FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Recursion

Recursion

By finn-truman and KAI

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall9463.6027
Fun9703.4427
Innovation19792.8827
Theme18473.3427
Graphics9153.8427
Audio3743.7827
Humor2893.7627
Mood7313.6627

Comments

fishbrain 2020-04-21 08:21

Great atmosphere, cool character graphics too - responsive controls. Well done!

gucio-miszcz 2020-04-21 08:22

Really good intro and audio. Just could not finish the game as I was running out of energy each time.

hamzeh 2020-04-21 08:23

The controls feel great and the game is fun, good job

the-martijn 2020-04-21 08:23

Hey, I'm stuck. How do I get this jump?

2020-04-21 (7).png

jeremia 2020-04-21 08:26

I personally did not like the mechanic of having only limited time, and having to start over if you run out of time.

hanyzpapu 2020-04-21 08:30

Great graphics and audio, but I struggled a bit with the controlls, I expected the platforms to be passable from underneath. But it's a great game nontheless. :smile:

carlix 2020-04-21 08:36

I'm stuck exactly in the same place as @the_martin. What should you do there?

Graphics are cool, and I appreciate the comments of the big guy after he refives you. But I think I would really enjoy some subtitles, as English is not my mother language and with that robotic voice it isn't always clear to me what did he say, but that's probably just me.

I think the jumping from platform to platform isn't very forgiving, and I didn't manage to find a checkpoint (maybe there are but I didn't get so far?) Starting always from the big guy might be logical for the game, but for playability it's a complete pain.

Please, could you tell us how to keep going from the image that the_martin published?

simansimon 2020-04-21 09:34

Love this game. It's hard, but that gives it a lot of playtime. The map is quite interesting. I feel like there's a story behind this world. All the hanged and collapsed people give this mood. The audio is fantastic, but I would like a subtitle for the deep robot, because it's hard to understand what he says. The animations are very good, I liked them. Maybe some feedback on the double jump would be good. At first I didn't know it I doubled jumped or not. Overall, very good!

kai 2020-04-21 10:07

@the-martijn @carlix That's a drop-jump! You have to walk off the edge then use your double-jump to hop back up onto the next platform. As for subtitles, they were on our list of things to do but due to our work schedules we only had about half the normal time to make everything so we couldn't get round to it.

As for checkpoints, since each level is split off from the main hallway, using it as a return-point made the most sense to us as an idea of replaying with a new room unlocked each time you reach the end of a branching path. It's a hit-or-miss concept but sets the level design apart!

Thank you so much for playing, though, and we hope you enjoy it!

kai 2020-04-21 10:10

@simansimon Thanks for the feedback! We didn't have time to impliment subtitles or more detail for the double jump and the Assembly Machine is a little quiet I've noticed. It's unfortunate but we didn't have as much time to work on it as we'd liked due to our busy weekends. There is indeed a backstory written for the world in that the Earth has become uninhabitable and the last of humanity are in pods while robots work to fix the issues. This, of course, went wrong due to a power malfunction. It's sort of based on Wall-E in that sense. Good eye for noticing, though!

kai 2020-04-21 10:12

@gucio-miszcz That's a real shame but we didn't want to make the game easy. We're suckers for difficulty and reward. XD I'm glad you enjoyed what you played, though! Thank you!

mykola 2020-04-24 20:05

This game deserves a lot more ratings! Maybe you should put more screenshots? Or maybe you should rate more other games to get the balance up? It hurts me to see so little feedback on such a masterpiece.

The art, music, sound and voice acting are awesome, creating amazing post-apocalyptic mood. At the same time narrator's comments were on point and made me giggle while dying dozens of times. The gameplay is polished. But what is really incredible is game and level design. At first I was frustrated that I couldn't reach some platforms but after reading some comments here I went back and did finish the game. The complexity is crazy by the way, I was so lucky to finish the final part with the first try.

What you could do better is to put some instructions to the game. I haven't carefully read the game description initially and had no idea that I should hold space to jump higher and that I could double jump. Also drop jump came as a big surprise. It was probably intended, but all the platforms are put so that you can barely make it with double-long-jumps. I've wasted lots of time to figure them out. There is complexity progression but it feels like it starts from super-hard and ends with impossible. No medium and no time to take a break. It is amazingly rewarding to complete this hell though. Unfortunately, not many players enjoy these kinds of challenges. How I wanted to approach it in my game (didn't have time to implement though) was to have two difficulties: one with relaxed jump force, speed and health parameters for those who prefer easy games and another with parameters that are barely enough to make it through the game for those who like challenge.

Overall, one of the best games I've played so far in this jam. Great job!

finn-truman 2020-04-26 13:44

@mykola Thank you for your very kind words! For some reason I had it in my head that adding a thumbnail adds the image to the text as well, and I never thought to check. Thanks for bringing up the screenshot thing.

I agree that instructions were lacking. That is one of the aspects we wanted to improve (my personal pet hate is the lack of instruction on the wide gap. How is the player supposed to know there is a platform beyond the screen?), but it was a case of time. I'm the only programmer and I had to go to work on the Monday. This is also why we haven't reviewed as many games as we would like, we unfortunately have other things to do, but we're scraping by.

The jump height is not increased by holding the button. I think what you're experiencing is the increased jump height when you pick up the computer chip in the basement (again, lack of instruction).

Again, thank you for leaving such elaborate feedback!

iamscissors 2020-04-26 23:50

The humor and the audio was the best part of the game. It was a little too difficult for me and only opened the door and the micro chip and got killed my the buzz saw repeatedly. I really enjoyed the graphics reminds me of star lord or something. The theme seemed a bit forced it I laughed whenever they mentioned the coffee maker. excellent game!

charles-fernandez 2020-04-27 00:54

I really enjoyed this game! The art was pretty consistent throughout, the controllers were pretty smooth, the ending was complete, and the level layout was on-point. My only critique was the sound of the robot. Not B4, but the other one. It was hard to understand what he was saying.

But other than that, the game was really fun! :) Thanks for sharing your game!

icxon 2020-04-27 06:14

That was a fun journey! I am not sure but I saw a couple of dead bodies... Anyway the sliding animation is hilarious :smile:

Things to improve (imho): - win screen (after hitting the red button? or should I go back?) - deaths count! :smirk: - better voice volume (or subtitles)

Here is my playthrough:

https://youtu.be/ObFuf2bUjJY

finn-truman 2020-04-27 10:49

@icxon Thanks for playing! You should absolutely go back! This is one of the issues with the game: the lack of instruction. Pressing the red button is only one third of the game! That opens the black and yellow door.

finn-truman 2020-04-27 10:50

@iamscissors Thank you for playign the game! I'm glad you liked it!

finn-truman 2020-04-27 10:51

@charles-fernandez You're absolutely right about the sound. I knew it was an issue whilst making it but I didn't have time to fix it. I tried turning up the volume in the code, but it didn't seem like it wanted to go louder than 100%, and there wasn't time to re-render the audio with a higher volume.

Thank you for playing the game! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

plutonium-powered 2020-05-05 15:01

I love the animation in this game!

finn-truman 2020-05-09 22:03

@plutonium-powered Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

thedashdude 2020-05-11 04:44

Fun little platformer. Graphics could be tidied up a bit, and the controls were too floaty for my taste, but well done. Good enough that I took the time to beat it.