slow-chaz 2025-04-08 14:40
this is a really creative concept. had fun trying to figure out where the level went next. very fun to play around with!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD57 → Swim
By gossian
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 712 | 3.11 | 23 | |
| Fun | 640 | 3.07 | 23 | |
| Innovation | 340 | 3.40 | 23 | |
| Theme | 699 | 3.09 | 23 | |
| Graphics | 747 | 2.71 | 23 | |
| Audio | 2.11 | 11 | ||
| Humor | 393 | 2.91 | 20 | |
| Mood | 727 | 3.02 | 21 |
this is a really creative concept. had fun trying to figure out where the level went next. very fun to play around with!
nice idea. would love to keep the velocity when swimming through and leaving the black parts. feels a bit limiting when switching movement types
You've done an excellent job, and the result is really good! The concept of objects from which you can swim is very interesting. Right from the start, when the character falls into the water, it immediately becomes fun. The character mostly looks great, although there are a few bugs with the animation when we start running on white blocks.
Sometimes there's not enough jump power to build your strategy, which leads to unpleasant moments when you fall down. You want more impact from jumping or, perhaps, more jump power. It's unpleasant to start over after such moments because it feels like the game was unfair to you. Perhaps some mechanic like sprint would save the situation.
I would like to expand the screen more because sometimes you simply don't understand where to go. Because of this, you have to just jump forward at random and hope that you'll land somewhere. Large segments where you need to swim right or down also put you in a bit of a stupor. Perhaps some arrow showing the direction would help here. I reached the end, but the ending was unexpected.
Very glitchy and funny game. I would recommend to add some hints to where should players go, but keep them the right to freely explore the world also makes up a great experience, it's just not for everyone to enjoy perhaps.
This was an unusual game for me, which is cool. It felt like a platformer, but didn't quite handle like one. The lack of reference points sometimes resulted in periods where I couldn't tell if I was moving at all. I can't tell if the levels were procgen or hand-made, but there were portions where I felt like I didn't quite have enough jump power. I kept wanting to do a sprint-jump somehow (like Mario), but no dice.
I interpreted the black and white color scheme as intentionally devoid of detail, which almost gave this feeling like it was trying to make a commentary on something that I didn't quite pick up on. I guess my biggest suggestion would be to either embrace the platformer aspect more, or reduce the requirement to make difficult jumps if that isn't supposed to be the main focus.
Reminded me a LOT of the Tube of Medusa and adjoining levels from Ecco 2. I know the part where the walking animation doesn't work right the first time you land on a platform is a bug, but given how much of the gameplay is spent swimming, I feel it actually highlights how slow and graceless you feel on land XD
As others have noted, a more visually interesting environment with a better sense of direction would definitely improve things.
Really cool idea, really fun little game.
Fun little idea. It felt like I was losing momentum whenever I left the black areas. If I kept more momentum it would have been a little more satisfying, but I enjoyed playing to the end.
The gameplay design is creative! You use the minimalist style but I can understand the different mechanics of the black/white blocks at the very beginning,which is such a great job of you!
That was certainly interesting! A rather surreal experience. I can't help but shake the feeling that you started out with some weird movement or floating bug, and you decided to build a game around the effect :) But regardless, it kind of works! I really enjoyed swimming through the black boxes, and using momentum to make the awkward "leaps of faith" to the other blocks was kind of meditative. It's a shame it's rather short, I would have enjoyed seeing what kind of agility challenges you can come up with given the simple premise.
Was there supposed to be audio? I couldn't hear anything.
The title made me hope for some more story- or character-driven adventure, and I felt a bit let down by the lack of that, but I think it's a good starting point for building something more complex!
Loved playing this with my controller hehehe. Great work fun idea
Good entry! I really liked the combination of platforming and swimming, that was clever! While the animations did have issues sometimes, I thought overall they looked good when they were working!
I think that zooming the camera out slightly, or adding more "leading" elements to help guide the player through the level would improve the gameplay a bit, as it is now it feels a little claustrophobic and hard to see where you are going.
Additionally, even if you opt-out of sound as a rating category, I would highly suggest using some free sound effects and music in the game. They add SO MUCH to the experience, that I always recommend including them even if you don't have time to make them yourself. (Just make sure you still opt-out of the sound category in that case!)
I like it! The lack of detail in the graphics is a bit jarring, but it's compensated by the character’s animation, it's really wonderful to look at and quite unique. The gameplay has a lot of potential; it just needs a bit of polish. Sometimes, when coming out of the water, I got a little stuck. Still, it’s a decent little game! Well done!
A bit hard to controls at times given the different movement types and speed but cool entry :-)