frizuo 2022-04-04 05:30
How do I say this, the art is AMAZING. Great job! The game is simple and intuitive. I think some music would be nice but otherwise well done!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → Cold and Alone
By david-york
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 34 | 4.03 | 143 | |
| Fun | 131 | 3.72 | 144 | |
| Innovation | 149 | 3.67 | 144 | |
| Theme | 57 | 4.15 | 143 | |
| Graphics | 38 | 4.27 | 146 | |
| Audio | 498 | 1.91 | 98 | |
| Humor | 246 | 3.00 | 122 | |
| Mood | 40 | 4.04 | 142 |
How do I say this, the art is AMAZING. Great job! The game is simple and intuitive. I think some music would be nice but otherwise well done!
Great art and fun to play.
"This is not Alaska, there are no bears."
Klaxxon-9 was a very fun planet to explore, I had every upgrade when I decided to stop.
Very good entry! I loved the humorous quips after each night ended, the exploration progression was fun.
I ended up getting like 40 scrap right after I got the best engine upgrade for the rover and it felt really good getting all my resources back! Going after the crystals and finding scrap hotspots (like that one area in the quicksand at the bottom right) was fun and engaging.
While simple, it kept me entertained for quite some time, and I really liked making a mental map of the environment when I set out each morning.
Only complaints I have is the controls felt weird at first (QWEASD is an odd control scheme), and the lack of animation or audio. Tilting the rover when the player goes in other directions, or adding an engine sound effect would have really helped the game feel more alive.
Overall I loved it, great work!
I really enjoyed this game. The art looked fantastic and it matched the theme well. The movement controls for the vehicle took me a bit to understand, but once I got it it made sense. There was a point where I had purchased everything and had a bunch of resources. I kept trying to travel as far as I could in each direction to see if I was missing something and eventually gave up. Maybe that's the point of the game and you'll eventually gather all the resources and lose. Assuming that is the case, I think adding something to speed this along would have helped. Maybe requiring resources for repairing the heater or vehicle, something to speed it along towards the end. But overall great entry!
Amazing graphics and mood setting.
*Spoilers below, play the game first*
This is an incredible entry with a wild amount of polish.
The artstyle is amazing, both the old sierra-style hub screen and the rover exploration, which is reminiscent of the excellent art from Into The Breach.
It's great to see an entry with a broader gameplay loop, and I really enjoyed collecting resources, upgrading my rover and hub, and slowly venturing out further into the world.
The only part that felt a bit lackluster is the endgame. Having run out of upgrades to make, and with a huge surplus of batteries, it felt like there was no reason to continue, which is the point I guess. Unfortunately I have over 200 batteries now and it would require too long in realtime to sleep them all away, so that's where I stopped.
I suspect this is the point. To start with I was hopeful about my progress, and as I reached the endgame that was replaced with despair and eventually acceptance of the situation.
Likes * Amazing art * Super well-polished UI * Interesting gameplay loop * Funny daily thoughts * Holy crap the art * Actually quite a lot of content, I played this for maybe 40 minutes?
Feedback * This is really good * Endgame trails off a bit * I would have liked more content but there's already so much for a compo entry
Honestly, I'm blown away by how good this game is, easily the best entry I've played yet.
Hi! Really cool game, the ones that you don't expect to be from a Jam for it's quality and polish.
Reminds me a lot to Alpha Centauri, nice vibes.
Thanks a lot.
At first I was afraid that this game would be super difficult and hard to understand, but it was perfectly balanced. You did a great job at showing and describing the mechanics through subtext.
Also the overworld just looks astonishing! It felt like I have to search for something like a crashed ship after I finished all upgrades with the purple crystals, but couldn't find anything.
Nice work! Really liked the art and how big the game feels with all of the upgrade possibilities. Given the size of the game via all of the dialog and possibilities it's understandable you didn't have time for some theme music, but it would have really helped lend to the atmosphere you created with the art and color palette. The haunting quotes each night was a really nice touch as well.
Really impressed! The level of polish is amazing and I love the gameplay
This is very cool! I really like the mood of it, and the exploration in it. Only feedback would be to speed up the battery consumption of the heater, since I got in a loop just hoarding batteries, trying to find anything that I missed. I then just slept until the batteries ran out at day 55 or so. Also some sounds would really heighten the ambience.
It's a super solid entry, and impressive for a compo game :)
Love the feel of the game and it is well balanced! Artwork is beautiful!
Hands down, this is incredible. I really can't compliment it enough, I got sort of obsessed. Please, *please* expand this into an even larger game after the jam, if you do then contact me and I will buy it immediately. I was so engrossed and determined to survive that I literally, as you can see below, got out a sheet of paper and drew a map to optimize my exploration. I died after about 2 weeks the first time and immediately restarted, realizing movements were so much more precious than I treated them like when I first played. It made the sense of slow death and "failure is inevitable" feel so real. The pixel art is gorgeous, the interface is great (love the hour & temperature representation), the writing is compelling, the gameplay is fun and satisfying, just, wow. I just watched the Martian a week ago, so...perfect timing :)
I assume that after you finish all the upgrades there's nothing left to find, right? On my 2nd playthrough I had all the upgrades by day 20. After running as far as I could in a couple directions, I just started sleeping the day away for new messages until I started getting the same one, at which point I think I came as close to "beating it" as I could? If you turned this into a game with an end story, I'd play it again in a heartbeat.
Only issues I noticed (besides not being sure when I'd "done everything there was to do") is that when you upgrade the rover, the info/message you get during the upgrade goes away when it ends, so I never even got to read the message for rough terrain wheels.
ld50 martian game map.jpg
@jess-from-online I cannot express enough how excited I am by your kind words. You drew a map! That's so sick! I might work on the game some more, we'll see. It could use more content, balance and polish for sure. I doubt I'll turn it into a commercial release though.
I really love the graphics, 10 out of 10. Gameplay feels good until you get to the end game, as was mentioned before. The amount of batteries is maybe too much compared to what you can do with them.
I wish the game had some sort of ambience and perhaps a rover engine sound.
Good job!
Okay, so this game is really pretty, before anything else. I suppose this has been said already, but the incredible art is definitely it's biggest strength. There's also a lot of actual gameplay here as well, between the simulation aspects and going scavenge outside. It's a lot to pack into a game, and all the art is still looking good and consistent throughout. As for the theme, I loved rapidly running out of resources near your crash site, and freezing to death. I find this theme has lent itself incredibly well to such solemn and dark games. Overall, this is easily one of my favorites I've seen so far. Really quality work, you should be proud of yourself.
This is an excellent compo entry, a lot of quality stuff packed into 48 hours. Well done! One thing that surprised me was that it seems to take zero time to get back home. I wondered if this was an intentional decision or just an artifact of the time constraints.
I want more please !!!!
Absolutly love the concept. It works great with the theme. There's a good level of stress & urgency to gather the necessary resources to stay alive. Each upgrade feels like life or death.
The rover controls are a bit hard to get used to but overall efficient (might be more intuitive with a joystick ?) I felt like the difficulty ramp up could have been a bit faster (a bit too easy to my taste) but that more a matter of taste. It's missing some nice soundtrack to complement the game (but understandable since it's compo)
I felt kinda sad when I finished all the upgrades, which is a good thing because i wanted more (seriously.. more please <3)
If you decide to iterate on the game after the jam (please do) a few pointers for inspiration: -controller support -don't add a minimap (some people might complain but it's actually a good thing, it add some struggle & stress to remember/forget what is where) -more ressources that you unlock / need as you move further (exactly what you did with the crystal) -a cool soundtrack
Seriously. You did an amazing work. I could see myself buying a fully developped version of that game. Cheers !
Like the others said it's an amazing work. You have put a lot of effort into it, they are a lot of details like the citations between days etc... Great rogue like, great job ! EDIT 1: No ambiance music but there is no sound in space, logic. EDIT 2: I think you should desactivate the sound category for rating.
Really cool start to something much bigger than a 2 day jam can really deliver. Check out my review at https://www.twitch.tv/scalphamission
Highest quality game I've played so far. Gameplay is surprisingly deep for a jam game.
The flavour in this game ! The art is gorgeous, the gameplay is really intuitive, the story is engaging and the jokes are hilarious !
After completing the upgrades I was lost as to what was left to do. Apprently not much. So I just let myself die by running out of batteries (56 Days). I played it again to the end to see if I did something wrong and I was pleasantly suprise to see the map had changed. Now I don't know if it's because I spawned somewhere else or it's procedural, but I didn't expect it from a jam game.
The artwork is amazing but a bit too static. That gives it a retro aspect, but it could also be an improvement. Like I can't really "feel" anything that is happening. Needs more juice. Sounds could really help with that.
Now how to fix this end game. I have a few ideas : - Make more content ... if you're down to make it I'm down to play it ! - Make the batteries more scarce either by spawning less of it or by using more of it for heating/upgrades - Make it so that batteries need to be crafted from other resources that you need to forage for, that way
Either way if make it into a full game i would play it. You have all the ingredients to make something amazing here. Great job !
Absolutely fantastic, this is super atmospheric. The writing is great and the resource management mechanics work really well to add tension. The atmosphere of the game really made me want to explore the planet more :)
I really like these kinds of games with limited resources and an upgrade system that lets you last just a bit longer. The gameplay and story are well done.
Amazing! The pixel art is great, and the concept is challenging but a lot of fun. Would have loved some music you did already pack so much into the time constraint!
Honestly wild you got this done in 3 days. Thanks for reviewing my game-- I had to do you the same favor, and I'm glad I did!
The art was just stunning! I especially loved the harsh black shadows on the hab establishing shot. It really made me feel like I was on an unforgiving moon base. The gameplay fits the theme perfectly, though I would have loved this game even more if failure wasn't "inevitable" and that with enough strategy you could find yourself in control of your situation and flourishing with your new upgrades. Great submission, good luck!
Really like the vibe of this game. Art was on point! Some trial and error gameplay but that doesn't mean it's not compelling. Great work for a short game jam! Love to see what could be done with more time!
Wow, insane, I can't imagine making this in the time limit, It's really fun, the art is great, And I loved the overworld design, kudos!
This was a crazy fun experiece. Dialogue after every night kept me playing and got me attached to this game. Every moment with the rover is precious to your survival. I think you hit the theme right on the money!
Only complaint would be that sometime the movement while on the rover got the best of me. Visually my brain assumed i'd move one direction when in reality it would go in some other direction.
This is such a great game! It was very polished and felt very complete in most areas. I think the entry overall has great art, and is also very economic in terms of knowing what assets were necessary for the core of the game to feel fleshed out. I think theme was definitely the strongest part of this entry, awesome mood and emotions. Great job!
Wow. For a game jam, this is *really* good. The pixel art is very nice and well-done, the gameplay and story do a great job of making the player feel the tension of the situation. The lack of music is probably the only thing I can hold against it, since adding some would really help fill out the atmosphere.
The controls were slightly wonky, in that moving up and down would help the rover straight, but moving left or right would move the rover on an isometric plane, I think? I can't tell how well I'm explaining it, but it did make navigating sometimes frustrating, especially when time is such an essential resource in the game.
Despite that, everything else about this game is excellent. Wonderful work.
I think the game is solid in mechanics and art! Being more clear about when your approaching the lose condition might help the player. Also Icons for resource costs in the shop would be a big help in a post jam build. Solid game!
This is so impressive not just as a jam game. Solid game!
This game is amazing. I sometimes wish there was some sounds, but even without it the ambience feels right. I struggled a bit with the controls/direction, but that's something that just takes getting used to while you play I guess. I think the dialogue and being able to make upgrades that give you hope are the best part about it, and it makes the situation that much sadder. Great game, so good!
It was a cool concept, but it is way too text based for me. There was so much text to read and I would have honestly appreciated some icons in the UI to make navigating easier.
The qweasd control layout is also weird, but you get used to it pretty quick.
Good job overall!
I agree with all comments how amazing this game is, and that indeed the endgame is a bit lackluster; maybe a bit less batteries would make it a bit more of a challenge and make the gameplay feel like it has a bit more impact.
What I havent seen in the comments though, except for the one above, is that I think that some kind of sound could really add to the ambiance. It doesnt even need a full soundtrack, maybe some empty noise to add to the feeling of being dying alone at a cold planet already does the job.
Anyways I think this is one of the best games I have played so far and definitely the most polished one, amazing job!
Well all the comments already state how great this game is! I really enjoyed it! Well done, a very polished game!
One of the most interesting games I've played during this LD. Reminds me of classic 90's tactical strategies and exploration games. It was very tough, as it should be, so I liked that. Overall, Amazing half graphical and half textual adventure game. It's a little shame it doesn't have any sounds, as it would add a lot to the atmosphere, but considering the fact it was a COMPO, I don't mind at all :)
Really good game, loved the art style!
Only feedback I can think of is that I would like it if you could click on tiles to move to them and the rover would find the most optimal path there instead of using QWEASD, even better if you could use mouse for everything :)
Really cool game. Beautiful visuals and atmosphere. Movement was a bit confusing :)
Honestly? This game is amazing! I absolutely loved exploring this desolate planet. The logs added so much character to the only real character in the game, myself. I loved marking down points of interest like a nearby crystal field then going out a few days later after preparing the rover. I got to 34 days with all the upgrades and a couple hundred batteries before I quit. Please make this a full game! It has so much potential!
Not to beat dead horse but Music and some sound fx would go a long way here. Overall great game. Really liked the art style.
Great gameplay, great aesthetics, and a fun experience. Rather than repeating other comments on the art, I'd just like to add that I really appreciate how the various danger indicator exclamation marks were not only different colors, but different shapes. Such care and consideration for UI clarity and accessibility is awesome to see. I'm a bit bummed that I didn't run into the 4th variation of it until day 46, when I had stopped exploring and was waiting to freeze, but that's only because I'd run out of other upgrades to build and cool things to collect. Can't wait for the full version!
This is so much fun and I love the graphics. Best gameplay I've seen so far in LD50! Reminds me a little bit of FTL with the way you choose the activities for the day. This would really benefit from some sound or atmospheric music. I liked how the diary entries fluctuated between hopeful and pessimistic. Incredible work for a Compo entry!
What an awesome game. Addictive game loop. Really cool theme. I think all the feedback here is good if you were looking for improvements in the future. Great job!
Top marks for theme and art. Really well polished. The text is often really funny and channels vibes of The Martian. I also thought it was pretty fun and I wanted to explore. For whatever reason, I was never close to death, so I just kept going and not dying and being unsure why. So some balancing around that could really help, and maybe some way to "win" the game? I drove around for quite awhile expecting something to happen and eventually just stopped.
Great work, David! Definitely a 7.1/10 ;-)
This game is so great! You and I actually came up with fairly similar ideas and gameplay loops, but yours is much more polished. :) I also ran out of things to do, but until that point, I was SUPER engrossed and interested in exploring. Beautiful art, too. Love it!
This game is beautiful and the mood is crazy but i dont have so much fun to play. But i loved the esthetic side of the game
WOW! Just WOW! This game is best one I played on LD50 so far. Got all the upgrades and I think it's just attrition fight after. It has so much protentional for expanding on mechanics. But feels polished for a game done in such short time. I am not sure if game is without sounds or it's just on my end and also I had strange dotted line in middle of screen for some reason. Otherwise huge success
Very good, love storytelling espetially. Rover movement felt a bit strange, but later I got used to it. Really cool that you managed to come with so much content in such a shot amount of time)
Amazing game that feels absolutely complete. I'd been playing for almost an hour, and I still didn't quite get used to the mapping of the controls, I don't know why my brain refuses to remember the scheme. But other than that, gosh. I want much, much more content in this game. If this ever gets to a full release, I'm ready to buy it.
I like the art.
:) Very cool game! It is an impressive amount of features for Compo, well done! I love the pixels. It could really use some simple music and sounds (in case you're not familiar with it, something like https://sfxr.me/ makes it really easy to generate interesting sounds in basically no time). Nice balance, fun to explore, I love all the little narrative moments. Really nice GUIs.
Graphics are great. Impressive scope for a compo game. I enjoyed the gameplay and the narrative piece was well done.
I agree with others about the audio. I saw that I could rate it, but as far as I could tell, there was no audio.
Nice game! Very well balanced with a lot to explore. Kept me interested for a while! I would have loved some more "exploring" stuff, like logs or new technologies to discover, but this is already impressive for a compo game. Good job !! :muscle:
Played for you on my [livestream](https://www.twitch.tv/timbeaudet) where I played much longer than I should have!! :D
**Fun:** This game was amazing, I got so immersed. I got to a spot where there are no upgrades left so I stopped playing after a while. Screen Shot 2022-04-05 at 5.30.48 PM.png One thing that was annoying was that sometimes you were one block away from something you wanted and I feel like a good way to help with this is having it possible to stay out into the night but theres a chance you die in the rover. Another small thing is that the movement keys were hard to get the hang of at first.
**Innovation:** I always find it hard to rate this category but I think its pretty good.
**Theme:** It fits, though if you survive a while it gets to the point where freezing to death doesn't feel as inevitable.
**Graphics:** All the art looks really nice, especially the hab art. I wish there was some interpolation when moving in the game world but other than that its great!
**Audio:** None, it sucks because this would probably be the perfect jam game otherwise and would make the game feel more immersive, but you got so much stuff into the game it makes sense that you didn't have time to do audio.
**Humor:** Good. There were a few lines like the one about cheeseburgers that were funny.
**Mood:** The mood is really good, but could definitely be improved with audio.
**Overall:** As one of the other guys said, if/when you make this into a full game I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Wow @pepper-boi that's such an in-depth quality write-up! I love it. I agree with you're points for sure. The not freezing to death, well, insulation is OP. That's a funny thing to say when describing a game about freezing to death but it's so true in this game. I'd love to spend more time balancing this out, adding mechanics and upgrades, more art, and of course sound. It could really use some of that!
Thank you again for the kind words.
Best in the Mood category for me this LD yet! Very very nicely written, atmospheric! I did all the upgrades to both the hab and the rover, and now I got nothing to do on day 30+, which is probably on topic :smile: Is the game done at this point or should I continue exploring the planet? If it's done I choose to leave our explorer behind at this point, choosing to believe that they'll eke out a decent living on that rock.
Thank you @udo! I don't want to put any spoilers here, but your freezing to death is inevitable. :smile:
I can't get over the fact that this is a compo game! As others have said, this is really _really_ good.
It may just be because I don't play enough games with hex grids, but my brain found it very difficult to adapt to the movement controls. I kept moving in the wrong direction and wasting time. Maybe tank controls would be more intuitive? Having to rotate the rover and then drive forwards would make it more obvious where it's going to go, and also might make exploration feel more deliberate and slow-paced. Or if you stick with QWEASD, an option to overlay letters over the tiles might be a good idea.
Apologies for nit-picking, but I can't fault anything else. :smile:
Impressive. This game is going to be one of the top ones for this LD
Liked it a lot ! Felt like a sort of Oregon Trail type game - but with some much needed actual gameplay added. Like the survival mechanics were simple, but so good I thought. I would have loved some music, but Oregon Trail didn't have any so can't complain too much. Well done!!
After bought all upgrades and became the emperor of this planet. I was really satisfied! Afterall, with a planet that grows battery and refined metal scraps and magic crystals, what else could you ask for :laughing:
Very neat, very well done!
Wish to see more stories coming and more labs or sights to be discovered and explored!
image_2022-04-06_052528.png
I shall not know death but from sickness, old age, or crushing loneliness.
Damn david, what a *game*. What old-school charm. What an efficient and to-the-point design. The writing is in equal mesure cute and touching. The dialogue really has this energy of fending off the despair through humor. And that's kind of what it's for, right? You laugh because you can't afford to just sit there and face the reality of your situation. Incredible atmosphere, *welcome to Klaxxon-9.*
The numpad control scheme is actually pretty smart and works well for the isometric perspective. I found the game kinda easy, but man, that only makes it hit harder. It's not the cold that's gonna take you, in the end. You're just delaying the inevitable. You'll die alone, on this rock, and there's nothing you can do. I love that you can take breaks or just go to sleep, even though there are no mechanical incentives to doing so. Klaxxon-9 felt like the new home, the new normal, a familiar prison, and being able to just take some breaks and rest some days because I had so many resources felt like this: a small victory. You keep your eye on them, to forget the fact that behind looms the inescapability of death.
You pried these five-star ratings from my cold, stranded hands. I hope you're happy.
Wow @fae-pdf what a wonderful review. Thank you so much! I'm really glad it resonated with you. Yes absolutely I was going for fending off despair with humor. I had no idea how it was going to work., maybe it would land or maybe I'd make a joke about bears and people would just not get it. I watched one twitch streamer blast through the text without reading it, then rate the game very low because "a game like this doesn't have honor in it" :laughing , then another streamer laughed at that so yay.
So glad the numpad scheme worked for you! It'd been very hit or miss with players.
Thanks for the 5 star ratings! I just checked out your game - the first folder-based game I've seen. Brilliant. Loved it. Soon I'm going to binge your work on itch.io. Cheers.
So good pixel art and old school vibes! The isometric perspective makes the gameplay more interesting. Well done!
Hey! This was a lot of fun, and seriously meticulously balanced (at least from my experience). Even without sound, I found myself really engrossed in the experience. I really appreciated the amount of dialogue chronicling the descent of the protagonist's sanity as resources grew thin, as well as the long term game loop of introducing the crystals. Congratulations on finishing and making such a great game!
This really hit the spot for me. I love this art style, I love space games with themes of loneliness and elements grounded in realism, and I love the exploration-building gameplay loop. The daily journal-type screens were insanely effective at immersing me. Even without audio this game gave me the feels.
As others have already stated, once the content runs out you seem to end up with a huge stash of batteries, so your inevitable death is very, *very* delayed. So batteries could have been a lot more scarce, or the "winter" could ramp up more exponentially as you started to reach the end to kill you off more quickly. Maybe there could even be something weird you'd find on the far outskirts with a fully upgraded rover that would end the game for you, in an unknown-fate sort of way. Maybe there is and I just missed it!
Obviously this is a compo and you've stuffed so much content into it in 48 hours, but as others have said, even just a few beeps and boops for the menu and rover interactions would have gone a long way. But you obviously put those hours into the art, design, writing, and polish, and it sure does show.
I think the fact that it seems to making a lot of people thirst for more content (including me) is a sign of a fantastic idea and well-executed prototype. If a full version of this game ended up on Steam or on mobile, I would be there throwing money at it.
What can I say that other's haven't yet? This game is simply amazing. It really puts me into a scifi mood, I'd love to read a book on this or even play a full fledged game.
Artstyle is amazing, I love the oldschool vibe, love the old system font - feels very 286 times.
The movement in a hex grid is a bit iffy by keyboard, I must've wasted a good amount of turns just because of how it's difficult to map in your head. I would suggest using a mouse input instead.
Congrats on shipping something incredible!
Very good game, I'm fascinated how someone manages to execute so many elements in such a short time, story, art and game balance, it really deserves congratulations I really liked it, if you can give your feedback in my game I'll also be very happy, a big hug.
I've had a game idea similar to this in the back of my head for a while. It was awesome that you made this.
Wonderful game! Art is on point, you feel the dread of a cold death pretty much at any moment. Neat job! :v:
Yeah agree with everybody - its great
Only things that could be improved are:
- adding sounds and music
- moving the camera from on rover position to the next instead of jumping - its a bit draining on the eye after a while
but really i can only repeat what was allready said. it feels so really complete for a jam game! the upgrades and exploration make for a satisfying game loop. the graphics are great. i for one had no problem with the controls. It even was homorous at times without it feeling forced.
Obviously a top contender for overall victory this LD. Good Luck!
This was fantastic. Such great art and mechanics. I love the movement controls (as someone who loves a good rogue and grew up on civ2). Thanks for brining it by! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1447965941?t=02h26m11s Your style reminds me of these two jammers a bit: https://hyperlinkyourheart.itch.io/ https://liquidream.itch.io/
Very cool concept, with sound i think this would be a 10/10 game. Endgame could use some content but other than that, great job!
Looks incredible. Wonderful style, big fan.
Very nice pixel art!
This is pretty cool! It really takes me back to the amiga days. It takes a lot of those limitations not always good but I think this works really well for a jam game. Not much of cup of tea with all the reading and limited controls but its still appealing and feels unique in its own way.
I can't believe I had such a unique experience with this game!
First off, it really sucks to crash in a remote planet. What would I do? well, I try to find scraps and upgrade things! I don't know how to drive the rover in the hexagon space, I waste half of my day learning how to drive. Then, I find scraps and I upgrade things! I upgrade the rover, so I can explore more. A few days later, things look better. But the days go colder and colder. At some point I find an alien crystal. The crystal gives me hope! Maybe I can turn my rover into a spaceship? Heh, so naive! Of course I am going to die here, cold and alone. But why do I upgrade things? At some point I give up, and chose "rest" and "go to sleep". Another day goes by, and the next day is even colder. And, all the sudden, it hits me. Here in this planet, I realize that I upgrade things because I am human! It makes no sense, I know I'm going to die anyways ... but I rather die trying! I raise! I go back to upgrading and exploring, I embrace my human nature. A few days later, of course, I died. But I died with a smile.
Nice job Dave!
How hadn't I played this yet :O the whole style is just perfect and inspiring. Such a well made game, Id love to see where you could take this after ludum. Well done!
Very funny, but the lack of sound made it a little bit boring, and I wanted more upgrades! But as a gamejam, it's a very good game.
The graphics are fantastic but the lack of audio/music was kind of boring after a while. Exploring and upgrading were interesting for a while and the dairy entries are engaging and really funny.
Wow amazing entry! A fantastic use of theme/storytelling, especially with the little messages after each day. I really enjoyed the pixel art style, color palette and the UI design which all worked really well together. Definitely gave me some Chrono Trigger '2300 A.D.' vibes as well. As a music/sound guy I would have loved to hear some audio to help set the moood (if you're ever in need of that sort of thing let me know). Great work!
Great game. Deserves more time so added to my collection on itch. Hoping for a post build with Audio!
Cool game, I wish there was something else to do after I did all my upgrades. Could be a nice start for a full-blown game!
Great graphics. The idea usage is very cleaver and the atmosphere of this game is awesome. Congrats, this game is really a work to be proud of.
A lot of content packed into that entry, the blocky movement is not really my style but I think the idea and the execution are really good, well done!
Great graphics and concept! Only wish there was more to play!
Wow, this was incredible. I got all the upgrades and tried exploring as far as I could go in each direction but figured that was the end. I'd love to see what comes next! Very very nice work.
This was good!
I think other people mentioned that there's not much to do after you've upgraded everything, and this is true. Obviously it works with the "Delaying the inevitable" theme, but it is disappointing because the rest of the game is quite engaging and it's a pity there's not more. But I suppose that's just how things are with tight deadlines like ludum dare.
Day 28, I feel like I'm pretty much done here. I was half hoping that there would be some signs of alien life, ancient civilizations or signals from home out there for me to discover. Some way to further improve the hab or rover, or a way back home. With those, some music + sfx and better rover controls (I'd suggest mouse click + pathfinding) I could get used to this.
WOW what a game. This is very well done and very polished. Had to knock off a point for fun because at some point it got repetitive. But the mood is perfect (Even without the audio). Under normal circumstances, no audio would've knocked points for that, but this is totally an exception. Theme definitely fit. I was actually waiting to be rescued and I verbally asked myself "I wonder when I'll be resc-... oh..." it hit me and honestly felt very sad. Wonderful work. Pixel art is beautiful. Really felt like an old pc game experience. image_2022-04-08_230928.png
@pious Wow! That is absolutely the record (I've seen) for the longest streak alive in Cold and Alone! I am so inspired to see this screenshot, you really played well right up to the end. 1020 battery capacity!? Incredible. 80 days? I hear you can travel around the entire world in a hot air balloon in that amount of time!
Honestly this is the first time I've seen that much red temperature on the screen at once.
I never imagined this game would receive as much love as it did or resonate with people as much as it has. I'm truly humbled.
Really cool game! I wish the difficultly ramped up just a little bit. I ran out of stuff to do after a couple of in-game weeks, and by day 30 I seem to have enough batteries to draw the game out for a long time. I think the ramp up of cold could be more aggressive so that by the time you get all of the upgrades, you're still feeling on the verge of death. Really impressive submission!
That was a really nice experience. Loved the storytelling and the mood.
I'm not sure about the difficulty curve, it feels really hard at the beginning, and once you have the hab improvement it is suddently easy but somewhat annoying to deal with the rover upgrades. Once we have upgraded everything, it's easy to roam pretty far on the planet, but ressources has become useless. And then the game become hard again, you have to struggle to find batteries. I'm pretty sure this could be more balanced, with and increasing difficulty, but hey, it's a *compo* game, and you did something quite awesome here.
Some kind of music and/or sound FX could have added something to the game. Since there is none, you probably should opt-out of the audio category.
Overall, you made an awesome game, and I've enjoynd my time on Klaxxon-13.
Great work! This is potential commercial game! Congratulations!
47 days and 22 hours. Such a great experience!! I had to sleep until I died just to see the ending. Could have been slightly more difficult towards the end. The art is beautiful and the UI looks great. Really everything is perfect! Some sounds would have been great, even if just for moving around in the menus.
As the others have already said a lot of good things i very much agree with, I will keep my comment relatively short:
Pro: Awesome game, great graphics, great story, and very much fitting the theme.
Potentials for improvements: Music/Soundeffects, Controls (I missed going left and right, maybe just control with the numpad 1-9?), Endgame after the last upgrades (e.g. something more you can discover with x crystals?)
Overall: If you extend this into a full game, I would be interested! :smiley:
Really liked the depth of the tech-tree! One moment I felt was great is after a few upgrades you suddenly get to these crystals and take a sample with you. Really makes one think what else there is still yet to explore out there! Amazing work!
Very interesting concept, really like this one! :smile: I kinda felt like there was less scrap to be found, quickly run out of resources and the distance of rover wasn't much, but that may've been just me. I also liked that crystal interaction, where I had to study it in the base. Really great game, I can see this as a post LD gamefor sure! :smile: Great job!
One of the best entry I tested so far. I would gladlt play a more complete version of that game, I just love what you did there - I just want more of it :D GG!
Amazing game! The art style is super cool and in-game mechanics as well as the idea behind the game are superb. The cool could get worst faster, because there was not much to do after day 30. Anyway, awesome job with the game!
Really cool game. Super cohesive art style. Impressed you were able to do some much in 3 days.
Great art! The ground tiles are so good! Like the little story blurbs and the upgrades too. Got all the upgrades before I quit. Well done!
@frizuo Thank you for the kind words. I agree music would be nice, sadly this one was really down to the wire so I ran out of time. Most likely I'll try a less ambitious title next time and create the audio right from the beginning.
@ty1rl Thank you! I'm very happy the art worked out.
@billnotic I'm so glad the core game loop worked out and you enjoyed it. The humorous quips were the easiest thing to add, a trick I'll probably throw into a lot more games. As for the control scheme I get it, many people had trouble. The map was made of hexagons which wasn't obvious because I didn't draw the edges of the hexes so there was no way to tell and having 6 directions mapped to the keyboard is awkward for sure! So many had this trouble, learning the issue with the control scheme is my #1 learning from this game. Next map traversing game I'll ditch the hexes or figure out something different.
@benbennett I'm glad the movement finally clicked with you, for many players it never did! As for the point of the game being that you eventually die well, yes that is correct, but I was hoping to add more combat and balance/challenge so it would be very hard to upgrade 100% of everything and nobody was killing time at the end. Alas it's a 2 day video game so this is all I could make, but I'm very proud of it and happy you like it. As for the rover tilt and audio I 100% agree that would add a lot to the game!
@jgur Thank you!
@widdershin Oh man I love Into The Breach and saying my art is reminiscent of the work of David Ma is a really high praise indeed! Thank you so much. I completely agree the endgame is lackluster. Sadly I had the game pretty well balanced but way too short right up until the last hour. Then I added crystals (which were originally going to be fungus but I couldn't figure out how to draw fungus so... crystals!) and the highly OP insulation made the game last twice as long without twice the content. That's too bad but I'm very excited to learn you were engaged enough to play all the way to 200+ batteries. Well done!
@sirjupitron Aww, Alpha Centauri has so many great memories. Thank you for the kind words and the comparison.
@oadt I'm glad you found it well-balanced, and thank you. I planned to make a crashed ship (in fact the batteries and scrap were supposed to be parts of a broken ship) but I ran out if time. I also planned for building solar panels to recharge the batteries and a day/night cycle that controls when they would actually work. Ambition!
@foxwater Thank you for such kind words! Yes I would love to add music and sound effects, next time I'll add that to the project earlier. As for the quotes they were so simple to add and such a big hit. I suspect they will appear in more games of mine.
@castitatis Thank you so much!
@jefvel Thank you, I'm glad you liked the mood and exploration! Battery hoarding is a very real problem. Sleeping through the second act of the game really is an indication that the game could use better balancing. Sadly I didn't budget enough time for balancing, too much ambition I guess. Maybe next time :)
@claytonrumley Thank you so much!
@jess-from-online I'm so glad 14 people have :heart:ed your post, it's really such a wonderful and in-depth write-up. I'm still so amazed you created a map! I've been on the fence about whether to continue this project and this post is the #1 temptation to continue. I've decided not to, I have another larger indie game I'm working on that really needs to get finished, but thank you taking the time to share your thoughts about the game. You are correct about the game eating the messages sometimes. I buried the worst of the text engine bugs but yes, there were quite a few. As for the user interface I'm very glad you liked it. Designing a temperature representation was very tricky but I like how it looked.
@coderaurus Thank you! I'm pretty happy with how the graphics turned out, I'm glad you like them. 100% agree about the amount of batteries, one more day of play balance would really help a lot.
@circle Honestly I'm surprised the art is as popular as it is. I mean, I'm happy with it, it's just a very small amount of the time I spent on the project so maybe I got really lucky there. As for the theme yes, the entire game was 100% theme driven. I was, right before the theme was announced, expecting to create an RPG honestly. I haven't tried to build one of those in forever so I really hoped the theme was very RPG-friendly, maybe a hex crawl with lots of wandering monsters. Lol. I guess that's not what happened! Yeah, making this game on the Delay the Inevitable theme was super fun.
@pvg Ha! It takes one hour to get home, just really hard to notice. Seriously though I couldn't figure out how to properly limit the rover range other than this. I considered giving it a number of steps of fuel which would have been a bit clearer to watch, but then what happens when it's really late at night? Does the character sleep in the rover (I considered this)? Or does the player get to do more stuff in the Hab in the evening? It all felt messy to me so I did it this way for simplicity, but I agree it doesn't really make a lot of sense as-is. My head canon (which I guess I could probably declare as *actual* canon) is that the player goes to sleep and autopilot takes him home.
@szym If I do update this game, which I'm not currently thinking I will, your suggestions are 100% spot-on. More resources, more Hab buildable things, soundtrack, controller support and definitely no minimal. Good game design instinct you picked up on that, it's much better without one. Stress and urgency can be really tricky, I'm very glad you felt it worked out and thank you for the kind words in the review.
@robowarrior1982 You're right! No sound in space! Tell **that** to all those people that gave me the 1.911 average rating in audio! Seriously though, this number means some people gave me 2 stars for audio? Or maybe 3 stars? Who would give a game with literally no sound such a high score for sound? I'm completely baffled, I was predicting a solid 0.5-0.75 stars. Oh well! As for deactivating the category, you're right I should have done that.
@scalphamission It was fun watching you stream my game, thank you for checking it out!
@tengusheath Thank you so much! The depth surprised me as well, but those pieces worked together I guess.
@garazbolg2 I'm so glad you like the story and jokes, I was a little bit worried the jokes would be cringe but no it seems to work out so yay. Making it 56 days is very impressive, quite a long run. You're absolutely connect the content needs to be doubled or the number of batteries halved. As for crafting the batteries that's a really interesting idea. I was planning to add solar panels which recharge the batteries but ran out of time. Also thank you for your interest in it as a full game, very nice to hear.
@nethead Thank you so much! Next time I build a map exploration game I plan to have a lot more to explore.
@recursor Thank you! I like those games too.
@iguanana I packed the content and systems in until the veeeery last minute. This was despite hoping to make a game in 6 hours and spend the rest of the 2 days adding content and polish. Lol! Maybe next time.
@orionhart I love that we are all reviewing each other's games. I didn't enter this competition to win it, I got into it for the practice, the challenge, and the feedback. Hearing so many people tell me they would like to see the controls, content, end game, etc adjusted was really good for my skill development as a game dev, hopefully you had a similar experience.
Really interesting game! I included it in my Ludum Dare compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://youtu.be/e8i89EcGrVo