tengusheath 2021-04-26 06:18
Cool little puzzle game.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD48 → Blue Square and the Mystery Cave
By asdehielo
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 89 | 3.99 | 87 | |
| Fun | 60 | 4.02 | 88 | |
| Innovation | 117 | 3.89 | 88 | |
| Theme | 192 | 3.96 | 87 | |
| Graphics | 514 | 3.34 | 88 | |
| Audio | 257 | 3.49 | 83 | |
| Humor | 324 | 2.77 | 73 | |
| Mood | 164 | 3.73 | 88 |
Cool little puzzle game.
Very enjoyable puzzle... uh, platformer? with original game concept.
One suggestion: it would be helpful if I could move the camera so I didn't need to shoot those orbs blindly.
Congratulations on completing this in 48 hours. This is probably the best game I have played so far. Great work on the mechanics, animations, sound. Everything is solid!
We both know that 48 hours isn't enough time to make a game :cry: but you did a great job.
Keep up the good work!
I'll be honest, the moment I discovered I needed to lead with the orb to find traps, I got a little bit giddy! Well done! :smile:
good job)
Pretty fun puzzles
Wow cool puzzle game! The best entry I played so far!
Great game with cool puzzles.
Cool Game!!
Awesome puzzle game! Gameplay mechanic is very clever and the level design makes a great use of it.
Congrats.
I liked this game! All of the puzzles were unique, and the dark puzzle at the end took me a bit to realize circles can light up! The only feedback I really have is for the shoot sound to be not as high pitched, it did get in my ear alot.
@jani-nykanen Thank you for the feedback!
Initially I didn't want to include camera movement because I wanted the players to use the balls for scouting ahead, but now that you mention it it's probably a good idea to at least let them move it right, left and upwards.
@kevin-s Thank you so much! Yeah, too little time, too many things to do!
@kernon Thank you! I honestly was afraid it wouldn't be clear enough, but seeing people figure it out makes me happy :)
@sweer This was my first time creating my own sounds, so this kind of feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!
Really really liked playing it! Went all the way through until "The End"! Great design, and especially the last puzzle! :smile: Congratulations!
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Played all the way through. My main feedback is to zoom out the camera, most of the time I could'nt see the entirety of the puzzle I was trying to solve.
There were some good level design ideas, you managed to do a lot with those doors !
This was the most fun game that I've played so far. I felt like the puzzles were well made and with a nice flow. And a nice little twist in the ending! No spoilers but ahh, that made me feel differently about the game after. Very well done.
Also I noticed that the door noise blew out a bit. I'm not sure how to describe it as I'm new to playing with sound effects as well. It just sounded a bit off to me.
@thegreenworm I definitely agree, the camera needed more work in general. Thank you for the feedback!
This is the first game I have played in the jam so far and I liked it a lot! A very nice start to my day. I found the puzzles and ending enjoyable, though with some of the parts of the game it seemed more like blind luck then actually solving a puzzle. I enjoyed the music and sound effects, but the music does just sound like the default sound generated by tones.fm so I had to take some off for music.
@tgb20 I'm assuming you are talking about the parts where you have to choose where to fall. My intention was that you would throw a ball to see if there are spikes below, but I guess I could have done a better job at communicating that. I'm just happy that you liked the game even despite that :)
You are totally right about the music. This was my first time creating music, so I was a bit lost in that matter.
Thank you so much for the feedback!
@asdehielo Ah thanks for the clarification, guess the puzzle was a bit more than what I was thinking haha.
give you my respect - good game, sad ending but good. =)
Really fun little puzzle game. I didn't like how many leaps of faith I needed to take, but the frequent checkpoints made it bearable. Great job!
what happend at the end? did he died? :( realy cool game, and i figure out that you can use shooting to jump :D
@trabasura Hey, just to clarify, the intention was for you to throw the balls down to see if the ground was safe - but that's on me for not communicating it better.
Thanks for the feedback!
@genpaku Glad you found that mechanic! There are a few secrets to find by doing that ;)
You've made one heck of a polished puzzle game in a VERY short amount of time. I quite enjoyed trying to get deeper and deeper into the pit. That said, my biggest beef is that I wish the camera was more zoomed out (or I wish I had the ability to zoom it out). On many of the puzzles, I was working blind. Other than that, very well done!
@fussenkuh Yep, the camera has been the biggest complaint so far, and I absolutely agree.
Thanks for the feedback!
Got to say this is a really fun puzzle game, found myself playing for some time. Took me a hot minute to figure out i could hold the mouse key to fire my ball further but after that i found it very playable and with a bit more time on this i would even buy it from steam. So well done with that, surprised to see such a complete game done in the time allowed.
Very creative game and some of the sections were pretty challenging. I actually liked the limited camera in the parts where you need to shoot balls to find out if there are spikes down below. Maybe it would be cool if the camera was more zoomed out but you only have a small vision range, so you need to use balls to gain information just like you need to do at the end?
A really well paced game, and great level design. I liked the use of checkpoints in appropriate places to keep the game less frustating and more enganging too play. Like the other comments, i would like the camera to zoom out to keep track of the projectile. other than that, I have a very smooth experience
Awesome gameplay idea AND level design. I like that you can just spam endless amount of balls, but that it still doesn't always help^^ Nice quirky sound effects and fitting background music. Graphics are simplistic, which I like. Fun twist at the end when everything gets dark.
I'm not sure if there are multiple paths to the bottom, it seemed like it sometimes, but I guess I just was lucky I chose the right path, cause the other probably ended in spikes^^ I liked that though, added a bit of mystery. Dying wasn't a problem because of the amount of checkpoints you provided.
The level design stood out to me!
Interesting concept! Simple and fun :slight_smile: Also, the BGM was very chill and relaxing - fits the mood of the game perfectly.
I only wish you can zoom out, or look around you. Because right now a lot of the time you just shoot your ball blindly, which makes the process feel like trial and error, instead of precision and timing.
Nonetheless, I've liked the game, and especially the ending, when you join all of your square buddies at the bottom :smile:
An awesome game : the gameplay idea and the level design are great, the atmosphere changing when going deeper is also a really good idea, and the audio fits the game really well. Overall, a really good game, congratulations
A short game that I really enjoyed. Gameplay and level design are on point. At the end I was a bit sad, but you have made a great job!
@bytinggames Thank you for your thoughtful comment!
Theres is only 1 path to the bottom, but there is a small bifurcation that leads to a secret. It's hard to reach tho ;)
Nice and funny puzzle game
Hey, this was really sweet. I usually dislike blind jumps, but since the checkpoints are frequent it's not such a bother to fall straight into spikes. !> The dark stage at the end and the ending in general were really cool!
a pretty pog game, i loved it, i like how the puzzle's are simple, yet need you to focus & think of your placement to shoot the ball, & how you can use the ball at the last part of the game to know the way you'r heading torwards,overall a good & solid game, 4.5
Really cool puzzle mechanic. And the level design is great, especially the dark level - it brought something new when I thought I've seen everything in the game. Enjoyed it very much.
I really liked this game. very cool idea and music fits this game. The graphics are nice too
Really cool, well done. The part in the dark was a bit confusing, but I had a good time overall :)
You designed some cool puzzles! The end was a bit sad, but I'm glad I finished it
Beautiful game! I really enjoyed playing it, the last puzzles were pretty creative and rewarding to complete. The game in general felt very polished and the use of the mechanic derived from the theme was impeccable. Great job! Cheers
This was fun. :-)
Very well done! Nice and simple, stuck to the theme, excellent use of puzzles, and the complexity increased at a nice pace. Audio and SFX fit the mood of the game very well.
Very cool idea for a game mechanic. I like the calming background music. As others have mentioned, I would have liked it better if you could see where the orb was going. Sometimes it was just luck if I would hit spikes when falling down. But this is a minor complaint. The ending was almost sad, which was unexpected in a good way. Very well done overall!
This one was very much a treat and a very enjoyable platformer about going deeper into a level. I liked that the mechanic of the orb-shooting/bouncing really mixed well with the theme and exploration, and kept interest through all the layers you added. Getting to the end was a lot of fun and that says a lot about a LD entry. Favorite part was def the final sections as it fully realized the creativity of the mechanic.
I have a huge problem with your game. I don't know how to say that, but I'll try to explain it. Just know that I may sound mad, but it's only because I really enjoyed you game overall, but something bugs me =).
First of all, let me tell you that it's a good concept. Very, very good concept in fact ! I loved that "throwing ball" power, but I feel like you were not aware of the goldmine you had as a gameplay mechanic and wasted it.
No, in fact, you **were** aware of the funniest aspect of your game (at least, for me), but deliberatly thrown it away, and that's my problem with your game.
A blind jump into spikes is not a puzzle, not funny, and not good level design. "But you can throw your balls down to see if it explodes at the spikes" yeah, but... Well... It's kinda boring as a mechanic ^^". And let me tell you : the fact that it was possible to bounce on the balls was WAY MORE INTERESTING, and fun, as a gameplay mechanic.
I mean, I enjoyed **way more** reaching that hypnotic square with a cat, the wooden sign or the "you are amazing" message (you had time to put easter eggs in a compo ? You madman). **That** was fun, and cool, and rewarding, and I feel like that should have been the main feature of the game ! So making the main mechanic of you game just "throw a ball and wait for it to explode" is a complete missed opportunity.
Don't worry, to be honest, I gave you excellent ratings, but mostly because I had a blast finding the easter eggs (and also because of the ending, that was a really nice surprise =). And you probably knew it was fun, otherwise you probably wouldn't have put them in the first place ^^. Maybe you didn't think people would understand how to use it, or how to create good levels with it (I admit, that's a hard gameplay element to incorporate in 48h), or maybe you didn't see the potential, I don't know ^^'.
So yeah, your main game was decent, but that hidden part was **awesome**. And I mean it. I did the game again just to see how I could abuse that mechanic, what possibilities it opened, and that was really fun !
Sorry if I sounded harsh, I must admit that I was really involved in that part of the game, it was really cool =).
@metalfox-dioxymore Hey, I'm not mad at all at your comment. In fact, it makes me extremely happy! You are the first person I see that finds the secrets.
That in and of itself is an indicative of why I didn't use it as the main mechanic. This game has been played by thousands of people (it got wildly popular on newgrounds), and I've only seen a few mentions of people bouncing on the balls, and no mentions at all of people finding the secrets, until now.
When I found that mechanic, I knew for sure I had to do something with it, because it is indeed very fun. However, it was risky to design the level around it for obvious reasons: if you fail the jump, you gotta restart because you can't jump back up. You can then argue that I should have implemented a jump aswell, but then we would be talking about a completely different game. In the end, I settled for including some secrets just for myself and for the most passionate players. For better or worse, this was my decision.
But who knows? Maybe I could use this in a possible sequel. We'll see!
Again, very happy to read your comment. Thank you so much!
By the way, in case you are interested, the secrets are references to some of my older games. You can check them out on my itch :)
Short and sweet little puzzle game. Easy to learn yet still a unique enough idea that fits well with the theme. There were only a couple mechanics, but it played really well. Good work!
Had a lot of fun with the puzzle element, but wasn't super keen on the part that relied entirely on memory to avoid spikes. Charming game, and a sombre ending. Great job for 48 hours!
Great job! I loved the variety in puzzles. You were able to make so many more levels than I was expecting.
This is a good game and it respect the theme. I love this game addict
Wow the end hit me different :/ I was kind of really sad. Awesome puzzle game
Nice little puzzler. Took me a moment to realize how to handle the reflecting balls but then went quite smoothly. There is an area a bit further down where it is not clear where to run to, and there are spikes that can not be seen before a jump - that was kind of try and error for a while. Ah, and when the HTML5 version is not fullscreen, some of the star-switches can not be seen. The rest is cool! Good work! :thumbsup:
You took a simple mechanic and really used it up to the max. I really love indie games that go by that philosophy. Great work!
@zondarg Yep, I had some problems with the camera that I didn't figure out how to fix. The spikes that can't be seen was intentional tho, you were supposed to throw balls to see if it was safe - but it probably wasn't clear enough.
Thanks for the feedback!
@brusi That's what I was going for :)
I'm glad you liked it!
Very mellow mood and fun, if simple, puzzles. I agree that the ability to move the camera would've been helpful a couple of times, but it didn't prevent me from finishing the game. Nice work!
This game is exactly what I like to play after a game jam!
I am impressed by the cleanness of the graphics and the level design of your game. This is very interesting to keep the player from jumping, while providing him a way to unlock doors he cannot reach himself. I like the last sequence with the light fading out, leading to the end in the total darkness. This is simple but very clever in order to give an impact to the end.
The camera zoom didn't bother me, I took it as being part of the level design: you have anticipate your throwing when you have your goal at sight and the move to be able to throw properly. Same thing for hidden spikes, the mechanics of throwing is here to help you know when and where it is safe to move. It is really satisfying to have this simple mechanic, known by the player that can be used for different purposes as he advances in the game.
I really like your entry. Congrats, great work!
First of, I love the squeaking of the projectile. The sound design and music were on point.
I also love how the projectile can rebound on the character. I would have loved to see some puzzles where you juggle with the projectile.
Speaking about the puzzles. The puzzles were cool and well designed. It's a shame that sometimes the target/spikes was/were out of sight.
The ending actually is far deeper than the simple graphics let me think.
That was fantastic! Really nice ramping up in the puzzle difficulty, interesting mechanic that you really pushed to cool places. The ending was a very nice touch, adds a tiny narrative twist to an otherwise abstract game. Great entry, congrats!
Simply awesome. Everything fits together nicely, the graphics, the music, the whole concept of the game. Great job!
that's a fun little thing. Interesting mechanic, to be sure.
What a fun little game. It's such a simple concept yet you created some fun puzzles with it, with a nice progression in difficulty. I enjoyed just spamming the balls a lot haha, especially filling downward shafts and then jumping on top of them. Congratulations on your LD48 entry!
Very well done! I don't think I've seen anything quite like this. It felt like playing a two-player puzzle platformer with only one player.
The main critiques: - Going over even a small ledge feels stressful, because I know I won't be able to go back. You've taken great care in your level design to ensure that this doesn't cause any problems, but it still *feels* uncomfortable. In a game with an expanded scope, I would expect elevators or (ugh, stairs) or something that will let the player quickly ascend, to relieve this tension. In a game-jam game, though, I wouldn't necessarily consider elevators in-scope. - Minor nitpick: the save points looked like doors, and I intuitively wanted to go through them.
This was a joy to play.
Very original idea and a great game!
Приятные цвета, пиксельарт не режет глаз, как у некоторых. Хорошо, цельно, красиво. Так держать!
I really loved the visuals, that’s an eye candy.
@youthfulidealism Never thought about it this way, but you are right: the fact that you can't go back up feels a bit off. Very interesting point of view!
I also see your point with the save points (no pun intended)
Thanks for the feedback!
Beautiful! Really interesting mechanic and quite enjoyable. Loved the ending and playing with the dark!
Playing with the ball of power was fun! I really enjoyed that mechanic, and it is well done.
I even liked using my ball power to scout down before jumping into the abyss ;). I don't like when platformers make you jump into the unknown only for you to discover that you chose a wrong random direction and died on the spikes. But here my trusty ball scouted for me! Very nice.
I liked the sfx and quiet music. Graphics are simple and nothing to write home about, but they do their job fine.
Overall, it is an impressive piece of combo work and a very fun concept!
Pretty nice game. Perhaps the most interesting remark I have is that I completely missed a normal part of the game. In particular, the places where I have to jump down blindly into two pits--I did not realize at all that I should check which way to go using the ball. I thought when playing that that part of the game seemed a bit strange, as jumping blindly into pits isn't very interesting.
I think it might be interesting to try to teach the player this idea at some point before then... I'm not sure. It seems most people figured it out... I guess I am an outlier. Oh well, hopefully that data point is useful! :sweat_smile:
Either way I enjoyed the rest of the game. It seems like a platformer but I would say its much more of a shooting-puzzle sort of game. I think that's pretty neat--the genre of the game is sort of blurry because the main mechanics of the game are placed into a context where I would usually expect different mechanics.
I enjoyed the ending as well. I can see a number of ways of interpreting it... very neat.
Overall this was a good entry. Solid gameplay, solid ending.
@fabula-rasa @honey-pony Thank you for your thoughful comments! Feels good reading about such different experiences :)
I love this :) Spent way more time playing it than I had intended to. The mechanic is pretty unique and way fun and the puzzles are mostly well designed. My only criticism is that it can be a little fiddly and hard to guess where your ball is gonna bounce. Perhaps some visual feedback showing where the first couple of bounces would land would help a lot. Also, the difficulty curve at one point just _suddenly_ went up about 1000% and threw me. Good work though!
Hey man! Game is really cool, the mechanic its so fun. Music is so chill, I could stay there for days! One thing to say, sometimes I couldnt see where was the star, I was shooting and pray to hit it. Maybe to keep the screen that we need to shoot more visible! Great game, congrats
That was a pretty cool game! I enjoyed the mechanic and found the puzzles to be interesting. However, I do think that the controls could be more fluid which would have made the fun factor go up a lot. I do not have any idea of how to make them more fluid, but this is based on what I felt while playing :) Good job overall!
A sweet little game! the art is clean and the mechanics easy to grasp. The only thing I didn't like was that there was no way of knowing if you are jumping into a pit with spikes or progressing down the right path. Maybe zooming out a bit would have fixed this and prevented some puzzles from being "spam all the projectiles and hope one hits". Great job on making a solid compo game!
The short, yet creative puzzles of this game kept me amazed from beginning to end.
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This is a compo game? It's very well crafted. I actually got a bit emotional over the square and its voyage into the underground. Don't think there's anything I can say that hasn't been said before. The puzzles were amazing, and I liked that the mechanics of the bouncing balls served not only to hit stars but to also find out dangerous sports and even walk safely in the darkness.
Games like these show that a simple, straightforward premise can really squeeze out some good ideas without going out of scope nor needing a lot of unique assets. From the visuals to the audio, it all compliments the core ideas of the game!
I'm beyond impressed with this game. It was a short but sweet experience, and I'm all up for more of it! Way to go! :whale:
I have to say at first I thought "well, this is a classic jumping square game" but I'm astonished by what you have made! The mechanic with the balls is cool (that one part with the two doors is a bit annoying because the balls despawn though) Was a pretty fun game and I liked the idea of the ending! Great work!
@felo07 You are totally right, the camera was a bit problematic for me x)
Thank you for the feedback!
@frokes The idea was to throw a ball down the pits first. If it bounces it's safe! I tried teaching that through the level design but it could definitely be more clear.
Also agree with your point of spamming the balls.
Thank you for the feedback!
@moski Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment! Makes me happy to read you liked it so much. Thanks for playing!