Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → andrewbwm
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | 👥 | Elemental Conflict | jam | 650 | 3.00 | 2.67 | 3.10 | 3.20 | 2.85 | 1.97 | 2.73 |
Thank you very much! The abilities are a bit too simple right now and some might even have some incorrect text in their descriptions. We ran out of time before ironing them out.
Definitely, conveying what's going on to the player is something that could use some improvement.
Thank you very much for the encouraging feedback!
@ninjascribble: Thank you very much! The state machine of the enemy can vary quite a bit, if it goes in its defensive mode it might stay there for a while and the battle can become a bit protracted. That should be easy to adjust.
Yes, the way abilities actually resolve could be a bit more verbose, but we were limited both by time and resolution. That is definitely something worth improving though.
Just as an extra clarification, in case people are interested. If you are attacked and defend you either nullify the damage completely, if you defended using the opposing element of the attack, or you just half it, if you defended with an element which isn't the opposing element. Values are rounded up. Therefore, a 0.5 damage would become a 1. With so many 1 damage abilities it gets a bit silly, that's something that would have gotten fixed if we had half a day more.
When you take damage you lose one energy from a pool at random for each point of damage. This choice and the random rewards after defeating an enemy are meant to add some variety to the powers you use.
@pnkthrepwood: Yes, you are very correct regarding the text, it seems that it is confusing for a lot of people and we weren't 100% satisfied with it either. Something worth paying more attention to in the future! Thank you!
@flyingmeta: Thank you! Spamming your strongest ability is currently the best strategy unless it belongs to the resistant or opposing element and the enemy defends against it. More abilities would shake that up. Gaining and losing energy pseudo-randomly is meant to force using different abilities too.
@bill-zeng: If turn based games are your thing the two of us are going to become good friends. :)
@coauctor: Some visual feedback when you lose or gain energy, like other people suggested, would most likely alleviate that.
@thirrash: I'll reimburse you the lost power! :) Thank you!
@apple-dash: You are very correct! I wrote the help/description and I knew from start to finish that that's not the way to do it. But this is what happens when you only have two hours left. I fully agree with you that the game is definitely complex enough to warrant an interactive tutorial.
@assoonasimpossible: Definitely true! Also evidently so due to the number of people specifically complaining about it. Thank you!
Just as a side note, if you click the menu in the upper left corner you can see a scrollable log of the game. Going through that can sometimes elucidate what actually happened.
@pouleyketchoupp: Thank you!
Daniel added an elemental affinity screen in the help menu. It's a bit goofy and you have to go through so many menus to see it, but he did this with 30 minutes left on the clock. It should definitely involve more arrows and always be displayed on screen.
We intended to have the buttons grayed out when not usable. Aren't they disabled when "Click to continue" is displayed? If they aren't it's a bug. :)
@fusionnist: Yes, as many people above have mentioned, the visual feedback is lacking in a lot of critical places unfortunately.
I had so many ideas for different powers. Things that would last for multiple turns, some that would boost other abilities or weaken some of the enemy abilities. There is skeleton code for having powers do really funky things, the only thing that uses it at all is the Fire Shield that deals damage if it countered an attack and the Blaze ability. I quickly realized that that was way beyond our alloted time. That's personally my biggest complaint with it right now, the abilities are way too vanilla, but that was the only thing we could offer within the time restrictions.
We already have a rebalanced post-jam version that is only marginally different but a lot more fun.
You asking for a post-jam version is the biggest compliment I could have ever wished for. Unfortunately, I don't think you'll see something major in that direction. However, if this was something that you enjoyed, some of the other games we're working on should definitely scratch the same itch, they follow the same game design philosophy.
You are more than welcome to upload gameplay of it! Please share the link with me, I'd love to see it.
Thank you, all, again! We're truly humbled by the great feedback we've received!
@fusionnist: That was a great video. It was really interesting to see how you explored the game. Really outlines the strengths and weakness very well.
@gistnoesis: Some of my friends mentioned the similarities to Pokemon too. I only have a superficial knowledge of Pokemon. So it's purely incidental, but still definitely something people have mentioned before.
I think it usually displays some enemy information when you require that extra click. I don't think any one screen requires two clicks to get through. That being said, you're definitely correct that the UI doesn't flow very well, that's definitely something putting more effort into next time.
Thank you for the feedback!
@quadtree: You need to click on one of the six power slots after selecting a power. You can either choose to override an existing power or assign it to a free slot.
It's another counterintuitive choice. Because of the game mechanisms there's a once in a blue moon reason to override a power you have even if you have a free slot available.
Thank you very much, that's exactly the feeling I was going for!
@bombjack: The game is very verbose right now. After you've clicked the power it's going to run you step by step through every bit of information. I don't think it requires two clicks for anything, but it's super easy to miss because it's just some text changing.
Definitely something worth paying more attention to for future projects.
@theaspiringhacker: When you defeat an enemy you get energy based on its type pseudo-randomly. That energy is what you use for your powers. Yes, you'll most likely run out of one type of energy if you keep spamming it. This is on purpose to have you use different powers. You can, and should, use non-fire attacks on the water elemental too. If the water elemental uses its defence, which is obviously water based, it's going to completely nullify a fire attack as it is of the opposing element. Using an earth or air attack is the thing to do there or not attack at all.
Great work on the robot models, they look amazing. Nice fast paced romp, a bit basic, but a very good start.
The controls are a bit finicky, but I really like the idea. Big props for making a multiplayer game too!
Wow, colour me impressed! I was actually sad to see it end when it did, that's a great sign. Great work, guys!