Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Star Keeper (Ludum Dare 46)
By cobear25
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 144 | 3.87 | 41 | |
| Fun | 192 | 3.73 | 41 | |
| Innovation | 55 | 4.10 | 41 | |
| Theme | 103 | 4.12 | 41 | |
| Graphics | 334 | 3.70 | 41 | |
| Audio | 189 | 3.61 | 40 | |
| Humor | 318 | 3.17 | 36 | |
| Mood | 113 | 3.81 | 39 |
One of the few space games I've seen so far in this Jam, and I really like it! The arm mechanism took a bit to get a handle of. I was trying to click on the star, not click past it and have it drag over. The planets were nicely colored and the game was the right amount of challenging. Good work!
Thanks @attx !
Took me a second to work out the grabbing controls but I love it, really unique and interesting! Great atmosphere too and I love seeing all the different planet designs :)
Fantastic i love it!
The way the sound effects add to to music is awsome!
This is pretty nice. It would be much better if the controls are polished a bit more.
This game has a pleasant mood with fitting graphics. Mechanic wise, the tree vs repair tradeoff gets less interesting later on.
That'sa awesome!
@mad-scientist-carl What particularly did you notice in the controls that could use polish? And thanks for the feedback.
@cobear25 It is fine to use the "rubber band" mechanics. I am talking about my own viewpoint here, so please judge by yourself.
It was very frustrating at first, but practising made it less so -- but still somewhat frustrating. Two greatest points: aimed correctly, but not enough range, and missing by just a tiny bit. Both of these were "so close", but provided no positive feedback because 1) I cannot refine my firing solution due to the need to reset my mouse cursor to the PC and 2) the trajectory of star is not changed, so I have to aim from scratch again. For me, there would be 3 things that may make this game much better.
First, increase the range! I have to pull all the way across the screen to hit halfway the other side. Heck, I have to pull _outside_ the window sometimes. Second improvement would be a "magnet" or "sticky" grabber. If you miss by a little, you can either get it anyway (reducing difficulty outright and might not be what you want) or pull the star's trajectory towards you (rewards by extending the aiming window and allowing a more refined second shot). Third and probably least important, is some kind of aiming aid. A dashed line projecting the grabber should be pretty good.
Thanks @gajop ! With more time I would have loved to add more variety and strategy.
@mad-scientist-carl Great feedback. Making catching stars easier was on my todo list for sure, I just didn't quite get to it. I'll probably add some polish after the jam and be sure to make those improvements. I'm not sure if the rules allow me to adjust things like that before judging is over.
No, you cannot do anything except for bugfixes. New features like this cannot be added... for judging anyways. No one would look at your `development` branch, probably.
I agree with @mad-scientist-carl, also the game goes on for tooo long, after some time you just zone out of playing the game, although at the start the game felt pretty unique and I loved the logic behind it. Anyways great work done
I really liked this game! Fun, unique, and innovative! The music and sfx were great, and while it took a while to get used to I ended up loving the grab system too.
My main feedback is there wasn't much variety - once you started you've kindof seen everything - but this is a game jam game so of course there'll be limitations.
Overall - great game! Really enjoyed it and the mechanics were fun :)
planetfdsf.PNG
Took me a minute to figure out the grabbing controls with my trackpad, but I got it. Great concept and really polished execution!
Great game! Looks and sounds excellent, but the feel was a bit marred by the fact that the collider on the grabber was so small, and that there were definitely some missed collisions there. I think if you changed the collision detection mode on the hand grabber to continuous, these missed collisions wouldn't happen. I might chalk that up as a game-breaking bug, which would be allowed to be fixed under the rules of the jam. The mechanic itself however was very intuitive, and also innovative! Overall, a great entry. Well done! :heart:
I really like the music and the concept of this game! Unfortunately, I found it quite hard to grab stars, but if that was fixed this game could really go somewhere. Overall though, this is a really good Compo submission!
@bloodyaugust I actually am using continuous collision detection, but the colliders are small. I just pushed a slight fix that went along with an existing bug. Should be a little bit better now. @black-flag The thanks for the feedback! Should be a little bit better now.
This was fun! It took me too long to figure out the benefits of planting trees. That really adds innovation to the gameplay, well done. I would consider adding some leeway on the slingshot so it grabs the stars when they're close, not just colliding. Great job overall!
Very nice game. Lets relax.
Nice game!
@cobear25 Looks like your fixes worked! Nicely done. :smile:
Lovely! I felt pretty pro catching an off screen star!
@wooowooo Woah, I haven't even done that, pro move for sure.
Very creative game. Reminds me of "the Little prince" by Exupery. Nice mechanics and physics. Good job.
Thanks @macdoom The Little Prince was an inspiration for sure.
Considering it's a compo game i think it was VERY good! I'm not entirely sure if it's possible to lose, maybe im too good haha but some kind of indicator that i'm close to losing would've been a welcome addition. You may also want to look into your grabby arm, it was sometimes not clear why the arm wasn't grabbing the star, perhaps it's just user error. Great game sir!
Thanks @blue-pin-studio You can actually tell how close you are to losing based on the face the planet is making and how many cracks there are. Once you get to a full frown it's game over. I do want to enhance the arm grabbing for sure. There's code in there right now that prevents you from just draging the hand a little bit past the star to grab it, but I want to make it clear that the best way is to pull it back and launch. Ideally the hand would launch twice as far as pulling back.
@cobear25 Ohhhh i was putting the hand beyond the star and letting it retract into the star
Really fun game! Good job!
@blue-pin-studio That does work if you put the hand out far enough, but not if it's close by. I could have done a better job of making that clear for sure.
I liked the game and it didnt take too long to figure out what to do. I think maybe the colliders, or whatever it is youre using to hit the stars might be a bit too small, it atleast feels like I have to click exactly in the middle of them to hit sometimes. But it was a good game, so good job!
Nice game! Simple idea and fun gameplay. Surprisingly we made the similar game! As the saying goes: Ideas fly in the air!
@jonrei Are you moving the cursor to where the stars are and releasing? If so, that's not the way to catch them. You actually want to pull the arm back and fling it toward the stars, or drag the arm past the star quite a bit. You can see in the gifs above. I do want to improve it though to make it more clear and easier to play that way. Thanks for the feedback!
@cobear25 AH! Gotcha! I gave the game another try and it makes sense why it seemed off, I just completely misunderstood the main mechanic of the game. Thanks mate, the game was a lot more fun now haha, I updated the rating ;)
Cute game! I like the simple controls and the rotating movement. I feel it could be a little more fast-paced. At times you're just waiting for a star to come and can't do nothing but wait. Played until level 5, not sure if that changes? But this has good potential!
I liked the idea and the game is very cute! I had a hard time catching the stars at first. My favorite planet is Mars hahahaha <3
I dunno if it's just me, but I found the controls rather unreliable. They seemed to not work each time, though I felt like I was doing the same thing each time. The original idea was nice, but it could definitely use some improvements - like some bonuses, more enemies etc. Otherwise than that, I really enjoyed the game, and the way you handled the theme, really nice job there!
Nice work! I really like flinging the arm out to catch the stars.
Just so you know, on the windows version I had to rename the executable to "LudumDare46" to match the Data folder, or it wouldn't run.
Simple but enough! I can't complain about anything and I find it really fun to play! Well done and keep up the great work!
Neat game! I loved the space theme and the planets were very cute. It took me a little while to figure out how to grab the stars. The info for that in the tutorial flew by really quickly
@jcourt Thanks, I'll see if I can get that fixed.
Yes, a space theme :) Not easy to catch that small comets to heal the planet, i must say. Fun to play, slinging the rubber arm and trying to get them comets. Not easy.
I like the way we can play with ony the mouse, it makes the thing easier! I still had a hard time trying to get these stars, maybe i was just bad x) i was not sure if i was hitting them or not, it would be maybe great to have a more visual feedback when we hit a star. Nice game tho!
Fun! Looks good, sounds good, I like how most every mechanic has several uses.
Very nice game! The planet is adorable. The controls work fine, catching stars is fun and needs a bit of skill. The planting tree bit works, but my only gripe is, that you can't anticipate from where comets will be incoming, so you just plant enough of them around the planet. It's ok I guess, but a bit pointless.
Anyhow, I had fun saving my planets. Well done!
He is entertaining but he did not understand why he did not win until he covered the last crack on the planet, good job!!!
It was fun, but I felt that it did not do very much to plant the trees to protect the planet, but maybe if it progressed further I'd feel more incentive. Great job!
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