Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Crabs in a Bucket
By busisen
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 147 | 3.46 | 71 | |
| Fun | 111 | 3.45 | 71 | |
| Innovation | 149 | 3.30 | 71 | |
| Theme | 153 | 3.54 | 72 | |
| Graphics | 145 | 3.44 | 72 | |
| Audio | 178 | 3.05 | 71 | |
| Humor | 121 | 2.90 | 71 | |
| Mood | 240 | 2.94 | 71 |
Great work! The graphics are excellent and coherent. It looks very professional. And the concept is fun- I thought I could be slick by spamming jump but that is appropriately punished. Having the upgrade shop makes it a nice loop- I kept doing "one more game" because of how quickly you're back in the action. Awesome job!
thank you so much @yossarian, really appreciate it - and yes! the balancing kinda sorted itself out after some tweaking :)
Managed to reach 29 meters! I really tried getting to 30 but couldn't do it :(
Anyway, this was very fun! The core mechanic was awesome, it felt great timing your jumps to drop the crabs on spikes or below boulders. The different items & relics were cool too, especially the drill - it was really chaotic, but massively increased your score (that's how I got to 29m that one time). Generally, I played this for much longer than I expected!
I do feel like it would've been nice to have a (weaker version) of the Slayer relic from the start, to give an incentive to actually defeating enemies. Also, in the deeper layers there were just so many crabs that it felt like you couldn't do much except spam jump & hope for the best, but it did prevent runs from going on for too long :) Also, while crabs getting stuck together sometimes & freezing was almost certainly a bug, it was actually pretty fun to use & plan around in a way!
Overall though, really enjoyed this one! Great entry!
Thanks a lot for the feedback @frogman! 29 is super impressive! and yeah, the drill is kind of a yolo relic, hard to stay alive for long with it but can drop you down quickly. really appreciate the kind words.
I agree with you about starting with some kind of relic - I considered giving the player a random choice at the start of the game similar to how peglin does it, but ran out of time. Also considered having the steel boots relic be just a default game mechanic, but that would have made it a little too easy maybe.
and regarding the crabs, them stacking and standing still are definitely a bug, but feels a little crab-like, that's why the enemies are crabs :P
The gameplay is simple and fun. The visuals is good, and sound/music is overall pretty good. This is overall a good jam game. Well done.
really cool concept, I like it, and really cute graphics, but game feels little bit unfair, but this is cool game anyway
ps. I already add a new ratings section for my game, so if its no problem can you rate them as well please!
thanks @protzz! went ahead and rated you in the new categories. can I ask, what makes the game feel unfair to you? wondering if it's something I can patch quickly
sometimes you just fall on a large number of crabs and you can't do anything(
Mechanics are easy to understand and get into. THe only concern i have is a difficulty spike that happens just after a couple of digs. Theme interpretations is excellent. Visuals are nice and telling, maybe the crab we play as could stand out a bit more (maybe swap colors of enemy crabs and player character). Overall very nice game.
I really like the vibe of the game. Good job!
@protzz true, that happens sometimes :P the boulders, spikes, items and relics help at least a little in defeating the :crab:s
thanks @reaktori and @mcramon! I agree, due to the random nature of the game some runs especially feel a bit tough. I made a minor adjustment just now that decreases the difficulty ramping speed, appreciate the feedback :thumbsup:
nice !
Really fun! The sound made me laugh the first time I died and heard that loud PEEEEENNN. It’s a quick and chaotic arcade game, I’m enjoying it a lot. One thing I didn’t like so much is having to take my hand off the keyboard to choose a powerup, then the game starts again super fast and my hand’s not ready, and there’s already a crab coming... aaaaand dead. Would be nice if the game waited for a key press to restart, or if I could pick upgrades with the keyboard maybe? But still, it’s a really cool game. I loved when I realized I could push a rock to crush crabs. The music feels exactly right for a game where you’re a crab falling through crumbling floors. Graphics are super cute too. Great job. FYI, I wrote this fast because I wanted to go back to playing this!
It's grat, coherent, and well done so bravo to you, frankly I was surprised to try the experiment several times to do better. So it's cool, bravo to you
hahhah @leparlon I was scrambling to create sound effects before the deadline, that was the best I could come up with at the time :P
and I fully agree, it's a frustration for me as well. I made it so that the enter button also closes the shop, which is a bit better, but it's true that it ideally should be any character. actually guess what, while writing this I quickly pushed a patch so arrow and space keys also close the chesta! let me know what you think!
thank you so much for the kind words! it was originally going to be more of a mining/digging game but I pivoted away from that, changed the main instrument in beepbox and this is what I ended up with lol
It looks interesting and funny.
Awesome game, vaguely reminds me of the sand digging section from Mario Bros 2. Definitely fits the theme. Great work!
A really interesting arcade game! Tying the jump to the dig action adds alot of risk & reward. Only issue is I feel like the boot powerup should be a given, because there are common situations where the player doesn't have a choice but die
The game feels very polished, and the "additive" sort of mechanic lends itself well to some planning and strategy. It was fun!
@lukystudios thanks a lot! I had that early in development actually, but the game felt a little to easy since you basically become invincible in some scenarios with them. with good timing and planning you can get yourself out of a lot of sticky situations without the boots!
I was studying React a while ago and I'm amazed that you did it with it. Very cool game! Congratulations on your submission.
thank you @andruid! used react for the chests/game over screen, as well as all ui (and tooltips) + game intro! architecturally it ended up being kinda weird, will probably not do it again lol
There's something about this game that is really great. I played for like 15 minutes. Though it's tempting to simply spam jump, it really shines when you take it slow, utilizing the boulders. I also find the fact that you managed to implement upgrades really impressive. I had a lot of fun with this one!
This is awesome. It's like playing inverted Frogger, where I still control the frog, but also the cars ! Very cool game. The audioloop might be a bit short, it got a bit repetitive. But... CRAB CHAOS makes up for it !
Nice work on this! The gameplay was interesting and required a bit of strategy at the deeper levels. I found myself getting overwhelmed by bad crabs when I wasn't being smart. This is a very polished game for a short game jam. Nice job!
Fun idea!
I'm impressed by how polished the UI feels already, good work! The gameplay loop has surprising depth to it, feels largely complete already. The balancing needs a bit of work - spawning enough boulders early on to keep the board clear of crabs matters a lot. I suspect the boots are underpriced as well. Nevertheless, it's well balanced for a compo game. Great job overall!
41 METERS!!!!! Gimme a leaderboard, now!!! :P Hope this suffices to say I enjoyed your game; cheers :)
Cool concept. I am a sucker for roguelike (my entry is also a roguelike) and platformers so definitely vibing with this. Visuals and UI look amazing. Well done pulling this off in 2 days. I would want steel boots to be default but your call. Maybe I'm just bad. My only suggestion would be mapping shop options to keyboard instead of using mouse to select. Since I am always playing the game with my keyboard it felt kinda unnatural and disruptive to take one hand off to buy upgrades. Overall I really enjoyed it!
addictive little gameplay loop you got there
Remarkable! I really like your game, the mechanics you designed is so simple but potential, there are really some game strategy worth thinking. I believe this game demonstrates your design ability very well.
So original! Breaking whole rows and making enemy crabs go down with you makes it quite novel. I felt genious when I realized I could make them fall into spikes :D Well done!
It's very fun to play, I'd totally see this as a strong mobile game. The mechanics are very simple and easy to understand, and the level design compliments the gameplay. Very strong entry for the Compo!
Nice little game! Well done!
I had so much fun, I mean, I played your game on stream multiple times as you've seen :D Here's a bunch of feedback! - There were some small physics bug, like enemies getting stuck on top of each other and boulders not reacting properly at times, - Boulder visibility rate lowering down with hits wasn't very clear, maybe you could make three different sprites with some cracks to show that they're getting hit - but I understand it was compo, so time was tight :D - Super cool item ideas, I wish some money was saved for next playthrough so I could test them out more :D - Little squares felt like chests or something important, so I tried to get them, but then they just disappeared :(
Thanks so much for the fun!
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My record! Nice game, i love crabs ^_^
Thanks!
Awesome concept and super polished aswell, great job! ^^
This was a super clever concept!! Loved having to juggle jumping to dodge the crabs but also jumping to damage them and needing to make decisions on the fly knowing if I jump to dodge a crab things could quickly spiral out of control.
A very unusual game! Well done. It fits the theme well and on top of that I had fun playing. I loved the music in this game — unique and mesmerizing. The variety of items and relics adds a lot to the game.
Super well done! I got invested and played for quite a while, I like the tunes and the game is fun and engaging!
Love the cutie crab! Awesome concept of getting rid of a whole row to go deeper into the sand. I played your game on stream today (ManishaGameDev), just dropping a comment + rating now :)
nice game. i really like the shop element.
thanks for checking it out @coatline, glad you enjoyed it! it definitely tends to go better when you take it more slowly! checked your game out too, super nice!
thanks @javasaurus! I agree it does get a little repetitive, would have extended it a little if I had more time :P
@bad-fetus thanks for the comment! it definitely has some balance issues, and it's funny you think that the boots are underpriced. I think I agree actually, but most people seem to want it as a base mechanic :P I get both points
@fusionnist 41 meters is amazing! thanks for checking it out :)
@thisyc I agree with you about it feeling slightly jarring to always have to use the mouse and considered implementing key maps to all of the slots in the shop, would definitely have done it had I had more time. loved your game!
hey @outstar, really enjoyed your game and loved watching you play mine during the stream. really appreciated the feedback, and there are definitely some bugs haha
@midnightmist thank you so much for checking it out! watching someone else play puts some design choices into perspective for sure, really appreciate it
and to everyone else, thank you so much for checking it out and commenting!
Fantastic entry for COMPO and web tech. You're very gifted!
Oooh this game is cool and hard! I love it and I will come back later to play some more. It's great that you credited your inspiration. Between you and me: I like the style of yours better. Although, the depth meter would have been awesome in this one as the whole gamejam was about depths
Its simple to learn, but hard to master. It took me a while to find out that boulders can be pushed, very clever!
Sometimes crabs would be just stay still and chill I guess. After clearing a level they would walk again
Great concept, I loved it. I was half expecting it to be less rogue-like and more of a die-and start-over more powerful every run!
I would play more if the music was a little bit less oppressive. As a chill game, a more sunny / beach/surf rock vibe, maybe!
I have added you to my [ My GitHub List of LD57 Compo Repos](https://github.com/stars/dhmmasson/lists/ludum-dare-57-compo). Check it out and share the love with the other GitHub projects! Congrats on making more than 100 commits!
Very nice little game, it was a unique interprentation of the theme. I liked this graphics a lot and the fact that you created multiple different and smart buyables from the store! Good job!
@blue-pin-studio thank you so much! loved your game
@wouter52 thanks for checking it out! nice catch, yeah burrow is a game that my friend and I used to play a lot many years ago hahah - love the concept but it's just ridiculously hard, and I've been wanting to make my own version with some better upgrades to speed up the gameplay a little. I strongly considered adding the depth meter, and it was on my todo-list, but it sadly didn't make the cut. would have been cool to add different biomes and enemies as well!
@dhim thanks for checking it out and putting it on the list! yeah a roguelite like you're describing could have fit better perhaps - I originally had a different, more minecraft-y idea that just ended up not being super fun so I had to pivot. regarding the music, it's definitely a polarising part of this project hahha. sadly it's the best I could come up with given the constraints
@deadbydeath thanks for checking it out! first time doing pixel art so I'm really happy you liked it.
Nice game! It really made me want to keep trying again and again... just to see how far I could go.
Interesting game! I like the unexpected depth of gameplay. Visually pleasing as well.
I couldn't handle some of the sound effects though. They were ear-piercing.
Good job!
@yiraa thanks for checking it out, that's the intended effect :P
@coderaurus thanks for pointing that out - I reduced all sound effects, especially the sounds that play when you restart the game. what happened was that the try again-button shut all entities down, meaning they played their hit sound lol. no more! hope it's better now :thumbsup:
Pretty fun and not easy game! A beach episode of the rougelike, who would have thought :D. Thanks for the game!
Very cool game! I don't think I've ever seen a similar mechanic to "jump and you go deeper" hehe. It felt very fresh to me and posed a good challenge, coupled with the obstacles in the terrain and the shop. The art and sound are also great and contribute to the tense but whimisical feel of the game.
Soo funny game, and cool realization of theme. Good job!
[Thanks for submitting your game to stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2431006955?t=04h02m38s)
The mechanics on this one were actually surprisingly unique. I might have to revisit this one to see how much better I can get. 10 minutes wasn't enough time for me to get as good as I would have liked :pray:
Super original gameplay and likeable sprites, found myself really trying my best here and still falling short lol, this game is quite difficult or at least it was to me. That said I had a lot of fun trying to get further down. Jumps removing a layer from the floor is a really interesting mechanic and bowling over the crabs with boulders is very satisfying. I only got the iron boots one time but it really opened up some interesting maneuvers and I felt truly powerful. Really fun game
https://www.youtube.com/live/UsbxyfIYWuc?si=mruxLhNDrx1PmBLZ&t=4939
thank you @borabee! the mechanic is actually very much inspired by an older game called "Burrow" which I played a lot when I was younger - I tried reinventing it as a roguelike with slightly lower difficulty and impactful items/relics. Never came very far in that game :P actually started off this jam with a very different idea which looked like this, but the game loop wasn't very fun so I had to pivot: SCR-20250414-mkye.png
thank you so much @coleslaughter - was awesome watching you play it live. it is pretty tough to begin with, but once you get the hang of it you can get super far with the right relic and item choices!
same to you @deadroach, super fun watching you play! the boots are super strong and kinda change up the whole strategy. thank you so much for your comment and checking it out, good luck with your streams going forward!