Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → elemel
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 60 | Old Tech | 🤖 | Switchpunk | compo | |||||||||||
| 2026 | 59 | Signal | Echo Chamber | compo | 228 | 3.15 | 2.90 | 3.63 | 3.90 | 2.85 | 2.79 | |||||
| 2024 | 55 | Summoning | 👥 | Unholy Sanctum | jam | 1179 | 2.71 | 2.39 | 2.00 | 3.63 | 2.67 | 2.56 | 2.32 | 2.30 | ||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Hamster Tank | compo | 348 | 3.35 | 3.42 | 3.23 | 3.46 | 3.39 | 3.30 | 3.90 | 3.13 | |||
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | Platform Hero | compo | 588 | 2.95 | 2.63 | 3.58 | 3.92 | 2.95 | 3.21 | 2.56 | 2.62 | |||
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | Wormhead | compo | 314 | 3.42 | 3.29 | 3.39 | 3.78 | 3.37 | 2.96 | 2.42 | 3.16 | |||
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Frontier Mining Colony | compo | ||||||||||||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | Adam | compo | 645 | 2.94 | 3.25 | 2.63 | 3.06 | 2.88 | 3.13 | 2.94 | 28 | |||
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | Heartbreak | compo | 1041 | 2.65 | 2.47 | 2.47 | 3.29 | 2.18 | 2.33 | 22 | ||||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | Gravitas | compo | 684 | 3.08 | 2.79 | 3.38 | 2.74 | 3.38 | 2.94 | 45 |
elemel leaves an average of 14.4 feedback comments each event.
Great mood, both cozy and menacing. Tricky to keep track of multiple boats at the same time. Liked the design elements with boats, reefs, treasures, and monsters.
The inventory control is satisfying. Graphics and sounds are good. The gameplay is unfortunately confusing. Main improvement would be to make it clearer what is happening, and what your are supposed to do.
Having fully mouse-based controls was tricky due to the moving target. I was captured near the end of the third night. Liked the details with the poster and the cat food.
This game is polished in terms of graphics, sounds, and controls. Really liked the mood of it. But the levels rely too much on trial and error. Maybe there was some pattern to it that I didn't understand. I ended up simply replaying the levels and trying different movement patterns. Since you couldn't retreat, it was usually already too late when you met the ghost. Would have been nice to be able to undo moves. Also found it a little weird that you could shine the light left and right (west and east), but not up or down (north or south).
Did I get killed by an avalanche? Was too zoned in on the beacon. Good job.
No enemy reactions. No drawback or downside to making mistakes. No checking of quest or win conditions. Boilerplate characters and dialogue. Radio only works outside. Disorienting cruise ship. Got stuck crouching (my bad). Lost mouse capture. Overall this is a 5/5, would cruise again.
Cool vibe and music. Also liked the intro. Exploration is mostly fine, but the constant turn-based combat encounters are annoying.
I liked the premise of the game, but found it too difficult. Maybe I'm missing something. Drivers grow impatient too quickly. Would have been nice with a more casual or realistic game mode, where you control traffic lights for all directions, and should get through as much traffic as possible in a limited time.
Nice mood with the graphics and sounds. The camera panning as you move around is a nice touch. As others have pointed out, moving around feels too slow, and the selection marker is too intrusive. Had to check a hint at one point. Didn't expect that I would need to walk away from the scene to complete it. The theme wasn't integrated into the game.
Nice take on the theme. Tricky to get the jumps right, and frustrating to fall down. I gave up after a few long falls.
I liked the idea of contacting and trading with other planets. Don't think the cryptic messages or the bombing worked that well for me.
A very nice interpretation of the theme, and interesting gameplay. Main drawback is that sometimes there is too much to do, and sometimes too little. But such is life at sea.
Nice game. Liked digging and hiding. Felt like a squirrel.
Cool idea. Game crashed after first level. And the panning and zooming seemed kind of buggy on Mac. But rewiring my brain was intriguing, and seems useful.
Fairly easy to understand what I should do, so good job on that part of the design. But I don't think this mix of turn-based and realtime worked that well for me. Avoiding taking damage is too hard, so you don't feel in control. (Or maybe I misunderstood something after all.)
Nice entry. I did not pay that much attention to the story in the end, but decoding the signals to progress the story did work well. You also managed to convey that mood of longing for reconciliation.
Enjoyed trying to figure out what the alien wanted. It became frustrating after a while. Checked the spoiler in the end. Overall a fun game concept that could work well with some more polish and levels. Seems like this could be a good mobile game.
Great atmosphere! Production quality was high for an LD game, with the booming vocal narration and epic scenery. Storywise, I did feel for the fisherman and his ghost dog, but it also felt melodramatic because of the limited buildup and development.
I love Overcooked, and this is a valid adaptation, though unfinished. I managed to summon some kind of stone golem. I think fixed recipes would be preferable.
That hell hound is one good boy. And this is a good game, with a lot of heart. Well done!
Nice take on the theme. Great characters, art, and storytelling. I also kept summoning Dave all of the time. Eventually, the game felt too repetitive and I gave up. But reading the comments here, I kind of want to give it another go...
Interesting concept! I found it a little frustrating trying to get the champion to pick up the equipment, but I guess that was the idea.
Solid entry! Enjoyed playing it. Even tried again to unlock a combo elemental. Would maybe have preferred a slightly slower movement speed, because I got stressed out. Also felt like the enemies almost spawned on top of me sometimes. But overall, really nice.
Very enjoyable flow to the game. Liked how blobby and swirly everything felt, including the cards. Found the drafting process confusing, didn't really feel like I improved my deck. Would have been nice with some upgrades for the character too.
Awesome graphics and animation. Also liked the brutal game concept. Found the gameplay too punishing, lost motivation after a while. Played it embedded in Ludum Dare, and kept ending up with the mouse pointer outside of the window. Probably a skill issue, but it's likely easier in fullscreen mode. Would have been nice with some short animation or delay between dying and restarting.
Liked the idea of summoning something that learned from your play style. It didn't seem like there was a way to lose. I didn't see any health when receiving damage, and never died. It would have been cool if the "copy" was like a pet, that you could co-op with. Incremental training while playing would also be nice.
This was a cool experience. Very arty and confusing. Liked the blend of text and geometry.
Great game! Best I've tried so far. Found it difficult to use dashing effectively and offensively, mostly used it to dodge attacks.
I got Sinister Sam. Liked the idea of "reverse" summoning.
Graphics were amazing, really spooky Halloween mood. Some sound and music would have improved immersion. Managed to collect one vase before I stepped beyond a wall and fell into the void.
I also had a huge black box floating around the screen, which basically made the game unenjoyable for me. Other than that, graphics and sound seemed fine. Physics and explosives are fun, but the theme connection could be stronger.
Nice puzzles, and the character animations were well done. Often hard to see what's going on due to gray on gray. Platforming was very unforgiving, and was more difficult than the actual puzzles. Didn't really read the story, might have been more effective with text screens between levels. Audio contributed to immersion. Overall a fine entry. There were some glitches with the collision detection, was able to stand on walls. Would also have been better if jumps and restarts detected pressing a key from released. Right now I could hold to jump (or restart) and things would get glitchy. Would have been good to somehow incorporate the theme into the core gameplay.
Brilliant little game that is more than the sum of its parts. My brain melted trying to identify and transform the different sequences. Made it to the boss once but couldn't defeat it. The retro graphics and sounds did the job of making this feel like a complete package. I especially liked the visual feedback on "levelling up" as you defeated enemies. As others have pointed out, some kind of difficulty progression would be a good next step.
Well done on finishing a game. Controls were pretty good, main frustration being that it was sometimes hard to see the mouse pointer against the background. Aiming then feels imprecise because it depends on mouse position relative to player. I liked the concept of enemies coming back to life, levelled up. You have a good base game here. One tweak could be to despawn enemies that are far away (or have lived very long) and respawn them elsewhere. Now they seemed to get stuck sometimes, and I had to go look for them.
The switching between styles was intriguing, but broke immersion for me. Felt more like an exploration of styles than a game. Still, it was impressive that you managed to produce this amount and variety of content in just a few days. As others have pointed out, some audio and music would really help. Also missed WASD controls, just used to having that.
Really nice experience, and some food for thought. Was expecting a game but appreciated what I found instead. Music was great, and did a lot for immersion. Would have liked more of a physics feel to the wheel. Used the Mac build, which worked fine after fixing the executable flag.
Nice art. Could "win" the game by just clicking fast without aiming. Would have liked to be able to restart without reloading the game.
First other hamster game I've found! The art looks great, and helped set the tone of the game. As others have pointed out, the gameplay suffered due to loose or unpredictable controls. Spikes were difficult to dodge for me. Snappier movement in some kind of grid would have helped. And giving some penalty or damage for missing instead of game over.
That was intense! Promising squash-breakout crossover that could use some polish. Was difficult to control the direction of the paddle, and the ball was too fast for me. Was also hard to see what was happening since the graphics didn't scale with the window. Missed a theme interpretation.
Really promising but I gave up on level 1. Liked the Portal worship and the idea of using your previous path as a platform. Didn't like the time or jump limits, I think these would work better as optional achievements.
Music really helped with the atmosphere. The barricades of stuff formed a good boundary of the play area, while also adding to the atmosphere. Combat was promising, liked how you needed to wait for the enemies to signal an attack and retreat out of range. Also liked that enemies could hurt each other. Attacks could have been more varied, there could be blocks or counters, etc. Missed a theme interpretation.
Really nice entry. Enjoyed the literal theme interpretation that added a simple but effective twist on platforming. The character art and animations were cool, but a little hard to see when zoomed out. Well done!
Really awesome feel to it, and the music was great. Switching weapons was really hard with a trackpad, would have liked to be able to switch weapons with e.g. number keys. Also missed some kind of theme interpretation.
Got lost in this for a long while. Great mood and intriguing game mechanics, which I have yet to understand fully. Would have been nice to start with a smaller level and ramp up.
Really impressed with what you've accomplished, both in terms of game design and technically. Agree with @quinn-patrick that it becomes repetitive to replay a long easy part and then hit a wall. Maybe add checkpoints between waves? Was also hoping for, or dreading, a boss fight at the end...
Seemed harmless enough on the first level. By the third level, I was in a frenzy trying to sort out the logistics. Really nice! On the downside, seemed a bit too easy to get stuck, but maybe that was just me not planning ahead.
Looks amazing. Any chance for a macOS build?
Psychedelic backstory. Didn't understand how to identify other bolbs as strong or attractive. Music was impressive, but maybe something trippier would have been a better fit. WASD movement in isometric view was confusing. Stay hydrated.
Survived! Switching between attack and defense felt frustrating, because defense was very weak compared to attack. Maybe switch between ranged and melee instead, or between different weapons? The clock concept was cool, but running around in circles grew annoying over time.
I think you have the foundation of a good game here. Liked the smooth movement, and the path finding was mostly fine. Downside is that there's no real challenge or choices involved. Death timer didn't add to the game. Would have been cool with some enemies, and being able to pause and resume work by stepping away and back.
Difficulty was well tuned for me. Hard to beat, but not too hard. Also found the idea of collecting upgrades for your next life interesting.
I like this idea. Had a hard time hitting the bars, though... Maybe add a fuzzier match system, where you can get "good", "perfect", "miss", etc? This could affect the damage done instead of stealing my hard-earned cash... Just a thought. Well done.
Unfortunately can't play this since I'm on Mac. Actually considered making a Tetris platformer for this Ludum Dare, but couldn't come up with a good game design or control scheme. The one you decided on looks solid and simple (in the good way).
Nice game! I enjoyed it. Won with Dr. Jo vs. Gears. The trivia questions were on a reasonably challenging level.
Kind of liked the idea, but the game felt unfinished and it was a bit hard to understand what was going on.
The lava stresses me out! Only made it to the spikes so far but might try again. The music really helps elevate the sense of fleeing from certain death. Well done.
``` > by HKoisumi (@hkoisumi), published 5 hours ago > Freaking amazing! Excelent work, wanna check ours too?? > https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/hype-time ```
@hkoisumi Looks like members of your team are spamming a lot... Do you even play other people's games before linking back to your own? If so, please provide specific and constructive feedback instead of generic praise.
Any chance for a Mac version?
Well done. Your take on the Platform Hero name and genre combo was better executed than mine. Made it to level 3.
The game was well made. But agree with other poster that it's annoying to re-select. Would also prefer being able to set another prisoner as target position, not just the ground.
Liked the art, but the game lacked challenge and variation. Understand that this has a lot to do with the time constraint. Some suggestions for future development: rivals or ghosts to race against, hills (uphill/downhill), different road types, depot stops (fill gas and change tyres), weather (rain might cool you off, but leaves the road slippery).
Nice game, especially the art. The drunk mechanic and the dialogue were fun, but not sure I understood the ending.
Played it to the end, and enjoyed it. As @cubeeo said, the game has a zen-like quality from the music and the joy of exploration. I do think that the game could benefit from some kind of threats that you could confront if you want to, or would at least have to avoid, like predators, swamps, traps, or hostile characters. I would also advice you to replace the sword with a bow, because that feels more appropriate for hunting. Other suggestions: add traps to catch animals, then finish them with sword (it's back!) or knife. Allow the player to wade into the water (distinguish between shallow and deep water), and gather clams. Add fish that you can catch with a fishing rod, a a spear, or with bow...
Nice game, especially for the limited time you had. Thought it was cool how the enemy ships would rush to gather the resources before you. Turning was too fast, as others have noted. With tweaked controls, and some simple music and sounds, this is a complete game that you could still continue to add a ton of stuff to.
I enjoyed it! But found it very hard to keep more than a few chickens alive.
Art was completely amazing! No sound in the web version. (And no Mac version.) Gameplay was too repetetive and not very engaging. But well done, will be interesting to see what you come up with in the future.
Graphics, music and sound effects were great. Gameplay was interesting but quickly became overwhelming. Didn't get past 1500 points, but should be able to with some more practice. Well done.
Really liked the graphics, mood and dialogue, but would have liked more choices -- the end game was completely scripted. Some music would have been nice as well. But overall, different and interesting. Well done.
Graphics and animations, music and sound effects are great. Being weighed down by stuff you pick up is an interesting idea but doesn't really lead to any interesting gameplay. Maybe you should be able to drop your satchel temporarily or something like that? Jumps are nice but it's too easy to fall off platforms. Camera moves around to much, even to the point where you can't see yourself. Still, a really impressive start.
Very impressive what you managed to do produce in this short time. Liked the art, music and dialogue. Forest dungeons with line of sight looked nice. Sound effects were a bit too sharp but OK. Gameplay quickly became tedious without any real challenges. Would be cool with upgrades, alternate weapons such as bow, and more varied monsters.
Kind of nice, but hard to aim with mouse while moving. Maybe some kind of target locking system could make it more enjoyable. Cool with fairly varied enemies and boss fights, though.
Really nice game. Liked the retro art and sounds. The shake effect when you are big is cool. I think the game starts to feel a bit repetitive after a while, maybe more game elements could be added?
Nice art, smooth movement and nice sounds and music. But I don't think this was my kind of game -- didn't feel like continuing after completing the first two levels.
Sounds interesting. Any plans for a Mac version?
Cool idea but it was kind of hard to understand what I was expected to do except press the keys as soon as they showed up... Tried another time and I get that you're supposed to do multiple things at once to level up, but then I find it really hard to keep up and level down again fairly quickly. Probably need more practice.
Really good interpretation of the theme, and well implemented in gameplay and level design. Agree with some others that it was too easy to fall off platforms, but still enjoyed it a lot.
Very different and impressive. But I think I enjoyed the concept and execution more than the actual gameplay. Also, accidentally broke the game by maximizing one of the smaller windows. Maybe add a button to reset the window state?
Not sure how long I've played this game now, but wasn't able to make it past level 3. Incredibly frustrating and difficult to get better at. Once you time the mana "rhythm", you get thrown off by the spell timeout or the movement of monsters and traps. Best game I've tried so far -- to me this is an instant classic.
Nice graphics, music and dialogue. The dialogue overlay ended up in the wrong place in the high-res build for Mac. Enjoyed playing the game for a few attack waves. The custom key assignment for powerups felt a bit awkward, would have preferred predefined keys. Well done.
Really funny! Like everyone else, I fell into a pit early on but still enjoyed the "game" a lot. How about a wings powerup to escape pits?
Different concept which sort of worked. Didn't feel that my coworkers got off my back after I helped them. Only managed to complete 61% of the project! Then again, I didn't understand what to do at first. Enjoyed the random chats and geek humor.
This is actually pretty good. Really like the setting, and the graphics and animations are the most successful aspects of the game. I think it would have looked even better if you had used the same resolution on the background and the characters. The platforming is fine, but it would have been cool with multiple paths. Combat is hard, wasn't able to defeat enemies without taking a lot of damage. (Might need more practice.) Never made it past the bridge -- is it possible to jump that far? Some music and sound effects would have complemented the graphics.
I like this genre of games. But it's hard to understand why the enemies die. Do they have a limited number of bounces, or do they die when they bounce too often? Also, there's no real threat to you. You should probably die when you collide with an enemy, or when an enemy breaks your line. Would be cool if you could kill enemies by capturing them with lines.
Looks really cool, but wasn't able to run the Flash version, and the Mac version didn't work for me either. :-(
I liked it! Hard to keep track of the sheep, though. Didn't make it through day three. Those poor sheep.
Suggestion 0: Lower the volume of the sound effects.
Suggestion 1: Implement flocking simulation so that the sheep stay together most of the time, and move a bit smoother.
Suggestion 2: Sheep dogs!
Suggestion 3: Sheep can fall into pits or get stuck in bushes. Fish them out with your staff.
Nice game. Exploring the world was the best part. Shop menu was also cool, but didn't understand whether the different gems affected gameplay. Jumps felt a bit too fast, maybe too much air control?
Frantic and fun. Liked the graphics. Was a bit frustrating with the hero sliding around on the floor.
Enjoyed playing this. Music and sounds were OK. Graphics and level design were good. Well done.
The game was really hard. Felt that I couldn't do much to avoid getting shot. Music was good and contributed a lot to the atmosphere.
Well done. Nice world and mood, but nothing to do. Also, I felt too constrained moving around. Would have been nice to be able to jump and climb. And maybe dig in some places.
Well done! Especially like the content (art and voice acting). It's amazing that you were able to accomplish all of this in the short time available.
Possible improvements:
- Wall jumps should be triggered by jumping close to a wall, not by jumping while pressing against the wall. This would make it a lot easier to alternate between walls.
Quirky and fun game! Really like how the music changes when you exit the museum. I think it's hard to play fluently when you control everything with the mouse.
I had to do "chmod a+x Monster\ Nom.app/Contents/MacOS/Monster\ Nom" on Mac before being able to play the game, but might have been me unraring it wrong.
Agree with others that there's too little visual feedback on your movement. Animations were nice, the rest felt unfinished. Keep it up!
Really liked your game!
Possible improvements:
- I missed being able to dodge. Dodge and fire laser would be a cool move. Also, smash could be initiated with dodge + punch, reducing the number of controls.
- It's not possibly to smash or fire laser while jumping. Jumping smash would be cool.
Nice game! I enjoyed playing it until my death at dungeon level 3. Maybe I should have realized that calling friends costs health.
As you and others already have pointed out, some music and sounds would improve on the atmosphere.
Trippy game with good atmosphere. I ended up killing my ex. Oops! I enjoyed the first part of the game the most. The combat part that followed felt disconnected from the first part.
Nice game! I like how you can decimate the prisoners early on and snipe the ones that are close to escape. My highscore was 25.
Possible improvements:
- The game could get progressively harder. (I didn't notice it doing that now.)
- Nailgun upgrades.
Very well written! I think the concept was fun but the game fell a bit short.
Nice atmosphere, I especially liked the sounds. At first I thought that the game didn't work, since it took me a while to find my character. Enemies were too easy, I could snipe them from a distance without them engaging me. I guess I was too far away for them to see me?
I couldn't run it using Jar Launcher 14.9.0 on Mac (Mavericks). The music started but the screen was blank. I also tried running it from the command line with "java -jar" (java version 1.7.0_25), but I got the same result, as well as this stack trace:
Exception in thread "Thread-8" java.lang.IllegalStateException: Component must have a valid peer
at java.awt.Component$FlipBufferStrategy.createBuffers(Component.java:3982)
at java.awt.Component$FlipBufferStrategy.<init>(Component.java:3956)
at java.awt.Component$FlipSubRegionBufferStrategy.<init>(Component.java:4479)
at java.awt.Component.createBufferStrategy(Component.java:3833)
at java.awt.Canvas.createBufferStrategy(Canvas.java:194)
at java.awt.Component.createBufferStrategy(Component.java:3756)
at java.awt.Canvas.createBufferStrategy(Canvas.java:169)
at ajay.ld31.main.Screen.run(Screen.java:87)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:724)
I made $412, the fruits should be impressed! The controls felt really wobbly at first, but they kind of grew on me. Nice and fun game, well done!
At first I was put off by the introduction, because the game sounded overly complex. But it played nicely and I managed to win! (Barely.) Well done.
Nice creepy atmosphere! One suggestion, have you considered having a flashlight that follows the cursor instead?
Beautiful.
Really liked the premise, soundscape and overall atmosphere, but gameplay fell a bit short.
Cool. I liked it. Funny background story. Frantic gameplay. The cable should have been visible, though.
I think this was pretty different and well executed. Nice work!
Clever idea, and well executed!
Quirky. I like it.
That made sense. :-)
Well done!
Well done, I enjoyed it! Wasn't able to complete it, though.
Fun and frustrating, just like marriage!
Nice little game! But it feels weird that you stop in mid-air when you release the left/right key. Also, would be easier to plan your way if you could see the attachment points.
Well done. I enjoyed it.
No collisions for me neither.
LD60 — Old Tech (6)
Textolite by perrarancino 2026-10-27T23:09:39Z ♥ 1
Player character looks cool and animates well. Wanted to be able to crouch with the melee attack.
Forgotten Pignology by sami822 2026-10-27T22:56:02Z ♥ 1
Struggled for a while, trying to understand what to do. Operating the grinder was challenging, at least with trackpad. Enjoyed the scenery with the lake and forest. Overall mood was dark and depressing, with some bittersweet beauty thrown in for good measure.
You... Bastet by johnnysix 2026-10-27T22:27:21Z ♥ 0
Promising start, but the game just feels too punishing. The save points do help a lot. Gathered a couple of gems, but eventually gave up after dying fifty times. Graphics and mood were good. Platforming could be improved.
Press Any Key! by Helgust 2026-10-27T22:13:05Z ♥ 2
Really impressive entry. Music and art was well done. Also enjoyed the writing, even if there was a lot to read. Pacing was uneven, either waiting around or having too much to do. Just like real life.
LiNX LiGHTSPEED by Cardboard Box 2026-10-27T21:42:26Z ♥ 3
Platforming was a little twitchy for my taste, would probably need to practice more. Did manage to plug in a lot of sockets and finish a few levels. Was there a way to die? I ended up rage-quitting after falling down too far, too many times. That part reminded me of Jump King. The arcade cabinet was well done, and it felt like finding some long-forgotten classic. Good job!
GEARBOUND by Ethernal Tech 2026-10-27T20:56:03Z ♥ 1
Fun game. Played a few rounds. The sound effect played when taking damage sounded like I was making money or something. Maybe the game was a little too hard for me. But apparently I should try Spark Coil. Well done!