Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD54 → MadCap (Alan the Archeologist)
By sovereignblue, alanushke, LucCogito and Grayson Varn
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 1027 | 2.95 | 38 | |
| Fun | 1014 | 2.77 | 38 | |
| Innovation | 797 | 3.06 | 38 | |
| Theme | 940 | 3.04 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 236 | 4.15 | 38 | |
| Audio | 414 | 3.45 | 38 | |
| Humor | 459 | 3.12 | 34 | |
| Mood | 664 | 3.42 | 36 |
I like the idea, the design is nice and the jump'n'run part works fine, altough sometimes its hard to judge the hitboxes. For the building part i need clearer instructions and ui feedback. When i drag the pieces onto the statue, some stay, some get removed after i drag another piece onto it. Also the size changes after the build mode and somtimes i cant leave the building state...
Screenshot 2023-10-03 113728.jpg
Really nice mood through the art and sounds!
Building statues was slightly confusing though. I just kept throwing pieces at it until it formed. I also encountered a few bugs where my character was in the "platforming mode" in the map screen and I was not able to proceed. This often happened to me when I came back from a level without any parts.
As a side note, the game does not load for me on ldjam.com. It is weird - I have never had this kind of issue with Unity players. Itch.io player loads just fine.
But overall, I really cohesive visual style. And I think it fits the theme well!
Pretty nice idea, I just don't really get the platforming challenges. Great visual style though, and the atmosphere was really nice!
nice idea but poorly developed, A bit too crude, some hints are difficult to understand.
The art blew me away! Seriously, kudos to Demi! it was jaw-dropping. But I had a bit of trouble distinguishing the platforms from the background. Maybe adding some subtle shadows could help players like me out.
The controls were a bit to fast for me. in most levels I tried to jump to another platform fell down and was locked out of the level.
On a brighter note, I had an absolute blast making my own abominations! That part of the game was fantastic!
In a nutshell, fantastic art, a bit of control fine-tuning, and a big thumbs up for the abomination-making fun.
The artstyle (particularly on the backgrounds) was amazing, however the gameplay didn't quite match up.
When I entered each room it often took me a second or two to figure out where I was on the screen and by that time, an enemy had hit me. You should allow a safe zone to start out and get used to the mechanics earlier out. This could be as simple as just a small area with no enemies and a few jumps. Unless I'm mistaken, once you die in any of the areas, you can't return? I died instantly in two of them and barely got to experience the cool environment :(
I like the concept of the building mechanic, but for me nothing would snap into place properly and I ended up getting soft-locked trying to place pieces.
Interesting concept, great environments, but the gameplay loop was a bit buggy and brutal. Nice game, thanks for sharing!
First of all, STUNNING GAME! The aesthetics are impeccable, from graphics to music. Gameplay wise, however, I had the exact same issue on all 4 levels : before I can even figure out where my character is on the map, I either die to an enemy that charged me in 2 seconds or I fell in a pit after moving 1 inch left. And apparently you can't enter a level again after you failed it, so... It got over quite soon !
I really love the art! The gameplay has a few problems though:
First of all it isn't clearly visible where the player can stand on, which makes navigating the platforming parts harder than they needed to be. Second, it is unclear to the player what he is able to do, can the player swim? I felt like I could once I jumped down, but then the game went back to the main statue scene. Third, the statues aligining minigame seems like a cool idea to me, but its even harder, if the parts are so small that I have to squint at it to see what it actually is, is it an arm? a leg? a torso? I dunno! I dunno about how you implemented the theme, I somehow feel that it doesnt really fit the game here.
I like the transitions between scenes! They feel really nice and the music is also good.
Oh and your web/html5 build does not seem to work!
Good Job!!, the art and athmosfere in general waw pretty good, congratulations!!
The vibe is really cool. Some feedback: - the controls could really benefit from a second pass on them. The platforming is really hard! - when you enter a level, the enemies spawn way too quickly, or too close to you, IMO - controls in the main scene with the statues are quite confusing, a few help texts could really, really help, especially with the drag and drop mechanic. Also, sometimes stuff just went in the wrong direction on the statue, even though they were clearly a leg onto a leg part, or an arm onto an arm part? - the theme feels slightly underused IMO - the art is superb but it's sometimes hard to distinguish platforms from the background
Overall, quite an appreciable experience that could benefit from a last pass of polish to help with the initial confusion :)
Good Job, I liked the art and the sound. I've foud difficult to jump in the spaces in the levels because I died few times being in a platform where in theory I should not fall. Furthermore the statues composition was always wonky and I expected that the true statues parts would be assembled in the right way. The web version embedded here didn't work, but it worked on itch.io. :)
The game has a great idea, but not so great execution (well we don't have much time for making game). The platforming is a bit slippery and the collision not match with the graphic. Also I never able to build the 4th statue, just the first three.
looks great!
statue.PNG isn't she beautiful?
gameplay wise the platforming is hard and you get only one chance per room.
I got one time stuck putting pieces to the statue, as I didn't have enough pieces or some run off while I was placing others.
you don't get to see the last abomination statue you made, when the menu pops up over.
Game looks good and there's polish in mnany areas which I can appreciate. Overall pretty solid proof of concept with the two main mechanics. Also had some bugs/soft lock, difficulty balancing issues, lack of tutorial/platforming testing ground was felt as well making it hard to "finish" the game. I used the .rar version.
For the levels I would have liked to start from the left side just like with super mario bros first level etc. That's where my vision started scanning the maps. By the time I was done scanning a level I was dead on one of the levels. This terrible event then made me fear entering the other levels. The platforming gravity felt a bit too strong. One misstep and your character zooms out of existence.
Thanks so much for your comments! Yeah we were pretty tight on time with structuring the levels and making the statue mechanics, for some reason the collisions and platform sort order kept breaking and i had to adjust them with the player and it was a whole ordeal.
I totally agree that the movement could use a little tweaking and be slowed down so you can actually move and understand whats going on, and the game would totally benefit from a bit of an explanation on how things work, but unfortunately we ran out of time and had to cut some stuff from development, but thats the game jam for ya, it was a pretty ambitious project to make in 3 days but overall it turned out pretty great! (Considering)
The game had a lot of problems, but I still kept trying to get the statue pieces. So you have a fun game loop, but it needs some technical tweaking. The collisions on platforms were not very intuitive and sometimes I get stuck in the statue placing part and can't leave it. Some parts of levels don't seem possible (the statue parts over water in particular). It was amusing to build statues with random parts tho.
Nice entry all around! I really liked the art style, the music and putting the statues together. The platforming feels a bit too fast and unforgiving though, you might want to try out some different speed / gravity values there for a smoother experience. I also would've liked to be able to enter levels multiple times for a more chill experience. And exiting the levels through the portal without any pieces collected should probably not be possible? Overall though, really enjoyable entry, good job!
Very cool idea, I love the idea of creating some funny ugly statues! However, I wish there was a lot more polish to this game. Namely, an easier way to restart in case I actually want to build nice statues, and better platforming. It was difficult to know where I could go and sometimes I would just randomly fall and die.
Loved the art style and the music, the controls in the levels felt maybe a little too tight? though that's generally something subjective as is (everyone has different preferences XD).
The skulls on the pillar stage were difficult to avoid when it was rolled as the very first door (seems random levels are used after multiple playthroughs), only way I could see to prevent this is to have the character appears on the same side of the screen as the door you entered, or pause and point the character out on entering - was just a tiny bit jarring to go from left side of the screen (door) directly to the right side (the first and second time) :).
Awesome work either way, I made some hideous poop-tuna creatures XD.
Great idea, i really enjoyed it.
GOOD JOB GUYS !
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I really like the art direction. Good and funny idea!
i really love this one :) but i only wish you could discard the trash before exiting the level :tired_face:
Nice music and graphichs :smile:
The graphics are great! Unfortunately I am super terrible and keep dying instantly, so I have no hope of completing these statues :( it would be great if it was more forgiving.
The background is amazing, and the art style is just my vibe! Although, I have a tiny issue - I died pretty quickly once I enter a map, and I got totally stuck after I placed the sculpture on the rock.
the game is very interesting, I liked it, the idea is good, continue at the same pace and you will become more professional