Frank & Stein by Thomas Olsson 2015-12-14T11:40:00
Great game and awesome stuff, really fun to play for a game that was made in 48h
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → donvermo
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 54 | Limited Space | 👥 | Forest Survivors | jam | 1061 | 2.86 | 2.66 | 2.64 | 3.44 | 2.80 | 2.80 | 1.97 | 2.68 | |
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | EYAM | jam | 653 | 3.37 | 2.92 | 3.25 | 3.57 | 3.35 | 3.66 | 2.00 | 3.76 | ||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | The Sorcerer's Apprentice | jam | 650 | 3.00 | 2.86 | 2.29 | 1.91 | 3.54 | |||||
| 2016 | 37 | One room | CatChaseZero | jam | 252 | 3.61 | 3.54 | 3.11 | 3.64 | 3.68 | 3.36 | 3.36 | 3.56 | 58 | |
| 2016 | 35 | Shapeshift | Puzzle Party | jam | 827 | 2.94 | 2.63 | 2.69 | 2.69 | 2.88 | 24 | ||||
| 2015 | 34 | Two Button Controls / Growing | Attack Of The Radioactive Octopus From A Planet Near Mars | jam | 205 | 3.67 | 3.55 | 3.64 | 3.97 | 3.47 | 3.20 | 3.52 | 66 |
Great game and awesome stuff, really fun to play for a game that was made in 48h
Perfect score all around, I am amazed at how well this concept was executed in 72 hours.
Amazing work, both fun and innovative I really like what you did here.
Outstanding game, although the mechanics can be a little frustrating at times it's still a really well made game for only 48h.
I receive an error when trying the web version: Unknown compression method. Running it on Safari, OSX
Very nice little game, I kind of like how short it was. Also I really liked how you started it of. Sad ending was unexpected, yet funny.
Very nice spin on the theme, both the plants and his world gradually grow larger. It becomes slightly frustrating having to rebuild the wells all the time but other than that it's pretty entertaining.
Solid start for a puzzle game! Definetely could use some extra polish and bugfixes, but I definetely like the concept!
Good job for a first game!
I really liked the simplicity, this is in my opinion the way to go when starting to make games.
The game is lacking some depth though, it does not seem to get any harder, and taken 'damage' does not seem to be recoverable. On top of that lots of things such as graphics, sound and menus (oh and if you are doing the 'pinball' score, use the last 2 digits aswell :)). Also it seemed that the input trigger was on the mouse release, this felt very unintuitively, such a simple thing could make a huge difference.
Good luck further on!
I'm mixed about this one, it looked really good and all, yet I wasnt really motivated to finish it or something? Probably as it is somewhat hard to grasp what is going on. Also, while I would classify this as a strategy game, the random elements can be really cruel at the start, completely ruining your run. Some visual feedback on the asteriods would be nice aswell, besided that the graphics and astethics worked really well.
To be fair: There wasn't enough of the game to really judge this type of game. As a consequence, I did not like it. Props however for making the entire thing on a smartphone, I would not have the endurance to do that.
Interesting spin on the theme and controls.
A fun little game, there seems to be no penalty for spamming all keys at once though.
The game has a nice premise but I feel the gameplay falls a bit flat, it could be my preferred way of playing but the enemies can move at the exact same speed as I can (In the air even). When I jump to the side and an enemy jumps into view I already know I am lost since there is no dodging his contact.
Wasn't able to run this on OSX using either Safari or Firefox
I can't run this on OSX, the link provides me with an .exe file that I have no way of running.
nice concept but very buggy (Or I have a talent for breaking things) I got stuck twice in two minutes by pushing (or failing to) object in places.
The concept is really nice but I can win by just holding my mouse down and aiming around a bit making it a bit too easy.
The graphics are definetely nice! Apart from that however I did not really enjoyed it :(.
The gameplay was exactly like similar games in the genre, yet the feel of the combat was missing, this due to missing sounds, effects, combat information.
Visual enemy variation was very good, this however did not translate in meaningful gameplay variation.
Overal as you indicated it feels unfinished, the art directions is definetely good, the other 'game' aspects could use some big improvements
Nice game, it reminded me a little of antichamber.
I wish there was an OSX version or Web version available to play. The game looks interesting but sadly I won't be able to judge this entry.
OK I am in LOVE with this game, it hit all the right boxes. A varied soundtrack, excellent 2D graphics and engaging mechanics. The only suggestions I have is making the UI for the crew slightly more visible and maybe having a small tutorial section at the start to have the player understand the roles of each crew member
I like the game, it's really good considering it is your first entry. I'm wondering how many games were actually in here?
Nice visuals and music, but the gameplay was a bit confusing. I was basically just holding down my mouse button shooting at the boss with the same attack. I also managed to walk under him when he jumped and attacked him from behind. Having some sort of visual feedback that you are hitting the boss would be nice since I was a bit confused as to whether or not I was attack him in the right way.
Awesome entry, after figuring out the controls I quickly realised that the bouncing bullet skill was super powerful when combined with stronger weapons making screen learning perhaps a tad too easy. My only suggestions are adding sounds for pickups (when you collect them) and what would be cool is the stage itself rotating (so you also need to keep track of where the dam is).
Loved the game, the ending was a bit sudden and I found the difficulty to be a little too easy. Maybe having a bit stronger ramping in the difficulty will make the game more engaging? Graphics were superb and the story was funny.
I had fun while playing but the drum jumping was really frustrating, sometimes the drums would pop and other times I just could not get them to. As such I was unable to advance past the multiple drum jump. The game looks really interesting though and I like the jazzy theme!
I am impressed by the quality of the game for the the jam version. I did notice that on the OSX version the disk had a tendency to bounce up and down (on it's flat side) making it really hard for it to hit anything or return to my gun. The immerse hud was really well executed and the graphic were great. The lack of music did make it harder to get into the game after a while since all I would hear was the spinning of the disk and a plasma gun from time to time.
@Fough, Thanks for playing! I uploaded a postjam version where I got to fix some things I didn't get around to during the jam, feedback on the postjam version is also greatly appreciated.
@stefvanschie, interesting bug you have there. Would you mind telling me what platform you ran it on and what the native resolution of your desktop is? The game should be running on 1920x1080 by default.
@indrkl yeah it was a good strategy that would sadly make the game a little too easy down the line. I made it less of an issue in the postjam version though. Thanks for playing!
@PlugRobots would you be able to give me some more information? What OS were you trying to run the game on? Maybe I can fix the problem.
@thedashdude, it has one more cheese than there are lives because if there is only once cheese left you can just sit on top of it. Did not manage to think up a way around it other than this so far.
@Ekilibr, @onixowl, @SoulBound: Thank your for playing!
Funny that the concept that you went with was really similar to what I ended up doing. I too in the end did not manage to implement a boss (I did not have the time to program the battle) Hope you had fun doing this and maybe you can get your concept more fleshed out the next time around.
It's funny to come across a game that seemed to have the same idea as the one you came up with yourself yet see the execution be entirely different. Hats off to you for managing to put all of this together in the short time frame that was available.
The graphics of this game look super cool but just like the previous poster I got stuck. If you want to get more feedback for your game here's a few things I can recommend:
#### Post an HTML5/Web version whenever possible People generally are more inclined to play your game when they need to put in only a minimal amount of effort in order to get started. If that is not an option for you then you can try one of the following:
#### Post screenshots and or videos on your page People like to know what they are about to play, giving them screenshots on the information page can help them decide if it is the kind of game that they would enjoy playing and or if it is the kind of game that they can give strong constructive feedback on.
#### Rate other peoples games LudumDare works with the principle of give an take, it's a community effort to make sure that everyone has at least some people play their game so that they can learn from the feedback on hopefully make an even better game the next time around! It's not only good etiquette to do this but the algorithm for the search in this website also makes entries from people who have left ratings and feedback for others more visible (this is part of the karma system)
#### Respond to feedback This one is not a big must but it can help generate positive sentiment. Especially when you did not have the time to make a video walkthrough it can help you address problems that people run into so that they don't get stuck. You wouldn't want people to miss out on the entirety of your game because some bug or confusion prevented them from progressing? Help people help you.
I hope these help you find your way in our community and it would be great to see you stick around.
It's a really fun game and hard to believe that this entry has been overlooked, the graphics are gorgeous and the gameplay feels very polished. I hope you get the 20 votes you need.
This is a truly adorable entry, while it didn't take very long for me to figure out the right approach the gameplay idea, story and characters all seem very well thought out. The mood seemed to be the best part of this game thought, the cute art style combined with the music was really heart warming. I would love to see a post jam version where the story is expanded upon a little (why does the music box do this? Does the principal know and why does he act that way?)
First of this is hands down an amazing entry for the 72 hour time limit. Hats of to you. My thoughts on the entry:
#### Graphics the amount of detail in all of the pixel art is amazing, having multiple layers of parlaxing backgrounds on top of that is just mind blowing. It really throws me back to the old time where I played old Megaman and Castlevania titles on my console. The cohesion between the set piece and the enemies combined with just the sheer amount of variety is a try accomplishment. Pixel Art most certainly seems to be the strong suit of the author.
#### Controls Platforming controls were solid, I really felt like I had the right amount of control over my character most of the time, the only hinderances were when I needed to chain spring platform jumps without bumping into obstacles along the way, the action seemed to go a little too fast and I feel like a short but present double jump could really have helped position myself while airborne.
Another hindrance I had was with the purple destructible blocks in the lava stage, the tile size was a little off which required me to have a path cleared of 2 wide in order to fall down or (3?) high in order to walk straight and carving out a clear path without having one of the stronger gun versions was really tedious at times, I think I died about 4 times because I trapped myself in them and got caught by the rising lava.
#### Gameplay Gameplay was great for the most part, the levels had a certain theme to them and had a nice buildup of stage mechanics that first got introduced and then expanded upon later. The same went for the enemies, they had overal great placement although I feel like part 2 of the later lava stage was a little too punishing.
The section I mentioned with the purple blocks felt a little unfairly challenging once you had died once, getting through the blocks was not always easy because of the situation I mentioned earlier, the rising lava catches up fairly quickly and without gun upgrades it becomes hard to quickly move through the enemies without taking damage yourself which then places you in a rather difficult situation right after where you need to drop down again into a pit with lava below it where the only safe landing spot has an enemy standing in it. I get that this section is all about quick responses and fast action but it just feels like it's a tad too hard to get through if you already had to restart once. A workaround to this would be to start the section off a little easier to give the player a chance to upgrade their weapon or just drop some upgrades at the start outright to balance it out.
One thing I haven't mentioned yet which certainly deserves praise: Boss battles. Each stage ends with a Dr.Eggman style encounter which remains great considering the limited time available to program advanced mechanics. Only improvement I could suggest here is to add some kind of visual feedback that the boss is actually getting hit. I noticed the HP counter during the second encounter but it misses that kind of oomph feeling when you are beating down a though guy like that.
#### Audio What can I say? Awesome background music? Check, matching sound effects? Check, I seriously have nothing to add here 5 stars.
#### Conclusion This game has some serious quality and potential in it, probably one of the top contenders I have seen so far. Putting aside my personal love for retro styled game this entry is still amazing and I would recommend anyone to play it. Whatever it is that the author is doing, we need more of it and I'm hopeful they would be willing to share some of their workflow at some point to serve as a source of inspiration to draw from. Here is to hoping I can produce something of similar quality the next time around ;)
I'm a sucker for puns so you get extra points for that. The game is cute and witty and the concept has some nice potential for further exploration.
I really like the game, it has a nice feel to it. The platforming can be a little complicated sometimes since you need the grappling hook to reach most platforms but it all plays rather smoothly. The only real issue I encountered was that around 300 points the waves tend to stack together too much making it nearly impossible to keep turrets alive. Still, great accomplishment!
@ursagames Thanks for playing! I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it. Admittedly I was planning on implementing player health but realised I would not have the time to balance things properly so I just stuck to knock back as the main 'punishment' in the game. I'm playing around with the idea of creating a postjam version where I finish the rest of the mechanics, add some more enemy variety and apply some general polish. Time will tell if I find the time to get around to it though.
@Belga54 I disabled voting on the audio since I did not have the time to create any sound effects or music myself, hence I felt it would be unfair to receive votes on an aspect of my game that I did not really create.
@hhsaez At first I wasn't sure what you were talking about but then I noticed where this problem occurred, I acknowledge that this can happen and result in a slightly frustrating experience since you would have to redo several obstacles. I will see what I can do to fix this in my postjam version.
@kpded I believed this issue had been resolved, could you describe to me how you got stuck on one of the corners? I'd like to figure out why this could still be happening.
@vkmicro Thanks for the feedback, I've been trying to get the control feeling of the character just right but I do recognise that it is not yet where it should be. This will be a point of focus for me to make sure I can get a smoother experience the next time around.
@franfox The character related sprites are indeed. :smile: Sorry if there was any confusion about that.
Nice game and concept, the graphics and mood were great. Like some other said the game balance is a bit off since it just becomes easier over time. My suggestion would be to add more enemy types with varying degrees of resistance to light. Adding a day/night cycle where you can only do upgrades during the day would also add some challenge.
Great submission, I took me a while to figure out what it was that I exactly needed to do but it became clear soon enough. Sadly on both my runs I ran into game breaking bugs so I never managed to find out if there are more enemy types as you go on.
The first bug I encountered was that when I only had two turrets the train would arrive at the checkpoint, refil it's health but wouldn't refill my energy and would then just sit there until I died.
The second time around I got a bit further but the train randomly stopped moving once I got to 4 turrets (but they still fired)
Not entirely sure If I am missing some kind of mechanic though.
I liked the concept but quickly ran into a frustrating problem that stems from the design health = ammo: If you got hit twice in a level the chance of you even being able to complete the stage was non existent (the ammo would not be enough to kill all the aliens) Hence the player would spend potentially a lot of time trying to complete a stage that they couldn't complete to begin with.
The issue would be non existent if enemies were skippable however, it would just make the game harder instead of impossible.
It's a pretty neat game, using the rage mechanic as the stand in for the energy theme was pretty clever. The game was simple enough to get a hang of but got progressively harder. I loved how the foxes seemed to have very derpy eyes as a comedic effect. The only downside I found was that the game becomes a little repetitive after a while but I guess that is to be expected considering the time constraints we all work under :)
Really cool idea but pretty difficult to control. As @dob suggested earlier it might be a good idea to give people some extra energy to make more room for the learning curve. Graphics are great and really made the experience come together.
Nice game, the mechanics were quite self explanatory but only after a while do you start noticing that the lights are getting dimmer and dimmer until it's too late. I played the web version so looking around was a bit difficult but I managed by mostly strafing to minimise the amount of looking around I needed to do. One thing suggestion I would have is creating some kind of breadcrumb trail that points you in the right general area since it felt like most of the time it was just trial and error.
Nice game, I always like occult themed titles and this one is pretty fun to play. Like some have said it can be a bit laggy at times so it could do with some optimisation. At least I'm glad you now made the 20 required votes to finish :smile:
Really nice concept for the game and I really like how you applied the theme. I didn't find the game to be too hard but as you were getting a bit further down in the level it did become a bit tedious to lose 3/4 of my energy just walking there, it might have been better to just have a very small constant drain instead for those actions. Extra points for the pixel art btw which is great.
If you have some time please play and rate my game which I made in a little under 24 hours: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/39/the-sorcerers-apprentice
Starts off slow but becomes a really awesome platformer. The art is minimalistic but functional and the gameplay is front and center, proving yet again that graphics don't mean everything.
I really liked the concept even though it was a bit hard to play with a trackpad, the sketched art and the dialogue were pretty smooth and set a nice mood.
Don't know what to say what hasn't been said yet. The game seems polished all around and it's pretty fun to play around with for a while.
@Phi Thank you so much for playing! Thanks for mentioning the Audio voting bit, I changed the setting. As for the feedback on the gameplay, I had similar thoughts but alas the time prevented me from implementing everything. Maybe a postjam version van fix that ;)
@britt-henderson Thank you for the honest criticism, If you hadn't noticed you can modify the gameplay speed in the options menu. Just to be sure I have modified the readme to make mention of that.
@rplnt, @naali Thank you for the feedback, my original vision was to implement a high score system to drive the player to create an as large as possible population that would only be achievable by carefully managing the population growth. Unfortunately I didn't get around to it but I will see what I can do for the postJam version. I hope you still enjoyed it!
@furet, glad you liked the idea, if you are still interested I just uploaded a POSTJAM version which fixes that particular issue as well as some balancing. Thank you for playing and if you do end up playing the POSTJAM version please let me know what you think.
@justinooncx, the POSTJAM version I just released includes additional tooltips that should help clear up the mechanics. If there are things you still find confusing please let me know and I will see what I can do to make the experience more enjoyable.
As for anyone that played my game and didn't leave a comment or if I didn't address you specifically: Thank you all so much for playing, I hope you enjoyed the experience and that my next iteration will only be better because of all of your input.
I really like this entry, I'm a big fan of 2D platformers and I know it is hard to get that 'feeling' just right. The graphics are great and immersive (the cohesion of it all is super) and the premise is nice too. The reverse metroidvania is a nice twist and actually forces you to think more and more as you progress.
Nice and simple game, I did find it hard to tell sometimes when I was too big to fit through something and when I wasn't. Other than that it was pretty neat :)
This is pretty cool, reminds me of good old dungeon keeper before all the nonsense started.
Nice game with an ok challenge, the learning curve is slightly steep though but the mix of gameplay, music and art make it worth the while.
Not sure if this is just me but the itch.io version loads but the 'game' screen remains black. I just see a radar and the cutscene UI but that's it. How do I play?
@royoyo I tried it in safari. Just tried again but same effect, the 3D models do not seem to show.
Interesting take on the theme, the more followers you have the harder it is to move around :P All joking aside this is quite something for the short timespan. The mood was perfect. My only recommendations are to fix the camera transitions and the AI pathfinding, they can get in the way of playing quite frequently.
The art and concept are nice but physics are little messed up, weapon projectiles seem to bounce through axis that they probably shouldn't making them pretty much invisible.
Nice pixel art, the mood feels great and the music ties it together nicely. This game is hard but enjoyable.
The vibe and graphics are good, the pixel arts is very reminiscent of the old GameBoy days. (Especially the sky art) While there is a nice solid basis I did feel that the boss fight got a bit tedious after a while since it was attack, dodge and repeat over and over again. Having more than 1 type of attack or more ways to attack the boss would have helped make the encounter more engaging I think. Keep up the good work ;)
Game was pretty fun but you quickly run out of space and things to do, this means you either just wait for the game to end or restart to game to fix some kind of mistake. Having a demolish function that costs money might make this more interesting so there is still a risk reward kind of situation:
TD.PNG
Really fun concept, have to admit this was very close that what I thought about making when the theme was first revealed. Glad to see that someone ran with it and struck a homerun, don't think I could have done it better in such a short amount of time.
Cart controls and skidmarks are feel really good and satisfying. Turning the truck around is frustrating, but then again they always are :spy:
The bushes disappearing has been noted, it seems there is a bug in game loop that I'll look into fixing. Glad you still enjoyed it :v:
@danjoricey Thanks for playing, glad you liked the game :v:
@viktorthegreat Thanks for playing and the amazing feedback I'll see if I can address it in order: + facing direction issue was caused by the time constraint, decided to use blend tree animations which I don't usually use. Will definitely try to fix this in a postjam verrsion :thumbsup: - fair point about the spike bushes, we did initially intend for these to whip attack you if you weren't fast enough but ran out of time to implement this. + agreed on the finishing touches, those are great ideas! Will see if I can incorporate some of that in the postjam.
@compasslg Thanks for playing!
@sleepyufo agreed that the grass spawning still causes a bit of an issue, will see if I can further improve performance here in the postjam version. Thanks for the feedback and we are glad to hear you managed to make it to 40k! :trophy:
@lelulagames Love that you point out the Zelda grass cutting, this was partly where we drew inspiration from. Thanks for the feedback on controls and animation, will see if I can make this work in a postjam version! :crossed_swords:
@camden-obertop Thanks for playing!
@lincolnsalles Cool, thanks for playing and the honest feedback! Optimization is def and issue that is being addressed.
I absolutely loved this game, the weird over the top physics gave this a really good game feel. This is probably a concept worth polishing into a standalone title :thumbsup:
Amazingly fun game by being creative with a pretty simple mechanic. The only thing I had frustratingly hoped for was the ability to be able to rotate the pieces to find more ways to fit certain components in the ship. Continuously having to swap out components got pretty hectic when it required moving multiple pieces around.
Loved the overall mood and style of the game though. Good job!
I LOVED the pixel art in this, awesome job! the whole gameplay loop was hilarious too, like another post mentioned the trees sometimes block vision of loot. Perhaps add a highlight shader for a postjam version? Otherwise 10/10 game, will play again.
Really cool and fun game. Encountered some glitches when placing buildings too close together (workers would auto assign themselves to nearby buildings) but other than that it was really enjoyable.
Game shows potential but it looks like it's having graphical glitches where buildings are constantly flashing? at some point a UI window showed up to collect things but that wasn't closable. Was this part of the design? or a bug?
Nice 2048 clone, was as described on the box. Good job!
Love the concept and the pixel art <3 Only improvement I would suggest is parallax scrolling the background with movement, as it is right now it is a bit hard to keep your bearings.
Game is pretty fun although the contrast with the 'solid' bricks is not large enough to be consistently visible enough. Walked into the wall a couple of times. Other than that it was a pretty good concept :)
Amazing job creating a puzzle game of this scale in 3D with the limited time. The controls felt good and the graphics and audio were all very well done. Would be interested to see where you can take this given more time.
The game was a bit hard to control, it seemed like the catapult was not the point of origin from which you fired? Then it wasn't immediately obvious either as to how you could influence the angle. The humor was there though and that did give me a chuckle.
Game is pretty clever but can get overwhelmingly confusing pretty quickly. I think a more hand held experience to start would have been a bit more helpful to get people going. Also like another comment said: using number keys to select flasks would have been helpful.
Game concept is hilarious, good find and had a good laugh with this one.
The game was absolutely amazing, the story, the art direction it was all great. Initially I struggled a bit to figure out what I was supposed to do but then again I should have read the initial book better :P.
The mood and theme of the game all worked out perfectly in the end. Had some graphical glitches when playing the web version and also ran into the mentioned bug with moving while interacting.
Ending was pretty touching, only thing I might suggest as an improvement to guide exploration is to prevent the player from moving through walls(just let them move through doors) so you can have more guided paths for exploration.
Amazingly fun and simple game, the going down and back up was a nice twist. Some levels were certainly harder than others but once you had a good rythm going it was pretty doable. Liked the credits screen too :)
The game was pretty fun, graphics really reminded me of classic horror exploration games. The sound effects were neat but the gunshot felt a bit out of place, crunching the sound might make it feel like it fits better? Sometimes enemies got stuck on corners making it easy to pick them off.
Overal the mood of the game was great and it really fit the theme. Looking forward to seeing a postjam version :v:
This game was a little confusing at first but eventually opened up to me. The sanboox element really enabled me to approach problems from multiple angles which I enjoyed, I usually ended up with a task failed successfully kind of situation but that's what made it memorable :heart:
Nice simple game, love the art and basic interactions. Will be cool to see a post-jam version :)
Really like the game concept although it was kind of confusing how the pictures related to the post its? At some point I wasn't getting new files anymore, was that a game over? Liked the random smacking of the monitor.