FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD45 → Tardigrades on the Moon

Tardigrades on the Moon

By bassguitarbill, chris-mondok, Mikitharp, pzafonte and Shellocity

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2803.7343
Fun5353.2944
Innovation3133.5344
Theme4733.4144
Graphics6793.3244
Audio1383.8342
Humor2793.2939
Mood3433.6044

Comments

cg-fred 2019-10-08 20:52

The game freaks out if I touch the mouse wheel and all I see is gray after that. I played the game for a while but got a bit tired after the 2nd mission so gave ut, but nice effort!

100th-coin 2019-10-08 20:58

My only piece of feedback is that there's no limit to which you can zoom in. I love the concept though, and i heard about the story a few weeks ago. wacky stuff!

brokenmirrormedia 2019-10-08 20:59

I messed around with the game for a bit, I liked the chill music and the art style, but I'll be honest, I was still not sure exactly what to do or how to do it. Seems like a complex game, and that's not a bad thing, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Still, I love your art style, especially for the little "cutscene"!

aevek 2019-10-08 21:43

Was really enjoying this chill build-ey game but the whole screen went black when I dared to touch the scroll wheel using Chrome. Firefox seems ok, so if anyone else is having this issue try a quick browser switch.

Once I switched browsers I absolutely loved it. Ate 45 minutes of my life. Honestly no complaints with the game itself, I just need more planets for my insatiable tardigrade empire to consume. The music was perfect and the feedback for all the actions was excellent. I having to keep the battery moving by constantly expanding my canals to keep everyone fed.

bassguitarbill 2019-10-09 00:08

For folks who broke it by zooming out: if I'm getting the same issue you're getting, the game isn't broken, but the viewport might be quite far from the game area. Try dragging the camera around and see if you can get it back in view.

theomaniacal 2019-10-09 01:35

I enjoyed the concept! Zooming out seems a bit buggy, as the screen suddenly turned black. Perhaps adding a clamp to the camera's position would fix this. Nice work overall!

skyeward 2019-10-09 01:41

I regret pausing! Really love the character that went into the tardigrades, game felt very loving

stephenwhoskins 2019-10-09 02:12

I found this game surprisingly therapeutic, lol. Watching their tiny little mouths open and close made me really want to get them some water and moss. Great game. It's addictive similar to how Sim City is. That is, you basically feel like a god as these organisms depend on you.

dob 2019-10-09 02:30

Fun slow-motion building game. I like the theme, the art, and the music. A little unclear how to apply the rules, other than very slowly, or what the bar in the upper left meant. Fun, though - I enjoyed myself, until I hit the SCROLL WHEEL OF DEATH about eight minutes in.

erin 2019-10-09 02:37

This was really relaxing. I had a poor tardigrade go into a Tun state while on a rock and I couldn't save it. :(

mandy858 2019-10-09 02:39

I think I didn't understand how to win exactly, but it still is a really nice game. I LOVE your music. It's so relaxing. Great potentiel of game.

karlipoppins 2019-10-09 02:49

Loved the audio and mood that you set in the game. Very cool entry! I did run into the same zooming issue as some other folks but was able to zoom back in. Neverthelees, it'd be a nice limit to set in the game directly. Nice touch on the pausing (who does that anyways??) :) Great job!

kooshy 2019-10-09 02:57

The untold story of those little dudes who took a ride on the capsule. Also- whenever I switched tabs and came back, it gave me a message about not being allowed to pause and that I'd regret it. What did that do?

chris-mondok 2019-10-09 02:57

Sorry for the zoom issue, I guess I should have tested in Chrome before pushing the change to center on the cursor. It's fixed now.

yolziii 2019-10-09 07:19

Nice and meditative game, great job! I thought they almost all are dead bu when I built water channel near a group of frozen tardigrades they started moving again, it was surprising )

t8kk 2019-10-10 14:05

Cool concept guys, I really like the story what this entry is based on. I really like games with simulations and this definitelty was intriquing to try out. The mechanics seem sweet and visuals interesting, only I suffered from not knowing what to do in specific and what represents what with the terrain elements and the character sprites. Very interesting entry, if you plan on fleshing out the concept more, at least for me I need slower introduction to the mechanic to delve deep to make the best out of the experience. I'm definitely interested to follow if this game is being developed further, a really sweet concept!

croewens 2019-10-12 13:52

I had a hard time figuring out what I was supposed to do. Should've read your post way earlier. :sweat: Overall great vibe with a super chill soundtrack that makes the game super enjoyable. Overall great submission. (You're still able to zoom in unlimuted on chrome.)

mruniverse 2019-10-12 14:15

Tardigrades + moon = a play from me. Overall interesting game, took me a minute to fully grasp what to do but it was pretty easy after that. Had a glitch where it brought up the "Grow moss farms" dialogue twice, but that was the only glitch I noticed.

antarcticruler 2019-10-12 14:41

Although it took me some time to figure out what I was doing, and that the Tardigrades are kinda dumb, this game is actually really fun! Probably one of the Ludum Dare games I put the most time into!

psiv 2019-10-12 14:55

First time I ran out of moss before being able to make more moss, I guess just a part of the randomness of it. 2nd time, completed it after an epic journey carrying the battery! Truly an amazing effort! Sometimes tardigrades got stuck under rocks, but that's okay, because the other tardigrades can turn that rock into moss, reproduce on it, and then save the little, undoubtedly traumatised, guy :laughing: Thoroughly enjoyable!

hyperscope 2019-10-12 15:44

My thoughts were perfectly reflected by @brokenmirrormedia. I think it would be great to have more of a walk through for those of us that don't pick it up right away.

Overall good work!

digitaldude555 2019-10-12 16:25

Well I inadvertently just helped tardigrades conquer earth, love the concept, good game.

alicecrd 2019-10-12 16:30

Funny game with great idea. Good job !

dock-frankenstein 2019-10-12 17:10

It is confusing at the beginning. Except that, good job!

snailrhymer 2019-10-13 03:33

I liked all the little touches you gave it - animating the channels filling in, giving the tardigrades a variety of expressions, and the changing music. They all really helped add to the ambience.

ryusui 2019-10-18 00:38

I love this game and all its little touches like the tardigrades sporting hard hats and snorkels. <3

My only issue is that some of the controls are a little opaque - I spent WAY too much time waiting for the tardigrades to move that battery pixel by pixel before I realized I could click multiple times to summon the horde. Also, it's possible to get stuck if you run out of mossy rocks before you hit the first population threshold. There's also an annoying bug where if (due to tardigrades turning into tuns) your population drops below any threshold; it triggers the message pop for the previous threshold.

mrerdalural 2019-10-18 12:12

A way to speed up the time would have been nice otherwise very cool game! It reminded me of the game called "Darwinia". Thank you for the game! It was really fun!

ryusui 2019-10-18 12:15

@mrerdalural There is! It's in the top-right corner.

I'll admit dragging the battery gave me Pikmin vibes myself! XD

mrerdalural 2019-10-18 12:23

Oh nice! Didn't notice sorry!

actual-potato-69 2019-10-19 09:58

Good job! I really liked the atmosphere​ and​ the music of the game. The game felt a bit slow though. Even if it was on very-fast mode.

whiteseraph 2019-10-19 10:13

The game is too slow for me(even on fast), and the AI could use some work (i.e. the tardigrades actually move in the canals as close to the building spot as possible). I would lose a lot of tardigrades by placing a build order on one side of the map, and them starting to marathon to it from the other side across the dry land.

Other than that the game is good, I would have(and wanted to) explore more if the two things i mentioned we're a bit different. The music is very nice as well.

bassguitarbill 2019-10-20 10:08

The bug wherein the same popover will appear multiple times has been fixed.

bassguitarbill 2019-10-20 10:13

Oh also I made the decision to have a silly meme instead of a proper Pause screen, and given how one person has appreciated the meme and like four people have been very confused by it, this was clearly a bad decision. Whoops!

aurel 2019-10-20 17:52

Took me forever to realize there was a speed meter. I finished the game on Normal Difficulty until the very last 10 seconds when I realized I could just speed this up.

Was a fun little game, trying to figure out how they work, how they eat, etc. I felt very relaxed playing this.

thepiratenun 2019-10-20 17:54

I really liked this game! This is probably one of the most interesting concepts I've seen in a while, and it is executed very well. I love the graphics, and the audio is really cool too. Well done!

bassguitarbill 2019-10-23 21:42

Fixed the bug where, if you zoom in, all the art is blurry!

digital-pie 2019-10-28 23:31

really enjoyable chill game, really liked the idea and the music, and had fun playing it

kristinamay 2019-10-29 14:58

I liked the music, very chill.