FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD46 → Don't Lose Familiar

Don't Lose Familiar

By justalocalhero

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall4443.5137
Fun4523.3737
Innovation1393.8636
Theme1224.1036
Graphics3093.7237
Audio2853.4236
Humor4662.8832
Mood2963.5134

Comments

tversteeg 2020-04-20 09:31

It was hard to understand what to do in this game, some game design elements could've been communicated more clearly. Otherwise, a nice game, I like the art style!

rakowu 2020-04-20 09:33

Uuh great idea to draw the protection. works really good

lcstark 2020-04-20 09:36

A fun little game. ;) I felt happy when I managed to reach my first new hazard type (the fireball), only to lose because the cat got too close and got killed by the blast wave of a fireball hitting the shield. Also, the little furball seems to love wandering around just as I've set up a shield for incoming blasts. Not a problem with the game, such is the nature of randomness. :D

ghostonline 2020-04-20 09:40

Nice pixel art with an interesting mechanic. Sometimes, I did not have enough time to react to new threats in the time between them becoming visible and reaching my familiar, but I guess that is where practice comes in.

marco-le-van 2020-04-20 09:44

Very original! Maybe the graphic could have been better but the rest is fine and the game is fun. The controls are very simple and they work perfectly.

bloham 2020-04-20 09:49

Hi :) I like you little dog, did not know what to do in the beginning until the dog died twice ^^ but than I wanted to keep him alive at all costs! I like how the hazards become more more difficult over time! Maybe a nice second goal would have been to simunstaiously summon something while protecting the dog? Good game!

justalocalhero 2020-04-20 11:18

@lcstark I wanted the familiar to be a just a little bit annoying. Sounds like I did okay ^_^ The first time the fireball explodes is a bit unfair but I hoped that it being big and slow was a clue.

@ghostonline You're right, I tweaked the speeds a lot and couldn't find a perfect balance. I wasn't quite able to get around to warning bubbles when a projectile is incoming. Glad you liked the art.

@bloham I was trying to keep feature creep to a minimum for once in my life ^_^. Juggling a couple of objectives could be fun though.

bloodpulpgames 2020-04-20 12:36

Art and animation is very good. Its a bit too hard though, or maybe i'm just bad at it :P

bereg 2020-04-20 13:29

I like the mechanic. It's something new and refreshing.

fakeyou 2020-04-20 13:54

Nice art style and fun idea. The cat was moving a bit too erratic in my opinion, it made any planning on where to draw the shield irrelevant.

alexey-kuzovkov 2020-04-20 15:10

Great idea and very solid gameplay. I also loved the graphics and atmosphere. Great job!

wikers 2020-04-20 15:57

its a little hard to understand what you need to do xD, first i think i need to keep it insede tha mark and the arrows(i think it was watther) fill my power xD i understand when comes a fireball :v

galgris 2020-04-20 19:24

Liked the visuals and style, but a bit hard to understand what to do. Still not entirely sure I got it all correct... :thinking:

automatonvx 2020-04-20 19:41

Took me a while to figure out what was going on how to play.. i think maybe the isometric look makes it more confusing than it needs to be. Once i figure it out it was actually pretty fun, feels like it would be better on mobile to me with the swipe mechanic, but still works well enough to get the idea... not much to say, fun little idea, liked the setting, art and music were ok and did the job.

jay-berlin 2020-04-20 22:26

Neat concept, and really fun once you get the hang of it. You might want to make the initial instructions clearer. Maybe have a short guided tutorial where it draws one and has you draw the next one. Otherwise, I had a lot of fun playing this game and the pixel art was great!

theconfusedcyborg 2020-04-20 23:57

Some instructions in game would have been nice, but pretty fun! Would be more interesting if the hazards had more variation to them, but still pretty solid.

silkworm-sweatshop 2020-04-23 19:44

I really like the concept, drawing mechanics are always fun to play with.

sharks 2020-04-23 22:26

Ok, here we go with my feedback.

AUDIO

I sometimes found it hard to tell if I lost familiar. Perhaps some sort of indicator but definitely having the music stop or fade away if you lose familiar would be a great queue. I also would have liked an audio indicator of the hazards, it doesn't have to be crazy just a simple sound effect from one of the generators out there could have been good.

ART

I don't know if you ran out of time, but having more diversity in the environment would be nice.

GRIPES

I also had a hard time figuring out where the 'rain' would land at the beginning. I found myself really wanting to move the camera, but that's more of a personal preference.

SUMMARY

It was very hectic (In a good way!) and I enjoyed keeping the cat alive! I really liked the whole shield mechanic and felt it was very innovative. The game adheres to the theme well, I liked the ways the character would dash about. The pixel art was very well done, but the bland tiled environment left something to be desired. As before mentioned the lack of sound effects and reactiveness on the music also left something to be desired.

Closing thoughts

I'm not the greatest at giving feedback, so I probably let a lot of my personal preference seep in. Pick and choose what feedback you think is good and what is not.

justalocalhero 2020-04-23 23:17

@sharks

Tremendous feedback, thank you.

Some of the issues did come down to time, as you said, but killing the audio when your familiar took a hit would have been a great improvement with no cost to implement. Ahh well, something to keep in mind.

Now that you mention it, focusing the camera the wizard character might have given the player another strategy to play around with, jumping ahead to scout and then back to protect. Didn't really think of it despite thinking the screen felt a pretty claustrophobic by the end.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to play and give such specific feedback.

nikor 2020-04-24 18:42

I really like your graphics and game play. Nice small game :) Thank you.

kjscott 2020-04-28 07:40

Once I got use to the interface of how the game worked I found it very slick and fun little innovative game, it felt very easy to get into the flow of things. I only got as far as the third round of different types of obstacles attacking the familiar and I wish I could have spent more time to see what else might appear. Definitely worth a go! Would be nice to see the game developed further.

linx 2020-05-01 20:21

Really fun and simple game! it's fun to actually draw the line/spell, that was unexpected. Nice job!

mikouaji 2020-05-03 17:42

Very simple yet fun :D A spell to freeze the cat would be helpful, the little guy gets annoying :D At first I thought you sould close him in a circle, couse of the circles on the floor

olewis 2020-05-12 17:47

Nice fun game liked the art style! Good game : )