cassreads 2023-01-09 22:26
Super fun! Cute idea and executed well
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → Charles, the Bee
By blue-pin-studio, ginathepotato and mynvs
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 155 | 3.88 | 73 | |
| Fun | 183 | 3.75 | 73 | |
| Innovation | 354 | 3.38 | 72 | |
| Theme | 336 | 3.80 | 72 | |
| Graphics | 179 | 4.11 | 73 | |
| Audio | 32 | 4.17 | 70 | |
| Humor | 74 | 3.85 | 72 | |
| Mood | 113 | 3.99 | 71 |
Super fun! Cute idea and executed well
Fun game ! it's very complete, I enjoyed the small story and the rythme created by the 3 phases : Harvesting - Paying entrance - Dancing.
Really fun game and I loved the voice acting :D Great visuals too
Very cute game and enjoyable! Looks great and music was super chill.
Really cute, cool Austin Powers reference
very cute and fun game. the dance offs are a nice twist to the relaxing grind of harvesting nectar.
Cute game! Art and music were great. Those flowers in the after-hours beehive were BUMPIN'!
I'm not a fan of rhythm games so that probably sullied my opinion but I did have fun. not bad for a days. way more polished then what we were able to pull off. I would have been nice to not have to spend so long dumping pollen to get into the competitions and the timing was way off the beat sometimes. but I still enjoyed it and that's the main thing.
Really excellent submission. The art is adorable, and it's an interesting take on the theme. Also great music!
What a good spin on the theme. Felt really hard to dance, but I somehow managed to go through each stage non the less. Nice graphics and good dance tunes. I would however consider to implement some sort of feedback (other than you getting points) like a sound or a visual cue, when you get the dance move right. Overall really good entry.
I am awful at rhythm games, but I really enjoyed the art and music. Creative use of the theme. Great job team!
Wow, what a great game you made in such a small time! I realy loved the visuals - the game looks so good! Music is great too. I liked both sections of the game - dancing was fun (although I would personally like to see some visual feedback when hitting it right or wrong). And the collecting section was realy great. I like that you included the arrow that points where to fly - really useful. Super polished, and definitely one of my favorite games so far!
Very cute and charming! I enjoyed the dancing parts the most. The collect-a-thon sort of ran its course by the 3rd time. The 3rd dance was quite challenging!
Very cute artstyle! Nice job syncing up the audio with the gameplay. I was able to feel the rhythm instead of waiting for the notes to touch the line. The custom music also worked well. I liked all the little eighth-note (I think) bits that matched up with the rhythm pattern.
The honey-harvesting bit was definitely too easy, but it made for a good pace-breaker for between the dancing sections. There were a couple things that made me think there was meant to be more to that part, but time constraints got in the way.
Here were my nitpicks: - I wish the rhythm game bit had some more player feedback. There are no sound or visual effects for making or whiffing a note. - I didn't know how good of a score you needed to win. I figured I probably lost the third level since I whiffed like a third of the notes. but I won anyway. - I think the third song should have been paced a bit better. It comes right out the gate with insane combinations. I think it should have started with simpler note combinations, then worked up.
Overall, I enjoyed. Nice work!
Wow! You got a lot done in such a short time! I really like the art, done very cleverly, the music was lovely too. I like the game variety you went for, unexpected spin on things!
If you continue to work on the game my feedback would be to connect the two parts of the game, so for example the speed of getting the pollen influence the second part, or at least add a level of challenge to the pollen collection part, so it doesnt feel too monotonous.
Well done!
Nice game. Feels completely polished, interesting idea. Was kinda bored by harvesting segments in early game but when they speed up it became fine too.
We love Charles! And, wow, he's a techno guy, huh? :)
Check out our Bees too!
Fun game! The graphics of the bees and the garden are also very good. You mix genres and I like it too. I can hardly put buts. I have been wanting to see other types of bees such as drones. Great game!
A fun and charming little game! It looks so clean and colourful. I'm glad I was able to beat it despite being awful at rhythm games (so thank you for being lenient)!
As others have said, it'd be nice to see the pollen collection improved/more connected to the dancing segments (maybe spare pollen could be used to help with the dancing, or something), but I did enjoy the nice ebb and flow of the game in terms of intensity.
Overall, the two styles work very nicely together. Well done to all of you!
I love the overall vibe and graphics! The game is fun and realaxing. The only issue (at least for me) the controlling, took me a while to get used to. But for such a short time it's a great game! <3
Very cute game. I especially loved the voice acting. I think it would have been a lot cooler if the collecting game itself was a kind of rhythm game rather than it just being something you do between the dancing game, but I'll say that it did help set the mood.
Super cute, loved it! Although it didn't seem to matter how truly terrible I was at the dancing section, I still won the beeadge
Well i didnt expect that! : D It was fun playing your game. Interesting idea to split gameplay into two separate games. Thank you for the submission! Congratz of finishin it and see ya on the next one! Charles.png
This was really cute and wholesome and that music bee poppin! I liked how the pollen moved around and there were other bees buzzing about to make the world feel more alive. The crickets and glowing pollen when you enter the night life and the music getting louder as you get closer were some really nice additions!
A couple points of minor improvements: -I think the pollen transfer was too long for the larger entrance fees. It could probably just be a set duration, no matter the amount -W key for boosting too since space isn't used for anything else -Could be cool idea to get rewarded some pollen based on your performance in the song parts as more incentive for doing well :D
also nice bee movie link xD
charles-the-bee.png
I am terrible at rhythm games, but somehow I managed to get there! The dance part is definitely the better half of the game, the pollen collecting was a bit tiring already by the third time. Also, was initially confused because the instructions said WASD to move but I wasn't expecting tank controls, but that's probably on me. I am not sure if there was any indicator during the dance section to show whether I was going to pass or fail; I was a bit nervous during the last one as it was quite hard!
It's so fun ! The music lofi is really cool to the day, the mood in the night before the party is perfect. The party is fun, the musics are cool.
Great job !
This is definitely one of the more original takes on the theme I've seen! I love the mashup of simple resource collecting and rhythm game, the change in pace betwen gameplay sections is refreshing! A few small improvements that would have been nice are a bigger, more noticeable arrow near the character when you finish gathering pollen (I got carried away by how chill that part felt and didn't notice for a bit that I was no longer collecting anything...), and some feedback when I hit a key correctly in the rhythm part so I could get a better feel for the timing.
Charming little game, the graphics are cute and fit together so well and the Character non-top sprites look fancy! I liked the music as-well, although while I didn't have anything against the voice acting - some bee-ness or quirk added to the lines would have enhanced it. Game-Play wise I feel like the start is too slow. You collect your pollen and then the arrow leading-to the boss takes far longer than it should in my opinion, but that's easily fixed, just hard to pace things in ludum anyway. Otherwise enjoyed the dancing, though some feedback of when you press the right key would be nice if you do a future version, either some pitch sound or some flashiness before the arrow disappears. In total a lovely little game, great work!
Ok this game is very nice. The art is cute and so clean. music and and dancemoves are funny and not to hard (luckely im not that good in finger ddr). Love the switch between the 2 game light and bright to "dark neon" theme. Personaly i love voice acting in a game so is would say to conclusion 5/5. Good entry ~guys.
Make a living for dancing. This game is fun.Love it! Really enjoyed the music! Great work!
Very cute game! :smile:
I enjoyed it a lot, and it was nice to have the variety of different gameplays between the pollen harvesting sections and the dance sections. The only complaint I have is that I think the harvesting sections should have been a little bit shorter. I really enjoyed their relaxed nature but they became a bit too long at some point (and weren't challenging enough to be fun for that long).
The art and music were really great! The rhythm sections were pretty hard for me (especially the last one) but it was very fun and I managed to win the dance competition eventually!
Thank you for making the game!
Well, this color is very good! Look at my ID! ha-ha. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:
Loved the art style, got a bit bored harvesting pollen, but the rythm game was a nice touch. Congrats!
Nice **bee**-ld up going from the flower field to the disco!
Really gets you **buzzing**!
crap this is one well made game! Also Viktor, how are you! I got so excited when I saw you were a team member :) The pollen collecting does get a bit boring after a bit, so maybe a shorter time would have been better. I love how the music starts to grow as you get closer to the flower. Also, the difficulty was perfectly managed, I'm not the greatest at rhythm games but I still managed to have fun and actually win!
Oh and the puns make this game a five star without a thought :p
This unique take on the theme had me hooked from the start. The mashup of resource collecting and rhythm gameplay is a refreshing change of pace and the graphics are adorable. The music was great, but I felt the voice acting could have been more bee-like. The dancing part was an unexpected twist haha. I only wish there was some feedback on when I pressed the right key, or penalizing mashing the wrong keys. Overall, great job on a charming game!
I was very surprised by an actual dance off mechanic! I would have liked a little feedback from the UI or a sound while dancing to indicate success/failure inputs, it was a little difficult to get the timing down without any feedback. Very cute game!
Nice art, Liked the story and fits the theme well. I felt that the controls in the harvesting section were kind of awkward, but overall very cute game!
Man this is great. Great art, great gameplay and great music, music slaps.
Fantastic music and nice back and forth gameplay, though it felt like no matter one I did for all the two buttons at once ones I couldn't get them. Collecting pollen and dancing like made. The game looked great and the artwork was adorable. Great entry!
Charles the Bee is a fun game to play over all. I loved the multiple steps of each level. The music was great and the collecting portion was really peaceful.
Somethings to point out though:
- 🐧 I tried to run this on Linux, but it looks like the .zip for the Linux download is actually the web version. That might be as intended, but I was expecting a Linux binary to run. - 🐝Needing to collect more pollen by another 100 per level started to get a little old when I had to collect 300 pollen. Not enough to quit, but enough to feel it. - 🌸Giving the entry pollen to the flower club seemed to take way too long. Maybe it was for allowing us to hear more of the music, but it felt like an eternity by level 3. - 🕺Probably just on me but it was pretty difficult to translate the dance directions to buttons, especially since they are vertically oriented and all very similar in shape and color.
Other than those things however, the artwork was great and it is amazing that you all were able to produce 3 distinct levels, each with 3 scenes and still have the ability to have a start screen, dance-off entry and exit screens, and a credits reel.
Be proud of what you've built!
P.S. "Not Play" is hilarious 🤣
Very cute game!
I thought that splitting the game into the two separate phases was a great choice. It really does have the feeling that I am just a regular bee, working towards a dream of mine. So, I think this game very effectively tells its story through its mechanics.
The later pollen values do get a little large, but I never felt like the phase really dragged on too long. And I completely forgot about the boost during my playthrough -- so it seems to be fine even without the boost!
I also enjoyed the transitional phase between the two gameplay phases... where you are moving up to the flower within the beehive. The atmosphere is so different and also kind of calming. The only thing that I think can drag on a little long there is depositing the pollen into the flower right before the rhythm section, as there you're kind of just moving in circles and waiting, but the part where you're following the arrows was very nice in my opinion.
And of course, the music that increases in loudness as you approach is a nice touch too.
I have a couple specific thoughts on the rhythm section: - It was hard for me to tell what exactly I was doing wrong when I missed a note, especially in the first song. Later I went back and did the first song while pressing zero keys, and if I'm not mistaken the only way to mess up is to press the key too late...? Either way, some feedback about whether you missed because you were too early, or too late, or wrong key, would be helpful, I think. - If I'm not mistaken, there is no way to lose the rhythm section. I think this makes a lot of sense, because the game is just a sort of relaxing game to play through, not an intense rhythm game. In particular, I was definitely giving the game my best effort, even though I suspected that I would win either way, simply because it is fun to try. And, it was kind of nice to not have to stress out about being perfect. So I think that was a good feature. - As others have said, even more player feedback would be nice, including not only for missing a note but also for getting it right. Some sorts of highlights and animations would make it more exciting, I think. - In the third song, there were some combinations of notes where there was one at the very top and then one at the very bottom, slightly offset in time. It was very hard for me to tell whether these were meant to be played at the exact same time or not, as it's difficult to tell between horizontally aligned and slightly offset when they're moving so fast and have such a big vertical distance between them. I think maybe adding some vertical lines could help make the notes more readable in this case...? Or perhaps just avoiding that particular pattern.
Overall though, the rhythm section was fun to play through, and there were a lot of nice touches. The different poses for the main character were fun, as well as the audience cheering you on. In general the graphic design for this game is pretty great.
And, of course, the cards introducing each opponent bee, and for each victory, were very nice as well.
I also appreciated all the bee puns. :smile:
➕unexpected combination of different mechanics
➕cool game graphics
➕100% theme usage
➕really funny puns and characters
➖omg it's hard) too many arrows at the same time
➖ a bit boring on the last "level"
Awesome-looking game! I found the harvesting segments a bit long and felt that they slowed the game too much, but the rhythm portion was a lot of fun. The UI for your and your opponent's scores during the dancing segments was inconsistent with the rest, which is a shame because the rest of the UI is gorgeous.
Also, adding bee-movie to people's youtube watching history is definitely not nice XD
But kidding aside, great game!
This was fun. I liked how the rhythm parts were either very forgiving or impossible to fail. The art and music are great.
handsome indeed, handsome indeed
Ah, a rhythm game, my mortal enemy XD Awesome art style! Music too. And I love the "not play" button :) It was fun to try it out. Great job with the game!
Did not expect the rhythm game lmao, I thought I'd for sure fail them, but I won by 1 point for the 3rd song! The game gave me some good laughs, loved the bee names and the style of the game! The main harvesting game however did feel a bit of the same the 3rd time around, as our bee friend didnt get an upgrade or any more difficulty it was mainly about harvesting even more. Maybe have the smoke be more of a danger (or even more smokers??? Oh no!) would be cool!
Good entry!
😁 Overall nice and fairly polished, looks and of course sounds very good.
I'm just torn over how there seem to be two games in one and I'm not sure how much the harvesting segments really added (besides aligning with the theme). Both halves were nice by themselves. Didn't realise until I booted the game that the two GIFs on this page weren't in face a single one, where the harvesting was somehow controlling the dancing 😅
So yeah, either way I liked both segments. The smoke mostly stayed away so could've been a bit more dangerous. Dancing was fun! I'm decent at StepMania but I learnt to play that with two hands so I struggled hard with only WASD on the third song, but luckily the game was forgiving enough and the middle part easy enough that I won anyway~
I liked the helpful arrow telling me where to go, and the spatial audio for the bass when looking for the dancing place was nice. Cute bees, obviously! Besides some rough edges that I think others have already expressed well in the comments, this was cool stuff! 🐝
**Thanks so much for playing our game, everyone! There is a strong liklihood we'll be taking this game to Steam, so keep your eyes peeled for Charles. You haven't seen the last of him yet! You can join the discord for updates or follow along on itch. https://discord.gg/GtcKH3V6GZ**
@cassreads Thanks so much! Nice job being the first review, you're quick haha
@yorsh I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yea we tried to make at least two distinct sections, glad it wasnt entirely botched :D
@oxxar Haha thanks! Its always hard to judge our own voice acting, it always seems corny. But im glad it came across well!
@achilnos Thank you very much!
@socsob Haha im glad it wasn't entirely lost on the players. Its a fairly old reference at this point xD
@ninten7 Thanks! Im glad the two parts made sense together :D
@jellzilla Aww thanks! The art was made by Gina and it was her first time making art for a game, it turned out really well!
@rustynoob If you're not a fan of rhythm games and still managed to have fun, thats a big win for us! And yeah, we agree about the pollen, it will be adjusted :)
@paulstraw Thank you so much! According to you, each of the team members did really well, which i agree with 100% :D
@mrs-wheelsx Thank you very much!
@dzejpi Thanks a lot! Thanks for your suggestions regarding visual feedback, we will certainly work on it :)
@rrsmtz Yeah thats the feeling i got too, in subsequent versions we'll tone done the volume of pollen you have to collect and try our best to make the collection period more varied and interesting. Thanks for playing & feedback!
@zungryware Wow! Thanks so much for writing such nuanced feedback, this is a lot of useful stuff for us while we make the next version :) Im glad you enjoyed it, and i fully agree on your points about player feedback and pacing.
@joanna-skorupa Thanks a lot! Yeah we were working with a really good pace. Usually the first night is a write-off while we come up with ideas, but this time around we already had a small demo in the first few hours, that helped a lot. We are likely going to continue working on the game, so your feedback regarding connecting the two parts will be taken to heart!
@fallcresthero Thank you very much! Yeah the harvesting parts are a bit bland, we'll definitely address that in future versions :)
@durkagames You love charles! We love charles! Thanks a lot for playing and great job on your own bee game, very productive bees you have there, unlike our dancing guy haha
@milq Thanks a lot! Oh wow, thats not actually something we considered, definitely worth looking into different types of bees, thanks for the suggestions :)
@rulrite Thank you so much! I'm glad you were able to beat it too :) Thanks so much for the feedback and support!
@diana-shuke Thanks for the compliments :D Yes, a few others have pointed that out too, we'll address it to the best of our abilities in future versions
@lila-pause Haha thank you very much. In the same way as probably everyone else, i was uncertiain if the voiceacting was any good, glad you thought it was :)
@flaming-aardvark Thanks so much and im glad you still managed to get the beeadge xD
@sparkingsushi Thanks so much! Yeah splitting the game into two, was a bold decision. I'm not sure we did the two sections justice, but we aim to make both sections better with future versions.
@itsboats Thank you, thank you! Im glad you appreciated the steps we took to make the world more alive, we're hoping to do more of that. Thanks for those points of improvement, i will implement most of those right away, I can't believe i didnt think to do that myself :D
@hungryroy Thanks, i agree! The dancing is substantially more fun. We're going to aim at improving the harvesting section dramatically, tahnks for your feedback.
@silurus Thanks a lot! The night scene is very nice, i love it too :)
** Thanks so much for playing our game, everyone! There is a strong liklihood we'll be taking this game to Steam, so keep your eyes peeled for Charles. You haven't seen the last of him yet! You can join the discord for updates or follow along on itch. https://discord.gg/GtcKH3V6GZ **
@tetrapteryx Thats so nice to hear, thank you! Yes the bee compass definitely needs to be more obvious. It was sort of a last-minute addition so it didnt have a ton of thought put into it unfortunately. We will improve it for future versions. Thanks for your feedback!
@senso Thanks a lot :D Thanks for the feedback and kind words.
@killian0213 If we can't dance, then what can we do?! Haha, thanks for the kind words :)
@matank Thanks a lot, glad you thought the two sections worked nicely together. We've written down your feedback and will implement changes to address it, thanks so much for taking the time to help us.
@yellow omg its yellow! You're in our game! So nice to see you again xD Thanks for playing
@froissant Yeah the harvesting section was not as fun as we would've liked. Its definitely getting a substantial overhaul in the new versions, thanks for playing and leaving feedback!
@steffo Thanks a lot :D Glad you liked it
@mrchickenboy Always nice to see a familiar face! I hope to see you again in the next ludum dare. I liked your game and im glad you liked mine :D Thanks for the feedback, we're going to work on that stuff for the future builds.
@daveco Thanks a lot! Im glad the two genres combined didnt clash, it was something we were worried about. You're right about the feedback, we'll try our best to address that in future builds of this game :)
@terranb Haha, glad you liked it! Thanks for the feedback and thanks for playing :)
@chum-chum Aww thanks! Yeah the art is possibly the best part of the game. Charles is simply too handsome :D We'll look into addressing the control issues, thanks for bringing it up and thanks for playing.
@skvader-418 It slaps! haha thanks for the kind words :)
@bloodfin Wow! there's so much good advice and feedback here, thanks so much for taking the time to leave this amazing message. Im glad overall you liked it and we'll try to improve the game using your feedback as much as we can!
@honey-pony Omg another user that left such amazing feedback! Im honored you took the time to leave such detailed and insightful information. Thanks so much for playing and we're going to try our best to address the things you mentioned regarding feedback and the music portion in general.
@captandrey Thanks a lot for playing and leaving feedback. We'll have to address those minuses haha
@fluburbio Thanks a lot! Your feedback will be taken into consideration, thanks for taking the time to help us improve the game. Hopefully you didnt mind the Bee Movie part too much xD
@shiiro-10psi Thanks alot! Im glad you liked it and im happy to see your kind words
@haotian-chen handsome handsome! :D Thanks for the kind words
@zimny11 Haha thanks a lot, im glad at least a few people enjoyed the "not play" button :) Thanks for giving the game a shot despite the genre mismatch.
@jvdwijk Surprise rhythm game! Im glad you enjoyed it overall, and great work succeeding at the music bits. Thanks for your feedback and thanks for playing
@ava-skoog Your comment is overall nice and fairly polished too, haha. Thanks so much for leaving such nuanced feedback and helping us improve the game. We're definitely looking at ways to make the two segments more cohesive and generally improve both of them on their own too.