davidbradbury 2022-10-03 05:29
Dang. What an experience. Not much else to say, good work!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → Happy Minesweeper
By torte478
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 89 | 3.79 | 33 | |
| Fun | 124 | 3.62 | 33 | |
| Innovation | 59 | 3.87 | 33 | |
| Theme | 203 | 3.67 | 34 | |
| Graphics | 231 | 3.46 | 34 | |
| Audio | 134 | 3.53 | 34 | |
| Humor | 24 | 3.98 | 31 | |
| Mood | 39 | 3.91 | 33 |
Dang. What an experience. Not much else to say, good work!
fun
The audio queues that tell you how many mines are nearby is a great idea! Sadly I had to bury many comrades during my playthrough! :dizzy_face:
Pretty fun, I liked the music, it was funny, gameplay was nice, although I'd prefer to not have the minesweeper field not fade out everytime i click
I like it, it is a new and interesting way to play minesweeper.
As morbid as that was :laughing: this was a great take on minesweeper. Music was super fun - I definitely had that moment of "uh...wtf" when the first guy hit a mine and the music cut off. Love the humor and I genuinely had fun playing. You didn't just create a game, you made an experience. Great entry!
I like the twist on the original minesweeper, a little morbid but super fun :D
Such a cool idea with an important message. While everyday life in the big city takes its course, the soldiers risk their lives to save society from ruin. The only thing that remains are memories of them and their graves. The war goes on until finally the last man, full of agony, has to face his fate in Level 3.
You told us a great story about mankind and their foolish actions with minesweeper. Well done!
I love the details of how the people in town start running faster and faster. I will still catch them and put them on the battlefield though...
Cool take on minesweeper, though the minefield fading out when moving was pretty annoying. Had fun playing it though. Oh and the first move a player makes is supposed to never be a mine :nerd: (Happened to me twice in a row on the first level somehow (refreshed the first time as i thought game was over), was it scripted or bad luck)
This game made playing minesweeper actually fun, good job!
Liked the message behind it and enjoyed the gameplay as well. The music fit the theme and I was pretty scared taking each new step. Great job!
Ok, this was... an experience 😆 Well done game, engaging and fun. The music makes me anxious 😆
Really cool twist on minesweeper. The fading out of the minefield is kind of annoying, it kind of adds time you don't want to waste. Music and sound effects really added to the experience. Nice entry!
I have no critiques. The closest thing I could come to was with the rainbow I genuinely thought it was going to be "minesweeper" but with like unicorns and other pride related things.
Oh boy was I wrong.
As for my review - I have only thanks.
Well done.
Haha the music is funny. They even shoot at my soldiers while they are already in the minefield!
Not what I expected for sure, good game !
First thing to note: You need to generate the level after the first click. Far too often I would just drop my first man onto a mine. I understand if it's to teach the gimmick of scooping up the corpses, but it felt like I was just losing a life for no reason. I'm not very good at mine sweeper (and I recorded myself playing, so you can see first-hand) but I still enjoyed playing it to the end! Good commentary on war, fun music, and an all around well made game.
Here's the video for extra feedback:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aujoJemKW4
Very interesting twist on a classic game. I somehow got extremely unlucky in the first level and managed to explode 4 mines in a row
Overall very fun game
F to all the families whose people I killed. I'm sorry
Really cool idea loved how messed up it was, loved how the 10 second theme was incorporated and loved all the things I could do aside from the "main game" like burying or recruiting.
I feel like the game was trying to teach me a lesson without ramming it down my throat (which I also loved).. and if I hadn't played it so late at night I might have got kind of reflective and learned something / come to some sort of conclusion.
Dug the sound the music and sound effects fit in well.
Only quality of life thing I missed was that part in minesweeper where clicking an empty square reveals the other empty squares around it - because I'm lazy.
@100th-coin I kind of disagree about generating the map after the first click. Actually, in the first and third levels, I think that is how it works. It seems like the first level is generated after the first click, and it's generated specifically so that you land on a mine on your first click. Then the 3rd level is generated after the first click, and it's generated specifically so you are surrounded by mines on your first click. The second level doesn't seem to be doing anything special with the generation though.
What I'm saying is I think it's specifically designed this way. The cruelty and unfairness is the point. "It felt like I was losing a life for no reason" is exactly what the designer intended. Even on level 2. After all, it seems they had the technology to generate the level after the first click (as they do in the first and third levels), but they chose to leave it this way.
I usually have a distaste for serious subjects being used in jam games. I feel like, almost every time, the dev doesn't have enough time to handle the subject in a tasteful, appropriate way. This is one of the better ones I've played that fall into that category.
I think the reason this one works a little better for me is that it incorporates the gameplay into the anti-war theme really well. It's not just discussing the theme through dialogue, the game is built around it.
What impressed me most is that this had a few moments where the gameplay loop was altered for the sake of narrative. Like the first level having you always land on a mine initially, and then having the game go silent until you go to recruit soldiers. Or the third level being generated so the soldier be surrounded by mines, and being completely silent until they die. It takes a lot of extra work to break the core gameplay loop like this, and I think it works well.
Speaking of the last level, it seems to me that the conclusion being expressed here is something like "the problem with war is that you eventually run out of soldiers". Obviously we're supposed to sympathize with the soldiers as well, but ultimately if there were more people to draft, we would have been able to clear the final minefield.
The morality here feels a little lopsided to me. I think that the player is vilified somewhat by being the one to draft soldiers who will eventually be buried, but apart from that, the player's military is totally victimized here. Our soldiers are never depicted as killing enemies. Our intentions are only to clear minefields. It seems to me that the player's military must be weak, defending ourselves from some imperialist power. This is supported by the fact that our military is destroyed to the point that we literally run out of people to clear minefields with.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think the game was going a bit too easy on the player as an actor of war. Our military and our goals are just too sympathetic in the existing game. I think the idea of a soldier being surrounded by mines and just having to wait to be killed is clever and effective, but I think it serves the wrong conclusion as the final moment of the game. By solely treating friendly soldiers as the only victims of this war, the game becomes "anti-the-opposing-force-in-war" rather than "anti-war".
One more thing about the messaging. I think the final screen that says "stop war" with sad guitar playing was a little too much for my taste. Despite my over-analysis of the theme above, you have incorporated your theme into the gameplay really well. Because of this, you had the opportunity to let the gameplay speak for itself. I wish you had done that. As it is now, the "stop war" statement is the least effective expression of the theme in the entire game, and it's unfortunately the one that the game leaves us with.
About the gameplay itself. I wasn't sure how I felt about being shot at every 10 seconds at first, but now I think it's my favorite aspect of the gameplay. Ultimately, it made the game a lot more frantic and nerve wracking. It made me take care to think through as much of the minefield as I could while I had no soldiers on the battlefield. I think this is all cohesive with the anti-war theme, and emotionally effective. Great job here.
I will say that I wish the minefield didn't disappear while a soldier was moving. I think the goal here was to make it a little more cinematic? It was just kind of frustrating, as I wanted to make sure I spent my time wisely while a soldier was on the field.
I think this review may seem a bit harsh. That's not my intention. I really think this is an impressive compo game, and one of the best "serious" jam games I've played. The fact that I even have so much to say about it speaks to how effective it was. Great job overall.
@trouv Thank you for detailed feedback. It is really important to me. I am agree with amount of your points. Game jam duration is so small for complete all ideas and mechanics I am glad that my game caused emotions and thoughts. Thank you again =)
Great game, was very morbidly funny. Great spin on the minesweeper experience and I had a really fun time playing it. Love the music and the visuals! Great game!