Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Ziggurat
By nethead
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 108 | 3.95 | 195 | |
| Fun | 260 | 3.63 | 195 | |
| Innovation | 531 | 3.07 | 193 | |
| Theme | 475 | 3.53 | 194 | |
| Graphics | 28 | 4.38 | 197 | |
| Audio | 39 | 4.06 | 195 | |
| Mood | 32 | 4.20 | 194 |
The music is out of this world! Soooooooo goood. Really like how the drums come in on those slow synths. Nice harmonies. So much talent music-wise (I'm a jazz pianist). Graphics and polish are insane as well. The sky effect is amazing. Now a stupid question: how do you shoot?
@pixelportalz thanks so much! decided to just make this one 100% platforming, no shooting :3
Hi @nethead! I just published my compo entry and it was my first time creating music! I wanted to thank you for inspiring me with your previous game, which had a badass drum and bass song. I never thought that I would be capable of making music, and you somehow gave me a little push lol.
About your current game, I loved the mood! It reminded me a lot of Fez. I had some problems with the controls, especially the wall jump. Maybe because I'm used to Super Meat Boy, I first press the directional button and then jump, and in your game it doesn't work haha. The instant deaths from falling into holes left me very frustrated too, I fell 2 times after taking all the diamonds xP.
The sound and the pixel art are extremely well-made, well done!!
Hey @eduardo-yukio ! You did an awesome job with the music, I'm really happy that I helped inspire that :D Thanks for playing my game again, I definitely see how the movement could be awkward coming from Super Meat Boy, whoops. Next time I'll add less death pits lol
This game is really fun! The music and graphics are really good.
i love the aesthetics, and the jumping / wall climbing feels great!
The art and music create such an awesome aesthetic! The wall running is a really cool extra mechanic on top of your classic platoformer.
TODO: review game
Spectacular art and music, I felt like I was in the new blade runner movie
The whole feeling that this game gives off is quite immersive. The graphics are incredibly pretty, and the music complements it perfectly.
I think I may have found a bug: on the end screen, my character's walking sfx were still playing.
The only other criticism I have is that it's sometimes difficult, especially in the first level, to tell what's part of the background, versus what can be interacted with.
The presentation is excellent. I could totally see a fully fleshed out version of this knocking it out of the park. Keep up the great work!
Loved the art and music !
Very fun and beautiful game. The fresh mechanics in each level made it even more interesting. I also loved all of the characters in the background.The mood created by the music is also really enjoyable.
Absolute banger. Big indie energy. You got so much mileage out of the range of tiles and the music. I think it's hard to nail the "deep introspection" theme without getting the aesthetic perfect, which you've done. Probably my highest rated game so far. Just earned yourself a twitter follow too. :-)
Holy cow...this game is so impressive. You might have just taken the cake...congratulations on an awesome project.
This is amazing. The climbing controls felt great and the ending was pretty cool. This is quality stuff
Visuals and audio is outstanding, not much more to say there. I will offer some feedback on the platforming mechanics: the small amount of acceleration when moving I think hinders the rather precise platforming required and doesn't feel great. Wall jumping felt a little odd, to go up a wall requires too much jump spamming, and jumping away from the wall and moving back felt inconsistent and sometimes wouldn't grab back on properly.
This was awesome! Well done on nailing the theme and also giving me big "Fez" vibes. This was a lovely little game you've put together. Everything from the visuals to the atmospheric music was on par, really enjoyed this short game. :D
Thanks for all the positive feedback everyone, super appreciated <3
@greg-the-egg whoops, you did find a bug, thanks :D also good point about it being hard to tell what can be interactive with, I know in the first level especially I was a little inconsistent. noted for next time.
@rhys-vdw thanks for the twitter follow :3
@sam-bigos really appreciate the feedback on the platforming mechanic, I find it hard to get that sort of thing right in one go without a couple playtesters ^^
Very very cool and polished game. It kinda reminds me sound shapes for ps vita. However the audio was a little bit laggy but maybe it's just me
It really is a gem of a game. And all that art you made is absolutely gorgeous ! Everything fits so perfectly, I'm your biggest fan now ! I'll make sure to follow you on Twitter and learn as much from you as I can ahah, great job!!!
Very nice game. Can't believe you did it for 48 hours. Graphics and music are awesome. Really enjoyed playing this game
Really liked this one! The music and art were great - and the mechanics were intuitive. I saw that you made the explicit decision to go no shooting only platforming, which I think was the right move for this kind of game. Only critique is that it was not intuitive how to get to the second level once I got the key - otherwise, I liked how easy it was to pickup and learn the mechanics without being told.
Really inspiring game - gave me lots of ideas!
Love the Graphics and Sound and the Wall Jumping feels really great!! Amazing how beautiful a game you made in the limited time.
Took me a while on the last level because I could not identify the floor. Also, there may be a minor bug where the walking sound continues on the "Fin" screen for me
I got a time of ** 449.51 ** on first attempt
@oeschmid thanks for the feedback on the first level, I had wondered if I was being a bit too vague at times!
@cary-stanley i wondered if going solid black on the floor tiles at the end was a bit too much, woops. thanks for posting your time :D i was wondering how long a first playthrough would take for people. also yeah, my bad re: the walking sound not stopping at the end lol.
Very solid entry, this certainly doesn't *look* like a jam game. The music popped and crackled a lot, i wasn't sure if this was intentional or just a bug
The art and music is amazing! I felt immersed into another world, great job!
Awesome ambient music! The controls feel also super smooth... :clap:
Great game! I especially appreciated the art from the details, the tile variations, the smooth transitions, basically all the little things :)
Awesome art-style. Very well put together. I loved the wall climbing and my own pathfinding methods to work around the world. Beware of the RSi :smile: Not good for this oldies hands. But regardless great job!
the art and music are great, and the platformer mechanics are solid as well. Great game!
Loved the aesthetics on this one! Felt like a mix of FEZ and Celeste.
This is amazing! Visually stunning, an excellent soundtrack, and really solid platforming. Outstanding to pull this off in 48hrs
Fantastic aesthetics and soundtrack! This is the type of game you want to see being developed further! Great job!
Great game with fun gameplay and amazing visuals and music aswell. Great game
After your amazing game in the last ludum dare, I had to check out, what you did this time and once again, it's really great! The music is awesome and I really like that you show the timer in the end. After the second try I managed to finish it in 141 seconds.
ziggurat.PNG
@stefan-laimer woo thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it :D and congrats on a sub-150s run, that's sick
Incredible game! Loved absolutely everything, controls, the music, the mood. Great job!
Anything that reminds me of Knytt Stories is going to get a solid rating no matter what, but this is an excellent work in it's own right. The only issue, (which I suspect is beyond your control, I'm blaming the browser maybe?) is that the sound is extremely choppy. Seriously, love the worldbuilding and the art.
@threeli thanks! the climbing was totally a nod to knytt, glad you picked up on that! sucks that the audio was choppy for you ;;
probably my favorite entry so far! controls feel crisp, art and sounds are good, all the levels felt sufficiently challenging but solvable! amazing work :D
It can be one of the best platformers.
I thought I beat it because I got to the spot the said back to start... then I saw a screenshot of someone beating it in comments, so proof I was wrong. Good game haha! Had fun playing it.
Such a nice mood! Music and visuals are just gorgeous. Very nice little world you've created here. Impressive amount of solid level design as well. The wall jump and the heaviness of the character felt a bit off at first, but I quickly got used to it.
Great compo entry! It was fun to play and the art is beautiful. Together with the music it really sets the mood. Awesome work!
I love this. Fav so far. Music is so great. Has starseed pilgrim vibes :)
For a 48h project alone, it is indeed very impressive. The sound was laggy for me, but maybe it's a specific issue.
I loved your game! Everything about it is polished so hard that it shines! It's in the little details: like: how the sound is in stereo for instance.
Pretty beautiful, the artistic direction is unique, that is pretty rare for a jam. Maybe a lack of checkpoints? I found pretty frustating to restart entirely a level when I fell. Anyway, pretty solid entry!
AWESOME, nice crisp controlls makes this game soooooo smooooooth and music oh! I WANT MORE!
Really like the arts and audios, the control is a bit strange to me by jumping and moving on the same hand but very responsive! Nice work!
the game is interesting, though i wish the music wasnt so overpowering.
Really inspiring! Platforming feels great (although I wish space to jump was an option...) I'm now just listening to the music with the tab open in the background lol!
Great palette, I think the control are a bit rough (the wall jump is not ultra easy to use) but otherwise it's a solid platformer. And music really complements the experience perfectly.
What can I say that other people haven't already said? Great game, good controls, good music, great aesthetic. Good job!
This game is really nice ! The music and graphics are really good. gg
This was very well-done. The controls felt good, the graphics were good, and the music was absolutely fantastic. I got a very "hyper light drifter" vibe.
Absurdly impressive for a jam game, kudos to you! Game is beautiful, plays well, is a really interesting take on the theme... also personally, I like the square aspect ratio a lot.
This is a very nice retro platformer with pretty nice controls and good music. My only complaint would be the wall jump was a bit difficult for me to execute. However, I enjoyed it so much that I finished it.
Incredible amount of polish for a weekend's worth of work. Really coherent and a good interpretation of the theme, with superb presentation. Very good, well done.
I loved the aesthetic and the weird design of the characters. The platforming is super cool and polished. Good job making a short polished game instead of a long not so polished game. Great entry.
Definitely getting some Disasterpiece/HLD vibes as @youthfulidealism has already called out. The graphics style and controls felt great. My criticisms are: - Entering the door after getting the key was oddly difficult. I tried smashing a bunch of buttons and at some point it let me in. I feel like that part should've been easier. - The level design wasn't always great at telegraphing where the player should try to progress. I'd find myself jumping to my death before realizing that I was going the wrong way.
Small comments aside, this is a stellar job!
Great visuals and audio! Was a joy to play. I really got into it in the last stage twitch dodging stuff. Would have loved a level or two more :)
@the-neon-shark thanks for the detailed feedback! I would have liked to add more graphics to telegraph things like what key to press on the door and when you've reached a dead end, but alas I ran out of time D: I'll keep your comments in mind for the future ^^
Aside from a few moments where I didn't know where to go (the section with the falling red cubes on the near-black floor comes to mind), this was truly wonderful! It looks, sounds, and feels exactly how I wanted it to, somehow
Solid entry, a lot of work has been put into this game.
I didn't make it to the very end, but what I did see was splendid. SUCH MOOD! A++, I love it.
Fantastic entry, this is what I look for from Ludum Dare! Well done on all aspects. I enjoyed that there were some 'lookout' spots where you could just sit and enjoy the music.
I really loved the aesthetic of this one. Very creative. Well done!
I loved the aesthetic of this entry, the pixel art was amazing! The movement mechanics was also very well done.
I ran it as a standalone executable, and had some issues with the Onion. I believe you didn't normalise the movement with delta.
Also,
Screenshot from 2021-04-29 20-49-58.png
Yes... yes you are :joy:
@jusw85 ahhhh you're right I totally missed the delta for the onion movement! thanks so much for catching that, once the jam is done i'll have to publish an update. also I'm equal parts delighted that you found my stupid comments and embarrassed that anyone actually looked at my janky jam code lmao
Super trippy art style, music and mood. Good gameplay/controls as well, feels nice. One of my favorite LD games so far. Great work!
such a unique game! i truly loved the graphics.. astonishing simplicity with fine detail (if that makes any sense). The colors were cool especially on the last level.. and i liked a lot that the colors made me unsure if there is ground or not. They only thing, is that i would prefer it with more friction on the ground, other than that the ctrls were as they should. The climb jump move was very handy too. I felt like the game was challenging me for a speedrun so the second time i tried my best (i'm not good but i've tried :P) Solid cool work especially when i cosider that it's just from one person! CONGRATS!
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@kaminos yoo thanks for the feedback + playing the game!! and solid time, loving seeing people post them :D
Very nice game. I like how simply the character was made and the 8 bit style. Challenging to collect all the diamonds and I eventually threw myself over the edge.
Great job! The story was interesting and the climbing mechanic was a nice idea. I kept falling because I wanted it to behave like typical wall jumping, but that's more on me than the game. The music was really well done. There were a few places where the physics felt a little off (i.e. I fell through a space that looked solid). Great entry!
You achieved much with such a low pixel resolution! Gameplay is really smooth too. Great work!
What a stellar entry! The music, art and low-action gameplay really combined to create a reflective mood. I'd mentioned before, but the tileset for the environment was especially impressive and was reminiscent of the freeware version of Cavestory. I didn't have the same issues others had with the walljump, I actually found it a lot easier to pull off than similar mechanics in other games. I guess it really just comes down to what different people find intuitive. My only real complaint was that the moment at the very end felt like it went by a little fast. I'm guessing if I had been moving slower it would have felt a little more impactful, maybe if I'd been forced to move at a slower speed it would have worked better.
Overall this was a great experience! Good job!
@junebug thanks for the feedback :D definitely agree about the ending moving too fast, wish I'd been able to make that a bit more impactful
Absolutely amazing! I'm not a huge fan of platformers and I had a lot of fun! The pixel art is super neat and the colors are amazing. The animations and control are perfectly smooth. Super impressive! Congrats!
Hey, amazing graphics and sound. I just dont could play too much, I couldnt handle it with the mechanic for jump/wall jump, maybe put more impulse, or maybe I was doing wrong? ahahahha such a good atmosphere, very solid, congrats ;)
I'm really impressed that this was created by one person. It's such an accomplished little platformer for a Jam game, and you did excellent work. Great graphics and sound, and controls felt spot on. I really enjoyed it. Well done!
This is super mega cool game!!!
I love the art style in this one! The gameplay is nice too, but the aesthetics are the main pull for me. The platforming felt great, in no small part due to the great animation work!
My only complaint is that I had a really nasty audio bug that made the sound constantly cut out and jitter, so much so that I had to stop playing. Which is a shame, because that aside the sound work is phenomenal! Usually when people have issues with their sound on a web build, it works nicely as an executable. If you could build it as an exe so that I could replay it, I'd be more than happy to come back and finish it! This game seems amazing.
@tom-robson I'm glad you like what you were able to play, thanks for letting me know that the audio was cutting out so much for you. I was hesitant to upload a Windows desktop build since I only have Linux and MacOS machines to test on, but I've uploaded one since the web build is causing you such issues. If you could let me know if it works as expected, that would be greatly appreciated :D
@nethead Seems to work perfectly! I'll give it a second run through tonight and post another comment if I have any extra thoughts! Thank you so much!
@tom-robson awesome, thanks!!
Loved it, such a wholesome experience, love the art style, the color palettes chosen, how the tiles were combined in a very unique way. Big props to the music combined with the aesthetics the mood is phenomenal!
Such a cool tiny world you've created here! I really like the imaginative visuals, great colors and shapes! The narrative was also cute and I could see this is a longer game where the story is told a bit indirectly. Not sure why, but the manga "Blame" also came to my mind.
Unfortunately I also encountered scartchy audio in the web build and I agree with some others that the up direction for jumping doesn't feel so great. Apart from that I also noticed some gaps between the grid tiles. Though depending on the engine you're using this should be an easy fix. Lastly I recommend some telegraphing for moving downwards, as it is sometimes hard to know where you can safely land. One option could be to add some collectibles like coins that tell the player where there is floor. Another would be to add a dynamic camera that has a look-ahead feature.
Hope that didn't come across too negative, overall I really liked it :D
@nitero not negative at all, I appreciate the feedback! thank you ^^
Fantastic game!
I can not understand how you were able to get such nice pixel art and level design done in just 48 hours. The storytelling was great and the audio was really nice as well! Great job :D
i absolutely love the theme of this. The music and graphics all come together to make a beautifull game <3
Hi, I enjoyed the game! The graphics are really cool in a retro, PICO-8 way. The idea is good. I felt the wall "grab" mechanic is a bit odd but it's not bad enough to not enjoy it or be able to play it. The audio is great. You can expand this and improve it into a full-fledged game.
incredible work with the graphics and mood! very nice to play. I liked the climb mechanic, it was easy to understand and fun to use. I accidentally got the ending without quite realizing what was going on; maybe if the other character had been teased/hinted at earlier then it might have been more satisfying? anyway, really great work, especially for a compo entry, wow!!
Great atmosphere, gameplay and overall mood. Simple and fun to play. Very nice compo entry!
The music and graphics were absolutely gorgeous. I love the pink sky. The ending took me a bit off guard as I was just running through and suddenly ran into myself, but that is my only complaint. Very well done.
Enjoyable little game. Great work on the graphics and the gameplay. Well done!
Simple and delicious game. Make the kind of game that I would spend hours playing if I had more levels. The art is beautiful and the music reminded me a lot of FEZ. There is something about the controls that I don't like. I don't know if the precision or the physics of the jumps, but it bothered me a lot. I didn't understand the relationship with the theme, but that doesn't make it a bad game. What engine did you use?
Congratulations on your courage and competence in participating in the compo and being able to do something so good!
@euler-moises thanks for the kind and detailed comment :D I made some slightly weird decisions with the controls of this game, so I can see how it would feel "off" (especially since the game is so short you might not adjust by the time you beat it). Vertical movement is pretty sharp, but horizontal movement is slightly floaty.
Conceptually my idea was to make a game where you travel "deeper and deeper" into a character's mind to find a part of yourself, but I overestimated how well I could pull that off in a compo game. I ran out of time to convey that through more text + level design like I'd intended.
I used Godot for this project; I've been really happy with Godot and will probably stick with it for 2D games.
Nice entry! Fun idea and the platforming was tight! The controls were a little awkward at first but I think I was able to adjust to it by the end. I really liked the mood and the feel of the whole game.
One thing that stood out to me in my playthrough was I never really had a good way to tell what was a background element that I would pass through and what was solid that I could touch. I think because the color palette for both was exactly the same. For instance, this I can walk through: z1.png
While this I can't. z2.png
I also just expected that with this platform the bottom tiles would be solid but I would walk behind the top layer (if that makes sense) z3.png
This isn't a problem really, but I did want to mention it because I was always a little unsure throughout my whole playthrough.
@minibobbo thanks for the feedback! 100% agree with all your points, I'll be more careful about that in the future :D
Very solid and fun platforming, and great abstract graphics! I'm a big shmup fan and loved the element of avoiding projectiles in this.
There were some white lines showing up between sprites sometimes, and the sprites did kinda scale in non-"pixel perfect" ways sometimes making them look wavy - a small detail and not really detracting from a jam game, but definitely something to fix if you expand on it further.
Great job on this game! The audio was very well done of course. Movement and jumping felt good, but I didn't like the way climbing/wall jumps worked. I kept releasing the left/right button and trying to climb just by pressing up. Similarly, there were times when I wanted to stay against the wall without climbing or falling, so I'd release the up key and just press the direction against the wall, and end up accidentally falling to my doom.
It would be nice to have a sound or other effect to indicate that you've taken damage. And in the icy level, I wanted a checkpoint or something for when all the diamonds have been collected. I got hit by some ice on the way back and had to redo it 3 more times (each time I got more impatient/reckless since I had already gathered the cubes so many times).
I only had one health left at the very end and was dreading my inevitable demise (mostly having to do the whole level again) when suddenly I died to a streaking white creature like myself. It took me a moment to realize I had actually just finished the game. Maybe player speed could be reduced in that section as others have mentioned, or change the tileset in that area to one that feels less "threatening".
Anyway, very cool game. It's so amazing that you did it all in just a couple days!
Oh, how a great mood this game has.
Solid theme/mood and controls. The art and music are outstanding. Great work!
Very cool graphics, sound and mood! I love the knytt-style climbing and that prince of persia ending!
This is a pretty neat game! Most of it works pretty well. I like the music and the graphics--I especially like the variety of tilesets present throughout the game.
As other people have mentioned, I had trouble figuring out how to wall jump... in fact, I still don't actually know what the control is for walljumping. I usually just spam the jump button and directional inputs until something happens that seems useful.
(note: when referring to levels I'm going to use "level 1" to mean the first level with the key, not the tiny initial level)
At first I thought that the level design in the second level is a bit tedious--it seemed like trying to run over one of the crystal-shooters would always result in taking damage, so I always had to wait--but I realized in level 3 that it is possible to jump over them right as they start shooting. I'm not sure if there would be some way to telegraph this strategy to the player better, as it would make the game flow a bit better in level 2. Perhaps I didn't try jumping in level 2 because the enemies first show up in a hallway with a low ceiling? Something to think about.
One small nitpick I have is that some of the tiles look like they are going to be background details but end up being platforms (e.g. the tiles that are just a 1px outline in level 1). This didn't end up being an actual problem in any real sense, but if you want your tiles to consistently read as "ground" some of them may need to be changed.
I think that's all I could really think of to talk about... overall pretty good entry. Everything is nice and tied together and well polished.
Very interesting platform game and smooth operation. It's really amazing that this game can be completed in such a short period of time
great job on the graphics, very intuitive. Confusing where to go at times, but I think overall the feeling of searching and being lost permeates all the levels. Great job!
The graphics are really great! I loved playing this interesting jumping/scaling platformer, the jump is really satisfying and it makes it feel like its possibly a speedrunnable game. <3 <3
WORLD RECORD.png Can someone beat my record???
@chrisap really glad you liked it, thanks for playing and posting your record :D one of my friends was able to beat it in 88.33 and sent me a video, so I uploaded it incase you're interested: https://youtu.be/5Cql3P7zqfs
this is my personal best so far (using his route):
Screenshot from 2021-05-14 22-01-27.png
The art in this game is fantastic, everything looks so polished and complete which makes it a pleasure to play and explore through. Liked how much character you were able to put into the player sprite in such little pixels. The colours also worked so well and the music really helped set the mood. Great entry.
:wave: Hi there! This game has been featured on the GitHub Blog: [Ludum Dare 48 staff picks](https://github.blog/2021-05-19-ludum-dare-48-staff-picks/#ziggurat) :slight_smile:
[Ludum-Dare-48_GH-staff-picks_Banner.gif](https://github.blog/2021-05-19-ludum-dare-48-staff-picks/#ziggurat)
@lee-reilly thanks for including me :D