Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD60 → Hammer or Dice
By nbumgardner, agent-p, kctomb, eya, nick-evans and vhoyer
| Percentile | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | LD60 | Ever | |
| Overall | 18 | |||||
| Fun | 17 | |||||
| Innovation | 17 | |||||
| Theme | 17 | |||||
| Graphics | 18 | |||||
| Audio | 18 | |||||
| Humor | 17 | |||||
| Mood | 17 | |||||
I like that there's some risk factor, since the hammer can accidentally crack the dice; on the other hand, I think the goals ended up being too generous, because I've beaten the game at least once without needing to use the titular hammer π
Btw, I found a bug, during this roll I had used the hammer two times, and after both it seemed to be ignoring that "6", giving only the other die as the score:
I found the concept and mix of aesthetics in this game endearing. The gameplay was a bit confusing, mostly because of the UI. I'm still not entirely clear what the UI bar at the top is indicating past the goal text (the little triangle is draggable, but didn't seem to do anything?). The roll dice and then push your luck rerolling mechanic is a fun and solid foundation for this type of game and I think it would really shine with another layer of polish. Also I loved the sound effects!
A nice and simple push-your-luck sort of game! I like the risk-reward of hammering dice until they might shatter. My only complaint is that the levels are too easy... for the vast vast majority of the game, I just rolled straight to a win without needing the hammer. (Also a small bug.. if you click to submit while holding the hammer, it ends up smacking some dice near the bottom of the table!)
Still, a fun little gambler's game... you did a good job making the hammer impact feel juicy
I think the idea of using a hammer to change the odds of your gambling is a great idea. I just wish I had more incentive to use the hammer given that most of the ranges were wide, meaning I could score in the range with just 1 roll (maybe 2 if my luck wasn't lucking). However, the one level where my luck was arduous, I had fun trying to hit the hammer in the right spot to get into the range while not breaking any of my dice, so if the balancing is fixed, this could be a very addictive game. The game's audio is also great; I found the alien SFX quite funny :)
Interesting idea! A clearer score display would help. I think it would be more engaging if I had to beat the alienβs score as well as land within the target range. Quite often, my first roll was already within the range, so an extra challenge would give me more reason to use the hammer.
Fun one! Rolling dice to land in the target range feels tense, and the hammer that shoves nearby dice around is a great twist. I like that each level adds a piece to the ship holding the alien, and the pencil and color art is charming. Nicely done!
I didn't quite feel the theme coming through, but the game's nicely done. It may need some balancing as it seemed too easy to not need to hit the table or use the hammer, but the gameplay loop is nice enough and I ended up winning. Art's nice, music fits in nicely too. Loved the voice acting parts. Pretty good job overall!
Can echo a lot of what the other people said. Really liked the hammer idea, and think you could have a really fun game if you took that concept and rolled with it a lot. Finding dice rolls, seeing which group of dice based on position would give you the best chance of winning if rerolled, and trying to hit that area. It's a cool puzzle presented like that. But as others mentioned, I didn't really feel I needed it. The game could defintely have used a balance pass. Needing a 7 with 6 dice felt maybe a little *too* in my favor π - as did being able to hammer indefinitely. But there's sparks of some real clever stuff here that I think if explored and iterated upon could lead to some very satisfying gameplay. Good work!
I agree with the other comments about the goals being too generous. It's fun to mess around with the hammer, breaking dice is very satisfying, but this feels like more of a sandbox than an actual challenge.
I like the character artwork and the music!
great concept for a game. this current version is a bit easy but i like where its going. does moving the slider at the top do anything? i love the little noises at the end of a round and the hands playing tug o' war on the side. its a bit odd i can reroll as much as i want.
Thank you all for playing!
I agree that increasing the difficulty would be good for a post-jam version. With the game jam time limit approaching I erred toward it being too easy so that people could see more of our game without having to retry from the beginning often.
@jabzey and @bigtex to the answer the slider question, no it does nothing. It is just a visual of where your Points for the round are within the goal progress bar. I thought about disabling it, but it does not actually update anything when changed so it was safe to leave alone.
Didn't get my spaceship but I liked it! The hammer makes it fun to try to alter dice values. I'm sure you can come up with other tools to use with different effects on the table (maybe creating sticky regions or holes) and dices (fix one so it won't move). Nice!
I enjoyed listening to the many different win voice lines! Sounds like there were multiple lines for each different alien race, which was cool.
Like the others, I noticed that most rounds were won after the first roll. Also, after the number of dice goes beyond 10 or so, it feels like using the hammer won't really change the outcome enough to help unless you're over and you need to destroy some.
Very charming little entry! The goal was a little confusing at first, but reading your "How To Play" cleared things right up. π
I really like the idea of this, utilizing different ways to "cheat" at a dice game to turn the odds in your favor. I think the main issue is that I'm rarely incentivized to use these cheats, because the "success range" is usually pretty wide.
I think if you made these success ranges smaller, or even introduced different criteria for success (ex: No more than 3 of the same numbers, odd numbers only, etc.) then there can be some legitimate reasons to use the cheats. I especially love how the hammer can DESTROY dice, on top of re-rolling anything in its vicinity when it comes down. This could be cool to use if your "success range" happens to be low, as having too many dice naturally skews you toward rolling higher numbers. Having a cap on the number of times you can use certain cheats (maybe like a "suspicion meter" that determines whether or not your opponent notices you're cheating") could make for some interesting decision-making moments as well.
Overall, I think the bones here are solid. With just a couple of minor numerical tweaks, I think this could be a very engaging game of "strategic chance." π
PS: I have absolutely no notes about the voice acting, it is perfection π
Cute little game. Like the hammer mechanics, but maybe a limit on the number of times the table is hit -- otherwise, it's too easy to just keep hitting the table until you get a good roll. Like the music -- it's quite catchy -- and the exclamations at the end of each round were a nice touch. Good work -- well done.
