syudzius 2020-10-06 15:33
Good game! The design looks nice, and the idea really fits the theme :) I also liked the music. Great job!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD47 → A Day in the Woods
By ditam
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 288 | 3.90 | 59 | |
| Fun | 752 | 3.38 | 58 | |
| Innovation | 189 | 3.93 | 59 | |
| Theme | 204 | 4.14 | 59 | |
| Humor | 553 | 3.02 | 49 | |
| Mood | 82 | 4.21 | 57 |
Good game! The design looks nice, and the idea really fits the theme :) I also liked the music. Great job!
Thank you @syudzius! I've just published an improved version, you might want to give it an other go, especially if you enjoyed the game in the previous state.
Thank you for telling me! Tried it again, the story is good, and I really enjoyed exploring the map :) Footprints on the sand are also a nice touch!
Super cool game, havent seen anithing like it, loved the sound design and the art style.
Perfect fit for the theme! As a previous comment said, the steps are very cool!
Asesomely made! I did not expected to upset the narrator so that he'd restart hist story aha, that's a really nice touch. Music is gourgeous as well. The map aspect and footsteps everywhere are really great, and it gives a lot of satisfaction to discover the whole map. Well done!
I think the "youre not listening" mechanic is just a little too frustrating, I was really interested in what was going to happen but after the wolf part I lost way too much progress after moving through two sections that were too close to each other. Besides that, this is a very original game, and an idea that deserves more attention. I loved how rich an experience you've managed to create with this simple device. Good luck!
Holy crap, best game I've played in this jam, hands down Music: beautiful GFX: beautiful (colors are so good) I felt stanley parable vibes here, the story is really good. I enjoyed this game very, very much. Just a suggestion, it should have more endings just like stanley parable, but ofc its a game jam and for a jam, this was already awesome!
Cheers!
@pixelmoose-studio @cyberfrank @macmist Thank you, guys! I've spent an unjustifiable portion of my available time on those silly footprints, so it's heart-warming to see them appreciated :)
I can't take credit for the music, the three songs used (which I've edited down to fit the mood) are from three different artists on opengameart.org, you can find them in the repo under assets/attributions.txt.
Very interresting and amazing concept. I do love it. Nice realization (sounds and graphisms). Thank you very much for your game
You should seriously consider expanding on this to make a short, indie game like stanley parable but 2d, the GFX and story are just too interesting! The psychological stuff is super interesting as well and the relationship between narrator and player is a jackpot to be expanded on.
Wow, I didn't expect to see something like this!
At first I followed the narrator and didn't really understand anything, the days were the same. But when I decided at some point not to follow his words - boom, I got it :sweat_smile:
Storytelling and exploration complement each other perfectly, thank you a lot for this game!
Wow, really nice interactive story. It was very rewarding to find out I broke the initial loop! Sometimes the deviation needed to restart the loop was too punishing.. perhaps it would be better if you return to checkpoints instead of start the loop again when you make some mistakes. Really nice game! Contrats!
@idan-rooze Thanks for the criticism and praise both! The loop mechanic being frustrating was one of my biggest worries. I tried making it more bearable by speeding it up (and dropping unnecessary steps) as the player experiences it multiple times, but there was a limit on how painless I could make it -- after all, you are stuck in a loop! :) But I definitely see where you're coming from, and if the game were any longer, I would have definitely considered some sort of checkpoint mechanic.
Once you know what to do, you can finish the entire game in less than 2 minutes, so I hope that people stick around until the end.
Not a bad concept at all, it fits the theme really well. Well done!
Excellent music for this game ! Love the art aswell.
Really cool experience. I'd add that transition such as when you (spoiler) see the tower are welcome as it avoid to go too far and miss a point, like with the fire or the bridge.
Awesome entry ! Well done
Excellent narrative, the realization of how controls work is so natural. The game gives you a good feeling of exploration - like I am Bilbo Baggins who went on an adventure (without dwarfs). Awesome game!
Beautiful game, great narrative! I like how you did the loop and the aesthetics in general are really nice. I believe that there should be a male deep voice reading the story, kinda like bastion (I could give it a shot and help you if you want). I must say that I felt good playing and it took me to a great state of mind. Well done.
@skiwee and @vcasadei: The Stanley Parable and Bastion were probably my main inspirations for the narration, so it's great to see this noticed, and an honor to be even mentioned on the same page as those games, thanks!
Having voice narration was also my first idea, but I realized it's much more work, and I would have needed a complete storyboard in advance (to know what lines to record/get recorded), which were just not possible in this jam format. Now that I have the subtitles with the pen-on-paper scribbling sound effect, I think it would compete with any voice narration too much, if one were to be added on top of it.
@ianmust Thanks for sharing your experience, that's exactly how I hoped it would play out for some :) This game is a balancing act between not making the looping too frustrating, but also not making it too obvious to progress. I'm glad to be reading comments from both ends of this spectrum.
@azagaya I agree that some checkpoints would be a nice addition, and if the game were any longer, I would have seriously considered them. On one hand, the full reset fits the "stuck in a loop" theme best, but at a certain point, it just becomes too annoying.
@donamougou Thanks, placing the (spoilers ahead) tower was a big map design challenge, because I wanted to make the map big enough to be worth exploring, but I also wanted to make the tower a mandatory stop before you explore further east. That's why I've added the flags around the tower and the map transition/sroll mechanic, to make sure that everyone would see the tower before they are told to go there. I fear there might be some blind spots left, but hopefully not many had to loop again just because they couldn't find it.
Thanks for your positive comments as well @shubart @kira-yoshida @nickpofig!
This game has a very nice mood and is interesting to explore. Well done!
I think it is one of the most potential game of LD47.. i totally liked the visuals, the gameplay mechanics everything.. great job man 👍👍
Interesting little game. It took me a couple of loops to realise that I had to break the loop myself, but once I did, I loved the sense of exploration you got as you explored the world beyond your humble little house. I loved the little moment where I went from the bridge to the woods, and the narrator said "oh, I misremembered, he actually went that way".
One little thing I noticed was that when I reached the bridge, there was a piece of dialogue that I accidentally skipped before I could read any of it, but I think that's the only serious complaint I have. Overall, nice job!
Thank you for the praise @weine and @ar-borno!
@f1krazy: Thanks! The dialog skipping is a known bug/issue that I just didn't have time to solve. It happens when you complete an objective before its description is all typed up - then the game just moves on. I would probably need to implement some message queue, or be more aggressive in disabling the controls while a new task is being introduced. (A quick fix could be a message log where you could manually review past messages - but I think that would mess with the atmosphere.) Just the other day I came across @theaidency's great entry, and amusingly enough, he complained about facing the same issue. As he said: "For the best effect, play the game slowly, doing one thing at a time, waiting for each text box to end." :)
Hah, that makes two of us, @ditam! I like your idea, it's definitely a lot more optimistic than mine, and the simple aesthetic really brings it all together really well. Good luck!
Wonderful style, and concept. Environment was very well done. Great work!
Great entry! Superb, and the music is astounding! I got glitched out a few times, (especially with the "wolves at the south" that triggered after "I misremembered, he was brave" somehow) but it was always easy to reset and I could explore the whole story :)
Thanks @greytyphoon! There are definitely a few glitches with triggers and message timings, I'll try to find time for a bugfix release around the weekend. (I very much appreciate the detailed report, I'll make sure to look into that particular case.) I'm glad you could still finish and enjoy the game!
Thank you too @sacredbacon!
Congrats! Really loved the ar style and the mood!
so lovely ! Amazing work :)
it's good, but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with the "I've told you this story before"
Thanks @gurpegui, @mrstari and @wizard-sino!
@wizard-sino: Nothing else, really! You've beaten the game if you see that message, it's just that, you know, you're stuck in a loop :)
Really nice small narrative game, really enjoyed the mood here
Congrats on your entry! I really loved the mood, and I really enjoyed it when I tried to "break the loop" and that the narration followed along (I generally hate when a game is telling me what to do and love doing anything but the thing the game wants me to do so that was very satisfying :)) good job! :)
Loved this! Bit finicky in places (crossing the bridge entirely causes an unfair restart imo). But the idea is there and its excellent! Love the whole map aesthetic and the audio really puts you in the right mood too. Loved how wholesome the story was, just expressing a real excitement for adventuring! Though there was something a little tyrannical about the narrator, not sure if that's intended but I guess you can't really escape that.
Congrats!
Thank you @vollfeiw and @linheha! Glad you enjoyed the mood and the mechanics.
@jam373 - thanks! As for the unfair restart - you can cross the bridge, but first you have to stay on it for a short while to take in the view, when the narration says so. Sadly there are some issues with the timing of the messages (mostly due to the fact that they appear with a slow typing effect), so sometimes you can fail tasks before you see them written. I'll try to improve the timing margins around this bridge task. I'm glad you found the general vibe to be one of wholesome adventuring, that was definitely the mood I was going for!
Lovely tone. Tasty design. I had some trouble with some fussy areas resetting me back to square one, which was frustrating. But I was always up for another go.
Graphics with beautiful delicacy, beautiful music, really fascinating congratulations, I love to see how great stories are built, only using small details, thank you for the experience of knowing your work, a big hug.
The graphics is soooooo awesome for a web game, nice submission!
This is great. I loved the design and feel. Very relaxing exploration game. I personally liked the "you are not listening" mechanic. It makes you slow down and think a bit. So if it feels frustrating, it is not the mechanic itselft, but more like there is no instant feedback what is happening and if you miss something you are basically stuck. I myself reached the chest, but after several restarts couldn't figure out how to advance more.
Over all I liked it very very much. Good job!
Nice game.
I like the black ink art style, it is idyllic and pleasant looking. The music is great! I also like the writing and exploration aspect.
The story is kinda weird, but I feel there is quite a bit of potential for a very deep narrative experience. The gameplay/story progression is also a little weird, as I don't really know where to go, thankfully, the green bar at the top right gave some sort of indication, so I'm not lost.
All in all, great work!
Beautiful. Love the drawing sound effects and how things fade into the world as the narrator adds to the story. The font matches the art style nicely. Makes a really good mood. I especially love the footprints.
@egawag Thanks! Glad to hear the enjoyment outweighed the annoyance. Any particular area that felt fussy? I'm collecting feedback to adjust some zones and timings before the weekend.
@sli thanks for defending the mechanics :) If you've reached the chest there's nothing else to do, you've beaten the game, congrats!
@thecakeconsortium Thanks -- good to hear the green bar helped at least some, I was afraid it would be too subtle. As for the story being weird, only so much fit into the jam I'm afraid. I had more ambitious plans in the beginning, in particular, I wanted the green bar "choices" to be stackable, to allow more exploration and control, and create more choice-based events, but I realized that would be a huge undertaking in level design, so I settled for something much more linear. But now that the basic mechanisms are in place, and the reception seems positive, I might expand on the theme in a post-jam version, eventually.
@etrealjunior, @dadiaogames, @patrickjr Thank you!
Reminded me a bit of Dear Esther because of the mood and storytelling. Can you tell us the true ending? And about the chest.
Hello everyone! I've published a new version which addresses some minor bugs as well as some UX improvements that people have been pointing out here. (The original release is available [on GitHub as the 1.0 release/tag](https://github.com/ditam/loop-game/releases/tag/v1.0).) The waiting tasks, in particular, have become harder to fail, with a delay and more forgiving target zones, hopefully no more unfair restarts for anyone!
@jesus-gonzalez Thanks! I've just picked up Dear Esther in a bundle the other day, I'll make sure to try it out soon! As for the true ending, I can't tell you more. I'm afraid you're stuck in a loop ;) Maybe you'll learn more about the chest in a future jam, or an eventual post-jam version.
Amazing game! I love the story, graphics and music. It was a bit annoying redoing everything if I "wasn't listening", so I think some kind of checkpoint thing would be nice(chapters, perhaps). Also, I think it would be nice if the parchment texture tiled. Great game!
Amazing story! Only with the music and the graphics I was immersed in the game! Perhaps adding different effects to the player's controls, such as: when the main character has water from the well, the speed movement can be decreased, etc. can add more immersion to the story. But it's an awesome game with an incredible mood and also fits perfectly with the theme! Congrats!
good story, good graphics/music. loved it and enjoyed playing.
Deoressing story :-(
@nikos Thank you! In some of the early comments you can see some discussions about checkpoints, if the game were any longer, I would have added them. (Behind the scenes, the game is already split into chapters -- whenever the map expands--, but since chapters 2 & 3 have much fewer events that can cause a reset, I think it would have been an unnecessary amount of handholding to have checkpoints there. Plus, this way it fits the theme more :p)
@peterfonts Thank you! I'm honored to have the maker of Spaghetti Quest praise my game :) The movement speed adjustment is a nice idea, and I already have the architecture in place for it, so I might sneak it into one of the post-jam updates.
@smiley405 Thanks, it means a lot!
@davidemoriello Is it really though? I like to think of it as a story of adventuring and empowerment... (spoilers ahead) !>Our protagonist decides to break his daily routine to (re)discover the beauties of his forest, and there's even a literal treasure in the end :)
Ok, I was stucked in a loop... never found the wolfes O.O
@davidemoriello Haha, glad you powered through :)
Your game is simple but very interesting. The graphics are nice and functional, and the music is really good too. The written narration describing what should be done, is simply incredible, it creates a very pleasant atmosphere for the game. I don't know if I made it to the end of the game (I found the chest only once). But I really liked what you produced anyway, and I think it is a project with the potential to be something expanded and complete. The experience in general is very satisfying. Congratulations.
P.S .: If you can play my game I will be grateful haha.