FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD50 → Mow Bot

Mow Bot

By seng

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2883.8554
Fun1014.0354
Innovation4643.5254
Theme2.004
Graphics6953.6453
Audio3813.6254
Humor6183.0548
Mood6753.4950

Comments

ordineu 2022-04-04 20:28

Pretty fun game! Love the music! I didn't realize at first that you can walk along the gravel as much as you want before the game starts, but once I did I got that perfect score on the second level P:

harksa 2022-04-04 21:09

I like the game but I fail to see where it really respect the theme. I wish you could also just stop the robot whenever you stay put on a arrow key before he goes throught path of land you already clear. Overall a pretty cute game ! Keep up the good work :smile:

kaldrin 2022-04-04 22:25

It's tight, graphics are correct, I like the going back in time effect when you die, very cool. No bug, mechanics are working well, it's a pretty standard but solid puzzle game. I feel like it's not very in the theme though, maybe I'm too exigeant though

seng 2022-04-05 06:43

@ordineu thanks for the feedback and playing the game. Glad you enjoyed it!

seng 2022-04-05 06:46

@harksa I had this idea of having to eat to delay the inevitable starvation but that was very grim. So I went with a happier approach. But I agree it's very farfetched. I didn't intend the keys to be held down. Thanks for pointing it out!

svemir 2022-04-05 09:56

Very fun game when you get in to it. I didn't realize why I was going backwards at first until I saw the 'health' bar. Maybe some other indicator or animation when you lose health could help this, but the graphics are cute and fit the game well. I also really like that you see the path you've made when you complete the level and the star/rating score. Overall very nice, I could see chasing the perfect score for every level!

bottled-up-dark-peace 2022-04-05 11:22

"I had this idea of having to eat to delay the inevitable starvation but that was very grim" You should have gone for it, it's a shame that your game has no link with the theme.

Anyway, it was very fun, I didn't realise that you could step on stone until you stepped on grass for the first time. You should have some indicator for that, like the mow vibrating only when it's working.

seng 2022-04-05 12:18

@bottled-up-dark-peace yes it would have fit the theme better but I couldn't think of art I would have been able to draw. I'm mostly just a programmer so I'm lacking in the artistic department :smile:. No excuses though. You are right!

I like the vibrating idea. Or maybe some kind of animation while mowing. Anyway thanks for the feedback!

phoenixofforce 2022-04-05 15:56

Havent played a game like this in while. But i love them. The rewind is nice, well done

poopgames 2022-04-05 17:58

My favorite entry thus far!!!!! The idea, a mower needs grass to keep going, is amazing first off. Secondly, I thought you would have to speed run the maps like an energy system with the grass or something, but they turned out to be a series of challenging puzzles instead! I salute you sir.

dreamscale 2022-04-05 18:07

The speedrunner in me really loves this! Reminds me of the homebrew NES Lawnmower game.

stupidhobbit 2022-04-05 19:03

Very polished game, but I think smaller levels would be more enjoyable to play

kaljal 2022-04-05 19:43

Polished and fun, also I loved the difficulty.

andrground 2022-04-05 20:38

That's actually an amazing game, I think this artstyle goes really well with that kind of gameplay. It's a pity my brain is small and I couldn't even finish some of the levels. Good job and good luck!

seng 2022-04-06 06:21

@dreamscale I made some decisions with speedrunning in mind. Like the fast resets or getting back into action quickly from the Victory screen. Feel free to post some times :smile:. Also I didn't know about the NES Lawnmower game. Watched a video yesterday. Seems funny.

@stupidhobbit thank you for your feedback. I tried playing with the size a little bit. Smaller maps were solvable really fast so I made them slightly bigger.

@andrground thank you! To be honest it took me a while to figure out a way to "design" those maps. I do play some puzzle games but designing them is a whole different thing. Not making them too easy but still solvable. Happy with the result though.

@phoenixofforce @poopgames @kaljal thanks for playing. Glad you liked it!

lody-giving-teacup 2022-04-06 07:36

Nice game , it reminds me games I was playing before ! good work !

math1369 2022-04-06 13:21

i like the idea of the game. Grafic is simple but nice. you could have started with short grass, which constantly grows back and mass has to mow it. An endless task. And then make the energy from the robot dependent on the amount of grass it has cut in the last few seconds. etc.

adncoach 2022-04-06 13:37

Classic idea that still works. Liked the aesthetics.

theo-clarke 2022-04-06 13:39

This is a really cool concept and a surprisingly layered/deep challenge for a 3-day jam. Nice graphics and audio too. However, I think that having some easier levels and maybe unlocking levels one-by-one would help with the pacing.

apphons6 2022-04-06 13:42

Super fun and very cool graphics, nice concept, I had a similar one for a game I wanted to make awesome execution and puzzles, fast paced and good

matt-rice 2022-04-06 13:43

Cute game and it was fun to play and figure out the pattern to beat the levels!

core-foliant 2022-04-06 16:44

This pixel art is incredible in my opinion!

macaroni-dev 2022-04-07 06:28

Absolutely loved it. Very charming graphics and audio. The entire game felt very polished. I'll probably play it again for fun!

henrik-ganard 2022-04-07 06:36

Loved the game, You should try to make a WebGL version to get more people to try it out. If the games don´t show extreme potential in the page I normaly don´t download them. I made made an exeption on the 'dont download games'-rule for this one and I am glad i did. Great job. Thanks for making this game.

seng 2022-04-07 06:51

@math1369 This would definitely fit the theme better for sure. But in the end it's not something I'd enjoy playing. Thanks for the idea though. Always appreciated :smile:

@theo-clarke Thank you! Creating levels was actually hard because they were either too easy or even too hard for me to clear. I had to make sure they were beatable at all. I noticed that symmetrical levels tended to be really easy so I tried to create "easy asymmetric" maps and progressed to harder maps. In the end it's still a puzzle game so it's fine having to think about some levels for a little bit longer I think. Unlocking levels one by one was on my feature list but sadly I ran out of time

@henrik-ganard Thanks for your feedback. I understand why people prefer WebGL games. I'm very used to using SFML and it doesn't support WebGL. I'd need to mix in some SDL and get Emscripten to run. Maybe I'll get it to run for the next jam! Glad you still played it!

Also thanks to everyone else playing my game!

dmitrygalias 2022-04-07 06:54

Nice puzzle game. I love this type of game mechanics where every step you take changes the game field. Well done!

adamk33n3r 2022-04-07 06:56

Great job, puzzle games are hard to make challenging and yet solvable. I remember having to solve puzzles like this in Link's Awakening so it was nice to be reminded of a fond memory. Graphics and audio were great!

heremeus 2022-04-07 07:46

A classic game mechanic in a cute lawn mower coat. It's one of my favourite puzzle mechanic in other games and it's nice seeing a full compo game dedicated to it! The pixel art was perfectly fitting with the rest of the game. The audio was nice to listen to as well. Had lots of fun figuring out the best paths. The hardest one for me was the fourth level. Took me a while to get a (the?) solution.

seng 2022-04-07 07:52

@heremeus thanks for playing! There are definitely a few more solutions for the fourth level. And because of its symmetry there is always the mirrored solution to the one you found :smile:

@dmitrygalias @adamk33n3r thanks for playing. Glad you liked it!

doot 2022-04-07 20:06

Great game!

Classic and intuitive gameplay with a very good execution! The space for errors and the timer are very nice ideas. I would love a webgl version to come back to it sometimes!

zimny11 2022-04-07 22:31

Nice game. The in-game mechanics are solid . The transition between screens and especially the animation of going back if you screw up it super cool! Nice music, too. It was fun to play. Great job with this one!

shared 2022-04-08 11:28

Nice puzzle game, with a simple idea. I like it, the graphics look nice and the level music is nice, although I was not a fan of the menu music, which is fine because you don t hear it that much. The game feels really polished, and the levels are interesting. I've spent a bit too long trying to 5-star the last level lol. My times are probably pretty bad, since I didn't play too much for speed, but I wanted to finish the game. unknown.png

dingledorf 2022-04-09 01:15

Nice game and great puzzles! The whole thing is very polished, well done!

lecloow7 2022-04-09 07:23

Nice game

sagiii 2022-04-09 08:08

Hello! Looks like I'm pretty bad at this but I liked the game. The level design is good. The sound can be a little too loud at the start but not a big deal.

bqq 2022-04-09 18:30

Nice work, love to see entries done without a general purpose engine (like I used to in the good old days :D)! I think a couple of smaller maps in the beginning could have been nice to ease into the mechanics but other than that I enjoyed optimizing my routes :D

beelzeboss 2022-04-09 20:13

Very cool concept and good execution. Great job!

mavvy 2022-04-09 20:47

Very well made entry. Polished, intuitive and pretty!

seng 2022-04-10 07:00

@doot As mentioned in an earlier comment I will probably look into WebGL builds for the next jam. ~~At least my game has only around 3MB compared to the gigabytes I have downloaded for other games~~ :smile:

@shared Glad you liked it. Yes the music in general is ok but can be annoying when hearing it for a long time. I'm no musician so that's the best I could make with my current skills :smile:. Grats on the 5 stars on every map!

@sagiii That's totally fine. There is some leeway with the energy system. Don't need to clear every map with 5 stars. Yes it's hard to get a good starting volume. It was fine for me and also for everyone who tested it but you can regulate the volume with +/- if it's still too loud/quiet.

@bqq Yes same here. Only played one SDL game and one pygame game so far. Other entries were mostly made with Unity/UE4/Construct/Godot. Nothing wrong with that ofcourse but I also like seeing people using simple frameworks. Sadly I didn't have time to add an introduction/tutorial map. Guess I could have made a simpler map for the first one. Thank you for the feedback!

@zimny11 @dingledorf @lecloow7 @beelzeboss @mavvy and everyone else I might have missed: Thanks for playing!

wizard 2022-04-10 12:50

Quite a fun and interesting puzzle game. Really strong core mechanic that works well. Really like the rewind after you fail. Clean graphics and good sound design that does exactly what it needs to do. Only thing is that it doesn't relate too strongly to the theme. Other than that it is a strong and well polished game. Well done.

cedric86 2022-04-10 13:43

Ah a very classic game type. Always nice to see somebody picking old school game ideas back up. Very well executed as well. Good Job. Keep it up.

sheldonzs 2022-04-10 21:52

Nice entry. The gameplay is smooth, the rewind when you run out of lives is a great touch. It reminds me a lot of the puzzles in Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening where you have to fill in the spaces of the holes with a single path.

shared 2022-04-11 06:02

@seng The music in the main gameplay was absolutely fine, liked it even. I'm not a musician either, and I wish I even knew how to use music tools to make music for my games, the music adds a lot IMO. And grats on reaching the top 5 in my game !

seng 2022-04-11 07:24

@wizard @cedric86 @sheldonzs thanks for the feedback and playing. Glad you liked it!

@shared I can list the tools I used. Maybe they are helpful to you in any way. I was able to understand them even without any knowledge about creating music: - Music with [beepbox][1] - Soundeffects with [SFXR][2]

I'll probably look into [boscaceoil][3] for the following projects. Seems like a nice tool to play around with :smile:

[1]:https://www.beepbox.co/ [2]:https://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html [3]:https://boscaceoil.net/

meta-link 2022-04-11 09:52

Great game ! It is easy to understand and fun to play, with cool graphics and soundtrack.

Good job :slight_smile:

quinn-patrick 2022-04-11 15:18

This is a really good game, and impressively complete. I like that it saves your game and tracks high scores on each level. Unfortunately it's really hard for me to look past the complete disregard for the theme. Also, while the visuals on the title screen and menu are pretty good, the graphics during gameplay look like placeholders. The music is quite good, though. The overall product here is so strong that I would consider it a top entry if only it used the theme.

shadow64 2022-04-12 02:19

I had a LOT of fun playing this. Took me a bit to figure out exactly what was being asked but I picked it up. I also didn't quite understand at first that you could move the mow bot to another place to start. It also didn't matter, I had a blast pretty much the whole time. The music and graphics were good, but really it was the fun of solving the puzzles that kept me the most engaged. Very simple. Extremely engaging. Loved it.

Thanks for playing Apocawiz and leaving such kind feedback! And CONGRATS on finishing the jam!

seng 2022-04-12 05:19

@quinn-patrick I guess the Ludum Dare rules don't lie about the theme being a social rule :smile:

Sadly I couldn't think of any game which fits the theme and would have been fun to play for me. Or actually create it with my limited skillset. Even after a playing a few games, I still think that the theme is rather bad for creating fun games. Doesn't mean it's impossible. Played some great games this jam!

For the art it's kind of true. I did intend to rework the map tiles, but I focused on getting all my key features to work first and ended up having not enough time. ~~I was ready to call it "programmer's art" but then I noticed some people actually like it~~

Thanks for your feedback!

@shadow64 Glad you liked it. Thanks for playing my game!

jchab 2022-04-12 20:58

grass mowing games are always classic

necdilzor 2022-04-15 18:19

Perfect score from me, this is one of the best entries in the Jam for me!

You took classic gameplay, gave it a twist, applied the theme effectively and made a very enjoyable and challenging game!

It's also great to see what is possible with SFML, I've been struggling to choose a technology to stick with and SFML was one of the options I was toying with. Thanks for uploading the source code! :)

seng 2022-04-16 05:27

@necdilzor thank you! I made that decision 5 years ago. I'm very used to SFML by now and still think it is great but it has some downsides. The API is very object oriented. So if you are planning to do something else (data oriented for example) you might need to rewrite some things. Also no easy way for WebGL builds. Other than that I really like it.

Feel free to do anything you want with the source code but keep in mind it was mostly created in 3 days so it became rather messy. The template I prepared before the jam allowed for fast and flexible development though. For example the screen transitions weren't planned originally.

Already fixed all bugs I was aware of on the master branch and planned on continuing development there. So maybe check this branch instead. Still needs lots of cleanup work I wasn't able to do yet.

dlan-bess 2022-04-18 20:23

Good game, it's got everything you expect from a complete game. I really like how easy retrying each level is, and beating a level is quit satisfying. great work!

sarah 2022-04-18 22:13

I love everything about this game, its really cute and super fun to play! I love puzzle games already and this was a really cute themed one. I also really liked the music, it was a vibe.

I really liked the animation screen when you started a level, it looked realy smooth!

Overall, well done :3

2023-03-19 20:05

123.png

I really like when games have that little fulfillment effect and this game does just that! As a player even going to the next patch of grass has a rewarding effect, not only the rating stars on the level as a whole, but the playthrough is nice and smooth, IMO if a puzzle game does not have that, it quickly becomes a burdensome task...Great job @seng !