The Phaser Machine by LeReveur 2022-10-13T23:18:13Z
Simple but fun! Some audio design could have really helped it feel more responsive!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Boodle
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 56 | Tiny Creatures | 👥 | Ants Save The Queen | jam | 326 | 3.76 | 3.60 | 3.94 | 4.32 | 3.68 | 3.68 | 3.13 | 3.45 |
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | 👥 | That Time I Reincarnated Into /.../Trials By Summoning Demons With Unique Powers | jam | 312 | 3.81 | 3.52 | 4.11 | 4.31 | 3.95 | 3.90 | 3.23 | 3.95 |
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | 👥 | Orb Golem | jam | 746 | 3.35 | 3.10 | 4.05 | 3.70 | 3.17 | 2.94 | 2.05 | 2.82 |
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | VPR.WAV | compo | 2.00 | 1.10 | 1.30 | 2.90 | 4.00 | 4.09 | 3.50 | |||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | Freja Firebearer | unfinished |
Simple but fun! Some audio design could have really helped it feel more responsive!
Very fun! Somewhat janky physics are not a negative to this type of game, everything worked together pretty perfectly. I wish it was more obvious that I could right click to throw away unwanted pieces, because I discovered that wuite late. And the bomb shooters seemed to have a pretty poor arc that often ended up in me shooting myself, but after learning a bit (two types of wheels??) and using the power of the rocket launcher I completed the game!
Great experience overall!
I've never really liked Pac-Man but this was a good take on the formula! The music was very good, and sometimes you really got in a flow state with some fast turns.
This was a very good idea and has a nice style to it, but some bugs frustrated me heavily. I got stuck on ledges at least 10 times, just having to float there until the timer reset. Some more clarity on what the artifacts do would also have been nice, I assumed it was a bug the first time I didn't get teleported back.
Very good entry! The art especially was impressive, and it was interesting to see how the resource flow was altered when the cube shifted. Could make for a deeper strategy game if you're given more time, so you need to plan further ahead. As it was I just modified my sides on the fly for the most part and made sure to build new buildings on spots that weren't changing immediately afterwards.
I found the music a bit... intense, compared to the gameplay loop. Something more chill would probably suit the vibe of the artwork better.
Took a while to grasp the concept that they hiccuped away your water droplets, but once I did it turned into a neat little idea for a puzzle game, with sometimes frustrating moments of just barely missing a drink timer because another caterpillar hiccuped the final droplet away right before it was eaten.
I leave you with the line: "I ran into a lot of bugs", because, well, that's the gameplay loop.
The control changing is an interesting mechanic. My main complaint is the fire rate being so low, which made it really hard to get by even a single enemy until you could manage to upgrade your weapons. Neat little game though!
Impressive how real that felt to me. Love the setting and ambience. The lie down button seemed a bit unnecessary though, and in general my second run the grandpa seemed a lot more lenient on the timing, or maybe I just got better at putting the gamekid away.
The controls in the gamekid game could maybe be a bit tighter but for the purpose I think a very simple game like this works!
Managed to beat the game on my first try by spamming boars, not sure if I just managed to cheese the mechanics or not, but a cool little game nonetheless!
Very cute! I appreciated each level having to consider whether combining one additional step up was worth it or not, and I'm proud of my red onion in the third stage! Overall a satisfying package!
If you were to expand it I think some other hazards to dodge rather than just the stones might give a bit of variation, along with some possible upgrades to how the onions work, or maybe having to physically move your little onion dude to certain spots to activate effects/pick up power-ups.
It felt a bit grindy towards the end, so I never got to the final object. A cool base for a longer game where more is happening!
Very cute! Summoned all the frogs which had recipes and then went "well, I'll give it a couple tries but I'm not expecting to get the cool boy" and then I somehow got it first try! Neat little game, very good art and sound.
Got to the "end" of the game, very neat application of just a few simple mechanics to create a surprising amount of puzzles! Quite similar in theming to our game (side scrolling puzzle platformer with a guy in robes who summons stuff to help him) but executed completely differently, which was fun to see!
I think the skeleton of this game, especially aestethically, is quite strong. Some deeper strategy than this seeming randomness (or feels like, if I am interpreting the rules correctly there are 15 of each card, so especially during the third round you have quite a bit of information?). A nice reminder of which card beats which on screen, and some clearer indication of which card is selected, would be appreciated!
Wonderful little game and incredibly impressive for a compo entry!
This was awesome! I briefly thought about a Party House-style game but decided against it, but I'm so happy someone did it. I beat it in 19 days on my first attempt, partially due to the sacrifrog upgrade. Being able to kick out all my basic +1 frogs very efficiently with just a viking frog and a frogue really helped my economy. If anything were to be added I would love some sort of shop reroll functionality, because as it was I was just not seeing the frogs I would want to add, and so I was left with a lot of empty space (which completely removes the randomness, as I know I will draw my whole deck).
But good presentation, good gameplay, and overall very impressive for a compo entry!
Hard mode got so much more difficult than I expected, managed to snag the easy mode record at least by making a lot of really big circles, which I found easier to get perfect. That strategy... did NOT hold up.
Cool game, nice presentation, pretty unique mechanic!
Whoa that got difficult for my brain! When stuff was playing on all four channels almost simultaneously I couldn't really connect it to the music and so I ended up with a score of around 3300. No clue if that's a good or a bad score (I've never been great at rhythm games), but cool to see one in Ludum Dare, especially as a compo entry!
Impressive!
A take on a classic game genre! I ran into some issues where causing chain reactions didn't update blocks to fall, so I had some hovering pills around, but otherwise just a solid, fun, proven formula.
That was certainly... an experience!
Somewhat basic game with an absolutely insane custom (mostly, a bit of Beatles) soundtrack I've ever seen in a Ludum Dare game. On my second run I managed to score all 30 eggs and the "You Win" in 39.00 seconds. I'm curious to know what the internal playtesting record is!
It was fun killing all the little creatures and hearing their tiny screams!
But there are some noticeable bugs apart from the ones running at you. For example the health bar seems to display as full even when you've taken a bit of damage if you have a few max health upgrades (and it doesn't immediately update when you grab a full health upgrade). Speaking of max health upgrades I got somewhat annoyed at being offered the "choice" between max health and max health seven times, I think ensuring that there are two different choices for upgrades would feel more interesting to the player.
I got a real high score of around 200 seconds (and a fake one of 260 seconds as I was writing this review, because the timer kept ticking even while the game wasn't on screen, haha).
For the time spent, very well done!
Fun experience!
I was initially confused by the recipe menu as I didn't realize you could scroll, but once I did I had tons of expensive recipes to create from all the hobbits and humans I had been bringing home. Overall just a fun game to play around in for a while, I'm still not sure how to deal with the elves without taking damage at least once :P
Fun and hectic, I got up to 54 and at that point it was getting very hard. I like the style and presentation overall, simple and neat!
The mechanics are interesting. You have to sort of prioritize a set of viruses for each column, and then drop them once you finally see them. However, after a certain point the game seemingly bugged out for me. I started getting combos whenever I dropped anything and both the combo text and the score text crawled off screen, and the column on the right completely overflowed with two-virus combos, so almost anything I dropped lead to a "combo", but I could no longer see my combo or my score.
If that is fixed this is an interesting take on tile dropping games with good presentation!
Absolutely beautiful graphics and environment with some clever level design and appropriately calm sound design! Unfortunately the game crashed for me when I unlocked the cabinet, so I wasn't able to see the end of the game. Still great work, and makes me curious to see how else people can use more powerful engines like UE5 in a jam setting.
Absolutely gorgeous presentation in both visuals and music! I had so much trouble feeding the axolotl because I was coming in at too high of an angle, but eventually I got through to its heart! This team could go far with this art.
Cool little game! Good introduction and generally feels like there was quite a bit of polish. The UI felt a bit unintuitive at times, and I wish the fights were faster or more clear, especially at the start (I started thinking the game was bugged when nothing happened for more than 5 seconds).
I ended up losing to a PWR 11 creature as it was generally stronger than any of my PWR 11 creatures (faster than 12.50 it seemed). Did you know the "re-fuse" button doesn't check if you have enough cash? I ended up having -100 cash looking for something that could outspeed my enemy, but I must admit defeat.
Hectic and fun gameplay! I did have some trouble registering whether I would pick up a slime or not, the timing on the jump/slime collecting seemed to favor jumping up into the slime, rather than falling down on top of them like the text suggests.
I got there in the end with 30s to spare though!
Very nice presentation overall. The glowing runes when each item is fully cleaned are phenomenal, and the whole package just looks and feels good!
Very good presentation, and the mechanics themselves are appropriately chaotic. However, the cutting board doesn't seem to register when you place a new item, so only extra copies of the first item I placed were produced (tomato in my first attempt and cucumber in my second).
Someone else mentioned this too, so I hope that bug can be fixed!
I'm not sure if you're aware but according to the rules you're not allowed to add new features (such as sounds, animations, an ending, etc.) to your entry after the deadline for the jam is up. You can upload a new build with those features (especially if you only do it on itch) but it must be clearly marked as "post jam", and it is not the version that should be rated or scored. The only things you can change about the game are minor or crucial bug fixes.
For more information you can read all the rules at https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/rules, which is also linked in the footer of the website.
@nikitastarostin The reason Ludum Dare allows you to upload new builds is to fix minor or crucial bugs. To cite the rules directly:
"Certain Bug Fixes are allowed. You can’t add new features, but if something broke or didn’t work correctly as you were finishing up, you can fix this after the deadline."
Adding an ending to the game is not included under that definition. I don't understand the part of your comment about hit and runs and disrespect. IF it refers to something in the game I didn't even start or rate the game. I just came across someone openly planning to cheat in the jam and decided to point that out in case they didn't know. To openly ignore those rules is disrespectful to the other competitors.
Adding features might be well within the rules for your internal jam at ITHub College, but it's against the rules of the Ludum Dare Jam, and could still have been uploaded to Ludum Dare without accepting ratings if the team wants to not outright break the rules of THIS competition, which they have entered.
@hirqshi I'm not sure the wording "we are going to cheat in this competition" is more clickable than almost any other alternative.
If your team still wants to be valid competitors in this competition in addition to the one at your college, the rules recommend that you "highlight the changes you make in your submission (a short change log)", so I would also recommend doing that in the actual submission text rather than through ambiguous wording in a comment.
I'll leave this comment section alone now, people can form their own opinion based on this information.