A Perfect Purpose by Siewart 2012-04-25T15:21:00
Like the feel of it. Too easy to lose blocks though.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → garethjenkins
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | Co | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | Interstellar Sav Nav | jam | 3.00 | 2.00 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 3.50 | 2.50 | |||||
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | DSCP MAZE/PUZZLE | unfinished | |||||||||||
| 2017 | 39 | Running out of Power | Truck, Fuel my Rockets | compo | 127 | 3.68 | 3.75 | 3.33 | 3.48 | 3.93 | 3.62 | 3.17 | 3.48 | ||
| 2017 | 38 | A Small World | Off Grid 81 | compo | 4.00 | 3.00 | 3.66 | 3.66 | 4.66 | 3.00 | 3.00 | 3.33 | |||
| 2015 | 33 | You are the Monster | BYSS | compo | 877 | 2.50 | 2.16 | 3.13 | 2.97 | 3.61 | 2.72 | 1.82 | 2.73 | 58 | |
| 2015 | 32 | An Unconventional Weapon | Etsuq | jam | 868 | 2.78 | 2.47 | 2.69 | 2.34 | 3.53 | 2.93 | 1.79 | 3.00 | 71 | |
| 2014 | 31 | Entire Game on One Screen | Bardal N | jam | |||||||||||
| 2014 | 30 | Connected Worlds | System F | compo | 394 | 3.36 | 3.27 | 3.40 | 3.27 | 3.25 | 3.46 | 2.26 | 3.45 | 100 | |
| 2014 | 29 | Beneath the Surface | Treasure Dive Buddy | compo | 470 | 3.26 | 2.96 | 3.04 | 3.53 | 3.69 | 3.16 | 2.44 | 3.21 | 85 | |
| 2013 | 28 | You Only Get One | One Spear Savage | compo | 420 | 3.10 | 3.26 | 2.79 | 3.58 | 2.92 | 2.97 | 2.71 | 2.97 | 80 | |
| 2013 | 26 | Minimalism | Take The Red Orb | compo | 553 | 3.17 | 2.68 | 3.02 | 3.45 | 3.55 | 3.06 | 1.64 | 3.13 | 100 | |
| 2012 | 25 | You are the Villain | Super Evil Machine | compo | 288 | 3.13 | 2.92 | 3.20 | 3.28 | 2.98 | 2.94 | 2.74 | 2.65 | 75 | |
| 2012 | 24 | Evolution | Trinity Labs | compo | 233 | 3.22 | 2.73 | 3.51 | 3.56 | 3.49 | 3.02 | 2.66 | 3.21 | 89 | |
| 2012 | 23 | Tiny World | Mineral Cities | compo | 185 | 3.40 | 3.00 | 3.72 | 3.54 | 3.22 | 2.89 | 1.52 | 3.03 | 94 | |
| 2011 | 22 | Alone | Alone in Translation | jam | 3.00 |
Like the feel of it. Too easy to lose blocks though.
Spookily compelling.
Great stuff -- love the seamless control & size transition.
Great mechanic, great controls, great audio combination. Loads of fun :)
I really enjoyed that -- very compelling just in single player. There's a very mechanical satisfaction in killing an enemy and moving through it. Love the idea of the 2-player thing as well.
Really great use of theme for mood & feel :)
Great mechanic -- love it.
Ended up playing this a few times in the last few weeks but not scoring it -- I've no idea how, it's great. Good combination of optimisation & 4x.
Great stuff -- though I'm biased, our logo is also based on Conway's GOL ;)
Awesome -- I think it could do with some balance in control & min/max between stationary and full throttle, but great idea nicely done.
Love the flea.
I really hate maze games. I really like this :)
Love it -- more fox games please everyone :)
Best fun yet of those I've played. Art style is beautiful. Doesn't do much theme wise, but it's a lot of fun and a great accomplishment for a couple of days work.
Nice -- the poop countdown really helps with the basic timer/puzzle mechanic.
A truly excellent game -- had me smiling throughout. What a joy :)
After opening a red door, I got a "emptyExampleDebug quit unexpectedly" message on Lion.
Love the style & audio -- couldn't figure out what to do properly though. Nice use of theme as well.
Great game -- love this. The bomb control (combination of throwing up, bouncing and recoil) really adds to anotherwise vanilla pixel-platformer. Really great stuff.
Awesome.
Great style, but doesn't lead far enough to really get sunk in. Would also have preferred the controls to rotate the world, not indicate direction for the camera.
Great play -- though not clear enough at first how to use colour switch. Neat though.
Really nice feel, aesthetic and sound.
Love the gravity / jump / momentum stuff. Needs refinement as it can be a bit irritating, but great idea.
Like this -- good balance of stuff. A little irritating, but still compelling ;)
Really like the audio. Simple but really effective for the game.
Great fun -- ramps up too much too quickly for trackpad use, and audio would've been nice -- but most importantly, it was fun.
First of my 5-star fun ratings, and superb use of theme. Loads of fun, very well polished as well :)
I really like the art style / theme balance. Agree with all the majority of the other points here, but it's still a lot of fun as it stands.
One of my favourites - the mood of this is lovely, and there's something very compelling about the interactions. Didn't play it two play -- found it quite workable as one player using both sets of controls.
Great control ideas, nice work :)
Great stuff -- would have like keyboard control for panning the world, and a mini map. Appreciate this is only a weekend's work though so the latter is obviously unreasonable to expect.
Strongest aspect was probably the RTS/TD hybrid -- works really well. Could totally see this being iterated on into something pretty fun.
I also did something with resource management and such like, though for a completely different kind of game -- it's here -- http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=7693
Loved the art & audio. Controls for attacking were a little confusing, but still fun to play through.
Thanks guys -- @stromchin, yea -- that was kind of the intention, and super happy I managed to get that feel in there.
Primary inspiration for that was older sim city games (original & 2000, though I suppose the others too -- it was just that I played them more). I.e., the simple balance of creating zones that compliment each other properly. I always got of on zoning that didn't make you want to demolish/rebuild.
On that, I did think about adding a "demolish" ability in this thing -- with a very high cost (possibly increasing like cities do -- or even tied to their cost). Though as the game kind of encourages replay / replan I think it works okay without in this form.
G.
All -- thank for the awesome feedback :)
Based on the feedback already I'm considering developing this further -- here's some thoughts on the stuff raised so far.
Re control inversion -- totally accept that this a personal preference thing. My preference is for moving the object, not indicating view preference -- it also fit better with the theme (i.e. the controls move the tiny world). This would obviously be a user option to invert one, 2 or 3 axes.
Re sim_ references -- yea. Absolutely intended :)
Re: overlapping objects -- this was one of the first parts of the art style, and to some extent dictated the rest. Developed further, I'd add an element of randomness to this, and also subtle compound features for larger groups of objects.
Re: pacing / length of game -- this was intended as a play-for-as-long-as-you-want-with-some-upper-bound type decision (very much in the vein of early sim city games). I'd want to keep that as a play option, but introduce new players with a series of challenges/levels. Would likely do subtlety different planets with different mineral requirements, blocked areas, starting resources etc. Would also consider allowing some object types (maybe cities) to produce infinite resources, but on a very slow timer. Loads of ideas here -- looking forward to more comments and feedback here and will use that as an input to writing some of them up.
Re: touch screen -- yea, agreed. Would work especially well on an iPad. Probably phone too. iOS dev is my day job, so have been thinking about this in that context throughout.
Re: LeReveur -- fuck, 51!? That's impressive, and a massive compliment ;) Thanks for the feedback on the zip archive thing too, will check it out -- haven't been able to reproduce myself yet. Was it x64 or x86?
@ratboy2713 -- I've a bit of an internal debate re undo & destroy. I think they might even be separate features in a future version. I.e. undo takes you back in time, but destroy would allow you to reclaim space but with a significant cost to doing so.
Re the cursor movement -- see comment above, totally understand how people have opposite views on this. I'm an invert-y-axis kind of guy. Have also considered allowing mouse movement of the cursor -- gets a bit odd given the projection though.
@strega -- lol, see previous comment, was obviously typing it at the same time as you ;)
@Mesene -- there's no absolute way for me to prove the 100 mineral thing b/c of the random distribution of minerals, but I'm pretty sure in most cases it should possible to get up to 120-150. It just takes a little time ;)
@LaReveur, @BlueDragon -- love how you've both proven out different strategies to the one I'd been toying with. Tried both myself now and having loads of fun with it.
To whomever managed to collect 25k in spare resource -- nice one, what point had you gotten to in city building and such at that point?
All -- thanks for the great feedback, this has give me some specific insight into how to structure this into a full game. Primarily thinking at the moment about how to structure introduction to concepts and add variety in city types and other extended mechanics. Core thinking revolves around having different planets with different attributes, mineral types and available features. Potentially would allow for smooth-ish curve of introduction to this point (i.e. the point of optimised builds).
@BlueDragon -- special thanks to your wonderful review/guide/analysis etc. Also thanks for the video -- it's awesome seeing that strategy (which seems to be the most effective especially insofar as geting to 100 minerals is concerned) play out to the 100 mineral level.
@caranha -- minerals can be collected many times, it's just a matter of how many cities you can get proximate to them. See @BlueDragon's post above where he explains it in the context of the strategy he used.
I'm going to be developing this further -- if any of you want in on testing and updates, hit me up on email gareth@36peas.com or twitter @36peas
Like that you can force your way through parts -- i.e. skip maze pieces but reduce health/resilience to sloppy control, really nice addition to the maze mechanic.
Great mechanic, great controls, great level design. Well polished. Nice one.
Really made me smile :)
A better difficulty curve would make a lot of difference -- it just ended without me figuring out how to develop skills.
Love the musix/sfx combo -- was fun for a quick session as well.
Love the simple style, would have been great with a little audio.
Great -- would have been better with a little more risk & some goal, but still compelling enough to get through all that was there.
Great stuff -- love the feel of this.
Love the art style.
Could be a little slow -- but the music kept me going through a couple of mutations :)
Audio was a bit harsh -- kind of spoilt the otherwise pleasing mood. Fun to play about with.
Love the animations and general feel. Controls a little frustrating, but made up for my the feel of it.
Like the style, not entirely sure what's going on.
Awesome stuff. First 5-star innovation rating.
Great concept, really like this.
Controls were compelling and added to the great mood -- just infuriating at the same time :) Was difficult figuring out how to make any consistent progress forward / in chosen direction.
A little too confusing -- not sure exactly what was happening or why.
There's a lot of UI... not entirely sure where to start with it?
Great stuff -- love the controls, and first 5-star fun entry rated ;)
I love this. Totally unexpected play, and then lvl 3 really opens it up :)
Like the stand-back mechanic, and the jumping around is pretty slick.
Awesome. Wasn't sure on the theme at first, but it's oh so good. Love the Dorian like conversion.
Completely surreal. First LD entry (other than my own) I've played to the end.
No idea what I'm doing, but felt compelled to move around and not get nicked. Good stuff.
Markus -- this is freaky as hell. I have played through 3 times though ;0
Love the intro and general feel getting in to play.
Great stuff -- first 5* overall, thoroughly enjoyed playing :)
5* Innovation & theme -- awesome use specifically of the villain concept.
Love the look and feel -- slightly too hard to not be frustrated, but the simplified stealth thing could work really well I think.
I was a little skeptical of all the words at first. Then it got fun and I didn't care ;)
Great stuff -- would have liked there to been some threat to the player character though, go boring once you realise you are invincible.
Like repeatedly jumping on the yellow things.
Like the idea -- especially having to coral the zombies. Frustrating in practice, but with some refinement would work well. Zombie strategy FTW ;)
Hi Matthias -- thanks.
It was done in Unity, with a free model for the jumping dude (from the asset store) and the music was from http://ccmixter.org/. Sound effects were done by me / my voice -- recorded and tweaked in Audacity.
G.
Didn't see any loot -- but seems like a good idea.
Scared.
I'm generally not keen on ragdoll games. There's something horribly compulsive about this one though.
Love the directional shift stuff. Didn't like that you could end up in a position of being vulnerable without an exit (and no ability to predict vulnerability).
First 5-star innovation for me... awesome ;)
Awesome idea.
I was a little dubious at first (given that it's so like The Impossible Game), but got into the idea when I realised it was in some way procedural. Only problem with that is it's really hard to get good at it because you don't get to repeat levels etc.
I really like the idea and feel of this -- but the pacing was slow to the point of frustrating.
Great -- perception of cylinders was a problem at first, but I suspect with more levels that could be taken advantage of. Super fun though.
Great stuff ;)
Really like the combination of abilities and controls were fluid -- not particularly minimal, but great fun & lots done :)
You had me at drifting ;)
I like the idea of the AI thing appearing to play against you -- works well with the relatively standard block shifting thing.
Great feel to this -- would be nice to have the camera drag behind the ship a little more though (i.e. to get a better perspective on the angle and relative position of the oncoming beams).
Great stuff -- did something similar w/ only one bit of ammo & having to recollect. It's great to see it working somewhere else as well :)
Great idea for the tower building thing
A bit slow to ramp up -- and then when it got good it crashed
Great stuff -- some pretty smart level design in here as well. I think it'd help if there was slightly less inertia (or more surface friction) on landing, as it's easy to slide slightly past as jump up when landing relatively straight.
Awesome work -- we did a very similar (almost identical save perspective) mechanic, but yours is so purty ;)
Fantastic stuff -- great work.
First mouse-controlled game that works better with a touchpad IMO.
Lots of fun ;)
Great stuff.
Awesome. Anything with drifting gets my vote ;)
Awesome.
I couldn't figure out where to find fish -- but this looks and feels lovely to move around ;)
Really like this.
Fun -- but the difficulty curve went from OMFG impossible to very easy in like 1 turn.
This is a nightmare to run/use, but it's a good idea and pretty well executed (esp given the constant browser issues)
Really good fun ;)
Love the mechanic here. The knock back on the bullets really makes it work.
Love this mechanic. Could be a little bit smoother, but this is great stuff.
Love the animation ;)
Love this.
I don't know what's happening, but I like it.
Well that was fucking creepy.
Great concept.
So much fun.
First time I've rated an LD game 5 for humor ;)
Great stuff. Expected to see loads of these, but this is the only one that's actually any good so far. Love that it forces you to pay attention to both, not just solve and then play in one.
I have no idea what's going on, but it feels lovely ;)
Love the swinging. The camera motion is a bit too much.
Yea -- doing web build today, ta.
Hi all -- sorry about the link, will try and resolve over the weekend.
Hi -- I couldn't get past the "press start" screen (using a 360 wired controller on Windows 10)
I liked the mood, and the camera intro set it up really well. There was something about running off the tree that I really like too :)
I like the selection and movement, couldn't get them to drop things off reliably though.
I like clicking on the things. Solid implementation of clicking on things :)
Good mood and feel, felt it was a little slow to figure anything out -- but playing in WebGL version made it harder.
the draining power mechanic in a platformer is awesome -- well done on that!
I like the mechanic, but the fall off for wiggle after movement is possible a little too harsh.
Thanks for the comments so far everyone -- I haven't started rating yet, so that's much appreciated. Based on initial feedback I’ve done a post-compo build that uses relative left/right controls. I've put more details in the "post-compo" section of the description.
Personally I prefer the post-compo (more visibly drifty controls) for fun, but the original compo controls for the challenge and this specific game. If I were to develop this further I’d go for some balance between the two, but likely also change some of the fuel placement and map details to better suit the relative controls.
Really enjoyed that. Wasn't clear whether I should shoot the power modules or wait for them to hit the shield at first.
I enjoyed the movement and moving around. Wasn't clear which things were collidable though.
The mechanic is excellent, probably best use of theme I've seen so far. The collisions into and out of corridors really let it down though, it's frustrating not being able to slide into corridors slightly.
Good fun running around. Colliders on plasma pickups were a little too small.
I liked this. The camera rotation was confusing because of the minimap being fixed, but was still found it fun moving around.
There's something very okay about this ;)
totally wasn't expecting a color picker, fly a ship thing... mechanics were fun
+1 for games where vehicles have to go pick stuff up :)
Lots of fun. Would be much better if the power was only used when using thrusters, would give more viable options for solving the levels. Great game for the theme though.
I found the controls hard to get into at first.
I liked the mechanic. Didn't like the parallax scrolling with moues moves though -- made it harder to quickly judge clicks.
Took a while to figure out what was going on, and had to bump up the WebGL window size to make it readable. Good work though.
Took a while to figure out the basics, possibly because things felt slow. Music made me think something was about to go horribly wrong all of the time.
I found the keyboard sound effects very relaxing.
Some issues with the WebGL version resolution scale -- seems to project at slightly larger than the viewport size.
Looked pretty, but couldn't figure out what to do.
I really enjoyed the style and the mood. The control queue thing was a bit frustrating, and I couldn't really figure out what I was supposed to be doing.
I love the ambience/mood of this. Didn't really find it a challenge, and I didn't fully understand what was happening -- I just liked doing it.
I enjoyed the mood. WASD/mouse always works well for me. Wasn't much fun looking through repetitive mazes, but I enjoyed moving and shooting.
Really liked the dynamic light stuff. Didn't understand what the fans were for. Didn't feel like I was running out of power at all, but I liked moving around in the world.
I like the national/state planning split. Wasn't always clear about pausing/playing.
I really like the style and there is something satisfying about filling out the map, but it's not clear what you're working toward before the win/lose state. Would be great to play against a simple AI too.
Something compelling about movement, but the instant direction changes from standstill were a little disorienting at first.