboxes.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD44 → Wu-Wei
By luckydaisy
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 632 | 3.35 | 40 | |
| Fun | 506 | 3.32 | 40 | |
| Innovation | 950 | 2.63 | 40 | |
| Theme | 1128 | 2.14 | 40 | |
| Mood | 383 | 3.48 | 41 |
Cool game, there were some creative levels! It took me way too long to work out what to do on the long fading block path one :P If I would change anything, it would probably be those super unforgiving spike hitboxes.
This game appears to be playing in a resolution equal to my monitor (1920 x 1080), but it isn't actually running in full screen mode, so between my window's border and gamejolt's overlay, it doesnt fit and I have both horizontal and vertical scrollbars. On level 8, the saws movement pattern is not obvious, and I need to follow them very closely. I keep clearing the desired blocks, making it to the right side and back, but they kill me just before I fall to the star. It would be nice if they went further left and didnt go as far right. Music is a bit repetitive. For the minotaur, I don't see any potion to drink. I didnt see an option to kill him. The hitboxes for me and for obstacles could have been a bit smaller. In general, levels required a lot of precise running and jumping.
In general I like to be able to move and jump with different hands (so arrows and Z as optional controls). You could mention Mouse, Space, Escape in the description (for controls). Escape goes back to the title screen instead of the level select screen for some reason.
I went back to the rat and killed it, and then back to the minotaur and it attacks me, but it didnt kill me (and I lost the ability to move).
The levels frustrated me a bit because the hazards weren't always clear before they are approached like they are in the beginning. There's a lot of occasions where you have to either be very lucky or die a couple times in a level to learn the layout and hazards. This isn't a bad thing completely. I still replayed the level using my newly acquired knowledge from dying.
Another frustrating thing to me was that there seemed to be slight lag occasionally, which would not have been much of an issue if it didn't add a slight delay to my jump that I had to account for.
Got to level 7, I couldnt beat it because the saws would always hit me on my way back to the goal.
I do enjoy the way the game introduces new mechanics and uses them in thought-provoking ways. There always seemed to be something new to spice things up. The art reminds me of GBA games too, thats pretty cool.
Cool game, some fun puzzles.
Good work, I managed to beat all 20 levels! When I beat the game I had never seen the final sawblade zone fully so it was awesome getting to the end scrambling on the fly.
The music and art were on point. Both were subtle but detailed and fit really well with the philosophical theme of the game.
The main place for improvement is that some of the jumps can be hard in a frustrating way.
And a bug: On certain levels you can go off of the left or right of the screen and can't escape or do anything there. You get softlocked.
@gentel I'm really happy to hear someone was able to get through all 20 levels! I know the jumps are pretty tight from doing rough QA myself. I made a note to update level 14 on the next post-Jam release (believe this is the level you can run left and fall off)
Awesome game! Great artwork style, theme, level design, and fun gameplay. Would have liked to hear some more original music or SFX, If you're ever in need of such a thing I'd be happy to help. Looking to build my game audio portfolio and collaborate with others. Cheers!
Nice!
Controls and graphics are good. I didn't really get what the rat and minotaur were for, however they added to the mysterious atmosphere - which was reinforced by the great haunting music.
Too bad, I got stuck: I fell down outside the level, trying to dodge a sawblade (the level where you must cross a corridor right-to-left and jump above one sawblade and get the star in a tiny hole: went too far to the left).
Pro-tip #1: a snappy sound effect for jumping and a "pop" sound effect for landing will make the controls feel more responsive.
Pro-tip #2: it's hard to get perfect physics in so little time, so it's always good to have a restart/suicide key (in most games, the 'R' key).
Nice game! Levels are very well done, and the controls are very snappy as well. Great work!
Very nice level design! Good job!
Some fun puzzles, i quit on level 8. But its a cool game, with some improvements will be a great game.
Really good entry! The art looks rather polished and the pixel style and color scheme harmonize very well. I was suprised by the sheer amount of levels and the well balanced difficulty ramp. The jumps require some very specific inputs which got really difficult in the later levels. That's where I stopped playing. The jumping controls weren't as easy to control as they needed to be to do very skillful jumps at a moments notice (At least I couldn't do it ;)). I also had some problems with the rather inconsistent and huge hitbox of the character. The spikes and sawblades seemed to kill me rather often even though it looked like they shouldn't have. Other times it was the other way around.
Also, I thought that the bilinear filtered pixel art was a waste. I always prefer clean and crisp pixels. Was there a special reason why you went with the filtering?
All in all, I really got some fun out of your game. The levels were creative and well structured. The art itself was polished and the controls (aside from hard to control jumping heights) very responsive.
Good job!
Very fun platformer. Can't seem to beat the last level, though that's likely due to my own lack of skill.
Speaking of the last level, I glitched through the floor by walking over the first row of jump squares.
Nice game! I like the artwork, though personally I feel it would've been even nicer if it didn't blur at higher resolutions (point filtering vs bilinear, probably). Even if level design isn't your gig, this is pretty well made. Consider adding some basic sound effects next time, for that extra bit of oomph? I don't see what this has to do with the theme, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I like the game overall, but there are some things I just was not very fond of.
First, the game window is waaaay too large for my Full HD screen and I just can't see the whole game at once which was very frustrating. Also the sprites seem to be very blurry, I belive you did not set them to sharpen when you scaled them up.
The game itself is very slow, I don't know if it's because of my browser. Also I got stuck in level 5 I think, with those chainsaw things.
The music was very nice though, the atmosphere was well done! Nice job!
Like other players, I couldn't see all of the screen. I think I missed out on some dialogue because of this, so I didn't really understand the connection to the theme. It was fun to play though and the graphics were nice.
@sylvie so many silly decisions made during the jam and I think the base resolution takes the cake.. I'll be pushing a post-jam version that uses a more sensible resolution (not 1920x1080 default w/ no option to resize)
Very nice game! Music is great!
Nice Game! Reminds me somehow a lot of the first Prince of Persia. The levels are creative, but some of them are really hard and frustrating.
Good work anyways. Keep it up man!
Very fun platformer! I got stuck on level 9 though, the one with the minotaur who just could not kill me. I would get stuck everytime! Still, i think its a very well done game, with 20 levels no less! It has great art, great soundtrack and nice controls, very solid game!
Overall: A very well executed, difficult platformer. You got the platformer controls feeling just right. There seem to be some secrets that eluded me.
Fun: It's a really hard platformer. That means it's satisfying when I manage to finish a level. Platforming controls are very good. The length of the game is impressive and the level designs are mostly very good. At times it's a little too hard for my tastes. I was pulling my hair out a lot in some of the later levels - especially level 20. For more seasoned platform players I guess this would not be so difficult! Anyway, I think I've "sort of" finished it - I got to the star in level 20. But a lot went unanswered for me. I didn't find a ring for the rat. I went back afterwards and killed the rat, but don't know how to use what I got. There was an inaccessible platform on one of the levels and I don't know how to get to it. It's a game full of secrets and I'm too inobservant to figure any of them out. So you can ignore what I say.
Innovation: Gameplay-wise, it's the usual sort of stuff one sees in a platformer. But the level design is quite creative.
Theme: ... no? Did I miss something?
Mood: Superb.
(P.S. 1. It is possible to fall off the screen under the jump pads in level 20.)
(P.S. 2. I agree with others that say it could do with some sound effects.)
@reheated You are definitely not unobservant! You picked up on literally everything in the game.. all the things that you couldn't access weren't fully realized in the jam version of the game.
Thank you so much for the kind words and very thorough review!
I like the style of the cover picture so I come to play. But I didn't expect to play such an action game, that you jump and maybe kill something. I am not saying the annoying words, but just tell you my real thoughts as a girl. And I guess Wu-Wei means 无为, right? Maybe the least levels have more things I may like:)
I think you're selling yourself short on your level design, "Plan your escape" in particular is quite creative.
It's a pretty good platformer overall, very hard for my taste but not unfair for those who like more hardcore difficulty.
OK, mission succesful I would say. Good level design. Music enhanced the mood, so good choice. Too bad you didn't get to add sound effects. Twenty levels! I didn't play them all (yet). Got up to level 12. Level 8 stood out for me.
I had some trouble at some points, because graphics didn't always line up completely with the tiles. Like the 'upcurrents arrows' that worked almost a complete tile to the right of what you saw. Maybe a resolution kind of thing or browser compatibility (I played on windows/chrome) on a relatively small window.
I really enjoyed this, and loved the way you put everything together - it created a wonderful mood.
For "constructive criticism", I think the "arrow" blocks break the aesthetic a bit - why is there an up arrow in a dungeon?! And on my machine the controls are not tight. Nobody else seemed to say this, so it might just be me: but if I continually press left/right/left/right/left/right... sometimes (and randomly) a keypress won't register and I'll either stop moving, or keep going in the last direction I pressed. I noticed this because it seems like sometimes my jumps weren't registered.
(However, while I'm typing this very comment I'm noticing input lag - so it might be my machine! I'll try again when I reboot ;)
Anyway, I really enjoyed this game and I even though you used external music and graphics, you combined them well and the dialogs and puzzles made it feel really consistent and moody. Great job!
@mrspeaker thank you for the honest feedback. I had a very similar feeling as I was adding the jump blocks into the game; you and @goerp are spot on, thank you for confirming the weird feel / breaking of the experience. Unfortunately thats the 1 sprite I hand painted so... it of course looks terrible and out of place :smile:
@luckydaisy - haha, no - it's a lovely block, it just doesn't look like it should be in a dark dank dungeon. Maybe add some grime :)
I really like the music, controls are nice, graphics are well done and it all creates a very nice atmosphere.
The guy with the big axe is not killing me. He keeps Trying but I guess I am stuck. Ctrl+F'ing for "stuck" shows that I am not the only one. That is very unfortunate, I really like the game so far but will stop here as @lubaka said this will never work.
Still, I love the graphics, very cool world and animations! The background music is nice. It gets a bit repetitve but it is fine for a short LD game :-)
Good job, I hope you pay a little more attention to the mechanics next time so we don't get stuck in your next game ;-)
Keep up the good work and the best of luck to you for the future!
@gonutz he wasn't supposed to kill you if you didnt kill the rat. There's a text line where he "gives you a seeing potion". Once you get that you will see blocks that reveal a path to the star
For folks who kill the rat you are stuck with a sign that tells you to jump. My solo playtester was able to proceed on that level after killing the rat so I thought the puzzle of "being stuck" with a star in plain sight + a sign would be enough
Believe theres only 1/2 folks who managed to struggle through all 20 levels
Oh, I see... stupid me! You tend to think there is a bug too quickly in LD games. I will retry it later today and see how far I can get then :-)
definitely not stupid you @gonutz! i played your game and was one of the ones who managed to get all the way through :smile: This is not anywhere near that type of puzzle (no real clear solution presented)