sipfindel 2020-10-05 20:36
Really cool atmosphere. Unfortunately I couldn't get far from the start.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD47 → The Hanging Tree
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1241 | 3.17 | 44 | |
| Fun | 1145 | 3.04 | 43 | |
| Innovation | 1179 | 2.97 | 43 | |
| Theme | 1242 | 3.13 | 42 | |
| Graphics | 965 | 3.37 | 43 | |
| Audio | 798 | 3.13 | 43 | |
| Humor | 1110 | 2.21 | 35 | |
| Mood | 336 | 3.83 | 41 |
Really cool atmosphere. Unfortunately I couldn't get far from the start.
Why so ? Did you have troubles to understand the controls ? Or was it too difficult ?
Hey, I love the visuals and the atmosphere! I found the game quite hard but good attempt! Keep it up <3
I agree with fact that i couldn't get far from the start ! Was really hyped by the story though ! I wanted to play it !
I understood the controls, but the second jump was too hard
Very good looking game. I tried several times, but couldnt make it very far.
the sound and atmosphere its great!
very good, except motion blur, ı couldn't go very far. the loop around the neck was dark but ı liked it
The scenery and audio do fit together really wel, give a nice creepy vibe, the moans of the character do add something but could get a bit annoying. The sling-mechanic is fun, it is hard to estimate it's range though and I've found myself being unable to attach it to a next point while falling sometimes. Overall a pretty neat game, thanks.
Thanks for your feedbacks. Just to be sure, when you talk about the second jump : the second "hanging tree" should be reached by climbing the rope and not swinging :)
We're aware the game is a little bit hard but some controls might not be clear or well understandable. As you're hung to a tree, you can hold the right mouse button and use W or S to climb or go down the rope. It allows you to swing easier. Sorry for this disturbing (even game breaking) point. ^^"
Thanks for the feedbacks ! We hope you enjoy the game ! :)
main issue is control i guess , control was so hard and hook wasnt forgiving at all and before jump its hard to tell if i can make it or not, not optimized graphics even makes it harder to aim at the thing . good graphics and i liked those cutscenes.
The game is super fluid on our side and on "gaming" computers (> 60FPS). I just tried on a less powerful one with just a graphic chipset not made for gaming and it is quite slow it is true. We'll check if something can be improved. If you have any problems please try the windows executable as it has a great impact on performance
-- EDIT We downgraded some graphic settings to allow most configuration to play our game :)
very moody,dark game well done. I liked the swinging mechanics. Its pretty hard though
Dark! The swings really feel good once you get the hang (:smirk:) of it!
Thanks @lenophie ; I like your style :D
Fun, but difficult. Swinging is allways fun in video games, however I think letting the rope go through objects instead of stopping you in mid-swing might have been more fun. I really liked the atmosphere!
Thanks for your feeback @sandpile. It was quite difficult to balance such a game to be challenging but not too much. I hope you had a great time though.
Liked the atmosphere, really like the core mechanic! One thing I struggled with was figuring out which way to go after respawning at a checkpoint, some sort of signposting (maybe a light moving in the direction you're heading or something) would help a load! Overall, a fun entry, would love to see this kind of thing expanded on with more time!
It made me feel like spiderman. I feel like more air mobility would've been nice? It's a bit punishing without it.
We really appreciate your feedbacks ! It makes our efforts well rewarded ! ^^
Thanks for your feedbacks @rodgems & @zachsbutt. We had more air mobility at first but people were struggling to anticipate their jumps. Maybe with some sliders in a menu it could satisfy everyone. Definitely something worth thinking but not for this LD I presume :)
The idea is very nice. After the intro I was expecting a game with some strong story, but I definitely wasn't dissapointed by what I got. It was fun to play, but little too hard. I managed to get quite far (at least I think so) but I was missing more air mobility - that I could swing from one hanging tree and then from midair throw another noose to the next tree. It was possible to do it but it was extremely hard to achieve (I suppose because of the camera movement, which was sometimes too fast so). But otherwise I really enjoyed it. Good job!
@flying-basement-studios Thanks ! Yeah it would need some fine tuning on air-mobility and camera speed. Where did you go ? After the castle tower ? There is actually and end so keep pushing if you'd like to. Air mobility is there to slow down but not to accelerate so you really have to swing and jump at the right time to cross great distance
It's really good once you know that you can climb the rope with the right mous button. A kind of intro/tutorial could help. And I guess the game could use some music.
Good work on the "swinging vibe" with nice 3d work. Overall, that's a fun little thing, good job (and I love your interpretation of the theme)!
Thanks @chocolat-endive There is music I composed (atmospheric) actually it is strange you did not have it.
I totally agree an intro would be useful to grasp bit by bit the rope mechanism. Controls are explained in the menu but a tutorial is always a good thing, we'll think about it for LD48 ;).
That's strange, for the music? I'm going to retry right now with the desktop version.
Ok there's indeed music. It just does not work for me on the web version. And it really adds to the mood. Thanks for telling me my mistake.
@chocolat-endive That's truly weird. I'm glad you had the full experience !
The atmosphere is cool, but it was really hard so I decided not to go further than the first checkpoint. The mechanics are great but the game is really unforgivable, like there's no error margin when you're targetting a branch, and since you're doing it while jumping/falling and you have your camera looking completely upward, it's very very hard to aim.
Maybe you could tweak some values and make branch colliders bigger, and this would be a lot better to play! And if you do so, I'll be happy to play again :)
Thanks for your feedback @saering ; I'll try to implement your idea. It is true that we are used to FPS so we might have pushed too high the difficulty as it was okay for us. Playtest are key to balance the game. I'll notify you once corrected.
@saering Branch detection is now improved. Would you tell me how it feels for you ? @flying-basement-studios @zachsbutt A bit of aircontrol is added if it feels better for you guys. Thanks
@narom42 Just tried, it indeed feels much better! Obviously my opinion is biased since I played the previous version, but I really think this is better :)
The Style is great...Loved it..
THanks @jarvisp99 !!
Really nice idea, with cool graphics and clever use of the theme. A bit hard to know where to go sometimes but overall a nice experience. I liked the intro and the ambience as well
Hey, I played your game on stream if you're interested the VOD is posted here.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/765179109
@weeping-rupee Thanks for the stream. You can actually climb the rope (right clic + W/S) so it would have been easier to get higher haha, but you managed without it. You also were able to open the castle door with the rope thingy hanging with "E", that one is not clear enough. You had a unique bug towards the end it never happened to anyone so sorry about that.
It was actually knuckles cracking and the rope noise was me scrubbing polystyrene. All sounds and musics are composed so I'm glad you noticed :)
Thanks overall for your compliments. Mirror's edge was clearly in mind designing this 3D platformer so I'm glad you saw that as well
Really nice intro. It would be helpful to look up the controls in-game again. I looked at the instruction page, but 6 controls are too much to memorize for me. So I got into the game, realized, that I needed the full controls, but found no way back to the instruction page without reloading the page.
I got stuck, when there was a little island with blue smoke on top and a hanging rope on the bottom in my way. Neither going above, nor swinging below or aside did work out for me in that place.
Nice ambient you had though, looking up gave me the impression, that I was swinging myself through the river Styx.
Thanks for submitting your game for me to play on my livestream!
If you’d like to rewatch the playthrough, you can find it here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/767497194?t=2h33m06s
Good luck on your ratings, see you next LD! :D
💜 Elysia Griffin AKA Button Feedback Lady
https://www.twitch.tv/elysiagriffin
So i played the shit out of your game, and after you realize, you should read the controls in options and that the end of the journey lies on the furthest island it is pretty cool game, with cool features, like story and style. You did a great job, the sounds are cool, the aestethic match the atmosphere only thing i can say i was not really fond of were the object colliders, but if you swing you won't notice it...
@kruemelkeksfan @osel13 We definitely should have implemented the control in a more natural way during gameplay sorry about that, will do for the next game. The "hanging ropes" are actually interruptors that should be activated with "E" (kind of a pulling interruptor), it should have been clearer as it is not well understood from players. Thanks for your feedbacks !
Loved this game! I really liked your audio and visual aesthetic. There was some junk in the movement but that didn't stop me from playing. Also I almost missed the point of the whole game, not knowing what to do. Luckily I found out about this rope mechanic thing. There are definitely some things to improve, but just the concept of this game kept me playing for like 30 minutes. Unfortunetly I wasn't able to finish it, got stuck in the level with a tower, a loop and two rotating platforms. There was an interaction on the loop but I couldn't figure out how it works.
@jakob-reborn Thanks for your review, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Definitely something wrong with the lever to pull mechanism (you have to press E to interact with it and open the doors). We'll do better next time :)
@narom42 actually there is nothing wrong with the lever mechanism, I just haven't knew how to start it (obviously using 'E' now) but it's a little unintuitive after you spent a great chunk of the game using the left mouse button - try popping some information on the screen when players hover their mouse over those interactive places. Crazy but I did exactly the same mistake while making my first game :)
I really didn't expect a 3D platformer with that intro haha. I liked the swing concept, it reminded me of Verlet Swing. I also like how you used a limited color palette and a small asset collection to build an environment (which looked really nice). I didn't find any glitches. Good job on finishing this on such a tight deadline!
Thanks for your kind feedback @ludipe
The intro gives a really nice background to the game and really adds to the polish making it feels more like a full fledged game rather than just a jam game. The visuals (especially the sky) and the music after that dark intro really set the whole tone. The colours work really well together as well.
Like other people have said, I also had some trouble with the controls and found it quite difficult but it probably didn't help that my computer ran it a bit slow so it probably didn't run as smoothly for me as it should. However, I totally get that it is hard to make the difficulty well balanced without the time for play-testing etc.
Overall, awesome game and the whole atmosphere really makes your game! Well done!
Thanks @teto for your review ! You could have better performance by using the windows executable if you want to give it a try.
@narom42 Will do! Thanks!
Cool intro, nice level of polish, good visuals and atmosphere. I enjoyed the swinging mechanics and figuring out good angles to gain momentum.
Mechanics need a bit of getting used to before they feel nice. Also doesn't run smooth in the browser but still playable. The game gives you the option to reach different places and I felt like I skipped a checkpoint or two at some point and then got confused about where to go next.
Great entry overall :thumbsup:
Thanks @nocity for your review. It is possible you skipped some. Actually, If you master the swinging mechanic you can skip entire parts of the level (castle one for instance). Browser performance greatly depends on the computer but executable is more stable. Also it seems webgl works smoother on Firefox than on Chrome.
Interesting attack on the theme, reminds me of playing with ropes in Worms