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| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 52 | Harvest | 👥 | TurnUp | jam | 314 | 3.61 | 3.63 | 3.11 | 4.11 | 3.61 | 3.98 | 3.60 | 3.41 |
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | Make Haste, Detective! | jam | 61 | 4.15 | 3.87 | 4.11 | 4.45 | 4.50 | 4.25 | 4.18 | 4.12 |
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At the start of the game it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do. The game would benefit from some intro were it explains what you're supposed to do. I figured it out though and managed to beat the game. The graphics are great. They really set the mood of the game.
I thought switching around the levels would make it really hard to keep track, but it was quite doable. Managed to finish the game. One improvement I can recommend though is to have an image for an opened lock, to give the player a hint of where they've been. The darkness effect was really cool. I think it would be even better with smooth movement.
Having the boats come and go every 0x10 seconds was a nice twist on the theme. Helps make it more playable, as I think 10 seconds would be way too fast. For the initial package placement I would recommend to check whether the empty spaces are all connected and generate a new placement if not. I had a ship where there were 3 empty spots blocked off in a corner. Placing 4 pieces on there was practically impossible.
The music being affected by the time dilation is a really cool effect.
The game is well made. I got to round 14, with 6 fast. Having a tutorial is a great touch, though quite necessary for this game as well.
It's an interesting twist on the shoot 'm up genre. Limit break is absolutely OP, which I guess was intended. Having some diversity in enemy types and movement patterns would be interesting. I ran into a few issues like not being able to shoot while in the corner and being able to jump repeatedly, allowing me to jump out of the game area and soft-lock the game.
@melbadream Ah, yes, Maxwell Maximus. He's such a blabbermouth, goes on and on and just won't stop talking. My teammate transcribed his text. Told me it was absolute hell. I guess he skipped one of the audio files. Can't blame him. Maximus doesn't have anything of value to tell anyway. He's just there wasting your time. Anyway, this was done intentionally. You're supposed to be careful of how you spend your time and cut off answers that don't go anywhere.
I agree about the scene transition. We probably should've at least fade out the one talking. Maybe add some tense background music to indicate you're nearing the end. Originally we planned on having the interrogation be a fixed length and this could be part of the background music. Due to the differing number of suspects and complexity of the cases, that wasn't an option.
The name of the mysteries not being readable is intentional. You're a detective after all and have to investigate. Having the Missing Pie case be visible is both because the menu screen has keyboard navigation and because it's the tutorial case so people should pick it first.
Synchronizing subtitles with spoken audio is a very time consuming process. We decided to not bother and went for having the text reveal itself at a constant pace. Worked out well enough in the end. Most of the time its reasonably well synchronized.
We thought about building in some indication to show what lines you've already heard, but did not have time to implement it.
I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to select my drones. Their selection box is not always visible. After that it was sweep in with all my drones, sabotage, steal a few brains, go back and repeat. Other than the mind control I didn't use any of the special powers as this method worked really well. The alert went up only twice. At the end of my run there was a bit of gunfight, but other than that, I had no difficulty completing the game. The controls of the game felt really smooth. Drones responded fast and usually did what I wanted them to do. The only complaint I have is that there wasn't really a reason to ever visit a dome other than the nearest one.
I found the secret box behind the house. Got to buy the hammer, though unfortunately the game reset at season 2 so I did not get much use out of it. I farmed 16 potatoes first season. The funniest part of the game I found to be throwing around you tools whenever you no longer need them.
~~The zip file does not include the executable, so that is not playable. Can you try uploading a build that includes it?~~ The web version is rather small and this game is better played full screen.
Edit: I didn't unpack it into a folder so only saw the data folder.
It definitely plays different than our idle game. Having the crops be limited to the number of seeds you have works really well. I think the sprinklers and harvesters upgrades were far too cheap and think some limiter like with the seeds would help balance these. For example instead of the plants dropping a sprinkler upgrade, have them drop a sprinkler part. Then you need 1 for a level 1 sprinkler, 4 for a level two, 9 for a level 3, etc. Still fun to play though.
It seems like you can only make money at the start, before the crops start exploding. After that, you only make about $1 per crop, which does not make up for the fuel spent to harvest it.
Ambitious to make a metroidvania in only 48h. It had some quirks, dashed out of bounds a few times, though it was easy to get back in. At one time my character went to the next screen but the camera stayed at the previous. After hitting the next transition that fixed itself. I managed to complete the game. For the turning on and off power ups, I wonder whether it would've worked better if they only used soul on use. The rooms feel a bit empty and movement could be improved, but still impressive.
I thought the vassals where often too slow to be of much use. They helped out when encountering two enemies at once. That made that encounter more interesting than any of the other normal encounters. The boss-fight I cheesed by kiting them. Of course I made them a vassal.
Got stuck on the third level. I knew what I had to do, but whenever I used the first power up it also immediately used the second. I needed a controller to play as the keyboard scheme was too confusing for me.
I think the game should pause when collecting a power up and wait a second or 2 before you can click any. In my first run I accidentally took the no breathing power up at the start. I was still able to finish the game and defeat giant coco. Physics and destruction, it's a fun game.
I had a bit of trouble figuring out you can only plant seeds in the wheat field after mowing it. (Buy seeds inside, use scroll wheel to change held item). After that I quickly finished the game.
When I saw the grid become larger in level 5 I was intimidated, but somehow I felt that level 5 and 6 were easier than the first 4. I placed the difficult blocks first and then with 1-3 tries usually could fit in the rest. I think that's fine though. Having them not be too difficult makes the puzzles less frustrating and more fun.
The robot factory is indeed broken. It requires 500 power to operate, but there's no way to increase the cap. So you cannot get robots. Our game designer, who joined ~48h into the jam, had intended that power plants would give power once upon building and power consuming buildings cost power to build, but not to operate. Unfortunately it did not get implemented like that. We also did not get around balancing the cost of the robot factory.
Cranked up the gain on my mic and suddenly did a lot better. It's fun gimmick. Not much of game though, as it ends after about two swipes.
Without a way to kill enemies this game is unplayable. I know I can use bombs, but it costs 3 bombs to kill one enemy and they spawn every 5 seconds. So after killing the first two enemies, I'm out of bombs and cash. Then a third enemy spawns and 15 seconds in its already game over for me. If death didn't reset everything it might have been playable.
@found-bow-tonight First time I played it seemed like dodging enemies wouldn't work out. Tried it again an it sort of works. My strategy now was to plant as much as possible, then die, then plant some more, until the last minute. But harvesting then didn't work out as I kept killing myself with the bombs. The dozen snakes and bats around did not help either. For balancing I think it would help if the game limited the number of enemies on screen to about three and maybe some mechanic where you heal over time or harvesting heals.
Interesting start of a game. I like the fancy action animations.
This was one of the ideas I penned down for LD51, if harvest would be picked then as the theme. 🎶 "There's an alien invasion, but you got a brand new combine harvester..." 🎶 It was inspired by a scene from Evil Aliens. Never seen the movie though, it's bad from what I've heard, but you can lookup the [scene on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8dMlkGKoZE). In your case it is zombies instead of aliens but the idea is still pretty much the same. Unfortunately the 'big boy' combine harvester loses durability when you hit zombies head on. For LD52 we went with a different idea. Fun to see someone else implement this though.
What does the bar at the top do? The one that goes up when harvesting stuff or pressing space?