FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Keep it, Alice

Keep it, Alice

By neon-glass, vickiegrey, Dragonayzer, Yerkwell and moorcore118

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall19303.1722
Fun19492.9522
Innovation19362.9022
Theme7893.8522
Graphics18253.1222
Audio9753.2722
Humor18052.2617
Mood9823.5021

Comments

chevalbancal 2020-04-21 08:32

The title screen art is absolutely gorgeous. But once we get into the game, i was a bit disappointed. The game lacks sounds effect and is a bit repetitive. But it was pretty fun otherwise !

cheesepencil 2020-04-22 04:09

Music and visuals created a compelling mood. There is a surprising amount of depth.

splitpainter 2020-04-22 04:55

I am surprised on how much content there is in this. I mean, a bit of the same, but still, lot of gameplay here.

ursagames 2020-04-22 05:12

Hello! Your game was played during my stream!

If you happened to miss me playing the game, you can go to this spreadsheet to find what timestamp I played your game https://tinyurl.com/yau8hjzn

And then look in my latest videos and find your game being play (after the current stream ends) https://www.twitch.tv/ursagames/videos

slimbun 2020-04-23 22:14

Nice game. I didn't really understood how to mine and collect stuff, But I guess if I would've enjoyed the game a lot.

doritolord 2020-04-23 22:19

the title screen and cover image were stunning, so i expected a very aesthetically pleasing game, but got something really not satisfying. you could maybe make the levels a bit more developed? the music was good, though a bit repetitive

dob 2020-04-23 22:21

Interesting take on this. I shot a ton of crabs and collected water, but then I got lost in the web of portals and couldn't get back to the tree. Tried a couple of times with the same results. Music is cool, and game was fun, although I expected something else from the description, and it turned out to be more of a shooter with map skills I seem to lack. Nice work on this.

jbdev 2020-04-23 22:26

The cover picture was amazing, so at first it was a bit disappointing to then get graphics of a complete different style... but after I played, the game itself it was quite interesting and it got me hooked for a while. Nice!

Now if you make a game with the same visual quality as the cover then... <3

nvrskipgameday 2020-04-23 22:33

A really cool idea! The music is really intriguing and well done. I got a bit lost trying to get back to my base - but the combat felt responsive and easy to understand. I would love to play a fleshed out version of this in the future if you made one :)

bodaciouslycrazy 2020-04-23 22:42

The music is great, and the title art is fantastic. The gameplay could use a little more depth, and it would be nice to see health as its own health bar instead of a number. Pretty good job!

muchobestostudio 2020-04-23 22:43

Audio are good. Gameplay is interesting but hard to understand all mechanics. Portals system is ok, we have to remember where the player came but you have too many entry/exit at the beginning. I didn't expect to see a shooter as a game, more something relaxing, but this is **your game**.

I think that you implemented too many features. Just Alice, Sapling (gauge of water), portals and crabs will be enough. Furthermore, you can increase the number of portals that appear each time the player restore the tree. (The step by step system is used in many memory games, ex: Simon).

PS: The cover image is beautiful 👍

brachistosauro 2020-04-23 23:28

Okay, I played long enough I think I could make a fully fledged video essay ahah - As many others, I think the game looks a bit repetitive, but it's functional and the first few moments I had the feeling I was exploring a strange world. I like the central idea, and the fact that "fragments" of the maps get fixed, seems like a little detail that's there just because it made sense thematically, which I like. The first few runs always ended up with me stranded in some part of the map, frantically trying to return to get tree the last seconds without success - it was pretty frustrating; and there was lack of water, often I ended up with a lot of resources but no water, which led to failure. (As a note, it's not at all clear what "Water: 5/23/3+0" could possibly mean!). I kept going and eventually I had a good run, learned to be very worried about returning home when the timer hit 30 seconds - actually, managing time, distance from the tree and resources was the most fun part of the game. My character rapidly developed and started becoming very efficient at collecting materials. I kept playing for so long because the description says "Play as the Sorceress Alice, keeping the Last Sapling alive until it grows into a full-fledged self-sustained tree!" which sorta implies there's an ending to be seen... Maybe there is, but it's after Day 22, which is pretty long. Even if you don't play it so much, I think it's a little too long for a Ludum Dare game, the average player will play the first day a few times, get frustrated and move on. Anyways I don't regret finding it, on the contrary! I think it's a cool little game which can get you hooked if you overlook some flaws. And yeah, very good cover image :)

dragonayzer 2020-04-24 06:37

Thank y'all for playing!

@brachistosauro The win condition is to gather 100 of each resource in the Tree at once - which isn't mentioned anywhere though...

@muchobestostudio @dob There's a Map available (Esc, Tab or M), that should help navigating the world!

@bodaciouslycrazy @doritolord @nvrskipgameday We do intend to release a polished version - we have a list of, like, ten things that should be fixed/remade and that may take some time, though!

lyrcaxis 2020-05-05 21:31

Reading the comments now, I didn't realize there was a win condition! I'm not sure I'll replay it to reach the ending, but I probably would play it to the end had I known before exiting and resetting my progress :P

Combat was pretty easy, but I think it was a good decision for the jam, as people of all ages and genre-preferences may come to play your game. But as it was a fairly core mechanic, I would PERSONALLY have enjoyed it being a little less forgiving (as in, the enemy bullets could just not despawn until they ran out of the map, or something)

Overall the entry was pretty good and I enjoyed it :)

sciman101 2020-05-06 17:29

I think this is a really interesting idea, and there's some parts I really like - using portals to move between the chunks of the world, the resource gathering, etc. That said, I feel like the game wasn't vert clear often - finding your way back to the sapling from a random chunk of the world was confusing, and the resource counters didn't make immediate sense - having a more progress bar style of display might help with that. Reading he comments, I realized there's a map, however it still feels a bit confusing. Overall though, the idea is very interesting, and I'd love to see this more fleshed out with more quality of life features added

local-minimum 2020-05-06 17:37

I really like the music! The game was a bit confusing though. The projectiles that the crabs shot looked more like water and the loot was rare enough that I kind of killed myself a couple of times before I got a hang of that. But then I got lost in the portals until the sapling died. Perhaps it would be nice with some map or simply a key to return.

limbo 2020-05-06 17:37

Music was nice, art could be more thought over: for example I had the problem with seeing bullets coming out of my character, not entirely sure where I'm shooting.

xdsilentstorm 2020-05-12 18:27

The game was nice and the art was really good. I liked the variety of enemies, but I think it was to easy just to skip through the level. Still great!

peter-maxwell 2020-07-26 06:32

I enjoyed it!