Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → DestroyerTech
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | The Confines | jam | 375 | 3.77 | 3.29 | 3.18 | 3.97 | 3.41 | 4.06 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | A Crowded Place | jam | 1456 | 2.77 | 2.59 | 2.93 | 2.95 | 2.93 | 3.06 |
The premise of creating a Nuclear Lasagna is excellent. The gameplay I think is pretty standard for a game centred around just increasing numbers, but adding the struggle to balance between heat and the other elements adds a nice touch.
Pretty nice text-based adventure, short and sweet.
Pretty nice and relaxing at first, it's nice how it gets harder. Music fits in well also. I could easily imagine this as a full game (probably for mobile)!
Great game and mechanics! I reckon making this in 6h is a great feat. When I heard the music I half-thought you'd used Everybody Hurts by R.E.M., but no, just the first arpeggio is the same :) I think the track does a pretty good job of adding to the mood in general.
This is a great concept, like some others I did have a little trouble seeing which plugs fit what but still pretty fun nonetheless, and definitely on theme!
Great premise and execution, keyboard controls definitely make no sense (kept getting stuck against things and going in weird directions haha) but sadly I don't have a controller handy. Graphics are great, I expect it would be very fun with the proper controls. Definitely on theme, and as others have said, very funny. Good job!
Nice concept for sure. I couldn't really work out in the first few goes how NOT to die, putting out the debugger helped but sometimes I still seemed to heat too quickly at the beginning (not necessarily from movement either) to stay alive and/or reach the first puzzle. So, I agree with other comments that the difficulty curve could use a bit of tweaking, apart from that it looks really well done, graphics are great, puzzles are pretty fun and the cheat code is a great idea as well, widening the gameplay options. Oh and I also experienced the bug where if you respawn after completing at least one puzzle, you fall through the floor on respawn (web, firefox if that helps).
This was great, really had fun with this one. Gameplay is pretty simple but enjoyable, graphics work well, and the theme was perfect.
Nice concept, I liked the mechanics of keeping the heat stable and switching particles. Graphics were good too. Seems like this entry could turn into a good puzzle-strategy game.
This is just excellent, how else can I describe it? Graphics and audio are great. Humour? Top points. I think it fits the theme very well too (how can you not consider the premise to be 'unstable'?). The only thing it isn't is fun (well, in a gameplay sense - in a broader sense I think it can still be considered 'fun'), and that's by design so who cares? Really great work!
Very neat, I've never played Getting Over It but I can certainly see the resemblance based on a few videos I've seen. The gameplay is nice and smooth, and the mechanic is well thought out, so really well done there. Graphics are simple and serve the purpose really well. The music really complements the mood too. The narration was definitely also a good addition, but I kept dying fairly quickly so I heard it a lot haha!
Really great narrative, some audio (music especially, but also sound effects) would probably have really enhanced the experience. I couldn't work out how to tap into the Available Fuel, though.
Very neat indeed, I liked the story and dialogue. Music selection was very fitting too, and the accompanying audio selections were on point.
I was a bit confused the first time as to what the game was doing since the dialogue does change after each attempt, but not drastically (so I wondered if it was a whole new game each time you shot a bottle). Was glad to eventually find the continuity and path to victory though.
Overall, good work, I do like a good short story-based entry like this and this was well crafted.
Haha, yes I wondered whether I'd noticed the aiming getting a bit more unstable, that was definitely smart.
Pretty nice 2-3 minute game, mechanics and physics seem to work well.
Pretty fun, the powerups mechanic is definitely a good concept, well done!
Great entry, I enjoyed the mood of it and the concept of additional objectives beyond just achieving a high score. I found the gameplay a bit frustrating, not too easy - as all pinball should be so that's not a bad thing!
Weirdly enough this worked for me on my Windows Firefox... who knows what's going on there :laughing:
But seriously, this is great. I see how you had to cut down the scope of it a lot but hey, it still ended up pretty well. Your art and music really work for this. Sometimes the collisions are a little weird (I'm one to talk haha), mostly around the house, but apart from that the gameplay is smooth. A measure of entropy was a good idea too, to bring the point home.
It really is difficult, but a good concept nonetheless with nice simple graphics.
Graphics are fantastic, well done on those. Gameplay is good too, physics are well done. Good work!
Great game, very fun gameplay and good mechanics, smooth minimal graphics and animation, audio fits in well as well and the mechanics are very appropriate for the theme. Very well done, one of the best I've seen so far!
Thanks very much everyone for the positive feedback so far :grin:
@tsfreddie You're right, it's pretty much a shooter in its conception, but the player can choose, well, what they want to shoot at (which varies the ending) :-)
@skyward4d True, I would have liked to add a UI if I had time to figure out how best to implement it - will definitely be prepared for next time!
@pious Yep, definitely agree the gameplay isn't so engaging, but glad you enjoyed the ending(s) :-)
Just as a general remark about the endings: #1 was my personal favourite, but is probably the one with the most boring associated playthrough (if you catch my drift) #2 and #3 will be the ones that people get on their first try
If anyone is/was in the mood for multiple playthroughs, it might be fun to compare the endings, all three combined give off a fuller impression of the backstory, so to speak :)
@human-writes-code Thanks very much :-) Well, the movement is responsive but the smoothness is still glitchy at best haha. I had a hell of a time getting the camera movement to be smooth-ish despite the player and other entities having a weird sort of jerky movement.
Btw, I remember seeing your 'Stupid game ideas' post before the jam started, looks like quite a few people adopted your suggestion for this one ;)
@stroe-andrew True, I definitely didn't intend it that way originally but it is giving off that kind of .io vibe in a way!
@tobold-h Glad you enjoyed the end!
@pink-shard-games Thanks for playing all of the endings, that's really great :) I agree the pacifist one should have been more challenging (and my original plan would have made it so), but oh well, just didn't get to it I guess
@hawkin Exactly right, I had very grand plans indeed compared to what I finished with (and I definitely had to alter the definition of 'finished' haha). Thanks for your feedback on the mechanic, I'll definitely consider it for the future. Yes, bit of a variety of tools there; the only one I really knew well coming into this is BandLab (which I use when I have a good music idea and I want to put it down quickly). For your game, yes it's quite odd Firefox worked for you and not me. I'll definitely boot up my Windows machine tomorrow and try it out though [ Linux user ;) ]!
@lunacyecho Thanks haha, I definitely had plenty of ambition for this one [and I definitely would have implemented a visual timer along with kill counter in a UI if I could]. Next time I'll make sure I have more of a skillset to back it up ;)
@joerenglish Thanks for playing through all three :)
@kr4ft3r Happy to be a member ;) Thanks for your compliments!
@tony-li @andresbochi Thanks!
@aymarx Thanks for the feedback! I will certainly think about something like that for future games. I guess there are two reasons why I didn't do that for this one: (a) mouse input is a tad harder to work out than keyboard input, at least for this engine, and (b) the idea for this game specifically isn't necessarily to shoot everything you can or to be able to turn to shoot precisely where you need to (although I guess it could work as well).
@barrier True, true, given more time and know-how I would definitely have tried to make it less boring/more challenging *not* to shoot people. Thanks for playing!
@stefanie-leitch Thanks for the suggestions! Will definitely bear in mind for future games :)
@tomer-cool Thanks!
@weirdybeardyman :laughing:
Sorry about the end text, had to make a bit of a last minute decision because I wanted it to have the same duration as the title music; I guess I'm a bit of a quick/skim reader haha. I did notice the pedestrians ended up down there, that was a little weird since they're supposed to just run around randomly, didn't get time to fix it so I just had to hope that didn't affect gameplay too much. I didn't come across any bugs with sound (or thought I ironed out any) in playtesting, what kind of glitchiness did you hear? Thanks for trying out my game anyway :)
@ceetjeuhh Thanks! You're probably right, three minutes was more appropriate for the original concept I had in mind and not so much for how it turned out haha. Likewise I meant to make Ending 1 a bit more challenging/less boring but it kind of didn't end up going in that direction haha. The idea of barriers is a really good one, though, I didn't think of that!
@weirdybeardyman ahahaha, I see - yes, I can imagine that happening. I definitely could have fine-tuned the volume levels to be more consistent across the whole game. Something I'll remember for future!
That was excellent; the physics worked really well, graphics were very nice, Radish Kid generally behaved very smartly as well. Really great ending too!
This is really great, very engaging especially with such a simple concept (a single input!). Graphics are perfect and it's just very fun all round. Have to feel sorry for the snake, though, keeps getting his face bashed in!
This was really fun, the style of graphics is different and nice. I reckon there's definitely potential to expand on this for a further game.
Agree with above comments, X doesn't seem to work regardless of where you stand and I got stuck on how to play and had to refresh the page. Apart from that, not bad for a nice simple game, sorta strikes me like a reflex test since those enemies come on pretty fast. I like how the hero looks like they're dancing to the music :laughing:
The graphics and music were definitely my favourite parts of this; they really fit in well with and enhanced the overall mood of this game.
Not sure if I missed something but whenever I released my mouse (web version), the controls menu would pop up and I'd have to close it. Otherwise, great concept, graphics are on point, dialogue is excellent and fits in very well with the theme haha.
Great concept and well-executed. I agree with some previous posters that it seems a little luck-based with the spawns; also got a bit confused at the start as to what was causing some specific game over conditions (like items overtimed); but these are really minor nitpicks, overall very fun; also really nice to see a Python game with a web build.
I got 190 asteroids destroyed, gets quite overwhelming at that level and hard to keep up! Screenshot 2023-10-13 110341.png
If you have a mind to make a post-jam version I could suggest a few minor QoL improvements: - VFX (as others have said) - also possibly SFX - Tooltips if you hover over existing modules, to see their stats/effectiveness - so you know what to replace and whether it's worth it - Possibly relocation of existing modules, so you don't necessarily have to sacrifice existing units if your first placements are blocking later placements; in the same vein, rotation of the modules could be handy for the 2x1 modules - Maybe unlockable extra space - Restart button :P
Overall quite interesting and fairly unique, pretty fun as well.
Really nothing bad to say about this entry - absolutely spot on in theme, graphics and humour, and overall very fun - I enjoyed the difficulty curve ~~although I have to admit I also made use of the 'illegal' placing mechanism!~~
If you're inclined to make a post-jam version, I could suggest a few *really minor* QoL improvements: - More voice acting! It's already fantastic (and imo even more so because of the Aussie accents, we don't see enough of those around!), but could only be made better by having a few different alternating voice lines for every action of every character. - As others have mentioned, maybe tweak the placement system slightly to prohibit placing in the roof/overlapping other characters (or, honestly, don't - I like my games not *too* frustrating :P) - Keep the elevator music from the main menu going! The level music is great and fits perfectly, but maybe could use a little variety between levels.
But stress on the *really minor* - not meant as criticism at all, you guys have done a great job.
(Also, of course, I tip my hat to you for including the Wilhelm scream.)
Very fun and nice retro feel. Would like to echo a couple of previous comments for some small bugs: - at first had trouble downloading the manual, page blocked (FF Win 11) - but after reloading or pressing 'try again' it worked fine - after getting to a population size of about 50 (or about 10-15 buildings) game started slowing down immensely - freezing for 5-10 seconds after every building placement and at the end of every month - and it only got worse from there to the point of being unplayable; Firefox started complaining that it was slowing my browser down at that point
Honestly was quite sad I couldn't expand my city as far as it could go with the water constraints, but I got pretty far so it's all right.
Final result: Screenshot 2023-10-08 091408.png
~~Also, to be very pedantic, your water tanks should be labelled HOH, not HHO~~ :stuck_out_tongue:
Agree with previous comments: game mechanics are a little unintuitive to start with (I died a lot because of lack of faith which was really confusing), but after reading some other comments it wasn't too bad. The music fits the atmosphere really well, though - and the graphics are nice also.
Pretty funny take on the theme; gameplay is also smooth. Have to admit the traffic AI is a little weird and frustrating (or maybe this is by design, frustration again fits well with the theme) - there often seem to be cases with no gaps to take advantage of for ages; and when the other commuters try to cause 'accidents' it kind of seems like the player is disproportionately the one on the receiving end of those 'accidents'. That's only a minor thing though - overall really nice idea and pretty well executed, good job!
High points for fun and top points for mood (music perfectly complements the idea of the game)! Agree with other previous comments about some small QoL improvements that could be made: - cargo destination being accessible via the ship interface as well - cargo destination not being same as origin - needs a volume control
But those are just minor feedback - very hard to get everything perfect (or even finished) in a game jam (I'm sure we can all relate haha) so overall really great work; I enjoyed playing :smile:
Interesting concept to be sure - I played twice and got a high score of 130. It's very hard to know what the best strategy is - for example, if you spin constantly you can't get the big boxes in Level 4 that are worth the most points. Also, because of the red things it kind of seems to be best to grab as many items as possible so that if you catch a red thing, it'll more likely steal one of the items that isn't worth points. Would be interesting to see what the highest possible score is!
Pretty funny, fairly well-balanced; maybe even a bit on the easy side? I got up to $120 in the bank with no sign of stopping; with my fleet of 4 trusty cleaning robots I rarely even had to offer any newcomers a urinal of anything less than 'superb' quality. Likewise the zombies stood no chance against my rapidly firing minigun.
Screenshot 2023-10-08 132826.png
Overall quite nice and a funny take on the concept - music also fit well (and of course gross sound effects haha), didn't encounter any of the bugs mentioned by previous commenters either, so great job all around!
Very interesting atmostphere you've created - what would make this really great I think is to have a little bit of narrative (or even that isn't necessary, just some descriptive text) that explains the transition between scenes and the ultimate goal/the aim in each scene. Otherwise, sure - there's progression, but you have no idea what you're progressing *to*, which can detract a little from the experience in my view. Still, very unique game, haven't seen another like it so far.
Possibly the funniest game I've played so far (and pretty fun too). The gameplay is smooth, the premise is hilarious, the physics are pretty funny too.
Like others, I found it difficult and hectic at first but quickly realised the optimal strategy. Actually I kind of agree with some comments that it might be a bit *too* cheesy - but that could be fixed pretty easily with the addition of a physics object that limits how many cars you can 'check out'. Not really a criticism, though - it's really hard to get game balance right in such a short time. I've upped the rating I gave for audio now that the bug has been fixed - nice work finding out the cause! Which reminds me - only music would have made the audio better (not that I can talk, I didn't even do any audio for my game because of time pressure :P)
So very frustrating! The repetitive music, grating sound effects and hectic gameplay combine well to make a really annoying gameplay experience (I mean these all as compliments, since I assume they are by design). Definitely high points for mood and it's a unique take on the theme as well.
Really nice entry, one of the most smooth and fun I've played so far. A nice touch with the personalities of the different clones making little quotes. Top points for graphics and also nicely related to the theme. One small QoL suggestion: I found the audio a bit loud for my headphones and couldn't see a volume control anywhere, so that could be something to consider adding (unless I'm just dumb and couldn't find it).
Definitely an interesting take to move this concept into a 3D space instead of the traditional 2D - and I can honestly say I enjoyed it, it adds an extra level of frustration to this already-frustrating genre :P. Out of interest, where did you source the models? (I know you opted out of the graphics category, was just curious since I did notice their resemblance to a somewhat well-known browser game :wink:)
@josep93 Are 'distance and relief' terms relating to the '3D' perspective? (sorry if that's a noob question) If so, sadly I am both (a) terrible at anything artistic and (b) extremely new to anything computer graphics related - so honestly I'm surprised my 'programmer art' turned out even passable ahahaha. Thanks for playing! :smile:
@dannysimo thanks for playing and your wishes!
@draekdude funny to hear that, I'm glad you got it working though. On sound - definitely agree, sound would have been pretty much at the top of my 'extra features' wishlist - I'm not that experienced with sound effects but I do enjoy composing music, particularly when it's to complement a story or setting. On the speed of the words - I know I should probably add a label, but did you try the slider at the bottom?
@verttixpertti fair enough, I also have types of games that aren't really for me :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:
@verdant-jack I agree that it's quite minimal gameplay-wise, as I say I'd have at least liked the dialogue tree to be less linear, even if I were to keep the purely story-based approach. That said, I fully understand where people are coming from in terms of wanting more gameplay, and in the future I doubt any full-sized game project I work on would use this purely text-based approach. Glad you enjoyed the story, and thanks for playing :)
@fatemperor thanks for playing, yes I tried to think out of the box somewhat :smile:
@deaglan-murphy tyvm :D
@wouterk12 Glad you liked it - also for my first time making an animated sprite I think it went pretty well - confining (no pun intended!) myself to a simple silhouette with no colour definitely helped me achieve my goal. Thanks for the comments :)
@newvid glad to hear it, and yes it took a fair few hours even for this fairly limited dialogue tree :)
@nicekot haha I see that, no it isn't meant to be political commentary and I didn't intend any allegory to actual political figures (current or historic) - I essentially just started thinking about how I could make a conversation between 'cellmates' interesting, and let my mind wander from there to generate a story. Gradually I guess I wanted it to end up being kind of an encouragement to think about the ways we perceive and respond to crimes - not in any attempt to justify heinous acts or lawbreaking, just to remind the audience that nothing is ever as black-and-white as it's sometimes made out to be and to always think critically.
@amirrajan good to hear, thanks for playing!
@kanity thanks so much for your comments :) It seems you found the 'good' main ending (there is also a 'not so good' main ending as well as an earlier 'insane' ending). I think you're right, a final choice at the very end might have been an interesting thing as well, but sadly I was really quite time pressed towards the end so it worked out with less choices than I would maybe have liked :sweat_smile: I take your point about the lack of a final screen - but actually I also enjoy the simplicity of a concise (and even possibly ambiguous) ending so I think there's a valid argument for both sides. I tried to make the characters somewhat relatable - definitely there may be some parallels to certain persons, living or dead, but I doubt these real-life people have the same story or motives as my character (it's true I wanted to stimulate a bit of thought on how not everything is black and white, but even while saying that, some people really unequivocally do deserve to be imprisoned!)
@balimaarthebassfish High praise indeed... much appreciated - thanks for playing! And I hope to come back as well (other commitments permitting); my 2 LDs so far have been quite stressful but ultimately both definitely worth it - and as I get more experience, it can only get better!
@fannevada @dk-game-labs thanks for your kind comments :)
@minjutin Thanks, I tried my best :)
@oter Really appreciate the sincere feedback. I absolutely understand what you mean about Anton being a backstory container - actually I think both characters suffered from this problem of spilling juicy info pertinent to the story almost unprompted, and I would have liked to make that feel a lot more realistic if I had had the time. As you mention, getting started on the writing earlier would definitely help with this; as it is I'm just happy I managed to make something coherent and complete-ish.
Also duly noted about the lack of fullscreen - I had more troubles than I'd anticipated while exporting to just get the canvas to behave and not weirdly fill up half the website with a completely wrong aspect ratio, so I completely forgot that fullscreen would be a useful thing particularly on small screens - so definitely something I'll try to do in the future. Thanks for playing and leaving your honest thoughts!
@gary-the-enchanter Thanks for your comments! I take your point about expectations needing to be met - although to be quite honest, I don't think it's fair to call this a 'visual novel' either, not because it completely lacks visuals but because the visuals are so non-varied that the 'visual' half of 'visual novel' just isn't really there. I'm surprised you would have preferred something even faster than the max speed - I'm a relatively fast reader and I can barely keep up with the current max speed :P Also, thanks for the kind comment on art - I guess it's a step above using simple shapes (*cough - my last LD entry*) to represent characters and other objects, although definitely still falls into the class of programmer art!
@fannevada wrong chat?
@dan-str ta, thanks for playing
As others have said, definitely top points for innovation from me - and it was a funny game as well. I did find it a bit frustrating at first since my browser was doing weird things like snapping or becoming really small when I tried to resize it, resulting in too many unintended unicorn deaths :stuck_out_tongue: As others have said, also - some kind of time counter or scoreboard could be a great post-jam addition if you're so inclined. Overall though - very interesting submission.
Very interesting mechanic, haven't seen it before so great points for innovation. Mood (sound effects and graphics) also great. Though the game was fairly short, I found it quite difficult (or maybe that's because I'm bad at platformers in general :P) so that balanced well as well. All in all great work.
Great atmosphere, graphics and mood. As someone else said, I think it could be nice if you could have a choice of dropping e.g. one item per day out of the car - I accidentally ended up in a loop where my inventory was full of medicine and antidote; and my survivors weren't ever damaged or bitten past that point so I could do nothing except keep driving and wait for my car to die. Still, that's just a minor thing, I did enjoy playing - oh yes, and the music fits really well with the whole 'dark forest road' atmosphere!
Very nice, I really enjoyed the idea of a limited-space cooking sim; fit well with the theme, models were great, gameplay pretty polished and fun. First time around sadly I ruined my economy and starved to death :laughing: but second time I was finally saved!
Got the 'wiped out by aliens' ending and the 'won re-election' ending - overall not bad work. I agree with previous comments that the impacts of your actions could definitely be expanded on. The gameplay was smooth and not buggy, which was a bonus.
I've been looking for some other text-based games in this jam (since my entry is also text-based) - this is the first one I've come across, so really nice to see. I'm really very impressed with how much you managed to write AND draw in the time you had - I've just learnt that writing an entire dialogue tree in three days is a lot more work than you might think! (And don't get me started on visuals, I can't do art to save my soul but your game is fully illustrated!)
Actually, my only criticism (and it's a minor nitpicky one, nothing serious) is on the music - I agree with some of @lincolnsalles comments, the music feels a bit too upbeat and doesn't quite evoke as much of a sense of mystery and wonder as you might expect for the atmosphere of the story.
Overall very impressive and absolutely looking forward to seeing what else you do in the future.
Nice art and parallax effect (but I was slightly confused whether I could eat the mango-looking thing or not!). Music is thematically appropriate. A few QoL improvements I might suggest: - some kind of win condition (if there is one, it wasn't clear) - an indicator or some kind of ability to guide you to where the candies have spawned, had to scour the levels a fair few times to find the next one - if you're so inclined, the win condition could also feature e.g. a score based on time to eat candies/candies eaten in time