dyp54 2021-04-27 12:57
Funny little game
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Journey for the Records of Remembrance
By jasontherand and SequoiaDolce
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1007 | 3.46 | 49 | |
| Fun | 1074 | 3.23 | 48 | |
| Innovation | 964 | 3.16 | 48 | |
| Theme | 1247 | 3.38 | 49 | |
| Graphics | 1 | |||
| Audio | 643 | 3.50 | 48 | |
| Humor | 511 | 3.20 | 43 | |
| Mood | 898 | 3.51 | 47 |
Funny little game
Cool game, the controls seemed clunky at first but I got used to it.
My only suggestion would be to add a sound slider since everything was quite loud and it would be nice to adjust that, I usually have the sound in my games quiet.
I was able to visit every planet, my favorite upgrade was the boost.
Overall enjoyed the game.
I like how the music ties in to the theme
FYI the game also doesn't work on Safari, but I got it to work on Opera GX. Controls were intuitive, but getting out of the dialogue box took a moment to figure out. Only on my second playthrough did I realize I needed to hover close to other planets, but again it was pretty intuitive. The UI is pretty good except the edges of the screen are obscured, inlucing the ping icons. Maybe the UI should be separate from the play area, instead of underneath it. I love the premise, story, and humor. However, especially for a jam game, it's pretty wordy. Most jam players just want to get to the gameplay asap, but I was also afraid of missing improtant information if I skipped all that dialouge. Graphics and sound are great, and I love the theme interpretation.
Neat little entry! The premise was fun, having some reason for why you're out there finding the probe (even if it is copyright(!)) is great, it really grounds the game. The upgrades were good, from the heat shield to the faster movement. I thought the "ping" was also just a cool feature - having the planets come back in time with how far away they are was clever.
My only small bit of feedback is that it was sometimes hard to see the direction of the planet/probe through the UI. Just a small annoyance!
Really nice job though. The music really fit, flying through the stars to the last probe whilst jamming out was sweet.
Couldn't get it to work on Firefox and Chrome
Thanks for participating in the jam!
It took me longer than I care to admit to see that there was a little X in the upper right of the instruction manual to get started with the game, I almost turned it off. Glad I found it, didn't expect that windowed UI element in a game world.
Was a fun entry, I enjoyed the setting and some of the humor you tried to impart.
The controlling of the probe was the hardest part, and 2 hits seemed punishing. I was able to get to 2 planets but then couldn't get through the hail of projectiles.
I liked the theme. Was also neat the heat shield going by the sun, that was a nice touch.
Cool entry, nice work!
Nice entry! Quite surprising when all asteroid moving faster ^^
I like the scanner feature, I enjoyed the exploration and the difficulty is just fine thanks to the tricky asteroid field and to the checkpoint feature. Landing phase are a little confusing but the gameplay is very smooth :ok_hand: Good job !
Nice work! I love the idea but it took me a minute to figure out how to end the conversation menu, so you could add that. Other than that this is amazing!
Cute game. The planets, asteroids and music + FX create a chill mood.
The gameplay was interesting, although it could have been more.
Congrats!
Good game. I liked the exploration, once I got to the 4th planet area and asteroids were going everywhere it got pretty difficult. I also liked that you get new abilities when you reach other planets
I played until I got the white dot, I tried to follow the arrow, but after a few minutes of cruising I was eaten up by a black hole twice. I really liked the premise for the game, the music was cute and the humor in the writing was a nice touch. I enjoyed the game, even though I got frustrated by the black hole.
I liked how fluid controlling the ship is, the sounds and feedbacks are nice as well! I think more guidance to the objective would be a nice improvement. Congrats for the entry! o/
Nice game! I enjoyed the way that the ship moved similar to how it would actually move in space and how the asteroid belt would appear in the background when you went through it. Great job!
This brought back some memories!.
Nice game, the ping system helped a lot :D
This was a fun one! I like the pinging on a cooldown mechanic. For my taste it was a bit too punishing to die so quickly. But all in all, I like it quite a lot.
Awesome game! A few things I liked in particular: * The poem :smile: * How if I boost and get hit, I swirl all over the place * The black holes * The music!
Manged to get to the end after few tries. Asteroids were my main bane :laughing: It took a bit to get used to the movement, but I liked the exploration a lot. I even had a laugh or two while meeting the probes. A definite plus for that!
One improvement I would suggest is some kind of ability to safely "dock" with a planet while you are attempting to communicate. I lost count how many times I got bashed by asteroids just as the ping was almoooost done ;).
If there is one thing that I didn't particularly like, it was the music. It's not bad, I just thought it wasn't particularly fitting.
Screenshot_1.jpg
I love that you went for an open world space game, it is among my favorite genres. And you even managed to pull it off in such a short time.
So there is plenty there to keep me interested, however I was quite unlucky in 30+ minutes that I gave to it, I couldn't get very far in this run. First I theorized that the third closest planet from start, which is in the heat zone (the Sun?), is some sort of a challenge where you have to get to it fast, of course none of my attempts worked out. My delusion was fueled by the fact that I can actually reach the planet, it is just that docking takes some time. Then I tried venturing in what seems to be completely wrong direction (top/left), died several times passing through asteroid field, and eventually failed to find anything while drifting beyond it for quite a bit. That took a heavy bite on my time already, eventually I started exploring in the other direction and of course have found the next planet, and then the next one, which I never managed to land on (putting it in the middle of an asteroid belt was a stroke of sadistic genius).
I'm not the one to advocate for easy games that babysit players, but after getting me interested with the promise of space exploration, and a funny story that I wanted to see continued, the amount of sudden deaths to asteroids which in 25% of cases were not directly my fault (I think), seemed too cruel. It is cool that I get to respawn at the last visited planet, yet with every respawn I became number which led to higher chances of an asteroid caused death. Then when I say "this is it, I'm gonna focus now", and manage to pull through to the planet, I get wacked again, due to the nerve-shatteringly long docking time. I guess a good percentage of people would give the game more shots if only the docking timer was made shorter.
So I usually never whine for this long in LD reviews, take it as a sign that I really like the game and wish I could explore it with less torment. I know it is very hard to do the balance right after doing all this work in such a short time, so I won't take it against you, and will give it another shot when I'm less tired. Very nice entry!
The progression is not intuitive, since Mars is not in ping range of Venus but Mercury is. Other than that, fun little game. A setting for audio volume would be nice, though.
Fun but simple game. Had to mute the site, and would have liked a volume setting. The feedback from reaching planets was too slow. I ended up waiting several seconds for something to happen, and were unsure if I had done correctly. Movement was smooth enough to feel good and the difficulty curve felt ok.
Managed to finish in about 5 minutes and had fun while doing it. The asteroid belt was particularly annoying, and I ended up getting through mostly by luck :)
Thanks for the game :)
Absolutely loved this! The music is awesome, the characters were fun - I don't have a whole lot to say other than I loved it. Great job!!!
This was a lot of fun! I wasn't sure when it first started, but it picks up nicely into exploring a bit and the way the music picks up definitely sold it for me. Really enjoyed this.
Nice jam, great graphics and sounds :)
The music and sounds were so endearing I couldn't stop playing. I didn't figure out how to get inside the heat field without dying, but I enjoyed the game so much even despite that.
Good job!
Great little game, and the progression is great too. Only suggestion I can think of would be to make mercury also reset your heat sheilds? (I found no matter what I would die soon after launching again)
Great job!
I'm a total sucker for space games so this one bit me. The probe-to-probe dialogue was adorable! Good job and thanks for suggesting it <3
Great vibe! And the dialogue was funny. Good job!
Love the aesthetics of the game. And the music too :D
This was really enjoyable!