remco 2020-04-20 07:35
I don't recommend it, but you can also _move the camera_ with **W/A/S/D/R/F** and _rotate_ with the same keys _shifted_. Restart the level with **shift-Z**.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Hive Alive!
By remco
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 751 | 3.19 | 31 | |
| Fun | 879 | 2.77 | 31 | |
| Innovation | 351 | 3.50 | 32 | |
| Theme | 763 | 3.37 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 595 | 3.33 | 33 | |
| Audio | 654 | 2.75 | 31 | |
| Mood | 663 | 3.04 | 27 |
I don't recommend it, but you can also _move the camera_ with **W/A/S/D/R/F** and _rotate_ with the same keys _shifted_. Restart the level with **shift-Z**.
Hey is neat. My only actual complaint is that I cannot read the indicator in the corner, could be a lot clearer. It was a fun lil tactics game.
Cool game! Surprisingly strategic when you learn what's going on (a short tutorial would help loads here). TBH only major issue in an otherwise v fun game is if you split a flower and it's on the edge of the map you lose one of the two new flowers, making the game way less intuitive / far too limited in your options.
Overall great job though, love the concept ;)
Took me a couple of tries to get into it, but a fun stategy game! It was hard to tell what was going on from the angle and the UI sometimes. A cool game!
Pretty interesting game. One that definitely takes a bit of investment to learn how to play.
It was a bit hard to tell what was in the picture but I see what you were going for (bee visison). Interesting tactics game, my only complaint really is a bit too hard to see and the loud screechy sound scared me cause my volume was high :D
The game is simple, but the strategic involved is complex. I didn't manage to go further than 15 turns, the lost flowers when on border, and the need to sacrifice 2 bees to take off the bunnies while they spawn much more often than 2 bees does, made the task very difficult. Nice game however, and I hope you will manage to get more detailed view in the future, with your awesome web raytracing engine!
I love the raytracing tech, but didn't feel like the game design made use of it at all. There is probably some depth to the strategy element of this, and I wanted to figure it out, but the interface was fairly obscure and I couldn't keep all of the instructions in my head at once to understand what was going on, so I bounced off it despite my best efforts. Also, the sound effects are rather abrasive. Eventually I gave up on the game and just started looking around the room and appreciating the reflections, which was more fun for me. I'd love to see you reuse this renderer in the future with maybe a higher resolution and a game design that shows off its capabilities.
Graphics and sound reminded me of "dungeon keeper"
The game is very challenging and i applaud the complexity of the rules.
Some sort of video tutorial would be nice if you continue developing it further
Lots of stuff going on here! The amount of rules make getting going really hard. A 'level' or progression system would have been nice to slowly introduce more rules. :) Quite fancy that you have a raytraced game going on! Interesting look through that too. Perhaps would have like a 'increase resolution' option, just to see how far it can be pushed.
All in all a bit of a jumble, but there a lots of interesting things going on tech and strategy wise. :)
Really cool graphics! You have some nice tech going on in there!
@bit-assembly The corner 'stats' where build in the last hour before the deadline. I desperately wanted to do them in-engine instead of with text, which may have been a mistake.
@chloeofarroyo I always _promise_ myself that this time, this is the one where I'll put in a playable tutorial. It never really happened so far. For the splitting i'd say: It would maybe have been better for the board to be a bit larger so that it does happen less often. I'm not _entirely_ sure I'd take a disadvantage like that _completely_ out of the game though, given the chance.
@liam It was a bit of a conundrum... a better angle would've shown the graphics even less (and vice versa).
@maindric Funny thing is, I mostly set out to keep things simple. Only afterwards do I see bits that I could've cut (like the nectar system ... in practice, refilling at a beehive every so often doesn't really add _that_ much, given the difficulty and the fact that this is a jam game).
@barrier Sorry! The program I use to make the SFX is always a bit too loud with the harsh sounds. I normally reduce their volume on export, but I forgot this time!
@lereveur Good, that's what I was going for! As for the tech, it's unknown how far I can push this, but I'm going to try at least one more time.
@notnullnotvoid Originally, I planned to zoom to any interesting things (bee stings, bee collects pollen), that'd give it a bit more of a dynamic look. Maybe I should've just picked a dynamic genre and try to fit it with the theme next time, instead of the other way around. As you probably noticed, the resolution was already a lot lower than in the screenshots produced by the engine (turns out multiple objects _do_ slow it down significantly, even touch every model has a bounding sphere now). I have some ideas on how to push further, but I can't guarantee anything.
@voidsay Video tutorial is a nice idea actually! Maybe I should do that next time for a jam game as well as I inevitably find myself without a functioning tutorial again!
@joror Slowly introducing the rules would've been ideal... There's a _lot_ of things that I wanted to get done for this one. But given my previous track record with adding a third day (that is, on the third day I get about as much done as in two hours in the other days), I _really_ didn't want to go to the Jam this time. "_All in all a bit of a jumble, but there a lots of interesting things going on tech and strategy wise._" is basically the answer to "what is a remco game"? :-P
@nachocp Thanks, showing of the tech is one of the things I set out to do!
Interesting game concept. The dithering was a bit much for my taste. Agree with the others on a level concept. Could even be a quite good board game given some more thought.
Cool game! The mechanics are hard to grasp, and the game is pretty tough. I like the graphic style, it can be a bit hard to read but it looks cool. I'm really impressed you could pull this off in a compo setting.
Props for creating such a complex and presumably deep game in 48 hours. I really feel that in the time I played, I hardly scratched the surface of what's possible strategically. The main flaw I noticed was the pixel filter over the entire thing made the graphics practically inscrutible. It was really difficult to figure out what was going on. But, putting that aside, the package you delivered here is really impressive, nice job.
Love the dithering effect, but it does take its tole on game visiblity. There needs to be more indicators on what is possible at any given point
Generally, I do like the dithering effect you used... But in you context, it really is a problem. It's very hard to tell, what is going on and a great strain on the eyes. It does not add to your game. Even worse, it subtracts from the enjoyment. The graphics seem to look nice... But it's hard to tell through that pixel pattern :D I therefore wasn't very motivated to learn the game rules and actually play it like you intended. Strategy games like yours are not my cup of tea in the first place. Having to deal with the visuals on top of that was not helping. A tutorial would've been nice. I'm not someone who enjoys reading through a manual before playing a ldjam game. I guess that I'm not alone on that.
Hope you can use that feedback. And good luck on your last vote to reach 20 :) Keep it up!
When I run the game, the screen stays light purple…
I love this game. You made such a complex game with so little time. As a strategist, I do admire this a lot. Well done~
Though the flaws and feedback I'll be stating are mostly the same like everyone elses. * I am glad you addressed about the lack of time and putting the details in the entry and on the itch page. I know most if not all of us will have no time to add a tutorial beforehand. * I do suggest going simpler next time, cause making a tutorial for these is actually also time consuming. * I am also glad you gave a note about the sound beforehand. It's actually quite considerate of you. * Most of the problems lies within the dithering pass you made on the camera. This is the only thing and the sole reason that it topples your entry down by A LOT actually. * This made everything hard to see. This made even the stats you added last minute unreadable. * I know you have some fancy tech involved, but this turned out to be a lesson of "too much". I hope you've taken note to that. * Props for the movement indicators to be very clear and stark. * Though it's not pointed out, if the game is actually in a very small resolution, you CAN read the details. But then you'd get the conundrum of the game being too small. * The camera angle, though a bit of a conundrum with how you made it. You struck that good balance. Definitely adjustments are needed, but I'm glad you have taken note of this. * Even though you stated about the camera controls, they don't help. I was expecting that to circle around, which is the one that's supposed to help with such visibility and detail. I was about to suggest to place it on the entry itself, but I don't see a need to anymore.
I really want to play more of this if not for that darned filter. I did survive at least 15 turns. Really with I could've rated it better but sadly can't. Good work nonetheless.
(I'll attempt to rate & comment on the games of at least all the commenters before this post, but it might be a while before I get to all of them, as there's a work-week and two high-priority personal projects ahead. So this may be the last batch before the rescue rating begins...)
@lars-erik Boardgame might be a good idea actually, I could 3D-print it.
@oscarglo Well the engine (such as it is) was mostly finished before, as base-code. Most of the work, besides modelling & dealing with the performance issues, was getting javascript to do what I wanted (as I know the language the shaders are in a lot better than webcode).
@quinn-patrick @rustywolf @duke The dithering was mostly an attempt to disguise the current (probably) performance problems :sweat_smile:
@juice-lizard Thanks for the notify. What's your OS/browser/video-card? If it's not compatible with WebGL2 it's supposed to say that. (Also this game is likely to not work well on tablets and mobile is very probably out of the question.)
@fiakaiera Thanks! You don't have to apologize for rating the way you do. Rating honestly and (most of the time) explaining it all in the comments is what makes this event go round after all! I know from experience how hard these super detailed comments can be (which is why I try to keep it a bit simpler these days), so I can appreciate the care given!
The sound has tripped me up before, and also it's about the only thing that can actually physically hurt people (not that that's happened, but still...). I could've done without the dithering myself; it was an attempt to mask the (perceived) performance problems. Maybe I should have gone for interlacing instead. The camera was indeed impossible to get right. The controls where mostly left in because I thought it would be fun for people... I know they're not exactly useful if you're actively trying to do something with them and not used to them (and a pain even if you do).
@remco My OS is Mac OS 10.12.6, browser: Firefox and video card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M.
@juice-lizard Thanks again. Strange, that should just work fine, I've developed it on Firefox. (Though I haven't tested it on Mac ... that could maybe it. I'll try to remember my to ask my Mac owning friends.) Maybe it says something in the web-console (a debugging aid built into most browsers), but that would take away from your valuable time (and if we find anything, mine as well :smile:).
I would have definitely gone for interlacing rather than dithering, and/or just upping the system requirements to play the game smoothly. Especially since it's not an action game, a lower framerate (say, 20fp instead of 60) is not such a big deal.
Nice idea. Requires some patience.May want to have some easy levels with fewer rules for one to get accustomed to the gameplay.
It's quite hard and took awhile to get. I couldn't quite see the icons. It looks GREAT but it'd be nice to have a UI layer that's not so affected by the shaders.
Music and and the feal is awesome. I only get two bunnies on the board before thay eat everything. The grapichs made me think of this intro for some pixelated reason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfdPxsVc06E.
very neat raytracing! love it!
I enjoyed the look. I like games that use retro stylings in interesting ways. In your description, you talk about the sound being too much for headphones. Why did you not replace the sound or just cut it? I enjoy strategy games. What is your favorite strategy game? What are the rules for that game? Can you compare them to the rules of your game in terms of complexity and player feedback? I didn't know I could move the camera and when I did figure it out, it was difficult right? Could your game have worked without camera control and just put the camera in a more readable place? Good job on the music, it really ties together the mood of the game while being loopable in the background without being annoying. Thanks for letting me play your game!
Edit: I read after the fact that your game engine utilizes ray tracing. What did it bring to your game?
Thanks all! If I read the results correctly, it seems this engine is _still_ not quite ready for prime-time, on top of that, the game type doesn't fit with what I was trying to show of. Lastly, I think my time-budgetting during those 2 days was ... well I basically kept convincing myself I could get all the features in with less and less time.
@notnullnotvoid I checked with the interlacing instead of the (not really) dithered look, and it isn't much better t.b.h. I'll just have to put in a bit more work to make this engine shine, in performance, ease of use and capabilities. (Also it's already at 20.5 fps I think... but maybe I could've put it at 15 or 12 so.)
@gronk Probably because both (the way that creation worked for) that video and my game have somewhat similar issues to work around: We both want relatively high fidelity 3D, but something is preventing us from that (the relatively low powered PC's of around 1990 for them, doing any kind of real-time raytracing online for me).
@spacewizardj Almost all of these questions have really boring answers. It's a compo game, I only had days and I'm apparently not very good with time-management. The game is _intended_ to work without camera control, and as far as I know, should be able to be played fine just without it. It was left in as an extra for people who wanted to explore a bit more. Thanks for the comment on the music. The secret is don't try to create good music, create an atmosphere. The raytracing doesn't bring as much to the game as I hoped (I thought I had time left over to do some animations with camera work) but I do think it helps to make the greenhouse feel more alive.