FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD51 → Jake Count : Four times to live

Jake Count : Four times to live

By fax

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6223.4831
Fun8923.0332
Innovation6543.2330
Theme2194.0531
Graphics2574.0933
Audio3633.5130
Humor7192.5715
Mood6013.4331

Comments

igor-morgun 2022-10-04 15:23

Amayzing art style

fax 2022-10-04 19:08

@igor-morgun Thanks a lot. Special congratulations to our artist Quentin ^^.

attala 2022-10-04 19:48

No doubt this is a very good looking game. Nice implementation of "every ten seconds". Not a big fan of 2D platformers but I have to admit this one made me want to get to the end. (Didn't though, mostly because I suck at 2D platformers). Also very nice music. Top notch idea, design and implementation.

jonrei 2022-10-04 20:00

very cool interpretation of the theme, playing multiple characters that you swap between every 10 seconds. Clever!

fax 2022-10-04 20:10

@attala Thanks a lot for the comment. We are glad you enjoy our game.

@jonrei Yes we think this mechanic is cool for train your brain ^^. We hope you sometimes jump and forget you was in jump when the world re-come ;) .

wheybags 2022-10-04 22:02

Really nice art!

fax 2022-10-05 12:12

@wheybags Thanks a lot for this feedback. Quentin realize a really great job on this JAM, congrats to him ^^.

darkmax14 2022-10-06 07:14

Love this interpretation of the theme. The art is really polished looking as well. The only thing that might have been good is to have the different clones announce their special abilities the first time you swap to them. It took me a til the second swap to the snow and shooting one to realise what their special ability is.

sheepolution 2022-10-06 07:29

Really impressive that you guys were able to make all that content in such a short time! I found the gimmick to be annoying at first. You barely have any time to get to know the level, and sometimes I forgot in which direction I was going. Later on I saw that more as part of the challenge. I like how not only you have 4 levels, but also how each level has its own mechanic. Well done!

yoni 2022-10-06 07:40

I greatly enjoyed the fantastic art! The challenge in this game, for me, was to remember what I'm doing in each stage for the next round I get to play it. It would've been more challenging (maybe a "hard mode") if the stage continued interacting with the player while you're not in it (for example, run out of air in the underwater level, or be attacked by the enemies in the enemies level). The hardest level for me was the snow level - I kept falling through the chasm :) The game was fun and made me want to finish it, which I did, and my "strategy" was to keep the snow level for last so I would not switch out of it. I loved the fact that in each level you have different abilities. Part of the game for me was discovering what the abilities are in each level - after a few rounds in each one I figured out "ohh, so I can do THIS here". Maybe some visual cues could help with that. In the enemies level there was such a visual cue, the counter. It took me a few rounds to figure out what the counter is counting, and that's what made me realize that maybe I can shoot (because how else to take out the shooters?). When making our jam game, we also considered briefly the idea of switching worlds every 10 seconds, but dismissed it thinking it would be more "in your way" than a fun element. After playing your game, I am still not sure whether I would've liked it better as it is or as a sequence of 4 levels without switching, but maybe it could be taken further with the stage continuing to harm you, or with some interaction between the stage switches (like in Day of the Tentacle where you can pass items between the stages or like The Lost Vikings where all the switched characters coexist in the same stage). Overall, I really enjoyed your game! Great job!

fax 2022-10-06 09:29

@darkmax14 : Yeah we don't have enough time to explain the differents character's abilities. We had created a little Comics like image on the game page to explain it, but we couldn't get it in the game during the JAM. Thanks for the recommandation anyway ^^.

@sheepolution : the fact that you forgot in which direction you was going is exactly the mechanic we try to implement. That's why, in addition, we don't show the timer in game (only a little sound warn you that you swap soon). We wanted to put the theme of the Jam in the core of our game. Glad you experiment it :p.

@yoni : Yeah, remenber the position of each character and it's direction is one the core of our game. The snow level look's like a hell's stage for many people (including us). We try to balance all levels but hey ! It's a jam and it's very hard to deal challenge in a short time. As i wrote before, we had created a little Comics like image on the game page to explain character's abilities, but we couldn"t get it in the game during the JAM. Anyway, you found a way to complete the game and you can be proud of it :) . We thought that the worlds could be interconnected by some puzzle mechanics, like a door which can be openned only in one world, but unlock 3 other...but we consider that it would be better to go in 4 separate worlds, for the LORE of the game. Thanks a lot for your feedback.

sayurinyooko 2022-10-06 11:41

Oh, I like the concept of the game to switch between characters every 10 seconds! It makes the game challenging and hard sometimes. I like sound and art work. Wonderful work!

2022-10-06 12:16

thanks guys for all your comments on art, it was really challenginf but really great to create with fax and fl8 !

saintchristopher777 2022-10-06 19:17

Very cool. Love the art! Exceptionally polished jam entry!

fax 2022-10-07 14:21

@sayurinyooko Thanks for the test ! We are glad you love it.

@saintchristopher777 Yeah the sprites are awesome, thanks to Quentin ! Thank you for the comment.

oleg20111511 2022-10-08 10:21

Amazing art, and great use of the 10 seconds theme! It's cool that you managed to implement 4 different abilities for your character, brings a lot of variety to the game. Though I think there should be a way do jump down below from platforms, the same way you can jump on them from below. It's a really common feature for all platformers and I really missed it here

wfmg 2022-10-09 02:48

It's pretty disorienting this way, and the platforming itself isn't that great. It's hard to tell where to go, and the jump button shouldn't be up.

Good stuff: All the graphics, concept of exploring 4 different planets searching for artifacts, music, sound effects.

fax 2022-10-09 16:42

@oleg20111511 Yes you're right. We don't have enough time to implement this feature infortunately. thanks for the advice anyway.

@wfmg I implement keyboard controls to allow all player to test the game but the game was designed for gamepad. I hope you enjoy it anyway. Thanks for the comment ;).

matt-ravenhall 2022-10-09 18:21

Really interesting idea, and well executed. But I eventually completed the levels I enjoyed (water and jungle) and was left with the more frustrating ones (snow and robots). I also got stuck with 5/6 in the robots level, perhaps an enemy was killed as the levels were being switched? The switches can also be a real pain, I often found myself ruining a snow level jump because I'd pressed jump on the previous level.

Love the art style!

candlesan 2022-10-11 20:13

Really great art - so many environments that you managed to do in the space of a jam which is very impressive. I like that the music/sound changes to give you a short warning before a scene change.

eyedromeda 2022-10-11 20:32

It took me a while to figure out exactly how the abilities worked, like having to hold the jump button to control the jump height inside the ice. While I think naturally finding these things out feels rewarding, it also risks leaving the player stuck.

The art is amazing, and the atmosphere in each place was great and each one was really well distinquished from the others.

As great as the diversity in the different areas was, I do think the 10 second switches felt a little shoehorned in, as there weren't any mechanics tied to them. I think the levels would've worked better as separate ones completed back to back, but I understand wanting to include the theme.

I expected at first that the other games would keep running in the background, so I always placed water guy in front of those bubble spawners, but since the switches sometimes happened mid-jump, it probably was for the best that that wasn't the case, though it would've been a way to make the switches seem more incorporated.

The platforming was difficult enough to not feel trivial, but not to the point of frustration, which was great.

Overall a very enjoyable game. Good work!

organicpencil 2022-10-13 18:26

Neat concept. Fantastic art. Pretty big game all things considered. That snow level... took me so long, poor dude probably lost his fingers.

cookie-chr 2022-10-13 21:42

Really cool and well executed entry! I particularly like how the music subtly changes in each world :)

niklas-zhaga 2022-10-14 09:45

Yeeeah I beat it! Not so easy game, but I collected all 4 parts. For the first time I didn't get how to jump off the snow piles, and then I've remembered about Jump King and everything become clear.

Nicely done!

volkolak 2022-10-16 14:59

Good disclosure of the topic! It is interesting to play parallel branches and quickly switch.

volkolak 2022-10-16 15:15

It was very fun!

fax 2022-10-17 12:22

@matt-ravenhall : You found a bug with ennemy count in underground level ! Congratulations...i suppose ^^. The fact that you miss some jumps cause you was jumping during transition is the core of our gameplay's choice. Thanks a lot for the message.

@candlesan : Thank you so much for your message.

@eyedromeda : The ten seconds are in the game loop, wihtout any visible timer, you had to take care about it. We did the choice to freeze other worlds during play in order to not punish too hard, but this was a reflexion's point. Thanks for the test and the message. We are happy that you enjoy the game.

@organicpencil : Unfortunately yes, Jake lost a lot of fingers during this JAM ^^.

@cookie-chr : Yeah, thanks to Fl8 and these beautiful musics.

@niklas-zhaga : Yeah you found the reference ! I wanted to implement a level like JumpKing but... not as difficult. Congratulations to end the game. And thanks a lot for the comment.

@volkolak : Thanks a lot for your message. We are proud that you enjoy it.