FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Lost Goblins

Lost Goblins

By pndaa and FlorianDuf

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall12013.50173
Fun14243.22173
Innovation9193.43173
Theme10133.75171
Graphics12103.64173
Audio10333.22168
Humor8603.15162
Mood15363.21163

Comments

curtis-pelissier 2020-04-21 12:41

The concept is interesting, but the game is really slow. When I already solved a level and I want to move directly to the end (like straight forward), I must click "Next turn" while my player hasn't arrived.

An option to speed up the time scale or the turn duration should be less frustating.

fishbrain 2020-04-21 12:41

Really nice presentation! - clean and slick. Found the game a little confusing, but started to get the hang of it.

david-p 2020-04-21 12:42

Fun puzzle game. The difficulty ramps up pretty dramatically after the first two levels. Only substantial criticism is that there should be a way to zoom to the end once you've solved the level instead of having to click next turn a bunch. Loved it!

xdsilentstorm 2020-04-21 12:43

This is great. The story and art and levels all perfectly fit together to make a game that is quick to learn and fun to play. This is a great entry to the Jam!

thecze 2020-04-21 12:44

Interesting concept! Would be nice to have an "auto next turn" function for those levels that you have solved and just want them to walk to the exit.

fearawl 2020-04-21 12:44

Cool idea, cool graphics, cool game. The first 5 minutes were very interesting, but then it became a little boring, sorry.

lorwon 2020-04-21 12:44

Nice game, the graphics are simple but great,but I think the game is too slow. Overall, it works very well. Good work !

neisha 2020-04-21 12:45

Cool Game! I like the idea behind the concept and the puzzles are fun. It is a bit annoying to keep pressing next game for when you already solved the puzzle, but the other than that game is well done! Good job! :)

black-flag 2020-04-21 12:46

This is a really good puzzle game! I really like the art style too! The sounds maybe could have done with a bit more mixing. Apart from that overall, this is a really good jam entry!

jlv 2020-04-21 12:46

Fun puzzle game ! The game is explained very clearly, and there are interesting challenges from the start. The pathfinding is also really reliable, and the game really shines on multi-goblins levels. Great work !

Strenghts : - Great graphics/sound packages (and nice voice acting !) - Fun puzzles and good difficulty curve

Possible improvements : - When there are no obstacles, it would be nice if the goblins directly went to the objective - Zoom/Dezoom would help in levels such as "Too many doors".

All in all, great job !

turritom 2020-04-21 12:47

thats a great game idea. i love it.

yamgent 2020-04-21 12:48

I like the puzzle mechanisms, it was pretty creative. Like the rest of the commenters, I feel that an automatic "Next Turn" would make the UX experience more pleasant!

wilko 2020-04-21 12:48

Great game unlike any I've seen yet. I wish there was an auto next-turn button so I don't have to spam the next turn button when I have finished the puzzles.

wetbox 2020-04-21 12:49

Looks good.

pixel-mush 2020-04-21 12:49

As someone else mentioned some sort of quick walk or something so you don't have to click next turn 15 times to walk to the end of a level you already won. Overall good job!

olafstromberg 2020-04-21 12:49

Good concept for a puzzle game. It was a little bit slow to play and some of the sounds were very loud. There was something very creepy about those goblin faces with the big eyes.

t8kk 2020-04-21 12:51

Unique game with nice art style! Only I wish I could fast forward steps when I feel like I completed level. With a little bit of refining and polishing I would gladly play this game on mobile!

bitingcold 2020-04-21 12:51

The concept is incredibly good, I love it so so much! The puzzles are so much fun! I really enjoyed level design, however, I think that UI and sounds need a bit more work to them. Imho, low-poly level design doesn't really match with cartoonish UI elements & dialog characters. Still solid 5 stars tho, amazing job guys C:

drikdrok 2020-04-21 12:51

Solid game. I found it a bit tedious to spam the move forwards button. Perhaps a way to make time go faster would have been nice

sigo 2020-04-21 12:51

Not bad (I like the voice). Maybe you can add an "auto mode" when you're about to finish a level and there is no obstacle that remain ?

fax 2020-04-21 12:52

Great game. Congratulations.

itsonrandom 2020-04-21 12:52

Nice idea, and neat little puzzles. Loved the graphics and art style! Controls weren't that obvious to pick up (I got through the first level using the lever to move not realising "Next turn" was what I should have been pressing, I managed to die at the same time as that dialogue came up so I missed it!

svetoslav-godzhev 2020-04-21 12:53

Very good take on the goblins being a bit stupid and taking only the shortest path. I would suggest making a more seamless/smooth transition when pressing the next turn button.

efmi 2020-04-21 12:54

Nice little puzzle game with an engaging dialogue. You did a great job with the audio and graphics, especially the goblin animations wer really well made. It felt kind of weird having different levers with different functionality although they had the same visuals. Dialogue explained the use of everything pretty well, but if you plan to continue this game, I highly suggest making some different visuals for different functioning levers. Each level felt different, and the game was interesting all the way to the end. Good job.

paul-sinnett 2020-04-21 12:55

Great game. I lost more goblins because I accidentally did a double reset.

skill347 2020-04-21 12:55

Some things could be shown better, perhaps explained by a tutorial. Overall great job, but I would add a way to speed up the time too.

adinimys 2020-04-21 12:56

I finished your game with 13 goblins dead ^^ It was pretty fun and original.

My only complaints would be : -the death animation is too long and you're stuck there doing nothing -there are too much uneeded advices, I feel like puzzle game should let people experiment to figure out themselves how it worked -the puzzle (especially the later ones like TooManyDoors) would be more interesting if they had more of a "catch". As it is in a lot of turns I felt like the answer was quite straightforward (simply opening the door in front)

But apart from that I enjoyed it a lot. Having everyone move 1 turn at a time after one action was an interesting challenge, good job !

toc 2020-04-21 12:56

R.I.P 27 goblins. Though in my defense they were -very- stupid. Very fun game! One way to improve it would be to make it clear what levers and doors connect to without the trial and error.

amigarulz 2020-04-21 12:57

I like the concept, I like the puzzles, and the isometric view. However its not immediately apparent how to play the game. Eventually I worked it out - hit next turn. You already have the pathfinding working, so give us a >> button to auto advance.

sli 2020-04-21 12:58

37 Goblins dead because of me :smile: I liked it very much. I Liked how you managed to keep the puzzle challenging enough, but not annoying. Good Job.

khyrgrim 2020-04-21 12:59

Really nice atmosphere but the gamplay is a little bit to flat. Special congrats for goblins voices.

chromaphase 2020-04-21 12:59

Interesting gameplay ! Refine the tutorial ;)

ryannielson 2020-04-21 12:59

Neat idea for a puzzle game, I don't think I've ever seen a puzzle game whose puzzles are based around pathfinding. I liked the aesthetic as well. To mirror the criticism of others, I also thought it was a bit slow. Maybe speed up the movement animation or automatically finishing the movement when a puzzle was solved and walking to the end automatically would help a lot.

Great job overall!

joewolf 2020-04-21 12:59

Graphics are really good and the puzzles were genuinely engaging. I would echo what a few people have said that there should be a "continue to the end" button, e.g. the corridor level wasn't great because you had to sit and press next turn all the way along. Otherwise a good game, well done!

wallyfoo 2020-04-21 13:00

Solid puzzles. I always have a hell of a time trying to build puzzle games. Respect. And the goblin asset was adorable. I would have liked a fast forward button when the puzzle was solved? And it wasn't clear it was a turn-based puzzler at the beginning. Took me a little while to find the "next turn" button.

devastus 2020-04-21 13:00

A very nice entry indeed. I like the presentation and the puzzles are interesting enough to keep you going.

Some improvement ideas could be automating the goblin when it has a clear path to the objective, as droning on the Next Turn button feels a bit janky. Also absence of zooming, but atleast you have the movement keys.

Well done!

drcuketa 2020-04-21 13:01

A cute puzzle game, though a little slow.

amazura 2020-04-21 13:01

worth playing, good job guys :smile::thumbsup:

kptnholz 2020-04-21 13:04

Good job for making it look like a small whole game! Impressive! I like the 2D art. The game pace could be a bit quicker but in general nice built up in difficulty.

blackquiltro 2020-04-21 13:05

Good game, I liked graphics and audio, theme well used. The puzzles are clever and good amount of levels. I think an auto advance button or something to speed things up when the path is cleared should have been nice

sadzanenyama 2020-04-21 13:05

Interesting puzzle game. As others have said an "auto turn button" would've been nice to have so that you didn't have to span next turn. I liked the goblin animations and the drawings were nice and detailed too. Nice job!

linluk 2020-04-21 13:07

Awesome game, I really enjoyed it! Challenging puzzles, very nice graphics ... easy to learn, hard to master. keep it up!

tempii 2020-04-21 13:09

Nice Game, 11 Goblins couldn't be saved, especially the fourth lever in the two many dors level got me. When it was mentioned I thought it might be a hint to use it now and instantly killed all 3 goblins :joy:

As others mentioned a speed up or skip to the end of the level would be nice so you don't have to press the next button like ten times in some levels.

In the to many dors level I also thought it might be a nice addition if had key assigned to the levers (like 1,2,3 for the small ones). This would make the controlls way more comfortable with the scrolling imho. Overall I had a lot of fun and the game was nicely polished.

been 2020-04-21 13:11

Some really interesting puzzles here, took me a while to figure out how to get past the last bit on Collaboration. The music was nice and ambient, the ideal sort of thing you want when trying to figure out the puzzle, and I liked all the little sound effects accompanying each action (the spikes one especially). The graphics were good, it was always clear what was going throughout the games, never any deaths caused by my confusion there, only from not thinking ahead or knowing what a lever would do. I would've liked to see something done with the ending screen, it felt a little bland after I saved all those goblins (and accidentally killed the rest).

With a little refinement and more levels this is the sort of game I'd happily have paid money for.

raguel 2020-04-21 13:14

Game is good, but there are a lot of small annoying things for me. First is movement speed, it's simply just too slow.

Second is death animation it is also slow.

Camera movement is also slow.

After you pass obstacles there should be option to speedup or skip annoying part of just clicking and waiting for slow movements to finish.

Without that game is great!

bananabobbert 2020-04-21 13:24

Pretty decent, tricky and polished puzzle game. At the beginning i wanted continous stepping to the finish line but after the puzzles got harder it seemed redundant.

claws-up-games 2020-04-21 13:26

Great puzzle ! A bit slow but it has potential !

gandalfderwaise 2020-04-21 13:40

really nice puzzle game; a well fitting soundtrack and 7 levels - congrats! (Y) I found it a bit confusing at first how the goblins behave on waypoints, but all in all straight forward to play. A fast finish mode (e.g. when the rest of the way is clear, the goblin moves directly to the target within one turn) would be a nice additional feature.

sndr 2020-04-21 13:42

This is a really cool game! Puzzles are interesting and the mechanics work, there's depth to the elements you've brought into the table. The difficulty ramps up nicely. Overall, game design - wise is very good :) Assets and sound work nicely, and I love the orc assets being used in the message boxes :heart:

Main piece of feedback is that there should be a button that allowed you to tell the goblin to just go til the end, without you having to keep pressing "Next turn".

heelio157 2020-04-21 14:49

Interesting concept, but maybe a little too hard too soon. It is sometimes difficult to understand what the levers do exactly. But it was fun to plau!

jamesolivermusic 2020-04-21 15:51

Nice graphics. Explanations are definitely needed though, as it's quite complex.

jusw85 2020-04-21 16:57

Beat the game, took me 82 goblins to get there. I loved the puzzle mechanics and puzzle design overall, and also the goblin animations and graphics. Audio and story was okay. Maybe one thing I'd add is some way to zoom out the game, or maybe a top view down perspective to view the entire board at once.

rodrigo-castro 2020-04-21 18:34

I like the concept and the graphic. I think this can be a great game. You can improve with more adventure and emotion.

brain-in-a-bowl 2020-04-21 19:44

Nice concept, I like how you managed to create complex puzzles from simple mechanics. Nicely on theme too. The graphics are clear and incredibly charming. I would've liked a "keep walking" button, just clicking "next turn" over and over again got a little tedious.

fabrito 2020-04-21 21:56

Gret graphics and concept. I wish there was a better way to explain why the goblins die in front of a closed door, though... maybe another type of obstacle instead of doors would be better... like traps on the floor or something like that. The sound was a little unbalanced regarding sound effects and background music. Awesome job on the particles for that portal effect in the end and also great job on the goblin itself. The images of the goblin and the dark lord at the begging were very nice. Missed some art in the main menu, though. maybe the same images could be used there instead of the splash screens with the dialog at the beggning. Good job overrall! ;)

greendinogames 2020-04-22 01:12

Nice puzzle game. I think it's well balanced, because the levels get harder toward the end. Love the graphics!

witdarkstar 2020-04-22 02:50

This was a really neat puzzle game that gets really hard. I liked the presentation and humor a lot. I do wish with some of the puzzle there was an autowalk as pressing spacebar a bunch after solving was tedious.

kiln 2020-04-22 04:18

An interesting puzzle game! Great use of the theme, and the art style is actually pretty neat. While being low-res, it almost gives me an old school Windows 95 kind of vibe. Nice work!

noytroo 2020-04-22 09:04

Awesome idea, and you went pretty far for a 72h Jam! Congrats, I liked playing it :grin:

nexushub 2020-04-22 10:06

Perhaps the basic idea can be expanded into something great. But need less trial and error gameplay and faster game speed. Letting player revert a turn or two would also be great.

noirdrive 2020-04-22 10:51

Pretty puzzle concept and game. Isometric view and low resolution gives me the vibe of late 90's games. Death animation of the goblins is a bit long but it's not effect the gameplay. Well done overall!

lespaul59 2020-04-22 13:59

Nice concept and game. Sadly had no audio, but still a great entry!

dubdisk 2020-04-22 16:30

\*another comment about slow speed*

jonrei 2020-04-22 16:41

Really nice artwork in this game. Its a bit hard to figure out what to do, but its not like it was impossible. A neat little puzzle game that I think is really well made. Good job!

endytroll 2020-04-23 09:05

Funny game. Dat doors always kill me :DD good job! But i think this game must be faster. So many click on spacebar

linluk 2020-04-23 12:27

@pndaa, @florianduf check out my blog post ... I featured your game,... hope someone will read it and play and rate your game :-)

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/signal-fire-on-mystery-island/my-first-ludum-dare-and-i-really-enjoy-playing-all-those-awesome-games

khud0 2020-04-23 13:39

Extremely well-made puzzles and definitely an interesting idea! To make it easier to grasp (or as a different difficulty level) you could show the path zombie will take by placing marks on the ground or something like that.

marcin-godzina 2020-04-23 14:23

I like the progression of difficulty. Very solid puzzle game :)

kamuihand 2020-04-23 14:31

Good puzzle game! Feedback: I would do a HUB for the levers when the map enlarges for the html5 version, because I had to go back and forth to notice where the goblins would go and pull the levers... But I like the graphics, the music is simple and adds a little mistery and sadness. Maybe do others iterations of it(?) to pump it a bit. Good work!

florianduf 2020-04-23 17:21

Thank you for all your comments :)

And we take note of your advices because most of them are the same. And It's important to progress.

We didn't think our game was going to be successful like this. Thank you all, we really appreciated it.

kjscott 2020-04-24 08:38

It would be nice when you get the setup right so no goblins would die it would auto-move the goblins to completion so you didn't have to keep clicking on the Next Turn button over and over again, or just provide a button to allow you to auto-move when you feel that you have the setup right. Would just make the user experience a little more friendly. Maybe a transparent background?

The goblin escape animation was cute, was a shame you couldn't see it on the earlier levels. The death animation was a bit time consuming and you couldn't do anything until it had finished playing.

Fun little game, was interesting to try and solve the puzzles. Will definitely try to come back to it when I get a bit more time!

nsadie 2020-04-24 11:52

Very nice entry, very polished, a lot of fun with some really interesting puzzles!

I would have loved an auto move of some sort and some more camera controls, especially a zoom.

denis123 2020-04-24 13:53

Very nice game :) but I need to know... why do goblins die when they reach the door? :D

pndaa 2020-04-24 14:38

@denis123 They die of boredom of not going forward :wink:

palvel 2020-04-24 22:29

Very cool puzzle and the theme is expressed wonderfully! Only Windows that appear after the restart are annoying

hangarter 2020-04-24 23:03

Very impressive puzzle game. I missed being able to zoom out so I could see all the map, otherwise, great, great game!

coatline 2020-04-25 00:22

Cool puzzle game. This game had an interesting concept with the way that you controlled the environment to try to keep the goblins from dying. The death animation took quite a while but the escape one was nice. The only thing that was frustrating and for me took away from a lot of the experience is just how slow it is. It was almost like a clicking simulator. Aside from those complaints, good job!

g-a-gamestudio 2020-04-25 05:35

Great game, but needs alot more polishing.

splitpainter 2020-04-25 09:54

I saw your writeup about the level generation, quite awesome to see it in action. I agree with @hangarter on being able to zoom tho :)

leetchi-heda 2020-04-25 10:06

Nice game guys ! I wish I have a button to go straight to the end then i don't spam the next turn button ! Otherwise i liked it, it's fun and the atmosphere is cool ! Maybe it'll need a bit more feedbacks in game. well played guys

taran-unraveler 2020-04-25 11:02

There should be a button to "play to end" so that I don't have to press "next turn" to get to the portal. Besides that this is a great game! well done!

garys 2020-04-25 14:40

I like that the goblin dances when he gets to the end... waiting for the others. Nice game.

joleon 2020-04-25 19:21

Pretty interesting and innovative puzzle game :slight_smile: Well balanced, good difficulty curve, and quite a bit of content for a jam game! The mood wasn't really there for me, like, animations are a bit off and it isn't really satisfying to win, and not a very "juicy" game I guess. But, I can't define it well enough, so I can't complain :stuck_out_tongue: Good job!

tadej 2020-04-26 08:47

Fun to play and a very good concept for a puzzle game. Well done :)!

marcusnystrand 2020-04-26 11:12

Super creative game idea! Fitting background music and overall very solid piece of work. I got stuck on this level, it was too complex for my simple mind

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pndaa 2020-04-26 11:30

@marcusnystrand The plates are deactivating one trap and reactivating the other. Also they are reactivating the other plate. You need to play with the door near the end.

Thank you for testing it :thumbsup:

designernap 2020-04-26 13:38

Nice mood and graphics with some really great puzzle and level design. Great work!

nosfer 2020-04-28 22:26

Liked the isometric graphics and the mechanics. Managed to finish all levels :). One note from me because I've also made similar puzzle game some time ago (Cyber Sentinel - it's on steam). If you introduce new mechanic/type of puzzle/switch - don't mix it at first with other mechanics at once. Nintendo does this right - first they introduce new mechanic (e.g.switches) without using any previous (beside those basic) then they develop this mechanic further (multiple switches) and finally they mix it with previous mechanics. This is also good idea to make many levels with each mechanic.

eran-haas 2020-04-29 11:37

Love the art style! Interesting puzzles with a good difficulty curve. I felt like everything could have moved a little faster, but I am impatient that way.

Great job.

johnnysix 2020-05-08 23:50

Liked the puzzles, it'd be nice that it auto-completes without space/next turn by itself, once you've hit a win scenario.

If you continue post-jam, definitely tweak that.

This could be cool as mobile game, if you chunk the style a bit so it's easier to click/touch on small screen.