The Uncertainty Principle by radmars 2015-12-23T01:18:00
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.
LD35 — Shapeshift (13)
Robotic Egg Garden by rossborchers 2016-05-08T20:21:00
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.
Morpheus Triad by 11Schotter 2016-05-01T00:45:00
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.
Shadow of the Red Hand by andyman404 2016-04-30T22:12:00
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.
Thomas was a shape by pta2002 2016-04-30T14:35:00
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!
Do Robots Dream About Yoga? by MementoGames 2016-04-30T00:51:00
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!
Wormwall by Pixelsalt 2016-04-30T00:40:00
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.
Turbo/Glide by rnlf 2016-04-30T00:34:00
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!
Facade by euske 2016-04-23T15:22:00
A nice take on the "get along" story. The boss was strangely easy, but the game was quite fun. I liked the music too, minimalist and nice.
The Maitre D by SeaDads 2016-04-20T04:32:00
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.
Shifty the Keyboard Key by Drenghel 2016-04-20T04:04:00
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!
Wood for the Trees by ratking 2016-04-19T06:31:00
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!
A82-Recon 3038 by Geti 2016-04-19T06:02:00
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!
Little Girl by adamprack 2016-04-18T04:41:00
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!