FoonLudum Dare ExplorerUsers → ecmjohnson

ecmjohnson

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMo
202557Depths👥Bowldingjam7902.912.973.502.802.863.36
202354Limited SpaceCARGOMBULATORjam10043.002.892.893.313.212.303.30
202353DeliveryDark Teethjam5753.583.283.733.733.63
202046Keep it alive👥Beat Sturgeonjam5183.803.323.754.233.834.214.013.70
201944Your life is currency👥BATCLASHjam3.303.302.912.503.833.833.503.33
201843Sacrifices must be made👥AkimBearjam484.114.063.662.994.484.064.053.90
201841Combine 2 Incompatible Genres👥MotherDuckerjam2653.773.613.543.023.753.934.043.72

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Scatterplots

Fun vs Overall

Innovation vs Overall

Theme vs Overall

Graphics vs Overall

Audio vs Overall

Humor vs Overall

Mood vs Overall

Comments by ecmjohnson

LD43 — Sacrifices must be made

F.O.U.R. by Ava Skoog 2018-12-30T03:04:01Z

Great game! I really liked the minimalist aesthetic. The story was really interesting and developed given the time constraints. Kudos on a great game!

Neon Kata by Marco 2018-12-27T22:22:58Z

It's a lot of fun! Quite tense too. Ice mode was the worst and I instantly regretted that choice. :ice_skate: I really liked the visuals and the post processing adds a lot to the look. The frogs, I don't get :frog: Great entry!

Assault on The Sacrificial Humans by exilegl 2018-12-30T02:39:00Z

I really liked that the defense towers shoot their damages at enemies. The pixel art is really well done too! I wish that the text scroll at the start was a bit quicker (or skippable) and that escape didn't immediately quit the game (since I hit it a few times trying to drop the selected tower). Overall, well done!

Stand On Dignity by pndaa 2018-12-27T21:23:42Z

I love the idea! Very funny and well implemented. I felt that the player felt a bit slippery in their movement, but that's pretty common and they still felt quite controllable. The art was excellent too, particularly the background trees. Overall a lot of fun!

Beyond by MouthlessGames 2018-12-27T04:39:32Z

I really liked the atmosphere and the visuals fit very well! The point-and-click felt very heavily reliant on the computer. The coffee preparation sequence was the best implementation of the mechanic, with the computer providing the hints for what to do next. :coffee:

Escape The Sacrifice by Pete 2018-12-27T19:27:25Z

Excellent game! Love the models and the connecting puzzles. I got totally stuck on the vending machine puzzle and referred to the comments to finish the game (I knew where the second battery was, but couldn't figure out how to get it out). Ingenious puzzles though! I should have persevered.

I couldn't get the WebGL port to work. I saw the reticle, but no other models. When I tried the desktop build, I had no problem.

Overall a great game!

Rude Bear Responsibility by alexrose 2018-12-27T05:22:41Z

It's great to play a game with voice acting! Also, I love the art style and whimsical humour!

There were a few issues with sorting order when I was moving rude bear around, particularly in the kitchen.

Overall a lot of fun! :bear:

Elwik Mage Academy by mrjoshuamclean 2018-12-27T19:50:54Z

That's a great visual novel you put together very quickly! I especially liked the self awareness (stand out moment is starting at Lythwin and the comment about all the offices appearing to be made from the same template) and could even have enjoyed more of this (everyone playing the game knows that it was made in 72 hours and that could be a fun element to play with in this format).

I did feel that the contrast between the pointillist backgrounds and pixel art characters was a bit harsh. I did like both on their own and it clearly distinguished the characters from the backgrounds so maybe it's just something to get used to.

The sounds and music are great and add a lot to the visual novel format! Overall I really enjoyed my time at Elwik, but I needed to advance my career by moving on to Lythwin.

Supercharged Juggernaut Wasps by gaspard 2018-12-10T23:23:37Z

I really liked the time slow down effect while you "aim" your mini-wasps! It made for some hectic moments when a large number of bullets were closing in. I'm impressed you guys wrote all this with only GLFW, SFML, and FreeType over a weekend!

Cyberdisc-0 by Hi Im Greg 2018-12-27T18:39:34Z

I love the cyberpunk aesthetic, especially the rippling cube "river"! I found the combat satisfying and the animations are excellent! The level design was consistently challenging without ever being too hard (although I did cheese the last encounter by luring them one at a time). The controller support felt very natural.

I would have liked a bit more strategic depth in the encounters, maybe a block or some way to handle multiple enemies easier. Overall though, it felt remarkably complete for only 72 hours! Excellent work!

MARATAKA by Vodzik 2018-12-27T21:36:24Z

The models were really cool and it's awesome that you guys made a 3D game! I especially appreciated the villagers fleeing when I decide to sacrifice them. Very funny and fun!

Destructor 32 GMS by Erik Brunnstrom 2018-12-27T17:02:38Z

I really liked the concept here! I found it very satisfying finding a new station and trying to find the target signal. There was quite a bit of challenge for some stations when a lot of signals overlapped and I wish I'd been able to abandon some stations that were too hard. Overall I really enjoyed learning how to play and I found it very satisfying!

The Cave God by pranjalbisht 2018-12-29T22:22:50Z

Great game! I found it very satisfying to sacrifice things and the flavour text was excellent! The art as well was great, although the walking animation felt a lot like small hops. Overall it was a lot of fun to play!

HELL by Smeax 2018-12-05T01:50:18Z

Wow, very solid! It all feels great (especially the minigun)! I agree with @adventureislands that the high enemy health diminishes the feeling of power that the guns feel. Other than that, excellent! :bear:

Internal Affairs by AMastryukov 2018-12-27T22:38:56Z

This is a fantastic game! Initially I thought it was too easy, but I didn't realize I could have values that got too high as well. This led me to get too shy on building numbers up for a few games. Every decision feels important and strategic. It does get a bit repetitive after a while (maybe adding something like random events could break up the monotony some). I love the look, sound, and atmosphere (the flavour text for deposing people is a brilliant element). Excellent!

Graveyard Gladiator by NotSpaghettiGames 2018-12-24T23:04:09Z

Love those models and animations! The attack seems to turn the player into a wrecking ball that can just run through all the small dudes. I also didn't seem to take damage from the minotaur when I started just wailing on him. Kudos on the excellent characters and animations!

Consilium - A history of life and choices by Gaming Night 2018-12-10T23:47:37Z

Beautiful look and the audio is great! I found it a very relaxing experience, despite the score and time pressure of trying to keep everyone progressing together

Pyres by flynn 2018-12-27T05:10:51Z

I really liked the look and feel of your game! The blood spatters during combat was a nice bit of polish and the sounds added to the atmosphere.

The game is missing an element to make the combat sections interesting. Now it's just waiting around with no communicated reason not to just hack away on heavy attack.

Bloodcaster by YongminPark 2018-12-09T22:59:12Z

Excellent feel and a great take on breakout! The screen shake is beautiful!

Shamanigans by SnoutUp 2018-12-09T23:10:19Z

This is a cool concept and I love the small Earth since it allows you to see different options and make connections about how to combine them! The lack of audio is very noticeable, but even without it the game is a lot of fun

Horny Demons by Team Infernus 2018-12-09T23:57:00Z

I found this game quite fun, with the excellent illustrations for actions (especially the mundane ones like working and shopping and, of course, the random demon illustrations) adding a lot! I would enjoy it more if playing cards "felt" better. Like, e.g. having them burn up instead of just disappear.

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-05T17:17:41Z

@matoux42 I'm really sorry you had issues with the game! It might be related to the controller you used (we tested with Xbox controller), but then the keyboard issue wouldn't make sense... so I'm really at a loss. If you can :bear: with me for a bit, I'd love for you to email me at ecmjohnson@gmail.com with your setup details (e.g. controller type, keyboard type, machine, windows version).

@gerardb I'm so glad you had fun playing! We spent a lot of time on feel and look so it's great to hear it payed off for you!

@theonethatneverwas Thanks! We put a lot of attention into the polish (including some really sticky bugs with showing multiple :honey_pot: for health) and I'm glad to hear it was worth it!

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-07T01:30:14Z

@mohrro Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it! We used the theme in the design: the player must sacrifice forward progress in order to shoot.

@legavroche Thank you so much!

@edward-dassmesser It really is much easier and makes more sense with a controller

@tekses I'm glad that you realize Grizzle is the coolest bear in town! We were planning to add more sound effects but the time limit squeezed those out.

@lavinski Thanks for the kind words!

@tpamir Thank you! We wanted to have some keyboard controls so that everyone could experience the game, but we definitely realize that, despite our efforts on tweaking them, they're really not the optimal input method.

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-07T22:22:11Z

@drekler We did think of doing that, but decided against it for various reasons. In retrospect I think we should have gone with that scheme, then at least it would better match the difficulty on controller and allowed everyone to experience the full game. I'm so glad you like the art style! I worked on the reflection system and it was not an easy thing to figure out so I'm very happy that you liked it!

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-07T23:56:49Z

@gentoogames We find that levity and humour makes the creative process much more fun!

@sodaraptor :wink: That's part of the story. I've noticed the framerate drops (seems to be especially noticeable on the web build) and I'm not sure what the cause is. It's somewhat hidden by the fact that we intentionally dilate time on some events, but I do have the nagging suspicion that there is something to optimize (I guess there really always is...). We already pool all the things so I doubt it would be garbage collection, maybe physics (those bullet casings...) or the double rendering for the reflection? I'll have to look into it more when I get some free time. Thanks for commenting on it and, of course, playing!

@lilou-cormic Grizzle is one :dark_sunglasses: :bear: Thanks!

@jesse-santana Thanks a lot! I'm glad you picked up the controls!

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-08T00:23:25Z

@aj-jones Glad that the difficulty was fun for you!

@deemoo You're cool! Thanks!

@acoto87 [We find the joy in the polish.](https://bit.ly/1xrSWQh) Thank you!

@gizmolo Bringing a smile to your face is exactly what we wanted! For our polish, I think we owe that to how we worked as a team. Our programming of new elements early on managed to keep slightly ahead of Jeff's assets which let us delve into adding the camera effects and reflections. Thanks for playing!

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-08T00:27:27Z

@saoi-games Thanks for streaming AkimBear! It was cool to watch someone playing it! We are, of course, very sorry that it was such a challenge with the keyboard. Also, we regret not having a tutorial or in game instructions to help with picking it up for the first time. Although it didn't take you long to figure out the keys!

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-27T16:05:47Z

@franciszek-pyrc Hmmm, I've never seen that myself, but it's definitely possible. I use a script to scale the transition to fit the screen. If you know how it was caused or could send screenshots, I'd really like to know more; my email is ecmjohnson at gmail.com. I'm glad you found the game funny! Apprise your confidants! :gun: :bear: :gun:

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-27T17:13:09Z

@franciszek-pyrc Ah.. that makes sense. I should have spent a bit more time testing the WebGL port for those kind of issues. Luckily the rest of the transitions will be computed from the new window size, so it'll only be first menu transition that will be messed up. Thanks for the find!

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-27T21:12:03Z

@smbe19 Thanks, friend! I'm glad you enjoyed it! We really stole our game's sauce from Vlambear :bear:

I appreciate the feedback on the slowmo; next time I'll tune it to be a bit subtler :timer:

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-29T17:48:31Z

@ratherjolly Hey, thanks a lot! We are very proud of it! :gun: :bear: :gun:

@shakedimus I'm glad you enjoyed it, even with a keyboard! Thanks for the feedback on the movement mechanic! We understand what you mean about it, but we really like what it contributes to the choices a player is required to make. Maybe it would have been better handled by us if we clearly communicated the mechanic and how that interfaces with the timer

AkimBear by ecmjohnson 2018-12-30T02:08:12Z

@hare-software Thank you for the kind words! We're glad that you liked it! We really enjoyed playing Escape from Arex and we actually had a question. We were wondering if the guy you had to kill at the end was the friend who’s in the picture hanging in your house? We had a wicked row about this so we'd really appreciate the clarification. I think that's your character's wife in the picture and you discover that she's missing (to be continued?).

@emperor-eagle Thanks a lot! :gun: :bear: :gun:

Oregon Tail by DoctorMozart 2018-12-05T01:17:27Z

I really enjoyed the variety of the events; I never really knew what to expect next (how do fish roll dice?). The music is excellent and it's great that it changes when interactions occur. The missing text after encounters was noticeable (what happened when I drank from the pool?), but such is the nature of the time limit! Overall, a lot of fun seeing what strange, new things would happen on the Oregon Trail!

Cheela by Shakedimus 2018-12-27T04:57:48Z

This is definitely missing some polish, but I find even the core loop to lack an engaging element. This concept might be interesting if there was an element of choice or sacrifice in choosing which of your units to kill. Maybe a unit's strength being inversely proportional to its number, so a very low number would be bad to keep around in terms of victory condition but very strong against fending off the enemy.

Kudos on doing things from scratch! You definitely didn't make it easy on yourself by implementing selecting units and issuing commands from scratch. 3 days can disappear quickly to technical issues when there are so many problems to solve.

Running Low by Daniel Grinshpon 2018-12-27T17:50:51Z

I really liked the concept and the pixel art is cool! The sound of destroying the spider robots is very satisfying as well. I think this is a solid take on the theme and encourages choices and a focus on accuracy of shots. I would have liked shooting to be more satisfying (e.g. bigger bullets, screen shake, etc.) as well as more feedback when I get hit (e.g. white flash). :robot:

I had a few technical issues running the game. Obviously the big one is the resolution scaling issue. I think you should treat this as an issue with the game to be learned from (instead of blaming Windows) and next time test in a VM or with different resolutions of screen.

The second issue I had was with Itch's app trying to run the game. I got the following error:

where_is_love.PNG

Now I could understand a non-technical person having an existential crisis about the meaning of love not being in their path. I can't really suggest a fix you could do for this though, and it's easy enough to just open the download location and run it from there so it can find some love. I reported this issue to the Itch team as it seems like something they could handle on their end.

Just delete them by Dock Frankenstein 2018-12-29T22:39:09Z

Great concept! It also worked very smoothly too for such a novel mechanic. Kudos!

Vikrifice by Lucidus 2018-12-05T00:46:12Z

Stellar level design! The length is also impressive given the time limit! I find the logic of using a cat to lure out the animals to be a beautiful thing. The platforming was very tight, but I did find myself a bit disconnected from it and a few more animations (e.g. jumping, falling, etc.) probably would probably have helped that. Overall very good!

Santa's List by koltzow 2018-12-05T00:10:48Z

I love the mood you've got here! The loudspeaker announcements add great flair and the music is on point for beating elves to produce more christmas presents. I do wish there was a bit more to do while waiting until the next round of beatings, like maybe having to stop bad gifts or something similar (quelling dissent periodically is a good suggestion) to split the player's attention. I like the implicit high score mechanism in minimizing the number of elves killed.

LD44 — Your life is currency

Seaway by Constantin 2019-05-04T22:41:38Z

Love the design and aesthetic! The world is excellent and sailing through the biomes adds some nice variety. I did find it a bit weird that the bullets from enemy ships disappear when you vanquish them. I'd love to know how you implemented the scrolling world.

BATCLASH by ecmjohnson 2019-05-04T22:00:00Z

@geckoo1337 Thanks! We put a lot of effort into the aesthetic. For the waviness of the enemies, that is a vertex displacement shader (moves the vertices of the models over time). I used Unity's Shader Graph and made minoar changes to what you see [in this video](https://tinyurl.com/y2nafpnf)

BATCLASH by ecmjohnson 2019-05-04T22:01:51Z

@volatile-dove We had a blast racing each other in multiplayer at the end of the jam. During our race, one member of our team lost a huge amount of time due to that glitch; I played around with the idea of clamping their height values, but it was too late to risk a change like that

BATCLASH by ecmjohnson 2019-05-04T22:03:28Z

@franciszek-pyrc Thank you! :ghost: The walls in the first level are quite bizarre since it sometimes uses the convex mesh collider from the wall and sometimes is patched with invisible collider blocks... I should have just used invisible collider blocks the entire way which also would have been good for performance

A.N.D.Y.R.U.S.exe by Dock Frankenstein 2019-05-04T22:22:09Z

Really cool concept! It would increase the polish if you prevented the nighttime text adjusting to center align as it appears (most jarring when the line wraps)

LD46 — Keep it alive

The Messenger Assist by graebor 2020-04-24T15:17:44Z

Really cool idea and the polish is fantastic! I love the feel of un/plugging the aux power cables. The puzzle aspects are fairly simple here, but the potential for more complex layouts and systems is obvious. Excellent job!

TITAN, OPSND by Dario Zubovic 2020-04-24T16:14:57Z

Great execution and the images from Titan look great! I really like the typing sounds and the inclusion of compiler errors is very helpful. The manual design is quite good as well.

My Fair Planet by SethPaxton 2020-04-23T19:02:35Z

Really cool idea! I loved the minimalistic aesthetic as well. I would have enjoyed the controls more with a keyboard option for the tractor/laser/freeze to avoid having to move the mouse away from rotating the Earth. There also could have been more angular drag on the Earth rotation since it feels really floaty and that makes lining up the whatever ray challenging (and not in a fun way).

Beat Sturgeon by ecmjohnson 2020-04-22T13:42:43Z

@piggles That's an excellent suggestion! We did talk about requiring the mouse input to sync with the beat, but not about removing the dragging. That would have felt so good using the inter-beat times to move the mouse and then clicking on the beat. Thanks!

Beat Sturgeon by ecmjohnson 2020-04-23T19:48:10Z

@thibaud-ligneul @matthew-hrehirchuk Thanks for the feedback on the intuitiveness of the game. I always like to avoid having tutorials in jams because they introduce a lot of potential bugs and become overly hacky (even by jam code standards). One thing I think we could do in the future is add a static image describing the mechanics after clicking play, but before things become hectic. This would allow us to include demonstrations of where to look for certain UI elements.

Lamps by qkjosh 2020-04-24T15:49:06Z

Great atmosphere and really cool mechanic with the bark lighting the lamps! I struggled a bit to discover the goal, but I enjoyed that aspect of the game and didn't find it too hard to uncover. I wish that the mechanic with barking to light lamps tied more directly into gameplay (e.g. to keep track of places you've already been). I didn't realize that this was a signal of the direction to go until I read the description after I played.

Feed the Fire by Benjamin123 2020-04-23T14:56:39Z

The bloom effect really helps the look of the game! I liked the concept of the player and enemies being this trail of colour changing squares, but I found it a bit hard to track my characters exact location when I needed to dodge enemy missiles.

Last Light by PORTABLEWAFFLE 2020-04-23T14:46:28Z

I really liked using the flashlight to scare away the floating creatures (Darkers?); the shadow cast by the flower is particularly cool. The main character looks great. The visuals and audio really evoke a moody feel to the game. I found it ran a bit slower than I would expect in my browser

Together by Ulcius 2020-04-23T19:37:25Z

It's wonderful to see a game designed without relying on combat mechanics, and even more so to see a game that tells a story through its interactions. The argument section was painful and I really wanted to avoid saying any of those horrible options which created some distance between myself and the player character.

Snake by Kosmik123 2020-04-23T15:03:50Z

I really like the concept of controlling the snake by placing targets. The ability to create a pile of apples and force the snake to eat them is fun, too (although I'm not sure if that was intentional). For me the game freezes after reaching the checker area on the first level.

Tough without friends by miroreflect 2020-04-23T18:48:34Z

I really like the black and white look. The music escalation at around 50s is a nice detail as well. I would enjoy it more if you didn't have to return items to where they belong at such a slow speed. There were many times where I'd catch him on a different floor and I'd barely have time to return the item. Also, it always feels cheap when you lose because of something off-screen without any idea. A timer to show how close you are to losing would help a lot with that frustration.

do not go gently by nsadie 2020-04-23T19:18:44Z

Looks really good (especially the text on the notepads) and it's a cool concept! The choices to expend ammo to deal with varying degrees of monster feels great. I agree with @japes that it was a bit easy. I tried restarting and didn't have the radio parts crossed out.

As an aside, the WebGL build had UI issues for me (missing numbers for health, fire, etc.; notepad text for radio parts and final writing missing; numbers on deck bags), but I downloaded the windows build and everything was fine.

LD53 — Delivery

Derry by Rakowu 2023-05-04T21:58:25Z

I really like character design, the twiggy acorn with a blueberry head is a very unique concept! I was a hoarder and loaded up on everything when I learned I could carry many seeds and water. The control and jumping felt solid to me, but I was missing some more audio feedback on the actions. The message at the end was heartwarming and felt like it fit well with the gameplay and mood created by the music. You delivered a great game!

Faking It by Hannah 2023-05-07T21:02:00Z

Very funny concept and it's quite hectic to play! Also, a different take on the theme is always nice to see. I did wish for stronger feedback when elements were failing or succeeding; I thought the tentacles were good for that since slapping them felt good. You delivered a great and very funny game!

Dark Teeth by ecmjohnson 2023-05-01T20:47:55Z

@volnyii Once pulled is normally enough for most teeth. Thank you for playing

@rigel I'm glad I could share my mental state with you

@peterfiftyfour <3

Dark Teeth by ecmjohnson 2023-05-02T11:46:18Z

@greenwooddrive Only the best 3D scans of teeth from the Corporation for Biological Research in Colombia would match the vision

@kykypy3o8 "Express dentures"

@svenerik @matthew-bond I'm glad you found pulling multiple teeth simultaneously satisfying. Normally we are only allowed to do them one at a time

@adam-gaskins Hmmmm, now that sounds like another game idea

@alex-chertilin @booremi :heart:

Dark Teeth by ecmjohnson 2023-05-04T22:50:18Z

@theg I envy you as there can be no greater joy to (legally) removing other people's teeth

@ciderpunk Thank you, but be careful as treats can rot your teeth

@rakowu Oooh, that's an idea I'll try. I wanted the movement to feel heavy. No angular acceleration may still feel heavy while being more responsive. Thanks for the idea!

@space-games :heart:

Dark Teeth by ecmjohnson 2023-05-06T00:13:25Z

@weeping-rupee Thanks for recording your play session! I have separate tutorial texts which are switched depending on whether a gamepad is detected or not, and it looks like you got the gamepad tutorial text. Good notes about mapping the right stick to turning and having a reticle; really no reason not to do those. Your ideas for detecting harpoons around the tooth are simpler than what I actually did which involved taking the dot products between the vectors from the tooth center to harpoon, anything over a certain value (say 0.95) is too close

@merrow I'm glad the mood was convincing about the need to remove teeth wherever they are found

@smoky01 :heart:

Dark Teeth by ecmjohnson 2023-05-11T22:46:18Z

@jdemattos It would be pulling teeth across the body: different biomes like stomach, intestines, but always pulling teeth from where they don't belong

@adjo A crosshair is a good idea and would fit with the heavy tank idea

Freight of BOOOM! by Merrow 2023-05-06T21:53:56Z

A very novel concept! I found it very hard to keep track of which robot is controlled with which keys, but that makes it feel like there's a lot of depth to had in this idea. It feels like an idea that could develop well with different puzzle ideas. You delivered a game with a very unique idea!

MailBeats ✉️🎶 by Adam Gaskins 2023-05-06T21:18:30Z

The songs are great and I enjoy the application of the theme! I wish the delivery sounds had a disable or volume slider since I would prefer to hear more of the music and I found them a bit intrusive. You delivered a great rhythm game!

Supply Heroes by SvenErik 2023-05-04T23:31:42Z

Very addictive strategy game! This game really gets its hooks in you over time. At the start, I was bored waiting, but then at the end I had to be constantly tending to the health of all my cities while trying to get the last few cities. The difficulty was very well tuned! One very unnecessary detail I noticed: when adjusting the sound effects slider it would be good to play random sound effects so the player can gauge how loud they will be relative to the music. You delivered an excellent game!

De-Liver by AlexFSmirnov 2023-05-07T22:19:09Z

Very cool idea from de-liver! I initially tried to cut around the whole area until I realized that I was to cut on the white, then I was fine. I really like this idea for surgeon gameplay and I think with a few additional mechanics it could very easily hold my interest longer. You delivered a unique surgical game!

Deliver the Cube by peterfiftyfour 2023-05-06T00:46:30Z

This is very compelling! The concept is brilliant. It's very addictive when you start understanding and are building towards an objective. I would have liked to know how well-powered things are and have some visual feedback on things connecting to the conduit. Also, the side opposite the sun is very dark and I struggled to build on that side. You delivered a game with huge potential!

Forklift-em-up by BadPiggy 2023-05-01T21:30:08Z

Very satisfying to play! The feedback on dropping the crate is particularly good. You delivered a solid retro brawler involving a forklift

Desert Mayhem by uniquecorn 2023-05-07T21:57:18Z

Very cool concept! There's something oddly satisfying about improving your car by grabbing body parts off the ground. Also, the chase cars mowing down the wastelanders is great! It felt very clunky when the chase cars caught up and surrounded my car if I got stuck on something. You delivered a great game!

Delivering Lustful Spirit: Desire Manipulation by Eclair 2023-05-02T02:02:32Z

The explanation of the mechanics is very good and the transitions show a solid attention to detail. The idea is very unique and demonstrates a very strong vision! Excellent use of voice lines. I wish the character didn't block clicking the desire target points and I found the speed gained from some to be too much or register in a delayed way. Overall, you delivered a great game!

Machine Meltdown by Stefan Funke 2023-05-02T01:34:38Z

I like the attention to detail with the tutorial and snowman/scientist's instructions. I liked the difficulty (took me many tries to complete) and the art is gorgeous. I would have liked more feedback on taking damage, particularly from walking into the body or getting hit by the hands. You delivered a great game!

Amethyst by booremi 2023-05-06T00:58:30Z

The music is great and the audio slowing down when you fail is a great touch. I appreciate the leniency with collision, not failing on slight hits. Although sometimes it can feel odd and a bit slippery when you slide through the corner of a block

Monster Bunker by kykypy3o8 2023-05-04T22:45:15Z

I like this take on the theme. The initial pickups placed above-ground are a good mini-tutorial. I agree with @twobitadder in that I would prefer to be making some decisions where I felt I was just always going for the nearest ammo available. Something like the pickups only lasting a certain amount of time to reward planning ahead or making risky attempts to reach the ammo just before it expires. Thanks for delivering this very unique take on the theme!

Pizza Pete's Peculiar Predicament by Space_Games 2023-05-04T22:20:59Z

The level of polish is really excellent, with the menus and transitions being fantastic! I don't think I ever figured out the one-way doors which seemed to open only when the character was moving, so I would jump for ones in the ground to go down. I found the gameplay fun, although sometimes it could get more frustrating when I knew what to do but would miss a couple times and know I would fail. I would prefer a scoring/grading system, to failing when running out of time. Even if you gated progression on finishing under a certain time, finishing the run would at least allow off-clock practice and a certain feeling of completion. Thanks for delivering this great game!

"I Do Extra Good!" by Flightyfelon 2023-05-06T21:45:20Z

That was very satisfying! I enjoyed getting a huge trail of happy customers to support my future deliveries. The fires are a great touch as well, particularly how the buildings burn. The character is great as well. I found the movement a bit wonky (not in a good way) when trying to do fine adjustments to pick up a package. You delivered a very funny game!

Wasteland Express by Gasimir 2023-05-02T01:48:01Z

Very addictive game! The art style is very chaotic and I like it. The difficulty is well-tuned and I enjoyed struggling to keep up with these demanding customers. The tutorial at the beginning is very appreciated in onboarding, but I missed that I had multiple people until a while through my first run. On my second run, I encountered a bug where my people disappeared and I only had a single person running all the errands. You delivered a great game!

The Delivery of the Message by GreenwoodDrive 2023-05-04T22:33:38Z

The music supported the "hectic chase" feeling very well! The context of delivering a peace message also gave the gameplay weight. It feels like a solid base on which to add further mechanics. I find the water level in your above gif a particularly good fit to the desert setting and could invite a risk-reward decision around heading for or stopping at an oasis to fill water as the enemy soldiers are closing in. You delivered a game with a lot of potential!

LD54 — Limited Space

Fowl Play by Simon Rahnasto 2023-10-08T15:47:04Z

Excellent overall! I particularly like the framing as a play, which makes it feel very unique!

CARGOMBULATOR by ecmjohnson 2023-10-03T13:37:38Z

@dovodx Very good points! The visual element to know when cargo can be attached could have been flashing the indicators yellow/red when in range. The ping on the ground would be a helpful indicator as well, but I would want to come up with a diagetic way of integrating that information into the world

CARGOMBULATOR by ecmjohnson 2023-10-05T13:14:48Z

@depression I do think the darkness gives it an eerie feeling, which I hope is reinforced in the sound scape

@jbartelsson I've just been playing too much Balder's Gate 3 and really wanted to do a free roam camera :)

@bmacintosh Nice score! There is an audio cue (thump sound effect) that accompanies the jumps the box makes, but it was so annoying when the player was near multiple boxes that I toned it way down. I think some sort of visual cue would be helpful; maybe stretching the box slightly in the direction of the jump

@rankb I'm glad you like the darkness! I like the stark contrast it gives the player's spotlight and the darkness hides my utter lack of 3D modeling skills ;)

CARGOMBULATOR by ecmjohnson 2023-10-10T14:39:59Z

@fatemperor @hyper-ion Thanks for playing! I'm glad the atmosphere turned out well

@siberpunk01 That's a good idea! I didn't play around with the height of the camera once I set it and a more zoomed out view might have suited better

@real-flamingicecubegames Thanks for playing! I'm pretty happy with two distinct boxes to show the idea, but shrinking the target zone may have worked better for a smaller scale. More visual feedback on the carrying was something I wanted to have: I looked into an outline shader, as well as a lightning bolt between the player and boxes being carried, but I ran out of time

@yoss-iii Thanks! Ah, the timer should reset when start is selected, but I can see how that's confusing

ADEPTH by MarkElliott 2023-10-08T15:20:04Z

Very eerie! The mood is really well established and the visuals fit very well. The assets having different levels of detail are a bit jarring however: Screenshot_36.png

Attack of the Robot Crabs by Dovodx 2023-10-08T14:29:02Z

Shooting the crabs is very satisfying! I really like the crunchy sound effect and the way they disassemble with the antennae becoming dark. With the default gun being a shotgun, I would really like some more feedback on multi-kills. It would be nice to have more feedback on the player being hit. I always like screen shake or color separation. Very well done!

SUPA SEAL-MAN!! 小さな氷山島に魚の事故!! by MoonDweller 2023-10-03T22:47:08Z

An excellent game! Truly the encapsulation of an ideal jam game

MY_MEMORY by jamdong15 2023-10-10T23:46:56Z

Great idea for the theme! I really enjoyed my time playing and it was curious to see how strong a character the inner monologue of thoughts creates. I found the act skimming and digesting each thought to decide if it had long term value in 3 seconds very addictive!

Light up the Room by rubatotree 2023-10-10T23:33:23Z

This is a very cool concept for a puzzle game and I really like the chill mood! I found it a bit hard to gauge what level of light the ghost could tolerate

Whispers in the Shadows by Dan_Nik_SG 2023-10-08T15:04:45Z

I enjoyed figuring out what to do and then puzzling over the poems, which were overall well written! I would echo what others have said about the importance of audio. I've had very good luck for sound effects and music on [Pixabay](https://pixabay.com/users/pixabay-1/), with my last couple of jam games exclusively using that as my main source for audio. Make sure to trim online sound effects since they will frequently include a bit of silence at the beginning that can affect timing! For free online assets, it's good to always provide attribution, even where the legal obligations of the license do not require it

Limited Sanity by kenevil1 2023-10-03T22:37:45Z

The visual style is great! Some way of showing the targeted object (e.g. slight tint, outline) might fit better with the lack of UI than a crosshair imo. I think there's some weird setting for physics since the objects don't sleep properly when I put a plug on top of a pizza box. I had a hard time inferring what to do, just from the game alone. Overall though, the mood was very unique: I was oddly zen, cleaning up in an eerie environment

LD57 — Depths

The Void by Iluvatar 2025-04-09T23:55:28Z

The atmosphere was great! I found the text somewhat hard to read, but maybe that even led me to take longer in reading than normal. It was really nice to go through an entire story

Bowlding by ecmjohnson 2025-04-08T01:00:47Z

@delunado Thanks for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed it!

@beebster-games I'm sorry that the tutorial question mark was not more prevalent. I figured that Alt+F4 would always be possible, but escape might be more intuitive and I'll make sure to include that in the future.

Bowlding by ecmjohnson 2025-04-11T00:28:09Z

@rachenite I did try to make the levels each their own puzzle where each part could be valuable, but I spent the most time on the flail and it's never useful lol

@exteegi I agree; the single jet engine build is op. That's what I was using for testing, with a spike on the nose and plates for wings for aesthetics

@helloimbenjamin Thanks for playing!

Bowlding by ecmjohnson 2025-04-11T00:31:31Z

@hit3c I appreciate your attempt to impale some pins!

Bowlding by ecmjohnson 2025-04-11T23:42:01Z

@jormundly Thanks! I find it hard to prioritize adding a tutorial to a jam game since I always want to add more content or polish

@coyotethursday I was very much thinking of the unhinged bowling alley animations when making this

@alem26 I appreciate you playing this weird experiment!

Bowlding by ecmjohnson 2025-04-13T13:28:41Z

@noodlehoof Thanks for playing! I always struggle with the long process of tuning for feel; needs such a strong vision of what the final product should look like

@mrantoinest I appreciate the feedback :)

@steven-garberg Glad to hear the music and graphics create a vibe!

@eloc Thanks! Music was by [Pocket Moon Games](https://pocketmoon.games) and their game [Wormhole](https://pocketmoon.games/games/wormhole) has more of that!

@olenikimid I really appreciate the details! Definitely features I would had liked to do, but were a bit too much for me in the time. Initially I was thinking of saving the layout of modules for quick reloading, but I prefer just keeping the last layout when retrying. I was actually surprised how quickly the undo feature came together, so maybe I'm overestimating the complexity of implementing those features... Thanks for the detailed feedback! <3

@willianfhs I'm glad you enjoyed the flail! That was my fav module to implement, but I found it unfortunately underpowered compared with the madness I envisioned it bringing

Minion No. 1067809362 by ZuhairGhias 2025-04-11T00:06:43Z

Really well done! I liked that it was complete and the level of polish was very high: the elevator animation and the ticking sound during the countdown stood out to me

d6 pool by Uzpykes 2025-04-11T23:47:40Z

Fantastic concept! The physics were great and the zooming between depths was really well implemented! Only the auditory space was a bit empty without any music or sound

Well Gnome! by Delunado 2025-04-09T23:45:14Z

Great game! The chaos of the late game made me smile, as did absolutely launching the gnomes into the well! Snatching a piece of treasure out of the air was really rewarding, even without any incentive. The audio was really good, with the sound of the gnomes being grabbed a highlight. I'm not sure about the decision to change sensitivity as an element of difficulty.

The Adventures of Wormington by Logan_Core 2025-04-11T00:24:42Z

Really cool game! The concept is really strong and it feels really good to play! I found it quite challenging and I was frustrated whenever I died trying to recollect the gold I'd dropped when my body got it

Onkalo by Chronicpain 2025-04-10T00:14:41Z

Fantastic art style! I was impressed how the cat affected my playthrough and it made me think how the options at the start would affect the story. I found the atmosphere really strong. The ominous foreshadowing when entering worked well as a hook, but I do wish there would have been a bit more in the text to invest me into the story. Overall really well done!

Nailed It! by Rachenite 2025-04-10T23:54:02Z

The sound in this is great! I really like the sound of hitting the nails and the music is great. The hammer character is really well done too. Would be great to have some way of varying the hammering a bit more than holding a single button that would carry it a bit better across a longer play time. Well done!

LD41 — Combine 2 Incompatible Genres

Bloody Battle by dib 2018-05-06T02:34:55Z

Interesting concept for an arcade game, had a fair bit of fun initially but found it slightly difficult to feel pro-[duck](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker)-tive without more direction (saw you're gonna add bosses which could solve this well enough). Not sure if you ever played the old Motherload flash game, but it could be neat to add the sort of lvls or areas to the map. This would probably add quite a bit of work but if you're planning on running with this game it could add a lot of increased play-ability through more monsters, maybe different blocks, bonuses or weapons etc. Nice game guys!

Jungle Rumble by masterkrepta 2018-05-06T02:12:19Z

This game was a fun intro-[duck](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker)-tion to a great concept! Would love to see this idea taken even further with more objects to throw or maybe more complex map planning. The AI of the NPC Ape was impressive and fun to play against. WEll done!

Twin TV by saintheiser 2018-05-05T15:33:39Z

This is a really great combination of two genres. Excellent idea!

Very consistent art style throughout. The transitions between levels were spot on and the challenge/escalation is very well thought out, as well.

And you did it all in [nest](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) to no time! Great game!

Text Based Adventure by patvanmackelberg 2018-05-06T16:50:39Z

Excellent game! Amading that you finished such an innovative and complete game in only 3 days! You must have had a very pro[duck](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker)tive three days. This has real potential as an expanded game too.

I think the final boss fight could use some tweaking. I fired all of my =>s at where the shots were coming from and never even saw Z. I did find all of the <0/1>s though, so maybe he would have been more of a challenge had I not hunted those down. If he had more health and escalated as he lost health instead of starting off firing =>s, I think that might make it a more epic fight.

Forbidden Love by abhimonk 2018-05-05T23:40:02Z

I thought that was great! The humour was [egg](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker)-cellent!

I did not expect anything in this game and that kept me guessing during the later segments. I could use more robust fishing mechanics, more bait, larger fish, male fish?

Orcs Attack by Querk 2018-04-29T00:56:11Z

Hey! That's a pretty sweet tower defense game! It's got a very hectic feel without any breaks in the assault which makes it quite fun.

It took a few tries to learn how to start off since you can screw yourself with the resources from the beginning (with the population count mainly, I never had any problem at all with the food: clearly these people are expert farmers). Being able to get stuck indefinitely on a lack of resources feels like [fowl](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) play from the game.

Submerge by ectucker1 2018-05-06T02:58:31Z

Definitely the best aqua[duck](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) game we've played yet! Really beautiful art style, the logo you guys had up for the game listing was crisp and clean. The cards and creature looked great too but could maybe use some more variation. The music was fun and fit the game well.The card aspect offered a new twist but it felt like its implementation was incomplete. Overall awesome game!

Jackhammer by jojocanard 2018-05-05T15:15:11Z

I really enjoyed playing through your game! The beginning dialogue had me hooked to finish it and I found the progression very solid; it rewarded enough and increased the challenge enough to keep me engaged.

I was a bit frustrated every time I had to retrace my "steps", although the assistance from shark mode helped a lot, but this was minor in respect to my overall enjoyment.

The music was excellent and really set the mood of the each section! The transition between underwater tracks was very well done and matched the increasing challenge well.

No spoilers, but I was disappointed with the ending. After the opening dialogue [quacked](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) me up so much, I was really hoping for more dialogue at the end.

The controls, while they could use a bit of work, fit the underwater feel very well. I also really liked the level design; it felt very well thought out.

Hyper Drift Mayor by DiFFtY 2018-05-06T15:00:45Z

Cool concept! I really liked playing as a cool cat politician (excellent artwork).

I found the time between elections a bit long and I could have used some music during the game to add to the mood. The fact that I had to change my priorities multiple times throughout to focus on different resources made the driving task quite a [bill](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) more interesting.

Bullet Hell Typing by BlazeXenon 2018-05-08T02:02:19Z

It looks and sounds great! Quite a challenge, but the [beak](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker)-and-forth between the mouse and keyboard is a really cool concept.

Trebuchet Town by Nuthen 2018-05-06T00:57:09Z

I will play any game with a trebuchet, clearly the best siege engine of them all. Wish we could have seen the citizens [duck](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) in cover as the trebuchet spawn flew through the air. We didn't hear any audio, there would be loads of room for added fun there. Beyond that it was a really fun game and as others have said is one of the best theme games we've encountered.

Zombie Slayer by jkniest 2018-04-29T02:03:16Z

There's something very satisfying about mowing down as many zombies as possible in one [fowl](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) swoop. I especially appreciated the touch that after you die the car is swarmed by a huge number of zombies!

Idle Escape Room by gimbalock 2018-05-06T00:24:41Z

Enjoyed this game a lot, gonna try to beat our time. Gotta [peck](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) those lock faster! Puzzles were good, the hit me ones had us [quacking](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) up. Only critiques are the timer doesn't reset after game complete (when you hit new game). Also the type here puzzle seems to be case sensitive. Thanks for the fun!

Deadliest Catch by Rudeboy 2018-05-05T17:25:16Z

This is a lot of fun to play with friends! Great concept and it feels very polished!

It could use some music to help it fully achieve the fun mood.

Excellent artwork too; the detail shown with the changing background is very much appreciated.

For a fun time playing some local co-op with my friends, I'd look no [feather](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) than this concept!

Forging Heroes by Guilb 2018-05-08T01:48:33Z

Excellent style! I love the visuals and models! Cool concept too, but I felt it might work better with two players. Maybe that's just because I [fowl](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) victim to the orcs so many times on my own...

Super Soccer by comenoha 2018-04-29T02:36:05Z

I really enjoy the feel and sound of hitting the ball! There's something satisfying about bodyslamming the ball around the field.

The menu and start of each game with the newspaper makes the game feel quite polished as well. [Nest](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) time you could increase the pace a bit, which is really my only critique.

MotherDucker by ecmjohnson 2018-04-29T02:20:04Z

@comenoha Thanks so much for the feedback! We had a music wizard who made all the music using his magic Maschine. I didn't get a chance this past week to check out any games, but I'm planning on going through a number before the end of the voting period

Do You Even Build, Bro? by HarveyU 2018-05-06T01:20:02Z

Really enjoyed fighting while [Bill](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker)-ding. Music was fitting and the concept of the two workers dueling it out was great. More weapons would be a welcome addition, along with maybe less health and weapon ammo drops. Only other major standout was the control bindings were quite awkward we found. Lots of fun had with this one though! :D

Shoot bullets in my head while I play golf by FabianLC 2018-05-08T01:39:28Z

I love the style! The choice of portrait aspect ratio works very well. Very accurate name too; that's what it feels like to play the game. There could be a more forgiving escalation in difficulty, but I'm not one who can cry [fowl](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker) on a high difficulty. Great music!

Cosmic Potato Trader Simulator by Delta Key 2018-05-06T01:53:31Z

The asteroid collision was a really nice touch along with a fitting sound track. Sadly my hopes and dreams [ducked](https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/motherducker)-off once my space ship decided it did not need me as its captain anymore and drifted off screen. Resizing the screen would bring it back on screen but immobile and as soon as it was resized it drifted away. The final potato count did not reflect my endevours as the best space potato pirate the galaxy has seen.