Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD47 → Stuckgrade
By n8dev
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 511 | 3.69 | 30 | |
| Fun | 490 | 3.60 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 604 | 3.50 | 30 | |
| Theme | 505 | 3.87 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 733 | 3.62 | 30 | |
| Audio | 625 | 3.37 | 30 | |
| Humor | 976 | 2.44 | 28 | |
| Mood | 1169 | 3.03 | 28 |
I really think there's something to this Live.Die.Repeat mechanic. It's satisfying to die and then immediately buy the upgrade to get past. The pace is a little too slow early game, where the most efficient way of getting coins is to farm that one coin at start then die and repeat. To fix maybe make higher skill coins worth more or bring down the early prices.
A nice spin on one of my favorite type of childhood time waster games. Fun to play, but I have a few nitpicks:
1. Need to grind pretty hard to be able to upgrade the jump enough to be able to get to more than the bottom path of the map.
2. The character is a bit sticky on the sides of platforms, making missing jumps fatal to a run. :(
Overall though, enjoyed it a lot!
@RainyDay2800 thank you for the feedback! I obviously can't change that now, but will for sure make sure to pay special attention to balancing, maybe by getting some playtesters. I was pressed for time, so that just wasn't an option this time. Thanks for playing!
This is really good! I think the level design could use a bit during the beginning could use some tweaking but otherwise great job.
@firetwoonenine thanks for the feedback! (The game you mentioned was Johnny Upgrade I presume). I have gotten feedback on the balancing and will for sure pay more attention to that next time, and I was afraid that somebody would notice the stickiness, it is because I used the same physics material for the whole collider, and I didn't want the top to be slippery, so the sides took it in the shorts. Maybe next time I could give the player a material with lots of friction. Thanks for playing!
@tryston yeah, I have heard that a couple times, thanks for playing!
What a great concept! I throughoutly enjoyed it. I got a bit frustrated by two things: Getting stuck at edges of platforms, even if it was intentional it felt a bit 'cluncky' in the controls. Secondly it seemed that Jump was the way to go to progress properly. It felt a bit like a time gate, more than anything. Apart from that though- I loved the concept. I'm a sucker for having that sense of progression, and you managed to do that in a game that sends you back to the beginning all the time :up: Great job, keep up the good work, and thanks a lot for sharing :-)
@Mekuri thanks for the feedback! The sticky platforms were a sacrifice, and not necessarily intentional/ideal. Maybe some kind of treadmill would give the speed upgrade some more power, and of course making combat a bigger part of the game would increase the need for health. Thanks for playing!
hey! Very nice work, man! Game looks and sounds simplistic but effective. Nice controls and great idea for having to constantly upgrade. Played this more then any game so long) Few things found: - you can stuck on ledges of platforms time to time - enemy hits himself (but it looks kinda funny =D) - you can play just farming first coin, maybe you can remove it after showing the concept of upgrades to player - as mentioned above, balance somewhat shifted, but this kind of things are expected. It has it's potential, i think game could work nicely on mobile platforms)
@Dexort Thanks for the feedback! The enemy is pretty stupid but like you said, it's funny so I left it in :) I like the idea of getting rid of the first coin, and thank you for playing!
I like it, and played at for quite some time. Its start a little bit to slow, but nothing you couldnt fix throuth Leveldesign and/or cheaper prizes in the beginning. Or just give the Player two Coins the first two times then one Coin for a few rounds and then remove it completely.
@Malle thanks for the feedback, I think your idea would work perfectly. Thanks for playing!
@n8dev do you think it would be possible to have a gameplay video?
As there's no web version, and as I'm usually reluctant to download games from jams to run locally, I'm a little bit frustrated :angry: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
@thesnide I will be posting a devlog here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjHNkH_KPvvHCwZEo22EzSg/ but I actually just created a webGL version on the itch.io page
LOOOOOOOOOOOVED THIS GAME!!! I beat it woohooooo! [Screen Shot 2020-10-06 at 8.24.05 PM.png](///raw/ba5/43/z/3925c.png)
The only feedback I would have is to add some smooth physics to the floor because often my player would get stuck when I jumped onto the side of a platform!!
Other than that, I love everything about it. Just wished it went on forever so I could play more :P
@avatargreggles I'm so glad you enjoyed it! I'm regretting not paying more attention to that, but I might actually try and fix that now. Thanks for playing!
No problem @n8dev , it didn't detract from my fun but it did cost me some seconds where I would instinctvly expect i would fall down if I missed the platform and I'd hold onto the edge for too long :P Thanks for making an enjoyable game!!
@n8dev great! I'll happily try it then :v: And, you can even try mine :innocent: #shameless-self-promo
@avatargreggles I managed to fix it :)
@avatargreggles thank you so much for the feedback and for playing! :)
@thesnide of course I'll try yours, thanks for playing :)
Fun game but rather short! It was quite addicting! You really want to finish the game :)
Really cool game! I enjoyed it alot, here is some feedback:
- Sometimes it gets a little bit repetitive, but since it's short and you can get all upgrades in some minutes it isn't something that bad
- Probably the only thing I hated in this game, the map, in my opinion changing the map for something bigger with indicators would make the game 10x better
- I really liked the concept, amazing job :smile:
- The jump upgrades felt a bit blank, also I don't know why you added health upgrades, didn't really changed anything for me
- The enemies can be improved
But for me it's a 4,1/5 game, great job and hope you liked the feedback!
@Rossmoff I'm glad you enjoyed, thanks for playing!
@n8dev I played the webgl version (on chrome, as Safari doesn't work). Very nice game concept! I guess the determinism is a very good fit for speed runs, with strategy... which upgrade path enables to finish it faster ?
@EnzoUP thanks for the feedback! The map was rushed at the last minute, and if I had more time, I would've added more enemies and weapons to give the health some meaning, as I spent a decent amount of time creating modular systems for both. Could you elaborate more on what you mean by indicators? Thanks for playing!
@thesnide I'm glad you liked! I think going for jump maxed out, and speed and time upgraded halfway would get you the fastest. Thanks for playing!
@n8dev with indicators I meant like, arrows showing where you have to go when you got a jump or speed upgrade, sorry for that, I'm not english native so sometimes I can change some words, but thanks :smile:
Well, that was unexpected, but very fun! :)
Okay, first things first. The gameplay and core mechanic is really good. My comments only would refer to slippery / over-responsive movement of the character. I think making the game not pause you to menu everytime you die if you don't have credits for any upgrade would be cool as well :) Good job nontheless!
I liked the game, reminds me of Johnny Upgrade. The game hit a roadblock for me gaining enough money to increase my jump, but otherwise was balanced enough
@EnzoUP ah I see, I really like that idea, thanks for playing!
@eugenik I'm glad you enjoyed, thanks for playing!
@mikoziq Thanks for the feedback! Is the character slippery at high speeds, or just at any speed? Thanks for playing!
@zashers It was very much inspired by Johnny Upgrade, thanks for your feedback, and thank you for playing!
The game started out pretty slow since I wasn't able to get many coins on each attempt. Once I had a few upgrades it really sped up. The floaty controls got frustrating towards the end as I was trying to jump into the ladder type portion. I assume that I had to go over the top since I couldn't progress in other directions. The art and music were very good and I liked the simplicity of the level design. Overall nice work!
Yesssss an upgrade game!! I love these! And I love this one too! Very cute, cool, relaxed atmosphere and music, nice simple graphics, cool post-processing that's not too exaggerated, I could see this becoming very popular at school if this was released in the Flash days. All I have is a few suggestions: The player shouldn't be so close to the edge of the screen all the time, it slides a little too much off of slopes which makes you lose control easily, and you should design the level around the other stats too, because right now the only one you need to max out before completing is the jump.
Jump doesn't upgrade fast enough, but still great work!
@ruddgasm Thanks for the feedback! I agree that I should've paid more attention to level design, as that first coin was easy to farm early in the game. By floaty controls, do you mean you had speed and jump maxed out? Thanks for playing!
@Fupi I'm glad you loved it! By too close to the edge do you mean on the y or the x? Because it was my first time trying to create custom camera controls with a dead zone and damping. And yes, I agree I should've paid more attention to level design. Thanks for playing!
@twilight-world I agree that the jump was for the most part the only meaningful stat, thanks for playing!
@n8dev Mostly the Y axis. The sprites are pretty big so I think having the player close to the center of the screen helps you see better.
@Fupi alright, thank you for the feedback!
This was good fun! I liked the 'show not tell' approach to how the mechanics worked. When I started i thought "this is way to slow, I dont think i can play much of this". got to the first coin and then was showed the upgrades and it immediately showed me what the game was about. The graphics were nice and clean and it shows you put work into polish with the post processing and the lighting etc. I really enjoyed this, great job :)
@Mog13 Thank you for the feedback! I was going for that whole show not tell, thanks for playing!
Hey this is soooooo cool ! For me one of the best entries so far.
Little issues : Space to jump is maybe better than 'W' ? The controller is not supported, since the game is super cool I would have loved to play with a gamepad.
But honestly you should do a proper game out of this. I really like the twist Platformer/upgrade system, awesome ! Maybe the aesthetic on a finished game could be more "pixel perfect like" So you have this little astro boy, astronaut that is upgrading. And each time maybe you add a little detail on the astronaut Suit.
The visuals are super cool, the game is super polished, and the sound even if its always the same I don't know why, but I liked it a ton ahah. It's cool to play this kind of prototypes, its really interesting and people have so much potential ! keep going :-D And if you have a minute don't hesitate to try our game it's also our first LudumDare :-)
GG well done !
Btw I watched your you tube video ! Great content man ! I hope you continue, because for a first video the level is kind of impressive ! Continue like that you seems already to have all good ingredients to be seen :D
Also I wanted to tell you I really like your logo it's super cool : DdApurmeMo.png
@satolas thanks for playing! I've never worked with controllers, so I would have to probably watch a tutorial or read some documentation, but I can for sure try for controller input on my next game. On the topic of space instead of W to jump, I personally like W better, but I could for sure make both as options. And sure, I'll try your game! Thanks for watching my video, twas my first time making a devlog, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I appreciate your kind words, and I'm always open to suggestions for videos and games, I'm working on a devlog rn, so make sure you subscribe with notifs :) "Also I wanted to tell you I really like your logo it's super cool:" Thanks! I drew it in krita, although I have transitioned more into photoshop now. Thanks for taking the time to play the game and watch the video, as well as commenting and giving feedback :)