FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD54 → 49 Days

49 Days

By compasslg

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall7013.4325
Fun6203.3725
Innovation2843.6925
Theme6283.5425
Graphics7793.2125
Humor7542.5023
Mood8853.0723

Comments

crygos 2023-10-02 20:44

I have to admit that I did not understand how to get passed the first few moves. Still, I like the idea behind this game.

compasslg 2023-10-03 02:40

@crygos Thank you for playing! I added some explaination, hopefully it will help.

nathmate 2023-10-03 03:06

I couldn't figure out how to change the monkey's element, which seems possible from the screenshots. The concept is interesting, but I found it basically impossible to visualise how the tiles would move each turn. So I just tried to remove all the fire, since that tended to be what killed me in the late game.

compasslg 2023-10-03 03:19

@nathmate Thank you for playing and commenting! I wasn't able to optimize the visual and user interface in time, sorry about the unintuitiveness.

Monkey's element is fixed for every game, if you enter the game by retry, the puzzle wouldn't change (meaning you need to go back to title screen and enter the game again to generate new puzzle and change monkey's element).

Tiles are all moving toward the same direction as the monkey. I think the lack of animation probably made it harder to figure things out.

wallbreaker5th 2023-10-03 05:02

I like the idea. The game requires both luck and strategy. However, it took me some time to find the initial position of the Monkey King in my first play.

joymagine 2023-10-03 05:03

the idea seems really cool, at first yeah i thought what i was standing on was the monkey's element until i realized it was per game match i was a random element.

game seems really hardcore puzzle game, you gotta like figure out EVERY tile on the board, i guess limiting direction changes is basic strategy.

one thing to improve is, when all the tiles shift, it could have a tween or lerp ... where the tiles slide across over multiple frames, to be a nice fluid animation... instead of instant teleporting ... unless that is part of the lore or something?? oh another thing to improve maybe is have the monkey flash or a green or blue arrow or something point to the monkey at the beginning.. or if you wait for like 5 or 8 seconds or something .. first time it took me a second to even spot the monkey lol

oh maybe a flashing arrow and it has icon of the element monkey is.

compasslg 2023-10-03 06:39

@joymagine thank you for playing and advice! I'll definitely put out a post game-jam version with those improvement

bumble 2023-10-03 09:33

Ok this one is crazy difficult :smile:

I think in order to make it more accessible to new players it would be good to have your player character indicate directly what element they are. I just didn't realize that it says so in the upper right corner until I died twice :sweat_smile:

One other suggestion would be to shrink the playing field a little bit to make it easier to decide what direction to take without every step being a gamble between actually counting what happens and just hoping for the best :smiley:

But apart from that I really like the puzzle idea - reminds me a bit of something like 2048 but you are actually on the playing field.

hinesite 2023-10-04 20:32

I feel like you should have made it 54 days. It took a few tries to understand the mechanics, which is fine. Definitely tricky destroying your opposite element without destroying to many of the other tiles. I ran out of tiles the one time. Puzzle games can be one of the more challenging games to do in a time crunch, so good job. Fun game.

compasslg 2023-10-05 02:47

@bumble Thanks for your suggestion! I really like the puzzle myself as well, and will definitely spend more time on it for a post-jam version

compasslg 2023-10-05 02:49

@hinesite Thank you for playing and your advice!

ukulelefury 2023-10-05 06:17

:) Very interesting mechanic! It took me a while to figure out for sure. I read through the rules, and then I didn't understand that there was a little monkey somewhere in there on one of the tiles. But after I figured it out, it made sense! Clearly, some simple UI/UX treatment could help this be a lot easier for players to understand. But the core idea is fun! Thanks, this was a clever and unique idea!

jon-curtin 2023-10-06 00:19

Had a bit of a time figuring out the mechanic here, but overall a very interesting concept for a game. Well done!

compasslg 2023-10-07 00:37

@ukulelefury Thanks for your feedback! I'll definitely work on a post-jam version with improved UI.

compasslg 2023-10-07 00:38

@jon-curtin Thanks for playing!

teaskyd 2023-10-07 01:42

Very interesting, impressed by the deepness and completeness of the gameplay you made within such short time! love it!

alzhu1 2023-10-07 19:01

I think the combination of a sliding puzzle/2048 style game with elements that have a weakness system sounds pretty cool, though the implementation made it confusing when starting out. For instance, I didn't realize it was actually a "sliding puzzle" in that when I moved in a direction, the strong elements would destroy the weak ones in the direction I moved; maybe an animation to show the tiles moving would make it more clear.

The other thing is that this game felt too difficult; I got to around day 38 before all my tiles disappeared, so I think lowering the required day count would make this more accessible. Would love to see this get expanded upon though, it's pretty unique!

bloodbane 2023-10-13 14:19

Nice puzzle game here. I didn't understand it at first until I stepped on the wrong tile. But I get it and could play it better next time. I might try this game again sometime.

compasslg 2023-10-15 12:39

@bloodbane Thank you for playing! I'm already working on a post-jam version, so if you are interested, definitely try that later!

compasslg 2023-10-15 12:41

@alzhu1 Thank you for playing and feedback! I'm working on a post-jam version, and I'll definitely keep those in mind!

compasslg 2023-10-15 12:41

@teaskyd thank you for playing!

saumon 2023-10-18 19:03

It is a very innovative form of tile matching game with a proper background sotry. Very smart design!

compasslg 2023-10-19 13:32

@saumon thanks for playing!