Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD55 → Tao
By leorean
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 8 | 4.44 | 106 | |
| Fun | 9 | 4.38 | 106 | |
| Innovation | 244 | 3.76 | 105 | |
| Theme | 515 | 3.75 | 106 | |
| Graphics | 82 | 4.48 | 106 | |
| Audio | 66 | 4.15 | 105 | |
| Humor | 667 | 2.88 | 93 | |
| Mood | 86 | 4.17 | 103 |
damn, this is a really strong entry. The use of the fire mechanic and the level design are great. The only feedback I would add, is I don't feel like I am exploring for any real reason. there might be something to iterate on there?
wooooooow... this is really well done. I don't have time to complete the game now, but i'm definitely going back to play through the whole thing. I love the design behind this game, introducing new mechanics that build on each other. the music is so fitting, the sfx are satisfying. best game i've played yet in this jam.
dude this has to be one of the best LD entries! it's my favorite so far, the art style and music is absolutely amazing! and the level design is really impressive. I can't believe you guys managed to put so much into this game in such a short time! I discovered an exploit with summoning a skill in midair while going up and landing on it on my way back but I promise I didn't use it :smile_cat:. once I got the jump boost ability the levels became so stupidly easy it felt like a reward for going through all the puzzles lol, though I did go the wrong way and go stuck on a level entrance but I burned the block I was stuck on and backtracked to victory! the game has a really nice Rogue-like element to it with finding a place you can't cross then coming back later with new toys that help you cross it. overall I enjoyed this one a lot! solid entry
I really enjoyed this game.
I mean, I know it comes with the territory when you're on PICO-8, but this really captured the feeling of the platformer games from the DOS era.
It would have been helpfulif the summoned skull was a different color than the rest. A few times I killed myself because I forgot I was standing on the one I summoned. Luckily each level was small and easy enough to start over, but it was frustrating a few times when I was close to the end, and only died because I forgot which skull I had placed.
The level design is excellent - I was hooked, and the only reason I stopped playing is that I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to get past this level:
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Amazing game! What attracted me first was the visuals, then I saw the impressive game and level design.
Screenshot 2024-04-15 194526.png I encountered a bug here. Respawning at this level causes the player unable to continue the game.
I don't know what's with the Pico-8 games but everytime I play one graphics are always the cream of the top. Seriously, these are the strongest graphics I played on this gamejam so far. Loved the game too! Classic metrovania concept but level design was really good and I felt engaged all the way through
Wow, just wow. The art is beautiful, the audio is pleasant to listen to, and the gameplay is just so smooth! I really love this game! Did you upload this to splore as well? I'd love to be able to play this on my rgb30. From one pico-8 jammer to another - you absolutely killed it!
Alright, I've only tried two games from this jam so far, but I have a feeling this is gonna be one of my favorites. Playing a tight-knit mini-metroidvania with that constant sense of discovery was a delight. The art is lovely, the level design is really solid and I got a big smile on my face when I managed to find a couple little tricks / skips to get past a room I was stuck on. Honestly don't think I have any critiques - super impressive!
Such a great game, really enjoy the way the tutorial is set out. Obviously the graphics, audio, and effects are great too!
Huge fan of this -- such a solid pico8 entry. the level design was top notch and the mechanics were super interesting. and the art! amazing feel. had a blast playing this one.
I was already hooked just by seeing your game on Discord, and playing it confirmed that your design is truly fantastic. I particularly adore your art style, but even beyond that, the game itself is very polished. It's been a great experience; you guys are awesome.
Excellent execution! Had a lot of fun with this. Didn't finish it yet, but will definitely come back to it. :)
Great visuals, audio, level design and mechanics... Just all around a fun game to play. The skull summoning power feels clever to use while also being very simple to learn. And burning things out is just chef's kiss - both interesting for puzzles and satisfying to look at.
Congrats on the entry, excellent job!
Celeste vibes and immediately clever, that's quite a solid entry indeed !
Very Cool! Love the visuals a lot!
Very clever platformer! I love it! Visuals are charming, platforming is great. But I love level design along with mechanics. Puzzles are not hardcore, thus they are very enjoyable!
What an amazing experience! The art and sounds are really well crafted but what surprised me most was the top notch level design with really smooth controls.
This is one of the best LD entries I've ever played. The graphics are production ready, the music is banging, and the mechanics are so tight and juicy it feels so great to play. The level and puzzle design is also smart and engaging without overstaying its welcome and there is a solid metroidvania progression with just enough backtracking to be satisfying.
Unbelievable effort for a gamejam game, well done!
Wow, this is awesome. Very well made and polished.
Favorite entry so far ! So much content and well though puzzles !
Proud to say I finished the game but the only way I found to get through this level was to jump glitch with a summoned skull
Capture d’écran 2024-04-16 124125.jpg
amazing art and gameplay...I'm on my ass... so much in 72 hours... bravo
Awesome entry! Though I still mess up the keybindings, I think I managed to get pretty far and the game was really intriguing. Sadly I was stuck at this point, I always jump into the thorns so I guess I miss some mechanics based solution here.
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Anyway, back to the topic, I really like the whole vibe of the game, and even if there is no text, no plot, I still feel very captivated to keep on exploring. The levels are perfectly designed, for example how I get back to points which I can finally pass after unlocking a new skill. I wonder if there are more mechanics after the point I'm stuck. Let me know what's the solution there and I'll jump back right after! :smile:
Brilliant entry, keep doing stuff like this! :)
@tudvari there ya go :stuck_out_tongue:
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@leorean Woaah, thank you, why didn't I think about that! :laughing:
Super tight and well designed game! Mechanics were taught perfectly, and the levels were just hard enough to force the player to try something different, but not enough to frustrate them. Awesome work! You guys did a great job. Thank you \o/
This is an amazing game, super simple with fun and challenging level design. I also experienced the bug where my character disappears and I was unable to move, but I still enjoyed the puzzle solving my way through each screen up until that point. Great job!
This is a very good game, let alone a gamejam game. The art is very nicely styled. The music is great. It's a very polished game. Great job.
What an awesome submission!
A lot of thought was clearly put into the design for each area.
Whether it was to teach something new to the player, challenge their platforming or give them a puzzle to solve, everything had a purpose.
The pacing seemed really fine tuned and while there were a few points I got stuck on for a bit I would eventually have things click and finally overcome them which was super satisfying!
The art and sound design was also incredibly charming and fit well together.
Overall a nicely polished submission, great work!
You somehow found the perfect speed in which to introduce new mechanics to keep it fresh. Just as about to say OK BEEN THERE DONE THAT you threw something new at me. I also made a game once with a similar ending, so extra points there. Music was great, looked awesome, played like you'd expect... overall pretty great. Not feeling a strong connection to the theme but I still enjoyed all my time with Tao.
A puzzle platformer ? Super good idea, I'm impressed by the content and the overall consistency well done guys, as a metroid fan got a super vibe out of it
Fantastic submission! Very polished and satisfying to play, congrats!! Special props to the pixel artist.
Really cool game with lots of polish. Pico8 is always super slick to see. I only have one thing I would change and its super minor, but I personally would have liked Space for jump, but that is so minor I probably shouldn't have mentioned it. great work guys
Phenomenal game. Thank you for this.
I cant stop playing, what is this sorcery?!
this feels amazing to play and the sprites are so cute! this was so well done and hope to get to play more games by your group in the future!
I am really impressed by the quality of the level design in this game. Each part of the game feel well-thought and crafted with love. Congratulations!
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Just finished this game, 5/5 all around, this is absolutely perfect in every way. Great art and music; fun, stacking mechanics; just the right amount of difficulty ramp and length. The best game I've played so far. I usually try to give some constructive criticisms but I'm at a loss of words here, the only slight annoyance was a room you enter from below shortly after you get the wind wizard that was one of the finnickier ones. Falling down could basically reset you to the room before while dying respawned you in a way that instantly made you fall back to the previous screen where you have to windwizard your way up again. The room looked a little like this iirc:
Unbenannt.png (sorry, didnt take a screenshot)
But that is literally the only very, very minor thing I can point out. Most stunning game of the jam so far, will definitely have a look at the code if you make it available. Also: How do you even work on a pico-8-game as a team? I'd be highly interested in your workflow here...
Thanks for the contribution and godspeed to you!
The game is amazing. The levels are very well designed, the difficulty curve is very smooth and the mechanics are interesting. The only criticism I have is that I found a bug where you can summon a skull in your own tile and jump on it which made the puzzles a bit easier. Maybe you could force the player to die if they are inside the skull.
Amazing metroidvania, extremely polished. Top games i've tried so far! Amazing job!
Wow! I really liked the visual and especially the fact that this game looks like it was made for a gameboy! It was already pleasant to my soul. Good job!
Very nice, very cool mechanics. A good PICO-8 game
Absolutely fantastic entry. I found myself going "ooh...ooh nice" constantly as I explored. The level design especially was really good and the pace was terrific. A prime example of teaching the player through gameplay rather than text prompts!
Love the gameplay, it was very good ! Thank you for this game, the pixel art is really well done !
came for the pico art / stayed till the end for the clever level design. thanks for this little gem tao.png
I don't have anything to say that hasn't been said, this is a high quality PICO-8 entry in every category.
This game is so well made. A fantastic puzzle platformer, clever just as it needed to be! Gorgeous pixel art, mood music perfect ! Thanks for adding gamepad support (maybe just me but keyboard control is a bit to clunky). Capture d’écran 2024-04-18 150300.png
smol resolution, great art!, didnt know pico-8 could do that, the music is also a bop, love me some metroidvanias, actually tried to make one before saying, (this is too much work for 3 days) but you actually did it, smol wizard
I liked how the powers worked together to get you through the level and how you had to solve some of the rooms twice to get beck through them.
I think I cheesed some of the puzzles by jumping onto a skull I had just summoned :P
One of the best for sure!
Cool looking game but sadly I wasn't able to play it due to fact that I have 60% keyboard and movement is on arrows only and when im using arrows with function key I can't jump :(
Amazing puzzles. Good graphics. The music is good even though it's still PICO-8 lobotomy core. Solid entry overall. Maybe one recommendation I would make is making the platforming puzzles easier or to spread out the difficulty evenly across the game, if the game were to be longer, so that players have more time to get accustomed to the mechanics before the harder sections. Great job!
Also I loved the ending. Nothing beats the feeling of finding out that your princess isn't in another castle.
Whoever created a level design this good deserves a raise. Like how? Could be a real game, not just a product of fun weekend. Graphics and audio are also really nice and code-wise game also feels really smooth and working. It's amazing how this feels quite open while being definitely scripted. The powers are also great, again, I have no idea how you managed to design the levels to support them that well.
5/5, followed, subscribed, will play again
Great level design for interesting game mechanics, I really enjoyed this game!
Great game, went all the way through! Stunning graphics, clever level design, simple yet perfect game design. Well deserved :five:
Very simple but deep game. I like how you were able to tell a story using only game mechanics, which feels more personal to the player than a narrative-based story. Good job!
Wow, this is fantastic! I love what you were able to do with the Pico palette. I liked the level design and how it interacted with the different powers. The wind power was pretty fun to mess around with. I guess I wish there had been a little more of a story linking it all together, but overall this is a really solid entry, well done!
Amazing little microidvania! Just really solid gameplay and level design, and the sprites were great at conveying the environment even with the low-res Pico resolution.
I am impressed with how many different ways you managed to combine the reasonably simple to understand mechanics into great puzzles. Easy to learn, hard to master for sure.
I had a blast playing this. Game has some very clever puzzle designs that feel super satisfying when you figure them out. The pixel art is very pretty as well. The music is a bit repetitive but overall the audio suits the game style well. Nice job on this!
It was really fun, I enjoyed playing a lot ^^ Got a bit stuck in an ice cave but can say overall mechanics and execution, everything is very enjoyable! Pixel style is also super cute, and small screen along with it creates a cozy experience.
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Can't jump over these two skulls, try resetting the room - left ones fall first, so speed doesn't help. So I finished there ^^'
This game is really cool and very well executed. Got some fps drops at times btw.
However, I dislike spikes + jump puzzles. I pushed through quite a bit despite that. I gave up after getting the third ability - I wasn't sure where to go (maybe being tired didn't help) and felt like I was backtracking too much.
But I did like the game a lot, the art is fantastic too. Congrats!
Another super awesome Pico-8 game, it was very well done. Once I got the wind power I ended up going back and tried breaking some of the other screens since it's so much fun to use. Level design was really good, overall a great game. Excellent work!
Very cute game, really enjoyed playing it. Beautiful pixel art. Fantastic work!
One of the few PICO-8 entries out there, but definitely one of the best! This game reminded me of _sinclairstrange's_ __Tiny Temple__ from the previous Ludum Dare, both simple and engaging entries. I loved the your art style and the choices of sound effects, they do give me the vibe of video games from the late 90s, very retro-esque and nostalgic.
But the thing that really stands out here is the level design, you really thought of the use of different summoning powers at different parts of the level. Like when the player hadn't acquired a specific power they could only take a certain way to a specific exit, but when the power was acquired, the player could use that said power to open up other ways that leaded to other exits, which were previously unreachable. That alone really nailed the gameplay and replay-ability for me, because it encouraged the player to return to previous areas and explore new ways.
Some levels actually required me to spend some time thinking of the solution in order to get pass, but when I did it was very rewarding and satisfying! I think the only thing I'd like to point out is the player kept playing the walking animation while both movement buttons were being pressed, but that's just a minor issue and didn't affect the overall gameplay.
Overall, this is a very great entry, a lot of things were done perfectly, I do wish you good scores when the day comes, because you and your effort deserve to be recognized. Well done!
Another amazing Pico-8 game. This one is really good. The little dungeouns are really thought out, and some of the puzzles really made me use my brain. The music is moody but it sets the scene to a great adventure. The sound effects, althought I know they would be limited to 8 bit like SFX, couldn't be better implemented. And the controls, even thought I got confused a bit by that floaty jump, I could be more reliefed that it was like it. Really deserving of the top spot!
This was awesome. The visuals were crisp, the music was nice, and the action was pretty smooth. I had an issue where I felt like the move and jump inputs were a little garbled -- but that forced me to slow down and approach the puzzles more carefully. Some of those were real headscratchers, by the way!
Separately, I want to make note of the fact that the sound effects were *perfect*, particularly for the green tonic. That brought such a smile to my face.
As others have said, making the summoned skull a slightly different color -- perhaps the same color as Tao's robe? -- would be a welcome update. If this were developed further as a mobile game, I would pay cash for it.
Overall, great work. You should be proud!
Awesome awesome game! I played this on stream, I thought I was stuck at one point and rebooted the game, but have since realised I could’ve escaped. I kept looking for secrets, there was a few points that set off my secret senses, but sadly had nothing. Still though, I loved the game, and I hope the video offers some more helpful feedback, you can see what happened here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2129902300
Thanks @justcamh! It was really fun to watch your stream! I wish we had implemented some secrets for you to find :sweat_smile:
@justcamh Thank you for playing and especially streaming/recording it all. Was fun to watch and gave some interesting insights. Glad you enjoyed our game :)
Very well done, congrats! It's very pretty and it was really fun to go through.
As some pointed out, the controls felt a bit odd at first, but it was better with a controller. Choosing another button for spell switch on controller would be cool, as I tended to switch while platforming!
Also... In the red environment, I ran into some spikes without seeing them, as they're the same color :sweat_smile:
It is very well done .. so much polish in the player journey
Awesome level design too
Congrat !
This game has really nice level design and graphics, and I really like the way the game teach you all the mechanics and guide you through the game, as well as to your approach to backtracking that's fun! If you continue polishing it and adding more levels and gameplay mechanics or twists on what's already there, this could easily become a full release game!
Great work! I hope I will see this later on steam or other stores!
The type of game I like! And even more done on Pico8 which I love so much!
One day I'll do something like this at Pico8.
I really liked! Very well polished game.
Congratulations!
Really nice entry! Everything from the design to the overall looks were very well made :)
Overall really fun entry, the platforming for me got really challenging later which I personally am not a fan of, I'd rather the game be more puzzle focused where the solution is getting the puzzle right and not, landing perfectly on the one block wide skull you placed in the middle of spikes(the collision on spikes didn't feel right I felt like I was hitting spikes when I shouldn't) but overall good stuff.
What can I say? I've stumbled upon a fantastic game at the end of this Ludum Dare edition! For me, it's among the best games of this edition! Seriously, everything is well-crafted, from the art and atmosphere to the music and theme. I have no suggestions because I enjoyed it thoroughly from start to finish. What a team of developers has come together; I hope they release an extended version of this game on Steam. Above all, the mechanics and level design that maximally leveraged these mechanics, along with puzzles that are well thought out—not only on the way there but also when returning to acquire a skill. Insistently, this is an outstanding game. My sincerest congratulations, truly, I had a great time. Spectacular game!
Brilliant! It's not easy to create an entertaining platformer game that doesn't require super skills to pass the puzzles, but you made it! The art is simple yet really beautiful! Good job!Screenshot 2024-05-03 125439.png
Oh no, it looks so cozy and sweet! How come a tiny bunch of pixels can make me feel all fluffy inside T^T Captivating graphics and smooth gameplay, too <3
Amazing entry, I love the pixel art.