Magnus Lens by Sestren 2014-12-09T06:17:00
Very good. Feels like it would work better with a battle royal where the minion seek each other out rather than just march forward. But a neat little title all the same.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Ken Scott
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | Keep Watching | compo | 512 | 3.24 | 2.59 | 3.88 | 3.90 | 2.98 | 2.69 | 3.22 | 73 |
Very good. Feels like it would work better with a battle royal where the minion seek each other out rather than just march forward. But a neat little title all the same.
The core mechanic is interesting and walking on the ceiling becomes trippy, but the game is more frustrating than fun. It is almost impossible to see the player character, especially when the game starts. Enemies are plentiful and impossible to ignore, plus the game lacks feedback that the player is being hurt. I never knew when the projectile was ready to fire and there was too much movement on the screen to track the bullet in flight. The size of the player and platforms makes the awkward jumping even more frustrating.
I think starting with a smaller level, and larger sprites, and work your way up to the tiny characters would give the player a greater sense of accomplishment as they get used to the game.
You will lose in a couple seconds unless you can quickly find your character. And hopefully you don't start behind a wall that the darkness won't give you enough time to move around. Having the darkness start out further and move quicker, maybe speeding up, would have let players find their barrings before they got crushed.
I'm impressed by the amount of content you were able to pull together. The controls are rough and camera makes the line of sight difficult to gauge. Still, good job.
There was not enough connection between the evidence I was finding and the responses from the NPCs, or any way to review the evidence you have. The ending doesn't make much sense, as there wasn't enough evidence in any direction. The art style looks great, though.
I'm assuming that when the screen goes white, it means I won...
Was definitely hoping for more. This could definitely go more places. The "Take", "Delete" and "Restore" options hint at that and I can see needing to browse email or programs for bits of information or digital widgets to fill your home folder. Plus, there is hints of a story and I'd be interested to see it unfold.
I definitely think there is a lot of potential for a MMO management sim. The systems here aren't really deep enough and the interface needs a lot of work, but the core is definitely there.
Clean graphics and fun to play. If I may suggest some polish. The crane could move a bit faster, the drop site indication could be bigger and a little warning that the drop box is going to change would be nice. Also, make sure the colors for the initial boxes are in the first box drop. Still, good job.
There is the skeleton of a decent trading game there, but that is the problem. This game is bare bones. I didn't see any random events or even much in the way of changing prices. There was no reason not to just find the closest buy/sell planets and pinball between them. Owning a fleet of trade ships is a nice start, but there is no incentive to do so. Also, queuing destinations doesn't seem to be working as intended. (queuing multiple planets only leads you to visiting the last selected planet after the ship stops moving.)
It looks good and I like the idea behind it. would have been nice if the items were arranged so that there was an implied order to how they should ideally be interacted with, such as chronologically.
There is paradoxically a lot and very little in this game. There are a bunch of mechanics in there, many lasting only a single screen and many not tying into the core mechanic of moving the turret while you escape.
The presentation, outside of the understandable lack of animations, is fantastic. However several mechanics, such as jumping, feel like a prototype and the level design doesn't really challenge in the right way. I wonder if fewer mechanics and less detailed art would have given you more time for polish. Regardless, a very strong showing.
Love the idea, but the game needs some tweaks to make it more usable. When I played it, and I played it many times, there was only ever one frequency that actually got a good visibility, if any. The fact that the map never changed helped, but the enemies were by fare the hardest part. Also, the radios in the maze were useless, as they were invariably covered in static on almost every channel. If the static coverage was less extreme, I could tune the static anywhere, or the maze radio I was tuning was always visible, the game would still be tense, but less frustrating. Good job.
There is enough depth to the mechanic that it would make a cute indie platformer. The aesthetics suit it well.
I love the concept and some of the puzzles were inventive. Sadly, the movement felt awkward, especially since I was expected to use the physics behavior to solve rooms. Movement mechanics in platforming games takes a lot of work to get right, which is made even worse when playing it on a keyboard. Can't hold that against you too much given that this is for a jam, but something to look into if you develop further.
Pretty good. I feel that moving the ship could be more useful, as is you spring back into the asteroid and still get hit.
I liked the feel of the jumps; the feedback to the player was tight and they flowed with a nice rhythm, assuming that it didn't glitch when hitting the ceiling.
The glitches were a problem, especially when hit by the explosions. This meant I never got to the boss, but it was fun to jump around. Good job.
Very poignant. It does devolve into hunt-the-pixel a little too much, but very well done.
Interesting. I was kinda hoping for more interaction or a bigger payoff. Well done, regardless.
Fun little game. The physics on the yeti responded well. My only real nitpick is that, on the web version, if the mouse goes off screen, the helicopter stops, which is a problem if the player gets enthusiastic during the heat of the moment. Storing the last know mouse position and moving towards that should help with this minor issue. Also, sounds from the soldiers dying and the yeti swinging around would add a great touch.
Fun little time waster. My favorite strategy was to have circles barely touch so that I had as wide a landing surface as possible. Not great for high score, but harder to lose. Also, ran into a bug where the description screen didn't go away and the snowman just built ontop of it.
Interesting game. The core gameplay of matching color while hazards distract you was more engaging than I anticipated. That said, the game felt needlessly punishing. I think it would be more fun if avoiding the sparks/finding the pixel were more to keep you on your toes, maybe stun rather than kill. The clock is the real enemy here. Good job, though. I felt it fit the theme well.
If you combine both, you get a top-down maze with awkward controls. There is fun to be had, but map covers the camera's FOV and the look controls makes reading the map unwieldy. I think there is potential here, but I would only give the player a section of the map while walking around, like a folding paper map, requiring them to stand still to view the whole map. With a more visually interesting maze and notable landmarks to orient lost players, there is the something there to be worked on. (I believe Far Cry 2 did something similar with their in game map.)
I don't know if it is the keyboard controls, an issue with the mechanic or if I suck, but the wall jump was really hard to use, especially with instant death spikes punishing you when trying to practice it. Wall jump is one of those mechanics that is very hard to get right, especially where input timing is concerned.
Sadly, since this blocked my progress early, I can't really judge the rest of the game, but it looked nice and I enjoyed the feel of the punching mechanic.
Neat idea, but way too easy to get lost. Panning cameras would help and make the screen more dynamic. Besides, wouldn't a thief want to avoid security cameras?
Fixed Web upload. Haven't addressed any of the control issues to keep true to the spirit of the competition.
I like the idea of varying the ways the user interacts with the world without really changing the goals or input. Reminds me of the flash game "There is Only One Level".
That said, I gave up on the Invisimaze. The reset to start makes the level punishing in the worst way, making it trial and error with high spikes of frustration.
There really isn't much game here. You keep pressing in one direction and hope the random events don't screw you. You have no control over the events and they aren't even interesting or humorous.
The easter egg is fun, but it doesn't make of for how barren and lifeless the rest of the experience is.
At first, I thought you couldn't shoot through the planet, which made the game harder, but more interesting. Without collision between the ships and asteroids or the bullets and planet, the orbiting is rather inconsequential. On the plus side, looks good and plays smooth.
I'm not sure if the game can be won; I made it to 8:17 am and still had to worry about the shadow. The interaction was minimal, but the actions made sense and the tension was great. Good job.
I think adding health, so you don't lose the moment one escapes, and a way to clear groups, like a limited use bomb, would give the player a way to comeback and regain control if they start to get overwhelmed. Neat little title.
Very good job. I do have some nitpicks.
I died often and had no clue why. Maybe I fell into water that can only be seen with the MGNI scanner, but I was never sure. I also had no clue what was eating me. As elluded to before, the MGNI felt almost useless. I would have preferred some way to see what was right in front of me, even if the range was incredibly short. Still very good work.
The twitchy jumping makes the game hard to recommend. Also didn't feel like much of a competition.
Neat game. Clean Game Boy graphics. There is something missing, though. Switching gravity and stomping enemies seems to lack impact. Animations, especially on the rebound, would go a long way. I also kept wanting a jump button for defense. But those are more nitpicks and polish. Good job.
The three enemy types provide a nice tension in how the player needs to respond. To make for a more gentle difficulty ramp, consider fewer shooter enemies firing less often and crank that up as the game goes on. One word of warning; it took me a long time to realize that the blue rectangles were health power ups rather than mines to be avoided. Turning them green might help with that.
I actually wish this was in full screen, because I needed to skirt the ends of the screen a lot, but it was too easy for the mouse to move off screen.
With enemies firing at seemingly random times in seemingly random directions, there isn't really much the player can do to avoid being killed. Also, right mouse button to move is weird. Maybe I am missing an ability, but there weren't any instructions. Look good, though.
It seem like the camera is zoomed in too close. Could be my monitor resolution, but I didn't have much screen. As is, standing in place and jumping gets you very far.
A couple of notes. First, it took way to much effort to get this to run. Downloading the source from get hub, opening the Unity project when the exe didn't work, deleting the exe and data files so that Unity could compile the code. The idea intrigued me enough to stick with it.
Once I got it running, it took me a long time to figure out that I could wall jump. This is a core feature and it isn't mentioned in your ReadMe.
I really like the Atari 2600 graphics. They match the simple gameplay well. I wish there were more levels or even a timer. Maybe an endless mode where completed levels are immediately replaced with a new one. Just a thought. Good job.
Seemed to break from the theme and I couldn't figure out what the disassembler was suppose to do or how to get more to unlock from the crafting station, assuming that either feature was created. Would be interested to see where this goes, but as is, it is kinda barren.
The player feels very disempowered. Your plane moves slower then the enemies that home in on your position, so it is impossible to dodge. If the speed of the enemies started slower and ramped up, the game would have a much better feel and be more engaging.
Really fun, despite how simple the game actually is. The player feedback when jumping is excellent and a welcome change from most game jam platformers. Good job.
Interesting idea, but it was undermined by the execution in both design and implementation. The biggest is the broken screen making the game impossible to play. A shatter or crack sprite over the screen could have left enough visible to make it playable without rendering that quadrant unusable.
Toggling colors and sound didn't have enough feedback. While the UI updating would have been nice, I suggest you take it a logical step further and actually remove those color channels from the sprites on the screen. That way if you turn off Blue, everything on screen would be a shade of Red, Green or Yellow. Turn off Red and Blue and you have a monochrome green. Turn off all colors and you have a gray scale. Turn off sound, and no music plays, only a quiet wail of the ghost. This would reenforce that you are manipulating the TV. There also should be a drawback to removing all the color, such as color based puzzles or items that can only be solved if that color is on and those enemies are present.
Like I said, neat idea, but needs a lot of work.
The jumping felt weird. The arc was unusual and it didn't have sound, so it I couldn't get a feel for it. Plus the collision detection with the fielders felt off.
The context didn't really make sense to me either. Is the player leaping over the heads of his opponents while still controlling the ball? If not, how does he get it to shot at the goal? Why are there so many goals and why do they disappear? I don't have a problem with the mechanics, but hey seem very incongruous with idea of soccer.
Look like a good start, but as you said, the game isn't finished.
Not much new in the way of ideas, but it looks great and has a refreshing variety of enemies. I agree there needs to be more feedback when the player gets hit, since you have a life bar but the game acts like it is a 1-hit with a tiny collision box.