FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD57 → It's madness, my dudes

It's madness, my dudes

By ben-yazi, Sohei, gdmage and keys-presser

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1313.9633
Fun2983.5832
Innovation1093.9033
Theme404.3533
Graphics164.7133
Audio864.0132
Humor1013.8131
Mood1214.0832

Comments

yohadams 2025-04-08 07:05

Amazing art! Interesting mechanics - but it takes awhile to learn controls, if polished enough i can see it on published on steam. Great job!

rustywolf 2025-04-08 07:09

Love the art. I can't seem to work out what to do to get the door open after I put in the energy cell?

zjuwindking 2025-04-08 07:14

I love this art!!This game is too complete!

cmaks 2025-04-08 07:29

Wow, this was great! I really loved the mechanic of using multiple grappling hooks to travel against the current. Very addictive, was sad when I died :laughing:

cmaks 2025-04-08 07:30

@rustywolf: you can attach your two grappling hooks to each of the healing things. Once they're both attached it'll open!

retonymy 2025-04-08 07:31

I was initially a little stumped at the controls but this game got a lot more accessible once i realized that, 1) i should rapidly tap the WASD keys repeatedly to move around and 2) this was a slow paced puzzle game that you could just take your time with and sit in a spot and figure out how to progress!

Aesthetic is fantastic and the visual style and audio style go together perfectly. I really like the slowed-down track playing in the background, and the interesting mood from the stoic slippy toad trio and the danger message you get when you cross the first threshold. I think maybe i would want wall damage to feel a little less punishing, and battery target colliders to be a little more generous but that could be personal preference. Think I see what the game is going for and I appreciate this as a unique puzzle concept with a great worldbuilding/aesthetic aspect!

woona 2025-04-08 09:23

Great job with art and sound. I think you nailed the underwater atmosphere.

As for the gameplay, it seems to me that the biggest challenge is unwieldly controls of the bathysphere. I think the game would be more fun if you either: * made it possible to control by holding the keys instead of tapping them and made the game more fast-paced * or made the puzzles more difficult, so the challenge would come from figuring out the solution

It seems that the bathysphere can take a lot of damage but I don't think there is any way to know how much hp you have right now.

2009yasha2009 2025-04-08 12:39

The graphics are really cozy. The concept of frog-passengers – absolutely delightful! The controls... I think they just take a bit of getting used to :) It somewhat reminded me of Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime. Wishing you lots of success in continuing the game and development! You’ve done a great job – it turned out really cool :)

smeljey 2025-04-08 14:11

I wish I had a hotkey for harpoon pull / push T_T

I don't feel my finger...

The game is dope btw

alvaron 2025-04-09 18:30

Thanks for sharing the link on my stream! Had fun with it. Although the controles need some getting used to, I had a fun time!

hempuli 2025-04-09 21:04

Really solid! I ended up dying by not realizing how the Hammer Harpoon works with mines. I really wish this had checkpoints, because the slow gameplay, while fun in itself, makes restarting feel very punishing. The graphics were superb!

floppynub 2025-04-09 21:04

Cool game, loved absolutely loved the art. The mechanics worked well too, it was satisfying to yoink stuff out of the way. I'm jealous of your UI, it fits so well with the rest of the game, which is presented beautifully. I grew attached to the little frog homies. Very impressive stuff, I hope to see you guys making more stuff at the next jam!

ben-yazi 2025-04-09 21:11

@hempuli Thanx for playing! yep, checkpoints could be very useful :laughing: but we didn't have enough time :timer: classic

ben-yazi 2025-04-09 21:17

@alvaron Thanx for stream and playing! Not everyone could complete the game to the end without checkpoints! :top:

daniel 2025-04-10 03:08

Great art, especially loved the portraits. The collision damage and movement wasn't too intuitive at first, but some interesting mechanics as you get into it.

jtap 2025-04-10 04:51

Very unusual game, like the visual style and soundtrack. Controls are not simple, but it adds to the atmosphere. Thanks for this interesting experience

helloimbenjamin 2025-04-10 05:38

This game fit the theme really well. I loved the little frogs, they were super cute. Great job!

olenikimid 2025-04-10 07:34

Love the art, sound design, and general theming. The movement is a little tricky and I just ended up spam-tapping wasd to move around because it was a little hard to gauge how fast I would go from holding it down. I think having a little animated indicator to show how "powerful" the impulse would be would help, as well as some visual indicator to show if you're going too fast and will take damage if you bump into a wall.

Also, I think instead of just having the text indicator above the player showing which harpoon is active (I know they are color coded), coloring the entire harpoon line or providing some more immediate indicator as to which harpoon they're controlling would be a nice QoL improvement. Swinging with the harpoons and holding myself in place is pretty fun though! I think creating more feedback with the controls, rather than changing the system entirely (I like that it's trying something different and you don't just move around with WASD), would make the system feel more intuitive without removing the challenge/mechanic :)

flinge 2025-04-10 18:32

Awesome game with a really cool art style and a unique gameplay mechanic — a perfect fit for the theme. Plus, I think this one has real potential to grow into a full version, which is always exciting to see. Great job overall! I’ve added you to my personal list of “jam games worth watching.”

outstar 2025-04-10 20:05

First huge plus - marketing. This copy was A+. And I say that working in marketing. :D Second huge plus - I always love it when I see obvious last minute art added out of panic, those water arrows were AMAZING :D This was a really cute idea, I loved the frogs, the harpoon and moving mechanics were interesting and kept me on my toes, I was super-focused, and most importantly, I bonded with crew - I really cared about their stupid little faces! My only feedback below: - Sometimes the line was flickering a lot when I was holding my cursor too close, - Some tiled/patterned background would be really nice! - Music had too little ribbits to it :D - Best potential addition: actual chatter of the frogs complaining on each other :)

rubel-nmb 2025-04-11 11:59

That was very fun!

senso 2025-04-11 20:30

The sub felt a little clunky to control at first, but once I realized it pulsed the movement, I got the hang of it. The sound of the harpoon is awesome, it feels really powerful! You made a lot of content with interesting puzzles. The art is really good, and it’s clear you put a lot of effort into the audio as well. The mine physics actually made me smile, togetther with the "hi its me - "! You have a great team, well done!

hdvr02 2025-04-12 07:32

Some of the most beautiful pixel art I've seen on Ludum

coleslaughter 2025-04-13 01:19

[Thanks for submitting your game to stream!](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2431006955?t=01h06m50s)

Such a bummer I had to die when I did. Maybe I'll go back and try to properly beat it so I can see that ending. :smile:

borabee 2025-04-13 13:53

Such a cool and polished game! The art is so beautiful and the artstyle very unique, that's what originally caught my attention. I love the theme of frogs! hehe The gameplay is also very inventive with the hooks, although the controls with long pressing the keys are a bit counterintuitive on the keyboard and can be a little infuriating sometimes. Maybe a feedback of "charging up" when you keep a key pressed could help with this? Overall, very fun game to play!

agraffs 2025-04-15 08:55

Honestly, five stars. Loved the concept. The whole thing works perfectly, graphics and interface are super polished. The puzzles are fun... Loved the ending :) GG !

librory 2025-04-24 04:26

Wow, that's crazy, how much polished this game is! So many art and animaions, backgrounds. Idk if it's assets, but looks good. And sure humour is on top) Funny