Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → ashashza
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | Merge Barge | jam | 272 | 3.87 | 3.79 | 3.70 | 3.50 | 4.18 | 3.68 | |||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Zgulls | jam | 229 | 3.95 | 3.72 | 3.54 | 3.20 | 3.97 | 2.89 | 4.04 | ||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | Keeping Itt Alive | jam | 45 | 4.25 | 4.28 | 4.00 | 3.79 | 4.16 | 4.09 | 3.89 | ||
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | Spew | jam | 333 | 3.65 | 3.56 | 3.62 | 3.10 | 3.17 | 3.28 | 3.90 | 3.22 |
First multiplayer jam game I've tried, so props for that!
It felt like the best strategy was to keep propping stuff up against a wall, which led to less interesting play over time. It would have been cool to have options to make my opponents life more challenging :P
Overall I love that you explored one mechanic and got something quite polished. Props!
I'm going to echo a lot of the comments already here, but I found the soundtrack to be awesome. Really satisfying to unlock too.
There are a lot of little touches in this game that make the experience so good. The subtle particle effects, the sounds, the controls felt pretty tight, the constant feel of progress. Despite things getting trickier towards the end with regular deaths (I'm clearly not a great platform player), I felt intrigued and compelled to keep playing.
I particularly liked the minimal style and the falling-through-space-and-time animation of the main character at the start.
Woah, character animation with the cloak on is so cool!
This looks great!
As the levels increase and the action heats up, this got more and more satisfying. I found myself enjoying the intensity more and more with the brief break between "waves".
I was surprised that even though there was little differentiation between the player and enemy colours, I didn't get confused about which robot was mine.
I would have loved to get more weapon upgrades more frequently (even if enemy difficulty increased faster too) there was something satisfying about seeing my robot and guns become more powerful... and adjusting my play style to the new weapons. So I'd like to see more of that.
Totally agree with gasgiant, the voice action was awesome! The ferret was particularly delightful for me.
This was cool, the facial expression on the chip were super-cute. Also love that you got a chance to include a boss battle!
This was a really cool way to explore a world! I can't recall playing anything where I get to experience a current time environment and instantly switch back to the past.
Like others have commented, I loved the visual style too. Especially the details that went into the buildings and how they were eroded over time. The missing head on the one statue was such a lovely touch.
I also wished the characters moved faster (although I can understand why you wouldn't want to rush the experience) and that the rope was easier to distinguish (a different colour maybe?).
Overall I enjoyed this entry.
That was fun! I found it pretty satisfying to be converting enemies into minions. Really cute visual style too.
Initially I was working real hard to kill sheep and chickens to raise an army but there was this cool moment when I realised I could resurrect the enemies. Game changer.
I often found myself wishing that I could move a little faster and that I had more control over what I was attacking. Great jam game!
This was really pleasing to look at and listen to. As an occasional meditator, it goes some way to capture the essence of mindfulness, to notice one's mind drifting and coming back to the point of attention.
The artwork and sound were so beautiful that they encouraged me to play until nirvana. I love that this explored one idea / mechanic.
This has an intriguing visual style!
Like other have said, I struggled to know when I was getting hit. I had to keep glancing up which took my eyes off the combat. So hit indications would be great.
Hitting the Pain(s) felt pretty satisfying although I often struggled to know when I was close enough to make a hit or if I would miss, so I would have liked a way to tell if my hit would work or not.
Wow, beautiful.
There were subtle touches that just made this extra cool: the wildlife eyes following & blinking at the player. The breathing motion of the spikes. The character design was really memorable.
I also loved the ambient audio, very easy to listen to even after some time and frustration (from dying to spikes :P)
For a wI was struggling with the controls and wasn't sure why ... then it hit me ... I struggled to reliably trigger a "short jump". I can do a "high jump" every time I hold down jump for long enough ... but the short jump doesn't always work (even if I quickly smash and release the jump buttom). That made some areas tricky but still doable. In some places it feels like hit boxes are just a _liiiitle_ bit off. For example I'd jump and visually seem to miss a spike but it would still kill me.
I thought the saving system is quite smart and innovative. It let me control points where I wanted to return.
Lovely atmospheric experience, congrats!
Cool, it was fun to play through a few times and see how my choices resulted in different endings.
I ran into the same overlapping-text bug (I think the music also duplicates) as others but refreshing the page solves it.
That was cute, I could feel myself getting invested in my date and not wanting to upset her. Apparently I'm silent a lot.
There were two things in this jam that really stood out for me: 1. The moment when my date starts speaking faster and faster (and I'm reading frantically to catch up) and then my character zens out. That was unexpectedly cool. 2. The facial expressions. These breathed a ton of life into the worlds characters and made me feel so much closer to my date.
This was fun. I was expecting to transition to a new level after unlocking my first lock, so it was a really nice surprise to see the level expand and see that my previous choices had consequences in future events.
This was cute, I liked the idea of the tiny gnome and the zoomed in version.
Wow, this had such nice ambient audio, so relaxing.
I got stuck on one of the earlier levels, Pipo reaches the end of the level but just falls through the floor:2019-10-09 16-40-25 Screenshot.png Am I being silly?
Like others... I really liked the little intro.
The ortho projection is an interesting idea. It definitely made navigating and dodging projectiles tricky.
I was also hunting for a win condition :)
Interesting idea, I enjoyed watching the world build as I played. Agree with @hellper that I grew a bit wary of typing "help" over and over again.
I, like others, struggled a bit with the camera. Looking past that I had a good time with this.
I loved the interpretation of the theme and how enemies evolve over time. The multiply to gain health mechanic was novel to me and felt satisfying to execute.
If anyone is still struggling with a QWERTY keyboard, I found that playing like this works: - Up / Down arrow to go up and down - Q and D keys to go left and right
Haha! That drift animation is super cool.
It would have been nice to feel my character progress a bit more as I played and upgraded.
Interesting idea! I definitely felt tension when seeing the first set of enemy eyes appear and trying to get my crew to a weapon.
If somebody told me this morning that I would end up giggling because "my Will Smith's were blowing in the wind"... I would never have believed them.... until Genesis 1.
How you ever seen a House roam free? I have. Have you ever seen Jaguar beach? I have.
This was a cool little concept that really took me by surprise when I was able to click "Explore" and go venturing around my creation (read: abomination).
Cool idea.
Like @bdeleho, this was my first text-based rouguelike. It was so cool to see the players view expressed as text and see the view frustum.
Combat would be way more satisfying with challenge and some indication that I'm being hurt and/or hurting enemies. Initially I didn't know I could just move towards enemies to attack them... I kept pressing t to target then pressing Enter multiple times on the enemies (is this a ranged attacked?). It felt like i had a lot of time to find and attack enemies with no threat.
I'd love to see what kinds of levels you could craft given more time.
This was such a nice narrative experience. I've recently helped my grandmother move into an old age home so it was really interesting to play this from the old persons perspective.
Like others have said, this feels fantastic. Just moving and shooting feel so satisfying.
I think you made a really smart decision to use existing sprites and focus on crafting something that feels great to play.
Others have already made great suggestions, so I'd add that as a player I found myself wanting: - ability to see a bit further out than the fixed perspective (perhaps mouse moves the view a bit). - more ways to use the environment to my advantage (farming explosive barrels?) - an overall goal to work towards (even something intrinsic like exploring new areas).
Wicked jam game!
Hey, this was interesting. I enjoyed combining stuff to craft my way forward. It was pretty intuitive to put out fires and grow trees.
There was pretty limited time and steps so I felt pressured to keep making progress, it would have been nice to have a little less pressure and time to explore.
Otherwise, cool concept.
This little wizard is so charming. I love the duck animation turning him into a hat, would be so cool to do more in hat mode!
Wow, the particle effects in this were awesome. Juicy.
That was cute and funny. Like @tongueenvy I also really liked the player character design. There's something oddly satisfying about starting each level staring at someone's butt in space.
I also enjoyed that there were 2 ways to play each level, each with this own challenge.
"Innovative pantless sneaking controls" XD
Awesome attention to detail in the level design, endearing main character (being pant-less always helps), cute sound effects, brilliant take on the theme.
I had fun with this one.
I liked the use of flags as characters in this. ;) That final boss was tough, wish I had a way to fire in diagonal directions.
I really love the mechanic of grabbing and throwing your 'friend?' / Nothing at enemies. :) I couldn't seem to hurt enemies by punching them directly?
Eventually I get pretty overwhelmed and can't beat up my punch-friend enough to kill enough enemies.
Cool idea.
That was surreal, I enjoyed it. Unfortunately sounds didn't work for me but this game has so much atmosphere that came through anyway.
I liked the paint effect and wondered if maybe it should only be used in the dream world to help the player distinguish between then two? (it would make sense to me if a painter dreamed in paint)
The theme in this jam is powerful to me, I would have enjoyed exploring it more. Mostly as an interactive experience I'd like my paintings to affect my dreams and my dreams to affect my paintings. The effects could be subtle and sparse but I feel they would significantly add to the experience.
That was quite therapeutic. I really like the idea of physically crafting the play space with sand.
I placed a bunch of fish to keep the waves away and eventually they stopped coming and I ran out of sand. Thankfully I found a trick to place sand and then remove it, then re-place it created more than I initially took. That helped me get to enough stars.
Having the games logo on the starting sand was a really nice touch.
Wow, I'm just as blown away as other comments by how much content and love there is in this jam. Stylish visuals, a menu system, a mini-map, a lighting/shadow system, crafting, solid combat, driving sequence. Wow.
I particularly loved the cut scene art, it made the main character feel so alive. The combat also felt really satisfying. A delightful surprise that I could time-parry back projectiles.
Hey everyone, thanks so much for playing & the thoughtful comments so far. It seems like a bug crept in at the last minute which makes a creature-dude go missing (there's supposed to be 100 folks in the crowd! ... you don't need to get the guy on stage/platform)
If we work on this further... we shall track that creature-dude down and make sure he too is contaminated!
Thanks for the kind words and feedback everyone!
@captandrey I hear you on game speed. Tried to add "controlling the spew" as a mechanic to make those wait times less tedious but it's not quite clear and doesn't feel that satisfying yet. Thanks for the input.
@nachtwitch thanks for the love!
@creepypudding haha! Those folks shouldn't actually be following anything but some of them definitely seem intrigued! I like the idea of having different kinds of people, some that run away, some that run towards.
@eggshelldog ;P~~~~~
@deiidara Thanks for the feedback, is there a particular part you felt was hard to control? Would love to fix that.
@wolf4d hehe, "Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual fictitious film events is purely coincidental" :P
@gaz-ireland oh no! I didn't have a machine to test the MacOS build on. Is there a particular error you're seeing?
@digitaldude555 thanks for the feedback and pointing me to Infactionator, will check it out.
@masterkrepta thanks, your girlfriend seems very astute... she picked up our second, secret interpretation of the theme: "start with nothing bothering you... leave completely grossed out" :D
@jk5000 thanks, I would have loved to add more given more time. One idea that didn't make it was dog enemies that come along to try lick up your spew ;P
@ferdi You're a brave soul playing this on lunch break! Thanks for the kind words <3
This felt really interesting. Swinging around for the first time and seeing my poi move outwards made me really excited. I've never seen a weapon mechanic like that before!
Moving back and forth in the right way and flicking my mouse around seemed to build up momentum... I just couldn't quite get the poi moving in a way where it felt controlled enough that I was confidently able to attack the Red Eyes. Is there a technique I'm missing?
Like others mentioned, I didn't quite get the mouse buttons -> poi modes connection immediately. When it did click for me ... I definitely felt more in control but it always felt like having the poi swing out was better than having them close / tight.
The camera movement is a bit exaggerated, for me, which made it hard to see the initial speech bubbles. But I figured it out eventually.
Overall I think this is a really interesting jam and I feel like there's a lot of potential in using poi as weapons (strictly in a video game context :stuck_out_tongue: )
The characters and their animations in this are so great! The little arms flailing as the raccoon lands :laughing:
Cool idea. I looked at the room behind me at one point and I liked the detail on the desk and seeing my cash pile :)
It was really tough for me to tell the baddies and the goodies apart. I wondered if highlighting them good / bad in some way when I focused on them would have helped.
This is terrifyingly charming ... or is it charmingly terrifying? I think the sounds and animations on the baby are great touches.
Like others, I struggled to keep stuff up with the overlapping sprites. Overall great jam.
Love the character designs in this! The intro was also super-good at getting the message across super-quickly.
I struggled quite a lot to get past the first few landmines. I guess I need to brush up my platforming behind enemy lines :)
This was cool, love the idea that the sound & effects amp up as you increase score.
Not sure if it's just my browser (or my poor excuse for tennis skills) but I found it tricky to get the shot timing right. I wondered if showing the "possible hit area" around the player (like you do with the opponent) would help me line up / time shots better?
Overall I think this game proves that classical tennis could be markedly improved by having players ingest psychedelics as they get more points.
The characters and environment art in this look great!
The little lights while they move / teleport is genius.
This was great!
The feel and texture work really bring out those 90s shooter vibes, which is awesome. The health bar is super-duper-cool!
I really appreciated the ability to adjust mouse sensitivity. You did a good job with the pacing too, this felt brief but left me wanting more.
It would been nice to have ways where one could use cover more effectively. It felt like as soon as I left a safe spot I was immediately shot at. I guess I wanted the ability to surprise and terrify enemies a little more. :)
Great jam! This was my favourite detail: 2020-04-22 00-41-34 Screenshot.png
lol @ running on air.
I like how this looks... the rocks sticking out of the side of the earth are a really nice touch. The fog of war is so great!
Managed to last a few days but it gets touch as the number of animals ramps up. The axe is quite hard to distinguish from sticks so that had me a bit confused at points. Maybe I wanted to zoom in?
Nice jam.
Gosh this is really pretty. Even the UI is tastefully done.
I loved the thoughtful little touches like animated title and the rubber ducky sailing the soft seas.
My only wish is that I could move around a little faster so that exploring this serene place was easier.
This is so charming. Like others, I enjoyed the intro (and the ability to skip is a nice touch.)
The character designs are adorable and their movement feels pretty satisfying. The legs, the body weight shifting, the alien's squashyness!
I found it pretty challenging to get to 10+ bounces. It felt like I either just couldn't get to the landing spot fast enough or my own shadow mixed with the alien's shadow and I got confused. I guess I need to eat more strawberries :)
Cool jam.
This is super-charming.
Lots of cute little touches, like when the fish runs out of water and grows wings :'D
Like others, I also found this tricky to control. I think the controls are from the characters perspective but my brain is expecting them to be from the cameras perspective.
Great work getting in so many elements for the levels and environments!
The art in this is cool.
Cool idea to be splitting your time between growing food for life and growing defenses for rats.
I struggled to get much past wave 3, I wasn't able to keep making food and water my defensive plants at the same time. I wasn't sure where my scythe disappeared to sometimes?
This is beautiful.
I had a good time playing. It took me a few tries to figure out whats going on but the sheer prettyness and intrigue kept me motivated to keep going.
Fairly early I figured my goal would be to gather enough resources to release the heart ... but I was confused about that was required to pass the next "level" test. It seemed kinda arbitrary and then suddenly I'd fail a test and lose. I think this could be quite easily resolved by showing players how much immunity is required to pass the next test. That gives me a clear indication of what's required and let's me make interesting choices about how to spend my resources to get there.
Besides the immunity requirement above, I thought the game was quite intuitive and managed to play through without doing the tutorial.
Great job team!
I think this game is a great illustration of my lackluster multi-tasking skills.
Great job on taking mechanics which would feel quite simple on their own but mixing them in a way that creates challenge.
I really like how the plant shoots up straight from the menu!
Ooo, nice ethereal atmosphere in this. The music added a lot to the mood for me.
I really like the lighting shadow effect when you shine your light beam on items.
Gameplay wise I was really unsure of what to do. I explored around for a while but I wasn't able to pick up or move anything? I noticed the crystals bar above "Seeds" going down but I couldn't figure out how to change that.
Cool jam!
Hey, I had a good time with this.
There's so many things I liked: - The characters and their lively animations. - There's a charming visual style (gave me 3D Movie Maker vibes) - Some mystery (why is there a grave in the garden? who died?) - There's a double-take on the theme (keeping plants alive and keeping your family alive) - The ability to pop open the menu and review the controls while in-game - Cool ideas for each of the plants. - The UI was also pretty good at letting me know what was going on with my plants (too much / little water).
It was pretty chill playing this, so I wished there was a way to play without needing to use the mouse and keyboard at the same time ... maybe mouse or keyboard only controls?
Really liked that there was a daily special for buying AND selling. Although I wasn't sure if a special on selling an item meant I was selling it for less or getting a better deal?
Aynway, great jam!
Thanks for the kind words everyone!
@andret0701 Hehe, those legs ... at some point I fixed bugs with how they moved but it was way funnier with the bugs, so they stayed :stuck_out_tongue:
@gus-goucher thanks! I'd love to help correct the lack of chameleons on consoles :)
@arcayn thanks, thrilled you like the "UI". I had fun building it... and eating it... and building it.
@hexiez123 it's really nice to hear that you appreciated the world-building. Some of my favourite games do a stellar job at it and it's something I'd love to get better at.
@ommadawn Aw thanks. I've died in those waters soooo many times :O
@krystekku Wooo, glad you liked it!
@bionikmonster Yeah!! so glad you kept going and got to see the end. Thanks for the praise.
@pusheeneiro Thx, will be sure to send Ott your regards.
@blacksheepza Thanks! Seems like both our jams got some wicked leg action going on. I hear you on the attack patterns, I wonder if I should have cut 1/2 enemies and explored the others more through the level designs. Those heart drops!! Initially there were none and it felt too hard, so I snuck them in at the last minute (along with some physics-flinging bugs :P)
@james-joubert Thanks for your love on the narrative. Ye, the game is pretty tough and that was part of what I wanted to achieve. However, It'd probably be a good idea to tone the difficulty back a bit to give players a chance to see the story play out.
@harker thanks! :tongue: :speech_balloon:
@physi3 that's nice to hear, I've been trying to improve how my characters control.
@narom42 Ye, a few folks have found the game too difficult (or too difficult too quickly perhaps). Given more time, I would have liked to improve the camera movement, so that's a good suggestion.
@owen-rees Thanks Owen!
@local-minimum thanks for taking the time to give that input. I'm glad you appreciated the randomised rooms... I personally found that it increased my enjoyed while playing a bunch. Nice suggestion for the replay!! I wasn't happy with the "Press R" thing but didn't come up with a better idea during the jam.
@rkhadder <3
@risist Your comment made my day. I'm so stoked that you got to experience the boss fight... I reckon the difficulty is high enough that most players won't get that far ... congrats on getting there! The legs are just Unity LineRenderers that target some points (one of which tracks the ground and adjusts it's position when it's too far from a given point). I'd be happy to share example project / code with you if you'd like.
@zezel thanks! :lizard: :frog:
@risist No sweat, you can check out a repo here: https://github.com/anubisza/LD46Legs. You'll need Unity 2019. Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions.
@add-an-a Hey +A! Hope you guys are keeping swell. Thanks for the kind words on UI & tunes. Ye, I worry that the difficulty curve (or lack thereof) isn't right. I wanted Ott's journey to be challenging but I think it starts out too tough and doesn't build enough intrigue for most players to stick around for the story. If you do give it another go ... there are treats at the end!
@mateusboga Loved watching you stream and seeing you play this! So impressed that you managed to finish it with only 1 death and in under 8 mins!
Like others, I really liked the look of this. Particularly the water.
I thought it was quite a clever puzzle mechanic and wanted to really settle in to figuring out the levels! Pity the time limits are so short, it meant I felt pretty rushed. I feel like the core puzzle has enough interest and challenge to stand on it's own and could do without the time pressure.
Moving the camera around felt like it hurt more than helped, i guess because the time limit meant I needed to spend time on moving the ducky, not the camera. Also there are some angles / positions where it's really tricky to get the arrow to appear / work.
Overall, cool jam!
This had quite a bit of atmosphere. I really liked the text effects and how they changed as I failed to navigate platformer sections (which were pretty tough!). I'm pretty sensitive to motion-sickness so the up-down wobble was a bit much for me after a while.
I thought the switch from text to platformer was really neat, I've never seen that before.
Gosh, this is cool! I encourage everyone to play to the end.
So many nice details to this: - The day / night cycle. Subtle enough to not notice initially but just right. - Just as I started questioning my actions, the game rewarded me. - The dynamic music is super-good.
My only gripes were that it was difficult to aim sometimes... I'd see the Space button UI but pressing it wouldn't do anything. It also gets a bit tedious sometimes feeding the same items to the mushy.
Overall I had a great time with this. Congratulations to the team on getting so much atmosphere into this.
I struggled to find the weight activated lifts ... I found a gate but couldn't find any levers near it. There's a glowing bit on the floor but it just traps me and the monster doesn't seem to trigger it?
The voice work in this is pretty creepy, nice work.
Oooo, lots of intrigue in this.
I wasn't sure what I was doing / what I was supposed to be doing but the intrigue kept me exploring for a while. A mix of eerie and exciting when I got to see the other worshipers arrive.
This looks great and the audio stood out even more for me. Really sets a deep, mysterious tone.
I couldn't quite figure out if there was a way to awaken the skull, tried changing the colours of a few items but that didn't seem to make any difference. Would have been nice to have some more feedback about progress / purpose.
I've gotta agree with most comments so far that the art style is really cool. I wish the camera was a little bit closer up so I could soak in that arty goodness.
Like others, I also struggled with the difficulty. I think that's down to the shooting. I was able to move where I wanted to be but had to stop and change direction to make sure shots when in the direction I wanted. This was particularly difficult because those spider movement patterns are so sneaky.
Speaking of spiders... great job on the sounds there! They felt pretty menacing to me... make me explore quite cautiously.
There was a "bug" on the first level where I used my potions in combat and then had nothing with which to open the door. But that didn't keep me from enjoying this jam.
Love the art style in this! Super-creative use of simple shapes, I thought that was really cool.
After a bit I ran out of fruit for my poor sheep. But that's all good because you CAN RIDE THE SHEEP!
2020-04-23 17-03-24 Screenshot.png
Need I say more?!
Wish I could rate the graphics :cry:
This was really charming.
The art is super impressive for a jam. Environments are a pleasure to look at and make me want to keep advancing just to see what's next. The characters are cute too and the subtle animations really bring them to life. I felt like I was interacting with something alive instead of just a cutout.
For the game's design, I'm a big fan of the overall goal and the idea of a deck builder. Card choices felt a bit limited, which is understandable for a jam.
My biggest gripe is that I still felt like I was "fighting" and "attacking" other characters. This is from the sword visuals on the damage cards, the attack language and also the health being decreased. While I'm perfectly fine with aggresive language (there's a place for it)... I really wished I had the option to charm / compliment / reason my way out of the battles. I had this hope that if I somehow befriended an opponent they could actually tag along with me and help in future encounters. I imagine there could be costs to having a larger group size (like having to play morale / inter-communication cards to keep the group together).
I'm sorry if this comes across as overly critial of what is an excellent entry, it's just that the mission you stated really resonated with me and I'd love to see something like this exist. I think it could be an amazing way for kids to learn about the differnt styles, approaches and consequences of communication.
2020-10-17 21-40-03 Screenshot.png
Whew, managed in 3 loops but that was with some serious corridor running!
I had a good time with this jam. I'm a big fan of exploring and solving puzzles and this jam allowed me to do both!
The music really helped amp up the adrenaline as the ship drew closer to the event horizon.
This is really pretty. The music and footsteps really sell a mood for me, which I liked.
I agree with others that because the text core to the puzzle, it could have been more easily readable.
This was really endearing, I played all the way through.
Like others have noted, the visual style is pretty awesome. I thought the music would wear on me but enjoyed it the whole way through.
I think good use of few mechanics here to make puzzles interesting.
I do wish I could have moved backwards (leftward) in the world. I can see how only going one direction added to the theme but it would still have felt loopy enough for me if I were able to go back and meant I felt more comfortable exploring puzzles in a different order.
Overall, great jam!
This is such a gem.
That music track, the level design, the character and the sheer loopyness of it all.
One gripe, I tried so much stuff to advance the first bit of dialogue in the intro (click, space, enter, WASD, E) ... luckily I saw it was F on the itch page. I wish there was an onscreen instruction for that ... otherwise I may have given up and missed the glory of Frederick's journey.
I'm so glad this exists!
Elegant idea. It's really simple and yet devilishly challenging.
Like others, I wish there was a bit more range to my vision. There were times when I had to take a leap of faith and when that ends in a smash it felt unfair. I wondered if it could start zooming out if I spun around a star for some time ... that would make me wait enough time to see where I want to go but not too much where I'm too far away to make a good decision on when to jump.
I also liked the style in this, minimal visuals and audio that didn't get jarring or take away from the experience. I think the particles, while subtle, really added a lot.
This jam oozes smoothness.
I thought the subtle touches in this were really clever like the single screen tutorial which completely introduces all the controls with very little friction. The spotlight that suggests a solo is great at gently suggesting a way to play without ever forcing anything. And the audience clapping intro really helps sell the mood for me.
Like others, I loved the art style here! Those animations were great.
I also wish there was more reasons to explore and keep hunting enemies but understandably time was limited.
This was a treat.
My first 2 tries ended in disaster as my opponent managed to get quite far ahead and I couldn't claw my way back, even as I understood the mechanics, I just didn't get cards which would allow me to close the gap.
Overall I really liked this jam. As others said, it's got polish and I'd be curious to play an expanded version of this where there are more card types, different opponents and levels which extend past the loop.
P.S. I played the postjam version.
@whynotyt @jrevel @theinkskeleton thanks for the kind words!
@doot Really appreciate that feedback, thanks. HTML version is also a good idea, I've uploaded a build :)
@antihedra Great point on the hut placement. It's something I noticed while watching others play and would definitely fix if I work on this further.
@voidsay Happy to add builds. I've just added a web build https://ashashza.itch.io/zgulls Let me know if that works for you!
@darkmax14 Great point on building placement feedback, I face the same irritation myself. I wanted there to be consequence if you lost a building but I don't think having the spacing issue was a good choice :stuck_out_tongue:
@bentekiller Aw, sorry you ran into that. Thanks for giving it another try! You echo'd my feeling with this jam a lot. I enjoy the look and mood but wish I'd managed to create more depth in the gameplay.
@krysh Thanks! So glad you liked the soundtrack, after playing your jam you've clearly got good taste in tunes!
@gamescodedogs Appreciated! It's so nice to hear that the chill mood I was going for came through.
@nsadie thanks! Totally agree with you on the UI. Watching others play and stuggle to place towers is so painful :cry:
@voidsay Ah, sounds like web kinda worked. I'm not doing anything special, using standard render pipe. I suspect that the postprocessing shader I added for subtle fog is causing the red lines, good to know! Good feedback on the fence OP thing. I wish I'd had more time to balance out the towers more and make choices between them more interesting. Thanks for playing.
@andre-sadie That's all great input, thanks. Appreciate the compliments on colour & minimal visuals too.
@vesk Wow, nice catch on Islanders! I played that a few weeks ago so there's definitely some inspiration from there (mostly around free-form building placement). Thanks for the comment.
@walaber Oh man, that stream was delightful to watch! Your kids are excellent playtesters :smile: Watching the confusing controls in the beginning was really painful, I wish I'd done a better job explaining the camera controls (and not making the building buttons look like hotkeys!). Your son groked the concept so quickly and did such a good job of getting all the way to the finish. You daughter also had great feedback on the thumbnail not doing a good job of presenting the game well. Realised I saw the physics game you're working on, on reddit recently. Listed! So much learning in this for me, thanks guys!
@james-joubert I liked the kinda dark and dreamy atmosphere in this, the piano and voice over added a lot for me.
Gameplay wise it felt like things happened very quickly, I either won or lost in a few seconds. Maybe longer but certainly felt really short. I liked the idea of grabbing different items with different mouse buttons, so I wish there was longer to play with that.
Wow, nice work, there's a lot here for 72 hours. Vehicle controls, AI, visual effects, sound effects, a whole crowd, powerups !
Like others mentioned, I also strugged with the controls. Just turning really. The throttle control felt great but turning was difficult to judge, as if the turning started accelerating as I held it down. This was with a keyboard btw.
From a game perspective, it felt like I had very little chance to get back into the race after a mistake. Partly due to my terrible driving skills but also because most powerups seemed to focus on cars behind me, and I really kept trying to get rockets to stop cars ahead of me. I wish I'd had more chances to make a comeback.
Overall this is a really solid jam with tons of content!
Cool jam! Really enjoyed this music.
I struggled with some of the issues others had too.
The frame rate was quite low, I think that's due to the number of realtime lights in the scene. It seems like there might be a light attached to each bullet.
I also found it hard to differentiate bullets from the environment. One trick I've seen for this is to take a screenshot of the game, make it monochrome and see if it's readable that way. Then you can tweak color values until it's readable and reimplement those in the game.
There's clearly a lot of effort that's gone into this and just a few small tweaks could increase the awesomeness.
I liked the stark contrast between the two worlds in this.
Like others, I felt I had most to do during the hell sections with running, dodging and shooting. I wished that the garden / non-hell part had more meaning. Maybe if there was a way to get some diretions / guidance during the maze that would have increased my agency there?
Cool jam!
Wow, the music track in this is great. Really sets a mysterious yet progressive tone.
I also liked the graphicaly style of the surfaces, minimal yet defined. Like others have said, I wished there was a bit more colour on the surfaces, this would have helped me orientate myself in the alien landscape. I see this is on your todo list :)
Movement wise, I found myself spamming the grapple key a lot. Both to reach places and to backtrack. I know you want to indicate grapple point better, but I also wonder if it's worth adding a cooldown on the grapple so that I'm being more strategic about timing and placement.
This was really interesting. I think it's a clever concept.
I started playing with much lack of coordiantion and trying to time and hit each of the buttons. Nice idea of have ships destroyed when hit. Left with 2 ships I just started mashing those 2 buttons and life got much easier...
Eventually I wondered "wouldn't this just be easier with 1 button?" so I let my 2nd last ship die and started mashing X like crazy. That worked suprisingly well. :)
Initially I thought that there was a negative feedback loop becuase as ships died, it would get harder to defend. But I found that's not true. Then I kinda wished that after a certain number of kills that ships would grow back which would push me to start using all 4 buttons again.
Nice jam!
It felt like there was some helper logic that helped me get back on my wheels after flipping over. Really appreciated that!
Also liked the design ideas for each section of the level. One has a hill, the other has few obstacles, the other has very rocky approach.
I think having a way to control the torque on my buggy would have been fun. That would let me have more sense of control when I started tipping over.
Haha, this is great! I did a few runs and can't get much better than ~17400
I didn't expect to giggle out loud watching the disaster that was my rhythm, but I did.
This feels like it could be a lot of fun at a party having 2 people try race each other ... or attempt to collaborate with hilarious results.
Most innovative jam I've played so far, seeming simple idea executed elegantly.
Edit: Just realised how much the audio drives the humor in this. Hearing all the paddles slap each other adds so much more than just seeing it happen. Great choice.
Fun jam. I really like the choice of character, playing as a witch and seeing my little legs dangling is so great.
I thought the discrete speed zooms are a really smart design. Giving me a chance to aim but also feel a burst of WOAH when I'm confident in my aim.
I found myself feeling a bit disorientated at times, not from the controls but regarding my goals. I kept wanting to see my "current mission / quest" in the UI or something. Maybe also a way to zoom out and see the whole map to plan my route (at the expense of time / control).
:beers:
Heaps of soul in this jam, so cool!
Having multiple characters to pick and all having their own visual and play styles is awesome.
I struggled a bit with the attack timings, it was tough for me to time my attacks in order to hit enemies or perform multiple attacks with consistent timing to kill off enemies.
@maxi1324 Thanks! Yeah ... there's a few rules going on there and we were concerned it might require a proper tutorial ... but glad to hear you were able to understand it eventually. If there was a particular element you found confusing or took ages to understand, I'd love to hear so that I can try figure out better ways to handle that in future jams.
@csimpson Yay, glad you enjoyed the strategy and liked the audio. The aim was to create a relaxing mood while your brain is puzzling.
Great point on the hovering over clouds being jarring. I thought I was being smart by giving them a time-slow tooltip but as you pointed out it's probably more confusing than helpful. Thanks for the feedback.
@nuin Thanks for the kind words!
@jaco-van-hemert Thanks for playing, great feedback. You raise a really good point on an undo button... we defn don't want to punish players for making an unintentional move, so undo is a nice idea. I wonder if making the "next up" object clearer if that would mean less mistakes.
Excellent suggestion on "see what you're about to place". It's something we wanted to do but didn't find time for.
I'm thrilled you had enough fun to play until the 3rd mission. I think it is winnable but it's tough as nails.
Thanks again for such thoughtful feedback and taking the time to write it up.
@hoeleboele Thanks! Good to hear it was intuitive enough to figure out on your 2nd go.
@cole-hutson Hells yeah, so good to hear that you enjoy this type of game and that our little jam hit the right notes for you.
@rjdrag Tx, that's a good insight. The crates do play a larger role in the later missions, where if you don't pack 'em neatly you'll run out of space. But agreed that it would be nice to make the feel more central earlier on.
@skitefall Hey, that's a real interesting idea with the boxes... making them influence fuel usage. Agreed with your points on the UI layout, we didn't find time to address those. Thanks for writing up your comment!
@archaeognathus Aw yeah! "calming music and puzzle away" was just the kind of vibe we were aiming for... so good to hear it hit those marks for you. Thanks for sharing that.
Good insight on the difficulty. When balancing (I'm very amateur at it) I tried to have fuel build some kind of tension and then release... something like "oh I need to focus on fuel now" and a few moves later "oh dang, I need to manage boxes better". It sounds like I partially managed that but wasn't quite as rewarding for you as I'd hope. Anyway, great feedback, thx!
@harami “plants vs zombies” + “2048” + “raft”... not only is that flattering and insightful... but you clearly have great taste :wink: Thanks for sharing.
@wadlo Thanks Wadlo. A few folks have said they felt a bit lost in the beginning, so that defn something we'd need to work on.
@smeljey Yay, glad to hear it felt relaxing for you. Relaxing puzzle games are a personal favourite, so hearing it felt that was for you is great :smile:
@z0rg Thanks for the kind words. You know ... now that you mention 2048, it might be interesting to have a level / mode where you slide the boxes around and try smash / merge them into each other. Maybe that's a stormy level :wink:
@peachtreemcgee Thanks. By "no clear feedback" do you mean that you weren't able to see if you were making progress? Or that it wasn't clear when things merged?
@japes Aw thanks, that's great feedback. Yeah, good insight on the difficulty scaling, there's a few levels to pull. Oh no, sorry you bumped into that bug! I saw it once during the jam and wasn't able to squash it. Thanks again.
@virtualman52 Hey, merge-to-harvest is a good way to put it. Initially we had the collectors auto-collect fuel but it just felt sooo much better once we changed to merge-to-harvest. Good point, we could have info for the boxes too to help give players context.
Oh no, I'm sorry you bumped into that bug too. I _think_ it's happening when folks play quickly and make a move before a previous animation is complete. Thanks for posting the image and sorry it wrecked your run.
Again, thanks for the useful input and taking the time to write it up. :heart:
Aw yea, like @edenic666 said: SO CUTE!
This is so cool because we also did a match / merge game and seeing how different your interpretation was is refreshing. Also nice to see a physics-based take on matching.
My favourite moment is where you feel like you've got a handle on how to delivery stuff and then you notice the left-most box filling and and it's like "oh dear ... it's going to overflow!"
Really nice touch with the title screen :heart_eyes:
Oh wow, this is excellent technically. Everything I tried building worked just as I expected it to.
The audio in this is also so solid, just tied everything together so nicely.
Also reflecting on it now, you've done such a good job at making things intuitive enough to not need a tutorial. Even though there's a lot going on, the design choices are clear enough that you can just dive right in.
If I had to nitpick, I wish there was a way to summon the cargo while inside the vehicle. I really like the feeling of having to get out and press the button to load my contraption the first few times... but many iterations later it starts feeling like a chore.
Great work.
Wow, I found the EX- levels to be really creative. Like @cloistered I think my fav idea was the piano element.
Cool jam!
I wanted to echo some of the other commentor's input. Like @manogugas I also found the UI to be hard to read in some parts. E.g. the White text with the road as a background. Or differentiating enabled vs disabled buttons. It was always possible to read stuff, just required effort which feels more jarring in a game like this where you're often reading and comparing text.
I also really like the visuals. The vehicle art is so charming and got me pretty invested it keeping it alive.
Like @rhewid I also felt I got unfair trades sometimes. The game was functioning perfectly and when I examined the buy and sell prices more closely I could have seen that some of the choices I made were silly. However, my expectation as a player when I saw "coal shortage", purchased as much could as I could and then arrive in the town to see they're only paying 50% of my cost ... that made me _feel_ cheated. I felt myself wanting to be heavily rewarded.
Amazing visuals :heart_eyes: and solid platforming.
Really nice touch dragging that chain around with you the whole time :smile:
Hah, my first impression was just like @tinykidtoo "so much in this jam, shooting, looting, quests".
My favourite moment is walking out of the camp's gate for the first time. There's zombies right in front of you scootching around and also this whole world to explore. That tension between "I can go explore" and "I need to be careful" felt so good for me.
Read through your comments and thought your use of the asset packs was really smart. Great way to get quick results, elevate the project and spend your jam time working on parts you clearly enjoyed ... rather than bashing out tons of assets.
A niggle I had with the FPS control was that the acceleration when moving feels a little sluggish. Like it would take me longer than expected to reach full walking speed. My personal preference would be to reach speed faster.
Also liked what you did with the ammo / reload indicator. Seeing it visually instead "X / Y remaining" was a nice touch.
Hey, I get an error when trying to run the game. 2023-05-02 09-55-36 Screenshot 104.png
Is there any easy fix?
@archaeognathus no sweat, thanks for responding.
This is great and lots of good feedback in other comments too.
What I found myself wanting most is the ability to move faster. I wanted to be a be able to push my luck and try finish the levels faster. :smile:
Haha, the trucks at the end are great!
I found it strange to aim in this. Like if I moved my mouse slowly / gently the input didn't register somehow. That made it kinda difficult to fling boxes from far.
Cool jam, I liked the tone set in this.