theslate 2022-10-04 03:05
Really great game! I loved the mix of 3d environment and pixel art. The messy ship is a cool detail. Thumbs way up, but still attached to my hand. Kudos!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → Solar Drift
By dan-davis, dominic-graziano, babyeeyore99, RussellSalerno, Jennifer Davis and breezy
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 276 | 3.82 | 36 | |
| Fun | 423 | 3.55 | 36 | |
| Innovation | 353 | 3.58 | 36 | |
| Theme | 193 | 4.08 | 36 | |
| Graphics | 144 | 4.27 | 36 | |
| Audio | 193 | 3.83 | 36 | |
| Humor | 339 | 3.29 | 33 | |
| Mood | 155 | 3.98 | 34 |
Really great game! I loved the mix of 3d environment and pixel art. The messy ship is a cool detail. Thumbs way up, but still attached to my hand. Kudos!
"Its probably nothing" - famous last words.
Loved the game, and the visuals of seeing space fly around in the window was great!
Very well done the art style is gorgeous and it is just the right mix of difficulty to find where you need to go!
Really innovative way to use the theme! Found the notes on the ground really funny and the ending song suits the setting 😏 Thought some hover states on buttons and changing the mouse cursor to a pointing hand would really help gameplay ~ fun play tho
Neat art style and good implementation of the theme; however, it was a bit unclear where exactly to click in some cases.
Love the mix of 3d - 2d, and the sounds were fitting as well! Loved the gameplay but did wish that I could have had just a bit more light and distinction between areas. I love the little light ditty at the end (yeah, I finally got there! Ahaha xD). I want to know more about what happened in that ship for sure!
Fun game, fantastic style. The art is excellent and the music, while short, does a great job maintaining the mood.
Great job, you managed to make quite polished game in such a short time!
I loved the art, the rotating sun and the lights felt very cool every time they came around.
I would have liked to be able to jump the gap on the top floor when gravity's on and have a bit more control when it's off - I found myself waiting for the gravity change so I could go side to side more than once. Jumping also feels inconsistent, I think you can only jump on one frame in the idle/running animation, otherwise your input is ignored.
This didn't get in the way of me enjoying the game though, I enjoyed hunting for things and especially liked the placement of the broken cable.
The was great. I love all the extra details everywhere. The broken ladder is a bit obscure, I was stuck there for a long time until I finally saw it. It could do with some emergency lights or markings on the ground to highlight it more. Also you can't jump when holding a movement button. Took a while to figure out why I kept failing to jump over the hatch.
Loved it, every part of it. The 3d/2d mix, the puzzles, the gravity change. Great job!
Really nice game, the time is well adjusted, i won just before the end. Great job!
Honestly... I didn't see anything interesting in the game. How did you take advantage of the fact that gravity is turned off and the gameplay has to change? Just added one room above and... that's it)? The rest of the time, this change is only irritable. The character himself uncomfortable, but I will not find fault with this within the jam. Oh, and clicking with the mouse - so it's generally terrible. I also clicked around 100 times to get to the point that you set, because even the cursor did not show an interactive object. Impressions in general are not very good, but the atmosphere was not bad.
Really nice looking game with a cool concept. I thought that the whole "10 second" theme kind of got in the way a little bit though, because in practice, it basically just meant you could only go to the upper deck once every 10 seconds, and that you moved slowly half of the time, which was pretty annoying. It would have been nice if you found another way to use the weightlessness. The artwork turned out really well though, and the music/sound was pretty good as well.
@paulsams sorry you had a rough time. Everyone else who has played and reviewed seemed to understand that you can explore the whole ship if you discover the right things while exploring. Clickable object highlights is something we know could have been better. If you do end up trying it again, I encourage you to read carefully and explore, it is possible to see the end, which it's clear you did not.
@dominic-graziano Thanks for the reply). I didn't say that I didn't understand that it was possible to explore the ship (although it happened when I just couldn't see the climb up with the camera, the game didn't teach me this (for example, even in the very first room, that is, I'm hinting that training can also be embedded in level design), so I had to suffer and find out myself). I was talking about the fact that main mechanic (gravity) are involved in fact in one place, and in others it just interferes and does not bring any challenge. Same thing the player said with a comment above your answer. That's why I didn't have any motivation to try to completed the game if the main mechanic are distracting me, and there is simply no feedback from the game and it doesn't help me in any way). In general, I'm talking about the fact that the game should bring a "fun", but in the end it brings frustration from poorly developed main mechanics and zero game feedback, so I advise you to think about it in advance in the next games).
This is an impressive game! Some feedback I've got:
- The music is great, but very repetetive. The tones when floating make me think of thos progressive rockbands in the mid 90's ^^ - The graphics are awesome. I like the mix between 3D and papermario-like graphics. Just curious: was that the plan? Or did you come up with that in a later stage? - When the ship goes dark, it gets reeealy dark. I could not see anything - After a while I found out that there is an arrow you can klik at the bottom right. If that is very important, I would make it flash or maybe bigger. - Sometimes, when i click the item i click double, and the textprompt at the botton disappeared
You can be proud, this one was fun :-)
@wouter52 thanks for playing! yes it was our intention to mix 2d and 3d from the outset. Our dev showed me a sample of this mixture prior to the dare and I was instantly into it!
@paulsams Given the time constraints, we were only able to introduce some training. For example, there's no barrier to exiting the first room except finding the panel and clicking it. Then, the next room requires a key which you can easily find right next to the panel. After that, the game begins to ask you to think outside of the box a little, and mainly I think this area could do a better job of showing you that there's an upper level to float to. So you see, we do have progressive training, it just isn't as refined because... well... it's a jam game.
Regarding the weightlessness mechanic being a hindrance, this is absolutely intentional. It is perfectly timed to the music so that you can feel it coming after a while, and that introduces a small sense of panic if you're trying to do something that would be hindered by it.
Remember: You are a civilian waking unexpectedly into a chaotic situation, much of which is out of your control at first, and by the end, if you win, you overcome these obstacles.
We could have made a standard side scrolling platformer with like a 10second flashlight or something but this gravity mechanic forces you to think about timing when going up to the 2nd level, and to win, you must go up and down at least twice.
@dominic-graziano No, I understood what you wanted to create and well done that you tried not a "standard platformer with a flashlight", as you put it). But I'm just saying my impressions: and if I say that I didn't like it, then I'm talking about it directly trying to express theses.
About music... It sounds like a brainstorm: "How do I tell the player that it's going to be bad soon?"; "And let's add in music?": "Go!"... In general, I want to say that the main problem is in the mechanics itself and the places where it is used, and not that signals about its approach or anything else are incorrectly given. And the player will never think about the "author's idea". And I, as a player, say that the mechanics of gravity are used very poorly in lvl design). I didn't have a feeling of panic, but only a feeling of irritation: "Ehhhh... Again, waiting to go up ...", and good mechanics should not give such a feeling. That's why I said that a good implementation of 10 seconds with a change of something is when you have something to do constantly in these 10 seconds.
In no way do I want to offend you or anything else there, but I'm just saying that it's much more important to the player that how it's played and how he feels, and not what you put in there and meant). Therefore, I advise you in the next games to think about what the player will do every stage of your gameloop, so that he can never get bored.
And I just wanted to give an opinion on how to improve your future projects, so you can just not listen to me). I won't be offended, huh).
@paulsams it's really telling that the only positive thing you've been able to squeeze out has been dragged out of you when your pretty obviously negatively skewed critique is questioned.
Your assumptions about the way we got to where we ended up are pretty narrow and shows an inability to imagine people complexly. We have a dedicated sound guy who took time to consider a specific mood and style; something that others have found pleasing enough to mention more than once.
I'm honestly done with this exchange as you have nothing useful in your observations and it feels as though you came to grind an axe rather than provide anything constructive.
none of your opinions were "how to improve your future projects". go back and read your own writing. You merely listed everything you feel we did wrong, without a single suggestion for improvement.
Amazing game!
Really like this, it is my favorite so far. The music / mood with the lighting / graphics and the tight integration into the 10 second theme is great.
Very cool sound, art and vibe! Прекрасно раскрыта theme 10 секунд. I have mood Dead space but быстрый and quickly... Exelent job!
@dominic-graziano Yes, I will stay in advance that I do not want to say that I am right in everything and my opinion is the ultimate truth. But I try to build my advice and judgments on a logical chain, so I certainly do not aim to offend you or underestimate your invested work, but also to praise if I didn't like it - I don't see the point. I just thought that maybe I could help you by pointing out the problem areas, and then it's up to you to decide how to perceive all my words).
Khm... I must have really expressed myself very badly about the music - sorry for that. I didn't mean that at all.
I just advised you to prioritize your next projects more carefully, because if you do non-standard mechanics, as you say... Although your comment about the fact that elements in Tower Defense have been used for a long time sounds very strange, because what's wrong with combining different mechanics, because I didn't pretend to be original from the very beginning? Right, nothing wrong. And I have never said in my comments that your mechanics are not original, because this is not the problem. I agree that about the key card and the panel - after some time, you could guess by touching at everything on the screen, but I'm talking about priorities. If your main mechanic is gravity, then it was necessary to use it in full, and not just in one place in order to climb to the next floor. This was the claim that the main mechanics are used in one place, and in others only hinders, and it is not worth trying to justify it with a narrative. And about the music, I meant that you added a change in music to show the player about the change in gravity, but this does not affect the fact that the main mechanics themselves were almost not used in the gameplay in any way. Even considering the second moment when you need gravity - it breaks down by the fact that you can solve it with a jump. That's why I say boldly that in one place.
In general, all this time I just wanted to convey that the main mechanics of the game are woven into the game badly and first of all it was necessary to focus on it, although of course the problem of having to poke at everything on the screen to catch the hitbox is the second problem that I am now facing even more when I just passed your game. Especially considering that weaving what needs to be done into the text is not the best idea in itself.
In general, okay: listen to me or not is your right). I just said my opinion about what problems potential players might face. Considering that the same problems are indicated in the some comments above. And let's finish our discussion, if you think I'm talking nonsense, so as not to waste time with both of us).
Very nice pixel graphics
I love point and click adventures, so this game had me instantly hooked. Died the first time but game was good enough I replayed to finish it. Space angst feeling on point, graphics and environment cute and atmospheric, good soundtrack. Gameplay was satisfyingly intuitive and the use of the theme brilliant.
Very interesting special effects, and an interesting idea, 2d character in 3d space, I was reminded of this Metroid dread. Only I did not understand where I needed to look for a map in order to open the second door? And so I liked the game.
Really concise little game. Really liked the use of a 2D character in a 3D environment, I kinda got stuck because I forgot that you had to hold up in zero-G so evidently not the best gamer. But I liked a lot of the dialogue when interacting with things. Was cool how you could tell that the ship was spinning because of the background star rotating in and out of view, was a nice touch.
Actually i did not realize what z gotta do at the start. But i rate graphic and audio of your game. It's really cool
A neat little game, I think it is amazing that you managed to cobble this together in a weekend! Decent graphics and a strong tie-in with the theme itself, I liked in particular how the music signaled which mode the game was in currently.