FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD50 → Ground From Under Feet

Ground From Under Feet

By wild-fat

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall9493.3228
Fun7313.3428
Innovation7323.2628
Theme10613.3028
Graphics9193.3627
Humor9872.4120
Mood12582.7226

Comments

klumaster 2022-04-07 19:26

I like the style on the dash mechanic

wild-fat 2022-04-09 01:34

@klumaster Thanks for your feedback!) Really sorry, you had to suffer so raw prototype of my idea :) I just updated the game. Will appreciate if you take another try!

olsie 2022-04-09 11:23

I really love the style. It gives me some fury Vibes, especially with the satisfying dash and everything! Its really nice.

wild-fat 2022-04-09 12:25

@olsie Thanks for feedback! :)

meta-link 2022-04-09 12:51

Cool game ! The platforms falling down is a good mechanic, and the fight are interesting but it's maybe a little bit too hard for a gamejam game.

Good job :slight_smile:

sagiii 2022-04-09 14:37

Hello! I liked to crush enemies with my hammer.

What I've noted:

- The hammer could be more impressive, size, effects... - You are delaying nothing on the game - You can do nothing more than waiting for the last platform to fall

The idea is great but it needs adjustements.

wild-fat 2022-04-09 15:16

@sagiii Hey! Thanks for detailed feedback!

Yes, the hammer is absolutelly raw designed, with almost no effects, so good suggetion to improve it at first, agree)

The idea is to produce actions, which delay platforms falling, to have bigger available battle arena space for maneuvering opportunities, but falling of the platforms is inevitable :)

And I agree there is a broblem with if you stayed alive for long enough, you're really nothing to do, except of staying at the last platform and endless shoot to it)

jasper-hansen 2022-04-09 17:08

The game looks and feels really nice and there's a cool element of balancing your focus between the enemies and stabilizing platforms.

having a ranged and melee weapon that perform different tasks works well i think, but switching between them wasn't very intuitive to me, ideally if you're going to use the mouse wheel you should make it so either way you spin the wheel will toggle your current weapon to the other, because paying attention to which direction you have to spin it is an unnecessary complication when you're trying to focus on playing the game. I also don't think it's necessary to have the player switch between them, you could have the hammer mapped to lmb and the gun mapped to rmb so they're both equipped at the same time & that would make it a little easier to focus on the action.

Having so many platforms to target across such a large play area also felt overwhelming to me at the start of the game, i think specifically there was so much going on outside what the camera is showing the player and you could have made do with a smaller play area or made the platforms falling less of an immediate threat so I have time to notice a falling platform and make my way over there before it's already fallen

you did a good job with gameplay feel and feedback and I think the basic gameplay premise is well realized, all in all i had fun playing this game

wild-fat 2022-04-09 20:05

@jesper-hansen Thank you for so detailed feedback!

I agree, that weapon switching should be produced independently of which direction of mouse wheeling. I had a suggestion about it at first steps of idea implementing, but apparently got used to it while development time and didn't get enough meaning to this.

The idea to get equipped both weapons at a time sounds interesting! I should play with it, maybe it's really the thing!

I also had feeling that platforms quantity is too big, but in first iteration there were 3 circles of them :), so I have reduced it to 2.

Also had doubts about restricted camera view, I hoped the "minmap" would be helpful to detect current falling platform, but unfortunately, it doesn't produce its purpose in full meaning with current platforms quantity and timing balance.

nikl 2022-04-09 20:11

It was fun playing the game, but it would be nice to have less platforms. One I let a few fall it got a lot easier to stand my ground and keep multiple platforms up. I like the hammer. It was fun to try and smash as many monsters with one hit as possible.

At some point the cooling gun only shot very slow for me. Not sure if that was intended.

arihan10 2022-04-09 21:26

It can be a bit confusing at first due to the lack of a tutorial (and the description being really, really vague), but once I got the hang of it I had a lot of fun! The hyperjump feels pretty satisfying, although perhaps there should be a bit of visual feedback for when the cooldown mechanic actually "cools down" a platform. Overall though, it's a pretty cool game for something made in 72 hours, so good job!

dob 2022-04-09 21:49

I had no idea what to do and died 18 seconds in about seven times. I needed a tutorial, or controls, or something. I lost platforms before it even started, and when I went to one of the red globes, nothing I did affected it. I beat up some robots one time, but I lost four platforms while doing so. Just seemed way, way too hard and too confusing. I did like the visuals - very cool animations and artwork, and the idea was a good match for the contest theme.

wild-fat 2022-04-09 22:06

@niki Thanks for feedback! Indeed the platforms quantity and falling timer have to be further balanced - decrease platforms or to prolongue timer. I suppose you just got out of energy) the gun consumes it to shoot

wild-fat 2022-04-09 22:18

@arihan10 Thanks for feedback! I agree, tutorial would be useful, but I'm glad that you figured out how to play without it) Yes, some sounds/VFX for additional feedback and increasing satisfying effect when platform cools down is a great idea!

wild-fat 2022-04-09 22:26

@dob Thanks for feedback! Ah, I'm sorry that you haven't got full experience of playing, my mistake. I had to mention about switching weapons by mouse wheel. This way you can choose range weapon which projectiles will affect the globes and cool down them to delay the platform falling. Would be appreciated if you take another try with this knowledge)

mpk90 2022-04-10 11:47

Cool gameplay mechanics and I like the hammer. I was frustrated in the first two rounds because I didn't know how to change weapons. I feel like you don't have time for the bots when you want to cool down as much as possible. Nice implementation from the LD theme.

zimny11 2022-04-10 12:03

Really cool idea for a game and well executed too! I love the graphic of player character and robots! Nice sound effect too. Only thing missing is some hype music :) I was wondering what will stop me from defending just one-two orbs. But then I run out of "stamina" :P I would appreciate if it was possible to close the game with Escape button on Windows instead of using ALT=+F4. I made it till 1:35. Anyway, great job!

radmccool 2022-04-10 14:50

i really like this design but think you could replace the hammer with another gun. i found it difficult to keep more than two platforms up and even that became too difficult so i basically just ended up defending one and ignoring the rest of the level. though thats probably just a balancing issue due to short development time. overall i think this is a solid foundation for what could be a fun twin stick shooter

caudatecoder 2022-04-11 07:54

Cool idea, nicely done controls, movement and skills! All make for an enjoyable gameplay loop.

Changing weapons with mouse felt a bit weird -- the game did not react immediately or sometimes not at all (maybe the problem is with direction and the list of weapons is not endlessly scrollable)

Nice job for a solo entry in a jam anyway!

Thanks for coming to my stream! Here's a recording in case you'd like to refer to it https://youtu.be/hPPKMGZGGDs

mateusboga 2022-04-11 14:57

Nice game! Thanks for submitting :) Here's the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1452837877

proxy-games 2022-04-11 17:40

I enjoyed this one! The hammer and the gun both are very satisfying weapons to use against enemies for very different reasons-(being able to use the gun as just a knockback thing to fling enemies off platforms was very amusing). The superjump is fun to use, and the gameplay loop overall is satisfying to go through. The gameplay does suffer in the sense that there simply isn't much incentive to keep anything more than 1 or 2 platforms up, as having more than that just causes the player to get stretched thin between all the forces without any benefits. Also, when it comes down to just 1 platform, the game just isn't a challenge anymore due to how easy it is to overwhelm enemies. Moving on from gameplay, the audio is functional and helps fill the world with some more life, though it doesn't particularly standout. The graphics are also functional-they look decent, and they don't get in the way of the gameplay. Overall, I played this longer than expected and managed to save 63 platforms.

wild-fat 2022-04-11 23:29

@mpk90 @zimny11 @radmccool @caudatecoder @mateusboga Thanks for your attention to my game, guys! I'm happy you enjoyed your playing!

wild-fat 2022-04-11 23:52

@proxy-games Thanks for detailed feedback! It's satisfying to read that you played it longer than expected) I appreciate this)

I agree about the lack of sense to support arena space. And your notion made me think deeper about how to make it playable. Definitely there should be another element which will encourage the player to save the playing space, because of the necessity to maneuver. I already have a couple of ideas on how to fix it without spending much time. I hope I can implement these quickly to demonstrate :)

javasaurus 2022-04-12 18:00

This is a really nice game, very well put together and challenging as HECK... I could barely last for over a minute. The only thing missing was some extra "oompf" in terms of maybe a background music? Other than that, really enjoyed it, thank you for submitting !

mvasko2 2022-04-12 19:16

This is a pretty fun game :slight_smile:

I agree with the other commenters that this game is a bit too hard, to the point of being frustrating. Either the time between the platforms starting to collapse and the actual collapsing is too short, or the collapses are happening too frequently (probably both at the same time).

I would also like to scroll either way to switch weapons, it's hard to remember which way to go in the middle of an action.

Also, I think maybe the hammer should be able to cool down the platforms as well, not just the gun. At least it seemed a bit counter-intuitive to me at first that the gun could do it, but the hammer could not.

Plus, some music would also help a lot. And a leaderboard, I think it tends to do wonders in these kinds of games.

Anyway, good job overall :slight_smile:

kaldrin 2022-04-15 19:49

Interesting idea, the concept of corruption and survival at the same time. It feels completed and works well, and kudos for the dash fx it's pretty cool It's so easy to die falling from a platform or on a falling platform though It feels a little weird that I can only change weapon in one direction of the scroll wheel and this direction changes depending on the weapon I have

The assets looked pretty bland except the robots maybe, not great graphically but it's ok. The sound of the blaster is kinda annoying too x)

Still nice job making a game that works and completing it, it's pretty nice, but I feel like the game design could use some more work to make the system more interesting and more juicy, the physicals felt slow too even with the dash.

Screenshot_1.jpg

4ahizon 2022-04-16 23:09

I enjoyed the challenge of the game. Users switching from guns to melee weapon with strategy involved was clever. Allocating additional ammo from killing off the creatures. As a whole it seems like it would be part of larger game. It seems like a good proof of concept for a boss battle. Good work

wild-fat 2022-04-18 14:09

@javasaurus Thanks for playing! Yeah, I agree that a lack of music background makes the experience less immersive, but unfortunately I'm not a musician guy at all. Good reason to start studying this)

wild-fat 2022-04-18 14:15

@mvasko2 Thank you for playing! Good point about confusing with no response of attacking the stabilizer with a hammer, I'll think how to resolve this. At least it should be a clear reason why you cannot restore platforms with this weapon. Thanks!

wild-fat 2022-04-18 14:22

@kaldrin Thanks for feedback! Glad to see you got such a playing result, not bad! Yeah, for sure, gamedesign have to be deeper designed, I'm currently working on it, hope I could finish it before jam ends >_<

wild-fat 2022-04-18 14:26

@4ahizon Thanks for playing! I'm happy, you enjoyed the playing experience! I'm currently working on improving game loop, and as you mentioned, it's really looks like a boss fight arena now :)

mordsven 2022-04-20 17:33

Cool game honestly, i really like the gameplay and the way you smash enemies is just fun overall !

Though the lack of an in-game BGM kinda ruins the experience, but honestly, it didn't really hold back my enjoyment of the game :p

ShareX_voFxm9V1og.png

ismael-rodriguez 2022-04-21 03:39

Very cool idea. First off the visual effect on the dash is very cool, and it feels fun to zip around! I did that for a good 2 minutes before actually trying to play. I think a little "on-boarding" moment would be nice, just make sure the player understands all the buttons before the platforms start falling and such. Great job overall!