FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD52 → The Archiver

The Archiver

By ale

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall7722.7236
Fun7572.5036
Innovation5473.0736
Theme6043.3636
Graphics6193.0236
Humor4542.7735
Mood7412.6935

Comments

wolfraam1974 2023-01-10 10:43

Thank you so much! I loves stickman games. You the best!

cambryx 2023-01-10 11:38

Cool graphics and interesting idea with a lot of game mechanics. I found the controls a bit frustrating because often I got the timing wrong and missed the short time when telekinesis tool turned blue or the stickman started walking away while I was holding RMB. Also I am not sure if this is a bug but I didn't manage to make to start reproduction. After putting two fed humans in the cage, they just dropped down (without their fed status, because it disappeared as soon as I put them in the cage) and nothing else happened.

jan5366x 2023-01-10 11:39

I had some problems to understand it at the beginning since it is not my usual game genre, but good work!

ale 2023-01-10 21:11

@wolfraam1974 @cambryx @jan5366x Thanks for playing!

Unfortunately, the damn flu/covid/whatever is going around got me and I've been sick all week. I knocked out almost immediately after submitting this without realizing there were two game breaking bugs: broken reproduction cage, and impossible to harvest brains on Windows and HTML5 builds due to broken input handling.

I've uploaded an updated version which should be working fine, if anyone would like to try it again.

jan5366x 2023-01-10 21:51

Hehe ok that explains a lot ... so I was not doing it wrong :smile: ... works now for me ... one time a dude was falling through the ground, but overall good work! Please chill & get well soon

torban 2023-01-11 00:37

Im able to grab a unit but I cant seem to shake the brain out. I was able to do it once, but usually I just end up dropping the unit instead of getting the brain

ale 2023-01-11 00:43

@torban are you using a gamepad or mouse? I think the gamepad has issues in the HTML5 version. It's also easier to do it if you move the joystick left-to-right rapidly, rather than doing a circular motion. For mouse/kbd, it should work... although the sensitivity might be too low.

Also, the veggie people (the ones bent over at the start of the game) don't have brains, so shaking them won't give you anything.

daitli 2023-01-11 03:15

It took me a hot minute trying to figure out what to do even when checking the in-game manual all the time lol

ironhandmd 2023-01-11 03:32

nice game! I like the graphics, simple but gives justice to the theme , I had some challenge on getting the brains, I was shaking the stickman, he just fell off. I like the concept of harvesting brains and developing the stickmen form veg to man, keep it up!

hyster 2023-01-11 09:37

I have no idea what's going on, the control are really weird and unsatisfying

maxuleny 2023-01-11 12:55

Particular game, it took me some time to understand how it works. The graphics are nice. Too bad for the absence of the audio compartment.

hmrpf 2023-01-11 17:05

Interesting game ! It took time to get it. But I got use to the telekinesis mechanic after a while. I did a zombie, but and almost a second then 4 rebels killed my 2 almost full zombie and I hadn't the strenght to make 2 new :D Maybe make it a bit more dynamic and it could be super nice. Also the fact that the cursor is slower than my real cursor is a bit frustrating. I wonder if it wouldn't be easier if it just was following the mouse. Great entry anyway, so much work in so little time !

cloughd 2023-01-11 18:39

Interesting take on a colony management kind of game. It took me a good amount of time to figure out how to play even with the tutorial. The graphics are pretty clean and polished with the animated stick figures.

togo-sepultraut 2023-01-12 02:59

its a nice management idea. the controls however hold it back a lot. playing with mouse, the cursor lags behind the mouse so you have to click and release constantly to get it anywhere :/ (may be a bug?)

fluri 2023-01-12 14:04

The animations of the stick figures are nice. - Instructions could be given in chunks to not overwhelm the player. - The triangle cursor is frustrating to time and would much rather be able being able to move the stick figures with the mouse.

ale 2023-01-12 17:18

Thanks for all the feedback everyone!

@togo-sepultraut @fluri @hmrpf @hyster

It seems like the control scheme didn't work out. The reason I made it so weird is because I wanted to add a barrier between the player and the game world, to try and make it feel more alive. I thought that letting the player directly pick up/manipulate things with the mouse would make it feel too mechanical/game-y, whereas having to cross a barrier to do basic things would make each action feel more impactful.

...at least, that was the idea I had early in the jam. Now that I've been able to properly play test, it's clear that it didn't work, at least not in its current implementation. I got used to it while I was working on it, but obviously I'm much more likely to do that than a real user lol.

But anyways, this feedback has been very helpful. I've never made a game like this before, so it's been a very valuable learning experience :D

harmofish 2023-01-13 06:26

It's a very creative game, but the controls are not smooth, and it's unclear what the ultimate goal is. Come on!

milq 2023-01-14 01:17

Good entry! At first it was difficult for me to understand the tutorial, and then to get out of it! And at the beginning it was difficult for me to start playing, maybe it would be interesting to improve the usability. However, I find the concept wonderful and then you are hooked. Very good game, seriously, congratulations.

jezzamon 2023-01-15 23:54

Hm, I think you should consider disabling mouse controls, they were too frustrating to use. It actually made me assume that the game was designed for a gamepad first, but I see in the description that the gamepad is the less tested one!

I've play a few games where part of the mechanic is "the controls are harder to use" and I don't think it ever really works! I think you need to make the controls feel as good as possible for people to feel like they're fun and not frustrating.

One tip I often give people is to get people to try their game during the jam, if possible! Someone might've given you that feedback which you could tweak.

I got a bit of the way through the game, managed to get a zombie worker and some worker apes, but it felt a bit slow with the controls. Still, interesting entry!

dfaouaz 2023-01-24 11:10

The controls were a little uncomfortable but overall it is a lovely stickman game! Nice job!