Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Dooleus
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | QWOPcrate | compo | 400 | 3.20 | 3.07 | 3.17 | 3.67 | 3.07 | 3.36 | 3.47 | 3.21 | ||
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Holy Moly | compo | 579 | 3.26 | 3.31 | 2.68 | 3.52 | 3.10 | 3.75 | 3.00 | 2.52 | ||
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | Dragon Drop: Eggsistense | compo | 3.14 | 3.14 | 2.92 | 3.14 | 3.14 | 3.14 | 3.21 | 3.21 | |||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | Battery Bot | compo | 2.25 | 2.50 | 2.25 | 3.50 | 3.00 | 2.50 | 2.00 | 2.75 | |||
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Penguin Plunge | compo | 303 | 3.45 | 3.36 | 1.82 | 3.33 | 2.95 | 3.59 | 3.00 | 2.95 | 35 | |
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | Adorable Dungeon | compo | 603 | 2.88 | 2.83 | 2.00 | 2.17 | 3.06 | 3.07 | 28 | |||
| 2013 | 27 | 10 Seconds | Tiny Arena | compo | 195 | 3.47 | 3.55 | 2.64 | 3.17 | 3.12 | 3.42 | 2.57 | 3.27 | 66 |
Had a lot of issues with the game not recognizing my diagonal movements on my tablet. Really wanted to enjoy this as it's a great concept but that really killed it for me :(
The art is great, but the audio and music could definitely be more polished.
The control scheme is interesting, but ultimately it seems like the most effective choice is to just use the keys at the extreme ends, as they move you the fastest, providing you with the greatest mobility to dodge rocks.
I like the sound, don't hate the music, and the art is not bad at all. The dialogue between the universe and Specky was entertaining at first, but lost its charm as it started to get repetitive ("The gravity's getting stron" twice in a row killed the vibe for me). The theme seems a bit shoe-horned in, too, with the fact that it's 10 seconds after the universe is created having very little to do with the gameplay. Still, it's better than disregarding the theme completely, and it's a pretty good hook for the story.
The concept is pretty cool, but I'm not in love with the controls. I think it might play better if the movement speed was a little lower. The premise of having your clones collide with you seems like it's got some real potential that could be explored further than you've taken it. The sound effects are pretty good, and the music is great. The art is alright - clean and easy to read, if not exactly stellar. The interface looks great. Overall, a cool idea that I think could use some refinement to be more engaging.
The sound effects and art style really work well in establishing the atmosphere. I don't enjoy the jumping being as unforgiving as it is - leads to a lot more frustration than it needs to. The '10 seconds to complete the level' mechanic being the central point of the gameplay is a bit frustrating to me, too, when coupled with the difficulty of the first-person platforming. Nice use of truisms in each level, definitely adds an extra layer to the atmosphere.
First of all, what I liked: The art is clean and the introduction sequence sets the mood very well (even if the writing isn't exactly riveting - it does its job.)
Now, my gripes:
There were some big issues with collision detection - getting stuck on walls and ceilings during jumps and going THROUGH the walls and floors at times... definitely very frustrating in a game like this. The level 2 design (camera after camera after camera) could have been a lot better designed - putting the same obstacle in that many times in a row just kills all novelty of the stealth mechanic, which at first I was really excited about.
The timer mechanic had a similar pitfall - in the first level, it works well enough (though it is a little unforgiving, requiring a high level of platforming skill in the first level is bad enough, but coupled with the bugginess of the collision, it's seriously flawed here.) In the third level, getting hit with the timer-activating laser effectively means that you cannot finish the level in time, but since it doesn't kill you, the only sensible option is to jump into a pit to restart. This approach is not a fun one - instead, this particular obstacle should either mean instant death or it should be an unavoidable part of the level design which doesn't prevent the player from finishing.
The actual game camera should not follow the vertical movement of the player so closely, as it makes landing on a platform at the same height as the last one much more frustrating than it should be - level 3 was where I gave up due to this problem in addition to falling through the floor one too many times.
There seems to be some inconsistency in the writing as well - the villain says he will blow you up at the end of the 10 second countdown, so why does it say some about releasing gas the first time you encounter the laser that starts the timer? That was a little fourth-wall breaking...
The lack of audio really hurts the atmosphere, too. As I mentioned, I couldn't bring myself to get past level 3, but from what I saw the level design could definitely use some improvement. I just noticed in your screenshot that you can duck, as well, although I don't believe that was ever explained in the game - I simply jumped past that particular obstacle.
Nice art and good mechanics. Pretty weak implementation of theme in my opinion, but it is present (fuel cans last 10 seconds). The pirate behavior was a little exploitable - you can just hover outside of their follow range and shoot them without any reaction from them. Desperately needed audio. Overall, pretty fun to play with a good amount of depth added with the trading system, just needs some more polish.
The difficulty of the red maze in the second level, coupled with the floaty nature of the movement, completely frustrated me to the point of quitting.
Interesting concept, and the graphics are functional, clear, and also pretty nice to look at with the 3D effect while moving. The audio leaves a lot to be desired, though, as without music the game feels pretty bleak. A sound for changing colors would have been nice, too.
Great art and concept. Controls felt good. Difficult without being unforgiving. Enjoyed being able to break my own path at times. The music doesn't loop perfectly, which bugged me a little, but that's probably my only criticism here. Good use of the theme, and solid gameplay.
I like the art style and the sound effects. The gameplay is pretty simple and doesn't offer a whole lot of depth. It's not really what I would call tower defense, despite the fact that you are defending a tower.
Also, I believe that using a music asset that you did not create is in violation of the rules of the 48 hour compo.
I liked the various minigames, although the dancing one was a little weak. The platforming felt a little off since your player jumped when releasing up instead of when pressing it. The writing was pretty decent. The art was quite crude but had a good amount of character (the dancing fat dude was especially fun). The lack of audio really hurt this one, though. The theme also seems pretty weakly implemented. Overall, it was engaging enough to keep me playing to the end, but ultimately pretty forgettable.
A pretty weak take on the Rainbow Unicorn-style game. The player should be further to the left of the screen instead of squarely in the middle so that you can see the obstacles sooner and react instead of memorize the level layout. The graphics and music are very rough, and the controls don't feel great. The theme could have been implemented more interestingly, but at least it's present. Overall, not very engaging and doesn't bring much of anything new to the table.
God-games are not my forte; I'll just get that out of the way up front. The art, sound, music, and introduction story are all very nice. The music and sfx set a perfect mood for the gameplay and the tiles are clean and fairly easy to read. The meteorite sound is perhaps a little too loud, but that's probably not so unreasonable and it doesn't seriously detract in any way... just a small nitpick.
The gameplay itself is a little tedious at first, having to un-lava everything doesn't really give much of a feeling of accomplishment, but when you start growing algae and fish and everything, it starts to become more engaging.
I'll confess I didn't make it past the stages of rodents cropping up, as I lost interest with trying to figure out how to progress from that point, but as I said this is not my preferred type of game so it's probably more my fault than your game design's. So, keeping in mind that I didn't really delve deeply into it and also that I didn't read your spoilers in order to have a more organic (heh) experience, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of risk of failure here. Your fish and other wildlife don't seem to starve if you neglect to place food near them.
The theme seems pretty loosely fit into this, as well, since as far as I can tell you just arbitrarily described your little helper planet 'children' things as 10 seconds each and made 6 of them so that they add up to a minute. Maybe this is expounded on later, but it seemed pretty irrelevant after the introduction was over.
Overall, I'd probably enjoy it more if it was a little less puzzley and a little more arcadey, if that could be accomplished within this kind of game. Like I said before, though, the aesthetics are great and definitely kept me playing longer than I had expected to.
The framerate was really low for me. For some reason after completing level 2 it told me there were no more levels, so I had to pick the next one manually from the main menu, and then after completing the actual final level, it took me back to level 2 again. The level editor button was greyed out and did not function. The graphics looked pretty decent, but the aforementioned fps issues were disappointing for me. The lack of audio also hurt the atmosphere quite a bit. The thematic implementation was pretty weak, since none of the levels took even close to 10 seconds to finish, and most of the obstacles would kill you before you ran out of time anyways. The art and color choice were nice, though, and there is some solid potential here - with a lot more levels of increasing difficulty and more importance put on the 10 second time limit, this could be much more engaging.
A little difficult to understand at first - the character art style made me think that it was a side-view instead of top-down for a minute. The switching mechanic could have been explained a little bit - I couldn't figure out why I couldn't switch to the 4th guy at first. Collision could be cleaned up a little, too.
The art is good, aside from the perspective weirdness, and the music is cool, too, but it could have used some sound effects for opening doors, the bomb ticking, maybe for switching characters, etc. Would have been nice to have more levels, too, as the three here aren't particularly difficult. Still, it's a fun concept and relatively polished.
An interesting idea that could be executed a little better. The theme is pretty loosely tied in - gaining 10 seconds or losing 10 seconds of life depending on how you respond to people. I would have liked for there to be a little more to the dialogue mechanic than just a positive and negative response. As it is, it doesn't feel like you're really connecting with the other characters very much. Might be nice if the player had to solve some simple puzzles or help the other characters in some small way in order to be rewarded.
It's a bit tedious to move around and talk to everyone, and there is an issue where it seems like pressing enter makes you talk to the last person you bumped into, even if they are on the other side of the map. The art is simple but functional. The music is thoughtful and matches the mood, but sounds a bit too basic - would have been good to build on the theme a little more. Some sound effects for the dialogue would have been a nice touch. The writing could have been a little more engaging - there are a couple thoughtful remarks, but it's mostly forgettable, which is not good in a dialogue-driven game like this.
I played through once, but I didn't experience enough challenge or emotional resonance to care to try and get each ending, especially with the time a single playthrough takes.
The concept is interesting, but ultimately this game is too stressful for me to have any fun with it. I got pretty far, but I have no idea how far I was from finishing, and it became almost impossible to keep up. I am not the fastest typist in the world, but I think the premise makes it a little inaccessible. I'm not sure how the theme fit into things, also. The atmosphere is well done. I did notice a couple typos, but not so many that it seriously detracted from the experience.
The wind element adds a level of randomness to the flight path that I think detracts from the basic premise of the game - finding the optimal angle and release speed. Somehow, I got a perfect flight the first time, but was completely unable to get more than a few seconds after that. I think a list of the attainable achievements would be good, too, so players know what they are trying to do beyond getting a 10-second flight time. The music was acceptable for the style of the game, but not exactly pleasing; the art was similarly basic.
Fantastic art and audio, and the gameplay was very engaging too. Somewhat weak thematic interpretation, but that's easy to overlook when everything else is so strong. Side note: I tried to go to your soundcloud page via the link in the game but for some reason I'm just getting a blank page with the soundcloud toolbar at the top, and it still happened even when I took the s out of https:// or typed in the address manually. I wanted to follow you. :(
Anyways, great work!
Nevermind, it finally loaded!
Super charming, very funny, and challenging gameplay to boot. I felt like the collisions could be a little unfair - I hit a lot of obstacles that it looked like I would miss, and I missed a lot of medkits that I thought I would hit, but seeing the death descriptions for the different obstacles made it less frustrating and more entertaining. The music is inspired, for sure, but unfortunately doesn't loop completely seamlessly - but that's a minor issue. I would have liked some sound effects for hitting the various obstacles and the medkits. The theme is used to great effect. The phone calls from Mom and the cutscenes between levels are great rewards for finishing levels, and the ending is perfect (what a twist!)
Overall, super solid experience. Great work.
Good mechanics, very fresh. The art is good at establishing the atmosphere - love the plants swaying, the bubbles rising, and the character's health/breath indicator is fantastic. Definitely needs audio, though - felt very cold without anything there. It was also a tad on the difficult side - maybe starting with a few built-in air pockets, and later having to using the plants to survive would have been a better way to go? Anyways, the difficulty put me off getting further than a few screens, so I'm not sure how much more content there is here, but I did enjoy the freshness of the gameplay for the short period I spent with it.
Fun concept, solid gameplay, intuitive controls. Art could use some polish, and the lack of sound or music really hurts.
The art looks quite nice, but the lack of sound effects detracts from the experience. The music does a good job of setting up a dark mood, which strangely somehow seems to work with the contrast of the character's sprite. I think the music should continue to loop instead of restarting when the level restarts after death, though.
The movement and jumping would probably feel a little better if they were faster, and the block moving mechanic is not super engaging, in addition to the glitchiness of the physics-based blocks. I think this concept would work better as a pure platformer with maybe some light puzzle elements, while using only movement keys to interact.
Solid concept and gameplay, good character design and animation, okay sound effects (though there definitely could have been more of them). Not in love with the backgrounds, they didn't seem to fit with the character sprite well. Desperately needed music in addition to the clock ticking sound.
Cute art style and sound effects. Not in love with the music, but it works okay. The gameplay mechanic is not my idea of fun, but I don't particularly like micromanaging things. It's a solid concept and a pretty good interpretation of the theme.
The concept is great, but the random nature of the level generation makes it kind of pointless. If you had levels with a clear difficulty curve that had a guaranteed solution, this would be a lot more compelling. The art is great, and the music is good enough (if a little repetitive). Would be nice if there were sound effects for asteroids colliding or the character deaths (or as you put it, not being alive :D).
Fantastic art. The concept is fun and executed well. I would like to see either difficulty levels or perhaps an endless mode where you opponents get progressively harder. The accuracy mechanic feels a little unfair to the player, since the enemies don't seem to have a similar system.
The theme seems a bit loosely interpreted, but the 10 paces vs. 10 seconds actually feels fresh after playing so many 'finish the level in 10 seconds' games.
The sound effects are great, but the atmosphere could be greatly enhanced with a couple of short music loops - a title theme, a round end theme (possibly with win, lose,e and draw variations) and a game over victory/defeat theme would add a lot of character to the game.
If you have no musical inclination, I may try to whip something up for you in the next couple days, as I really like what you've got so far and would be happy to collaborate, if you're interested.
Well done!
Just saw your explanation of the theme in another comment, changing my 'theme' rating to 5. Got to love that wordplay. :)
Not a bad concept, but could be executed a little better. Would be nice to have an indicator that shows where the traitor is when he's offscreen. The start collecting mechanic adds a nice extra layer of depth, but they could be a little more spy-themed. The art is a bit overly cartoony and could use a little more polish, but I do like Dan's character design, especially that distinguished 'stache.
Definitely needs some spanky spy-theme guitar riffs for extra atmosphere. The voiceovers sound pretty good, although Dan's line is a little too quiet. More sound effects, like wind wooshing and the parachute opening/fluttering would also be nice.
Interesting idea. Intuitive control. Would have liked an indication of which shaped block was going to fall next. Not a super engaging interpretation of the theme - it seems like if the blocks were going to stay past 3 or 4 seconds, they would have no trouble staying for 10 seconds, which made it feel a little arbitrary. The sound effects are alright, but the music is not great. The faces on the blocks are a nice touch which give the game a little more personality. Overall, not bad, but not enthralling, either. Some small touches would make it more rewarding and addictive.
I played the web version, and had difficulty because the window is larger than my resolution. When I switched to fullscreen I encountered a new difficulty: whenever I pressed ESC to skip the intro, I exited fullscreen mood.
The concept is pretty interesting, but I wonder if having a countdown to your next attack would be a good idea? Or possibly having your attack recharge every 10 seconds but having to push a button to actually expend it? The art is great, the sound is good, but the controls felt a little weird - sometimes my character would pull in one direction while moving, and I encountered some odd behavior with the ledges which caused me to fall to my doom (which looked pretty cool, I must say). I would have liked to see something happen beyond the game stopping when the player is touched by an enemy.
Interesting gameplay, but the flying is not floatey which is what makes keeping up with the cupcakes long enough to eat them so difficult. You could also have made the cupcakes take less time to eat. I like the art style, but that music was really annoying after about 30 seconds. Would have probably been okay with just the guitar, but that vocal part is not pleasant. Could use some more sound effects, like one for when you finish eating a cupcake and reset your time, one for finishing a level, and maybe some others (flying sound?)
Love the play on words with the theme. The writing was also great. Actual laughter was produced when I had to 'prepare the duck' but failed, and then I failed to prepare the veggies for the duck, and yet somehow the customer loved his dish because I got enough of the other steps right to make him forget that his plate had no duck or veggies on it.
The actual gameplay part of it was pretty well done (get it?), with a pretty decent difficulty curve and tight, responsive controls, but some of even the later puzzles could be solved by waiting around near the spawn for the green circle to come close. There was at least one instance where it seemed to be impossible to reach the goal in 10 seconds, but with the scoring being as forgiving as it is (who needs food when you've done such a lovely job turning on the stove and heating up the oil?) it didn't bother me much.
Could have desperately used some sound and music, even something really basic would have sufficed (and probably matched the art style as well). Also would have liked to see a list of how many of the customers were satisfied at the end of the game in addition to the points total, to keep the personality that is so strong in the game alive in the endgame.
Kevin:
The movement being limited by your attacking is what helps to balance the weapons, so that the more powerful/useful weapons (like magic and the bow) are a little bit riskier to use.
BlueRage:
The bombs are definitely tricky, but pretty powerful if placed correctly, as they can potentially deal three damage to a nearby enemy. I may rebalance things slightly by making the enemy's invulnerability period shorter, making the bomb do more hits, while increasing the magic speed to prevent it from doing multiple hits (it goes through enemies which already seems powerful enough to me)
Mclogenog:
I thought about making multiple arenas a la Super Crate Box, some of which may have helped with the cramped feeling, but ultimately didn't get around to it. Perhaps in a future version.
OldPeculier:
It definitely helps having done a top-down Zelda-like game in Game Maker before! I've also made several arena-style survival maps for HL2 in the past, from which this draws some influence.
Here's a breakdown of my weekend from start to finish:
I came up with the concept at like 12AM Friday night and got out of bed to work on the basic framework for a couple hours, but a crash took out my first hour or so of work. Frustrated, I restarted and got back up to where I was, then put together all of the art before I went to bed at like 2:45. The next morning (after waking up at 9AM because my GF was going to work) I knocked out most of the sound effects in a short time (I really love working with BFXR), added in some extra mechanics like the pits, and touched up the UI.
Last night, my '80s cover band had a gig, so I had to leave for setup and soundcheck at 1:30 and didn't get home til about 5:30, at which point I had about another hour to work on the game - I threw together the battle music and the title screen music during that time. I got home after the gig at around 2 and I was completely wiped out so nothing else was worked on then.
Today, I fixed up the UI some more, refined some of the sprite depth code and tweaked the weapon balance a little bit to make running out of ammo pretty difficult to do. I also put together a death music theme which I'm pretty happy with. I added in the powerups in the last couple hours or so of the compo before I submitted and went out to gorge myself at a Chinese buffet. :)
Thanks to everyone for playing and leaving me feedback! It's definitely a pleasure to hear that people enjoy my work.
proc:
At one point I made the sword able to kill the wizard's attacks, but that made the sword feel super OP to me. I'll probably reduce the cooldown from the bombs, too, as they seem a little skewed on the risk/reward ratio. Thanks for your feedback!
dekart:
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it! You can check out some more of my music at http://www.soundcloud.com/rob-dooley if you'd like.
lcass:
Don't give me credit for that, I used Game Maker Studio, so all I had to do was click HTML5 from a drop-down menu :)
Everyone else:
Thanks! I'm super happy so many people are enjoying it! I'm sorry the bombs are so crappy. :) I'm brainstorming ideas to make them suck less.
The art and sound effects are okay. The music doesn't do it for me, and I hate the way it restarts every time your turn starts, as it's not on beat and it sounds very jarring.
The gameplay is not super deep or engaging, and I really dislike that the 'Place Unit' button is across the screen from your side of the map, as it makes playing with a touchpad mouse extremely difficult - I could never place as many units as I wanted before running out of time.
The concept itself is kind of interesting and seems like it might have some potential for depth, but the implementation is not super engaging and kept me from wanting to improve. I think having a simpler unit creation control scheme would improve the gameplay drastically, since it relies so much on quick mouse movements. Perhaps a right click to scroll through the unit types and a left click to drop it?
The graphics and interface are pretty decent. The controls are a little unsatisfying... I would like there to be a bigger sense of speed and weight in the boat, instead of just stopping when you let go of the movement keys. I had an issue with not collecting a cat even though the side of my boat was touching his raft thing, so it might be better if there was a slightly larger area for the collision detection. There were also some issues with getting stuck inside of the rescue station.
The music is not good, nor does it put me in a kitten saving mood, and the lack of sound effects really detracts from the atmosphere.
Seems like we had a similar idea for concepts. :)
The art style is not bad. I especially like the way the enemies dissolve when they die. The vocoder weapon names sound great. The lack of sound or explosion for when the player dies is kind of a let-down, though. There definitely needs to be some beat-heavy music to set the mood, too.
I think the weapons could be balanced a little better, and some visual feedback of the cooldown on some of the longer recharging weapons like the shockwave would be good. I kinda wish you could use keyboard buttons to shoot, too, even if it would limit your aiming abilities. I tried playing it with a touchpad on a laptop and it just didn't work well. It would work with a gamepad if it had directional shooting, too. The movement feels a touch too fast for me, as well.
The art and sound effects are good. Needs some pumping music, possibly with a more subdued version for when the enemies get deactivated. Not a fan of the button mashing weapon firing, though - definitely a repetitive strain issue which is a big dealbreaker for me. I would much rather be able to hold down a direction to fire, and it wouldn't compromise the gameplay at all.
The concept is pretty interesting but I think it could have been explored in more engaging ways - every level seems to play out the same: mash attack at choke points until the enemies are deactivated, then kill as many as you can before they reactivate and you resume mashing attack at the same choke point. Maybe if there were two kinds of enemies and when one was active the other would be deactivated would be more interesting. Anyways, it's got a certain charm to it but I really just can't get past the control scheme.
Very fun, good use of the theme, sound effects were spot on, and the art style, while basic, does its job perfectly. The music is not bad, but I don't really like the guitar sound in there all that much... might have been better with just pure synth, staying true to the aesthetic. Also left me wanting for some big arpeggio sweeps, but that's just my inner shredder talking. :) The screen shake is a great touch. All in all, very enjoyable - challenging yet accessible.
Great art style and concept. The sound effects aren't bad... they serve their purpose, but could have been designed a bit better. The bad guys get alerted too easily - they should have to have a line of sight on you. The second level was unbeatable for me, couldn't figure out how to reach the lower platform without hitting the spikes. Definitely needs a super cheesey '80s style chiptune soundtrack to complete the atmosphere. Not a bad interpretation of the theme. Tight controls (with the exception of that falling mechanic which is what I assume kept me from beating level 2).
I really enjoyed this. The gameplay mechanic is a great interpretation of the theme, and ties in with the story beautifully. The story itself is great... very sincere and powerful. The ending is a little underwhelming to me but that might just be because you set it up so wonderfully. The art style looks great and matches the story beautifully, as does the music and the text-reading sound effect. It could have possibly used a couple additional sound effects for things like doors or getting the items, but it didn't bother me much. Overall, a very polished and engaging experience. Great work!
Fun mechanics, good difficulty curve, and a cute, polished art style. The audio is nice, too, and fits the art perfectly. Lots of fun... great job!
Art, music, sound, and concept are all great. The physics of the food seem a little wonky, though. I'd like to see it drop a tiny bit slower and be a little more forgiving to avoid having a giant sausage plugging up my pothole (heh heh). The bouncing food mechanic could use some more feedback, too, such as having a little multiplier text follow the food after it's been bounced, along with a pleasant little bleep or bloop.
Love the art and the sound effects. A little background music would be nice, but I don't really miss it for this style of gameplay, and I think the silence between the countdown sounds and the rocket blasting off and the coin noises actually works really well.
The concept is cool, and a great interpretation of the theme. I had fun stacking the food items careful at first, but I quickly switched to a strategy of 'click as fast as possible and overload the screen with food' which worked surprisingly well - the only level I didn't pass in one or two tries was the last one. If you wanted to dissuade the player from this style of play, you could limit the number of food items that can be placed for each attempt.
I was a little disappointed that there was no win screen. Even returning to the title screen would have been better than repeating level 12 again. I figured it was the last one due its name, but I was robbed of some of the satisfaction of beating it by not having the game give me any recognition of that fact. That's probably the only thing preventing me from giving this a 5/5.
I love the art, and the sound and music are both very well done, although I didn't like the lack of a jump sound. The jump also felt a little bit too fast, especially compared to the movement.
The random level generation is a good idea in theory, but with the levels having to be so short with the 10-second limit, it doesn't really feel fair to me - there are some that are ridiculously difficult, and then some where all you have to do is jump a couple of times and you're done, with no threat of death at all. I also had a level where I was immediately dropped into lava, which was obviously not thrilling.
I think having predesigned levels with a clear difficulty curve would make more sense in this format, or at least having the level generation have some logical progression of difficulty. The randomness does add a replayability factor, but it simultaneously diminishes the feeling of accomplishment you get from progressing.
I also think having a short count down at the beginning of the stage might be a good addition, as it would give the player a little bit of time to assess the level before throwing them into panic mode, scrambling towards to exit door (assuming the level difficulty isn't completely shot by the randomness).
In short: fun concept, but a bit too abstract for my tastes.
After playing a little more I see that the level generation isn't random, but the order of the levels seems to be. I still feel like having a clear progression of easy to difficult would make more sense, and I still dislike that level that has a gap to the right of the start which is directly over a lava pit.
Atmosphere is lacking due to lack of music and no time-up sound. The concept itself could have been a little more interesting, too, I think. Sometimes the red circles would be directly on top of a green or blue circle, which was frustrating. Definitely playable, but doesn't hold my interest for very long.
The art is great but the gameplay mechanic, while an interesting concept, is too frustrating to me, especially when combined with the speed of the enemies. The lack of music really highlighted how much I hated the jump sound, too. :(
I don't really see the theme in this. Really lacking in atmosphere due to the bland visuals and absence of audio. The gameplay wasn't too compelling to me, either.
Great concept and visuals. Would have liked some music.
Didn't understand that I could shoot on the second level after having tried (and failed) on the first - had to come back to read the controls.
The difficulty curve is a little high - would be nice to have more levels gradually increasing the challenge.
I loved the first half - the concept was fresh and fun to wrap my brain around, and when the difficulty increased adding a second player helped smooth it out. When the second player gets removed, though, and it switches to a traditional platformer, it lost its charm for me. I tried far too many times to beat the killbot (or whatever) level - not out of enjoyment, just because I wanted closure on the story.
Really nice visuals and the first half felt very cool, and though I was disappointed that it switched to the standard platformer format halfway through, the levels were still well-designed. The sound effects are good, but the music is too repetitive.
Wouldn't be surprised to see this near the top of the results. Very polished.
Nice art and cool gameplay mechanic - would be nice to have the instructions in the game rather than on the page, as having the game start and immediately dying due to not knowing what to do was a little frustrating. Might want to list the movement controls on the page (unless they are already there and I just missed them) as I didn't figure out how to move at first, either.
Cool visuals and interesting toribash-esque gameplay, but doesn't seem to have a lot of depth or skill involved. Needs music.
If you make it so the bottom doesn't stop your horizontal motion it would control much smoother - that or just lower the bottom way down and make it kill you if you touch it - also have the ocean get darker as it gets deeper. I like the game mechanics and the art. I hated not having a restart button and just sitting at the bottom. I would also recommend making the player do a generic auto-dive if no special dive move is selected.
Hey dude, I chatted with you on GameJolt with my suggestions for this game: add some kind of lose condition - enemies/obstacles/jetpack fuel - and some SFX and music would make this AWESOME. good job!
Fun gameplay, art looks pretty good. SFX and music are a little weak, but definitely not terrible. Good job!
I absolutely LOVE this game! My only criticism is that the note lanes should be in the middle of the screen, semi-transparent, so you can watch the cat-player do the platforming while looking at the falling notes. You could even have it veeeery slowly slide back and forth across the screen. I think the screen could move a bit slower to the right, too. The art and music are AWESOME.
I know everyone seems to think I ripped off Flappy Bird, but to be honest I've never even played it! Obviousloy I've heard of it but really it's not a difficult design to arrive at - tapping to control vertical movement has been done in plenty of games before... not exactly a ground-breakingly novel concept. :) Thanks to everyone for playing and I'm glad you all enjoyed it so much!
My highscore is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000 - try to beat that! :)
It says press any key to start, but no key (including the mouse) works.
The room with tons of boxes and multiple players gave me massive slowdown. The walljumping felt clunky - you move too fast back towards the wall and you can only walljump when moving INTO the wall, so it makes doing the bouncing back-and-forth thing not work so well. The art is simple but clean. The audio could be more developed. The slowdown issue previously mentioned was a deal-breaker for me, so I didn't see how much content there really is.
Aw man, that intro screen with the newscaster is SWEET! Loving the gameplay, but when the planet destabilized and I didn't get to see is blow up I was SO DISAPPOINTED! Haha. I know it's not a good thing to blow up a planet (or ex-planet, since we're talking about Pluto), but still... a videogame about space mining can never have too many explosions in my book.
I just made that connection after playing and NOT failing the misson, haha! Fantastic game, seriously!
The health bar being yellow on white makes it really difficult to see peripherally - should be yellow on black or something high-contrast like that. The sprite works is decent, and the SFX are about the same - what really kills it for me is the lack of music. Good gameplay, but weak thematic interpretation IMO.
This is a lot of fun at first! You should be hurt by the obstacles to make it more challenging - is it even possible to die?
I love the art and the music ain't bad, but I don't think they really match each other, somehow.
your web link just leads to the source, not a playable version.
I like the art and gameplay. Wish there was some music.
Super adorable. Lots of fun. Great job!
Love the art!
nice ui and sound design, wasn't hugely invested in the gameplay
very polished! love the art and music, never been into clicker games but this was fun and impressive.
very fun gameplay! the soundtrack is rocking, too, only wish it were longer.
fun and interesting risk/reward mechanics, would greatly benefit from music, and maybe having a lower number of target gems and multiple levels with increasing difficulty/speed. good job!
very fun, great asthetics, throwing mechanic is difficult but rewarding. great game!
enjoyed the music. interesting mechanics.
i got lucky with the rng on my best run. loving this game. great job!