dmitry-kaidash 2020-04-21 06:40
Curious! Interesting concept! And I quite like games where they combine 2D and 3D. Good job!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Root Quest
By thebreakfast, Gentle Sav and Marcio Miranda
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 662 | 3.73 | 82 | |
| Fun | 956 | 3.45 | 82 | |
| Innovation | 127 | 4.00 | 83 | |
| Theme | 504 | 4.00 | 83 | |
| Graphics | 699 | 3.97 | 83 | |
| Humor | 1126 | 2.92 | 71 | |
| Mood | 641 | 3.70 | 81 |
Curious! Interesting concept! And I quite like games where they combine 2D and 3D. Good job!
Very nice! A lot of really clever design.
Very interesting and nicely done entry. Had one small issue, it gets a bit choppy after some time. Congratulations !
I really like the idea, good use of the theme. Congratulations!
This is a really fun concept and ended up being really fun, good job! the little gremlin is a cute design and i like the combinations of gameplay styles. Only thing to add would be the sound effects being a bit more punchier and the worms being more of a threat, overall though, great game
Very interesting, I specially enjoyed the visual of the first part, while searching the dungeons !
Really amazing game, one of the best games I've played in the Jam so far. Beautiful graphics.
The thumbnail scares me a bit!!!
Cool game, i like that i have to search the level, like a plant has to search for water, although maybe the level are a little bit to find (and can be frustrating if you don't find any for a while): mayby dark the color of the dirt arounfirst level entrance, to direct the player in the right direction, and let know them what to look for next...
It took me a little bit to figure out how to get to the platforming parts but once I did I really enjoyed them. I like how you could see your path via past roots. cool theme!
@marxy-37 the darkening water is a good idea. Last night I was thinking of ways to improve the game and indicating where the dungeons are located was definitely a topic that came up in my mind, as well as finding the water at the end of each dungeon. I appreciate your feedback!
Very unique! I love the sound of the root growing. Great feeling controls and presentation.
Great game, very enjoyable!
Very good game, just hard to actually find dungeons and some death drops are not really marked
@nuckelavee13 thanks! We did have a gradient effect on the pitfalls, but you're right, they need something less subtle. If we had a bit more time we would have put some kind of collectible item to guide the jumps and safe falls better. Thanks for your your suggestion.
This is one of the best implementations of the theme I have seen so far. Great job with the sounds and art!
I like it! Getting subtle Earthworm Jim vibes. The coyote time is strong with this one (in a good way).
@junebug I've never heard someone call it Coyote Time, thank you for teaching me that! I know what I'm renaming my variables to. The three of us definitely agree it feels like a Shiny game, I feel the Earth Worm Jim vibes too. Thanks for playing.
this game is fairly creative. i did find it a bit hard to find a cave at first, but once i got in, the game does take on kind of a earth worm jim or abes odyssey feeling because of the controls and animation. given that it was made in a jam, this is pretty good. if (alot) more time was spent on the graphics and fleshing out the gameplay and world, i could see it being an enjoyable game like the aforementioned titles.
@virtuaworlds my team had talked about Oddworld too! Funny that a lot of people got the same vibes. Thanks for the feedback!
I'm sure it's already been said a bunch but I love the cover art, really captures my attention and makes me really interested in what the game could be. The first section of the game confused me a lot because it looked nothing like what the cover art was and I really wasn't sure where to go but once I got into the platforming I started to enjoy it a lot more! The character design is super cute and I love all the cute little noises that they make, the melee ability seems a little hard to use because of how short the range is sadly. Along with that I was confused on where to go, my first reaction was to jump downwards (gave me a small spelunker vibe) but I died after hitting the ground. I do really like how the roots stay throughout the whole level tho, helps to keep track of where I've along with giving me a little bit of a super meat boy vibe (when ever you beat a level and you see all your failed attempts). Overall I really love the concept tho!
@gavin-camlin thanks for the feedback, the spelunking comment gave me some neat ideas.
very nice idea! I played a couple of tims but couldn't find any water! :( great cover art.
Fantastic game. I was going to say that the dungeon crawling is frustrating as the direction wasn't clear, but the root-trail creates an Ariadne's thread style solution; very cool!
I like the design and the sound but I don't understand the game, I was just able to move the root (No attack or Jump)...
@whomakeworse there are three dungeons you can find, and inside those dungeons you can jump and attack. We probably should have put something inside the game directing the players. Thanks for the feedback!
It's really good game and I like it!)
This is an interesting dual-game interaction. I do feel there are some things that are a bit cheap: the dungeon locations seem like all you can do is memorize their locations, and without the option to look below you a lot of the worm placements in the dungeon are gotchas which, again, require you to just try, fail, and memorize where all the enemies are. Good platformers play fair in that they teach you about a pattern before slamming you with it in various ways, and this lacked that.
This game oozes style. The audio of the root digging is really well done, and the flailing run animation is great. I also enjoyed the route tracing, as it made retreading after a cheap death that much easier, and did a lot to make sure that, while cheap, those deaths were as minimally frustrating as possible.
Nice job y'all! Awesome that you made the root growing parts and the dungeons distinct but clearly connected - the transition effect into dungeons is great :)
@ketura thanks for the feedback! There are definitely quite a few jumps that could have been better telegraphed. I agree 100%. We were gonna have ducking (we have the animation for it), and if I had time I would have put in an ability to duck and lower the camera. Collectible items probably would have helped show which jumps were safe too.
@graebor thanks! I love the transition too, it feels very classic. Reminds me of entering and exiting areas in Banjo Kazooie. The falling rocks were literally added in the last hour or so haha. I wish they had a sound effect but I still like it.
At first I didn't know what to expect but then BOOM, platformer where I continue my quest. My intrigue for sure spiked at that moment. It's really interesting that you mixed 2 very different types of gameplay together, all in the effort of reaching the same goal. It's also interesting that it somehow gave a plant a personality.
The animation was also really well done and I thought the character design was pretty clever :)
Very interesting and solid entry! I look forward to more LD projects from you!
Super nice ambient background music! Nice crispy sound when you dig through the ground. Really nice movement on the player, has a nice certain flow to it.
Well done! 10/10 mood :)
nice interpretation of idea and I liked the mix of 2d and 3d graphics. Nice job
Such an interesting idea love the switch of gameplay and style. think the controls could be tighter in the sidescroller aspect.
wow, amazing game! i really like your concept and I love your graphics - they look stunning! I couldn't manage to come to the end, but I watched your playthrough. Maybe you could add some items to refill your life during the stages (or maybe you already have but I couldn't find them?) Really nice work - congrats!
@langotriel Thanks for the feedback!
@marcusnystrand I wish we could take credit for the music. For the root mode we just paul-stretched an existing creative commons track, and for the side scroller mode we just added an effect to make the looping less jarring.
@zigg it definitely could use a bit of work. The attacking especially. It feels a little janky at times. I think I may have set up the animation controls slightly wrong, and the hitbox is controlled with animation events (which shouldn't be causing the jankiness but who knows).
@juliaanna I agree totally. We had talked about adding a health pickup item at least in the root mode, and I think having little pickups hanging in the air like coins would help telegraph some of the jumps a little better too. I also made a few kind of unfair "gotcha" moments.
I love the atmosphere here. I think the combat in the early dungeon was pretty difficult. the fact I had to be grounded to swing my sword made the combat a little more difficult than I think it needs to be.
A peculiar idea, which is really unusual. The game feels good and visuals are neat. Nice work.
Hello, nice game, nice graphics. I'm a programmer looking for a graphic designer or a team to join and maybe work on new games, are you interested? email:m.shahiri.m@gmail.com my LudumDare Game: Social Distancing For Ladybugs
Love the idea and the character!
Dang this is neat! I with the root character was bigger on screen, because that animation is SO GOOD! Very clever. Very neat. Nice.
This game was pretty great. I loved the movement and animations, and the concept was really cool. Well done. :)
I wish the attack animation could interrupt the other animations and could be used while falling as sometimes I was falling right on top of a worm spamming the attack button to no avail :P
Honestly, this is the best Ludum Dare game I've played so far. The graphics are great, the gameplay feels really smooth, and I had a really fun time! The only trouble I had was getting to the first dungeon, and the fact that I couldn't swing while jumping made combat a little difficult. Incredible job!
The concept was interesting, but maybe the levels could be scaled down more, if not so much variation in enemy.
Also with my old PC, the root trail on the character caused the browser to crash. :smile:
Maybe have it act on 'cells' instead of generating a trail wherever he moves, especially if he's in same spot for a long time, so it only creates new root, if he moves to next 'cell' .
Oh My God!...I love this game man.. I like the concept. I like the art. i like everything about it.. The trail effect was really helpful in the dungeons because it helped in finding the path after you died..I'm curious to know how you did it..Did you use the trail renderer in unity?..Anyways I had a lot of fun playing it.Kudos to you Sir!
I loved the beginning of the game! extending roots down into the soil was a very pretty and relaxing experience. I thought the platforming sections were a little too long - i spent almost 10 minutes in the first one i found. And i kept getting hit when trying to lend on small platforms with worms on em, because the player can't attack until a second or two after landing. I kept getting pushed off the platform and having to retrace my steps.
Still, i enjoyed it, and was super inspired by the beginning section. Watching the leaves sprout upward from the plant was nice :)
Really liked the combinations of the two different parts. The platforming part could be greatly improved by tewaking the controlls. Never tought being a root could be so much fun!
@fpgames we used the line renderer, and it has a limited number of line segments it can make before it starts a new line for performance reasons (and also starts a new line when you fall off a cliff because otherwise it would draw a line across the map). Thanks for the feedback!
@johnnysix that's a good point, we probably could have had it only draw new cells while moving horizontally during dungeon scenes. Because it's attached to the spine of the character the idle animation causes it to draw I think. I'll look into fixing this if we continue. Sorry you had some performance issues, thank you for reporting them and giving us some suggestions!
@swanijam the dungeon scenes are a little large yeah. I think maybe if only the final dungeon was large it would have been fine, you're right that the first couple should have probably been shorter. Maybe more dungeons that are shorter in length would have been more fun, or mid-dungeon checkpoints could have solved that issue too. I appreciate the feedback!
@broken-robot-studios thank you! Behind the scenes I've been playing with fixing some of the jankiness of the attacks and camera. I didn't set up the animator parameters properly to allow a direct transition between falling, then attacking (because we chose not to have mid-air attacks). Oops! My bad haha. I think I've fixed that behind the scenes, but we won't upload a new version until after the jam out of fairness.
To anyone we've missed, thank you so much for the feedback!
I enjoyed playing this, and it's quite well made. For a weekend's work, it's impressive. The concept is clever. I like the split mechanic of having the digging section result in a trip to the inner dungeons. It's easy to imagine this being developed into a full game with more varied mechanics. The art style really works well, too. Great work!
so I first tried this game on my macbook pro and it just was really bad preformance. I don't know why. But I tried on my desktop pc and it worked just fine. I was determined to play this game b/c the initial guiding your root to the dungeon mechanic felt and looked so cool.
I also loved the animation of our main character. They reminded me of a mix of earthworm jim and clayfighters.
The dungeon gameplay was limited but understandable b/c of a jam game. Might of been cool if there some obstacles to avoid on the way to the dungeon that moved or something.
Overall this was one of the coolest games I played so far
@barret thank you for being determined to play our game, I appreciate that a lot! I've added a couple new mechanics but we won't be uploading until after the jam. I don't know why I never considered traps, thank you for the idea.
@joel-steudler thanks for the feedback! We discussed some ways to improve the game, we'll see how they pan out. I'll be sure to tag you if we do!
I enjoyed playing your game. I found the level design a bit frustrating, since there were some required leap of faith followed by endless pits, and I did not found a way to differentiate them before trying. I did not have too much trouble finishing it though, and was not disappointed. Well done. :purple_heart:
Very nice. Love the idea of growing your root to find a level! Mixing 3D and 2D worked really well in this game. The music is awesome. The platforming worked really well. A level was a bit confusing and I had no idea where to go. But otherwise good job!
I'm a big fan of these "dual style" type games where you have a different playstyle for the overworld and dungeons so to speak. I found the visual style and audio worked really well to set a nice mood for the game.
One thing I didn't care for was the platforming section mechanics felt a bit underdeveloped. For instance, it was frustrating to not be able to attack while jumping toward a worm. In many cases I had trouble landing on a platform with enough space to do an attack before the worm knocked me off. This was exacerbated by poor performance on my laptop, so might be partially a hardware problem.
Overall thanks for sharing the game and great job on the theme.
I love game! The audio was relaxing! The game play was unique. The art was lovely. The game was polished and intuitive! One of my favorite games so far. To all of you great job, and keep it up!
The root just chilling out on the leaf of his plant at the end makes no sense - he is a root-man, he should not be up there :wink:! I enjoyed the atmospheric music and the animation of the root-man was great.
The game hitched from time to time but I noticed no other issues. I wasn't able to hurt the enemies from behind, but I am guessing that this was intended (worms after all)
I really like the aesthetic of the root's trail following behind him, especially on the overworld. Although it looked cool, the overworld being devoid of any threats or clues as to where to go means you kinda sorta just have to wander, but it's not too hard to find dungeons pretty quickly and it's fun to make shapes with your root-trail.
The platforming and especially the attacking was a little rough around the edges. It was frustrating not being able to attack in the air, and it felt like there was a sizable window after landing from a jump where you still can't attack, which was annoying because there are many jumps where you need to land on a small platform with a worm and then immediately attack it.
I like the creepy-cute design of the main character a lot, though he's small and kinda tough to see in-game.
Nice entry, keep it up.
It feels so nice drawing trails in both overworld and dungeon. Really like the aesthetics too - for some reason the enemies being worms and your root looking oddly similar I had strange, otherwise aesthetically speaking unsupported, Earthworm Jim vibes from this, which is always a good thing in my books! Such a unique, interesting experience. Thank you for that and keep it up!
This is a really cool concept. Had a rough time in the dungeon that I found, but that's probably more of a skill problem than anything.
Really loved wondering around in the overworld. Really satisfying feeling exploring the environment and finding a place to go. I also really liked the trails in the platform stages, seeing the path that I took. Made it a bit easier to find my way back to where I died. :)
Really cool game! Great entry!
Thanks for letting me play your game on stream. I enjoyed the innovation behind the "level selection" which really pulled the gameplay and theme together. I would have enjoyed it the root that I was constantly pulling behind me had some more gameplay implications on the platforming element of the game.