BLOBIUS by chaoclypse 2020-10-05T12:12:10Z
This is pure lovely execution. Honestly amazing visuals and a simple effective loop.
Very well done!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Aaron Smith
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Needy Pixel Kitties | compo | 90 | 3.78 | 3.50 | 3.37 | 3.47 | 3.77 | 3.73 | 3.78 | 3.68 | |
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Mood Swings | compo | 2.59 | 2.54 | 2.86 | 2.81 | 2.40 | 2.18 | ||||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | It Makes Plants... | compo | 296 | 3.45 | 3.26 | 4.02 | 2.82 | 3.90 | 3.15 | 2.40 | 3.12 |
This is pure lovely execution. Honestly amazing visuals and a simple effective loop.
Very well done!
Lovely execution of an idea. Pretty to look at and the idea is simple but has great potential for depth.
Hands down one the nicest compo game’s I’ve had the pleasure to try
On a dev note, I seem to be able to attack diagonally, which does not seem to be intended.
Clever and fun. Nicely done
Honestly stunning and humbling. Beautiful work!
very nice lighting and environment work!
Nice and clean. Great work. I’d have liked a visual for the overall time throughout.
the death art made me laugh so hard. It's so gruesome compared to the rest it really caught me off guard Congrats!
I really enjoyed this, simple in idea, but there is a lot of space to expand the concept. Very well done!
great ambience. Nice idea and fun execution
I loved the core concept here, and feel like it could be iterated on many times. This is a really sound idea with a great execution. Also, amazing mood for something so simple. Well done!
Sorry for the confusion. I worried that the concept was a bit exploratory and slow for a jam (I too rarely sit for a long time testing game behaviors in jam games).
I added some gifs as hints to the game page to give folks some ideas about interaction.
I think, given more time to tinker with it EVERYTHING will be vacuum-able :grin:
the bug sounds strange. I haven't been able to replicate it regardless of platform =/
To hybridize plants, they need to be combined before they begin their growth.
@pizzasgood yeah, I could really use a change to the effect for vacuuming objects up as well to make it more clear. I'll put that one on the todo :smile:
Thanks for poking at it! I REALLY appreciate you taking the time to work with it and provide such thoughtful comments.
I love feedback
@arttu-halonen thank you very much. I like it a great deal as well, and it needs more "World" but I will work on it. My eventual goal is a world that's lost and empty and is slowly rebuilt by our sad little robot for a humanity that does not live there anymore.
Maybe that's too grim...lol
Making the audio was such a mess! I have never made audio from scratch before and at 2 hours until completion, I was hastily reading Audacity tutorials online. I generally rely on others work for audio, but this really made me more curious about it. I think in the future I will do a LOT more of my own audio
@rhewid thanks a ton. Yeah, the combine was really a toss up. On expansion, I'd likely move the combine to the vacuum tank.
Much appreciated!
@convg Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed it. There is a bit of a need for more readability regarding whats possible I think, and perhaps some light tutorial. I’ll work on those as it goes forward. Thankls for the great suggestions.
@beavergames Lol, yeah, the sound is a bit awful. This I attribute to doing sound in the last half-hour of time and having 0 clue what I was doing. That being said, it was really interesting and I think I’ll do more sound work in the future. Looks like a fun skill to work on.
@enzoup thanks! Yeah post-jam step one was reworking the vacuum to make more sense, be more clear in its use and have more function.
Glad you enjoyed it!
thanks @aterlamia @quentin-wittevrongel @chickencastle @peace-of-cake-games for taking a look and rating. I really appreciate the feedback.
As this progresses to a true game, rather than a jam idea, A lot of these ideas are being implemented:
- controls are being reworked and modifiable - the vacuum effect has been reworked - fixed some collision wonkiness - readability is being improved and a true tutorial is being added
- a lot more variety is incoming, specifically shade as an effect, vine based pants, underwater only plants larger more complex areas to grow with greater environment effects, and levels affected by a time of day mechanic
Thanks for the input! every comment makes me better at this!
@turegrappa Thanks!
@tamail I think there is a misconception regarding how the vacuum was designed to function in this simple implementation. I’ve changed it since then (though of course those builds aren’t represented here), but I think folks had the impression that the vacuum worked on a collision.
In the design that is implemented here, the vacuum effect takes place at the location of your right click, regardless of range. It was not ideal, but in a 48 hour span, it was easy to implement. In fact you can vacuum all the way across the room regardless of line of sight. Not ideal obviously, or realistic, but that’s why I changed it.
It really confused people.
I have altered the vacuum going forward to behave more like I think people expect it to. It has a vacuum graphic and that graphic is indicative of the collision space.
Its weird, because its so obviously a bad design, but I totally didn’t see it while building in the depths of the jam, but now I see how weird and confusing it was.
This was lovely! Very well done. The nostalgia really drew me in and it played great.
Nice to see more Godot. I've been poking at it for a while but haven't made the jump away from Unity yet.
Nice deeply retro experience right down to the unforgiving controls. I don't want the "unforgiving" to feel like a criticism, it is (just like the deeply retro pixel art) right on point for the game design and felt great. Nice entry!
The fearful mode makes your character move away if the enemy sees them. You just sprint in a line away as fast as you can. This change of emotion, like others, can be used to complete the level.
I've added a small Gif to give folks the idea.
I think, in the end, this is a fairly wonky mechanic that requires a true tutorial and a full length game to get folks the idea. The Jam version of this was just too short for me to pack all that in in the time allotted.
I hope you give it another shot, the mechanic is a blast when used.
had a blast playing, would love a move speed buff to go with the weapon pickups, but I love the idea
interesting idea executed very well! Dungeons as a set of minigames is such a solid core of a big idea!
i found it weirdly mesmerizing. Some of the minigames had brutal controls but I loved the use of theme and deep simplicity.
such a clean simple design and it works great! very well done.
okay, this was ridiculously fun and i could not help but laugh at the premise alone. Well done!
very short, but the bones of a great idea are here! Keep going
wonderful clever idea executed nicely. a really unique kind of co-op that really is the core of something deeply satisfying.
great presentation. Great tutorial, it really added to the experience. It feels like a cooking game turned on its head!
that cow game music was a banger! Loved this. Was a blast exploring it and trying things.
I loved this idea! I wanted it to move about 4 times faster though, lol! The concept was amazing and truly merits more examination.
I really like this design. A full-featured version of this on mobile would be great!
I played this for weirdly longer than I expected. For some reason, it really hooked me. Nice work!
feels brutally random, but its a blast to play. fun concept!
the racoons are beyond cute! I lvoe the art and the idea here is super solid
Overall a great idea. I found it hard to tell where my ship was in relation to the surface and the bullets could be a bit bigger as they kind of vanish in the background, but its a great idea!
this is a wonderful weird little experience. It was like story-telling finger food. Well done!
I found this super satisfying. A varied take on tetris that really paid off. Nicely done. Also, "it's raining snakes!" is my favorite phrase of the jam so far!
loved this. a bit...confusing as I worked my way through it, but the mood is wonderful and the execution is lovely.
fun concept, but the stillness of the game was challenging. Sound and animations would have helped here, but the core is a great idea!
@dfyzet yeah, that super-power cat noise is just too much. lol.
The tutorial was such a last second thought, but I think spacing it out and introducing each element as they arrive would be better.
Right now, I'm working on extending the gameplay systems without changing the complexity. As it stands, its pretty unplayable past about level 10-12.
@stefan-laimer My daughter, who did the tutorial voice-over, is super excited that you liked it!
Thank you @glove and @alec ! Your comments made my daughter’s morning great!
Yeah, that super power sound is just too much. Lol.
Can’t change it post compo, but will fix it for any future versions.
@lazzor @zyger Thank you so much for the kind words.
I has so many weird UI ideas before I realized I could just differentiate the individual cats by design.
@furano That advertisement specifically stated this game offers none of those features! Glad you had fun!
@lesinvisible Totally agree on the early slowness. Been musing on how to make that transition better.
@sarah-alexa Thank for playing! Yeah, that ramp in challenge is weird and I've spent a lot of time musing about where and how to extend the gameplay without damaging the clean design. I've not considered a match three, but it might be a ton of fun, maybe a set of paired gameplay experiences in one package.
I'd never tried a game with so casual a design before and I REALLY liked making it, so I will seriously consider trying a match 3, and maybe bash up a prototype or two.
Thanks!
@jimbly @owca @ksimaster thanks for playing! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
@finntastico @gonzalol thanks for playing, we are so glad you enjoyed it.
As for why the items cycle randomly…as i thought about the design, just having easy access to all abilities does not create any choice for the player. It actively reduces gameplay. At that point its just a speed matching game.
With the abilities cycling randomly, the player has to 1- watch carefully or miss what they are after, and 2 - make a choice between cycling the items to get what they want at the expense of faster dropping cats. It becomes a gameplay decision point each cycle.
Lol, at least that was the theory. I thought a lot about how to provide the items, i changed it a few times.
What are your thoughts on how it could be implemented? I work entirely solo so far, so i rarely get to hear input from others on this sort of thing.
@jamersjam thank you so much for playing, I hope it was fun.
@bhaa-su omg, i’d never heard of that! Had to get it for my daughter. She’ll love it! Thanks for the recommendation!
@maxkyckling Thanks for playing! The game has a brutal ramp up right now around levels 8-10. I’m working now on rethinking the progression and scaling to try to make the gameplay a bit richer.
Thanks for the comment on the voice acting. She did all the cat meows as well and is so excited to hear people liked it!
@defilerzero @dzejpi thanks for playing and I really glad you enjoyed it.
You are correct, this was a blast to build! I had a lot more fun with this one than I did in previous jams. Getting my daughter to see the process and watch her eyes light up when she saw the results was great!
@shimmerscale thanks for the feedback. I’m looking into how and why to differentiate each element and it can definitely be improved
@ex3d0 thanks for playing!
I truly appreciate the feedback. Item selection and pacing are the two most common comments on the design (other than the decidedly hilarious sound bug).
I’m already working on a version with many changes including an Open item selection feature where you simply swap items with key presses and a completely revamped kitty delivery so the curve is both less boring to start and far more gradual.
It’s been a wild ride experimenting with how to alter the difficulty and pacing. Strange things have a really big impact on the pace.
there is a really great core here. The shooting confused me a bit, but I got it after a while. It's punishing and fun! nice work.
There is so much that is good here. I love the visuals. Both super clean and super clear, scalable and still lovely. The audio was a real treat and truly enjoyable. This deserves a bigger longer game. the wonderful mellow feeling of discovery and calm hit perfectly.
My daughter wanted to say she loved this game. She rated it "extreme greatness!"
nice progression, great simple concept that scaled nicely. Great audio! You really captured a wonderfully tense balance between the mellow mood and the mounting tension.
this was beautiful and fun. It was a challenge but played great and was super charming
Great design, tons of simple fast fun. I lvoe the vibe and the look a lot. The challenge of seeing and understanding the forbiddne tile was oddly harder than I expected.
this is wonderful little concept. I think it may be the most minimalistic survival game that I have ever seen. It does a great job of keeping all the core elements needed to truly still be a survival game while stripping away everything else. Nicely done.
I really like the visual, but found some background elements too intrusive. a visual cue to tune those out would be helpful. It really took me by surprise when I realized how high you can jump
this messed with my head so hard! fun idea well executed!
facinating fun mechanism! I loved the feel of bursting around. This is a movement idea that could be explored for a long time.
its really lovely for being so simple. Nicely done.
Okay, I really liked the core here. I'd like the movement to feel less floaty, but the idea and execution were amazing!
this was super addictive. simple and clean and well executed
I shocked how you managed to get almost all of the core mechanics of a farming sim into a loop this small. Nicely done! It's so weirdly stressful until you get comfortable with letting go. It's like a nightmare about SDV or AC at first, but it turns out okay once you let go a bit.
I loved this! Gotta love Kitty Cats, and I'm always a fan of any Pico games. I had some weird issues with the collisions, but otherwise it was a blast!
I really enjoyed this. simple fast and fun! it did hang on me a few times, but it didn't ruin the experience
Love the game. Such a mellow vibe!
This is lowkey brilliant and an amazing minimalistic survival/crafting idea. Well Done! Truly fun to play.
I really liked this! This is as clean an action game idea as has ever been created. Good execution.
I loved the concept, but I agree with others who wanted more of the combat.
okay, this was fun. Took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure what the heck was happening but it was a blast. Nice simple idea and a clean implementatin.