Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → BeetleBox
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | You Fix Spaceships! | jam | 438 | 3.65 | 3.23 | 3.09 | 3.78 | 3.83 | 3.53 | 3.68 | 3.91 |
Such a fun game! The humor was very on point, and the mechanics made me feel as if I was experiencing the real thing :P. The music was quite repetitive. but during the first loop, the instruments were fun to listen to.
Took me quite a while to understand why the coin counter didn't go up immediately after collecting them. But other than that, the mechanics were built really nicely. The game really makes you think about how much of a risk you're willing to take during each round to get that extra few coins. Very exhilarating, so great job!
Such a relaxing game! Absolutely loved the vibe. And the way the plant mesh was generated - wow, that's very impressive!
I didn't manage to finish the game :(. The game crashed in one of the later levels, once one too many branches and leaves showed up. It took quite a long while to reach that point, so I don't think I'll be doing it again, but it was a lot of fun!
The way the sun shined on the plants and the way the fan pushed it away was absolutely gorgeous.
My objective wasn't always very clear, so at times I felt like I was sort of throwing things around hoping the level conditions would pass through, but it wasn't too bad, as the Zen aspect of the game was good enough to carry it over.
At first I thought the game was tagged as FPS by accident. I thought I was going to play a cute fun game about fixing a house.
Loved it.
(Although, maybe add a generic content warning, so people who aren't ready for this don't accidentally wander in?)
Took me a couple plays to understand why I enjoyed the music so much. That's an awesome music loop! The way it switches every ten seconds and gives each of the robots a different personality - that's some really nice music direction!
I also liked how there were lots of little bits of feedback - from the different sound effects depending on what the bullets hit, to the leftovers on the ground when a box explodes or a car skids, to the way the bullets slightly push the car back and the car flickers back - lots of really small things that really make the experience feel complete.
The controls felt a bit unresponsive at times (I felt like the bullets push you a little too aggressively, and so when playing the car, I could get stuck at a bit of a tight spot that was tough to get out of and didn't feel as fun).
Altogether, that's some great game design!
The sandbox elements are amazing! Felt sort of like how I'd imagine flying a car would be in a dream. I would love to see a complete version of this project. Even if you just had a more complete version of the game that didn't follow the theme, but added more sandbox-like elements? Heck yeah I'd play that. Great job!
Great take on the theme! The first time I decided to wait until the later rounds before running away I was really surprised by how many enemies were on the playing field. But that really emphasized how I needed to plan the amount of money I would try get in a round so that I wouldn't overwhelm myself.
I would have really liked some amping up in difficulty - each round starts you off with one police star, which means that once you get enough upgrades, it's really easy to grab a couple pieces of cash and go (just for the sake of resetting the stars). Maybe if in the later rounds you started off with 2 or 3 police stars, things would have gotten more interesting in the late game (and you would have to take more chances in the early game).
I had the same bug when running the game as @fabula-rasa had. * I deffo wasn't just looking at the sky - the game was actually stuck * Running with my graphics processor (as you recommended in the comment above) did not fix the issue (in case it's relevant, I have a laptop running a Radeon 540 graphics card).
Is there some extra sort of driver I have to install? What else might fix the issue?
I've never played a music game like this before. Amazing work! I'm now oddly inclined to try learn the trumpet.
I loved the art and the trumpet sounds. I'll admit I did not fully understand the how the themed mechanics part of the game worked, but I had plenty of fun without it.
Very nice game!
On one hand: * The UI is relatively intuitive, and it is clear you spent a lot of time picking out little details, such as [clicking the Hammer button a second time cancels the destroy operation]. For every piece of text on the screen, it was easy to understand why it was there and what it meant. * The graphics - wow! Very clean. I very much liked the touch in the ending animation where the rocket flew up, and you could see the top UI as you passed through it. That was a fun graphical twist. * Great use of the theme! I don't think I've seen any game like this in the LD. Very innovative to use a Rubik's cube like that!
On the other: * The transition between screens (the one where all the cubes scroll onto the screen) is graphically pretty, but made me feel a bit of nausea. There was a LOT of movement going on, and when movements like these don't at least have, say, a bit of motion blur, it really throws me off. Of course, motion blur can be a bit much to implement in the time one has for a game jam, but there are a bunch of other options that (I believe) might help combat this (at least, it helps me):
[1] Slower transitions can ease on motion sickness.
[2] If you could make it so that the transition doesn't cover the entire screen, that would be helpful
[3] Taking time between the inbound and outgoing transitions. (Say, the blocks fly in, and instead of immediately flying out, you wait a second or two with the blocks all staying in place)
* The rubik's cube mechanics sounded fun in theory, but I ended up not really using them at all. Buildings that left the playing field had a low chance of coming back anytime soon, and so it wasn't interesting to pay any attention to them. The game then effectively became the same as it would if whenever a Rubik's cube move happened, three completely random towers appeared in place of the three that left. I'm not very sure about what could be done in place of this. I saw that in one of your replies above, you mentioned that giving the player control over which faces would turn could be a little overpowered. I agree. Although, maybe giving the user partial control would be helpful? For instance, if you decided the next face turn had to be from right to left, but the player gets to decide which of the three layers of the cube do the turn? Maybe that could be fun. * I did have a couple issues with UI, where sometimes a building would appear, and it took more time than it should for me to understand what sort of building it is. In fact, I sometimes found myself having a lot less information than I would have liked. The UI on the top of the screen was useful, telling me how many of each material I'm creating per second. And the UI on the right was useful, because I could hover over a building and know what each one creates. But I very much would have liked to see that on-hover info on each of the buildings on the playing field. And you know what? If there was room for it, I would have liked to see all of that info at the same time. Like, I'd want to look at the playing field, and immediately know not only how many gold pieces I'm creating, but which buildings are making more, which could be making more but are dormant, and which are using gold pieces (and how many). I found myself wanting this information multiple times throughout the game, and had to resort to hovering over the UI on the right and memorizing many numbers in my head, which was not so fun.
Altogether, (even though I talked for days on end on the parts of the game I feel could have been improved upon) I very much enjoyed playing your game, and I'd most definitely come back if you ever upload a post-jam version!
The first few times I played, I felt like I was sort of randomly putting away pieces, hoping for the best. But after a good couple rounds, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it!
Definitely did not expect it at first, but the game turned out to be a lot about being patient and planning ahead - I found it most helpful when not placing anything until I see how to build a square or rectangle, and then placing them all at once. Not sure if that's what you were aiming for (the animated gif on the game's landing page might suggest otherwise), but either way it was definitely fun to play! My best is 50, but I got a little lucky. :P
I do think it's interesting that the Square elimination area is rectangular. It's a little strange for me, as this means that it is possible for a player to place some pieces in a way that no matter how lucky they get, pieces on the square area will be stuck there for the rest of the round.
I would have liked a more stable difficulty curve (maybe have only small pieces appear in the beginning?) since the game is very tough to play when thrown right in. (So if you ever end up making a more polished post-jam version, I will definitely come back for more!)
Altogether, this was one of the more innovative games I've seen this jam! Awesome work!
Haha wow, that was fun! I'll admit, it took me a while to understand the mechanic where racers get eliminated (I just didn't see the cars disappearing) but then like a minute later I realized there were only a couple cars left, and the game got super intense.
So it happened that at first I didn't understand what I was doing, but the last 30 seconds of the game were probably one of the more adrenaline-fueled experiences I've had recently :D
Awesome game!
Trying to catch the last diamond really felt like it was stretching the game mechanics to its limits. Which was pretty neat :) I also enjoyed the humor :P (very fun landing page, haha)
The sound effects do get a little repetitive, and they are a tad loud for my taste. The graphics on the other hand, were a lot of fun. I liked the graphical theme - the colors fit very nicely.
Cool take on the theme! The swarms of bullets were a lot of fun to look at. My only complaint is that enemies can spawn so near the player that crashing into them was inevitable.
I had fun playing around with the different rocket parts, but I lost interest quickly when I realized I didn't at all understand what the difference between the rocket pieces are. I would have liked to at least have some intuition as to the difference between each piece of a type (or even between pieces of different types). I still enjoyed trying out different combinations. Hopefully I'll have a successful launch soon :P
Really well placed audio! Loved how many sound effects the varying parts of the game had. Really made it feel alive :)
I love rhythm games, and the moment the jam's theme was revealed I hoped this genre would spout at least a couple of 'em. This was a pleasure to play, so thank you for that!
A couple notes: * I loved the way the game teaches you to work without the cue - how it disappears in the middle of a bar - very graphically subtle, but once you notice it, it's very pretty. In general, the graphics were very fun to look at. I'm a fan of minimalistic graphics, and they suit this game very nicely. * The music is absolutely fantastic! The pacing of the instruments is such that the mood completely changes from the first bar to the last, and that was awesome to hear. * The progress bar on the bottom was nice to look at, but it slightly confused me at first. When I was on the 10th bar, the progress bar was completely filled - and so I thought I had beaten the level - but not realizing the level was still going caused me to mess up a bit, and then I had to repeat the entire level again. Of course, doing as you mentioned in your reply to @mcnuttys any only taking one point off when making a mistake would greatly help this issue be less punishing, but I'm not sure this is solving the root of the problem. Possibly what's missing is a slight change in UI? If you could make the indicator clearer as to which of the ten steps you're on (and which you're about to complete) I think that would greatly help me understand what's going on. A possible implementation would be to have *three* different colors for the dots on the bottom instead of two: One color for completed bars, one for incomplete bars, and one for the bar I'm currently at.
I'd love to see more of this, if it ever comes about. :P This game was clearly put together with a lot of musical care, and I'm eager to hear more!
Wow! What an atmosphere you've built there!
First impressions - I loved the way the pixel and voxel graphics interacted with each other! I only wished the sailor character fit in with the graphics just like the boat and the rest of the asset ensemble, but it's amazing the way it is!
I enjoyed the risk-taking aspect of the game, where I could try row as much as possible, even when there was no light, making educated guesses as to where the next rocks might be. In fact, I would probably enjoy the game even more if there was even more risk involved - say, if hitting too many rocks caused the boat to fall sink.
On the other hand, there were rocks that I felt the lighthouse didn't illuminate almost at all, despite them being right beside me, and I felt like that wasn't intentional (or at the very least, made those parts of the game a little more awkward to play).
The movement sometimes felt a little slow. Although rowing forward slowly very much added to the atmosphere of the game and I appreciate that - I felt like maybe the turning of the boat could have been made a little less subtle without ruining the feel of the game.
I'm a big fan of word games, and this did not disappoint. The abilities were very well chosen - they deeply affected how I played the game in the more advanced levels.
The levels were built in a way such that I sometimes felt a bit lost as to where I was supposed to go, and it took me a long while to understand that I can wall-jump. The audio on the other hand was a lot of fun - I love the "recharge" sound effect. It adds a ton to the experience, and is probably what kept me playing for so long.
Very innovative take on the theme!
I enjoyed the main idea behind the mechanics, although I did less enjoy finding it difficult to tell how far away from the explosion I have to stand in order to survive. I dead a couple times not because I didn't have enough time to run away, but because I couldn't tell how far away I had to stand (and sometimes it is quite difficult to properly set up the distance, due to the son running towards me when I go too far away).
It was a little difficult to tell when things were about to move - which is fine most of the time, as I can simply wait until a move occurs, and then I know I have time. But there were some platforming areas where it was crucial to make a jump precisely at the moment a move occurred, and these bits were a little less fun to play in.
I would have also liked to have been able to tell which objects are supposed to move and which aren't (as in @mrchip's comment above). I spent about 30 seconds waiting for an elevator-like platform to move up, confused as to why it wasn't working, before I realized there might be a chance that this platform doesn't move at all.
The level design felt a bit all over the place, but each separate platform was very nicely designed. (I specifically enjoyed the hollow platforms that you could either walk inside of, or jump on top of).
I didn't read the instructions and discovered the oink by accident. Would play the game just for the oinks.
All of the graphics were great (oh man, that ending screen), and the game is built pretty humorously - both definitely a plus :)
The movement itself felt a little awkward - a bit too slippery for my taste, and the gravity was oh so high. It definitely made the game a lot more difficult, but not really in the way I like my difficult platforming games. It made mastering the mechanics feel like a bit of a tedious task, and once mastered, solving the levels themselves also felt a bit off.
Every aspect of the game felt as if it was built to set a very specific mood, and they all worked together perfectly! Chills. The mechanics themselves were a bit less my cup of tea, but wow did I enjoy the experience. Nice game!
That was fun!
It's always intense when grabbing a present, knowing it might upgrade your enemies just as well as it might upgrade you, and knowing you want to take it anyway just to satisfy your curiosity.
Haha, and it's also really fun to see enemies clump up on the screen when you don't kill them. The way they bump into each other and move together is for some reason very visually amusing. :P
That being said, I think there is a lot to improve regarding how enemy bullets work.
* Their color is very similar to the enemy color or the background, making them hard to focus on with my eyes (especially when there are lots of bullets on the screen) * I would have liked to have some indicator as to when a bullet is about to be shot. Be it a frame or two in an enemy animation before a bullet is short, or be it some sort of arrow indicator off-screen if an enemy shot a bullet in my direction but I don't see it yet because it's far away.
These two things put together make it difficult to plan my movements, making the game less about skill and more about moving around as strategically as you can but mostly hoping for the best.
I had fun! :)
The graphics are cute and quirky (I absolutely loved the blinking cat trees!) and the music fits the mood perfectly :)
I've played a couple times so far. It's been a real calming experience, and I like that in a game :P
The different random events were also very creative - I still don't know whether I've seen them all (and I love the suspense!)
I haven't yet nailed down the controls - Still not *completely* sure as to when I'm allowed to double jump, and sometimes I jump into some fish not knowing whether I'll come out of it alive. I feel like maybe the game could benefit from having those rules cleared up in a sort of instruction page? Or if you could, for instance, indicate whether I'm allowed to do a second jump (say, by slightly changing the skateboard color) that would be amazingly helpful.
All in all, a solid jam entry! Looking forward to seeing your next LD games! <3
I'm a big fan of Sokoban-like games, and that was a fun twist to play with!
I sincerely did not expect the zombies, and it really freaked me out at first. Took me a little bit to understand how the zombie moved (and until then, it was pretty scary, haha) but once I got it figured out, controlling their movements and slipping in between pairs of zombies was a lot of fun.
I see that quite a few commenters above mentioned they'd love to have keyboard controls instead of mouse controls, and I find myself agreeing with them - but I think I'd like to expand a bit more upon that:
I find that a lot of one-button games in general work just as well with a keyboard as they do with a mouse, and although I personally prefer a keyboard, I've come to believe that this is (mostly) up to taste. If there really was only one button to press, I'd optimally want the mouse to work, as well as any button on the keyboard (maximizing accessibility).
Be that as it may, deciding to have mouse controls is a perfectly fine aesthetical choice. The main thing that bothered me about it, was the fact that I had to click [on top of the survivor] instead of [anywhere on the game board]. Although I can see that the design choice that was made makes you feel a bit more like you're directly controlling the character, moving the mouse around all the time sometimes felt a little bit awkward, and maybe it would be more comfortable to play without it.
That being said, I can see plenty of good reasons to anyways make you *absolutely have* to click the survivor, and absolutely have to use mouse controls: For example, if future levels introduced multiple survivors, the mouse controls would be immensely useful in deciding which survivor is the one you are attempting to control.
As a final note - I noticed that you can use both your left and right mouse buttons to rotate the character. That's awesome :) although both mouse buttons turn the character in the same direction - and maybe it would be more appropriate to take advantage of the fact that you have a second button to allow the user to rotate the survivor in the opposite direction as well?
(Also - thanks both to @roroto-sic and @bqq for explaining the pun in the name title - I was super curious about that and I'm glad that reading the comments cleared it up. That's a *very* good name, haha)
We've received multiple pieces of feedback saying you can't see the download link (for some odd reason)
In any case, here they are:
[1. A link to Google Drive](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LBr5j2qE1SzEpJvpQsjD02KBZR-lTniJ/)
[2. A link to Ludum Dare's default hosting](https://files.jam.host/uploads/$301055/YouFixSpaceships.rar)
Reminiscent of KTaNE - I like it!
The minigames were fun to figure out, and I liked that despite them being randomly generated, each "attempt" spanning a couple rounds had some consistency to it.
The thing that I felt was missing most was sound. The game doesn't need much, but a couple simple sound effects (even if it was just a simple beep to give feedback whenever an interaction happened) would go a long way. There were times if I wasn't sure whether the game was stuck, or whether some interaction with the bomb wasn't possible, and a couple sound effects would probably be the most cost effective way to cut down on that confusion.
Anyway, had a lot of fun. Thanks for the creative entry!
Even after a good couple minutes playing, I still don't think I understand how to tell when rockets are going to fall from the sky. I get that there's an indicator that looks as if something is shooting at me from above - but the amount of time between when the indicator appears and the rockets fell felt inconsistent (or at least, I didn't properly understand it).
I enjoyed how the one-direction controls makes you think about how far you're willing to go, when there's a lot of time left on the timer. From a UX perspective, maybe it would be worth considering to merge all four WASD keys into a one-button game? Might be more elegant to play with the controls if the controls changed their behavior, rather than enabling and disabling them.