Game of Life by StaNov 2017-08-04T01:06:55Z
I, too, eat a meal every two years or I die. Pretty sure that's what would happen. But I don't take any risks!
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Didactylos
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | Planetary Construction | jam | 397 | 3.56 | 2.81 | 3.63 | 3.31 | 3.02 | 2.29 | 2.07 | 2.73 | |
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | The Torches Are Burning Low | jam | 347 | 3.47 | 3.13 | 3.02 | 2.68 | 3.79 | 3.22 | 3.44 |
I, too, eat a meal every two years or I die. Pretty sure that's what would happen. But I don't take any risks!
That ending!
Making the game timed was genius - without that, you have nothing. Just not quite enough time to win unless you know exactly where you are going. Makes it a bit unfair the first time you play.
Game has a good sense of humour. I don't see the battery percentage changing on the home screen, which is a pity.
Some nifty ideas here. I really like the GI lighting, it creates a wonderful atmosphere. The darker areas are a little drab, but I suppose that's by design. A technique that helped me was to attach the torch spotlight to the character using a spring. Makes it a lot more natural, instead of glued in the middle like laser sights.
Is there a win condition?
Making the scenery dangerous was a nice twist, and I liked the way you could squash bugs by running over them. In fact, it took me a minute to notice there are weapons - once I started playing correctly, it was much more of a standard shooter.
Never been a fan of the rotation-relative controls.
Very extended intro there! Classic top-down shooter - I like the graphics, they are very appropriate.
Good choice of font, there! Can you believe you went with the same hex grid floor that I used in my game?
I think this game really has a good twist on the theme.
This is a good game! I do feel (like others do) it has some balance issues, but the different weapons are really effective.
Different controls might make this a very different game - right click to cycle, long click for nova... This would make it easier to stay mobile and fighting, which is vital in a bullet hell game.
An interesting game engine, with original graphics.
But the gameplay is very frustrating. When one robot has nothing to do, you have to click run-run-run. And the interactions are unclear - the tutorial wasn't much help. The command input is also very buggy/unpredictable. Added together, I just couldn't get very far with it, so I wasn't really able to evaluate the quality of the puzzles themselves.
Really slick intro - I like that. What I like about this is it shows exactly what is possible with a simple concept. This might make an excellent tutorial.
The cursor was a nice touch.
Other comments have already got to the heart of the issue - balance. I just couldn't stay interested long enough to figure out what the best build order was or which things were stopping me from harvesting minerals.
I like the graphics! Very competent pixel art. The level design is not my favourite. A more gentle introduction to each skill would have helped, instead of starting you off in a big pit.
You really did achieve some pretty fun electric particles. Pity the blood particles aren't the same quality.
I think you know what needs doing already. Health pickup for balance, better feedback for zombies taking damage.
Clicker games might not be a perfect fit for a jam, but it's crazy addictive.
Simple, but highly effective!
To take it to the next level, some sort of win condition is essential.
Is it really a green vehicle if it runs on gas? :smile:
It feels strange to just stand around looking at things when your son is lying there unconscious. Beautiful graphics, though, and the sound fits perfectly.
Needs some work on the language and spelling. Maybe find a proofreader?
A timed game is a really good jam choice.
Pity there's no ending!
I like that it checkpoints to move you along without it getting too frustrating.
I will be honest: this game is not for me. But it's a very well done example of the genre, so I rated quite highly. The sound was a nice touch.
I really like the Tron style theme. Not clear if you can actually win, or how much map is reachable.
When a game is so unfinished that it's unplayable, it should be submitted as "Unfinished".
It looks like all the time was spent on the menu screen, and you ran out of time before your core mechanic was working.
Creating a mood in a very minimal style. The dust in the wind was surprisingly effective.
Well, I found some samples. It took me quite a long while to figure out the various mechanics, such as recharging. A tutorial is essential for features like this: a reminder to go back and recharge would be enough. The moving objects seem to be very rare, but that's just as well because I couldn't see how to deal with them. "Not attracting them" is fine, but without the flashlight the game is impossible.
The big problem the game has is there is no limit to the game map, so you can wander until you die. Some clue which way to go would help.
You must rate other games if you want to end up with a ranking.
Truly beautiful modelling, and the multi-player style works well. Obviously, the game needs more variety, but it has potential.
Very interesting concept, and it was fun to play the bad guy.
You need to work a little harder to sell the "card game to control the AI" concept, although I can imagine a card game AI growing out of control. Very appropriate name.
I was concerned about the game balance, but after playing on medium and difficult, it's actually pretty well balanced - skillful play will get a win.
:mortar_board:
HTML5 release doesn't work - 403.
I also had trouble getting to the second level. Nice quirky characters, gameplay not particularly intuitive.
Effective games allow the player to make choices that change the outcome of the game. Here, you have no choice most of the time - which makes it annoying, particularly as the "obstacles" are basically things which a real person would just walk around!
The world-switching mechanic has a lot of potential. If what you do in one world affected the other world, that would be awesome - and might solve some of the other problems with the game.
Spectacular graphics overall, but some of the game elements like the platforms aren't tied into the neon theme quite so much.
Effective gameplay, pity there's no AI option (I didn't mark you down for that, I'm not a monster!)
Improvement: avoid allowing players to disappear off the edge. This might be the scaling issue you mentioned.
A few bugs with the light flashing sometimes, but I do like the limited visibility, it adds a whole dimension to the gameplay. What made this game particularly tricky was the lack of feedback - clearly you are keeping track of some sort of power/health, but it's not visible. I like how the torch runs out.
The orthogonal keyboard move with mouse look is a bit strange, but it's something I can get used to, and quite frankly I prefer it to relative keyboard controls in this situation. Good job!
Could do with some balance. Fighter games need more complex moves that make strategy important. Maybe if you could pick an opponent to match your current strength? Or add special moves that can't be blocked (or that have to be blocked because they cause massive damage).
If most of the graphics/audio relies on third party assets, you should opt out of those categories. From your description, I can't really tell what you did yourselves.
From an ethical point of view, I'm not happy with a game where you have to go around and bully random NPCs to find out if they are hackers.
The biggest problem this game has, however, is there seems to be no point in answering the annoying texts, because doing so takes longer than answering the phone call.
Seems like the best way to win would be to turn the phone off! Save your battery, no more annoying calls.
The lights slowly go out, until you are hunting around in the dark. I had planned on doing some levels with metal walls and electric lights, and some with a dungeon theme with stone and flaming torches. Ambition!
Yes, music is not my forte. I just ran out of time for the sound effects. Well, not so much ran out of time, as spent hours fighting Unity realtime lighting to make it do what I needed.
The FPS are limited to 20 FPS for that old-timey feel.
There is an issue with the brightness in the WebGL version - I suspect it's getting the gamma wrong or something. As a result, it feels like it gets dark too fast.
Too much like real life! There's a small bug with one of the libre office files, it won't close - and I would have liked to see the taskbar update.
3D characters in a game jam? That takes a pro! I wish I had put a screengrab feature in my own game, it would have made my life easier.
Great level design! This is what makes a good puzzle game: new skills at each stage, interesting game mechanics, tricky but not too difficult. Nicely judged.
A very nice concept. Needs more levels!
I was a little doubtful about this game to start with, but once I figured out the puzzle mechanic, I loved it. The art style is excellent, and mostly well executed.
The shadows are a bug/issue in Unity that I've struggled with myself. It's caused by the very low resolution camera causing the shadow map size to be too small. In your case, you have a fixed iso camera, so you could cheat with the shadows, creating your own shadow maps and overlaying them.
The other issue is the green/brown edge, and that's simply a matter of making sure you don't have coplanar meshes. An easy fix!
The intro is really drawn out... maybe you got distracted from adding more substance? Simply seeding the book with more meaningful content would have helped.
When you realise this is just a very different version of Flappy Bird, the controls make sense. The game actually has a lot of potential. It might be worth taking a lesson from Flappy Bird - when dying is easy and quick, restarting should be instantaneous.
The way you lose control is very unintuitive - why would a cloud kill your drone? You need to work on selling the concept.
Watch out for clipping planes.
The controls are incredibly fiddly. But I got the hang of it in the end!
As you know, there aren't many factory choices, so options are limited. Also, there is so much power available, it's not really a factor. (Still, it's better than those games where you run out in 2 seconds!)
Ah, another classic!
Positives: one of the mini-games seems to work correctly, and so does the charging.
Things to improve: the one game that works is spectacularly boring, and comes up more often than chance would predict. The other games either don't work, or use some interaction which I can't figure out. And it's game over before I get a chance to experiment.
Overall: frustrating.
Ah, flappy goodness. Still a classic. It has all the flappy features I would expect. You have already identified the need for the scores to stick around longer. Good job.
You need to rate other games, otherwise you won't end up with a ranking.
The upgrades were a pleasant surprise, I wasn't expecting that.
It's very hard to play with no feedback on how much energy is left. This also makes it very unclear what the drills do.
Movement is an interesting combination of mouse aim and screen-relative keyboard. It's actually very intuitive, I wish it was a more popular choice for this kind of game.
Not actually a game.
Thank you, @hyprgloo - I definitely ran out of time for balancing and tutorials, so I'm really pleased the core mechanic is enjoyable.
Glad you enjoyed it, @hagrida. Any suggestions for improvements?
@nessa my original plan had a tutorial stage, but time was not my friend. Thanks for the feedback.
@baconsenpaii the UI graphics took 10 minutes in Inkscape, and the planet graphics took many hours of experimentation and coding. There's still room for improvement.
@fluffy-kaeloky I had to simplify the controls a lot from some of my earlier plans. In reality, atmosphere and biosphere are affected by a lot of different things, including each other. In this simplified version, the best way to lose atmosphere is to have a small planet and let the atmosphere just drift out into space.
Axial tilt affects the seasons, so it changes how quickly you can improve the biosphere. Currently it has no effect on the maximum biosphere.
Making the UI move around nicely was a challenge - I very nearly ran out of time.
The textures are generated in a co-routine (there is a texture queue because it takes a long time). The rest is just mathematics! There's an excellent tutorial here, if you are interested: https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/noise/
Thanks for your feedback, @naked-kiwi - ironically, I had plans to make the whole game a lot more complex. The start should have been easier, though - and it will be when I finish the post-Jam version (if I ever do!).
Strong praise indeed @skyrex! I will try to keep all the parts you enjoyed when I make improvements.
Beautiful foreshadowing, and gut-wrenchingly tragic. I love the art style. An epic length for a game jam entry, but definitely worth it.
A really different kind of game mechanic, but easy to grasp, quick, simple and fun. I like a clear, simple idea that is really well executed.