FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD52 → Star Harvest

Star Harvest

By geckoo1337

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1313.5522
Fun1273.5222
Innovation1563.3522
Theme2393.3222
Graphics2143.3022
Audio1163.4221
Mood923.6722

Comments

pushmepullyu 2023-01-09 08:33

Ah... Did it just toss my pc name into the leaderboards without asking?

geckoo1337 2023-01-09 15:20

Hello. I posted an explanation about this feature above. For me, it's not a problem, but I can understand that someone could see here a strange shortcut... I had not more time to integrate a text input system. Sorry. Can you share with me why it annoys you.? Thank you ++

sn4pi 2023-01-10 01:45

What would be a game by @geckoo1337 without a leaderbord! The idea and mechanic is pretty interesting - but damn this game is hard. Can't seem to even touch a higher score than 30.

geckoo1337 2023-01-10 04:35

Hello @sn4pi.Thank you for your feedback. I assume that there is something wrong with my code because it is just impossible to do a low score on the first level. I forgot that there is a bug with my VSYNC option. Can you share with me your PC configuration please?

geckoo1337 2023-01-10 07:45

The game has been fixed. I made a mistake about the Time Update - Sorry...

@pushmepullyu @sn4pi and other players, please download the fixed version before evaluation. Thank you everyone ++

wouter52 2023-01-10 19:18

Oooh that is cool! I like this kind of stuff! The leaderboard is a good addition to this game, as it gives an incentive to keep going! Although, I wonder if there is a tactic, or if this is truly luck-based. I haven't found out yet.

Feedback I have: it would be cool if the leaderboard could be shown in-game. It almost works the same as my own system; a textfile somewhere on a server ^^" You are able to post there, so I would imagine that retreiving such data would be trivial :-)

I took a look at your code first. I was like "Wait... why would it need to get my computername?" and then I saw what it was used for. Very clever! Then you don't need to handle code for players to add their alias/nickname ^^" Although, then the player does not really have control over what will be sent to the server. That could be privacyrisk maybe, I'm not really qualified to make such statement, just an honest thought :-)

lereveur 2023-01-16 00:16

It was very pleasant and relaxing to play this ~~fireworks simulation~~ cool game! Unfortunately, the game can't store my score (375), because I still have an old Win Seven Pro machine and so PowerShell version is too old - I'm trying to update it but I'm not sure if it will work, but if it does, I will retry, just to get a score on this leaderboard :grin:

geckoo1337 2023-01-16 13:11

@lereveur Thank you for your feedback. It's true - as you read in the cpp file I guess - it uses PowerShell in order to send a simple request to the LeaderBoard on-line. This is the easiest way which I found. However, I did not expect that, some have too old laptops or PCs under obsolete operating systems. I post your score because I know that you are not lying. Congrats - you are the best player :)

lereveur 2023-01-17 00:18

Thank you! I updated the win package containing PowerShell, and according to my web search it must have solved the problem (after restarting), but now I have another error (btw I didn't search the game source but PowerShell report the errors in the launch command line window, that's why I searched about it yesterday). I guess another package must be updated but I didn't found which one… Well, anyway I didn't manage to make a better score (for my last try I reach level 5 like previous but only with 325 points ^^) I hope I could buy another machine before the next LD, but I'm not sure I can (yes, I say that litteraly for years now… ^^;) Edit : anyway, your game is still pleasant to play, even if I can't try to beat my score on the leaderboard :D

zbugba 2023-01-19 20:04

I remember playing mobile game like this ages ago. Cool entry, but you shouldn't automatically submit anything to a place that is publicly accessible without asking for a permission. Especially if you include things like computer name.

geckoo1337 2023-01-19 20:19

Hello @zbugba You are not the first one who said that I should not use a computer name (or something else) as an entry for my leaderboard. Respectfully I would like to ask you why? What can someone do with such relative information? And I guess that half of those who said that it is not a good idea have a FB account or other media which grab a lot of more sensitive information - but no one says nothing prefering to share some holiday pictures or what they are eating :)

PS : I posted more informations above in order to "ask" players before playing ++

arthur-mairs 2023-01-20 08:09

I enjoyed the explosions a lot! good fun, simple and enjoyable entry!

icxon 2023-01-20 10:22

Love the simulation! Half of me thinks the outcome is pure random, the other half tried to find best strategy within several attempts. Still not sure... I guess when I hit the fast ones it get better but not always.

I wish I had 2-3 clicks on levels 4+ to have a bit more control and more skill minded play. Great experience nevertheless! :stars:

Here is my playtest:

https://youtu.be/s764lihfXwY

lfreinoso 2023-01-20 11:04

Different, but it took me a while to understand... simple game, congratulations.

remco 2023-01-21 12:45

A very satisfying effect.

I found that you can the initial part of the level a little bit when clicking when stars where just moving past one another. I don't feel like I have control after the initial few explosions at all though.

A minor inconvenience: You need to wait for everything to have died down, even though it says 'level completed'.

It's nice to have a game be completely generated from relatively compact source, everything generated from that.

P.S. Sadly audio won't play. I know there should be some, since you include a header file for it. So if you're missing out an audio rating, that's the reason. I played under proton on linux though, so it's also probably on my side. (That maybe also explains why I couldn't find my lappy named 'deck' on the leaderboard -- though now it gives me a 503 when looking at it.)

zbugba 2023-01-21 14:16

@geckoo1337 it's about the fact that you collect this information and send it somewhere without any consent. The point about using FB is silly given you must accept T&C in order to use FB so it's your fault. You never asked user nor have you informed that anything from their PC is going to be sent to a public site.

geckoo1337 2023-01-21 16:49

@remco Your comment is relevant. I understand that it disappoints players, but I have to let the game end before going to the next level because if the game immediately jumps, the player loses some extra points which can make the difference at the end on the leaderboard. At first I made something like you suggested (player reaches the required score and hop -> next level!), but it is no good because always some points can be done... each level waits the end of the round before to go next - even if there is the info Level Completed ++

PS : yes. There is a sound and a computer name, but I did not expect during ist development that someone could use a Linux system to play :)

joror 2023-01-21 18:46

Neat little 'fireworks' game! I found it a bit hard to tie any logic to the result of where I clicked to start the cascade... would have been nice to get a bit more player impact in there.

oleg20111511 2023-01-21 20:17

There's just something oddly satisfying about watching your one action make a huge impact on the game field. I enjoyed it a lot! There's some room for improvement, mainly regarding visuals. At first it feels like just a mess of multicolored circles, and it is hard to make out which effects mean what. It took me a few attempts at the game before I figures it out. Audio could use some work as well - it just doesn't feel right for explosions to happen without any sound at all.

And, as many here have already pointed out, using PC name as leaderboard submission is lame and there should have been nickname input instead.

P.S. tried to cheat-request myself the highest score out of curiosity, since I thought it would be easy to fake a GET-request, but turns out I'm not that good at cheating so it didn't work out. And so the NEXUS remains with 365 points at 2nd place

adhesion 2023-01-22 21:49

Nice, I like the old school feel of the graphics and music, and the concept is cool too. (Props for making a very small-sized game too, 117KB is quite impressive compared to all the giant Unreal and Unity downloads out there!) Player control/strategy felt pretty limited beyond just trying to click on a fast moving star so it feels a little more like a sandbox than a game but that's not a big deal. The game probably would have felt more satisfying if there was a sound for the explosions but it was still pretty fun to play. Never made it past level 6 after a few attempts but that was good enough for 3rd place apparently! Cool experience, nice work!

lizelive 2023-01-24 06:16

wow you werent joking about being pure c++. reminds me of grade school programming my TI84+ SE simple but fun game fact that it fits in 300 lines of c++ code is impressive to me. looks at the 300MiB empty scene unity games. O7

mcnuttys 2023-01-24 22:19

Really like these chain reaction type games. My only issue with the game is that its not named... HarvestSTAR... Regardless really cool visuals and such, fun game!

moonlightbomber 2023-01-25 03:07

This game is almost automated. Just one press of the key or click of the mouse and watch as the chain reaction hopefully meets the goal. Nice job.