Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → ExNihilo
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | Leader's guidance | compo | 295 | 3.45 | 3.37 | 3.50 | 3.76 | 3.38 | 2.98 | 3.46 |
So I was commenting on some game's graphics on the games listing page, when my girlfriend told me "At least it's better than this awful Babies! Babies! Babies! thumbnail !"
Am I glad she did.
Impressive work. The different levels show that you already have a good understanding of the range of possibilities offered by the simple rules you devised, which is no easy feat in such a short time.
The wolves's behaviour felt a bit counterintuitive at first, which may be why some players got stuck early. Squeezing in a few intermediate levels to make the mechanics sink in should help alleviate the problem.
Nice game, and very polished at that.
I must admit I stopped as soon as I got blind, since I had played without sound from the beginning, but I will definitely come back to it later. I was pleasantly surprised at how manageable the game remained even when superimposing seemingly unfair afflictions. Clearly, a lot of thought and testing went into balancing it.
Also, your take on the theme is definitely the closest I have found so far to my own, so I would love to hear your thoughts about my game, although it's much further than yours from a finished product.
Simple yet efficient response to the theme. The end result also feels quite clean and polished. My only gripe would be with how the white and blonde beers are hard to differentiate on the fly for the layman.
Now that was a blast to play.
As stated by other users, including the character's head in the hitbox makes some collisions counterintuitive and navigating into small corridors harder than needed. The overworld also feels too large for what it has to offer.
Otherwise, it's a really solid result for such a short time, with perfectly consistent old-school graphics and sound.
For some reason, on my computer the game crashes with a stack overflow error right after the introduction. Let me know if there is some specific data I can provide you with about this problem.
Very nice indeed, and it leaves you yearning for more.
I second the little complaint about scrolling through the level (although zooming out also worked), especially because the UI on the right does not follow you as you scroll down.
Otherwise, clearly a solid take on the theme, for a very polished and consistent result.
What did I just play ?
I wish I had paid attention and noticed there was a PDF specification before learning the whole syntax from in-game example commands.
The game's mechanics seem to open a world of possibilities, and the levels you created do a great job at demonstrating it. Simple but consistent graphics also fit quite well with the theme you chose.
As already suggested, a fast-forward option would be a nice addition. Being able to insert a new line in the middle of existing code instead of only at the end would also help keeping the code structured when it starts getting crowded.
Overall, a really promising experience.
You've got quite an interesting idea, and your maze generation algorithm can certainly be a very solid base to build upon.
I didn't take a look at your source code, but it seems you must be using some variation of the default Unity character controller, which gives this floaty feeling to the giant suppository's movements. Although I understand it allows for some easy means of collision detection, the game would benefit a lot from some custom movement scheme not involving physics.
Anyway, I'll be curious to know how this project evolves.
You managed to create an impressive amount of content for such a short time.
Your use of the jam's theme also works pretty well. I liked how, even though the game is so generous with healing items, each little mistake adds up to make you genuinely threatened by the end of an act (on a first run, at least). Great job.
Other comments said it all, the concept is efficient but the random level generation would require some tweaking to avoid unreachable green dots and unfair enemy spawning.
Somehow I felt the visual cues actually did a great job at conveying the sickness' progression, and the minimalist UI worked well with the overall impression of loneliness and despair. It does feel like a tutorial level, but one that definitely makes you want to try out the full game.
As a "nonJeu", it does hit the mark. I didn't play it very long, but I might come back to it at some point while I go through some boring and repetitive tasks at the office (Now isn't that meta ?).
Incidentally, there may be some similarities in the underlying statement of both of our games, although I went for a far more classical approach.
Quite enjoyable to play, really.
Some balancing may still be needed, of course. As already mentioned, short-sightedness and falling lava lamps do not blend well together because they add some unwelcome randomness. I would also have preferred a slightly lower character acceleration, to allow for tiny positional adjustments before a jump.
Anyway, all in all I had a good time and the difficulty for buying the time bandage felt just right.
My take on the theme had some similarities with yours, yet the games themselves ended up being completely different.
Nice and efficient way to make your point.
The discrepancy in graphic styles and the obvious feeling of being lead on by the game are pretty off-putting, but they do bring the message home.
"Walk to the mountain on your right." Well, this had better be worth it.
Turns out it was. I think. Wait, isn't the whole point that it was never worth it to begin with ?
I guess the small annoyances in navigating this lovely little world, like having to jump above the slightest bump in the road, can be chalked up to the subtle groundwork progressively numbing the player to the game's mechanics, so in retrospect it would be hard to criticize them.
All in all, it was a very consistent and memorable experience.
Simple but surprisingly catchy. I guess the main issue is that you can easily win the game without really getting it, just with a couple of lucky clicks at the beginning.
Thank you deeply for the encouraging comments. It's heartwarming to know the game did click with some people despite being so rough on the edges.
That collision detection issue is awfully embarrassing. I used a single raycast right down the middle of the character as a temporary measure for my first playtests, and never got around to fixing it, although it would have taken literally 2 minutes (I just did it in my current, not-uploaded build). Now I realize those would have been the most well-spent 2 minutes in my whole weekend.
I will definitely tweak quite a few things and add more content in the future. I did intend to include music (which, obviously, would have been soon muted by I a "Do not listen to music" rule) and sound effects, but this whole game jam was clearly a harsh but invaluable lesson in time management for me.
Thank you all for the feedback.
To clarify, new rules are added in a (mostly) random order, which can make some early runs much easier than others. I'm fine with it since it blends well with the theme of arbitrary decisions, however it will indeed require some level design adjustments to make the difficulty curve smoother and keep the progression interesting under all circumstances.
@edmond00 Your plea has not fallen into deaf ears, although the Benevolent Leader once brought all the steel bars in the factory to his own workstation in less than 10 seconds, without jumping and with inverted controls.
Having regard to your being mildly amusing, and being a stern but merciful father even to his most undeserving children, the Benevolent Leader has gracefully agreed to send your family to a work camp where they can alleviate the guilt and shame they feel for the shortcomings of their deceased family member by carrying steel bars around until they, in turn, become unworthy of contributing to the greater good.
Thank you again for the feedback. I'm really glad people are enjoying this game, and I will take comments into account for an upcoming update to the best of my abilities.
@drtizzle The Benevolent Leader is infinitely generous, yet he is also very hard to please. Seriously though, was it actually a failure message or just a new rule (the message starts with "You have been promoted") ? I guess the extremely simple text layout could allow for some confusion.
@jimbly I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it. Sorry about the sore hand.
You are correct about how consecutive jumping detection works. It only covers a 0.2 second time window, but that's still enough to deserve a visual or auditory cue. I'm currently working on that kind of improvements, among another things, for a first big update.
Bringing 5 steel bars is not necessarily the very last guidance you get, but it's still pretty likely because steel bars are the only incremental rule. Here's an extremely compressed gif of a run under all currently implemented rules : full_run_compressed.gif
Maybe you should also upload a gif of the blind levels in Delver's Sunset. Wait, maybe not.
I think you've got a viable idea here. However, in the current implementation, is there really any use at all for the sweaters ? Even without knowing the level's layout in advance, it didn't feel like the heat bonus made up for the slowed down movement when it came to exploring the area, except as an emergency measure to finish reaching the campsite.
Still, if you manage to achieve some nice balance, the result should be pretty interesting.
Among the many games featuring heavy coins in this game jam, this one is definitely the most original I have played so far.
Trying to balance the load between several backpacks while your coins keep bouncing back at you isn't the most compelling part of the game, but I guess one gets used to it over time. Maybe using the second mouse button to drop your coins with less power could be a nice option, though.
Great work anyway, I would love to see more levels added.
You did a good job at managing to guide the player without any explicit pointers until the very last NPC, while of course leaving the easy way out of killing everything in sight. The atmoshpere of the game does actually draw you in a bit, too.
I thought I had found some nice rythm, allowing me to remain under 1 light most of the time for 5 minutes straight, almost feeling at home is this small ecosystem, then everything started going downhill and all I could do was writhe in despair as a newborn blinding ball of light was inexorably being crushed by the walls. Nice work building a world that really draws you in out of such simple assets.
This reminded me of old game&watch games, which in my book is definitely a good point. I do think, however, that it could use a sharper increase in pace as you gather more coins.
Really nice idea and execution.
As another Azerty player, I second the need to offer the player a choice between keyboard layouts. Yet, it was still playable and enjoyable enough to finish the game, so well done overall.
@diego-santos-leao AZERTY keyboards are used in some French-speaking countries, mostly France and Belgium. A quick search about the subject revealed there are more variants of the QWERTY layout than I knew of, in particular the QWERTZ layout should be quite common as well.
All in all, it may be a bit of a hassle to take into account all the local specificities, but considering the very premise of your game, being as faithful as possible to the user's actual keyboard should be worth the effort.
Although not particularly new, I love the concept, and can see myself adding this one to the list of games that I will spend time playing instead of working on the post-jam version of my own game. The UI is extremely clean for a jam game, which goes a long way considering the genre.
That said, some balancing is indeed necessary to make it an actual game. I believe I have now reached a point (with about 50 passengers) where losing has become almost impossible. Refilling your ressources at the station comes pretty much for free, and conflicting personalities can be disregarded since you can stuff everyone in the messdeck for a quick relaxation session. As you said, room size limits are a well-needed part of the mechanics.
Other features I would love to see added in are a full list of passengers, with clickable links to their respective rooms, as well as a (probably optional) time limit between turns for some more tension during decision-making.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing this turn into a more fleshed out project.
Although maybe intended, the lack of visual cue concerning the cannon's power was a bit of a problem for me. I would suggest maybe showing at least the early trajectory as a dotted line, so that the player can get a feel for the shell's destination without wasting too much ammo (or I could just get better, I guess).
Overall, the concept works pretty well. The execution is indeed a bit rough, but as a first time entrant too, I know all too well how short these two days felt.
That was quite an enjoyable ride.
It is unclear whether more time does make the game harder, because slow moving obstacles can actually be harder to avoid. Yet, finding one's own sweetspot is actually fun too (I personally found 30 seconds to be the most comfortable).
I agree that not resetting the timer between tries does not really seem to add anything and just pushes you to hit Esc each time.
Overall, controls felt very responsive, however I had a bit of a hard time alternating wall-jumps between two walls. I believe letting the character stick to the wall a bit longer, allowing the player to start pressing the opposite direction before jumping off the wall would help a lot.
Still a nice game to play, which could go a long way with a bit more polish.
The control scheme does indeed feel awkward. Platforms layout also seemed strange until I realized it was probably designed with keeping the jump button pressed down in mind, which not a bad choice in itself, but pretty unusual.
The graphics definitely got a lot of care. It's a pity the text font doesn't match the overall mood of the game.
Nice one. The conflicting ways to improve your score naturally lead to experimenting with different strategies, which is always interesting, although I felt the balance was somewhat shifted in favor of playing as the pirate.
Nice idea and execution, albeit slightly too unforgiving. Playing this with a laptop's touchpad was clearly too much for me, but I will definitely give it another try with a trusty mouse.
I understand it wouldn't fit the theme quite as well, but I think there should at least be some drawback to fully depleting your stamina. As it stands, since there is no need to maintain any sort of balance, the best option is simply to button mash your way through any encounter, which doesn't make for the most compelling of experiences.
Still an interesting take on the theme.