Keepy Uppy by Paul Sinnett 2013-05-19T21:21:00
Fits the theme all right, and it's classic non-computer gameplay I don't recall seeing in a computer game before. Cute. Pretty hard, but then it should be.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Erunaamo
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Hadron the Uniter | jam | 255 | 3.18 | 2.81 | 3.94 | 4.03 | 3.63 | 2.52 | 2.85 | 49 |
Fits the theme all right, and it's classic non-computer gameplay I don't recall seeing in a computer game before. Cute. Pretty hard, but then it should be.
As a TD novice, I found this satisfyingly tense for about 30 waves, then too easy...but still fun until about wave 80. I like the old-school graphics.
Exploring this world and its rules is pleasantly disorienting. Love the bobbing water cubes.
Didn't finish but will return to play again.
Pleasant visuals and sound (I especially like the butterfly, a small touch that adds a lot of life to the world). Potentially fun game concept (I like rolling ball games in general) but it was hard to enjoy playing because it's pretty hard to control the ball. The character's arms face forward in a "pushing" posture when you're standing still, but not in the run cycle. Is this a hands-off soccer game? I'm bad at soccer...and this simulates that feeling nicely.
Make the character put out her (his?) hands to guide the ball (and actually do provide somewhat more control) and I'd probably like this a lot better.
A really satisfying minimalist TD. The not-quite-just-blocks art is really polished and appealing; I love the restart flare for example.
I like TD's but I'm not very good at them; for me this is nicely balanced: I don't have to panic and rush at first, but it's not forgiving of poor tactics either. Feels like a genuine distillation of the essence of TD, and I just love the pheromone trails concept.
Neat idea, simplifying at just the right rate suits the theme in an interesting way. Gameplay is certainly a fresh take on resource management. The (convincingly old-school) sound effects get annoying pretty fast. (It's ok, so do mine!!)
Satisfying minimalization of the genre. Maybe "Easy" level could be a tiny bit easier?
I'd like to see the buttons flash or something. Because units are created under the buttons and emerge seconds later, there's no immediate, consistent feedback that you've made a unit, except that the number goes down by 1. I guess there's a sound too, sometimes, but not always. I found that I was watching the number or watching for units to eventually emerge from the under-the-button area to make sure they'd really been created, when I should have been watching the field. More button feedback would fix that.
Sometimes it's hard to see the enemy amidst all the blood: both are red. (Why are tanks making blood splashes anyway? Hmmm.)
Floor patterns are rather eye-popping, which makes it not much fun to judge distances to enemies...which is most of the gameplay.
Yeah...that's the minimalism!
Yeah, it seems jumpy to me too. Two things to watch out for in that regard:
1. If the mouse cursor gets too near the edge - as in, you're maybe leaving the game to play itself for a while - the cursor jumps back to the center by design (if a bit too fast). So stay away from the edges....
2. If you play with the flash filling your browser window, you might change the rectangle shape, and the mouse code doesn't adapt, so the "leaving" area (see #1) might get extra big. I recommend you reshape your window to the aspect ratio of the screenshot for best results.
But I wonder if there's a #3 I don't know about, because it just recently started seeming perhaps extra jumpy. Sorry.
Thanks!
I really thing there's a bug in the controls now, that wasn't there before the whole fiasco with the preloader. (A bunch of event listeners got mangled in the process...I'm writing up a postmortem.) It really is jumping around for some odd reason. I think I'm going to have to fix that.
As for the hint-HUD...I agree, but I can't add features to this version, since the deadline has passed. I'll definitely continue to work on this game, though, and some such feature is very likely long-term.
Sure enough, there was a weird mistake - must have been a copy-paste typo, I guess - making the cursor jump around. It's fixed now.
Thanks for all the great comments....
Zim: Yeah, I really want anti-elements too! That was part of the original concept, and is very likely to show up in a future version. And maybe isotopes too, though that might overcomplicate things...there are certainly some simplifications at play here.
And yeah, the title doesn't really make sense. (I'm not thrilled with it myself...the phrase "Hadron the Barbarian" got stuck in my brain early in the LD weekend, and wouldn't leave.)
Plash: I appreciate the detailed feedback. "Make it fun" is definitely on the roadmap for this project! :)
Fun at first, really liked some of the prose the first time through. Got boring as the same events repeated with no indication of how many times. (Every kind of monster has talons?) Did not know if I was progressing or in an endless loop, except by seeing that comments spoke of an ending.
Really liked how the first scene played with interpretations.
Really clever gameplay, and cool contrasting art styles: In my view, an unexpected but satisfying use of the theme. Kinda too hard: couldn't survive long. Polished sound. For some reason I really like the particle effect you use for beam weapon damage.
Mouse controlled view cone is a very nice idea, but it flickers too much for me.
Since my game also involves capturing particles in mild attraction zones, I'd better say I like this one! Gameplay feels like miniature golf...the "hill" vector fields seem very strong; pushing things up steep hills isn't totally fun.
Fun puzzle concept. But I found the squares pretty hard to see and the arrows pretty hard to use. It was hard to tell how they'd work in a given position without trying it.
Great use of the theme. The black lines really add a lot, even though they add nothing. Warping from one side to the other was a pleasant surprise.
Turns are way too slow, plus everything looks the same so you have to investigate constantly.
Pretty hard to aim. The art is nice, and I like the surreal scenario, minimalist yet high-stakes: "Ready the slingshot! A cube is mashing!"
Very neat idea. To me it feels like it needs more tuning to be truly fun: it's hard to steer where I want to go. Part of that is the fun frustrating challenge of a tough unforgiving game, but part of it is...just plain hard to steer. Also bouncing off corners of things seems to change your energy unpredictably.
Pretty fun! I like the 1-D RTS concept. As a RTS novice I appreciate that it's not too hard at first, but it does seem to matter what you do...I can imagine replaying this a few times to improve. The controls are pretty convenient once you get used to them, and I like how the astronauts bounce around in the low gravity: it looks both whimsical and realistic at once.
Having to trigger waves manually felt weird, but kept the gameplay manageable. I lost the game pretty much randomly when something happened across the room from me: it seems like you can only prolong the game in a statistical sense: the more you fall behind, the more likely you are to lose, but when you eventually lose it'll be pretty random, nothing you can directly intervene in.
Seems like a promising start but feels very unfinished. Spiraling bullet labels did not charm me. Totally black world requiring me to find my way via text coordinate displays (to 3 decimal places??) was plenty minimalist, and sort of an interesting experience (like submarines at night?), but not really charming.
An AI came to find me but just spiraled around me. Did it shoot at me? I don't think so. Killed it all too easily.
I killed myself by outrunning my own bullets.
Traditionally, triangle-ships are pointier, so you can easily see which is the front.
The engine seems to work pretty well: I get the impression that the flying-around physics are pretty fun, though without scenery it's hard to tell. A more polished game built on this foundation might be pretty cool. Reminds me of Netrek <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek>
Seems like a promising start but feels very unfinished. Spiraling bullet labels did not charm me. Totally black world requiring me to find my way via text coordinate displays (to 3 decimal places??) was plenty minimalist, and sort of an interesting experience (like submarines at night?), but not really charming.
An AI came to find me but just spiraled around me. Did it shoot at me? I don't think so. Killed it all too easily. I guess this would be more fun with other players, but possibly not a lot more.
I killed myself by outrunning my own bullets.
Traditionally, triangle-ships are pointier, so you can easily see which is the front.
The engine seems to work pretty well: I get the impression that the flying-around physics are pretty fun, though without scenery it's hard to tell. A more polished game built on this foundation might be pretty cool. Reminds me of Netrek <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrek>