FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Progress.

Progress.

By aidanmarkham

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2073.9724
Fun6333.4724
Innovation3763.7125
Theme7893.6324
Graphics4783.9125
Audio4773.5424
Humor10602.3020
Mood684.2724

Comments

fallingflatstudios 2020-10-06 00:45

A very cinematic feeling in this game which I love, I like how you have to give up some movement in order to progress. And in general is a very nice feeling game, with smooth controls and a nice jump I also think it fits the theme very well. Great Job.

blind-lemon-games 2020-10-07 04:24

could not move with wasd or mouse, I liked the soundscape though and the graphics on those orbs is poppin

etrealjunior 2020-10-08 20:43

Congratulations excellent game, I was confused about what I should do in the beginning, but then I got the hang of it, the end I didn't understand properly I returned until the beginning of the game, but I saw that it wasn't that to do, I started the back and gave a bug in the game he entered the wall, but I also believe that this was not the solution, it is a great honor to know such an interesting project, I believe that if you had a presentation of your game with the same visual characteristics presented you could have more evaluations of your great work, my congratulations again, a big hug.

lamossus 2020-10-10 13:42

Great game! Loved it! The use of the theme is very interesting. I wish puzzles were a bit more complex, since as of now it is quite obvious what you need to buy to complete them.

Don't forget to rate other games, or you won't get many ratings

lamossus 2020-10-10 13:42

@blind-lemon-games this is intentional. Restart the game with an R key

jk5000 2020-10-10 14:08

A cool and very interesting little game. I overall love the game idea, and the ending is pretty good. The restart mechanism is a bit too slow for my liking. Overall a good jam game. Well done.

rainbows-are-fun 2020-10-10 14:38

Amazing core gameplay, one of my favorites in the jam. Great game!

amirrajan 2020-10-10 21:50

I wasn't able to open this on Mac OS Catalina (I tried right click -> open).

thulium-games 2020-10-10 22:03

Really good concept but the long restart time made the game feel a bit tedious. Other than that, great game!

aidanmarkham 2020-10-10 22:19

@amirrajan If you have a chance, I've done what I can to fix the build, feel free to give it another try!

fammy 2020-10-10 23:01

The atmosphere is so good! I really love graphisms and sound design :) the gameplay is amazing ! That's a really good game, congratulations !

theaidency 2020-10-11 00:07

A bit slow to play with, but the atmosphere, sound, levels and graphics are all pretty neat, and I loved the gameplay!

cargamoni 2020-10-11 00:28

Nice models, quite atmosphere, thanks for the game ! Dont forget rate our game too ^^

theoratkin 2020-10-11 03:52

Wow, such an awesome game! Very unique and smart played idea about collecting points to enable only certain controls. It was really fun to *progress*! Loved the ending. I think it would be nice to be able to skip the intro messages, since they can take long time, especially when you restart a lot (when platforming, for example). I played on Linux by the way, the game runs great!

toccio94 2020-10-11 08:28

It was very cool, it reminded me of evoland for the evolve mechanic, but you managed to twist it by making it deeper: you have to manage which one is active. It's cool because it makes me miss what I had achieved but also understand that I don't need them all to go on (something that is tied to your message).

When I got "look" I knew I could move without right and left, but then I needed to remove it to go on and it was a very smart choice. I missed it and when I had it back I was happy, but learned I could do without it if needed. It was also clever at the beginning that you start stuck, so you try to move but can, and then just press R and have that eureka moment, really nice feel.

The background music added to the atmosphere, as for the style u use.

That said, the interface could be more clear. I've understood quickly how to use it but the X icon was too small, you could rework it for sure. I like that I have to learn it by myself and there is not a tutorial for it, but if it is more comprehensible per se it would be nice.

The pacing was also not nailed. The start was too slow: when you got the walk forward and right, the left already start to be an "ok yes I've got it let's move on to a more interesting thing". The walk backward is more or less useless to be honest. Probably what makes it worse is that the restart thing with menu and text takes 1 hour so you get bored, and sadly it detracts from the mood. I like the atmosphere you want to set, but I couldn't get into it cause of this huge empty moments =/

The mechanic you have created is very cool, having to manage which ability could be used, and u use it in a cool way at the beginning, but towards the end you have so many points, and gained a bit of experience with the game, it is not a challenge anymore. I don't know if this is intended as "you are making progress so things get easier", but just as a game I would have liked some harder challenges before the end. This obviously is something that could go against your interpretation so it is up to you.

For the message, when you explicitly say it at the end I got it of course, and looking back at the game the mechanic are well tied to it, but I think that you could have done a better job in telling it throughout the game (and not just at the end like "this was the message"): You have those lines of text between restart that could be more aimed at that message, while as now are just a more general cool and deep thing to say. I replayed it a bit to be sure of what I'm saying. Again, this is your game and you are the one that better know what you wanted to say and how, this was just my feeling.

Overall, it really surprised me and I had fun playing it, it has a good level of polish even tho it could be improved. I could easily see this mechanic expanded into a very original and entertaining game. Heck I would steal it! It was a nice experience and there should be more like this!

Edit: give more feedbacks to the others! You need a few more ratings to get to the 20 needed to get to the rankings, and this game deserves it!

sharked 2020-10-11 11:24

Looks very cool ! But I can't play, how do we move ? I tried arrows, qsdz, wasd, pad, mouse ... nothing :(

aidanmarkham 2020-10-12 13:53

@sharked press and hold 'R' to restart and go to the abilities screen :)

somogy 2020-10-27 00:53

Great game and job!

ismael-rodriguez 2020-10-27 00:54

Cool game. The visuals and the sounds all work well to create a good feeling mood. I especially like the bell changing tune/note.

I agree with almost all of what @toccio94 said. The UI could be more clear, because I did the R to restart before pressing anything, but then I had to do it again because I didn't really understand what the menu was doing. Maybe a simple check mark would have worked better than an X, color also could have helped (grey to keep the mellow vibes?). That's a pretty small issue though.

BUT, once the player understands the basic mechanic they can figure out everything else without much thought, which is why the restart time being so slow is such a bummer. The slower transition may help the mood a little at first, but it also takes away because eventually it just makes me feel like "okay, I got it, just let me do the thing, why should I have to read this message again and again and again"?

BTW it reminded me of this game, another LD game from a few jams ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rImVSHhDEo

Over all it's a great entry, good job!

chris-hay 2020-10-27 01:01

I enjoyed the atmosphere and message. The respawns/messages were too annoyingly slow, wouldn't been nice if they could be skipped, maybe after a certain point (or maybe that could be an ability that gets added part way?). I thought the game was broken at the beginning, but then felt smart when I figured it out lol. Overall great job! Edit: Should you omit "Audio" as a category? It sounded great but based on the credits sounds like it wasn't original/ made for the jam game.

ale 2020-10-27 01:08

That was an interesting experience, but I gotta be honest those transitions while restarting were very long and boring, especially since they just repeated the same info every single time. This is definitely one of the slower games, but it is rewarding if you put the time into it. After struggling to do the most basic navigation tasks, finally unlocking enough orbs to walk and look around freely was super satisfying. I was kinda sad that the game ended so abruptly though; I hardly got a chance to use my newfound walk-and-look-and-jump-at-the-same-time powers!

Graphics and audio were both great, and so was the mood and overall presentation. I don't think this concept would work very well as a standalone game, but as a small part of a larger game it could be pretty cool. Nice job!

skleembof 2020-10-27 01:21

This was really cool. At first I thought it was broken, and then I thought I just had to finish this weird tutorial to start the game, but then it just kept going and turned into this surreal experience that subverted my expectations.

I really liked the gameplay and the feeling of anticipation that came with each reload. While I agree that the reload time is too slow and would get annoying after a while, I think it fits well for the game as it stands. The game isn't very long and I think it kind of helps with the immersion.

If you were to make a longer game where you reach checkpoints and have to buy platforming mechanics across multiple levels with increasing difficulty, then yeah it would be annoying having to wait before every attempt.

Great job on this game

someone 2020-10-27 01:22

Great game. Interesting mechanics and well presented. The long restart times did make it a bit tedious though, and as other people have said, the initial stage was not particularly obvious. Also I did get a bit stuck before I realised you can unassign orbs too.

peace-of-cake-games 2020-10-27 03:06

Fantastic job! The graphics were very lifelike, the ending message was inspirational, and I've never seen a game where you have to strategically buy movement!

rubixnoob13 2020-10-27 03:24

Amazing graphics, and I absolutely LOVED the ending! The concept of balancing what actions you can take is brilliant! The only thing I can see that a lot of people agree with me on skimming others' reviews is that the time to hold the R button to restart and the fade in once you restart is too long, it could be cut in half or possibly even 1/4 and would speed up the pace of the game immensely, without taking too much away from the overall experience, and making it less tedious. Still, fantastic job! :smile: