FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD45 → Nothing Box

Nothing Box

By guckstift

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1693.5831
Fun1673.4331
Innovation1713.5031
Theme1063.8431
Graphics1683.5631
Audio1293.4430
Humor3572.0225
Mood683.7931

Comments

jimbly 2019-10-07 01:01

I really like starting with no color and finding the crystals! I'm not sure what I was supposed to do in the end, I ended up covering the world in... blood? At the beginning, I would often go zooming off into the distance (presumably a key-repeat thing as I held a key down too long), and then a little later it started getting super slow (as I explored more and had more visibility, I guess), such that I just gave up trying to explore at some point because it was going so slow. Took me a while to figure out how rafts worked, I thought I was finding them, as they'd just pop up after I mined a tree (and zoomed into the water), only later when it got slower did it appear I had a choice to place a raft or not by not walking into the water ^_^.

I like the art, and music has a great mood to it.

2019-10-07 12:56

Very good game because it had discovery and game and puzzle elements to it. I liked the live development and trying it at each stage of your work. Nice job.

skyeward 2019-10-09 18:08

Super impressive for a compo entry, you got a lot done here. I really like the exploration and expanding the way you see the world.

shrapx 2019-10-10 13:28

When i ran it, i got to a point where the axe grew in size on screen, but it stayed where it was, and i couldnt progress. Is this a known bug, any ideas?

djee 2019-10-10 19:21

Same as @shrapx I cannot get past that oversized axe. 😫

taddl 2019-10-10 19:25

Sadly I cant really do anything. I am in a walled of area and when I walk over the axe it just grows. When I press spacebar music starts playing. I am using win 10 with the latest Firefox (64 bit).

Are there maybe any special control I need to use?

dodelov 2019-10-10 19:35

@shrapx @djee @taddl Good game. Doesn't work in Firefox (64 bit). Works in Microsoft Edge.bug.png

esben-jensen 2019-10-10 19:39

What a gem of a game. This game feels really well thought out, and fits together well. It's a little annoying with the b&w mode in the beginning, but thats OK and probably intended, because it feels so much better when the first gem is found. This has the elements of a good puzzle game. At first I wondered how things worked, then I got the aha feeling when I figured it out. The speed mode is a nice quality of life feature on a map of this size.

djee 2019-10-10 19:52

Right, with Edge it works. Pretty good game past that bug. Clever use of the theme; I had a similar idea, with a very different result, but I love to see that I am not alone :v: Pretty good graphics and music for a 48h compo. Congrats!

erkberg 2019-10-10 20:30

Hey there buddy! Finally got around to playing the final version of your game and it's great! I love how the color returns to this world, it's an awesome sense of progression, together with the vision-carrots! One could say that the game is about the return of vision, which might be a foundation for a story in further development, if you decide to do so. The music is really soothing and fitting and I still can't believe you made it entirely in Audacity, it's just crazy :D Anyway, it was great seeing you again and jamming with you, looking forward to next time! PS: There was a small bug at the end: When you keep pressing against the final transmitter it might happen that it doesn't get locked in its correct position but is rotated further and thus the ending looks a bit illogical.

guckstift 2019-10-10 22:39

@jimbly, @stonemonkeymark, @skyeward, @shrapx, @djee, @taddl, @dodelov, @esben-jensen, @erkberg Thank you all guys for your feedback :)

The still-standing axe sprite bug is now fixed. I developed with Chrome and tested it now with Firefox, all should be fine :D Thank you again for pointing me on that problem. Should have tested it before in the Firefox.

@taddl Just use the spacebar or WASD to walk/interact with objects OR build a raft on the water :) The music starts on user input intentionally because of the way browsers allow the

@jimbly: The performance problems also got optimized away recently. Just in case you want to give it another try ^_^

@esben-jensen Thank you for your praising words my friend! The speed mode is something I never consciously implemented. xD It's actually just the keydown event firing continously half a second after the first keydown event. :D But glad you like it...

@djee: I will give your game a try soon, looks interesting :)

@erkberg: :-* luv u!

"the ending looks a bit illogical."

There is nothing logical about eating crystals to regain color vision at all (except maybe if... the vision that I had to leave behind is crystallising in my mind)

taddl 2019-10-11 14:22

@guckstift Good job fixing it, works without problems in firefox now.

Glad I got to play it. Its an interesting concept and a neat little game. I like the music though it repeats pretty fast and it would be nice if the music would change along with the colours (though that would be probably a bit much for compo). Also I kinda suspect you were planning the red, blue and green diamond to only restore the red, green and blue values of the colors. Though nonetheless a very good compo entry.

captain-nakou 2019-10-13 23:45

Very simple. Very good. And i dont know why, but as a fan of Civilization, it touched me.

mrstari 2019-10-14 11:01

such a great game :hearts:

blanky 2019-10-14 16:44

REall nice game. I loved the mood and exploration. Well done.

loveapplegames 2019-10-14 20:11

Very interesting game! I found moving around is a bit frustrating as it involves navigating the various objects, with the game not throwing any real challenge at you except getting stuck. The laser puzzle is interesting, but I wasn't entirely sure how to solve it.

philomory 2019-10-16 03:17

This was really cool, I especially like how it starts you off exploring and (essentially) gathering information about the space you're in, and then caps it off at the end with a slight puzzle element.

If had one complaint, it'd be about some of the controls/UI: * To confirm an action (especially building a raft), you should have to push the _same_ direction twice in a row; right now, if you have water to both the north and the east, and you push up and then right, it immediately builds a raft to your right; it should instead switch to the flashing 'press again to confirm' state, to the right. * If you're standing on a raft you can't interact with anything. That felt a _little_ weird, but is probably fine. * It's super important to be able to distinguish the water from the other tiles easily, since it behaves so differently, but I wasn't able to _easily_ tell the difference until I had all the gems (maybe this depends on the order in which you collect them). Of course I could tell the difference if I stopped moving and looked closely, but it meant I had to be really on my toes about pressing the same direction twice if I didn't want to accidentally build a raft on a tile I didn't recognize as water quickly enough. * The UI sort of implied that the axe and pick could break, if that happens is it just game over? Or is repairing your tools what the two types of stone are used for? That's not really a complaint, I was just curious what happened.

Anyway, all that said this is overall a great game that I really liked.

guckstift 2019-10-16 08:29

@taddl

Hey again, thanks for your review, buddy! Changing the music with the colours sounds like a good idea. But yes, the music was composed shortly before submission ^^ no time was left :D

I also had in mind what you suggested bringing the respective colors back with the crystals. But at the time of submission the whole gfx was done with div elements and CSS filters, which only allowed a grayscale filter :D But now with canvas the doors are opened for this feature.

@captain-nakou @mrstari @blanky

Thank you guys as well ^_^ Glad you liked it!

@loveapplegames

Thanks you. Finding the axe and pickaxe should help you for always getting through the map. The final laser puzzle challenge can easily be solved when you see the colors again. Maybe find the receiver station and you will know what to do :)

@philomory

Wow, didn't expect someone to apply the effort and give such extended usability review. :) So a big Thanks to you, sir!

I also encountered that you can not perceive that there is water so easily until I animated it and gave it a minimal saturation when finding the first crystal. The order of the crystals is not important. Maybe it would be necessary to assign another key to build/interact what is in front of you. So you dont accidentally run and build before you even notice where you are xD

I formerly had in mind to develop a crafting system, so you need to build new tools. But my friend @erkberg discouraged me from that, since it wouldn't add any substantial joy to the game. But I already coded the nice durabilty bar, so I just left it in there, thats the story xD

chambre19 2019-10-20 19:04

I really liked this game, it kept me interested exploring the world. Thought it was really unique to have the color slowly come back to the world. The controls got a little frustrating at times but it was okay for the amount of time I played. all in all, this was a great submission for ld45. Keep up the good work!

lexyvil 2019-10-20 20:33

I love games like these where you can experience it better the more features you unlock. Very relaxing game, it fits the theme well!

dob 2019-10-20 21:59

Very neat idea, and fun to wander around and discover stuff. I like the color and vision range as benefits from discovery. I mined so much stone and gold - a little sad to see that they didn't do anything. Also, the double-tap to mine or chop wasn't really needed. Music was peaceful and introspective. Laser puzzle a nice addition for a goal and ending.

kristinamay 2019-10-23 19:33

This was so cool! I really loved the progression and the exploration, only frustrating bit was that I accidentally built SO MANY RAFTS in little one-square bits of water. :laughing:

finlal 2019-10-27 02:48

Awesome idea for theme, really impressive, good job о/