soloadventurergames 2025-10-06 00:58
my grapple broke :frowning2:
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD58 → Bolt Action
By recursor
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 193 | 2.82 | 25 | |
| Fun | 141 | 3.08 | 25 | |
| Innovation | 124 | 3.13 | 25 | |
| Theme | 192 | 2.84 | 25 | |
| Graphics | 175 | 2.84 | 25 | |
| Audio | 125 | 3.00 | 25 | |
| Humor | 139 | 2.43 | 24 | |
| Mood | 191 | 2.54 | 25 |
my grapple broke :frowning2:
The idea is fun, but sadly I am really bad playing it. Especially the grappling hook mechanic is difficult to use. But the visuals is fine and like the music. Overall an interesting and fun little compo game.
Pure hardcore. I even learned to take out two projectiles at once from two drones, but I really want something like a dash bound to the spacebar — even if it’s limited by stamina or something. Without it you get constantly pinned in a corner, and the grapple’s speed isn’t enough to make it to the other side of the map.
Overall it’s fun to play — I loved it. Especially the music; you came up with a really groovy riff, bro.
@avahatar A stamina-limited dash is a great suggestion. Thanks for the feedback!
Cool and original idea! Pretty tough game too :p
This is a cool idea and nicely polished! Like other folks, I did find it very difficult. I feel like with a few number and hitbox tweaks this could become really satisfying. In particular, grappling arrows is really difficult.
Nice entry though, it remind me of old flash games, both in art style and brutal difficulty :)
Cool idea — it’s a solid start! 👍 The game does feel a bit barebones and unfinished right now, but what’s there already works nicely. I think adding a few more mechanics or layers of depth would make it much more engaging.
I really love the hand animation though — it feels super smooth 👌 Aiming was a bit tricky for me, since the arrows didn’t seem to fly exactly where I was pointing, but still, great foundation to build on! 🎯
Oh man, collecting arrows while grappling is easier said than done! But it's a fun mechanic. I wish the grappling hook flew much much faster - it was tricky to aim because you have to consider the arrow's speed as well as the distance from the wall you're aiming it at. But it also made for a very memorable mechanic, well done!
Cool mechanic with the grapple but I'd need a few more practice levels before starting. I found the game way too hard. Maybe there's at trick too it that I haven't really figured out yet.. :smile:
This game is really interesting, and I think that it has potential to be really good.
I think that the biggest thing that's holding it back is the difficulty and perceived helplessness of the player. One thing that may have helped was some sort of cue that an enemy was about to shoot, that way you could time your grapple effectively.
At the moment, I think that the skill aspect is focused mainly on aiming, since that is the only way to make progress, whether it's aiming your grapple or your weapon. That's why I really like the grapple bash idea; it adds another option for the player to make progress. However, the problem with it is that even if I see an angle where I could grapple bash, typically it's straight into more than one enemy, which would inevitably lead to my demise, or if I am about to successfully land a grapple bash, the enemy would attack me before I could get to it. Also, the angles that you can perform a grapple dash are pretty limited due to the slow speed of the grapple. In general, I think it'd be fun to be able to sling around the map with your grapple hook really quickly, perhaps even grappling enemies. Your movement speed is slow, but I don't think that that's in itself a bad thing. I just wish that the grapple made up for that lack of speed more.
Another way to make up for the difficult aiming (which isn't necessarily bad) is to increase the size of enemies' hitboxes, just to make the player feel better (and make aiming more forgiving). Also, I also kind of wish that you could grapple bash stationary turrets, since otherwise I'm left to slowly catching their arrows and shooting them.
I know there's a lot of critical feedback here, but there are also a lot of parts of the game that are done really well! For example, it's a nice touch that the arrow visuals actually appear to stick to what they hit. The tutorial was also well done, and don't get me started on the bass line. The player's arms make the style stand out and they look really neat! I also felt pretty smart when I found out that the turrets could hit each other. I did manage to beat the game, and I felt pretty good about it! Overall, great job! You already have a really solid game loop; it just needs some refinement to take it to the next level!
@coatline Dang I can't believe you beat the game, and you are the only one to get far enough to see the turrets. Nice job and thanks for the feedback.
I got hooked, to be honest — the arrow-catching mechanic is really tough at first, but once you get the hang of it, it feels awesome :D
There aren’t many enemies, and I’d love more interaction with the environment, but there’s definitely potential.
Fun game with interesting mechanics! Catching arrows mid-flight and using the Grapple Bash is just awesome!
Seems like this could be super fun, but sadly I suck too much. I feel like a faster movement speed might suite the game better, and a dash like others have suggested.
Great potential though!
Pretty cool, points for compo, arm rotation animation is mega smooth, and fun :D
I liked the idea of all of the grapelling hook mechanics - with a pass of tweaking to make them a bit snappier an maybe having the bash go through multiple enemies, I think you might have something here. Good work!
A game with great potential, but I'm just terrible at playing it.
Nice game with a lovely hook mechanic. Good work.
Holy moly this was hard. Got to "Mixing it up" and gave up :D but I really like the idea! It was hard to get into the rythm of everything, but I can totally see one getting into it and getting really good at this.
Ok so i managed to beat it. But its sooo hard - I beat the last wave by letting the turrets shoot each other mainly and then 1v1ing the last one. I feel like the controls kinda work against you as a player. The main idea of a fast paced bullet hell with the ability to grapple away, damage enemies with it and having to collect ammo out of the air is great, but every single one of those mechanics could use a lot of polishing here. So let me quickly write a very critical novel about it.
Player Movement:
The player is very slow and floaty and that makes calculated dodging incredibly difficult. Your best strategy is to walk in big circles and conserve momentum this way. But this makes the whole movement more tedious than fun. I want to dodge and outmaneuver my enemies not just exploit them by running away and knowing they won't hit me.
Enemy Movement:
I found out a that enemies don't need to be "smart" in the sense that they move toward the player if they are ranged. If all enemies (that can move) move straight at you, you end up with a big clump that is slowly following you and that's just not very engaging. Its fine for the slimes, but the drones should probably just move very slowly or even randomly.
Collisions:
Once i got stuck on an enemy it was game over. I would just drop the physical collisions here, i see no benefit in your game for them. I like the knochback on the slimes because it frees up movement again. Then there is the issue of the enemy hitboxes. I am sure i have missed so many shots that should have hit. Just make them a bit bigger than the sprite. And for the player make it a bit smaller. Just for the better feeling.
The Grapple:
I practically couldn't use the grappling for anything else but snatching projectiles out of the air. Mainly because its so slow. It would need to be way faster to make dodging with it worthwhile. And once you actually use it to dash, you are so vulnerable that you will generally take damage. Therefore invincibility during the grapple dash would be a great solution too. That said, grabbing projectiles works fine and is a good mechanic. Its not easy due to the offset, but that is fine and a nice challenge.
These are my main issues. The thing is that many of those can be eliminated with changing a few lines and numbers around. I don't want to hold time issues against anybody in a jam so not getting to implement upgrades is fine. I know this whole comment sounds super critical, but that's just what i do best! Criticizing is easy praise is hard. So to end on the truly positive: No game this jam gave me such a challenge and relieve to actually beat it like yours did. Cheers!
Mechanics are intuitive,art style complements the gameplay, creating an immersive experience. I like it!