Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Cybearg
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Cyclops | jam | |||||||||||
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Ping | compo | 176 | 3.62 | 3.61 | 3.63 | 4.14 | 3.10 | 2.66 | 2.44 | 3.47 | 100 |
That cutscene was obnoxiously long.
And the amount of time you're given to put the furniture back in place is obnoxiously short.
I can't say that there's much fun here, or even much potential that I see. If there was more time to get the furniture in place (right now, it seems impossible) and the cutscene wasn't so tediously long, it would still be a frustrating/dull game of clumsily pushing around blocks.
Sorry.
Loved the sprite style. Those little characters were cute and had a lot of style to them.
The gameplay itself is fairly standard, leaning on frustrating at times. I wish that you'd only cling to walls when holding a key so I don't keep rebounding when I don't want to. Also, much of the level design is either kind of tedious, with the enemies really being no challenge but still time-consuming to take out.
Very neat idea. I really liked it! I'm a bit puzzled by the odd decision to rate based on the color of fruits, though.
While the game is neat and addictive, I kind of wish the idea had been used in more of a puzzle game. I'm sure that some cool mechanics could have been introduces to expand the concept in later levels to add more variation and challenge. Maybe something to consider?
Still, great job!
I love this! The 1-bit graphics style is fantastic and I love the idea of not really having a life bar of any kind, but instead pushing enemies off the platform while avoiding being pushed off yourself is a great, simple idea for an intense little shooter.
Genuinely fun and very satisfying to play with everything just working very well. Huge kudos!
I only wish it was a game on a real retro console.
Very impressive technical accomplishment!
There's not much to the game beyond Minecraft's core mechanic, and it can be very buggy at that, such as characters clipping into the blocks or hitboxes apparently being larger than your character, preventing you from moving through spaces that it looks like you should be able to fit through, etc.
With games like Terraria and the like, I think you'll need more than just a 2D Minecraft clone. Not to suggest that anyone expects Terraria of a 48-hour game, but so far as I could tell, nothing new is brought to the table. The mechanics, though technically impressive, are just copied from Minecraft and, like Minecraft, the day/night cycle bring enemies, though here they can hardly even be avoided because they swarm you like flies and are nearly impossible to avoid above-ground.
I loved the striking visual style of this, particularly the effect where the room fades in and out.
Unfortunately, this isn't a game. It's just a programming exercise where someone has tested out the on-screen text and audio playing functions. Something interesting could have been done while keeping this basically the same. Think The Stanley Parable. But instead it's just random phrases and sound effects.
Very nice music and animation!
It really doesn't have much in the way of gameplay, though. If some encounters or items that would have forced you to make some sort of choice were introduced, there would have been some danger or ability to strategize involved. As it stands, you basically just agree to everything you come across and wait until you win.
Very awesome visual style, though. Glad to haer you'll be keeping it up. Music choice is nice, too.
As others have said, the visual style is great! Unfortunately, the gameplay has nothing that's really "fun" about it.
Since this is a game, I have to judge it more on how enjoyable it is to play than how cool the graphical style is, sorry. I wish that the neat style would have been taken and turned into a game with more substance. Perhaps an action-adventure game with levels that have a beginning and end, rather than infinite, instant-spawn enemies.
The pixel art graphics are pretty neat, though the setting (a dirty bunch of shacks in the desert, it seems) are rather ugly. Not that an area has to be nice, mind, but it's just that the grays, browns, and dull greens aren't a very pleasant palette.
That's not a major problem, though. A bigger problem is that there's almost no game here. It's a Pokemon clone in the most superficial and dull sense. Battles are waaaaaay too long, sapping any fun that may have come from winning because it's just so much tedious button-mashing busywork.
Also, the text is too big for the text boxes, with many words being awkwardly cut off. The text could have been reduced 4 points or so to require less button-pressing to skip the text.
Overall, there's just not much of a game here, I'm sorry to say. The timelapse was very interesting to watch, though!
Very impressive! I loved the retro graphics and the way that the game felt kind of like Asteroids. The different weapons were cool and, overall, the multiplayer is very technically impressive, though unfortunately no one was online for me to play with.
I don't know if there is some indicator to give the player an idea of where other plays may be, but if not, then that would be a nice addition.
Oh, and music was awesome, too.
Also, I found the HUD rather hard to read because of the dull yellow on dull grey. Some color adjustments definitely need to be made there for readability.
Overall, great concept! Take it, polish it, expand it, and you may have a very fun, full-fledged indie game to release! Well done!
Neat idea. Even though the graphics are MS Paint-y, the sepia color tone sells it pretty well. I actually liked 'em.
As for the game, it's an interesting idea, but I didn't feel like my choices had much weight. It was mostly down to me hoping I'd get a chance to buy cannon balls, which normally didn't happen. If this would have been played a bit straighter, with a real sense of your choices having some relevance, it could be genuinely fun. As it stands, I played a couple times and wasn't too interested.
Neat idea, I just wish it'd have gone a different direction.
It was alright. Simple, didn't do much, not much to it, no real challenge to speak of and not much that I would consider "fun," but it's certainly minimalist.
Very well done!
This isn't the first blind game that I've played in this LD, but this is the only one that I enjoyed. The implementation of sounds that you're drawn towards with written feedback is a superb and elegant implementation.
Still, I'd like to see the idea expanded upon somehow so that there's more to it. Something to consider after the Dare is done.
In any case, well done!
Very cool idea indeed, though I would disagree with Fnkee, sort of. The learning curve is fine, as in the concepts aren't introduced too quickly, but the difficulty curve is nuts. I got frustrated and quit in the level with the expanding orange stuff because I was having too much trouble getting the snake to make precision turns. Perhaps just me, though. Still, if the snake had started slower so one could get more used to it and then sped up over time in the level or across levels, I think it would make this more enjoyable. As it stands, it goes from interesting to frustrating too quickly for me to stay invested.
First off, I thought that the use of light to let you know what was coming was clever. I enjoyed the music and the sharp aesthetic. However, the game itself doesn't have much to it. As others have said, it moved overly slowly. I could move my cube up to the top of the screen, but the screen didn't move up with it, so I was forced to keep a slow pace whether I liked it or not. There wasn't any challenge anywhere to be found, so unfortunately it wasn't very "fun."
Suggestions for the game: try to expand on the gameplay to add something that will give it some sort of challenge. It could be as simple as speeding things up.
Fun and addictive game. Good job!
I wasn't really clear on when the power-ups would shoot out. Was it at random?
The game is basically Asteroids without the ability to move. It's a neat idea and, as I've said, it's enjoyable, though after a while, it seems like there's simply no chance because so many circles are closing in on you with no way for you to get away.
The simple graphics were effective, though the "zzzzhhh!" sound effect when you get a power-up seemed kind of out of place since it sounded like someone making a buzzing noise with their mouth, while all the other sound effects sound synthesized.
Overall, it's an enjoyable game. Nice work!
Very cool. It was very satisfying to see the screen full of bullets and to knock them back at the enemies! I also loved the visual style. It was very cleverly executed so that I could always tell what everything was.
However, the game seemed almost too easy. I would just lurk at the bottom of the screen until a shield came along and then I'd quickly clear out all enemies with no trouble. A shield was always ready when I needed it and there wasn't really any challenge. It needed something to spice things up a bit, I think.
Still, very impressive procedural game and it was awesome to see all the projectiles fly!
I really like the idea of picking up and using parts of the environment like this.
I'd say this is my favorite game of the LD. Allow me to explain why:
1. It has an attack/defense mechanic I've never seen before, brilliantly merging the two into a single button in a way that feels very intuitive. But it doesn't stop there--it goes on to brilliantly use those mechanics in intriguing puzzles as well as to fight varied and challenging enemies.
2. The game is fast-paced, with a rapid restart turnover (it doesn't take long to restart the level) and a very fair checkpoint system (when you die, you start the room over, not the whole game). On top of that, the character moves quickly, so it doesn't feel sluggish, fighting enemies is challenging and satisfying, and puzzles are clever and take a bit of work, but not so much to become frustrating.
3. Many of the LD games interpret "minimalist" to mean that it's just got to have as simplistic of graphics as possible and the mechanics can be whatever on top of that.
Personally, I feel that the minimalism should be in the mechanics, with a simple core concept that gets expanded upon. As the Extra Creditz guy would say, "great depth, minimal complexity."
This game has that in spades. There are basic movement keys and an attack/defend mechanic that merges puzzle-platforming, attacking, and defending all into a single button. That's brilliant minimalism!
4. Personally, I love the black 'n grey pixel art graphics. Enemies, platforms, etc. are all instantly recognizable and don't get lost in any clutter, yet the game doesn't look empty or boring. It looks good, with a fine amount of detail in the world. And, at the same time, the drab graphics reinforce the spooky, kind of depressing mood that the game has.
5. The music is haunting and very effective in supporting the creepy atmosphere that the graphics and bits of text suggest. There are no sound effects, but that adds to the cold feel of the game (and I don't mean that in a bad way). Since the graphics are so sharp and easy to read, there is no need for sound effects to further reinforce things like "you hit an enemy" or "you have died," so they aren't needed here.
6. As I've said, everything comes together to create a mood that supports the narrative being told. Things feel dangerous, lonely, and kind of scary, and everything reinforces that.
What more could I ask for out of a 48-hour game? 5/5, perfect score! Superbly done!
Finally, a game that gives me boobs!
Very interesting and enjoyable game. As others have said, it can be confusing as to what it wants from you at times. Personally, I got stuck fairly early on in the one where you need to put different shapes in different boxes. I tried ordering by number of corners (thinking it wanted two (line), three (triangle), four (square), and then circle, but that was no good. Then I tried separating some into the same boxes or on opposite sides, etc.
All the puzzles are different, which keeps things interesting, though some form of hint, even if just subtly implemented, may be in order at least after the player is stuck for a long time.
I liked the grungy effect and the sharp colors, though I can see how it may get annoying over time.
Bonus points for it being a game that's about something. The game it clearly supposed to depict a brainwashing tool for an "ideal citizen" in a 1984-style dystopic setting, or so my interpretation was, anyway. Teaching you to be a well-ordered, behaving citizen. It was well implemented in the gameplay.
Overall, very good!
Construct 2 claims something needs to be uploaded for it to work.
Very nice artwork and the idea of putting runes together like that is an interesting one.
Absolutely gorgeous game. The direction of minimalism with having you charge and turn right was an interesting idea that made for some interesting puzzles. Unfortunately, I couldn't find many crystals and it could be difficult to tell where you could pass on to the next screen, but the beauty of this game, coupled with the fact that it certainly matches the minimalist style, overrides the fact that I didn't think the gameplay was my cup of tea.
Please continue to do more games in the future, with lots more gorgeous art!
Neat puzzle game! Since it's about fighting the controls while doing the puzzles, I think that it does what it's trying to do well. I think there's a bit of buggyiness with some hit boxes, though, and I was sometimes sent back to the start even when I didn't visibly hit something, and I'd occasionally go right through one of the other squares without a collision detection.
Overall, though, an enjoyable game that's actually not as stressful as the name may imply, though still fun. :)
This game's mechanics make its difficulty border on unfair, since enemies spawn even in places you've cleared, you have limited ammo, your vision does not reach very far, and enemies either swarm or hide in a way that you often get hit trying to get a line of shot on them.
With all that said, I liked the art style and the theme and mood were superb, somber (which is appropriate for the topic at hand) and, to me, kind of frightening. The effort to find your body becomes almost a survival horror game, which is very interesting.
Overall, good job on the game! The mechanics may make the game a bit overly frustrating, but the difficulty reinforces the themes at play. Superb crafting in either case!
Very clever concept! I love the innovation there!
It isn't really used to much effect, though. Attacking and moving on the down-beat is a cool idea, but the enemies are just unavoidable swarms with no real variety and, so far as I could tell, weren't much of a threat. I never came across any items or anything interesting to find, meaning that, as a Roguelike, it doesn't really have any of what makes a Roguelike fun. Instead I was just holding down keys to move and trying to tap space to the down-beat. It's a neat idea, but I feel like it needs a purpose and was lacking one.
Still, kudos for the neat ideas!
Neat game, though I think the gameplay needs some balancing or expanding. I played Master and didn't even notice that I had a limited amount of ammo. I would just spam the spacebar and kept pretty much all the astroids off me with lots of shots wasted. Finally, I ran out of shots and fairly easily kept dodging the asteroids until the time ran out. It didn't take any skill to win even on master.
It's an interesting idea, although since the perspective on the ship is bizarre, it can be tough to tell the trajectory of an asteroid and how close it will come to you. It's certainly unique because of that perspective, but it can be visually unintuitive.
@MCovert Ditto.
Very cool concept! I like the idea behind the mechanics, though it was a shame that we didn't really get to see it explored much in the game itself. It introduced different mechanics, but didn't get much of a chance to play with them, so it ends about as soon as it begins, unfortunately.
Still, great idea!
I tried the .bat and .jar files, but nothing seemed to run. Not sure what to do with it.
Very neat concept, though, a others have mentioned, it's difficult to tell what's going on. That could stand to be improved.
Also, I wonder if there is really much strategy or choice available in the game. It seemed to me that I just needed to hold fire for the direction I was going to move to get a square, then the other way, then back and forth until I ran out of life. Is there any way to actually minimize lives lost, or is it an inevitable decline regardless of what you do?
The decision to make the control scheme as confusing as possible is baffling to me. Was the intention to make it more challenging by making the controls clumsy and unintuitive? Because please don't make a habit of doing that with games. It's the worst kind of way to make a game challenging and it's simply frustrating.
Sorry, my earlier comment was mistaken. When I glanced over how to control the game, I saw the QZAD keys mentioned and I didn't read a bit lower to see that the arrow keys were an option as well, so I mistakenly was trying to control with QZAD alone. Sorry--I've fixed the rating.
Now that I'm not being an idiot in controlling it, it's much better. I find it a bit frustrating when I get in a stuck situation where I have to restart a level because there's nothing else I can do, but that's just my personal preferences. It's actually not bad, though the music loop gets a tad tiresome after a while.
Very interesting. Cool to see Love in action. I'll have to try it sometime.
I can't say that I fully grasped the mechanics, but I was at least able to figure out a couple colors. I suppose that the point is for it to be a puzzle how to play as much as a puzzle how to win? In that case, it's certainly effectively puzzling.
Neat idea and nice look to the game.
So I try walking towards the light and I get a loud explosion sound. Then I don't seem to make any progress towards it, jump and push forward as I might. I can move relative to it with left and right (or it seems so), but, again, I never make any progress.
Also, I can't quite the game except through ALT+TAB and terminating it, which sucks.
What exactly are you supposed to do if you can't move towards your only means of telling where you are?
Enjoyable run-'n-jump style game, though I often had over-hanging platforms spawn, which was rather pointless for me because I just had to do nothing. As a result, the game didn't have as much actual stuff going on as it maybe should have to keep interesting.
What's here is fine though. At least replays are fast and the plays are addicting!
The idea is fine, though precision rolling like that can be a bit tedious, but I had to rate the graphics low not because they're simple, but because they make the game nearly unplayable, at least in my opinion.
Platforms will obstruct your view when moving up and since all platforms are black, you can't tell where your ball is if it's in a sea of pure black that gives no hint as to where any slopes, walls, etc. are.
I really like the chalk-on-blackboard-looking drawn style. Very pleasant.
Isolating with the light so only what is illuminated is drawn is a really cool idea! Big kudos for that! I tended to get lost a lot, though that is the point.
I think that this game was trying for something that was simply far too ambitious for 48 hours.
The instructions say right mouse to pick things up. That's wrong--the game picks things up using E. Hitting F causes you to go in third person mode and your character collapses in a ragdoll heap for some reason. I couldn't get past the part where they ask you to place the suitcase you picked up on the table to your left (and then you see a table thing on your right). I'd clip through the table and I tried three times, restarting the game and everything, and I could not do anything there, so I guess it's a game-breaking bug.
The game itself consists simply of walking and picking some stuff up, but for no coherent overall reason. I don't know what the voice overs are on about and there is really nothing fun or interesting to do, since it breaks before anything like that happens.
I will give kudos for the ambitious graphics and the effectively creepy mood that is briefly observed when they turn out the lights and some strings come on, but that's quickly forgotten.
I feel like this game was made with the idea of, "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" There's no cohesion to it and really no point that I could see. Plus, it's confusing, inconsistent, and buggy. And it also has to be installed but doesn't offer any obvious uninstaller, PLUS there is no way to even quit the game, since using ESC->quit just takes you back to the title screen. You have to kill the process to even leave it.
Sorry. Bold attempt, but this is a mess.
The idea of downgrading as you go is a clever twist. I like it!
Personally, though, I found the level design to be too cruel to actually be much fun. There are lots of unavoidable hits and very difficult precision platforming segments. In the end, it's not a very fun game, but the concept behind downgrading as you go was a clever one.
Maybe if the levels were done differently, it could work really well.
This could have easily been a tedious, annoying game, but because of the strong visual style, the quick restart turnover, and the sense of exploration as more of the level is revealed, it ended up being quite enjoyable, in my opinion.
Kudos!
Please, please, please keep working on this game! I love the art and the combat, even though it's just hitting space, is very satisfying and fun! I would love to see this expanded into a bigger game with more to it, keeping the awesome aesthetic and quick, slashy combat. Please do!
Also, it's a great game.
Neat graphics. This isn't a game, though.
Strangely addicting, actually. Neat idea!
There's a difference between difficult and obtuse. This is the latter.
There's no challenge. It's just that you're forced to stare at walls in a very bizarrely hands-off movement sequence that meanders around aimlessly and rather than giving you control. Why? Because if you were given control, you'd "beat" the game in about ten seconds, so it's purposelessly drawn out by forcing you to wait through movement cutscenes to make it seem longer.
The idea of putting something together with pictures that imply a connection is neat, though it's not used to any particularly inventive degree here, and most of the time I was too far away from pictures to even see what they had on them, so I don't know what sequence made me win the game, but I did get to the beach.
Personally, I absolutely LOVED the part where the hallways appears and you're walking through a colorful wireframe. The whole game should have been based around those gorgeous, colorful wireframes, with puzzles or flatforming or even shooting. I would love to see that, but instead it is just kind of a thing that happens.
Big props for the lovely wireframe graphics and the music was neat, too, but there really isn't anything here that's fun. It's barely even a game.
Absolutely brilliant gameplay! I loved the concept and it was executed well, with good uses of it in the levels. Very well done! Music was great, too!
Personally, the only downside was the controls. I know that others have lauded them, but I never got the hang of them and grew frustrated by them. Why weren't the controls set to use the WASD + arrow keys? People are familiar with feeling WASD in their left hand and arrow keys in their right from games like The Binding of Isaac. I'd be able to more easily feel the left/right versus shooting buttons. Personally, in the heat of the moment, it was a frantic scramble to find the right button, since it was sun an uncommon place for my fingers to sit on the keyboard.
Still, an excellent game!
Very neat visual design. Naturally, these games get pretty frantic, but man breaking those guys into pieces was satisfying!
More of an interactive movie than a game, but it's sure visually interesting.
Yes, the music is pleasant.
I'm sorry to say, but there just isn't much to this game to speak of. Unless I just didn't get to most of it, to me it was just a very slow fade in to white which leaves a square you must then click. I didn't see any noticeable change after a few clicks and I'd had enough. Is there any challenge to speak of? And again, the slow fade became tedious as I waited for a white square to show up.
Sadly, the actual game here is pretty much non-existent and the graphics don't pop with style, so it basically just leaves the pleasant acoustic tune.
Excellent art style and great music! I also liked the whole rewind thing. There are some problems, though:
1. I would often glitch out through platforms/walls. It felt very unstable, like at any moment I was going to glitch.
2. The controls are clumsy. Jumping feels sluggish and it's hard to tell when you can jump and when you can climb.
Overall, the climbing itself felt unnecessary. I wish it would have just focused on jumping.
3. The graphics, while beautiful, could be misleading. There's one part in the second area that looks like there's just a bunch of grass, but they're actually dangerous spikes. I found them difficult to see.
4. The rewind mechanic, while neat, has its problems. In the afore-mentioned blue area (where the acoustic piano music plays), I'd constantly fall onto the prickly grass either because it was hard to see or my jumping didn't actually jump until a split second after I told it to. It would rewind and drop me on another set of spikes, which would rewind me back further and further until it almost rewound the entire level because it would rewind me into walls which would damage me and set me back yet further. It became very, very frustrating.
5. In what sense is this minimalist? I'm not sure if being a short game really counts as minimalism. Beyond that, there are a number of mechanics at play and the graphical style is very detailed (which is nice, don't get me wrong), so where is the minimalism?
I enjoyed the art style, particularly the kids and robot.
If the kids can't use the cogs that are sitting right in front of them, they deserve to starve.
Wish there was more to it, since the ending is abrupt, but I think that what is here is brilliantly minimalist. It says and demonstrates a lot with very little. The art style was striking and immediately appealing. I really enjoyed it! All 60 seconds of it!
Sorry to seem like a prick, but I didn't care for this at all, really.
Personally, I felt that almost everything about it was rather obnoxious. I guess that some people interpret it as being funny, but it wasn't so clear if it was being ironically bad or just bad. And even if it was ironically bad, once you get your chuckle, you're still left with a fairly poor game.
For some examples:
1. I found the music very annoying very quickly and the voice work kind of off-putting, though that's just me. After hearing it multiple times in quick succession, the "baaah!"s started to grate on me.
2. The title screen has a button that's clearly off-center. Ironic or just didn't care?
3. The camera's angle obscures most of the sheep, meaning you have to wander around to find them. This wouldn't be a big issue except the player moves very slow, which ties in to:
4. The gameplay is simplistic, with no real challenge or penalty to encourage or reward play. The player's movement is too slow to make this simple fun, either, since it takes long enough to move around to make things feel tedious.
5. Even the "All sheep returned to the barn" screen has a flaw. Why do I need to click on the button to continue to the next screen? Why can't I press a button, since my fingers are already on the keyboard? Why do you force the player to take their hands off the keyboard only to press an "ok" button?
Overall, to be perfectly frank, I feel that the game is lazy. Whether it's done to be funny or not doesn't really matter to me. I don't find it enjoyable to play and there's really nothing about it that I like.
Sorry.
Awesome music. I liked the feel of the game in general, though I wish that the levels were a bit more interesting to look at. I know that it's minimalism and all, but the blue on dull blue kind of got to me. I wish there was a bit more color or some contrast.
Also, what was the deal with arrow keys to move plus mouse to fire? Why not WASD to move?
Overall, though, the game is fun and it's pretty awesomely satisfying to shoot the shurikens.
It makes for an awesome screenshot, but there's really nothing to this. You can pick up coins if you want, or you can not. It doesn't matter--nothing keeps track of them. You can rocket ahead of the advancing lava or you can fall into it. It doesn't matter--nothing happens either way.
I hesitate to call this a game at all. There are no goals, no consequences, and no real choices to be made. I suppose time just ran out, but as it stands, there's just nothing to it.
Neat idea! As others have said--multiplayer would be interesting.
Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like the snap would sometimes not respond when I hit it, even when it was my team's color (and I should have scored a point). Maybe I just did something wrong, though.
I loved the big, pixel style. Very awesome visual design and it looks great!
I have to say, though, this game should be called Mass Killer. What did those big black things with the red eyes ever do to deserve getting killed? They're just in your way, but they're not dangerous at all, so far as I could tell.
The gameplay here has almost nothing to it, unfortunately, and it was often very difficult to distinguish the foreground from the background. More visual cues should be added to make that more apparent.
I'd like to see a full game made in this blocky pixel style. It's very pleasant to look at.
I love the idea, but sadly either the execution or the controls are poor. I'm not exactly sure which. I clumsily move around trying to rub particles together and sometimes something happens and sometimes they don't. I have no clue.
The idea is great, but the game that resulted may need to be re-designed from the ground up to be actually fun to play. Controls need to be tight and results from experimentation should be immediate and apparent.
Absolutely FAN-FREAKIN'-TASTIC game! Superb Gameboy-style graphics, perfect controls, a very satisfying bullet-dodge mechanic that left me feeling like a badass sharp-shooter...
This game was pure fun, through and through. I just wish that it was a full-sized indie game!
Please consider doing more on it, Parappa. I would buy this game in a second!
Though, as others have said, this isn't actually very minimalist. It's just retro, which isn't the same thing.
I thought it was clever to have a precision puzzle game with a rotating stick. Made for some interesting puzzles, in any case.
My only real complaint is that I felt that the music got very annoying after a while, though I suppose there's just not much you can do no such short notice.
Ingenious concept with a sharp, interesting aesthetic to go with it!
If I'm honest, though, it didn't quite reach the potential it could have had as far as "fun" goes because of the controls and puzzle design. I was glad to see that new mechanics were introduced throughout, so the ideas were expanded upon and stayed interesting, but so many of the puzzles relied on precision jumping or tedious climbing by hopping from platform to platform, which was made frustrating because the controls are very loose and it's extremely easy to overshoot/undershoot your platform or to adjust yourself only to be sent flying off.
Still, great idea. Polish it up, tighten the controls, rework the puzzles, and I think it could make actual money. Pretty awesome for a <48-hour prototype!
Very unintuitive. I'm not going to rate because I don't want to rate down what could be a fun game just because I don't understand how to play it, but there are seriously no clues, which is a bad thing for a game that relies on the player to figure out how to play it.
Excellent game! Loads and loads of cathartic fun!
I loved the simple premise and the great pixel graphics. It feels like it would fit on a classic system like the C64 or something. Having the ground wear away over time was a brilliant idea and all the power-up drops make you feel great. It would have been nice to have some variation in the powerups, but I understand that there is limited time.
I only have two real issues with this game. First off, as others have said, the constant shotgun sound gets annoying after a while.
Second, I wish that the aliens would come in ever-increasing waves, rather than an infinite stream. This would give you a moment to pause and cool down before more intense combat came at you, while also giving a sense of progression. As it stands, the constant fighting without end eventually becomes kind of exhausting. I think that breaking up the enemies into waves would have remedied that (see: Space Invaders and Missile Command).
Overall, a great and very fun game!
Neat graphics in the game, though, in my opinion, there's just not much to the actual gameplay. I just faced the bosses and spammed spacebar and had no real challenge or need to do anything different.
There's a neat idea here somewhere, but in practice, I didn't see it on display here.
I have to ask--is there any reason to NOT attack the enemies? Because I immediately started running over the enemies while spamming the spacebar to get rid of them all as soon as possible, which I did. But then I wonder--why require you to press spacebar? Why can't they just be killed by me touching them?
And then I'm left with a board of white which I then, line by line, have to paint black. This is very, very boring, at least to me. Same reason I didn't care much for Farming Simulator 2013 (though I know others did). It wouldn't be any better if there were still enemies--it would just be frustrating on top of tedious.
I'm sure something could be done with leaving trails and enemies/player affecting each other's trails, but just painting the screen doesn't work well at all, in my opinion.
Visuals were fine and music was good, though.
I like the idea, of moving the platform the ball is touching to let it roll towards your goal.
Unfortunately, you can't tell where your goal is when you're just starting, and the level design is such that I won all three levels by accidentally dropping the ball onto the cylinder platform when I was trying to make it go somewhere else.
So, neat idea, but the execution needs work, I'm afraid.
Cool music, though!
I felt the magnetization of the pieces was sufficient. It was pretty satisfying to do puzzles, then to put those puzzles into a greater puzzle.
However, since the pieces all had such wacky shapes, it was very easy to tell where they went. Also, perhaps just me, but I found the sound effects to be unpleasant, in particular the "thump" sound when a piece is set down.
Overall, it's a jugsaw puzzle game. There's really nothing new to it.
I had the same problem of many others--it got stuck on the second level.
From what I saw, it's a neat idea. As others have said--minimalist Lemmings. It seemed almost too simplistic, though. Maybe the puzzles begin to use the mechanics better in later levels, but from what little I was able to see, I didn't see where there would be any challenge since one can flip switches very quickly and easily while the lemmings moved so slow.
Sorry, but I didn't care for it.
The most interesting thing is the 90-degree rotation bit, but it's not in any way gameplay-related and it's really just a gimmick.
I thought it was cool that you could knock around blocks to form platforms, but the glitchy physics made it frustrating instead of fun.
I couldn't get past the point where there are two squares bouncing around and I need to use one to double-jump over a high wall. I can't get enough height/forward momentum to get over the jump, even though I appear to jump high enough. I don't know if I'm doing it wrong (I didn't hear anything about a way to stack those blocks), if the controls are poor (sometimes it seems like I don't move the direction I want to go at the proper, normal speed), or if the hitbox is just too big.
In any case, there's really not much game here from what I could play, anyway. Sorry.
Looks neat! Wish I could play it.
Very clever attack scheme. I liked it!
I wish that there was more done with it, though. I know that this is a minimalist challenge, but the minimalism came, I think, from being able to only attack by attracting a ball. It would have been nice to have different kinds of enemies that reacted differently for some varied challenge.
Also, I think that the playfield is too small. In order for you to attack, you need to have the enemies between yourself and the attack ball. The problem is that this is often impossible to do without taking damage because the playfield gets so crowded.
I like the idea--finding enemies by their shots and trying to hit them while they're out of sight. In practice, though, there was a lot of time spent where nothing was happening and I wasn't sure if I was going towards or away from all the enemies, then suddenly three enemies would come in all at once and crush me before I could really do anything about it.
So the game needs balancing, but shooting and destroying the enemies is very satisfying. I think you have the sound effects and explosion effects on the enemies to thank for that.
As others have said, the framerate plummets, making the game quickly unplayable.
I never found much satisfaction in the abilities at my disposal, sadly. They didn't seem to do much damage and since the enemies charged at me in a big wave, I almost never had time to face them to use the abilities, so I'd just run around, waiting for a shield and then I'd turn around for one first blast and keep running in circles. Not much fun.
Then once the first wave was done, more spawned and the door still didn't open. The framerate prevented me from getting any further.
Looks brilliant, but I need a binary to play.
A nice technical accomplishment, but this is a game on the style of an original Odyssey console. You get two dots and you pretend you're playing games with them, but nothing is really going on.
For me, I didn't have people to connect to, so there wasn't anything to it and there's not much I can praise, aside from the accomplishment of creating an online multiplayer game.
I liked the art style, but the gameplay is, in my opinion, not good. Jumps are slow and clumsy and overall it's just a tedious game to play. It's clearly not designed to be "fun," but rather to waste time, so I can't really rate it too high, sorry to say.
It may be someone else's cup of tea, but this embodies everything I hate in a poor platformer, except the visuals are nice.
Nice music, but personally it seemed way too loud compared to the sound at the beginning of the game.
I really liked the aesthetic. The graphics looked very appealing, but I wish more would have been done with it. As it stands, this is a collection of very simple and not particularly fun minigames with gaps filled by terrible puns and bizarrely forced dialog. If this had been made into an adventure game with logic puzzles, I think it could have worked very well. As it stands, the gameplay is basically non-existent, and in my opinion gameplay is very important for a game.
Please don't take it too harshly, because I really like the look of it all. I just think that something more interesting should have been done with it.
Very clever game idea. I'm all for inventive mechanics/premises!
Personally, though, I felt that this game was more of a tedious click-fest than it was engaging. I think that the idea of playing as a hoarder who has to get rid of stuff could be a solid one, but I wish there had been some mechanics besides clicking an item, trying to toss, try to sell, click another, try to toss, try to sell, etc. etc.
Again, kudos for the inventive premise!
A poetic and symbolic game where the only controls are to move.
I'd say that makes this as good as Dear Esther. :)
Very interesting mechanic! I'll admit that I didn't really understand how the grey blocks grew and how to avoid them, so I wasn't able to make it past the third level. It seemed like after they grew for a while, they'd suddenly be somewhere else, but I never understood why or how I could use it to my advantage, unfortunately.
Personally, it's a very difficult game for me to play. I basically have to restart over and over to memorize the pattern, since I can't remember it from a quick glance at all.
But there's nothing wrong with the game itself. The idea of removing lines to match an abstract pattern is a good one and the visual presentation is sharp and very appealing. Good job!
Love the Gameboy-like graphics of the game! The concept is very clever, too, though the level with all the pills that you must avoid began to get frustrating because I didn't have much control precision to avoid them, I felt.
Still, it's a solid concept and looks neat. Grats!
I got stuck on invisible walls as well.
Am I missing something or is this game basically just a chase around a block maze with infinitely-spawning enemies that don't do any damage and really have no consequences or reward from doing anything?
Great sounds, great music, great aesthetic, and a simple but pleasant gameplay direction. Good job!
Very interesting experiment. There's reason why we don't tend to see top-down platformers, but I won't fault the attempt. It was innovative, at least!
A couple things, though. It was odd that the player doesn't move with the moving platforms that were being stood on. It just made for a lot of frustration when I would over-correct and fall off while trying to keep up with it. Also, some of the levels seem to be set up in such a way that the puzzle forces you to stand and wait for it to be ready for you to act. Now, there's nothing wrong with a puzzle that requires you to pause a moment before continuing, but forcing you to stand still for a few seconds at the very start or else everything will be off-sync kind of grinds the nerves after a while.
But still, overall a solid attempt at a rare gameplay style. Kudos!
Effective game, frustrating as it is. Maybe it could have started out a bit slower and then worked its way faster for some more progression, but I enjoyed it anyway, though I didn't come near beating it.
I really liked the gameplay mechanic here, particularly that you then wove it into the story, like in "Thomas Was Alone," or something similar. Great music as well--very chill.
Unfortunately, in the room where you see, "If I gather enough, can I become bigger?" or something like that, I apparently fell through the floor or the level vanished and I would spawn in pure blackness only to fade away and then spawn again.
I was immediately tense when playing this game. At first, I thought the lack of most sounds was odd, but it quickly added to my sense of dread for ~whatever it was that was going to happen. Big kudos on the very detailed 3D models used, and the lack of textures gave it an interesting style as well.
Though it's odd to say it, I really liked the highlight system, particularly the doorknob. I don't know why, but I thought it was cool.
Very effective minimalist horror game. Good job!
Even though I have a later version of the SDK, I get an error of "MSVCR110.dll is missing from your computer."
Certainly my favorite game that I've seen so far!
I once had an idea to do a game where the world was made up of ASCII characters, but this is brilliant--a typography world? Awesome!
Seriously, I would love to see this style expanded into an action-adventure game rather than just an action platformer. Refine the style a bit and I would seriously buy it in a heartbeat.
Even though this game could have faffed off its gameplay, it didn't. The jumps were breezy enough to allow proper precision for platforming and the end boss fight was actually fun!
Overall, fantastic job and I hope this prototype is expanded further if possible!
I don't know how exactly to reply to comments, so I'll just awkwardly comment on my own thing...
Nope, that's someone else, though I did program this FOR the Atari. I don't know how you'd program ON an Atari 2600. Maybe using an Atari 800 computer? That wasn't me, though.
By the bird, I assume you mean the owls and not the player (since you're playing as a bat). In either case, no, the ping isn't programmed to move anything. Perhaps it looks tricky because the owls, bugs, etc. all move in the dark and you can only see them with a ping.
@ButtercupSaiyan: Sorry to hear. Maybe make another screenname to do other stuff with so things won't follow you around.
@Filth and Money: Try the mirrored link. I had someone else say they couldn't download any file called "ping" for whatever reason, so I put the bin in a zip. Maybe it'll work better.
@danblack: Setting the player back to the start of the level is kind of arbitrary, since the levels are randomized from a set of 16 + a random roll for spawns, so putting them back is the same as letting them continue on, except for their inability to gain further points (which, in your case, don't matter anyway). Plus I worry that it would be too frustrating.
I had considered allowing only a certain number of pings per screen but rejected it because I was afraid that the player being stuck in the dark with no pings left would be a dick move on my part. Still, it may be something worth trying out in a future revision of the ROM. Perhaps give points for how many pings the player has remaining once they reach the end of the stage, rather than basing them on their progress? I like the idea.
@josefnpat Why did you need to compile? I think that there are compiled binaries for most systems available for Stella: http://stella.sourceforge.net/downloads.php - Unless you're using some version of Linux that is incompatible?
Here is a video briefly showing some gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o2WSCxtwIk
@danblack It's certainly something I'll consider. Your star rating idea would probably need to be converted into a score since the nice thing about a score is that is can be easily quantified. If I get three stars on one room, two on another, and three on the next one, how exactly can the cumulative progress be saved? Displaying all those stars on screen in some kind of star-based total score is not practical on the Atari 2600, sadly.
As for the randomized levels, I'm pleased that you weren't able to notice that they were looping. Yes, progress would be nice, and maybe that can be done in a later version. For now, though, I had limited time and limited space (4kilobytes). The ROM is filled up to within 40 bytes of the 4kb limit, so there will need to be some reworking in order to build it so that more can fit in.
@Gremlin I've never encountered that issue... Well, if you can't get the first version to work, then consider that second version to be a bugfixed version and rate it, instead. It was made within the allotted time for bug fixes, anyway.
@nintendoeats I had some great tools with the vBb IDE for batari basic (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/123849-visual-bb-1-0-a-new-ide-for-batari-basic/) that allowed me to create the maps in a quick, point-and-click program, rather than typing them out one bit at a time.
Thanks to all for the kind words! I'm glad that folks are enjoying my humble contribution. :)
Very enjoyable puzzle game! I loved the art style and the puzzles themselves were enjoyable, though it's more of a jumping puzzler than an actual logic puzzler, but that's fine.
The one big downside, and it is a significant one, is that it can be nearly impossible to tell which blocks are at what vertical level. I think that's just an inherent problem with this view style, though, and some effort was made to have a distinction, with vertically distant blocks being fogged out. It's still not visually intuitive for jumping, requiring a lot of restarts, but at least those restarts happen quickly. I never got frustrated.
Great job!
As others have said, the slow text did drag things down by drawing them out excessively. As for the timer, I felt like I had asked all the questions worth asking in the first couple minutes, so I just kind of killed time for the rest of it, or so it seemed to me.
I ranked the innovation and theme high for this one, since it's certainly minimalist and it's a rare move to make a game that's about talking like this. I was interested in what was going on, though the message (if any) seemed a bit confusing.
Was the point supposed to be that the defendant woman gained Ben's sympathy when she was actually quite dangerous? The way she and her attorney went on with their preaching, it seemed like there was a message against the death penalty going on, even though her actions were pretty excessive for just seeing an officer around (very excessive). Still, I recommended minimum 25 years in prison, and then she gets in fights and her family doesn't visit. I only plead her case because I figured it was a one-shot bout of violence that would not be repeated.
Since she's clearly prone to violence, choosing to attack others while in prison, the message seems to me to be that she should have been given the death penalty right away, since it's not like she got more time with her family and her being around others made things worse and prison did not rehabilitate her.
Anyway, that's besides the point. Neat game!
The terminal thing is cool. I wish there was an actual game here, though. :(
I feel like a prick for saying it, but this game has no challenge, the art style isn't very appealing (though the nebula looks neat), the music is repetitive, and overall it just isn't fun.
Sorry, but I could just hold down trigger and swing my ship back and forth and I almost never saw a single enemy.
Perhaps it's just me, but the speed of the scrolling up made me feel kind of sick after staring at it for even just a few seconds. Also, potatoes would get randomly generated on top of hearts, making guaranteed losses.
Sorry, but I didn't care for it much.
Amusing game. Really enjoyed the art style.
The screenshot looks like it's stretching away when I stare at it. Weird...
I really enjoyed this game. It's neat to see a retro 3D style and I really liked it here. The mechanics are solid and it's fun, though sometimes the time between things happening is a bit too long.
At first, I thought that this was going to be a musical game, since those first noise patches sounded like some kind of beat coming on. I wish that this had a musical element, with a nice chiptune that you could add a layer to by rolling back and forth. Kind of like guitar hero if it were a ball in a tube rather than buttons on a road.
Overall, very impressive! Good work!
If I asked someone to make me a minimalist drawing and they returned with a blank sheet of paper, I wouldn't say that they had succeeded. Similarly, this is an amusing and visually interesting gag, but it's not a game and, on that note, it's not a minimalist game. There needs to be gameplay for it to be a minimalist game.
Loved the art, by the way.
A similar game was made at my college for the Global Game Jam, except that one drew you near a heartbeat that got louder and louder. Also, I think that it used normal directional controls. Though I suppose it's the point, it's really easy to lose track of which direction you're facing, so it becomes a button masher of a game.
The idea is interesting and maybe someone with more patience would even find it fun, but for me, I kept running into the opening menu audio after a while (don't know why) and eventually gave up.
That's pretty awesome! I can't say I saw any result from holding any of the keys down (aside from restart), but it's pretty awesome to have a game based on virtual chips and stuff.
I love the idea! Very cool and it has a lot of potential.
Unfortunately, my screen kept bugging out. I'd see lines everywhere, like the platforms and player leave residue everywhere. See this screenshot to see what I mean: http://i43.tinypic.com/2nrhjb9.jpg
It could be very distracting.
Also, it was kind of frustrating that it took so long to retry the game. This game has a very rapid death rate, so there are going to be a lot of failures. Allowing the player to try again as fast as possible is a good idea, or else it begins to get frustrating. If you make it very quick and easy to try again, it helps to make the game more addicting. For a good example of this, see here: http://www.adamatomic.com/canabalt/
Overall, great concept and I'd like to see it expanded. Kudos!
You are an evil, bad person, and your game is addicting as hell.
The level of polish on display is amazing! The game looks great and the levels, infuriating as they are, are clearly very carefully planned. I wouldn't be surprised if this game went viral like how I Wanna Be The Guy did. Big kudos, although I will never, ever play this again. I can appreciate what its trying to do.
Personally, I liked the sketchy art style, though it was kind of inconsistent with the colors and the counter seemed out of place, being pixelated and in the middle of the screen.
The idea is neat--dragging with the mouse to burst the ball in that direction. I think it would be a bit more intuitive on a touch device like an iPad than it is here with the mouse, but still. It's a neat idea!
Unfortunately, the controls for it were sluggish and unresponsive. Many times, I'd drag my mouse and there was no response for a split second, or it seemed to respond to the same gesture differently. Because of that, I never felt really in control of the movements, which made the puzzles frustratingly difficult.
In summary, great job on the innovative movement controls, but they need to be tightened to make this kind of game work. Do that and expand the scope of the game and you could have a very enjoyable mobile platformer on your hands!
Neat puzzle game. I liked it!
For some reason, though, after the first two levels, the player shape starts to move a lot slower, which begins to make movement a tad tedious after a while. I wish it would have kept the speed from the first two levels.
The visuals were a bit confusing. Some of those grey walls you could knock around, but at other times (as in one of the screenshots), there is a wall that can be knocked, but only from a certain side, though that's not immediately apparent. Maybe that's what the shorter end is supposed to be? I wish it had been a bit more apparent. Not a huge deal, though.
Overall, neat game. I wish that there were more puzzles.
Is this the same ButtercupSaiyan who makes those flash games?
Hm... It doesn't seem to work for me. I run the executable, but nothing seems to happen. Too bad--the screenshots look like the game has lots of visceral fun!
Loved the graphics style and I liked the way the blue square talked with the small text. It was cute.
Now, maybe I'm missing something, but to me the gameplay consisted of be bumping around into invisible walls until I had enough visible to lure the blue block in to get stuck on a corner and then I'd hurry in and touch it. Is there something more to it than that?
If not, then I must say, the gameplay is honestly tedious. If I just missed the point, then please ignore what I'm saying here, but I saw no way of determining where the walls may be, so there was no strategy or challenge involved, just a lot of slow, dull maneuvering as I'd constantly get stuck on walls and have to drag myself around them.
I kept playing because I was curious about the blue square and why it was being so coy. Unfortunately, by the time I got to a level where it started following me, the camera had zoomed out so far from me using my bait-and-switch tactic to catch the blue square, I wasn't even able to read what it was saying, sadly.
Keep the aesthetic and concept and use it for something. Unless you're trying to just make an artistic statement about how walls go up between people who like each other or something, which the gameplay would enforce, the game isn't "fun" in any way that I can see.
Please don't take the criticism harshly. I thought it was very neat!
Very fun and addicting game with an interesting focus mechanic and a great retro art style. Very well done!
I absolutely LOVED the runner's animation. It was so sharp and fluid and fantastic! It fit very well with the music, making me think of an Eastern rice paper painting.
Unfortunately, the rest of the game's graphics don't compliment that art style. The super-pixelated backgrounds and the tile-based blocks you're running on conflict with the runner's style. I wish it all would have kept that beautiful, bold look that the runner presents.
As for the gameplay, having to run over all platforms to get to the exit is a neat idea. However, I felt that there was a pretty big difficulty spike that made the game frustrating and took the fun out of the idea. It became too much about trying again and again and again to touch just the right blocks at the right time, only to fail and have to do it all over.
Lots of potential here, but the game needs the wrinkles ironed out. Still, if you focus on that sharp, smoothly-animated runner graphics style, keep the great Eastern music, and plan your puzzles to be less frustrating, it could be really great!
Very enjoyable game! I think that the randomization sometimes puts you rough situations, like stacking the desirable balls around a bunch of blocks so you can't possibly get them without hitting the blocks, but having plenty of hits before death makes up for it.
I really loved hitting those jumps and flying high over everything below. Again, very fun and appropriately minimalist. Kudos!
Overall, I had fun playing this! Some thoughts:
First of all, while I understand the idea of scoring points for touching things (just as a way to innovate a scoring system), in practice it worked against the game. Or, rather, the way it was visually done worked against the game. Platforming in first person is always a bit clumsy, but since the platforms change color (often to the color of the floor) when touched, that makes them effectively invisible when viewed from above, so you not only have the clumsiness of FPS platforming, but now your platforms are invisible as well. I was beginning to get frustrated, but thankfully it turned away from the platforming parts after a while.
I assume you were going for a DOOM-like style with the enemies' shots, but while that era's games had enemies shoot bursts of energy that were slow enough you could dodge them, the shots move too quickly/there is not enough maneuvering room to properly dodge for most of this game, so it just puts you in certain death situations. Thankfully, you've very generous with checkpoints, so that helps.
The way that you used the color blue to indicate geometry that could be affected was a good visual cue, so kudos for that.
I also really liked the music.
Overall, it was enjoyable. Good work!
I LOVED this game!
Although you call it a badly-drawn game, I really enjoyed the green phosphor look of it, like a classic Apple II game. It worked well with the ASCII design and was very effective.
Personally, I think that this was brilliantly innovative. It makes me think of another indie game that mixed a tetris-like mechanic with a dungeon crawler and was, to me, enormously addicting. I think that you've got a similarly brilliant combination here.
The only downsides I'd say were the sound effects, which got annoying (particularly the death screams), and how you don't have much control over the ball, making it frustrating when there are only a couple enemies remaining and you just can't maneuver the ball to hit them correctly. Breakout and Super Breakout had this problem as well, but I think Arkanoid kind of solved it.
So, my advice? See how you can expand the concept a bit more, merging more of the elements of rogue and ASCII-based RPGs with Breakout/Arkanoid-style arcade games. If you spend some time expanding the concept, I think you could have a very addicting and profitable indie game on your hands.
Once again, kudos I say!
The game I mentioned but forgot to name is called 10,000,000
Very soothing game. Superbly done!
As others have said, it would be great on a tablet or something. You should definitely continue to develop this prototype into a bigger game. Think about how the gameplay could be expanded a bit.
Very well done!
Graphics look amazing! Music is great, too. I enjoy run 'n jump style games. Very, very well done there! Very generous checkpoint system as well.
I wish that it was semi-modular so it could have more levels, maybe randomly-generated, even. In any case, looking forward to more!
Again, again, great art style!
Great idea for a game--sling-shotting around planets to reach a goal. I would love to see it expanded upon! Graphics were fitting for retro and the music was space-y and smooth. I liked very much!
Is it just me or is the level shown in the last screenshot here (the one with the waving purple lines) hard as balls? I'm not sure if I'm just bad at the game or if this level is borderline unbeatable. You don't have control over which planet you're orbiting around, so it's a matter of absolute memorized precision, while previous levels allowed for some experimentation and leeway in figuring out your own path.
I wish that level would be more open and not require that frustrating level of perfection. I don't know what comes after it because I could not beat it.
Surprisingly fun. really had a good time playing this!
Take the mechanics, add some nice, polished gameplay and pleasant sound effects and music, and I'd say you have a nice iPhone game.
Certainly meets with the minimalist theme. Personally, though, the moving back and forth ended up being a bit tedious because there's not much of an overt challenge to it. The toughest part is the bottleneck you see in the center of that screenshot, and that's just because maneuvering can be kind of clumsy.
Sorry, but it didn't end up being particularly fun, though I will say that it's addicting. I tried a number of times to win, so there is some kind of draw. Unfortunately, it can't out-live the repetition and frustration.
Boy, those chain reactions are satisfying! Makes me feel boss to see all those pieces go!
I wonder, though--is there really any challenge to the game? For me, I had to clear out all the bottom row blocks because they wouldn't fall out on their own, but once I'd cleared out the bottom row, I was pretty much guaranteed to have a chain reaction that took out everything, so where is the challenge if it's just a matter of clicking the bottom blocks?
Also, personally I didn't care much for the look of the game at all. It's a kind of awkward mix of MS Paint-style cartoon and a semi-bevelled look for the interlocking blocks with a bunch of rather unpleasant colors put together. I think that shooting for a bold 2D look with just a handful of colors without the bevel and without the South Park-looking MS Paint kid would be more visually appealing.
So, as I said, the game was satisfying because of the combos, but I wonder if they aren't pretty much impossible to NOT get.