FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD53 → Postman Bat

Postman Bat

By tom-wadley and Rosa Nussbaum

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall5773.5820
Fun5073.5220
Innovation474.1920
Theme2554.2220
Graphics7833.3620
Humor6572.9720
Mood5203.6120

Comments

larsievl 2023-05-01 21:07

really fun game my computer couldn't handle it tho. i would suggest putting the sonar ability on a timer or something similar to that since there is no reason not to use it constantly. i also really liked the story.

archaeognathus 2023-05-02 06:13

Fun game with and the idea with the sonar is very cool. I know some people working with bats and I'll have to show it to them :) My computer had no issue running it, but I got a little confused in the beginning, since the flapping and sonar are connected

rosa-nussbaum 2023-05-02 12:27

@larsievl thank you for your feedback, cooldown timer is a great idea! Hard to tell if something is too hard or easy when we're the ones who built it. Added a performance patch to make it a bit easier to run, but still got a learn on performance optimizing unreal.

rosa-nussbaum 2023-05-02 12:29

@archaeognathus yay thank you! I hope your bat friends like it. Good note re sonar and flap being the same motion, we should make that clearer.

wild-babou 2023-05-02 13:14

Very unique game! The art and mechanics are very original and I loved playing it. I got a little lost sometime and it has some wonky moment but that is expected of a game jam. Great Job!

lorenzocgt 2023-05-02 13:42

Really good concept :o maybe you should push it somewhere ^^ Nice experience thank you

batlen 2023-05-02 14:27

Really cool concept ! I got lost aswell from time to time but it was a great experience and I still had fun. Good job

space-games 2023-05-03 14:51

Wow! I would have NEVER expected to see a game like this submitted and be done so well and actually I've just never seen a game like this ever! This is awesome!

sarry 2023-05-03 15:01

Wow, I am surprised by the concept of a bat-like vision in this game. It's a unique and interesting approach that I haven't seen before. If you don't mind me asking, how did you come up with it? The one thing I'm skeptical about is that I could take and drop the letter immediately, which would be counted as delivered. This caused some confusion and left me wondering if there was a different method of delivering letters that I missed... Despite that, the game was still enjoyable, and I appreciate the effort put into designing it :D

its-capp 2023-05-03 15:03

very cool concept, very similar to the LIDAR games I've seen pop up recently, the inability to see your surroundings presents a challenge that works pretty well. I ended up getting lost though maybe it could guide you towards the closest place so you don't just fly for 5 minutes just to find nothing ;-;. pretty solid game, could use some audio or music though. :smile:

josh-bothun 2023-05-04 00:07

Nice game! I finished it. I love the look of the sonar texture, its really nice. The game would have benefitted hugely from a simple flying or sonar *ping* sound effect. But nice job overall.

rosa-nussbaum 2023-05-04 01:59

@its-capp oh cool, I hadn't seen the LIDAR games, just looked them up and they look really cool. Yeah a homing beacon is a great idea! Defs would add music, just ran out of time.

rosa-nussbaum 2023-05-04 02:00

@josh-bothun thank you! Yes v good point about the sound.

little-doctor-games 2023-05-05 14:20

This game was really fun! I loved the cute lil hat on the bat. I thought it was neat how flapping the wings activates the sonar, getting a lot of milage out of just one button press. It was a bit difficult to see the goals from underneath them, I think having some lighting for them similar to how they look from above would have helped a bit. Overall great work!!

Edit: Link to the VOD: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1810045623?t=02h24m20s

stellarr2 2023-05-05 14:47

This game was really cool, I love the idea of being a bat who has to sense their way through the environment with echolocation, and so it only gives you brief glimpses of the world in order to navigate. I haven't seen any games that do this but that might be because I don't play enough games lol. While making the player a bat and having them fly is a logical and fair decision, I think the game might have been better off if the player couldn't fly and had to deliver things on foot, so you couldn't just fly over everything and drop letters from very far away. It was still cool though and I loved the idea, I also loved the texture and how the world looked whenever you used your echolocation, it added to the mystery of the world and was really cool. I could see this idea being perfect for a horror game where you have to run from monsters while getting a location, and you only have a few glimpses of the monster's shape rather than the monster itself. The game fit the theme pretty well too, being a bat that has to deliver letters to places for Dracula is pretty cool and could make for a cool story. My main criticism is that there's not really any sound, sound plays a pretty big role in games and not having any can make the game feel empty and dead, which could be the theme this game is going for but even some little ambience or flapping or paper swooshing would've been nice. It would've helped set whatever mood the game was going for really well. I also wished there was a way to use echolocation without flying, that would be a nice feature.

Overall, nice game, amazing idea, cool graphics. It could use some sound, but just because it has no sound doesn't mean it's bad, especially for a 3 day game jam. Very well made, awesome work :D

P.S Tho bats aren't blind lol