FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD54 → Limited Heart

Limited Heart

By dennis-magnusson

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall2543.3228
Fun2603.1728
Innovation1513.5328
Theme1613.7628
Graphics3342.5028
Audio1193.4628
Humor114.1827
Mood204.0128

Comments

dennis-magnusson 2023-10-01 15:54

Limited Heart? More like Limited FART!

treblecolby 2023-10-01 22:29

Interesting idea to do a skit for a tutorial

frogravity 2023-10-02 11:56

If I don't end up playing this when I die, I will riot.

Anyway, I loved the FMVs & voice acting!!! They were awesome. The game itself was also way more fun than I expected. I appreciated the solution files in the itch.io page, although I only used them after trying to solve the final puzzle for much too long, only to realize it was impossible. I really wanted to hear the end of the press space rant, but the prospect of a softlock scared me too much. The only feedback that I have is that the hexagons look a bit off, but otherwise, great entry!

endurion 2023-10-02 12:37

Oh no, I'm soft locked!

Standard puzzle game, but with a lot of FMVs in between. Kind of like an American handegg game. While I love that kind of puzzle games, the videos are pretty much funny only once :) Maybe I overheard it, but you might want to explain that E is used to rotate pieces, which is required in later stages.

Will return to rate later! Edit: I returned! I willed! And I latered!

dennis-magnusson 2023-10-02 16:59

@frogman Thanks for playing! I realize it was a bit rude of me to not make the impossibility of the last level more clear, so I wrote a little note on it in the text thing. I'll blame the hexagon thing on Unity being annoying. As for the space rant, you didn't miss much, unless your name is David.

dennis-magnusson 2023-10-02 17:02

@endurion Thank for play! This may be a controversial opinion coming from a european, but I actually like the random interruptions in American sports. Like, I went there and saw a baseball game and it was actually kinda fun! But yeah, it's definitely not for everyone As for the rotation thing, it was written in the instructions on the itch page, but I edited it to make it a bit clearer.

anton4ik-dev 2023-10-03 21:18

I really burned my brain but start video is funny hahaha

aidanbacon 2023-10-03 21:28

I was not at all ready for the fmv clips and they were incredible - I'm not actually a big fan of this kind of puzzle game but I played the whole thing because the clips were so fun and I wanted to see all of them. well done!

drumgadget-433 2023-10-03 21:29

Nice game! I like spatial puzzles, and I appreciated the unique mechanic where some pieces had to be moved in unison. Also, tutorializing with video was a neat idea. I also missed the point of the last level until I caught your note, haha.

thesecondleft 2023-10-03 21:33

So weird but funny movie scenes between the levels of simple puzzle game. It's... Strange but interesting

glove 2023-10-03 21:34

Really cool idea to interweave a larger narrative into your game via live action video! Funny dialogue while still managing to have a somber mood, great work writing/audio wise. Also, I enjoyed proudly marching into my softlock, if only I were David.

rossk 2023-10-03 21:35

I liked the puzzles! The FMV was surprising, but I didn't hate it.

qayndecim 2023-10-03 21:38

made me weirdly emotional even though in my head i knew it was meant to be funny, the skits in between the game where there was only one character sat by themselves knowing it was the end of their life kinda hit me. The gameplay was a good fit for the theme and the framing made me forget the simplicity a little as i got invested in the story.

queenofsquiggles 2023-10-03 21:38

I really enjoyed this game. The actual mechanics were incredibly simple but combined with the live action story telliing it was really engaging. Though I am not a "David" I imagine you have a friend that was intended for. I absolutely loved that part! I will say that some of the audio did feel out of sync with the videos. I'm not certain if that was intentional so I didn't grade you too poorly for that. It was pretty cool to see live action acting for a jam game! I've never seen that before!

teto 2023-10-03 22:04

Well I guess I am destined to die sad...

Really enjoyed this one! Super different and original compared to a lot of the other games out there. I love that you took a pretty common existiong puzzle concept and made something fun and unique out of it! The vibe is great with the balance and humour and the scene in the middle gives such a game jam vibe of "It didn't work. I already know. Deal with it" which is so funny.

I like the colour contrasts of the pieces which kept them very clear which piece was which. I would agree with a previous comment that the hexagons look a little odd and would look cleaner if they lined up (but we also made a hex grid and can confirm that we still have no idea how the code worked so I accept your blaming it on Unity haha).

A minor thing that would improve the gameplay would be if there was more space to be able to put spare spaces when they weren't being used (or a separate space, or the ability to zoom out to have more space) because trying to get pieces out of the way was almost a puzzle in itself sometimes! Not me complaining about the limited space lol.

The audio matched the vibe really well and didn't get annoying when looped which was great! A small sound or visual indication when clicking on a tile would add that extra bit of polish to the game.

The way you used the story and cutscenes to introduce and explain the controls was really good and far more engagin than just written instructions. The storyline and little jokes were well written, well voiced and I liked the style.

Overall, a really great entry that's unlike any other jam game I've played before!

Now just... press space...

sheepolution 2023-10-03 22:06

More Ludum Dare games, or perhaps games in general, should have live action cinematics. They were really funny. Nice puzzles, though I'm not sure what I was supposed to do in the level where I had an extra piece.

indivicivet 2023-10-03 22:11

this isn't a game, it's an experience

maybe it _helps_ that the audio is desynced (but that might be a bug)

good: - cutscenes/acting - "limited space in your heart" is an interesting thematic delivery

bad: - the gameplay is not that exciting (although each puzzle isn't awful) - my name is not David

wisstopher 2023-10-03 22:14

I love some FMV! This was a great concept, you smashed the brief. I also totally stuck around until the end just because I'm stubborn :stuck_out_tongue: . Great jam!

ellaris 2023-10-03 22:14

- Cool little puzzle - The cut scenes didn't contribute much, and you could at least invested into lip sync :p. - I caved in and pressed space. - For the last puzzle there could at lest be some notification when the heart is full, like "sometimes you hart cannot be happy".

perfectsquare 2023-10-03 22:29

Great job with the pacing of the puzzles, especially how you used the videos to introduce each new mechanic! On the first puzzle it took me a minute to understand that you were supposed to put the shapes in the red heart...I thought it was just another piece at first since it has the same background image/outlines as the other pieces. But after that I really enjoyed the puzzles and was dissappointed there wasn't more (although understandable for a jam game, especially with all the effort put into the skits!)

gamedevtraum 2023-10-04 02:45

I'm obviously not pressing the space bar :rofl: I've enjoy the experience, you did an excellent job!

dennis-magnusson 2023-10-04 15:32

@queenofsquiggles Very funny that you mention the audio sync because the audio was recorded separately from the video! If you pay attention you can tell that it's just the same like 13 video clips repeated and recycled. I did that to make the sound better and editing easier

mozokevgen 2023-10-05 07:21

I liked cut scenes, they are adding to the mood. Game feels relaxing after some intense entries I've played before this)

henk 2023-10-05 20:42

Hilarious and unexpected! I was also surprised at how easily the puzzles stymied me with only a handful of pieces and the same target shape each time. Unfortunately the "press space" video didn't play for me for some reason in firefox on linux, although the network pane showed the video file downloaded successfully (and I could still press space to skip it). I'd assume autoplay was the culprit but I'd allowed autoplay in the site settings and none of the other videos had any issues, so I don't know.

designernap 2023-10-05 21:44

You know... I have been doing Ludum Dare for maybe... 10 years or more? And this is the first entry I have ever played with fully voiced and acted FMV cutscenes. Maybe I have missed some but this is a first! Great creative work! :D

ciaranw 2023-10-05 23:30

Ha, nice cutscenes, I enjoyed that you really stuck to the jam rules and played every role yourself! I thought the puzzles (while not particularly unique this compo) were quite well made - especially the later ones where you had the big multipart pieces and could deduce where each one had to go.

Minor things: I think the music was a bit too loud compared to your voice, and it would have been nice to have a couple of other sound effects in there for moving the pieces about.

I was a bit confused by the unsolvable final puzzle, but then I read your itch.io paragraph :P

Very cool, unique entry!

dennis-magnusson 2023-10-06 07:04

@henk hmmm, that's weird. I did use slightly different export settings on that video for reduce file size, so maybe that's related. I did also record it on my laptop camera, while everything else was done on my phone, so maybe there's some weird Apple codec used

@designernap Yeah, is weird how no one else does it, because it's a great way to tell a story when you suck at drawing. It's actually the second time I've used FMVs in jam games (though the first one was probably better)

@ciaranw Thanks for playing, glad you enjoyed it. I agree that the audio mixing want optimal, the mic gain was way too low for the whispery voice and I didn't take the time to mix it on multiple headphones, which probably would have helped. Also seeing the number of comments about the last level makes me kinda regret that decision, but oh well, there's nothing I can do about it now

henk 2023-10-06 21:07

@dennis-magnusson Maybe. It played fine when I loaded the video url directly, so firefox is at least capable of playing the file. It looks like there's a null reference exception in the console, but when I checked for it again just now the video surprised me by playing just fine for the first time despite the error still appearing, so maybe it really is just some finicky autoplay-related thing.

knexator 2023-10-12 16:45

Very unique! nice puzzles too