xfinktion 2020-04-21 03:06
Nicely done! Only complaint is that your idiot/friend walks faster than the platforms extend so he will walk off while you're on the button if you barely made it to the button. Solid entry!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → IN THE ANCIENT RUINS WITH AN IDIOT
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 693 | 3.26 | 23 | |
| Fun | 599 | 3.19 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 331 | 3.52 | 22 | |
| Theme | 142 | 4.07 | 23 | |
| Graphics | 563 | 3.38 | 23 | |
| Audio | 575 | 2.95 | 23 | |
| Humor | 197 | 3.47 | 21 | |
| Mood | 648 | 3.05 | 21 |
Nicely done! Only complaint is that your idiot/friend walks faster than the platforms extend so he will walk off while you're on the button if you barely made it to the button. Solid entry!
This has SO much potential but as it is currently it's super frustrating to play. I gave up much too soon cause the way it restarts is super jarring, and the timing has to be PERFECT.
Good! The roll is a bit hard to control, and maybe it could be better if the player didn't restart his position when the friend gets killed, I think it would fit better with the speed of the game, plus it feels a bit frustrating trying it again, in part because of the restarting song (when you lose a lot the music gets frustrating). And maybe a little more audio or visual feedback when he loses, just my opinion! Congrats! :D
Hi, great concept, decent sound and graphics, really really needs work on the controls though - really frustrating! The disconnect between you respawning and the VIP respawning was really jarring, causing you to reset part-way.
I bet this could be really good with a little more work post-compo! :D nice work!
You have a good idea going here with some neat mechanics - but as is, the game is just not fun to play. The pace of the game is too fast - the player feels a little too fast, and the "idiot friend" is too fast for the moving platforms (and too fast in general), and he starts moving the instant the level starts, so you don't have any time to get your bearings. Even just a two second pause before he starts walking would help a lot. It's confusing and frustrating that both your position and his position reset when he dies, but only your position resets when you die - most of the time, it means when you die, you just have to wait for him to die too because it's already too late to save him. The hitboxes for the pits and arrows are a little too big - I often died just by brushing up against a pit or just by being near an arrow. All of these things combine together in such a way that the game requires an unreasonable amount of precision.
It's particularly frustrating because it feels like this could become a truly solid entry with less than an hour's worth of tweaks - the mechanics, the graphics, and the level designs are all there and really solid (good work on all that), but it just doesn't feel fair and fun to experience those nice things because the balance is just not there. This makes it difficult to decide how to rate since it feels so close but yet so far from being a great game.
If you decided to work on this post-jam, I think it could be really cool. Iron out the balance and speed issues and add 30+ levels and it would be awesome.
@empty-set thanks for the detailed feedback, some of it I had planned to fix before posting, but I was running out of time and decided it was better to at least publish it than risking being too late. I do plan on fixing it after the jam, but I don't have plans on adding stages or anything, mostly because I'm already kinda busy with my final project in college so putting too much time on this might not be a good idea for now.
I am very glad I found your game as I very enjoyed it. I agree with most points in the first paragraphj of @empty-set post, except for one: I think the pace of the game is fine: I like that I should sometimes cheer the moving platform to reach the end position in time. I also disagree with the frustration. True, the respawn mechanism is annoying, and the idiot could wait a second before start (I would make him to look around), but these are minor things which could be easily fixed so I put these issues aside completely in my rating. Why? Because the game was fun and challenging and it has a good theme.
Rolling is a bit difficult to control, and in my opinion your companion should be a little bit slower. It's really hard to keep up. Besides that, amazing clean pixel art, matching music and a fun game in general. Well done, I had fun playing!
Very challenging and very fun!
But Dr. Archeologyguy is too fast. In some levels you have a one second window to pull everything off. And the fast controls don't exactly help with that.
Very nice concept. I wish everything were just a little nicer to the player: it's a bit tough to move accurate distances, timing for rolling across a gap is pretty tight, and, most of all, the "idiot" starts moving *very* quickly at level start, often with a pit very close, so you have to be pretty on top of getting moving. Either a little extra time at start (especially on respawn), or just pausing each respawn until you touch a key, would help a lot.