re-mar 2021-10-03 12:46
very nice
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD49 → Equilibrium
By freeworld
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 487 | 2.95 | 33 | |
| Fun | 430 | 2.91 | 33 | |
| Innovation | 486 | 2.67 | 33 | |
| Theme | 276 | 3.56 | 33 | |
| Graphics | 421 | 3.01 | 33 | |
| Audio | 195 | 3.40 | 32 | |
| Humor | 418 | 1.87 | 30 | |
| Mood | 454 | 2.56 | 32 |
very nice
very nice x2 rotating OP though
Nice rotation, makes for a good game
Concept is neat, but I felt like the controls were more awkward than they needed to be; most of the time my problem was more about "figuring out which buttons rotate the board the way I want to" rather than "figuring out what rotation gets the ball into the wall". The other part was that it didn't feel like it had much progression, the levels were changing but I had no idea what was changing about them, only that they were different. Definitely can go pretty far with this concept, though, and I think you could make it work on mobile pretty well too.
@chris-dirkis thanks a lot for the detailed feedback!
I have to agree with the controls: they feel very clunky and in general won't do what you want, which is not great. The rotation doesn't help with that. I'm guessing it would already be way better if the tilting controls would always work in the same way the camera faces the board, unaffected by the rotation.
About progression: I thought about introducing rectangles you shouldn't touch being introduced in addition to the goal rectangle getting smaller - I could potentially also make the board bigger with increasing levels, but that might not help with controlling the board/ball.
I'm glad you see some potential in the game :) I'm again not sure about controls on mobile with tilt versus rotate without it feeling constantly cumbersome :P I'll think about it some more.
A bit confused, some levels i just completed without input, other levels I failed even tough I really tried. You took the word unstable to new heights. Did the levels change btw? They looked pretty similar. Overall it needs some polishing but the concept has potential.
Nice game! Personally for me one big improvement would be to invert the controls e.g. let the up button do what the down button does now, and vice versa. Then it would be much more intuitive for me.
But otherwise I had fun. Good job!
@appoxgames thanks a lot for the feedback! Yeah the goal rectangle spawning is not so great, sorry about that xD The levels actually do change: the goal rectangle gets smaller and the ground is re-generated, sometimes with slightly different dimensions - but I guess the changes are too subtle right now. Thanks for the kind words!
@escapade Thanks a lot, I'm glad you had fun! I actually got this feedback from another source too, that might actually be worth a change (or make that a toggle in the settings). Right now the controls also invert when you rotate the board by 180°, which is suboptimal and even less intuitive :P yay
I think my feedback aligns with most here, its certainly fun but an inconsistent difficulty (had 3 levels auto complete and then a level which was harder than others) make it not quite replayable. I would also as a minor thing consider not calling it "level" and more "difficulty" as level 1 etc implies that you would be doing the same challenge on level 3 every time for example.
@meredori thanks for the feedback! That would indeed be worth to look out for during the next game jam, thanks - it was definitely not my intention to make them autocomplete and then randomly spike in difficulty.
Thanks, I can see the notion of 'level' being misleading/wrong here.. I was hoping it would give some sense of progression, but 'difficulty' would have been the better term here.
Oh man, The MUSIC!
Your game was loading in background tab, and after if loaded, I actually spent some time just listening to it. The concept is pretty simple, but well implemented. I love the visuals, "victory" animation, and simple sound effects of it. Are levels generated procedurally? Asking because in some levels ball spawned just above the green box. Overall, well done!
@bootak thanks a lot for the feedback! I'm glad to hear that you liked the music!
Correct, the levels are generated procedurally - which causes these 'immediately won' levels unfortunately.. I should have added some checks so this can't happen, but oh well I guess there's always next time to do that :P
Thanks for taking the time to listen, play and write feedback!
This is pretty simple, but really fun. The overall aesthetic matches the design: simple and obvious. I liked how it played, didn't have any problem with the controls at all. The only thing I would say is that having to restart from 0 when you lose is kinda harsh. Being able to stay at your current level would have been better in my opinion. Still, a really nice entry :)
@nick-rafalski Thanks a lot for the feedback, I'm glad you liked it! That's a good point with restarting from the same level, especially with the random difficulty spikes due to the procedurally generated levels.
The music was great and the idea could work well, but after figuring out how the rotations worked, the game became extremely easy. I think the problems is that the levels are too flat, so the variations don't really matter. I think you would have to experiment more with the shape of the bouncing surface to get more challenging gameplay
@skleembof thanks a lot for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed at least parts of it.
That sounds like a very good idea! I also think the board shapes look a bit too similar to each other right now (I only used two layers of perlin noise) - definitely something I could toy around with more to get more interesting level variation and difficulty. Thanks!
Really fun little concept, though I think the "restart at level 1" wasn't very fun. I'd rather have a kind of "streak" and "completed total" kinda thing. As well, I also found the controls a bit cumbersome. It'd be nice if the rotations were always "from the player's" perspective rather than relative to the current orientation of the board. Finally, handcrafted levels would be really interesting!
Neat idea. The levels felt very similar, though they did progressively get more challenging. I had trouble remembering which key controlled which axis. The controls otherwise felt good. It's pretty fun for such a simple game.
@nardandas Thanks for the feedback! Yeah I can see how that's frustrating. And I absolutely agree with your suggestion for the controls always being from the player's perspective, that would make it a lot more intuitive.
Thanks for playing :)
@pincushion Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you liked most of it! I have the same issue with remembering which key does what - it's definitely not a polished aspect of the game :P
Thanks for playing!
nice little game! one small improvement idea: make sure the green rectangle doesn't spawn below the ball.. I had it happen several times where it would clear the level instantly without me doing anything :)
Felt a little simple, because area is way too big in my opinion, but overall really liked music and graphics (victory particle effect is pretty neat)
@bruno-molteni Thanks a lot for the feedback, I'm glad you liked it!
Yes I agree, definitely something that needs to be improved!
@kukurammus Thanks a lot for the feedback - I also think that making smaller, more narrow or oddly shaped boards would be interesting, so definitely something that can be improved here. I'm glad you liked at least a few parts of the game :)
Nice little game. Others have already stated the points this game could be improved upon - in my opinion making the controls more consistent (or more intuitive, they are consistent in a way, I guess) and making the game a bit more balanced are the most important ones. It really does work though and I was determined to reach level 10. I wondered if the game woukd end there and was really surprised with what happened instead! I really loved the great song too!
@purrseus Thanks a lot for playing and the feedback!
Thanks, it's great to hear that same feedback from several people! Makes it easier to see without a doubt that these points would be the most important ones to improve :)
I'm glad that the 'reach level 10 quest' was encouraging for you to actually get there! It makes me happy that you mostly enjoyed the way to reach that goal too! :) Again thanks for taking the time to write feedback!
Great scope on the game.
I loved the success artwork/fx. Without the music setting the mood and the rewarding feeling you get I would have quit a lot sooner. I wanted to play more with how the board interacts with the ball but the playspace is really small. I'm not sure how you might handle that since you clearly wanted to keep everything on camera.
As for level design - maybe have the initial starting spot motionless and you are the cause of the balls motion, at least for the starting levels?
I got confused on the progression since every level is similar ? I thought I was going down one level but restarts.
Minor nitpick - the buttons stood out as pixelated in an otherwise great art style
Nice one, one of my favorites so far.
@crefossus Thanks a lot for the encouraging feedback! I'm glad you liked some aspects of the game and that those were enough to keep you going for a while!
That is a great point with the bigger / varying playspaces! I could probably get away with zooming out if the playspace gets bigger - or also have some camera logic potentially. I can definitely see the fun in trying to figure out the physics / movements of the ball by toying around with it, which is not really possible right now.
You're absolutely right: the levels are very similar right now with only a few parameters changing each time (goal rectangle getting slightly smaller & slight board variations) - there's definitely lots of room for improvement here :D
Thanks a lot again for taking the time to write such detailed feedback!
Some of the levels seemed to generate with the goal touching or immediately below the ball, but aside from that it was good. Could do with some more variation though I did like the changed ball shape on reaching level 10, was noice :p
Interesting prototype that could be something with a bit of polish. The controls are frustrating since they are inverted. Perhaps make the terrain move more responsive and with the mouse would make it feel better.
I found this game a little annoying and awkward to control, but I really like the idea and think it has a lot of potential!
Good job :)
I didn't reach level 10... It's a bit frustrating because sometimes, the ball bounce immediatly to an unreachable place But the gameplay is simple and clean and it feel good in hand !
@eva-knight I'm glad you got to level 10, noice indeed :P I'd definitely need to look into more variation for levels and preventing the goal from spawning right underneath the ball if I continue work on this game, thanks for the feedback!
@denatus Thanks for the feedback! Interactions using the mouse sounds like a very good idea to me!
@python-b5 Thanks :) I hope it wasn't too annoying!
@ribout-horace Thanks for the feedback! Yeahhh the random nature is not so great right now - both the ball directly touching the goal or just hitting a weird slope immediately and bouncing off.. I'm glad you still liked some parts despite the flaws!
I really liked this. Sounded great, ran well in the browser. It was a little sad to start from level 1 if you lost a single ball. Still, really cool. I agree with the control critiques of others. It might be TOO easy if you could use a mouse, but I think it needs some sort of adjustment. Cool, original game! Kind of reminded me of a whole game of the tilting puzzles in the new zelda game. well done.
Hmm.. I complete the levels before I realize what I have done. Got to level 7 before I got the controls, haha.
@pbg Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad you mostly liked the game! I can definitely see how the controls and restarting from the first level can lead to frustration.. Yeah maybe it would need some additional adjustment or more difficult terrain if you could use the mouse, that's a good point. Thanks again for taking the time to write feedback!
@erikkire :D haha, nice!
Neat little idea, I did find it very confusing to control the terrain, but I guess that's the point? Well done!
@dilem Thanks for the feedback! Unfortunately it is more confusing than it needs to be right now :D oh well
It's hard for me but it's fun! Nice work!