FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD50 → Imagine Him Happy

Imagine Him Happy

By widdershin

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2003.6257
Fun2593.4557
Innovation1353.7057
Theme4403.3457
Graphics4783.0257
Humor1773.2654
Mood3723.1056

Comments

wogabi 2022-04-04 05:23

When the boulder falls all the way back down the hill, I cried a little bit.

jk5000 2022-04-04 06:01

The idea was fun, but for me it was too difficult to get very far.

dorren 2022-04-04 06:09

pushing the boulder around feels really fun, great little game :)

mnikn 2022-04-04 07:22

Pretty fun idea add difficult game, give me a feel like "getting over it" when the ball falldown

oadt 2022-04-04 07:45

The controls feel a bit weird (While holding the boulder they feel a bit slippy, on the other hand you can barely turn around without him. Also I have to get used to the left an right mapping). Though I get why they are as they are because they work and feel pretty good (as long as you are holding the boulder)

The first half is good designed. There are some safe spots but also some nice hidden scenarios, where the boulder falls all the way back down anyway. But starting with the snow part the level design falls apart for me. I think a critical part of Games like Getting Over It is, that there are some critical, descrete points where you could have start to all over again but also some where you loose only some progress. This creates some kind of tention and release. But the snow part is build like this: * Tilted bar (first appearance, fail -> 100% loss) * Long slate underground part (first appearance, fail -> 100% loss) * Tree trunk (relatively safe spot) * Tilted bars with some new elementss (fail -> 100% loss) * Narrow bar (fail -> 100% loss)

lucas-guimaraes 2022-04-04 08:22

The myth of Sisyphus in game form. I definitely like the idea - the difficulty curve is a bit weak, but I do like the idea. Also remember that 3D needs more leniency since there's a whole extra layer of failure compared to Bennett which makes it harder to account for (and harder to have as much fun controlling in)

Still, nicely done. Also I should finally play Bennett lol.

widdershin 2022-04-04 08:43

@wogabi thanks for sharing, your sadness brought me joy.

@jk5000 thanks for playing!

@dorren thanks for your feedback, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

@mnikn thanks!

@oadt thanks for the detailed feedback and critique. I think you're right that the snowy part would be better with more partial failure opportunities, I'll keep that in mind for future games like this. Appreciate you taking the time to analyze my game.

@lucas-guimaraes Thanks for the feedback. Definitely hard to get the difficulty curve right, probably needed more playtesting from people who weren't me.

ghost-wave 2022-04-04 09:38

Great idea and great graphics.

Sadly I couldn't get past the part with the beams not matter how hard I tried so I didn't get to experience the full game. Maybe it's too hard? Controls are a bit unorthodox, and the game really needs some music or sounds. This is my only criticism.

Other than that the game and concept is really awesome great job.

xiris 2022-04-04 09:54

I love it! I really had fun playing it until my boulder dropped xd. The experience is very intense and it is really enjoyable, however as somebody mentioned before me the snowy part is very punishing. To be fair I wouldn't mind losing a little bit of progress but losing all the progress made me stop the game. If you polish it and work a little bit on level design it will be fantastic game. I think it has a huge potential even for commercial game, seems to be also quite easy to be ported to mobile. It reminds me a little bit of the "Get Over It!" game :)

bosco 2022-04-04 10:07

Cool concept, the camera alays pointing to the boulder i think is a stroke of genius, and fits nicely witht he themes of the myth as well as making controlling it a bit more consistent. As some people have said, its incredibly hard, but thats just more satisying when you get to the top. Just a blob and their boulder makin it in this big world

badcop 2022-04-04 10:26

I like the mechanics and the build up of the game. After my first big fall to the beginning, I ended up quitting; I think an important thing to consider with games of this nature is pacing. I think it felt a little unnatural to fall all the way back to the beginning in this game, since the beginning is somewhat long and boring to go through a second time - it doesn't really feel like a challenge, just a big punishment.

I appreciated the later parts of the level design though! I noticed some clever paths to route the player back to the beginning when they fail.

Fun game (but very frustrating :p)

appoxgames 2022-04-04 10:41

You just had this feeling through the play session that there will be a moment of frustration slowly but surely building up, and it sure delivered.

Was fun, i enjoyed it. Well done!

bangthewall 2022-04-04 10:47

Love rage games so already like this as well.

What I feel other rage games have and this doesn't is the constant challenge. For example in Getting Over It, there isn't a lot of flat ground where it just takes time for you to move. This game has a lot of places where there is no challenge nor threat of failing, so it is just taking away time I could have spent raging on an obstacle.

Other than that, I think this game is great! Rage games are cool when well executed, and this one is getting close :smile:

tellyhead 2022-04-04 12:17

I love that it's fairly punishing, with the boulder falling all the way back, it's also fairly polished with settings etc

becher 2022-04-04 13:36

Good idea :) and realy interesting way to inovate getting over it genre (don't know the real name of the genre :/) Not sure if it's a good idea to always look at the sphere, when you fall but the sphere stays up for example.

thebox193 2022-04-04 15:24

Could use checkpoints or an easier start. :)

forgin-bits 2022-04-04 16:26

Very unique concept, but soooo hard... I mean not really that hard, but it takes quite a while to reach the difficult parts of the level, and if you fail then, well... I didn't have the courage to start over :laughing: please add checkpoints, there seem to be interesting obstacles ahead. The controls are weird at the start when the boulder hasn't fallen on your head yet, but then it makes sense, although it's still kinda weird for me. All in all it's a great innovative entry, I'd like to see the concept polished and pushed beyond this jam !

kemp 2022-04-04 17:47

This is a really fantastic iteration on the Getting over it/Masocore/rage game genre. I think I only got 50% of the way through (past the ramp beam then the very thin beam) before the game broke me - when I've got the energy I'll come back and reach the top of that mountain...

With games like these I'd love to see a speedrunner take a crack at finding an optimal path.

unpronounceable 2022-04-04 17:51

Liked it a lot and was able to eventually get to the top. Next time will have to take the ball with me as well. Add me to the list of people that would like more checkpoints. One thing with Getting Over It that's missing here is in that game the repetition of obstacles eventually leads to a level of skill that lets you quickly get past them. It's also entirely possible I'm just not good enough yet to notice if that is in the game.

Also bonus points for the Albert Camus reference.

andreadbx 2022-04-04 17:55

Played on stream earlier today! As i said playing it i find the whole game mechanic clever and well done! with some more work into graphics, polishing and overall presentation i could totally see this on Steam :D good job!

bubakgames 2022-04-04 18:40

I really enjoyed playing this game but when the boulder fell down from the hill I was depressed.

davide-rossetto 2022-04-04 19:41

The idea is neat, it feels a little frustrating when you hit a rough spot and the boulder rolls back to the beginning. Probably a checkpoint system can making the experience more enjoyable. Good work indeed! :v:

tomatoomelet 2022-04-04 21:54

The rock is hard to push, then I made a mistake and the rock rolls down the hill and I could not catch it which was funny. The game looks cute (I like the terrain). Noice job.

agrimes 2022-04-05 00:36

I'll have to just imagine him happy, because I sure didn't manage to do it in the game. That first hill was no problem, but getting to the beams... oh boy.

dante2001 2022-04-05 00:45

It's pretty good! Thought I feel a new mechanic is in order to make it better and add more to it. 10/10 for a LD entry tho!! Good mechanics and good movement. Feels weird at the beginning but its awesome

david-york 2022-04-05 00:49

Oh man, just the right amount of horrifyingly frustrating. Good game and good concept.

dante2001 2022-04-05 01:50

also good take on the camus quote ;) "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy"

benjijump 2022-04-05 02:36

took some time to get used to, but the overall control feels alright. Since there's a lot of time where the mind stays idle, some sound effect would've improved the overall experience. A solid entry for compo tho. Great work!

maxi1324 2022-04-05 19:46

I wanna cry Screenshot 2022-04-05 214622.png But it is still a fun Game

pierce-brooks 2022-04-05 20:38

This game does a great job of hijacking your emotions of triumph and disappointment :)

jonrei 2022-04-05 20:52

I did my best

ukulelefury 2022-04-05 21:55

I was so close!! And then. Soooooooooo far!

:) Great game! Great simple models and textures. Excellent level design. Beautiful concept and well-built mechanic. Could definitely use some sounds and music to help the overall vibe!

kuami6 2022-04-07 11:54

Cool concept! The feel of the game was very nice, the boulder feels really heavy and i feel sorry for the poor guy who has to push that. Great work!

jcg 2022-04-07 23:13

Really felt like Sisyphus here... hard to believe I just spent so much time rolling this ball only to watch it roll away from me.

osh-studio 2022-04-09 06:10

Love me a good skill game, made it all the way to the end after a few tries. The key is patience, thanks for the great submission.

jackaljk 2022-04-09 19:52

Damn I'm such a sucker for this kind of game. It feels very polished, I like all the small details like the hands and getting squished. I haven't completed it yet so I don't know how well designed it is but until the furthest I got (beginning of the snow part) it's really good. The lack of audio is painfully manifest, can't imagine Sisyphus happy in such silence, but I love the game nonetheless. Bravo!

theblitz 2022-04-17 07:42

I liked the concept but the controls took a while to get used to and the tutorials are a little too far apart, wished i had known you can push harder before going up the hill a few times because the boulder kept rolling off XD. Loved the character getting squished haha.