Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Rooted
By webox
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 542 | 3.74 | 103 | |
| Fun | 536 | 3.59 | 103 | |
| Innovation | 292 | 3.80 | 103 | |
| Theme | 347 | 4.04 | 103 | |
| Graphics | 926 | 3.67 | 103 | |
| Humor | 1031 | 2.51 | 83 | |
| Mood | 1049 | 3.39 | 100 |
This is really charming! The pixel art is nice-- reminds me of 90s shareware PC games. Interesting gameplay ideas too. I don't really have any suggestions but would love to see the game mechanics explored further. Super cool. :)
@otresnjak Thanks a lot for playing it! I'm glad you liked it!! Yeah, I was aiming for that kind of GFX feeling so it's awesome that you saw that ;D
I love the Pixel art and it's really fun to play =) Nice Work!
What an original concept and solid execution. The levels are great!! I would love to see some more. sound design is really satisfying and the art is elegant. The only problem I see is the contrast of the minerals and the rocks, kind of hard to differentiate.
Amazing entry. Very clever mechanics. Excellent level desing, great art. Nothing to complain, I loved it.
@freddyturbina @azagaya thanks a lot for playing and for the nice feedback!! I'm really glad you liked it! :D
One of the most original ones I've seen so far. Clever mechanics, and nicely executed. The only thing to improve for me would be the color of the regular "earth" tile, maybe less bright, so the other tiles stand out more. Congrats on a great entry!
Thought this was a great game, very innovative! Only feedback I would have is that I found it a bit tricky to spot the minerals in the ground, perhaps just need slightly more contrast. Overall very good though!
Interesting mechanics! Reminds me of the hacking in Bioshock. My only suggestion is maybe add an Undo button to make it less punishing.
A pretty clever puzzler! I thought I was stuck at one point (the second level with a mole), but going through the mole's area at the right time is a clever mechanic.
The art is a little busy-looking. I had no issues finding the minerals but with the earth tiles and non-passable stone tiles looking so similar it gives the game a pretty messy look. I would not have used the dark brown tone used in the diggable earth, thereby making a clear contrast between it and the stone. There are also some clear repeating forms in the stone--like if you have a tile floor in a house and each tile as the same noticeable mark on it.
The music is a pretty good vibe for the game, a little more variation in it might've helped as it did get a little repetitive.
All in all, I enjoyed playing it!
Smart puzzle game! I really liked the mischievous mole. Good job
@bruno-bombardi @haematite @flaterectomy Hey thanks for the feedback!! Yes, sadly I am aware of the lack of contrast and how hard it's to find the minerals, but I submited 5 minutes before deadline because of compiling issues with unity, so sadly I wasn't able to improve it :(
@wahyu-candra Tanks a lot for playing!! Undo button sounds like a really cool idea, I'll add it on a post jam version!
@jonah haha tanks for playing!! Yeah those damn moles eating up everything!! I wanted to make it so they could dig freely but I didn't make it in time, but also that could've made the game too hard.
I almost stopped playing and tell you that the input doesn't work for me. Because the root didn't move on the initial screen and neither clicking nor enter or anything else started the game. I though it was broken. Turns out I had to click a specific area in the text in order to start. I'd recommend to use a more button-looking element to click on next time (instead of text that looks like regular text :)
Looks really nice visually! The most pressing visual thing I would have attempted to fix is the sprite that moves when you extend your branch. I assume it was the easiest way to do it this way. But if you would have used the endpoint of the root on a transparent background during the transition it might have looked better. Just as a suggestion :)
Another thing which is a bit annoying is that the branch-of-curser resets to the beginning if an invalid selection was made. Would have been nice if it would just stay there in close proximity of the invalid selection.
The level where you really start to run low on resources (maybe level 4 or something) was really nice to understand how you wanted the player to play the game. Loved it!
If I am right next to a water source I am still required to make an extra move onto it. That extra move doesn't cost any energy. I think you could have just connected the root to the water automatically once it moves right next to it. This is more relevant when you pass by a water source since you'll have to go back and connect it at some point.
The second last level seems to have louder sound. Or maybe it's just my ears :P Not much of an issue though :)
I had great fun playing your game. I really appreciated your feedback on my game as well. Maybe drop your twitter (or something) here in the comments if you would like to stay in touch. See you :)
hey @noel-widmer!! Thanks a lot for the amazing feedback! That's some very detailed and constructive feedback!! For some strange reason I worked all weekend yet beeeearly made it on time, IDK what happened tbh, maybe I was a bit distracted. That's why a LOT of polishing didn't make the cut, besides that I had a huge issue 2hs before deadline where the game didn't compile at all for html 5 xD...
You're 100% right, the non transparent tile was the easiest way to implement it and kind of "placeholder" that never got removed. The connection with water sources never felt right, I wanted to make it so it wasn't the same to pass through and to connect to elaborate some puzzles on that idea, but it ended being really confusing.
SFXs and music was added 1h before deadline, so I wouldn't be surprised at all that I messed up the volume on some scenes xD.
The good part of this "cahotic" LD was that I really put thought on the level designs, and I got some good feedback about that, so it's really great to learn that you enjoyed it too!!
Here's my twitter (tho I'm not super active tweeting, but I do read a lot) [@webocs](https://twitter.com/webocs)
Thanks Again for playing and for the cool feedback!
At the first glance I was pretty confused on what's going on, but in the end I found my way around the system. Most of the levels are not really that hard but it was fun to find the correct ways to finish the paths. A very chill and fun experience with not much distraction or moving parts. Keep it up.
hey @xenobey thanks for playing!! Sorry you got confused!! But it's cool that you liked it, I wasn't aiming for super hard levels because that usually makes users not finish or even play your game at all, I aimed at normal-easy difficulty. Thanks for the feedback! :D
@webox I gave you a follow on Twitter. Hit me up if you find something interesting about game dev or maybe even want to do a jam together at some point ^^
nice game, realy fun and entertaining, continue like that !
Love the graphics! Fun take on the snake game mechanic and good interpretation of the theme!
Great puzzle game! The moles added a good amount of difficulty and made finding the solutions very satisfying! Nice job! Perfect length for a jam game!
Absolutely loved it! I do think there could be a bit more contrast between the rocks and the dirt to help seperate. Also those moles are jerks XP
@jujuformatic Thanks for playing!!
@0x746564 Thanks a lot for playing, glad you liked it!!
@keithswanger thanks for playing!! Yes I wanted to expand further on the moles, I had some more ideas like different path but didn't make the cut, for some reason I was super slow this jam and missed a lot of features and polishing.
Hey @vimlark thanks a lot for playing!! I just watched your stream, I missed it for a few minutes. I'm glad you liked it!! I realized about the constrat as soon as I made that sprite, but i said "Yeah, I'll change it later"... there was no later xD.. I'll make a postjam version fixing that. Also, the mole did have a different path on your playthrough for some reason, it wasn't supposed to work like that, idk what happened there.. I'll investigate further into that bug. Also thanks for playing until the end! :D
Really neat take on a mining game. Playing as one connected body really changes how you approach the levels, especially when the moles get introduced. The water veins were a bit finicky since you can't branch off of the root tile that connects to them, which occasionally blocked my path. But, overall, a very solid and original game. Nice work!
**+** creative take on the theme
**+** great art and sound effects
**+** the puzzles were fun to solve, the mole is a nuisance
**-** easy to mess up with accidental key-presses
**-** entry into cursor mode is sometimes jarring
**-** some of the text was hard to read
Very nice, keep it up!
Fun game, and not too hard to learn to play. I love puzzles so figuring out the best ways to move around the map without expending too much energy was fun. The music got a bit repetitive, but just when I was starting to notice it, it would stop completely only to restart at the beginning of the next level- might be a looping issue there? Not a huge complaint, just something I noticed.
I do wish there was an option to control with the arrows - kept defaulting to my arrow keys and then looked like the surprised pikachu when it wouldn't work before reminding myself to use WASD.
Overall though it's a solid game! Great job!
Very interesting take on combining resource mining + puzzle, I had a lot of fun with it. A couple of nitpicks though:
- The font was pretty difficult to read, itlo okedl ike textwa soddl yspaced :sweat_smile: - The buttons that required you to click on them did not clearly indicate that they were buttons, I was stuck at the intro screen for a bit trying to figure out how to progress by mashing the keyboard.
Still, great job!
I love your use of the theme. Very evocative premise. The puzzles were real "stump"-ers. Bah dum tss. I loved the mole mechanic. Great job! Thanks for making it!
Pretty nice game. I had fun playing it and enjoyed your idea with the mole. The movement was smooth and worked good for me. Good job!
Wow seriously @webox you talk about me making awesome games, well dude you are making better games than me :v: This games mechanic is quite simple in design but I love it! Fits the theme nicely and the graphics are super cute and nice. Music was awesome and SFXs did the job. Great work with this awesome little puzzle game!
nice grafics! I really like the art style and gameplay
theend.png I really like this kind of game! Good job. :slight_smile:
Good game! i love the art, the game idea, the sound, very cool game. You must be proud!
Quite a difficult little puzzler. Nice job. The font for the instructions was a little difficult to read, but that's my only criticism.
I like puzzles and this one is really good
Juegazo!!! La idea está buenísima y hay mucho potencial para desarrollar. Luego de un par de niveles me di cuenta de que las fuentes de agua hay que dejarlas para el final ya que solo se necesitan para pasar al siguiente nivel pero no afectan a la cantidad de movimientos. Tal vez se podría pensar cómo el agua puede afectar de alguna forma a la fuerza, eso puede dar lugar a puzzles más complejos en los que a veces es necesario priorizar los movimientos para llegar a la fuente de agua antes que a los minerales.
Ojalá salgan más niveles <3
@superpokeunicorn THanks a lot for playig!! Yeah the moles open up a lot of ground for designing puzzles I love them, despite the fact that players hate them for eating their paths! haha
@rovernoon Great feedback!! Thanks a lot!! I agree with all the negatives, I'll try to fix them on a post jam version. Thanks a lot again!
@onlyallygrace Hey thanks a lot for playing!! Yeah music was added last minute so it needs a lot of polishing, it even varies the volume in some levels for some reason D:. Hahah. I'll sure add the arrow keys on a postjam version too! descarga.jpg
Really sweet gfx! At first I thought 'oh how is this a puzzle' but the difficulty ramped up quickly enough. One thing I was missing a bit was an undo button. Impressive work for solo development though :)
@dxk2294 Hey thanks a lot for playing!! I agree with the weird font, I'll pick a new one for sure!! Also the buttons, sorry for that haha!
@cannashblue That's some "deep" pun..haha, thanks a lot for playing and for the nice feedback!! I really liked how it ended up tbh, tho i'd love to give it a bit more polishing!
@tankou Thanks a lot for playing and for the nice feedback!! I love those moles too haha
@cg-fred hey fred!! That means a lot comming from you! I'm really glad you liked it, I agreee SFXs are weaak, I'l give them a tweak if I make a postjam version, I did just enough so players weren't lost while moving and when they couldn't move to a blocked tile. Thanks again for taking the time of playing and giving feedback! :D
@desertmawtobi Thanks a lot!! I missed some contrast with the rocks but I really liked the end result!
@guimoliveira You did it!! :D great job!! I'm super glad you liked it, I really enjoyed making it!
@vuvuzela80 Thanks a lot!! I'm glad you liked it, I'm really proud of it tbh! :D I enjoyed making it and I enjoyed the final result!
@tomz-best Thanks a lot!!
@gamedevtraum Graciaas chee!! Sii la verdad que viéndolo terminado se me ocurren ideas para continuarlo, estoy de acuerdo con lo del agua, quize hacer algo que terminó quedando mal. La idea era que se entendiera que cuando conectabas con un nodo de agua ya no podias branchear de ahi, queria usar eso para hacer ciertas mecanicas que determinaran el orden en el que te conectabas y te movías, el problema es que todos terminaron en la misma tactica, agarrar todos los minerales primero y despues conectar, no era mi idea xD jaja. Tengo algunas mejoras para eso, como por ejemplo que no se puedan mover los minerales al menos que este conectado a un nodo de agua y hacer que los nodos de agua no hidraten toda la raíz, cosas así.. tengo que pensarlo bien. Gracias por el feedback!! tremendo feedback ;D
@minotalen thanks a lot!! Yeah I wanted it to rump up a bit slow so you could get to know the mechanics, thanks for GFXs part! they ended up pretty cool looking! I agree, undo would've been a good adition, but there's no way I could implement it on time. Thanks for playing!
This is a cleverly designed puzzle game. I was expecting some digging games when the theme was announced but this is a really unique gameplay. The graphics are simple but beautiful and the music fits the games ambient very well.
I put the game in my _Play later_ collection to finish it at some point.
Bez tytułu.png
Oh no! I really wanted to try this game out! :(
@gagapete Thanks a lot for playing!! I'm glad you liked the idea and the GFXs!! Please do play it later :D send me feedback if you can!
@zimny11 oh noees, :( I'll try to add a windows version layer, I can ping you when it's uploaded if you want!
Yes, please! :)
@webox btw I found your game by trying to find other root games. Ours also has a root system, but they don't behave like yours do ;) Might steal the idea of having water veins, those are cool. Also you might want to check out the thinky-puzzle-games discord, they talk about puzzles 24/7 there!
Yay more puzzles! I had a good time with this. I admit, I skipped a level, but then I figured out the #meta - focus on the minerals, and then the water. Loved to see that your game also had moles! Yay! Great work!
@minotalen I's not aware of that server! looking it up right now, thank you!!
@gharliquebread Hey thank you!! I loved your root game, and the mole art was a "bit" better than mine haha. I'm glad you liked it! There's a level with a bit of a bug, maybe that's the one you had to skip!
A few little criticisms, some of which I think have already been covered by other comments:
* Mixing mouse and keyboard input at the start is kind of awkward and confusing; fortunately after that game can be controlled exclusively with keyboard for a while, so that was much better. * Can be hard to tell easily how many objectives there are and where; a couple of times it wouldn't let me out the exit and I had to carefully scour the level to find what I missed. * I found the rules for which segments I could branch from and which I couldn't a little confusing, and sometimes messed up because of that, leading to... * Undo would have been very helpful (though obviously that's very tough on a jam timeline unless you already have a system for it!) * Are the moles random? I felt like I would start a level the exact same way, but the mole would be in a different place, which was awkward on the levels where you had only just enough strength to get by. Speaking of which... * It wasn't immediately obvious what replenishes your strength and what doesn't; a tutorial for that would have been helpful.
...but none of those are huge deals, and overall it's a neat, interesting puzzle game. Good job!
Hey @tjm thanks a lot for playing!!
- I totally forgot enter to pass the menu! - Yes!! 100%, this has been pointed a lot and needs to be fixed asap - There's one confusing rule which is the "segment connected to the whater node can't branch" I's thinking about making some puzzles with that mechanic but didn't work out, and ended up being a frustrating thing, and almost looked like a bug - No!! They weren't supossed to be random, I've no idea how I introduced that bug, but I saw some gameplays where that thing happened - 100% agree, that needs to be explained better
Thanks a lot! awesome feedback!, thank youn for taking the time of writing it!
Really great!! The branching mechanic felt really unique, I really liked it, and the puzzles were challenging but good. The graphics are also really nice to (I love the moles, they are so cute akfhskf), the only thing I would suggest is making the important tiles like the rocks and minerals a little more contrasting to the dirt tiles, because right now they blend in a little which makes it harder to look for the path I need to go. Awesome job!! :)
@zimny11 Hey I've just added the windows version to the itch page!! Sorry it doesn't have a menu to close it, just use Alt+F4, is the exact same version as the one in HTML5 so you can enjoy the same bugs and glitches as everyone else ;) haha
@feralpoodles thanks a lot for the kind words and for taking the to play and leave feedback!! The contrast on the stones is a one the most suggested features for the game.. It's so sad that I DID realize of that when I was creating the sprites, but I said, "Ok, I'll change that later"... there's no later xD
rooted.png
Great game! Left me wanting for more stages. At first I wak like "this is easy. where's the challenge?" And then I was constantly restarting the stage asking me where I should have turned left. Short, but the level design is really well thought. Congratulations!
What a charming little puzzler game!
I enjoyed playing this a lot! Music is nice, and the mole is cute, even though he wrecks the root.
Quite enjoyable game, nice art and aesthetics. Congrats, great submission!
Perfect theme, I love the idea and concept! I was expecting more challenges but theme made me play through. "Revert action" button would save a lot of time though :) really like this one!
@macdoom yay!! You did it :D thanks a lot for playing, I'm glad you liked it!!
@fractal-flower-girl THank you for playing!! And thank you for liking the moles, I wasn't happy with the sprites an animation tbh :)
@kotzi Thanks for playing!! I'm glad you liked the art!! It takes me a lot of time to do it, since I'm a programmer and not an artist
@eusekerci THank you for the feedback!! Yes a revert button sounds like a very cool idea, I had no time to implement it sadly, but it'll be in my mind for future iterations
Very cool, nice pixel art!
I really like your puzzle! Very relaxing! I liked the simple music for focusing and the really nice pixelart! Good job! :smile:
There are a couple of root-themed games on the jam. It's interesting, how they all are different. Your game is great and polished, the gameplay is unusual and relaxing, although some levels are really hard to beat. I agree, the game could benefit from the "undo" button. Overall, it's an interesting and fun to play puzzle game. Nicely done!
Thank you so much for the extra effort in creating the Windows version!
I've seen a few games with root mechanics, but this one is completely different! The puzzles are really fun! Good job with this one!
Wow this was super cool and new! It's one of those ideas I wish I had ;) It's visually appealing and the music is nice but can get repetitive especially how it starts over every level. Are you aware of Do Not Destroy On Load? https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/Object.DontDestroyOnLoad.html
Nice and chill, the roots stopping, when ending in the water didnt bother me so much, but I blocked myself the exit when growing past it. When I tried to branch there and move down in the exit, it wouldnt work. Good work though!
Nice game, it had me for some time figuring out the solution. I don't know if all levels are beatable
Super fun and I am not even a huge puzzle fan! Was interesting trying to solve with the moles in the way. Great job!!
Really fun and innovative puzzle game! The concept is very unique and the level design is excellent. Very enjoyable game! Great work!
@ukulelefury thank you!! I'm glad you liked it :D
@tucan thanks a lot!! I'm super glad you liked it!
@bereg Hey! YES! I saw a LOT of them, I thought I's being original with the interpretation of the theme, but there's a dozen more haha. Thannks for playing! And yes, the undo button wasn't in scope.. bearly made it with this version
@zimny11 no problem mate!! With unity is almost no effort to export ton windows, I'm glad you liked it! :D
@sharks thanks for playing!! Yes I'm aware of dontDestroyOnLoad, the issue was that I couldn't make it in time with a propper music player, I just attached some audiosources to an empty object, there's no more time left on the clock xD.. Thanks for the feedback!! I'm glad you liked it!
@ancient-pixel You know that's my idea with that mechanic! That it could block yourself, and you had to pick the node in other order!! The thing is that it didn't work for most players, it's annoying and not explained correctly. Thanks a lot for playing!
@morcado All levels are beatable, buuuut, there's a bug with the mole on some browsers, where the mole does not move 1 time per tick, I've no idea why that happened, that bug wasn't present in the editor version, nor is it present in the windows version. I have to look it up, because it breaks lvl 5 I believe. Thank you for playing!!
@zalos Hey nice to hear you enjoyed it despite not being a genre you like! :D That's good news!! Thanks a lot for playing and for the feedback
@finn-tr Thank you!! I'm glad you liked it!! It's always good to hear that players like your lelve design :D it's one the most important things in my book..
Great jam. Nice mechanics. The graphics and audio are well done. Nice jon :)
I love the way you used theme. A bit annoyed that i must collect all minerals, instead i would like to think if is it worth to take a mineral or just rush water source and get to the exit. "P" button is amazing, helped to check others levels and contine playing. Love your level design and moles are cool too.
Very cool game. Amazing achievement for a short time. Liked the coherent art style. I thought the controls were clever and with some tweaking could be really good - at the moment they get in the way of fun a little. Specifically: - When you reach a water node, you are forced to pick a new location to start your root from - why can't it just pick the closest one for you so you can get on with the game? I don't think interrupting the player like that makes for a good player experience. - Getting set back to the top of the root is frustrating.
Apart from these minor interaction gripes, solid gameplay loop! Well done!
@doctortm Thanks!! I'm really glad you liked it :D
@bdenis Thanks a lot!! Yess! Skip button was a huge success apparently haha, thank you for the kind words about level design, I love making levels!
@tim77 Thanks for the great feedback!! I'm aware and agree 100% with both suggestions, the second one is a bug saadly.. that wasn't suppose to happen.. There's an error going on there that makes the cursor jump to the origin as a "fail safe" mechanism. In case something failed I didn't wanted the player to loose control of the picker, so I send it back to the origin
Very fun and unique puzzle mechanic. Fun and quality game all around. Great job.
Thanks for bringing your game by my stream for playtesting! Sorry I wasn't able to get to it when you were around. If you'd like to watch the play and commentary you can view the highlight at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1008724059
[Thanks for submitting your game to the stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1007626304?t=04h53m55s)
This one actually felt super novel. Once I got the hang of what I was doing it turned into a really interesting brain-teaser! I think with a little more time dedicated to communicating how to play to the player, this could turn a great expanded experience!
Nice work! I would've enjoyed more mouse support and several puzzles were quite large compared to their complexity, but it was fun to play and nicely straightforward.
Nice puzzle game! I love the "reconnecting root" mechanic, it's really unique. It would be nice to make the impassable ground blocks look distinct, it was slightly hard to tell the difference between the normal ground blocks and them.
Отличная игра. С удовольствием прям играется. Особо радует, что шрифты без сглаживания, а то откровенно бесит всегда видеть в пиксельных играх сглаженные шрифты. Надеюсь на этой версии разработка не остановится и вы будете развивать ее дальше. Так держать!
I really loved the visuals, that’s an eye candy.
Nice puzzle game!
Your idea (moving tree roots) is similar to squareroot-mining game (created in ld48 by miraha) https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/48/squareroot-mining
But you implemented it in different way:) so, great work! Good luck in implementing full version of your game!
Я думаю, все игры про корни деревьев нужно соединить в одну большую головоломку с разными механиками, будет мегахит!
Спасибо за игру, было интересно разбираться с кротами ^_^