mdotedot 2026-04-20 04:40
Graphics are great. Music solid. Effects cool. But I'm terrible at these kinds of games. But the entry looks solid! Well done.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD59 → Monolith
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 71 | 3.75 | 38 | |
| Fun | 59 | 3.72 | 38 | |
| Innovation | 277 | 2.51 | 37 | |
| Theme | 257 | 2.70 | 37 | |
| Graphics | 85 | 3.79 | 38 | |
| Audio | 42 | 3.86 | 38 | |
| Mood | 76 | 3.76 | 38 |
Graphics are great. Music solid. Effects cool. But I'm terrible at these kinds of games. But the entry looks solid! Well done.
I got a lot to say about this game. Just gonna ramble whatever comes to mind. Sensitivity was really high for me even though I already have a pretty low DPI. I LOVE THE RELOAD SOUND EFFECT. It fits so well with the half-cartoonish atmosphere. I wasn't really sure what mood the game was going for, but I liked it nonetheless. It feels great to strafe around enemies, but they have a bit too much health for my liking, and aren't fast enough to pose any real threat. I spent a while just running around trying to get more crystals because I didn't realize that the stone platforms were the triggers for the battles. The gun doesn't feel very weighty, but I still enjoyed combat for what it was. The atmosphere/environment is definitely the best part of this game.
The sound of pressing the spacebar is recorded during the jump, hahaha? The weapon reload is awesome! Awesome shooter—there are really a lot of levels, and I had to go back for a spare part because I didn’t read the objectives carefully. Great job!
P.S. Your Steam game looks amazing too!
@sinemual Thanks so much! Yeah, I couldn't get a good jump noise through my synthesizer and I was getting frustrated and decided to smack a few things while recording and it sounded not too bad lol.
The backtracking is kind of annoying, the map is a bit big. I wanted to add objective markers to more things but didn't have enough time.
Thank you for the Steam comment as well :grin:
@mdotedot Haha, no worries, shooters aren't for everyone. Thanks for giving it a play regardless!
@tolviere Thanks for the detailed feedback of both the good and bad. I appreciate the time you took to write it all out.
I actually added a sensitivity slider after your comment (but I noted it was post-release in a changelog). Thats a great point, I have super high sensitivity lol.
And yeah another great point about running around, I wanted to add some POI/Objective markers to the stone areas to inform players that is where things happen but didn't have enough time...
Thanks again!
Cool to see a 3D entry! I like that you used particle effects to make the meteorite findable. Wished there was some checkpoint system, but after some getting used to the controls it was a smooth run! The only thing is that the FoV seems a bit small to me, but thats maybe just because I am not good at shooters :smile:
@oadt thanks for playing! I wish I had time to make a checkpoint system too...I ended up spending too much time on random things like texturing, the terrain shader, and the soundtrack, and didn't have enough time for all the gameplay systems i wanted to finish (this seems to be a normal occurance for me in every Ludum Dare lol)
Also good eye, FOV is on the lower end at around 65 I think. I wanted to add a slider for that as well but alas...
This is very well done! Really nice job artistically setting up the landscape/composition and having a compelling drive forward for the player. I think this could be really nice if you tuned the combat a bit. I find the monorocks a bit overwhelming given how fast they were (actually it made later sections easier). I never died though, so maybe I was just too afarid
It's great! Fun and curious. It reminds me Halo vibe. The music is great and suits the mood. Well done! Crazy it's a compo!
It was nice! Especially the music I loved it! Though I think less gravity would be nice.
The core gameplay is great, I found myself running backwards shooting enemies and praying not to get a spike in my but! I didn't realize at the start that you must search your own ship to get a valuable part so I run back trough all map to get it, anyway that was a good way to say goodbye to the world. Very nice!
Wow! This is incredible. Plus one from me because I like first person shooters. Seeing this in COMPO is impressive.
A very solid entry with so much polish. I like the fact that you get combat music and audio and graphics are all really good. Small touches everywhere like a settings menu (very useful for a FPS) and fade out effects for the camera. Would have loved the signal theme to be abit stronger; but regardless great job!
I can just see myself theorizing about this game. What is the monolith? who built it? why did we crash? why so many questions?
The gameplay and SFX were so good, I really like them! Good job!
Man, so many awesome things about this. Probably my absolute favorite thing, is just having the monolith in the distance, looming over you, as you slowly approach it. Music was great, combat was solid, particles effects were well used and executed (like with locating the meteorite. Overall fantastic. I kinda wish the bullets were fast, since some of the misses I had were cause I expected it to get to the enemy faster. But still, absolutely fantastic, and hopefully you get to add those extra features you wanted later on :D
Was a little stressful (running backward to shot enemies haha) but really fun x) Love the music and the checklist with the objectives, good job :D
@glem-fumeno the good news - I wanted to create a kind of mysterious atmosphere that gives people those thoughts
The bad news - I didn't at all think through any of the answers to those questions lol
@mr-flower Thank you a bunch! Putting the Monolith in the distance like that gave you the feeling I was aiming for, which makes me very happy. I was inspired by the feeling of playing Halo for the first time, where you look up and see the monster of a ring in the sky that you feel like is watching you or something :laughing:
Yeah for sure, there is a lot of little issues here and there. The combat in general could use some work...I didnt get it to a great spot due to the time rush.
Thanks again!
@bonedaddy I totally agree about combat, its rough around the edges. Well really its just rough lol.
The feeling you're getting from the Monolith in the distance is awesome though, that was one of the things i wanted to invoke in people is this massive structure kind of calling to you and driving you forward. Cool that it got through!
And @julienlussiez I was absolutely inspired by Halo lol, the huge structure was an homage to playing the original Halo for the first time and looking up and seeing the ring.
@skale @termight thanks guys, i appreciate the time you took to play and leave feedback.
@metalgear yeah, the backtracking is a bit of a problem lol you're not the first person to have to do that - I wanted to have a better POI/Objective system but it didnt happen haha. Thanks also for leaving the feedback and playing!
@william-corrin : Yes and I thought about covenants when your creatures attacked me! Halo is such a great gaming memory.
@william-corrin what a great entry! Working likea charm on my ultra-wide video. I can see a lot of experience, even the 'lights' indicator from meteor to point me what super nice touch. sadly I couldn't find last of 5 group enemies :( congratulations!
@rafa-fiedo thank you very much! Lol, the only reason it works is because I have an extra wide monitor too, so I'm used to canvas scaling issues :laughing:
Appreciate the feedback. Yeah, i wanted to add objective indicators to the battle zones but didnt have time...it was probably the one thats up over the hill, not the best place to put it lol. Thanks!
I agree with some of the comments—the controls take a bit of getting used to, but once you adapt, the game isn’t particularly difficult to complete. The game is very well made, and you can really see the developer’s experience; in my opinion, a tremendous amount of work has gone into it, even judging just by the number of different sounds and properly made 3D models (unlike in my own game). The enemies may be simple in behavior, but they still feel great and provide a real challenge, especially at the beginning when you’re not fully familiar with the controls yet. The only downside is the lack of an ending—I would have liked to see something after completing the game before being sent back to the main menu.
Only the meteorite search caused difficulty :) Cool visual effects, really liked the content in the game. It's great to have a list of goals.
Character control was immediately considered. Sprinting away from rocks turned out to be a mega life hack:)
There are no empty spaces in the game, which creates a special integrity on the jam
Very solid entry. Pretty cool atmosphere, and I love synth wave.
I was surprised by how much there was to do in just 48 hours! I managed to finish it! At first I didn’t know what was damaging me, and then I noticed those pink spikes XD. It was fun, though I would’ve liked it to be more aligned with the signal theme. Great job!
really impressive for time like that!
Predatory rock kiting simulator =) It's a shooter — a can't-miss formula. Even if you've only got one gun and a couple of enemies on screen, it's still fun to mow them down.
@vladcfg thanks for your detailed review and feedback! I do have a decent amount of experience, but I don't come from a modeling background (programmer) but ive been working hard at modeling and texturing over the last few years so its awesome to hear that!
I really wanted to have an intro scene of the ship crashing onto the planet, and a final scene of some friends at home noticing the signal or something. But i definitely wasted some time redoing the music and SFX multiple times, and slept in a bit too much the first day lol.
@udfblr im glad you liked the list of objectives! That was one of the last things i got in. I spent probably too long on the character controller, at least compared to what else i would have liked to add.
@tanjou I love synthwave too! I've been making synthwave music on and off for like 8 years now
@frowsyfrog lol, the spikes are _not_ communicated well. I left a heart by the first spikes in an attempt to just show the player "these things damage you" since they didn't telegraph that well at all :laughing:
@dywanix thank you! its my (6th?) compo and ive done countless games jams, and have worked in the industry for a decade now. I still never feel satisfied though, theres so much more i could have done and i think the Signal theming could have been played upon a bit more...
@avhatar lol yes destroy those geological lifeforms! I would have loved to have another gun or a grenade or just an upgrade for your current gun, but ran out of time :(
thanks all -
Cool. A really fun game. I really enjoyed it. It reminded me of Halo in some ways. The weapon reload sound is just amazing! The Space Force uniform is magnificent.
Nice game!
The player didn't control great, and the shooting took a second to get used to. When the first battle started, I got jump scared haha, I wasn't expecting that at all.
I love that you can see your bullets left on your gun, and the tension after I realized health was super limited was palpable.
Good job!
2026-04-21_21-21.png I thought this big open area at the right was going to be some sort of Serious Sam secret large battle. But it was just there for exploring.
Great music and atmosphere.
@jesus-gonzalez haha that would have been an awesome little Easter egg - I’ll keep that in mind for next jam!
Thanks for the feedback 😁
@haln thanks a bunch for playing and leaving feedback! Out of curiosity, what part of the player didn’t control well for you? Movement, jumping, sprinting, all the above? 😂
Appreciate the feedback and thanks for playing!
@kit-gorn thanks a bunch mate - awesome you can feel the Halo inspiration. It’s part of what drove me to use the Monolith to guide you forward 😃
I really liked the design of exploring the open world then instancing into the little arenas for combat. It let me feel relaxed during the exploration which felt quite worthwhile. I enjoyed particularly the climb up the hill to the smoking bit of ----- (no spoilers). In particular I found that combined with the soft atmospheric organ music to be really nice. The combat arenas reminded me a bit of the evergaol's in Elden Ring. I feel like there's a lot you could do with enemy mechanics and gun customization with this. You could even fit a risk-of-rain esque roguelike experience over top, clearing monoliths to strengthen the signal home. I'm super impressed with the level of combat polish given the time limit. So stoked to see the stuff you're working on and your skills!!
@william-corrin the jumping was kind of awkward, it didn't feel responsive enough and the jump motion itself didn't feel great. The walking was mostly fine, but I did sometimes feel like I got stuck unexpectedly on terrain and needed to jump over things. Otherwise, controls felt ok.
@richjbaron I know this is like, a sin in todays world, but I haven't played Elden Ring yet :sweat_smile: I did look it up though and I totally see why you are getting a resemblance with that.
Its cool you caught on trying to separate out combat / exploring. Unfortunately there wasn't a ton to explore, I would have loved to expand on a bit of a story more but i ran out of time...I feel its lacking a lot in that department and solely relying on speculation.
Your ideas are also great - if my current Steam game fails, I guess I know what to work on next lol :wink:
Thanks dude!
Wow, you got a lot done in 48 hours! Nice job putting together a cohesive experience with some good bits of polish. The length of the reload animation was pretty punishing in the bigger encounters :open_mouth:
Seems like its probably a cool game, but its really hard for me to play without inverted y. Well done though!
@graebor thank you! I'm glad, it took me like way too long to make that reload anim lol. @paroxysmal sorry, I didn't get that setting in :sob:
@paroxysmal I’ve always wondered who actually needs that Y-inversion feature - could you explain how you ended up using it? I imagine it’s for some fighter pilot or similar, haha. I’m genuinely curious about how different people get used to UI habits that I’ve seen in settings but never tried myself.
@metalgear Some of the first games I played were old CGA/EGA flight simulators like Chuck Yeagers Advanced Flight Trainer, LHX Attack Chopper, I was around 10 or so. so with a joystick I got use to inverted-y. When Quake and Unreal hit it was just natural for me to move the mouse back to look up and forward for down.
This is an incredibly impressive compo entry and you're obviously very skilled! Blows my mind that you were able to create both battle and chill music. Maybe doing that first is a good idea, because every time I plan to make some music, I do it the second day and it usually sucks, so, I am writing that down.
Sounds were really good, and it's impressive that you have also managed to add aiming with iron sights, reloading animation was awesome and you don't see animated ending sequences very often. However, what blew my mind the most was the fact that you created an animated 3D body model you can see when you look down; it is always a nice touch in FPS game, but I can't imagine commiting to that for compo; I wouldn't even dare to think about that, haha.
I would say enemies were relatively easy once you figure them out, but still pretty fun. I think that the gun could have some extra weight to it, and I didn't like the grass pop-in very much, but that's splitting hair. Seriously impressive job here, well done!
@dzejpi thank you very much! I have been making music on and off for almost 15 years now so that helps a bit...
Lol, I actually think that ended up being a mistake, as i know its cool to see the model, but I was going to potentially do a 3rd person game first. I could have done a lot more if I hadn't spent those couple hours at the beginning doing the model...thanks for the ambition compliment though lol!
You're right about the enemies, and same with the gun and pop-in. Lots of stuff that could be better, I think my time management wasn't the best this time around...
Thanks for playing and leaving great feedback!
wow nice work!! So polished for a compo entry, with really nice looking 3D graphics, tight controls, great audio, and a gameplay frame pulling it all together nicely. Well done!
The dome dropping for combat was a nice touch. If I try to critique I'd say that a bit too much of the combat was backwards fleeing while a stack of rocks followed me. I felt like the controls were tight enough to create more interesting combat situations than the enemy AI provided.
I wanted to finish but it was pretty disheartening to lose in like the 4th fight and have to go back to the start, so I eventually wimped out. Sorry :*( I felt like the game deserved more from me.
But such an impressive entry all around! Well done.
@pkenney thanks for the detailed feedback, I pretty much agree with everything you said lol, the combat is pretty shallow. I spent too much time in areas that were sort of unnecessary, as I do almost every time LD comes around... :laughing:
Maybe one day I'll nail the time management aspect of the Compo. Probably not though.
Cheers!
So this is how entries made by industry veterans look like - incredibly impressive! Super well done, and very enjoyable. I loved the in-game spike tutorialisation with a heart right next to it - always shows to me that those respectful game designers care about the player being able to quickly and painlessly learn the mechanics of their game. Would have liked to learn like that if fall damage is a thing in this game (as a space ship wreckage might imply).
When I needed a manual reload, I found it where you'd expect it. When I needed a sprint to search for the last crystal (had failed to pick one up on the way), I found it instantly. Nice!
Very juicy graphics, sound and gameplay - thank you for sharing!
@richard-baltrusch haha, thank you for the kind words, I appreciate it!
You're one of the only people to comment on the heart next to the spikes. I'm glad someone noticed it :laughing: Fall damage is not a thing, but mostly because I didn't have time to add it, I would have liked to get it in. I could have managed my time much better this LD.
Thanks for playing!
I can really feel how many tough trade-offs you must have made along the way. The final result is a really solid piece of work. I'm sure there are still plenty of ambitions that didn't get fully realized. Overall, well done!