Unstable Equilibrium by baknik 2021-10-04T21:23:42Z
This was fun. It took me a hot minute to figure out how the game worked, but the in-game explanation was spot-on (just had to actually read :-D). The lighting added an extra bit of challenging fun.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Cyber Puffin
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | Oregon Startrail | compo | 340 | 2.79 | 2.45 | 3.00 | 3.02 | 2.86 | 2.93 | 3.00 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Ludum Dare 49 - Wizard Typist | jam | 2.50 | 2.58 | 2.41 | 2.00 | 2.58 | 2.00 | 2.08 | 2.16 |
This was fun. It took me a hot minute to figure out how the game worked, but the in-game explanation was spot-on (just had to actually read :-D). The lighting added an extra bit of challenging fun.
That was fun, the difficulty curve seems good. I'd say the 1-to-3 splitting bullet is the hardest for me to dodge, but the sequential homing tripped me up a fair bit too.
Fun game, I liked the look and mechanic. I feel like there should be a break to let the player catch their breath. Also, I seemed to get dinged for calls going to a specific point but that point already have an active call.
The game mechanic is fun, but the control scheme made gameplay difficult. Perhaps adding a color difference between the push and pull particle effect would help to differentiate the action. A visual warning before hitting the under-/over-charge state would be helpful.
Thank you all for the kind words. I agree with the need for variation and need for difficulty adjustments. It definitely needs a win state.
Nicely done, really fun, and tight controls. I kept forgetting I had the ability to roll and got killed off.
I like the flight-control mechanism, nice job! It took me a little bit to figure out what to do and only two ships came out.
Good concept, I like the mechanic. It makes sense to drive slower in reverse than forward, but I wish I could have had a "sprint" button to get through some of the slower parts faster (could balance with loss of control).
The download link on this page fails. I was able to find the build embedded in the github page. You might consider doing a release / tag to attach your builds in github (As an example, [here's mine](https://github.com/cyberpuffin-digital/Oregon-Startrail/releases/tag/untagged-f0e53eb62309431fc89f)).
I did get a bit confused as to the goal, 5 minutes is a long time to go without feedback. It could be good to break it up into smaller levels / segments, this way you can train your player how to get a higher score.
As others have mentioned the pacing is a little slow. One part that confused me was which groups of people were tied together and which were solo movers. At first I thought it was color-based (e.g., reds all move in a group of 3 or 4) but then certain ones were solos, so now I think it's semi-random. I think it might be good to give some visual indicator as to which dancers are grouped vs solo. Maybe they have toilet paper on their shoe linking them together or maybe their arms are linked.
Very fun mechanic, manually flying between outposts coupled with the trading. It took me a bit to realize the components were either just for trade or ship upgrades. I've yet to get the fuel and oxygen requirements along with making it to the rim, but very fun nonetheless.
Nice entry. I like the "Hold to Restart" as it prevents the accidental reset from hitting the wrong button.
The main thing I was missing was a rotate key. This might be deliberate for the challenge, but I really wish I could have rotated the 1x2 to fit the space in the top.
It might also be good to give a preview of the list items to be packed (beyond the few that are coming), as I kept getting stuck when the last few were a specific share or group.
This is really fun. It'd be nice to have a way to unselect the character if you change your mind. Really liked the aesthetic and mechanic.
This game is so fun. There were a couple occasions where the enemy would freeze up, which allowed me to gather more resources. Once you hit a critical mass then there's really no stopping you.
A couple thoughts for balance: * Perhaps limit the population based on how many houses are present * Perhaps limit the number of workers per lumber or mine. Once I got up to about 30 the progress bar just gave up. * Need a way to unselect current selection. Accidentally placed a barracks trying to select a troop.
Fun games, I like the speed of the fork lift. My biggest complaint about the controls is turning direction during reverse. When I hit back & left the fork lift rotates counter-clockwise sending my back-side to the right. This seems reversed to me and made switch back and forth (forward/reverse) very difficult. I think it might also be good to give a visual indicator that a truck is ready to unload. I had nothing left to do before I figured out there was something in the truck, and then I only had time to get a single package off.
Fun to play, but I got frustrated by the controls. It's hard to gauge when you've achieved enough thrust to take off vs too much sending you off-screen. I'd like if there were some arrow that could point where your ship is (when off-screen) and some indication of its orientation. I would fly off screen and be unable to recover.
This was fun, though it took me a bit to get the hang of it. It might be good to add a restart button to the end screen, I kept waiting for the end of the score calculation before remembering to hit the esc key. I liked the indicators that showed where the enemies were and when they could see you. Nice work.
Wrapping up and uploading latest builds. Still a lot of work to be done, but I'm really happy with the 48 hour progress.
Thank you both for the feedback!
I'm not 100% sure that one can actually reach Wolf1061c with the current balance, as I used a travel-time override while in editor (just run the game with the godot 4.x editor and travel time is static at 5 seconds). I'm building a nice big list of tweaks for rebalance and bug fixing.
Good to hear that the locale changes are appreciated. It felt odd writing strings directly in the editor since my main workflow has me using a translation table. Godot and Google combine to make translation tables really easy (wrote up a [devlog](https://cyberpuffin.digital/devlog/20230816) a little bit ago), though font support remains a bit of a challenge.
Currently, Oregon Startrail supports the following locales: * ar - Arabic * cmn - Mandarin * cs - Czech * de - German * es - Spanish * fi - Finnish * fr - French * hi - Hindi * it - Italian * ja - Japanese * ko - Korean * pl - Polish * pt - Portuguese * ru - Russian * uk - Ukranian
I haven't tested the TTS system in other languages.
@hotaloca the more I play test the more I agree at the information needing properly highlighting. It probably would have been better to start with just the base three you suggest and enable the rest as I got the other parts implemented. Sadly, the spacedock wasn't implemented so players are unable to purchase the upgrades for hydroponics and fisheries.
I just finished writing up more information about playing and the resource guide in the entry above.
Thank you for the feedback!
@quasilyte thank you for the feedback! You're right that I neglected to highlight important information and the ending hits suddenly. The next iteration will have UI highlighting on the important data and a ramp-up to the end game state (e.g., run out of water, humans start dying until you run out of humans).
If you don't want to read as much, you can run the desktop variants. So long as you have TTS voices installed on your system (default for most OSes but linux, and the linux voices are easy to install) the dialog window will present the "Read with TTS" button. Sadly, this doesn't work in the web export.
You're also correct that I want to hide the "Exit" button the web export, I discovered the same during some of my post-jam play testing.
As for the difficulty in reading the small text, if you check the options you can adjust the global scale.
And finally, the Canadian locale will append "eh?" to the end of each string. This serves more of a purpose than just annoying (/amusing) my Canadian relatives. I use this locale to help identify where I've neglected the translation. For example, I missed the "CONSUMABLE" string in the Resource tab. This gets highlighted without the "eh?" bit.
I wrote up a [devlog](https://cyberpuffin.digital/devlog/20230816) back in August that details the mechanism in Godot.
@poshdan Yes, you're quite right. My notes have difficulty modes differentiated by how many resources get controlled (Energy, Food, Water, Waste) but I was thinking I might go with different consumption rates. IIRC, the original Oregon Trail approached it in a similar manner, albeit with better explanations. The idea is to build your stock from the place that has plenty, as the resources gradually get scarcer the further you go.
I am glad to get such a positive response to the accessibility options. It's been a primary focus for my other project (it's in the name after all: Accessible Sudoku) and the efforts transition easily into new projects. Easier if you do it from the start.
@lou-bagel thank you for the feedback! I alphabetized the buttons and barely thought about the functional order. I do hope the quick death loop made it easy for you to jump into a new game after your untimely demise(s).
You have multiple valid points that will influence the next iteration.
I appreciate all the feedback!
@ttkayttis I ready your username as "TTS" at first and thought you have something to say about the TTS :grin:
But I thank you for the kind feedback. The issue wrt: text size came in as a bug on the web export. The locale is defaulting to the minimum allowed scale (0.7) when no existing setting is present. A different scale can still be set in the options. But I set the minimum to something that was at least legible and moved on.
You, and several others, are right that I was a little too ambitious for a jam game.
Really fun, tricky puzzles, and good controls. My only real complaint is that the reset button is right next to the rotate button. I kept accidentally resetting my progress by hitting the wrong one. Perhaps a timer for "hold to restart" or move the key to prevent accidental reset.
Fun game, I really liked the variation on the movement mechanism and the blue asteroids are annoying! :grin: Nice work!
Took my first run through to really register that the timer was counting down.... the lava helped :grin:
I enjoyed this for a few plays, got up to 560. Found a lava room that seemed to hurt even when I thought I was on ground. Good ambience.
Fun little game, but I found myself in an unwinnable situation a few times but eventually won... when the bots knocked each other off. :-)
Fun asteroids clone with a theme twist. Enjoyed playing. I couldn't tell if the asteroids despawned as soon as they were off screen or if the laser was just hitting its range limit.
I really liked the particle and element interactions. The smoke bubbling up through ash was awesome!
I'd have liked to be able to skip through the dialog.
Nice work!
Fun little bullet hell. I'm not a huge fan of the controls, they seem very loose and I kept drifting into things and had trouble with reaction times. I also found the tracking on my mouse would be lost if I left the screen. It was nice to revert to keyboard controls.
Nice work, I made it to the end twice. The first time didn't quite register as a win and I hit the edge to the side of the planet, but I still count it.
It might be good to rotate the initial aspect ratio. It started in Landscape for me, but the primary direction of action is better served by portrait. It might be good to give some visual indicators on the edge of the screen to upcoming obstacles.
Keep it up!
Fun puzzle game, I'm going to have to come back to when I'm not so fried. I was happy when I got past the "clear 5", then it said "clear 7" and I said "nope" .... for now.
Fun game, tight loop, nice aesthetic.
This was fun, but I got stuck pretty thoroughly. It would be good to highlight where the failure might be, as far as I could tell I was complying with the new "rule". I did find myself getting annoyed at "oh, another rule I didn't know about and am now violating."