Lifeless by Kaisean Games 2019-05-02T16:51:41Z
Caught this on Kyla's stream, and I gotta say this was awesome!! Super entertaining. Nice job.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Bakenshake
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | 👥 | the cards we're dealt | jam | 383 | 3.78 | 3.12 | 3.44 | 3.63 | 4.45 | 4.14 | 2.71 | 4.33 |
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | 👥 | Force of Nature | jam | 157 | 3.84 | 3.52 | 3.53 | 4.01 | 4.16 | 3.90 | 3.71 |
Caught this on Kyla's stream, and I gotta say this was awesome!! Super entertaining. Nice job.
This was awesome to play, and I paid the Lich off in full!! I only sacrificed 3 adventurers at the beginning. Currently, I think it is too easy to get by on sending adventurers out on successful quests as the more that return, the more money the inn earns off their tabs. My biggest complaint is that I played for 20 minutes, and I desperately wanted the music to change more than it did. I understand it's all Freesound stuff done for a jam, but the music would be the first thing I replace. It'd also be nice if the Log was on its own space so that it's easier to read. And ramp up that difficulty! Force me to kill those adventurers. All in all, a great entry, and I had fun playing it. Thank you!
Love the graphics in this! Wish there were more UI elements to explain things. Also the font for reading text is difficult to read. Nice job, though.
Love the title screen. The graphics, in general, are great. I wish there was music to this, but I believe other commenters have said this already. I did hit a bug where if I put an organ where it couldn't go, it would do its animation but then entire background would become the color of the organ. I'm using Firefox, so no clue what that was about.
Also I did struggle to understand the difference between layers. Some more tutorial or UI feedback might help in this. Otherwise, good job!
The player is pretty responsive and refined, and I had to be sooo patient with myself to get anywhere. Nice job.
This is a clever concept. I love it. The first image on the page reminded me of the Dark Souls games where mimic chests try to attack you. I liked the tutorial screens. Smart. However, I felt like the music and sound effects didn't really go together with the setting or player.
I think I found a bug too? Maybe? I flung 2 enemies off screen. They didn't die. They just went off screen, and now I'm stuck at the wave I'm on, because the game thinks they're still alive. I had to wait awhile for them to return to continue playing.
Kudos for having a volume slider and nice animations. I wish we could have included audio options in our entry! However, I do wish there was a pause screen. That's probably kinda nitpicky, though. Overall, nice job!! The idea is hilarious and with some polish could be really fun, especially in a multiplayer setting.
This game kind of reminds me of mine except it's much more on the chill side of things. I've just been letting it hangout and play me some music. I appreciate the fact that I have to click for text. The game lets me take my time. Right on. Good job. :)
Edit: Aw, I failed, and I'm not a fan of having to re-click through everything. How very zen, though. Haha.
Nice little platformer! Cool you used pico8 and stuff. Would have loved to had some ambient background music (I used the web version btw). Otherwise, good job! :)
Downloaded the source, extracted, and it crashed for me after clicking the executable.
Love that this was point-and-click. It was hard to understand some of the audio pieces, and I didn't understand my entire goal. I kept clicking away, though!! Had fun. Thanks for this.
I love the graphics and the interface but now all it is needs is some music and UI love!!
The main character for this is so cute. I love the image for when you finish a level. Puzzles were good!! Would have loved to have some ambient music, though.
This game was really funny and felt like a jab at the millenials (said as a millenial)? I enjoyed the dashing and whatnot, though. It was fun and silly!
I love the concept of this. Even though the premise to tie it to the theme was a stretch and kind of terrible, I found myself strangely relaxed while playing. The music and sfx are superb. I love how get glimpses of what's in the distance. It's kind of like a reversed fog of war in my mind. Good job!
This is so creative!! I am obsessed. Hi, I'm Kati. I'm sitting at #2! Hell yeah!!!
There is kind of a learning curve, because you have your jump keys, but then you also have to type. Makes you remember how to spell words for sure.
A note, though. I didn't realize I needed to fully spell the word. I thought typing part of it and then hopping on it was sufficient as I thought I was climbing as opposed to spelling. Maybe just an info page or something to refer to, because there's also the bit where if you don't spell the full word, then it disappears as soon as you hop on it.
It's cleverly designed and fun and simple. I'd definitely continue work on this.
So I've been playing a lot more, and I had some extra thoughts that I wanted to add.
1. I think it'd be cool to add some data for when the player dies or maybe just to view. A stats screen if you will that includes but not limited to or doesn't include at all (lol): a. Longest word spelled b. Words per minute c. Number of words spelled since playing d. Most frequent upgrade bought e. Number of deaths by punctuation 2. A pause screen!!! Sometimes I get real far but then real life creeps up. 3. To really ramp up difficulty for those get git gud, you can include more than just words. Characters from the keyboard or l33t spellings. Haha. 4. Tweak the algorithm to have more words that have similar substrings for another type of difficulty. For example, when you spell spire, you also spell part of spit. This happens already somewhat naturally which forces players to only spell part of the word and then rush to finish it once clearing it. I don't know, thought it might be another layer of fun to add. Yay, regular expressions. :D
Okay, that's all for now, but I may have more. Hope you don't mind!! :)
Found out that if you jump above a partially finished word that has a spring and you're on the spring but you finish the word, you will fall through the word and die. :(
@secretpocketcat Sorry to keep commenting, but as you said sorting the words alphabetically, that could be the game progression. Each level is a letter set or something, and the jam version could be free mode. Could also do level sets by common words, uncommon, rare, etc.
It'd be neat to see a game like this localized.
This was disgusting and hilarious. I kept getting so pissed off when I would get 400k in pts and then still not win. What do you have to hit? I have yet to win, but I've been sitting here for 15 minutes, playing the dang thing. Great job.
@coleslaughter I'm coming back to beat the dev high score. *ahem*
I love the music in this! It's soooo pretty. Maybe a little loud but ah well. It's hard to read the cost of the magic. It was fun to discover that each spell only works on certain enemies. Nicely done!\
Edit: Especially love the game over music. The sound effects are kind of intense but are nice feedback in the game.
This was a pretty polished little dungeon crawler! I love the lighting, and the concept is very Frankenstein. I did want to have my own showdown with the Professore, but I understand the time constraints. Good job!
Okay, but the fact that Michael Scarn (Threat Level Midnight?) was on that list made my day. The animations and voice acting of this were hysterical and fun. It fits the theme perfectly, in my opinion, and was fun to play. I did have some issues clicking the right option in a couple of instances, but that was the only thing I noticed. Great job here. Would love to see more polish and more interactive options. Maybe some proc gen responses or people?
Ooo, I was writing this as I was going to restart (I failed first time), and I also go the blue screen bug the previous commenter mentioned. Also yes, an option to skip the intro would be delightful.
This game was pretty neat in concept, but I would have really appreciated some ambient audio in this! Would have added so much more. Also, there's no timer or rush for me to get souls over to the other side, so I can really take my time. Not sure if you want to add that feeling to it, but I think you easily could. All in all, good job!
I'm in second place! Woo! I think there are some UI polish that could be helped. Like, if I click on a building I stay on it, because sometimes I want to upgrade it more than once. I didn't realize I could upgrade buildings or sell them for life until I started running out of room. I don't recall that being included in the tutorial (a tutorial included was brilliant). Another thing with UI, since there is an online leaderboard (which contributed to me competitively playing longer), I wish that more HUD elements were at the top of the screen rather than having to hover over the stats book or what level I'm at. Seeing the rates would have saved time and made my actions clearer with the types of buildings I built as the game progressed. Nice little concept here. I enjoyed it a lot!
Gave me so much nostalgia. I appreciated that it wasn't just got to point A, talk, and then go to point B. There were puzzles and a story and a world that broke up the going from here to there. It was nice and cute. Took the theme to a different place. Good job.
Sidenote: LOVE that you can actually play it on a Gameboy. Sending to a friend to try now. :)
I enjoyed this concept a lot. I think it's an interesting take on a top down dungeon crawler. I struggled to pass the first level! Appreciated the sound effects as that was good feedback to the player, since there's not much in the way of UI here. A good place to start with polish would be with some ambient music and some UI, but the core mechanic is very clear here. Nice work.
This was well executed, and the addition of putting the words you can collect in bold was an excellent update. I loved the music. I definitely referred to the guide after a while, but I made it! Cool concept and great execution!
The graphics are nice, and the controls are easy. You move a lot with just WASD, though, which took some getting used to. I like all the different sprites for enemies, though. Nice variation.
I really enjoyed this! I've yet to survive, but I love the characters and the setting. The graphics are unique and cute as well. Nice job with this! Hope to see more. :)
I like the music, and this is a really cool idea. Good use of procedural generation, in my opinion. Games like this need more use feedback. I wish I could have hovered over my stats and re-read what they do. Also would have liked to have had some information about what changing the mercenaries routines does. Does increasing discipline cost me morale? Does buying better equipment mean I complete quests faster? Things like that.
Running more than 1 quest would be cool or at least giving the player something else to do while there is a mission progress screen. Because, sometimes I'd sit at a screen for a handful of minutes.
Also, I never knew why I lost. As other players said, I got stuck on a mission (one time was caravan and the other was a patrol) and then had to wait until I lost. I'd keep working on this, because it's a fun little game with a decent amount packed in.
Very difficult to move the hands around and unclear as to how to serve drinks even after knowing controls! Great art, though.
It's a fun game! I think I'd prefer to have an on screen popup or something other onscreen indicator of where people came from. The camera shake is too much, in my opinion. It's fun, though, but movement seems a little clunky. As everyone else has already said, it's definitely got some Hotling Miami vibes.
Cool tower defense game, but the sound effects are way too loud!! At lest on my machine. :pig:
I like the idea and how it's simple, but you got your core mechanic across. Now time for polish, right? ;)
Very cool interactive narrative experience. It is pretty difficult to tell who are the friends and who aren't. I went through almost every variation, I believe, but I love the concept and layout. It's well executed. I wish there was music, though? Great job, though!
This was fun and reminded me of our game a little bit (we have the endless waves and doing actions cost life)! The title screen music is awesome as is the in-game music. Are their only sound effects for certain spells? I don't recall hearing one for the first one. Love all the dying sounds though. Haha.
I didn't realize that I used the 3rd spell to regain my life until after I had died once already. I didn't use many other spells aside from the 1st and 3rd ones. The 2nd one cost too much, and I had no idea what the 4th one did. I clicked the right mouse button, raising the dead, but do they fight for me? I wasn't sure. All in all, I had fun with it!!
Love the music to this. Not much in the way of gameplay. Once I had invested in a handful of buildings, I just had to wait, but that's how investing goes, isn't it? :)
Whoa! This was very meta, and it was weirdly humorous while being somewhat scary. At first, I was getting annoyed with all the messages, but then the messages were directed to me which shifted my thinking. All in all, fun and creepy and well executed. Great art!
The literal interpretation of the theme for this one is pretty great. Loved the 8bit tune at the beginning when Abe was announced. I would have preferred more user feedback on some things like how much dmg I took and stuff. I appreciated that the coins didn't disappear after a certain amount of time, so I could always get them. Nice job here.
This is a really cool concept. I would love to see it expanded. Reminds me of when people played Pokemon as a group. Very hive mind oriented. Reminds me of the borg a bit too. Wish there was more feedback on screen and my individual contributions.
The concept of this is hysterical, and the graphics are awesome. Shows how much capitalism does run your life. Oh what joy.
The thing that bothered me the most, though, was jumping. It didn't feel super responsive. I think polishing this up and adding music would make it amaaazing. Had fun playing and good job. :)
The web version does not work. :(
Don't really have any complaints here about this. It's pretty polished for a game jam. Might be cool to see how many days you can survive. Other than being able to payout to the mafia, is there any way to win and end the game? Great job, though.
I got stuck on the third puzzle. Couldn't figure out how to use the button! This is super duper creative, and I love it. Also love your notes about maybe possible kinda sorta their being an FPS hidden in here. Good job!
This does look pretty polished. A little bit of a learning curve. It needs some UI love. Hope to see that in polish, if that happens. I enjoyed the audio lines and cool platforming.
Pretty cool this was made in Construct!! Simple and nice little platformer here. I might make the doors a different color as I didn't realize that was my goal. I kept jumping past it on the first level. Haha. Congrats for doing the compo, though!
@snowinn RMB being Right Mouse Button did nothing? Sorry to hear that and thanks for the feedback! Can you tell me what platform you were on?
@entropy Thank you!! Not sure how the others feel, but I would like to continue developing it. Yesterday I had thought a ranged attack (exactly throwing a branch or tree trunks) would have been awesome. Had not considered the mini map, but that makes sense. It could be super simple too. Gray box with red dots in top right corner to start. Perhaps a hover or click the icons can give more explanation as to what they do and their dmg/range. I have a lot of ideas to add to this, but who knows what will happen. Thank you for your feedback! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
@tinymushroom Yes, I totally agree! More tool tips in-game and maybe an example wave. The saplings are the small looks trees with red or yellow leaves. A wave won't start until you build your first building.
Thank you about the music! I had wanted it to continue playing on other screens as well but alas time.
@mika-la-grand You earn forest energy by having more saplings turned into buildings. Enemies won't start spawning until you build your first structure. Refer to the How to Play screenshot above! Hope this helps, and sorry for the confusion. :(
@niterich Thanks for the feedback! We changed our tileset partway through but didn't update the building and sapling assets in time. Enemies do destroy buildings, but at earlier waves they are pretty weak.
Love the premise and the tie into the theme. Getting Bladerunner vibes here-ish. The white text on beige background is difficult to read, though.
Love the gameplay, but I didn't have much reason to trade my body parts for resources. Maybe I didn't make it far enough. Also do days not progress unless you spend a night in the RV? I only ever went back once. After I traded my legs, I could hardly move which made the game a lot less fun. I liked the oddities I found around the world and the humor, but I just wanted more.
Overall, great job though for the time you had. Would like to see this developed further.
Hey! This was a super difficult platformer. Loved the tubes and stuff. I need a little bit more feedback as to what I was earning and what each death cost me. I made it to the end but only with $0.1 :(
Love the music for this. I let it sit at the main scree for a while, honestly. I think it's cute how the attack animations are away from the body. Reminds me of Rayman a little bit. Everything was fluid, but I do agree with @edevjogos about adding minions. Think it'd make it more action packed and less walking sim. Nice job, though.
Loved the graphics, the music, and the way the UI was impacted by the body mutilation which also freaked me out by the way. I died on day 3. I messed up on the first one and never seemed to recover. Would be nice to have feedback as to how much money you need to make per day. I liked how there were no instructions in what flavors were or how to make big scoops. Added a lot to the game. Job well done here.
The skill tree is nice. A lot of text on that first screen, though! Pretty complete game here in my opinion. Nice job.
EDIT: In the training screen, it's hard to see what the block button is!!
This was a clever and simple concept! Love the take on nine lives, honestly. I had one thought, though. It'd make the game harder, but if the white cats could collect hearts too. It'd force the player to really go for them instead of waiting until after they kill all the other cats. Great job, though! :)
The graphics are cool! The intro was a little long and waiting for text to print is never fun. Very unique style, though. Nice take on the theme too.
Nice concept. Would love to see it polished!
Is the music procedural based on what you hit? It changed a lot. This is an extremely clever concept. I loved it. I found myself playing it much longer than I had thought I would. Good job. :)
Great entry! Excited to see the development continue. As others have said, I do get Darkest Dungeon vibes, but it's unique in the key sequences. Nice take on that. Graphics are solid. Would have liked a tooltip hover to know what items did for me as well as maybe a minimap of the dungeon? Or is just endless?
@selewi Oh my bad!! I didn't realize that. Thanks for clarifying. Maybe I went too fast and was distracted by the graphics. :)
The sound effects in this are awesome and really on point. I enjoyed them a lot. Are the levels procedurally generated? I got a different one each time I died. I played the LD version of the game, not the post-jam one (totally dig how that is an option in the main menu - well done). Also your UI stuff is well thought out. For me, some of the text did cut off, but that's my only complaint. I had fun playing it!
Yeah, this is giving me some old school graphics vibes. Like DOOM era or TR as others have said. It was fun. I wasn't sure if I won the game once I made it to the blue teleporter thing? It offered me the start screen with a difficulty rating to choose, so I assume so? Anyway, nice job, and I really dig the music.
This was hilarious to play. What a reflection of today. Have any streamers played it? I think that'd be interesting. I agree with what others have said about feedback and more explanation of what each action costs or does. I did click the WTF button, but it wasn't as clear as I thought it could be. Overall, good job guys!
I love this game! Even though it's short, the core and polish is there. I appreciated that hovering over the icons at the top told me what they did. Otherwise, I would have had no idea. Are the encounters random? I did not replay once I beat it. The art and music fit it perfectly. I really enjoy the sound effects that come with each encounter. Reminds me of Sunless Sea. The node traversal is remnant of Faster Than Light which is another one of my favorites. Would love to see this polished more. Will playtest. Hope to buy. Great job!
Edit: I meant to include something about the worldbuilding. The foundation is there, but I'd love to see more of it.
Nice concept! I like the turn based pieces but hiding what's on the tiles to be a selection of things as well as including a tooltip to inform the player what each ability does on hover. Something simple for more feedback is all. I liked it!
Yeah, I had to replay it once to get the hang of it. I think having the numbers as token pieces did not help. Perhaps using two different numbered textured images or something? It was unclear at first, but it's a cool concept. I enjoyed it.
Pretty awesome for the time you had! I love the included concept art. That looks like something out of Dark Souls. Honestly, the premise kind of reminded me of DS. Anyway, nice.
I agree with everything the first commenter said. I too struggled with the double jump. It also felt weird to me that 'A' was the jump key rather than Space but to each their own. Congratulations on your first LD!
Can you get beyond the second screen where it's just the two of you? I ate everything I could think of with each other. Hahaha.
Rather creative and bizarre, but I found myself liking it. Was disgusted and shocked when the head came off, but you'll have that, I suppose.
The shooting bug prevented me from making it very far. I did climb the steps, and I appreciated the narrator. Pretty simple concept. Definitely an alpha!
It looks awesome, and I love puzzle games! As others have said, I don't have a Mac! Please consider exporting to Windows and/or Linux!! :)
This is adorable!! Yeah, no audio in the web version, but thanks for including it later. :) My favorite puzzle was the piano, and I only found 29! I was so close but also very tired. Cute and relaxing. Nice change of pace. <3
Love the music to this and how it ties to the theme! However, it took me a handful of rounds to realize that I could buy more scytheman by clicking the plus symbol. I kept only putting one down at a time for at least 6 rounds. I love the isometric look and graphics too. It works really well in this type of game. I could play a scytheman on a block that I had already reaped souls from which seemed to have no benefit, so I don't know why I was allowed to do it?
Would love to see this expanded as it is a good base for a game and enjoyed playing. Good job!
This was an absolute joy to play and reminded me of what it feels like to actually play the stonks. Well done and great take on the theme.
Incredibly well executed entry! Love that it was made in Godot (so was our entry). Great design and gameplay. It was *just* challenging enough for me in my opinion.
If you're looking for Godot-related game jams, check out the Godot Wild Jam.
Again, awesome entry! One of my favorites so far.
Somehow, I ended up clicking for like 20+ minutes! Brilliant game and cleverly presented. Wish I had some ambient music in the background but overall good stuff. :)
The atmosphere of the game, especially the sound design and music were perfect. Simple, effective, and well done. :)
Clever little game here! It was smart to use rock, paper, scissors as it's a rather universal game. The UI is a bit unclear at the bottom, but I figured it out. I understand the time constraints. Good job!
Surprised at how anxious and fun this was to play. I didn't realize it was literally a text-based runner until I had to jump over walls haha. Would love to see it expanded out and/or get more complicated as you survive longer. I only survived for 42 seconds. Great entry! :)
This was awesome to play. Cute, clever, and fun. Fits the fall vibes perfectly too, well done! :)
This was so fun to play! My highest score was 50. Very satisfying to see the constant split and addition pieces. I can definitely see people competing on leaderboards with a mobile port. Would be awesome. Good job. :)
Incredibly clever for such a simple mechanic. I made it through a few levels, and you really have to start thinking about the jumpback effect you get from running into a wall. Had to completely rethink how I go about platforming. Well done!
Awesome concept here. I was able to successfully survive and fill the entire grid which was fun! Wish it gave me some sort of "You did it!" but otherwise fantastic job. Chill simulator that I really enjoyed. Oh! One more thing would have been to add the name of each building type. I kept having to hover until I learned them by their picture. :)
Cute little game. Welcome to the Godot community! We also made our entry in it. :) It was a bit unclear as to what I needed to do and how but otherwise good job!