Aqua Vitae by zimennik 2020-04-28T01:42:17Z ♥ 3
God, what a fucking masterpiece, jesus christ. So god damn atmospheric. The radio broadcast blows my mind, the gameplay has just exactly what it needs to bring you in; not too complex but not too simple. The art is just sublime (except the background outside the window, but of course, 72 hours). I may not have grown up in the soviet union, but I once went to the east berlin museum, and the kitchen looks exactly like what I saw there, down to the color of the walls, the floor and the fridge. If I have one complaint, is that the valve on the milk can is basically useless, since it lowers one valve way more than the other, which means you're forced to eventually turn of the gas and wait, because if you don't you either blow up or don't make any progress. Perhaps this is the way making bootleg alcohol IRL is, but it doesn't make for a very exciting gameplay mechanic. This is seriously the best game I've played this ludum dare, and I'm not sure if I'll find one that's better. You guys really outdid yourselves.
LD47 — Stuck in a loop (6)
RevolveWare by Fatsheep 2020-10-22T18:32:39Z ♥ 1
There's something about this game that's incredibly charming. It might be the cute artstyle, the joke sound effects or the silly minigames, but the game's just funny. I had a smile on my face for the whole playthrough (Got to 44). Everything in the game comes together to make a fun experience that feels like it's from a different decade. Great stuff
Derps 'n' Dergs - One shot to save the world! by Kooh 2020-10-09T02:13:47Z ♥ 1
I understand the difficulties you experienced in making this game, and the short time you had. Please understand that what I'm about to say might hurt a bit, but I'm only saying it so you can improve and you can be sure of what exactly went wrong.
There's a ton of small things in this game that on their own would be minor annoyances, but all together make a horrible game experience.
-The "skipping" dialogue that you say is a problem with the json parser is the first thing that confuses the player. I doubt I was the only one that thought dialogue was skipping and I was missing what was going on due to it, leading me to be confused about whether my answers were even right or not
-The fact that characters don't reply to your dialogue options means that you have no way to know if you chose the right option (other than recruiting them). If you manage to recruit them with 4 choices you're disincentivized from finding a more optimal path, since you have no way to know which of the choices you made before were wrong, which of the new ones are right, so you have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
If you do fail at recruiting them, you have zero way to know which of the 4 choices you made were correct, so next time around you're still choosing completely at random, having learnt nothing. This isn't aproblem for the basic characters that show up often. However, for the characters that show up from lvl 3 and above this is incredibly aggravating. Knowing that you have already lost the game due to not knowing the answers to recruit the only character that can save you at this level, and that you're no closer to finding out, and that you're gonna have to replay all 4 previous levels again, and that even after replaying all that again I won't be any closer to knowing how to progress in the game, is enough to drive a man to madness.
Also, I might just be autistic, but it's pretty hard to get a read on some characters and figure out what answers they'd like.
-Unskippable dialogue means every new playthrough is an excercise in boredom. Clicking through dialogue that you've already read 60 times but being unable to skip it is infuriating, and gets exponentially worse every repeat playthrough. This leads to the next problem:
-The penalty for death is way too harsh, and getting back to your deathpoint takes entirely way too long. Dying kicking your ass back to the titlescreen is a practice that has gone out of fashion for a reason, but makes sense for a roguelike. I think the problem with this game is that it has roguelike mechanics (dying sending you back to the beginning, repeating friends and bosses, etc.) but nothing of what makes roguelikes good. There is no "skill" that you can hone with repeated playthroughs (perhaps remembering answers, but as mentioned before, this too harder than it needs to be), and there is no progress that is gained with each death. With many roguelites "Death is not the end", as said in the game's page, but this is a misnomer. Death is absolutely the end. There is no gain, no progress, no nothing. Dying is a complete clean slate, and this is incredibly disheartening to players. Couple this with the death penalty and it's no wonder most people didn't finish the game.
-Now, I know what you're thinking. Yes, I did keep a notebook, I did write down follower damage, boss damage, question answers and other data. I'm sure this is what you intended, but the problem with this is that the previous point makes data collection not only hard, but grating. The second time I gave up on the game was when I figured out that to know how many characters appeared before the boss in level 4 was to let them all pass and die against the boss, leading me to once again replay everything. I really see no reason to withhold this information from the player, as boss health, follower numbers and damage are all key data to making a choice on who to take and who to ignore.
Airstralian by ThunderSalt 2020-10-07T19:51:16Z ♥ 1
I will be the first to admit that I raged pretty hard at level 2, because as others have said it's not entirely clear where the hitboxes begin and end. After figuring out how to get past columns, it wasn't smooth sailing, but I was able to finish the game witout losing my remaining sanity. Despite this, the gameplay itself is very well polished, fun, and merits a full game. The art is also very good, and consistent with the setting. As far as I know there's only one track, but unlike a lot of LD games it doesn't get grating, which is a great change. All in all, a good game. Good work, boys.
Heaven Slash by FireSlash 2020-10-06T03:25:08Z ♥ 2
I ran past all the enemies so I can't say much about the gameplay, but the characters are cute. No mouselook is kinda cringe, but I'll accept it for authenticity's sake. Homoerotic ending's always a plus, though it's missing an animation file (hopefully you patch that bug soon, in which case I'll change my scores to all 5's)
This is game is, dare I say it, based.
Wild Ride by CaptainDreamcast 2020-10-06T02:02:38Z ♥ 1
Wait, I don't get it. I got to the top and tried hitting Mr Bones, but it doesn't do anything. How do I win?
Nvm, I got it now. I guess I didn't hit him the right way.
ATTENTION ALL TROOPS!!! by Abteru2 2020-10-03T01:10:07Z ♥ 0
based