Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → MiniLD → MiniLD 69 → Mika's Forest
By firz
Really liked the art and the storytelling! Did you make the sprites yourself?
If I'm allowed to make a suggestion it would be to assign a key to each of the allies, instead of having to select them with the mouse, but I used the arrow keys to move... maybe I should have just used WASD.
Cool style, interesting mechanic.
Sometimes, however if you restart a level, all the creatures that you spawned there before are still there.
Also, the UI for level picking could be improved a bit.
Overall, very cute game
Loved the art and music. The game itself was pretty fun as well :P Strong work.
Thanks for the input, everyone!
Yeah, this was all a one-person project, with the art and the sound and programming done by myself.
If I continue to work on this project, I'll definitely change the ally selection so you won't have to click, since this is such a keyboard-heavy game. Also, I apologize, I forgot to add a line to despawn all of the creatures you create after finishing a level.
A game in which crucial piece of the gameplay act in literally random ways which will potentially force you to restart a level multiple times purely because of RNG is not much of a puzzle game. And enemies that are (presumably unintentionally) buggy and constantly glitching through walls are unlikely to work well as a game mechanic even if you acknowledge and try to build around them. Acknowledging, however cleverly, that something is broken, does not make it less broken.
Overall, I don't think this game is mechanically well designed. It's aesthetically well designed - it's cute and heartfelt and overall has a solid mood and tone - but it doesn't work as a puzzle game. It has no particular hook or core mechanic that I can see, the mechanics that are there are not very well programmed, and the gameplay does not emphasize strategic or logical thinking. A good puzzle takes a kind of meticulous design, implementation, and communication of mechanics that this game, as it stands, doesn't have.
It would be a treat to play a puzzle game with this setting and these characters, and I suspect with more programming experience you could certainly pull it off, but I don't think this is it.
The game looks good, and sounds good, in that part it was very well designed. I see what Stuntddude is talking about, some things need to be less random. I also found it annoying how easy it is to get the enemies to block your way after turning friendly.
But the gameplay mechanics is cool, and the way it is told to the player is charming so I enjoyed it ^^
Really cute project, music is good, same with sound effects and the art is pretty nice.
I don't know exactly how you managed your characters movement, but their is certainly some things to improve there. I found the character a bit sloppy to walk with, and the fact that you just bump in things and that you can't really push things when you get stuck can be a bit frustrating.
The gameplay is interesting, quite fun, good mechanics like the others said maybe assign a key for each ally 1-4.
Good job keep working :)
Great work! Also, the flicker you mentioned in the description may be since there is no v-sync (I personally didn't see/notice it while I was playing), I used to get that problem in most of my games (I don't know how to change this in Unity, I primarily use GameMaker).
I appreciate the feedback.
Yeah, I tried to base this off of several puzzle games that I've been fond of over the years, but my inexperience with Unity and game development/design made the gameplay a bit fustrating. Some things didn't work in Unity like they did in my head, and then the RNG was something that I really didn't want to include, but my original plan was undercut due to time constraints.
Also, thanks for mentioning the V-sync! I'll look into that.
Really nice looking, fun game! I included it in my compilation video series of all of the MiniLD 69 games, if you’d like to take a look :) https://youtu.be/amjEUImOHHQ
I also included your game in an article of my favorites! Sadly, because you have not made a post on this website, your profile is private so I was unable to award a trophy to your profile. If you ever post something on here and want your trophy, please email me! Jupi@JupiterHadley.com
http://fireside.gamejolt.com/post/jam-favorites-minild-69-yinbhnb3