Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD52 → Lovecraftian Famring
By snowdrama, vengarioth, rot_god, arc1llusion, Aaldrik and rubiks
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 646 | 3.11 | 24 | |
| Fun | 736 | 2.61 | 24 | |
| Innovation | 552 | 3.06 | 24 | |
| Theme | 346 | 3.79 | 24 | |
| Graphics | 431 | 3.56 | 24 | |
| Humor | 388 | 2.92 | 23 | |
| Mood | 624 | 3.04 | 24 |
I'm really confused. So i guess it is a good lovecraftian game. I like that you have to look at the shapes of the Traps to figure out what they are made of. But I still have no idea what I am doing. Some kind of Goal would be nice. The Sprites and animations look good.
@schlock it's one of the issues I definitely struggled with, like how to explain the mechanics and such and how to make the traps discoverable within the game without giving you a book/note with the recipe or something like that. There is a goal but it's hinted at very subtly and becomes more obvious as you progress, which is that you need to build the last trap in the list.
@snowdrama what you really need is sound and music - even if it is not from you (from open source). that makes a game much more improved. I really like the graphics and you have even done a crafting system.
I am proud of you what you all did. This jam was hard.
And i found out one LDJam issue is the Webplayer - it cuts the UI from Unity Games on the top...i had the same issue and export the web build with a 948x533 resolution (that makes a bit better :)).
Does the health decrease in some cases ? i really like the hearts animation and the tentacle styles.
@neowhoru Yeah music was totally coming, but the guy doing the music came in just a few hours late to get it in the final build for the game. UGHHHHHH That was a real disappointment but a post jam version coming after the voting closes will have it and I'll be sure to tag you! I noticed the issues with the LD site player, I just couldn't fix due to working so I'll probably fix it early tomorrow The health was SUPPOSED to decrease because the enemies were supposed to attack you but basically all of the combat got cut in favor of the main crafting and trap mechanics.
A pretty solid game. I could have done with a bit more hand holding. I stopped when guessing became not fun. I would have played longer with some clear targets to aim for. I really liked the art and I could see it becoming a game worth playing.
@arron-fowler yeah for sure, some way to like discover the recipe's in the game was planned, it was supposed to be like a mysterious stranger would leave notes for you at night or something and that would add recipes to like a crafting book. But that got cut for time along with a ton of other things. Sadly the overscope was real this time which I plan to talk about in a post mortem soon, but yeah normally I have a relatively large team of 3-5 people helping but this time we got jump scared by the LD, only finding out about it 3 days before it started, and most people could only help like 1 day at most so it was scoped for like a ton more features.
@snowdrama yeah I know that pain. I did better this time at realising what was sensible or not. Still lots got cut on the last day. Some pretty important bits had to go. That is the jam way of life.
It took me a little while finding the last recipe but I managed to win! I don't know why none of you is testing and rating games, but i guess you have your reasons. I hope you will get enough ratings
Game looks nice and gameplay is fun. I key for trap inventory did not work for me but anyways, I enjoyed the game. Good job! If you would like to shred some zombies in slowmo, be sure to check out my entry, I would love to hear your feedbacks :)
@hayricakir interesting, I'm not sure why that would be, I'll have to look into it. Were you on the itch.io version or the LDJam site version and what browser were you using? But thank you for playing!
I like that I can visually guess the crafting recipes.
Going to sleep repeatedly to wait for things to grow was kind of slow though, I wish that it was a bit faster to go from day to day or more to do each day.
@snowdrama I played it from the top of this page (LDJam version). Browser is Opera GX.
@almost Yeah there was going to be a lot more to do, if you press M you can see that there was a market planned where you can sell the parts for gold, and there was going to be a quest system where you'd also be able to fulfil requests to get specific parts for various cultists. On top of that there was going to be more involved like permanent versions of traps so you wouldn't need to rebuild them ever 3 days but they'd be made out of more late game parts and such. Of course scope and time got in the way of all that hahaha.
@hayricakir Ahh might be an Opera GX thing I'll have to try it there. Worked fine in Edge/Chrome/Firefox for me
Just a plain old famrer harvesting abominations like amogus slime. It's a great concept and there's a lot you could potentially do with it.
@immanentdeath yeah for sure, I had a lot more ambitious ideas but obviously scoping for time a bunch of ideas had to be dropped to finish haha
Crafting System + Quest System + Shop System sounds like too much for one Jam :P But nice Grafics missed some music ;)
Love the pixel art / animations, but not a fan of the UI.
Only 6 votes left! If you have some time I'd be glad if you could test my game too :smile:
@pope-paf yeah 100% too much, I usually have a lot more help but this time that help was mostly advice or like really basic like discord calls about how they'd have done something, but they didn't have time to actually help so I worked mostly alone on this one. Music was on the way but my teammate working on the music didn't get anything to me until after the jam ended, so I was waiting till the jam was over to update it, the update will have music but only after voting closes for fairness.
@froissant Yes! Very excited to have this done soon haha, Will check out yours as well!
At first I had no idea how I should get the craft recipes but at some point figured out, that I can guess them from the silhouettes in the inventory :smile: But I didn't managed to craft the 5. item because I feel like needed the round item at the bottom which I never collected.
The controls are a bit weird, because C and I feel a bit all over the place and arrow keys are a bit cumbersome when you also have to use the mouse sometimes.
Otherwise cool graphics. Too bad there isn't any sound, I think this could have added a lot to the atmosphere. Still a cool game!
- Sound would have been great, - Couldn't exit the task screen easily, - No idea what to do, (needs tutorial) - Nice idea/graphis!
@oadt yeah seems many people struggle with that one, it's the rat eyes/rat tail/rat eyes, someone else mentioned this because it's the one time where I don't use the base sprite, just one of the bubbles of the 4 pink rat eyes.
Yeah I was going with "Key = meaning" so C = Crafting and I = Inventory. In fact the "M" for Market is actually still there though the money isn't used for anything and I don't hint at it at all because It's not valuable to know about lol.
Sounds and music were coming but we got them in slightly too late and for Jam fairness I have not pushed the version with any updates like sound or controls yet.
@artofluba not sure what you mean the task screen? You can close any screen by pressing the key again or pressing Escape.
Yeah sounds and music came in too late to add to the Jam release.
The signs should give you most of the information, but I see how some additional context clues could help with explaining like how to place traps, but I wanted to avoid an explicit tutorial, so 95% the information needed to beat the game is in the game except for the final recipe which I ran out of time to add an event for that would teach the recipe. The silhouette of the traps are in the inventory and use the sprites from the items you pick up.
@snowdrama Hmm I pressed a button which opened the screen but I didn't know which button it was... so I pressed ESC and it closed the whole window. Wellp. Haha.
Our game is missing a tutorial as well and in hindsight I think maybe I need some tutorials to get through a game, though sometimes not! Maybe more coffee... anyhoo I really like your mood and graphics!!
As I said in my other comment - love the art. Would have been great to have some music and a menu screen that explained the controls, but the in-game signposts were a great touch.
@procrasteroid Thanks! @rubiks did the player sprite and I added the animation afterward, there were more animations but they got cut when I cut the part where some things would be hostile.
Music is coming in like... 20 minutes once ratings close haha, it was JUST barely too late to add haha
I appreciate the comments on the signs, I try not to give explicit tutorials because it's something I really hate in games, I expect a level of awareness on the player's part to piece things together though I think I could have done better since I have done so in previous jams, but I overscoped due to normally having more team help but we all got surprised with the re-addition of the January jam.