Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Hajden
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | Meager Genesis | compo | 215 | 3.48 | 2.86 | 2.93 | 3.62 | 4.12 | 4.04 | 4.09 |
Really clever for a clicker game, the idea of using something which multiplies like that is interesting (though I'm generally not very knowledgeable about what clicker games do these days). It kept me occupied and engrossed for while.
Lack of visual polish aside, one quality of life I would have liked to see is the ability to remove old tribble generators as they become useless.
This is an awesome, polished little sandbox (dirtbox?). Very cute! I had fun discovering what all there is to do, though I had the game freeze/crash at one point (playing on macOS safari, this happened when I surrounded a hole with a moat of water all around, and was just about to add soil to make a flower. No idea if that's consequential or not though).
I love the visual and audio presentation. One tiny pet peeve is the raining animation starts feeling too long after watching it several times.
Really good. The animations, music and sound are all great. The game controls well, but I found the cooldown of placing blocks too slow for my liking.
Some upgrades would have done wonders, like getting an extra life, reducing the cooldown, perhaps a higher jump.
This is very nice, an endearing narrative theme wrapped in fitting puzzles with some really well done level design. Great job!
I like everything about this puzzle platformer, from controls to audio-visual presentation to originality. Very polished. The only small criticism I have: Background elements (walls) are the same color as foreground. This adds visual clutter and makes bg harder to distinguish at first glance
The idea is interesting, but I found gameplay to be more a guessing game than a logical deduction most of the time. I think I had the most fun with levels that required swapping pieces.
Solving a level is very satisfying visually, and I like the sounds/ambience used.
My biggest gripe were the controls. Would have definitely liked keyboard shortcuts (numbers) for selecting blocks, and hiding the mouse away in a way that it accepts input when "off screen".
Really awesome! I had fun with this all the way through. Audio-visuals fit great together, the puzzles are clever and there's an interesting variety in the mechanics from jumping to tight spaces (love jumping with those little legs).
I can't really find anything to criticize. Great job!
I really liked how atmospheric this is and the overarching narrative, but the gameplay hurt my wrist, too much mouse dragging required for small strides (in the web version at least).
This was really engrossing and I enjoyed it a lot. I would have loved a shorter version, but I managed to spend my deck and get a score of 5k, which doesn't seem all that great. My poor carnivores felt a little lost and were dying out in a sea of herbivores multiplying like bunnies.
Some minor technical issue is that the UI goes over the board (on my laptop's screen anyway), but that could be easily solved with some redesign, and really wasn't an issue. I didn't mind the mountain blocks, they felt more like breathers, and more welcome than having to discard cards.
It reminded me very slightly of Carcassonne hunters and gatherers, any inspiration there?
I did play the WebGL version.
As for Carcasonne Hunters and Gatherers, it's quite fun imo, but it's not a classic DLC for the base game, more like a different take on the base game
This would have been perfect on the gameboy! Very charming, but a tough little game too. I found the controls a bit iffy at times, but the pesky crows were kept at bay.
Overall it's a nice, almost watercolor feeling to it. The particle effects could use more work, the "tail" for example looks great and misty when standing still, but it could use some size variation and a more interesting spread when moving. Other than that you managed a very nice foggy/windy atmosphere. Would look great with some animated background elements swaying violently
Very nice presentation visually and audio wise, and polish. Enjoyable puzzles too, once I figured out what to do, which was a bit confusing at first.
Awesome platformer, with a really clever tutorial. Controls are great, the existing levels are challenging, and even a level editor. The presentation is top notch as well, the music fits and adds extra pressure in a really good way and the graphical style is great, no frills, just the necessary communicated clearly.
I enjoyed this. The music sets up the mood well, together with the bleak "underworld" aesthetic (before you get the eyes). Music itself is pretty good too, though I found the sounds doing it a disservice. Too little variation in them, and they were overall too loud.
I like the gameplay mechanics of possessing skeletons, and dropping them like dead weight when not needed any more :) I did find the collision not very good, as visually I would expect my skeleton's head not to collide with the floor. But overall that's a minor issue for a rushed game.
Final gripe: the intro screen and the ending cutscene are too dark to really see what's going on properly. I get this is supposed to be night time scene, but it sorely lacks contrast and light.
I hated the ghost dolphin thing and wanted to punch it in the face from the first sentence, you really made it obnoxious, good job!
I enjoyed the game, quite easy though but an interesting narrative and well written. Loved the music, especially the overworld theme. The graphics are really good too. Gameplay wise i get there's not much you can do in a short time with just walking and interacting, still I didn't really enjoy much of the backtracking, especially the maze. That run button sure will come in handy :)
I asume the game closing is on purpose? As it really works well as a narrative device
@elHombreBanana aye I got it, I really liked that as it was unexpected and clever (though I can see it getting a bit annoying if someone keeps loosing the fight)
I found it really fun to play such a tiny character and I really desired to speed through the level, but that proved not-wise. The music is nice. The parallax is a nice idea but it's done improperly. The background layers shouldn't be moving faster than the foreground on which the player resides.
The visual aesthetic is pretty and minimal, which is a great choice. However discerning elements on the screen is problematic at times, most notably text - it doesn't stand out enough, and gets blurry (at least on a higher resolution). The main menu is very well done, though it too suffers somewhat from a lack of contrast between visual flavor elements and important/interactive elements. Information blends in with the foreground elements too strongly.
Gameplay wise, the introduction of various mechanics is superb! Really well done. Flying around is fun, but the jumping platforming not so much. The jump feels too weighted to be enjoyable to me. This coupled with a cute, but sadly too short of a music loop, which gets grating after a while, had me quit before reaching the end.
ded.jpg Only second try, might give it a few more.
I find the movement a bit weird, as it takes a while to pick up on first press, but then it's smooth. Other than that it controls fine
Pretty good, I love the Cultist Simulator so I didn't have any issues with experimenting here. It does suffer from the same lack of automation as the original cultist simulator (generating new ideas is just a grind for example)
The theme lends itself really, really well to this type of game
Would make a nice mobile game!
Very nice, especially for just 8 hours. Style reminds me of Downwell visually. Graphics and music are great. Controls well too. The only thing I disliked is the very snappy camera tilt when you turn.
Really lovely atmosphere, though I felt the game needed more visual contrast as well as visual feedback when interacting with objects/screen edges.
Great sense of mood, the music creates tensions really well and adds to the environment which is at the same time very clean (unnervingly blocky) and gritty through texture/handprints use.
The movement is less enjoyable, jump being the biggest cultrip, it feels too weighted initially (without holding the jump button) and just generally feels off.
A nitpicky detail: found it weird the box you start in didn't have collisions
Very funny take on the theme, great art and audio, a bit stress inducing
I enjoyed the music and the premise. Controls are not great, but due to the generous amount of health they didn't pose a big problem in getting through the game. I do wish I could have jumped (just for jumping sake :)) but the amount of abilities you added was great, and dashing is fun.
Really like the look and sound of this, the girls is a bit reminiscent of Gris.
Love the animation and the main mechanic, but the physics are a bit off. Jumping into a cube propels me backwards, and the camera follow is a bit too slow which makes controlling the cube placement harder (if I try to flow through the game faster, mainly an issue vertically)
Very stressful but in a fun way. I found the on-the-ground tutorials a bit too far away/tiny to read properly.
This was really interesting and very pleasing visually and audio wise. Good take on the theme, and the game is quite challenging. The controls are a bit finicky when trying to be on the beat as has been commented already.
I loved the distractions and the tongue in cheek game-over ending
Awesome, I love this! The visuals and music are perfect, the gameplay and theme are fun. Controls well too. I would love to see some spawning of new matter during play, at one point I was stuck small, no matter around to ingest, but didn't really want to die. But it's a tiny detail as the runs are really fast, and probably would be anti-thematic anyway :) .
An interesting premise for a puzzler, however I found gameplay to be tedious without any foresight into future trades of certain tradesmen. It require too much trial and error for my liking. A "reset level" button would be a nice addition.
@rillep Oh, I'm an idiot apparently :) giving it another go
There's a seed of an interesting game here, you managed to put a lot of content in it. The AI is quite good, even if the combat isn't enjoyable. I completely mistook the mining laser for a combat weapon (glanced over controls), so my attempts at having fun with combat were... ouch :)
I found keyboard+mouse to work fine, but my gamepad didn't respond mostly, aside from shooting/zooming.
fun frantic action puzzler, some levels felt very easy though
Nice parallax and little polish touches on the vegetation. Too bad you didn't manage to put audio in, it would have reinforced the mood well. Controls are a bit iffy, but I'm glad the character speeds up soon after a very slow start.
This is quite fun, looks and sounds good, controls great. Punching wore my finger out eventually, even with the occasional barrage powerup. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a maximum amount of enemies limit (if there already is one, I haven't noticed). Sometimes while trying to rest from punching I'd walk around a bit and just got too swarmed really fast.
Very evocative of my meditation practice. At first I was "eh, not enough distracting thoughts", then it picked up and felt just right :) I enjoyed it, gets very hard though, which is fine. Didn't manage past level 7. The style is nice and the sounds/music used too.
I do have a problem with the tail a bit, as it distracts visually where exactly I'll get hit.
I played with mouse
I gave it only 2 tries so far, but it's very repayable and I'm curious to see it through
Cute game, a bit on the short and easy side
I like the idea, and the approach of choosing different colors for objects. Also the character design/animation is quite nice. The music is great! I'm not to keen on the sound effect of object popping up, it felt out of place with the music. More importantly, it seems like the camera is colliding with the environment (except with the obelisk at the end) which creates some buggy jerky motion?
Revealing the level as you traverse it is a nice idea and take on the theme. Would have loved to see a deeper narrative touch to this, as what's there is rather barren, but it goes in a good direction
Even though you didn't make the sounds/music, you picked great ones! Graphics are great too. The game controls really well. I did get the dash for free when buying controls, just without its UI element. I wish the timer was the first thing to unlock, as it was a bit confusing why I'm getting upgrades when I get them (before buying the clock at least) did I click something? Is it timed?
Great graphics and sound, really good controls and interesting take on the theme. I think level design needed more work/rethinking, platforms which are just a tiny bit out of reach to get back up to are really annoying, especially when you have to backtrack long non-challenging areas
The music is really nice, and the movement is good. I'm glad you didn't force full replays on death, though I find tricking the enemies to be easy.
The biggest issue is are the colors of sand tiles, more contrast between the walk-able and wall areas would be good.
This is fun! When I got the trident I was on top of the world! then the bow owned my ass. Love your take on the theme.
Took me a bit to get used to rolling and timing, and it feels like dodging projectiles without rolling (just going up/down) doesn't really work right (they hit more often than not)? But maybe that's just me and my lousy timing.
Pretty good, and great music/sound: Even though it's very minimal visually, it looks pleasing.
Whoa, very trippy and cool, I love the effect spacing produces. Also an interesting take on a platformer, I never played as... my screen? before.
Very good platformer with tight controls. Hard too, but I enjoyed it
Very, very nice! Fun combat, the AI is challenging, the movement feels great. Love the start too
This was very tense and a funny concept to boot. Didn't get it right away (tried to squish people so they wouldn't rob me blind xD), but it was fairly fun once I checked help.
Very interesting. Some mini games are fun, others not so much. I like how much character these numbers have, especially how you handled zero giving a life back. Good art style and music too
Interesting take on a glitch art game. I liked the various music tracks found in the menu, but didn't have enough patience to search for all the stars
I like the mood and the visual style. The inverted Y is making it not-fun for me though, and would really prefer to interact/attack with left click instead of E.
You managed to get something playable done in time, good job
Graphically pretty good, and the explosion sound is funny. I'd prefer much faster animations though
Very well done and challenging puzzle game, and 20 levels to boot. Impressive
I haven't played many text adventure games, but I appreciate good writing and you're a good word smith. I got stuck a few times (for example with the fish, I wanted to "swim" and "travel" but the game wouldn't accept that, it did accept "walk" which got me more confused, as I was a fish...). Anyway, I reached the loop, is there anything I missed?
Thanks, I did have fun with it, it evoked a nice cosmic mood
I really like the mood you've set, and kudos for writing it all without an engine. It's a bit too hard for my liking after the enemies spawn so I never reached the weapon. Also would have really liked a checkpoint at the first altar, replaying the hungry sequence gets tedious
Solid idea, but too hard in its current iteration. The few times I managed to get some fuel it was fun steering the ship and having some more control. Aiming for the jump feels very unfair and results in a lot of unfun runs that end too soon due to a lack of oxygen. I also wish escape wasn't used to go to menu, as it kept pushing me out of fullscreen mode on the web.
Nice narrative idea for the game!
This was a fun narrative exploration, having to remake dream avatars is an interesting take. I liked the music choice a lot, together with dreamy turquoise it set the surreal mood really well.
Some quality of life features would be nice, like having a list of clues available, but it doesn't detract from the game as it's quite short.
Very cute character design and pretty art overall (both audio and visual). Most importantly the controls are really good! And you also managed to put in a fair amount of abilities which is nice.
Love, love the audio visual presentation of this, great attention to detail! And the idea is solid. Mechanics while nice and responsive feel a bit stiff and could use more work. I also feel the player's collision with the environment is off.
Encountered a bug, those big doors don't open up fully for me (both sides), so they cover most of my health GUI
The door thing started at level 2 and kept happening for every level after (if it matters I played the web version, fullscreen on a screen with resolution of 2560*1440)
This is amazing, the music is magnificent and a perfect fit, I loved it. The creation of a black hole and watching its circular distortion suck in everything produced a great feeling
The style is odd, which is interesting. But the pacing is slow and combat didn't really intrigue me for long. Is there any progression in player's abilities? (movement speed? shooting speed? something else?)
LOVE this, very beautiful! Really like the black and white aesthetic, I wanted to do something similar but went in another direction.
I love the progression, and the smoothness of movement. The music is nice too. However the introductory white noise sound doesn't loop properly. The orbs were a bit hard to catch, at first. But once I got used to them it was alright. A minor pet peeve of mine was the sound of collecting them.
The ending was perfect.
This is an amazing game, and the first I've given top ratings to across the board.
Everything is well done, I enjoyed the subtle humor, the exploration of mechanics, the play itself and the narrative nuggets, the sounds (and didn't miss any music); it all reinforced the mood of a big-bang creation cockpit.
Fairly fun and comical, i like the upgrades system and the match style. Cactus blocking is especially comical, seeing how it returns my own projectiles back at me :) The music is nice, but I found the sounds a bit jarring. Controls feel good, would have liked a tiny bit more tightness to movement (but it's not bad at all, as is).
Criminally insane derpy bandit blowing up a bank, love that
Got some strong Nuclear Throne vibes mixed in with doom/quake. I enjoyed it.
Controls are great! As is sound/music choices. Graphics and visual feedback are good. I prefer cleaner environments in fast paced shooters, to faster visually distinguish what's going on on-screen. So I find there's too much leftover blood/body parts/debris everywhere. Still, this didn't take away from the game much. All the projectiles are well contrasted with the background, even if an enemy gets slightly lost in the chaos.
Would have enjoyed a larger game with more layers of music. But for what it is - the music is great!
Very fun and very true to how participating in LD is :)
some issues: 5th card switches (randomly?), and the UI goes off screen when I go for another run, but I did play the unfixed version
The sound of those shadow buggers totally creeped me out the first time. Good game, I had fun with it. Though I didn't build much, just got to the scythe asap, then it started being easy.
Nice little management game. Why "notoriety" though, that word implies you're getting famous for doing something bad?
Really cool game, the intro bang is awesome, the mood well crafted. Controls are between fun and confusing, leaning on fun.
Died on my first night, didn't have enough materials to repair. That was good, it reinforced the already well established mood. Subsequent nights were spent hiding in the shelter. Nothing attacked. A bit weird, but at least I'm safe.
Now I'm traveling at night across abandoned wasteland, destined to forever hunt the scarce red rocks.
Overall I enjoyed my time with it, but didn't finish. Took me a while to figure out restarting bugged out the enemy attacks.
Good job on finishing a playable build in time. The character controls decently, though I find the choice of ZSQD weird (especially on my QWERTZ keyboard), but arrows worked fine. I didn't mind the collisions, instead there's a technical issue with the jerky character movement, probably due to a way you're moving your rigidbody.
This was really good, unexpected. I had fun, and a challenge
The mood is very good, though graphical inconsistencies diminish it somewhat. Movement is alright, but the jump doesn't feel too good, though that's partly due to lack of visual feedback on the character
I cheated, I used left ctrl to click faster, then I used mouse click + l ctrl for more gains... then I went to town with a macro to do all my clicking for me (at double the speed). I just don't really like clickers, and I like saving my mouse :P It did allow me more fun though.
It's a solid bare-bones clicker game, could be expanded a lot. I like the humor (the description, and how the truck escapes quickly). The upgrades seem to go on forever needlessly (what's the point in upgrading click reduction past a certain point?)
Sidenote: While it works fine on the PC (chrome, firefox), on macOS safari the game never loads fully, I'm presented with a black screen with logo and 2 green buttons (no intro music or background). The game onwards is all black with just gui elements and music
It drags on a bit too long, would have liked to be able to speed it up to check out the endings, as there isn't that much to do but wait and occasionally click. The music is neat, but it too gets repetitive
@pavel-ivanov it is a space-sperm-whale-thing, of sorts :D
@corrade Thanks, I agree re bubble and glow. As for the title, the idea was to make a birth of an inconsequential space faring creature at the beginning of time, and its eventual death (the return to nothing), but I don't think the game translates well to that idea at all (in its current state).
@miryuu-sekka bubbles don't do anything, you can burst them though. I wanted to add more interactive features to have fun with, but bubbles are the only one that made it in time. :)
@hastro thanks! you can use the mouse. Hold left click to move in a direction, right click to propel forward
@kromeboy oh, you can do it only by propeling forward (right click/space/A while moving). But all you missed is a lower framerate bubble burst animation :)
@ryzy27 The game definitely needs more involvement, I agree. Polish and sound ate up all the time. The tail: the entire "blob" is just a circle on a plane mesh which gets deformed when it moves (which is not a great approach for this, should have been just a white mesh).
@sharpx oh very cool! sorry for the abrupt ending :)
Thank you everyone!
@ynneblack That's really curious about the map's edge, was there an actual green line visible? I need to investigate, sounds like a visible collider when it shouldn't be :)
@realitycheck uh oh, I must have left a gap in the enclosing collision if you managed to pass through, thanks for bringing it to my attention
@ynneblack No don't bother. I didn't manage to find a green line but I found a gap (attached). Seems map edges are generally wonky unintendedly and would need a rework either way
edge.png
@amerigo-gazaway Thanks! Music control is just Unity. 5 loop tracks (1 noise drone and 4 instrumentals) on a same gameobject. All playing from the start of the game muted. Then as necessary their volume gets increased/decreased
I like it, very fun! Wish there were more to do after getting a good farming automation going, or if there were an ending. I like the vibe, sort of a cross between diablo and binding of isaac (?).
I think camera follow movement could be faster; and the scythe not being very effective in the up direction feels weird for a top down game.
I went to staple the window (as you do), but staples soon turned to other objects. That probably made me laugh more than it had any right to (also the radio, which I listened to far too long, optimistically optimistic, trying to figure out if this stapler thing is the actual gameplay or a bug... :) )
Other than that, having a lot of fun with this one. Love the music, and the radio, and the story. All around really good
The movement of the tentacly-dude is awesome, unfortunately the game in its current state doesn't reward movement. As others have stated, just spam left click and you'll breeze through the 10 levels in an instant. Still, trying to play more dynamically is not very rewarding, it's hard to time deflections/attacks against enemies, as everything is too fast. Slowing things down, adding discernible patterns to enemy attacks, adding more abilities like bullet-time or similar - and I could see myself play this a long time. Overall nice job on the prototpye
Great artstyle and atmosphere. Love the animation and head bobbing, though I did find the smudges on hands a bit odd (especially as they created shadows on the wall). I enjoyed the ending, but didn't want to walk through it again, as the speed of the game unraveling started wearing on me the first time through
Good intro story, but the text would be better served contained on a clear background for ease of read (with clear separation of "press space to continue"). I like the mood of the game, the music is great. The puzzles are clever and the whole theme of dying and using your corpses is good and very occult feeling. Technically I would like to see faster player movement and a better grid system
Thanks for the ear worm, I'll keep whistling this through out the day. The mentor is very fun, gave me a few good chuckles.
It seemed too easy at first, but it picks up, though I do find the progression a bit slow.
Very beautiful and wonderfully fitting and melancholy music. The game is short, but I like that, it's also fairly easy to beat once you know where everything is, and most monsters really pose no threat.
I think the sound of steps should have been softer, it's a bit grating as it is and goes over music too much. Also the water projectile doesn't feel good. It's either too slow (for a projectile) or too projectile like (for a spray)
Collisions break due to high speed of the character so you get stuck in walls. This is usually either to the wrong type of colliders used (edge for example can't handle high speeds) or moving the rigidbody imroperly
I got stuck on level geometry, a fitting end. I do like the multitasking requirement and the silly animations
I don't think the game is that hard, on the contrary it's fairly easy and it takes all of a few minutes to beat. Still the difficulty curve is too steep (a few easier levels to start things off, then ramp up in difficulty would be a better approach). Additionally a lot difficulty comes out of badly sized collision boxes which are too large. The controls are really good though. Tight and precise as they should be. The jump could use variable jump height depending how long you press.
The sounds are not good. They don't fit together even if their loudness were the same. The jumping sound is badly implemented, it plays when a character falls from a platform (which it shouldn't) but doesn't play on the second jump when it should. Additionally it gets cut off abruptly when the character is no longer in the air. There's a sound indicating starting movement (or continuing movement when landing) which doesn't seem useful, but there's no feedback sound on landing on the ground.
Music choice is nice but it's placed nonsensically. The loops are cut too short and are drowned out by the other sounds.
The same aesthetic incoherence goes for graphics, everything follows a different style and doesn't create a unified whole. Still despite that, the game is visually clear, which is good! It is never confusing what is background, what is foreground, what is an enemy, etc.
Aside from the zombie, you have a few different spiky enemies, a few different looking spikes and fire which all serve the same exact function of a static obstacle. There's no need for this much variety, especially since their visual styles don't work together.
There are other minor bugs with sprites and animations. The player randomly disappears for a frame. The zombie is floating and not touching the ground. Fire is jumping around which could be fixed by adjusting the pivot of sprites better, or slicing each sprite the same way.
As for the stuck on walls comment above: here's where I was able to get deliberately stuck.
wall stuck.jpg
Solid entry for 7 just hours. Really like the music. I'm a bit confused regarding controls, it seems like I sometimes get a double jump, sometimes not? Additionally, the collision boxes of some obstacles are far greater than their graphics, making it hard to gauge distance properly
Good idea, too hard though. Would like for enemies to have to have a more distinct 3D sound, so I can get a sense of where they're coming from even if I don't see them
Funny, I liked it. Nice the way you used text styling to emphasize delivery
Good job on finishing a game!