fermingimpel 2022-04-03 17:38
Nice game, I found a bug (if it is a bug), when you click on the bottom right to improve the click power, it does not reduce your money
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD50 → CliffCart
By payaosito
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 249 | 3.54 | 24 | |
| Fun | 208 | 3.56 | 24 | |
| Innovation | 303 | 3.31 | 23 | |
| Theme | 135 | 3.97 | 24 | |
| Graphics | 367 | 3.27 | 24 | |
| Audio | 248 | 3.34 | 24 |
Nice game, I found a bug (if it is a bug), when you click on the bottom right to improve the click power, it does not reduce your money
Got to about 1k points. Took a min to figure out what the buttons do. The floating coins are pretty hard to hit on a big screen though.
Took a few tries to figure out how to play, then it was very entertaining for a bit. I had fun and the concept is great. Great job!
Great first game! I never really felt like I had control of the situation, which fits the theme well
Super fun and addictive for its simplicity! I did manage to break it when placing a track too late and just racked up a high score in the void.
Nice, simple clicker. Great job! :thumbsup:
A very fun and enjoyable game! Beautiful art and catchy music as well! Lot of good mechanics in place! Also not going to lie, the game is super addictive! A great entry for your first Ludum Dare! Keep up the amazing work!
I played a few runs and did not come across any bugs! Also nice difficulty ramp up as you keep going!
Fun game. Feals very complete and polished for what it it. Great first entry.
I remember seeing the progress of this game when checking the Ludum Dare feed. I have to say, this is a great first time entry. Becomes stressful pretty quickly. I would personally prefer it if the cart was more on the left and you would be able to see holes in the tracks sooner. It felt that somtimes I didn’t have enough time to react, but maybe it’s just me being a casual. :) Nice entry, great job!
Good game! As others said, the clicking of the floating coins was borderline toxic, but it was still fun. I'd have preferred the building and flame buttons to have keyboard input alternatives to alleviate a bit of the carpal tunnel. The graphics and core loops were great though and the art had a cute consistency to it!
Overall nice submission and thanks for uploading!
Thanks everyone who played so far and commented, I appreciate all the feedback and have been keeping note of it.
@stephanttm Haha, I'll have to take a look at the hitboxes and maybe tweak them later. For now it shall stay as is, but that's good to know thank you!
@dzejpi I think that's a good idea, I'll keep it in mind for later. I'm a casual too so I can't believe I didn't consider it sooner haha, thanks~
@darandin That's good to know, I'm curious if it's because of the size or the colors, or maybe the hitbox? (or all of the above?) And yeah I thought about keyboard input, but compo was already over. I'll keep in mind for later though! Thank you!
Got 1260 on my second try! Strangely I dont think I've ever seen a clicker game with a time limit before like this one. For a first entry, it's pretty solid! My main issue is the lack of visibility on the track - you barely have time to react, though that arguably adds to the fun of it. Great job!
I almost broke my mouse) Good job!
Nice game. Scored 1660. I found the extra coins hard to chick on.
very nice!!
Really fab idea. I found it very addictive! It was so satifying to keep my cart going. Well done!
Nice work! A very creative idea of this game. I tried hard on this game and my arm hurts now... Maybe it helps if keyboard is available?
Nice! I got 2200 score. Figuring out my own strategy is really fun. The BGM didn't loop when i played the web version, i'm not sure if it's my mistake. That's it, over all a great fun game! 🐱
Fun little game. Was able to get a score of 1970. The size of the screen definitely has an impact on the difficulty. Playing in the little window itch.io provided was much easier than playing it full screen. Shifting the train to the left would also help a lot. Would give the player a better view of what's happening and give you more area to play with.
Hey Zack! Thanks for inviting feedback on your game. Firstly: welcome to Ludum Dare, and congrats on shipping your first game!! :smile:
I like how the art, music, and mechanics all work together in your game to give off a "frontier" kind of vibe. I think it's funny that you chose fire as the reason why the cart needs to slow down. You also must've intentionally tried to make this feel fast paced and frenetic, because I kept panicking about building more rail at the last second...
Here are some ideas on how you might make the game better. Please take all of these with a grain of salt - doing everything you need to be able to finish a complete game in 48 hours is already a lot. :)
- By far the most important addition to your game is more sound effects. Every player action, and major event, should have a sound effect. (Tools like sfxr and chiptone make it really easy to generate a lot of high quality sounds quickly). There should be a rumbly boom when the cart falls off the track. When you build more rail, or cast a fire spell, it doesn't feel very _satisying_ because there's no audio feedback. Adding sound effects like a hammer hitting steel (which can be just a metallic), or a fire wooshing (or I guess anything vaguely magical sounding!) would go a long way to communicating to the player that their actions directly have a huge impact on the game world. Animation helps with that a lot too. Clicking a coin and having the only visible effect being a number going up in the UI doesn't feel like you're manipulating the game world. Animations help with that, like if you literally add the fire sprite to the button then animate it down to the cart, then the player feels that direct cause and effect, and that just feels a lot more fun. - I'm sure many players, myself included, jump right into each game they play. My experience with that here was that I was immediately thrown into a moving train, and before I could even process everything on the screen, a few seconds later I crashed. Since this is a clicker game, I don't think there's a huge rush to kill the player right at the start. :) Instead, start a little slower to let the player figure out what's going on. And taking that even further, making it so the game stands completely independently (as in no manual or other preparation required) is a good way to force you the designer to communicate the right things to the player: what actions they can take, how those actions interact with other game mechanics, what the objective is, etc. - I don't play clicker games very much so I can't speak to the specific game mechanics you chose. But I did find it a little surprising that there were two completely separate ways to collect coins. Maybe that's okay though. I did notice that if you click a randomly-appearing coin multiple times quickly you can rack up hundreds of coins each time. If that's intentional, I feel like it's important to communicate that to the player rather than having them wonder if it's a bug. Maybe leave the coin up for longer (but have each click give fewer coins) so the player has more of an opportunity to realize they can click multiple times. Might also be good to animate a handful of tiny coins you just collected from your click, so that the player can see that the coin is still there for clicking more times. - The web version has a fullscreen button at the bottom right, which covers up the number after "Per Click:". I worked around this by just playing fullscreen, so it wasn't a big deal. But, worth watching out for in future games. - When I clicked the button above "Per Click", it did increase the cost displayed on the button itself. But it didn't update the "Per Click" number immediately. I had to click the coin at the top right to get the "Per Click" number to update.
Anyway, I gave you some suggestions for improvement only because I promised you I would :) And because you have snacks. Most of all, you should feel proud that you finished a complete game in one extremely short weekend! Looking forward to checking out your future games!!
Here I am, as promised :) Nice game, well done especially for your first Ludum Dare game. Here are a few points to consider:
1. Going with simple gameplay is a way to go for Ludum Dare. There is not enough time in Compo, to do a lot. So that was an excellent choice. 2. Sound effects. They add a lot to the game and are easy to make. Using something like: Sfxr (or Bfxr, or Zzfx). These are free to use, simple, sound effect makers. Their capacity is limited, but you can create quite decent sounds. 3. Also, adding few variants for sounds that the player will hear multiple times during a game, is a good idea. Then sounds do not feel so repetitive. 4. Art style is completely fine. 5. Give player more time on the start. When I first time start a game, I lost immediately. The player needs a few moments to look around and recognize where is everything. 6. Add player more things to do but slower down gameplay a bit, for example:
- In most Clicker games, there are special currencies. So adding one currency (coins) to build track and another one (I dunno, crystals for example), to purchase slowdown/upgrades, will make a game more complicated. - Another thing that could add more for the player to do, is to make different tracks. Regular one you put on the ground, second - as a bridge, when there is a canyon, and third on - to climb mountains. And the player would have to not only build tracks, but to click on the correct one. Maybe even more variations or upgrades.
- You could also consider revers mechanic. The train is slowing down and player have constant income (upgradable to get more coins faster to build more tracks) and player need to shovel coal to keep the train rolling (of course trains slows down faster and faster), and shoveling actions is also upgradable.
Of course, you need time for everything to implement, so these are more suggestions for the future to consider.
Anyway, great job with the game!
Hey Payaosito, thanks for submitting your game to stream! It was surprisingly tense, and I hope my feedback was useful. Here's the vod if you'd like to rewatch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1449607637
It's very simple, but getting stuff complete is way more important than anything else. The game itself is fun too, and a real good fit for the theme. Nicely done.
Fabulous! hahaha! A simple idea, but so addictive! I think I got "carpal tunnel" while trying to click coins! So fun!