hilkojj 2023-10-03 18:37
This was fun to play, liked the cute moles and frogs.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD54 → The Dark Forest of Utharios
By elitemoni
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 2.90 | 7 | ||
| Fun | 3.10 | 7 | ||
| Innovation | 3.80 | 7 | ||
| Theme | 3.30 | 7 | ||
| Graphics | 3.60 | 7 | ||
| Mood | 3.50 | 7 |
This was fun to play, liked the cute moles and frogs.
Congratulations on submitting! Based on your blog post it seems like this was a big achievement for you, so please know it's never easy to finish something, and even a game as simple as this one is incredibly impressive to complete in just a weekend. Good work pushing through to the finish.
I think there's a lot to criticize about in your game but I don't want to rail on it too hard so I'll try and give advice based on your blog post and my personal experience rather than the game itself. (which I enjoyed by the way, it has a lot of flaws but the frenetic pacing had it's own charm that I enjoyed)
Perfection is the enemy of done. You need to ship something eventually, and overthinking stuff is a great way to get lost in the brambles. Especially in a jam context where there are no consequences for failure or bad code (asside from maybe a game that's buggy... but cmon its a jam) you can try and free yourself from trying to get everything right first try. Just get it done! I know it's easy to say that but genuinely the less you worry about correctness and efficiency in your work hours the more you will enjoy the jam and the better your end product will be. Don't worry about it so much next time, take it at your own pace and accept that no matter how good or bad the final product is you gave it a shot.
Second, research and learning are skills that you need to learn. ChatGPT is not the answer you are looking for. It can only give you answers to obvious questions that have already been answered a million times online. Learning to search, which resources are trustworthy, building relationships with people who can share knowledge with you, learning to read documentation (and find documentation), sifting through blog posts and forum threads and online wikis to find people trying to do what you want to do, these are the skills you need to build if you want to learn more effectively and not get roadblocked. Next time you have a question you want to ask chatgpt, instead google it, find a few websites and threads, and get better at research, trust me it will pay off dividends in the end!
Finally I want to remind you again that it's a great accomplishment to complete a jam game of any quality. Great job and good luck on the next jam, I hope you have more fun with it. Learning a new tool is scary and hard! I feel your frustrations regularly when I have to pick up a new skill for development or work, it's a fact of life but you can't let it win, and once you solve the problem and emerge triumphant afterwards, it will feel truly amazing. I hope you felt that joy as you submitted your game :)
I liked the general vibe of the game. It was really difficult to stay alive for a long period of time. Congrats on completing your first jam. It's a hug achievement!
Congrats on finishing your first game jam!!! It's a big accomplishment, and you should be proud.
Done > Not done.
Also, writing dev logs is good! I highly recommend reading over your dev logs after the fact (I like to read over mine around a week later), because you can get some really neat insight putting your thoughts down and then also reviewing them.
Onto the actual game: I actually really like this design! The escort mission-bullet hell hybrid really works and is quite fun. I didn't get it at first and instantly died as I was trying to kill the pixie but as soon as I got it, it was very fun playing inside the circle trying to get more pixie dust. I also felt like the balance was pretty solid (this game was hard and I enjoyed that) and felt like the right level of anxiety inducing over time. Similarly, I thought the music selection helped with that, so good pick there.
Sprite wise I thought everything seemed serviceable and the style was consistent, so that was good. Aiming was very awkward, especially diagonal shots. Not sure if this was intentional or not, but it made certain enemies (mainly the frogs) at certain times extremely difficult to deal with. Also, I couldn't tell if there was a way to direct the fairy to go towards a specific direction, or if it was random? Because there were a lot of times were it just wasn't going towards pixie dust that was just out of reach and that was a little frustrating. This esp made it difficult because of the shrinking area over time as you failed to gain additional pixie dust, since it means you had to leave the safe zone to go collect dust sometimes to get more space so you could dodge, but the fog deals so much damage that you can't afford to do that as fast the circle shrinks. Personal recommendation: I would make depositing pixie dust heal you to full instantly, make it so you can roughly direct the pixie by standing on a specific side of it, and/or decrease the rate at which your circle shrinks.
felt a little difficult I understand the idea and it was fun just felt weird at times and was hard to keep up with.
Nice idea! (I'm biased because I like bullet hells hehe)
Great potential, it's nice the player can strategically feed the pixie or save for later, that mixed with the craziness of a bullet hell. But the pixie doesn't always go in the better directions, and it feels like things are getting out of control.
Anyway, it's fun, good job!