Unnatural Selection by dkilford 2012-09-02T06:52:00
I was planning to add in a true infinite runner style but was running out of time and just ended up polishing what I had, I might revisit the idea later though.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → dkilford
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | All Sorts of Spooky | compo | 31 | 4.09 | 4.00 | 3.52 | 4.00 | 4.17 | 3.48 | 3.55 | 44 | ||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Synergistic Management Solutions | jam | 400 | 3.36 | 2.71 | 3.43 | 2.52 | 4.18 | 3.55 | 4.11 | 3.55 | 36 | |
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | Two Hearts | compo | 169 | 3.65 | 3.35 | 3.08 | 2.96 | 3.77 | 3.42 | 3.54 | 39 | ||
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | You only have each other. | compo | 212 | 3.38 | 2.91 | 2.61 | 2.86 | 3.71 | 2.81 | 2.50 | 3.55 | 46 | |
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | Lights | compo | 584 | 3.03 | 2.69 | 2.83 | 2.94 | 2.69 | 2.63 | 1.83 | 3.28 | 60 | |
| 2012 | 25 | You are the Villain | Bear Hacker | compo | |||||||||||
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | Unnatural Selection | compo | |||||||||||
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Eidolic New World | compo |
I was planning to add in a true infinite runner style but was running out of time and just ended up polishing what I had, I might revisit the idea later though.
Nice and simple game. Having a slight delay when you beat the level and playing the eat sound effect when you pick up the final fruit would help make the transition less confusing.
Cool game! I got up to level 6-4 before I quit.
It took me a few playthroughs to understand what was happening but here's my feedback:
Some kind of animation or visual indicator showing what your attack hitbox is would be good. On my first couple of playthroughs I was unsure it was hitting until I learned what the sound to look for is.
Spawning the player ontop of the zombies is one of the biggest problems, and caused most of my early deaths. Once I learned to clear the right side and stand to the right of the shop it was fine.
The game definitely gets easier as you get more powerups, almost allowing me to walk into enemies purposely to mow them down.
I really liked the concept, and I think with some more work you can make it something pretty entertaining. I managed to unlock all of the items and have a lot of excess gold afterwards. Great work!
I couldn't really get this to work. The gameplay is very confusing and it's unclear as to what I'm supposed to do after I run out of coins, as flipping the money doesn't seem to do anything.
I really liked this. It took me a while to understand the game but I found it pretty enjoyable once I got going. Enemies spawning ontop of myself was pretty annoying, but I understood why.
Unfortunately can't rate due to there being no game. Looks interesting though.
Good use of the theme, but I felt there were a few things to improve on.
With creating puzzle games like this, you want to design the levels in a way that leads the player into solving them by how they are structured. You want to show off interesting bits of emergent gameplay within the level, rather than making the player feel lost and like they just stumble upon the answer like how I felt.
Sandy III for example, it feels like the guard patterns don't make sense, so the only way to solve it is by brute-forcing different paths until you get the way that works.
You can very easily smooth out the difficulty curve by doing this which I felt would have helped a lot too. Removing mechanics helps improve clarity too, as the player has less 'wrong' choices available to them at times.
Good attempt at the comp though, the code looks very well written too.
Interesting idea, I was very confused throughout the game which I assume was the intention. I'm interested to see what you would have done if you were planning to add later on.
I liked the game, I got up to the part that requires a gamepad and then lost because I didn't have mine plugged in. I liked the art and music mixture, worked well together and gave it a good humorous feel to it. Overall good job.
Good game overall. I feel adding in another element of tension so that the player can't just cook the same combinations over and over would help encourage diversity too. Really good music and art.
Interesting game. I played on firefox and the audio is incredibly annoying (due to so many bullets being shot at once). I like the simplicity of it, but the outcomes feel very random depending on whether the AI decides to focus me.
Nice and simple roguelike. There isn't much to differentiate it from other roguelikes. The time element of it is a little frustrating combined with the random feeling of the game, and it only really kicks in when you start running out of time.
Because enemies don't seem to attack you unless you attack them first, it's pretty easy to avoid. I would have liked keyboard controls for the game, but it was very playable without them.
I really don't understand how to play this. I'm not seeing any enemies, and the timer has gone below 0 several times.
I really liked this game. It's incredibly difficult and took me a few goes to work out. The music and timing help make the game feel very frantic. Reminds me of "Where's an egg?" By homestarrunner. The art was really good, the interface is confusing, (eg. characters are described by name, but you can only see their images). It's workable.
Overall very good work.
Good game! Surprisingly large amount of content given the short amount of time you had. The pinging sound is pretty annoying, and I'm not really a fan of the rage-platformer genre (particularly messing up control order). Great first entry!
Overall really good job. It took me a few attempts to understand how it works, but it's definitely a really use of the theme mixed with a roguelike formula. I think it would be really interesting to see what you can do to extend the theme given more time.
Overall solid game. Interesting concept (even though I've seen it done before in previous 48h comps). Really good first ludum dare attempt.
You succeeded at making the most frustrating games I have played. Every element of the game feels like it is designed to make you frustrated. The controls are frustrating, with common fps drops that lower your character speed but keep the timer constant. Disguising bad girls as ninjas. Ninjas that randomly don't work for no given reason. Also elements that pop out of the ground with no given warning that kill you.
The controls felt really stiff, the music got very repetitive quickly, and after I forced myself to play through the thing I was greeted with a blank white screen.
In terms of theme, because of how you designed the mechanics it really doesn't feel like you're trying to die in the game, falling on spikes apparently isn't good enough for example, you still need to get to the end, after collecting enough coins like most platformers.
Overall nice and simple platformer. The time pausing mechanic was interesting but you could have focused on it more rather than some of the more generic platformer levels near the start. I liked the sound and humour of the game. The controls felt a little stiff, particularly around jumping in general. Overall good attempt!
Cool idea, but weighed down by clunky controls. I wouldn't recommend playing this in the web version because it's easy to click outside of the window.
Interesting concept. After the first 4 pictures the screen just goes black and I'm unable to get any further. Some more features like smoother brushes or a paint bucket would have added a lot more to it.
From what I played of the game it seems fun. The game seems to get very unstable very quickly, which resulted in it crashing twice during the second stage, once with an "out of memory" error which really shouldn't be a problem.
I love the voice over and the humour, good job!
Nice and simple idea. Having to repeat through all the previous stages when you fail makes the game much more frustrating than it should be.
Nice and simple puzzle game. The player's hitbox is far different from what I expected. It seems procedurally generated, and was spitting out levels that seemed impossible. I got one level that only had 2 shards to pickup, making it literally impossible.
I'm surprised you didn't make a web build considering you're using unity, it often helps to get more plays.
I enjoyed this. It's a game that knows it isn't the best and embraces it. I really liked the humour and the simplicity of it. It took me way too long to figure out to shoot at your face rather than just at the impending apocalypse.
Overall good first entry, the first entry is always the hardest!
I beat the game without having to use the second dimension. The controls felt a bit stiff, and the key placement is a little awkward. It feels strange to not have flipped sprites when you move backwards. The art didn't feel cohesive too, things didn't have one unified style which helps a lot too.
Solid first entry, your first jam is nearly always your hardest and you always learn a lot going through it. Keep up the great work!
Overall I really liked the game. The controls were fluid, the art looked pretty good, though it was very busy which made it hard to spot key things out at times. It would have been nice to be able to see the whole grid at once, which would have made the random aspect less punishing.
The music got pretty repetitive after a while too, having it less busy or have more variation so it doesn't sound like the same 12 seconds endlessly would help.
Overall though very good!
I like the game. The controls are pretty unwieldy which I guess is the main point or challenge of the game. The level after you introduce the cupcakes is incredibly difficult due to how spread out the level is, and how hard it is to eat the cupcakes to regain time.
I like the music and art style of it, they suit it really well.
Nice game, a bit short for my liking but what you had works. It feels like you ran out of time.
Interesting idea. I think if you had made all attacks on enemies 1 shot kills and just simply spawned more enemies per day it would have improved the tension of the game. It isn't very clear that you need to hit enemies multiple times after the first couple of days.
Interesting game. I like the controls and movement but it's hard to get a game going.
The game seems pretty close to having something pretty interesting. It's a shame you ran out of time. Better luck next time!
Just played the windows version and I can confirm it works.
The game was very simple, too simple for me. It's alright in a small burst but I really would want more content or mechanics added to it, but that's just me.
Thanks! It's something I spent several hours on getting to look right. Most objects are using specular diffuse maps with two tones. The lighting is mostly a directional coloured light, as well as a point light above the player so they can see depth around them due to the ortho camera.
The objects that go transparent use triggers that change fade alpha, and use transparent specular materials which don't seem to cast shadows. I'll probably rebuild the game with AA when I get the chance too.
Thanks! I played around with the fighting mechanics for quite a while to try and make them feel better, but it's incredibly hard to get right in such a short space of time.
I totally agree that the combat mechanics need the most work, and if I were to continue working on this it's going to be the first thing I change.
Good entry, nice and simple platformer. I initially didn't understand that damage persisted throughout the different levels, and didn't understand what E did, but after my first test playthrough the game made sense.
I really liked the game, the use of the theme is creative and it's different from other entrants. I didn't like how scaled the costs get later in the game, as I managed to lose over $1000 dollars with three people because I got unlucky, but overall good entry!
You need more of an explanation about how to play the game because I was incredibly confused throughout the game, and felt I was only finding things by accident.
If anyone gets stuck in the room with the gate, the button to unlock the gate can only be found by using the 'R' ability, my bar was filled if it makes a difference.
Good first entry, your first is always the most difficult. In terms of feedback what you had was good, you just needed a more content.
Being able to do more basically just comes with practice, but starting with a premade engine does definitely help a lot more. I hope you keep on practicing and entering!
Interesting entry, the games mood was definitely it's strongest point. The art while not technically spectacular fit the game and mood perfectly so I wouldn't worry about that.
It's a shame you ran out of time, I would have definitely liked to have seen more branches. Overall a solid effort.
Overall strong effort. It took me a while to get used to the mechanics, and it was kind of annoying when I would accidentally throw the totem onto a wooden board, then would be forced to die.
I thought while the graphics looked good and all fit, because every piece of the terrain was visually noisey I would often have trouble spotting the paths I would have to go through on first glance, minor complaint though.
I really liked this game overall. It felt that perseverance is really the only way to play the game because if played properly you can play indefinitely (though with pressure from falling spaces) and get to the end. While I understand why you went with the random bomb mechanic, the way the other abilities were designed, made going other paths get punished greatly for trying something different.
In terms of other feedback, showing the descriptions of each of the abilities when you first select them would really help picking up the game, as well as a strong explanation of how the red bar is relevant would be great. Overall great effort, I really enjoyed it.
Good work, I'll give some feedback on what it feels happened with the game.
Keeping the world smaller would have given you more time to get the other important things done asap. I personally would have coloured the lights blue/white to keep within your grim colour pallete, them being green just looks a bit off. I would have also turned the unlit light colour to be much darker, and to counteract it I would have changed the unity web window to be black as well, so the contrast isn't so strong.
Your game has the strongest mood/ambience I've felt in the games I've rated so far, and I genuinely felt tension/pressure as I was being chased by the AI. Awesome work with that.
Great work getting the models/animations done in such a short space of time as well, it's not something many people could have done given the strong time constraints.
Was reuploading a new version, there was a bug where people running on 120 hertz monitors were moving at a different speed.
I tried to run the entry, but the server was down. Looks cool!
Definitely the most innovative concept I've seen, also the most creative use of the theme. Technically it's the exact opposite of the theme, but I loved the use of it. Unfortunately my screen isn't tall enough to fit all the windows, but it's a cute and novel concept. Good song, and it's good to see more Australian game devs!
Nice and simple game, it's a shame you ran out of time and couldn't fit any extra mechanics in there.
I liked the audio, but the noise animation on the ground was annoying and didn't seem to fit with the rest of the style of the game.
This game clearly didn't take itself too seriously totally worked for you, and the game had a consistent style throughout it.
In terms of constructive criticism, there's a lot of simple stuff you could have done to make the gameplay feel amazing, like screenshake and smoother controls. You kept the game simple which worked, but a bit more variation would have gone a long way.
Nice and simple game! I liked the persistent effects on the ground, which definitely helped show your progress through the game. I read your blog and it's really good progress for just one day of work, it's a shame you didn't have more time to work on it.
I think a couple of tweaks would have gone a long way, speeding up both the player's movement and the enemies would improve the pacing of the game.
I would have preferred a mute SFX over a mute music button, but thanks for adding it. Adding a few different shoot sound effects to just randomize through would have gone a long way to improve the audio of the game, it sounded like you were using SFXer so a couple of different mutated variations of the basic shoot sound should have been pretty easy.
Overall I'm pretty impressed you got this done in just a day, so good work!
I played through this game initially not knowing how to shoot, and it still was an extremely fun definite far more intense. The music makes this game, it's a shame you didn't put audio as something we could vote on, because it would definitely earn 5 stars from me. Really good work, it's a simple concept executed really well.
I wasn't able to play this game, no input seemed to be working. The concept looked cool though. Running on Firefox 34.0.5
Loved the game. You hit the nail on the head with the Sign, Seal and Deliver part.
Thanks for letting us know, I'll update the build tonight.
loved the audio and nice take on the theme!
interesting approach, I would love to see some feedback when you attack an enemy
I managed to run this game without an issue, however I got stuck on level 6 because my cells keep on disappearing without any kind of feedback.
I liked what I played though, I think the concept is good.
Cool game, I like the art a lot. I think introducing the car mechanic a bit further into the game would have worked better, I was only just getting used to the controls when I was put under a lot of pressure to cross quickly.
I really liked this game! I wish I could make particle effects that good in unity. The pacing and tutorialization were particularly well done too.
Interesting concept, the numbered squares don't seem to heal enough, and they didn't seem to kill the paperclip. For some reason the game was very laggy for me, on a powerful pc.
Cool little game! I got over 10,000 points before I stopped playing, and I'm not sure if the game had audio, but I didn't hear any while playing. I also never seemed to take any damage, so Thick Skin and SNS weren't worth using.
Good work making the game in Java from scratch. It's a really daunting task that I don't think I could do.
The concept that you went with is cool, but there's a few tweaks you could have done to make the game much more approachable.
Clicking on the white blocks was really difficult because the camera snaps around so much, if you added a little bit of smoothing on it, the controls would feel less frustrating.
You also started introducing new mechanics and ideas while the player is under a lot of pressure, and often after tricky sections. It's always a good idea to introduce a new concept in a safe environment so the player doesn't freak out and stop.
Overall good attempt though, it's clear you put a lot of hard work into the game!
I really liked this game. It's nice and simple, and the weighty controls give it a flappy bird frustration and repeat cycle which works really well for it.
A couple of times I was given unwinnable layouts, but I didn't feel too frustrated by it. Good work!
Working with procedural generation is always an interesting challenge. It's definitely something that you should keep working on, and it definitely changes the way you think about game design. It was a good first attempt, much better than my first go at procedural generation :)
While playing a found a few bugs. On my first playthrough I got a layout that had a blocked room path, so I had to restart. On my second playthrough I got the power wave powerup which didn't seem to do any damage to the cone enemies from floor 3 onwards, and had to stop.
I liked what I played, but I wish you had finished more :(
The art is cool, and I like the music too!
Good first entry! The game was fun and quick to pick up. The voice work was definitely what made the game work.
I really like the aesthetic for the game, but I had issues sometimes figuring out whether props were part of the background or something I could jump on.