Dargontz PNCA by Lord_404 2019-10-07T14:52:39Z
Love the art style. But combat get s tedious when there are lots of enemy.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Baturinsky
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Galaxy Connect | compo | 266 | 2.83 | 2.69 | 3.50 | 3.40 | 3.00 | 2.02 | |||
| 2025 | 58 | Collector | Runesmith | jam | 739 | 2.75 | 2.28 | 3.92 | 2.31 | 2.00 | ||||
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | The Deepest Tentacle (WEB) | compo | 157 | 3.41 | 3.31 | 4.14 | 2.95 | 3.22 | 2.77 | 4.02 | 3.31 | |
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | Tiny Car | compo | 148 | 3.57 | 3.42 | 4.29 | 4.01 | 3.29 | 2.27 | 3.06 | ||
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Negative Space | compo | 283 | 3.20 | 3.01 | 3.62 | 4.05 | 2.81 | 2.10 | 2.56 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Flip the board | compo | 146 | 3.73 | 3.58 | 4.17 | 4.21 | 3.41 | ||||
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Flood Fill Miner | compo | 534 | 3.34 | 2.93 | 3.73 | 3.44 | 2.35 | ||||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | A Certain Particle Chamber | compo | 86 | 3.85 | 3.61 | 4.28 | 3.66 | 3.45 | 3.42 | |||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | Cellular: Automata | compo | 52 | 4.05 | 3.78 | 4.18 | 4.38 | 3.68 | ||||
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | White Starts With Nothing | compo | 50 | 3.94 | 3.76 | 4.34 | 4.41 | 2.54 | ||||
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | VCity | compo |
Love the art style. But combat get s tedious when there are lots of enemy.
Love your graphics style.
Cute, but not much actual strategy involved. Need more meaningful choice. Would work better if there were several companies to invest, and you had to read a newspaper to get a hint of how they could raise or drop. Or you there were several different marriage candidates. Like, one would make you more happy, but other would help you getting promoted. Same for jobs.
Unexpectedly fun, I played to the end. But are you sure you have rights to use this music track in game?
Simple, but nice. Only problem is, how to throw away things when very close to the screen border.
Key mappings is not very good. Would be better if arrows would work for movement too.
Misclicked one guard tower => did not have enough money for complete chain to make money. It would be better if money would be spend only on advanced buildings and/or upgrades.
@kekkodude third game mode (named Randomised) actually has pieces order randomised:) AI is not by me, it's from https://github.com/douglasbagnall/p4wn , but, yes, it's pretty good, especially for javascript.
@kekkodude Yeah, I did not manage to make and debug draw conditions in time.
@nachtwitch Actually, there is an ungodly amount of chess variants, and many of them involve dropping piece on board mid-game. Most well-known such variant is Shogi, aka Japanese Chess, where you can place captured enemy pieces on board instead of normal move. So, theoretically, it's possible that there is something exactly same or similar to this that is official somewhere. It would require three players, though - two for moving and one for dropping.
Hmm, now that you have said that, it actually can be a fun way to play chess with more than two player!
@blobo I was considering something like this, maybe will add it later. It would give huge advantage to player, naturally, so I would need to compensate it with some big handicap.
@maximbegunov Only one way to know:) You just need a physical chess board and two other physical people. Maybe there is a way to play online without server enforcing rules and letting you place and remove pieces as you wish, but I can't find it right away.
@tmpxyz I had no time left to properly detect such situations, but they should be treated as a draw
@mrpiedpiper Yes, UI is definitely the weakest part. It's a pretty dirty hack of a pretty old engine. It's easier to write one from scratch (or adapt some more modern one, like chessboard.js) than fix this, which is probably what I'll do.
@frank-gevaerts they would, I m working on better interface at the moment
@lesinvisible It would be very hard to write passable chess AI from scratch in two days( though probably not impossible). LD rules allows using pre-made libraries, so I used a public domain https://github.com/douglasbagnall/p4wn engine.
@mrerdalural I have used https://github.com/douglasbagnall/p4wn engine. It's probably the best completely public domain engine on javascript, though there are more advanced GNU ones, such as Garbochess-JS and Lozza.
@ruud-cremers " won on my first game while I suck at chess" - I'm starting to suspect that' the half of this game appeal:) I'm not really good at chess either, to be honest.
@space-nomad Yeah, I had neither time nor chess skill to make it more balanced for good players. If you have idea of more challenging mode, you can fiddle with modes in display.js file - they are in very simple format such as ``` { name: "Start With Nothing", bag: "KPRPBPNPQPNPBPRP", board: "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/8/8 b - 0 1" } ``` Where "bag" is order of pieces to place and "board" is starting position FEN location (slightly malformed here, having no castling data, but will be fixed in post-compo) I'm working on post-compo version now and you (and anyone else) are welcome to suggest modes.
I'll eventually add modes where AI can take role of piece placer for one or both sides, and player maybe playing "normally".
@ausstein Have you tried other three modes (from menu on the left)? Can you win easily even in Human Wave mode?
Also, you can add some self-limitations, such as only placing pieces on second row. If you will find some of them interesting and tell me, I'll try to add it in post-compo version.
@ausstein thanks for in-depth analysis. Yes, AI does not know anything about drop-ins, it is sure that it plays absolutely normal chess:) I'll try to think up how to make it more challenging for competent Chess players. Maybe forbid placing new piece where it attacks enemy piece? But then it will make gameplay maybe too indirect...
@ausstein I'll think about it. There will be an option for player to delay placing piece if there is no place to put it, or he wants to give AI a handicap or for whatever other reason. I'll also experiment with "point buy" mode, where you have to buy pieces to place.
Music is a bit cacophonic to be honest.
Graphics is awesome, but that's pretty much it. Hopefully you'll be able to add some content until the JAM deadline.
I have found sheep. They are nice, but core loop is still tedious. Maybe, make punch animation/sound really over-the-top, give x10 more resources, but destroy object you punch? Also, in web version (at the least) item collect messages in top left corner are very tinypunch.jpg
Looks great and interesting mechanic, but too hard for me :( Timings are too tight and "enemies" are too fast.
WAY too many buttons for my taste. Pick up, knock out, cut glass, enter door could be one button, or right click. Roll should be Shift. Steam boots activated by double jump.
Also, (I played Windows version) in tutorial there were guard's sight indication, but no guards themselves.
Would be better with some meta upgrades, i.e. upgrades that persists between playthroughs.
I was a bit confused initially, because playing clues (i.e. rombuses that show when to play) do not stand out and are mixed visually with notes particles. But I got used to it pretty soon.
Ha, I knew there should be another chess on this jam:) Interesting idea, but as it is, trivial except for the following the rhythm. I'd drop rhythm part and try to make core gameplay more complex. But that's me:) Also, was surprised that king does not walk diagonally.
@notapixelstudio you can see one's game in his/her profile, but here is the direct link: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/45/white-starts-with-nothing
@notapixelstudio Also, I can't say I'm a really big fan of chess. Game was just a result of thinking how to make jam theme work. For true feel of "nothingness" you need to remove something that player is used to have at the start. For example, in survival games you usually start with (next to) nothing, so there is no novelty here.
So, I took probably the most familiar game of all where you start with a lot and end with much less, and though about how you can change the rules so you really start with nothing.
Look ofarrows icon made me think they'll shoot diagonally
Add some screenshots, please.
Command line adventure is too complex format for LD imho. Multiple choice version would work better.
Only noticable useful effect from upgrade is smell. You could make hearing make music louder when closer to star.
First mincraftlike on this jam that I really enjoyed and played to the end. Ultimate sword is ultimate.
Finlly a game that really use the theme in a meaningful way.
Pretty good, but. Could not figure when I'm supposed to dodge red face's strikes. Needs some tips. Also, big part of field is obscured by props.
Would be better with upgrades for speed (normal and turbo boosts), capacity and collect radius.
Movement is painfully slow
Text appears too slow, and "Next" skips to the next line, instead of showing the rest of the current line as it is usually done.
Lane changing animation would look better natural if car's nose would turn in that direction a bit. And if camera would be fixed to the car, instead of center of the road.
Plot is nice, but I got bored fast. Needs some complexity, such as combining several ideas in one, sell them in packs, etc.
Can't unpack rar. You sure it should be only 21.8MB big?
I tried unpacking with 7z. Not everyone has WinRAR, maybe you use another packer, or make it self-extracting?
Not working for me too, google drive stuck at "preparing zip file". Can't you just add a zip on itch? Zip is guaranteed to be openable pretty much everywhere.
Update: google drive version finally loaded, but it's still better to have zip version. Because "бойся не того кто не подумавши скажет а того кто не сказавши подумает", i.e. if I'm only one that said it, it does not mean I'm only one having this problem.
Well, played it to the end. Pretty good graphics, especially for 20mb. I like the storytelling, though it's pretty predictable. I expected some twist.
Movements are somewhat stiff.
Nice (though not very original - learning from enemies were known at least since Final Fantasy 5) idea, but things are happening too slow to be fun for me.
Could not figure how to get stone.
Me: how do people get so many point? Game: "pros write a bot". Best score for humor from me so far.
Got stuck on candles. Shot all candles, no result.
Probably I have missed the step.I have noticed some pixels at the tope left corner, but did not thought it can be the exit.
Timing is too tight.
@aret24 amount of ratings received depends mostly on amount of ratings received.
Could not get past lava. Also, would be nice to fast forward text. What I like is, it actually tells about how games (especially small/jam games) are made.
Could not jump over the first(?) zomibie
@shaurya-juneja problem is, it's very common on jams to see someone really making jumps ridiculously hard and pixel-perfect. So, you have fooled us too well:)
It's not very clear where exits are (it's footmarks and roads, right?), so I probably missed some content.
Too simple (content-wise, but difficulty-wise too). But cat is charismatic.
Needs some indication of new base scheduled to built. I thought my click did nothing and lciked again, and got two bases at the same place.
Why make player start from the level one each time?
Illness hits too early before you have means to fight it.
Could not figure what grappling hook does, exactly
Quite original. Could use more types of matters to add depth, though. Right now tactics sem to mostly just keep fire to one side of the bin and pour water there too.
I have counted five Game of Life inspired games on LD46, including mine. And each one is different and interesting in it's own way.
You puzzle is interesting, though a bit too hard for me - I got stuck on 4th. I figured the next-to last step, but not the first one.
You have a small field, instead of effectively infinite one, so most real GOL patters do not work there. Which is not necessarily bad, I guess, but was a minor annoyance for me.
I also liked that you use unusual "hosting" for you game. I also initially considered to just put my game on codepen:)
@kevinworkman Thanks, I was sure that 4th need to have symmetrical solution, and I think tried them all in vain.
Looks promising, even if, unfinished. Would be nice to at least read in description what you were trying to achieve.
@thearchitect Yes, it's a reference to Nier:Automata name:) Originally I wanted to call it something like "Life Ever Changing" or "Game of Life Ever Changing". Eventually decided against it because, among other things, technically, only B3/S23 is Game of Life, all other rules are "Life-like".
@thermacon Levels are probably not very inventive, because I made them all jst in one day. So, most levels have similar theme of balancing "good" and "bad" cards. There is an editor in the game, so I hope some one will come up with and share something more initeresting/challenging with it :)
@fizzget Thanks. The need of preview option was pretty obvious from the beginning. But it took some experimenting to figure the right symbols to denote dying and born cells.
@kidanger Yeah, it helped that actual game logic is tiny. That left a lot of time on polish and level making.
@sayumeki I'll think about endless mode. There is a lot of mays to do that, mostly depending on how cards are generated.
@szieberth-adam Oh, finally a custom level! Very interesting. Good looking, hard, but not too hard. I was like, hah, easy... what, how many B8/S8-s? :)
Great mood, but a bit too hard and have to repeat too much after failure. I got stuck on third sniper shot - I don't see bodyguards on the right side to block it with.
Like that they have unlimited amount of spare persidents too:)
Seventh GOL inspired game on LD46 I have seen, mine included. Interesting, but too confusing. I think it weould work better turn based.
First, if you want it to look more pretty, experiment with colors and/or other life-like algorithms, like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVVyjIbypwM
Second, very neat source and it's a great idea to use OpenGL for that. I'm a big fan of GPGPU myself, but did not know tht there is already a WebGL GOL.
I could not figure why and when Flee button is not working. Otherwise, pretty solid and addictive.
Fairy is super adorable (especially her frown), flies less so.
First two stages are a bit too slow. I think game would be better with just three latter stages.
Very atmospheric, though controls allowing only in sharp 90% turns annoys me a bit.
Great all around. Except maybe could use some winning/closure state...
Graphics is good. But it feels very weird that you have tons of different gases for air. Even though you only need O2 for breathable air. Would make more sense if what you are making is fuel.
Adorable
Good graphics. Fire burns out maybe a bit too fast (or walking is too slow) for my taste.
Funny. Could not make heal work, though.
Would work better in turn based.
Good to see more people are doing something Life-related. Check my entry too:)
Also, grade other entries if you want to be reated yourself.
If you are wondering why you don't get feedback/ratings - it's because you don't rate/comment other games. I have made the same mistake on my first jam and got only 1.2 ratings :)
I'm too confused about mechanics. But looks good.
5 for mood and graphics. Really nice horison effect.
Great idea and exxecution, but I personally would prefer playing it turn based.
@antti-haavikko Thanks for great feedback. You are right about all points. Game defenitely could use more polish, and levels more tweaking (and more levels).
Simple yet deep and channlenging.
I expected "clone of player" mechanics to be used a lot on this LD, and was not mistaken. But for those clones to be obstacle for player, instead of help - that's unusual. Well done.
Would looks better with some small animations. Zombies walking unsteady, rifle kickback etc
Maybe write instructions that can be accessed DURING play? Maybe on this very page?
Great style, though not much depth (as far as I could see).
161mb is a bit too much for a jam game, imho. Good thing you had the vid of playthrough:)
Fun, though handling could be better.
My previous GD was Cellular Autmoata too:) Nice graphics and very useful U key.
I could not figure the first tip:( But figured the last:)
Played it through end, though it got kinda repetitive. Cabins are kinda useless, as sims nearly never get tired. Most of time I kept drill, mess hall and entertainment room on, shuffling entire crew at once, so I don't have to bother abound individual states.
It would be good to have visible indication of room's task, always visible stockpile, and sims with same jobs having similar color.
Ah, also portraits of people would add a lot to immersions.
Originial mechanics and great implementation.
I kept wondering why players can't read even couple of sentenses in instructions, and then missed the "eat the rocks" part myself:) I personally try to fit the most key part of instructions in the game name. Such as "Rock Eater".
Like the art. But gameplay could use some variety.
Great art. Very short and barely any gameplay, but it's understandable that it would be nearly impossible to do so much art AND other stuff in the Compo frame.
@iluvatar Maybe consider Jam with some programmer next LD?
Core gameplay is great, but levels could use some work. Are they rpocgen? If yes, you need better procgen or handmade levels.
@antti-tiihonen I got embedded deep in rock on about level 5
Love the visual effects.
Very good, but it's abit annoying that you can't move at all with the tooth. I understand that it's kinda the point, but even a very slow moving with tooth could help when you want to do a little repositioning.
Interesting idea, but it's not quite evident which abilities (other than movement speed) differen forms have.
@thesnide Thanks! I have no art skills, but have some math skill, so on LDs I usually lean on some math-heavy logic puzzles.
@kernon Thanks. It indeed can be confusing initially. I have outlined key points in the text below the game field, and also you can get better grasp of what's happening after playing for some time. But it takes some time:)
@nekusoul It's blurry because each square on the grid is actually one pixel on canvas, which is upscaled a lot. And Chrome understands "pixelated" css property, while Firefox does not. I'll try to fix that.
Added a Firefox-friendly version.
@fussenkuh Yeah, it's a bit not obvious initially, but field scroll speed gradually increases, so you will run out of moves sooner or later.
@airwaffle Lol, you get the problem which is exact opposite of some other players. They get bored before losing the first time.
Idea is that you ARE supposed to lose, but upgrades, and try again, getting further (or, at least ,getting some more cash) each time. Maybe I should have start with bigger field, it takes some time for the game to gain steam.
@joel-davis Yeah, probably it would be better to fill already captured are with some distinct color, instead of the color of the newly captured area. Would make the code simpler too.
@microchasm Particles, sound and other sfx cold help indeed. Though, I could not pick the "right" sound effects, and only had time to add simple dollar particles.
Maybe with some polish it indeed can become a nice mobile timewaster. I'll think about it.
@100th-coin Thanks. There is "Exit" button for "stuck" cases, though it indeed can be considered winning a game too:)
You seem to disable art category. You'd probably get the best scores in it. Game design-wise, I'd add more dangerous enemies and more/bigger coins the deeper you dive.
Looks great, like the visual effects. Gameplay could use some bit more variety maybe.
Great idea and cute UI. Gameplay seems to be a bit hard imho, because criminal drive around too fast. By the time you get where the que points you, he can be anywhere else.
Took me a while to understand how it works. Resulting in losing the first session. Would be better if factories would indicate why they are not working. Also, if some factories functions are locked initially, just do not addthe mto shop yet.
Moody and fitting the theme. Is there only one ending?
Looks great, but gameplay could use some more work. Especially level design. I finished the first run without even realising you should press the F to pick up items. just by avoiding all the enemies. Said that, core idea of limiting vertical movement to only down is simple yet smart take at the jam's theme.
Interesting mechanics, good level design and graphics. Only issue is the lack of indication of which girl is selected.
Innovative, but too often there is no way to know where bomb is with all available ques and you have to rely on chance.
It's hard to understand where there is a border between passable area and walls.
I got "success" in the end, but it was kinda sudden. You could make plot interesting if you'd make enemies appear in waves and/or have some banter between characters about what is happening. And maybe some boss.
Liked the clunky walk sound effects. But it took me some time to understand that water leaks and water on floor were those. At first I thought it was some bubble and some spreading gas.
Very atmospheric. But white dots around the submaine remove a bit from the initial impression.
It's hard to figure if the anmial is checking in or checking out. Also, I had new rooms only partially visible from the bottom of the screen.
Not exactly the novel concept - I have seen the "control n characters at once" a lot, in different fashions, especially on jams. But a pretty good implementation. Nice work on level design - challenging without being impossible, at least for me.
Interesting mechanics, and bomb physics is good, but they boy's movement controls are very unwieldy. If you want to launch bomb at specific angle it's possible only by chance.
Great all around. Only nitpicj is that spikes are very hard to see behind fire. so you have to just remember they are there.
A bit overwhelming, but I assume that was the intent?
Very good, but a bit unforgiving. Could not beat the second level. It would be great if I could see the field even if it is tilted a bit away.
@anonymous I was afraid it was not quite intuitive :/ Which part did you not understand? Game goal? How to make moves? What is the centre of mass?
@tharbakim Thanks!
@ghoulean Thanks, but I'm not sure I'll be able to think up enough interesting levels.
@butterfly Right, I forgot to add sounds. And forgot to disable grading in dounds too. I supposed it's not possible to change grading categories after submission is over?
Looks like I could remove the sound rating and add graphics one. Graphics is also nothing special, but at least it's present, and I wanted to know if it's at least passable.
@@ninjacreeper47 I'm not actually good myself at playing this game, and Pars were my best results, so they are beatable on some levels, especially the latter ones.
@fakefirefly I did not thought that there are board games based on weight balance... Popular ones, at least. But now that you mentioned it, I googled, and indeed there are even real physical implementations https://www.etsy.com/LovelyWoodenThings/listing/790581853/derevannyj-balans-doska-igry-derevannaa?utm_campaign=Share&utm_medium=social_organic&utm_source=MSMT&utm_term=so.smt&share_time=1585593592000
And yeah, I keep forgetting that sound exist when making games:) Will try to keep that in mind it on next jams.
@Skleembof "Also, I like how this game can fit the theme even if you flip the rules and make the player have to keep the ball on the board." something like that was my initial idea. But then I have decided to flip it over:)
Not working:( I get this error on Chrome: "aboab.loader.js:1 wasm streaming compile failed: TypeError: Failed to execute 'compile' on 'WebAssembly': Incorrect response MIME type. Expected 'application/wasm'."
@richnou Now it works. Probably some server issue.
Looks and plays good, buy... was it necessary to lower the resolution?
You have no cover image. You can add it even after deadline.
You are missing the cover for your entry. It's not too late to add this now.
It's kinda weird that Grim Reaper have to kill people. It would make more sense if, for example, if you'd have to protect humans from vengeful dead souls by putting them to rest (bonk and drag to vemetry) before they kill more human, creating more vengeful souls as a result.
Looking good. Two nitpicks. First - sprite and 3d graphic styles do not match. Would work better maybe with cell shading 3d. Second - no variety in gameplay.
Pretty innovative. Love tyhe chain reaction.
A bit confusing initially. Could use arrows pointing to problem source.
Pretty great. Could use some more bonuses for bigger combos. Nukes are disappointedly weak.
Love the style and music. But I think controls could be made better. Way to many buttons under one hand. I suspect you could do with just three buttons - left, right and jump. Left and right balance when on rail, and switch lanes when midair. Or just move balance to another hand or mouse.
Love the visuals. Is it a reference to the old ZX Saboteur game? изображение_2021-10-05_191842.png
Could not find the third flask on the level with thre flasks. Some kind of tps to flask whereabouts would be great. Also, why force gameover when you touch the door without enough flasks? Maybe you still can return and get them.
Does your choice actually matter? It seems it doesn't.
Great art, music and story. But gameplay is a bit confusing, and I suspect, buggy. I only could igure how to do forest rain minigame. And do I need low or high value on thermometer?
You should deal better with the situation when you are out of screen. Because now if you lost out of the screen, you are stuck and have to reload game, and it takes a lot of time.
I get DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN error when try to reach http://jantastic.fun/
Nice art. LD needs more of this:) Pit of shame is a nice touch. Gameplay is a bit too basic, though.
Quite good for a two day quest. Great art and music, and sory/dialogues are funny.
Window on itch.io is too tiny - may something be done to fix it? There were multipple buttons on the guitar with the same letter - are they interchangeable?
Could use more innovative gameplay. Pretty much all music-related games are about "press the prompted button", and that's sad. I dunno if it's possible to make a game that actually represents the proces of creative composing? Or make the performing part less railroaded. Like, emphasis this part of the song or another, direct it into someone in auditory etc. Of cause, this stuff is way too complex for a LD format, but those are things that keep returning to my head for a long time, and this game made me remember them.
Interesting variation of the Xonix. Could use PvE mode, even if against a very dumb bot.
@cymusi it can be tricky, considering that several such boxes can occupy the same spot.
I have dragged the first item, got "ERROR" screen and that was it.
изображение_2023-10-21_025430754.png Happens both in Chrome and Opera. Here is the screen with error log
Shooting part feels a bit of redundant. Maybe it could be better to concentrate on adding depth to inventory tetris part and make the rest simpler/shorter?
Cute graphics, but very unwieldy controls.
Interesting variant of the snakes games. Controls are a bit disorienting, maybe mouse controls (with snake turning to the mouse cursor) culd work better?
Levels 1-9 are too easy, level 10 is the right amount of hard for the final level, but feels a bit too hard because difficulty does not ramp up to it. Could use some stretch goals, such as "you have to do that to solve the level, but for extra star leave no empty cells".
Game link is broken
Interesting idea, but I'm not sure the jumping mechanics really worked out well. Out of the dense asteroid field jumping is not needeed, and inside them it just makes you hit the other asteroid.
It's a bit annoying that unit stops when moving diagonally into a wall, instead of sliding by it.
Very good. Gives SS13 vibes - are you playing it? I especially like the balance - just enough to be challenging, but doable. And even requires some strategy, such as dumping several big boxes in the airlock or shuttle in one day, to get only one strike and free up the cargo.
Minor issues in tutorial wording: Tutorial says you should not dispose the cargo "not relevant to your current objective", while disposing all non-black cargo is penalised.
Also, it would be probably better to have the clipboard on screen at all times. It starts lowered, so I was confused of what to do with cargo for the first minute or too.
@tommo120 Ohm right, tutorial is correct then. I was just seeing red in debrief when ditched the unrelevent color boxes, and assumed it was a strike, while actually it wasn't (as I later noticed).
Have not hot ammo on several station in a row and have lost as a result. Was it intended?
Pushing walls away is a little too easy. I did not know about being able to do that and could adavance to wave 5, and gaving to irrevocable sacrifice space for each attack felt really fitting the theme. It may be too much, but making reclaiming space harder could make game more interesting imho.
Looks and plays great. Arrows to the planet and nearest junk peace would be nice.
Interesting and unusual puzzle. You could have added instructions to game description if you have forgot to put it in game. UI is unintuitive. I am still not sure that I have found all the buttons.
I have absolutely no idea what am I supposed to do. Clicked mouse and buttons - no effect.
1gb is indeed a bit too much for a jam game. I have downloaded and played it only because you have acknowledged it in text:) As for gameplay - I am not a big dan of the "raising water" levels in game. But at least here the objective is clear and it's not too hard to win.
Btw, make sure to rate and comment other games. It directly affects your game visibility and hence votes/comments I did not know about it when first participated and only got 1 (one) rating :)
Great graphics, but gameplay could use some more meat. You have a very good chain simulation, why not have use it in the gameplay somehow? Such as using chain to attack enemies, or the opposite, avoiding enemies touching it.
Educational, but very short. Was it unfinished?
Simple yet fun. Btw, there is a similar mechanics in Touhou series https://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Graze , but as a minor quirk, not the central mechanics. There is an issue with embedded HTML version, as it does not fit completely, making the bottom bar invisible.
Fun and simple. Sadly I'm not good at sokoban-like puzzles, got stuck at the level with three flowers. Also, it tok me some time to figure the rules/controls. Adding them to description would help.
Crashed after starting new game after the first talk with fairy. Thankfully, relaunching after that has let me keep playing. after filling cannon 2/3, there were no fairies left on screen. Are they off-screen or something? I have jre1.8.0_431 java installed, I wonder if java version may affect the game...
Those blobs seem to be too dumb to live. Get hungre standing on the coconuts (and next to storage with food), and then go postal and killing each other. I guess I'm doing something wrong?
I don't quite get how wishes and combat works exactly. Can you elaborate it?
@coltonphillips @hotaloca @pedryx @human-writes-code @sdcorpse @crcdng
Thanks for playing! Yes, controls are a bit of "on the ice". I have concentrated on making it more consistent regardless of the scale, and neglected a bit to tune it in the "normal" scale.
If you had difficulties finding other anomalies - they ca be found by the distinct pattern of obstacles around them.
@sudocoffee I see you get it! Yes, foating numbers can act very interesting "around the edge", and that can be used and explored. I wonder if other floating number artifacts can be exploited as gameplay/flavor elements...
@paul-maxime You are right, I had the scale displayed along with the other numbers, but removed all of them in release. I should have kept indicators of scale (and may be some other, like coordinates and speed).
@daniel-alhadeff yes, car is actually shrinking and it's physical parameters are changing, while the rest of the scene is static.
Neat bullet hell boss fight. I bit too generic, maybe. Some twists, like luring boss to jump exploding barrels, or even better, make it get stuck in tight places that hero easily navigate, would make it much better.
Love the baddies graphics.
Love the graphics. Simple yet appealing.
Had an issue - game screen was misaligned, and clicks did not registered where they should have. I suspect it's because I have 2k resolution. Fortunately, scaling page (with shit-wheel) to 80% has fixed that. изображение_2024-10-07_155113818.png
Ant animation is great but otherwise...
First, it could really use the play speed controls.
And second, why, or why did you not use the pheromone trail mechanics (like this https://resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-3032.2008.00658.x) ? It would make it unique and a educational. And it's quite simple to implement.
As it is, it's too generic.
Group select would be great.
A bit faster progress, especially until the first upgrade, would be great. With so many games to check, making player waiting for minutes looking at nothing new happening is not a great idea.
Looks amazing, but some innovation/depth in gameplay would be great too.
Too hard, epsecially for non-native speaker. I think giving additional tips after some wrong guesses, instead of "buyng letters" could work better.
Innovative! Sound is moody, but a bit dismatch with the cartoony art style.
Concept is interesting, but implementation is a bit rough. It's quite not obvious how to play. Add more detailed instructions. Yes, you can do it even now. Also, why is it so dark? Would be great if the sprites you collect would actually illuminate the stage around you.
Can't run, says this file is missing изображение_2024-10-08_020147402.png
Looks like you did not fill the form
Sounds are great, graphics is neat, but more variety in gameplay would be nice.
Sounds are cute. Gameplay could use some depth. trying to optimize for the best final suspicion, like @sudocoffee did could be fun, though.
Good balance, but gameplay could use some more depth. Attack patterns, boss attacks changing after losing certain amount of health etc. Also, your attacks look very unconvincing - spear actually thrown and hit the boss would look much better.
Embedded version did not work for me (hanged after the load bar completed), but itch version worked. Maybe leave only itch version?
About as basic and straightforward as it is possible. I understand that two days is very little, especially for first timers, but even with just ONE twist to gameplay it would be much more interesting experience both for players and for you.
Great graphics and fitting music. But the game rules are not quite clear. Is there a limit of using "skills"? What are chees for? Why there is a need to use skill to interact with items and then press green arrow instead of, say, just bump in/run under item to activate, hide under them? What is rthe point of other mice?
Using Jam to motivate oneself to learn some new tool is a reasonable idea. I have used new tool this jam too (LittleJS lib). As for gameplay, it's fun, but I'd remove the black holes (ones that you hit), so they do not keep damaging you.
Love the graphics, looks pretty stylish in spite of simplicity.
Gameplay is barely there, thought. Needs some challenge, any challenge. Even something as simple as making/generating several levels and set a tight time limit for each could make it into an actual game, instead of a toy.
Love the music. Gameplay is fun, but more twist/innovation would be nice. Only really unusual thing was that crab that retreats when you get closer.
@knarf I meant unusual as it being original and good thing for a scroll shooter:)
Great art and animation. Very confusing and unforgiving gameplay. Could not figure how to tell "sick tooth" apart from the dirty one.
@ntmalichi True, some levels are a bit too hard and have too small time windows to squeeze in.
@thatsommes I'm not that good in the art, or level design, or making things fast, so I usually go for the "innovation" category.
@knarf Very true, level design is lacking. I love coming up with new game mechanics, but designing the levels is hard to me, especially in the Compo time frame.
Scenery and robot look good, and music is fitting. But the rest is very bare bones. I think it would be best to spend one day more on finishing and submit it as a Jam entry.
At first I assumed that the cubes going from the drills are resouces:) Could not find the Quarz deposit.
Love the 2d/3d visual style. Gave high innovation score just for it. Had no problems even with the poroifinal version, played to the end.
No counterplay to enemy focusing the healer. I understand that compo leaves little time for balancing, but it means that it could be a good idea to make disbalances into each side less disrupting. For example, losing a unit because of too aggressive enemies is bad - then at least revive him at the end of the stage, so player has a chance to get back on track.
Surprisingly good controls for the physics based game. Loved the SFX such as light cone look and bubbles.
Story ending is a bit underwhelming for such a buildup. PErson that hinted to be evil all along was evil all along. And an impersonator for some reason. Could use some extra depth/twist/choice.
Interesting idea, but a bit too drawn out for a jam format. New game each screen would work better, imho. Got stuck on the Dark Souls stage - severl times died just one layer away from the bottom. which is authentic DS experience, but I wonder if there is anything after that.
I have 2k resoultion, so had the same problem with click positions as others.
As for game idea, original, but may be a bit too hard and/or dry as it is. I'd add a question/tip to what the phrase is. Like this:
изображение_2025-04-10_012845974.png
And start with smaller boards, going up.
Way too confusing for a game. Needs a tutorial. I.e. few braindead levels where player is told explicitly what and how he has to do. Only after thenm when they see how thing works, you give them (us :) ) something requiring actual thinking.
As for WASM, I guess coding in wat is educational and flexible, but have you checked out AssemblyScript? It's easy to setup, compiles fast and outputs relatively small wasm.
Cute game, perfect difficulty and duration for a jam game.
Could use some more depth on the girl carrying mechanics. Currently it just makes you pass the level first without the girl and clear enemies, then go back, pick her and pass the level properly.
Hmm... Maybe it could work this way.
1. There is a one tall ("deep") level of "dreamscape" with three girls on various depths you have to save. 2. Each girl have different "dream", altering the level in different way. Some extra traps here, different enemy there, etc. 3. When you carry a girl you are in her dream and you see her version of the level. Also, you yourself is different - in one dream you are a knight with sword, in another a mage etc. 4. This would probably out of scope of something can be done in 2/3 days, but there may be more levels, with you having to switch between the carried girls to save them all.
Very user-friendly. Eeasy to understand what to do. Will use it as a reference when making my entries.
Love the enemy movement/attack patterns.
Things that could be improved:
Diagonal movement Checkpoints Final boss could be less bullet-spongy. Weapons are not as interesting as enemies. After a while, extra picked gems are wasted.
I think last three issues could be solved together with giving some expendable weapons (bombs?), which could be useful against boss.
Застрял на уровне с "плохой графикой" :(
Ah, classic overscope:) Visauls and animations are stylish, but I could not get over the fence. Was there any specific reason to control camera with arrows instead of mouse?
Even when I was directly under that island where the (I assume) second body is, ENTER did nothing. I played the HTML version. изображение_2025-04-10_020309102.png
Interesting pinball twist, but imho too little depends on skill and too much and randomness.
Does the "fighting back" feature actually work? Nothing happened when I left click. Would be cool if it would release the ink cloud, disorienting the diver.
IMPORTANT: ADD THE COVER IMAGE!!! You can do it even now, after deadline. You can make it with AI or something. Without it, people will ignore your game and will not give feedback. Also, you can use cover to compensate for the dry feel of the plain text. Make it a collage of the agents portraits, for example.
IMPORTANT TOO: Do you realise that you have opted out of grading, so people can't give you stars? I think yu can change it now too, it's a checkbox somewhere.
Core mechanics are well thought out, simple rules yet gives space for strategy. Missions though are a bit too hard. Easy to get into XCOM-like fatigue spiral. I hoped I could play the system by solving high-combat missions with only wits, but was hit with 7 fatigueon one soldier. So, I have no idea how to play it past ~5 missions. And if player struggle, he is punished by making next missions even harder.
I understand that you thought missions would be too trivial otherwise. One solution to that could be to, instead of punishing player with money for bad results, punish/reward him with pure story means. Selling/destroying drugs is a good example. If you play well you can save more people and/or use more questionable methods.
So, even a player is doing bad, he should still be able to get to the end, but get the "bad ending(s)", encouraging him to replay and get better.
Another improvement on gameplay could be knowing several next missions, for better planning without the OOC knowledge.
Looks similar to plant growing mechanics in A.D.O.M. https://ancardia.fandom.com/wiki/Herbs#Lifecycle
Would be interesting to expand/explore it more indepth.
Funny game. Only nitpick is it could have some visual que that item is picked and draggable. Even if it's just lifting it a couple of pixels up when clicked. I nearly skipped the game without realising I was supposed to drag.
Interesting twist on the classic formula. Though a little bit too punishing to the player. Returning with a big haul and losing because the gun can't shoot over the head is very annoying. Also, could really use save. At one moment screen went black, and I had to reload, but the progress was lost.
Great mood, but could use more depth in gameplay. Something like, crow repelling totems, throwing things in crows, etc.
@martynas-dargis @reivilibre
Thanks! I am goingto add a visual guide in the description and a more user-friendly post-compo version. Which part do you think was the most confusing? I assumed it's how you equip the item, and that you runes are carved in two steps (planning and the actual carving).
A little too slow paced with too little to do. Game is pretty much playing itself. Is there some way to accelerate the collection? I could not figure one. Also up and down key is not a good idea for itch game, as it scrolls the page.
I got to the first village, and then no idea what to do next. Whe I connect the cage to guy, it just shoots in random directions. When I connect the cage back to engine, it does nothing, not moving around. An d no enemies in sight.
Coul not figure how to use the dock. Ship lands on it automatically (neat animation, btw), waits a bit and ejects. But I do not get loaded or unloaded.
I epsecially love how good visual you could make with such simple props. Voice comments is a great touch too. So far the only game I had to give the top scores for the art and sound.
If it's a zx program, you could give a web version of it using https://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org / https://github.com/gasman/jsspeccy3 or something.
Controls are a bit awkward.
I think some thing like this could work better - no arm, mouse to rotate, connect parts by just touching them, and killed enemies become parts that you can connect too.
If you want to get more votes - vote for the other games. Then algorithm will make more people vote on your game.
What does the days counter mean? Is there some end goal? I played few days, did not see any change and stopped. If there would be something in the later days, it is too late, should happen faster.
Lack of the walking animation is very jarring. It could even be something very simple, like tilting the model back and forth.
So, how do I play? I have figure that I should dragcards to enemy or "burn" but can't figure what it does, exactly.
Very solid execution. Gameplay is a good balance of familiarity and novelty. Love how magnet is working.
Two things whuch can be better.
Could use a bit more content/progress, to look forward too. Maybe something small, like radar, or a laser to break bigger garbage chunks.
And there is still friction, in spite of what is stated in description. Making it impossible to fly around without using fuel most of time, just small thrusts here and there.
Pretty good implementation, and fits the theme well. "Fiddle the knop until you get it right" mechanics is a bit used and predictable, though. Could use a bit more of twist/depth.
Love when the theme is used in the non-obvious way. And love flying in the futuristic cities. Made a couple myself (such as https://warpstation13k.netlify.app and https://boundless-city.netlify.app). Is it procedural? Also, love that levels have the different "feel".
Interesting twist of a popular mechanics. Responsive controls, overall fun to play.
Liked the first level with the 2 balls, and the level with the 4 balls in big square formation. Even though I stuck for a while on the first one.
Did not like the labyrinth levels. They do not actually use the special mechanics for anything except the extra annoyance. And the last(?) labyrinth is way too huge.
Music is ok by itself, but a bit too istracting for a game which requires thinking.
For a jam game, allowing to skip levels even if you do have not beat them could be a plus, imho.
City procedural generation is really impressive.
There were problems with right button dragging - dragging did not stop when I release the button. Often using right button lead to returning to the previous page, resetting progress. I guess, it's better to avoud right button at all in this format. Just allow dragging with the left button.
The game balance could use more polishing - you depend a lot on the card luck, especially early game. And it looks completely random, you may not receive capacity upgrades ever, or get a choice between +1 something and +2 of the same, for example. I think the better way would be to make one choice of two truly random, and other pre-scripted.
UI showing the total coverage of the towers, and making red and yellow people easier to notice would be great too.
@astoeth Congratulations, you are officially better at this game as me:) I could not win even once
@zbrogdom, @gdman, @dod108, @astoeth sorry for small scale. I have 2k monitor, so it looked better on it. But I definitely should have added zoom.
@fractalsunrise Thanks! You can get the new galaxy layout by pressing "N". I should have made add it as on-screen button too, but forgot.
Looks amazing. Cars crashing is spectacular. But it's impossible to remember so many buttons. Mouse interface would be great.
Isn't positive rotation anti-clockwise usually?
Add the cover to your entry. No cover is usually associated with something low-effort or unfinished.
As for the game... Practical morse code "simulator" is a very interesting thing, because, while nearly everyone know about what it is, nearly nobody has "touched" it's "in flesh". I just wish game would focus more on the morse code itself (trying to pass it in various ways, or as fast as possible, or comprehending it), instead of guessworking about what game want you to say.
Looks cool, but no idea what am I expected to do. Park ship on top of the one submaring and shuttle the plane to the other? Could use more feedback to demonstrate player the effect of their action. Such as, make signal continuous and make subs panic when they loss it and signal "Hey, HQ, we do not read!".
Would be also cool if you would have to intercept signal with some intelligence.
You mislabel the game link as the "source". You should have both the source link and the playable game link. Not too late to fix it, you can edit your entry text/links/add versions/etc even after the deadline.
Когда весь бюджет ушёл на интро:)
A bit too eldtritch for me. Could not figure what is happening and what to do.
But thanks for the idea of adding a full screen button to the embedded HTML version. Did not know this is an option, so had to remove this version for my game, because window was too small for it.
Simple, but fun. Hardest part is to figure when enemy is already dead.
I have no idea how to play. Maybe add instruction to decription?
Does signal have any real purpose? I can see around even without it. Also, allowing jumping also with D would be convenient.