Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Summoner's Dilemma
By sudocoffee
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 201 | 3.37 | 30 | |
| Fun | 216 | 3.23 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 62 | 3.85 | 30 | |
| Theme | 195 | 3.50 | 30 | |
| Graphics | 165 | 3.53 | 30 | |
| Humor | 254 | 2.30 | 28 | |
| Mood | 259 | 2.96 | 30 |
Well made entry. Especially the character controller and multiple space bar interactions. Clever. Too bad for the lack of sound which could have helped for the mood. Again, nice concept and execution of the drag/drop mechanism. You don't see that implemented too much and!
Played for about half an hour. I liked it, but it's very difficult. The best strategy I found was to build a cross of pots with spigots inbetween, and even then I couldn't get past the third floor (as opposed to dying on the second floor which seems to be the standard outcome). I didn't use the summoning mechanic very much... It seems you need things *more* on higher floors than on lower floors so losing out on something on the next floor isn't a great trade-off, although I didn't mess around with the clock and the other thing much.
This was a pretty interesting play! Seeing the animations of your previous versions reminded me of baba is you, but I've never played it so I can't say any similarities beyond the look. But this was pretty fun! I liked coming up with the strategies to try to survive longer and longer.
Dang that was tough, but I made it to floor 3 for about 2 seconds before running out of mana.
Really interesting game though! It was fun to try and think up ways to live longer each time. I settled on quickly surrounding two pots with all the sprouts to try and get at least two flowers per floor. I also didn't really understand how the clock and orb worked, like was it number of clocks/orbs on the floor or ones I stood next too? Would've been helpful to have something to the side saying like "Currently -50% mana drain" or some other indicator to explain that
really cool idea, the game is short but quite densely packed with many moving parts to think about. Graphics are nice, fits well with the gameplay. The aesthetic, font and movement kind of reminds me of a bite-sized Baba is You
Some very slick transitions and some great art. I like that the tooltips describe exactly what to do with the different objects. I had trouble figuring out how to get farther than about floor 3, not sure if there's an efficiency trick I missed.
I enjoyed this game, and your dev-log above. Cool concept, and nice art. I found it very hard - I couldn't get to floor 3. Some music / sounds would have improved it, as well as maybe the ability to pause and click on things to get an idea of what to do without the clock running down. Nice work!
Cool game I made it to the 3rd floor. It seems to me that the clock and orbs stay on the next floor even when you summon them on the floor before. Is it intentional?
@mdotedot -- Sound would have been great (along with some actual playtesting) but I over-scoped and ran out of time. I'll try to get to it next jam.
@zowie -- Thanks for playing! I agree the balance is definitely off. I can barely get to the fourth floor, and only with trickery around "copying" almost grown plants (I'm able to get 60 per floor that way). I have some theories though about getting to floor five.
@vegeo -- It was cool putting together gifs for the after-Friday, after-Saturday, after-Sunday versions. Coming up with new ways to survive was my intention, so glad you enjoyed that part of it.
@camd67 -- The clock and orb affect the whole room, but that only matters if you summon new clocks and orbs (or lose them on later levels). That's a good point though, it could certainly be more clear in-game.
@arcolm -- Didn't think about it while developing, but Baba Is You is one of my favorite games, so I'm sure there was some subconscious influence here. It probably looks similar because of the outline-less, blobby sprites.
@candlesan -- Thanks! No intended tricks, I kind of just threw mechanics together and forgot to playtest for balance. If you can find a way to get 60 mana on every floor though, that should just barely get you to floor four.
@rob6566 -- I thought about pause mechanics after the jam was over, I think it would have benefited the game a lot (along with a much lower mana drain / curve).
@happyglitch -- The clocks and orbs should disappear at the same time-of-day you summon them on the previous floor (for example, summoning a clock at 8:00 on floor 1 will make it disappear at 8:00 on floor 2). It wouldn't surprise me if that's bugged though.
I think the game was really well done considering the amount of time that you had to make it! I also like how you laid out your thought process in the main post. I only got to floor 2 and I was a few seconds away from floor 3 but like you said, the game has some pretty steep difficulty issues. Most of the criticisms I had you already addressed in the dev log so I don't have too much to add other than that. I really liked the concept, it was cute and I enjoyed playing it even though it was too difficult for me to get into it. I think that goes to show that you had a really solid core loop and it just needs some extra polish and tweaks :)
The interaction is unique, and seeing your log and realizing that it's been designed, I think it works well. Congrats on the completion!
Cool concept, but I couldn't understand how to use an item, I was just able to move them around :/
Loved the art style and overall UI, pretty inovative :) Cool concept and gameplay, had a good time!
The interface and UI are both very comfortable! Also, I really like the development log you recorded above, it really reflects the Game Jam process. Come on, I look forward to your future games!
@saprina289 -- Thanks! I knew there were issues with the game after I posted it, but writing that dev log helped me drill down and figure out what those issues were. I also love reading other people's development processes, and thought it'd be cool to write my own here.
@nazorus -- Sorry it wasn't clear! Picking up items is the only way to interact, which does different things depending on the item:
* Placing a seed on a pot will cause the seed to grow over time. * Picking up a fully grown seed will eat it and regain mana. * You can summon items from the blue platform if you place the item you want on the red platform. * Some items affect the game by just existing (you can manipulate the quantity with the summon mechanic).
It could definitely use better descriptions in-game though, as well as some tutorializing.
It was helpful to have the descriptions pop up when you touched the items.
I got duplicated at one point and there was two of me, then I got to move several floors at once. Really pretty game but it was a little too buggy for me to be able to finish my playthrough, which was a shame!
Thanks @myse -- found that bug after release, the entire game gets duplicated if you press space more than once at the very start.