Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Alis
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | AM4LGAM8 | compo | 197 | 3.50 | 3.43 | 3.18 | 4.08 | 3.63 | 1.88 | 2.84 |
Loved it! Very cute graphics, and who doesn't love a sandbox :) I think it is a bit too easy, but it is a very pleasant experience throughout.
Fun one! Good level design with interesting puzzles, good idea for the theme (I'm biased because mine was a bit similar). I'm unclear why there are dancing people in the restroom, but all that silly humor made me chuckle at least :) Some (hopefully positive) criticism : * The gameplay is slooooow, which doesn't help to get a good experience as a player * The audio is bad taste in my opinion, I know it is a bathroom but was the pissing sound absolutely necessary? * The grouping between people that you move seems a bit random or at least is not immediately clear when playing
Hi! Thanks for the kind words, I'll make sure to try your entry out as well :) Regarding bugs: yeah, i've had a few playtests with friends & colleagues and figured out there are bugs. I know how to solve them but I don't think a "bugfix release" is allowed by LD rules. So no luck :/
Hope that didn't spoil the fun though !
I would like to thank everyone in the comments for the great and very positive feedback ! This is so heartwarming :)
@frogman Indeed, 8 is the limit. I'll mention that in the itch.io page, thanks. Two reasons : * If I allow to stack more then the game becomes a pure copy of 2048 (with different controls and a "bomb" feature), and I don't want that to be the case. * More than 8 wouldn't fit in the 16x16 sprite... A coincidence, yes indeed.
Regarding highscores (do keep your score coming in the comments !) one of my colleagues did 227, that's the current "world record" I know of. My personal best is 189, and I've seen other colleagues and friends score up to 140. I'd say a great highscore would be around 200. It really depends on your luck, as each of your move has a 5% chance of spawning a wall.
Regarding bugs, I know of a few : * A tile can spawn in the spot where you just moved a tile, eventually causing a crash in the long run * Pushing one tile into two other tiles that can merge will make the 3 tiles merge in one. That's of course not supposed to be the case, the expected behaviour is that the tile you wanted to move gets moved, and the two other tiles gets merged.
Sadly, the game is released for the compo and so I don't think I'm allowed to fix the bugs(even if I know how to and could do that with a few more hours work). I think it's part of the game jam concept (time is limited) - I really should have paid more attention and spent more time on unit-testing. What I can do though, is make a second release for the "extra" jam (I don't know if that's allowed ?). On the list of things I'd want :
* A nice retro-style music * Sounds effects * Bugfixes (Really, they are extremely frustrating to me) * Animated particles "+1" "+2" that communicates effectively how many points you're scoring when exploding stuff * Color shifts or subtle camera shakes when exploding or merging things to help make the game feel more polished * A title screen that doesn't immediately make me want to click play so I don't have to endure seeing it for one more second. I just don't like the work I did on the UI overall. * It may sound silly, but getting rid of the 5% chance of a wall spawning. The mechanic feels very unfair. If I had "brick" tiles instead, that when merged together would form a wall, then the game would be more about managing your space and avoiding bricks collision. It would both feel more fair, and fit the theme better.
If there is enough people expressing that in the comments and it is allowed, I'll definitely consider doing a second "refined" release for the "extra" jam.
I just checked the rules of Ludum Dare and it turns out that "bugfix" releases *are* allowed. I just pushed the new version to itch.io which fixes all the bugs that have been reported in the comments.
No new features allowed though, so the game will stay soundless.
@tjm Very good observation! I think making the scaling non-linear is an idea, another one that I didnt have time to implement would be to spawn brick tiles instead of walls, that when colliding form a wall, which would put the focus as much on the space management (which is the actual value of merging tiles) as on the actual scoring.
My mistake here is I didn't sit down and do the maths, i think. Lessons learned !
The twist on Tetris and Candy Crush I never know I wanted, but I got anyway. Fun, pleasant, brilliant execution, loved it.
Excellent work !
Cool game, loved the retro aesthetics! I believe I've encountered a bug though when taking the arrows ? Like sometimes the robot would just stop on the arrow. But the move was inconsistent, it was never the same arrow I stopped on despite it being the same input.
Couldn't reproduce elsewhere though, and it didn't spoil my fun, so I'll grade this like I never saw that bug :p Cheers!
Loved the loading scene, the graphics. I dont know why the whole restart-over-and-over concept makes me think of Outer Wilds, except with a twist to be able to create that game during the jam. Loved the little story, cool game. Good job :)
Fun little game! I agree with the fact that once the layout is done, it's pretty much done for the year, which is a bit sad. The game is guided, which is cool, but you never introduced the concept of store which took me two years (in the game, not IRL) to understand.
Solid entry, I liked it :)
I don't think I got the entirety of the concept (the description of the game is quite vague) but making my way to the elevator button was a fun challenge :)
I had fun playing this! I think that you had a very large scope and tried to do too much in too little time though, because the two "sides" of the gameplay feel very disconnected. With my leftover money I was expecting to be able to buy upgrades or something, and that the game would progressively get more difficult, but the days went on and I was stacking money, used only to pay bills. I stopped after 20 minutes when I realized that I covered the whole concept of the game and that it would be hours before I eventually lose. Very nice take on the theme, though :)
Good game ! Simple idea, loved the PICO-8 aesthetic/mood. Great music as well, very solid effort overall.