Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → free_napalm
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Werewolf in Space | compo | 563 | 3.16 | 2.96 | 3.48 | 3.71 | 2.40 | 1.63 | 3.13 | 3.13 | 86 | |
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | Extinction Exhibition | compo | 476 | 2.77 | 2.68 | 3.36 | 3.59 | 2.68 | 2.48 | 2.75 | 2.65 | 46 | |
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Gale Axile | compo | 104 | 3.60 | 3.34 | 3.82 | 3.60 | 3.08 | 2.82 | 2.23 | 3.30 | 88 |
As mattchu said already, the game felt slow and repetitive. An other kind of enemy would have been cool, maybe a submarine or helicopter.
Also, after a few minutes in game I wasn't sure who shot which cannon balls, and had to avoid all. I have a different flag than the others, why not a different cannon ball colour?
What I did like was the setting and opening.
Had a lot of fun, this could be a popular Smartphone game :) so simple and yet quite fun. Incorperating the actions in the music worked really good.
Great small game!
Nice tune and good gameplay. Also an interesting idea to remote control the rock.
It's a shame you didn't have time to add more levels (I assume), because it felt more like a tutorial without the main game.
It's cool, but I needed some time to figure out how to dock, as I thought I would have to actually land on the bottom of the dock.
Had fun playing it, even got used to the physics. Music, maybe a way to lose ("death" stars?) and more levels would have improved it a lot for me.
Outstanding work, especially for the time limit. Graphics are flawless, the music fits to the mood. In the way you explore on and on through this wilderness and you are looking forward to new encounters, it reminded me of the original Fallout. The mood was similar, too.
I quit because I didn't have the nerve to go back, find rocks, and waste most of those on enemies I pretty much fought before.
What fascinated me was that my game (Gale Axile) has nearly the same setting - a lone guy [probably] in a space suit exploring, picking up resources, building, trying to survive - yet everything is different. On the first glance, your graphics are much better ;) But also, yours is so emotional and easy to pick up, while mine is complex and heartless lol
To put it in a nutshell, your game is interesting and made me think. Outstanding.
A bit too easy for me, but really fun :) A game to relax.
Great mood in this one, every planet was different in its own way, so I was quite excited where I'd float next.
More events would have been nice though.
Great graphic style, tough gameplay. Took me some time to beat, but I enjoyed it :)
Awesome to play, but very limited. Still, this is a game I would love to keep on my hard drive for years, so I can always smash a planet when I feel like it :P
Audio would have made it even better.
Great gameplay once you get the hang of it.
Nice graphics, but I think the fun in the board game is to mess up your opponents plans etc. When it's always your turn, like here, it gets old quickly.
The intro and start dialogue were cool, and the first level was alright. Gameplay reminded me of fighting Megaman bosses a bit.
But I could not beat the second guy. Kind of unfair that his yellow squares changed in size, and that the boomerang needs so much time to come back.
It's okay for a start, learn from it for future jams.
Nice concept, and the magnifier was a great idea. Especially because it was useless :)
Good idea with the different states - Gish meets Kirby?
But I could not really enjoy the game because of the bugs. Once I had to spawn four times in a row until I even had the possibility to move.
Incredible graphics. It reminded me of both Star Fox 64 (Gameplay, due to the slow speed and environment a lot like the underwater levels there) and Spyro (main character).
My only complain is the speed of the Gryphalope. If he/she/it was faster, there wouldn't be so much time doing nothing in the first few minutes. This would add replay value for me.
Anyway, great work.
Interesting idea, and nice visuals. I wish the sheep were faster though.
Despite of that, very cool puzzle game.
I like it. Game Boy style graphics and music are well made, and killing these planets was nearly as horrible as killin Whispy Woods in Kirby :D
I would have added a manic tune for digging only. Cool game though.
Audio was okay, and background graphics were, too. Really good work on the object graphics though!
Gameplay was alright, but would have been great if the camera zoomed out and the time for e.g. 3 rounds would be measured and saved into a highscore.
You redefined antihero with this game lol
I had a lot of fun despite of the rather repetitive gameplay, due to the dialogue and story.
Thanks for your positive comments everyone. I kind of run out of time for explaining because the rest of the game took me so long and I had no test players around, so you are kind of thrown into the galaxy. I'm glad all of you understood it anyway.
Just a short heads-up, today I found two game-breaking bugs, concerning the campfire and the body temperature bar, and fixed them. The old version can be found here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/75054196/gale_axile_buggy.exe
But despite of the bugs, it's identical.
Have fun playing everyone!
Thanks for the new comments :)
It should work again now, sorry.
Thanks for all the comments, glad you like it despite of the steep learning curve.
RHY3756547: Wow, I'm surprised my spriting style is called detailed, most of the time I just drew random lines :)
youdonotexist: The only thing possible for me would be a GM HTML5 Web build. I'm working on that, but I'm not sure if there will be fluent gameplay. Thanks for your interest though.
divillysausages: Yeah, I wanted to have some things the player has to keep in mind, as bringing at least one fruit to always have something to eat and something to grow your planet to get back. It's a survival game after all, you probably wouldn't go in the wilderness without any food, too :)
Smooth gameplay, nice atmosphere with fitting music. I can not really think of one thing I would add to it without changing the concept.
The way it is, it's a good game with a great concept. Well done!
P.S.: Redheads as cargo? This is quite dystopian lol
Great game, made real intense with the zooming mechanique and sound and fear of death. Imagine one of these pencil labyrinths for kids in restaurants - running through your veins. That's this game.
Cool idea to make an Android game, but the gameplay is not really fun. Also, I felt not really as if it was my fault when I lost, it was due to the lack of meteorites of fitting colours.
Maybe you should have added the ability to change the current colour randomly by shaking or something to spice up the gameplay.
Fun game with an interesting weapon.
Great interactive story, but, as mentioned here before, not really a game.
Clear graphic style and a solo barbershop quartet as background music.
And the game is fun, too. Nothing to complain about this one for me :)
Every level was nice to play, and the last level made it great.
Amazing graphics! Reminded me of the animated film Watership Down :)
I just wish there was something to do, e.g eating as much lettuce as possible before a bird of prey catches you.
What I love about your game is that it has such an uplifting mood, while the content seems depressing.
It's hard to rate the fun, as I understand that the message would not work if it was more fun to play. It's some kind of anti-game not really meant to be fun.
Amazing concept, one of my favourites among this LD.
The gameplay on the planets was a bit boring, but what made the game for me was flying from planet to planet. Different enemies would have been cool, but on the other hand you only had 48 hours, so that's okay.
The gameplay on the planets was a bit boring, but what made the game for me was flying from planet to planet. Different enemies would have been cool, on the other hand you only had 48 hours, so that's okay.
Very unique. Loved the mechanique and dialogue. Would be quite cool to have a normal game, like a platformer played only with arrow keys, but you can also interact as in this game with the mouse.
But the way it is, it's missing something to be a game. Whatever it is, it's interesting.
The mood is incredible tense, and reminded me of Majora's Mask. Being able to interact with everything allows interesting choices. The NPCs' reactions are priceless, especially when you are the psycho of your group (You want to know why I chopped our house? So you sleep junkies get to work) lol
One of my favourite games of this LD.
Nice graphics and music, but real fun and fluent gameplay.
Enjoyed it a lot.
I felt like applauding when I finished the game. Excellent work in story telling, graphics, gameplay and mood. Not sure if it was your choice, but not having music was perfect for this game.
I feel like watching Memento again, too :)
Incredible work, not only for the short time you had.
Great pixel graphics, audio and gameplay, though I would have liked a bit of challenge.
Loved it.
Man, jumping feels like that guy is extremely obese. But you achieved a cool Graphics style.
The gameplay was alright, too.
Maybe the game with the best polish I saw at this LD. Smooth gameplay and good visuals, too. Felt like a good game off the Google Play Store!
Excellent choice of music, relaxing gameplay and nice mood. Well done.
You surprised me.
Solid gameplay with nice graphics.
Enemy placement could have been a bit better, sometimes a bad guy hid under one of these friendly circles and some enemies could not be shot at all.
Something like a screen shake twice a minute would be a nice effect to add a more organic feel to it.
Great graphics and the audio is alright, too.
Nice to see a challenging game.
I loved the graphics and the mood. And it was a lot of fun to explore everything :)
Only flaw: Controls were a bit confusing around the corner. Maybe you should have add the option to not use absolute directions, and just left = counter-clockwise, right = clockwise.
Great game anyway :)
Good work, it felt like playing the first dungeon of a 2D Zelda, which is a great thing.
I think the game would work better if there was a checkpoint (lost against the epic boss, did not want to replay the whole game) and the enemies could not run leave their rooms. One of the green bearded guys left his room, and I had to chase him, therefore his cool cave had no use.
But really liked the rest, though it did not fit the theme at all.
Besides, as the nazi enemies are shown as really stupid, there is no reason to ban it in Germany lol
Quite fun, especially in HC-mode. I switched to that, because normal mode was too easy, didn't even try RCtrl.
And it reminds me of PewPew, which I played for a lot of fun hours on my Android phone.
The chiptune is also good here, but the effects strain the eyes too much. I should at least be able to turn them off.
I reached level 4, but the game just gets too hard. Ihad no idea whether some connections would stay or not when I moved the house.
On the other hand, really innovative gameplay! Graphic style works and combines really well with the music, too.
Flawless graphics, nice music and fluent gameplay. I only wish there I could tell how much health a enemy has left, I am still not sure if different attacks make a different amount of damage. That made the game a bit too hard.
Great work though!
Loved the humour and completely original setting. The graphic were a bit too simple for me, Casal looks like Batman.
On the other hand, the narrator worked really well. Nice game.
Mouse control was a bit confusing, it felt like the ball was slowly turning to the left.
But on the other hand, it was a lot of fun to play and get stronger :)
First, good music. And I really liked that the ants actually walk and beat up their enemy, never saw "moving" towers in a TD before.
Sometimes it was hard to tell how to do something, for example you just had to memorize in which square your ants were built, just a small anthill for the "building site" would have helped a lot, earlier in the game at least. This would have made it easier to upgrade.
Nice game though!
Great Shooter part, but it felt quite thankless to get destroyed by that ship in seconds after beating the first level.
Still, loved the Shooter part, reminded me of the classic Shoot'em ups that I love.
Nice and challenging game!
It was fun, but I couldn't beat level 7 :(
Fun and clean game design on this one, with a nice choice of weapons.
But it lacks a bit in possibilites for the player, if the terrain was destructible for example there would be a lot of ways to play, but now you just shoot and walk a bit.
Though, this game is designed to be simple, so it's good the way it is.
Good gameplay, nice graphics and music.
For me, it felt like Gulliver's Travels if Gulliver was an asshole.
Incredible graphics, looks like a movie poster. The controls of the robot were innovative and worked well. The only downside was that you just die at some point because of tanks and don't really feel as if you made something wrong.
To put it in a nutshell, amazing presentation, but it lacks in the gameplay department.
Good ideas - as slave trading and story revelation -, but the gameplay was not exciting enough to keep me playing.
Congratulations to your first game.
Love the mood in this one. It's heartbreaking to build a civilization and then having them die one by one.
Graphic style works great. I got a bit bored because there was no real goal, I wish there were achievements at least (e.g. reach the third generation, get 12 people).
Amazing work though, especially because of the deep gameplay.
I got confused that I couldn't walk into some of the pixels I created at first. Why would I create pixels I can't walk through? :D
What would have improved it would have been more variety like weapons, distance fighting enemies, building sentry pixels or something like that.
On the other hand, nice concept and nice idea. Especially it was quite cool to learn how to beat these enemies with minimal loss. Mastering the skill of combat was the best part :)
Had fun, and liked the design of the monster. The music fits the frantic gameplay.
Based on 1.0, the contest version:
It's so hard to win against the pilgrims, it's almost a realistic depiction of history lol
But I had a lot of fun playing. Great idea to call it "Manifest Destiny". I often tried to attack enemies from the side, which always resulted in lost health, though it did not feel as if they hit me.
Fun little game. I wish I would get to the boss.
I love the visuals and the background music, they really set you in a desperate, sad mood.
The gameplay is rubbish though, but you said that, too.
It feels that there could be much more, but it's the same for my LD project, so who am I to complain.
Great work, and nice consistent graphic style. Quite addictive, too, but I quit after the third failure in fireball age, because I did not want to play through the easy levels again.
I have to comment that I was quite surprised by the theme, and this was the best idea I came up with. The complexity of the small ecosphere absorbed the time I wanted to use to add gameplay.
To have a bit of game time left, I decided not to label the evolutionary traits. I wanted the player to play multiple times, to learn and to think at which point he destroyed the ecosphere. Also I tried to create something where the player discovers features I did not think about, due to the high number of combinations. I don't know how many species may coexist, but my maximum is six, too.
I see why it doesn't feel like a game. If I had the time, I would have added goals (reach 6 species; get a creature with all traits; get a species that kills off 3 species) and got rid of too much stupidness/bugs. In that case it would be much more enjoyable probably.
Thanks for your comments.
Kibertoad: Indeed I did not put a much of thought in the interface, but I think it works. Thanks for the kudos, but I am not going to work on this, as my main focus is on a remake of the my last LD game (http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=12423).
Fanatiko: I am a fan of the GROW series (my favourite is GROW RPG), so thanks for the compliment.
I can't add a Mac version because I used Game Maker 8. I can't promise I will use Java+LibGDX next LD, but I am learning how to use a proper tool.
Bvanschooten: I hoped the player would see which food they go for once they got new traits. If you give them wings, they will fly up to the cherries for example. Just the antler has no use sometimes, as they only hunt down tusk animals, which only hunt down peaceful animals.
Because I run out of time, exploration of these facts seemed to be a working way to get at least a bit of play time.
I originally planned to use actual animals, but that would have made spriting very complex, as I would have needed sprites for all those crazy combinations (what has wings, tusks and antlers?).
Same for events. I planned to have the water level rising sometimes, maybe have traveling carnivores like science4cake suggested. But I just did not have the time.
Thanks for playing!
Nice idea, but it was to easy. Maybe food and DNA should have just been just variable? I never had to worry about food.
There are two developers whose games I will check every LD: Deepnight, who amazes me by gameplay and graphics, and Sos.
Sos' games are just too fun and well-made to miss.
So is Badass, which has great graphics, great sound and a random Waldo cameo. The gameplay could be more defined, but that's what the hipster would ask for.
The concept reminds me a bit of the great Averaging Gradius (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfvsdBq9RrQ). That said, amazingly innovative and well-executed concept!
The upgrades were a bit unsatisfying though. Most of them just added walls, which were a nice mechanique, but I love to get a stronger ship. Still, this is not your fault.
Good work.
Great work. I actually wanted to get every evolutionary trait, as they were fun to use and you felt more powerful with each.
The generated levels worked, but they didn't get harder at all with the increasing difficulty setting. The only challenge was shooting enemies that sit in cave like positions. It was quite frustrating that you could walk right next to them and were unable to shoot. Maybe a melee trait would have been nice?
I agree with you on the theme.
The opening is outstanding, but afterwards it falls a bit flat. Am I resisting against a social darwinist in power? I don't know, but it sure felt epic. Sadly, there was no connection between the story and the gameplay.
The gameplay was just a generic shoot'em up, and the player expects so much after this opening. I didn't realize what happens when I die until the second playthrough, too. The possiblity to die would have added a nice challenge.
Why is this so addicting?
You had nice graphics and that epic monkey picture some redditor's friend bought on Ebay when he was drunk.
Everything else did not interest me as a player, I quitted after looking at four different furniture set-ups for this room.
It plays like a much less beautiful version of Pac-Man. With sound, interesting enemies and an understandable way to kill the big red bugs, your game could be fun to play.
Actual bugs I found in your game: able to walk outside the screen, able to walk on water with the evolved bug.
Very fun game, with a great working minimalist mechanic.
More levels would have been great, but would have needed more gameplay elements (items for example).
As you heard before, awesome job. It felt like the awesome part of Battletoads I was able to beat.
I also want to comment that the Johnny Cash's walking animation is incredibly badass.
Well done.
I got 74 bones :)
Fun game with unique ideas, but the enemies could differ a bit more, maybe shoot something at you? Also, the difference between final Skippy and near-final Skippy is too small to make the vaccine shots important in my opinion.
"FREE is charging an attack!
FREE uses TACKLE!
But FREE avoided the attack!"
In a random battle, I fought myself.
Luckily, I don't have to fight myself when I comment on your game. I like the mechanics, the sound and the Pokemon-style battle log. The code evolution idea is quite original, and makes it feel like a community game. I can't believe you were able to make all this in 48 hours. Great job.
DISK FILE TRAIT SMALL
Very inspiring. This could be made for every genre. Also, every LD participant should play this to see which upgrade he has yet to perform on his game.
My only complaint is the too boring music. The song is great, but it doesn't loop well for 20 minutes. I was hoping for a multiple song upgrade (or orchestral), but sadly, there is none.
Great work though, one didn't even notice that you had to finish in such a short time.
I got a bit excited how this game is going to work out, and was pleased by the presentation of the story.
But then the game was just over. I can't believe this is what you were going for, it feels a lot like you run out of time - I can't even see the sun as you promised?
Otherwise, you had cool gameplay ideas. Sound, music and graphics were okay.
Are you planning to extend the game?
It is indeed a horror to watch the friend for so long. In fact, it's so bad to watch for 40 seconds that I did not give it another try. Maybe a fast forward button could have helped to make the game more fun?
Great game, quite elegant solution for directional shooting lock.
Very good work. I always preferred Dig Dug to Boulderdash, so if you feel like adding a twist to a classic digging game next time, consider Dig Dug.
It was quite a challenge to beat the whole game, but always reasonable. I did not understand what was going on at first, i.e. a NPC flying around with a lamp in the middle of the screens would have made it easier to grasp the concept. On the other hand, you went for minimalism so it works like this, too.
Very minimalist concept.
Nice highscore game, I actually wanted to improve my score after the first round.
I won the war :) Fun little game. It just sucked to see all my 4 remaining planets getting destroyed after my entire crew was gone. There should have been a fast forward button or something.
I did not feel like beating all the loops, because the collisions are somewhat buggy and I often died for unexplainable reasons. Great art though!
Very stylish, but too difficult for me.
I played through the whole game, but I found it too easy. It was exciting at first, but then I realized a collision with my triangle does not end the game. It appeared very hard to lose while holding down the shooting button.
Nice minimalist design though, great job on the level number display.
This was pretty cool, like watching a theatre play from backstage. Perfect for the LD audience too, as everyone developed at least one game here.
Thanks for playing, and it's good to hear that it works under linux.
I wanted to go for werewolf in a submarine first, turns out there already is a movie about that. I hope the spaceship has a similar mood of isolation.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. The game does use luck, but you still have to plan ahead if you want to get all the achievements, and it's not a big deal to replay.
It is all about the suspense, and without luck it would be predictable :)
Auto-losing probably refers to starting the game with Space, thus starting the night without doing anything
If the window is too small for you, try to resize it. I recommend the original size, but the font is still readable in many sizes.
It's nice to see so many people enjoy the cheap setting.
Clean design, decent game. The guys were pretty stupid though, it would have been nice to drop something on the map they chase to to control them.
Decent gameplay, great transition. Different enemies would have been cool, but it works as a minimal shooter like this.
I packed 8 in one game, then it felt too repetitive, as I felt there is not much left to improve on my playstyle (I learned that the finished product could just be pushed down the screen, for example).
Add different chocolate types and wrappers (e.g. Weisse Schokoffol) and it could be great.
Nice shrink mechanic, but I was unable to pass through the first level where you had to go through a small passage.
I love the controls, I would like to see a full blown RPG with a similar battle system.
On the other hand, a game about getting rid of distractions sounds like a ... Oh, excellent title.
Excellent mood, the audio reminded me of the soundtrack of "The Man from Earth".
Perfect run on my first try, can you imagine?
Good design.
Nice game, but I would have liked to skip text on the keyboard, e.g. with space. I was taken out of the game everytime, because this has to be played with two hands on the keyboard.
Pretty cool base for a great shooter game.
It would have been nice to actually see the attack of the blue square.
Interesting controls, but it is too easy because you can just jam the space bar to deal damage.
Good mechanic, but as you said it needs more.
I felt like losing was not my fault, there just were no more orbs in reach.
Had a lot of fun playing this and discovering all the upgrades. I felt like dying was my fault, so good design. My record is 60 kills (for now).
Really fun game!
Nice idea, and extremely polished.
It's well made (especially sound and music), but the enemies are not a threat at all and it was hard to tell apart background and foreground.
I had problems with the controls in the water level that made me quit, otherwise great concept.
What a great frantic business game. Sadly, I lost.
I laughed out loud while playing. This is exactly like those bad websites in the 90s - moving animated pictures, crazy background music.
When I had 2500 I realized the big things do not even kill me. I also knew every track by then, so I stopped playing.
I was so excited for the idea of having different main characters for each era, but then it looped back to the first level. Nice concept though.
I think everything has been said. Nice at first, then it becomes a lawnmowing-like experience.
I hope "Sympathy for the Devil" will be your next LD title, could be a great game ;)
Nice mechanic, but it's not coherent at all with the setting. This combination makes it pretty funny though.
Pokemon with auto-fighting could actually work. Nice graphics, but you would have to improve the the way you interact with them.
I kept dying because the green boxes sent me straight into red boxes. Nice jumping mechanic, on the other hand.
Funny little game.
It reminded me of my game, where you also have to prevent deaths in the night.
Also a bug I think: I took a bath while holding the hair dryer, and it still worked the next day. Alright puzzle game though.
Interesting mechanic, but really, really hard game. It's hard to survive even without the enemies. Maybe if you could also kill enemies by jumping on them it would be reasonably difficult?
I really enjoyed it, I don't think anything is missing to make this a decent platformer.
Why did you decide to leave corpses as glitchy obstacles? I still had a lot of fun playing through the game.
The controls could be better. It would be a much better experience with a twin stick controller of course, but it would have been nice to incorporate the right hand on the keyboard for bomb and shockwave (as somebody said before).
Otherwise, great arena shoot em up that runs really fluid.
I have never seen the use of silence during dialogue in games. It worked really great for this one.
Great intro, decent gameplay. The only thing I missed were stronger weapons.
Really fun and simple to control game with high depth. Probably the LD26 game I spent the most time on.
The only annoying thing was that the wizard sometimes did not feel like using his spells for some reason.
Also: This is the first RPG/dungeon game I have seen that would work well on smartphones. Polish it, add a new dungeon every week and it could be a hit on the app stores.
Nice relaxed game.
When I first heard the theme, my second thought was "I hope deepnight does not go for a minimalist art style this time." Really glad you did not! It felt a bit like an highscore version of Ecco The Dolphin. Great game.
Oh, my first thought obviously was what kind of game I would design.
This was quite strange yet boring, so I did not bother to find another ending. Definitely minimalist though.
I could finally play it, and I like it. It reminds me of Adventures of Lolo and other NES puzzle games. It is quite easy, but I had great fun speedrunning on my first try.
I really liked the mood in this one. It felt like playing a jolly level in an early Spyro game.
It was very fun, I laughed out loud when the narrator said "I don't know, English is not my first language", because it hilariously broke immersion. Fighting was a bit boring though, you could just spam 1 until your wound hurts, then 3 and repeat.
Definitely impressive work.
Good graphics, excellent music.
Gameplay would have been easier to learn if you added the key the description stands for (e.g. "Teleport (C key) available!") Also I did not understand why I sometimes double fire on Z and sometimes I don't.
I like it. It feels a bit like a reverse Pikmin - you are helping the person following you, instead of the persons following you are helping you.
I think the game suffers a bit from the slow speed of the princess. If it's the point to be annoyed by her - well done :D But her speed just bore me.
Fits the theme perfectly.