Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD59 → Caws & Effect
By a-flat-miner-studios, ghostmaple, AFlatThrasher and jodiSladeArt
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | 736 | 3.02 | 22 | |
| Fun | 750 | 2.70 | 22 | |
| Innovation | 736 | 2.75 | 22 | |
| Theme | 741 | 2.85 | 22 | |
| Graphics | 324 | 3.92 | 23 | |
| Audio | 501 | 2.92 | 22 | |
| Humor | 450 | 2.68 | 21 | |
| Mood | 735 | 2.97 | 21 |
Nice game, but unfortunately a bit buggy. Sometimes the ball doesn't move when I push it, and at times it hangs still in the air with no way for me to interact with it anymore, requiring me to reset. I'm also a bit confused what the laser can do exactly, because sometimes it pushes the ball away, and other times it doesn't. But I like the art, and the crows look cute/funny.
I сcompleted the levels backwards so I learned about the movement at the very end.
"Cool game! The art is really well done. However, I got stuck on the third level and couldn't beat it. It’s very tough—maybe it’s just me, though!)
Nice concept, would be much better if there were more beam interactions, also it is unclear for me what do some game objects do (if they have any purpose at all). Anyway worth playing, love the artstyle
I managed to finish all the levels but I couldn't find the code to put at the end. What did I do wrong?
It took me a while to understand that the laser activates the fan that pushes the ball. After I figured it out, it was easy.
Beautiful art.
Congratulations!!
Sem título.png
I see what you were going for concept wise and the art looks great, but the movement and interactions feel a little rough.
I think the art looks great in this game. The title screen, the landscape with the tower, and the tower diagram are all standouts for me personally. Throughout the whole game you have good use of color, and as far as I can tell all of your pixel art maintains a consistent scale. The title screen does a great job at setting the tone for the game, with all three birds looking appropriately derpy.
The high speed of the player combined with no acceleration and no change in animation makes movement feel rather abrupt. I think making it take a couple frames to reach top speed and making the bird face the direction you are going would make a big difference without changing much. The tractor beam is a fun idea, but it needs feedback to show the player what it's doing. I played through the whole game thinking it was supposed to pull the ball, (and the special platforms) but was bugged to only work sometimes. It wasn't until I saw Euler's comment here that I realized it activates the fans. Playing through again knowing that made the game feel a lot better. I'd suggest maybe making the fans light up or start emitting wind particles when they are activated to tell the player that they've done something.
The music is a good neutral background that fits the theme of the game without getting in the way. Some sound effects for the beam, collision, and bird caws would be a good addition in future versions.
Overall, a fun little game!
@euler-moises I think the mention in the description about "cheat codes & message from space" not being finished in time is talking about those Signal and Code boxes being unused.
Wonderful art and a neat concept but as others have said, the physics interactions are quite janky and unintuitive.
@euler-moises We had great ideas for the codes, but we ran out of time. Shouldn't have tried to use Game Makers physics engine for this, it sucked up too much time.
@DarkWolf Fun fact, we have assets of a red light that will turn green when the fans/platforms activate sitting there made, we just didn't get them in in time. As mentioned above, time became a factor. But you're absolutely right that there should be something there. It would make the whole thing much more user friendly.
This is a great start, I think, but could use a bit of polishing up on the design front. The base mechanic works pretty well, though the numbers for the egg's physics are maybe a little too high - you can fly across the map in a second, which trivialized many of the levels. The player being able to move also felt somewhat ancillary, since you can activate all machines from anywhere in the level. The only time I had to move was when my default spawn point was in the way of where the egg needed to go. Perhaps the beam could be blocked by the level's terrain, forcing you to navigate the map quickly to target different machines?
Overall, though, I had a good time with this! There's a lot of potential for interesting mechanics here. The pixel art was also quite charming.
The artwork the color palette is really cute, and the mechanics are interesting but it need polishing. I thought the fans were book shelves and was confused why it moved the ball lol, also I didn't understand what the glass blocks do ..? Overall the idea is great, there are lots of fun things you could do with this
Very cool art and good overall idea. Nice job.
The pixel art is fantastic! I really like the color palette, the animation and the dithered pattern in the title. I can see there was some effort to make the beam mechanic versatile, which I appreciate. But I did find it confusing at times. I managed to finish the game but I ended up just pushing the ball with body the whole way lol. Overall, it’s a solid attempt, and I’d love to see a post-jam version that presents the beam mechanics more clearly.
Really good looking! I jus ended up moving the balls using the crow which was very fun.
I agree with a lot of the others here: the visuals were amazing, but the gameplay was a bit underbaked. When I tried to use the platforms as expected, I found the ball clipped and fell through it each time. I ended up mostly pushing the ball with crow itself, except on the occasions where I couldn't for some unknown reason. It sounds like you had some difficulty with Game Maker's physics engine, which I understand, so I won't be too harsh on you, though I did wish you had time to add in the codes and secret message to better tie the game to the jam's theme