Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Road to joy
By arya-s
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 771 | 3.50 | 36 | |
| Fun | 690 | 3.47 | 35 | |
| Innovation | 329 | 3.69 | 36 | |
| Theme | 1125 | 3.10 | 36 | |
| Graphics | 1070 | 3.23 | 36 | |
| Audio | 570 | 3.40 | 35 | |
| Humor | 975 | 2.57 | 29 | |
| Mood | 958 | 3.21 | 34 |
in the first two seconds i got stuck under the stairs on the left ;( why would there be a trap. and why would i start to the left if theres an indicating arrow for going right? i dont know...stairs are interesting :) after some patience i got the game working and its a kool idea dude
Yeah I got stuck there too, I don't know why I didn't remove it instantly. Thanks for giving it a try!
Cool game idea! When I fell down, the game didn't stop and the screen kept moving, so I had to reload when I fell down. The character design and animation was nice! :)
Interesting game with unique controls, had to tweak my mouse setting a bit to be able to overcome some of the gaps :laughing: Please make it restart automatically instead of pressing key.
I got trapped under the stairs as well. lol. Are got Piano Boy a few notes in aiming those jumps with the mouse its very difficult but it all works. Apparently Beethoven was considered unstable so I guess that's the theme there.
Interesting movement with the mouse, but quite difficult to control precisely
@terri-gaminglunya yeah I didn't have time to do the automatic reset as I pivoted really late into the jam. You can reset the scene at any time with "R". Thank you!
@pitisek Yeah I think it can be quite hard to play depending on mouse settings. I play with 4000 dpi and it feels pretty good with small movement flicks left/right but when I tried on 800 dpi it was awful. You have to move the mouse too far and it makes making the jumps really hard. Thank you!
@naymsayk Yep that's the theme. Very loosely, it's also about him overcoming his unstable hearing ability. Thank you!
@kubulambula thanks. Inspired by an old flash game called Winterbells which did it much better. My movement is highly dependent on your mouse settings. I suggest trying 4000 dpi and making small adjustments left/right as you move along. Thank you!
Game was fun, but I think the controls were a little too hard to get a hang of. I would probably keep player speed consistent. I had fun playing though, I always like a challenge.
I quite like the mechanic of the game. Love the art too. It took me soooo many tries and I still haven't managed to complete it. Probably would end up dreaming of the music tonight.
@mscarrotcake thank you for playing and leaving a comment! Yea the controls are whacky. Here's how I move my mouse for hitting the notes: https://streamable.com/gz2sgo
I think there's a cool concept here that needs to be fleshed out more as far as mechanics go. It reminds me of those auto-mario levels that are there just to play music but you actually get to control it for once, which is cool!
I personally feel that you would benefit from either removing the mouse controls entirely, restricting them much more than they are, or moving away from a musical game and polishing the mouse controls.
The music note platforms are incredibly tight and require very precise movement, which by itself is fine. But with the extreme velocity and jump length you can get Ludwig up to with mouse controls, I very often would accidentally skip one or two notes and lose the effect of hearing a song play. Not to mention how unforgiving platforming challenges completely kill the pacing of hearing the music play out.
I think as a developer you would benefit by choosing exactly which of these two mechanics speak to you more and choosing one to polish and perfect. As it stands now, developing levels would be incredibly difficult for you because of the wide variety of movement you've given the player. Especially if the intention is for the player to create their own music. Consider the kind of pacing players expect from rhythm games and platformers and compare them. If you want to combine the genres, it will take some balancing to keep the game from frustrating your players who may want more of one experience than the other.
I hope this helps!
Heya! First off, I like the presentation and concept a lot! It was simple, but well put-together.
I really like the interpretation of the theme here, too. I'm a little concerned that the game being as difficult as it is, and the core theme being introduced so late may make players miss this connection. I hope they don't, but I suspect they might. You've totally managed to make a competent platformer out of MIDI, which is insane to me. I definitely found it challenging enough (though I finished it of course huehuehue), but I think for a jam game, again, you might miss a few players.
Overall, a great entry. With a little more attention to accessibility of the theme and a lower difficulty curve you'll definitely maximise the amount of reach for later entries. Best of luck, and thanks again!
Nice one, that was clever, really enjoyed that game, good entry! :)
Wow palms are sweaty after that one :sweat_smile: hahaha lots of fun. Also the music brings back lots of memories, glad you were able to add so many songs into it.
Extremely innovative game! The title is very punny, the audio component as gameplay was clever, the theme of going deaf is very creative. I'd say this was a good job despite the tad bit of difficulty in the beginning. Our musician will definitely enjoy this!
Amazing game! I absolutely loved the concept. You can polish it a lot and work on several pieces (shorter/longer notes, I can even think of co-op to play chords!) and you could release it. Great job! I'd change the controls for a more standard scheme.
Cool concept and I enjoyed playing at the beginning but it was kinda frustrating going trough the entire level every time I died. Still, both the jumping on notes mechanic and the mouse based movement is fun and have a lot of potential
Really hard to get the speed/mouse location right but very satisfying when you do and hit a note just right. Great sprite animation, and interesting concept.
Simple platform jumper, but it's a very creative way of doing it that makes it incredibly appealing.
Lots of fun.
Nice way to make a plateforme game more interesting than just jumping :)
I'm not too bad bad at platformers but oh boy the mouse part is very challenging for me. I couldn't finish the level, I got stuck really fast no matter the number of retry I gave to it.
Very cute game! I thought the gravity was a bit too intense personally, but other than that I really liked it
It'smy favourite game so far! I really enjoy playing this game! Good job!
@nakami yeah it's really tough. My suggestion is to keep the mouse slightly further than the center of the screen and then move it left/right as needed to adjust how far to jump next.
Look at my mouse movement here: https://streamable.com/gz2sgo
Thanks everyone for playing though!
I could play this all day! The tutorial stage was indeed a little too tough, but after that, the stages are just plain fun! I love the way that the classical music has been implemented in the game, and the sprites are absolutely adorable! Great game!
This was very hard but really fun, I kept playing until I got the victory screen! The only real criticism I can give is that while in some areas the bounces were timed well to make it sound like the actual music, there were a lot of areas where the the time between hitting notes was too slow.
@cheeks thanks! I don't have any experience making or playing music so that part was a bit tough. I tried to transcribe to the best of my abilities.
I loved this game. Sometimes the controls are difficult, but i think the inputs are perfect for the kind of game you have concepted. This was one of my favorite entries, the deaf was a nice touch too. (sorry about my english) Very well done!
@lumbigui thank you! I appreciate that you recognized the deafness being part of it!
I liked the concept but I found it hard to play in practice (it may be just me lacking dexterity, though). Little Beethoven is very cute, and I like how the game tells the story (with the notes getting dimmer representing Beethoven's hearing). I appreciate the "coyote time" thing the game does (where the jump works even if we just left the platform), it's a nice touch.
I think this is one of my favorite games this jam, for the super creative theme and lovely integration of music. The narrative here is very concise, and I was actually both surprised and emotionally impacted. I love when mechanics tell a story- something unique to the video game medium. Super impressed that you did everything here on your own~ I look forward to seeing more entries from you!
Cool game! I really like the concept of it. It was really hard to finish the first part of the level (it took me 50+ tries). It would be nice if the controls used the keyboard instead of the mouse, as it was pretty hard to control. Great job on the game!