xiyou 2020-10-06 15:59
very unique style of painting.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD47 → Plague Friend's Deathly Journey
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 711 | 3.56 | 32 | |
| Fun | 726 | 3.40 | 32 | |
| Innovation | 519 | 3.58 | 31 | |
| Theme | 387 | 3.96 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 842 | 3.50 | 32 | |
| Humor | 210 | 3.70 | 32 | |
| Mood | 593 | 3.58 | 32 |
very unique style of painting.
I love this game so much. It's cute and funny and the art is carefree and stylish. I will say though that I couldn't break the loop. I think I tried all possible logic, dunno if it was a bug. The post-jam version looks awesome, especially with music but I couldn't rate that version.
Really great first game. Next time post more comments on other games so you can get the ratings you deserve.
Congrats!
Hello Sakura,
Unique art style is what it's all about! I thought the graphics are very pleasant and add to the vibe of the game well. The whole game felt like a relaxing walk outside with some very witty dialogue. Some music and perhaps some sound effects would make it even better, but of course it can be hard to fit everything in with the time limit. I wasn't able to break the loop but enjoyed the game nonetheless.
This game definitely deserves more people playing it, I think the font used to show the game title in the screenshots is a little jarring. I think making the font more swirly and smooth like the rest of the game could help attract more people in.
Thank you for making this very pleasant experience, and very well done!
*~Jack Soulie~*
Visual style and theme are kind of orthogonal which is very interesting approach to make a game like this :) The same thing I was feeling while watching Happy Tree Friends :) Also your move with sounds of subtitles with different types of mood is a super fresh looking thing for me, like it!
P.S. It's super cool to see that you keep updating the game after the event. Wish you the best of luck!
Delightful graphics and a nice interpretation of the theme. The use of the loop was very effective. I could see this being expanded on to create some really tricky puzzles. I also enjoyed the not-always-German butcher :)
Thank you all for playing!
@stellarbeargames I opted out of music ratings because I didn't think it would be fair, since I did the music post-jam, but I'm really glad you liked it! A hint to break out of the loop, you need to avoid paying the guard a coin to enter the gate. (If you did this, but still couldn't break out, then yeah, somehow, you found a bug.) I regret not starting to play the other entries in the game jam sooner, I was working really hard on continuing to update the game with everything I wanted to put in it but couldn't for the jam, so I neglected to play the other entries until I was done. I should have had more balance between playing and reviewing other games, and continuing to improve my own.
@firetwin I added music and sound effects in the post jam version, as well as a bunch of other visual touches, extra dialogue, and platforming. If you want to give it a try, I'd love to hear what you think! I'm glad you enjoyed it, same hint for you: after going through one loop, try going back in time to avoid paying the guard a coin to enter the town. And yeah, I could probably use a better font to make the game feel more enticing.
@gamescodedogs I'm glad you liked the disjoint theme and style. I remember happy tree friends from middleschool hahaha, I can see the similarities. Thanks for playing!
@hgcummings Wow, thanks for the compliment! I don't consider myself a visual artist at all, I just tried to draw everything as quickly and simply as I could. I also think there's more potential for different kinds of puzzles with this style of game. The butcher is my favorite character for sure!
This was a fantastic little experience! The game definitely had quite a distincive feel to it, I feel like I've never really played a game like this before. The cute and genuine art style, the way the day progresses as you move, the ridiculous sense of humor, the characters and the dialogue, the moving back and forward in time... Everything felt so unique.
What shines most about the game, in my opinion, is the *dialogue and humor*. The characters, especially Plague Friend, were just so unpredictably bizarre, but at the same time likeable and charming. Their dialogue felt unforced and was just all around super fun to read. It provided an excellent reason for interacting with the characters as much as possible to see all the possible wild things they would say, and as such also a driving force for progressing and seeing the game through to the end.
When it comes to *art*, the game also feels really different - it's this blend of really well made visuals, and stuff that looks kind it was kind of scribbled down quickly. This made the game's atmosphere casual and playful, which definitely interacted well with and emphasized the humor.
The *gameplay* was quite simple at surface level, but the time travel mechanic made things a lot more interesting, letting you bend the rules a bit by bringing things from the future into the present into the past, vice versa. A great idea that fits perfectly with the theme! Not to mention, the humor of the game once again shines through with the way Friend interacts with the other characters and the environment.
Overall, the game kept me playing until the end with its peculiar art style, sense of humor and mechanics. Well done! :smile:
This was a strange little game (in a good way :smile:) As I started playing I didn't feel any time, and just got lost into it. Good concept and story, and with more polishing this could be something.
UPDATE: I just discovered that the graphics was not shown correctly in Firefox!! and I just played it like that and I really enjoyed it! (that tell how catchy your game is) I noticed that when I was rating your game, then I saw the screenshots, which were so different of what I have played, so I switched to chrome, and oh boy! that a beautiful looking game :smiley:
Screenshot from 2020-10-23 22-37-18.png
WOW..is this your first game ever? You really reached a strange and impressive atmosphere in your game...Main character design is simlple and so efective..I love the art style here. I just missed some audio during gameplay...Backgrounds are almost just color zones but somehow they are nice and work so well...sometimes everything looks weirdly hand painted...COOOOOONGRATS!1.png
@nikadra oh wow, i'm so, so happy that you enjoyed it so much, thank you for all the compliments! writing the characters' dialogue was the most natural part of the game for me, all their lines flowed out, and it was really fun to find each individuals' sense of self. i'm so glad, and honestly relieved, that folks are receiving the visuals so well, i am completely new to drawing, this is the most i've drawn since i was in grade school, and i was really really nervous about having to make all the art my self for this jam. i actually painted everything just using my mouse, point and click... it was extremely tiring. i'm glad it turned into something that people like. i'm really pleased with how the time travel mechanic turned out, and i think it would be cool to take it further outside of a jam setting, and come up with more complex interactions. thanks for playing <3
@div00 oh wow, how embarrassing! blame unity, hahaha. i feel exactly how Plague Friend does from that screenshot, i can't believe you actually played the entire game without any backgrounds!
@danielblanco3d i'm so glad you enjoyed it, thanks for the praise! i was really nervous about doing the art myself, this is my first time with digital painting a whole world from the ground up, and i ended up painting it all with just a mouse, so i was really nervous about how it would turn out. amazingly, it's turning out to be really well received, wow! i'm definitely sad that i didn't have time to do any audio in the jam version, but i actually spent a lot of time making music and sound effects for the post jam version of the game. i had a lot of fun making the music and sfx, so i hope you have time to try out the post jam version too and tell me what you think!
Very nice game! Loved the dialogues, laughed a bit there :D Keep up the good work :3 Also the music going with the flow of time is great idea. And the fact that you can move backwards in time. Loved it.
My brain.
firefox_uxD4oXCfFF.png
So yeah, I played the Jam version, but just seeing such a detailed changelog made me already think highly of this game. Having the opportunity to go back to an already submitted game and further polish it that much must meant that you had a great time working on it to being with.
And I must say, it shows. While gameplay wise it's not necessarily spectacular, it's quite a fun take in the "fetching" genre. I like how thematically it's a journey across time, with simple yet effective puzzles. #Doubleleechpower
Pudgy plague doctor will always have a place in my heart. Kudos! :whale:
@moski thanks for remembering to not forget to embark on plague friend's deathly journey! i'm glad i was able to complete the bare minimum for the game to be fully functional within the game jam's time frame, but yeah, i just couldn't help but keep coming back to it, and i've been having so much fun developing the characters and world into something i'm really proud of in the post jam version.
Interesting game! I enjoyed playing it, and the graphics are charming. I like how the characters all had their own font, as a way to give them some personality. ^^ I also like what you already did for the post-jam version! Nice sounds, music and more graphics, and a lovely sun and moon. :smile:
Well done!
Very cute, I love the style of everything! The dialogue was pretty engaging too. Congrats on a very solid first ludum dare game!
Adorable game! I loved the quirky graphics and the adventure was itself totally hatstand with really funny dialogues. My only nitpick is the oversized inventory window that covers quite a bit of the screen area. Well done, nevertheless!
Nice little game! The jam version worked fine at my end, no issues. Well done!
Great game! Art style was cool, and impressive execution of dialogue and 'quest' objectives. I played only the jam version BTW. You asked about how fun I thought this was, and I would it was fun enough to draw me in, but did not introduce any hook before I lost interest. The exposition for what the player is supposed to do is literally "lets get to it then". The description says you are 'stuck' in a loop, but where is that shown? why is that a problem? Maybe that is explained later, but for a jam game I am personally looking for a hook within seconds of playing. I have no expectations for what this game is, so I need them to be set and for the game to create interest quickly. The initial tasks just require walking back and forth and some reading, and the gameplay did not turn into anything beyond that. I would like to see this game open with an inciting incident, and follow a traditional plot arc more. If you set my expectation, provide some urgency, raise some questions, then I will be motivated to answer those questions and discover what the story is. This would also be aided by tasks that are more complex. It seems like this may be difficult since your game is basically 1D, only moving left and right, so physically going to different places to explore may not work as most games like this do. Well done, hope to see more added to this!
This game is sooooo cute. I really had fun playing it.
Darn, I want to play an even longer version so much! Your story, dialogue, gameplay, everything was spot-on!
Hey, this was a really cool little concept! It took me a while to actually finish the game, but I did it (and died, LOL!) I like the way you interpreted the loop theme, it felt really interesting to be able to 'move through time'. It felt weird and disorienting, and really logical at the same time, if that makes any sense. The writing was witty and fun, I definitely enjoyed reading it all. Good job on this, hope you keep on developing it :) Ps. the main character is super cute!
@papaver thanks for playing, I'm glad you liked the post jam version. it was a lot of fun to draw the sun and moon
@ranjan meow!
@reallyqbert thanks for the feedback, I'll have to look more into best practices for scaling UI elements at different screen sizes. In the Post Jam version, think the way I have it set up is that they should always be the same size relative to the screen size (e.g. inventory bar being 1/5th the width of the screen). In the Jam version, I think they are a static pixel size, so they probably only look right at 1920x1080. Trying to figure out how the UI canvas layout stuff worked was like the last thing I did before submitting, heheh.
@ghuyajil thanks for playing!
@rhoff95 mm yeah, that's a very good point about the hook, it does have a pretty slow start, and things don't really get interesting until half way through. maybe sone kind of experience in the beginning that gives you a taste of the previous night's bloody activities would set the mood better, and be more motivating to see what the game has in store. maybe even simply starting at the point that you leeched the patient, instead of starting when you woke up the morning after. especially in the context of a jam, as you said, games have a lot of competition to fight for attention, and players are jumping from game to game very quickly. I would love to try my hand at more complex puzzles / tasks! now that I have some experience with getting the basics set up, hopefully next time I can spend more time on more interesting gameplay.
@midorimelody aww yay, thanks!!
@peace-of-cake-games oh wow, really? I might revisit this world in the future to expand upon it, and make more complex / challenging puzzles, it's really grown on my over the course of making it!
@virtual-turtle-studio wow, I'm really glad you played it to the end! cute yet disorienting was definitely the vibe I was going for :3