ben-morledge-hampton 2026-04-22 23:45
Is there a download link somewhere I'm missing? I don't see one on this page or the linked itch.io page...
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD59 → For Boom The Bell Tolls
By pickens-inc
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 476 | 3.51 | 30 | |
| Fun | 396 | 3.41 | 30 | |
| Innovation | 395 | 3.42 | 30 | |
| Theme | 554 | 3.46 | 31 | |
| Graphics | 654 | 3.16 | 32 | |
| Audio | 186 | 3.84 | 31 | |
| Humor | 126 | 3.76 | 30 | |
| Mood | 546 | 3.43 | 31 |
Is there a download link somewhere I'm missing? I don't see one on this page or the linked itch.io page...
@ben-morledge-hampton Hey! Sorry, please try again! You tried right as I realised there was a game-breaking bug that could cause a hard crash. I just fixed it for safety and pushed it.
The presentation here is really special! The intro cutscene was a pleasant surprise, and the characters and humor add a lot to the experience.
That being said, the gameplay didn't hit quite right for me. The basic idea is interesting, but the amount of work you have to put into simple combat actions quickly becomes tedious. In that regard, I think the game actually suffers from the first-person control scheme and would have been snappier and more enjoyable with simpler inputs. Also, binding escape to quit with no warning and no save system is a recipe for disaster...
Don't get me wrong though, I think the framework you've built is good, and it's clear that a lot of love and care went into everything. I also want to reiterate that I really enjoyed the characters, the writing, and the voice acting. With some redesigned mechanics, this could be something great!
The voice acting is such a fun surprise! I like the funny story and all the different boss characters are great. I like how their personalities are reflected in their fighting styles.
The combat itself didn't really land for me, though. I like the idea of playing melodies to command the ship, but it gets really tedious to walk back and forth inputting what amounts to very slow button combos. Plus, because the bosses are so unpredictable and your reaction time is so slow, there's really no way to fight effectively. All I could really do was run back and forth spamming triple attack and heal as much as I could until I died on the third boss. There wasn't any strategy to it and it didn't feel as intense as a battle should.
I think this could work better if there was more interest to the melodies - maybe lean into the musical aspect, and have you respond to enemies' melodies? I'm not sure, but it feels like there's something there. The game would also work a lot better without the 3D movement - just put everything on one screen. It would make it a lot less laborious.
Love the characters and story though! That poor cat :( Just needs some more interesting combat to go along with it.
(Side note - the third attack command, which I assume is shield-piercing, never worked for me.)
@ben-morledge-hampton @sam-gorman Thanks to the two of you for your thoughtful comments! I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the gameplay so much but thank you for playing regardless! And thanks, I'll verify the shieldpiercer command is working! I personally prefer the tactile *feel* of the bells over minimalising it to button presses, but there was meant to be a lot more things going on. I also didn't get to tutorialise the enemy AI too much, but I'm still glad their personalities were conveyed in their behaviours.
Thanks for playing!
@pickens-inc I totally get preferring the diegetic, tactile bells! Feels more like you're controlling a real ship. I think the frustration mainly just comes from how long it takes to walk between them, haha
this one turned out to be a favourite for me. full of charm and a cool use of the theme. good job!
Very charming and the voice acting was really well done! The bell combat was pretty fun! Really solid entry
Hahaha this game is awesome! I loved all the voice acting and characters. The physical bells are a funny gag. IO think one of the bell sequences on the wall is missing a number (3) but I intuited it because it's the classic doorbell jingle... 43211342! Nice work!
@theg Thank you! @derek-glennon Much appreciated, thanks! @picross You're so right, well done on catching the real sequence! I've fixed that typo, thank you for that, and thank you for playing!
Very charming game with great ideas and mechanics. Very cool voiceover. Great game.
Had a blast playing this one, the story premise was really funny, and the characters were fun to meet! I managed to mostly breeze through it by spamming the triple shot and healing, the boss fight was definitely quite the up in difficulty though! I did accidentally push the cat through the wall at the end though lmao (rip cat) Overall, I really enjoyed it, Great work!
Awesome game! The vibe and the voices are so cool, and you have made a very original interpretation of the theme. Maybe the combat could be better, but anyways, so fun tu play hahaha Congratulations!
I think the design of the bells in the game is very interesting! The graphics also have some absurdity and are quite fun. Ha ha ha! However, the battle section seems to be a bit difficult for players like me. To some extent, it might affect the gaming experience. But I don't know if it's my own fault. Ww
Great well-rounded game
Loved the game, All the gameplay elements worked really smooth and each fight felt like you needed to take a different approach with. Really enjoyed the voice acting so shout outs to the team for it. great unique entry well done
Pretty sweet! It was indeed very difficult, the book-reader was my demise. Very good presentation, love the audio and story.
The overall production value is really high for a 48h game mostly made by one person, and I can't get over the voice acting in particular. You're aiming at top 3 audio, and a few years ago it would have been guaranteed. Brilliant.
Gameplay was a mixed bag. This command-based loop can work (and has been used in the past) in turn-based combat or in pure puzzles but real-time 1v1 is kinda awkward, especially with the opponent seemingly not using the mechanic (it's been a few days since I played, but pretty sure one of the bosses casts shield and then attacks in a rapid succession). The slowness of command input necessitates that the solution to each battle has to be simple, or otherwise it would have just been too difficult. But in its simplicity, the solution ends up tedious, as the player has to repeat it over and over, with some commands (heal...) requiring three turnarounds and like 12 keypresses. The bossfights are remarkably distinct, and although not all options given to the player are necessary, the game's "framework" does strike a great balance between simplicity and complexity. I would have probably enjoyed the gameplay a lot more if the bosses just hadn't been so spongy, but that would have probably introduced other balance issues.
I think, in Minecraft terms, that it would have worked better with pressure plates instead of buttons, as it would have turned into a sort of dancing game instead of an odd variation of the first-person shooter.
Thanks all for playing!
@alaah thank you! I love the idea of pressure plates instead of buttons. That's not something I'd have considered. It might be a bit tricky. I wanted to strike the right balance between feeling you're in a big machine, with the tactile feeling of ringing the bell, and not making it too chaotic. I think I'd probably do something super radical. I'd make the cockpit window much wider, shrink the distance between the bells, and maybe port it into VR, I think that'd be pretty neat. Thanks for playing!
that intro cutscene set the tone perfectly characters are funny as hell but my god the fights are slow just let me use hotkeys instead of walking back and forth every time
The game didn't run too well on my system but I still like what I saw. The voice acting is great as well as the characters. Also, is the title a metallica reference?
Very clever, loved it!
This is incredible!! The voice acting was amazing, with a full on story and cutscenes. The gameplay was executed at a really good pace. I had time to learn the mechanics and learn cool moves. By the end I wasn't looking at the hints at all, I had all my songs memorized, and I was running around spamming bells.
The sound design though. Seriously so good. The way the bells were tuned was perfect, and the way it did the warbly synth version after you execute the command sounded so good.
I love the fantasy of the sky whale, and the bells. This might be my favorite jam you've done. Seriously well executed. Congrats!
You will never take my cat again! interesting controls that automatically create depth.
I was really excited to play this, but sadly the Wine launch on Linux did not work. Voice acting in the opening was incredible though. If I have time I might boot into Windows later on to give it a go.
Up until now this is my favorite game of this jam, incredible work in this short time frame.
Wooow, that is really impressive! I love it 😍
really enjoyed it
@cameronpenner I didn't get a chance to write this the day before but it made my day to read it! Absolutely lovely to hear, thank you very much - I'm so glad you enjoyed it and that you managed to get in the zone with the songs! :hearts:
Sorry @artur-hawkwing I tried very hard to get a linux build working, but helpfully UE5 gave me the error "Unknown Error" from which I could glean nothing :') thank you for trying, I'll let you know if I ever get it working!
And thank yo uto the rest for playing!
i like the title :p
Cool game. It was indeed tough. I wish it skipped the antagonist intro after retrying, because it can be quite long. For how long it takes to input the sequence to regain health, I felt like it should have given back some more. Because you're so busy with the bells it's difficult to keep an eye out on your opponent. Where they're at, and whether they have a shield up. It would be nice to have an indicator for it in the corner of the screen, though I can also see it as part of the gameplay to check on it through the window.
For the positives, it's cool that you have this intro cutscene. The enemy introductions are funny. The bell ringing actually sounds nice combined with the background music, and overall it just plays well. Great job!