FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD53 → Inbox Fool

Inbox Fool

By 100th-coin

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall34.4199
Fun114.3399
Innovation104.3899
Theme2713.6299
Graphics804.00100
Audio14.5099
Humor24.5798
Mood264.2098

Comments

pauvictor 2023-05-01 09:50

This game is amazing. I almost cannot believe it can be made in 48h by one person. Congratulations

torte478 2023-05-01 11:51

Absolutely solid and amazing as always. I like it when a game jam submission contains a story, and this one definitely does. The music is fantastic, and the boss fight is incredible.

captaindreamcast 2023-05-01 14:37

What can I say, I have always been a single-issue voter and acid prices are that issue, so yeah, the S man has my vote.

Incredibly funny writing, I loved the overall voice acting and of course especially the boss fight song (complete with its button to play it again on the results screen, perfect). The art style went along great with this type of writing, I remember actively thinking during one of the levels just how perfectly fitting along every piece of it is. Same with the music really, I only noticed on my second playthrough (to get some acid vat dialog I accidentally missed) that the boss music and the level music have the same theme at least partially, whoa. The puzzles included a great combination of platforming and thinking about where to move the platforms. The tutorial was excellent, especially the part about moving the camera and the background being marked where to move it, immediately intuitive. Amazing job all around, really well done!

whycardboard 2023-05-01 17:46

i never thought sending bombs in the mail could lead to such fun gameplay.

Great writing once again, you never fail with the comedic entries. The mechanic of the moving window was super smart, and created for some great puzzle opportunities. The problem is how long it took me to complete the game, cause I was too busy in every room listening to the dialogue. So good. The boss fight theme was immaculate, and the "resume boss fight music button" was a must. If I had any feedback at all, it'd be that the player clipping out of bounds seemed to kill me sometimes, but put me back into bounds other times. Not sure if there's a percentage of out-of-bounds that matters or what, but I thought I'd mention it. Great work!

delta-key 2023-05-01 20:12

I think this is the best compo game I've seen so far this year. It's awesome, congratulations!

dienasty 2023-05-01 20:13

Love the writing.. love the boss fight... love the music. Overall .. awesome job.

The puzzle levels could have used a bit more work. I think there is a lot of potential for this game mechanic. I would have loved to see it explored a bit more fully.

pincushion 2023-05-01 20:13

This is great. Funny and polished. It looks really good. The voice acting/story keep it entertaining throughout. The puzzles were clever. The boss fight took quite a few restarts to figure out what I needed to do, but I got there eventually. Nice twist of the core mechanic. This was just.. well done.

waffleworksgames 2023-05-01 22:25

Beat it! I really enjoyed this, the main mechanic is really creative, I'd love to see it explored a bit more in the future! The dialogue is hilarious, and the music was great. The boss fight music made me chuckle. The boss fight itself was a really cool twist on the mechanic as well. Great job!

nick-baggett 2023-05-01 23:20

Wow this is incredible for a Compo! Awesome job, the dialogue was really funny and I thought the main mechanic was very unique. Nice job! Best game I've played so far for this jam.

soloadventurergames 2023-05-01 23:30

that was some of the best VO work i have heard, such a good game, love the boss fight music, not a joke not a lie not just tying to be nice it was really really good

cobrajs 2023-05-01 23:42

Fantastic!! I couldn't beat the boss fight (probably cause I was use my trackpad instead of a mouse), but everything was so well done! And voice acting?! Amazing! Well done!!

vectrex28 2023-05-02 02:39

The dialogue made me laugh out loud a few times. Combine that with solid gameplay, great graphics and music and you got a winner. Top-tier entry!

daandruff 2023-05-02 06:29

Really well made. It felt as the puzzles got more and more chaotic and not very planned out the further in to the game you got. Really good audio work as well. I had to stay a bit in the main menu and listen to the track before starting the game :D

kingcookie95 2023-05-02 07:37

This was absolutely amazing! Took me 32 Minutes and 47 resets until I was finished, but I thoroughly enjoyed that time. Especially the level with the diagonal rooms was pretty fun to work out how to beat. Great voiceovers, absolutely fantastic bossfight music, I am very impressed that this was done by one person in 48 hours!

orbitaldot 2023-05-02 09:01

Absolutely amazing, I was smiling the whole time while playing. The dialogue kept me going as I retried & retried & retried puzzles and kept me endlessly entertained. The boss fight is just as amazing, the music was great. Highly appreciate the "resume boss fight music" button at the end, that got a final laugh out of me. Top quality jam entry!

matthewdrake 2023-05-02 10:44

Super cool main mechanic! The dialogue was really funny (I hope 'The World's Shortest Song' makes it into the soundtrack release, haha.) Really solid entry to the Compo and amazed it was made in 48 hours. Good work, and good luck!

moonblast 2023-05-02 15:04

I like this kind of spatial puzzle, especially when the entire screen moves with it, which makes me feel that this game is very innovative. Moreover, the action and scene animations of the task are smooth enough, and the atmosphere is a bit humorous and solid work!

weirdbitgames 2023-05-02 15:14

Okay, this is really good! And very clever too! I really like the voice acting for the Professor-Doctor, it really helped tie the game together for me. I liked the mind-boggling meta-game puzzles, they were quite hard for me. I got stuck pretty early on! The sprite style is super cool and I like the animations on the main character. A very good entry indeed!

obe-dot 2023-05-02 15:20

This was really funny! How did you do this in only 48 hours?

hoshinu 2023-05-02 16:50

This is awesome! I liked the puzzle element to it, it was really fun to play.

space-games 2023-05-02 16:50

I love the art!

aplovestudio 2023-05-02 16:55

cute and fun!! normally don't dig keyboard + mouse platformers but this one was nice

fersyvanderzee 2023-05-02 17:02

Absolutely great game play!

ironcutter 2023-05-02 17:07

This is insane, you keep getting my best reviews and I think I'm going to take a look at the source too. Great job man!

frogravity 2023-05-02 17:50

Amazing game! I loved Smarticus' character - such an incompetent cartoonish villain, and yet I still felt slightly bad for him at the end (he just wanted eye contact). His jokes were hilariously bad (which made them loop all the way back to hilarious), and I loved all the different pictures of him. The audio was incredible all around - both the voice acting and all the music (I seriously applaud you for making a music consisting mainly of the words "boss fight" so good). I ended up listening to the entire voice acting before starting each level. The mechanic itself was also really clever - it took me some time to understand it completely, but I enjoyed it afterwords. I also liked the trail effect of the letters in the retry screen, it was a nice touch. The boss fight was also very unique and quite hard. The mouse animation in the boss felt a bit too long after a few retries, but that's really the only nitpick I have. Overall, awesome entry!

tom-cumpsty 2023-05-02 18:08

Love the puzzle mechanics and the voice acting in this. One of the better entries I have played this LD for sure!

freezedice 2023-05-02 18:19

If this doesn't win humor, then we are truly lost.

kiguel182 2023-05-02 19:21

Very impressive work! Innovative mechanic and very polished. Really liked the screen transition!

The graphics were nice and the voice work was funny.

The puzzles got a little hard for me so I didn't finish it but still really liked it overall!

marcodeevil 2023-05-02 19:41

WOW. The mechanic of moving the level is just incredible, never seen anything like that, is it your original idea or you 've been inspired by something? Really solid entry. Had a lot of fun :3

jumbods64 2023-05-02 19:48

Amazing

i like the mechanic a lot

rasblo 2023-05-02 19:52

Great core mechanic, but then this fantastic presentation and narration brings it to a whole new level. Somewhat frustrating with the puzzles demanding you to be so precise, probably couldn't work in a full game but hey, as a gamejam it's up there. Impressive, and congrats :)

toinef 2023-05-02 20:35

Incredible. The main mechanic is well-though (I appreciate the background of the tutorial level) and the boss fight really good (of course the boss fight music too). However, like @rasblo pointed out, I feel that the puzzles require too much precision in the jumps and camera positioning. But all in all, incredible, especially considering you were a solo dev.

yellow-attic 2023-05-02 20:51

This is hilarious. I love it!

cinterre 2023-05-02 20:58

Wow, really impressed with what you pulled together in such a short time. Took me far too long to realize that I would stop mid-air once I hit the cursor. Once I clued into that it was relatively smooth sailing. The boss music is the best!

clemall 2023-05-02 20:59

Hahaha this is so funny! And the "boss fight" is something, I wasn't prepared :laughing: Well done :laughing:

koos 2023-05-02 21:16

really impressive and creative

alaah 2023-05-02 21:46

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What can I say to you except that you always deliver

If you want some critique: while the puzzle mechanic is unique, it feels kinda random to play and doesn't make me feel smart when I clear it. I found it annoying that you have to point and click on the targets after shooting them, since the game gets paused anyway and it could immediately go into the dragging mode. Finally, the game is too polished so it doesn't quite live up to the comedic genius of The Bountiful

mateusboga 2023-05-02 22:17

Wow. That was incredible! I think you outdid yourself with this one. The voiceacting was hillarious, and the puzzle itself was pretty good too xD That bossfight music was amazing, it's stuck in my head lol Great work all around, don't have anything negative to say really.

drainkid 2023-05-03 01:49

Really fantastic work!!! It's incredible how all-around polished and complete this is, especially for 48 hours. I really only have nitpicks - the puzzles felt frustrating sometimes since I usually figured out what to do instantly, but took several tries to actually complete the puzzle because of the timing elements; the only one I actually had to stop and think on was the "Impossible Room" one. Also, following that, it would have been REALLY nice to be able to restart while in the dragging mode, since I usually could tell I didn't get the timing right but still had to drag the cursor somewhere in order to be able to restart.

Still, these are relatively minor things for an incredible entry. Awesome job!!!

stevie257 2023-05-03 02:53

Great entry! The art was well made.

ategon 2023-05-03 03:59

Really well made game, everything worked really well together. The acapella streak continues, that boss fight music is great lol. Also love how the main menu theme is the same pattern as the boss fight music and that theres a resume boss fight music button

paul-avallone 2023-05-03 05:21

Perfect entry. Really blew me away. Clever dialog hilariously delivered with perfect timing. The visuals were insanely well polished and the music was an absolute banger. The puzzle design flawlessly executed to teach then become more challenging as you progress. The mechanic of dragging around the bounds was incredibly unique. And somehow you still had time to make a great boss fight. I don't know how you do it man. I almost immediately recognized that you were the guy that did Watch Out for LD51. It's so cool you do every one. Excited to play your next game. Spectacular job!

caeonosphere 2023-05-03 05:41

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how the boss was moving the frame, but I finally got it. Most of the levels, I couldn't really tell if I was cheesing them since my solutions relied on being just baaarely outside of the death zone. Some nice variety of art and gameplay for 48 hours, well done!

pazzi 2023-05-03 08:34

I loved your corn one, and I love this one even more! smallest speaker for shortest song got me haha! Brilliant as expected xDAyy.PNG PS: The fact that this is compo as well blows me away

sodoj 2023-05-03 10:28

The idea is awesome and the presentation is charming as all hell! The levels are varied and nicely designed and it even features a fun boss fight with an epic orchestral arrangement! There are two things I'd personally add/change to make it even better. The first is, please let people know that they won't die if only a fraction of their body is colored red during camera shifts, it could've saved me a lot of trial and error. Speaking of saving time, some kind of undo system wouldve been neat since some levels (especially level 5) require a lot of work and you can screw up at the very end, meaning you'd have to reset the entire level if you get stuck. I'm not sure how I wouldve done it, some kind of checkpoint system after every segment might have been neat, but those gripes didn't sour my love for this game at all! Great entry, one of the best this jam!

langotriel 2023-05-03 11:49

I needed 19 resets and it seems like a few others here also did. Odd :up: Great entry! You always impress with the amount of content you fit in compo projects. Insanely great! The villain was hilarious and the gameplay with fun!

yusp 2023-05-03 12:16

like the idea and cover art, sounds are great. good ld entry

adamlenglen 2023-05-03 14:12

Everythings great, I laughed all the way through the game and cryed when the boss died (I didn't cryed that's a lie). Epic boss fight well though, very good idea for the gameplay in general. I love your humor the boss fight music was the funniest thing ever

tomssuli 2023-05-03 17:20

Great and polished game! The voice overs were awesome and funny, I adored the plot, how the Professor clearly did this all out of trying to get Terry's attention. I like your established, recognizable art style that makes all the games feel part of the same series. There was a good play on words how you got delivered a bomb and then delivered yourself through the mailboxes to deliver death to your tormentor.

Bossfight music was also epic. Only thing that bothered me a bit was that sometimes you had to be a bit outside the box to reach places, but the game makes you feel that if your characters shows red, they will die... Or maybe I just did the puzzles wrong. Anyways, the mechanics to move the darkness were innovative :)

Best total experience so far I've played this ludum :slight_smile:

stephanie-hansen 2023-05-03 17:30

This is hilarious! I love your writing and the character art is very charming. 10/10 boss fight; very descriptive. The gameplay was fun; I'm not great at platformers but it had me keep trying until the end.

kankje 2023-05-03 21:49

It's a bossfight 😂

Hilarious stuff, amazing game, good job!!

bqq 2023-05-03 21:54

Fun game, love the voiceover interjections in the levels! The main mechanic of the game is incredibly creative and the first three levels were great, I especially loved the background being a hint in the second one! I felt like the later levels could have used maybe one additional mechanic to mix it up and the pixel-hunting in the checkerboard level was a bit frustrating.

The boss fight (and music :D) was great, it using the cursor and ability against you was super creative as well! I got scary close to exactly 10 minute time:

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aidanmarkham 2023-05-04 01:29

Really interesting concept for a game! I love the way you inverted the main mechanic for the boss fight. The voiceover was really entertaining while working through the levels also.

foolmoron 2023-05-04 01:39

Love the name :D And the pizza tower esque graphics. Can't believe the amount of time you put into the cutscenes, that was awesome. Wipe transition!!! The mechanic is interesting, puzzles mostly simplistic and didn't require much thinking, but it was fun to manipulate and move around. I'm not sure what the value of the grenade thing was - seems like it added some control finickiness for no reason. Not being able to move the camera more than once was overly annoying too. You would do a whole puzzle then realize you were 10 pixels too far so you have to do it all over.

The boss fight was kinda more interesting than the puzzles, and super fun! It was frustrating and kinda random but it was quite interesting having to stay under him while hitting him.

dishwand 2023-05-04 04:11

this is a wonderfully put together little puzzle platformer! i would have liked to see either more interplay between the bomb-tossing and level-collider-moving mechanics, or to just see one of them removed. both had their little awkwardnesses that made most levels feel mostly like fidgeting around with just a couple centimeters of leeway involved in any solution. regardless, fantastic job with this very impressive entry!

rincs 2023-05-04 05:31

That was SUCH a fun game. I LOVE the mechanic of moving the active field around to get to places. Also EXTRA stars for that Boss Fight music. 10/10 will listen again. Thanks for having that button at the end XD boss fight.PNG

brandon-campbell 2023-05-04 06:12

My favorite LD game by FAR. So funny! And I don't even know how you thought of the core mechanic on this.

kreshi 2023-05-04 08:29

Absolutely stunning game, great gameplay, great mood, great audio, great storytelling, fun, it has about everything! I don't know how you did this but your creative mind must be of powerlevel OVER 9000!!! Best game that I played so far, congrats! :)

georgy 2023-05-04 11:56

This game is perfect for anyone who loves to think and solve puzzles. The graphics in the game look just amazing, and the sounds add to the level of atmosphere.

alks 2023-05-04 15:02

I don't know what to write! I'm speechless... as always with your games! uummmm... well! your music is definitely improving every jam! No joke! Even the... acapella... ones :D LOVE IT!

danmerey 2023-05-04 18:06

Nice game! I liked audio and the jokes, the main game puzzly mechanic is interesting (can't say it's very fun, but it's pretty unique). I liked the work on animations and sprites, although color scheme is something that almost stopped me from trying this game. Aprat from that the game needs some separation between background and foreground – TV look like a solid object, not background, and it's confusing.

In general – really good game (and polished enough!). Maybe too puzzly and not enough platformy (for me), but still very quality content.

jose-bonilla 2023-05-05 03:48

Nice game, clear Will You Snail vibes. Thanks for making it, I had fun!

aeveis 2023-05-05 04:15

I beat it in 14:10.70 with 27 retries! Interesting mechanic, I liked the visuals for it. The "how" of the mechanic is not really explained (perhaps doesn't need to be) but I liked the puzzles it made. Narration was fun and adds a lot of character to the game. The boss fight took a while to figure out but felt pretty good after finally beating it. Nice job!

gao-ming 2023-05-05 05:54

Jumping up and throwing bombs is fun, great level design! Enjoyed it very much!

nuin 2023-05-05 07:47

really cool mechanic

sneakyfox 2023-05-06 00:05

Awesome game! **10/10**

Best game of jam so far, everething feels so good. Sounds and music memrorizable, I just now need to live with this 'boss fight' in my head next two weeks.

Can't wait to see a full game based on this gameplay and mechanics, keep do it!

It was a really surprise that this game is compo! Excellent work, you rock! :punch:

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pomo 2023-05-06 00:58

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arron-fowler 2023-05-06 10:00

Super clever and well done. Not much to add. Very impressive. KUDOS

simon-rahnasto 2023-05-06 10:03

While your last entry still holds the spot as my all time favourite Compo game, this is an incredible game and my favourite one so far this jam!

I think it's the fact that you have such a unique and "own" style that does it for me, it's so far from generic and I really appreciate that. I also really love your style of humour, and the fact that you deliver it through some sick voice acting makes that much better.

The graphics are nice and coherent, again you have your own style and I would recognize this as your game without knowing it was. Both the Sound and music is great and hilarious. There was also a lot of innovative mechanics that I have not seen before, and the icing on the cake was the boss fight where he used your dragging mechanic against you in a pattern that you had to learn.

The more I reflect over each individual component of this game, and how good they are, the more I find it incredible that it is made by a single person... in 48 hours.

Strong contender for #1 :trophy:

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cubellia 2023-05-06 23:20

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This was amazing! Funny af, unique game idea (tho I did feel like I was pushing the bounds a bit trying to get through, no pun intended), well presented! Superb work!!

rookrules 2023-05-07 03:56

took 20 mins but I did it!! my goodness the boss' mixtape was FIRE! 4/5

rolly 2023-05-07 18:19

Wow incredible game mechanic. I would love to see a longer version of the game based on this game mechanic, with additional features being added and see where it can get. I really enjoyed the gameplay during the boss fight as well.

The music is awesome. Ping me when I can search "The Boss Fight" by Chris Siebert on Spotify :D

kuro 2023-05-08 20:59

What the fuck did I just witness :D :D :D

I feel like the graphics took a little bit of a dip this time around (nothing dramatic), but you delivered everything else in your standard high quality fashion. An original mechanic, a fun gameplay, great audio, and oh god the humor. Loved it man! This is the kind of humor I absolutely adore. You outdone yourself in audio and "storytelling" department I think. This is the best one yet content-wise. Kudos!

I can't rate your game since I didn't participate, but here, have my verbal appreciation at least.

alchemic 2023-05-11 06:58

Pretty great. Theme interpretation was a bit vague, but the gameplay, graphics, and audio were top notch. I kinda wish the camera cursor thing snapped to some kind of grid, it felt a bit smudgy with it being pixel-perfect.

hacksawunit 2023-05-11 16:41

Great entry!! The main mechanic was really fun, and Terry's controls are just the right mix of responsive and floaty. The room puzzles were pretty tricky and took advantage of some really weird and interesting mechanical wrinkles. And of course, the art, music, story, sound are all amazing and really came together to make this a great, self-contained little entry. (And, there's still a few mechanics I know you could explore in a bigger version: delayed bomb explosion, more 'destructable tile' puzzles, ever weirder 'border' styles (like the 'M' one)... ! You have some really cool mechanics here!)

Random things I liked: - Lots of little polish and effects like the animated mailboxes, screen transitions, explosion effects... - (Spoilers!) Boss fight was super creative and the, ahem, special attack was a puzzle in and of itself- super cool!! - Didn't run into any bugs, and none of the puzzles felt like brute force.

jezzamon 2023-05-13 17:47

LOL putting all those voice overs in the game is genius, great way to create a great vibe in the game.

Well done!!

trexxak 2023-05-16 05:11

over the top fantastic funny VO, infuriatingly amazing "Why did no one ever come up with that before?"-main mechanic, smooth and enjoyable movement - so just another addition to your portfolio :'D Also the boss music is incredible and just doesn't get enough praise imho. ;D

zundou 2023-05-17 11:35

OMG, I'm shaking because this game is too good. The graphics are very cute, and the rendering of objects indicating going out of the frame is wonderful. The boss music is also very emotional. And most importantly, the difficulty level of playing comfortably with an unusual and innovative idea, and the existence of Smarticus and TV that guide it well. I'm glad I participated in Ludum Dare 53 just to encounter this game. Thank you! :)

jeremy-ryan 2023-05-21 11:12

I unfortunately didn't get the chance to play your game during regular play and rate, but circled back to it afterward!

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As always, you have a distinct character style, a high degree of polish, and a good amount of humor injected throughout. Professor-Doctor Smarticus was hilarious (in your words, the dialogue was extremely dumb --- meant as the highest possible praise). The boss fight music was also amazing, especially since you worked it into the narrative and used the same tune for the title! Second favorite song in the soundtrack was definitely the music played from the extremely small speaker, though. (Other humor highlights for me include "I've been studying your jump height, Terry").

Gameplay-wise, the main mechanic was super interesting and led to some neat puzzles, especially the ones where you had to be in mid-air during the camera shift. Unfortunately I think the problem space is pretty limited with just the one mechanic, and many of the later levels felt similar to earlier ones. It might have benefited from one or two secondary mechanics to make you think about it in new ways (e.g. adding lasers that you can throw bombs through but not walk through, or other objects/enemies that you have to position in addition to yourself). Of course, timelines are very tight for the Compo and you already packed a lot of content into this as-is.

The boss fight was a nice twist on the mechanic! I think I got a bug once where it centered the camera not directly below the boss? Which confused me for a bit, but I never got it again, so I wonder if I just got confused or something.

Tiny audio suggestion; my first thought would be to run the voice lines played over the TVs through a high-pass filter to make it sound more like it's playing out of speakers (I do that for the hold music in my game when the player doesn't have the phone picked up: [Normal](https://github.com/jeremycryan/LD53/blob/main/assets/sound/please_hold_full.ogg) | [High Pass](https://github.com/jeremycryan/LD53/blob/main/assets/sound/please_hold.ogg) ). Of course, there are plenty of reasons you would not want to do this, especially if you think it would affect the delivery (hehe) of the voice lines.

Congrats on your excellent ratings, and as always, look forward to playing your game next event! I don't know how you managed to get 2nd in Humor with such a hilarious game; whoever scored higher is clearly a cheat and a charlatan.

END TRANSMISSION!

josemwarrior 2023-05-25 11:30

bOSS FiGHt MusIC

2023-05-25 18:51

Where can I buy the soundtrack??