Deep Seek by Sheepolution 2021-04-30T18:46:09Z
As others have recommended, I think a minimap (with fog of war) would be very helpful since it's difficult to keep the whole maze in your head, but it depends on the type of challenge you're going for.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → BluishGreenPro
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | Granting Immortality | jam | 322 | 3.81 | 3.02 | 3.80 | 3.70 | 4.32 | |||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | 👥 | Candle Coffee Courier | jam | 335 | 3.82 | 3.75 | 2.60 | 2.57 | 4.15 | 3.66 | 3.70 |
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Infinite Descent | jam | 96 | 4.15 | 4.25 | 3.44 | 4.01 |
As others have recommended, I think a minimap (with fog of war) would be very helpful since it's difficult to keep the whole maze in your head, but it depends on the type of challenge you're going for.
Sorry I didn't get to play the game for very long, but most first-person games make me motion sick. I would really recommend including hit markers so you know if / when an enemy is approaching from behind. Also, I'd suggest reconsidering the use of using swear words; most of the time it isn't necessary.
Very clever application of the theme! As I mentioned on stream, I think the one thing that would have been better was if you forced the player to move a mirror at some point to clue them into that being a mechanic.
I really like the idea behind this puzzle, but I got lost and couldn't figure out how to complete it. I'm pretty bad at puzzle games on the whole, and I was trying to play the game while streaming, so it's possible that splitting my attention was the reason I couldn't remember where everything was, so I'm not reducing my score because of my shortcomings.
(I hecking love penguins). Really challenging game, great graphics and very polished feeling overall. I'd love to give it another try on stream after you've implemented some changes and are ready for a follow-up playtest.
I think it would be ideal if you could perhaps keep a record of which events have occurred recently so you can avoid presenting the same one twice in a row. Also, it would be neat if you had potential trade-offs when it came to performing UFO repairs, and it wasn't always a guarantee that they would succeed.
Thanks for submitting this game to my stream! As I mentioned on stream, I would really appreciate having an image of the ore I'm looking for and perhaps a codex to remind me of what elements combine to form what result.
Marvelous visuals! I'm looking forward to trying the game again when you're able to implement some updates to the camera as we discussed on stream : )
Very amusing! One thing I didn't mention on stream; the text is pretty hard to read, which is why I would shake the camera around to force the text against different colored backgrounds to read it. I would recommend a semi-transparent solid-color box (black, white, or grey) behind the text to improve contrast.
The explanation image and GIFs help, but a few things were still not clear. If you wanted to continue this game, I would suggest having smaller sample levels where some of the infrastructure was already built. As for supporting structures, perhaps there is some way you could graphically indicate when a structure has insufficient support?
Perhaps the best thing I could recommend is trying to ensure a sense of "cohesion" between puzzles in the game. By this, I mean keep controls similar to each other so that the user doesn't get confused by inputs they didn't know they could make. Displaying the puzzle controls / objective would also help, but I know it's not ideal since you're hoping the puzzle is intuitive enough to solve without having to spell out how to do it. Thanks again for submitting the game to my stream!
Well done! The only other recommendation I'd make beyond what I said yesterday on stream would be to display the movement / range of enemies on mouse-over.
If you haven't already considered it, I'd love it if the bomb powerup was dropped as a block and then you could direct it with the same controls you use to move blocks, same with the laser, that way, you don't have to use Q/E at all.
As I mentioned on stream, I think the addition of a progress meter would help the player to get a sense of their progress. Also; I'm wondering if you could have some way of manually speeding up time at night? There are plenty of times where I'm just waiting for night to end, especially before the Ocelots show up.
Hey! I finally got a chance to play, and boy am I glad I did. Very well done, but I did notice that the UI goes off the edges of the screen (as you'll see in my stream) https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1014865624?t=01h34m06s
@evilscotsman My secondary monitor is 1280 x 800
Thanks for submitting this game to my stream! I think it's admirable that you tried to incorporate so many genres under a limited time.
Hey! I got a chance to try your game out on my most recent stream, here's the timestamp; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1018321279?t=00h27m24s
Man, if I didn't just have the worst possible luck on stream yesterday :) Great job on the visuals, I hope I can someday get past the 4th floor ;)
Thanks for tuning into the stream! I'm sorry I immediately spoiled the game, but hopefully it will be pretty easy to tweak the game so you don't have that happen in future.
As mentioned on stream, I think it needs to be a little clearer that you need to depart from the ship to grab fuel. Perhaps it could start out moving a little slower? Also, it would really help to have a big flashy warning for when you're running low on fuel. [EDIT] Also, the camera was a little wonky, perhaps you could increase the smoothing on the zoom in / out? It felt very rapid.
The biggest challenge was the darkness itself; would you consider adding an option to increase the contrast? Here is the link to the stream where I played the game; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1014865624?t=01h26m22s
Thanks for submitting this game to my stream! The story was very heartfelt, thank you for sharing this story.
Congratulations on your first entry, and thanks for submitting the game to my stream :)
Loved the idea, just had a little trouble with the controls. Here's my playthrough; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1018321279?t=00h05m42s
Unbelievable polish and excellent coordination from so many team members! All comes together remarkably well. As I mentioned on stream, you might consider the idea of the primary laser being 2x wide with a 1x laser on right-click that is a little longer so you can hit blocks further above you.
As we discussed on stream, I'd love to try a version of this with a less steep difficulty curve. Also, I'd suggest reconsidering the use of using swear words; most of the time it isn't necessary.
Perhaps a little too ambitious for a jam game, but certainly a functional prototype if you dedicate the time to building out the rest of the game. I felt like the 3D pre-rendered art wasn't cohesive with the rest of the environment, making it stand out in an odd way. I think it works a bit better in Donkey Kong Country because the backgrounds are also constructed out of pre-rendered 3D art. And the health indicators really need to be more distinct to indicate when you do / don't have health.
My main suggestion would be to allow the player to remain in drill mode when popping out of the ground, holding down the button so you can drill into other patches of soil. I've got some more feedback on my playthrough here; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1018321279?t=00h16m30s
I like the idea of approaching the game with an emphasis on stealth to have dominion over the most bees at the end, however I felt like the pheromones wore off too quickly to be of much use.
I would appreciate if there were some way to control the camera so I could anticipate the obstacles ahead of me. Thanks for submitting this game to my stream!
Excellent job! I appreciate that you were able to give the game a bit more life via replay-ability through collecting items / time scoring, although I still can't figure out how to get that obvious looking orb near the start of the second level. Would you consider making Space Jump? I find it a little easier than pressing W, and perhaps Shift could be used for grabbing / moving things?
Very challenging. As I mentioned on stream, it would be great to have slightly more frequent checkpoints so it doesn't feel like you are repeating large chunks of the levels.
I tried to make my voice so low I forgot to breath; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1021175044 Thanks for submitting the game to the stream; this was lots of fun! I'd love it if the prompts were randomized on repeat playthroughs, and perhaps you could add an alternate more where you could challenge yourself to make your voice as high-pitched as possible? (Obviously not in keeping with the theme, but just for the fun of it).
Hey, I didn't have the most time to play, but I tried your game out on my stream; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1026326007?t=00h59m58s
Sorry, but I really couldn't figure out the controls to the game. Clicking to place only seemed to work for eggs and I never was able to destroy any blocks. Also, as I mentioned on stream, try to avoid held button actions unless you really need them for sake of accessibility.
Very challenging! I'd love to try new versions of the game and provide feedback as you work towards a complete release, please feel free to send a build my way anytime!
@krzyhau The lag isn't just you, although 4 seconds is quite extreme. I couldn't optimize the respawn on the HTML5 version of the game, but it is instantaneous on the PC EXE version, sorry if you don't have access to that platform. Thank you for the feedback!
@korfi @nuclearchair @pipotchi @thewhiterice @skvader-418 @2bitcrook Thank you for your feedback! I've seen a number of people comment on the wall jump, and I'm trying to nail down exactly what needs improvement. Would you be able to let me know if your issue falls into one of these three categories I have identified as a potential problem? 1. Better Tutorialization; You automatically cling to walls (there is no need to hold the directional input to push yourself against a wall). I am wondering if people feel the wall jumping is difficult because this is not explained in game? 2. Again, not understanding that you don't need to touch directional input while wall jumping, people begin to push the character away from the wall before jumping, thus losing contact with the wall and losing their chance to wall jump. 3. You gain too little height from the wall jumps, making it necessary to jump more times than you might expect. 4. Your character would slide against walls when you weren't expecting it, causing unexpected behavior. 5. Something else I haven't identified.
@skvader-418 Thanks for your reply! This is a little tough to change since so many of the obstacles are built with the specific jump height in mind, but I'll see what I can do!
@korfi Holy heck! Thank you so much, this is incredibly specific and useful! I'll be happy to try a bunch of your suggested solutions. Also, I've *got* to play your jam game as recompense; I'll add it to my twitch stream schedule for today! Let me know if you'd be interested in seeing it played live :)
@korfi Sure thing! I'll post a link to the vod as part of my comment on your game once I rate it
@2bitcrook Thanks so much for saying so! I was actually able to implement some of @korfi 's suggestions during my stream last night. I'll have to rebuild the platforming system in Unity in order to distribute it, but that is something I was already in the process of doing. My main problem is marketing (always is). If it's "just a platformer" doesn't matter how good it is; no publisher is interested :(
@acronaut Glad you enjoyed it! I do indeed have several more palettes; the core game has a unique palette for each level, but I only wanted to use 5 to distinguish the 5 difficulty levels, and I didn't think I could reasonably make it harder while still keeping it fun. I've actually added Co-op / Multiplayer to the Unity version of the project! But that's still a ways from being done.
Amazing art, I just wish I could have seen more of it! Consider implementing an "atmospheric darkness" instead of true blackness so you can still see the art. Also, a targeting reticle showing the arc of your primary shot would really help.
Hey, I just tried out your game on my stream; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1026326007?t=00h52m29s
I remember you mentioned on the stream that you had very little time to make the game, so what you managed to achieve with limited time is quite impressive! But do keep in mind that while procedural systems can be used to construct nearly endless gameplay, you often end up with "A vast ocean, only an inch deep". Best to use the procedural generation tools in development, then hand touch the level design and ensure some sanity checks like necessary materials close to spawn and blocks that don't take so long to break.
Lots of fun, and love the visuals! Here's the stream clip where I'm playing it; https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1011359891?t=00h40m59s
@itsboats Thanks for submitting your game to my stream! I saw your comment above about adding a DS-like ability to retrieve your lost upgrades, but I would think very carefully about this. Perhaps the player only loses their money (with the ability to retrieve it) but not their upgrades? I'll put it this way; I am the sort of person who used a mod manager to remove the loss of souls on death in Dark Souls and enjoyed the game SO MUCH MORE as a result. So maybe instead, you could have a "hardcore" mode where you do lose everything, but otherwise you only lose money? Just a suggestion. Looking forward to trying the game again when you're ready for more feedback : )
What are you worried about defending against? Don't worry about it ;)
The art and animations are really cute. Excellent job on making this for the Competition!
Making difficult games is always a fine balance; if possible, try to reduce the "iteration time" (the time it takes to attempt a challenge again). The faster you can get back to a point in the game where you failed so that you can give it another try, the better.
Would have loved to see a greater variety in ship types. It really felt like the Tree was a downgrade, but otherwise it controlled a bit too much like the regular ship.
Really neat game; I'd love to see if you can integrate the prevention of disasters more into the experience. The easier it is to avoid them, the harsher the penalty can be for failing to do so.
Nice and relaxed puzzle game; very well polished. Excellent job! I'd love to see optional numbering on the paths, but it would be tricky to implement at crossings; perhaps each character draws their number in one quadrant of the cell? (Red character is always top-left, yellow character is always top-right, etc.)
Really clever; I think this came together well, don't sell yourself short! It was a little tricky to figure out how to start the game, and unfortunately easy to win the very first time, but you can really get into a good rhythm.
It's a little to easy to do well by staying still in the middle; but then you loose at random because of the elephant, which is a little frustrating. Very funny though!
Absolute favorite entry so-far, this was just so much fun to play! (Please add an option to disable the camera rotation on death, that made me SO motion-sick, and unfortunately, it's easy to die suddenly before I can shut my eyes)
Definitely had trouble keeping the level layout in my mind while playing some of the later levels. It's a really neat concept, I'd love to see some iterations on it to potentially help create some associative memory of the layout, like my suggestion for a geometric plane beneath the player instead of a void, perhaps combined with something to distinguish your facing-direction (N / E / S / W)
Lots of fun, but it felt a bit out of control; some levels I managed to clear without even looking at the screen, while other times I tried my best, but couldn't get past the boss enemies. Maybe you could give boss enemies HP indicators?
Fantastic art! The game-play is a little overwhelming at first, I'd love to see this broken up into more Wario-Ware-esque stages of difficulty so the player gradually learns all the controls over time.
Lots of fun, glad I got to contribute to the canonical pronunciation of "Gteve" :)
Really somber atmosphere; effective and simple aesthetic. I do wish more of the branching paths didn't terminate in dead-ends, but I understand this was a result of limited time.
Took a little bit of time to understand the intricacies of the simulation, but pretty neat once you figure it out!
Excellent variety of levels and obstacles! All the more impressive when I know how much you had to fight the engine to get this made. Can't wait to see what you make when that's no longer holding you back!
I think it would be most helpful to only apply the slowdown effect while the mouse is clicked down. Well done within the time constraints!
Great polish; short and sweet! Definitely tough to wrap my brain around the controls
Quite tricky to navigate, glad I managed to make it to the end!
I wish I understood how to solve these puzzles better; unfortunately the concept never clicked for me. It would be great if you had the time to introduce more, easier levels to help new players learn the mechanics.
The combat was a little tricky to get a handle on; maybe instead of discrete mood displays around the edge of the screen, you could have had a single fill-bar which you could see draining and know how long you're going to stay in a specific state. And keep the player's portrait in a single position, maybe making it a tiny bit larger?
Very challenging, but I really liked how the entire environment began moving as of the Lava level! I appreciate you added an invincibility cheat for those who want to see more of the game, even if I was too stubborn to use it.
The presentation was really novel, but I'd love to see a twist on the Snake formula to give this more replay value
Thanks so much to everyone for their feedback on the game! I've read every comment, and I'm just responding to a few specific points that seem to be recurring; @samuel-hollywood-summers Agreed about it being too tough. We were only able to finish the level with about 1.5 hours left in the jam; at that point, it was at the level of "Is it possible? Okay, ship it!" It burns my soul to see the suggestion about difficulty tuning though, because it's something I'm constantly telling others, and very well aware of when I have more time to iteratively playtest. @j-star We sort of lost the connection to the theme as time went on and we had to cut back the scope of the project. The only way it's still tangentially related is the Volcano itself being "unstable" (on the verge of eruption). Totally fair to dock us points in the Theme category for that. @alex-one Not sure exactly why you were stuck running to the left, did you have a controller plugged in?
@bloodbane Thanks for taking the time to try it, this was an experiment in making a tougher than usual platformer, and I think there are a lot of ways I can still improve to make things less frustrating @kbf123 There are a few hazards against the walls its very easy to hit because you can't see them; but certainly agreed that we could have built this better. Thanks for your feedback! @etrealjunior Thanks for the suggestions; in my non-jam game, Worlds Within Worlds, I have a config option for this in the menus, since I know some people prefer it that way!
@nbumgardner Thanks for the feedback! We were considering the idea of the character being able to find the melted courier and a can of Oil, with the option to deliver that instead, but didn't have time The issue related to the camera is actually hitting an off-screen hazard; that's my fault for designing a level where there's more verticality than the camera was designed for.
@togis Thanks so much for playing the game! I've shared the VOD with the rest of the team. Your feedback was really helpful and I already made a bunch of post-jam changes, including making the level easier and hit-boxes more precise.
I like the approach of a Single-player Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes; makes sense in the context of a jam where not everyone has someone they can play with.
The writing felt a little hard to follow; as if I was missing some details. I can appreciate the subject matter you're trying to tackle, but it came across as a little too abstract. I'd love to see what you could have done if you'd had more time.
Just one small note that I didn't mention during yesterday's interview, I didn't actually realize you can click the arrows next to the Tax %, but I doubt anyone else had trouble with this
Well, I heard it talking while I was looking away, closed the game and reopened it to see what dialogue I'd missed, and... well, that was the game. Too bad for me I guess :(
The acceleration on the character took a bit of getting used to, but after that it was a decently fun platformer! Is it possible to add a system that guarantees the same chunk can't generate twice in a row?
In future, I'd recommend allowing the user to resize the window, especially if you're going for a spooky / horror game; things get a lot more frightening when they take up your whole screen (and you can't see your desktop or web browser in the background)
Holy heck is this hard. It would be nice if bombs slid off either to the left or right space you were in, rather than crushing you. But it's true what others have said; the boxes are deadly!
Well done, a simple idea, but very well executed :)
Thanks again for participating in an interview! This is certainly one of the stand-out gems of this jam; it was a joy to play!
Thanks for submitting your game to my stream! I enjoyed trying the game during your interview
Already lots of fun and has so much potential; really can't wait to see where this goes.
Thanks for showing how it's supposed to be played; I was really confused / overwhelmed when I tried it :cry: I think there's a lot of potential here if you're able to improve the labeling and ease people into the game a bit
I also had a bit of trouble understanding exactly how the game worked; I think you mostly need to improve feedback on; when the cursor is over a character, when you have a character selected, and what a currently selected character's designated objective is
Really novel to play a TTS game in the midst of all the other jam games! I liked the idea of banking dice for each successful turn, but I do see that the score converges very quickly unless you get a lot of cards which only require 1/2 dice in later rounds. *Sorry for forgetting to shuffle :P
It's nifty to play a multiplayer SkiFree, but in practice it means you spend a lot of downtime waiting for the best player to die. It would be nice if the skill floor was a little lower
Pretty well put together, thanks for sharing this on my stream
Well done all around! I'd love to see a more "traveling salesman" type approach to additional levels, where it isn't clear what order you should go in from the start.
The Assault Rifle is where it's at! I'd almost suggest making the SMG work like the Assault Riffle (but much weaker), just because it's a lot of fun to use a weapon where you can just hold down fire and focus on aiming.
This was fun, but I hope you can adjust it to show off a greater variety of the minigames; it's a shame to know there are lots of people who might not realize there are a total of 8!
I wish I was better at it, but this was a really fun game. Very strong aesthetics : )
It was neat to see how well I could optimize my route to minimize deaths; I wonder if you could reduce the size of rooms slightly, or include a 5th badge somewhere to make it possible to beat the game with just one death?
Simple, fun, and very addicting to try and do better and better
I think it would have been great if the initial terrain wasn't quite so spikey, but there's some great game feel here. Great level of polish; well done!
Still can't believe I got 4 hammers in one run. Well done; but I would have liked to see some UI hinting at what was going happening on other floors; maybe an indicator of how many Barrels / holes on each floor
Bursting at the seams with personality; had a lot of fun playing this one!
Fantastic art! I think it might be neat to play this against another human if that would be in the cards; could even do it locally by pressing buttons on the keyboard to secretly input the spell you're going to cast
Solid game; very juicy and clean visuals! (I wish I was better at it) :P
This was fun, but I got really unlucky with the frequency of equipment breaking. In future, I'd suggest allowing for slightly more time to allow the player feel like they have earned some progress before something goes wrong.
Well done all around! I didn't get to mention this during our interview, but having seen the dialogue during another streamer's play-through, I feel like it could be edited down just a bit; there's a LOT of back-and-forth that could be spread into more conversations, especially if you're adding more levels to the game.
Solid concept; I'd love to see how this evolves in a post-jam version.
I liked the message, but I worry that most people won't see it because they don't properly understand the mechanics. The intro has a lot of flavor, but it didn't give me the best idea of what to actually do in the game.
Those small platforms are always the bane of my existence, but other than that the levels were fine. Certainly encourages you to try and improve your time via repeat play-throughs.
The Solar Beam is the bane of my existence; I'm so terrible at getting those sorts of things to line up. Other than that, everything else worked fine.
This was fun! I got into a bit of a loop with how I played, so I'd love to see an ability to dig your own holes, or perhaps the location of holes change to keep things fresh
Hey, I got a request for an interview on my stream, but I can't send a message over Discord because we don't have a common Server. Are you still interested in an interview?
Hey, I got a request for an interview on my stream from @kepsert, but I haven't been able to contact him. Are you, or any other members of your team still interested in an interview?