FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD50 → Stopping Karen

Stopping Karen

By peacememories, fis, Nivbeth and fluffymadness

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2633.8734
Fun4393.6034
Innovation4133.5734
Theme1184.2134
Graphics3044.1234
Audio5383.4234
Humor1933.8734
Mood6793.4833

Comments

jkyd 2022-04-05 04:11

Great theme!

tano 2022-04-05 04:25

You have good idea. I like the art but the character doesn't give a karen feeling. I want to see her yelling and angry. The AI part work pretty well but the way it work is not that clear. I would be nice to give transparent instruction on how the Path finding system work for the player.

pcmaster 2022-04-05 13:33

Poor Karen :D I really love that it made me figure out how to score more. The levels are splendid. I love the simple graphics, the music and sounds are adequate, very nice. An awesome job!

nivbeth 2022-04-05 14:00

@jkyd: Thanks! <3

@tano: Thank you for your feedback, I'm sorry you didn't have the full "Karen Experience". We tried to make her as annoying as possible in that short time ;D "Hmmmmpf!" The tutorial is rather short, because it's a puzzle game – but of course, we will add more info if necessary! Thanks again :)

@pcmaster: Thaaaanks! Great that you enjoyed it so much! :D

martinek 2022-04-05 15:53

Great puzzle game. I got really nothing else to say, just a great game.

danc2236 2022-04-05 16:18

I found this super funny, especially what with all the Karen meltdown videos I've been watching lately. Great little puzzle game. The graphics are super nice, well done for the effort there. It took me a few goes to grasp the concept, but after that it was good fun. Great game. Thanks!

zoomieroomie 2022-04-05 16:52

Good idea for the theme and the execution is great. As a puzzle game also very good however the main problem for me was that "waiting" was basically the biggest part of it.

Also barriers did not reset for me when restarting a level.

lukein 2022-04-05 17:28

Loved the setting, but as stated by Faceless, the waiting for the 'resolution' part is kind of a burden. Especially if you're going for the highscore, each try adds up to 2 or 3 whole minutes to something that should take seconds.

Although it contributes to the chill mood of the game, I'd suggest going for something more nervous like "live resolution". Not having to click on 'Start' for Karen to go, or not being able to place anything before clicking on start. This way people that want this rather chill gamefeel can get it still, by thinking about it before clicking on start, while in the other hand you don't have to. The best of both world, really.

cary-stanley 2022-04-06 03:02

The graphics are really nice with the City and the "Karen"

Fun Puzzle game, I had issues setting the barriers and settings the groceries & cat food point (I was on a Mac so I didn't have the "left click", so that may have been it).

Once, I understood the groceries & cat food points it was pretty easy, not hard to get 3 stars. But I see others were able to get really high scores, so they definitely figured out some interesting way to deter the Karen.

I would agree with others that there is a lot of waiting in the game

c64gamer 2022-04-06 22:12

This low poly art. <3 Really nice entry. Everything looks so cute. Had a lot of fun playing. Really nice entry. Good job :-)

okamit 2022-04-06 23:48

Really nice graphics and art style!

Love the concept, agree with things other have said, and I would also like it if you couldn't placeobstacles behind the end goal. But I enjoyed it and I like that the placed obstacles remain on retry, so you can tweak your layout. This together with a faster way to execute the obstacle course, as others have sugested, would make trying to get the highest score smoother.

Great work!

daniel-username 2022-04-07 00:50

Cool concept, nice graphics, nice sound!

sarah 2022-04-10 05:19

I love the gameplay, it's interesting to try and figure out the puzzle! However I read everything and I was still a bit confused on how to get the groceries ping to work, but once I did it's really fun!

When I hit the restart button though none of the buttons would work again. So I had to refresh the game to actually replay a level, but I did just manually try all the levels and I liked it a lot!

Great idea and overall well done!

jzucc12 2022-04-15 13:37

Silly and good idea. I think the waiting as Karen goes is a bit too long. Also, when I put barriers down in a place that prevents her from advancing it would freeze the game and force me to refresh the page. Good submission otherwise.

jrevel 2022-04-15 13:40

I like a lot this concept, it's a very interesting idea that goes really well with the theme ! The art is really cute, but the fact that some high buildings are displayed over the road make the last big level a bit messier than it could be. Well done, that's a pretty solid entry !

amastryukov 2022-04-15 14:42

Interesting concept that has potential to be a full mobile puzzle game. Requires a bit of thinking at first, since I wasn't sure how it worked. The tutorial gave me the impression that I was supposed to put physical buildings in the way much like the barrier and didn't get that it was essentially forcing Karen to return to the location the pin was representing instead.

Someone above had already found the game-breaking bug but if you place the barrier in a location that would prevent Karen from finding an alternate route, the game would freeze up and require a hard reset.

The art was great, the audio was good and other than the one bug the game was playable and solid. Good work!

fis 2022-04-15 15:34

Thank you for your feedback! @jzucc12 and @amastryukov - do you have a screenshot of the placement when the freeze occurs? I'd like to look into and fix it, placing a barrier in the way shouldn't freeze the game but cause Karen to run over it with an animation.

fis 2022-04-15 15:38

Oh nevermind - already crashed. This is a new induced bug after fixing the others... Sorry - fix is incoming!

Update: Fix has been uploaded - thank you for reporting :two_hearts:

loiclegrosfrere 2022-04-15 19:51

It's a good one and I think can be a very solid game with some changes ! I think letting player set grocery and pet hints where he want is too much permissive, that way you just have to set these two just before the party location and the game is a wrap :( And that's a shame, because all the mechanics with pathfinding works pretty well ! Also, maybe it would be cool to have a way to speed up karen, because, mama, I waited somewhat 286 "minutes" it was reaaaaaally long :smile: Otherwise, music and arts are really goods too, well done !

flaterectomy 2022-04-15 20:09

A cute and fun entry! I like the concept, but the awarding of stars seemed a little easy. After doing poorly the first time I played I understood what I was meant to do, and three stars were just a given in the following levels. I got *near* the highscore numbers with a few, but never quite there.

The art is very cute and clear, the music is a fun vibe but doesn't really seem to tie in with a Karen running around frustrated.

All in all a very solid entry, if it had more levels I would've played them!

joror 2022-04-17 14:41

Very fun little game - figuring out how to get the most out of your resources was mostly down to the barriers it seemed. A bit of in-game tutorial would have been nice. Like the isometric style and neat controls. Well done!

solanumteam 2022-04-17 15:03

I really like this game! The art style is super cute, the music is nice and relaxing, fits the theme very well and overall is just very fun to play! Getting 3 stars was easy tho! Maybe make it a little more challenging to make us want to keep playing until we figure out the best way to do it! Great game! Keep it up ^^

anaxie-studio 2022-04-17 15:12

I looove the buildings and UI. The concept is simple but well executed and the funny sounds and signs really add to the experience. The leaderboard is a great addition and adds replayability. I played the original jam version, but I can see how adding a speed-up mode is great. It feels like the strategy is quite similar for every level though, put the tags next to the party so she has to walk back and forth all the way.

Cute and fun, good job guys!

maxi1324 2022-04-17 15:17

I really like the graphics

chris1919 2022-04-21 01:50

Wait, what? Karen is also my mom?! It was enough that she was Karen! The gameplay was fun. I thought the pacing was good. I wish the groceries and cat food pins were a more nuanced mechanic though. I ended up always putting them at the end of the puzzle. Since I got on the leaderboards for most of the levels, it seems like that was the best strategy. But that's really the only criticism I have for the game. So well done! And I hope you get away with the party