FoonLudum Dare ExplorerLD59 → Ping to Survive

Ping to Survive

By mekuire

View on ldjam.com

CategoryRankScoreCount
Overall1903.9067
Fun1313.8567
Innovation2673.6367
Theme1384.2067
Graphics4673.6767
Humor2.4615
Mood3173.8065

Comments

exteegi 2026-04-20 18:00

Fun and intense. I was locked in! Great use of simple graphics.

msipp27 2026-04-20 18:01

very good!

fatality67 2026-04-20 18:05

Very nice little game ! I love the fact that game mechanics are unlocked step by step, it helps keep things fresh. The overall atmosphere and gameplay feels good. Overall, a game very well done ! gave it a 5/5

fassenberg 2026-04-20 18:05

Thank you for the tutorial and the web version! It was fun to play. I made it to the shooting phase a couple of times, but died every time...

I wish you wouldn’t take damage from meteors that have already passed (when you’re on the same row), so that you don’t get hit by them while dashing.

sirlich 2026-04-20 18:06

Very fun! It took me ages to figure out that the Scanning had a cooldown! I was smashing ping like a madman, and lowkey thought I was going to have a seizure.

Once I figured that part out, I had a lot more fun.

I really enjoyed playing this one. I think you scoped this one perfectly.

nikiroz 2026-04-20 19:18

Interesting gameplay, although it's not entirely clear why you need to manually ping if you can spam it.

mekuire 2026-04-20 19:34

@nikiroz The idea is that if you spam the ping button, the signal you receive will be unclear. You need to press it exactly when the indicator is green.

akadream 2026-04-21 07:54

Simple but very effective! I like the idea of spaming the ping button make the screen glitch.

nikorych 2026-04-21 08:19

Great game and interesting idea.

caelestial 2026-04-21 10:16

Great game, great audio, smooth controls, step-by-step tutorial. Loved it <3

gideongriebenow 2026-04-21 11:14

I think this is a really well scoped effort (which leaves some time for polish) which fits the theme well. Simple, yet effective mechanics, a check to prevent spamming, etc. One thing I would add is to remember the last direction moved and use that if dash is pressed without currently moving. As it stands, dash works fine while moving, but always goes right when not moving, while I'd expect it to get left when I moved left last (even if I'm standing still now).

ternarycat 2026-04-21 11:56

Well done

glitchproduction 2026-04-21 11:58

Very Fun and challenging game, sounds amazing, looks amazing, plays really well. For the time had to make this it is fantastic.

axodo 2026-04-21 12:33

The game is interesting. I really like the concept, it's pretty addictive. The one thing I would change, is that you loose abilities instead of earning them. So that the beginning is easier, and gets more difficult, instead of having the peak oh difficulty at the beginning :)

Also, it's probably just me, but sometimes I swear I do a (green) ping, nothing shoes up, and I take a hit before I can green ping again, it's frustrating :')

Good job tho!

rynti 2026-04-21 13:07

This was really fun, made it through with 1 health left =) simple idea, excellent execution - felt really polished.

Also: Not sure if this was on purpose, but I loved how the main menu music was in sync with the background ping animation :D

mekuire 2026-04-21 13:33

@rynti Yes, it wasn't intentional. It was pure coincidence :)

no-firing 2026-04-21 16:00

Really Cool! Music awesome!

dywanix 2026-04-21 16:43

fun game!

2026-04-22 05:28

Beat the game with 1 heart left, phew! It's a fun game, especially after I realized the green light indicated the cooldown. I was unnecessarily conserving my pings on my first play through. Great job!

2026-04-22 07:07

Interesting game! Good job!

aannnnman 2026-04-22 07:34

The eyes! But the game nice.

cloverfall 2026-04-22 07:41

Really nice audio and graphics. It immediately reminds me of the arcade style, and the graphics really match to that. Gameplay was fast and complete, nice job!

sariiger 2026-04-22 10:38

It was fun and a bit challenging, took a couple of attempts to beat it.

I did notice that sometimes some meteors disappeared from the scans, even though I only used the scan when it was green. I saw it coming, then next scan that same meteor was no longer visible, and then it hit me. Maybe that's intended and there's just a big enough chance to detect a meteor, but it sometimes can miss it.

Regardless, great entry!

astroaceone 2026-04-22 10:57

Very cool game, I really liked it, I was really satisfied with the mechanics, and the fact that they open up gradually, it seemed difficult to me in terms of progression, but very cool, YOU ARE COOL

su-yuhang 2026-04-22 13:54

A really great game. It fits the theme well and is very fun to play.

julester 2026-04-22 14:02

Really wel made game. Its really nice to get a feel for the ping timing and the trajectory upgrade is a nice touch.

whoisethan 2026-04-22 15:14

Game plays well and I enojyed the spoon-fed instructions (though the concept was pretty easy to digest). It gave off "black berry brick breaker minigame but blind" vibes which was pretty fun.

Wish there was remappable controls in the settings though, I'm a sucker for arrow keys

2026-04-22 16:31

Boring game

eden-zorro 2026-04-22 18:11

Good job with this game, it's simple and well-polished, moving and using the dash is very satisfying.

A little difficult, a great challenge!

jo-bettaque 2026-04-23 09:02

Cool, nicely polished with good visuals, really good music and well working mechanics, good job. A little hard for me though^^

jcomcl 2026-04-23 10:40

Cool idea and the gameplay is pretty smooth. I swear the ping doesn't actually reveal all the asteroids, it got kinda frustrating.

2026-04-23 10:41

Wow, really fun little mini game I love it! Very nice concept!

mekuire 2026-04-23 11:42

@jcomcl You're right; only the asteroids that were active when the ping was sent are displayed. The ones that appeared later simply aren't shown.

tryam 2026-04-23 12:18

Interesting idea. I think it would be nice to use it as a puzzle in some quest. It's not always clear why I'm taking damage. Perhaps the gameplay responsiveness could use some work.

pacelin 2026-04-23 12:18

It's a very cool concept. I'm having the same problem as some of the commenters above. I only ping when the indicator is green. I'm standing in a place where there are no meteors. But somehow, at random moments, I'm taking damage. It's greatly diminished the fun for me.

schizoid2k 2026-04-23 15:33

Nice concept... very challenging, but not frustrating. I found myself playing quite a few games. Great job!

enver-arco 2026-04-23 16:14

Good visuals. I found the game quite hard and kept dying but maybe thats just me

overlix 2026-04-23 21:43

Small game loop, but it's perfect like that, really like the game and the use of the theme, good job

deraxus 2026-04-23 21:44

i would say one of the best game if we are talking about this theme. Amazing job!

irkar 2026-04-24 08:05

Cool simple art style and i love smooth animation but tutorial very slow. Good job!

nondev 2026-04-24 18:30

Simple but a neat little idea! Having different features unlock as time went on helped give it a little depth.

trexxak 2026-04-24 18:45

"how did no one come up with that before?" Really impressed by the simple yet unique gameplay loop! Could totally see this being a mini-game or being included in a micro-game collection :D

2026-04-24 19:21

fun game. good visuals. good length. polished.

abiral 2026-04-25 09:01

simple classic concept with good twist and perfectly aligned with the theme. enjoyed the game and good simple art/visuals.

automatonvx 2026-04-25 20:39

Great example of how to do LD well... have a simple but interesting twist on a classic mechanic. Simple but effective visuals, nice polish extras like the retro CRT effect. A nice little soundtrack and some sfx (EDIT - audio is opted out, so I guess its third party, shame, but fair enough). I played quite a few games, but didn't get past the dash, felt like sometimes I hit something couldn't have been there (maybe making anything you actually hit also visible would be better). Overall great work really. Well done.

hurp 2026-04-26 10:48

Compact gameplay that was both challenging and intense, in between the signal waves. Good entry :D

wouter52 2026-04-26 19:45

Waoow dat gameover screen though :open_mouth: That is too satisfying in my opinion haha, which is great because I've seen it many times now!

I like your game, the music, graphics and overal gameplay feel very well polished. I do have a question though: it felt like the meteors where different every time I used the ping. Is that my mind playing tricks on me?

pipetto 2026-04-27 08:11

Everything here feels just right. Pleasant visuals and music, and a clear, comfortable mechanic.

indiepanda 2026-04-27 10:48

An unusual runner. Everything is fine. Boosters can be added to the asteroids, such as blue circles.

catanus 2026-04-30 07:33

Great game. I liked the overall style; everything was in its place. The audio complements the gameplay perfectly. I couldn't finish it after several tries because some asteroids would ping as they approached me, sometimes several at a time, and there was no real way to dodge them (and I hadn't unlocked the cannon yet). Sometimes, some asteroids wouldn't ping, but the collision still counted. It's cool that there's a challenge, but sometimes it felt unfair to lose health. Overall, great work.

mekuire 2026-04-30 12:24

@catanus Thanks for playing! You're right—a lot of people found the game difficult too. I guess I'm just more experienced than everyone else; when I was testing it, I never lost a single game and didn't encounter any truly unfair situations—usually either the cannon or a dash saved the day.

catanus 2026-04-30 15:59

@mekuire This is the developer’s curse—I understand that feeling. We make our own games, and in practice we design them for ourselves. Often, other people may stumble over things that seem completely non-obvious to us. That’s exactly why feedback is important. I always let someone play on my computer so I can observe how another person behaves.

skiddings 2026-05-02 20:16

Nice little solid game

ao-85 2026-05-04 21:15

Good job with this game, it’s simple and well-polished, moving and using the dash is very satisfying.

kirill-balak 2026-05-08 23:21

Oh, I had a similar idea! Interesting implementation