FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD59 → Appeau

Appeau

By divarium

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall6233.2825
Fun5813.1324
Innovation4713.3124
Theme6833.1124
Graphics6703.1124
Humor4102.8022
Mood4613.5723

Comments

gerrit 2026-04-21 09:43

Cute squirrels :)

jnur 2026-04-21 12:56

It's cute! The graphics kinda remind me of old DOS games, like SkiFree. Took me a moment to grasp how to make the squirrels happy, I suggest you add a bit of a guide on your page here so players know what to do and the more impatient players don't just give up :)

meemog 2026-04-21 13:00

Loved the vibes of this game. It would have been nice to have some guidance on what to do, but it was cool once I figured it out. Loved slowly befriending the squirrels

archaeognathus 2026-04-21 13:05

It was a bit hard to figure out what to do in the beginning until I managed to figure out that the squirrels slowly get used to you, the more you feed them. Very interesting and peaceful idea :)

sebastianscaini 2026-04-21 13:11

I am the squirrel whisperer. The game was really cute and super relaxing. A great vibe!

divarium 2026-04-21 13:29

Thanks for the feedbacks. The lack of writen explaination is a choice. I wanted to show how it can be dificult to understand animals at first. But i admit that a small tutorial using button pressing cues would be better.

oradimi 2026-04-21 13:31

Cute game! I befriended all the squirrels. Well done!

divarium 2026-04-21 13:33

By the way, a friend decided to speedrun the game. His time is 3min. Will you chose to speedrun friendship competitively as well and do it better than him ? :p

2026-04-21 14:14

Cute game! It would be great if there was only one squerl and other 7 were someone else. Different animals - different tactics of befrending since the game can feel like you are doing the same thing, but overall it is hard to even rate the game made with such passion!

divarium 2026-04-21 14:28

@crimsontrouper Thanks for the compliment. I've had some bugs that took too mutch time to fix and the content suffered from it. 72h is short, i know you know too. I plan to make a V2 someday with more variety in the animals.

2026-04-21 14:49

@divarium yeah as a jam game - that's fine! But still would like to see the concept grow in something cooler one day btw :)

raivk 2026-04-21 14:54

Could use some more informations like controls and such. But pretty little game with cute squirrels!

gat 2026-04-22 22:31

I liked the background texture, I had a little trouble trying to figure out what to do, A very interesting take on the theme.

tyrannas 2026-04-22 22:35

Cute game, took me some time to understand to bump in the tree and then some time to understand how to play the flute, graphics are a bit rough but I guess it's a style, my biggest downside I would side is that I really didnt understand the speed of the tamming ? sometimes it was super fast and then for others super slow ?

divarium 2026-04-23 07:35

@tyrannas A tutorial would have been nice indeed :p the squirrels are tamed at the same speed suposedly but i think there migth be somes bugs whene they eat multiples acorn at once or something. They also can eat acorn on the floor if you're not here.

myheadmess 2026-04-23 12:23

very cute ! love teh idea !

ansible 2026-04-23 12:33

very sweet! I made friends with all the squirrels :)

zimennik 2026-04-23 12:39

I won't lie - this was way harder than I expected!

The mechanics seem really simple, but figuring out all the little details was genuinely interesting. How to keep the squirrels from moving in a pack, how to make sure the food goes to the specific squirrels that need it, how to tell a tamed squirrel from a wild one.

Honestly, this is great gameplay! And I'm really glad there was no tutorial and I had to figure everything out on my own!

The art style is pleasant, the squirrels are cute. The game turned out great!

appeau.png

rinnnzy 2026-04-23 12:46

This is such a funny little game, hahaha! The squirrel looks so unhappy when I play the instrument, lololol!

infinitywhile 2026-04-23 14:57

Quite cute game, though had a slight problem with finding untamed squirrels at the end, especially because some got tamed when I was far away from them. I also didn't know about the flute before reading comments here so I beat the whole game without it lmao

pimeko 2026-04-25 22:32

Pretty cute graphics and general mood :) I gave a bunch of food to squirrels, which sent hearts but it was not counted as hearts in the UI. Perhaps have I missed something? But it was a nice and relaxing experience

divarium 2026-04-30 12:53

@zimennik It seems i made this game for someone like you. Thanks for the compliments. I think of merging the squirrel gameplay with an other game i work on and expending it. This way, the people who want clarity will have an more guided objective and the people like you will have secrets to discover and understand without explanations.

divarium 2026-04-30 12:57

@infinitywhile Good job finishing it without the flute ! The offscreen taming can be strange indeed. I might add a condition for the squirrels to see the avatar drop the accorn or while they eat for the love value to increase. The feedback could use somme work too. I've seen people trying to grab the hearts from the squirrels for exemple.

divarium 2026-04-30 12:59

@pimeko I should have made two differents icons so that people understand what's happening. The squirrels have to eat 10 time to be tamed and then the UI updates. Thanks for the feedback. ^^

infinitywhile 2026-05-01 03:37

@divarium Well I didn't try to take hearts from them lol, I was shaking acorns for them and I assumed that squirrels are tamed when they had heart reaction to me when I came close to them, and I was searching for those that are escaping from me to tame next.

Tbf, my search for them wasn't super long but they do sometimes hang out in places I cannot reach, like bushes so I couldn't always quickly tell if it's one I didn't tamed yet. Like I said I didn't know about the flute then lol, knowing that it's much easier game so it's not really big of a problem.

I also wasn't sure but I did assume that hiding in the bushes is intended part of the game. Though it would probably look more intentional, if they looked more immersed when traversing them. Maybe like 2nd layer of leaves that would be on top of the squirrels, and would have leaves more sparse so we can still see them. Sth like that:

squirrels_and_bushes.png

Maybe my previous comment sounded unintentionally harsh but I really enjoyed this game. I enjoyed playing it with and without flute honestly. Without it, it was like herding them and it was pretty satisfying to tame and see that they no longer are escaping from you, and instead are greeting you with little hearts. I liked figuring out what to do and overall I like the mood of the game. It even inspired me to go out and look at the squirrels (from distance of course), unfortunately didn't found any at the time.