Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Jarcas Studios
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Category | Score | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🥉 | 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | The Vengeful Baby-Men | jam | Audio | 4.39 |
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | The Vengeful Baby-Men | jam | 149 | 3.44 | 3.31 | 4.04 | 3.04 | 2.76 | 4.39 | 2.91 | 3.27 | 77 | ||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Tiny Runner | compo | 501 | 3.22 | 3.14 | 3.11 | 3.93 | 2.75 | 1.31 | 2.03 | 2.74 | 77 |
Jarcas Studios leaves an average of 40.0 feedback comments each event.
Cool, but I had the hardest time with the last one even with all the hints (I didn't know the song at all). I guess the problem was that since each slice was made right between notes, they felt more or less interchangeable since I didn't know the melody. I like your hint system.
Fantastic job with this. I'm always impressed when people do any Ludum Dare entry with a networking component. Those always seem like they're going above and beyond.
Love the buildup in the music over time! Also very nice atmosphere. A lot of times Richard didn't seem to move very fast though. I hold Right and he's barely walking, but I hit jump and he starts zooming along like it seems like he should. Input issue?
got stuck on the 2nd screen. didn't know what to type.
I thought this was going to be one of those games that ends up being clever and fun because of the awkward controls... but it just ends up being frustrated because touching a beast makes you die. I think it'd be a much better game w/o that.
I didn't have the patience to wait 10 seconds for every new sentence... there's like 2000 other games to play! Nice audio though.
Didn't understand what I was supposed to do on the second stage...
Interesting concept! Would love to see this with something other than squares and circles. ;)
Very nice music.
Nice idea, but I feel like the timer is maybe a little out-of-place. You either remember the pattern or you don't. Extra time doesn't help you remember. Still pretty polished and a good effort though.
Pretty tough game.
*ding* I won!
Really charming game with a simple but elegant design. Great job!
Clever little entry that any dev can appreciate
This is just unbelievably fantastic. The sound is top notch. The art is great. There's even a lot more design and player choice in there than I had first thought. Great job!
Wow, super professional and polished product here. Great sound effects, smooth animations, nice difficulty curve, everything is just top-notch. Fantastic job.
My only complaint is that it took me FOREVER to realize why I wasn't collecting any money (each bullet costs money).
Nice start to a little couch arena game. I really enjoy those. Though I feel like 10 seconds is just too short of a time for this type of game. Maybe consider expanding it into something w/o the 10 second limitation?
Nice! I felt like it got impossible though when suddenly there looked like there were 100s of enemies on-screen. Felt like there was no way I or anyone could get past that.
Too hard for me and losing the mouse pointer meant that I couldn't even easily click the button to retry. I had to close the whole game and start it again. That got old quick.
Immediately crashes on my Win XP machine
Not bad for a last minute entry.
Great atmosphere and very engaging story. Also great work with the sounds and music. Especially the dynamics of the music volume. Not much "game" here since there's not much player choice, but good work all the same.
Each move taking a whole second made the game feel too sluggish for my tastes. Still, nice work for a first entry. Keep it up!
Simple game that feels like it needs a little something more. It'd be nice to have some kind of score indication (how far you flew) and maybe an increasing difficulty curve.
Yes, physics is hard. :)
Nice looking model. The game was easy once I figured it out... but I couldn't understand why that method worked.
Not bad. Dead simple but fun. I never really felt like the time limit was what stopped me though. It was always the red blocks or falling. I do wish that jump was on space instead of W though.
Great wrapper around a simple challenge (counting off 10 seconds in your head). The endings were great, but it would have been even cooler if they were mathematically correct based on how close you got to 10s.
Ha, interesting idea. Thought it was broken at first, but cool.
Nice job! I've seen similar ideas several times, but never with randomly generated levels.
Also, if it's supposed to function as a memory game (i.e. - see the level, then navigate it in the dark), then I think it might work better if the camera were stationary rather than following the player. With the camera moving it's very hard to tell how far or fast you are moving
Ha, I like how you say this pretends to have some deep message. Interesting idea, though and it actually does a pretty fair job of pretending. ;)
The countdown also made me read a little more frantically. That was a nice moment.
I love this! My first 5-star rating this time around.
The game within the game would be really good by itself. But adding on that layer of building the different parts of the game is brilliant!
The only thing is that the game building aspect didn't have the strategic aspect that I thought it would have... probably at least in part b/c of the 10 second time limit. I ended up just clicking all the boxes while mashing 1,2,3 as fast as I could. That seemed to work. :)
Neat little start for a game. Felt a bit like I was playing Terraria.
What a clever frantic game.
My only major complaint is that it's not always obvious when a piece is beneath another piece.
Also, what about if it only rotates when you click and you're wrong? That way if you're careful and you search, then you may be able to do better than random clicking.
What a cool game! Great job! I never saw any weapons to pick up though...
The music is a bit too much for me. Especially since there are no sound effects at all.
I also found the screen shake when you shoot distracting.
Other than those minor complaints this is great stuff.
Great atmosphere, but for something so moody the writing is very important. I think you really should spell check your text because several spelling errors ("diying", "excape", "etternity") took me out of the experience.
Good start but feels like it needs something more... either that or I'm not artsy enough to appreciate it :)
Very nice! The store kept me engaged a lot longer than I would have been otherwise. I kept playing b/c I had to know what the secret weapon was! I wasn't disappointed.
As for difficulty, once I had the minigun I felt like I could play forever. I also eventually learned that, since range didn't really matter, the best tactic was to just sit still at one end of the wall rather than running around back and forth.
Not sure why damage is an upgrade since everything seems to be a one hit kill anyway...
Also, shotgun felt like a downgrade from the machine gun. I do think the store and/or weapons need some balancing in general.
Finally, extra bonus points for making me feel all that retro nostalgia :)
Interesting mechanic. Reminds me of Hidden in Plain Sight. I got kinda bored with it after a while though.
Sorry, but the music is really obnoxious to me. That alone made me want to stop playing.
It looks like it should be a good game... but the gameplay was just really disappointing. The cannon tile placement is awkward. The cannons are hard to aim. Even when you aim well the bombs just bounce off. I was too frustrated to even try to get past the first level.
Great art though. I think this could be made into a great game... it's just not there yet.
Somebody was hoping for a different theme, eh? ;)
Great effects, but I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Seemed like an obstacle course maybe? Dunno. I kept dying b/c I couldn't tell where I should go next.
Love the style and feel of this one! Great pixel art, music, and sound. The changing colors of the sky are great!
Though, I find it a little odd that the score is based on distance just like on typical endless runners. Since this one's not endless there is a definite cap on your score, which makes it not really appealing to high score chasers. I think I made a perfect run one time (no obstacles in 10 secs) and got 188m. And with that, I feel like I've "beat" the game and have no reason to play again.
Still... great work!
If this is really your first game that's not bad at all. Keep it up! I'm sure there's still lots you could add to this to make it more interesting.
Very cool polished little game! Beautiful graphics (I love the sword swipe trail). Nice player choices available.
I kinda wish I saw damage numbers popping up when I hit something or health bars maybe? It's hard to tell how effective my weapons are otherwise. (Is my level 4 sword better than my level 6 magic book?)
Overall great work!
Got to Level 30! Surprisingly fun and addictive! Falling particles are a nice touch.
I do think the difficulty curve could use a little tweaking. Played maybe 7 or 8 times and couldn't get past level 7. Then, my next try, I got to level 30. I suddenly felt like I had tons of time. I think I had something like 25 seconds when I got to level 30. But I burned it all on that one level and could never find the pixel.
Took me maybe 20 tries or so, but I got it. Felt like the final boss level of a platformer game.
Took me a while to realize the music was the timer, but that was very cool. I liked that a lot.
Also, can't complain about your game's size... my last Ludum Dare game was in a 40 pixel wide window. :)
I feel like, with the rules of the game and it being so easy to get the kill, the 10 second time limit didn't even matter. In fact, I purposefully tried to live 10 seconds to see what would happen, but could never get there in either 1P or 2P modes.
Also, I didn't understand how the grenades work. They didn't always kill whoever was closest. In fact, half the time I wasn't even really sure why the match ended.
Bonus points for the title though. Very clever.
Ha! Nice one w/ the outhouse.
I liked this overall, but it was frustrating that agents would shoot each other and/or the VIP. It also feels like any skill involved w/ playing the game is heavily overshadowed by luck.
Still, I feel like there's a seed of something awesome in there. :)
Nice idea! Wasn't particularly fond of the controls, but the audio is fantastic! What did you use to make the sound effects and music?
I did get stuck somehow on my first playthrough. I was near a corner when the gravity shifted. Then, somehow my guy disappeared. I think he may have been shifted into the wall somehow? Not sure.
Really unique experience. I just wish the theme was 15 or 20 seconds... Feel like I didn't have enough time to read everything.
A lot more here than I would have expected at first glance. I really like the 10-second puzzle mechanic.
The upgrade system is a nice touch! Gave some good depth to what would have otherwise been a fairly dry experience.
Was confused at first though. I thought the little cat head icons actually WERE the kittens, not money.
This seems like it would be an interesting world to explore, but the 1 button mechanic made it to frustrating for me to want to go any further than getting the first crystal. The collision also seemed a little off from where I thought it should be in several cases. Cool idea though and nice art too.
I managed about 12000. That third stage is the one that always gets me.
Wow. So clever!
Nice! Reminds me of an old game I used to play called Planetary Golf (?)
Very cool art and theme! A game made up of one-line - love it! Did seem a little buggy when I got to the princess. Still great though!
Very cool game and nice work on the music! I was able to get stuck several times on the volcano level though. Katamari works because every obstacle (apart from the ground itself) can eventually be picked up. Ensuring a game like this avoids the player ever getting stuff will be very tricky. All the same, very cool effort!
I WON! Gorgeous pixel art and very clever theme. Wish I hadn't read the comments first since they spoiled figuring out the basic mechanic.
I like the concept. It was a pretty clever mechanic. A little odd that there are 3 "levels" of drunkenness/perception, but you never get to go back to the 1st one. It just alternates between the last two. But still pretty neat.
Very cool! The only frustrating part was that the angle of the sword would move when my character moved even though my mouse was still. Could fix that by ensuring the player's character is always centered.
Moody and evocative
Wow, all around great work!
I actually toyed with a similar idea about playing multiple minigames at the same time, but I'm pretty sure mine wouldn't have been nearly this cool.
Love the special FX, the static and that glow that takes me back to the days of old CRT monitors. Also, great work on the music.
Ha! Fantastic!
Finished in 9:13. Nicely done and much better and more fun than I thought it would be! I feel like the light "powerups" are what keep the game from being overly frustrating. Wandering around slowly with no idea what's next is not particularly fun unless there's no threat of death.
Yep, that's minimal for sure. Nice work!
I almost made my endless runner entry into a 1D game like this (just blocks), but I decided to make some lousy pixel art instead.
Really well done!
I've rated maybe 30 or so games so far, and you are getting my first 5-star Overall rating. Great job!
Neat idea. Took me some time to understand what was going on, but still cool.
Pretty neat trick how you got it to look like you're running around an endless cylinder.
This was really fantastic!
nice looking art
Interesting. Reminds me a bit of Snuggle Truck. Very difficult. Also, it seems that you have control in the air, which is odd. Good looking physics though.
Framerate seemed really choppy to me. I like your little hero guy.
Cool! Minimalism for sure.
Kinda felt like the pac-man clone didn't fit as well as the others. It took way longer to finish a pac-man level compared to any of the other mini-games.
Very cool! I like this a lot!
I'd say an outline around the player's square would help a lot... especially since respawn after death is instant.
Also, I could never quite prove it, but I really feel like there were several times that I died when I shouldn't have. Maybe something wrong with the detection algorithm?
Other than that I really like the color upgrade mechanic.
Controls feel a little wonky, but I LOVE the art style and the platforms appearing as you move. Great job with that!
Nice! I was wondering how many people would make "unplugged" games.
Wait, what just happened?
Neat. I kept wanting to think that the length of the line I drew would affect the hit somehow, but it's effectively meaningless... that was a little odd for me. And since that part of the line drawing doesn't make a difference, it's effectively just a pull-back-to-shoot style game where the further you pull back, the harder you hit.
Cool games/ideas overall, but I felt like Switchy was too easy and Sinky was too hard.
I really liked Switchy at first, but then it didn't seem like it ever got harder so I felt like I could keep playing forever if I wanted to. The powerups didn't feel particularly meaningful since I could hit all of the blocks without them.
Also, most of Switchy was just distraction - the blocks moving horizontally, the blocks falling to the left and right, and the sets of 2 or 3 blocks falling together (those are no harder to match than a single block). In a way I feel like a game full of distractions from the meaningful part of the gameplay is the opposite of minimialism.
As for Sinky, I know you were going for the one button mechanic, but I feel like the gameplay really suffered as a result. It was annoying to have to remember whether my next click would be left or right. Or if I tried to go left but didn't go far enough, I'd have to click twice to go a little further.
But I feel like with a few tweaks both of these could be pretty nice games.
More interesting than I thought it would be... but I find it odd that no rules are enforced and that any player can move any piece and jump any other piece. So, all you have to do is start taking your opponent's pieces and jumping his own pieces on your move.
Then again, maybe that's part of the strategy and you should both be doing that.
Well done! I liked this a lot. Almost made it through all 20 levels.
Also, it's strange that I care, but I think I liked this more because all the levels are at that odd 15-degree angle. Somehow that makes it feel "artsy".
I was able to cheat at some intersections by pressing multiple keys in quick succession.
Very clever and interesting idea!
However, I think it's a bit cumbersome/unintuitive to use, especially considering that modern spreadsheets always support mouse input. Also, the tab system was confusing. I didn't know when things changed on other tabs or what those tabs represented.
Got 2656!
Cool little game. I like the multitasking required (in solo play) to keep playing for a long time - the constant looking back and forth between hands. Tricky but felt like an achievable goal.
Thanks for not making the balls any faster than they are! ;)
I really like this!
Tougher than I thought it would be and not for the reasons I thought it would be. I thought as the game progressed, more and more of the grid would be destroyed, making it harder and harder to stay on the grid - kinda like playing a game of Snake.
Instead, it was usually the enemy bullets that killed me. I just felt like I didn't have enough time or vision ahead of me to really react to the bullets effectively.
Honestly, I think it would have been more interesting if the grid holes were the most important/difficult obstacle rather than the bullets. Bullets have been done in a million games, but the grid holes thing is unique.
Great game overall though!
Tough! Couldn't quite figure out a strategy and gave up after losing about 10 times.
Also, I think the computer cheats. Sometimes after I make my 3 moves, Blue remains in the same space, which should be impossible, right?
Neat twist on a classic
Interesting. Neat how you have to kinda figure out what the goal is at any given time.
I admit that I resorted to just fast clicking a lot rather than holding and aiming.
I got to 3000 and then I lost... :(
I have just been through a roller coaster of emotions.
First, I read the description. Oh wow, I thought. Someone really tried to go for a large scale multiplayer game? And it's pong? What a cool idea! I have to see this!
Then, I saw the message about how many hundreds of players were playing right now, and I thought, really? I don't know, maybe... if so, awesome!
Then, I saw all the other players paddles. That's when I started to get suspicious. Nobody was AFK. People are always AFK with stuff like this. They were also all moving in very similar ways that looked like AI control to me. Very suspicious at this point.
Then, I clicked away from my browser and saw that the game paused. Boom! I thought! Busted! What a scam! This isn't multiplayer at all! This dev is trying to pass off a fake MMO. Pfft. Loser.
Then, I saw the fake error message and the Admin mode and the crazy Multiball stuff. Oh! Wait! It's a joke. The dev is in on it, and I am just now getting it. Back to "This is awesome!"
Well played, sir. Well played. :)
Nice! Really tough but cool idea. I really like how everything is smoothly scaling and rotating the whole time. Gives a very organic feel to what would otherwise be very dull to look at.
I would also say that it doesn't quite do enough to teach you how to play. I tried clicking the X icon a few times at first before realizing it meant I should press a key. Then, I didn't understand what the object of the game really was. I was at my 5th try before I understood what I should do.
Gorgeous game with a minimal color palette. Well done!
Really, really good. I love the side vs front mechanic and how you have to make that lane decision VERY quickly. It can be pretty intense!
Bonus minimalism points for the 2 color graphics and narrow playfield (I did the same thing with my entry).
Yeah, I think I may have been randomly losing too. Or maybe I just can't perceive when the light is on or off.
Also, the game over message is a little odd: "You let MORE THAN 3 lights turn on"? Shouldn't that say "ALL 3"?
Oh man, this was great! My favorite LD26 entry so far. Loved the variety in attack patterns. That really kept my interest.
My one frustration with the controls was when I wanted to dodge at the edge of the playfield. If you move your mouse off the playfield, even by one pixel, you come to a dead stop. Not even sure if you could do anything about that... but it's really just a minor gripe.
I'd love to tell you how far I got, but there was no game over screen or anything to know... and I didn't have any time during the game to look up at what level I was on... I was busy dodging bullets!
Wasn't entirely sure what the object of the game was. Maybe a little documentation would help.
Hard to judge altitude - meter or at least a shadow would have been nice.
Found a bug - you can click the circle when it "bounces" back and starts to grow... if you click it after it fills the screen it says the radius is -1000 or something and counts as passing the test.
Too minimal? nah... Not a lot there, but what is there seems to be solid. Not bad for a second game ever.
Got errors when I tried to run this: "Unsupported major.minor version 51.0" and "Could not find the main class". I tried to run it by typing "java -jar Game.jar"
Neat little puzzle game. I kinda wish 'z' would just call the pyramid to my current location rather than toggling follow mode.
A lot more puzzles than I thought there would be. I got to the 3x3 set of rooms before getting stuck. Might've been able to figure out that one, but I've got to head off to work! Good job!
LD28 — You Only Get One (4)
A Precious Arrow by Benjamin 2014-01-08T20:04:00
Very cool 8-bit design even though it's brutally hard. The lack of checkpoints, in particular, was very frustrating.
I actually spent a large chunk of time thinking I was stuck on two fronts. I couldn't get past the red guys going down, and the monster in the water was just a dead end. Just before giving up I decided to try to jump on the water monster's head (which was counter-intuitive since jumping on everything else killed you). Then, suddenly there was SO much more world to explore.
I did enjoy the "puzzle" aspects of the game and hate I wasn't skilled enough to see the rest of it.
Still, great job overall!
Touch by WhoaConstrictor 2014-01-08T17:03:00
Yet another argument for games as art. Great job!
blomster by Ditto 2014-01-08T15:47:00
Great atmosphere here!
One Take by Sheep 2014-01-08T15:32:00
very cool, well executed idea! Great job!