Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → A Drag on Chaos
By pkenney
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 104 | 3.81 | 34 | |
| Fun | 235 | 3.51 | 34 | |
| Innovation | 61 | 3.98 | 34 | |
| Theme | 465 | 3.25 | 34 | |
| Graphics | 254 | 3.57 | 34 | |
| Audio | 35 | 4.00 | 34 | |
| Humor | 462 | 1.93 | 26 | |
| Mood | 59 | 3.87 | 33 |
This is excellent. The rebound of the control when it strikes the pendulums is very tactile. Drawing out the paths of the pendulums is an excellent touch, as it's always a mesmerizing thing to watch. The adaptive nature of the music and visuals as things begin happening is fantastic. It all feels incredibly polished for something that started in a different place.
Very pleasant. I played with it for a bit, but couldn't really figure out how to make it do what I wanted it to do. Looks and feels very nice though. gj
I like the take on the theme with this one, it's unfortunate the Unity bug probably made it a bit more difficult to play than you had intended but it does match the slow inevitable end haha.
Still despite that I really enjoyed this. It was a nice chill game to play after such a busy weekend. The music was top notch and matching it to the action of the pendulum made it that much better.
It took me a while to finish all 3 challenges, the big loop was the hardest but after that the **Spoilers Ahead** Bonus Momentum mode was a cool touch afterwards. I was able to get it to big loop like 6 times in a row after that.
As always I enjoy what you end up making :). great job!
Really fun to play around with the the double pendulum! Sorry you ran into issues with Unity's physics, but I think the end result is pretty neat.
This is the best-feeling mouse-to-physics interaction I've ever seen! Very nice polish. Surprisingly difficult despite the simple goals. Love the adaptive music and colors. Way more than meets the eye at first in the best way possible!
This is really cool. The aesthetic is highly pleasing. It causes me no end of sorrow to learn that chaotic systems don't work in Unity. Unfortunately, I didn't find the objectives as intuitive as you seem to have intended, and after a few minutes I just wasn't sure what was going on, and I was disappointed with how little chaos the system was generating, which wasn't your fault. I'll add that the dynamic music is awesome. Good job.
Very chill game, the simplicity of it goes a long way. I had a lot of fun bouncing the pendulum around, but trying to achieve any of the goals seemed rather impossible. Maybe there are strategies that I was unable to find, but influencing the pendulum seemed to kill it’s energy as often as increase it. When the cursor impacted the pendulum the collision felt perfect, but I found the drag on the cursor made it quite difficult to hit it exactly when I wanted to. I loved how the energy of the music picked up when I was able to get a serious amount of momentum into the system, that along with the subtle color changing of the lines kept me trying for a long time. An excellent, well polished, game jam entry. Well done!
My typical reaction to your other physics game are a lot of tension and breath-holding. But this is your first game I've played that didn't have a loss condition. It was more an implicit failure from loss of momentum rather than something the game dictated to you.
I thought this has some really interesting consequences. My reaction to this game was more of my eyes just drying out from intense focus lol. There is effectively no downtime because you are constantly attacking the pendulum whether you hit or miss trying to conserve the momentum.
So even though I didn't feel *tension* itself, I was still fully engaged, if not MORE engaged due to having a pretty singular goal of gaining speed.
I actually never did get all 3 secrets, just the center one and big air. The secret goals were a really nice touch and inspires me to try something like this where I create an interesting toy first and foremost, and then give some hidden goals for people to find, rather than explicit ones. I feel like that leans into the exploration feeling you want to give to people along with a toy so that they are encouraged to creatively probe the game.
The fact that this is a physics game helps a lot with this approach. There are other hidden objective games like Achievement Unlocked. But in these sorts of games you're kinda just playing against the designer. Trying to get in their head and guessing at their secrets. For Drag on Chaos, you know that all the secrets lie behind mastering the physics, both in the pendulum and the lazy cursor.
So ultimately I think that's what I really like about this game. There are a lot of implicit rules that are built right into the core of the game and you stick to it. All those rules cascade into a system that really keeps the player engaged and wanting to master this simple looking toy. The extra feedback of the trails + increasing music definitely adds to this feeling.
Lemme grab some eyedrops..
This.. is an intriguing game entry I have ever seen in this LD50. It starts so simply with the two pendulums moving around, and I was a little frustrated that I thought, "this is it." But then, after I realized the joy of making them move, my intention was suddenly aligned with the hidden challenge in this game: To do something tricky. That's how the game's challenge is structured, and that's how I was surprised. Nice Job!
This was a really well done audio/visual experience. The addition of achievements was just what it needed to make it a puzzle and a challenge. But the cherry on top is the way the physics influenced the music. I stopped trying to get achievements and made it my goal to trigger that sweet sexy synth riff.
Whoa I'm usually not one for physics games but this was really vibing. Played it for waaaay long than I was expecting. Still, I only managed 2/3 hahaha. I have no idea how you pulled off that mouse cursor bouncing off the wall so naturally. Visuals, feeling, everything grand.
I managed to get double center and nothing else, but I had a blast doing it. The friction on the cursor made this a bit of a workout compared to many other games, and I often found my mouse pad drifting! This is such a simple game, but it has just that right feel for what it's doing. I'm glad you got music done this time around, and it was great! I enjoyed all of the audio, but the music, I think, made it a deeper experience. Great job!
I managed to get the double center. Fooled around with it a bit, but I got annoyed by my inability to control the mouse as I wanted :) (this might be a lot more interesting / controllable on a touch device)
I love the minimalistic artstyle and the overall simplicity. Good decision on using the Shapes package, and well done ambient music!
Interesting concept and game. Good potential for a mobile game :smiley:
Addicting, annoying, infuriating and relaxing at the same time! I love game jams for entries like this one! This is a great one :D
really cool concept, the feeling is great and i love the littles feedback in it. this is a really different take from the other entry i played i like it great job!
Very cool game, Love the music and how it kicks up when you start to get more Chaos! The laid back feel was very welcome and its great that it fits the theme. Solid work man.
Ok most things have already been said. But the thing that drives my CRAZY is the mouse acceleration... I think i would spend a lot more time hunting every last achievement if it would just use my raw mouse input.
But the idea is cool and a very unique interpretation of the theme.
I really really like the idea. But the slow cursor just make the game feel unresponsive and frustrating, especially when the system become chaotic and precision is needed. I would like to try it with normal mouse settings.
I was only able to achieve Double Center and I think I must have sunk half an hour in your game. I liked how unconvential it was and how it started as a simple physics demo until I realized that there are numbers that appear in certain situations, which awoke my curiosity and made me want to figure out where this was going. By the time I had the first achievement I was hooked and wanted to get all of them.
Unfortunately I really had some trouble with the mouse, which caused me a lot of the hits I had aimed for. I have never really tried making a physics based game, so I am fairly ignorant about the difficulties in giving objects a proper weight, so I would assume that a more responsive mouse would have created too much of an impact on the pendulum which would have made the game much too easy, but if I had to change one thing in this game it would be the mouse speed.
The music was very fitting and I was impressed how much of it there was. Minimalist music for minimalist visuals are a great fit. It got me into a relaxed mood.
Speaking of which, the atmosphere was very smooth. The simple shapes and meditative music made this a very soothing experience.
This game really looks nice and Idea is truly awesome. Love the colors and the music. The mouse smoothing is a bit a weird, but otherwise I loved every minute of it. GJ
I was able to complete 2/3 of the challenges.
I think the number indicators are overall a pretty good idea, as they indicate that there is a challenge very nearby to the current state. However, I find that sometimes they seem to obscure the challenge. In particular, the center indicator seems to always count down, which is confusing as from what I can tell the actual condition is having the pendulum near the center for a long enough time. Perhaps the problem is that it disappears quickly enough that it always seems like it counts down to zero? I'm not sure.
Like others, I had significant trouble with the mouse. It felt kind of laggy, and I honestly wasn't sure if the game was actually experiencing lag or if that was just the intended physics. So I definitely think snappier controls would be better with the mouse.
The dynamic music is extremely fun. It really does make me want to keep playing just to keep the music going, which is great. This gameplay is like, the definition of intrinsic motivation, and I think it really works to hook the player. The lack of a specific loss condition is also probably important for that. In any case, it is really good.
Wow! I like the graphics, and the sound design is reaaaally polished. Good job!
Nice job! Good use of the Freya library, and the music is really chill.
The first time I tried playing this, I actually ended up making my wrist sore trying to overcome the damping of the mouse movement speed, lol. Still, I thought it'd be worth it to give it another shot, and I cleared all the challenges. The one where you have to get the pendulum high up off the top of the screen is probably the hardest. I had on two occasions gotten it to read as 19.9 and even once 20.0 without completing it. So close! Eventually, though, I eased up and began to really enjoy the game as a relaxing diversion. The music certainly helps for this. Nice work.