Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Aristurtle
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | It's Snake, But Every 10 Seconds The Food Turns Into Walls | jam | 348 | 3.72 | 3.83 | 3.41 | 4.33 | 3.08 | 2.80 | 3.13 |
This took a few attempt reading through the docs and figuring out what it was looking for, but was able to solve eventually. This was a fun challenge and nicely executed.
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This game has the noir atmosphere down, from the visual to the music an dialog. The voice acting was a nice addition. Did you do all of the voices yourself? I liked that I didn't have to go through all dialog options to get to the end; I was able to choose how I would have questioned and worked from there. The going back and forth between the neighbors felt like it would for a detective cutting through the bs.
Nice job.
This was a lot of fun to play. Trying out different combinations lead to some interesting moments The hardest card I found to use for me was the stalactites. Getting both hits in with all the combos was felt appropriately challenging Seeing my choices create a nice flow back and forth was rewarding. As the health of the ghosts went up, It gave me the urgency to built a nice flow so that the next extra card I received could fit in without disrupting it to much to maximize damage.
I liked the art style used for the graphics, and the way the game is presented. Low key really liked how the game itself embedded on the itch page blended very well since the game's background and the itch page background are the same. Elevated the experience.
Solid entry.
This was a really fun play. The visual presentation is clean and small details like the outline around the player sprite are a nice touch. The music track was great.
I'm not the best at platformers so my perspective on this feedback comes from there. It was hard for me to gauge sometimes where I was, which I know is kind of the point of the challenge. Some type of cue, even visually, could be nice to indicate where I land after jumping, like dust from the floor coming up or something.
The mechanic of the game itself was interesting and a neat take on the theme. This has a lot of potential for a full game and I really hope to see it developed out more and become so.
I wasn't sure what to expect going into a interactive art board. It's exactly that. While not much in the way of a game or game play, it did feature interactive elements that allowed me to make my own game. Can I move the mouse fast enough to pulse both of the pink squares at the same time? Wait until both blue squares appear and press both as quick as possible and make bets on which one drains off the screen fastest. How many blocks can I prevent from turning correctly after I press the green one?
Maybe the game was the one's we made along the way.
This was a lot of fun to play. I started trying to get a strategy going with where I was placing things, but ultimately was not able to keep up. Carrot farming though is a thing, dropping them all together in a corner and moving close enough for the crystals to come to you.
Also was not expecting the "Boo you suck" while I was trying to take the screenshot, which gave me a good laugh. Good work
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I enjoyed this take on programming the movements out gameplay. Even though the robot continually moved, only pausing every third movement, I still had to build a plan out and execute it. I know it was to fit within the theme of 10 seconds, but at times the 10 seconds felt generous and didn't make it too difficult. Kind of reminds me of a board game I played with my kids when they were younger called Robot Turtles.
A couple of things I noticed on the second level were that the second coin in my route was not picked up since I placed a 90deg rotation on the same tile as the coin. It seemed my placement took priority over the coin pickup and the pickup just didn't happen.
Additionally, on another play through, I built a different route so the coin would be picked up, which lead to me accidentally placing the incorrect 90deg rotation while I was at the top of the room. When this happened the bot turned north and moved through the wall and walked out of the screen. Didn't think that was intentional, but it did game over as soon as it got off screen.
For the two 90deg turns, I think visually you might want to try making them different colors or more variance between them visually. Once you have a more than a couple of them placed down, they look so similar that it's hard to process the path your building visually.
I think this could be developed out into a decent game post jam. Good entry overall.
This was quite humorous to play. Just when I'd slowly start inching toward the food, the controls would switch. I managed to get 4 once.
The music fits well with the aesthetic of the game and at the same time can seem at odds with how much I'm panicking to figure the inputs again to get the food that right there.
I don't think anyone's figured out the real secret to the game yet. Just swim around and relax a bit by never eating the first food :wink: haha
This is a well polished game and it was done with LOVE2D. There so many tiny details in this that I kept notice that just add so much polish and depth. From the announcer, to the detail on the ice with the skate marks. The different UI pop-ins the sides as the puck is passed around. Just so many tiny things that really polishes this out.
The game play itself was really run and chaotic. Visually the sprite work done is impressive as well as the animations done with them.
I like that the auto clicker was an early upgrade and not something 100s of clicks in. The different oinks had my dog concerned as he watched me play, but I found it humorous. The timer fells off a little once fully upgraded. Once it starts over, it's like it hangs at "10" for a full second before very quickly counting down. Also, I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I had wished the auto clicker, once fully upgraded, had clicked at the end of the countdown. It waits about a full second before auto clicking, and I found i could just spam click faster.
Graphics nailed the carnival feel, the blinking bulbs around the edge were a nice touch. Putting the UI buttons in the clowns eyes was a little unsettling, but that fits the theme of the game nicely. The urgency of moving back and forth as fast as possible was fun, especially when the I just did the cannon and then have to get the balloon that spawned on the opposite side and run it back. The flag jump didn't show up very often, but it was probably just my luck of the random draw.
Once I got into a nice groove though, it didn't seem like there was anything that I'd eventually lose too. Some type of increase in difficulty as it goes would be a great addition. The only thing I noticed like that was the one where you select all of an item from the board. The grave stones and the cats were easy enough, but I got a pumpkin one that had so many I couldn't click them all in time.
Hello fellow snake enthusiast. :snake:
This was a lot of fun to play. The controls for the snake being a rotation instead of a direction based movement are a neat way of doing it. It did allow me to cheese on some levels though, I could just hide behind in a corner behind the wall and rotate in place while waiting for the phase to change back.
I think this leads to another point. During the phase where you are surviving, it wasn't until the last levels with the triangles that I felt any danger.
The wall bounce was fun and a nice challenge to the controls when I would do it accidentally.
Overall solid entry and a fantastic snake game.
I'm sorry to hear that the jam didn't go well. The game overall I thought was enjoyable. It took me a few runs to get a feel for it, but I was able to get going after that. The highest I was able to get was 23, not sure if that's decent or not lol.
A couple of things I noticed; sometimes the placement square didn't seem to go up a full square? It's like it got stuck halfway to the next square and just snapped there. I wasn't sure as well how the critter decided to which direction to go. Generally it would walk in the direction I expected from the arrow cards or placing the grass. Sometimes it would just turn around though and walk back the other direction? Not sure if that's intended or not, but it did lead to some unwanted deaths.
Good work though.
That was an experience. Thank you for that experience.
This was a really enjoyable playthrough. The tutorials felt nicely paced to teach the mechanics of playing the game. The concept of the queuing commands on the timeline and doing micro adjustments when needed was great. Sortof reminds me of a board game I played with my kids when they were younger and I wanted to get them into programming call Robot Turtles. For only having 48-hours for development for the compo, a lot was put into this.
One suggestion I have would be how the commands themselves are input. Using the scroll wheel works well, but having a command picker would be a nice touch. Maybe something like clicking on the timeline cell opens a palette to click the command you want to input.
Overall, great work.
Fun game. Graphics and music are very cute and work well together. Loved the little meows when checking in. The collisions boxes felt a little wide when jumping up platforms. Not sure what the highest possible score is, but I managed to keep all cats happy and ended with and 80
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That was amazing fun. It brought me back to when I was a kid at the arcade playing S.T.U.N. Runner. That game was my jam, lost so many quarters there.
I liked that the game let me get comfortable with dodging the traps and then switched it up on me and started rotating them. Visually impressive and audio choice, even if you didn't do the audio yourself, matched the game very well.
Solid work.
The treadmill mechanic is clever and there were a few times I was able to take advantage of it to push the imp to the opposite side from me. I was never able to actually survive to long though once the imp goes red. At that point it just starts to seem impossible; either he's going to catch you because you have to swipe for a jelly, or there's so many jellies that one of them will jump to the same tile as you.
Would love to see this fully developed out. Good work.
Edit: I completely forgot to add, I really liked the sprite work, they are well done. Graphically the game is great
I think the game is a good concept. The controls were fun and sometimes I found my brain trying to watch the dark side which has opposite movement of the light side, so I would start moving incorrectly. Which is the challenge and me being a bad player. Visually the minimal graphics work really well for this game and look really crisp even if they are minimal.
I wanted to mention the frustration though with the enemies but I see others have already and your response to it. It wasn't clear that they stay spawned in the same place. Knowing that definitely helps with bomb placement. Given the time it take for the bomb to detonate, it felt pointless to use without knowing where I should place it.
Overall solid entry and enjoyed playing it.
I'll say real quick that the it's an enjoyable game to play, even if it's simplistic.
Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the technical aspect since I feel that's what you wanted to show off here. The use of shaders was a cool choice. Visually they look nice and the bloom effect added really elevates it once you get more into a play or in the sandbox. Shaders are one of those closed box forbidden magic things and it's always really cool to see someone intentionally use them.
I only played the jam version, and saw in the changelog that you did add the option to remove bloom. This would have been my major feedback to give since it does get quite overwhelming.
This was pretty fun to play. I liked that you chose to use a familiar card game instead of me having to also learn an entire new card game to play this. The different facial expressions on the other players was great.
I liked that there were various ways to cheat other than just getting rid of cards on the stack or drawing extras. And the paper in the corner acting as a sort of achievement list and hint as to various ways to cheat was a good touch.
One thing I would have liked would have to been able to play the cards by just clicking them instead of having to drag them out.
I think the idea is solid, but there were some evolution that I couldn't figure out if I was even attacking. The melee type attack animations are very subtle and and didn't trigger any type of cool down like the special or ranged attacks did, so at first I thought nothing was even happening. Maybe adding additional information on the attacks if you hover over the cooldown visuals on the hud?
I liked the lore inclusion and the banter between rounds, adds more depth to the game. The artwork and visuals are nicely done.
The core idea is solid and the addition of voice acting coming through the radio to tell how to play is was a nice touch. There were a few times that I used the fusebox but I wasn't sure if I actually got them or not. After using it and turning back to the camera, they were no longer there. Not sure if there's an audio cue I'm missing or if there just wasn't one. If not, it would be a nice addition for player feedback..
The visual/artistic style was done really well. The music enveloped the atmosphere nicely, helping to make it seem ethereal. Controlling the game was intuitive enough, with the only thing I wished for was to be able to rotate the camera? Though I'm sure non-rotation was intentional(?). There was just a couple of sections, like the area across from the second bridge, and the bridge going south from it, I wanted to rotate the camera some to give the view some more room.
I see you mentioned in the comments above about the stars being the play on the 10 second theme. The dialog in game does hint that the stars are being removed, and I don't think it's necessary that the game blatantly just say "every 10 seconds". However, even after talking to all NPCs and wondering around for a little, I was still able to finish with what seemed plenty of stars remaining. So while the danger of losing all stars over time is there, in the end it didn't feel like I was in any rush for it.
Solid entry over all, really enjoyed the atmosphere of it.
The moment I saw the screenshots, I got those Chrono Trigger vibes. Then the opening dialog of wake up, and it was a flood of nostalgia. Just throw on some Wind Scene (A.D 600) music in the background and I was good to go.
I enjoyed that it wasn't just random teleporting, but also teleporting though time periods. The pixel art is really well done and the color palettes used complement the game very well. I see everyone is already mentioning the collision bug, which I hit as well. I couldn't get the game to load here on the LDJAM page, so I used the version at the itch.io link, so not sure if that has the collision fix or not.
I had to restart it a few times, not sure if it was caused by the collision bug or something else, but I wasn't able to pick up items. Another bug I noticed that I'm not sure others have mentioned is from the start. After you're told to press Q to use the teleporter, I didn't want to right away. I walked out of the room and wanted to explore some first. However, after exploring a little, pressing Q never started the dialog with the tech. Sasha's sprite would change like she was using it, but nothing else happened.
Even still, a few restarts and I was able to get through it. Solid entry and I'm glad to see that you plan on continuing to develop this further. Good work.
I think this is the first really unique experience I've played through in this jam. The way puzzles are introduced without explicitly telling me what to do was clever. Some I found accidentally just by trying different things, like pressing enter at the computer to enter that world. It wasn't until I escaped out of it that I noticed the enter key on the keyboard was lit up.
Similarly, it took me a few minutes to realize I needed to turn the computer on. I didn't notice until I tried the light switch again and the computer was lit in the dark.
I think I understand the story being told here and it definitely its some sad notes. Escapism into the game from the verbal abuse is something I'm familiar with. The different layers as you backed out of each one added to the depth, with the final reveal.
I think the game has a solid foundation, but the difficulty could be scaled up a bit. Being able to purchase upgrades, including restoring health, is good. Maybe set it to where you can only purchase upgrades after a set number of waves though? This would give the player some more agency to play smarter and which upgrades to take since it can only happen at set times.
Unfortunately the un-optimization of the graphics, as you've mentioned, hit hard. Even on Low graphic settings. Optimization is always tricky, especially for jam games that are going for higher end graphics.
(also according to your profile, we're in the same state, what's up)
This was a really fun idea. Good incorporation of the theme in that it wasn't just a 10 second timer; it actively worked against you by reducing your resource pool to play cards. The artwork was nicely done and the music really keeps it pumping. It has that same vibe as like Rocky running through Philly.
The actual gameplay though was a little difficult at times. Visually the cards sometimes glitched when you hovered over them and they scaled up in size. It it seemed almost like a z-depth issue where the other cards were trying to draw over it? I also found myself accidentally using the card on an unintended space.
I think this could be a really nice mechanic in a game if polished up a little. Solid entry.
Years of playing the jump rope mini game in Final Fantasy IX have prepared me for moments like this.
A couple of things I wanted to point out. * Initially the timer counts down , but the rope isn't moving, but you still lose score if you jump. The first time playing, I pressed the jump button to see it visually occur, but lost score. So I was starting at a negative balance just for learning the controls * As the speed increases, the amount of score you lose by just not jumping decreases. I'm guessing it's done by detection for when the rope is red, which is less time as the speed is increased. * The score goes negative, so there seems to be no actual lose condition.
This was an experience to play haha.
The visual presentation definitely hits that old school Pokemon vibe, and it's all really nice and crisp, even with the garbled twitter name text :wink: lol
The themes explored through the dialog are definitely heavy, as was warned. A lot of it was easy to internalize as its many topics I've struggled with myself in the past. Thankfully I'm in a better place now and playing through a game like this I can empathize better. The puzzles were fun but not very challenging, which is fine since they don't detract from the main presentation of the game. They serve their purpose as the vehicle in playing the game.
This was an interesting play. I liked that the layout of the room was different for each play session. The enemies scattering when it came time for me to hunt them was pretty funny. The gameplay is deep enough that I could start forming strats for luring the clusters to me before it changed so I could wipe a lot out in one go.
One suggestion I would make would be to add something either visually or audibly to indicate the timer. Unless I was missing it I didn't see anything like a countdown or anything indicating one. It would be useful so I could gauge if I need to pull back instead of chasing down an enemy since the hit detection and movement still occurs during the transitions.
@matoux42 You need to have the .NET Desktop Runtime installed. You should be able to click "yes" on that popup to install it, or you can go to the page at https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/6.0 to download and install it.
@appleplectic Thanks so much for playing.
@elysiagriffin It was fun watching you play it. Even more fun that you actually played the trailer and did the "Whoooaasss" along with it lol.
Sorry that I had no buttons in this game for you to give feedback on. I actually did originally have a menu on the title screen to choose between starting the game and viewing controls. The buttons were pop'n, you would have loved it. Ultimately I removed them though :/
@picusbgames Thanks for playing. I did go through several free-to-use music to find one that might fit with a snake/arcade style game, so some thought was put into it still.
@otaviobia I actually didn't think many would notice the background moving opposite the direction the snake moves. I wanted it to feel like it was a scrolling background like you might see in a sidescroll platformer or something. The grid being over it and using a dark, but transparent, background, I was afraid it would hide it too much to be noticeable.
The screen transitions were something I added to my engine a year or so ago. Another developer, PorbleG https://twitter.com/PorbleG, originally made them for their game Wark & Wimble. They shared the source with me with the agreement that I write a tutorial on how their implemented and how to use them. I haven't ported the tutorials from my old site to my new site yet, but if you're interested, the write-up is still available in the old repo. It's MonoGame specific though https://github.com/manbeardgames/manbeardgames.github.io/blob/gh-pages-develop/docs/tutorials/scene-transitions.md
@rocktavious I'm glad you enjoyed it. The suggestion on the timer is solid and was something I overlooked. Another suggestion I saw for it was to add an audio cue, like a beep starting at the 3 second mark as it's counting down.
@0x-void-x0 nice score lol
Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it. Yea, technically you can just let the snake move horizontally or vertically and never change direction. Every so often you'll eat food that spawns on the line, but eventually the entire grid will fill. But you won't get many points this way, and what's worth bragging more, points or a filled screen of walls?
It is built on MonoGame. Switched to using MonoGame about 5 or 6 years ago and haven't looked back. For me, it's the perfect middle ground of just letting me write code, but not requiring me to setup all the crazy low level stuff like SDL. They actually just released the new update earlier this year, it's on version 3.8.1 now and has moved fully to .NET6 and off of .NET Framework.
@weefairyfabi This makes me wish I had implemented a leaderboard of some kind even more. Maybe in the post-jam release. Thanks for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
@chairshot-games I was always turned off by the movement in snake games. I guess that's always part of it's charm to feel old school, but I wanted it to be smooth. Figuring it out was fun and it's nice that it shows and others appreciate it.
I plan to keep this mode in a full release that I'll be working on. Most likely it'll be an audio sound effect queue starting at the 3s mark, sort of like the queues in the newer Mario games for the red/blue flip tiles. Great suggestion though to add something.
@mhorth Some of the things like the transition animations are part of my engine that I've built up over the past couple of years. There's a comment up a little bit specifically about the transition spinning blocks with some more info on how it's done if you're interested.
I think the movement is one of those things where I played it so much while making it that it become muscle memory for me to know when to press to turn and didn't think anyone would have an issue with it. The input is polled every frame, but the action from input is only done once per "tick" which is every 0.1 seconds. I'll have to play around with it and get others to test it, but it could just be a matter of playing around with the tick timing to get it feeling more natural.
Note adding something to warn about the countdown was a massive oversight on my part, and I completely agree it needs something there.
Thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed it.
@mooptychunk when something is already good, why do something else ;) Thanks for playing
@rage-paint-games Thank you, it was fun watching you play it on stream. I always hated the edge deaths in snake, open world snake is where it's at.
Thank you for the suggestion, it was a definite oversight on my part.
@peachtreeoath thank you so much. Seriously. I knew going into making this that it was "just snake" and It's been in the back of my mind that some may see it as just that, but this was a really encouraging comment.
I made the mistake a few years ago of deciding to "write my own engine", which lead to a lot of burnout and I decided to step away and take a break. Which lead to a 2yr break of doing no development at all. I wasn't even aware it was LD weekend until later Friday night I saw someone on twitter say something. This jam is was brought me back into wanting to just make something, and comments like this will help keep pushing me forward.
@jonmerrin Thank you for the input buffer suggestion. I'll play around with that and see if that can help. The way it's set currently is every update frame input is checked and a direction set from the input. The direction isn't applied though until a "tick" occurs, every 0.1s. Underneath, it still functions like classic snake with the blocky movement, but there's some calculations done every frame to determine the percentage of the rectangle to draw to give it a perceived smooth motion.
I think the smoothing is mostly what's throwing timing off for some? But input buffering may also help alleviate that.
Glad you enjoyed it though and thanks for playing and the feedback.
@danield Was there any other game available for the Nokia 3310? I choose to believe not haha. Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for playing.
@djtequila Thanks for the feedback on the audio/visual cue. It was definitely and oversight on my part and is something that will be added post-jam in a full release.
@ghostbomb Thanks! I've never heard of Snakes on a Cartesian Plane, but the name sounds clever as hell haha. I'll look it up, hopefully there's still a way to play it or the internet archive has an archive of it.
@rafale25 The trailer was a lot of fun to make; completely unnecessary, but fun. Glad you enjoyed it and the game, thank you.
@goldenxd @djd123456 @lootgrounds @actuallythemoon Thank you all so much for the kind words and playing the game.
@reyansh I have a plan on doing some stuff with the graphics. I do want to keep it casual and simple, nothing too fancy, but something to elevate it out of looking like a jam game. Thanks for playing
@benthetwoofus I had a few other ideas before settling on the food turning into walls mechanic, some examples being randomizing the controls or making the snake or food hidden for a brief period. After play testing them for a few rounds, they were more infuriating. I wanted the player to feel in control and that if they got a game over, it wasn't because the game felt unfair, but because they felt they could have played better. Eventually going with the food-to-walls felt like a good balance between forcing the player to play snake in the classic way while also procedurally building a level/maze for them.
The visual timer being the only indicator was an oversight on my part. It was one of those situations where I did audio last and it just slipped past me to add in an audio cue/countdown with it. Adjusting the blocks visually as well is a great suggestion that I'll play around with. Thank you.
@guyro Thanks for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it. The food pulsing too the beat was a little more in depth to code than I had imagined it to be. The actual code itself shown in the GitHub repo seems simple enough now when looking at it, but implementing it was more testing and debugging than I care to admit lol. I think if I actually sit down and spend time learning something like FMOD, beat detection/events would probably be simplified a lot.
As for the timer, I agree that only the timer in the corner is not enough, thank you for the feedback on that.
@jaker If you don't mind me asking, since you mentioned the controls being responsive, how responsive did it feel if you wanted to do like a quick u-turn, or like two movements in quick succession? This is one area that I'd like to improve on and just trying to collect more feedback since some felt it wasn't as responsive when trying to do that.
Regardless, thank you for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it.
@baylock I do plan to take this further and flesh out a full game from it. I mean, the world can always use more snake games right? I have a lot of ideas, so be sure to either check back here from time to time, or if you use Twitter, you can follow me there for future updates https://twitter.com/aristurtledev
Thanks for playing.
Edit: forgot to add that I'll definitely check yours out. Got a lot to catch up on from last night's feedback, but I do plan to go through everyone's games that have left me comments.
@timbeaudet thanks for playing it on stream. And the feedback given during it was good, appreciate it.
@ava-skoog Thanks!
This was a fun challenging platformer. The sprite work is very nicely done and looks nice against the backdrop. I love the sheer destruction if you grow big.
I wanted to mention though that there are some platforms that visually look like I shouldn't be able to hit from the bottom to hit enemies above. Like in level 8 (think it was 8), there are 3 heavier looking grey blocks as platforms. I wouldn't think visually something like that could be hit form underneath to attack the enemy above. Just a small quirk.
Overall this as a lovely game and well done.