cannedveg 2020-04-20 08:43
Love the complexity you managed to put into this! Great job!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD46 → Outpowered
By lcstark
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 491 | 3.47 | 55 | |
| Fun | 459 | 3.36 | 55 | |
| Innovation | 595 | 3.19 | 55 | |
| Theme | 407 | 3.79 | 55 | |
| Graphics | 912 | 2.74 | 54 | |
| Audio | 390 | 3.25 | 54 |
Love the complexity you managed to put into this! Great job!
An interesting concept. The level design is great, the size of the map, the movement speed, the rate that the energy decays, really good work. I just think that there could be more enemies and they could be a bit more aggressive, even shoot at you maybe? I got quite bored of just moving around, and I got the idea that the enemies attack the energy cell at the center of the map so you need to protect that, but the enemies kamikaze the energy cell, so even if I don't kill anyone I still have a lot of hp to walk around and collect everything. There are no mistakes, there are no punishment, there is no challenge. Increase the difficulty a bit and you got yourself an amazing game.
@Hcursino Thanks for the feedback! Perhaps I've set the interval between enemy spawns a bit too high. During testing I found that very often before you manage to destroy all enemies on the map, another group spawns and you quickly get overwhelmed.
The second type of enemy does shoot, but unfortunately it only shoots the generator. I wanted to have enemies attacking the player, but I simply ran out of time to implement it properly. Because of that the challenge in the game comes only in form of trying to explore as much as possible before the next group of enemies gets to close to the center.
I'll work a bit more on the game and add the simple enemy AI I wanted. That should make it more difficult (and interesting). ;)
Nice balance! There are several reasons to stay by the generator, to keep it alive and to not let it get attacked, and several reasons to go out, to kill enemies before they swarm you and to get the missing parts. Going back and forth between the two was great. Additionally the fact that you can't stay too long by the generator because the enemies keep getting stronger means you have to make some cool choices.
Nice job!
Needing to return to base for power is a cool way to add a little tension, especially in spots where you don't know whether the path you are on will loop back around or dead end.
The minimap tracking your progress is a really nice touch.
I liked the music. Was there a second theme for when enemies were inbound or did it just seem to line up that way?
@singleshoe, @justalocalhero Hey, thanks for your comments! I was a bit worried about forcing player to return to the generator too often. I didn't want to turn this into a Defense game where you only sit in your base. I'm glad it worked out well. ;)
@justalocalhero No, there's only one theme, so I guess it was just a happy coincidence. :)
Really like the game, how you defend, and at the time you should find the missing parts. It really made you think about priority. The minimap completes the info that needed to assess the priority. Great!
The music is great too.. Nice.. Love the melody..
Great job =)
Great game! Good balance between exploring and defending :)
Wow! I like this game, because I felt tension when playing. Music fits good, I remembered old id Software games. But, I think, enemies are very easy.
Fun little game. I liked that I could shoot the generator myself. Music seemed fitting. Minimap was very useful, especially how it updated to show where I had been. Strange that it showed everything but the parts needed though.
Could use a few more explosions when shooting things.
@lcstark I found the balance was pretty good. Technically there is nothing forcing you to leave, you could just defend indefinitely, but as soon as I saw the first missing part and saw the parts counter I wanted to explore and find them all.
@singleshoe > Technically there is nothing forcing you to leave, you could just defend indefinitely (...)
Technically, yes. But if you want to win the game, you must collect all the parts. Also, enemy waves get stronger with time, so eventually they will overwhelm you. This version of the game has a long wave timer, so it might take a while, but it will happen.
@alexey-akulovich Thanks! Old id software games were my inspiration for this music. I don't yet have a lot of experience or skill with music creation, so I'm both surprised and happy someone got that. :) As for the enemies - I stopped working on enemy AI in order to finish the game for the compo. I wanted the enemies to be able to chase and attack the player if they get too close, but I simply ran out of time.
@xeke-death Thank you! I left the "friendly fire" option on while testing early versions. I figured it would stop the player from shooting randomly around the generator and perhaps force them to intercept enemies way sooner.
I'm glad the minimap exploration progress is useful. It was one of the last-minute additions, but I feel like it made the game much better. I didn't show the parts on the minimap, so the player has to actually explore instead of just going to the marked place. If I had a bit more time I'd actually change the map so it wouldn't show the entire map, just the parts you've visited and their neighboring corridors.
As for the explosions, I fully agree. That's one thing I regret not adding. I'm planning to add a small explosion when the projectile hits anything, plus a bigger explosion when an enemy is destroyed.
There is something oldschool about this game. The feeling of playing a game from 90x.
Really liked the balance of exploring, keeping the generator powered, and defending the generator. The mini-map keeping track of where you were was a really nice touch. Enemies could have used more variety and the movement was a little boring after a while. Overall, I really enjoyed the game, good job!
Really liked the mini-map and the fact that it showed the areas you've explored. It made finding the missing parts much easier. I agree with what some others have said, that the timer between enemies was too long. I never really felt threatened by them, because I was able to take them out before they got near the generator. Needing to go back to the generator to recharge it was a good touch, and made the game play more interesting. Nice job overall!
Cool game! I liked the idea to find things around the map, and protect your thing at the same time, it kept me playing until the end. I liked your mini map, in the end I was just looking at the map to navigate and not the actual screen, but not sure if that's something bad or good haha. However towards the end the enemies just kept coming, and thought it was a bit too much , or maybe I am just sore looser :). Also thought the graphics could be improved, I didn't find it too engaging & wasn't sure what things were supposed to represent (looks like bones to me), but I understand it is hard to do! So good efforts anyway to do them!
Really great game dude! Nice Work!
Nice game! I really like the tower defense combined with exploration aspect to it, felt original!
Well done! The soundtrack is alright and the game is pretty fun. It would be great if you could play it in fullscreen as it didn't quite fit on my screen. Other than that nicely done!
I enjoyed this. I think I might have been bored if it hadn't had that music, but *with* the music it was actually really fun to just wander through the maze and occasionally rush back to defend the generator. It was a bit on the easy side, but the escalation was enough that I did start getting worried toward the end, so it worked out.
@artemftw Thanks! What screen resolution are you using? Next time I'll try to make sure it has a fullscreen mode and that it scales both up and down in it.
@pizzasgood Thank you! I'm glad you liked the music, it was one of the things I felt anxious about, for not putting enough time to polish it. As for the difficulty, I worked on some AI for the enemies, they were supposed to spawn more often and attack the player if they got too close. Unfortunately, time was running short and I had to cut that out. That also meant I had to make the spawn times between waves much longer, as enemies now bolted towards the generator and the player would be overwhelmed early on. In hindsight, I could have added a selectable difficulty level, making the spawn times a bit shorter on higher difficulty settings, but that's just a lesson for the next time. ;)
@lcstark I'm using 1366x768
The mini map was so clever, it added a ton to the experience, from the sort of assistance it gave exploring the maze to the balance of pushing far out before enemies arrived or the power started to wane. Have to be close to the generator to keep it alive added a real push and pull element which added tension to actually exploring. Played pretty well, and the music added a lot. Pretty high marks, good job!
The fact that you made a whole level is awesome. Also I enjoyed the map and how you marked where you passed by. I wished it had more challenge as the enemies weren't really a danger for me, but overall I enjoyed just looking for the yellow pieces. Nice job!
Overall a great job. It took me awhile to figure out that you can change the rotation of player with the mouse position (the player automatically rotates to some degree with the WASD keys, and I thought I was limited to that at first). You may want to add that to the instructions. Also, I recommend changing the shape of the player so that it's more obvious as to which side the bullets are going to come out. Good work :-)
Very fun game! Love the tune, its catchy :) Nice graphics. The enemies could be more challenging or have more types in later waves, but overall very nice :D!
Amazing gameplay! Lots of really great features. I really like the concept of being forced to come back to the base (did the same in my game), the maze level design (I was concidering implementing it for my game but went with a simpler design) and enemy waves that force you to return to the base more frequently and add to the challenge. Really impressive game mechanics you've gathered and managed to implement in just 48 hours!
Graphics, sounds and music are simple but fit well. I think I would enjoy the game even more if those were a bit more complex and colorful. I feel like it looks more like a prototype rather than production ready game. Which is not bad at all given the amazing gameplay.
All in all, you did a really great job and I largely enjoyed playing it!
Nice! I liked the sort of risk vs reward of defending the generator vs going out to find the pieces. Having the map change color when you explored areas was also a nice touch. Made things a lot clearer. Nice job!
Very intuitive gameplay! It really did come all together neatly and without hesitation. The difficulty curve seems perfect for a jam game, too!
Don't know whether intentional, but at some point 2 of each enemy type combined and "danced" in a circle, creating a beautiful new shape.
Wonderful job! Thank you!
@trexxak Thanks! No, that wasn't intentional, but perhaps it's a good idea - when two enemies collide they combine to create a new and more powerful enemy. It's something worth experimenting with! :)
@lcstark Really cool game I liked it a lot especially for a compo game.
As i have gathered from your other replies, you are not intending to do a post-LD version which is a shame. But I will therefore focus my review on what could have been done on a compo timescale.
The graphics are fine and get the job done, but they are not what this game is about. The Audio is suprisingly good since you said you have no experience with that!
The mechanics are quite complex and polished at the same time for a compo game and this is what makes this game stand out.
Here are a few Ideas of what I might have done:
I would have added more feedback in general: for hits, a little screen shake a small explosion, for picking up missing parts a little screen glow or some sparkle effects etc.
I would have added bouncing projectiles, this game needs bouncing projectiles :D
I would have added some difficulty settings because right now it was very easy.
Also a fullscreen option, (Usually just setting itch.Io to "click to launch fullscreen" does this automatically unless you are doing something with fixed pixel sizes, since this is only a modification to the hosting and not the game you could even try this now)
The enemy AI is fine for the timeframe.
Overall Well done
SpaceGG.jpg
@ausstein Thanks for your feedback!
> As i have gathered from your other replies, you are not intending to do a post-LD version which is a shame.
I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do a post-LD version. Right now I'm busy with making another game for a different jam, and in the free time I'm trying to play and rate more LD games. If I have some time in the next few days I'll try to implement at least some of the features I wanted to have here from the start, but didn't have enough time. Hopefully I'll have enough time to work on it more.
> I would have added more feedback in general: for hits, a little screen shake a small explosion, for picking up missing parts a little screen glow or some sparkle effects etc.
Small explosions are one of the things I have on my to-do list. I haven't considered adding any effects on pickup, thanks for the tip!
> I would have added bouncing projectiles, this game needs bouncing projectiles :D
Now that's an interesting idea. I wonder how well it will work here. I'll try experimenting with it for a bit. Thanks! ;)
> I would have added some difficulty settings because right now it was very easy.
I thought about adding a slider that would change the interval between the waves. Right now I think it's not a priority, since I first want to focus on giving some AI to the enemies, which will influence the difficulty on its own. When that's done I'll see about adding some difficulty setting.
> Also a fullscreen option, (Usually just setting itch.Io to “click to launch fullscreen” does this automatically unless you are doing something with fixed pixel sizes, since this is only a modification to the hosting and not the game you could even try this now)
I might remember it wrong, but I thought the Itch.io full screen option doesn't scale the game window, it just puts it on a single colored plane and hides the browser UI. Either way, I guess it's a good idea to turn that option on. Later on I'll see about making the game scale well for several resolutions and aspects.
Thanks for a lot of good feedback, it means a lot to me! :)
Funny to play, could be a little bit more challenging but still you try to discover the area and start to forget about the yellow part until its almost dead and you try somehow to rush back so it was a good idea to not include some sort of sprinting, makes it a little more stressfull :)
There was a moment where the game froze a little but it then immediately started up again.
I really liked the map that filled itself in as you moved around, helped make it a lot clearer to myself where I had looked before without having to put additional mental load of myself to personally memorise it. The multiple resources, energy and health, which you have to balance in order to not lose the game meant I had to keep a little more situational awareness but I never felt that energy was ever much of a threat even when I had gone exploring for a long time. You did well with the alerts warning you of incoming waves and when energy was running low, so that was really cool to see. On the second game around I could see the pick-ups were randomly placed so I couldn't memorise the locations.
Overall a pretty solid concept, there could be some areas of polish with the map graphics and enlarged map (in my personal preference, would have worked better if it was centered on your current location). Good interesting game, ended up playing three times just to see what it was like.
@kjscott > There was a moment where the game froze a little but it then immediately started up again.
Do you remember what was going on when that happened? Was it just before enemy spawn? Or right at the start of the game? I haven't seen this bug before, it might be difficult for me to locate the source.
> (...) enlarged map (in my personal preference, would have worked better if it was centered on your current location)
The map is mostly centered, I've made it so there's a little bit of a deadzone before it starts following you. I was coding a way to scroll the bigger map using arrow keys, but I've ran into a few bugs and had to scrap that idea to finish in time.
Thank you for your feedback!
@lcstark, I'm afraid not. I think there was no enemies nearby but there were somewhere around on the map somewhere, it only happened one time so I wasn't able to capture and remember all the details, plus it was only a momentary hiccup but enough that I noticed.
Liked the idea of losing generator's energy if you are far, but generally game is pretty simple. Maybee nned to increase losses, or make more / stronger enemies. Or maybe need to make bullets limited, and make points of their refilling. But still good job!
Game felt like it was a little too easy, but overall pretty fun! I liked having to regularly return to the reactor to defend/recharge it.
Brilliant all around! The art, music, and gameplay was simple and intuitive, and it was a fun combination of exploring, combat, and time management. I'm impressed that you were able to pull of such a smooth and nice-looking minimap in just 48 hours. Well done!
What I appreciate most in this game is the balancing. As the game went on, more enemies showed up, but never so many that I got really overwhelmed. I think a little less health for the generator wouldn't be amiss, but I also know that with the game being relatively slow pace, you really don't want to make the player restart. Nothing too original in the concept, but fun enough that I played until the end. Good work.
Very interesting and satisfying game! The map is really useful.
A functional map really helps here, nice work!
Enemies were a bit of a chore more than a challenge. their slow movement generally just makes them fodder, and constantly needing to sweep them while hunting for items became tedious.
mechanically everything worked as expected, though the victory screen could have used a bit more fanfare. Granted I'm guilty of this one too, 'tis the curse of the jam I suppose
Really well done for a compo entry honestly. I'd like to see more but this is a solid foundation
Nice work! Enjoyed wandering around the maze looking for things, but the game was overall too easy. Enemies seemed to have decent pathfinding, something people don't usually try to set up during a jam. They moved very slow though, so I could run around the maze for a good while before having to worry about them. Setting up more obstacles around the map would've been interesting and added more tension so the player worries about getting back to heal in time. Overall though an enjoyable entry.
Nice work, the gameplay works well, the map is very useful.
With better graphics and fx you can make the game more juicy and create a great exploration atmosphere. Impressive works for one person.
Good job.
Fun game with good controls! It was a bit slow in the beginning but the enemies made it more fun. Well done! :smile:
Yeah Bouncing bullets!!! I will try this later today :)