Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → FloGames
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | Sir, your Armor is melting | jam | 1267 | 2.95 | 2.79 | 2.65 | 2.86 | 3.25 | 2.86 | 2.70 | ||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | Stompin' Grounds | jam | 1153 | 3.20 | 3.44 | 2.51 | 3.43 | 2.86 | 2.05 | 2.90 | ||
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | Lunar Laundry | jam | 1271 | 3.31 | 3.12 | 3.17 | 3.67 | 3.72 | 3.35 | 3.14 | ||
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | Escape The Space Vortex | jam | 3.00 | 3.50 | 3.50 | 4.00 | 3.00 | 1.00 | 2.00 | 2.50 |
Hi Erk, I enjoyed testing and playing your little game! It's got a good atmosphere and charming music+graphics, well done! The color scheme reminds me a bit of Welcome to Night Vale, now that I think about it. Small visual feedback on the cursor would be nice when you're looking at things, but that's just nitpicking. Oh and I looked at the timelapse video, cool idea with the hats :D
@rschoellgen Thanks for your feedback! I'll think about removing CTRL to make it a 1-button game, it really doesn't have much of a purpose. I didn't want to use Space for restart to prevent accidentally skipping the game over screen, but I'll take a look at it.
Hey @erkberg thanks for playing! Yes I definitely want to add music and polish a bit more, and maybe wrong jumps just lead to a time penalty, we'll see. Glad you liked it so far! PS: and no, actually you can't escape :/
Haha I love the fact that you can jump out of the water :D What can I say, the controls are smooth (setting direction via keyboard and dashing with mousebutton worked best for me) and the dramatic climaxing soundtrack - in true Erkberg fashion - really adds to the mood, especially when all the creatures are ganging up on you, you really feel like this is a place where you don't want to be. Sure, the graphics could have used a bit more variety (creatures and some elements to make the sea background feel more interesting), but all in all good job! I almost liked the bad ending better because of the element of surprise - it kinda all makes sense in that moment :bulb:. Thanks for our motivational feedback talks during the jam, it really helps to keep the spirit going!
Heh, very nice and polished! graphics, controls and sound all work together well. At first I couldn't read the keys for the minigames, but eventually I figured it out. When I played the first time, I couldn't advance past the end of the first ear (maybe I took too long?), but after restarting everything worked fine. Good job!
Haha, great little lo-fi barebones binding of isaac like game, complete with upgrades, end boss and ending sequence. I love the doodle graphics and was motivated to play till the end. Character's slow speed was annoying at first, but that's what upgrades are for. Sometimes the projectiles only had a very short range, if I moved the player a little, they seemed fine again, maybe that's a bug? Anyway, well done!
Contemplative and clever! I tried out a few different paths and I can see how the game really captures the feeling of thoughts going in circles, swinging back and forth between despair and glimpses of hope, and the challenge to find a positive perspective on life even under draining circumstances. I also like how this is reflected in the loop-like structure of the story. To me, the uplifting message here is: there *is* a way out of your rut, at least temporarily, and communicating with friends and family plays a big part in this. Well done! @erkberg would love this :)
I like the meditative mood and the effective retro graphics have a good nostalgic vibe. I ran through the well a couple of times and started discovering more and more lyrics, and I noticed the white shiny lights around the well turned into orange lights with text, but I didn't find them all, I must've missed something. Anyway, good moody piece, although I was a bit confused.
Has a good sense for mood and I'm getting strong Lovecraftian vibes from the atmosphere and story. Navigating is a bit tedious since the walking speed is so slow, apart from that good job!
It's an interesting concept, but I'm just not good at these kind of physics-based games, I found it rather frustrating when the ball kept rolling down the wrong corridors and I quickly lost my patience, I didn't finish the first stage, sorry. There's a real-life aequivalent toy game where you have to roll a ball through a labyrinth, and I'm no good at that either :D Apart from that, I almost didn't see the second switch at first and wondered if I missed something obvious. The music and graphics are nice, I just think the switches should be more distinguishable from the doors. A suggestion for getting a better overview: make the whole level draggable via mouse, so you can plan your moves easier. I hope this doesn't come across too negative, it's just not for me.
Turning around was very quick, I would have preferred using the mouse for looking around. Gameplay was also a bit barren, not much to do except walking around and collecting coins (also I think you can get a bit too close to the walls), but as you said, this can be the base for extending greatly and make a much bigger game. I like how every hole has a different name, gives a little sense of space / worldbuilding.
Neat idea and good graphics + sound, creating a moody atmosphere! After a couple of tries I actually made it to the end, uplifting messages like this are always welcome! I didn't notice at first that your light's radius actually increases when collecting the lanterns. What irritated me the most is that you can fall down into the dark for quite a bit without dying (as others have mentioned).
Interesting concept! I like the art and the music and the fact that you told kind of an interesting setting through dialogue. I also brought some drawings from the depth: creatures.jpg The tone of the illustrator's dialogue seemed a bit off at times, like being kind of rude to the creatures, other than that, good job!
Wow, very impressive and polished! The sound, graphics, animation... this is really on another level, well done! I like point and click adventures, and this one did a good job capturing that retro feeling. In true adventure fashion I also got stuck pretty quickly, but thankfully I found a helpful hint in one of your screenshots :) I also like the twists of the story and the idea of looking at a setting from two different perspectives. Only two minor suggestions: I wish there was a way to skip text & second, it would be a bit more comfortable if there was some kind of hinting/highlighting of interactable objects, so it doesn't get too tedious to find items. Apart from that, great job!
Hey that's a fun little polished game, I like it! I got to 109. It's an oddly calming experience, especially at the beginning where all you do is chase the cheese, not being bothered by the birds. The music greatly contributes to that and I really like it when the sound takes off later and adds to the sense of increasing speed and danger. The graphics and little animations are also well made (love the little touch of the mouse spinning when collecting cheese)! All in all it all works together very well.
Some suggestions: - You could make even more of the concept of the music intensifying later in the game, adding more layers, and even totally transforming the experience by adding more visual effects, like stars in the background or different parallaxing layers, to give an even greater sense of progression. - Sure there could be more variety in the enemies or other collectibles, the game could be extended like this later. - Apart from the arcade-like enemies - have you thought about making relaxation / meditation games? Sometimes it's enough just floating through the skies and satisfyingly collecting multiple pieces of cheese in a row.
A contemplative and profund story about loss, grief and a perspective on the different generations that shape the person you are now and will become in the future, told through the convincing metaphors of a train ride and food. Everything feels very polished and the different elements of graphics, music and writing combined create a compelling and meditative atmosphere. Well done! The only part I struggled with was the last mini game with the three bowls, whatever I tried, nothing seemed to work, but after more random clicking the big bowl finally started filling up.
@erkberg Thanks for playing! Yes the controls get a bit wonky when the tunnel strays too much from forward movement, since the Player is placed and moved on an absolute position. I should take a look at that later. Having two different colliders for collectibles and hazards is also a good point - overall I want to make the game a little more forgiving and add a bit of variety to the laundry graphics. Oh and sound as well. You might even say there's quiete a laundry list of thing to do and polish :smirk:
@albertnez Thank you so much for your feedback! I definitely want to improve the the structure of the game to give a better sense of progress, like an easy start and ramping up the difficulty in the end, to keep things interesting. Slowing down is mostly some kind of an emergency brake if things get too overwhelming. Indeed just speeding through the tunnel and smashing into the dirt is actually the most fun, maybe I should have made a racing game instead :D
@caiojmini Thank you for your feedback! You're right, the dirt is quite unforgiving and the lack of contrast makes things quite difficult to distinguish. Maybe I can come up with a solution to enhance visibility.
@octopussy Yep, the lack of contrast makes it hard to distinguish the dirt particles, I'll look into this. Thanks for playing!
@nuclearredeye Thanks for playing! The two issues you mention I should definitely adress and make the game a little more forgiving :)
@sandra-jasionowska Thanks for playing! Yes the controls are a bit wonky, I will try to tweak them a little to make them more intuitive.
Hi @kroltan yes I re-watched part of your stream and saw you setting up the background, very much appreciated! Glad you like the premise :) As for your feedback: - Yep, the controls are wonky because the WASD movement is absolute, while the player moves on the tunnel's spline. This becomes a problem when the tunnel strays too much from the forward direction. I'll fix that and try to find a solution for the camera rotation. - The dirt is very unforgiving at the moment, I'll tweak the contrast, colliders and will make the collected dirt on the screen disappear after a while. - Sense of progress is also very high on my list, right now the elements are just randomly distributed, I want to introduce different stages with ramping up difficulty and introducing new elements.
Thanks again for playing!
@ulisses 92% is pretty good! Thanks for your positive feedback and yes, some atmospheric audio is definitely on my todo list. How it's done is actually quite simple: I used an external path creator tool (link in description) and created a spline which is the basis for the generated tunnel geometry; the player is moved along the spline and gets offset from the spline via WASD.
@poweranze hey thanks for playing and sharing the link!
Hey that was pretty cool! Like a frantic 1st person point n click adventure. The Mood and graphics kept me motivated to try again until I finally reached the end (third time I think). It had the right level of difficulty - not too easy, not too frustrating. The controls worked very smoothly and I really liked the retro 3d graphics and the atmospheric music (piano is an interesting choice for a submarine). The constant pounding noise was pretty unnerving, but I guess that's the plan :D Criticism: - I was always suprised when I failed, I found no clear indicator on the pressure meter when my time's up, I'd suggest some kind of countdown or message when 50% of the time's up etc. - The Ending was a bit underwhelming
Apart from than that, great game and I really enjoyed playing it!
Haha the backstory is pretty bizarre & at first I thought I wouldn't get far with these weird weapons, but the good Hotline Miami vibes and the eerie soundtrack kept me going until I finally reached the ending. I found the Discgun to be the most useful weapon and made sure not to waste any ammo. It really helps that every enemy needs exactly 2 shots to kill. Best strategy for me was to carefully advance into a new room and use the Discgun like a sniper, shooting enemies from afar without them noticing. The crates opening when all enemies have been killed is a nice touch to motivate you not to rush to the exit. The soundtrack, lighting and atmosphere are fantastic! Minor complaint about the graphics: the collectibles were a bit hard to distinguish from the furniture and other stuff lying around. Apart from that, good game!
Wow, very impressive and very polished! It has an intro, multiple stages, characters, a boss fight, a proper ending... The atmosphere created by the lighting and textures is really well done and although I found the game challenging I was motivated enough try again and again until I reached the end. Awesome!
The basic idea that things like speed etc. change with every level (a bit like in binding of isaac) is promising, but the game quicky felt too difficult for me, the enemies are very spongy as they take a bit too many hits and the weapon is very basic. The retro graphics are alright, and with a bit of difficulty tweaking this could become a much more compelling game.
Phew, that was quite a harrowing experience! It's challenging getting both deer to safety, took me a couple of tries but I finally made it. It's definitely more difficult controlling both at once, but at least you feel better saving both of them. I almost expected a situation where you had to sacrifice one for the other in the end, luckily that never happened. Very atmospheric music, overall - as usual - a game with an intense, melancholic mood! BTW The run buttons I didn't really need (except at the beginning). I really appreciate the checkpoints, one suggestion though: it's a bit disorienting how the camera quickly moves to the left (almost to the beginning?) and then rushes to the right again to the checkpoint. I'd like it better if the cam just moved to the left and stopped at the checkpoint. This way you get a better sense of how much of a setback you have when dying. Also sometimes the space around the checkpoints is a bit tight, with a bit more room it's easier to jump back into the game. The animals were a bit hard to see against the wooden background since they had such a dark color. Apart from these minor complaints, good job!
Very big scope with many features and I had fun playing. Once you get the hang of the controls it's almost meditative traveling across the snow. Sound and graphics really help creating this lonely atmosphere, like you're lost in antartica. Nice touch that you can actually lose gems when they fall out of your vehicle. Some strange things I encountered and I'm not sure if I did something wrong: - Upgrades didn't work (I tried stopping inside the blue square, but the vehicle always had a tiny bit of movement) - Nothing happens when you run out of energy, except you move veeery slow (no game over) - I collected over 200$ and went inside the drop ship but nothing happened
@ltyrosine Thanks for the reply, that makes perfect sense! I played for roughly 1 hour (including restarts) until I reached 200$, it was mostly the atmosphere that kept me going, which really speaks to the game. With less shaky controls (I know, the theme...) and a bit more motivation to travel further away from the base and explore more territory and even a story I think this would make a great game!
Well it certainly fits the theme :D This was confusing and hard on the eyes, which I'm sure was the plan, so good job creating a trippy experience! Didn't get very far though. Maybe if it started more "normal" and gradually became more trippy over time? To create a stronger sense of contrast, I don't know.
At first I was puzzled that I got so many random game overs until I understood that I have to keep the mouse button down :D I think it would be more clear if Game Over was just falling off the floor and if you could stop blowing at will. I'm not sure the blocky floor tiles work with the diagonal movement of the character. The levels are a bit bare right now, you could extend on the concept and add hazards like ventilators, etc.
Very polished entry, graphics, audio, ui, very good! The only real complaint I have is that the game's too easy. If you just upgrade weapon and spawn rate in turns as soon as you can afford it, you'll have no trouble getting to the end, not much strategy involved. Otherwise good job!
haha, very polished, but much too hard for me :)
Quirky little game with your trademark retro graphics and sound. Reminds me of my good old C64 :D I only managed to destory a few cities though, they kept growing too fast for me. Good job!
Very harrowing experience, the tension is super high and reflexes need to be super-fast and precise, well done! It was very thrilling timing the movement and the shots just right and the music really added to the tense feeling. Very challenging and well done! Sometimes I wished I could use the mouse to look around a bit more, just to see what enemies might be lurking at the end of a long ladder, but that's just a minor thing.
Great graphics and music, but I'm not good at these type of games, I rarely make it past the first deadly pit :D
Very ambitious with lots of features like multiple stages, weapons, an AI... and made by just two people, very impressive! I had fun playing, it wasn't too hard since the CPU often tried shooting through barriers. Reminded me a lot of the Worms series, which I love. You could really expand the whole concept and make a great polished game! Well done! Just one feature suggestion: when it's my turn to select a soldier I would like to be able to look around the stage more, since I want to carefully choose the optimal strategic position.
I think I'm feeling a bit unstable after playing this :D It was certainly unexpected and the voice acting was terrific, good job!
Very polished, fun graphics and very catchy music. I had fun trying out different block combinations and seeing what happens when the enemies attack. Also not too hard, the level design is pretty forgiving. Good job!
Fun little dexterity game. It took me some getting used to the throwing and catching mechanic (running controls felt a bit too loose so I would speed up too much) but after I while I got the hang of it and it felt pretty good. The voiceover could be a bit toned down, otherwise neat job!
Starts out slow (there were times when I wished I had a speedup button) but gets very tricky in the later levels. Good idea for a timed puzzle game! As others have commented, I can totally see this as a mobile game. Good music, too! Sometimes it was a bit hard to tell in which direction the track switches are pointing, especially when things get hectical. Maybe highlighting of the track would help? Oh and I wished I could rotate the view with the arrow buttons of my keyboard, I had barely time examining the tracks more carefully and think of different strategies. Which brings me to my last suggestions: Add a button to manually start the spawning of the carts at the beginning of each level so the player has enough time to take a look at the tracks first.
Whoa, the game's very polished and I had fun playing - challenging, but not impossibly hard, I even beat the end boss after a few tries. Especially the music stands out, adding a lot to the grim setting and atmosphere. I found it strange that I can't shoot up or down, but that's ok. Very impressive!
Yay, I made it to the artifact! I like the graphics and the mood of the setting, it's challenging but not too hard. A few complaints: - It's a bit too dark to anticipate the hazards (especially the pits) properly - To be honest the sound effects (running speedboost, jump) were rather annoying and kind of worked against the mood, maybe tune them down a little - wall jumping was very hard, I often missed the wall :D
Apart from that, I had fun, especially when I could chain-jump several platforms in a row, I like that feeling of flow. If you want to expand the game the flow is probably something you can explore even more. A solid entry!
@ltyrosine Thanks for the help, I'll look into the jittering problem! I already wondered what caused it.
@joeshanahan cool, thanks for the video!
Impressive graphics and audio, very cinematic storytelling through voiceover and visual effects. Gameplay is very linear (mostly finding the next spot where you need to press "E" to advance), the biggest challenge is finding orientation inside the claustrophobic train, but that's ok. Good job!
Challenging little game, there were some tricky jumps, but I finally reached the end. The Music is nice and the controls are good. The checkpoints and shelters from the deadly cookie rain are very apprechiated :) The game felt a bit too long, the tiles and gameplay feel a bit repetitive after a while. In the last section I expected raining lava but thankfully it never came ^^ I like that there's different themes like ice and snow and normal terrain. Sometimes jumps were hard to land because the terrain tailes moved offscreen while jumping. Otherwise, good job!
As usual a strong mood piece, especially through the combination of murky/foggy visuals and a thoughtful but dramatic soundtrack. First I breezed through the game by spamming the attack button (the ending is a bit abrupt since the final propaganda message is overlapped by the end screen, as others have pointed out), the pacifist run is much harder & I didn't make it to the end. Figuring out the timing when to use the right defense move is very difficult, the enemies' attacks probably need clearer telegraphing, or the timing needs a little bit of tweaking to be more forgiving. Of course, sound FX also could have helped. On the other hand, in reality the peaceful way usually *is* the harder option, so the gameplay kind of reflects the message ^^ Oh, also good title! ;)
Cute little blocky 3d retro game, I lasted until day 5. The health packs kept me going for a while. Sound FX and music fit well with the graphics. My main complaint would be the repetetive gameplay, different ships or weapons would be nice, or special itemes like sea mines (when you shoot one, it explodes and destroys other ships nearby).
Oh I liked this one, it's the blocky bird version of Breath of the Wild :D I had fun exploring the Island and chasing the thieves. The look is simple but fits the style of the game. I really appreciate the mini-map. The soothing sound of the ocean waves is oddly calming, almost meditative. I echo what Kazuren above says, jump is a bit floaty and the egg on the stone arc seems impossible to get (at least I didn't get it ._.). Otherwise, good job!
Cool idea using a complete level as a pinball table! I'm not very good at this, though. Twice I got over the revolver part, but mostly due to luck, I don't feel like I have much control over the movement of the ball. Checkpoints would have been nice to reduce the frustration. The western theme works well and I like the small scenes populated with saloon folk. A fun Idea: what if they reacted to the pinball in surprise, etc? The cheesy music fits the theme perfectly, but it gets a bit annoying after a while.
Pretty cool! (or should I say hot?) It was frustrating at first because I got overwhelmed by the meteors much too fast and sometimes I found fery few materials, but once I figured out how to use the upgrades to my advantage (the second jump is a blessing), I felt pretty good navigating the world and dodging hazards and I actually reached the end. For a long time I didn't find any crystals (or if I did, they just disappeared right before my eyes), but the upgrades probably also helped with that? One thing that irrtated me: in the upgrade screen, I had to click on a button to see the cost of an upgrade & I bought it at the same time. It would be better if the cost was displayed on mouseover so I know in advance how much I'll spend on an upgrade. I like the idea of a rotating planet as a level, it has a hypnotic feeling, especially in combination with the fiery particles. Graphics are ok, could use a little more variety. Music is pretty good and creates an ominous mood. Good one, although maybe a bit unbalanced.
I got to 121, great fitting music (I like how it shifts into different phases), but as others have said before, very slippery controls. I think a decreasing power bar for the umbrella would have made more sense than changing colors. I wished I could also move up and down. Different stages would be good, introducing new enemies (like birds coming from the sides).
I really enjoyed the relaxing music's Space Oddity vibes, but the controls got me slipping and sliding through the galaxy. By accident I stumbled upon the right journal and logged in as M***. There's probably some epic lore hidden inside the text journals, but I didn't have much patience to explore them all and piece them together. With more casual controls I would have played longer. The graphics have a trashy retro-charme, interesting, but it wears off after a while.
Great presentation, very polished! Charming graphics, dramatic music, well done! Heh, the setup reminds me of the first Halloween episode of The Simpsons. The mini games are simple fun and not too hard to figure out. The aliens could use some alien gibberish audio voice, just a suggestion. Oh and one thing that bothered me: isn't the fire supposed to come out of the hole of the rocket, not from the "wing"? Anyway, good job!
Well that was quite trippy :D It's probably the odd combination of the psychedelic graphics, the seemingly stream-of-consciousness writing and the surreal ending. The sound has some low rumbling issues (very irritating on headphones), could be fixed with a high pass filter. The exclamation marks were hard to see sometimes, perhaps they needed some animated glow/shadow to draw more attention.
I really liked the brooding atmosphere created by the fitting dark scifi soundtrack and the bleak monochrome graphics. Gameplay-wise it didn't do much for me, even with the guide. An in-game tutorial and some in-game help (like an explanation if you made a good decision or not) would have helped a lot. Sorry, but this went a bit over my head.
Simple but effective endless runner (I got to 340), I got better when I figured out the hookshot timing better and used as few clicks as possible. The stomping rhythm of the music in sync with the charming simple character animation has a hypnotic effect. A bit odd that the wave is so pixelated in comparison to the rest of the graphics. A solid entry!