barrier 2022-10-04 06:50
A PacManLike! :D Pretty cool, finished all three levels, second one seems hard at first but after eating enough enemies they usually get stuck in the middle and it makes clearing the level easy :)
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → SquareMan
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 647 | 3.46 | 44 | |
| Fun | 261 | 3.75 | 44 | |
| Innovation | 1136 | 2.51 | 44 | |
| Theme | 649 | 3.58 | 44 | |
| Graphics | 1017 | 2.73 | 44 | |
| Audio | 200 | 3.82 | 44 | |
| Humor | 726 | 2.56 | 39 | |
| Mood | 900 | 3.07 | 41 |
A PacManLike! :D Pretty cool, finished all three levels, second one seems hard at first but after eating enough enemies they usually get stuck in the middle and it makes clearing the level easy :)
Seemed really polished. Liked the music and the hit audio effects. Turning corners was definitely challenging.
Pretty =) A PacMan Like!
Nice audio effects, quite addictive! :)
Loved the music. The game reminds me of Packman obviously.
My only complaint is that the controls felt a little weird at times (felt like I had to release all inputs to turn).
Took a little time to get used to the controls. For some reason I didn't get that the "character" was always moving and I was expecting to have to keep the button pressed to move.
Fast and agile, I liked how it fit with the music and made everything very light and fun. Congrats!
Cooool Idea ! I was Really in the mood ! Well Done
@gildar76 You're not supposed to hold down the buttons, just tap them to start moving and to change direction. Sorry if the instructions were unclear. I just made them clearer thanks to your feedback.
@thebmxeur Sorry if the instructions were unclear. I just made them clearer.
simple but fun game with good music. I like that "am" sound)
@flying-dog-fish Don't apologies, I don't think the instructions are the problem, they were fine, it's more a gut feeling when I saw the game that made my "expectation" for the controls to be different. Maybe because everything was square ? I somehow didn't get that it was going to be like pacman controls, even if it looked like it.
A really fun, fast paced game! I died (a lot) but always wanted to go again straight away, knowing I could do better next time. The music perfectly suited the slightly frantic pace of the game, and I loved the sound made when I ate one of the cyan squares.
I like the sound effects of the box.
Oo cool! It reminded me a lot of pacman! I think it was a bit hard to make a turn. Most of the times the square would go streight ahead ^^"
Very solid game! Very fast paced and it was very clear what to do. I love the music, what program did you use to make that?
Edit; now I see that I need to press the button before the corner is comming. That makes it a lot easier
Great game! It's Pac-Man with a twist, I really dig the music and it is a super fun game, I enjoyed it!
The nostalgia :heart: It was a nice experience, the character moves very smooth, the only thing that I missed was maybe a little sound when you collect, maybe that would add even more satisfaction. The music is really cool. Excellent game!
Well executed and fun to play, although a bit easy because you are invulnerable half of the time. It would be more challenging if the ghosts were smarter.
Nice concept with nice implementation. I love responsiveness of controls!
Cool, I just completed level 3! It feels great to play. I liked the fast-paced movement and upbeat music. Keep up the great work!
The nostalgia in this one! Loved the Pac-man throwback, loved the voice-based sfx slightly more. Would be fun to see more mechanics that help make the game your own! Thanks for making and sharing this!
I like this game, how you get an instant nostalgic feeling, the interpretation of the theme is very well thought out. It worked flawlessly on Safari.
I've never really liked Pac-Man but this was a good take on the formula! The music was very good, and sometimes you really got in a flow state with some fast turns.
Haha, funnily enough, several people (including myself) made a *Pac-Man*-themed game! I spotted at least four, possibly six.
And by the way, funny coincidence, I remember I saw you said you did not like the theme at all; glad you managed to come up with a game anyway! :)
(I am now in a rush to test as many games as possible to help, so please do not mind the cursory reviewing style.)
1. "collect coin" -> "collect coins" 2. "Your state changes every 10 seconds (obviously)." -> it could be a *fraction* of those ten seconds ;) (it happened to me!) 3. "they are purple and you are red or […] they are cyan and you are green" -> I wonder if merely swopping the colours (ie purple/red vs. red/purple) would have been more intuitive; probably not so important thanks to the shape difference. Probably discard that! 4. nice music! Reminds me of another one whose title eludes me (**Edit:** sudden remembrance: *Popcorn*!) 5. controls are QWERTY-only instead of layout-independent (I have an AZERTY keyboard), BUT arrow keys are enabled 6. speedl: feels like *Pac-Man* on ice skates!! I think this adds a *dexterity* aspect to the concept 7. hitting (eating? X)) sounds are cute! :3 (both of them) 8. I wonder what the enemy AI/behaviour is; apparently, selecting a random direction when hitting a wall? In which case, they never take intermediate turns, and never go in the serpentine sideway corridors from level 1. Which gives a simple strategy: go for cover in a safe place, then go out when you are strong 9. you can chain-eat enemies by going to the spawning spot ;) 10. I like the symmetrical effect of the evolution of the time bar, and alternating colours (which match those of the player) 11. (during level 2, for the record) oh, music gets ancient Egyptian! 12. level 3 provides another example of the previous strategy: once you have cleared the enemy from the rightward rectangle-shaped zone, you can safely go for cover inside it. Which is a game-breaking strategy / ‘dominant strategy’, except if time mattered for score 13. oh, the enemies’ inability to turn midway results in having them *stuck* in the centre zone (still in level 3)! :o This means that once an enemy is cleared, he will never cause trouble in the outskirts of the level capture_ennemis_bloqués.png Cornered! 14. beat the level in such a (shameful… :S) way
**Takeaway:** a little twist on *Pac-Man*, using the same objective but a different mechanic for the Power Pellet system and fast-paced movement; I think the three things that make the game easier that its famous ancestor are 1) the enemies cannot turn midway (and changing this would go **miles** to make the game more challenging), 2) the enemies do not follow you (BUT this is entirely reasonable seeing the high speed!! Do keep it this way! XD), and 3) the regular cycle makes ‘strong’ phases both predictable and infinite. Graphics are simple but clear and effective, music is grand, sounds are cute (and funny)… but lack a dot-eating one, while this is the main activity! I think one would enhance feeling. So, my main criticism is that the game would need to deal with the enemies’ turning ability to really get challenging, and as a secondary suggestion, maybe some other mechanic/twist would have helped the game both depart more from *Pac-Man* and get the cycle more interesting to deal with. Other than that, the game is neat and feels; perhaps using a square and diamonds feels a bit prototypical, but hey, I like prototypes and experimental vibes. :)
Thanks for the classic arcade take!
@mossieur-patate Thanks for the incredibly detailed review.
I definitely still think the theme was really really bad. A game mechanic shouldn't be a theme. It limits the kinds of games that can be made too much and you end up with a bunch of very similar games.
Good point about the keys. Time to start using unity's KeyCode constants instead of strings.
You are right about the enemies - they choose a random direction when they hit a wall. There just wasn't enough time to make them behave smarter. Besides, that would require a lot of rebalancing. Making them detect junctions like you suggestedd would be easier and less game-changing. Definitely something to start with in the post-jam version.
Spawn camping the enemies can be fixed by removing the incentive - no score for that, but that will have to wait for the post-jam version. You can still do it if you like, but it won't give you a better score.
I deliberately didn't give a sound to the picking of the coins because of the high speed. When going down a full corridor, the sound would trigger constantly and drown out the music.
Good fun but very similar to Pac-Man.
This game is a lot of fun. I like the simple, intuitive controls. I wish the speed were a bit slower, but it’s no big deal once you get the hang of it. The music is top-notch: 5/5. To eat the dots and diamonds at supersonic speed — that gave me pleasure. Nice work.
A great game without a doubt. I'm just not sure about the movement which seemed a little difficult to control. And I would improve the graphics, which could raise the game's rating. I would also improve the sounds. With better graphics and sounds, the game would be perfect. I got to the second level and it made me want to play more, although time is short, I would play this game more.
Really nice BGM. Well done. Game is very Pac Many but of course that was desired. Gameplay was very polished and i enjoyed it very much. The speed made it a bit difficult but i liked it nonetheless. Well done. Great entry.