ulziton 2025-10-06 23:06
amazing atmosphere! like this one!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD58 → 30 Days in the Fog
By doctor-zeus, nbumgardner, Agent p, KCTomB and Minthe
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 425 | 3.47 | 40 | |
| Fun | 627 | 2.93 | 39 | |
| Innovation | 441 | 3.17 | 39 | |
| Theme | 711 | 2.91 | 39 | |
| Graphics | 329 | 3.81 | 39 | |
| Audio | 134 | 3.82 | 37 | |
| Humor | 289 | 3.25 | 38 | |
| Mood | 270 | 3.75 | 39 |
amazing atmosphere! like this one!
Music and voice over, not bad.
The watercolour style artwork is incredible. Immersive theme and interesting game mechanics. It took me a few turns to really understand the goal, but once it clicked it immediately had that "just one more turn..." effect!
Pretty simple game, but I like the audio here and the graphics
I fell in love with the watercolor style right away, the atmosphere is just right!
very cool integration of storytelling and art! the team's effort really paid off!
This was really atmospheric and well put together
Very cool voice acting and visual design. The gameplay is intuitive and enjoyable.
Really lovely art and music! Also amazing to see a jam game with voice acting :D Was a little confused with what all the icons meant - managed to kind of figure out some of the combos with weather, mood, activities etc. but still feel a little in the dark as the some of the core mechanics.
Overall though, it's a really cool concept and really well executed. Nice one!
The art style is cozy ^^ i like how it looks
I love the art and sound.
Interesting mechanic of two different factors to improve and alter the training of the actions, and from what I gather, not just a flat bonus, but what particular things you get. Even better that the action taken + the weather affect the next mood, which allows us to find a path of action.
- What is lacking: Text, hint, and forecasting. It's nice to have simple icons for stuff like UI : - Anger -> Improve physical-related (like MTG has symbols for the actions, but cards, and actions have a name). Names are important because, in a sense, they allow me to read the card in my head. It helps immerse me that tomorrow I'll be "running, swimming,..., doing mathematics or whatever" (the voice acting helps, but it's only after). I went into the code to dig (wit, physical, study, craft, misty) - The diary is super cool, saying what will improve the next day, but you don't have this information when you take the action (e.g., for the first day, or just after an event). It could be a glow on the cards, or a tooltip on the mood/weather. In old games, we would have a booklet with diagrams and mechanics that we could refer to.
I got a "default Title" along the way
The art is beautiful, the music soothing, and the voice acting is a nice touch. There seems to be a lot of replayability with the choices and paths to take (and the different characters) but the lack of more story elements while playing makes it a bit less enticing to replay it again and again.
---
I myself **[collect GitHub entries](https://github.com/stars/dhmmasson/lists/ludum-dare-58)**: So it's super nice to see you have used GitHub extensively during the development process of the game (132 commits from 2 contributors). I have also collected a few tricks to make the repos shinier across my Ludum Dare participations
You can update the repository name (I always name my repo ldXX and I rename when I have found a name for my game) without breaking links (GitHub redirects old names to new ones), and add a description for inclusion in the list (
Include the link to your ldjam entry in the Readme. I also have created badges that you can use to decorate your README:
``` Ludum Dare Ludum Dare 58 - Compo Ludum Dare 58 - Jam Ludum Dare 58 - Extra ```
Screenshot 2025-10-06 at 08.35.40.png
Consider using these **topics** on your github description to make your Ludum Dare entry more discoverable: - `game` - `game-development` - `ludum-dare` - `ludumdare` - `ludumdare58` - `ludum-dare-58` - `ld58`
You can also use your cover art for the ```Social preview``` image in the repository ```Settings```
I have starred and added your repository to a list of ld58 compo:
(Also, I am on a quest to collect 10 stars on my repo. If you play my game, consider [leaving a star on my repo](https://github.com/dhmmasson/tilesCollector) as well.) In fact, you can even leave a star on all of the entries of the [list](
Thanks for the detailed feedback @dhim!
Your consideration for gameplay & the code behind-the-scenes are both greatly appreciated. Diving into the code hunt down the names of the moods & weather patterns is a step beyond what I expect anyone to do for a jam review, so big thanks for going the extra mile.
I'll see about implementing your GitHub recommendations too. I typically don't expect folks to peruse our GitHub repos too much, but maybe my assumptions are flawed (or at least self-confirming) because I don't do much to make them more accessible. I appreciate the notes, thanks a bunch!
I've got some responses to your game-related notes below, but I definitely tend to ramble. Sorry for my long-winded-ness, consider the below some "optional fun" reading :smile:
I'm fond of games with a lot of abstraction (I do love me a good menu, haha) but I'm definitely a UI / UX novice so my designs end up being a bit clunky - in the scope of the jam most things don't get a second pass. I agree with what you're saying about icons + names - just having images doesn't fully convey the flavor. Maybe tooltips, having name-text beneath the icon, or some other hover-effect would help make the intended picture -> concept connection clear.
In past jams, I've had some issues with over-communicating redundant information (like when I built a tutorial in our LD56 "extra" category game) & also had issues not communicating enough (most of my other entries, :laughing:) so I was aiming for a sweet-spot in the middle by focusing completely on the icons. Maybe not all bad in theory, but it could use more work to achieve the intended goal.
Related to communicating the "bonus effects" during a day (this action will be better because the weather is X or your mood is Y): this was also something I was interested in doing. I thought of some different ideas: maybe adding a glow / particle effect around some UI elements when you hover the box, having a "boosted" indicator on an action choice, a gold / silver / junk border that helps communicate how the action differs from its usual values, but nothing was concrete enough (and the scope I had left was large enough) so they ended up unimplemented.
One thing I'm unsure of: how much information is correct to communicate to the player before they make their choice?
I ended up deciding it would be best to give the player fully-accurate information on the cards, but I don't think it's most-correct.
On one hand, it's safe: if the game displayed less information (the card's "unaugmented" stat growths) then we'd have to invest effort into demonstrating (ideally through some visual sequence) how both mood & weather changed the card to its final value. Without something like that, the gap between your forecasted benefit & real benefit would be super confusing.
On the other hand, it takes away some of the possible "gameplay". The game's pretty light, but in theory the process of discovering exactly how weather & mood will impact your choices could be a big part of the fun - a kind of mechanical exploration. There's some of that still possible here (trying to construct the map of mood + weather = which choices is still an exercise left to the player, so someone with a lot of mechanical investment could chase after it) but communicating the full result up front doesn't do a good job of engaging the player further. In some ways, it does the opposite - they know what they're going to get stat-wise from picking the choice, so the fact that it has other impacts on game state (determining next mood) is de-emphasized & doesn't catch interest.
The diary was my band-aid solution intended to address the problem. More explicitly stating "because of X + Y, I got this result. Also, because of X + Y, my mood is now Z" was intended to redirect the player's attention to the question, "How can I influence which mood will I get next?" though I expect the text overload in that page didn't necessarily lead to the intended result.
With all of that in mind current thinking is that it's probably better to be more vague on the main action-choice screen. No numbers, focus on communicating "here are the things the character intendes to train". Then, after the choice is made, do a fancier transition that shows the effect of the day's factors on the action outcome - knocking off stat points for penalties & adding extra points for bonuses.
Maybe also-correct under that solution is having some minor element of randomness in the bonus / penalty calculation - something to add anticipation to the end-of-day reveal, even after you know the general behavior of each factor. I was quite taken with the idea that your stat growths have very little randomness (it's basically just the sequence of weather types) but some variance would be a good way to get invested in a screen that would otherwise become a rote confirmation.
Specifically related to your feedback: > but the lack of more story elements while playing makes it a bit less enticing to replay it again and again.
For sure - the scope escaped us a bit at the end. Part of the intent was to have different scenarios for each character, and have fully unique branches of scenarios based on your event choices & outcomes so each play would be much-more unique. We didn't have enough time to make scenario content for every character (among other issues) so there ended up being a lot of redundancy in the final game.
Being able to view a tree of story outcomes + restart from mid-points you've seen before would make exploring the possibilities more enticing, I think. Options for manual save + load functionality would be good for that sort of purpose as well, though I think having a visualization would still be most important.
Having smaller, isolated events that can happen in-between the major "deadline" events would be good for variety too. The code isn't too far off from being able to support something like that, but it's another one of those things that wasn't quite practical to implement within the constraints of the jam.
There are a lot of flaws and limitations of this design (along with the fact that the gameplay concept from the outset is quite niche) but it'd still be good to finish it!
At some point in these rambles, I know I'm just using the comment-writing as an excuse to get my own thoughts in order.
Game making & design is super fun for me, and a big part of that fun is all the design-thinking that comes out of the process. So far, the feedback we've gotten has been about aesthetic & mood, which is great - the art & sound folks did an awesome job, in my opinion, and it's great to hear their efforts receive appreciation!
For my own self-indulgence, though, I've been looking forward to discussing the design & mechanical aspects of the game - too much, maybe, based on how long I rambled :laughing:
For folks who read through to the end, thanks! I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this stuff, if you have any things to share - feeling engaged, feeling disengaged, confused, etc.; all of it's valuable feedback. Thanks for playing, and thanks for reading, commenting, jamming, etc.
I'm glad we all get to share this fun event with one another!
Also, @cartmouse thank you for your feedback!
I definitely agree that the game's communication makes the game's mechanical workings pretty obtuse. I wrote a looooong ramble up above if that kinda thing interests you :smile:
Regardless, thank you very much for your feedback!
I've been thinking about the game's design (especially limitations & weaknesses) since the jam finished, so getting some notes about how play felt from an external perspective is super helpful.
Pretty good simulator! The voiceover is a great touch. A bit of UI polish, more sound effects, and a few more random events would really boost the immersion.
first of all both thumbs up for original art, music, and gameplay! First ending Tavern brawler xD good job guys ! its an easy-relaxed playing , i liked that!
@doctor-zeus Thank you for the in-depth explanation!
Those are really good thoughts. I really think that this is a game idea worth exploring.
I think the glow over + showing the bonus would have helped see the effect and create even more of an incentive to go for the short-term bonus (what is the immediate best add value, even if sometimes its not in the right direction (e.g. you should sometimes stay in your lane)). Two counterbalances:
1. Knowing also how the action would affect your mood (working in the rain allows me to go further, but then I'll be miserably wet and I'll want to stay hot) 2. Knowing a bit more about where one should go (my mentor told me that I should be strong and really agile), so you could counterbalance the going short, with more of a long-term vision
I am mostly focused on game mechanics, and how UI can help convey them. And also more so how the UI can help discover the mechanic or help the player. (e.g., In my entry, I really wanted to explore the player making pairs of tiles, but also making a 2x2 square of tiles. So the UI displays hints of what pairs have been found (with an exhaustive list) and where (with marks on the board), However, I could not find a way to properly convey which square had already been made (well, the idea for pair extend, but then it would have become busy))
Relaxing game. Some of the icons and sub-icons were a little confusing. Would have been nice if there was an optional tutorial or side bar explaining them.
Very relaxing music! Hearing all of the voice clips at the end of each day was fun too. Great audio design! The gameplay took me a couple turns to figure out, but recognizing how the diary indicates mood and weather changes was rewarding and felt like a good flow.
One thing I was confused on was the events every 10 days had number requirements, but when I clicked roll the dice it just went to success. There was one time when some of my stats were lower and some higher but it still went to success. I would have loved to see some sort of actual dice mechanic there and more random events associated with the stats more often would be fun.
I've been playing Umamusume recently and I actually felt like some of that loop being here of picking the best training each day to try to max out your stats for a big event coming up. Umamusume also shows you direct numbers of what your training will impact each day, so I think it can be an interesting choice when you want to focus on stats you know you want or more total stats for the day. I think UI wise a lot of people prefer that to an obscure bars or other indicators. I like in this game it feels like there's impact of what your mood will be the next day too based on the training you do.
My thoughts on the content limits is I think you might have been better off focusing on just one character for a jam game. That way you have a single path with more content. From what I've seen of most people playing jam games they often will not replay multiple endings etc. I typically think about how I can try to concentrate my design to a solid 5 minute experience as that's the typical game jammer audience playtime. It's something that's pushed me away from a lot of procedural generation if it doesn't fit directly into the core aspect of my game during jams now.
Definitely was a fun experience, I could see if it had some more randomization thrown in there easily playing it on my phone as a time to pass some time.
Love the art style! I am a bit confused at how the system works. Most of time I focus on which activity will get improved next day and choose that. I am not sure if this is the right way to win/reach the ending, but it feels like this design makes the player less motivated to care about other things Snipaste_2025-10-22_23-21-57.png
really fun game, loved the atmosphere!
very beautiful water colour art, and the music is very soothing! gameplay is simple and understable. maybe I would have added some flair / sfx / music to the events to give them a lil punch :)
Amazing work! It’s super interesting and has a vert unique way to paraphrase the theme, good job! And welcome to give our game a try! :)
This is a really cool take on these mechanics, I like how the bonuses are affected both by your mood (something you control) and also the weather (something random). Although, it does seem a little difficult to precisely plan ahead, so overall it still feels kinda random. I think it'd be cool if maybe, there was like some kind of system to get hints about the upcoming event and the stats that might be required.
@ursagames Thanks for the feedback! (and sorry for getting back a little late)
I'm glad you liked the sound stuff, I know the folks providing lines & making those systems had fun making it :smile:
There were definitely a lot of "good intentions" with the design that didn't get fully realized, but there were also a fair share of design problems that I didn't have good intuition for how to handle - I have that big ol' ramble above about that stuff.
I really like the idea of having more random events - little "choose your own adventure" strings that happen without prior warning would be great for variety, have a fun aspect of discovery (I wonder what possibilities lie behind option "C"?) and could create a unique gameplay "flavor" for that makes a particular run memorable ("that's the time I won the poker game & the mob came after me!").
Having some kind of preview of what's coming up will be good, but I think additional testing would help convince me what amount information is best. I've been thinking a lot about how sprinkling more variance into the game probably wouldn't be a bad idea, but maybe the way to do it is "roll the results ahead of time, show the player the results of the random rolls" so the player makes decisions with confidence? I think I really should just play a bunch of games in this genre to refine my sense for what works & why it's good.
I strongly feel you're correct that scoping smaller for the jam would've been a smart decision.
Our original concept was quite ambitious, and it was heavily aimed at multiple playthroughs; there would be items you could collect & share across playthroughs (or in the comment section!) and the types of items available to each character would be different. So the game would be focused on multiple playthroughs ("collecting" endings) but allowing people to share persisting progress across different plays would mean the community as a whole could eventually reach all of them... definitely very ambitious for a weekend project, and definitely aiming for a very high level of engagement from the jam folks! (like, how would we even explain and tutorialize it? You get more-complicated mechanics from another person's playthrough *and* you're supposed to pass the baton on to the next person? :laughing:)
I don't regret going for it, but I think it's too bad we didn't get to see the "community teamwork" features in action. Even if the idea isn't too compatible with audience expectations, I don't mind using the jam as an excuse to take the best shot I can. Of course, it's always good to make sure the whole team is on the same page - just because I'm wrapped up in my own world when tinkering with design ideas doesn't mean everyone else wants to be there too.
It's always nice swapping reviews & discussion with you. Looking forward to next time too!