Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Coda Highland
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 60 | Old Tech | Antiques Mech Show | jam | |||||||||||
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | 👥 | Network Bridge | jam | 343 | 3.68 | 3.50 | 2.91 | 3.59 | 3.61 | 3.65 | 3.47 | 3.67 | |
| 2025 | 58 | Collector | The Tacks Collector | jam | 619 | 3.18 | 3.30 | 2.34 | 3.40 | 3.42 | 3.60 | 3.22 | 3.14 | ||
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | Marianas Miner | jam | 578 | 3.35 | 3.76 | 2.76 | 3.96 | 3.34 | 2.86 | 2.52 | 2.90 | ||
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | 👥 | Call of Aether | jam | 701 | 3.47 | 2.97 | 3.68 | 4.24 | 3.67 | 2.78 | 3.50 | ||
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | 👥 | Adrift | jam | 2.92 | 2.79 | 3.36 | 3.42 | 3.13 | 1.44 | 2.55 | |||
| 2023 | 53 | Delivery | 👥 | Loading Zone | jam | 503 | 3.65 | 3.68 | 3.69 | 4.39 | 2.75 | 2.35 | 2.79 | ||
| 2022 | 51 | Every 10 seconds | Starshock! | jam | 955 | 3.14 | 2.96 | 2.35 | 3.33 | 3.06 | 2.73 | 1.78 | 2.85 | ||
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | 👥 | All-Nighter Simulator | extra | ||||||||||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Overclocked | jam | 1189 | 3.17 | 2.77 | 3.26 | 3.89 | 3.33 | 3.09 | 2.62 | 2.82 | ||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Skyloop | jam | 1351 | 3.08 | 3.08 | 2.95 | 4.00 | 2.45 | 2.78 | 2.06 | 2.27 | ||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | Lily vs. the Swarm | jam | 1339 | 3.45 | 3.43 | 2.85 | 3.90 | 3.74 | 3.53 | 2.36 | 3.40 | |
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | 👥 | Nullified | jam | 792 | 3.20 | 2.96 | 2.67 | 3.00 | 3.82 | 3.29 | 2.38 | 3.18 | |
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | 👥 | Watt Balance | jam | 767 | 3.22 | 2.96 | 2.76 | 3.39 | 3.19 | 3.48 | 2.00 | 3.27 | |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | Golden Lord | jam | 776 | 3.10 | 2.95 | 3.05 | 3.05 | 3.26 | 2.69 | 2.90 | |||
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | Swirling Infestation | jam | 1156 | 2.75 | 2.52 | 2.76 | 2.52 | 1.85 | 2.66 | ||||
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | The Dungeons of Indianapolis | jam | 952 | 3.05 | 2.80 | 3.45 | 4.03 | 3.70 | 2.86 | ||||
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | 👥 | Network Invader | jam | 443 | 3.57 | 3.50 | 2.91 | 2.55 | 3.59 | 3.89 | 3.52 | ||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | 👥 | Depths Disconnected | jam | 3.36 | 3.18 | 2.46 | 3.73 | 1.67 | 2.33 | ||||
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | 👥 | Diminishing Lands | jam | 316 | 3.47 | 3.55 | 3.29 | 3.02 | 3.00 | 3.50 | 2.07 | 2.89 |
Coda Highland leaves an average of 14.8 feedback comments each event.
This is EXTREMELY difficult because you can't shoot enemies from far away and the laser takes so long to recharge. I feel like even when I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, it felt inconsistent. I couldn't even get through the first floor.
It's an interesting concept but it's definitely very challenging. I had to pause to have any hope of getting anything done, too.
Side note: A ship that was supposed to be labeled QO27 had its third flag being red on top and white on bottom, which isn't anything on the list. 2 is supposed to be yellow-red-yellow horizontal bars.
Solid game! The sound design is excellent, some of the best I've seen in a jam game. (There's a bug where the wind sound cuts out abruptly instead of looping or fading but it's not a big deal.) And the graphics are pretty good.
It is BRUTALLY difficult. This isn't a bad thing -- it's okay for games to be hard -- but it's true.
The slow walking pace is good for setting the mood but it makes the game as a whole feel kind of tedious. Maybe if you come back to this afterward you could tune the pacing a little more, speed up both the player and the blizzard to keep the difficulty consistent but make walking from place to place feel a little more engaging.
I'm not sure the ending works (unless that's what you meant was broken in the web build?) -- I got to the giant pile of neonite that the megacluster radar pointed me to but I couldn't interact with it no matter what I tried and then the blizzard got me.
I was never able to get the 20 seconds and return thing successfully, either -- it was just too hard. Maybe I'll try again later.
Fantastic game, one of the best I've played! Got just shy of 1400 points after practicing for a while.
I had to fiddle with my mic settings to get it to feed in loud enough to trigger the start of the game, but in the end I found a good balance where I could tap my mic to jump and that was a lot more playable than trying to yell. Kudos for the creative use of input methods, though!
The hitboxes feel a bit punishing. Several times I thought I was going to land on top of a car but I was just barely in front of the windshield.
@gecko64 Re: graphics - If your teammates want to, they could also register ldjam accounts for next time. If you all follow each other (there's a follow button on your user profile page) then you can add them as teammates.
This is one of the most visually impressive jam games I've played. Well done on that regard! The concept is interesting and I think it would have been fun, except...
The controls didn't work very well at all, I'm afraid. For starters, Ctrl+W means "close tab" so trying to swim forward and descend at the same time instead makes you have to start the game over. It really struggled with recognizing when a button was pressed or released. Maybe I should try hooking up a controller.
Very smooth animations and gameplay. Might have been nice to have keyboard shortcuts for switching tabs, but that's really the only suggestion I can make.
Heh. Bribery. Are we the bad guys? XD This game feels like it takes a lot of skill to succeed even though we're cheating. I like the audio!
That was adorable. :)
I know the feeling of trying to cram in an entry at the last minute. I got called into work for one jam and by the time I got done I only had three hours left. I was about to give up but I thought of something easy to build that was on-theme and I thought it was utterly hilarious. It was [a pretty terrible game](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/the-dungeons-of-indianapolis), but I had a fun time making it -- and that's what counts, isn't it?
I can see a possible avenue of future development for this game that could take it to the next level. This is a solid base set of mechanics that could lead to an interesting approach to an RTS.
Not really my style of game, but that's not your fault. Graphics are nice!
I'm quite confused! ^^() I don't really understand what's going on, and somehow I got the "stole all of my mushrooms" ending even though there were still clearly mushrooms on the screen. But it handled fluidly and it was an interesting experience. Graphics were pretty nice too!
My browser's audio was broken so I had to come back and try again, and the sound design is solid. Well done there!
Not sure why the audio doesn't work for me, so I can't really rate you there. :(
I overall liked it! I think it started a bit slow -- perhaps the drones need a little bit bigger of a radius so that the overall early pace picks up? And the escalation at the end seems REALLY abrupt since Destroyers are so powerful. But if the only thing I can complain about is pacing, you're in a REALLY good place. Well done!
Oops. I managed to get a robot stuck, which soft-locked the game because it never returned control to me.
The sound design is on point! The experience as a whole fits the theme very well. There was one level where the positioning was really finicky but otherwise it felt approachable.
The window size being fixed is mildly troublesome because the text is too small for my aging eyes to read comfortably. :( But that's really just a nitpick.
How... utterly, utterly bizarre. And the jokes are so... cheesy!
The controls were really difficult. I figured out how the cheese cutter works, but a lot of times it wouldn't let me click once I had it in the place I wanted it, and a lot of times I couldn't get it to move the way I wanted it to. But I did eventually finish the game! The graphics are solid and the sound design is pretty good.
Not bad at all! I managed to get a score of 18.
Best sound design you've had so far -- the music really fits the mood. Except I'm not sure what's up with that Windows sound effect? Especially since I don't use Windows!
Fairly impressive that you have that many objects moving smoothly with a handcrafted engine. Well done. (I suppose it helps that you don't have to worry about collision!)
It was sort of tricky to manage the zoom scale (maybe ctrl should have been for making it faster instead of slower?), and the fact that the green stars blink slowly in the main view doesn't help with spotting them.
(Side nitpick: You have a typo in "periscopic" 😉 )
The game doesn't load for me in Chrome. :( Had to switch to Firefox.
This is visually very polished and the controls seem to work pretty well (aside from the known placement bugs), and the concept is solid. I think the main weakness is the lack of feedback when things happen -- I died twice because I didn't know I was taking damage. The game is _brutally_ difficult and some checkpoints might have been appreciated.
It's sort of like a different take on a cover shooter. Seems pretty nicely polished.
It's a little tricky to play on a trackpad, especially a trackpad that turns itself off when you use the keyboard. I'm not going to hold that against you -- that's a weird issue with my laptop! But it does mean that I kinda got stuck at the 6th room when the difficulty got to be too much for such clumsy movement.
I got stuck trying to decode the signal on the 3rd column. I had all of the collectibles and I thought I understood what the symbols meant, but nothing I put in unlocks the 4th column. Otherwise, this is a well done puzzle game and I enjoyed it up until then!
Link that works: https://files.jam.host/embed/$425136/47866/index.html
It's an interesting idea. I can't play it properly because I don't have a numeric keypad on my laptop, but at least I was able to work out a way to hit the target for the first player. Creative use of field-based physics!
Uncovered a link for people to try: https://files.jam.host/embed/$429693/47869/index.html -- I'll report back once I've played it myself.
If I had to give a criticism, I would say that the game is far too slow. It would be more fun if it were more reaction-based. But it's a complete package that's put together well, so good job in that regard!
Aw. It crashed :( I was really enjoying that. I got through 25 light-years but I wanted to see if there was more story after that planet!
I love the artwork! The music is pretty good too. The play controls are okay -- I think it would be better if there was a visual indicator to show that you're in the right place for a pickup, and maybe if you didn't have to be at a COMPLETE stop that would help? That was the part that felt the weakest. But that's the only complaint I can make!
Some advice:
It was hard to catch the papers because I could never tell if I was or wasn't going to actually catch them. I had a similar comment for another game: Impactful visuals can make a HUGE difference. You both had the same design issue -- your weapon (net) is always present, visible, and extended, which is good for showing your range, but then when you swing with it, it really doesn't look that much different from when it's idle and it's not clear where you need to aim or how long the effect is active.
Consider this: You have a faded-out circle showing where your net will grab when you swing it, but as you're just riding around the net is held back. When you press the button to swing, it has a sharp, quick animation where it whips out and pulls back that only takes a few frames.
That was an interesting little game. The subtleties are... well, subtle! It was pretty easy but it was a lot more active than I expected just looking at it. Good fun :)
I got the golden chicken!
It would have been nice if the graphics were a little larger. My eyes aren't what they used to be! But I love the aesthetic. The sprites look fantastic and move very satisfyingly. I especially like the lights around the UFO -- very nice touch!
Audio is quite solid too!
It's a shame that the game doesn't actually work. I see where you were going with it, and I hope you learned a lot along the way!
I got my deck up to $5170, and then the market crashed it down to $250. I thought maybe there could be some extra value if you had certain combos in your deck, but that doesn't appear to be a mechanic. The real charm in the game is in seeing what you pull, but I think that you could have built out the gameplay some more.
I won? But I had only made five of the potions!
I love the fact that I get to play as the Gelatinous Cube for a change! It really fits with the dungeon theme, and the whole thing comes together as a cohesive package -- visuals, audio, gameplay, and theme. Well done!
This game really feels like it needs some audio to go with it! It's quite nicely polished as it is, and a bit of sound would really take it to the top. Well done!
If I were to nitpick: I've never been fond of keyboard+mouse controls for top-down games. I always feel like I should just move toward my target and press an attack button, or maybe use WASD for movement and arrows for attacking, twin-stick style. But that's just a matter of personal preference, not really a criticism.
Custom game engine? Nice job. I use a custom game engine, too, though mine is Javascript so I can do web deployments -- otherwise, I too would be using C++ as my language of choice.
I don't think it really needs to be said that this is a pretty basic experience. It's a jam game, so of course it is. Applause for what you got done.
Bokey Bokey Bokey Bokey Bokey
Reminds me of Work Time Fun, for PSP... or said another way, if WarioWare were an office cubicle job.
The music is an interesting touch. It's simple, inoffensive, and sets the mood -- sufficiently competent, nothing amazing, but it gets the job done.
The cards were well done. Got a few good chuckles.
I think I cheesed it...? I found a place I could walk off the map and just go straight to the end. Whoops.
Very chill atmosphere, nice graphics, and I liked the concepts. Good storytelling. If I were to suggest an improvement, it would be to make the UI a little more clear. Sometimes the text was hard to read, and it was hard to tell what was active.
Pretty good attempt overall. A suggestion: Games need to have good feedback to let you feel that things are happening. You can't really tell when the scythe is just drifting there versus when you're attacking with it, and it isn't clear what's going to deal damage or not. Some nice sharp animations and some impact effects will go a long way toward making the combat feel more satisfying.
Dang. The game crashed on me twice, something about losing the WebGL context. I really wanted to see more... I had one room up to 8x. Really chill vibe, I liked the concept and the atmosphere.
Shiny raytracing! You know, that's something I've never tried to build myself. I should try it one of these days.
Side note: From a game perspective, it would have been nice if you didn't have to hold the mouse button down to move the camera.
Interesting idea you have going here. Always fun to experiment with a new language.
Unfortunately the game crashes on startup for me. It might be because I'm not running Windows so I have to run the game through Wine.
A simple but cute clicker game. Not much to it but what was there seems to work pretty well.
Looks interesting, but I'm not on Windows. Any chance of a web build?
The dithering effect is an interesting choice of aesthetic. Unfortunately I got kinda motion-sick while playing it, and it didn't help that several days I had to wander all over before I found the trash. (I did notice the smoke. That helps.) Sound design works pretty well.
I have to echo the other comments: The game is visually beautiful and the music is nice. The sound effects are mostly okay (though I've never heard a butterfly buzz before). However, the economy doesn't really do much for the game -- it's not hard to build a plot that has every possible combination of flowers right off the bat. Still, it was a nice experience. Don't let the critique get you down!
Lots of kudos for the animation, and the voice acting is solid.
Found the three easy endings easily enough... found the door code by chance, then went back to figure out the right way to do it, and it really feels like there's a clue missing -- how were you SUPPOSED to figure out the 7th button? And then I found the last ending... which was easy enough, but it took me three tries before I did it without making any mistakes.
Gotta say, that wasn't good for my thanatophobia. >.> But that's just a me thing.
I don't know if I could exactly call this a "game" but I don't think I need to. It's really quite a nice experience. (Until the end, of course!)
I think you could have gotten away with slowing things down a little. It's fine as it is, especially since you don't want a jam submission that people are reviewing to feel tedious. I just wonder if taking it slow and easy on the way down would feel meditative on top of being educational.
Props on the writing. It's a very simple concept, but it's well-executed.
You gave me some good advice back in LD55, so I'll try to return the favor here. :)
I think there was a good opportunity to have more of the interface react to your answers. Perhaps having the tree blossom in complexity with each answer, or shifting layers of the audio to reflect the green/red/gray balance of the answers.
Having the colors of the tree in the background animate as you did is a nice start, but I think you could have made a more meditative experience with some sort of slow, gentle animation that fills more of the user's field of vision -- maybe even just a background gradient that very slowly cycles through soft, dark colors.
The animations are fantastic! And the foley is great. I like how the music kicks in when you start drilling.
But... I couldn't figure out how to make it STOP drilling. I know you said that you set it to Stop and wait, but I waited and waited and it just kept going until I got a game over.
Took a bit to get used to the controls, but the graphics are nice. It's quite an experience. The audio and fog make it feel very tense.
You rated my game so I’d love to give yours a review, but I’m on Linux. Any chance of a WebGL or Linux build?
You rated my game so I'd love to give yours a review, but I'm on Linux. Any chance of a WebGL or Linux build?
I'm not sure the solutions I found to the puzzles were necessarily the intended ones, but I'm happy to have gotten all the crystals. Great game!
Man, the visuals are a blast from the past. I used to play the heck out of an old DOS game named Excelsior that looked a lot like this.
That was clever. Very amusing, and managed to evoke a tense, spooky atmosphere without ever feeling outright scary. (I'm not fond of horror games.) The music did a good job of setting the atmosphere.
Where's Waldo?
I love it when people have creative takes on the theme, and this definitely fits the bill. Well done!
The depth of field effect looks really good, too. I'm surprised you opted out of being rated on Graphics.
I wasn't able to hear any voice lines, oddly. I could hear the camera zoom and shutter effects.
This was a very well-executed game. Good job! Top-tier graphics for a jam game, and the music is good. A very cohesive experience.
The following comments should be taken in the context of me saying this is a very good game. These suggestions are for polish to take it to the next level, not to disparage your hard work.
* It's hard to tell what's going to hurt you. Turret bullets and bomb blasts are kind of hard to see, and I'm not sure where the hitboxes on the flaming skulls are. * Having to pick bits up instead of having them auto-collect doesn't feel good IMO, especially since the bombs can get in the way. * Damage (both to you and to the enemies) could feel more impactful overall. A punchy sound effect and a nice sharp visual cue would make things feel more powerful and significant. * The UI looks great but it's not always obvious what's supposed to be a button. A different font might also really help tie together the sci-fi aesthetic. * You can get a feel for the timing, but some sort of cue to indicate missile recharge would be nice.
I liked the mood and the graphics!
It wasn't entirely clear how the game was supposed to be played at first -- maybe you could just put a little bit of instructions on this page here? And I had a lot of issues trying to get stuff to connect to my shell. Sometimes it would look like it worked and then if I moved in a different direction it would just fall off.
Is there supposed to be audio? I didn't hear anything from the Linux build...
This... has a solid chance of being the weirdest, creepiest, most bizarre game this jam.
Did you write/perform the music? I was surprised to hear more than one track as the game progressed.
The gameplay concept is surprisingly similar to one of the possibilities I was considering when I was brainstorming for the theme, but the presentation is... very, very, very different. XD
That was INCREDIBLE. The graphics were amazing and the audio was atmospheric. The concept was super solid. I wish I had more time to get good at it.
If I had to nitpick: Getting out of the brake area is a little finicky. The timing for the jump to get on top of that ledge is kinda tight.
Very nice animations! It took a little bit to get used to the play control but once I did it was pretty fun.
That was a nice little experience! :) Though I'm not sure what you were supposed to do with the big rock? It had an interaction prompt but I couldn't figure out what to use on it. Eventually I just slipped around it -- I'm not sure if that was intended; it felt like I was sequence-breaking.
I stumbled into the final fight basically right away and beat it with... surprisingly little effort. Might be a little bit easy? ^^() But it's an interesting concept and the music wasn't bad.
This was pretty fun. I think I was starting to get good at it but the hitboxes feel really punishing, and not being able to stop makes precise maneuvering kind of tricky. The tradeoffs from the powerups make the decisions interesting -- it makes me want to take slightly more speed than I'm comfortable with so I can afford to spend some later.
Small bit of advice: Getting hit doesn't feel like it has enough impact. The sound effect is kind of soft and there's not a lot of visual reaction. Making it pop a bit more would add a nice bit of polish.
Not a bad concept! Could use more content than a single level because it's over so quickly, but this is the seed of what could be a decent puzzle game.
It was nice and ambient. I liked the visuals and the mood. The character could have moved a little faster but that's just a minor nitpick.
The audio started off all right, but the layers didn't feel like they harmonized well as they added up. It was never too dissonant but it felt more tense than relaxing toward the end.
I'm a sucker for the scribbly hand-drawn papercraft style -- one of my past jam games used that style, with my wife doing the illustrations, and I think it's probably my best jam game ever. And the premise is hilarious! Well done.
Sometimes it's nice to have just a short, easy, simple game with an amusing premise -- this is one of those games.
This is really charming! You absolutely nailed the aesthetic you were going for. I agree with @franminaverry that this would make a fantastic minigame puzzle to include in a bigger game.
Hey, not bad at all. How long have you been making games?
The only complaint I really have is that the hitboxes are a little finicky. I dropped several items inside the tables instead of giving them to the customers, and I couldn't pick them up afterward.
But it was an enjoyable little game! Nice mood, cute graphics.
Apparently demons don't care about substitutions for the summoning ritual itself, but you'd better get the right offering!
A lot of the interactions seemed really flaky. Is there just a set timer on the scenes where the items first appear before they can be interacted with?
I couldn't for the life of me figure out the solution to the puzzle with the seven vertical water strips and the hole in the middle of the bottom half of the screen. I know I need to shift boxes with the wind wizard, but everywhere I can think to put him, he himself would be in the way afterward!
But for what I COULD finish, it was a great experience. They're good mechanics, if not immediately obvious, and the visuals are solid.
Seems pretty solid overall. I really like the overall mood it creates.
Nitpicky suggestions to add a bit of polish: * Try different scales, like maybe a pentatonic scale, to help each song sound more musical instead of just random. It wouldn't involve changing any logic! * Fade the notes out instead of just stopping them. Right now, it clicks at the end of each note.
The fact that my comments are about music instead of gaming should be a good sign. :)
@m0rph1y Geez, rude much? Jam feedback is supposed to be for constructive criticism. And comparing team size is pretty meaningless -- I had _one_ dev (who was also the dialogue writer) and _one_ illustrator (who got sick and lost a day and a half), and my son chipped in a couple of 3D models. And most jams it's just me. That doesn't make my games any better or worse. It's just a different way to participate.
That was a lot of fun! It's a really nice twist on the tower defense formula -- the summoning mechanic really adds a LOT to it. Good work!
Eek, this is really hard with a trackpad! It would be easier if you could move with the mouse pointer, because my trackpad turns itself off when you push keys on the keyboard. But it runs really smoothly and I can see a lot of potential in it -- it kind of has a bit of Pac-Man vibes.
I think I see what you were trying to do, but the game didn't give much feedback, and it doesn't even all fit on my screen. Keep working on it, though -- let's see what you can pull off next jam!
It's very short, but what content is here does do a great job of setting the mood. Did someone on your team write the music?
It's sort of interesting to compare the similarities in concept between this game in mind -- an alchemy game based on summoning -- but how absolutely different the games are beyond that.
What the HECK. XD That was absurd in the best possible way. (Not a big fan of the voices in the audio though.)
I wasn't able to play it, sadly -- for whatever reason, the mouse controls simply did not work at all. I could only face in one direction and I couldn't shoot anything.
The visuals seem nice, at least?
So before I get to the good stuff... the sound effects are EXTREMELY grating.
Which is a shame, because this could have made a really good rhythm game. Since your weapon fires on a fixed timer and the shots travel at a fixed speed, you could easily have had everything sync up with the music -- indeed, I started having an easier time when I started thinking of it as one.
The graphics aren't bad at all -- I feel it captured the aesthetic you were going for. The difficulty starts REALLY slow, but it ramps up well.
Little bit confusing to figure out how to play it effectively, but once I figured it out? Not bad! Graphics are nice.
That was cute! Kind of a pain to play single-player, as you mentioned, but it handled pretty well overall. I especially liked how damaging stuff made your loot worth less.
I can't quite figure out how to play it. I think I like the idea as far as I can see it, but the sound doesn't work on my computer for some reason and none of the mechanics seem to work... One time when I started the game, no enemies spawned at all, and then the screen started shaking but nothing happened.
The graphics are trippy @.@ and the play control is a nightmare! XD But I guess that's what you expect from a rage game, right? Well done.
Heh, cute! I don't quite see how this fits the theme of "limited space" but it's a simple but pleasant game to play.
I really like the overall aesthetic. The angular design works a lot better than I would have expected! Good sound design, too. And the control scheme is odd and awkward, but clearly intentionally so -- it's charming and it fits what you're doing.
Though I will caution you: The stork-summoning ritual is broadly considered NSFW. ;)
The button to draw more tiles never said anything but 0, and for whatever reason it wasn't letting me put stuff down sometimes and I had to reload the page to make it work. It's an interesting concept that's very on-theme, and I could see it being very enjoyable with some more UX polish.
Interesting. Very atmospheric. Normally I'd say getting lost in a game is a bad thing, but that's exactly what's supposed to happen in this one.
Cute graphics, nice music, and I _love_ me some rhythm games. But the timing windows are _punishing_! I've got a kind of cheap keyboard and just the squish of the keys is enough variability that I can barely clear anything despite being able to clear 17s in DDR. ^^()
Wow, super solid entry. I was surprised by the overall execution -- good graphics, good sound design, good writing, and mostly good gameplay. My only criticism is that while the curses are usually pretty ignorable every once in a while you'll get one that totally swings the game... Hikari got silenced on the first round of the final battle, leaving me to cross my fingers that I could deal enough damage before running out of HP.
I did a text adventure for a previous jam: "combine two incompatible genres" -- I mixed text adventure and racing sim. This has a similar vibe, in that it's mashing together time-based stuff with a text-only interface. It does a good job of keeping things tense!
I have to agree with the other comments -- the camera controls really need some work. But the play controls work fine! Nice little ambient game.
I'm a little confused by the mechanics. I see how it's supposed to work, but it seems like my best strategy is to just spam cards without paying attention. But I can see what you were going for. The graphics are solid and the humor is pretty good.
Moo. Moo! MOOOO!
Not bad at all! Simple, effective. Solid gameplay loop. As a matter of personal preference I'd like something a little more frenetic (faster reload but more enemies) but this is a well-executed game.
Something about the new version of Unity doesn't work in Wine, so I can't play it on Linux. :(
Not a bad start. Graphics style is nice!
Hey, another space shooter!
Pretty solid. Would be fun with twin-stick controls, I think.
I don't get it. ^^() I can handle the bombs but I went like 30 seconds without any interaction prompts from my date? But from what I can see, it's a really intense game. Good stress. XD
I'd like to try to play it, but it doesn't seem to work in Wine on Linux. Since it's a Unity game, can you make a Linux or web version?
Hey, just to let you know, you should opt out of the audio category if you used third-party music. The rules say you should only ask for feedback if you made all of the assets for that category.
Really good puzzle platformer! I think the jump physics could use a bit of refinement but it doesn't interfere with the game. Cute graphics and good puzzles.
That's ridiculously hard. XD But it's a cute idea.
Thanks! II hate it! :D
I was considering a minigame collection, too. Decided against it, but I see I wasn't the only one with the idea.
That was cute, and pretty fun, although it was really, really easy. ^^() I didn't see the wave at all until I hit the top of the map where there was nowhere left to run. I like the combat system!
Very atmospheric. I usually expect games like this to be more fast-paced, but in this case it makes sense because you need to have time to make the repairs. (I think I'd still up the speed a LITTLE bit. It's too easy right now.) I like the simple but effective repair minigames. The idea has a lot of potential if you were to flesh it out.
(By the way: The description says that the right mouse button is shoot, and the left mouse button is fix, but it's clearly the other way around.)
I have to agree with a lot of the other comments -- it's too slow to be especially enjoyable in a jam context where you're going through a lot of games. But I like the idea and I can see it being compelling if it were polished up!
The game looked nice, and that shockwave effect was pretty nifty. It plays way too slow, though, and having the player just slam to a halt when he stubs his toe on the barest whiff of a corner really makes it feel clunky. Don't be too discouraged -- platformer physics are hard! It took me a long time to polish mine up in a way that felt good. Keep working on it and I'm sure you could make this really fun.
The play control was pretty solid! And the graphics served their purpose well. Sound would have really taken this to the next level. The only real complaint I have is that vertical visibility is so poor when you have a wide window.
Well now, that's a horse of a different color!
Yeah, not bad! Not what I expected, but well executed. Having the sugar cubes reset when entering the tractor stage was kind of a problem, because there was just no way to get past the second fence.
The graphics are really impressive. The play control works but it feels like it's missing some impact; maybe it just needs some more animation. I feel like the enemies are too durable -- it would feel more satisfying for most enemies to go down in a hit or two so that the tougher ones are a bigger surprise. Overall I found it enjoyable, but the spell customization was completely baffling. I couldn't figure out the rules for what runes went where, what caused me to take damage, or even why runes would sometimes disappear when moving them.
I like the mood! It's surprisingly relaxing, considering you're juggling a bomb. The play control worked better than I expected it to. I wonder if making the platform tilt be bound to mouse movements might make it feel more "unstable."
A solid little game. The controls are kind of hard to work with but it feels intentional, as part of it being unstable. I was able to get three satellites into fairly stable, non-intersecting orbits, but trying to deal with an incoming meteoroid just made everything fall apart!
Simple, but playable. It's a bit slow-paced -- being able to click to advance the text would help, and panning the screen could be faster. But it works well for what it is. It's too bad you weren't able to work in the theme!
Big fan of the physics! Handles well.
Sound isn't working for me. :( But much love for zoomy kitties!
I have taken inventory of my surroundings. There are, in fact, two small bird skulls in the room with me. They are still housed within living birds, but they are there. I would prefer that they remain there.
Cute design, very retro. It's hard to tell what to do, though.
Is there supposed to be sound?
I managed to get stuck in a jumping animation where I was sliding above the ground and not able to jump again, so I had no choice but to fall into the goo. :(
This is... really hard. ^^() I have no idea what I'm doing. There's not enough information for me to feel like I can understand it. I like the art, at least! (Is there supposed to be sound?)
I'm impressed! Even though it's low resolution, the animations are fluid and expressive! The play control is tight, and once I got a feel for it I felt like all the hits I took were my own mistakes rather than being overwhelmed.
Over 130 seconds!
EDIT: Is there supposed to be sound?
Well then, not bad at all! :) I definitely appreciate the additional depth beyond a normal clicker game.
Maybe achievements would be a good addition if you want to expand on it post-jam.
I see what's getting people caught up on the puzzle solutions: First you're taught that shooting a block while standing on a broken tile is dangerous. Then you're required to do exactly that. The thing to remember is that shooting doesn't break the tile you're standing on, and it'll only break if the block you're shooting is too close.
Good puzzles! Enjoyed solving them.
I can see what you're going for here, and the retro pixel graphics are nice. I can see this being potentially interesting if you were to improve on it post-jam.
I like the graphics! It's quirky in a way that matches the concept you're going with.
This was really challenging. It's addictive! It looks simple, then it's hard, then it seems like you've got it figured out, and then it throws you for a loop (pun intended). Well done!
Well done, especially for a first jam! You made the scribble art style work for you.
I don't think the health bar works? It never looked like it was going down, and then I died.
This game is beautiful. Excellently done, good controls, interesting puzzles. I'd almost not believe it was a jam game with this level of polish.
Have to agree that the second level was really hard to figure out. Even once I realized there was a shadow sword, I couldn't figure out how to get it on the other side of the barrier. I'm still not sure what I did differently on the run that worked.
This was hilarious. XD I think I'd enjoy it on a touchscreen instead of using a mouse, this would be interesting with that kind of tactile input. A great idea, wonderful adorable graphics, the sound fits great... Possibly the best game I've played so far this jam!
This is an interesting idea (and it might be fun to try it on a dance pad). My biggest problem is that the beats don't loop in a steady 4/4, there's a significant gap between repeats.
So. TEDIOUS. XD If it wasn't the point, I'd be mad about it! But I can't be mad, because if I get mad then I'm going to be politely asked to leave, and then I'd have to start my tasks all over!
Nice lemonade. Pleasantly sweet with a bit of a sour edge. :P
Not bad for a beginner at all! It's simple but effective, and you've got solid graphics.
You should probably opt out of getting rated on Audio. The rules say you can only get rated on the things you created during the jam.
The graphics are excellently executed, and the character controls feel pretty good.
I have to agree that the camera is WAY too sensitive. I can't move my mouse a small enough distance to actually control it, which makes it really hard to make progress. The blue light is also really hard to see coming, so it took me a while to figure out why I kept resetting. Maybe put a point light source on the object so it casts colors on the walls as it gets nearer?
It's a really clever idea and I like the presentation. I have to kind of agree that it's hard to figure out what you're doing, and if this were to get some post-jam polish I would suggest in-game informational messages.
Big kudos on the robot movement animations! Did you build the kinematics yourself?
Is there supposed to be sound? It's not working for me if there is. Otherwise you might want to take audio off of the categories you're being rated on to avoid confusion.
I’m impressed! It took a little while to figure out exactly how to maneuver effectively, but that’s my only real complaint. The graphics really remind me of PS1-era games, which seems appropriate for what it is. The sound works out pretty well, too. I don’t know if the accent is acted or if it’s the way you normally talk, but either way it fits the style pretty well too.
If I had to provide some constructive suggestions, I’d make it more visible when you’re starting to go too slow, perhaps by having the rocket itself flash instead of just the speed. To take it to the next level I’d consider adding some stunts.
(EDIT: oops, accidentally posted the wrong commentary to the wrong game)
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get this running:
``` coda@localhost:~/Downloads/spacemercenary/application.linux64$ ./ludumdare_46 Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError Caused by: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: Index 1 out of bounds for length 1 at processing.core.PApplet.
It looks pretty good, and the sound effects work well. The field of vision effect visually works really well but there's something a little bit off about it because my cops didn't shoot things I thought they should -- do they only shoot when the center of the target is in the light cone? The pacing is too slow for my tastes and it would really help to be able to make the officers pause for a little while -- the first time I lost because my cops hit the end of their lines even though the target was right there in their sights.
I expected the red boxes to damage Alfred, but they don't. I was surprised to discover that they affect the platform instead. The general gameplay is all right, but you could stand to add a little bit more content because the game doesn't have much replay value.
Not bad at all. Not every initial layout is winnable, which is a bit disappointing, but that's the only major issue. More levels would be nice, of course!
I like it. :) It's a simple concept, pretty well executed. The graphics and the play control fit together well.
It starts off a little too slow for my tastes; maybe it might be worth considering some sort of "speed up" or "jump" command to make it scroll faster if you think you can do it safely. Maybe if you want to add a balancing mechanic, you can't steer or grapple while accelerating/jumping.
I might suggest a mouse mode for the grapple.
I think one thing that would really help with the difficulty is if you got a second or two of invulnerability after taking some damage, and have the rock knock you away, so that getting caught underneath a rock isn't effectively an immediate game-over. That would make health more meaningful, too.
Wow. Just... WOW. This is by far one of the best LD games I have _ever_ played, and I've been doing this since LD36. It plays really well, it has great graphics, it's fun and engaging, the premise is interesting, it has meaningful progression... There's really nothing not to like about this.
So take these suggestions as a way to really push this game to the next level, not as criticism against what you've built, because this is something that could really be awesome:
Some good sound effects would really make this, although given how many entities there are you'll want to be careful about it (and definitely have the sound drop off pretty quickly with distance).
+1 on being able to cancel cannon construction, and I think I agree with the suggestion that it would benefit from having a puzzle mechanic of having a limited number of cannons. (And if you have that, then of course you'll need the ability to move or salvage a cannon once you've built it.)
The lava is a bit punishing. I would suggest moving the player to safety when they hit the lava because right now I tend to just get stuck bouncing around in the death pool until I run out of lives.
Having some prebuilt stages for tutorials is good, but you might consider doing some procedurally-generated worlds in order to increase the game's replay value. I'm open to providing some assistance in that regard if you want some help; procedural generation is something of my specialty. (Of my nine Ludum Dare submissions to date, seven of them have been procedurally generated... well, technically eight, but The Dungeons of Indianapolis doesn't count because that's more like procedurally copy-pasted. 😛)
For some reason, the scissors don't do anything for me. I can't even cut one hair.
@mahalis Where do you grow crops? What is a field part of?
This was an interesting little diversion. I haven't encountered a game like this before.
That was hilarious. It kind of reminds me of QWOP.
Bones meta FTW! Like @hcursino I was all arm bones... but I was fighting it out, using my speed to take potshots and then get out of the way before taking any damage. I had a score of 2550 before I spawned right on top of an enemy at the start of the round and was killed even before the camera could focus on me.
The music doesn't worn on Mac, sadly, so I can't meaningfully rate this game on audio.
I have to agree that the whole thing is way too slow-paced. The quit command also doesn't work on Mac.
That said, this is a LOT of content for a jam game! Good job! A large, fleshed-out game with lots of powerups and enemies and reasonably designed levels.
Solid! It's a simple enough concept but fast-paced and strategic, great for a quick fun game.
You definitely made the right decision to go for the jam instead of the compo -- game jams should be a fun way to exercise your skills, and taking more time to come up with something you're proud of is better than trying to cram in something you're not happy with in less time.
It was a really interesting idea and I love how you took the effort to work dynamic music into your game. It adds a lot of flavor to the game.
It's a really good start! I'm glad to see the effort you put into it, and it runs pretty smoothly. A big trade quest is one of the things I'd considered for my own submission.
My time was 8:08 too, coincidentally. I definitely appreciate a clicker designed for being completed as fast as possible instead of being designed to intentionally stretch out gameplay.
Fullscreen mode doesn't work correctly if you don't have a 16:9 display. I have a MacBook, which has a 16:10 display, which means that when the UI gets scaled to fit vertically. Since this is Unity, this will take a little bit of math to do correctly, but it's not too hard -- do a Google search for "unity camera fit width" and you'll find good advice.
The scene change animation was the best part for sure. Very creative. I hope you had fun making the game!
The difficulty curve is way too shallow. I only ever took a single hit to my wall and that's because I tried to get fancy with an air strike once. If I had stuck to my guns (ba-dum-tish) I wouldn't have even taken that hit, and later rounds felt easier than that even.
Actually, @philomory, the best strategy is not to dump it all in one, but to balance across two. Since it's an RPS system, no matter what your opponent picks you've got a 1/3 chance of getting an advantage, 1/3 chance of being neutral, and 1/3 chance of getting disadvantage. This means min-maxing two stats means you have a 2/3 chance of not having a disadvantage.
Always match your strategy to your deck. The target number reduction overwhelms everything else at high levels.
I beat Masters with 8 Strategy, 8 Bold, 5 Combo, 5 Aggro, 10 deckbuilding, 10 trading, and 8 observation. Was a lot of fun. Spent too long on it. >.>
I played through the game twice. It's a really interesting concept that's not hard to play and engaging to watch unfold.
That said, it could really stand to get a few more dryland/forest herbivores in the deck. I had a hand of four forest carnivores on multiple occasions...
I gotta give you credit, that was pretty clever. The editor UI is really hard to work with (I second the request for instructions) and I would recommend allowing the user to drag to place down a series of tiles.
I should point out that the rules for opening your game up for audio votes are that you have to make the audio yourself. If most of your sound was picked up from a website, you're not eligible for audio ranking.
Thanks for the guide. I'm apparently not very good at this. ^^() Kudos for using the format to play up the surreality.
You mentioned a WebGL version, but I don't see it anywhere?
The aesthetic is interesting. Reminiscent of REALLY old games, although it's a bit inconsistent in that regard because some stuff is too smooth. :P Took a long time to get used to, but it worked out all right in the end.
Nothing wrong with flying. Makes perfect sense if you're a spirit!
It caught me off-guard when I beat the game and I didn't even see the last screen because it popped up right as I was slashing, so I ended up skipping right past it.
Pretty fun. Would be interesting to see a sped-up version.
I accidentally bought the earplugs before dying to the noise, so that kinda got in the way of progress. Oops! Still, cute game, nicely done.
@very-dark-lord The "magazines" are movies you can put in the TV.
This reminds me a lot of Epistory, which is a good thing. I expected to have fun based on reading the description, and I wasn't disappointed. There's more strategy to it than just typing words as fast as you can, which is an interesting wrinkle to the typing game genre.
Solid! This is definitely a game where gameplay was a priority, and it shows. It's very playable, with good feedback on everything so you know what's going on.
The theme is technically optional. Don't let the other comments get you down. The important part is to make a game. Yeah, you won't score too well in the theme category, but that's fine -- my first jam game didn't fit the theme either, mostly because our artist abandoned us instead of making graphics that felt like "ancient technology".
You should have opted out of the audio category since you don't actually have any audio.
That said, the game itself isn't awful. It's sort of sparse, and if you're a novice to game jams that's to be expected. Next time, be sure to include some information in the description on this page instead of just the credits.
That was amusing. Nice game!
That was pretty fun and the graphics were great, but I think AceArcher has a really good point. The kiting strategy worked for me, too.
You might want to make sure you can't kill yourself with upgrades, by the way. I died because I had exactly the right amount of health to afford an upgrade and didn't notice.
This game is unplayably fast on one of my computers and won't even start up at all on another. I can't really give you a fair rating, I'm afraid. Sorry. :(
I have to agree that the game is too slow. Since the energy-drain mechanic is basically a time limit, the game would feel more engaging if the whole thing felt more frantic.
This would be really interesting with couch co-op play. There's a kernel of a really good idea in here and you could make something big out of this.
This is pretty solid. A postjam version would benefit from a greater variety of cards to play with, and animations and sound effects to provide feedback on what's happening. But the core mechanic is well thought out and balanced.
Pretty solid game! It's a little too slow-paced at the beginning; I found that the best strategy was to just spam all of the glyphs in every color because I could hit targets before they even came on the screen. And on that note, the WebGL build seems to crop significant portions of the screen off of the visible area, which makes it hard to interact with the shop and makes it even more likely that I won't see stuff coming. But that's fairly minor overall, because the game itself is enjoyable.
Not bad at all. Kinda vaguely reminds me of One Must Fall 2097 visually. It starts off way too slow (OMF2097 did too) and I think you should put some more feedback in when you throw an attack and when you deal or take damage so it feels less like whiffing at the air all the time. But there's the core of a good fighting game in here and it just needs some polish to really bring out the best part.
Even before I play it, I have to give huge kudos to the premise. It's easily the most innovative interpretation of the theme I've seen. Very clever!
Having played it, I did find a small bug: I somehow managed to skip a level because the "next level" dialog was doubled up, and dismissing them both moved me along. But I had a lot of fun along the way to 700MHz!
I have to agree with some of the other comments: the play control doesn't feel tight enough. And I experienced GaryS's problem of starting out upside down. (I'd recommend locking the camera's orientation to the player and limiting how far up and down you can go.) But I definitely see some potential here.
Wow, I'm REALLY impressed. This is by far the best jam game I've ever had the privilege of playing. The play control is spot on. The graphics are charming. The music is solid (I wish i could compose that fast!). And I really have to say, "press any key to work" is hilarious.
I can't blame you for completely dodging the theme. Creative sidestep!
This is pretty solid for a first jam game. It's got decent puzzle design.
I have to agree with the other comments that the hitboxes seem a little finicky. Games like this have always bothered me when you can't attack up or down. But that's really my only major complaint -- I love the humor!
It's a good idea and reasonably well implemented for a new jammer, so take the advice that follows as an experienced dev wanting to help you grow, not as criticism against what you've built.
Custom physics is THE way to go for a 2D platformer in Unity. It's not as hard as it sounds and I'd advise getting some practice in. I don't mind sharing my code from older jams if you'd care to take a look. One trick to remember for game jams is that if you have behaviors that aren't working quite right, think about how you can turn it into a game mechanic instead of a bug, because rocket-jumping off of the side of a block is actually kinda fun.
To add an idea that hasn't come up in thread yet: Instead of having sacrifices open up a LONGER path, have them open up a NEW path closer to the entrance. That avoids feeling like you're retreading a lot of empty space while still keeping to the mechanic.
I would also advise putting in an animation that makes the sacrifices feel more impactful. It'll really bring out more of a polished feeling.
I wasn't able to get far enough to ever see the sacrifice stuff. If it hadn't been brought up by other commenters I wouldn't have even known it was there. I'm sure I must have just been missing some obvious-in-retrospect trick to clearing the level I was stuck on. But I played enough to see that this game is very shiny and pretty, and while the play control took a bit to get used to it works quite well.
I disagree with the "lack of variety" complaint because it's a jam game. (My personal approach to this issue is procedurally-generated content. It's a little trickier to do with a puzzle like this but not impossible.) The graphics and theme were great.
A suggestion for non-mobile play control would be to permit dragging as far as you want, or to pop up directional arrows on a click so a move is click-click that you can manage quickly. Repeated short drags are particularly challenging with a trackpad.
This was pretty fun. I have to agree that it would be more playable if the two actions were on the same button, and the fence made it a real pain to pick stuff up there, but those are really the only complaints!
I have to disagree with @aurel a little bit. Plenty of historical consoles -- especially the Atari 2600 -- had sprite scaling and rotation, so pixel size consistency isn't always a strict requirement.
Pretty solid, though since you seem to be an experienced team I'll give some more pointed feedback for you to help you improve the game's polish.
The bullets are nearly ignorable. Give them more visual feedback, maybe a bolder streak for the flight path and definitely a bigger impact animation to show where it hit.
The steering feels weird. The car just slides around instead of feeling like it's really gripping the road. This is just a graphical thing; the play control itself is just fine.
EDIT: Wait, this is your first time? In that case, this is super impressive. Good job!
This is really well done. The physics feel great -- the right balance of floaty and controllable. Getting the hang of combos to make sure you keep your ammo full is a fun touch.
Is the big cross the ending?
I expected to just play one game of this to evaluate it for the sake of the karma.
I ended up playing four games in a row trying to optimize my strategy and I'm going back for another one. EXCELLENT game. Well done!
If I may make a suggestion: Drags can be annoying for laptop users. Could you consider supporting a click to select a card and a click to put it on a patient? Or even better, number keys to pick a card and a click to put it in place. That way reaction time isn't so limited by hardware.
I agree that this is more like a short bit of interactive literature than a game, but it's definitely worth going through it to see what you've made.
Any chance of a Mac build?
@godsboss I think that's a Firefox issue. Try Chrome or Chromium.
That was a fun little diversion. Very gruesome. XD
This was a lot of fun! I've never been a fan of using the up arrow for jumping, though, which made the game a lot harder than it needed to be.
Go figure the VIP has no sense of self-preservation and is so self-important you can't tell him not to go somewhere. XD
The movement controls are kinda fiddly. I would recommend putting a dedicated "stop" button on the UI (or even adding keyboard controls) to make it easier to stop a robot near a wall, because right now it turns around and the button that WOULD have stopped it now makes it turn around again.
But overall, great game!
I see potential here, and while the graphics are really simple they do a good job with the music to set a good mood. Unfortunately, it feels like the game is entirely too dependent on RNG -- no matter what strategy I could have picked there just weren't enough Order missions coming up for the first four times I tried to play it (which meant I couldn't reject bad ideas, either), and then I got really lucky on my next play and got the mission that boosts everything several times in a row early on so everything was staying maxed out all the time.
I have to agree with @ente and @betz, I can't figure out how to actually play. It seemed fairly obvious that you just picked the cheapest options for the first couple of launches because that's all you can possibly afford, then twiddle your thumbs on fast-forward for a long time because there's no obvious way to make money except to just wait for it to slowly increase. Ten weeks later and I've not even made half a million cash when the cheapest rocket I can launch costs way more than that. What am I missing?
A solid entry, especially for a younger team like yours! Keep up the good work in future projects!
It doesn't really feel like that much of a "sacrifice" but the game is fantastic in and of itself!
The HTML5 version isn't working right now. The loading bar gets to full and then the CDN throws an HTTP 500 error trying to load assets so the game never starts.
And for whatever reason, Stencyl thinks I don't have Flash...
And I'm a Mac user!
I wanna play this game. :( I'll bookmark it and come back when I get on a Windows machine for a while.
Nobody else has commented on it so far, so I will: The random name and description generators were a brilliant touch.
I agree with @adventureislands that it really needs more speed.
I found it REALLY hard to play on a laptop, because I have to click and drag with my touchpad. It doesn't even fit on my screen either; I had to zoom out my browser window. Maybe add some keyboard controls for non-mobile users?
But I can see what you were going for and it's a really cute game, so kudos!
Well done! I found the throwing mechanic to be kinda awkward, but the idea was hilarious.
The scroll wheel doesn't work on Mac, and I agree that everything seems just a bit too slow-paced to be entertaining. Good luck on improvements!
I think the controls are fine. They feel just like an Asteroids game ought to. Yes, it's challenging, but that's the point. The only thing that might improve on the controls is to make the turn speed faster.
I know the feeling! I got called into work during LD41 and the rest of my team gave up. When I finally got out of work I just about gave up myself out of despair because there was so little time remaining... but then I had a brilliant idea and hacked together a game in the last three hours.
I agree with dietzribi's comment about improving how the content scrolls to make it easier to read, but it was fun to discover what everything did.
This was a lot of fun! I didn't expect a typing tutor game to be this enjoyable. (It might be nice to have an easy mode so I could give it to my son to play so he can get better.) The battle sounds are very Earthbound-esque.
I had a lot of trouble with the play control. Picking up boxes was finicky and sometimes the boxes clipped into each other. That said, it's clear what you were aiming for and with some polish this could be really good.
Very peaceful! I agree that a zoomed out view would help, especially when playing with a trackpad.
I have to agree that it's too easy. I never had my pack more than three rows full. That said it's a good idea, and I think you could really soup it up by introducing some additional bonuses, like combo rewards for clearing items with every move without having to make a move that doesn't clear anything.
I really like the idea and I'm sure my son would love this game. However, the scroll wheel is a really bad choice of input method for discrete selections like this -- not all mice have scroll wheels that click one line at a time, and I have to turn mine VERY VERY carefully in order to pick a tool. If you want to use the scroll wheel, put in a rate limiter so you can't change tools more than once every, oh, 150ms.
Gotta echo the other comments: The difficulty curve is too shallow. The game doesn't get interesting until there are seven or eight different fruits to keep up with, so it starts off boring. It gets pretty frenetic later on but that's no good if you lose people's interest before they get there.
This was cute! The animations are really nice, and the orbits feel good to watch. I just wish there was a little more I could do before the planets spawned.
Pretty fun! It took a little while to figure out how to actually make things happen but there's something particularly satisfying about how it handles.
I mean, this is more running IN space than running OUT of space, but I'll allow it! :D
It's a really good start. Is the text SUPPOSED to be absolutely unreadable?
@rexpeppers I'm trying to nudge him towards a non-visual programming language. He's got Python experience, for example, but he abandoned it after discovering how terrible the bundled graphics APIs are. He wants to learn Unity next but I didn't think it was a good idea to throw him into that in a jam context.
Way to rip off Chrono Trigger's battle music. You know that's against the rules, right?
This is by far the most effort I've seen put into cut scenes in a jam game.
A game in Scratch! Well done. Maybe you'd like to look at my son's entry, which is written in Snap (after he discovered Scratch wasn't able to do this): https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/42/running-out-of-space-3
This is a fantastic game with a fantastic concept. It's almost like a 2D SuperHot. Really impressive, especially considering your age!
I'm on a Mac, and I'm interested in playing this, but I can't get the game to start -- neither the mouse nor the keyboard seem to do anything at the title screen.
Extremely hard to play on a laptop. Maybe consider twin-stick controls? (use arrow keys to shoot and wasd to move) Also none of the spells worked for me...
The music sync is a bit off so it's hard to play, but I like the concept and it looks good. And it's really interesting to see a Ludum Dare entry written in Scratch!
It's hard to treat this like a rhythm game because the timings are so broad. It also takes a lot of practice to get used to mapping the colors on a single line to the buttons -- I would consider making four lanes like most rhythm games because it's way easier to keep track of things. But I like the power mechanic, and the rhythm-ness of it doesn't interfere with the platforming elements.
@MegRabbit You can release a post-jam version, but only critical bugfixes and ports to new platforms are eligible for scoring -- the game that people are judging needs to be materially equivalent to what you completed during the 72 hours.
For me... This is REALLY hard to play with a trackpad. I would suggest adding keyboard controls -- maybe number the card slots 1 through 9. But I like the concept and the music works pretty well!
The play control needs some polishing. It's really easy to accidentally oversteer, especially during speed boosts, and it's hard to make maneuvers precisely so I ended up answering a couple wrong just because I couldn't steer into the right answer. But the graphics and music work really well together and fit the trivia game theme, so kudos to that!
Well, I can't really play it, because I don't have a controller. It wouldn't be fair for me to rate it. If you publish a post-jam version with keyboard support let me know and I'll give it a look!
LD60 — Old Tech (7)
Six-Shooters & Saké by ComicSans 2026-10-28T02:18:27Z ♥ 1
Hey, heads up, if you used music/sound effects that someone on your team didn't make, you're supposed to opt out of audio ratings.
Bitsy by Enver Arco 2026-10-28T01:56:23Z ♥ 0
Hard for me to know how to comment here. I'm not a fan of horror games at all and I didn't know that's what I was getting into when I clicked on this one. ^^() But giving it a fair shake, it's not a bad implementation, definitely captures the vibe of that era of computing.
The Ancients, V1 by Naviski 2026-10-28T01:44:27Z ♥ 0
Not bad at all! The audio seemed a little buggy, and the boomerang was kinda overpowered, but overall it was a pretty good time!
Roadworthy(ish) by aemiliu5 2026-10-28T01:36:24Z ♥ 0
Cute. I got it in 4:40 on my first try! But I kept trying to rewind the tape using the tape deck like I would have in reality. Rewinding a tape all the way by hand like that takes forever!
Project Armakeddon by Sergueille Bismuth 2026-10-28T01:27:03Z ♥ 0
"HTML5 (Web)" means you can play it online. That's not where you link your itch.io page.
A Tribute to Father by AweSkyBear 2026-10-28T01:14:01Z ♥ 1
Oh, so I had played Xonix before, just under a different name. It's like Jezzball or Qix.
Oldie by Kwetka 2026-10-28T01:02:47Z ♥ 0
I'm impressed, did you really make all of the audio for this?
I wasn't able to finish it because I kept misclicking and ran out of money. Instead of failing, I was just softlocked.