Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD58 → Hamster Seed Rush!
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 3.00 | 4 | ||
| Fun | 2.25 | 4 | ||
| Innovation | 3.00 | 4 | ||
| Theme | 3.50 | 4 | ||
| Graphics | 4.00 | 4 | ||
| Audio | 2.00 | 3 | ||
| Humor | 3.00 | 4 | ||
| Mood | 2.75 | 4 |
The pixel art is really charming and well-crafted—it adds a lot of personality to the game. I love how the hamster collects and hides items in its cheeks; it’s a fun and clever way to match the “collector” theme! The controls are simple but offer a nice challenge, which keeps things engaging. Well done!
A cute unassuming game with a real mean difficulty! It feels like there's two difficulty layers- the simple seeming back-and-forth wheel-based gameplay progression (which I think is cool and charming in its own way) and figuring out the physics-based platforming quirks. Jumping becomes a puzzle unto itself, as does seed management and working around the slightly mysterious damage system of the traps.
Routing out the path to victory takes a lot of trial and error, and leads to a lot of fun discoveries. For instance, you can't jump while on top of seeds, and trying to walk on them ends up putting you on a little seed conveyor belt challenge. And, if you lose all your seeds and can't break the glass jars, you're "soft locked" out of progressing unless you have double jump. Plus, you better be good with your timing at the end, or you'll end up in the infinite falling zone where hearts won't be able to save you. Reminds me a lot of "Kaizo"-style games!
These oddities and "strange difficulties" are some of my favorite quirks of LudumDare games, so I hope my observations don't come off as insulting. These quirks wouldn't be very fun at all if they randomly broke the game (as opposed to predictably!) so I must give appreciation to how nicely the seeds bounce around. They are just random and bouncy enough to be satifying to spit, but they never clipped through the floor or anything in my many attempts. (They *do* go through walls, but I consider that a feature!)
Gameplay aside, the art and animation is very cute and cohesive. I'm not always a fan of non-aligned pixels ("mixels") but you pull it off very artfully here. Great colors, too.
Unfortunately, despite my appreciation for the game and many attempts, I was never able to pull off grabbing the final seed. Since the seed falls into the "infinite falling zone", it won't reappear, and jumping after it doesn't do you any good, either. So, you have only one chance to pull it off, and if you fail, you have to start allll over. A slightly sour ending, but not enough to take away from the unexpected excitement I got out of it. Thank you for your entry! Give the hampster lots of seeds for me.
Screenshot: hamDemo.png