fisholith

Year	LD	Theme		Game	Division	Rank	Ov	Fu	In	Th	Gr	Au	Hu	Mo	Co
2014	30	Connected Worlds		Lucid	jam	73	3.83	3.46	3.44	3.40	4.61	4.15	2.79	4.06	49

LUDOPHAGIC TIMEWAVE SOUND HYPERWHISTLE by racarate 2014-09-14T06:16:00

Interesting concept. :)

Not sure, but if discovering the game mechanics is part of the game, then...

*** [Spoiler alert, kind of?] ***

For those wondering what is going on, it looks to me like you, as the ref, are supposed to blow the whistle (press E) to reset the players whenever the ball enters a goal, or goes out of bounds. If you don't react fast enough, or use the whistle at the wrong time, the entire game will slow down. The game can get successively slower and slower, and to speed it back up you must start making good calls.

*** [End of Spoiler alert] ***

As for the connected worlds theme, I could definitely be wrong here, but I assumed it was that you, the player, are playing one game, and the AIs are playing another game, and the two game worlds interact entirely through your observation and use of the whistle.

Planetary Replan by handCraftedRadio 2014-09-13T14:51:00

Very cool. :D

Simple and elegant mechanics. I love tabletop games, and this is one of those games that makes great use of tabletop-style mechanics mixed with a computer's ability to instantly calculate the game-wide situation.

It has a Carcassonne-ish feel, though now I honestly wish Carcassonne had the theme you created for this game. The colliding Earth and Mars concept is great, and it makes for a nice color scheme, as well as a thematic reason for the colors. :)

REUNION by Skiddings 2014-09-14T07:16:00

Cool puzzle game. I like the artwork and the contrast between the snow and the greenery is nice. The snowflakes are a nice detail too. Also interesting that the character's hair and clothes are color themed to their side of the world. :D

Exiled to the Beyond by Joror 2014-09-13T12:47:00

Very impressive to see a working turn based strategy game.
Getting the rules and user interface and the abstraction needed for the hex movement, all in the LD timeframe is pretty crazy. I think I got the hang of it after a little bit. It would be great to see a video walkthrough of a little of the game play, just to find out if I'm overlooking anything.

Anyway, very cool. Awesome Job. :)

Heavenly Finger Squad by Alexandre Szybiak 2014-09-13T10:38:00

Very cool, very clean mechanics.
I like that the game is so simple, and despite that, the different concerns you have to juggle to survive actually require quite a bit of skill and thought. :)
Keep up the good work!

Hello, Alien! by klianc09 2014-09-13T13:17:00

Very cool puzzle game. I love the concept.
I love the floating away detail when an asteroid buster is used on a planet. :D
The mechanics are fun and make for some interesting puzzles, the dialog from the little aliens is great. Wonderful graphics and sound. The music fits the theme really well too.

This looks like it could be a professional game. It's amazing that you put this all together in the LD timeframe.

Keep up the awesome work.

... Ah! "Connected worlds" I just got that. cool interpretation. :)

Far From Home by Leginar 2014-09-14T10:21:00

Cool game. Very atmospheric. I got within about 200 feet of the last key 6 times, and each time my final scraps of hp got pick pocketed by that ever-unseen guy who always spawns right behind you. I found that it might be easier to work the map counterclockwise, as it seems like the ghost rate increases on a per-key basis. (Or is it just time?) There's less distance between the last keys, so if it's per key, then you spend less time in ghost avalanche (which sounds like a Scifi original movie) mode. The scale is really impressive. :)

Marbles by Lokarunith 2014-09-15T05:49:00

Very cool interpretation of connected worlds.

I don't know if I happened to get all three endings in the perfect order, but it was really interesting that each one shed light on the imagery and themes from one of the previous endings.

The surreal and fractured imagery fits the theme and mood really nicely.

I was going to mention that I liked the dynamic main menu, and then when I went back to look at it again, I just realized what the menu was! :D

It's awesome that you worked so much hidden meaning into this. The backgrounds. The recurring motifs of certain objects. (Don't want to spoil anything.)

This is one of the most unique entries I've seen.
Keep up the good work. :)

Twist And Weave by ZeppelinCaptain 2014-09-14T05:45:00

Very cool puzzle game. The last level was pretty hard but I did finally get through it. Then I accidentally knocked one of the balls on the final page away before I realized I could lock them all in. :'[

Anyway, awesome game. :D

The Orion Trial by jcsirron 2014-09-14T05:12:00

Cool concept, I love the encounters. :)
On one mission I recruited no fewer than 4 LRRRs. They all died.
On my next mission, my ship had been built on top of an ancient space burial ground. One which also seemed to travel with the ship, because wow, was that ship ever haunted. Actually ... now that I think of it ... there were more ghosts on that ship then crew. Oh my various space gods! *WE* WERE THE GHOSTS!

But also we died later.

Double Take by mrjohnson22 2014-09-14T06:56:00

Neat concept. I'm not sure why, but I kind of like the fact that you're half a Tetris piece. And I know what you mean about the Windows 95 aesthetic, racarate. Something in me misses the beveled grey blocks of old. :)

I like that the blue switch in the red level creates the trampoline in the blue level. It would be neat to see that kind of interaction feature more prominently if you get a chance to make more levels.

I also like that each world has its own switch sound effect and jump sound. :)

DreamRun by meishijie 2014-09-13T12:32:00

Neat game. Very nice colors and minimalist design.
It's interesting that because you jump to get some of the birds, you inevitably skip some birds and have to make sure you account for that when switching worlds. Simple, and fun. :)

JUMP! by Aborysa 2014-09-13T14:31:00

Neat game :)

Not sure why, but there is something kind of amusing about jumping up and toggling dimensions on and off for a sec, to make sure I know where I need to go next, and then checking one more time just to be safe, but forgetting to jump the second time. :D

Linked by igoramendola 2014-09-14T06:40:00

Interesting game, and a cool concept. I like the zigzag split screen effect. :)
Also interesting that the speech only shows up in the speakers world. Is that on purpose? Anyway, cool idea overall. :)

Where Did The Stars Go? by mechabit 2014-09-13T10:03:00

Fun idea. The music and art create a nice atmosphere.
The sounds add a ... I'm gonna say novel element, as well. :)

So, at first I experienced what I suspect to be the normal pitch range for the randomized poots. "poot, little-poot, moderate-poot, pt, poot, etc" Then, without warning, "POOOOT ... PUUUUUUT ... P-P-P-P-EW-EW-EW-EW-T" Ultra-low-frequency. Ultra-low! I mean, I'm pretty sure I may have just interfered with whale migration for the next few days.

Red Universe by Ludorverr 2014-09-13T15:06:00

Wow, very nice.

That's a pretty complete topscroller to have put together within the LD timeframe.

The movement feels nice. The dash key is a nice mechanic. The graphics were pretty cool too. I like the variety in the levels and enemies.

Also, even though it's a small detail, I love the "everything on the screen dies with the boss" effect at the end. Very pro. :D

Keep up the good work. :)

Lady Lyla by whalebot 2014-09-13T09:44:00

Very cute. :)
I love the execution. There's something oddly fitting about the pixel art style used for the real world as compared to the fantasy version.

Wormhole TD by FinnMacd 2014-09-14T11:19:00

All the core mechanics for tower defense look solid here. Everything is very smooth. Nice work. :)
I started out programming games as a hobby too. :D
Definitely keep at it.

One thing that helped me was working both directly with programming languages (e.g. Java), and with graphical programming tools (e.g. Construct 2). I learned a lot of different stuff from each.

On the text side, you see more of the behind the scenes work that gets glossed over in the graphical tools. On the flipside, In the graphical tools you can prototype some concepts faster, so you get to experiment and revise more rapidly and more often.

You might want to check out Unity, as well as Construct Classic (freeware), and Construct 2 (commercial successor).

The other thing that's helped me, much more recently, is doing jams. I swear, almost nothing encourages getting things done like small projects, and 3rd-party deadlines. :)

Mirrored Mittens by Foofur 2014-09-14T10:36:00

Fun concept. I like the minimalist feel, and I love the sneaky cat animation. :3

Universe Travellers by MrSylar59 2014-09-13T10:15:00

Nice game, especially for a first jam. :)

Grow your Planet by Natrium729 2014-09-14T06:33:00

Cool game, I love the photo mechanic, and the artwork. :D
Took me a while to figure out how to connect the worlds, but I like how they alter each other.
Keep up the good work. :)

Midspace Madness by kmasiulis 2014-09-13T13:31:00

Neat game. :)

Gets a little tricky once your speed starts getting up there, but I figured if I spend as much time in mid-jump as I can, I'm statistically less likely to take an asteroid to the face than my competitors. Even so, I only barely squeaked by with first. :D

The Twins by Kojan 2014-09-14T04:54:00

Neat game. It definitely starts getting tricky when the obstacles begin showing up out of synch with each other. :)
I like the epic string ostinato. :D

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-13T08:17:00

Hey, all, thanks for the feedback.

---- Alexandre Szybiak,
Thanks. :)
As for where to go, if you approach a sleeping creature you can press Z or L on the keyboard, or (B) or (Y) on a gamepad to enter their dream. I should have put the control info on an in-game page from the start. It is in the description area, but even I overlook the description section of most games, so my fault, sorry about that. The controls are explained in-game now. :)

---- modbox,
Thanks for letting me know.
On this page, follow one of the game links, "Windows | OS/X | Linux | Source"
On the GameJolt page, just below the row of screenshots should be the "Quick Play" link, and the download link. There is a possibility that you happened to go to the page during the one hour or so I had it offline to fix the Node-WebKit bug.

---- MrSylar59,
Thanks for the feedback. :)
To climb the first hill, use the dash ability, C or J on the keyboard, or (R-Trig) or (X) on a gamepad. If you're talking about the cliff side at the far right of the first level, you can't scale it in the waking world, you need to enter the puma's dream. Walk up to the puma and use Z or L on the keyboard, or (B) or (Y) on a gamepad to enter her dream.

---- SteveSalmond,
Thanks, for telling me about the lag/freeze problem, SteveSalmond. I think I may have fixed that issue. :)
That turns out to be a problem with Node-WebKit's threaded compositing feature. (The feature is good for webpages, but bad for games). Fortunately that feature can be disabled, and I have since released an update that includes a launcher which fixes that problem.

---- mechabit,
Glad you liked it. :)
The floaty camera may have been an issue with the Node-WebKit lag I mentioned above, and if so should now be fixed. Though it always was a little floaty. :)

---- whalebot
By weird coincidence, my first incarnation did have "up" as jump, it made some maneuvers a bit easier and others much harder. So, a bit of a trade off. After resisting it for a while, I finally tried a separate jump key and ultimately settled on that, once I got used to it. In future versions I'll add either rebindable keys or controls sets that include an "up to jump" layout. Thanks for the feedback, whalebot. :)

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-13T17:16:00

---- frogcheese
Thanks, frog cheese. Yeah, I'm hoping to work on the camera once the voting is over, but I tend to agree, especially when you fall a long distance, the camera anticipates a little too far ahead of you at the moment. Glad you liked the graphical design side of things, and the music. I actually just uploaded the song to Sound Cloud. (I just set up an account there literally a few minutes ago) This is it https://soundcloud.com/fisholith/lucid-ceruleines-theme. I think I may need to do something special to make it downloadable, but I'm running on almost no sleep at this point, so I think I'll work that out later. :)

---- CoolIron
Hm, I may need to add in a feature that allows the player to toggle gamepad input. Thanks for letting me know. If you get a chance and it's convenient, could you let me know what model gamepad it is? Anyway, glad you liked it. :)

---- Schrodinger Games
Thanks, Schrodinger. For a second I was afraid to look at your comment, since I figured it might just be best to allow it to exist as a simultaneously positive and negative reply. Of course, I ultimately peaked, and it looks like the official word is that you liked it, which as far as I'm concerned is a superposition. :D
... sorry, couldn't help it :)
Thanks again.

---- Sascha
Thanks for the feedback. I have been experimenting with some different sounds for the dash. I can't change any content in this version till after LD, but I'm thinking of using a more delicate magic-y sound for it. I almost wonder if mixing something like a bow and arrow release with some metallic harmonics might fit it better.

Glad you liked the characters. For Ceruleine, the little bird, I ended up building a system that models her visual interest in things around her, so she'll look around at nearby objects, and her gaze will track them as she moves past them. She tends to focus most strongly on the faces of the other creatures and the orbs, but she'll look at flowers and things too if there's nothing especially significant around. For flowers that are taller than she is, she'll look up at them when she walks under them, provided she's focusing on them.
Anyway, Thanks for the suggestions. :)
Glad you liked it.

---- Alexandre Szybiak
Thanks, for trying it out again.
I'm glad it finally worked out. :D

---- apiotrw
Thanks, apiotrw.
Happy to hear you had fun with it. :)
There's a lot of stuff I want to add to it once LD ends. Moving elements in the environment, Hazards that can wake you up. Each type of creature was going to have different internal rules for certain aspects of their dreams. Connecting the dreams of different creatures was also something I wanted to incorporate as a means of solving puzzles in the waking world. I'll have to wait. :)

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-14T04:37:00

Thanks for the feedback all. :D

---- LTyrosine
Thanks, LTyrosine.
Happy to hear you liked the music and atmosphere. I've only ever done one jam before this, and LD is so short I wasn't really sure if putting work into the atmosphere was going to pay off, or just eat time. Learning experience to be sure. :D

---- Aglavra
I'm glad you had fun with the dash mechanic.
I see you too have an owl in your avatar pic. :)
My owl is a little blocky, yes. My avatar owl is actually from my previous, and first, game jam. The GameBoy Jam #3. Everything in that jam had to be GameBoy resolution, and only 4 colors. Oh my gosh, people made so many cool games. Seriously humbling to see what some of the other developers did within those limitations. Definitely check out the entries for that jam if you get a chance. :D
... not to get off on a tangent.
Anyway, thanks for the comment.

---- skiddings
Thanks for the feedback. I wish I had more time to add some degree of in-game explanation of the story, simple as it was. Yeah, the controls can be kind of finicky. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on both the good and the awkward aspects of the game. It all helps. :D

---- klianc09
Thanks, klianc09. I think that's a good suggestion with respect to the jump height. I'd fiddled with the jump strength a little, and I'd planned for some jumping specific mechanics, but I didn't ultimately have time to set them up. For instance a double jump, which for a bird actually thematically kind of makes sense, as Ceruleine could flap her wings once for a second upward impulse.

Also there was a corner jumping system that actually is in the code, but essentially disabled. After I modified the collision geometry to make staying on tiny platforms easier (yes, it used to be even harder) it became much trickier to pull off the corner kick maneuver since it relied on a (literal) edge case in the physics. I wanted to tune it back to a viable mechanic, but there would have been no time left to test it, so I stuck with the dash as the main special movement system.

With the corner jump, the first hill could actually be scaled without using dash at all. Enough of the code is still in the game that it is still barely possible, but very (VERY) difficult as it wasn't refined to play well with the revised collision geometry.

I'm glad you like Ceruleine's visual interest system. :)
Her feet are actually also handled procedurally. They're not a looping walking animation, or an animation at all for that matter. This is probably easiest to see when she backpedals off a slope. Though, similarly to the above, I tuned the leg rig *before* revising the collision geometry, and it's a little more iffy now. The original system looked really natural, but the same loose physics that made her natural glidy-looking movement turned out to be terrible for actual precision platforming, so I had to reign it in a lot.

That's actually why the controls still feel a little slidy at times. I didn't have the heart to axe the feature entirely, even though chances are no one will even consciously notice her little birdy feet doing their procedural thing. Maybe not my best design decision. :)

Finally, yes, I could see your "Hello, Alien!" game being one of those awesome puzzle titles from the golden shareware era. I love the presentation of it. Reminds me of the old Apogee classics. :)

Sorry to ramble, thanks again for the comment klianc09. :)

---- Will Edwards
Thanks for the comment. Glad the web version worked for you. :)
It's possible that there's an issue with the dash in some browsers that I haven't come across yet.
The way I do the right angle dash is to hold "Up" and press "Dash", then make sure I release "Up" completely, then hold "Right" or "Left", and press "Dash" again. It took me quite a few tries to get it down. Technically you don't have to hold "Right" or "Left", as Ceruleine will dash horizontally in whatever direction she's facing if no direction is held down.

---- TautNerve
Thanks, TautNerve. Glad you had fun with the dash mechanic. :)
Just out of curiosity, were you using keyboard or gamepad?

---- Natrium729
No, that's a fair question. It may not be that easy to tell, but if you look closely, both of Ceruleine's wings actually have bandages around them.

Yeah, I think you're right about the controls, I managed to get them to be much tighter than they were when I started out (see my reply to klianc09 above), but even so, you're right, there's definitely room for further improvement. I think I played it enough to subconsciously get used to a lot of the quirks, so it became harder for me to feel them out. Glad you had fun with it though. :)

Thanks for the feedback.

---- Managore
Cool, glad you enjoyed it. :D
Good call with the slippery blocks. Part of me feels like I could fiddle with the physics, and part of me feels like maybe I should just not build levels that aggravate it. :)
I actually have continued work on the game I made for my previous game jam, and I hope to do the same for Lucid. So with luck there will be more at some point. :)

---- ruerob
Thanks, for the feedback, ruerob.
If you get a chance, can you let me know which browser and OS you're using? That "can't get pickups" bug is a new one for me.
As for the jumping issue on the desktop version, you may have a gamepad plugged in that is resting on one of its buttons. A friend of mine got exactly that issue, but righting/unplugging the gamepad seemed to fix it. I'm going to add in a "disable gamepad input" option eventually, since I know unplugging stuff from a computer is sometimes easier said than done, and some gamepads have to have their custom controls reprogrammed each time they're unplugged.

Thanks again, all.
Please feel free to let me know if I missed one of your comments or forgot to answer a question. :)
And, thanks again for all the feedback.

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-14T07:18:00

Thanks :)

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-14T16:35:00

Wow, Lokarunith, thanks for pointing this out. At first I couldn't figure out what you meant by the 72 version not being relevant. Now I know why the 48 and 72 options were radio buttons instead of checkboxes. I thought you could enter both in parallel as long as you provided the source code by the 48th hour to be eligible for the earlier 48-hour deadline, and abided by the stricter rule set. :/

That's why I have the 48-hour source available, and why I tried to keep the 48 and 72 versions clearly labeled and separated, but you're definitely right, the web version I just added launches instantly, so good call. I'm trying to get a hold of one of the LD organizers to see what if anything needs to happen. I may voluntarily withdraw entirely. I don't want an unfair advantage.

I contacted Mike Kasprzak (LD mod), and I'm waiting to hear back from him. In the interim, I disabled the web link here, and the HTML version of the game. I can't edit the contest category, but I plan to ask Mike about switching it to 72 if possible. If you have any further suggestions don't hesitate to let me know. This is my first LD, and I'm not in it for the ranking, I just wanted to be part of it. So thanks again for pointing this out, Lokarunith.

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-15T05:22:00

Seriously, no need to apologize. It was my mess-up in the first place, and like I said, I'd feel bad about ranking above anyone who'd set their entry up correctly from the start, so I'm totally fine with not placing this time around. I'll know for next time. :)

Thanks again for helping me out, and getting back to me so fast. :D

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-15T15:09:00

---- igoramendola
Thanks igoramendola. Glad you liked it. :)

Thanks for letting me know about the AVG thing. Avira and MalwareBytes don't show anything for me, but just to be on the safe side, I'm swapping out the exe launcher with a plain bat file launcher. I suspect that it's a false positive, but I'm not taking any chances. Thanks again, for letting me know.

Some background on the launcher...
The purpose of the launcher is to invoke the command switches "--disable-threaded-compositing" and "--ignore-gpu-blacklist" when executing the lucid.exe file. The first switch prevents Node-Webkit from trying to run multiple threads, with one dedicated to compositing, as this causes lag and intermittent freezing in games. The second switch prevents Node-Webkit from disabling WebGL support on Windows XP and Vista, as launching the game without WebGL will result in a solid grey window.

The bat file that the exe was constructed from contains only the following line:

lucid.exe --disable-threaded-compositing --ignore-gpu-blacklist

You can copy that text into your own bat file to recreate it, if you want. It should solve exactly the same problems that the exe launcher does, only the command window will remain open. To prevent the command window from staying open, you can use the "start" command at the beginning of the line (i.e. "start lucid.exe ..."). The "start" command will return immediately, allowing the window to close.

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-15T15:24:00

---- egor-idiot
Glad you like the atmosphere, egor. :)

I tend to agree that the current jump height is a little on the shallow side. I want to eventually add in a double jump feature, which will hopefully give your conventional motion a little more utility.

In fact, if you search this page for "---- klianc09" I explain a little more about the development history of the jumping physics, and how and why they are the way they are in the current version. Hint, time pressure and indecision played a role. :)

I've also been thinking about adding in a gliding mechanic. I'll have to see...

As for the particles. I love particle effects, so as a general rule, if a thing happens ... particles. Perhaps not the best approach, but the sparkle-iest approach? May-be ... may-be ...

Anyway, thanks again for your comment. :)

Lucid by fisholith 2014-09-16T06:37:00

Don't worry about it. :)
It was fun being a part of LD. Take care, and see you next time. :)

Rainboverse by modbox 2014-09-13T10:30:00

Not sure why, but this reminds me of when I used to play around with D-Paint back on the Amiga. There's something kind of charming about the witches being filled with rainbow gradients. I like the colors. :)

Congrats on getting a Ludum Dare project in!