Esben Jensen

My Life is Not Currency by rjhelms 2019-05-18T09:27:12Z

This was fun. I actually appreciate the easy games, when I need to play through a lot of games. I also like your rebellious take on the theme. There's some issues with AI, they tend to gather together too much, and it feels like they are not damaging enough, this could be due to the invulnerability period more than the actual damage. Still, thats nitpicking its a fun game and quite polished, both the graphics and the tune are enjoyable. Splendid work!

Life Business by jk5000 2019-04-29T09:17:44Z

This is really fun, and the interface feels good. I like how well it gives feedback on selections. The graphics and sound are well designed and fits the feel of the game. I get this nice chill feeling typical of a good management game.

The Tree of Bounty by gelisam 2019-05-20T08:13:33Z

This is really very, very cool. Great job. It's enjoyable simply to click things and see what happens, but it's also a fun challenge. The tutorial works well, but it could be handy to be able to bring up some sort of chart of the different types of outcomes, it's a lot of rules to take in. But wow overall this is really impressive.

The Tree of Bounty by gelisam 2019-05-20T08:23:23Z

Cool, I got what in Conway terms would be called a 'blinker' 3 leaves turning into 3 flowers and back again. :D

Soul Builder by Rose 2019-04-30T21:25:59Z

This is a nice little game. I love it. The clean simple graphics feels good, and it's a wise choice as well. And I agree with the others, it's the kind of game that you have to play through to the end. Well done.

Monolith by jsec 2019-05-17T18:09:50Z

Nice to see the Thrust / Asteroids genre again. Even if it's lacking in gameplay elements, it's still fun to fly around. Your particles from the exhaust and projectiles feels good, and you've got a good framework going. With some collision detection and a bit more variety you could have a very fun game. I could see this work well with random rooms.

Idle Skelly by Morg 2019-04-29T12:05:55Z

I'm not a big fan of idle games myself, but "Idle Skelly" is very well made. The pacing is excellent, which I guess is the secret to making a good idle games. Expectations are low in the beginning, and I got pleasantly surprised as the game went along, making me want to see what happens next. Graphics and UI are very good as well, there's some feedback in the game that feels good. It's an impressive result for the short time. It would be nice to see progress when travelling, and maybe also have an option to abort a trip, when it's obvious that the character is too weak. I'm very impressed overall.

My Little Planet by Maxime Hanot 2019-04-30T21:10:00Z

It feels very polished, graphics, ambient sound effects (I love the subtle mechanical sounds), music, particles they all add well together. It's a novel idea with the tiny planet, I think it works very well. Of course gameplay is limited with just one enemy type, but hey what can you expect with the limited time. I'm impressed that the two of you managed to do all this.

Coin Defender by Nikos 2019-04-29T23:31:25Z

The good thing about games is that we can play around with things we don't have in real life. Like spaceships, muscle cars and money.

I had a lot of fun and frustration playing this game a gazillion times. A very nice and novel idea. Sometimes the simple concepts work best.

Lifestock by Esben Jensen 2019-05-17T10:20:23Z

@jk5000 don't be sorry. You're right it is rather confusing. It is one of those things that I myself think would need a lot of work, if I had more time. If I should review my own game I would probably describe it as an interesting idea, but with a rather messy and confusing implementation. Thanks for all the kind feedback you all have given me, I will definately try LD again next time. :-)

Lifestock by Esben Jensen 2019-05-17T19:21:07Z

@corqi lol yeah, they never really got balanced :D

Lifestock by Esben Jensen 2019-05-20T06:56:19Z

@michaelsonbritt you can only sell. Since GoL tends to have negative growth over time, the player can keep the colony growing by selling of some strategically. It's really hard to balance though and the idea with the predators proved to be too hard to balance. My idea was that since they eat the other cells, but are worth a lot more, there could be an interesting tradeof keeping a few of them. But as you can see in the screenshot above they grow too fast.

As you mention it's really hard keeping a good balance. Avoiding cells growing exponentially or dying out completely is hard.

I'll check out your game for sure. :)

Fair n Square by DaniDev 2019-04-29T13:16:36Z

This is really good fun. The simple graphics fit well into the style and the music and sound effects also add to a complete experience. I like the idea of the central board / seesaw. It makes for some interesting situations. If you want to expand on it, I think a 2 player mode could work well as well. Awesome job!

Space Escape by Somogy 2019-04-29T23:18:12Z

I like it, very traditional side scroller. Both sound and graphics makes a nice coherent style. I get kind of a space horror vibe, a bit like Event Horizon or something like that. I enjoyed it, but it's haaaaard - or maybe I'm just bad at shooters. :D The energy system is a nice idea, it adds an extra element of decisionmaking for the player, how much of a risk you want to take to get the pickups.

Nothing Box by guckstift 2019-10-10T19:39:03Z

What a gem of a game. This game feels really well thought out, and fits together well. It's a little annoying with the b&w mode in the beginning, but thats OK and probably intended, because it feels so much better when the first gem is found. This has the elements of a good puzzle game. At first I wondered how things worked, then I got the aha feeling when I figured it out. The speed mode is a nice quality of life feature on a map of this size.

ChopChop by jkniest 2019-10-18T14:44:04Z

A very complete game, great job. One thing I missed is a more powerful swing, it can really makes a difference for how the game and the combat feels.

In The Beginning by Blueman 2019-10-08T19:48:59Z

I really like the feel and the graphics. And it is fun to play. I do miss a little more decision making, but its hard to find time to do game balancing like that. Great Job. :)

Meaningless Blob Slaughter by evgenimp 2019-10-08T21:18:27Z

I like the lighting and the feel of the weapon. It is satisfying to fire. I do miss some kind of objective or scoring, anything to gamify it.

While you're here by Dinorex 2019-10-10T20:14:01Z

That was a very touching experience, and surprising too I didn't expect such a serious theme at first. Really good pacing of the storytelling. I like that you kept the mechanics simple.

A bard's Journey by Kanonix 2019-10-08T21:46:44Z

What a catchy tune. :) The sound effects are also really nice. It took me a while to figure out what to do, but when I did I thought it was fun. Great graphics too. I think I'll keep it on my phone for a while. At first I thought it was an odd choice to release as an apk, but it is a very suitable mobile game.

Meeple Machine Factory by Micito 2020-05-12T16:18:38Z

I like it. The graphics look nice and are very clear and intuitive. It took some experimentation to figure out how things work, but in a fun way, and experimenting is part of the fun of this kind of game so thats a good thing. Little details like the lights, the animations and the gauges provide suitable hints on how things work. The player is rewarded for paying attention to detail. Of course it would benefit from lots of machines, lots of levels and many features, but that would be hard to do within the time frame. I think you managed to create a good starting point with a clear vision. You should really keep working on it, it has a lot of potential. I had a good time playing it.

It came from the sewers by Esben Jensen 2020-04-22T15:57:21Z

@demogorgon @wet-band-aid @sanjuro @nicolas-diniz @2kah @etdofresh Thank you for all your nice comments. Feedback in the game is definately lacking, both in terms of damage impact, and the overall objective. It's something that I knew was a weak area, but didn't have time to improve.

The map is dynamic except for the starting town. I wanted to add more hand drawn areas, that would break up the monotony.

@sanjuro haha, it's not that I envisioned it as vegetarian, I just thought houses wouldn't provide much sustenance. Having little people running around in panic would really have been nice. It could do with a lot more graphical elements.

@2kah good catch on the diagonal movement. I didn't actually think of that, but the bug is obvious now that you mention it.

Necromancer by krakadushka 2020-04-22T16:28:10Z

The visuals and the mood is excellent. It's an interesting idea, and I enjoyed reading the backstories and figuring out what effect they would have.

The Adventures of Eggbert by BattleCat 2020-04-20T07:15:43Z

This is so cute, I went 'aaaw' at the Game Over screen. You really manage to get that 80s arcade game feeling, both with graphics, sound and music. The music is great btw and impressive for such a short time. The game is also very good fun and very complete. One thing I found a little unintuitive at first, was what to do with the eggs. I expected I had to deliver them somewhere, and tried the doors in the trees. The use of a timer going down, usually suggests a time limit until something bad happens. In this case maybe having a bar growing instead would make more sense. Of course I figured it out by rereading the instructions. It's a minor thing just something to keep in mind. Overall very impressive I think.

AntOhNo by Rednaxelus 2020-04-28T18:15:29Z

Brilliant. It's fun to play and it made me laugh.

Legacy Survivors by quill18 2022-04-04T09:40:47Z

Very addicting. Getting those upgrades and mowing down enemies is very satisfying, so much that I often find myself forgetting to go for the chests. I thhink what especially stands out is how well rounded this game is in all areas. There are no particular things that feel unfinished or lacking attention. After a while I do miss some urgency. Maybe it would help if enemies spawned in larger numbers after a while, making those upgrades more important. But that could also be an inherent flaw of the theme this year.

Wicked Wilds by peringo 2022-04-07T19:35:07Z

Great game, and challenging :o It took me a little while to figure out the crafting system, but that's ok, nothing wrong with a little eksploration and eksperimentation, it comes with the genre. Sound and feedback works well. The music is great. And the combat system has a good feel and precision.

Trash Simulator 3000 by Esben Jensen 2022-04-20T12:42:53Z

Thanks for all the good feedback. I just thought I'd add a bit of post-mortem in case anyone subscribes. It turns out creating a vehicle controller is really hard, who would have thought ;-) It is very typical of me getting bogged down in little details and forgetting about the bigger picture. In this case creating the vehicle controller and creating the physics of the trash bags took up a lot of time.

There is a deadzone when braking, so that the truck will come to a complete stop when the velocity reaches a certain low treshold. This should probably be adjusted to make it easier to come to a full stop. I adjusted the turn radius several times. A tighter turn radius would make it more arcadey and possibly more fun. In the end I made the turn radius wider to give it more of a feel of a big vehicle. Adding things like oversteer and skidding would make the feel much better I think, but it would also be too much work.

A game over condition could be fun. So could an upgrade system to allow spending money on new vehicles and upgrades.

Defend 'till the end by kjscott 2022-04-21T12:27:32Z

I like it. It reminds me of the old arcade classic Gyruss, just inverted. The graphics are nice, and the sounds very fitting. Great job. :)