Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD51 → Luzy Lazer
By magnus-lindh
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1202 | 2.58 | 25 | |
| Fun | 1159 | 2.54 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 1206 | 2.23 | 25 | |
| Theme | 752 | 3.47 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 1054 | 2.60 | 25 | |
| Audio | 742 | 2.56 | 25 | |
| Humor | 878 | 2.26 | 23 | |
| Mood | 1163 | 2.38 | 23 |
The game never crashed on me, good job! There are some things I would fix, for example at some point I stopped shooting because the sound of hitting something hurt my ears. Also, not knowing about any winning condition made me lose interest fast. Good effort you finished a game, that's already a W.
Thanks, you are too kind. The sound effects are very basic and not meant for enjoying for long time. Actually, I would not recommend anyone playing this game for more than one minute :)
ok, down malfunction got me. Consider this is a solo entry, i don't expect much. But the game can be expanded more .
Good job for making this game ^^
Awesome idea. Thought i could collect fruits at first. I was wrong. There wese some errors, like hitting already destroyed enemies but it was not gamebraking.
One thing i would make different: Sometimes i got the same malfunktion 3 times in a row. This kind of randomness doesn't feel random and fair. There ist a story from Apple about the first iPod shuffle being truly random, so it sometimes played songs twice and they had to change it, because it didn't feel random. Make sure to choose only a modification if it isn't already applied. Or better: Make a list with all modifications and remove the picked one. When the list is empty fill it again. That way you have more control over the modifications in the game. You could choose to use only a subset in the first level and add more after the player progressed a little.
Nevertheless congrats on completing the game.
Nice job on the game! The systems for a bullet hell are all in in some form or another, which is an accomplishment!
I like the mechanic of something malfunctioning every 10 seconds. Fits the theme well and is interesting. I would have liked to maybe have a very short preview, so I have a bit more agency on how to handle it (and a moment of panic as well).
I really like the idea of this game, and I enjoyed playing it for a solid 10 minutes. I believe that with a little bit more refinement it could be even better! Most of the issues are design related, however there was one near gamebreaking issue; the input doesn't seem to be locked to the gamescreen and when you move your ship it also moves the page. This wouldn't have been an issue if I could make the game fullscreen but that wasn't an option on itch. As for the design suggestions I would randomize where the repair node drops from, having it only spawn in the same spot every time means you spend most of your time trying to make your way to the right side of the screen; Additionally some sort of indicator of when the change is about to happen would be a nice QOL item, but given that this was a gamejam game thats completely understandable. Overall this was a great entry, awesome job!
You could have named this game Fruit Invaders. Anyway, nice entry.
That was a fun time! It felt very responsive, which is a huge plus in games like this. The every-10-second-malfunction mechanic was a very good fit as well. The whole game was very intuitive which allowed you to get away with a very brief description, I think a more detailed explanation would have in fact hampered you as I enjoyed figuring out a few things (the fruit is to be destroyed, the lightning-bolt orbs repair the malfunction, etc).
Agree with you @seisus, a winning condition is missing.
Yes, you are perfectl right @limered, pure randomization is too primitive. The game would be more interesting with an increasing set of error types as it progresses.
Thanks @idenoh, I will fix the moving screen and the lack of randomness on the repair node.
Fruit Invaders is a MUCH better name. Thanks @flying-dog-fish!
Happy you liked the game @adam-gould!
Thanks for letting me play your game! * I enjoyed the patterns of the fruit. At first I thought they were all going to come down in straight lines but I noticed later they were sometimes curving but also sometimes they had non-constant velocities. Like they were making cool patterns with their curves and acceleration/decelerations. It was very pleasing to watch. * I like the interpretation of the 10 second theme - it worked well. I did notice that if something malfunctioned (such as, go left) as long as I was holding left when the malfunction happened I could keep doing it as long as I kept my finger down. At first I thought this was a bug but later I tried to use it to my advantage and treated it as a hidden feature for advanced play :) * I didn't figure out what the blue lightning bolts did but I tried to collect all of them anyway :) * For the HTML embedding, it wasn't working on the ldjam site (try re-creating your archive with index.html at the root of the directory structure) and when I played in the web page everytime I hit down arrow the whole web page would scroll down and when I hit up arrow the whole web page would scroll up. This was a bit distracting but I was able to play the game anyways. I'm sure this is just an artifact of publishing the game for web play and not how it was for you during development so I tried to factor this out during the judging.
Unfortunately, the version on the Ludum Dare website seems to be having issues, but the web version on itch is working fine!
The game itself is chill enough that even the loss of controls is almost manageable. The real danger is the fact that using keyboard controls caused the itch page to move around because of HTML context issues, I think.
I wonder if the game would have felt different with Asteroid-like tank controls instead of Space Invaders.
Also... my first impulse was to try to run into the cherry and not shoot it XD, so maybe fruit is not the best pixel art to use as something dangerous.
Thanks @candlesan for playing. Picking up the lighting bolts removes the current malfunction. I tried to reload my game on the ldjam site but I could not make it work. The scrolling page is easy to fix with a full screen button. I will do that after the jam has ended.
Hi @davidsheadgames. See reply above. Asteroid controls could work but then it would be another type of game. The reason I used fruit sprites was pure laziness and lack of time, but I admit they look appetizing :)
Game was fun, and funny, which I enjoyed.
...unless left/right malfunction :-( could you have made it wrap around or something? at least then I don't have to just sit there staring at fruit falling for 10+ seconds, depending on how the randomness plays out.
Oh, well... :sweat_smile: No, seriously I want to keep playing this. It's good. It's addictive. It's a casual game that you can't manage to play for less than an hour. But that hour always feels like it's been only a few minutes. One thing, though; I suck at controling anything with the arrow keys, and therefore I hate it. Had Luzy Lazer WASD controls, it would be a prime contender for my new time killer game.
I enjoyed the sound effects, and I think it would be cool if leading up to the next malfunction it would tell you what was going to break, or just a longer break between malfunctions. The player hitbox seemed bigger than I expected and I got hit a couple times just trying to get past enemies.
Well done!
Sorry for the arrow controls, c1913. Will update the controls to also include WASD.
Thanks for sharing your opinions @raphiell. I agree a longer break between the malfunctions would have been nice, but the theme was "every 10 seconds". Some hitboxes are too big since the fruit graphics I found were smaller than 16 by 16 pixels. Yes I know, it is a lame excuse, but time was very limited.
Cool game. The game looks good and plays well. Nice work.