FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD47 → Looper

Looper

By jk5000

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2903.4666
Fun3823.1166
Innovation903.8466
Theme2313.7866
Graphics1613.7866
Audio973.6966
Mood2573.2964

Comments

thooom 2020-10-05 07:19

This was such a cool concept. Looked great, and even tho I had no idea what to do when I launched it I figured it out quickly. I found it hard to figure out what parameter did what, maybe longer, pre-warmed trails could help a bit. Just a thought.

thevideogamester 2020-10-05 07:22

Interesting concept. Figuring out the parameters effects was an interesting test of observation and deduction. Haven't seen anything like this before.

a4x8e6 2020-10-05 07:34

Nice simple visuals. Would be nice if the parameters could be labelled, at least by the user. Would make it slightly easier but would allow progress to later levels where keeping track of the parameter function is tricky!

jk5000 2020-10-05 07:41

@a4x8e6 I agree that changing the parameters names could have been a great idea, but for now you may use another way of making notes.

zimny11 2020-10-05 09:23

Cool idea and nice visuals. A little more time to figure things out would be great or maybe I'm just bad at it :)

chickencastle 2020-10-05 12:34

Nice visuals and audio, plus a cool and unique concept, I really like it! I think as others have said, some clarity or direction on the parameters you are changing would help I think. I got to a point where I was blindly changing values because at times the impact of the change was so small that I couldn't really tell what I was changing. Really nice submission, great job!

jk5000 2020-10-05 13:19

@chickencastle Thank you for playing my game, and I am happy you liked it. I agree it can be a bit difficult to see what parameters do, but it's a part of the challenge in the game. I agree with a4x8e6 that if the player could change there name, it would have made it a bit easier. But I made it so, if you fail a level, then when it restarts the parameters keep changing the same thing. So you should have a greater change of solve the puzzles the second or third time you try to solve them.

m8rix 2020-10-05 16:18

Wonderful and kind of addictive! This game offered a perfect amount of challenge and frustration. I like that the parameters are different every time, so that you have to start over. Great job!

mikoziq 2020-10-05 17:38

Cool and addicting concept. The game can be blindly progressed by just clicking one combinaton at a time. Maybe a second or two of verification before accepting player's choice would prevent it.

Also, maybe it's just me, but would be nice to actually choose location from which you see and where you copy, let's say topdown.

Good music, vfx and sfx altoghether.

Other than that, solid entry and good job!

dharby 2020-10-06 00:01

Very interesting idea, and the visuals are nice. It creates a cool ambience. Great job!

fronwewq 2020-10-06 07:21

This was way more fun than it should have been. Very creative mechanic, never seen anything like that. The sound track was great too, nice combination of synth/free-jazz to always stay interesting. Definitely a memorable game, I very much enjoyed it.

zacharieg 2020-10-06 10:15

Very good game ! Super hard on last levels (I haven't reach the end), but interesting ! Maybe accentuate the variation of parameters, and make a little tutorial would be good, but I enjoyed playing at this

cleitoneldorn 2020-10-06 10:46

Amazing concept and execution. I loved it, very adicting, I wish I had a little more time, because I suck at it.

caeonosphere 2020-10-06 10:57

Very unique! If it was me, I'd just remove the timer. You are not a "LOSER." You did a "GOOD JOB."

indivisibleparticles 2020-10-06 12:05

Very nice concept and feel of the game overall. Sometimes the changes in parameters were too subtle for me and I did not recognize what difference it made. But that might be me not being observant enough.

dmitry-mozgin 2020-10-06 12:32

I like the aesthetic of the game. It feels like simple arcade and it is. I only have one suggestion that you can try to experiment with 2d. Because if you look at two curves in 3d angles of view are different. In 2d, they are will be the same and it will be easier for the player. Nice little time killer, well done! Plus you have a good taste for software. :)

foursay 2020-10-06 16:38

The visual is really amazing and the game seems polished for its scoop. love the music!

pekuja 2020-10-06 17:29

This looks and sounds very nice, but I have no idea what I'm doing. :dog: I solved levels by changing the parameters randomly until I got it. Later this got too hard so I stopped playing. At first I thought maybe there's a stereo sound element since you mentioned using headphones, but I tried with headphones and it didn't make any more sense to me then either. :sweat_smile:

rodrigo-denubila 2020-10-06 17:29

Great graphics and audio. Interesting take on the theme. My only complaint is about the parameters that, as said before, should be labeled. But overall is a good game.

jk5000 2020-10-06 17:53

@pekuja it has nothing to do with the music, but I do understand why your might have thought that.

The parameters changes how the balls is move around in the world. In the first level the parameter changes the size of it's circle movement. The goal is to make the ball(s) on the right side to move in the same way as the ball(s) in the left side. To know what the parameters changes you have to look at how the balls movement changes. You may not always have time enough to solve a puzzle, but when a puzzle restarts a level the parameter changes the same things about the movement.

michael-feldman 2020-10-07 00:30

What I like about this is the mathematical driven component. This kind of thing could potentially be a good tool to teach about trigonometry and maybe even shaders.

quinn-patrick 2020-10-07 02:09

A very challenging and unique puzzle. I honestly don't really have any complaints, except maybe that I wish it was easier to figure out what the parameters do.

martin-delemotte 2020-10-07 10:55

I really like the visuals!

justin-klinchuch 2020-10-07 12:37

I really enjoyed playing around with the parameters and trying to figure out how they were influencing the motion, but the time limit felt unnecessary and started to annoy me after the third level or so. Also, this is super niche, but it might be fun to support midi controllers for something like this. Would love to tune the parameters with knobs!

dcrdro 2020-10-07 12:40

Wow, what an unordninary theme interpretation, super! Pretty balanced difficulty curve, with each level you feel more and more confident. Still, the game is pretty hard. The biggest problim is juxtapose the parameters, it takes too much time, but I think it is intended, otherways it will bee to easy. And of course, amazing music!

From cons I would single out the mouse speed: somehow it was too hard to switch between parameters.

jk5000 2020-10-07 13:00

@justin-klinchuch i agree that the countdown timer was perhaps not the best idea. Instead I could perhaps have used a speed-run clock, so you instead could have seen how fast you could solve all the puzzles. And in that case you would have all the time in the world to solve the puzzles.

toby1645 2020-10-07 17:20

Interesting game! Not my first pick for a game but good job nonetheless. I loved the graphics and it played very well. The concept is also very unique and interesting, I haven't seen a game like it before. Good job!

bootak 2020-10-07 21:17

LU LU LU LUPAWWW!

Hah, nice sound effects! Very unique concept, never seen anything like this before! It reminds me this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-V1uXeyGmg

I also liked that each time target loop is generated with different parameters. Nice featre, it increases re-play-ability :)

I would say controls felt a bit off. I would experiment with controls position (i.e place ones which controls X and Y-axis amplitudes along X and Y axis, and maybe draw them as sliders?). I would also try to place two loops over each other and see how it looks. Probably this'll make game easier and more fun to play, as player would see the difference between two loops more clearly.

Anyway, really nice and unique idea, and implemented well!

jk5000 2020-10-08 07:37

@bootak thank you for the feedback. I considered sliders, but I decided to go for a more simple control system. I did also make some experiments with adding more loop run over each other, but it made it really difficult to see what was happening and it was a bit too difficult to replicate.

obi-one 2020-10-08 07:39

Can someone explain me how to play this game ?

jk5000 2020-10-08 07:53

@obi-one The parameters changes how the balls is move around in the world. In the first level the parameter changes the size of itโ€™s circle movement. The goal is to make the ball(s) on the right side to move in the same way as the ball(s) in the left side. To know what the parameters changes you have to look at how the balls movement changes. You may not always have time enough to solve a puzzle, but when a puzzle restarts a level the parameter changes the same things about the movement.

obi-one 2020-10-08 08:05

@jk5000 oh.. I see now. Thank you! Splendid idea!

kpedatte 2020-10-08 11:25

Nice idea. Congrats for this game !

dani-tufeld 2020-10-08 11:34

nice concept very unique, cool visuals and sound, a bit hard to understand what's going on, but good gameany way!!

samdemaine 2020-10-08 11:35

Nice game! The graphics are right up my alley and the controls are a pleasure to use, could you check out my game when you can? :D

denzil-gomes 2020-10-08 11:36

Good job on the audio. Took me a little while to figure out what I was doing, but after that got the hang of it. Perhaps having the parameters have names would help

mvasko2 2020-10-08 18:20

Excellent idea, audio and graphics. The game feels very polished.

Too bad about the parameter names. Labels describing what they do would be really helpful. I would even go a step or two further and change the colors of the labels to match the color of the thing they are changing.

Even better, you could also highlight the shape itself when a parameter is changed. Sometimes it was difficult to observe which shape was affected. Also I would like the game to notify me somehow that I've already maxed out the parameter I'm clicking on.

Other than that, this is really impressive, great job!

ubershmekel 2020-10-09 05:34

This fit the theme very well and I like having knobs that I need to figure out what they do. Though at one point, it felt just frustrating forgetting which knob does what, maybe if the telegraphing of which spinning star I was affecting was stronger, it would have been less frustrating. I had a lot of good vibes in this techno party, and in general the idea of causing the lines to dance like another existing dance is a cool, and interesting direction. If the music was slightly less repetitive, and maybe had a more varied bass line, I think I could have played for longer. I think this was a unique idea and I did enjoy it. Thank you for the game :)

gettingrekt 2020-10-09 16:25

Great juicy gameplay but like many has said already. Not labeling the Parameters made it way too difficult. It took half the time sometimes to just get a fully rendered loop and then you still had 2 more parameters to try out. Anyways, one of the best looking and sounding games I've tested. Good job

bumdag 2020-10-10 01:17

Positives - Musics was fantastic and emmersive - Concept was simple - Graphics were nice - progressive difficulty was on par

Improvements - It took a while to understand it - Felt it needed more help at the beginning, gentle start up

Overall I really enjoyed it and thank you for making it. You rated my game so I seeked out yours.

rainyday2800 2020-10-10 16:47

I like the visuals and the concepts. I had fun, but even after learning what the parameters did, I never felt like I won a level entirely on my understanding. My most successful strat was coming close on my own, then randomly changing until I won. Maybe a top down view and increasing the difference between parameter level would make changes clearer to the player. Keep up the great work!

toccio94 2020-10-10 21:08

This game is very stylish! I liked the visual with those particle effects, and the music was fitting the mood u setup. The gameplay is original, and I liked both that you light up the sphere that will change behavior (it helps in understanding what will change) and the fact that you can rename the parameter (though it was something that I didn't need since I've a good memory).

But it was a bit too hard to judge what was missing, since there was so much moving so fast with a weird angle (maybe moving the camera could help?). I ended up, when close to the solution, just swapping parameters until it worked. It was not frustrating at all, but it could have been more rewarding to get to the solution more on purpose.

I was getting a bit enough of it when it ended so it was perfect for me, but I can see more levels as a benefit for someone else!

It's very polished, great work!

arron-fowler 2020-10-12 12:24

LOOSER! I love a bit of code breaking. Nicely thought out and put together. Lots of polish in it too. Nothing dad to say really. Good job.

ar-borno 2020-10-12 14:50

Liked the concept very much.. It would be nice if there is a html version available. Overall really liked your game ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘

turkey 2020-10-13 04:02

Some sort of tutorial would have been nice instead of just being kinda thrown into the deep end, but overall it s very nice idea. Definitely something I have not seen before! Great core concept to something larger!

croped 2020-10-13 07:31

Nice concept, great audio and a fitting artstyle well done! The UI could be more userfriendly but that might be intentional. Overall very cool game!

polymorph 2020-10-13 09:53

That's strange game, but for some reason I won 6 levels.

wakobu 2020-10-13 09:55

Very original game ! Smooth greaphics. Too hard for me :laughing:

telescape2000 2020-10-13 18:35

Very well suited for the theme. Good challenge throughout but if I were to say 1 complaint its that some of the parameters are hard to tell what they actually do.

baturinsky 2020-10-13 18:43

Surpsrisingly good. Could be a minigame in some bigger game. Like that affected particles are lighted when you change their parameters, would be very frustrating otherwise.

mahalis 2020-10-14 14:46

This is cool! Simple enough concept (at least as far as I got), but super well executed; the visuals work well and the music suits it perfectly. Iโ€™m not sure the timer mechanic really works, since you have to wait a while to see what your changes do, but maybe Iโ€™m just not good enough at it. :sweat_smile: Nice work.

ukra174 2020-10-14 16:27

Hah, nice voice over and music. Interesting gameplay.

andrei009 2020-10-15 18:43

1036 :D. Interesting gameplay with well polished graphics and sound. Good Job ! I would like if the background change the color based on how close am I to the result so I know I'm on the right path (however it should be very subtle). I noticed the background goes darker when I'm really close but not sure if that is really why.

kaeveris 2020-10-24 11:48

Very cool gameplay! I love the graphics and sounds. I think it would help to have some sort of tutorial

skyvastern 2020-10-26 12:40

At first I didn't fully understood what is happening. Though I was able to quickly understand that we had to adjust the parameters values in order to get the right combination. But even then the game seemed pretty hard to me. I think if the parameters could have been named then it would have been a little better. Though after having played a few levels, I finally started to better understand the patterns and how to adjust the parameters. Ultimately I was able to finish the game, and that felt pretty good!

I think the gameplay could have been made a little bit more easier, as often times I just went on a random button smashing spree as I wasn't able to simply get the right combination. Maybe the change in loop's speed when changing parameters could have been a good way to have a better feedback. As then the response would have been a lot quicker, thus making it easier to understand the loops being affected. But at the same time I liked the music and visual effects of the game.

Overall, it was pretty unpredictable but at the same time fun as well. A great entry nevertheless! :)

thecritterscove 2020-10-26 13:38

I had quite a bit of fun with this, with the exception of one level. On that level, I think the 3 blue lines overlapped too much, making it hard to really gauge distance compared to the other levels. Otherwise I was able to solve the other levels without relying on guess and check.

As someone else mentioned, it would be nice if each line had a somewhat relevant default name. Or even if they were the color of the line they controlled it would help a lot.

Controlling the game with + and - is a little dull. It works, but maybe something like a slider with notches may feel a little more appropriate?

Overall it felt like a well polished little game. It would be neat to see more levels made, though perhaps divided up into sets based on type. Really nice job for a compo!

sekol 2020-10-26 18:01

The parameter tuning is beautifully innovative idea. Good job! With somehow improved interface for inputting the parameter tuning (maybe involving mouse wheel for quick parameter edits) this can lead to novel gameplay possibilities.

jk5000 2020-10-28 15:04

@thooom @thevideogamester @a4x8e6 @zimny11 @chickencastle @m8rix @mikoziq @dharby @fronwewq @zacharieg @cleitoneldorn @caeonosphere @indivisibleparticles @dmitry-mozgin @foursay @pekuja @rodrigo-denubila @michael-feldman @quinn-patrick @martin-delemotte @justin-klinchuch @dcrdro @toby1645 @bootak @obi-one @kpedatte @dani-tufeld @samdemaine @denzil-gomes @mvasko2 @ubershmekel @gettingrekt @bumdag @rainyday2800 @toccio94 @arron-fowler @ar-borno @turkey @croped @polymorph @wakobu @telescape2000 @baturinsky @mahalis @ukra174 @andrei009 @kaeveris @skyvastern @thecritterscove @sekol

Thank you all for playing my game, and thank you for your feedback and ratings. If you did not know I made a post jam version doing the jam, and this is now the only version of the game you can download.The post jam version is inspired by some of your feedback.

Regards JK5000

arron-fowler 2020-10-28 15:24

I shall check it out. Me too post jam now added to my game page. https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/47/a-night-around-the-fire

Feedback swap? I know I would find it useful

arron-fowler 2020-10-28 16:27

I just had a good go on your post jam. I enjoyed the challenges just as much and was left wanting more. It is still an interesting challenge and I love the code breaking nature of it. It did not strike me as massively different from the last time I played it which is a good thing. If it's not broke don't fix it. If I had to give any constructive feedback and this is not based on any problems, more a potential opportunity I felt like I was looking at a wave form and I think the music being distorted based on the parameters could be an interesting aditional tuning effect. You could play with tone or reverb to make the connection to what you see and here more full. I think I would get a big kick out of something like that. Just an idea it is still solid as it is.

jk5000 2020-10-28 16:44

@arron-fowler thank you for the feedback again. Yes, there is not many changes but I just hope it's a bit better experience. It's good feedback you have given and I can differently use it if I make a new version, or perhaps to another game.

I will also play your game again.