Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → David Boeger
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | War Maker | jam | 842 | 3.19 | 3.04 | 3.09 | 2.92 | 2.29 | 3.08 | 3.09 |
You know, although the game feels unfinished, I have to say, the fact that you made a collection of minigames for a jam is super impressive! It's hard enough making 1 game of this caliber, let alone 3! My biggest complaint is that in the first 2 games, I pretty much had tunnel vision solely focused on the arrows, which didn't allow me to enjoy the setting, which is half the point of this game.
Great game, although I realized near the end that you can basically just camp the base and move ever so slightly back and forth to kill bugs.
Mint Arcade, you have proven yourself once again! Great game. I could honestly play this for hours. You really know how to design gameplay that is engaging over a longer period of time without relying on too many assets.
In fact, this is only the 2nd game so far that I'm giving 5 stars across the board. Excellent job!
I reread the instructions and tried everything I could, but couldn't seem to attack. I'm not sure if I just missed something. The gameplay is actually an interesting blend of genres, and seems pretty fun. But I just had no idea how to kill things.
This is the first LD41 game I'm giving 5 stars across the board! An absolute perfect game! At first, I thought it was way too hard. It is certainly a challenging game to get used to. I think I lost my first match without winning a single point. But I was able to wrap my head around it and just barely win my second match. I had a ton of fun. I do wish it were easier to kill the zombies, because it seems that in practice, although it's technically possible to kill them, you're better off just focusing on the game of tennis and not trying to fight them. I think they could even just take 1 or 2 hits to die, instead of the 5 or so it takes now.
Another hit from Adroit Conceptions! Excellent game. Doesn't feel as "complete" as your island delivery service game for Jim Jam, but it's also more unique and fits the theme really well. Some of the puzzles were fairly challenging. I love having to switch views. It's a really solid and fun game, and I think it could really benefit from more polish. I don't mind the use of primitives for graphics, especially in an abstract puzzle game, but the fact that this is also a platformer makes the environments feel a little lifeless compared to playing something like a Super Mario game.
Okay, let's get the good out of the way first. The artwork is incredible. The mood setting is fantastic. It's immediately obvious a lot of passion went behind this game. So it gets good scores on those fronts. I also got lucky and didn't encounter any of the bugs other people mentioned, so for me, it worked flawlessly. That being said, when it comes to the theme, I think the objective wasn't necessarily to keep things incompatible, but just to try to make unexpected combinations. This game kind of breaks the visual novel side of things with the point and click portions, and doesn't do anything to really improve their compatibility. I ended up finishing the game in about 2 minutes accidentally, because I got tired of clicking through messages that didn't really continue the story, and I didn't expect the game to let me get to the final location so quickly. Basically, in order for players to truly get the full experience of this game, you're asking them to ignore the clues and read through side story for 30 minutes. For an example of how to do this kind of gameplay right, check out Life is Strange, LA Noire, Heavy Rain, etc. Notice how they have tons of optional side content to allow the player freedom of choice and different endings, but you can't just magically skip to the end. The overall story is still structured. So this game is very impressive for a jam game, but lacks that kind of structure that ensures players have a consistently good experience.
This game has a ton of potential. I think what you were going for in terms of creating a relaxed puzzle game is really smart, and you did a fantastic job of achieving that goal. I would really enjoy to play this game in my spare time or on my phone. However, there is something majorly wrong with the upgrades. They're actually downgrades. I don't know if that's intentional, or if it's because of an exploit that needs to be fixed. But basically, the play gains IQ from each click. So it benefits the player to click every single grid cell as many times as possible without triggering it. Upgrading the IQ gain just reduces the granularity of the player's control. Auto-clicking is a serious waste of resources, because you basically can't take advantage of that extra IQ gain and still win. You could literally just make all the upgrades their opposites and it'd be more balanced. But realistically, I'm guessing you didn't actually intend for players to be able to click on other grid cells after committing to one. Other than that, it's actually a fun game.
Hmm, I wanted to have the great experience that others are reporting, but this game was just flat out impossibly hard for me. I'm not sure why, as I'm generally a pretty competent gamer. I love the graphics, atmosphere, concept, all that. It's actually a really smart game. But I cannot collect the very first enemy. I tried hundreds of times. Just can't do it. Is it just me, or do you need to be pixel perfect to actually get to the enemy? Or maybe I am not pressing some button I should be pressing? I really have no idea, but I tried and tried and couldn't get a single enemy. And also, perhaps a bit more constructive criticism, the shield rings were really ambiguous and difficult to understand at first because they are placed so close to enemies. There should be a substantial gap between enemies and the rings to make it clear that you cannot pass the rings until you collect the enemies within. I kept going for enemies outside the rings, not realizing that the rings were knocking me back.
The game is absolutely hilarious and fun! The menus and credits were also a really nice touch. The only downside is that the game was extremely short, and I would've loved more. To be fair, it's a jam game, and it looks like a lot of time was spent on creating the environment, which looks fantastic.
Great job, Tim! The game is fantastic. It feels way more intense actually playing the game in full screen with the screen shake than it does watching the development stream. I only really had 2 issues with it; 1st is that I don't think the game really fits the theme all that well, or did anything that original. I know you voiced your opinion about the theme being self-contradictory, but at the same time, many developers were going for really unexpected combinations, and reverse tower defense has been mainstream since the very successful Anomaly series back in 2010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anomaly:_Warzone_Earth). Had this game come out 10 years ago, absolutely, this would match the theme. But again, this isn't much different from playing Anomaly, and that's not some obscure game reference nobody would have heard of. 2nd is that reaching the end of the level just feels really unsatisfying and under-developed. I got my gnomes to the end, then a bunch of waves just kept spawning, and occasionally I'd kill an enemy that would appear. Then I randomly died at one point without seeing anything that would have caused damage. At that point, it looked just like I had lost, even though I had been delivering several waves of gnomes uninterrupted. And when I restarted the game, the music wasn't playing anymore, so it felt really quiet. Normally, I wouldn't make such a big deal of this, but for having a single challenging level that isn't very long in scope, rewarding players who persevere and get through is super important. That being said, this gets high marks for just pure fun.
What a great game! I absolutely love this concept and think it could make for a great twist on the stealth and survival genres. Having to be a trucker in a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with bandits? Can anybody say Mad Max? Really well done.
The game is actually pretty fun. However, as others have mentioned, the balancing could use some work. It seems spamming cheap turrets works really well, up until a point where the enemy just travels much fast than you can spawn turrets, and at that point, there's nothing you can do.
Yeah, I just had to keep playing this game until I got on the scoreboard. 5's all around. Instant winner.
@honest-dan This game is so dang fun, I had to come back and absolutely slaughter the high score. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!
@BoltKey Okay, yeah, I'm not challenging your score for some time, lol. Maybe eventually I will try to dethrone you, but you beat me pretty handily. Excellent job!
@honest-dan @BoltKey I did it. I got a trout. I believe it's the world's first trout. Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuYLONPxtp0
It was not easy at all. Seriously, I had to up my game substantially, but also get extremely lucky. Before, I jokingly said a trout should give 5k points. But no, I think it should give about 15k points more realistically, because no competitive player in their right mind would try to accomplish this for the points. It took me longer to get the trout than it did to get to the top of the scoreboard, and quite frankly, I had to get a lot better at the game too.
Darn you @BoltKey ! I'm now 3rd on the leaderboard! I suppose I shall likely remain there for a while, lol.
HAHAHA I love this interesting take on infinite runners. The game feels pretty darn difficult. I think I'd prefer if things didn't take so much dang health so I could last a bit longer. But it's a fantastic game.
Is the impossible level actually possible? I got to the impossible level and couldn't jump back up from the yellow crystal. The game is actually really fun. Although to be honest, it just feels like a platformer. I don't really see how it fits the theme or combines any other genres.
Texting your dragon is a pretty funny mechanic, and a good fit for the theme. The gameplay is actually quite fun. That being said, there are a lot of frustrating things about the game as well. The 1st issue is that as others have mentioned, the web build isn't very widely compatible. That may not be your fault, but I tried multiple browsers and had problems. I downloaded the Windows build, and it worked flawlessly. However, summoning the dragon just feels really random, as it may or may not kill the beasts. I definitely think the game would be better if the dragon AI was able to seek out enemies. Finally, after the "thin corridor" where you hide your dragon for the first time, that bullet hallway is really tricky. It seems you can't completely avoid damage by dashing, which wouldn't be a big deal if you could just take a few points of damage before reaching the end, but you then spawn beasts from the already cleared room behind the player, which is completely unexpected and makes that hallway really hard. The funny thing is that spawning the dragon there would have killed them, but the game just got finished instructing the player to hide the dragon! Basically, the game is fun, but it definitely could have benefited from more testing and iteration to iron out some of those issues.
LOL I absolutely love the concept and music. The game is a bit rough around the edges, but it's a jam game after all. Some of the enemies were bugged, and it wasn't particularly easy to get past some of the gaps. But it was fun nonetheless.
This concept definitely has potential. It's certainly a great fit for the theme. I was really looking forward to trying it when I saw the screenshots because my dad's a big golfer and he likes to mess around too and play lawn golf and do trick shots while drinking beer. So this game is right up my alley. But the execution falls short in a few ways. Not having audio really hurts the immersion. And the controls are quite difficult. It'd be one thing if the game was challenging due to obstacles, like mini golf. But there were several times when I was lined up perfectly and missed the hole by a mile at point blank range. Not a bad entry overall, but could use some work.
This would actually be a great way to adapt the runner genre to a more casual audience with slower reflexes, such as young kids or the elderly. I think it's actually quite innovative and does a good job of fitting the theme. However, no audio is a killer, and the interface was quite confusing. Also, as far as I could tell, I got to a point where I needed to move left to survive, and the arrow just didn't work. So I died. I think because it makes for such a nice casual runner, the game should focus less on obstacles and more on rewards.
Definitely has that signature Zombie Virals feel I remember from the last game! I really like this game. The idea of combining platforming with education is a great fit for the theme, because not only is it an unexpected combination, but it actually works really well by framing knowledge as the reward for completing a challenge. You could make a pretty good children's game with this concept (just don't make a game for kids about, uhmm *cough* "bear" penis *cough*). My only gripe is that after Logic Gates of Hell, I was expecting a bigger finale, but instead, this game doesn't really go any further than the core gameplay. A big boss fight against a teddy bear or something would have been fun.
Hey, the fact that you uploaded something playable is absolutely amazing. How many people will go their entire lives dreaming about developing their own game and never actually doing it? That being said, yes, the game could use some extra sound effects and a tutorial. But honestly what is there is actually quite fun. The light enemies that chase you are really intense. I haven't really seen anything quite like that in similar bullet hell games.
The idea is actually very interesting and could make a fun game. However, the execution is off in a way that was probably hard to predict until actually trying it. I think you were a little focused on the dungeon aspect of the game, when in reality, the method of control really is incompatible with dungeon exploration. It's just really tedious and slow to have to retrace your steps through a dungeon by typing the same words over and over again. You also tried to trick players with the words, which added to the frustration. Instead, the game could have been way more interesting if you focused on it being some kind of write your own story book, or like that game people play where they take turns adding a word to form a sentence and make a story. Your intro was a perfect example of this. You could chose "created by" or "made by". I thought that was very clever. Rather than having players backtrack through a series of words which may or may not have anything to do with the actual dungeon design, you could just have them chose paths through a story and play sound effects or display images based on their choices.
I LOOOOOOOVE THIS GAME! This is one of those rare games where as soon as I started playing, I immediately thought, "Why hasn't anybody made this before?". You combined both genres just perfectly. The scoring system of golf. The physics of pinball. I mean, I guess if I were being super picky, I would say pinball and golf are not actually incompatible, as they are fairly similar games in principle. But you did such a fantastic job of combining them, I'm so happy this game exists.
@Jason Kennedy Yes, unfortunately, I still haven't figured out this issue with supporting OpenJDK. I think I might take some time to investigate it tomorrow. Sorry that it's been that way for 2 games in a row now, lol.
@Kobrar Thanks for your kind words! I was absolutely passionate about this game, but I spent way too long trying to fix bugs with issues that ended up going up in smoke and getting cut from the game. For example, those circles that spawn in the beginning were supposed to be defense turrets that shot down the missiles, and they were also supposed to take damage. Some day, I hope to make a sequel from scratch that actually meets my original vision, as I think this game is simple but hilarious fun.
@sirikan Thanks for the feedback! Yes, I originally planned to have a voiced tutorial that would teach the player how to play. Unfortunately, the game was extremely buggy and I just had to cut it out to save time. Hopefully the gameplay was simple enough to learn with a bit of experimentation. I apologize for any confusion, as I normally take player on-boarding pretty seriously.
@detectiveLosos Yeah, the voice work was absolutely terrible quality, but it helped to establish the setting and humor. As for balancing, the actual #1 problem I had was not with the difficulty itself, but with bugs and performance issues. This game ended up being about 10,000 times more difficult to implement than I anticipated. The game logic should have been quite trivial. But for whatever reason, the curved paths shake all over the screen, and are very sensitive to sudden load spikes, such as from triggering sound effects too frequently. I have no idea why, as I did a lot of testing, and the control points I was feeding to the paths were completely static. There must be some issues with the underlying JavaFX implementation that I'm just not aware of, as JavaFX node placement in general is kind of a dark art with all kinds of unexpected behaviors that are only learned through practice. So basically, the shiftiness of the missile paths had to be considered when adjusting difficulty. The game does actually get harder as it goes on, but it's a slow linear increase (well, sort of), which is why it wasn't immediately clear that it was getting harder. Basically, the way it works internally is that the sliders apply a direct probability to the spawn rate of a side. If you lower the price to the minimum, there is no effect. The bases just spawn units at their normal rates. If you raise the price to the maximum, it basically makes it so there's only a 25% chance that each spawn is successful. In addition to the, each base's spawn rate fluctuates randomly between a minimum of 1 unit per second, to a variable maximum. That maximum grows linearly over time at a fairly modest rate. So eventually, the possible gap between the spawn rates of both sides will overtake the player's ability to balance them. I found that in practice, because of all the randomness on both sides, they tended to be pretty balanced by themselves, so I raised the starting gap to a pretty high value, and kept the base health fairly low. I found that it made for a good length of play, although obviously, everyone will have different preferences. The sessions are certainly not as short as many other jam games, so it's understandable why the growth rate feels a bit low. I'd really have to test with a much larger sample group to get a good feel of how it should be adjusted. But yeah, just because it feels easy at first, I guarantee you, the game does get intense. My personal best score is around 430 seconds and 5,000 units, and I got that on my wife's Macbook with the touchpad. It was hectic to say the least, since it wasn't exactly easy to grab the slider each time with the touchpad!
@detectiveLosos Thanks, I'll definitely consider it. I've used game engines in the past, but I just don't like the workflows in a lot of them. They seem to cater to teams more than solo developers. Honestly, like I said, this game should have been trivial with JavaFX. It has built-in support for Bezier curve and path-based animation. I just couldn't figure out how to use it properly in time. I suspect at some point I'll figure out what was wrong and feel stupid, lol.
@piscythe @lucasbra1 @Jaime Paz Lopes Thanks for the feedback everyone! Yes, I originally had plans for more mechanics, but I ran out of time as I was trying to minimize the impact of the buggy path code. Those circles around the bases were supposed to be defense turrets that shot lasers at the missiles, and they could also be targeted by the missiles. I think I'm going to work more on this game when I get the time, because I do really love it. As for the theme, I was actually specifically trying to mix tower defense and playing for both sides. Unfortunately, because of all the mechanics I had to rip out, it doesn't feel very much like tower defense.
@lucasbra1 Yeah, I was also going to have them spawn different unit types with different stats, different sound effects, etc. It really was just a matter of bugginess. Once I fix the issue with the paths, I'll be able to develop it further. It was quite sad actually, because I was so excited to get the game working.
@SHINBAXTER Sorry, I really wanted to put in a tutorial, but I just ran out of time at the end of the jam. Yes, you "play as both sides". I say that in quotes because the AI actually spawns units on its own, and you just control the "pricing", which affects spawn rates. So yeah, it's a magical game of seesaw, haha. Thanks so much for the feedback.
@mintarcade @BlakeMcDeezy Thanks for the feedback! @stark Actually, it depends on what you're going for. I purposely didn't try to combine the 2 score metrics so people could actually go for what they wanted. For example, you may want to go for max time, max units, or some combination like the rate of units per time. The "high score" I posed above was 419 seconds and 5109 units, but I actually also got about 5k units one time with slightly more time, about 430 seconds. There's not really any way to say which is better, just depends on the approach. The way I recommend playing for high values on both is sliding both sliders to max price at the very beginning, that way they both spawn slower and you last longer. Then I just slide either one down slightly whenever they need a slight boost. However, if you want to maximize units per time, I would take the opposite approach. Slide to the cheapest prices, then raise whichever one is winning.
@stark also one important thing to keep in mind is that they start with a total of 200 HP between them. Each hit deals 1 HP worth of damage, but also heals the attacker for 1 HP. Which means there is no net change, EXCEPT when the attacker has 100 HP, at which point the healing point does nothing, and there is a net loss of 1 HP. That means that it is super important to not let 1 side stay at 100 HP for too long. You want to keep them at about equal levels. Obviously early on there will be some lost HP, it's unavoidable. But as you get later into the game, it's obviously much easier to keep both at 80 than it is to keep both at 20.
@stark You got me thinking about my game's strategy again, and I tried to beat my high score. Ended up getting close to about the same, but with slightly higher units and lower time :)
High Score.PNG
Yeah, not gonna lie. I love my own game too much!
@stark Oh no wait, what am I talking about? I beat myself on both. Noice. LOL I'm tired.
@annie-owl Thanks so much for the feedback! Sorry, I planned to add a tutorial, but ran out of time. I'm glad you liked the music!
@logic-monkey lol what do you mean? Is it something I can check out in a video?
@logic-monkey lol just wtached it, that was pretty good.
@Dovakla Wow! You definitely beat my high score, and by a pretty impressive margin! You are officially now the recognized world-record holder for War Maker! Thanks for playing!
Just got a new developer high score. Still not as high as @Dovakla though...
@Julink Excellent score. Now I wish I had leaderboards with different metrics, because although @Dovakla has the highest of both scores, you have a very high score with higher units per time than me. So in some way, you probably deserve to hold another record, haha.
As for genres, it was supposed to tower defense and playing both sides (not that playing both sides is a genre, but it is a different take, haha). Unfortunately, because of all the features I ended up cutting out, it doesn't really feel like much of a tower defense anymore. I originally planned to have defense turrets, different units with different stats, etc. So yeah, the actual execution doesn't fit the theme quite as well as the original concept. But I'm glad you enjoyed it!
@Julink I guess in a way you could say the 2nd genre is any of the endless games where you try to last as long as possible, such as endless runner, horde mode, Tetris, etc. I'm sure there are endless tower defense games out there, but I've never heard of one where you also control both sides.
@BoltKey Wow, I assure you, it's a complete coincidence, haha. I had never actually participated in Ludum Dare or played any Ludum Dare games before LD41, so it's extremely unlikely that I would have ever seen that game. But it must have been pretty good to have won in multiple categories. Maybe I'll check it out soon.
@blake-s. You're right, there are certainly some steps I could take to improve the voice recording quality. I'm not an audio guy, so I literally just used a cheap desk microphone and the Windows 10 voice recorder application.
@tim-ruswick Thanks for the feedback! I was definitely going for vibe, haha.
@Dovakla @Julink Read 'em and weep! Just uploaded my new high score, 542 seconds, 8568 units. I hadn't actually played my game in weeks, just came back to it and got that on the first try. Blew away my old high score.
This is absolutely perfect as a web game! The only thing I noticed was that liked and disliked messages were a tad bit inconsistent, especially when comparing both directions. For example, one robot might ask the other to dinner, the other loves it, then the other asks the first to dinner, and the first hates it. Other than that, it was a lot of fun, and the game was forgiving enough that the inconsistencies didn't stop the player from winning.
The game is actually a really impressive mix of genres. Definitely fits the theme. And I have to say, mad respect to you for actually taking the time to make a proper menu and give proper credit for CC-licensed assets. I do the same for my games, and I can't tell you how frustrating it is to do the right thing legally and then see people just ignoring the license requirements.
I love the concept. It seems like it could be a lot of fun, and would honestly make a great card or board game as well as a video game. However, I think there's just too much going on with the cards, and it's hard to understand how to play. I thought you could only discard at most 1 card per turn, but the game lets you do more? And there's all this other stuff with turbo, acceleration, oil spills, etc. It's really hard to get a good grasp of what that means when all we see is each racer's speed and current position. Also, It's really not obvious which racer corresponds to the player. I found myself wondering which position I was in.
The game is a really funny and innovative combination of 2 genres, so it definitely fits the theme. I would like to see a game like this further developed. I felt there were a couple of issues. Having to answer the girl's questions during the fight is kind of overkill. You could've easily done something like have a special move meter that you fill to activate a special move, and if it hits, you get more love, but if it's blocked, your opponent gets a fraction of the love instead. Also, having to actually fight over the middle spot to answer the questions is, again, overkill. It's just too hard in practice when fighting with another player. It took me several minutes to actually learn the right answers and get past the 1st girlfriend, even though I was just playing by myself. If I was playing against someone else, we would never finish. This is only made worse by the fact that the mapping of keys to gamepad buttons is not very obvious. I had to try all the answers multiple times to learn the correct ordering of keys. And finally, overall, I didn't find your game itself to overstep any bounds or be offensive, but the way you worded your description ("and probably seduce her") just kind of made me cringe. I'm the least politically correct person you'll ever meet. But that's like the logical extreme of what the crying feminists always complain about when it comes to the treatment of women in media. I think most of that stuff is BS, but just the wording of your description really shocked me instantly. This is coming from a guy who submitted a game about prolonging WWIII for profit, lol. Just make sure that you tailor your jokes for your medium. If you meant it sarcastically, which I'm assuming you did, you need to realize that sarcasm doesn't always come across in text. Female gamers are a substantial market demographic now, and unless you're looking to exclude them from your target market, that's the kind of stuff you should be aware of.
@Julink I think your updated description is definitely better. I had a feeling it was a language thing, because I noticed the game was also in French. Again, I'm not one to get offended, and maybe I just read it wrong the first time, but reading it now definitely sounds better. Hopefully I will get to try the game with a friend soon, because I love 2-player fighting games, and this is definitely a funny twist on it!
I have 2 words for you: Burnout Paradise. That was the first game that came to mind when I read your description, and I immediately started thinking how damn cool it would be if there was a survival mod to that game. Obviously that was a massively ambitious AAA title, and this was a game jam game. But man, not only is the idea great, but the execution is quite good. There are certain rough spots. The crash physics are really wonky. There is no way to restart after dying. But there are plenty of bright spots too. The graphics are incredible. The day/night cycle works perfectly. Honestly, although it could use some further development, I'm extremely impressed with this submission.
Yet another game I'm giving 5 stars all around. That is the 5th one so far. Man, GDU members are kicking butt this jam! I absolutely love both genres you did, and the voice over work was absolutely perfect. Good selection of video game trivia too. A real treat to play. I just wish I could play in full screen.
To those who think this games rankings are suspicious, I can assure you the developer did nothing to cheat the system. The developer is part of a community called Game Dev Underground, and we do rate each other's games frequently, so they probably account for a good portion of the 20. However, we grade each other pretty tough, as any of the members can attest to. We're all about honest feedback and releasing finished games. You'll see that our fellow members do well as a whole, but we don't just pad each other's ratings with fake 5's. In fact, that probably happens less with GDU than it does with many other streamers and communities. I am a member, my game got nearly twice as many ratings, and it has relatively mediocre rankings. In the end, I think this is just an honest case of a game being more than the sum of it's parts. Yes, it's a very simple game. It has primitive graphics. It doesn't even run full screen if I remember correctly. But it has it where it counts. It's fun, innovative, matches the theme, has great audio and humor, and can keep players coming back. How many jam games really provide us with the full package like that? I'm quite proud of our fellow developer. He has proven that the quality of a video game is not a perfect science you can measure with an instrument. It's about perception. Enjoyment. Entertainment. Personality. The people who rated this game had a lot of fun with it. That's what counts.
Unfortunately, many of the critics have posted anonymously, so I can't reply directly to them. I'll just post once more addressing some of their concerns, and hopefully any interested parties will see it.
GDU: "Underground" is really just to sound cool; there's nothing secretive about it! The proof is online:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_hwKJdF3KRAy4QIaiCSMgQ
Tim has been posting daily advice videos for a long time now. He does interviews with game developers. He attends conferences. He does Feedback Friday streams. He's participated in numerous game jams and made dozens of games. Nobody is more transparent. It was really not my intention to call into question the integrity of the community at all, because the founder Tim has worked tirelessly for many months, if not years, to build up a community that offers help to all game developers, especially newer ones. If at any point you feel anything surrounding GDU is suspicious, feel free to visit the web site, watch the YouTube channel, join the Discord chat server, send Tim an email, etc. In no way should anything I say or do be interpreted as the opinions or actions of any other members.
BIAS: You literally can't have a jam with thousands of submissions and not have biased group affiliations. Before talking down about someone's game, consider if you've ever tried to gain favor with a streamer or anyone else for your submission. If you posted a blog post on the jam's home page asking people to review your game, or posted a comment asking for a review in exchange, you've literally gone every bit as far as any GDU member in trying to gain special favor. It's called marketing.
MY PUBLIC RATINGS: Me stating I rated games 5/5 by the previous poster is taken out of context. Admittedly my fault, not yours. GDU recently hosted its own jam, the Jim Jam:
https://itch.io/jam/jimjam
We had a very large number of participants making our first game ever, myself included. The reason I publicly posted how many GDU games I was giving perfect scores to was because I felt the average quality of GDU submissions improved significantly between jams, and I wanted to congratulate my fellow members. A single post on a single game looks isolated, but I was actively discussing this with our fellow members in the Discord server the entire time. It's all there in the chat history if anyone is inclined to dig so deeply. The games I rated highly were games like Bunnyderps, Honest Dan's Trout, Tennis Z, and Ready Set Dress, which were all highly ranked by LD41 participants at large. I apologize if publicly posting which games I gave perfect scores to resulted in any confusion.
MY CRITICALITY: The previous poster called into question my criticality, which is funny, because I may very well give the harshest ratings of anyone in GDU, lol. I'm not going to give any names, but I've given fellow GDU members minimum scores on what I think were their first games for things I consider inexcusable, like lying about which platforms are supported, not having a way to reset the game without closing it, not having enough of a tutorial, etc. There was one guy who clearly gave my previous game a very negative response just out of spite for the things I said about his game. So yeah, no, I can assure you, if this or any game ranks #1 in any category, it's not because I'm doing it any favors. I legitimately had a blast with this game. I have a VERY SMALL folder of jam games I want to keep playing on my PC, and this is one of them. It mostly contains GDU games, but only because I was rating those as people posted in the chat. It also has non-GDU games I loved. It's all about quality for me. Stealth Truckers is a perfect example of a non-GDU game I loved and kept in the folder.
@JavaSaurus Your clarifications are much appreciated. However, there is absolutely nothing objective about any voting process when it comes to video games, or any other form of artistic entertainment for that matter. Whoever does the voting can be brought into question. This is why there are always people angry at the results for singing contest shows on TV. If the viewers vote, they're biased. If the judges vote, they're biased. If there is a mix, the people determining the mix are biased. It's just entertainment. At the end of the day, if you hate the results, you are still free to play and enjoy any other submissions you felt deserved to win.
Even in technical areas, what matters if the entertainment value. For example, this game clearly has primitive graphics, with hand-drawn text and such. Yet I gave it a 5/5 on graphics. Why? Because I don't expect AAA graphics in a jam game, and I care more about their cohesiveness and support of the core game experience. There were fantastic-looking 3D games in this jam that I gave lower graphics scores because something seemed out of place or under-developed. I didn't feel that way playing this game. The same could be said of pixel art, windowed games, reduced color palettes, etc. If it serves the game's entertainment value, the graphics are more effective than technically superior graphics. Tons of people love certain art styles, like retro, low-poly, pixel, particle effects, advanced lighting, smooth animation, etc. So your assertion that there is and must be an objective ranking system, which seems to be the source of much of your frustration, is simply not valid.
As for self-promotion, I was simply defending the integrity of GDU after accidentally bringing it into question, as it was unfair of me to do that. I am a GDU member, but my name is David, my fictitious company name is Slug Games, and my LD41 submission is War Maker. It got 3.0 ratings across the board, except for a 2.3, which was quite disappointing. I thought it deserved higher, but clearly, my players did not. Nothing in the previous posts was meant as self-promotion. I did not post anything about myself above. It does nothing for me to promote GDU or @smallboss in any way. I simply wanted to ease people's suspicions, as I felt some of the posters above were misinterpreting things.
In short, is the outcome surprising? Yes. @smallboss will tell you as much. He even posted he was not that proud of the game. But should we go so far as to be upset and claim the only way more objectively deserving games didn't win is that there was an abuse of the ratings system, intentional or not? No. It's just the nature of game jams, especially one as large as this. You do realize there were thousands of submissions, right? Even 200 ratings is not that significant in the grand scheme of things. There simply isn't enough data to get accurate results. Any game that is an all-around good game is likely to win by simple virtue of being a good game and getting lucky with who plays it. This game was a good enough game that it had a chance, and it made it. That's all there is to it.
I think it's perfectly valid for this game's comments section. People are questioning whether or not the developer cheated, and they're doing it by using my feedback comment as evidence. Somebody (I assume one of the anonymous posters) decided to chat with me on Discord about it, and it became immediately clear to me that they lack the basic English comprehension required to have this discussion based on their "evidence". For example, they would quote me saying something like, "I agree he should've opted out of audio." Then he would ask why I gave the game's audio 5 stars. I would say, "Because I didn't know he used outside audio. It's the developer's responsibility to opt out, not to player's to research every game asset's origins." Then he would say, "But you gave the game 5 stars for audio." To which I would say, "Yes. Because I loved the audio and didn't know it was outside." And then he would just say, "BUT THAT MEANS YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE AND DISREGARD THE RULES!!!" I mean, I really don't know what I can do to convince a crazy person like that of the truth. I legitimately gave this game a 5/5 across the board because as a player, I enjoyed every aspect of it, and it all served the core experience of the game. If that bothers anyone so darn much, then I have some great news for you. I'm never participating in a Ludum Dare again after this shenanigans. Nobody who's being outright accused of cheating deserves any of this. Suspected? Maybe. Admittedly, there is some evidence worth looking into. But in the interest of transparency, I gave some additional information, and that resulted in this witch hunt crusade against innocent people who didn't even participate or rate any games. That is disgusting and wrong. And for what it's worth, people rate games differently. I'm sorry if I like a game more than you and that offends you so much. But this was a damn fine game, and I think I'll play me some more right now just for fun.
To @Archimagus and anyone else who clearly has their heart in the right place. I know you guys aren't accusing @smallboss or me of anything nefarious. You just want a better system. I just want to add my 2 cents worth, and know that I'm an LD newbie, so maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.
There doesn't appear to be a centralized "About" page on the new LD site, so I can't find anything specifically stating the current purpose of LD. I remember reading prior to LD41 that it was about encouraging the development and sharing of games. That's not to say you can't get anything else out of LD. But that's kind of the stated purpose. Correct me if I'm wrong. A very informal community voting process, despite obvious flaws, accomplishes that. But in doing so, it creates the potential for rankings to vastly differ from the opinions of the community at large. So you guys want a better ranking system, right? Well, I would urge you to be careful what you wish for, or at least recognize that a "better" ranking system might go against the stated goals of the jam.
There is another LD41 submission called Tennis Z (https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/tennis-z-a-zombie-apocalypse-tennis-game). At one point, Tim, the group's leader, posted a spreadsheet for people to put their games on to basically request that he and other streamers play their game (gasp!). In the end, that list was never used, as Tim made a completely separate queue when he did his stream much later. In fact, that spreadsheet got buried in the group's chat and most members didn't even know it existed. But I saw it, and I personally rated every game on that list. One of them was Tennis Z. However, the developer pretty much disappeared. It's like they went off grid. They were never present in chat, I couldn't look them up in the group by name, and they never responded to anything on the game's submission page. They didn't even rate any other games. Not a single one. I can't tell you to what degree the developer of Tennis Z is or ever was a GDU member. Somehow, their game ended up on this forgotten spreadsheet, and that's all I know.
I played the game, and immediately fell in love with it. Read the game's comments, and you'll see other people love it too. Even better is the fact that it may just be one of the finest Blender games ever made, at a time when Blender's game engine is being deprecated. It was one of the games I gave perfect scores all around, and it ended up ranking very well. I can say with certainty that the game got ranked, not because of me, GDU, or cheating, but because of the LD41 community at large. How can I say this? The game was in serious danger of not being ranked, which I couldn't just allow, because it was easily one of the best submissions. I personally, in the GDU chat, asked numerous times for other members to rate the game, not to cheat, but to get it ranked. This got it a few ratings, but not nearly enough. And finally, near the end of the rating period, some YouTuber picked it up, and apparently got it enough views to generate ratings and get it ranked. So despite my best efforts at getting it ranked myself, it was lucky enough to do so outside of GDU.
So here are the questions you have to ask yourselves: Was I wrong to promote Tennis Z? Is preserving the infallibility of the ranking system worth reducing the exposure of a great game, potentially historically significant game? Are the hours of enjoyment people received playing the game not the ultimate prize? Is the fact that I personally rated the game a 5/5 and promoted it far more than I ever promoted this game proof of cheating? Could the reason that Tennis Z and all the other games I gave perfect perfect scores to have yet to generate any controversy is that the discussion was never about cheating, but about the coveted #1 slot? Is the fact that this game was discovered through GDU, despite the fact that it's developer is a ghost online, relevant at all? Did I at any point hurt LD or disturb its intended purpose in any way? Is LD really still about making and sharing games?
@Ajayajayaj Thank you thank you thank you! That is exactly what I was looking for, and couldn't find it, haha. The new site seems to be lacking that information. I think what you said is pretty much the point I was trying to get across.
@Archimagus I am 100% in agreement with you, I never meant to accuse you of anything in particular. As you no doubt saw, I did take some issue with content in @JavaSaurus 's blog post, but that's separate. It just happened that you were both in the discussion and I was tagging you both, but my comments about others did not apply to you. Yes, you are entirely correct. A game with so few ratings can easily have its ranking skewed. That is undeniable statistical truth. I agree entirely with your position on that. And if a suggestion of how to better rate games to alleviate that problem has the potential to work, I'm all ears. I'm only getting worked up insofar as I personally or any of my acquaintances and/or friends (in the case of @smallboss , we're barely acquaintances, which makes this all the more frustrating) are personally being accused of inflating scores. And no, giving a game a perfect score that I truly believe it deserves is not inflating the score. Until the rules specifically prohibit acquaintances from rating each other's games, that IS my score. So far, @Archimagus , I think we're in total agreement over those points.
The only thing I think I disagreed with you on was that you believe there is more importance to the competition aspect of LD than I do, and so you are more interested in a solution to the flaws of the rating system, whereas I personally believe the competitive aspect is largely irrelevant and may even go against the stated purpose of LD. That's pretty much splitting hairs, and that debate does not attack anyone's integrity. It's strictly about the details of the jam. I totally respect your opinion on that, and am glad to call you a friendly neighbor of the Internet for voicing your opinion on that matter, even though I see things a bit differently. And yes, I admit, my previous long post sounded like I was accusing you of perhaps being against the stated purpose of LD in some indirect way, but I'd like to retract that insofar as you are concerned, because you personally give me no hint of being that way. The post still applies to some people, because there were definitely people who cared more about who wins than who makes a game. But it was unfair of me to judge you on that in any way, so if I did, I'm sorry. You're totally cool so far, and you have this jam's best interests in mind.
It's a cute little game, but very light on actual gameplay and even story, which is a shame because I was expecting this game to be really story focused. The multiple endings, at least the ones I got, were also not substantial enough to justify playing through over and over again. They seem to just display a slightly different message at the end, but the story ends the exact same way. It's kind of like those movies on DVD where they advertise deleted scenes and other special features, and half of them are just 10 second bits of dialog that do nothing for the movie. Overall, a fun little jam game, and a good match for the theme, but quite small in scope.
I absolutely love this style of game. I used to be addicted to Pole Position as a kid. The only thing is I couldn't really figure out what I was supposed to be doing as far as changing outfits. Was it like memory? Was I supposed to match what the other girl was wearing? Or just change as quickly as possible? I tried both but ended up dying regardless.
And btw yours is the 3rd game I'm giving 5 stars all across the board. And that's without even knowing the objective, lol. That's how good it was.
I finally figured out the mechanics after returning to this game. Man this is really cool! I appreciate it that much more.
This game is sooooo good! I absolutely love this game. Fell in love with it immediately. It's a massive success when it comes to fitting the theme, because the genres really are incompatible in the sense that playing one diverts your attention from the other, yet you've made it so it enhances the challenge, rather than breaking it. This game could've easily been terrible if you had spawned enemies right away, but giving players the chance to build up resources before the waves of enemies arrived was a smart decision. My only complaint would be that the enemy movement is too fast. The reason I say this is that you could essentially keep the balance of the game the same by adjust enemy health proportionally to their speed. For example, if you reduce their speed by half, they'll take twice as much damage, so they need double the health. Normally in a TD game, the exact timing doesn't matter so much as the proportions. But because you're asking players to divert focus to the match-3 portion of the game, it's extremely brutal when they're paying attention to the grid, and they suddenly look up to find hordes of gargoyles half way to the base. There's already a lot going on with the 2 halves of the game. It doesn't need to be so quick that the player can barely react. At least not at first. That could be an additional challenge in later stages. Over all, I'm extremely impressed by the quality of this submission.