FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD57 → OnlyDown

OnlyDown

By nojoule

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall8302.7632
Fun8112.5832
Innovation7212.7531
Theme5143.5633
Graphics6563.1433
Humor3832.9429
Mood7782.8730

Comments

pavlov36 2025-04-08 04:55

Nice game, it can become something with polish)

field-of-king 2025-04-08 12:56

Fun idea! I like that there's more and more guys chasing you over time, it can feel really funny and hectic.

verttixpertti 2025-04-08 12:56

I got 949, but tbh I just kept holding down the s key. I didn't completely understand what gave me health and what took it away, but at least dropping down was fun.

croxx 2025-04-08 12:56

Quite a dynamic game where bowling balls chase you, my record is 690 p.s. the D button doesn't work (or I'm doing something wrong)

slow-chaz 2025-04-08 12:57

love this art style. fun concept, had trouble getting down in some cases.

yibirabbit007 2025-04-08 12:57

Nice game, I feel like a lot of bugs are chasing me(It's kind of scary) It's somewhat similar to my game, but you can fly them in my game(:D

rascarcapackdev 2025-04-08 12:58

Interesting take on the infinite runner genre. I have trouble understanding how life/damage worked but i find the whole concept very intriguing. Nice work

balimaarthebassfish 2025-04-08 13:01

Cute! Lost a lot of health early on because I was trying to work out why I couldnt fall down a ledge I was pushing right up against. turns out pushing S to go down was the trick!

nojoule 2025-04-08 13:18

@rascarcapackdev a lot of visual indication missing, going down reaching certain thresholds trigger healing and attack indicators from the balls trying to smush you are missing. Glad you like it!

nojoule 2025-04-08 13:19

@slow-chaz i tried preventing the player going down accidentally, but that ended up being just confusing. Pressing 's' or down key at edges longer makes you jump down.

antti-haavikko 2025-04-08 13:21

Almost broke 1k, it starts becoming very laggy at that point. Might be something wrong how you're doing the drawing/updates for enemies.

Screenshot 2025-04-08 at 16.07.49.png

Well I did reach the "bottom" too I think...

Screenshot 2025-04-08 at 15.59.45.png

It's kinda lacking in the gameplay side. There doesn't seem to be that much difference on what you do strategy wise. The health regen system was also a bit confusing and controls had some minor issues like Moving diagonally stops jumping off ledges for some reason.

The art looks nice and cute with some pleasant color choices. There is some sprite tearing which is a common issue with tile maps. Should be a super easy fix just a single google search away. Can't remember it from the top of my head as I don't often work with tile maps. Audio would of course also been welcome addition but understandable that you couldn't add it due to other issues.

But hey, good job! 👍 Solid entry for a first time solo dev. It only gets easier and more fun from here! 😎 And remember that every time you face problems and solve them, you're more ready for them the next time...

fusionnist 2025-04-08 20:36

Congrats on your first entry! The infinite map alone is pretty impressive :) My best distance was 843, after which lag didn't allow me to do much, or generate the terrain ;^) A first to be proud of!

nojoule 2025-04-08 21:17

@fusionnist Thank you! The infinite map took like 80% of the time to be generated and deleted without causing issues over time. Funny thing is, when i added spawning enemies the lags happened after a while, probably by way too many enemies somewhere on the map piling up and not being cleaned up

fusionnist 2025-04-08 21:35

Aah, makes sense! I had a similar issue during the jam, since I also made an infinite map with spawning enemies :D

swordguy47 2025-04-08 23:23

Really cute game! I like how the potato you're playing as goes ':o' whenever he falls, lmao. It seems like some things are missing gameplay-wise (I pretty much just held down 's', might've missed a better strategy though) but it's still fun!

nojoule 2025-04-08 23:36

@swordguy47 you are slowed for a bit after falling (originally i planned some visual indicator for that) and then all the balls fall on you if you did not clear enough of them or create some space between them before dropping down. But yeah the gameplay fell a bit flat at the end. Need to improve on that for the next jam.

indiealesha 2025-04-09 06:52

Cool concept, but it's not clear how to play. The game needs a tutorial or some explanation.

ammonit 2025-04-09 07:01

The potatoes are being attacked by black spots - wow! so nice!

plidomo 2025-04-09 12:17

Nice stuff! It's a really great visual falling down, having all of the black spots coming down with you, and landing surrounded by black spots. It also doesn't really feel like placeholder art to me either - just adds to the vibe TBH! Looks a M.C Escher painting to me :D It would be nice if holding down and right when you're trying to jump off the right edge of a ledge worked - this was confusing to me that I could only hold down when the direction I wanted to move in isometric space was down and right

nojoule 2025-04-09 12:42

@plidomo Thank you, M.C Escher was definitely an inspiration, but for my sanity, i made the generator only create "possible" maps, haha. I will definitely consider the controls and feel of it more by asking some friends to playtest before submitting in my next jams.

goiaba-games 2025-04-09 23:03

Incredibly innovative, never played anything quite like it before. I love the animations of the little guy and the isometric graphics. Gameplay wise, it's a bit lacking, it feels a little random and didn't inspire me to keep replaying. Overall, good job and I hope you keep making games.

pickens-inc 2025-04-10 15:32

An interesting concept for sure! I wasn't sure how I healed, but there's something here. The visuals make for a really fun little reality-bending painting. It's quitep leasing to watch. You don't need me to tel lyou this but it's always so important to try and set aside a tiny bit of time to have some kind of audio for your game - even at the expense of other mechanics! But it's a cute entry, I see a lot of the focus went to the tilemap and that is very very cool!

red 2025-04-10 22:28

Unfortunate that you didn't have time to do more, but I applaud the effort to go isometric! It really is a unique and interesting looking perspective.

nojoule 2025-04-11 17:54

@red I'm currently working on improvements, so it might be a fun game in the future. I want to make it a bit more refined and practice the game dev parts i missed out on this jam due to time constraint and lack of experience... and it is fun working more on it!

paulhocker 2025-04-12 22:58

clever game that makes really good use of the theme -- would like to see some additions like powerups or something to collect -- nice entry

aurel300 2025-04-15 21:49

I think some numbers somewhere need some tuning :) After a bit of confused playing, I was being chased by blobs (bad???), but my constant wave attacks (good?) sometimes got rid of them and sometimes my HP bar got to full (good?!) as a result. They were spawning too fast for me to really do anything about them so I just went along my way for the most part.

I would probably enjoy this more as a kind of semi-casual "climb down safely" game where I just need to look around and pick reasonably good distances to drop, maybe with a time limit.