Mars Cave Explorer by OddballDave 2021-05-02T15:07:44Z
The controls take time to get used to but once I did, they felt great.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Escortti
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Mental Madness | jam | 3.22 | 2.90 | 3.50 | 3.50 | 3.68 | |||||
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Rust Bucket | jam | 1045 | 3.44 | 3.31 | 3.01 | 3.41 | 3.29 | 3.08 | 2.31 | 2.92 |
The controls take time to get used to but once I did, they felt great.
I knew I couldn't be the only one making a SHMUP... well a SHMD. The opening dialog was great and so was the gameplay. Although I gotta admit it's too hard for me. Which was mostly due to the size of the ship's hitbox. Usually in SHMUP's the player hitbox is a lot smaller than the ship. Also big props for the audio and UI design.
The walls were now a lot clearer. It's no longer a guessing game where the wall hitbox is. Still found the game brutal. I would still recommend smaller hitbox, maybe the size of the cockpit window. Or maybe reduce the number of bullets so there is more room to maneuver between bullets. Other possibility would be to just have less enemies on screen at the same time or lower the health on the enemies so it's faster to deal with them so they don't start to pile up. The beginning was manageable but once there were 6 enemies (with 4 spinning ones!) on screen at the same time it was extremely hard to get kills or get past the bullet onslaught. I also would recommend removing enemy hitbox and stopping enemy shooting immediately once they start to explode. Still might just be the case that I'm just not good enough. :shrug_tone1: I still think it's a great game despite my criticism. Hope you find my feedback useful!
Really cool rope physics that make for a great gameplay mechanic. Took a while to get use to the controls but once I did, it felt good.
I really liked the pickaxe throwing.
This is a great game. The music really sells the underwater mood. Really liked the art on the ships and the artefacts. Liked the progression system too.
I really liked the light throwing as a game mechanic. Although I would limit it somehow so you couldn't spam it.
I like how you need to go fast because of the time but need to slowdown to get the map pieces. It creates a lot on tension to the gameplay and prevents rushing through all the rooms.
A simple and fun game. Finding the fastest routes is a lot of fun.
Really solid entry. Personally I liked the addition of a tech tree to add depth to the game.
This game feels really polished and is a lot of fun. I hope this gets expanded upon.
The graphics of the game were really great. The dim environments gave the game a good underground ambience. The slowdowns felt odd at the beginning but they were a good choice for making it easier to land those tricky portal shots.
Art and music are really great but the gameplay is very minimal. Almost felt like a movie.
This is a really cool concept.
This is a really solid Shoot 'em Up and I really hope this gets developed further. The feel of the game is great. The sounds and visuals work really well together to create that retro style. The streak system is a nice way to reward good play. Also the way the enemies move into the view feels somehow really satisfyingly. Only criticism I have is that there is sometimes a lot of downtime between waves.
@mhorth @domsse-interactive @someone @ziggykac I notice a lot of people would prefer to aim with the mouse. I have implemented a version with mouse aim already after the first few comments, balanced the game for the easier aiming and made some other tweaks to the game. For the sake of fairness I haven't published it. I will probably publish it after the rating time ends.
@SmelJey Yes, passing the walls is a bug. It didn't happen to me when testing, so I was not aware of it. Unity physics rng. : ) It will be fixed in the post jam version.
@Robotex Yes but I had some problems with implementing it. (Which were just dumb oversights...) As previously mentioned, I will publish a post jam version with mouse aim.
Not being able to move sideways gives the controls a unique feel where movement relies a lot on the mouse. I needed to crank my mouse sensitivity way up for this. Diving down at full speed feels great. Wish you could see a little bit more behind the player when looking down.
Also found that you can end up outside the sinkhole if you hold forward while respawning. Not a big deal but thought I'd mention.
I really liked the game. The art and music are really good and the gameplay mechanics are unique. I found the cold damage very unforgiving and it really forced me to rush through.
Overall a fun little platformer.
Hard but fun. I wish you could see more of the stage at all times. The view felt too zoomed in.
Fun puzzle game. I like how you gain more knowledge of the puzzle by digging around and once you have enough, you can get to the end. The game was maybe a bit easy. Many of the stages were undermined by the fact that you can just dig straight down and find the goal once you're at the bottom. But I liked trying to find routes with the least moves. So maybe some kind of ranking for the amount of moves taken would work with this sort of game.
Really fun and addicting gameplay. I like that you can get yourself out of a bad situation by jumping ahead 4 blocks. Although I wish it would mine the block you land on so you could line it up to get more charge.
I found a out that if you press space in the "try again" screen, the scores starts to go up again. Luckily it's a bug that doesn't get in the way of the game.
The game concept is simple and fun and the art is great. There were some bugs with the character getting stuck on the wall and with the music starting another time on top of the first when you lose.
@enderswype You can open controls and ailments window by holding Tab. The game should say this in the text log when you start the game. Some ailments make it hard to see the log so that's my bad.