FoonLudum Dare ExplorerUsers → Sophie Houlden

Sophie Houlden

Overall Medals

YearLDThemeGameDivisionOverall
🥉 2010 17 Islands A Fishing Adventure compo 4.00

Category Medals

YearLDThemeGameDivisionCategoryScore
🥈 2010 18 Enemies as Weapons Fib compo Innovation 4.17
🥉 2009 16 Exploration Redwalk compo Community 4.28
🥇 2007 10 Chain Reaction Ramuh-Shmoo compo Humor 4.16
🥉 2007 10 Chain Reaction Ramuh-Shmoo compo Technical 3.74

Games

YearLDThemeGameDivisionRankOvFuInThGrAuHuMoPoCmTeJoFoEfTwTlCo
201635ShapeshiftBlobWalljam
201430Connected WorldsConnected Wordscompo9402.802.803.472.87
201326MinimalismDream Fishingcompo234.063.403.934.094.293.773.544.2542
201122Alone3 Missing, 4amcompo473.522.742.904.043.632.641.763.923.51
201121EscapeBRITAIN:2027jam83.663.673.603.694.271.113.103.24
201019DiscoveryL E A P E Rjam
201018Enemies as WeaponsFibcompo213.563.284.173.723.582.633.623.894
201017IslandsA Fishing Adventurecompo34.003.813.983.263.881.933.344.2915
200916ExplorationRedwalkcompo912.531.972.423.503.911.252.064.282
200915CavernsCevern0048compo53.873.663.243.794.442.452.294.3119
200813RoadsPizzaBitchcompo293.092.652.783.743.701.603.843.223.272.003.13
200811MinimalistDot2doTcompo432.862.813.053.812.761.332.902.172.852.363.38
200710Chain ReactionRamuh-Shmoocompo84.003.883.752.223.833.464.163.793.742.073.87

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Scatterplots

Fun vs Overall

Innovation vs Overall

Theme vs Overall

Graphics vs Overall

Audio vs Overall

Humor vs Overall

Mood vs Overall

Comments by Sophie Houlden

LD26 — Minimalism

Love Connection by Jon Reid 2013-04-29T20:01:00

whilst the 'no overlapping paths' gameplay is something I've seen before a few time, this was WONDERFUL. I don't think I've ever been quite so charmed by little jumping boxes (and I've seen a lot of jumping boxes in my time! :D)

Fortuitous by Follett 2013-04-29T12:42:00

took me AGES to get to the point where I even felt I could play, super slow accelerating movement and slow jumping meant it was hard to get a feel for the controls quickly, I didn't even realise I could hold jump to jump higher until after I'd died a bunch of times, and even then it felt weird since if you jump up against a block you don't jump as high (and of course walls are precisely where I'm most likely to be trying to jump). and before I'd even wrestled with the controls I spawned in thin air a few times with no platforms below me.
a lot of the issues could be dealt with if the first chunk of blocks didn't start falling until after a player has gotten past them, at least then you know the player has a grasp of the controls before punishing them.

I think with some tweaks it could totally be something I'd love, but that start was so unpleasant it's turned me off it for the time being...

... by Dir3kt 2013-04-29T19:47:00

I really enjoyed this, it all fits together very nicely and the music gave me this lemmings-y "keep trying!" vibe even when I died a few times.

Join by Perry 2013-04-29T20:38:00

very pleasant, really nails that "ugh it's impossib-waaaaiiiit a minute!" feeling :D

Minga-Me by blay09 2013-04-29T10:24:00

I had fun! definitely the least minimal game about minimalism but certainly not in a bad way! Fighting the gamesmaster got me though, I need to play more rock band for practice I guess ^__^;

10 Second Language by Loren 2013-04-29T20:11:00

no idea what is happening but it's super dreamy in the best way! :)

The Forgetful Little Square by Idovoodoo 2013-04-29T09:13:00

Really very nice, I was worried it would involve a lot of guesswork but the narrator helps build up an idea of what sorts of things to try. I had a good time :)

Cubecatcher by zerebruin 2013-04-29T09:21:00

having to guess when the colour will change and decide whether to risk approaching a box is interesting!
I'd say the potato is a little OP in early levels though, I was doing suck and picking up the potato just made for instant wins.

beTween by Benn 2013-04-29T12:54:00

really nice! my only complaint is having to start from scratch if you mess up, get's pretty frustrating :)

Gallery by Andrew Shouldice 2013-04-29T20:53:00

wow, I got stuck... but I really have no complaints. I like this a lot! :)

ITTEN by Avrec 2013-04-29T20:29:00

I really like the concept, it makes much more sense to have jump control *before* you lift off from the ground than this hold-jump-to-resist-gravity-longer stuff that so many platformers do.

that said the execution could do with a little tweaking, sometimes I'd want to jump and move right away, but because I pressed the direction a split second before pressing jump it cancelled my breath and I walked off a ledge. I think some of the windows for successfully jumping between moving platforms are a little too slim too, that's what kept me from getting to the end. overall though I quite like it :)

Robopotato by xyrix 2013-05-01T19:07:00

Well I stuck with it for a while, it's certainly got more depth than I could wrap my head around though, I managed to write a script that picks all the potatos, though I did it by just putting all instructions into a single case's OTHERWISE and avoided anything that might trigger the case.

Honestly I feel the game asks more of me than I was prepared to give it, that might be remedied if you lost the 'scripting' part all together, do something icon based perhaps, with such a limited number of options to type it would be much faster to click what I wanted rather than type it, even with my cheesy/lazy approach I ended up copy/pasting most of my code :P

I feel if it was quicker to make changes in this way the game would feel a lot more 'alive' and I'd get to the meat of it which I imagine is in keeping the code short by using multiple states and cases. as it is everything seemed to pull the player as far back from what was going on as possible. perhaps it's a limitation of your tech but having to separately 'compile' then 'run' and then 'play' is probably something you want to avoid. just have it interpret instructions in real-time? it'd be cool to watch a playhead pass over the code you write too :)

anyway, certainly an impressive project for a weekend! props! :D

CLRS by acatcalledfrank 2013-04-29T20:57:00

can't last long once the mixed colours start swarming in, but certainly a good surprise when I discovered you could mix the colours :D

HUE by DkCub23 2013-04-29T09:43:00

I certainly liked the grid approach, it's almost tile-based movement platforming. but I had a real problem with the controls, things were happening too fast and I always felt a little unsure of the inputs ("should I press right and jump, jump and right?" "why did I fall, I pressed jump!" "crap, didn't I let go soon enough, now I've gone over the edge") - that kind of thing. the concept I'm pretty into, I just wish it felt a little more stable to control :)

CubeMaster by JimmyLord 2013-04-29T19:36:00

wow, that becomes amazing out of nowhere! really wish it had some sounds though! :)

llab by tonic 2013-04-30T18:05:00

really liked it, up until I died and had to start from the very beginning, it's hard to justify to myself to keep playing when a game is that cruel :P

Minimalist MAYHEM by DDRKirby(ISQ) 2013-04-30T18:50:00

a lot of fun! though I kind of wish it changed a little more after the first level. still, it's impressive work for a weekend! :D

Exploding Cubes of Cleanliness by negativeview 2013-04-29T12:27:00

Not played lights out, so maybe it took me a moment longer than normal to figure it out? the colour rotation was pretty alien to me at first so I found a strategy of just looking for certain patterns of where to click, which got me through the first few levels but probably left me without the know-how to do the later stuff. so I was pretty lost at the end.

seems like maybe some more relaxing music would fit the game better? anyway, certainly a good puzzle! :)