feferuco 2020-04-20 03:02
Definitely different than the rest but I couldn't figure out how to create anything different or even what I was creating.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → X33D
By ben-taylor
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 860 | 3.02 | 25 | |
| Fun | 1056 | 2.23 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 59 | 4.08 | 25 | |
| Theme | 1041 | 2.52 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 375 | 3.65 | 25 | |
| Audio | 201 | 3.59 | 23 | |
| Humor | 856 | 1.65 | 18 | |
| Mood | 554 | 3.17 | 22 |
Definitely different than the rest but I couldn't figure out how to create anything different or even what I was creating.
@feferuco thanks for playing! Yeah the gameplay really suffered, I spent much too long on the systems that tied everything together and not enough time on... making it fun :P
@ben-taylor I feel ya. Once I made a jam game based on six degrees of separation, where you'd have to find kevin bacon inside an entire universe. The idea was you would get an alien, check their friends and try to jump from friend to friend until you found Kevin Bacon. So I spent a long time creating the procedural planets and procedural aliens with their procedural faces and their procedural jobs and procedural travel patterns... before I knew it I had just a bunch of procedural aliens that I didn't know what to do with.
I heard the sounds are in tune with the music. Sounds incredible!
The audio and UI art are pretty good, but as @feferuco I'm also at a loss at how to control "breeding". I think the main problem is that these letters/digits don't communicate anything to the player. I don't understand how two inputs create an output nor what output I'd like to get.
@gajop thanks for playing! Yeah I'm not sure I would want to go in the direction of "explaining" that. The vibe I want to get is say cultivating plants, or breeding animals. You don't really know how the system underneath works you just put things together and see what comes out. I think there needs to be more structure and encouragement in that direction + tools for inspecting the traits of each. Also the way they grow is mostly unsatisfying but sometimes really cool.
My original idea was that it would be social and there would be a public gallery, but I didn't have enough time to build that!
Anyway, thanks!
@syo thanks!
An interesting thingamajig to leave in the background while working, to check on occasionally for a little break (thankfully I can mute single tabs). I like how the x33ds grow almost like crystals. It is really obscure, which is ok as an experience. Thankfully real breeding of plants is not this incomprehensible!
I really enjoyed how vague this was - jumping in without a lengthy tutorial made the act of trying things out a fun discovery. The only thing that was confusing was whether Collecting/Breeding earlier in a x33d's growth affected the end result, or if it just meant you didn't see what the end product looked like.
very nice world building and interesting mechanics!
I really like these kind of games. and I found myself enjoying your game, quite a lot!
đź‘Ťreally great job!
and look at this unicorn unicorn
Thanks @freya-c and @jonah! Love to get the serotonin hit of positive feedback!
I think the gameplay could use more “collect and share” mechanics to make it feel more like a collectible system.
This was fun to play around with. I wasn't sure when the creatures were "done" -- if you leave them long enough do they reach a finished state? I guess they change lot over time (hence the collection mechanism as well as breeding) and "collect" take a snapshot at that point?
One nice thing would be the ability to nickname X33d's you like -- if the nicknames also went through combination when you bred two together which both had nicknames, that would be awesome.
I also really liked that "x33d" is "exceed". good work.
Really cool game. I've never seen anything quite like it. I had good fun playing. Good job.
Thanks @misterkeefe - the nickname mechanism is a super cool idea! They kind of just grow indefinitely but get slower and slower over time, so they reach a end-ish point. If you leave them open in a tab they can end up getting absurdly big.
@convg thanks for the kind words!
Very interesting, I'm glad to have found this game, I like unusual games like that! It could have been easier to play if names gave a bit more information. But I really liked the visuals and the idea !
@framboisedodue thanks! I'm glad you found it!
It has a learning curve, but I liked it. If the first few steps are a bit faster then most of the testers would not get lost as I did. But if I take my time then it grows out something, ... something. It's good to see different games after playing mostly platformers :)
Hard to follow but interesting once i got into it. Really, really nice seeing something different in this jam.
One of the coolest games in the event! The core concept is very unusual in a good way. Sound design is amazing. Also, in another point of view this can be an Album Cover Generator for artists. I love the visuals. Good job!
wow interesting! I got totally immersed in this, I did crate some awesome stuff, but I seem to destroy them every time in my next merge. But cool!
Thank you @mudlee, @herrybiscuit, @noirdrive and @knason. It’s so nice to see people enjoying my weird thing!
@mudlee: Yeah, I think the growing needs to be fast at the start and slow at the end!
@herrybiscuit: Thanks! I quite enjoyed making something weird.
@noirdrive: Thank you so much! I’m not much of a music/audio person - just learning.
@knason: Yeah, the mechanics are not very good for collecting, when the whole fun of this kind of game is collecting! What was I thinking! :P