Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Charred Axolotl
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Annihilation Simulation | jam | 3.50 | 4.12 | 4.12 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.75 | ||||
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Cat Blaster | jam | 675 | 3.43 | 3.50 | 2.96 | 3.90 | 3.19 | 2.83 | 3.27 | ||
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | 👥 | Mama | jam | 593 | 3.59 | 3.57 | 3.09 | 3.87 | 3.63 | 3.70 | 3.77 |
This is genuinely a really interesting idea, I'm surprised you're having trouble getting it to take off. My first impulse was to immediately send it to all my friends and get them to feed Gogo. Would love to see this expanded into a bigger project at some point.
Loved this, the atmosphere, the audio, the graphics were all incredible.
Really good take on the theme! Gameplay was unique enough and enjoyable.
It could benefit from making the attack animation a little faster or changing it to a longer-range attack, because right now it's really hard to walk around and aim without taking damage myself. It's not as unique, but this style of game really does benefit from letting you fire a lot of shots that travel fairly far. You often need to change the direction of your attacks on a whim, and the attack here is stuck in one direction for just a bit too long.
Otherwise, again, this is a really solid entry.
I am wondering how you implemented the controls, because it almost seems like they're physics-based at points. I think this is partially because the player has such a slow start when switching directions. It's like they don't move at all until their walking sprite is at least 1 frame in. Diagonal movement is also noticeably absent.
I like the concept of the game, and aesthetically it all fits together pretty well. I think if you modified how movement works you could have something really special.
I have the humor of an 11 year old child, so I really liked this one
Interesting idea that stays true to the theme. Only complaint is that it seems pretty easy to last forever if you find a good spot and just hold the shoot button. Limited ammo that you have to refill or enemies getting harder to kill over time might have circumvented this. Good fun otherwise, though!
All of the sound effects are so satisfying.
I get the feeling you're into Undertale.
Good way to make a comedic game out of this theme. My mind only went to the most depressing options.
A small thing I would change is requiring the mouse to navigate the menus; especially in games where you need to restart a lot, it can get grating fast to have to switch between mouse and keyboard every time you lose. I also got a little confused on when I was making progress, because the green bars next to everyone didn't fill consistently.
Glad to see I'm not the only one that didn't realize you could use the mouse for more precise aiming. I'm almost wondering if this hurts the game more than it helps, though. Some of the jumps require really precise controls and it feels like luck whether or not I'll get the mouse in the right spot.
Overall though, this was really fun. The music is nice, the graphics are serviceable, and the mechanic feels really good to control. Even though I could just fly around a lot of the earlier levels, it felt amazing to do so. Would love to see this turned into a bigger project.
Insanely fun and addicting. Graphics are simple and goofy obviously, but they're consistent enough to create a nice visual style. Impressed that you got multiplayer working for a game jam.
This was a really cool idea, and I like the presentation a lot. It seems very Hyper Light Drifter-inspired, which is never a bad thing.
Only criticism is that I was a little confused on exactly what tone you were going for. This is a very dark atmospheric game, but the concept of a hemophiliac vampire reads as more of a punchline than anything else (it was also the exact subject of some other comedic entries I've seen on here.)
Really excited to see what you produce in the future!
Like some of the other comments, I really wish the visual style of the intro cutscene was maintained for more of the game. It was really unique and pretty, and it was disappointing to suddenly have it taken away.
It's a really interesting take on the theme, though, and I really like that "delaying the inevitable" was part of the gameplay itself.
Not sure if this was just a problem for me, but the game seemed to think I was moving my mouse a little to the right constantly. I disabled my trackpad, used a different mouse, and turned off all input but my camera was always moving right. (This was on the HTML5 export specifically)
Otherwise, this is really cute and is really impressive for a first jump into 3D. I really like the contrast between the low-poly models for the environment and the pixel art for living things. It's obviously a little buggy (it could get really difficult to find the hitboxes of rubble to push around, and stuff got stuck in the ground a few times.) but when it was functioning correctly, it was really fun to see how big I could make my piles of stuff.
Definitely one of my favorite games in this jam that I've played so far. Incredibly polished and a good number of levels for such a short time frame. The physics of the player when flying add a lot to what could otherwise be a really basic platformer.
Only criticisms: Some background music would be really nice and could add a lot to the mood, the connection to the theme is a pretty big reach, and there's no real difficulty curve; the difficulty just varies heavily from level to level.
Would love to see a bigger version of this made without the restrictions of a game jam.
As others have said, the music is really great and the atmosphere is top-notch despite the simplicity. My only suggestion might be to change how we navigate the menus, since we don't use the mouse in normal gameplay.
I think the way menu navigation was implemented also caused a weird (harmless) bug where I could move around the sliders on the right and top of the game with my mouse after I died.
Was really interested in the theming, wish it could have been explored a bit more. Right now the "inevitability" of being crushed under the weight of negativity just seems so morbidly depressing.
Really enjoyable game. I like the strategizing that comes from moving around to aim after clicking; sometimes it feels like a very light puzzle game in that regard. The music is nice and the graphics do a good job and stay consistent, so nothing is distractingly bad.
I only have a few criticisms. The big one is that, to me, everything except the laser magic seems kind of useless. I'd basically call the fireball "hard mode." Nothing wrong with different options being harder to use, but it was weird to see them all displayed upfront like equal choices. Only other thing is that it could get annoying to spawn in a room and immediately be shot by an enemy. Some areas could have benefitted from at least a slight buffer before you had to dodge fire from a guy right next to you.
Otherwise really good, one of my favorites I've played so far and one of the first I'd be interested in coming back to to play more after the jam's ended.
This is a really neat idea for a movement system, and I would love to see it explored more in a larger project. Only real issue is how long some sections were with no variation, because there were a few points where I just sat and watched for at least a minute after getting my ball to a safe spot.
@escapade No problem! I totally get the difficulty with such a tight time frame. I was surprised I even got a functional product out. And like I said, this is a really cool movement system and has a lot of value on its own
Ridiculously cool blending of genres, this is the kind of thing I'd want to make as I learn more about game development.
Past a certain point, I couldn't progress at all. I would get a game over any time I went too far to the right. Maybe this is just where the game ends? Enjoyable idea and a good take on the theme, though.
Only major criticism is that there's almost no time to react to Death once the countdown timer starts. I'd keep him from moving until the player starts moving or position him farther away from the player's starting position.
Definitely think the game would have benefited from either leaning into the weird physics system or taking it out entirely. Temple Run works because it's incredibly on-rails; every obstacle is clearly telegraphed as being in a specific lane, and your only movement options are restricted to those lanes. This one has obstacles strewn all over your path and a jump that can send you flying 50 feet in the air if you hit them at a weird angle.
To an extent, this kind of weird jump was enjoyable and actually made the project its own thing. I'd love an endless runner where you can use the environment to throw yourself around like crazy and get speed boosts from it. The problem is it clearly wasn't intentional here. It leads to bugs and positioning problems, which makes the game a struggle to make progress in. If you worked on it more and leaned into this weirdness with the level design, though, perhaps even taking the character off rails, I think this could be really fun.
This game is so polished for such a simple concept it's insane. It's really fun, and I love the fact that it's basically impossible to stop moving once you've started.
The corruption was a really cool effect, I was wondering how you made it the whole time.
Major criticism is that this game absolutely needs a variable jump (jump that changes depending on how long you hold the button), or at least a much less floaty one. I'm almost wondering if the jump is frame-rate-dependent and my computer is running it differently than yours, because it felt like I was in the air for so long that some earlier maneuvers were borderline impossible.
I was definitely interested enough in the premise and atmosphere to want to play longer than I did. Unfortunately I had to give it up somewhat quickly, though, because precision platforming is really difficult without a concise, controllable jump.
I thought this was really cool! The darkness set the tone really well and it was surprisingly atmospheric as it approached. My only trouble was with the separate controls for sprinting and running. My hands really didn't like the layout of having one finger on shift, one on ctrl, and one on space. Maybe a double-tap could have also induced sprinting, or just giving us the option to use other keys like Z and X.
Overall, though, this was really neat! I'm really excited to see what you produce in the future.
Really liked this interpretation of the theme and the visual style! Took me a second to learn the controls, but was very enjoyable when I did.
Really fun for such a simplistic game! Only thing is that the game seemed to freeze completely when I hit "quit" after dying. I guess HTML5 exports don't really know what to do with that command.
Fair warning to the dev that my antivirus really didn't want me running this one for some reason, and afterwards the folder the game was in refused to be deleted. I'm genuinely commenting this in good faith because I doubt you're trying to infect people's computers via a game jam, but I'd look into why this is.
Was shocked at how much fun I had with this. Upgrades get super satisfying very quickly.
I was a little confused about how the charge system worked, even after reading the itch.io page, but I got through fine regardless. There's a good level of polish and the controls feel nice. The music adds another layer of atmosphere as well. Didn't think the theme was super present in the gameplay, but I at least understand the thought process. Overall really good work, especially for such a short time frame.
@purpoappo Different crystals will heal mama at different rates. The more complex-looking ones are better at healing her faster. I figured since that follows a few common design trends in games it would be self-explanatory, but more feedback for what was actually happening definitely could have helped.
@simpathey Mama's sprite actually changes as she gets closer to death! I thought it was a little more immersive than an HP bar, but maybe I could make it more obvious. Thank you for the feedback!
@iamsodarncool Thank you so much!! This comment makes me really happy I've already read it like 3 times!!
@bloodbane It's honestly cool to me that someone even played for 10 minutes lol. It actually used to get much harder, but I thought it was annoying past a certain point. Maybe if I revisit this in a post-jam build I'll add those harder sections back when Mama's health is getting too high.
@flyingkaida @sir-syko @edmanbosch Thank you all for the feedback!! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I wanted the roots/vines to be telegraphed, so they only hit you as their thorns are popping out. Any time before or after that animation, they're okay to run over. It's kind of a small animation, though, so it can be hard to notice. Definitely wanted to add a sound effect that made it a little more obvious, but naturally I ran out of time.
@mar3k hmm I thought I fixed that. GMS2's collision detection has been a nightmare to work with lately.
I'll upload a fix once I get home, thank you for letting me know.
I really liked the idea of having to use the fly swatter to kill the enemies as well. It created a lot of tense moments just waiting for the attack while trying to avoid it myself.
This was a really cool idea for the theme. It's cool that you even got a boss fight in here. By the time I got to it, the game was kinda chugging, though. There were a lot of enemies onscreen.
I really loved this one! It's tough but doesn't feel annoying, it was really fun. I thought the "you can hit cancel to not get penalized" thing would be overpowered, but I still managed to lose a few times. I loved how it showed you where the car was on the ground after every turn, too. Everything felt like the perfect balance of difficulty and quality-of-life features
The art in this was really cute
i really like the shopkeeper's face
This was definitely one of my favorite entries so far. Really funny and enjoyable to play. No matter how much difficulty I had getting to the next lake, I always wanted to try again.
This was a really cute interpretation of the theme. There's something weirdly satisfying about furnishing an empty house and watching it slowly become a more livable space (or a complete mess). My only gripe was that targeting specific pieces of furniture was really difficult. Usually when I just wanted to turn, I would move a space and end up standing on whatever I wanted to pick up. Maybe adding collision to the items could help? Either way, this is really impressive for not even using the full time.
@ruruie @mrs-wheelsx Thank you both! The squeaks are just me making a high-pitched noise into my phone and pitching them up slightly lol
@slimefriend @phantom49 @joe-bevis @escarpoulpe Thank you all so much!! I'm glad you enjoyed it
@deprecat thank you for the feedback! I fully agree with both points and I would probably change how the eye enemies move altogether if I had more time. (They actually used to be way more irritating, but as a compromise 30 minutes before submitting, I lowered the gravity and made it so they can only change direction if you're on the ground.) Maybe I'll revisit this in the future and make it a 3 second timer instead.
@blacklambert Youre totally right about the tutorial text, I meant to add a graphic showing you how you enter doors but I completely forgot/ran out of time. Thank you for the feedback and for playing through the whole thing!
This was really fun and nicely-polished. I can't really say anything new, so I just wanna reiterate how impressive it is that this was made in such a short timeframe
I really liked the hectic nature of this. It was very fast-paced and fun
Very good idea that was implemented well! My only real complaint is the layout for the controls. Using space for jump is awkward for me when I'm using A/D to move. My hand starts cramping really fast so I just had to shift back and forth from keyboard to mouse.