FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Broken Threads

Broken Threads

By jeremy-ryan

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall454.0850
Fun594.0150
Innovation534.1149
Theme1284.0950
Graphics44.5951
Audio84.3550
Mood154.3550

Comments

begocio 2020-04-20 04:35

Ok, I definetely was not expecting for my PC to shutdown...

bigassopper 2020-04-20 04:44

That the kind of game that you install in the cellphone and play it for day long, its so fun and challenging and the music just makes it a golden game.

curiouslycory 2020-04-20 04:47

I really enjoyed the gameplay, music, and arwork. The shutdown, not quite as much :P I appreciate the warning to save my work, but I didn't expect that.

acidviper 2020-04-20 04:49

This game is amazing, best game so far, hands down, incredible dude, incredible. Oh shit why are there black pixels on my screen

paul-merkamp 2020-04-20 04:52

Fantastic game, absolutely excellent on all fronts. Only comments are just a couple typos, and the music could use more "oomph". The name thing is a great moment, and all of the effort you put into the writing and the message displays themselves really shines through. I had a longer, equally glowing review already typed up most of the way through, but well, y'know...

Since there's already a massive spoiler in the comments, I'll just say - as incredibly well executed as that was, it did make me panic for the safety of my computer lol. The thanks doc is super cute. Thanks to you for the experience, it definitely got my heart pumping...

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-20 04:53

@begocio @bigassopper @curiouslycory @acidviper

I apologize for the particular implementation, but I thought I'd try to make the experience as memorable as possible. :smile:

Thanks for playing!

acidviper 2020-04-20 05:00

I actually didn't get my computer shut down, I never unzipped it, probably why. :D I watched my friend get his shutdown, it was a surprise to us both!

murrzipan 2020-04-20 13:06

I really enjoyed the gameplay, atmosphere and audio. Got a lot of undertale vibes, but I thought it was still very fresh and fun. I thought the use of the players name was shockinging enough, the shutdown I found kinda annoying, but regardless it was a very awesome game. I guess cause my pc has a slow startup routine I'm less likely to try to finish it, though I'd like to. I think what I'm trying to say is please make a version that doesn't shut down and I'll love you.

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-20 15:50

@murrzipan Once you get to the shutdown, that's the end of the game's content. There should be a "thanks for playing" message if you start up the game again.

I'm actually surprised there aren't more angry comments to be honest!

@paul-merkamp Glad to hear the name reveal was impactful! It uses your windows login username so it seems likely to be hit or miss depending on people's setup.

paul-merkamp 2020-04-20 16:25

@jeremy-ryan is it possible to beat that section rather than lose to it, or does it just keep going? I'd love to try it lol.

something I forgot to mention is the combat felt very, very fair 99% of the time - the 1% of the time being an attack or two from the warden (I think the "do you like my fast attack" attacks from top and bottom didn't give quite enough response time) and of course the very end. I loved when you introduced new attacks without explaining them because at that point it felt intuitive. I think the purple attack was the one that impressed me the most in this way.

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-20 16:45

@paul-merkamp I did notice that the speedy attacks from the top and bottom gave less time because of the game's aspect ratio, which I can see feeling unfair. Ultimately I decided to balance that projectile's speed from the left and right and use it from the top and bottom only sparingly.

The very end was not intended to be beatable, so no worries there! Technically there's an end, although it might get physically impossible before then based on the time it takes the shield to rotate... and then it just plays the same cut scene...

Thanks for the comment about learning projectiles! I'm glad that came across as clearly as I had hoped. An early version used purple projectiles in the middle of a wave, but it was very much not as clear so I gave them their own little moment.

Thanks for so much feedback!

bereg 2020-04-20 21:06

Well. Let's start from that I really into narrative-driven games to some extent. This extent ends at the point when that game tries to shut down my computer and destroy my week-long work. So that's why I didn't like that game. It's repetitive, bad written and, as I said, it's trying to destroy your work for the sake of dubious art. Please don't.

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-20 21:57

@bereg Thanks for the feedback. I knew going in that it would be pretty hit or miss, and tried to eliminate the possibility of causing any harm with the various warnings on the LD page, Itch page, and on game startup. Yes, it's just a gimmick to try to add some more gravity to the experience, and I wouldn't have to resort to it if I was a better writer.

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to play, and I apologize for any inconvenience that resulted.

paroxysmal 2020-04-20 23:43

Great art and gameplay. Enjoyed it alot...and apparently avoided the crash.

joelle 2020-04-21 00:49

This is so amazing. The storyline, gameplay, the meta-ness of it is so good. Thank you for the experience!

blotosaur 2020-04-21 00:54

Thanks to the comments, I closed the game after the second battle. I don't want my pc shutting down. Not sure if that was the last one, but it was enough to know that the art, music, gameplay, dialog are all great! Maybe put a checkbox in the beginning opting out of the "full experience" haha. That way it's not the default. I'd be pretty pissed off if it had shut my pc down and it would have reflected on the rating.

ldf-productions 2020-04-21 01:09

Absolutely awesome game, I really didn't expect the shutdown, but it was fun. I completely love the graphics, and the idea is very cool.

lapisraider 2020-04-21 01:12

This game is amazing! I really love the soundtracks, and the gameplay felt so smooth and polished! I need to know, how did you manage to make the PC crash? That really caught me off guard XD

gideonnf 2020-04-21 01:31

This game is really good! I loved the music, it's also really smooth to play. A very great game!

iaredeaded 2020-04-21 01:32

Wow, blown away. Definitely one of the best games in this jam, I played your game a couple minutes ago and I loved it so much and shared it to my whole team. Then I found out you commented on our game and I got so excited! Like being recognized by a celebrity haha. This was the only game I played from you and I am already a huge fan, the gameplay was already good and you hit us with that fourth wall breaking stuff. My jaw literally dropped when you crashed my PC, I thought the game was just going to close and that's it but it crashed my com! I have to know how you did it

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-21 01:39

@blotosaur @gideonnf @iaredeaded Thanks so much for the kind words!

@lapisraider It's surprisingly easy. You can run system commands in Python, and Windows has one that schedules a shutdown. Running this in Command Prompt will do the same thing:

``` shutdown /f /s /t 0 ```

You can also add a custom error message and set the timer for whatever you want.

unrealward 2020-04-21 02:41

Love this, very inventive! the lose condition was surprising in a good way. I also really appreciated the uniqueness of the different attacks--fair but very challenging.

shaolin-dave 2020-04-21 02:41

Just based on the screenshots, it looks beautiful. Unfortunately I don't have Windows, but I'm tempted to see if I can use that source code to port it.

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-21 02:48

@shaolin-dave You should be able to run it from source code! It's using Python (3.6 or higher). The only dependency is pygame, and then you run game.py.

joelloki 2020-04-21 07:40

This game is epic! I love how you made the game where the gameplay just heightens the storyline. The art is amazing, and I got spooked when my name was mentioned. Really amazing! Thank you for being such an inspiration!!

bereg 2020-04-21 10:54

@jeremy-ryan Well, I understand the idea of the art invasion to real life. But we need to draw a line somewhere. You could've also deleted some system files or encrypted user documents. At what point we still call it an art and where do we start to call it a felony? Even if the outcome fits the story arc.

It's an interesting discussion though.

43sam 2020-04-21 17:20

Interesting :thinking: . Fun game mechanics and the music makes it feel like a rhythm game at times which was cool. The art is great as well :)

nanoarch 2020-04-21 17:51

This game could have been good, in fact it was good, until you shut off my computer, this is really really annoying, saying my name was unwanted but it didn't bother me, but shutting off my computer. That made me kind of mad. And give more of a warning on the description than, the game may crash, to me that meant the game might crash if your computer isn't good enough, I can't even image if I work open. You lost it for me when you shut me computer off. Take that out, and it's a solid game.

paul-merkamp 2020-04-21 18:10

Looks like you've gotten some of the meaner comments you were anticipating ;-;

wfmg 2020-04-21 19:08

Kinda quirki doe! :flushed:

Just be careful you don't piss off people thinking that you're putting a virus on their PC.

jvdwijk 2020-04-21 19:35

This game was really fun, but I wouldnt recommend it for if you are recording or streaming :)

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-21 19:41

@jvdwijk Oh no! I didn't ruin somebody's stream, did I?

jvdwijk 2020-04-21 22:48

@jeremy-ryan it's alright, my pc starts up quick and it was worth the experience lmao

2020-04-22 05:49

You are an absolute icon. I love you and I love this game XD

akitl 2020-04-22 12:01

your game is cool, but shutdown the pc is not cool at all !

jusw85 2020-04-22 18:27

The game is really polished! Gameplay is tight and aesthetics are amazing for a compo entry. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I didn't get the full experience, cause I played on Linux using Wine :p.

Instead of a shutdown, my application just closed with: ``` 0038:fixme:shutdown:wmain stub: L"shutdown" L"/s" L"/t" L"3" L"/c" L"An unknown attacker has damaged critical systems." ``` Also, I didn't know until reading the comments that the name was supposed to be my login name, cause my login name is "user".

Regardless, I enjoyed the game!

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-22 18:31

@jusw85 Ah, foiled by the virtual machine! (Or whatever Wine technically is)

I realized the username would be pretty hit or miss, depending on setup, but thought the payoff would be good when it happened to work. Thanks for playing!

sofy35 2020-04-22 19:54

OMGGG I FREAKED OUT DUDE !!! I thought it was a virus on my computer !!! But i really laugh at the end x) It's stressfull, I am very upset I couln't save my computer, but the concept is AWESOME !

frogravity 2020-04-22 20:58

OK, this is my favorite game thus far. The graphics, music, gameplay and mood are all incredible. Shutting down the computer when losing was also really nice (although I pity those who didn't take the warning seriously, a.k.a. me. I didn't have anything important open so it was fine, but still). All in all, excellent entry! I'm just sorry I won't see the true ending (not going to risk shutdown again).

paul-nadan 2020-04-23 00:29

Even without the meta-game stuff, this was an awesome entry! The different soundtracks for each boss really set the tone for each fight, and the scrolling backgrounds added a lot of depth by making it feel like the character is actually moving around the game world. The main mechanic was fairly simple, but executed really well with well-designed levels and nice visual effects on the corruption bytes and the shield. Nice work!

perpetuummobile 2020-04-25 04:10

Amazing game, amazing art and amazing music.

Not so amazing shutdown. There's already plenty of breaking the 4th-wall. This would've been my favorite game of the jam, but I don't appreciate shutting down my laptop, and you should take criticism on that.

pieter-uys-fourie 2020-04-25 23:12

unacceptable. Malware

drevilbrain 2020-04-26 07:23

The "note" collision feels off because the different notes have to physically collide with your shield. I like how it feels like it could be a very solid rhythm game, but because the notes have to collide with your shield, you really have to move far in advance of the notes to make sure the shield actually moves to the proper direction you need it to be in.

cheesepencil 2020-04-27 02:46

Great tunes, great visuals, engaging narrative!

I played the streamer version so I didn't get shut down, thankfully. I like the novelty of messing with the fourth wall, but there must be a less intrusive way. Ten years ago I'd say you should eject their cd rom tray or something but nobody has cd drives anymore. Maybe flip their display output to upside-down? Change their screen resolution?

blubberquark 2020-04-27 10:06

So, hello from the Pygame community. Your game runs well on the PyGame 2.0-dev master apart for one bug in transform.scale that we ought to fix.

I ran your game inside a firejail, out of habit, heh.

As for the rhythm game part, I think it can be compare to bit.trip.beat!

blubberquark 2020-04-28 15:41

UDPATE: The bug was in set_alpha() and the fix is now being merged pending code review.

jeremy-ryan 2020-04-28 16:37

@blubberquark Ah, I believe I'm only up to 1.9.6 on my machine. I guess I'll hold off on updating until some errors are fixed!

Glad to see other Pygame enthusiasts out there, especially contributors! Maybe one day I'll try helping out in that regard. I've been using it since my first submission in LD38. I wish there was an easy way to filter game by engine for rating.

spiralhalo 2020-04-28 19:04

Heh. You can't hack me. I'm using Windows 10-

"You're about to be signed out"

Microsoft had failed me once again.

blubberquark 2020-04-28 19:29

> I guess I’ll hold off on updating until some errors are fixed!

Oh come on, this way we never get any good bug reports. Also new-ish OSes really hate SDL1.2.

jmad 2020-05-07 00:13

I actually quite liked the story and meta-puns. Dialog box was smooth and looked nice, nice addition of colors to words. Art was quite nice and polished, didn't need more to it. The mechanics and gameplay were really intuitive and fun, and the music such a good fit it almost looked like a rythm game at times. Playtime was pretty confortable too. Then, well, I was clearly expecting the ending, and it still annoyed me really much since there was no way of dodging - even more so because it just happened that NumLock got deactivated on startup after that shutdown, and it took me several attempts of typing my password and rising anxiety to figure it out (which is clearly my own fault and not the game's).

Very nice compo entry, well done!

holysparks 2020-05-11 17:23

As it proably has already been mentioned, the game is great. Very tight gameplay, music, etc. But you should really consider switching shutting down to just crashing the game to desktop. I understand that the warning at start was to have us ready, but it is not enough.

Again: It was NOT fun to reboot my old pc for so many minutes.

bluilisht 2020-05-11 17:46

Definitely 5 for mood. The ending is memorable for sure, but I don't really think the game needs it. Also, since player can't die before the last battle, maybe you could include some kind os scoring in the dialog? Like the total bullet that player had block.

paul-merkamp 2020-05-13 04:30

@jeremy-ryan Congrats on the placement!!! Well earned!!! 4th in graphics!!!!!

jeremy-ryan 2020-05-13 22:14

@paul-merkamp Thanks so much! And congrats on your first Compo, hope to see you around in October!

2022-06-24 18:57

It reminded me of LoL haha.. I once bought a [League of Legends Boosting (https://expcarry.com/league-of-legends) service and my professional booster told me about this kind of games