Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → the31
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Cm | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | Scrapshaper | compo | 409 | 3.28 | 3.44 | 2.91 | 2.57 | 3.16 | 3.08 | 2.71 | 3.29 | 46 | ||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | BINDAFFIX | compo | 430 | 3.30 | 3.04 | 3.43 | 3.91 | 3.83 | 2.65 | 3.55 | 41 | |||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Delivery! | compo | 607 | 2.97 | 3.64 | 2.75 | 2.26 | 2.57 | 3.04 | 52 | ||||
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | Orb Fetch: GOLD | compo | 529 | 3.22 | 3.39 | 3.35 | 3.06 | 2.89 | 2.38 | 3.00 | 61 | |||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | Title Unknown | |||||||||||||
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | 575 | compo | 820 | 2.78 | 2.28 | 4.08 | 3.35 | 2.55 | 2.74 | 2.69 | 63 | |||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | We Call it Tactics | compo | 251 | 3.49 | 3.46 | 3.38 | 3.67 | 2.84 | 2.26 | 1.96 | 2.81 | 65 | ||
| 2012 | 25 | You are the Villain | Entropic | jam | 149 | 3.06 | 2.39 | 3.52 | 2.18 | 3.27 | 2.33 | 2.54 | 3.41 | 61 | ||
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | Beyond Our Sacred Sun | compo | 682 | 2.30 | 2.14 | 2.76 | 1.79 | 2.31 | 1.50 | 2.48 | 57 | |||
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Hero of Rain | compo | 48 | 3.82 | 3.58 | 3.05 | 3.40 | 3.31 | 3.45 | 2.82 | 3.64 | 72 | ||
| 2011 | 22 | Alone | Asteroids: Alone Edition | compo | 603 | 2.04 | 1.58 | 2.56 | 3.81 | 2.07 | 2.04 | 3.72 | 2.36 | 3.00 | 56 | |
| 2011 | 21 | Escape | Ceaseless | compo | 130 | 3.24 | 3.27 | 3.92 | 3.28 | 2.50 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 2.11 | 3 | ||
| 2011 | 20 | It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This! | Phantom Keeper | compo | 194 | 2.56 | 2.52 | 2.41 | 3.04 | 2.78 | 1.31 | 1.90 | 2.94 | 2 | ||
| 2010 | 19 | Discovery | Mystery of Yrevoc Sid | compo | 118 | 2.82 | 3.06 | 3.06 | 2.76 | 3.11 | 1.38 | 2.10 | 3.73 | 8 | ||
| 2010 | 17 | Islands | Hungry for Island | compo | 62 | 3.19 | 3.12 | 3.73 | 4.12 | 2.92 | 3.40 | 3.54 | 2.00 | 32 |
Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't really have time for the pathfinding, doors, etc. that would really make the plot possible.
(And just so you know, first thing I did after the compo was decrease the size of the map by making the hallways narrower. I think it really helps it feel more... explorable.)
Ok, I uploaded a jar version of the jam entry for linux. I had to disable sound, though, because it was making the game crash.
Unfortunately, the html applet still doesn't work on linux. Stupid keyboard focus.
Epic. While there's obviously not many game mechanics, this works to the benefit of the game as a whole. The lava+turret part was annoying, but fun to finally get past.
As you can see by the trophy, I would also like to note that the storylines for our games are almost identical... except that you actually made it into a game. XD
Awesome! I don't normally like these games (and I had to read the comments to see that it *was* one of these games) but this was really well done. By the end I was able to open all the doors, although I never saw the significance of starting with Z vs X. My only other complaint is "welcom" in the intro text... started me off with a bad impression.
Really enjoyed this!
mintman: Definitely a content-based game--I even call it that myself when I talk about it. And I would need also to make the fights a little clearer--there's a bunch of stats behind what's going on (most of which not used) that should be displayed to the player.
Orangy Tang: Thanks. And sorry, I suppose. :)
Cybs: To swing the net, you have to stand still and press x. To encounter an enemy, you have to stand in one of the clouds and do so. (I think this is explained in the note, but I'll update the description to make it more clear.)
mpc174: Hmm, had to google Soul Reaver to find out what it was. Obviously, wasn't inspired by it. :)
Yeah, I wanted to show at least the HP, but I didn't have time.
The idea with the runes is that you throw the rune at the monster, and if it's the rune that kills it, their soul is now in the rune. The only problems are that I didn't have time to put in attack animations, and the runes do too much damage.
But it's not like capturing souls really makes sense anyways. :P
Nice game. A little easy and could use more variation between levels, but the sound is very well-done and the idea solid.
And it's in Haskell!
Yep, if the physics work correctly it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll be able to continue. The generation uses a rotational velocity, adding a random acceleration every frame, so it sort of lends itself to the "ok, go right... now go left" sort of play.
A lot of time was spent getting that high score table working, so I didn't have time to make it more difficult. :P
Well, I figured out how to escape... although not even having to make a raft was kind of disappointing. The jumping animation was entertaining, too, but overall I just don't think there's much to it.
Heh, I couldn't get past the level called "you can do it!" :)
Cool mechanics, although one thing I noticed was that you can't tell what you can see when the light's shining on the same place. Take your screenshot, for example--the faint gray is what the player can see, but you can't tell that you can't see around the corner into the room with the light in it.
It's a cool game, though. The simple mechanics are fun, once you get used to them.
Best use of this trick I've seen. I figured it out when I saw the credit card key... maybe I was beginning to think it anyway. :D
What really sets this one above some of the other similar games is that there's something very meaningful to do while puzzling out the solution.
Wow. Makes you think.
My only complaint is that the controls feel flimsy... hard to understand the commute system, and the statistics are kind of mysterious. Great idea, though, could just use some polish.
Whoops! Went through the game without knowing about the grappling hook or glide that you mention in the info, just relying on the (to avoid spoiling) huge jumps to get around.
Impressive length, and interesting story--although I think I was just a little too confused about the intro. The sound is pretty good, although for me, at least, the walking sound prior to the "big jumps" cut in abruptly and left abruptly, which was kinda weird.
I was also going to suggest having some sort of mechanism to accelerate the rate of "big jumps", but now that I know there's a grappling hook and glide, that's probably not necessary.
All in all, nice game. Enjoyed playing it, and enjoyed your take on the theme. I knew what was going on, but I somehow didn't guess what was actually happening!
Impressive! I did expect the enemies to have more strategy as I got later on, but the final boss was hard regardless. Nice mechanic, and although it was simple, it was very fun. I really enjoyed the humor and story, too. The misspellings are quite jarring to me, personally, but I noticed an ñ in the scrolling background so I'll allow it. Great game!
Interesting ruleset, although I agree with everyone else that it could have been introduced better. Graphics were simple for the cards but did their job. I liked the combination with a world map, too. Theme didn't tie in very well, I think, although it does work literally.
Dang it! Got pretty far, starting to get massively powerful... but then it crashed, with just a white screen and intermittent sound effects. Oh well. Was fun while it lasted!
Thanks all! I did spend a considerable amount of time polishing throughout the project, for the compo result and for extensibility post-compo.
(In other words, it's likely that I'll come back to this project at some point, because I tried to make it easy for me to come back to it.)
Cake&Code: Thanks!
Alex Gilday: You're told how to shoot when you get the gun, and I included instructions on this page as well as in-game.
Maybe I'll record a playthrough, so people don't get stuck or think they've finished when they haven't. If you follow the right path, it's easy to get through the game with minimal damage.
Added a link to a quick playthrough of the game! Should be detailed enough to help find a survivable path.
Draknek: Thanks for playing! I had limited play testing by other people, so I had no idea the game was challenging. Do you have any suggestions for door unlocking? I made it open on click because that was the first thing I thought of--maybe when you get close enough you're prompted to hit "e" (rebindable), or just automatically unlock when you pass by? (For now, I'll make it more clear on this page what the controls are.)
Matt Rudder: Thanks!
Thanks for the comments, all! This is very helpful to the development of the game in the future. Apologies for the choppiness/slowness and difficulty! Didn't have time to investigate lag at all (I don't have any anyway), and I didn't even realize it was difficult when making it.
If you have a problem getting through somewhere, check out the Youtube link I added to the entry. Most of the challenge seems to be in finding a path, and in that video I show a path that results in zero damage.
Wow, very well done! It seemed a little easy, but I definitely liked the idea and implementation. Excellent art and graphics, as well!
Neat!
Unfortunately it takes too long to get to the variation for me to try to get more than one of the endings, but it's an interesting idea, and you do a great job of setting the mood.
Cool! Could use balancing, and maybe a little more depth to the gameplay, but neat idea and fun story.
Interesting gameplay... have you played Solar or Solar 2 by chance? Almost exactly the same! Yours is easier though, and less complex (as should be expected from an LD game). Good though, and fun.
One thing that made it really hard to play is that there was nothing to measure your speed and relative position by. A simple scrolling background would have helped this, with perhaps some parallax dust to more directly indicate speed.
When I died, a second loop of the music started, and when I closed the tab, the music kept going... I found the rogue java process and killed it, though.
Overall, nice game, although it could have used more graphical cues.
Wow, awesome! Wish I was on with other people, but very cool for only 48 hours.
Wow, great! Made the mistake of trying to play the old version, but once I got through some of the content one time, it was much easier the next.
Novel concept, really enjoyed it! Agreed that the ending is a little lackluster, but given the time constraint, the game was satisfying enough to beat that I didn't mind that so much.
The toasters were difficult to get rid of once they get on you, and restart the entire game when you die seems a little... harsh. Because of the second point I only got to the beginning of the second level, but otherwise, seems like a fun game!
I think it could have used some visual feedback. Not being able to tell which other bacteria you can eat and not really being able to determine the direction you accelerate in made it kind of difficult to judge movement. The idea is familiar and solid, though; good job for your first time!
MrDanH: Did you have a look at the map? I think it's likely that it wasn't a bug, but you were seeing the result of all the planets moving towards the black hole. (The map also shows you where your planets are.)
Haha, yeah, I considered fixing that sort of bug, but I was pushing the deadline so didn't bother fixing them. And yeah, there's little point to the game--more like a toy, actually.
Thanks for commenting, all. :)
4urentertainment: Actually, it would have taken too long. I was working up until the time limit to finish what little is there. Wish I had more than 4 hours after I scrapped my first project.
rwos: No win condition, no goal. Sorry about that!
Thanks for the comments, guys! I currently don't have plans to continue it (got a few other ideas backed up) but now I'm considering it.
Go ahead and "borrow" it if you like, mdkess. :)
Gabriel: The idea is that your species needs to evolve to travel to all these planets--so the game's basis is evolution, rather than the interactive part of the game. Sad that you and metadept (and I'm sure others) had to meet such a demise!
Cool concept! Not quite sure how points are granted, but cells leaving a trail that you can place more cells on is a very interesting mechanic. The ambiance is nice, too. Mouse movement and placement would have been nice, but this *is* the Ludum Dare. :)
Couldn't figure things out even with your guide, sorry. :/ All I have is Vector Rotate and Vector Scale, and "Scale" isn't even mentioned in the guide. Regardless whether or not I was able to figure that out--how would I even use these materials to upgrade myself? Very confusing.
Other than that, though, good graphics and music. The mining sound was... grating, though, heh. Seems like it would be a pretty cool game if it made sense. :)
Wow! Excellent game! Ending was a little disappointing for all that gameplay, but the game was entertaining all the way through! I really liked your use of the theme--the upgrade system was a refreshing change from the traditional "xp for stats" trope, and it even made sense with the story.
Wow. Beautiful game, seems very polished.
I do think the simulation is a little hard to control--it is kind of the point of QWOP, but it makes it really difficult to design and control things. Dragging the blob creature (for example, to right it) feels very slow. The muscles did feel very gooey, though, which felt nice.
With regard to difficulty, I think it is hard to balance a game like this, and while I can offer criticism I can't really blame you for the 48 hours you had. For every level up to the one with the ledge, I simply used a triangle-creature, as it was easy to control and got the job done. When I got to the ledge, I felt under-prepared, and couldn't pull it off. I like to think that I'm a spacial thinker, but it was beyond me how to move something big over to the right when I had previously only used a triangle. Perhaps allowing freer level flow would have helped, letting me try out complex designs on my own within environments.
Overall, though, it looks awesome, and I really like the concept and theme matching.
Great graphics, good sound. I just wish there was more physical interaction, so I could get a better feel for how the controls work. Enemies to avoid, other things to abduct, anything--the game did feel somewhat bare as it is. Funny when the goats go flying across the screen, though, haha.
Neat! Very tense game. Took a death to understand the mechanics, but from there it was straight to the brain! Solid controls, fluid graphics, and great sound. Maybe it could be made clear how many viruses are in the blood cells, but other than that the game was clear and fun.
Wow, somehow the atmosphere was really creepy. Good music and sound. Graphics probably contributed to that feel as well--retro-looking, not just low-fi. Stomping on bubbled enemies to turn them into drinkable potions was kind of bizarrely surreal, too.
Getting the cookies back to the room was a little challenging at first, since the enemies move in a strange pattern towards it whenever I put it down. I just ran for it on my second and third tries, and succeeded then. I would have liked to use my weapon more rather than relying on my built-up health, but it didn't seem balanced this way.
Cool (and ominous) little game!
Neat game, great atmosphere! I really enjoyed it, but the controls frustrated me. I kept on accidentally transferring power between nodes instead of changing which one I was selecting, wasting power and making it very hard to advance. I didn't end up winning, but with some better controls this could be good fun.
Fantastic. Realized what the twist was early on, but you delivered it so well that whether or not I predicted it was irrelevant. Great game.
I did tick you down a bit on "Fun", though--the robot simulation commands felt a little clunky, and made those parts seem a little tedious. There was a relatively long delay between times when I could type in commands--not sure if that's the fault of the windows python packager you used, or intentional. That combined with the "deadly typos" you warn about contributed to that feeling.
Everyone, play this game to its conclusion!
Ha, right as I started to wonder where the theme was, I saw my first flash. Interesting game.
Cool! Solid, simple platforming mechanics with clean graphics and a fun story. The jumping bits on the goat level were a bit repetitive, but the platforming mechanics were done well enough that I really didn't mind.
Very cool sound and graphics, but the gameplay seemed too simple. I couldn't see any strategies to get the valves and reach the exit before the enemy that didn't entirely hinge on the level placement.
Huh, interesting mechanic. Took a bit to figure out how to wield it, but I became a proper villain in no time!
I got far (I think) in the third level after using the "spoiler" hint. Just as I was getting the room filled, though, a jump failed, I hit the ground, and got stuck in a wall. Couldn't move at all. I encountered similar glitches in the earlier levels too.
Cool game, interested to see if you expand on it later. At the moment I think it's very innovative, but not very exciting at them moment. Has potential, though!
Like your take on the theme! Very confusing, though, even with the in-game help. I was victim multiple times to a bug where if I hold down the mouse a little too long when selecting a level, the boss would say "are you trying to miss them?" instead of the objective. The graphics were also kind of misleading in some cases: like that the TNT in level 2 explodes when touched, but in level 3 you (and enemies) can push it. With a more gradual ramp in difficulty (tutorial levels?) and more consistency between levels, though, this game could be pretty neat.
When I clicked the "Web" link for this entry, so eloquently titled "THE POTATO GAME," I wondered what I would see on the other side. Perhaps a game about potatoes, or one containing potatoes. If I was lucky, perhaps it would be about potato recipes.
Nay--when the page loaded, I found myself face to face with an exploration of the age-old question "What does it mean to win?" Each of us holds within a different expectation as to the frui--excuse me: the potatoes of labor. Is it enough to obtain only the net sum of your inputs? Or do you strive for something greater? To accomplish something unexpected that grants you more than you could ever have hoped for? This game has triggered in me, and I'm sure many others, a reevaluation of what it is I really wish to achieve.
Thank you, BleuLlama, for this thought-provoking entry. I will keep it in my heart forever.
Neat game, played it on android. A little hard to control (felt that the vertical movement was a little wild) but a cool, simple game.
Played the android version of this, neat! Definitely matches the theme.
Wow, this is great! I wish it were longer. When I was going into the final level, I expected to only get 1/3 of the way to the exit on that platform, and have to freeze it, turn back time, and resume forwards. Or at least some sort of false summit. Alas, the limitations of 48 hours. Thanks for including a mouse sensitivity slider, too, it's usually way too high for me on Unity games.
Fantastic use of the theme. These are my favorite sorts of games, and you did it very well.
Wow, great game! Managed to get 30/30 on my first try, just barely. Excellent sense of urgency, and I think the repetitive music was quite good along with the sound effects. I really liked that the circles disappeared when you run into them--made the game a lot less frustrating.
Cool player controls, but agreed, it seems like this could have been more than a simple platformer. Really cool player graphic, too.
Cool idea. I think that the limitations of the radio are a bit confusing, though--I couldn't tell what aspect of the path took time, or what the limit of my instructions were. Making this a little clearer would be great.
Also, I saw in your source that you generate maps, but after playing through the first level again I noticed it was the same. It would have been really cool if you could have leveraged the generation. On the other hand, this style of map--a single, branching tree--doesn't make it very easy to set up ambushes, since there aren't any cycles. I couldn't get past the first level with a guard, since he came straight at me and I didn't see any good way to flank him. Having made a few maze generators myself, it's cool to see someone else doing it. :)
Another thing that kinda bothered me was the size of the window. I have a 2560x1600 monitor, so it was kinda annoying to have the game limited to such a tiny space.
It looks like a pretty complete game, but it seems way too difficult! I can't make it past the second or third wave.
Cool game, although from what I could tell there doesn't seem to be much depth. (This makes sense, given the amount of time you had.) My strategy was to find the two bubbles that would pop last and click on one of them. It would be cool on multitouch devices, I think, especially if there was more to it. Anyway, very creative use of the theme!
I changed it to be a jam entry. You can always contact an admin on IRC to help in the future! :)
I won! But I had no idea what I was doing. Brute force seemed to be the only way, since there were no established rules at all. Does the position of the tile matter? Are the various shades of gray within the tiles different? (I notice that they are typically matched with color, but definitely not always.) The sound is also very aggressive, I'd agree. There are a bunch of ways to expand this to make it more fun: maybe at the core of a polished game this could be the gameplay code, but as it is I just can't make much sense of it.
Difficult, but I beat it! Got stuck in the television frame on the win screen, but that thing happens.
Really liked the graphics and music--cool style! The gameplay was tough, but doable: pressing x so much was a bit tiring, and I never quite got the pipe boss' patterns down, but I ended up not needing to. Honestly I usually don't like boss battles, but this was still fun and very thematic.
Nice! I really liked the style of the music and graphics. Not the most innovative use of the theme, but it's there. There are enough enemies by level 5 that it feels like luck--maybe obstacles for bullets would add some more strategy? Would be really neat if the game led into a boss and there was some story to it, post-LD.
Great concept! I had a similar idea when brainstorming, but I didn't think of only updating on-screen objects. The combination is great. Perfect take on the theme.
It would be nice not to need to repeat the first section to get back to the moving red barriers, but it's short enough that it didn't end up mattering. Cool!
Awesome. Great atmosphere, music, audio, visuals, everything! For theme... maybe you could have given the option to bump up the window size for people with large enough monitors? I think trading adherence to the theme for this awesomeness of a game was a good deal, though!
Congrats! Thanks for playing. Yeah, the theme connection is that the player's coordinates never leave the rectangle that is the screen--the distorting warp things just move you into a different map.
Sometimes you've got to move backwards to get the velocity you need. One of the help pages is meant to help with that, although I can't blame anyone for not understanding.
I should have put in easier levels, for sure. It's hard to explain the mechanics right, especially when rocket mechanics are so intuitive and visually similar. Would have been nice to make sure that everyone could see the warp effect even without a full understanding of the mechanics.
A solid Wat/Wat! Great ending, impossible-to-understand maze. Good graphics, nice touch making it so you can rotate around the levels to check them out. And, of course, great audio.
Haha, awesome. Almost shouted when I got a radio and the windows rescrambled! Sometimes had an issue where a window wouldn't focus when I clicked on it... strange. Awesome idea, and congratulations on beating voxel's challenge. :)
Cool graphics! Normal twin-stick shooter, but hard to control--no friction, and only one movement key works at a time. (You can use a "if this key, add one to x vel, if this key, add one to y vel" approach instead of else ifs to avoid this in the future.)
Cool! It took me a bit to see the circles, but I managed to get a decently high score, I'd say. I liked the cute graphics.
Incredible! I wasn't able to beat it this time playing it (wish there were a save option--then again, next time I'll be using the branches more strategically) but I'll certainly be coming back. Great graphics and atmosphere, and excellent use of the theme. A few times I collected items and I couldn't tell what they were--I can certainly understand not having time to make it clear in-game what everything is, and I can tell by reading the description more thoroughly.
Nice, don't see multiplayer often! Was lucky enough to encounter a few other players and battled it out for a few minutes. Fun game! It seemed like missiles weren't very useful because everyone just spammed bullets all the time, but it's very cool that you were able to implement all this in the compo.
Huh! I think I might understand what's being displayed, but I can't quite figure out the controls. I think it moves way too fast to be playable, even on "Too Easy".
The death sound effect is also amazingly loud! Maybe it has to do with the nature of the sound--when I have my volume low enough to bear it, I can't hear anything else.
Neat idea, and it seems like a good way to control it.
Targeting priority seemed weird, letting guys through that I thought I should be able to take out. (Hard to tell, though, without any sort of health indicator.) Other than that, good implementation of a normal tower defense, with a "turret base" idea that I hadn't seen before. Doesn't have the typical selling mechanic that would have been useful to get a anti-tank turret. I wasn't able to get very far, strangely enough, although other people apparently found it easy. Maybe I'm just no good at this genre.
Works for me, now! Funky music, and interesting swirly background. Not quite sure why the goats change in size with distance, but I was able to go around and eat them all. Some strange collision on corners, too: able to slide into walls by approaching them in certain directions.
Wow! Impressive! It's easy to forget that you can push multiple blocks at once sometimes, but the puzzles are really fun. It was sometimes frustrating to make little mistakes pretty far into a puzzle, but the checkpoints were as good as I imagine possible. (And I can certainly understand not including an undo stack!) I really liked the "ending", too, great work! Graphics could use some polish, but that's just one minor factor for puzzles like this.
Cool idea, just wish the physics were more consistent. I'm not sure when I'm allowed to move after getting to a corner, and I managed to tunnel my way into the center of the cube from there.
I built the home myself, and managed to reassemble my friend and escape! Except... he didn't make it all the way in, fell off, and died.
Very cool! The snow mechanic was awesome, and throwing the house together was very intuitive. I wish I had someone to play this with, but it was fun even on a keyboard. It would be nice if aiming was better, but that's why you recommend a gamepad!
The art's a bit simplistic--what are those enemies?--but overall, it's easy to understand what's going on.
☃☃
Huh. I like the idea of reducing the ways that you can interact with objects to the point where you don't need any explanation to discover new combinations, but I wasn't able to figure out how to make anything other than the axe! I really liked the concept, just wish the tips went a tiny bit further.
Wow, awesome! Cockpit simulations are really neat, I just wish you had time to put in more content! Great audio and visuals, and great atmosphere. Even though the game's on a single screen, I felt like I was on a trip to Mars. (Apparently it's very close to Earth. ;) )
I'm confused... is this android-only? The cloud build service says it's only available on android devices.
Neat idea! I tried both versions, but I hit a few errors after playing for a while: an array out of bounds error and a "canvas element contains more than 65535 vertices" error. I got the gist of it, but didn't quite understand how to make my recommendations have any impact. I also accidentally slept just as night came once, whoops. I think this would have been better suited for a button interface rather than a text-based one... it didn't seem like it added anything to the game other than making me type more. Cool concept and nice music!
Man, I wish I could get further, but I couldn't make it to 500m so I N/A'd the theme category. There were some duck areas that seemed impossibly long leading up to 500m--maybe I just couldn't get the jump-cancel-slide concept right. Anyway, great looking game, and I really enjoyed the audio. The parallax was really nice and the obstacles were very visible, although I might not have understood the hitboxes quite right (leading to my inability to complete it). I had some problems running it on Win10 earlier, but installing OpenAL fixed it. Good work, team!
Very nice art! I had a few issues with the gameplay though: the WASD movement being rotated 45 degrees made it harder for me to know where exactly I was going, and I couldn't quite figure out where the cones of vision actually were.
Awesome idea, wish there were more mechanics. After figuring out how it worked it was just a matter of waiting for enough guys to come along.
Wow, cool art, music, and story. I felt like the game wasn't very responsive to my clicks sometimes, but maybe that's just Unity. I also don't quite understand how the ending works... why is it that one person saving themselves kills the others? And who would want to do that? The characters have their differences, but it doesn't seem to me like they would kill each other. I really liked the story, it just felt like the ending didn't quite fit.
Ended up $100 short! Neat idea. Took me a while to realize, but this is sorta like a tower defense game. I think some more variation would be nice--in the end I found myself just getting the two high-tier items and scaring people as they went further. Didn't miss anyone on the last 4 levels this way. I also couldn't quite tell how far away the props scared people--kind of a problem for big groups: are they only scared if they "see" the prop or is it just a certain distance away from it? Enjoyable playthrough, though.
Interesting idea, but I had no idea where to even begin considering aspects. I also didn't see any shoppers--would have been interesting to see how they reacted to my inexplicably green skin. An interesting concept, but I think it was pretty unclear what to observe to make any conclusions.
I was looking forward to this one (got to it through a blog post) but everyone seemed to move slowly. I'm talking walking-in-place slowly. Weird bug! Here's a gif: http://i.imgur.com/DaMIwVG.gif
I'm refraining from rating. Nice music and ambiance though!
For me, the normal enter key worked instead of right shift to make the right ogre throw.
Funny idea! I don't have anyone to play it with, but I played around with it. It *seems* like it would be easy to just dodge the other player's throws, but who knows. Fun sound effects. I didn't see any scoring mechanism, but maybe that wouldn't be necessary for it to be fun.
Cool use of the theme! I like the reversal and second reversal. I much agree that the gameplay is kinda slow, though. It's also hard to read the white text on the suns (?). I noticed in the last level that you couldn't go down where the text appeared--maybe a semitransparent background would have helped readability. If the text gradually appeared it might have drawn my eye better too. Neat idea!
I can see why you wanted a vehicle at first, that would have been neat! Interesting to contrast your story against what I had in mind. The narrative was very abstract in my opinion, so I was trying too hard to link the choice to the rest of the game. I chose "kill one to save millions," so one idea (although I certainly didn't think it was "right") was that these beings had taken me to Mars to show me these things that represented the war of humanity, which they stopped in exchange for my life and understanding. I was going to try it again to see if anything changed with the choices, but I'm glad I refreshed this page first--the character did move pretty slowly. A nice experience.
Nice! I agree it could use some variety--once I figured out what was causing the damage I just dragged ships to the left a bunch and seemed to do alright. But the graphics were really neat and I liked the fun cargo.
Ha! Not a lot of interaction, but very funny story.
Wow, this is the best. It took me a little bit to realize why I was only sometimes falling, but I figured it out soon enough--brilliant! Would be nice if the camera didn't snap (falling seemed kinda chunky) but that's really minor of course. Freshest game I've played in a while.
Worked fine for me in full screen on fantastic mode. The "throttle and turning" movement was unexpected from a 4-direction game, but it wasn't confusing once I understood it. It was somewhat amusing that the red rectangles screamed. :) The loop and sound effects were kinda repetitive though. Good first LD, it has all the components of a game which I can't always say about my entries! You'll only get better the next time!
Fun little game! I see a lot of ways this could be expanded, but the base mechanic is quite interesting. I like that you played the theme straight to an interesting end.
Nice little game. I've gotta agree about the movement, though: having the player move faster than anything else on the screen has a weird feeling in an otherwise ambient, relaxing game.
Interesting idea, although I feel like more could have been done with it. It was hard to tell what the consequences for some actions are... I won once by doing something then heading to the escape pod, and again just by mashing keys. Neat art and style, though.
Wow, dastardly puzzle platformer you guys made. Nice! I've gotta agree that what it needed was some polish: I think it was too unforgiving for how relatively slow it goes. Especially on "Into the Trees", I would get far into the puzzle and accidentally water some random ground next to the plant I wanted to water. Increasing the speed or decreasing the punishment would be nice, I think. (Walking into fire could just push you back instead of killing you, you could prevent watering unless it's going to do something, and maybe even shrink the levels where possible so there isn't as much walking.)
Art and sound were great. There were a few things that didn't quite mesh (or maybe just two: the hand-painted-looking bush and glowy watering cans stood out) but overall it was a very nice style and mood.
After reopening it to see what level it was that I quit on I noticed that my progress wasn't saved. :( I noticed that it put me back in the level when I went to the title screen, so I was hoping it would. Oh well! I had some good fun with it.
Nice atmosphere and graphics. I liked the ambient audio/music, and the art style worked well. I do think the sound effects were a bit basic to match the overall audio, but it was ok. Story matched too.
The gameplay didn't seem very new, unfortunately. I felt like I had two choices: do loops with the movement keys and time hitting space when I'm aiming at the enemy, or mash spacebar, hoping to hit the timing right. I managed to beat it using those two strategies, going for dodging loops when my health got low.
The theme also didn't feel very well integrated. Not sure if I missed some connections, but the "gun grows your health" mechanic is somewhat "standard" in games now, named lifesteal or health drain or something like that. Now that I mention that, though, I notice you've opted out of theme rating. Fair enough. :)
That all said, the basics are there for a directional shooter. Good luck on the post-compo work!
Nice to see a peaceful game. Good atmosphere! I think I missed a bit of dialogue, though, because everything's on the "2" key that I was spamming to pick stuff up. I really liked the simple and natural story... growing some crops and growing as a person.
Just barely turned him into a soccer player. The hints helped, but those are some bizarre things to say.
Wow, I'm amazed as usual. I played without reading the description and it was all discoverable enough to get close to the end--I had both maps, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out where the treasure could be. I took screenshots if you're curious how it turned out for me.
On top of the top-notch graphics, audio, and feel, it's impressive that the map was procedurally generated. Nice!
Simple, with neat music. I hit an annoying bug where everything stayed on screen from the previous life after respawning. It made it really hard to navigate. It was also really hard to tell whether or not I got all the circles on each level, especially when there got to be more than three or so of them.
Zoom worked for me to get a larger play area.
Interesting idea, it was nice to watch the yarn flow around. After cleaning up the green and blue yarn I didn't receive any other messages, though, and I gave up. The controls did seem kind of "sticky" especially on angled ground, and it was kind of frustrating that left and right seemed slower than forward and back, at least until I figured out that the mouse moves the camera. (Then I held W and let the camera do the work.)
Looking at that pile of yarn in the screenshot makes me think I missed something. Dang. :/
Cool game! Not hard to understand, but I can imagine some interesting strategies coming out of it. I agree with others that the difficulty ramps up a little too quickly, and I think it would be more compelling if the enemies formed patterns rather than appearing apparently at random. The patterns would emphasize the strategy aspect rather than being a purely reaction-based game, I think. Neat stuff here.
One thing I wish it had was alternate controls--even just the left and right arrow keys. My mouse right now isn't the greatest, and it would be good to have some symmetric-feeling controls I think.
Interesting idea. I think I might have preferred if the two keys were each different lines of melody--it seemed a bit simple. For me, the simplicity didn't make it easy, though! I found it pretty hard to keep the rhythm in my head. Maybe I'm trying to self-analyze too much, but it seems like the notes seemed kinda random and distracted me from the drum rhythm I was trying to replicate. Some unique "the circle is repeating!" sound would have been very useful too. The beats just didn't seem meaningful in my mind, so I couldn't keep track of the whole circle.
A nitpick (although small things like this matter in rhythm games): the beat seemed to come before a hit could be accepted. If I followed the rhythm like I would in another game, I would hit snares (even when just learning in space mode).
I really like the tutorial, by the way. A ton of games (mine most certainly included) aren't easy to play as self-contained games, but this one certainly was.
All in all, cool game, I just think the core gameplay could have used some extra things to make the patterns more memorable. Nice job!
I got a text message? Facetime? But there's no signal! ;)
Wow, what a gruesome game. I don't know if there's quite enough to go on for me to assemble a plot, but I've got a few ideas. Very interesting, and very impressively done.
Two nitpicks: even though the buttons were "Z" and "X", those keys don't press the buttons. Also, I spent some time watching the same phone choices over again because there was no way to tell if it was always just going to repeat. In the end I assumed beat = advance, and there's one phone scene per section.
Another thing I noticed is that when I first played the game I left it open on a tab for a while, and when I came back there were no Z or X buttons. So I guess I could have made the choice to stop there and be a decent person, but I obviously refreshed and played it.
Thanks for the notes that it needs OpenAL, and thanks for the link! Added it to the description to point people there.
Thanks for the comments, everyone, by the way. Really good to get feedback!
Really cool concept! I wish that you could make it move faster though... maybe the wall could come faster if you're in a position where you will pass it? (Like that first wall--it's slow enough to be a really annoying punishment for dying, and I don't know if it should be!) It's also hard to see the shape when the wall just passes, which feels kind of unfair for what seems like a puzzle game rather than a perception game. A way to undo moves would be fantastic, too--rather than certain death if you press a wrong key, if you could press the key back to where you came and the tail would reverse back to the previous position, I think that would make the game more enjoyable if you don't find it easy to press the directions that accurately. Neat idea.
Very neat. I had an idea similar to this from the perspective of the shapeshifter near the beginning of the LD, but I ended up not going with that. It may have helped me figure it out somewhat quickly, though, since I'd thought some about what sort of mechanics the shapeshifter would work with to avoid detection.
I think the graphics and audio did their job well, and the theme inspiration is obviously there. Great entry! I think it really shows how trial and error puzzle solving can be really fun and work well for LD.
I think a way of expansion, if you're interested, might be more sizes of map, too, potentially with more people milling about. Not sure how that would balance with walking speed though!
Nice! Great idea, perfect for the theme. It was really fun but also frustrated me a lot in a few ways. (I played the compo version.)
This game really suffered from the small screen space, I think. There's no way to see what's coming, and without planning you need to go into a lot of situations knowing that you're just going to blow up in the end. A map, zooming, panning, something would be a great addition. The lack of visibility gets annoying when you're decently far into a level, especially combined with the next point.
I didn't really understand when I should have good control over the plane. It seemed like if I went too fast, it would either rapidly pitch up or be completely unresponsive to controls. I felt like I had very little control over what was going to happen when entering plane mode, which I'd guess tripled the number of times I would need to play a segment because it seemed like I would randomly not have control.
The only reason I hammered on those point is that I think this is a really neat idea, and I really want to see it improved! (I'll be checking out the post-compo after writing this.)
Audio was very fitting--I just wish the music didn't always restart at the beginning so I could hear more of it. I left it running just now, and there's a lot more to the song than I ever heard during gameplay.
Unfortunately due to those gameplay points, I couldn't finish the last level. :(
Awesome game, I hope you can get it polished up!
Really really cool visuals, and deep story. I really like the way you did the arbitrary room movement--without anchor points I think it would be harder to recognize what the navigation was doing. I could have used that spoiler for the first puzzle when I played it--I didn't understand how interacting with things worked, so I looped around for a while without realizing that I should be doing something. It made for a very pretty walk, though!
Wow, really neat use of the theme! I agree with a few other comments that the controls weren't perfect (jumping seems delayed, for instance) but that wasn't a big problem, since it wasn't *too* demanding. Nicely done.
Neat simple idea, the essence of a shape shift. I haven't played Thomas Was Alone, but based on screenshots I can guess at the similarity.
I got stuck here: http://i.imgur.com/f5ksXKS.png. I didn't know how to jump up and move left enough as the thin flat thing to get through those slats. Earlier in this same level, as far as I could tell you needed to move left at the beginning of the level without knowing what's below you. I assume dying is the only way to restart the level... but it didn't seem very clear if I should be jumping off the edge to reset.
Another little thing I didn't quite like was the way shapeshifting "swapped" the slot with your current shape. This made me think that I had to look at the upper-left a lot to plan out my shape shifts... but as long as the game stayed slow that didn't seem like much of a problem.
You've probably already thought of this tweak, but: when you try to shapeshift to something bigger and there isn't room, it would be great if instead of blocking the transform you could "push" the player into a working position if one exists. You can think of it like the shape shifting gradually: if you push the new shape out of collisions, is there a place where it works? If so, just put the player there. That along with some audio cue for "shapeshift blocked" would help, I think.
Cool idea, really fits the theme!
Wow, great entry! Very neat mechanics, and the graphics and audio work very well with it.
A few things did hit me though: first, early into the game I accidentally pressed C (I think) and I was crouching. I assumed it was a bug (maybe part of the body was missing due to a faulty contract?) because I hadn't been shown that control yet. I managed to die on some spikes to reset, so no harm done. Some more obvious feedback would have been nice here, but it's probably an edge case. A more annoying thing I hit on the later levels were some hard-to-avoid spikes, especially late in the levels. Maybe I'm missing a strategy to reliably avoid them, but either way, annoying.
I didn't get to the end of the game, but this is something that I think I'll be coming back to later to finish.
I think I hit "-You may get out of track if you change shape at certain moment", although the timer ended shortly after I got stuck so it didn't really matter.
I like your take on the theme--cute to use shift as the character and shift between the different key shapes.
Other than that, I think I agree with the things you wanted to do. I also agree that the movement was pretty bad. Is it meant to take a bunch of taps of the key to move a little bit? Well, I'm sure you'll improve your gamedev velocity and be able to implement more ideas in future LDs. :)
Hi!
Neat idea, it seemed very harsh though and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be constantly tweaking the mirrors to "spray" my garden or if I was missing something... the splitter was interesting, but buying one put me under for the next feast and I lost. I feel like this would be interesting with puzzles to solve... like what arrangement of elements will make a garden grow that produces x eggs? Speeding it up (as you could in a puzzle game) would make it less annoying to start again after failing, too, since you don't have to wait so long. The droplets moving so slow also makes it hard to judge what's going to happen once you get enough dispersion to make the laser not helpful anymore--maybe if the droplets moved faster and had trails that would be more useful feedback. Neat idea, and I liked the artwork too.
Wow, very fancy graphics and audio. I think the controls were a bit awkward and the game too easy to really get a good feel for it though--I ended up just sprinting to the end, occasionally switching music types. I didn't seem to have any reason to fight anything, and in most of the forms I moved too quickly to really know if I should plan ahead for anything. I like the idea, and I think it's a great use of the theme, but I wish the core gameplay had more to it.
Wow, that's amazingly well-polished! Great graphics and impressive audio.
Some small issues I had with it though: The ending seemed kinda abrupt, and I didn't understand why I would want to press a button to fall faster--it seemed like I was falling just fine without it. Small things, though!
Haha, cool game. I couldn't make it past The Yoga (not sure how the torso is even supposed to fit).
A few small points: due to the perspective, it was hard to tell where the hole was vertically, so I just ended up hoping that I picked the right spot. I think a big improvement in the part dragging would have been if you used the mouse pointer offset rather than snapping the center of the part to the mouse. I got used to it, but having the parts move when you just click on them was annoying, since it shifted all the parts around.
I think this fit the theme well too. Nice job, funny little game!