mharitsnf 2021-04-26 16:03
I like these kind of games! Thanks for making this :)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Crash Lander
By arancutter
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 415 | 3.82 | 63 | |
| Fun | 336 | 3.77 | 63 | |
| Innovation | 725 | 3.37 | 63 | |
| Theme | 757 | 3.76 | 63 | |
| Graphics | 1038 | 3.58 | 63 | |
| Audio | 964 | 3.10 | 58 | |
| Humor | 1 | |||
| Mood | 1 |
I like these kind of games! Thanks for making this :)
nice concept cool game good job funny art
The game is really fun and the pixel graphics are clean. A great idea for the game mechanics, although it is difficult to master.
I really liked this. At first I was thinking that this was going to be simple, but my word it is punishingly hard. The controls are frustrating, but it is definitely my lack of skill because the controls are so tight.
I would have liked to maybe have an easy mode with double the fuel just so I could get through the game because I feel like there is a lot of content that I wasn't able to see. I'll be coming back to try to complete it later.
Very nicely done!
Thanks for playing everyone!
@locustjin I'm glad you liked it. It was a fun mechanic to play around with, but the difficulty really got out of hand honestly. I decided to just embrace it.
@minibobbo Thanks for the feedback. I became so used to the game that I didn't realize how difficult it really was until I was pretty far along. An easy mode is a great idea. Seems obvious in hindsight... If I make a post-jam version it will definitely include one.
First of all it is very addictive. I tried 70x to reach first checkpoint! I'm sorry that I gave up :P For someone who have more skills than me this game will bring a lot of fun. Good job!
@szymon-ogd Thanks for checking it out, I really appreciate it! It's definitely not for everyone and the controls can be pretty unruly. Sticking with it for 70 deaths is pretty good :smiley:
really great game!!! played this the longest of all the games ive tested so far. gave it nearly full marks. the one thing i would mention is that the death contact is very sensitive and would die often from landing next to a wall but that is the only thing that io think could improve.
prety much perfect and im gonna go back and play it some more now
@szymon-ogd i think i got the high score.... 100 deaths!!!! beat that!!!!
I saw many simmilar ideads in this jam but this is my favorite realisation
The controls are tight, and the game looks very clean: the execution is overall excellent.
It think it's way too difficult, even from the very start. Maybe having the first few checkpoints separated by only 1 or 2 obstacle/cavern shape would better teach the controls? Either that or curiosity could drive the player to persist (small moving animals to discover, a more open-ended world, old relics buried in the stone to marvel at [I know all of these would take *a lot* of time to implement]).
Gosh this is so addictive. While I suck at it (managed to get the third checkpoint after 100 deaths), I couldn't stop playing!
wow, that was seriously hard. I took 45 tries to reach first checkpoint :sweat_smile: niche propulsion mechanic but it is a bit frustraing that even leaning on a wall implies death. I think that polishing a bit and adding some background music would be a nice boost. Good job!
checkpoint7.png
It's hard but addictive! I got to Checkpoint 7 but once I got to the switch I needed to stop xD
I really hope I wasn't just near the end actually. How far was I?
Very difficult! I got to checkpoint 5 (the first one in the stony area), but it took me 104 deaths. Then I was introduced to the red blocks that actively try to kill me, and I was like "nope" :D
Still, a very fun game, and the main mechanic works really well, well done!
Wonderful!!! I'm 612 deaths and I arrive front of door mechanism. How long is it XD My god I'm extenuated ahah Thank you for your game the difficulty is perfect! Big bravo!
love that concept, it's hard, but die and retry ;)
@themightytrout Thanks so much, I'm really glad you like it. Yeah, the death on contact is something I went back and forth on. I like the environment being a hazard, but I think you're right that's it's way too sensitive. If I make a post-jam version I'd like to change it in some way as well as adjusting the collider in general.
@stepan-ilin Thank you, I'm glad you think so!
@nuelijarma Hey there, thanks for the feedback. I definitely think you're right that the game needs to ease you in better. I think it was a missed opportunity not including more open areas in general. I actually did consider something a little less linear, like Mario Odyssey--exploring an open world and happening upon challenge areas. Something to explore for the future.
@euske Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it.
@leggy Thanks! It was a fun little mechanic to play around with. It definitely could use some tweaks to make it more fair. I really wanted to make some music for it but ran out of time. I appreciate the feedback.
@maytch Really happy you liked it! It can definitely get a bit...stressful, heh. There were 3 checkpoints left after this. You were getting close for sure :smiley: There's a continue option if you decide to take the plunge, but beware that doors need to be reopened after (sorry about that).
@ditam Thanks so much! I really wanted the moving blocks to be menacing, so I'm glad to hear they were :smile:
@chtimy Thank you, I really appreciate the kind comments and your perseverance :smiley: It definitely can be a little draining, heh. Thanks for playing!
@vincent-abel-grimalt Thanks!
Awesome
Really difficult yet funny. took me 340 death to reach the point where you have to activate several buttons to continue. From this area the difficulty got too high for me.
Dark souls / 20 !
Also, I would also enjoy an easy mode when you got free fuel, just to chill.
@olddadou Thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you had some fun. It's an honor to be compared to Dark Souls' difficulty :smile:
I'm definitely considering a post-jam version with some changes, including an easy/chill mode.
Great fun, really wish there was a score/timer at the end. I forgot how many times I died and wish I could've known. Untitled.png
@ceterasdragos Thanks for playing! Congratulations, I think you're the first person to finish it :smiley:
Sorry about the lack of stats at the end. It kind of just slipped my mind I guess. I'll add it to the list of post-jam additions.
Full disclosure, I've never completed New Game+ :smile:
I played this game yesterday, but I was too drained to comment or rate (probably not really because of the game itself). It's a pretty sick game, quite addictive as others said, and the sound effects don't get on your nerves. I did feel like the difficulty curve is a bit uneven, a few sections were easier for me than ones that came before. And as much as I like the game, the high difficulty kinda murdered my attention span (which is way better than it used to be), so I ended up stopping probably somewhat early on. All in all though, great job.
@twospaces-sg Thanks for checking it out, I'm glad you liked it. Hopefully the game didn't add too much to the stress, heh.
The difficulty really does fluctuate a lot. I think I ended up over and under tuning a lot of the sections, and then just had to commit. I've been thinking about reworking a considerable portion of it, and extending the length overall. Hopefully that, as well as some quality of life improvements, will even things out a bit.
Thanks for playing and I really appreciate the feedback.
Despite dying a lot, and I mean a LOT, I still had a wonderful time playing this game. It's super addictive and well polished! After reading some other comments, I would agree to having an easier mode for player's who might find it a little bit difficult, but other than that this was great game and great fit to the theme!
@humphreysmedia Thanks so much, I'm glad you liked it! Thanks for the feedback.
We were very very bad at this! But we loved it so much we played for ages! Great controls, graphics and sound.
@panurge Glad to hear it, thanks for playing! :smiley:
Great little game, i enjoyed the look and feel, especially the the funny little spaceship! It's pretty hard to play though, and I barely passed the first checkpoint :D
Really challenging!
Great fun for a simple and pure concept! Some feelings I have - The hitbox for the top of the ship feels overly sensitive / unforgiving. - The base amount of fuel should be larger (change difficulty levels by granting more or less fuel maybe). - The death reset time should be about 0.5 seconds (instead of what feels like 2-3 seconds). I spent 25% of my gaming experience just waiting for the ship to reset and that's a huge turn-off for a game like this that rallies around rapid attempts.
That's all I've got. Congrats on this piece!
Nice concept, we can really play around with the physics trickshot.gif
It's very easy to make a hard game. It's very difficult to make a hard and fair game. It's almost impossible to make a hard and fair game in 72 hours. After over an hour and over 300 deaths, I can safely say that this belongs to the last category. Thanks for making this!
Amazing Game! I had so much fun with it, even though it was frustrating as all hell. The physics all feel really great and the checkpoints are placed very fairly, with every "level" having a new challenge.
The game I played the most for this jam by a lot. The best execution of this concept I've ever seen!
I remember seeing a preview of this posted somewhere (Forgot whether it was discord or the LD forums, pretty sure it was discord) and being excited to play it! Here we are.
The graphics and sound mesh together super well, and overall the pixel sprites were so cute! I was so taken aback the first time I crashed my lander and heard the explosion sound
Not sure if it was intentional but as someone mentioned before, I felt the hitbox could have used a teensy bit more fine tuning. Landing perfectly fine only to bump briefly into the wall next to me felt a bit unfair.
There's definitely a difficulty curve, but its achievable through deliberation, and after many many *many* deaths at the beginning I found myself mastering the flight of the little lander The mechanic was genuinely fun to play, and beautifully danced the line between infuriating/rage-inducing and the "one-more-try" mentality. Well done!
@leandro4002 My gosh that was clean.
@fraukauz @makse Thanks for playing!
@the-neon-shark Hey, thanks for checking it out. I definitely agree about the unforgiving collisions, it's something I intend to change to some extent by factoring in velocity.
It was tough trying to adjust fuel rate/capacity and still make the game challenging. I think there's a sweet spot that I didn't quite reach. I know how frustrating it is to run out of fuel and miss a critical "jump." One thing I really would have liked to add is a sort of hover if you're completely out of fuel and continue to hold down the thrust. At least then you could more safely bail.
I really hadn't considered the reset timer. I think it's a value I basically set and forgot about. Thanks for pointing it out, I didn't realize how frustrating it is. I'll definitely be adjusting it.
I really appreciate all the feedback.
@leandro4002 Awesome! I don't think I've performed this maneuver... Not intentionally at least, and it certainly didn't end well :smile: Glad you had some fun with it.
@cubanfrog Thanks for the kind words, I'm really glad you think so! It's hard to know if your game is fair after spending so much time with it. Thanks for playing!
@cradac I'm glad you liked it. Getting the game feel right was a challenge, so I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it.
@gibss Thanks so much, that means a lot to me. Thanks for checking it out!
@chiyeon I'm really happy that you liked it! I know how frustrating the collisions can be, I intend to fix them up. Getting a section done nearly perfectly and then sliding into a wall can be so disappointing.
It's nice to hear the difficulty was manageable and mastery is possible. I was worried it would be far too alienating for people. It's really easy to start thinking you've created a monster, heh.
Thanks for the feedback!
i really like it, even though i'm too stupid to play it :) i didn't even get to the first checkpoint (i guess the purple thing is a checkpoint?) but the game itself is still cool, i'm just not good at it :)
Really hard game but I liked it. Controls may be a lil bit too frustrating but the game is fun!
@zeha @videt Thanks for playing, I really appreciate it.
@arancutter thanks, in the mean time i reached the first checkpoint :D
Cool game, really fun!
Simples controls and the mechanics/physics behind it is very solid. Fun but hard game. Good job.
So it's 2am here, please explain why it is so hard ?! Nah really the gameplay is amazing. Level design is top notch. I love the graphics of the ship, spawn and fire. I feel like the environment is missing something to feel great (visualy), but it's still fine.
What an incredibly fun game. The controls level designs are so tight and smooth, every time I died it felt more like my failure in execution rather than a fault of the controls or physics engine. That being said, I felt the collisions could be a little bit more lenient, especially when I am flush against a wall and any small rotation causes me to touch the wall and die.
After over half an hour of dying, I managed to get here: crashlander.png (I did it with a trackpad so I'm pretty proud of myself!) Does the game save the progress if I close it and come back? I might want to continue tomorrow with a proper mouse!
Cleary I am not very good at this, but I think it looks and plays very nice :) Well done guys
@ev3r4 @mobiledev Thanks for checking it out. Glad you liked it!
@yorsh It can be a bit of a challenge :smiley: Happy to hear you liked it, and I appreciate the feedback. I know what you mean about the environment, it's pretty plain. Surface and corner tiles would probably help a lot and I considered lighting.
@rosypenguin Thanks so much for the kind words, I'm glad you liked it. It's been nice hearing feedback and I really appreciate it.
I definitely agree about the collisions, they can be pretty frustrating. I'm planning on making some adjustments and quality of life improvements in general for a post-jam version.
I'm really impressed you got so far on a trackpad... To be honest, I didn't think that was possible :smile: You have the option of starting a new game or continuing on the main menu, so you should be good to go if you choose to venture on :smiley:
@fpeg Thanks for playing!
Ok, its TOO hard. Like, if I could at least touch a bit on the wall, but im always exploding even if is just a little. Maybe if you guys put some times to touch the wall before explodes. I also miss a song for the game, the sound effects are great. Its a good idea for a game, just need to polish few things ;)
@felo07 Thanks for checking it out.
I managed to reach checkpoint 7(?) before the horrible room with 3 doors. 428 deaths in, I can't take any more, this is the first game of this jam that I give up on. In was incredibly fun tho, I really enjoyed it (and got to see a secret message, but I'm not sure I was the target, my name isn't Mina =D).
To nitpick, the only things I'll change would be the spaceship hitbox (it's super frustrating to die hitting the top corners of the square), and the placement/spacing of the checkpoints, some feels weird, some need too much re-doing when you die. My opinion, tho =)
Congrats on the awesome submission!
I'm a fan of the genre since I spent too much time on Gravity Force once upon a time, so I wanted to try this out. And that I did. After 700 deaths I'm giving up on pushing the first button and getting out of there alive. What an experience it was! It's probably the LD game I've spent the most time playing.
It's part of the deal with this kind of game that it is challenging. Avoiding crashing into the walls while still having to move fast but also conserve fuel is what makes it difficult. Especially as in this game, you have all three challenges constantly simultaneously. I think it would be more fun if it didn't present this constant challenge. Some parts of the game would be challenging even with much more fuel. So I suggest rethinking the level design. Can you make the difficulty level vary more perhaps, for example by *only* making some parts hard to navigate, while in other parts you *only* have the challenge of moving enemies?
I feel that mouse control is difficult, and I was sometimes wishing for keyboard control instead. One thing I think would help is to always keep the ship in the middle of the screen, so the position of the ship relative to the mouse pointer doesn't change unless you move the mouse. Otherwise I have to keep a look at the ship and the mouse to have an idea of what's going on, which may be why I thought it was difficult to control. Even after playing the game for quite some time, I still failed at some things that should be simple.
It's the kind of game where you get to a point where there's only one obstacle left before you get to the checkpoint, but you crash and respawn, only to fail at some much earlier point. I don't know if that's good or bad. Early arcade machines had games like that, and it may be good for giving the player the feeling that they'll beat it next time, and just have one more go. That said, I got a bit tired of the common "mundane" area right after the spawn point that I just had to pass to get to the actual challenge. But then again, the game is a constant challenge. :smile:
All an all, very good work! Good game! A little more fuel and more forgiving level design will make this super good!
@colisan Thanks for playing, I'm so glad you liked it. No worries, I know how frustrating/exhausting it can get. I definitely want to rework a lot of it to make a more even experience. I'm glad someone found the Easter egg. It was meant for my primary game tester and fiance :smile:
@vilcans Thanks for checking it out. I remember playing a number of games with fuel management when I was younger. Lunar Lander is the one that comes to mind, but Gravity Force is clearly the most similar. To be honest, I only remember it after looking it up. Seems like it's been in the back of my mind all this time :smiley:
I love the idea of managing fuel, struggling with momentum and gravity, and mastering your ship's mechanics. There's something really satisfying about it. I drew inspiration for this game from a VR prototype I worked on a while ago. In it the ship's rotation was controlled by the orientation of the player's hand. It ended up being frustrating for a lot of the same reasons and hard to design levels for, as I really didn't want to attach the camera to the player. Unfortunately I didn't seem to learn enough lessons from it :smile:
I've been thinking about the difficulty a lot. It's the primary reason I've been looking for honest feedback. I think I became too fixated on the idea of challenging "jumps" and didn't realize that the challenge was really in the mechanics themselves. I got locked into it at some point and decided to accept that it was going to be very difficult. I intend to make a post-jam version and I really want to make it more accessible. I don't think I want to make an easy mode that simply gives you more fuel (as some people have suggested) but rather change core aspects of the game. I really just want it to be fun.
The mouse controls are a bit of a double edged sword I think. I was really worried they would completely turn people away from the game, honestly. It seems like the most precise way to control the ship, but also tends to be so sensitive that you can easily over correct and feel out of control. It's a kind of mastery that I suspect few people would want to bother with. I plan to experiment with keyboard and gamepad controls. I'll also have to play around with locking the camera to the player, though I found this to be a little disorienting for myself during development.
I know the level design leaves much to be desired. It turned into sort of the same gimmicks over and over--Winding and alternative paths that end in a button press and backtracking. I look forward to spending more time carefully creating challenges. I definitely want the player to always feel like they're making progress.
Thanks for the detailed feedback. It's very helpful and I really appreciate it.
Cool game! I imagine there are a lot of people who love this level of difficulty. But I'd much rather have a more casual experience, so I'm not sure I'm part of your target audience.
The difficulty ramp is very steep out of the gate. If there were a better ramp, I think there would be less feedback about difficulty. My first try I got to checkpoint 4 after 65 deaths. My next run I got here with just 7 deaths! So we can learn to do the hard stuff, we just need room to grow.
deaths.png
I proceeded to die forever and gave up here because of the spread out check points. I'm not crazy about completing a series of hard tasks, and then facing another hard task, only to fail at that, and then have to try all of them over again and again. I've proven I can dodge those boxes and turn that corner 10 times, I just can't get over those spikes though! :cry:
I think I would double the checkpoints, especially in the earlier parts. I actually think this would be PERFECT for optional checkpoints, just let me set a flag down somewhere safe when I think I need one (keep score and see who completes with fewest deaths and checkpoints).
I didn't mind the mouse controls, except when the camera moves and throws them off. I was mostly bothered by the low fuel and distance between checkpoints.
The game looks good, sound effects are good, but I'd love some kind of "fanfare" when reaching a checkpoint, because it's so damn hard! It feels like the game is saying "eh whatever, you got a checkpoint, who cares" lol
Overall; good game, good job!
PS. I didn't even know saving progress on a webGL build was a thing! Gonna keep that in mind for the future! :smile:
@ismael-rodriguez Thanks for checking it out. I realize it's not for everyone. I definitely want to try to make it more accessible. Getting people accustomed to the controls in a big open area on the surface would have been a good introduction, in hindsight.
Couldn't agree more about the checkpoints. At the very least there need to be many more. I think the idea of allowing the player to set their own could work. If things go awry you could recall to the static checkpoint. Definitely something to think about.
I'm glad the controls didn't bother you too much. Seems pretty split between players. I know the camera shifting can cause issues. In testing I found centering the camera on the player felt strange, but it's probably best to allow it as an option.
I definitely need to add more sound... I know what you mean about the checkpoints, perfect opportunity missed :grimacing:
I really appreciate the feedback, it's very helpful.
Fun, and a bit addicting! 😱 Had to give myself a death limit not to get stuck all day 👀 It's hard, but not so hard I couldn't make progress at all, so that made me want to keep trying and not get too frustrated. I do wish there were a little bit of wall sliding tolerance, as it was especially frustrating when you managed to land right next to a wall but exploded as soon as you tried to take off again. Other than that it felt fair. Nice variety in the environmental graphics as you went along (deeper!) and it was always clear what everything was (dangerous or safe). Sound effects are nice, just a pity on the lack of music of course. Good game!
@ava-skoog Thanks for playing, I'm glad you had fun with it. A death limit is a good idea :smiley:
I'm trying to make things a little less frustrating and more accessible for a post-jam version. Hopefully I can make a couple tracks for it as well. It's helpful hearing your take on the difficulty. I really appreciate all the feedback.
The art was great. It's definitely hard. Probably too hard for me. Maybe a bit of an easing in would be better.
Sooo we played it some more with friends trying to go as far as possible in a few minutes. It kind of grew on one of them and they completed the game, then the New Game + (gave up on the New Game ++ tho).
@yorsh Nice! That's awesome, I'm impressed. It means a lot that people are enjoying it. Thanks for letting me know.
I thought "WOW this is exactly my kind of game!!" Challenging and interesting main movement mechanic, simple premise, effective art and sound, and (thank you) NO TUTORIAL you trust me to figure it out. I quit the web version and downloaded the windows build so I could really settle in and enjoy it.
So I was very excited.
But I never made it past the second checkpoint. I didn't really mind the over-the-top difficulty THAT much, but I could not handle the slow restart time with that darn camera pan. It got me to a really bad state of mind and I had to just stop playing. Maybe I just died too much, and restart was way more often for me (55 deaths to get the second checkpoint.) I even checked if you posted source code so could modify it to instant-restart myself!
Another tweak to maybe consider is to put the fuel meter on the ship rather than the mouse cursor. If I held the cursor near the ship to see my fuel, then movements of the camera could have a surprising interference as the ship moved away from screen-center (Thus changing its position relative to cursor). If I held it far away and focused on controlling the ship I could not see my fuel. I would have preferred not to even have the cursor at all, and just let the mouse's movement angle the ship directly, but maybe that wouldn't work for some of the fancy flying I saw in gifs above.
So this is a really strong entry, with many good things, I just personally couldn't get past the restart delay to dig in as much as I would have liked, sorry.
(BTW wow those post-comp art screenshots you posted looks great.)
@pkenney Hey, thanks for checking it out. I really appreciate the detailed feedback.
I hadn't considered how frustrating the restart time might be. I've reduced it significantly in the post-jam version, but it's still not instant and includes the camera pan. I'll have to experiment with it. At the very least an instant restart button might be a good compromise.
I played around with the fuel meter before settling on it being attached to the cursor. I realize it isn't ideal but it seemed like it would get in the way if it followed the ship. At one point I considered embedding it in the ship itself, or representing the fuel as a glow that "filled" the ship. I'll have to give it some more thought.
I'm glad you like the new look. It's hard to make such a drastic change, especially after getting generally positive feedback about the original graphics.
It's very helpful getting feedback from the core audience. You've given me a lot to think about. Thanks again.
I was thinking about your game again. I tried this mountain biking game and at one point I looked up at the screen to find that I had crashed over 300 hundred times in a pretty short play session.
That game lets you watch some humorous ragdolls of the crash if you want, but also has a zero-delay insta-restart button press that. If you want to get a vibe of it, here's some gameplay vid on youtube where the player is using it: /watch?v=Ls-i4q-kT6Q
Reflecting on the 2 experiences I would say that instant restart did let me play the bike game, and I would have lost heart there too if not for it.
Not sure that's helpful but since it brought your game to mind I figured I'd mention it! I see some parallels between the two games in terms of the focus on an interesting control against tough terrain, with insta-fail and moderately-distanced checkpoints, which was why I compared them.
@pkenney Interesting, I'll check it out. Thanks for taking the time to let me know, it definitely is helpful. I appreciate it.