Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Autumnotopia
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | Let's Play 'KILLGORE MURDERMASTER RPG' | jam | 2.75 | 2.50 | 2.87 | 1.87 | 2.87 | 3.62 | 3.00 | |||
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | (After A) PARTY SIMULATOR 2018 | jam | 350 | 3.61 | 3.31 | 3.31 | 4.02 | 3.55 | 3.97 | 3.45 | ||
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | You Can't Dodge Your Feelings! | jam | 843 | 3.19 | 2.80 | 2.67 | 3.25 | 3.87 | 3.58 | 3.44 | ||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | 👥 | Power Plant | jam | 282 | 3.57 | 3.14 | 2.76 | 3.66 | 3.90 | 3.23 | 3.00 | 3.81 |
Overall, I think the concept is really fun. But the difficulty curve is way too steep (I've been trying for like 10 minutes to get past the level with the warning that it may be hard). Could be something that would be cool to see after some more playtesting though
I think the graphics, while minimalist, look good. Admittedly, I have no idea what this has to do with the theme, but the music sounded good!
I can't get beyond the 2nd level, so it definitely doesn't come off as too easy for me (though I'm Bad at Button Mashing, so that's no surprise). The graphics are charming and the music fits the tone of the game very well
The movement felt nice and comfy, and the high-score tracking was a nice touch on a simple concept. I feel like the battery depleting / battery spawn rate could have been balanced a little better, though
Overall, I liked how it played kind of like a mix of early Sim City games and tower defense games. It was a bit hard to keep track of what was within range of what, powerwise, but I think the concept is really cool
The atmosphere was really well executed. The graphics and sound effects working well together. I also enjoyed the concept a lot, though it was a bit difficult for me to tell how much charge any given timer had.
The sound design was really well done. I think the humor was mostly good, though I feel that near the end you leaned a little too hard on memes. Overall pretty well polished though!
The actual controls screen in-game seems really tiny on my screen and hard to read. But I like the concept, and it is pretty fun. It can be hard to control though. Other than everything being small, I think the graphics (though simplistic) look good!
I think you built up a really good atmosphere. The art, while having a really nice style, was a little rough (which obviously isn't really a problem given that it's a 72 hour jam haha), but I really liked the wire puzzle dynamic!
Doing a 3d game for your first LD is pretty impressive! The controls seemed like they could have been improved on a bit, but overall a solid effort
It took me a bit to figure out what to do, but rereading the 'rules' after exploring for a bit helped me figure it out. The tiles popping in felt really nice, and I feel like it was just difficult enough to be interesting
Overall very polished, and I appreciate that you didn't go in the obvious resource-management direction that a lot of other games did.
(Accidentally double posted, oops!)
The graphics look good and the idea is funny, but as you realized you didn't really have time to finish. I was a little confused about what to do other than just put the items on the ground.
The art was done beautifully and reminds me of obscure point and click games from the 2000s. It took me a while to understand what the goal was, and I couldn't figure out if there was any 'win' condition other than just being full of burrito.
Overall, I think the graphics and the general atmosphere were really nice. Having to scale the titan to access different things is an interesting spin on a lot of mech/kaiju-genre games, though I think the locations of the seats and stuff could be made a little clearer in the minimap (as it is now I feel like they blend in a little)
The graphics and overall style direction were well done! Very cute
The graphics and music were good! I feel like this is one of those games that's intended to be difficult, which makes it hard to criticize the controls. That said, even for that sort of platformer, I felt like the controls were loose and didn't feel particularly fun. I think if you tightened up the actual controls, that would allow you to put in more interesting, precise, challenges.
This was fun to play (though maybe on the difficult side at times). It reminds me of like physics simulators and things along those lines.
As a big fan of mysteries, I really enjoyed this. Your take on the genre was interesting! It kind of reminds me of that concept of journalism where you like... Change the 'truth' depending on what you choose to report. The first time I got an incorrect 'solution' I was confused, but after playing around with it more I got it.
I'm still not sure that I really see the time machine in the second case though haha, but otherwise I liked the mix of text/music/photo files!
A slight twist on a classic game. I appreciate the modification you made to the asteroid style gameplay to make it fit the theme! It did seem like maybe it could have been balanced a little better though, though reading over comments it looks like you've talked about that a little
It took me a while to get it, but overall very well put together! I think an indicator of where you were 'digging' would be nice, but otherwise it was pretty intuitive actually. The art was good too!
I couldn't tell if it was actually randomized or not, but it gave me a lot of real cool roguelike vibes. I think your interpretation of the theme is really cool, and everything seemed reasonably coherent to me!
Despite the aforementioned lack of polish, I had fun with it (which isn't something I can say about other games with better graphics). The core gameplay of min-maxing your cards with your various combos is simple but I think it expanded in some cool ways.
The only thing that confused me at first was that different areas come and go as far as events are concerned. I think a textbox just saying like 'nothing going on here!' would have made more sense to me haha. Otherwise, I didn't run into any bugs or anything which is nice!
I didn't 'get' the connection with the theme until I sat down to score it. Duh. But really the 'space' connection is funny and clever haha.
I really liked the humor in the game! I like clicker games, so the concept was good, but I wish that there was a little more interactivity with my hoard. Like being able to pick up the ball or something. I also notice that your text seems really distorted, like it was a smaller size that you resized. Sometimes crunchy graphics can be good for a joke, but this didn't necessarily come off as intentional if that's what you meant.
I like the little pixel art portraits! I think the game would have maybe meshed a little better/been a little more cohesive if the other art elements were also pixelated though. I agree with the others about features that would have been nice (tutorial, more sound feedback, faster-falling button, etc) but obviously you were pretty limited on time so no foul.
I like the concept though, it'd be cool to see a more developed version of it!
@crazyd Just curious, what items did you think were/weren't vegan? I'm probably going to add a different background color to indicate if it's in the right inventory or not, but I'm always nervous if it's because people genuinely don't know what is/isn't vegan or if it's just that it wasn't clear what items were supposed to be haha
@scott-steffes , @bearmask-studios , @crazym : Thanks for the feedback! You all are totally right haha, I added a post-jam version on itch with highlighting for items that violate the rules and saving item positions and stuff.
I like your take on the theme (almost an inversion of 'running out of space'), and I always like seeing games that are a little more personal than just generic platformers. Overall a sweet story! (Even if getting through the darkness took a bit haha)
The graphics are really nice! I like the grumpy guy in the fish room.
This is a really cool concept! I enjoyed solving the puzzles, though the council room one seems a little obtuse. I liked the ascii art for the cultist a lot too, it's a nice touch
'Hmm what noise does a music based robot make?' '...miku miku'.
I really enjoyed this little experience. The dialogue and aesthetic are very charming!
This is a pretty interesting entry. I like what you were going for, and the implementation is neat. I didn't always understand what ended my playthroughs (was there just a set number of turns or something? Though in retrospect maybe I bumped into the walls? But at the time I didn't notice), but for a single person this was impressive!
I always struggle with tetris, but I like the slight twist you added!
The concept art is really cool! It's a little jarring though when viewed alongside the pixel art. That paired with the story given separately kind of gives me a retro game vibe which I think is neat (like how you'd have to read the manual to understand the story of a game).
I'm not entirely sure if I get the goal? I killed all the orcs that were visible on the screen and tried walking around but nothing happened. Overall though a cool effort!
I really dig (no pun intended) the art and the design of the player character. This is a really interesting concept, I like that the bottom of the screen moved up instead of it being a 'race the screen' sort of thing.
I liked how relaxing it was. The puzzles were relatively easy, but that's okay. Overall very charming.
Alas, my time as a hoarder ended when I got trapped between boxes. Overall a good use of the theme and I liked the graphics. On my second playthrough (where I was attempting to lose the game/mess with it) I managed to jump up onto the roof of the house and then into the abyss haha
This seems like a really ambitious project! The illustrations are really cool, but the fixed screen size made it a little hard to read things sometimes. I feel like there were elements of the card game I didn't really grasp.
As someone who's bad with remembering names, I feel like having the names next to the portraits on the bottom would have helped a little with remembering who was who. Overall a really cool submission!
This is one of those games that clicks with me super well - low pressure, good jokes, and more-or-less sea-life themed. I didn't run into any bugs on my playthrough so that's also good. Well done!
I really dig how concise this is. The art is really charming and gameplay is simple, nothing wrong with that.
Simple, but really well polished! I liked the core gameplay too, it seemed fairly intuitive after a few seconds.
I appreciate the wordplay and the colorful art is cool. A little short (obviously), but I like that the goal was very clear and the game was winnable haha
I like the interpretation of the theme - mainly the concept that the more people you have involved in something, the more difficult it is to actually meet to work on that thing. The puzzles were nice too, yeah a little simple. But also that's what I expect out of the first few puzzles of a game. Well done!
The graphics and aesthetic are really well done! It reminds me of something like Maniac Mansion or other early Lucas Arts games, which is definitely a compliment. I also appreciate your interpretation of two incompatible genres, the humor really sells it! The gameplay itself is also fine, though I had some difficulties wrapping my head around how the hitboxes worked. It being psuedo-grid based was actually kind of an interesting decision I feel.
I like how quickly the 'rounds' go, it makes it easier and less frustrating to play multiple times. I wish at the end it would display your final rank or something so that you could track how well you do from game to game easier.
A really cute concept! Something like this feels like it could be modified into a party game of some kind. I liked a lot of the little details, like the paint balls turning the background elements different colors.
What a complex and interesting concept! The art felt unique too, which I know sometimes is an issue in VNs. You managed to get an impressive amount of options and writing in, I kept being surprised when I went to a menu and there was like ~6 options. Overall you managed to finish an impressive amount of content, well done!
Also haha it's not a big deal, but it always bothers me when games ask for my name then make me a boy ('Sir'). At least warn me I should put in a fake name, you know?
An interesting control concept, it'd have been cool to see it developed some more.
I think that your prose was well written, the use of repetition was cool and your writing style is actually really nice. But I do think that the plot itself was a little generic. In a game that's entirely story based, it's important to make an impact. Ironically for a story that's about disagreements, there was a lack of conflict that I think made the game less interesting.
I do appreciate a significantly different approach from everyone else, it sets you apart really well!
The lewd stuff felt kind of out of place and childish to be honest, but otherwise I think that doing a Starcraft fanfic was a pretty cool choice haha. The graphics and background music were effective
Very simple, but looking through your source code for easter eggs was fun!
I liked the balance you forced the players to think about, it's a pretty neat way of implementing the genre combination.
An interesting combination of genres, but they felt kind of disconnected. Your theme was interesting, but I think it could come through a little bit stronger earlier on, maybe a more cohesive string of texts instead of single words? But overall really cool!
What a well put together game! I really like the purple/green color scheme, and the game play feels good. It took me a little bit to understand that the reloading feature was cards from your discard pile (I'm an idiot who doesn't read though, so that may have been my own fault).
The concept is really fun! It feels rewarding to work out the paths and smelt things. The time limit makes it hard to get a grasp on what's happening though.
In some ways, the 'real time' aspect was more interesting than the card aspect (or at least equally as interesting?). This reminds me of an idle game, with the having to wait for cards aspect. The graphics remind me a lot of DOS citybuilding games too.
Remember that if you want others to see your game, to rate other peoples' games. The more ratings and feedback you give others, the higher your game displays to others when they look for games.
It looks like you forgot to put a link to your game, if you actually finished something and uploaded it be sure to post it so others can play it :D
@Lars DK: Ah, did you check the 'Help' button? I noticed someone else that didn't seem to see it either, I probably should make it more visible haha. It's 'D' to Duck.
@nidup Haha yeah, I considered it but I wanted the first encounter to be kind of a surprise (subverting normal visual novel style stuff where it's just entirely advancing the text with no other user commands). I feel like if the player is warned it loses a little bit of impact. It's a difficult balancing act though, thank you for your feedback!
I wish this was turn based, but overall I liked the aesthetic and concept.
I always like cooking games, so you appealed to me from the get go. Overall gathering stuff felt nice, but because of only having three bombs/big room/slowish walking speed it felt like it took a long time to get things. It also felt unclear to me how much of each resource was needed for things.
Also the blobby dude sprite was very good.
The graphics were very cute! Well done. I agree with what some of the above commenters said though, that it felt like flying was supposed to be fun, but then you were kind of punished for doing it. But, everything ran smoothly and I don't think I ran into any bugs to speak of!
Overall, your aesthetics are good! The music and graphics are all fitting. I'm not sure that I agree that puzzle and horror are generally incompatible, but your puzzles follow a time tested format. Overall, well done on finishing everything more or less!
Also be sure to rate other peoples games if you want yours to be scored at the end, the LD Ranking formula makes your game more visible to others if you rate games.
I notice you exported this from GameMaker as an installable exe, if you click the drop down box you can actually export it as a standalone exe. This makes it so people don't have to install the game and can just play it immediately after downloading it - a minor adjustment that makes it a lot more approachable :)
I like your concept, and you did manage to implement a lot of stuff. As bamboy mentioned, I think that a lot of the 'issues' were mainly just presentation stuff. The graphics were a little rough (understandably), but if there were maybe little text prompts in addition, as reminders, it would help. Combine that with minor audio queues and other fix ups (making it so you can restart without restarting the whole application) and I think it'd help things a lot
I think your base concept is fun, but as the others mentioned you have some balance issues. Given how much the piggy banks give vs how much you collect from coins, I feel like the coins were effectively worthless. Because of this it took a really long time to get into the main meat of the game... But that's all fairly minor stuff, your general concept was good! Well done.
I think the graphics were really cute! As others have mentioned, the face-health system is neat. The combat felt a little pointless, as there was little room for error since you had so little health (and attacking seemed to be impossible without losing at least some health). The concept is really cool, but it was difficult to get a good look at the riddle since it was associated with one of the enemies (and as previously mentioned, you can't really hang around enemies very easily). I think with some minor adjustments it could be a lot of fun though!
I also couldn't figure out how to upgrade my stuff until coming back and rereading things like the comments. The concept is really neat though, and it feels like a fun management setup with having to balance between upgrading and collecting stuff. The turning radius felt awful quick though, so driving at times was a little weird. Overall most of the problems are pretty minor things that would be resolved with either minor adjustment or a bit more of a clear of an explanation, so well done!
The graphics/sound and mood are really good! Unfortunately the lag was too much for me to really play much of it. I know that when my game had significant lag issues in HTML5, the local version was much much quicker. But it didn't appear that there was a downloadable version?
The concept is really cool, but I feel like it probably would benefit from an easier first 'level'. I could see a lot of people getting frustrated with the timing on the jump and giving up. That said I thought that, for what it was, the art and music was fitting. Everything seemed well put together and polished!
Oh, I love that you did a card game! The graphics are super slick and very professional looking, well done. A minor suggestion would be to maybe make a version with a white background (instead of yellow) for people who are worried about ink usage. Obviously it's a lot harder for people to play since it requires a physical copy and other people, but it looks like it'd be fun to play!
Also I really appreciate how literally you took the prompt. 'Racing' and 'Card Games' definitely do seem to be genres at odds.
The graphics were simple, but nice! As you mentioned, it obviously is unfinished. But good job on getting something finished and playable in browser!
I liked how little pressure there was, I feel like for a gardening game it's very fitting haha. It gets repetitive eventually, but for a jam game it's pretty impressive how long I stayed invested.
It'd be cool to see this concept fleshed out more, a dress up deck building game seems like it'd be fun. Your art is basically exactly what it needs to be for this sort of thing, any art except this would have felt out of place heheh
An interesting combo choice, for sure. I appreciate that you opted to include N/E/W/S or else the game would just drag on. I could see how it would be more of a game of strategy as compared to normal Pacman.
Your link is broken ('We're sorry. You can't access this item because it is in violation of our Terms of Service' according to google), be sure to fix it and put it back up so others can play and rate your game!
Haha I hate to say it, but it's still giving the same error. You could maybe try uploading it to itch.io or gamejolt and see if that works? Google for some reason seems to keep flagging it.
Good job on getting something uploaded and playable! That really is one of the hardest parts. The concept is interesting, but I can't tell what of the controls was intentional or unintentional (As another commenter said, the ball rotating messes with the controls). Overall, I was not able to successfully find the object, but I appreciate that the game did have a definite end instead of going on and on forever!
This game is a lot of fun to play! There's definitely some mechanics that just feel rewarding, and I think that this is goofy in a way that works really well. It almost reminds me of some of the 'simulator' games, where it's kind of hard to control but in a funny way and not a frustrating way. Similarly, I think the graphics worked out to that effect as well, the posterboard sprites look good.
There was so much attention to detail that you managed to pack in. I really liked the different combinations of enemies with regards to size/design/weapon, and also the fact that they were able to pick up weapons that were on the ground. I think you combined the two genres really well, with the various arcade elements enhancing the horror aspects instead of competing with them. The polish put on the graphics was nice too, with the randomized(?) background effects (like the blood/scratches) and the way your characters face shifted around as you moved.
Also it was almost definitely unintentional, but the face symbol representing the people you rescued reminds me of a recurring symbol from the movie Noroi, which just added to the horror atmosphere for me haha noroiface.jpg
Oh, this was pretty well executed! I like that you actually have two endings, and the discovery of who the boss was was pretty good. The graphics were also really cute, the crying dog at the end is just too cruel...
Be sure to rate other peoples games if you want your game to get more ratings btw! Your game is good but others probably aren't seeing it because of the ranking system.
Overall, this was a really good first LD entry! Good job on getting something more or less completed!
I second a few of the comments made above - I felt like the narrative arc could have been a little stronger. I appreciate that you tried to thematically work in the randomness/chaos as a like topic of discussion near the end, but you could have started some of that sort of connection earlier to make it feel more cohesive (similar to what someone above said about how Marco's loneliness plotline could have been more clear from an earlier point).
There were several typos. Given that it seems like English may not be your first language, your grammar was overall good! But I would watch out for consistency things - I noticed a line where 'ok' was capitalized two different ways, and occasionally forgetting to capitalize names. Especially in a VN, the polish on your script is really important since that's a solid 70% of what people see! (other than the cute girls, of course vov). It's also not a big deal, but most VNs that I've seen follow the kind of arbitrary grammatical rule that you spell out in words the numbers one through nine. I feel like it makes things look a little more professional in general?
I also think that some sort of way of displaying what the options were with each roll would be nice. In the game, the tale of 'The Fox and the Grapes' was used. But with the rolling, it often felt we were the fox unable to even see some grapes high up, you know?
It's impressive how long of a narrative you were able to do in such a short span of time though, so well done! You probably could have edited a little bit though and polished some of the really good concepts and ideas that you did have though. I look forward to seeing what you make in the future :smiley:
Obviously it's not fully fleshed out, but the content that's there is well polished. I love the art style you went with for the characters, and their personalities were cute too. I know you said 'never again' on twitter, but your prototypes are always so fun and have a lot of character haha
Overall, I felt like this was a pretty well crafted entry! There were some minor balance issues (but honestly what game doesn't have a few?), but I think the core mechanic is good. I beat the game on my first try while picking up every item though, so I'm not sure the 'weighing if an item pickup is worth it or not' aspect really came through.
The graphics were cool! Though a good rule of thumb is that if your game is basically entirely pixel art, that you should use a pixel font (you can find a ton of free nice looking ones on various font websites). I think that minor change would help your UI 'blend in' a lot better.