Erasmus Crowley

Bullet Farmer by CMLSC 2018-08-13T00:38:30Z

I really liked this. It's an interesting mix of quick action and thoughtful decisions.

The audio and visuals are charming. The controls felt responsive, though the mode-switching mechanic on the gun felt uncomfortable to use and it would take some time to get used to it without it being frustrating.

I found myself repeatedly in a situation where I was out of bullets, the plants weren't grown yet, and I had nothing to do but stand there and watch until the plants matured. It would be nice if there was something I could do during that downtime.

Life itself by cdp_games 2018-08-13T01:42:10Z

I'm not sure what this game is trying to be.

The instructions were so vague that I had to decompile the game to figure out what the mouse did (because there is no source code, which is breaking the rules of the compo). Even after that I had no idea what I was supposed to accomplish.

I can't find any way to trigger a win or loss state. There is no score or progress. I'm not sure what to make of this.

The build even asked for donations when I tried to download it...

I wish I had something positive to say... The physics on the gravity wells seemed to work, I guess?

Setting Soul by Omniorcus 2018-08-13T00:26:53Z

I think I see what you were going for with a dramatic, kind of scary, maze navigation game.

The darkness, fog, and bloom-ish effects made it extremely difficult to tell where I was going, or where I was supposed to be trying to get to.

The text effects and the audio design were great, and they really got me in the mood for something creepy, but the gameplay just felt frustrating.

Stack Overflow by Erasmus Crowley 2018-08-13T02:24:52Z

@guardhei Mac build uploaded! I don't have a Mac myself so I can't test it. Let me know if it works or not?

Stack Overflow by Erasmus Crowley 2018-08-13T14:59:23Z

@guardhei Not a coroutine, but you're right that there is a set delay between one shape being 'set' and the next being instantiated. It didn't occur to me to reduce that delay when holding space. That's a really good idea.

Grey Goo by Willbl3pic 2018-08-13T00:08:54Z

An interesting idea for the theme.

I didn't really have fun with it though, I think because I didn't feel any sense of being in control. If I had a map, or sign posts, or a compass that pointed to the exit, or some way to judge if I was making progress, then I think this would feel more like "navigating a labyrinth" and less like "20 seconds until game over".

Turning with the keys felt slippery and hard to control. Either using mouse look, or having the camera snap to 90 degree turns when using the keys would have been better choices in my opinion.

Gunventory by Max Finch-Bretlaender 2018-08-12T23:41:06Z

When I tried this game I was pretty surprised at just how innovate and enjoyable the concept was. It seems well executed too. The screenshots definitely undersell the gameplay.

Audio (especially gun sounds) would have been nice, and could have helped to add to my engagement.

Something to work towards would have been nice as well. Maybe a progress bar at the bottom that fills as you cover distance and gives you a "good job!" screen.

Well done.

BioRampage by juan 2018-08-12T23:55:18Z

I think there is a very fun game idea in here, but this didn't quite get there.

The art style and the sound effects are pretty solid.

It quickly became difficult to manage the swarm of trucks, and more often then not they would ignore the box right next to them to drive to the other side of the map, so they felt like they became less effective as the map became more choked with trees. Maybe having them prefer to go to areas near them over areas further away would help with that?

It wasn't well explained that the palm trees give passive income, I assumed that I had to plant them and then harvest them at first.

Also, I still have no idea how the truck upgrade mechanic works, how to use it, or what it does.

Engulfed by OmnipotentIndie 2018-08-12T23:24:26Z

This is a well executed attempt at a classic idea. Maybe a little too simple to really be engaging in it's current form, but I could see this becoming very fun with some additions.

It would be nice if there was a rare enemy that would knock the portal back down a little to buy some more time.

Also, powerups that modify your weapons, or add additional weapons would add some very addictive (almost rogue-like) elements.

I loved the subtle pulsing animation on the portal, and the darkness below it. Great visual effect.

Clear The Sky by GettingRekt 2018-08-13T01:26:50Z

Programming the satellites is pretty unintuitive, but once you understand the user interface there is a surprisingly fun and deep puzzle game underneath it.

The things that confused me the most were:

A) It took me a long time to realize that I needed to click the "save program" button to make rockets use the commands I was putting in.

B) Clicking on a landing pad shows Rocket and Program instead of the type of rocket and the selected program. You then have to click on Rocket to see "CHECKMARK Bomber" and click on the program to see "CHECKMARK F". It would be a lot more intuitive if you could just see Bomber and F when you clicked on the pad.

C) I think restart should clear the pads and selections of programs and rocket types, but leave the programs intact so that you can iterate on a possible solution. As it was, I had to memorize or write down my programs and punching them in everytime I restart became annoying real fast.

Despite the constructive criticism, the puzzles ARE really good, and I did enjoy playing it.

Power Plant by Noam 2018-08-13T17:40:22Z

I really like this idea.

It would have been nice if I could have switched flower types with a hotkey, like 1,2, and 3. The scroll wheel felt kind of awkward.

I didn't see any indicator that told me if the delay between planting flowers had run out or not, so I often resorted to clicking multiple times with no effect before it let me plant again, which made the game feel unresponsive.

I'd suggest implementing either a visible cooldown indicator, or maybe even remove that delay entirely and replace it with a currency that you spend on flowers. Then you could add a fourth flower type to increase generation of that currency and add another layer of depth to the game.

The rounds seem just long enough to fill the board and push against your borders just a bit. It would be fun if I could choose to extend the round timer and try to wipe out the other colors, or make a big underdog effort to make a comeback, instead of just doing the land grab phase.

The sound effects were sufficient, but I think with some more time they could be more enjoyable and engaging.

Great entry though.

Falling Ecosystem by sprvrn 2018-08-13T07:12:33Z

This game has a very addictive quality to it. I wanted to just keep clicking stuff...

I found the resources to be very confusing. I figured out most of the basic ones, but I never figured out how to get the resource that was required for building quarries, which in turn means I never managed to build towers/castles, so I'm not sure what effect they have on the game.

The mouseover tooltip that was on one resource was nice, I wish there was one for each of the resources.

Interstellar Stupidity by Jono953 2018-08-13T18:27:35Z

Man, in spite of choosing to handicap your art style, you really nailed the look and feel that what you going for. It's really impressive.

The gameplay was very ambitious too. If you art style had been one that took longer to produce, it might have been TOO ambitious to have enough time to pull all these ideas together, but you managed to make it happen.

On top of that, the game was actually pretty fun and I spent a fair amount of time with it.

If I had to criticize something, maybe the lack of an end goal?

An argument could be made that the ties to the theme where kind of weak. I see what you were doing with the mode where the tiles drop out and your play area gets restricted, but the tiles dropping out wasn't nearly as big a threat as the waves of incoming enemies, so that's what held my focus most. The tile destruction seemed almost inconsequential.

Wonderful submission though. I enjoyed it a lot.

PLUNDER by Wieczny 2018-08-13T17:15:04Z

I read above that there are secret ways to influence the drops to become more rare items.

That really needs to be made obvious to the player, because I had no idea that mechanic existed. Without some kind of tutorial or at least a hint, it seems like the items are being randomly generated when an object is destroyed and that the game feel very shallow.

That one piece of knowledge changes the game from "run around and burn stuff" into "investigate the combinations of actions to create certain items", and that makes the game feel 10x deeper than it does at first glance. It really should be presented to the player right away.

Maybe if you could see the chain of actions that lead to the objects unlocking when you looked at them in the collection, that might be enough to tell the player that it is possible to influence the item drops. I would also like to see the action chain and the unlocked item for that chain on the game over screen if you unlock a new item on that run.

Herding Humans by MWB 2018-08-13T00:49:23Z

I'm not sure if I just suck at tank controls, or if this was incredibly difficult to control...

Several times I was carrying a human, and I tried to go through a doorway only for Mr Roboto to suddenly steer to the side and stop himself on the wall inside the doorway. After that, I tried to reverse out, but instead of backing up out of the doorway he just turned to face the wall, so that there was a wall both directly in front of me, and directly behind me. Leaving me with no option but to try and execute a 3 point turn to try and straighten myself out so that I can escape the sticky clutches of the doorways of doom.

I see that there is probably a very fun (and funny!) game here, but I was too distracted by wrestling the controls and trying not to get stuck that I couldn't find the fun in it.

Space Debris by Mallapa 2018-08-13T06:42:19Z

Shooting in the direction you're facing felt a little awkward.

The game might benefit from a mechanic where you shoot towards the mouse cursor, allowing you to fly and shoot independently.

Also, I had some difficulty with understanding when I was going to run out of bullets.

Otherwise, it was a pretty fun time.

Morbid adventurer by PancakeFriday 2018-12-04T17:59:05Z

Really interesting idea.

I'm glad this got made, because it's really intriguing, but it feels like it needs something to make it more fun between unlocking the doors.

As it is, I just kept kamikaze-ing at the doors and didn't get to do much else. I fought a handful of enemies, but it was inconsistent if I would have to fight or not on any specific run. This was compounded by the long, empty hallways (often with multiple locked doors at the end). I became essentially a door-seeking missile. :)

Maybe not the most helpful criticism, because I don't have any particular suggestions to how to fill that void, but that was the feeling that I got while playing.

Benefice by JustinMullin 2018-12-05T06:42:37Z

I liked this game.

I wish the walls and combat had been explained a little more, because a pirate blew up a stone wall with one shot and dropped a platform on top of a bunch of my buildings and then I was suddenly looking at the game over screen wondering what just happened.

I love building system though. This is the kind of game that I could sink hours into if it were just a bit more refined.

The Temple of Falala by JCMonkey 2018-12-03T06:47:27Z

It's a solid effort. Large map. Metroidvania style map expansion with collectible keys is always enjoyable for me.

I was especially impressed with the zoomed out map view, though I didn't see any "YOU ARE HERE!" indicator, which would have been useful.

The sprites were all wonderful to look at.

Now the criticism part.

This game definitely needed more enemy diversity. The spinning blade totems made interesting enemies for the first couple of rooms, but quickly became frustrating. That combined with the high enemy HP made me stop playing instead of walking back to the sacrifice totem.

As others have noted, the combination of the hitboxes on the spinning blades and the character is causing strange results. I repeatedly took damage despite not being visibly touched by the blades.

I wish that the floor traps had a different sprite or something, because the first 10 or so times I stepped on one, I thought it was a bug that was making me take random damage.

sleep by drtizzle 2018-12-04T19:09:42Z

Great game!

There were a few places where I couldn't tell where the corners of the room were because there wasn't any shading or variation to the walls. It was pretty disorienting. Some cell shaded lighting and/or ambient occlusion would have been a welcome addition to help give the environment just a touch more definition.

Also, my first run through, I accidentally deleted my gun before the game asked me to and had to restart because I couldn't open the first gate.

Other than that, I was VERY impressed with the atmosphere and everything seemed to work.

Oxygen Levels Critical by deathray 2018-12-03T04:53:16Z

There is a start of a good idea here, but there were some things that killed it for me.

For one, I was able to push buttons all over the map without moving, and I felt like I should have had to get closer to things before I was able to interact with them.

The gameplay itself broke down into spamming talk until someone entered the cargo bay, lock the door between the cargo bay and the ship, and then open the doors and vent people into space. Rinse and repeat until everyone is dead except you. I would have had more fun if the process had been a little more complicated and made me think more.

Perfectly Normal Inc. by Apple Dash 2018-12-03T07:31:06Z

One of the few Ludum Dare games that I've spent a solid amount of time playing without getting frustrated or bored. It's got a very addictive gameplay loop.

My only complaints are that I wish I had a rare or expensive way to boost my favor with a faction after I had spent it, because with the actions currently available the game reaches a state where you can't take any more actions to try and finish the game. You just have to rely on random events, which isn't fun.

Other than that, I just want more of this! More actions! More factions! More buildings to invest in! More events!

Fantastic entry. I loved it.

Also, I thought the void faction's icon was very clever, and it made me laugh out loud when I figured out what you did there.

Quest For Gory by Erasmus Crowley 2018-12-03T06:19:58Z

@sargonius Thats true. I'll keep it in mind if I keep expanding on the game. Thank you!

@monkeedude1212 Length and complexity is probably why they are rare for game jams. I lost a lot of time setting up the dialog and inventory systems which meant that I ran out of time to make new props and areas. I'm actually surprised that I was able to get as much done as I did. Thanks for checking it out though.

Quest For Gory by Erasmus Crowley 2018-12-04T03:53:57Z

@irwatts

Ah. Drag and drop would have been good. Noted. Thank you!

@incobalt

Quest for Glory was one of my favorite point and click series, and I wanted the name to be an homage to it. If you click on your character in game, there is a reference to QFG as well. Just a few small things to amuse myself.

I agree about the small hotspot on the rings. I wish I had thought of that before submitting.

Parasite (Incomplete) by croze 2018-12-04T00:42:09Z

It's too bad you didn't get further, because it seems like this could have been a lot of fun.

The dialog system seemed to work pretty well, but the text speed was a bit slow for my personal preference.

The diversity in the character sprites was impressive. It looked like you were combining bits and pieces to paperdoll them together at runtime, which is a nice feature. If you aren't generating them at runtime, well that's even MORE impressive. :)

Buildings Money by Alexis Cheron 2018-12-04T01:15:04Z

The sprites were decent, and I didn't run into any bugs, which is more than I can say for some games that I've tried.

The game itself needs a deeper mechanic with more choices to actually hold my attention though.

Just going back and forth tearing down buildings and building up others didn't provide much in the way of fun.

Good job submitting a game with reasonably complete mechanics and a win state though!

More Sacrifices! by Alex Davies 2018-12-04T20:11:24Z

Most of the comments have covered most of what I would have said already. The game has some great effects and I really liked it on the whole.

The one quirk that I didn't like as much was the camera movement. When I stopped moving the camera seemed to overshoot my character's position and then bounce back. After a while, it made me feel a bit motion sick.

Strain of the Gods by JavaSaurus 2018-12-04T00:25:59Z

Just in case you aren't aware of it, I thought that I would let you know that I attempted to play your game, but I can't find your download link on your post.

The Exchange by caeonosphere 2018-12-05T08:14:56Z

Ok. You win. Your game is amazing. I was enthralled from start to finish.

Firstly, the writing was a treat. All the images and UI elements were sharp and colorful. The sound effects were pleasant to hear.

Gameplay wise, the choices of which item to sacrifice created a powerful motivation for multiple playthroughs. If this were a full game I could EASILY see myself running through it multiple times just to experiment with the exchange system.

The Exchanger magic users put a twist on the Sacrifice theme that I hadn't seen yet, and I loved it.

The only thing I could pick out to complain about was that the text appearing at the bottom of the text area made it difficult to read sometimes. Let me see if I can put the issue into words adequately...

My eyes were locked onto the bottom of the text box. New text appears. I don't know at this moment how many lines of text are now above here that I haven't read. So my eyes scan to the next line up. Have I read this? Nope. Next line? Nope. Next? Still nope. This one? Not this one either. What about this next line, now 5 lines about where my eyes started? Okay, I've read this line. Go back down one, start reading from here to the bottom.

Every time you click, that reading experience repeats. It wasn't gamebreaking, but sometimes when text came a lot of lines at a time, it became unpleasant.

Overall, I had a wonderful time with your game. It's beautiful.

escape from apocalypse by nakato53 2018-12-05T05:21:21Z

Like @mortus, I also managed to bring my tiny people to the grey rock and couldn't figure out what to do from there so I couldn't advance to the next level.

Also, I had a lot of difficulty clicking the button I wanted while the people were moving because I didn't take into account that the menu itself was a moving target, which lead to a lot of frustration when I changed my dudes into the wrong type on accident.

Overall, it looks like it could be a lot of fun, and I really like the pixel manipulation style map, but those things I mentioned definitely made me enjoy it less.

Running Wild by Jannick Larsen 2018-12-03T05:42:06Z

Solid idea with a wonderful execution.

The art was great. Very gritty and industrial feel. Lots of parts of the level had a weird scale compared to the main character that made me feel like I was controlling tiny robots in a much larger area.

The music was exciting and catchy.

I found that I was repeatedly forgetting that the sound effects were done with a person's mouth. I'm not sure if that's because the sounds were so good, or if it was because the gameplay was engrossing.

The character model and animations were good. The blood effects got the job done.

To find things to criticize, I'll have to get really nit-picky about it.

In some areas, the walls were big empty planes, combined with some relatively long hallways, it creates some deadtime that could probably be more interesting.

The electric spark effect could have been a lot sharper with very little effort. The blurry ball particles caught my eye and stood out.

When I bumped into a wall to flatten out my minions, it was often difficult to try and get them to go back out in a direction, so I tended to travel in a tight ball of dudes. This lead to me struggling to figure out how to set off the squish traps without getting killed myself. Though maybe that was just me doing something wrong.

Great entry though. I really liked it.

Legend of the Aztec by Mirage 2018-12-03T06:58:10Z

When I started playing, the first thing I noticed where the sprites. I like them. They were simple, but endearing, and they all fit together in the same style.

The idea was interesting. It fits the theme. I was pretty excited.

And then I was sad, because there doesn't seem to be much actual game here.

Things I would have like to see:

* A list of what I'm currently carrying. * Navigation assistance tools, like a compass, map, or something to help me find my way back home when I inevitably get lost. * Some way to influence where things will appear on the next 'day' when I need to go find things. Running around blindly trying specific things is frustrating.

I have to say, I didn't really have fun with this game, but I can see how I could have if it had some more work put into it.

Scard by DigitalLimestone 2018-12-04T19:27:18Z

This is a seriously powerful set of mechanics for a roguelike or roguelite game if you polish it up.

I think my only real criticism is that I didn't really understand what the cost of the "Refresh Cards" button was, but it seemed to cost HP. That could probably be explained better.

Other than that, I thought it felt intuitive and the system was surprisingly deep. A few of the card effects surprised me.

Brilliant job.

Poverty Farmer by Mightymaster99 2018-12-03T06:13:11Z

Multiple times while playing I would click on the "Continue" button, and briefly see a flash of another menu and then the game would reset.

I suspect that after I got my report telling me that I had survived the year, it was popping up a 'failure' menu behind it, and since the "Continue" and "Start over" buttons are in the same place, my click on the "Continue" was also clicking on "Start over" in the instant that the success window disapeared.

Between that and the several legitimate first-year losses, I wasn't able to play the 2nd year despite quite a lot of attempts.

Made me sad, because I love the idea and I'm a sucker for punishing games.

Destination - Mars by Cricket 2018-12-04T16:30:16Z

Good game, interesting idea, solid execution, and I didn't find any bugs.

It felt like the flight time between earth and mars should have been longer to allow for more interesting decisions, and some random debris like broken satellites and/or meteors to harvest would have been nice.

Once I figured out that the broken spaceships were the dead bodies of my former attempts, it was really easy to build a ladder of dead shuttles and win consistently. I don't know if that was the intended way to play though.

I like that you took the time to make the celestial bodies have orbits that they follow. I feel like that's something that a lot of people wouldn't notice, and I wanted you to know that at least one person appreciated it.

At first I expected the shuttle to maintain it's inertia when I stopped burning fuel, and it surprised me when I realized that I can't just burn fuel to reach a certain speed and then just coast at that speed. Not necessarily a bad thing to do it the way you are if it accomplishes your design goals, but I expect a lot of people aren't going to expect it to work that way.

Great entry. I really liked it.

Dare to Risk by Morris Beardbarian 2018-12-04T01:41:48Z

This game needs more reviews! I really liked it!

The good:

The AI seemed competent.

The upgrade system makes for an interesting choice between grabbing territory and investing in your current lands.

Fail states and win states both work (as I found out from experience).

The bad:

It was unpleasant to realize that when I moved a lot of troops into a block and raised the total to above 10, the total would max out at 10 and the excess troops deleted. It'd be much nicer if the GUI would stop you from committing more troops than the destination can handle instead of just destroying them.

Towards the end of the game, I would frequently find myself forced to click every single one of my controlled blocks, because I couldn't remember which ones I had already given orders to, and which ones were awaiting orders. Some kind of icon or color change would have been amazing for this.

Once I opened the GUI to issue orders for a block, I had to move my mouse to click the 'Close' button. Being able to use a hotkey to close the window would have been nice.

Moving lots of troops is painful because you have to click the "+" button 10 times and then choose the destination. Doing that in multiple blocks in the same turn meant that I often had to click 30 to 50 times in a single turn in rapid fire. My click finger desperately wants a "Commit All" button. :)

Fantastic game! I hope more people see it.

Mine Unfinished by miles343 2018-12-04T00:50:39Z

A lot of people (I might even say 'most' people) made themselves the sacrificER, and you turned it around to play as the sacrificEE. I thought it was clever. So, well done. :)

For feedback and criticism, it would have been nice to be able to see how many people I managed to save on the death screen. That would have given me something to try and beat just to see how high a score I could achieve.

Also, having the death screen listen for a click or keystroke and then restart the game would have been nice. Instead I had to Alt+F4 out of the game and launch it again to replay it.

Last, but not least, it felt like strength drain ramped up too fast, so I got overwhelmed after about the same amount of time regardless of how fast I clicked, so about 10 seconds. It would have been nice to have a bit more play time.

Good job having something playable on your first Ludum Dare though! I'm sure you'll do even better next time!