Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Frozen Skies
By thorpalsson, Anchry and Jonrei
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 966 | 3.59 | 71 | |
| Fun | 1323 | 3.26 | 71 | |
| Innovation | 1415 | 3.19 | 69 | |
| Theme | 543 | 3.98 | 70 | |
| Graphics | 490 | 4.12 | 57 | |
| Audio | 3.66 | 14 | ||
| Humor | 1313 | 2.76 | 49 | |
| Mood | 195 | 4.07 | 56 |
Well done! I liked the style, sound, mechanics and day/night cycle. Night is maybe a bit too pitch-black. A little tutorial about crafting in the beginning would have been a nice touch, but you can definitely get going without it!
i really like visual part of the game, good job
The graphics and atmosphere were really amazing, but there just wasn't much to do. Once my backpack was full it was permanently full so I was unable to keep playing. Anyways, good job with this entry!
Nice! My poor lizard froze to death when I got a little overambitious, but yeah, this is really nice! I like the little bits of story here and there, and hopefully I'll try it again a bit later to see how it all ends :) Great work!
The graphics are good and the "Long Dark" ambiance is a success.
There are gamefeel elements that would be great, like the character speed which is a bit to slow and the camera smooth follow is slow too. I think that was you intention, but when you really to reach other isle to collect wood for the fire, and haven't crafted enough power-ups, it's really hard.
Oh and "weeeeeeeeeeee" weeeeeee.PNG
Oh my god, I love this lowpoly style and colors. It's so peaceful but at the same time so cold. And ofcourse the physics of the lizard's tale! Having so much fun with that tale. I'd like to see a bit more information about my goals in the game. I was just exploring at the first play and then I was looking for letters with narrative. Good luck and please stay safe!
P.S. Forezen Aztecs is brilliant idea, want to learn more about this world!
I thought things didn't make much sense until I found the crafting table. The sounds are really nice and the music creates a fitting mood. The graphics are simple but really cool for a jam game. I just didn't really understand how to keep the fire level higher, I put wood sticks in it but the bar wouldn't go up. Anyways, really good job, well done.
Nice visuals and atmosphere. I played for 20 minutes but ended up stuck because I used all the wood to keep the fire alive, and could not build the bridges to go further. Going back and forth from exploration to campfire was a bit boring after some time, especially because our lizard is soooo slow. I don't know if you are able to build another campfire to further explore, maybe it is after the bridge I could not build.
Graphics and animations are fantastic. Spreading stone and wood around the crafting bench was a great way of explaining the mechanics in-game instead of stopping for a tutorial.
Very nice graphics and mood, I would like to play a more complete version of this game :) For me, it was a bit too slow and limited. Maybe it would be better not to have to do so many there and back to the bonfire and the crafting table. Very good job though on this one, it definitely deserves an enhanced version! :)
Literally a cool game. :D I like the setting and the protagonist. the craftingtable motivated me to collect a lot of wood and stone. then i died right after building a bridge. but since it took me a while to get to this point I was not motivated enough to play again from beginning and repeat all the work from scratch.
Hi, the graphics are nice. Unfortunately I had chopped down all wood at some point and still didn't buy all upgrades - did I put to much wood in the fire? I also did not understand the firedynamics, when I put something in, it only went up a tiny bit. Also the combination of very high prices in the crafting bench with the slow movement of the character made it feel kind of grindy. But nice game overall!
Im writting this while I wait to the sunrise. The core game loops works but it is too slow an too grindy. All the upgrades are focused on getting resources easily but half of it waste to much to be worth it. They look really cool on the lizard though XD.
And I am out of wood, there are no trees left. I wanted to know where the games goes but I don't have the patience for replaying it again :(
Nice atmosphere, a bit slow movement and camera. Sadly I have an ultrawide screen and the UI did not scale well with it, so I could not go too far, since I could not close UI panels :(
There are a good amount of systems that work together nicely. I liked figuring things out as I went along, and really like spotting the scrolls along the way. I played until I ran out of trees... I really, really wanted them boots! Oh well.
Improvements: - Your character is far too slow. I believe it takes more than 7secs to cross the bridge. Maybe your speed could be linked to your temperature? - Change "Helmet" to "Head Torch" - After going around in darkness the first night, then getting a torch the second, then seeing that I couldn't buy another torch was confusing. - A little "ping" showing where I have clicked would be good.
Nice game overall, thanks!
Very good and very interesting game: i just though from the start is going to be any story line on this, but then found the scroll, which was just awesome. Atmosphere is epic and controlling a human-like lizard-creature instead of any mankind, actually works very well! Consciousness of the islands surrounded by icy water really makes the islands into an abandoned archipelago, which is great and makes more fun to explore the territories. On crafting, i however would prefer to be able to see what the player is going to craft, instead of just having a line of texts: e.g blueprint about the object, shade or showing something else more specific about the 'project'/product, is because it would be more motivating to collect bunch of resources while you have the conscious why you actually collecting them for. Also, from another point of view, moving this character by clicking the mouse button randomly terrain objects while having no idea it will do anything, there should be some feedback and instructional icons on UI or cursors. I would also prefer the *fog of war*- behavior, where you can scroll freely the map at the directions with the mouse, especially while your character is doing some boring stuff and nothing really interesting is not happening right at your characters position. By the way, while the art this style is commendable and all the dashing and detailed islands are made with this tight Jam-schedule, the laying planks and the snowy and cold terrain remind to me a little bit the Pingu's world - which is kinda hilarious to me
The mood setting was done really well, you could really feel how cold it should have been there, it might have been a bit too difficult but it was still very fun! might have to try and beat this next time ^^
I put a lot of time into this game and had a lot of fun with it. I was a little confused about the torch going out and I think I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to get another torch before realizing that it was just a temporary holdover until you could get the helmet. I think maybe a tooltip on each item describing what they do would help there. Once I figured out the mechanics, I loved the atmosphere of the game, especially the character design and world elements. I got really hooked on the story too, and wanted to see more, but the gameplay was very slow and I eventually hit a point where it was impossible to go any further because I'd mined all the wood in the area and couldn't get across the bridge. I got a little demoralized at that point and didn't try again. I really like most of the elements in this game. I know you did the fire mechanic as a way to adhere to the jam theme, but I would scrap that going forward so that wood only acts as a form of currency and not a consumable item, so there's never a way to get stuck. I followed you on itch.io, I hope you keep working on this game. I'll keep an eye out for updates. Thanks for sharing man!
lizard minecraft, nice
It's fun
Really digging the art and had fun exploring the islands. Good job!
Reminds of Gex, if you know him :P. Great game! Made me feel younger haha =D!
This is awesome guys! I spent so long playing it and started over 4 times until I finally beat it. Overall really great job. The mood is set really well by the lighting and the music. I think the ambient light could be cranked up just slightly so the nighttime isn't pitch black. I know you said you guys are updating it so @ me when you do, but as it stands it is just barely possible to beat the game. after a few tries I fed the fire as little as I could and just barely had enough resources to build the final bridge. On a personal note, I found the lore notes a bit hard to read. Great work and excited to see where it goes!
This game is certainly engaging, I'll give you that. :stuck_out_tongue: Spent longer than I'd like to admit on it.
The loop of chopping trees and mining rocks then running back to stay warm and craft new things works really well. However, my one **big** complaint is that there's not enough wood before you build the bridges. Well, that's not entirely it. I also wish the bridges weren't at the far back of the island. I didn't even realize they existed until I had used up all the wood on the other crafting recipes. :slight_frown: I get that this may have been intentional (to give you a reason to go further) but without a hint that the bridges exist or the fact you need to go further in to find everything _before_ you use up all the resources, it just kinda feels bad to reach them and be like "oh, guess I'll slowly die now because it's literally impossible to continue".
That being said, I'm guessing this was probably just an oversight due to it being a jam game, so I won't hold it against you too much. :wink:
I liked that there was actually a day/night cycle though I do wish there was at least a _little_ bit of ambient light instead of pure blackness. The helmet helped mitigate this issue, but since it actually on the character's head, it was often pointing away from what I actually wanted to look at. A slick way to handle this would be to have the character look to the point that the mouse is hovering over so that the lizard tries to keep the light where the player wants it.
The graphics were alright, clearly not the focus of the game, but some more environment detail would have been nice. The snow particles were appreciated though. Not using the default Unity UI images would go along way to help in this regard as well.
Finally, I'd like to mention that I liked the inclusion of lore, but given that the font was hard to read and every action is time-sensitive, I found myself just skipping it as fast as possible. Might be a good idea if the time paused while the scrolls were open to give people an opportunity to read without feeling rushed. (Oh and a slightly simpler font would probably help too).
That being said, I think this was still a pretty decent game despite it's obvious shortcomings. Definitely playable and not boring. Nice job.
Like the idea. Wish the base speed was higher. Game is clearly very tightly balanced, and I found that the wood was far to scarce overall, It felt impossible to access enough wood to win. Seems like I'd have to play it multiple times to optimize my decisions and make sure to use everything optimally. Unfortunately with how painfully slow it is to play, I can't say I'm eager to do that. I liked the little story being strung along, and the day night cycle was a nice touch, although I wish it effected mechanics more then just visually.
I can't play it unfortunately, bcs I have an iOS PC, but I'm just here to mention that the artwork on screenshots looks totally amazing! The gameplay look also promising, so I'll definitely play it, if you make a web version.
Making 3d game in a jam is a bravey thing to do for me. So i appreciate your hard work here. Idea is 10/10, keep up the good work!
The atmosphere is chic!
It was so cold to play and worry about the lizard ( The font in the notes is poorly read.
Fantastic environment design and overall art style, the mood is strong with this one! I did feel lost at some times, but that can also play into the experience. Great job on putting so much together so nicely
Very nice mood with the low-poly graphics, the messages and the music. The character move speed felt a bit slow after a while. There seems to be something I didn't understand with adding wood to the fire since I went to back to my extinguished fire and added several twigs to it but it did not restart and i lost soon after.
Good looking and moody, I liked it. The first time I tried to use the crafting table to make a pickaxe, it said I didn't have enough resources even though I had 8 wood and 9 rock, the axe costs 5 wood and 5 rock
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great game one of the best i've seen so far. One thing would be to make the player slightly faster or add an upgrade to make him faster
The feel and the idea is amazing! Being a lizard and the story is awsome! But the gameplay is too slow and there ain't much to do
This is such a cool concept and a very moody implementation. But why are lizards so slow... It felt like it took forever to get stuff done. I died shortly after I saw an upside down lizard under a bridge, so I don't know how far I got. The game looks really nice though, especially the day and night cycle is a really cool touch. I also love that the tail was physics based and sometimes decided to just fly off. With a bit of polish this will be a really cool game!
nice game, with complete craft system! good job!
It does remind me of gex from the ps1 days. Great game, love the concept, graphics and feel to the game.
I really like the atmosphere, music and graphics. Maybe the player could be faster. I had the same problem as cheesepencil for the pickaxe. Great game, and really good idead !
I really liked the game! Good job! My feedback is :
1. The character feels a bit too slow, i don't know if buying the boots would increase him but still! 2. I soft locked the game because i spent too much wood on upgrades and the fire and had no trees left to cut, perhaps add a system where some trees grow back eventually? 3. I didn't know that the helmet was going to provide light until i saw the comments on this page, maybe a little bit more clarity there!
Still a great game, i spent a long time playing it :D
Nice game! I got stuck when i ran out of woods, but well done with the craft system.
Awesome casual game. Loved the crafting concept. The art was also very good. Music was relaxing.
Cool game...Really like the art style. Lizard animation is also good. But the tail sometimes go weird. Like the day and night cycle but the night is too dark to play. Couldn't increase the fire level by putting wood. Also couldn't craft anything ( 'not enough resources ' warning even if I have so many ). Good interpretation of the theme. Congrats... :thumbsup:
A beautiful little entry, I like that survival stuff and I thought it's cute you chose a lizard as the protagonist :D The models looked good, together with the music it made for a great mood, also a lot of stuff to craft and a decent amount of mechanics, good job for a gamejam! Overall I felt the lizard movement was too slow and a bit tiresome, although that could be exactly what you wanted to add to the mood (they did that in Homesick as well, idk if you know that game but someone who's actzally a film director made it, so the mood and story was very important to him and he used the slow pace to infuse the player more into the hopeless sort of apocalyptic atmosphere he created) Sometimes the lizard's tail jumped in a funny way of rigid body craziness, just like dwarf beards in Witcher 1, good times haha. You dealt pretty well with the awkward game-jam issue of not having enough time for asset/world creation/ what to do with the borders as the gradient in the background really fit to the mood (we ourselfes resortet to fog for that xD) Things I would have enjoyed but am pretty sure you simply didn't have enough time for that, (but maybe you'd like to work on the game some more?): - add more resources than wood and stones (for example, maybe fiber for the clothes stuff) - graphic-wise, make the trees drop the branches/logs as soon as it's cut, like in minecraft or something - make the trees either grow more wood, or them regrowing - the darkness felt a bit awkward because I couldn't explore then and had to wait - I assume you did that on purpose because I see there's a torch in the workbench - however, I would make the player's see a bit but lose health quicker or somthing if in the darkness without a torch - and/or give him a sleep option to pass the night
The story was interesting, I found 3 scrolls (were those all?) and added to the mood :)
Good job on finishing your game! :)