Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Christopher Schulte
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | alONE | compo | 577 | 2.92 | 1.62 | 3.04 | 3.35 | 2.71 | 3.23 | 4.12 | 45 | ||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Writer's Block | compo | 576 | 3.15 | 2.55 | 4.05 | 4.00 | 2.93 | 2.06 | 3.13 | 72 |
The mode switches were great, really tough to get your mind set up fast enough to translate into a new motion interface; it takes a lot of practice. Having the score screen and title all flow into one another was cool, helped emphasize motion by having everything flow. I also loved that each new level was inside the last one; it felt like diving into a fractal.
The concept of wanting to touch the purple and then wanting to avoid it at all costs is really cool, a nice subtle mode switch. It was a little frustrating to touch the door, then go out across a big map and forget what it sounded like.
The audio was great and the soft colors really made this an enjoyable experience. Such a simple concept of getting something in a hole develops into some pretty devious puzzles. The space background is nice for the theme as it complements the puzzle design in showing an example of when there can be so much to explore with so little actually there compared to a vacuum.
I like that the aim of the game is remove as many things as possible, very in touch with the theme. I think the colors for the power ups might go against the main aesthetic, a change of shape alone could have suffice. It had me furiously clicking for my life, so it was engaging. Good work.
I was so immersed I almost shit my pants. Really fun game.
The art is really nice; I love that the screen color changes with your speed, really emphasizes how important that stat is. The levels are very difficult, but short so the large number of retries I had didn't bother me. Good job.
The player motion felt a little too floaty, but that might be personal preference. The graphics were nice, I thought it was gonna be easy but the level progression in difficulty was good. Also, POTATO.
The user created map at the end is great and this game fits the theme so well. It nearly eliminates the use of vision, and makes a compelling, minimalist, audio based puzzle. Very cool.
That was really cool. I love the mechanic that when you die you add a corpse to the level while removing a live from the world.
Wow that was great. Something I found particularly fantastic was that, as in the writing, I eventually forgot that I was climbing and was only reminded of it when I was reminded of it in game. It really immersed me in the role. I was laughing out loud as well, wonderful writing. I also liked that, while the narrative was really nuanced, I viewed the images as a straight binary distinction (climbing and green, or at the top and blue); this was a very neat contrast. Great work!
That was really quite something. It was great how a simple mechanic of holding spacebar keeps the player engaged enough with the game to think about everything going on. It really captured the feeling of intense focus and reflection I have when I watch a beautiful sunset. To see what happens, I lifted off of spacebar and the abruptness was a really cool contrast that pushes the point that some things must be appreciated serenely. Well done.
I really loved the contrast between holding space and lifting off of space, the abruptness and reversal of time effectively convey that some things must be appreciated serenely to get the full affect, and a sharp exit from meditation can undo all the progress one makes. Well done.
The music loop was really catchy, and it was great that the sprites and resource indicator moved with it; it had a real flow. There was a bug with the tooltips saying blink when they shouldn't, but that was the only issue I had.
The idea of translation from a tactile form to visual form is a really cool idea, I could spend all day typing in quotes and such. Great work.
The art and ambiance are good, but I think the mechanic lost its appeal after the first few levels. It would have been nice to have some complexity added to it as you progress.
The humor was great, especially the high scores screen where you finish just off of making the leaderboards. Very funny. Having the lives and score counter consistent through each game was nice to keep them linked. I think that this would have worked a lot better with the theme if, instead of adding features to each new stage, you worked your way backward to the most basic visuals. Fun play, good work.
The timer being marked in a unit other than seconds that gives motivation to getting a high score was a great idea.
I don't understand why the combat was inserted, the moment I was supposed to use it I just got sent to the fin screen. The wind sound effects and snow particle effects were cool.
That was really great! The minigame format is great for the theme, and as things pick up it feels like you have even less time, so very minimal. The graphics are really awesome in a "my handwriting in kindergarten" cute and fun way. Good work.
Now that the compo is complete, I'd like to thank everyone for the reviews and awesome feedback, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to play my entry!
This game made me so happy. The music, the goal, the graphics, it was all really fun to play. I like the presence of the theme in the level design; you essentially have two levels per one tea brew (go to flower and get back). The two sub-levels get increasingly different from each other when you have the level get destroyed and enemies disappear which is a great progression. The challenge is great as well. Fantastic.
The mood was nice and put me into a relaxed state of mind, just endlessly drifting through a forest. The first time I tried to play I was boxed in to the top left corner starting area, but after a refresh everything worked great.
I really liked how all the in game objects and enemies felt so distinct while using very small sprites and a limited color palette. Well done.
I absolutely loved the opening. Though, aren't the potatoes being minimalists by trying to remove all the buildings? Very funny, good work.
The message at the end is great, shows the consistency of the theme (minimize time, make a minimal work of art, minimal gameplay of single button). Good work.
I don't know if this is an intentional connection, but when QUILTY showed up at the end of my bloody catastrophe, I immediately thought of Peter Seller's Clare Quilty from the film Lolita, and the sight of a blood spattered room with a corpse and that thought were so great to have together. Thanks. Keeping the blood level minimal is a neat objective to pair with the theme too.
The graphics were very nice and soft on the eyes. It was very hard to focus on spelling words due to letters spawning very close by and coming in fairly fast. I was made pretty much impossible to survive or spell once the green letters came in; I had to focus all my fire on them and even then some spawned so close as to kill me. Interesting idea!
The game really could have used some instruction on the fact that shooting took health, I was at a loss as to why I was losing for about 5 minutes, I almost stopped playing before I found out. I don't see how the game fit the theme very well, but there was something oddly satisfying about sucking people up while hearing them scream.
I liked the choice of silent walking or being chased by monsters. Both were equally terrifying, the monsters for obvious reasons but walking silent gives the player zero information, and the unknown is quite a scary thing. Very cool.
The music and art were fantastic, I love the tone sequence paired with moves; it greatly enhances the feeling of accomplishment. A very relaxing play, great job.
This game fits the theme very well; you have a large range to search and you each guess you make can pretty much half it, so the player "minimizes" the game space until s/he gets it as small as possible. Very cool. It wasn't too fun as I could use the same strategy pretty much all the time and the result of this kind of game is more chance than skill based. But that just supports the theme even more so... Well done! Also using the command line is very minimal in a sense of what is running the game.
I liked having no sound, fits the theme and setting (in space). I found the 3 second countdown at the start of each retry to break the flow really horribly. I would just start the retry maybe .2 seconds after death.
I had some minor issues clipping through platforms, but I enjoyed the single point perspective of each platform. It added a surprising amount of depth to a one color object.
The three rectangles on screen at any one time was a really interesting limitation to put on yourself, and it resulted in multiple fun quick games to play. Well done.
Congratulations on making a multiplayer twine game! Very cool, the sparse use of words in each description does a good job of developing a very vivid mental image. I found myself rapidly clicking through the links for areas I had already visited, which wasn't very fun for me but I believe it to be an action specifically designed into the game to make the shock of death by lamia that much worse. Good work.
The complexity that rises from a simple mechanic is nice, but the game could give some more feedback to keep the player engaged.
I absolutely love this game. Very in touch with the theme, great graphics and mood that complement each other, and quite fun to play. One niggling issue for me is the footstep sounds seem a bit loud and jarring compared to everything else in the audio, but by far my favorite entry so far.
This has a very nice flow to it. I think the graphics could have been a little more vibrant to have really sharp contrasts between objects, but the mood and theme use are fantastic. Well done.
I think the tension of the chase would be enhanced if the field were made smaller; I felt like I had plenty of room to run away. I loved turning around for a moment and then looking back to see that there was a veritable horde on my heels.
Cool minimalization of the stealth genre, though not very fun to play for me. It could have used some ambient music to pair with the flowing ink brush background, but all in all good work that fits the theme quite well.
It's a good idea, the risk/reward of picking up food. Takes the really overused theme of zombies as leverage to put the focus on something else. This might just be playing in the web version, but I had problems with clipping through the walls and getting stuck in them.
The puzzle design was a bit simple, but the progression of mechanics has potential.
The art is really nice and the setup was pretty cool. I think that the setup might have been a bit stronger if the word count was cut down. It would have kept a bit more with the theme and allowed for the player to have more of a definition of the character.
The volume manipulation was a really cool idea for getting or hiding information, you had me using my speaker control as an interface instead of just the keyboard and mouse. Very novel idea. I found it a little annoying to have to start the level 3 riddle from the very beginning on each failure, the dialogue kind of lost it's appeal and I spent the time I had to wait just sitting in a corner.
The choice to steal from your parents at age 8 is really good one that I've personally never seen in a game. I think that kind of exploration of ethical development is really interesting. Well done.
It was fun to solve the puzzle of each boss, and even once it was solved it was hard to implement the strategy. Good stuff.
Great how the actual target becomes a twist reveal. I was seeing targets in everyone based on slightly different timing of their steps, changing walking direction, etc. I ended up being a mass murderer rather than a stealthy assassin. Great job.
Having tried all blades, number 1 is my Excalibur. Good fun trying all the swords. There's a really good planning aspect to the gameplay, choosing the best place to take action so if I lose the sword its not sitting in a pit of enemies. Well done.
All or nothing visibility works nicely. Some situations arose that felt like puzzles, figuring out the safe path down a narrow hallway with the unknown of a possible entrance in the black. I think some more zombie types would up the fun.
The writing for each character is superb, giving each one a unique personality that you want to explore by choosing each of them for each role. Very funny.
@Danman9914 The loop is actually endless. Boredom is something I wanted to get the player to feel. Extreme loneliness takes away interest in normally enjoyable activities (anhedonia) and I hoped to get that tedium across (also a "quitting is the only escape" perspective).
The writing and the medium itself set a very good mood for the game. Keeping information from the player also encourages the imagination to fill in the blanks and become more invested in the character and her struggles. Well done.
The player character is pretty cute, his walk animation was enough to keep me running in a random direction for a few minutes. The giant stone one gives off a creepy monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey vibe, very funny take on the theme.
Audio was good. The good end seemed to leave me hanging, maybe continue the story or give a sort of epiogue text?
I appreciate that you can only shoot left and right, that combined with the constant chasing by enemies makes it impossible to constantly be doing damage (you have to make the dangerous trek across the field every once in a while). Love the enemy art, though the coin noise gets a little obnoxious after awhile. Well done.
This really captures the "crazy game show" vibe. Where else do I have the opportunity to use a shuriken to calm a baby? Fun humor and fast paced choices with entertaining consequences. Good work.
A lighthearted game that was very enjoyable throughout (except for the surprise ending :D). Also, this is a cool format that I didn't know existed, I might have to experiment...
The perceptual tricks this game plays are really enjoyable. Apparently endless hallways because there is no point of reference, the looping that requires keen attention to distances to actually know you're going anywhere, etc. A nice ambient background track would do this game well.
I really like the graphics for this, and the music underscores the story nicely.
This thing is devilishly hard but I kept coming back to it. I don't have time to beat it today, though there's a good chance I'm coming back for more. Good job.
Incredibly concise idea that turns out to be a sophisticated take on the age old question of "is immortality worth it?" The subtle audio and visual changes that come with age, and the desperate struggle for that one last tile to get to the fountain before death really stick with me. Fantastic job.
This is so much fun and humorous. From the satisfying pause and flash that happen on a hit to the ludicrous positions and names, the game is great. Fun playing solo, now I just need to find an opponent. The one thing that's missing is a cheesy old kung fu movie background track.