Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD54 → Pathfinder
By rsaamar and Christian Witt Martin
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 590 | 3.55 | 32 | |
| Fun | 571 | 3.45 | 32 | |
| Innovation | 270 | 3.71 | 32 | |
| Theme | 694 | 3.45 | 32 | |
| Graphics | 615 | 3.55 | 32 | |
| Humor | 754 | 2.50 | 24 | |
| Mood | 946 | 2.91 | 32 |
This game looks great, and its really fun to explore the levels. As soon as they got a little complicated I found myself retrying each level a bunch of times to understand the space. the first level with the push blocks stumped me for a while, but was cool to figure out!
Decent concept but I feel like the game would control way better if you could just hold wasd to move in a direction. Also the lack of sound makes the game feel a bit empty (also the lack of a menu makes the game a bit of a pain to get out of)
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
the part where we spawned on the orange box but had to go finding it thinking that there'd be another one was pretty funny haha. enjoyed playing this
I loved the stressful, labyrinthine feel, followed by the possibility of speedrunning through the various levels. It's really well done, bravo!
The concept of switching between two spaces at one point is interesting. Constantly exploring and taking refuge in a limited amount of time and space. The art is also clean and nice looking. Well done!
The idea is simple and fun. I had fun trying the game. I would liked some music and perhaps sound effects. Overall a fun little jam game.
I like the idea, and graphically it is nice. Having to rush to the next safe spot while exploring the maze was great. The levels sometimes seemed to repeat after beating them. I thought the second level was the last after beating it three times, but it eventually changed to the next one. The timer could do with 0:00 formatting as when it harder to track when it flickers between 1 and 2 digits. I also had issues with the input. It wants buttons to be pressed fast, but if you are too fast it doesn't register causing it to feel unresponsive at times.
Really interesting use of exploring a map through testing and memory. Perhaps being able to switch spaces freely would help making it even more fast-paced (if that's already possible, I didn't see how)
@tpace Thanks for the feedback! I think what you're getting at is the option to switch to the next path before the current timer runs out and auto-switches.
We considered this, but we realized that what makes our concept work is the urgency of having an overall timer and a switch timer, both of which are fixed. The overall timer makes you find a viable path as soon as possible. The switch timer limits the current paths you can explore.
If we allowed you to switch before the switch timer goes off, I think we give you too much freedom to find a viable path, and its becomes harder for us to design interesting levels.
That being said, maybe I misunderstood your suggestion altogether, so let me know.
@smoe @someone I appreciate your feedback on the movement. Having to press WASD again for each move was an intentional design decision, because we want you to feel the urgency and also have to fully intend each move. We did try a more typical holding-style movement but our current model felt best.
That being said, I do agree that we could add additional buffering for movement for the case where you press it faster than its ready.
Fun game that definitely had a couple of challenging levels. I enjoyed the simple concept and I had fun with the different levels of added complexity. I think the game would benefit from some fast paced music or sound, but beyond that I had very little in the way of bugs or negative experiences.
@kevin-zhang Totally, I wonder if there is a way for us to add audio that is unique to each path or step you take.
Fun game! I enjoyed playing, and I think I finished all the levels (twice, I got to a black screen and wasn't sure if it crashed so I started over till I found the black screen again).
I liked the in-game tutorial and the gradual introduction of the game elements. :thumbsup:
The squares with the arrows were a bit confusing, since they point in one fixed direction, while the action is that it shoots you further in the direction you are going. Maybe four outward points arrows would be clearer?
I think the timers would be less distracting if the numbers were formatted with always the same amount of decimals.
The later levels get somewhat confusing, it's hard to get an overview. But if was fun to speed around, discovering different pathways. Some levels I suddenly finished without knowing how or why. Unfortunately the levels don't have numbers, but these were the later levels with the big jumps (On the second run I paid more attention and saw a flash of a yellow square.)
Overall, original concept! Well done! :clap:
An interesting idea. The timer makes you get serious.
Thanks everyone for all of the feedback so far. This was my first game jam and I got everything I bargained for and then some. I appreciate your insights, constructive criticism and kind words!
The game is interesting, it was quite nice to play it, keep working on it and everything will be cool
I like the idea of this game a lot, but the input could use some improvement. If you tap too slowly or quickly you can't go fast enough, and as a result I spent most of my time trying to get through puzzles after I had already figured out the solution. Other commenters have suggested switching to a continuous input, but another option would be to make it rhythm-based and have some kind of visual indicator for when you should tap (see Crypt of the Necrodancer for a good example). This way the player still feels time pressure and can't afford to make any wrong moves, but also has an indication of the correct timing so they don't just have to guess. Otherwise I really liked it, the graphics were simple but clean, and the puzzles were creative and varied. Nice work!
@paul-nadan You are spot on! This was our original concept but we descoped it because we didn't have a composer or artist on hand.
Good job. Could a web build be made available? This seems like the type of game that could easily have a web build.
@johnsensei Great idea!