senso 2022-04-04 08:44
Missing some good music to make it a great game. Like the game concept allot well done.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → Belecint
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 169 | 3.68 | 37 | |
| Fun | 161 | 3.65 | 37 | |
| Innovation | 76 | 3.91 | 37 | |
| Theme | 150 | 3.94 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 331 | 3.37 | 37 | |
| Audio | 246 | 3.34 | 37 | |
| Mood | 411 | 3.00 | 36 |
Missing some good music to make it a great game. Like the game concept allot well done.
A fun little game. The sound works really well with this game, and almost starts to feel like you're making a song (especially when the segments "split") Good take on the theme and well executed - nice one!
This is a pretty cool game, nice use of audio which is rare to see for LD compo entries.
The concept feels original and you executed on it well. The biggest issue I found is that it's viable to just spam clicks around, which makes it a lot less fun, but often feels optimal.
It could be good to have a small cooldown for each section if you click too early? That way spam clicking would be punished.
Anyway, great work!
Cool gameplay. It's addictive. :thumbsup:
@byazzle Part of the inspiration for this was the the script I found to generate music stopped working on a computer move. Didn't realize until I was already luduming, and instead of spending a few hours fixing it I spent even more time studying up on a bit of music theory. Found a few scales to use, plopped them in and then had the code walk up and down them randomly. Replaced the shattering sound for a breaking arc with a dyad or chord that shared the last note played. Generative music is one of those random things I've always wanted to do something with. While this doesn't produce good music it does create something that could be considered music adjacent, which is good enough for now.
@widdershin I'm not a fan of the cooldown idea, but I do agree that making sure the players actions are deliberate is better. Part of the fun is near the end of the game when there's lots of pieces coming down and seeing what sounds are created, at first glance the cooldown seems to work against this which is why I would be hesitant to try it. There could be other ways to do it though, possibly reducing the score by 1 when the player clicks and it doesn't register a hit (along with a discordant sound, like a missed note in Rock Band), shrinking the allowed clickable range for a short period of time, or making it so you have to click out near the edges instead of anywhere.
One thing that would help that I didn't get time to implement was better spreading out the timing when the arcs would be in range for a hit. The cooldown would be a more feasible option if that was in there as it could take that into account. Also ways to increase the difficulty without creating new arcs would help. Stuff like spinning the field, cycling colors, or some other such things.
@senso @mixon00 Thanks for playing and glad it was enjoyable.
I enjoyed the simplicity of this. It feels like a game that knows what it is!
Thanks!
i got a cramp on my finger lol. The audio is SO friggin satisfying. I love how you made the bars play a scale, so when they separate, they give off a nice harmony. I thought that was well thought out.
Wow, concept is great, really liked the notes that were playing each time you bounce the wave back. I missed some music with it to make it great. Good job :) PS.: On 153 points things were quite hard to properly point and click ;)
Great job using Emscripten! The graphics are well done too :) with enough polish, the concept could make for a lovely blend of bullet hell and rhythm game design elements!
This is pretty interesting for me, I mean, even though it is really simple I can play this whole day)
Very simple but very fun concept! Never played anything quite like it and I think if you decide to expand on this a bit you'd have a really addicting game, awesome job!
This was intense! Got to 113 and I felt superhuman. Really awesome and addictive concept! I hadn’t felt so into a little game like this since Super Hexagon!
@darandin Thanks. Always found focusing on a single mechanic helps a lot.
@benjijump Glad I could cause you finger pain. This experiment will definitely change how I do audio in the future.
@gummibot Thanks for the feedback. One of the reasons I avoided using music was because I had briefly tried getting music synced up with the bounce sounds but it didn't work very well. Definitely going to try to get it working, probably with a tracker file instead so I have more control over the timing. Although I recently tried it with a nice rain loop in the background and even that helped break up the silence.
@pierce-brooks Emscripten is awesome. Debugging can be a bit of a hassle though. Hadn't considered the bullet hell similarities, but you're right. Thanks for the insight.
@sophie-s Thanks, glad you got so much enjoyment out of such a simple mechanic.
@foxwater I have been looking at ways to expand it. Besides just ways to make the game harder in different ways getting a nice guitar in there instead of the beeps sounds really nice.
@vaincil That's very high praise. Love Super Hexagon and it was in the back of mind while making this.
I felt like I was making music with the beeping noises, very nice. I think the only thing that I'd change, if at all, would be the edges of the inner circle? The edges fade out in a gradient way and it's hard to tell when the red lines are on it or not, I ended up spam clicking at some points because it looked like it was inside but wasn't.
The sounds were so satisfying though, it's definitely something I'd casually play often if it was on my phone.
Very cool concept, a really novel idea. Got to 108.
* Given the theme, this isn't a critique for the jam. But sometimes all the wedges would sync up and converge at once and I simply couldn't click them all in time. Spreading that out would go a long way to help the game feel.
* Having each wedge enter the circle on a beat could be a cool way to make the "music" less discordant.
Great entry though. I feel like this has potential to be a really solid rythym game if you continue with it.
Enjoyable, smart. I've got to 104 and not gonna try one more time to beat it, at the end it got pretty stressful :)
I like the possible musical dimension of your game and would continue in that direction even further - layering notes on top of some abstract ambient track may be a good mood setter. And delay. The individual notes definitely need a delay effect!
@payaosito I had been worried about the gradient a bit. Also the inner edge of the arc just needs to be inside the inner circle for it to register a hit, not directly on the circle, which is why I left it the way it was.
@martink Thanks for the feedback. For spreading out the timing, that is something I had tried to get working. Wasn't able to get it working as well as I wanted though. The player also has some control over this as how close an arc is before they click can change the timing. A strategy I found for dealing with two arcs that are too close together is to hit one right near the edge and let the other almost get to the center. If you keep doing that they'll separate. The wedges actually do enter the circle on a beat, and the input is set such that you click on something it'll delay it until the next half-beat to actually perform the bounce and the sound playing. Having it on a full beat makes it sound better, but the input feels broken since there can be at worst around a 400 ms delay between input and action. I think also having a better algorithm for choosing notes to play would help a lot.
@onnofal Glad you enjoyed it. There isn't an actual end, it just keeps going until there's too much to deal with. Getting some sort of background track in is something that should have been in the originally, but wasn't able to make anything that worked well within the time limit.
interesting ditty, simple and complete. i like the palette and scale options. i got 123.
Unique concept, deceptively difficult. I enjoyed this. Solid entry :)
Like others, I felt this could work well as a rhythm game. Might be too difficult for the 48h scope, but would be cool.
Some feedback: I think I was hitting the wedges too early at some points because of the gradient graphic. I wonder if it would work better as a simple circle (you can hit this vs. you cannot hit this) rather than a gradient. Though it may just be a design choice to keep it slightly ambiguous.
A interesting and fun little game idea, and I did have fun playing it. The visuals is okay, but could have been more interesting. The game could also have used a bit more sound effects. Overall it's a pretty good and fun jam game. Well done.
Simple, efficient, unique, really good job.
A very cool game, very simple concept that is perfectly executed. The first time I was playing it I was wondering if, as the tempo got faster and faster, I would end up making a song out of the notes, something with a noticeable repeating melody. I don’t think that was happening, but by the end I was frantically focusing enough on keeping the circle out that I would not have noticed. I like the touch of having different color palettes and scale options, having any variety is appreciated and impressive in 48 hours. Overall, I thought this was a fun and well polished game. Well done!
A really fun game! A lot of info is conveyed without tutorial text; love how the width of the pie slice indicates its speed. Love the additonal color palettes. I wonder if the gradient circle is the best way to signal the clickable area. But it's nothing some more polished graphics could not fix! Feels like this would scale incredibly well into a full game! Good job.
Score 122, was fun! The sounds it made in the end was exactly how I play piano: Just random notes in random time spans.
Might just be my pc but I felt a delay when trying to click as the segments entered fun town. I lost so many times because it wasn't responding to my input. Same thing for wasm and windows build. Seems like it could get fun and challenging though and I actually wanted to try to get a good score :)
A very simple and clever idea! I like how splitting each arc of the circle creates a dynamic difficulty depending on what order you click them. Also a really nice touch with the sound effects, with quick clicks it's almost like I'm making music. Great work!
@magicdweedoo Thanks, those were actually added in the last few hours. Luckily with how I had structured everything it wasn't difficult.
@googlypoo @jujujuju The gradient does seem to be a sticking point for some people. It does help with the difficulty, but's also for how it looks. A simple solid circle doesn't look as nice, maybe some sort of pulsing would look good and more easily define the borders. Just need something that doesn't deform the borders.
@smilewood @made3 @ossi Unfortunately my music composition skills are limited to randomly pressing buttons until I get something that doesn't hurt my ears, much less making something that would sound good spread out over random timing and in any of the available scales. So right now it's just a random walk up and down the scale with a chance of playing a random note instead. It was just limiting it to a single scale so everything at least sounds good together.
@autogibbon There is a slight delay between clicking and a response, but it should be around 200 ms at maximum, and even then it won't (or at least shouldn't) let you lose to a clicked arc. Sorry it didn't work correctly.
@unpronounceable I did not mean that in a bad way, I enjoyed the sounds because they are not that professional. They sound like you made it yourself and they sound good
Simple but efficient gameplay.
The graphics dont fit together IMO. A flat minimalist style would have work perfectly (remove all gradients and textures, no bloom, just plain colors and a nice palette). A neon style would have been fine too (dark background, bloom and saturated color everywhere). But mixing both don't work IMO.
Fun game though!
Highest score I got was 62. The scale and palette options are a neat addition. Simple and addicting :thumbsup:
Simple but fun game, it's a cool idea and I wanted to keep playing it to improve my score. I would have enjoyed some music and think the graphics are a bit simple, but great job overall
The game is more addictive than I initially expected. I would like a bigger glowing region when there are more splits.
Fun game! I like how each ring makes a different note, although the lack of music, screen shake and particles makes it a little bit dull. The background also could've been a little more interesting, but those are just nitpicks. The game is really fun! My best score was 75.
It's a short and simple game with the potential to be a casual mobile game! Liked how as the game progresses and gets more intense, the sound effect pieces together into a melody. Screenshot 2022-04-12 at 10.46.04 AM.png
@made3 No offense taken from your comment. I also have no delusions about my current musical skills. Planning to devote some time to possibly improving that though.
@thetatautau Glad you enjoyed it. I could've spent more time experimenting with the visual style, and I'll keep your comments in mind for future adjustments and competitions.
@lomna @dan-smith Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it.
@hmightypirate I actually do something a bit like that. As there are more pieces they move slower, within a certain limit as it's designed that the player loses eventually. Could use more balancing though.
@eboatwright I avoided the particles and screen shake on purpose actually, the music was more a constraint of skill and time. The particles would have cluttered the screen and made noticing the movement of the arcs more difficult. As for the screens shake there's two reasons I avoided it. The first is because I feel like it's used way too often in games. It's something that should be used for emphasis not as a general feedback. It's like a spice, properly used it makes the dish delicious, using too much and it overpowers everything else. The second reason is more accessibility reasons. Too much screen shake can make people physically ill, it's like motion sickness. This can also happen with the way scrolling is handled in lots of more modern UIs too.
@theblitz Nice score, have only be able to get to the 150s myself.
@unpronounceable Yeah I guess that makes sense :smile:
Feels like there are some performance / latency issues. Otherwise, a good, pretty clean game - I like both the idea behind it, and simple, yet clear visuals. And, it seems to fit the theme very well.
Nice game! I initially thought it would be just a normal arcade game, but I liked the spitting mechanics and how it progresses. I think it had a nice difficutly curve. The palette and music scale options are a nice addition, and overall was fun to play. I made it to 116 with a trackpad!
It was a bit laggy on my computer, also there really is no downsied to spam clicking. Still, liked the art and design. Fun little clicker game. (I got to 49)
Never seen anything quite like this, perfect use of the theme! Nice use of sounds that almost make an interactive music. If you polish this up and add some game juice it could be very good, nice job!
Click click and click again. Simple gameplay, but well done. I like the aesthetic. I would like to hear some quiet music maybe. However, you made a solid entry. Thank you ++
A fun little game! Simple game mechanics, easy to understand from the get-go, and the game starts you off easily, so you have time to get the feel of it. Nicely done!
Others have already said a lot of good things about your sound use, and I have to agree with them - it worked out very well! I'm kinda the same way about music making, and only recently I've started to read up on music theory. Your explanation on how you made it work sounds interesting, it gives me inspiration to do some musical experiments of my own.