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Jamul

Overall Medals

	Year	LD	Theme	Game	Division	Overall
🥇	2008	12	The Tower	Rise Of The Owls	compo	4.50
🥉	2008	11	Minimalist	Still Pond	compo	4.06
🥇	2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	4.41
🥈	2002	2	Construction/Destruction	Hitsuji: Shears Of Fury	compo	4.19
🥇	2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	4.22

Category Medals

	Year	LD	Theme	Game	Division	Category	Score
🥈	2009	16	Exploration	Robot Wants Kitty	compo	Fun	4.10
🥈	2008	13	Roads	Two Roads	compo	Audio	4.48
🥈	2008	13	Roads	Two Roads	compo	Humor	4.57
🥇	2008	12	The Tower	Rise Of The Owls	compo	Graphics	4.67
🥇	2008	12	The Tower	Rise Of The Owls	compo	Polish	4.67
🥈	2008	12	The Tower	Rise Of The Owls	compo	Fun	4.25
🥈	2008	12	The Tower	Rise Of The Owls	compo	Humor	4.00
🥇	2008	11	Minimalist	Still Pond	compo	Humor	4.59
🥈	2008	11	Minimalist	Still Pond	compo	Theme	4.70
🥈	2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	Effort	4.11
🥇	2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	Fun	4.22
🥇	2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	Polish	4.33
🥇	2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	Food	4.70
🥈	2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	Journal	4.61
🥉	2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	Theme	4.59
🥈	2005	6	Light & Darkness	Title Unknown	compo	Innovation	3.95
🥉	2005	6	Light & Darkness	Title Unknown	compo	Polish	4.05
🥈	2002	2	Construction/Destruction	Hitsuji: Shears Of Fury	compo	Completeness	4.46
🥉	2002	2	Construction/Destruction	Hitsuji: Shears Of Fury	compo	Audio	3.77
🥇	2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	Audio	3.95
🥇	2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	Completeness	4.43
🥇	2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	Graphics	4.48
🥉	2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	Fun	3.92
🥉	2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	Gameplay	3.84
🥉	2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	Technical	3.72

Games

Year	LD	Theme	Game	Division	Rank	Ov	Fu	In	Th	Gr	Au	Hu	Mo	Po	Cm	Te	Jo	Cl	Fo	Gp	Ef	Tw	Cs	Bg	Co
2013	26	Minimalism	TOWLDR	compo	619	3.11	2.79	3.43	3.74	2.52	2.29	3.58	2.71												47
2011	20	It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This!	Curse Of The Golden Pearl	compo	36	3.53	3.74	3.22	2.51	3.68	2.70	3.19			2.81										8
2010	19	Discovery	Zoobedoo	compo	62	3.25	3.00	3.43	2.68	3.75	3.00	2.55			2.72										9
2010	17	Islands	Infinite Deadly Islands Of Terror	compo	26	3.59	3.54	3.07	4.07	3.78	2.59	3.04			2.64										12
2009	16	Exploration	Robot Wants Kitty	compo	10	3.79	4.10	2.73	3.31	3.63	2.83	3.26			3.49										20
2009	14	Advancing Wall of Doom	Short Fuse 2: The Escape	compo	45	3.31	3.38	2.34	3.57	3.38		2.71		2.82		2.88	2.33
2008	13	Roads	Two Roads	compo	7	3.87	3.83	3.41	3.52	3.52	4.48	4.57		3.95		2.74	1.62					3.00
2008	12	The Tower	Rise Of The Owls	compo	1	4.50	4.25	3.33	3.67	4.67	3.41	4.00		4.67		3.70	4.12		3.83
2008	11	Minimalist	Still Pond	compo	3	4.06	3.42	3.72	4.70	3.97	3.85	4.59		4.00		2.79	2.71
2007	10	Chain Reaction	Short Fuse	compo	1	4.41	4.22	3.67	4.59	4.07	3.76	3.79		4.33		3.38	4.61		4.70		4.11
2006	8	Swarms	Wee Ninja	compo
2005	6	Light & Darkness	Title Unknown	compo			3.41	3.95						4.05										2
2003	3	Preparation	NPC Quest	compo
2002	2	Construction/Destruction	Hitsuji: Shears Of Fury	compo	2	4.19	4.00		2.50	4.42	3.77					4.08		4.46		3.65			4.35
2002	1	Guardian	Scarecrow: Heart of Straw	compo	1	4.22	3.92			4.48	3.95					3.72		4.43		3.84

MiniLD Games

Year	MiniLD	Theme	Game
2008	5	Cover	Babby Of Towlr
2008	4	MS Paint is the Level Editor	Ninja Kitty Vs. The Nukebots (final)
2008	2	The Game of the Movie	Movie Preview Generator
2008	1	Versus	Final Entry: Miyamoto vs. Yamamoto

Performance over time

overall score (left axis) percentile (right axis)

Correlations

Feedback left by Jamul

Jamul leaves an average of 38.5 feedback comments each event.

LD26 — Minimalism (22)

Save the Potato, Save the world. by JohnnySix 2013-05-02T23:41:00

WHOA too hard for me. I did manage to save one tater. Maybe let me at least have 3 lives? The potato-pick-up animation is really double awesome. The super ultra insane jump height is less awesome.

MinZ by unpronounceable 2013-05-02T23:23:00

Really original... but really unpleasant to play! The sounds and pulsing boxes were very cool, but what you were actually doing just was no fun for me. That may just be me, everybody has different tastes, but I couldn't get past the first level, for lack of willingness to try.

Sounds like it speeds up on later levels? That would've helped a lot in terms of putting it up with the controls and taking more time to give it a shot. I didn't need 2 seconds to decide whether to turn or move!

Circle Barrage by CaseyHardman 2013-05-02T23:16:00

Support lefties! Support ARROW KEYS! When I finally realized it was possible to MOVE, this got about ten times more interesting. It is too simple to really be a good game (that's the problem with this theme!), but I appreciate the polish of multiple difficulties.

Bell Curve by Soundboy 2013-05-02T23:11:00

Ha... I remember when I turned 30 and my face finally grew in. This is a bit disturbing, especially the last level. But I guess that's how it goes (hopefully not at 80, though, I mean come on modern technology!). I'm really impressed overall... the levels are pretty crappy, no offense (no real challenge or anything terribly interesting to do), but the overall content and... message? I don't know... makes up for it, and makes it well worth playing through.

Shape Attack by mechagk 2013-05-02T23:05:00

It's pretty unfair for two reasons: first off, sometimes I got hurt for no reason at all! Just a flash and a life went away with nobody near me and me not firing. Secondly, as somebody else mentioned, sometimes you switch bodies and find that you're trapped into getting hit by something, and you couldn't have predicted it, since the guy who hits you was offscreen at the time.

It's a very original and weird idea, which is cool, but it needs the brutality taken out. I think it would work much better as a pure puzzle, like non-moving shapes and you have to find the combination of shots that would clear the board.

I really appreciated the thorough menu with multiple game modes, that kind of polish is cool to see in an LD entry.

A-Void by kingsman142 2013-05-02T22:56:00

No appreciation for lefties with your control scheme... The music was really nice though. I liked gilmore606's comment - seems balanced for maximum frustration! I didn't actually get that frustrated, but it sure was hard for unfair reasons.

Triangulum by bompo 2013-05-02T22:46:00

I really would've liked it if this played two or even three times faster than it does (no changes, just game speed). It'd be a pretty cool light show, and I actually think it'd increase the strategy, strangely enough. Right now (and also if sped up), there doesn't really seem to be any. As an experiment, I tried playing a round by just clicking in one spot on the left side as fast it could generate energy, and I won the game much quicker than any other strategy I had tried. I actually managed to lose, quite badly, when I tried to employ towers heavily.

But the all-glowy-triangle look is pretty awesome, really stands out as something special and minimalist, and the sounds match it perfectly. If the gameplay just gained a little depth in some way, it'd be really fun to play too.

Fisherdude by nathanj439 2013-05-02T22:25:00

Not relaxing! Stressful! This is really weird, with the fishing in reverse pretty much... I didn't manage to catch a big fish, too many little ones in the way. It's a pretty clever concept, probably needs a little more to it than just sliding 3 kinds of fish around, but I'm not sure what more, but there is definitely some interesting strategy to when you should move up to bigger fish (I think I went too soon, but the sun was setting!).

P.S. there were weird artifacts all around the font!

5170

Bunneh by spliter 2013-05-02T22:18:00

I had a really hard time getting down a technique to actually keep track of the falcon while I eat, and learning how he works (hint: once the shadow gets dark, you better be on your way to hiding already!). I still never managed to eat everything though!

It's a good concept and well-implemented, but I think a little too hard... not much though, or it'd be pointless, but hey, start me off with some closer burrows at least!

The animated bunneh is great, with the munching and the munch noise. That's really good animating for 48 hours.

The Mondrian Crash by sirGustav 2013-05-02T22:03:00

I'm not sure if this is buggy or I just SUPER don't understand the rules... I won a few times, but I'm not sure why, or why the explosions wouldn't start sometimes when I placed something next to black, and other times it was immediate, and other times I had to start it by clicking the bomb. Then the explosions happen in seemingly random order, but apparently it remembers which ones have exploded so it can still chain properly? I am so confused!

An interface suggestion: don't make me click, just let me hit AWD on spaces as I mouse-over them, it'd be much easier to play.

I also wanted to throw this out there: Many LDs ago, back in my day you whippersnapper, there was another Mondrian game I immediately thought of. I can't actually remember what the rules were, but like this game, it made a very real-looking Mondrian. It's definitely a good idea - makes me wonder what you could be inspired to do in making a game by various paintings... swirly effects for Van Gogh, pointilist stuff, of course weird shape compression and twisting for Picasso.

Pivot by meat_popsicle 2013-04-30T18:06:00

Very minimalistic! I will confess to not liking these sorts of puzzles very much, and yet I clicked on your game over the one that came before it in my list just because of the screenshot, so maybe I do. But I don't. They make me mad.

Maximalism by phi 2013-04-30T18:02:00

That is a really interesting and weird idea... pretty hard to actually play, but interesting to experience! A more zoomed-out experience would feel less random. The boxes move so fast and your shots have such range that most of your bullets are going to be hitting guys at random.

theseus.f by belickim 2013-04-30T17:49:00

I won! I'm not sure why mice can't run over string, but this whole thing felt strangely polished, with the nice tile-based-yet-smooth movement and all. I sorta feel like the in-game graphics (or lack) really lets it down because right before you get into the maze I was like "wow, this game looks awesome", then you get the cheapo-looking maze. But still feels good, at least.

MINIMALIST INVADERS FROM OUTER SPACE by muton 2013-04-30T17:42:00

This somehow came out as unbelievably easy for me... if one of them had a gun, he didn't have the manly earth-cajones to fire it at me. I just went around the apartment trashing everything without any resistance. I did like it when one of the aliens actually cleaned something up though. Wish there had been some challenge in that!

stairs by cardboard 2013-04-30T17:38:00

404 on Windows for me too. I guess that's because 404s aren't a personal event. It's a bit like saying "Yes, the sun came up for me this morning too!" But unlike the sun, you can fix this for us, cardboard! LET US CLIMB THE STAIRS

SLEEP! we have a long way to go by NicoJaujou 2013-04-30T17:34:00

L'Ambiance indeed. It's not a fun game by any means, but it does have this great ambiance and a strange nostalgia feeling in a way, like it's trying to tell you something important. But you're too sleepy to hear it.

xro48 by larb 2013-04-29T21:58:00

The controls are pretty frustrating, but I really liked the style... although I only marginally understood what I was doing on my second try. Since my score was -781 (and also +9? I don't get much about this game...), I'm guessing I didn't understand that well. Really good job with the minimal style and atmosphere, but a little explaining would've been good (perhaps outside of the game if you want to be artsy).

[ ] by YukonW 2013-04-29T21:49:00

I have a fundamental problem with WASD+arrow controls... and nobody ever gives me the option I need to verify if it's a general problem or if I just need to flip the controls (so give me a "shoot with WASD, move with arrows" option!). Much better would've been arrows to move + mouse to shoot. But I still made it to 29300. I hated not being able to shoot diagonally!

I like the style and stuff, pretty solid and simple. One thing really missing was feedback when you hit an enemy or especially when you get hit yourself (I know the number goes down, but noise and hopefully some particles would really improve the feeling of feedback).

Door by hockeygoalie5 2013-04-29T21:39:00

I won! That was surprisingly easy. The player could've used an outline so you don't lose him when he's crossing the color blocks (since by definition he's going to be exactly their color when he crosses them!). It was interesting, and possibly unintended, how several levels didn't require you to use most of the stuff on them to get to the end.

Mini-Malicious - when the bit bugs byte by multitude 2013-04-29T21:32:00

It's definitely a minimal game! But I don't know how much I enjoy just sweeping over the screen until it says I win. The music is really good, and the explosion of 1's is a nice effect, I just think you need something more interesting to do.

[My little game][+ or -] by Toinane 2013-04-29T21:29:00

I think you nailed the theme... which unfortunately doesn't mean you made something enjoyable!

Darkness by Liikeaturtle 2013-04-29T21:24:00

I had the same problem where the controls would reverse sometimes when you touch a wall. Weird! Seems like there's a strategy in hanging near a corner to generate new rooms fast as possible... although I forgot to check whether backtracking gave you the same room or a random one. I made it 90 seconds!

LD20 — It's Dangerous to Go Alone! Take This! (24)

Laser cats VS Zombie rats by Jesper Oskarsson 2011-05-08T14:27:00

I understand having the option to end your turn if you don't want to move some cats, but I shouldn't have to hit it if I moved them all. It made things feel tedious.

As a puzzle, I found this really annoying, because after a couple rats appear, you always end up with at least one cat who has only one move choice every turn, so most of your actions are rote repeats rather than choices to be made, and I just felt boxed in tighter and tighter all the time. Aggravation and stress in place of joy. That's not a comment on your work exactly, just on how I feel about these sort of Dalek games.

PandaBot by Little Angel 2011-05-06T15:46:00

HOLY CRAP YOU DIDN'T MENTION SPACE IS JUMP! I thought all I could do was fall at various speeds. Of course, even once I found jump, it took me a good twenty tries to make the first jump, and another five to make the second jump. Five long tries of restarting the entire game over and over... Never made the third jump. Sorry, too much frustration for me.

Courier of the Crypts by Blodyavenger 2011-05-06T15:35:00

Did anybody else notice you can see in the dark? I played the whole game with my eyes up close to my monitor watching what was out there. I couldn't see the enemies outside of the light though, except on the last level.

Interesting concept, but I think it needed something more to it. Either another mechanic, or enemies that forced you into different behaviors. As it was, it always boiled down to the same "sidestep and let them pass" move (except when you could just bully the bugs around). I think you needed something else to do besides sidestep and get lost. The shrinking torch circle was an effective threat to keep you moving for sure.

Killer Bees by joshuatree0587 2011-05-06T15:18:00

The idea of marking a target, then watching your minions swarm it, is good. The problem is that, in practice, it means firing a single shot at an enemy, then waiting a long time (and if you shoot another enemy in the meantime, you'll have to go back and re-shoot the first. By comparison, if you were firing poison shots, you could shoot everybody once and move on, and it'd be fine). So the resulting game is really dull, especially since avoiding the enemies isn't any challenge at all. Maybe if everybody who had been honeyed was a bee target, so you shoot 5 guys and your bees kind of divide between them all, and as they die, the bees can focus on the survivors... and of course, the dodging was more dynamic. I think the 'mark and swarm' thing does indeed have potential.

Block Push Championship by increpare 2011-05-04T16:37:00

Definitely an innovative and clever twist, but yeah... Sokoban is still painful. Once I finally powered through I think the second magnetic level (after like 40 tries), I discovered that the next 3 or 4 were super easy! Maybe rearrange the order a bit, because I didn't get any smarter between them. And then I finally gave up, on the one with tons of diamonds on the right side, that you can pull out one at a time.

p.i.g by zillix 2011-05-04T16:15:00

This was awesome, a totally complete high class experience. What I fricking hated were the momentum puzzles - conceptually, I really liked them, but the auto-aligning always tried to align me to the wrong tile. Not that it was wrong, I was, but it still led to dozens of attempts for even basic puzzles. Maybe instead of auto-align, it should have "scoop you into a portal if you're close". But I persevered, because it was so interesting, and then came the next kind of challenge, and it got even more interesting! That was after I thought it would've ended, being an LD game. It's 5 stars.

Ghast by mchnzr 2011-05-04T15:52:00

I seemed to just die at random (assuming that's what teleporting back to start is), regardless of nearby ghasts. That made hiding seem very ineffective. I did eventually get some shrooms though! I like stealth games, you should make this one work as advertised.

LD #20 - Never Let Go, Sam! by chamberlainpi 2011-05-04T15:19:00

Loading screen for me too!

Breathing Room by Shaun Inman 2011-05-04T15:19:00

Man, this is I Wanna Be The Guy ruthless. It's a good thing it's like 2 seconds long! It's a little weird that there are absolutely no limits on the inhaler (and you can start it up again while it's still going), it's almost like the game should just be in slow motion all the time. You can even charge in mid-jump! Winterblood has good points on this thought, I see.

The music was a very nice touch.

Multiplayer Zombie Garden Adventure by goffmog 2011-05-04T15:08:00

Pressing play did nothing for me either (Firefox).

Total Achluophobia by Queaw 2011-05-04T15:06:00

I like the concepts in here, and it plays pretty well. I agree it's very harsh. Those guys that zip at you wiped me out easily. I am curious to find out what more orbs there were, but I don't know if I want to get killed again. So, original and cool and hard.

Elidia by brandoncash 2011-05-03T21:11:00

The collision is downright dirty! You can get smacked for being glared at by enemies. My other complaint is the guys appearing out of nowhere - would be better if they flew on from offscreen, so you weren't constantly worried that one would pop right by you. Otherwise it was cool, and different. I wish I could've stocked up powerups instead of being penalized for not using them.

Red-Ball-City by madpew 2011-05-03T16:53:00

That's actually pretty much the best audio I've heard in the games I've tried so far! Not a very challenging game, though.

It's Time by vrld 2011-05-03T16:51:00

I know it was for atmosphere, but I thought the background was just TOO dark. I was squinting at my screen to try to see where the ground was. Otherwise it's a cool idea with style and just needed more content to really get somewhere with it.

Space Genocide by TheLolrus 2011-05-03T16:44:00

Somebody Py2EXE this for the lazy please!

Attack of The Heavenly Bats by Sos 2011-05-03T16:43:00

I *HATED* the manic jumping. HATED. Otherwise, I really loved this, just insane slaughter and a ridiculous amount of sprites flying all over the place. The ability to shoot coins out of the air was nice. I ended up having to be very inventive to get the final powerup after getting the nuke, because I had the fire button held down when I got the nuke and sort of vaporized most of the world.

Misunderstood by Brian 2011-05-03T16:22:00

I won't rate this because it's VERY badly broken for me... at first I couldn't click on anything, then I could, but by clicking in the wrong place, then gameplay ran at about 1 FPS so I took about 5 steps, then quit. Looked promising.

Gemini by Knighty 2011-05-03T16:19:00

Really nice... much more playable than I expected it to be for two sets of arrow keys. I like the extensive thought put into abilities and the level layout that makes you use the abilities. But damn that first jump in the last level that I did over and over and over (and had to do twice... I think. Maybe I did it wrong). Music started with the first level, then ended in about 3 seconds. Maybe just not looping?

Take It Take It Take This by Rikkard 2011-05-02T18:45:00

There is a bug where, I think it's after talking to the guy who says "spaaaaaace", everybody who comes in no longer has line breaks, so you can't really read what they are saying. That made me start over. I tried a bunch of times, but I'd always eventually hit that point and be stuck because I couldn't tell what they were saying. Not that I really knew what they wanted when I could read it!

Misplaced by someone 2011-05-02T18:27:00

I second a call for no collision between me and my soldiers! They fixed that in Diablo 2, you can do it too. And whoa, this is SO impossible! The AI on the soldiers makes it really hard to do anything smart, since they go chasing after frightened imps at light speed, into a giant army of evil. You mentioned "more spells". I opened every chest as far as I know, never saw a spell. Can you actually cast stuff? That sounds like a nice addition if it's in there!

SpaceJump by 1009 2011-05-02T18:15:00

Wow. I don't know what was just done to me, but I don't think it's reversible. At first I was like "Why does it say there's a jump button?" Then I was like "why is this happening to my brain!?!?" I won the game, and I have no idea what I accomplished. I stepped on something blue. My favorite part was the photo'd instructions. Those were classy (except I had to guess the empty box meant CTRL).

Take This Or Die by VoooDooo 2011-05-02T18:05:00

Important note: Installers are very frowned upon, because people need to just dump these games into a folder and go. They don't like them cluttering up the computer at random. I tried it once years ago as a bit of extra polish, and oh, the unhappiness.

Other important note: Respect the lefties! WASD+space+mouse is not comfortable or functional for us! Whatever happened to good old arrow keys?

Otherwise it's pretty good. I think you should look into jumping physics, because this kind of all-up then all-down thing is always very awkward feeling and hard to control. Real jumping is easy to implement, but I guess a voting comment isn't the space to explain!

Ted, the singleminded adventurer by ghostonline 2011-05-02T17:55:00

I hope somebody Py2EXE's this!

An Old Man And His Quest by Covenant 2011-05-02T17:55:00

Yeah, every level looked exactly like level 2 for me (never tried the light, it didn't seem necessary!). Hard to spot where walls weren't with some of the angles. ESC definitely skipped you to the next level too, which was sad, because death came VERY easily and took HOURS to finish. I found the death situation really frustrating. If I could just instantly restart the level I'm on (like say by pressing ESC...), I would've had a lot more patience for the scary challenges that awaited. That time level was BRUTAL. It pretty much took a full charge to get past each guy (in the tiny hallways 3 blocks wide). I did not make it to the end, but thanks to ESC, I won the game anyway!

LD19 — Discovery (22)

Retirement of the Space Shuttle Discovery by Jonny D 2010-12-27T16:40:00

Seemed kind of pointless drifting around there... so much effort to change your heading, why was there a 'fuel' limit on that? I would've liked to keep holding an arrow to continue to adjust my heading. I don't know. Fun to bash satellites around a bit, but with such slow control, it all felt really slow rather than the fun of smacking things around willy nilly.

Explosive Transcendental Circulatory System by NiallM 2010-12-27T16:31:00

Wowzers. Somehow, at one point, I turned the whole thing into a peaceful happy non-pixelated heart with clouds. I have no idea what caused that. But I enjoyed trying to obtain the various side-scrolling images. Not at all a game, but variety seems to be the spice of life.

Reflective Discovery by Fififox 2010-12-27T16:23:00

Good game idea and design... but 2 levels means yikes. Crazily short!

Researching String Theory by Zoltam 2010-12-27T14:59:00

Seemed really too easy... I was expecting it to smack me down hard for going outside the lines, but I could roam there for days. Still, it wasn't so easy when the time got really tight. I think it's just not what I expected - I thought you were supposed to very carefully follow the lines, like a game of Operation, but it turns out you're supposed to zip along as fast as you can and roughly follow the lines. When you play it 'right' it's faster and more fun (and you get further). I'm the new Einstein.

COMPLICATED VIEW by xra 2010-12-27T14:49:00

This didn't seem to work right... I'd just jump to the next room suddenly without really having resolved a wall, and after the second room, I ended up outside a completely solid static cube, just me and a monster. The monsters are indeed creepy.

Deep Space by develop32 2010-12-24T22:10:00

SO hard. I really liked how things got more interesting and you upgraded as you went along, but I was stuck probably very early when I got to the part that teleports around... not sure what you're even supposed to do about that other than hope it appears right next to you!

Mr Head and the Journey of Discoveries by jolle 2010-12-24T20:00:00

Hmm... I got to a point that I thought was the end, but now Devenger says how many seconds he took, as though it displayed such things. I am suspicious that there may have been more.

Anyway, this is fun! I am really disappointed to not hear Mr. Head tell me what I Must Do, but I enjoyed discovering his world anyway.

Looney Ladders by SethR 2010-12-24T19:08:00

Well, looks like the theme went out the window! But the ladders sure sound looney. I really respect that you went out of your way to represent my people in the main character. That's so unheard of. Also fun stuff... my only complaint is down for dynamite - running to catch a ladder down, I'd blow myself up or waste a stick. Nice of the little girls to bring me more.

Attack of the time travelling pygmy from outer paleolithic (aka Time Pygmy) by deepnight 2010-12-24T18:47:00

Super awesome. I never did discover everything, and I had to read the secret of getting the key on here, so I'm not as smart as a cave pygmy, but I still thought it was way awesome.

discovery . Palpable Heroic Perception by HybridEidolon 2010-12-23T03:41:00

Crazy hard to control! I didn't get far, because I kept getting sent back to the first checkpoint I found. Even the walls were too much enemy for me! I feel sort of unqualified to judge it having seen so little, but I just can't keep on exploding.

terra coda by zillix 2010-12-22T17:33:00

Great! Man, someday I'm gonna do a Groundhog Day thing, because I love that. This is a really good rendition of it... it keeps feeling like you have no chance, then you squeeze out a little more with one more piece of information. I still have no idea what any of the alien artifacts meant, but that was okay because the scientists had already researched them and explained them to me. Which was nice, since they were about to die.

Life on other planets by AbelToy 2010-12-22T17:04:00

I like the DNA laser. I'm not sure I like the gameplay so much... maybe it needed a radar to show nearby planets or something? You just kind of wander around (with the laser held down if you want) and the planets pop up and get categorized. It had a sort of wandering pointlessness to it as a result. Maybe just random wandering badguys would've helped too, making exploration a little scarier.

dis_covery by jagttt 2010-12-22T16:44:00

That was fun and weird... never figured out what some of the guys did (the tall ones, and the helicopters which I couldn't interact with at all? Oh man, I didn't try hammering while up there!). Nice music.

Orbs of Sound by Sakar 2010-12-22T16:37:00

I thought it was impossible, then I turned my speakers louder and did it! The world made of white cubes actually makes a pretty nice environment. You needed a bigger collision sphere on the player though, seeing through walls was a regular event. Also, since you had a web version, and your readme was 2 lines, why make us download 6mb to get it? Just write it here! I will for future reference:

Use WASD and mouse to fly around and get the 3 blue orbs that are making sound. There's a whoosh sound when you get all 3.

Hey, Person! by barigorokarl 2010-12-22T16:17:00

Was it running too fast? I had to like super-tap to zip past someone without accidentally getting their story piece, I couldn't actually look where I was going or I would get caught. It didn't seem like that was the intent. And yeah, the huge movement and huge dialogs covering things was problematic. I also got what must be a technical problem, in that "ask X for more info", but you could get it from other people. I don't know, I'm so confused. Especially over the cursed heritage I earned. And I'm not sure how it's my heritage... it told me what he was like, but doesn't say anything about what that makes me. Does it? Again, so confused!

SPACEMEAT DISCOVERY by AMT 2010-12-22T16:00:00

That was fun and satisfying despite being pure luck and slamming my last ship straight into an asteroid. So, not much of a game, but a fun thing to do! It would sell as a flash game, I bet.

Great Discoveries in Human History by Amused 2010-12-21T04:00:00

This is a real funny and interesting idea... but it's marred by two problems: one technical being that often a card will remain flipped up and it gets confusing (and they don't always work right either). The other being that you can't tell if a card is a benefit or an invention. Different colored or marked cards for the two types would've been really nice, and made the jokes hit home a lot better, so I didn't sit there thinking "How did beer goggles get us glass?"

Jungle by someone 2010-12-21T03:51:00

Well yeah, you didn't make it in time. Maybe (if you wanted to keep working) you should've held it over for the extra day for the Jam. I like the animation on the guy, but I guess that's about all there is here!

Prophecy by PaulSB 2010-12-21T01:42:00

Too many students to deal with! And really simple UI improvement: why make me flip through the 4 stats? Just have 4 bars on each guy. That drove me crazy. I'm not sure I really understood much of the rules. I think the issue was that I was thinking of "training" to mean improve them, but I guess they did that on their own. Anyway, the thing I really didn't like was dealing with 50 guys at a time. Maybe had it been a simple mouse-driven interface instead of cycling through everybody, though, that would've been fine. It's a very unique prospect to just be trying to pick who will save the world instead of doing it yourself.

But in the end, my guys were rated super high and yet they got stomped! I guess the world is simply doomed.

Discover The Name by arielsan 2010-12-21T01:26:00

I second what I see here... the collapse of breaking tiles is sooo slow that there's really no incentive to avoid them at all. The only challenge is not falling in the pre-existing holes. I like the control scheme, it's smooth and easy to use.

Unfathomed by kylerhoades 2010-12-21T01:22:00

I got to doctor and the depth charges... pretty sure I met the black creature, but since depth charges don't affect anything but the ground, I just followed him around a bit, then rammed him to discover that doing so is fatal. I think I was missing something... maybe something I didn't DISCOVER?

All the wide-open spaces (and the camera not scrolling until you get near edges) amount to not the most fun exploring experience. It felt like luck whether I stumbled across something or not in the great wide open.

-REACH- by Zachary Lewis 2010-12-21T01:10:00

As someone else said (oddly, twice...?), it's Russian Roulette. There's no game at all, just completely unmitigated random chance. But as slot machines are fun, so is this. I like the looks of it. I wish there was just a little nubbin of gameplay to grab onto... it's almost a minimalist Weird Worlds, but about one feature shy of actually having gameplay.

LD17 — Islands (25)

I HATE ISLANDS by nitram_cero

I'm very dizzy from far too many attempts at Argentina. I was really curious to see if it was the end or if the torture would continue, but I just couldn't make it. Funny and painful all in one.

If you made that music, you're amazing, but I am completely sure you didn't, so big N/A on audio. Too bad, because good sounds.

The Adventures of Archie Pegalo by rogual

"Warning: it's quite difficult" Hell no, I just played Rik's game. I finished this in no time! Really cool. I like that there was a lot of different stuff. When I started, I expected it to be just left to right, jumping from one thing to the next, and various little threats like the mines and bears along the way. Instead, it's pretty much constant new stuff, no time wasted on repeating things. Even though it's really short, that makes it feel like a lot of game, whereas something repetitive would've seemed like not much (like mine...).

Islands Far Away by sfernald

You had better figure out what it is if you want to show up Mike "Hamumu" Hommel this year.

MAJOR complaint: I guess I can't GIVE this away, but a really obvious natural way of dealing with the dog isn't accepted. I had to see the hints to know how to word it. I know that's a standard issue with text adventures, but this particular inability is really egregious!

I only got 9/10, I am sad. I think I skipped the first programming step (typical for me). Good luck against your arch-rival in the LD!

Clean the Island!! by jfroco

The music is great. These have to be the biggest pixels I've ever seen. I liked the graphics... it all felt very snappy and happening, like if I got the can I'd be kicked back to the Wario Ware menu for my next game.

I'd like to point out that mice have ears, though.

Dinosaur Vs the islands! by ggnosfex

You have to submit source code. Really funny, but of course not much of a game. But worth "playing" once definitely. Complete utter theme failure, by the way. After I got the first two pieces, I wondered what the third one could be, but when I got it, it made perfect sense.

Hula Girl HD by philhassey

I thought I was good at Dance Dance things, this is crazy. 61%. I agree about the evil miss noise, I felt like a loser getting big streams of CRUNCH CRUNCH X X. Intensity indeed.

False Flag by Baiame

This was completely unplayable for me, and I think Unity itself was upset about the situation too, because my bullets went right through the guys (I think because they skipped over them given the 1fps movement). I tried dropping it to 640x480 at lowest quality and it was just as slow. Sounds like a really interesting idea, but I can't even get it to the point where I can be confused by it (but I was anyway) because it's just jerking all over the place.

Tropical Vampires by KavuDX

The battle scene can't POSSIBLY be working right. I lost in under 1 second (that was my second try! The first lasted longer for reasons I do not know). I never even had time to get an idea of what I was trying to do and what was going on. That was a disappointment after all the exciting adventuring that went on previously.

Poke-Slayer by bulle

I was totally set to give a 5 on sound... then I started killing some Pokemon and enduring the noise that makes. The song is worth a 5 though.
Very odd and early ending, I just killed like maybe 6 Pokemon and I won. There were tons of islands left and I had never even gotten to throw a grenade!
I noticed there's a crash if your boat (which starts out invisible, by the way!) goes off the edge of the screen.

Elementary My Dear Watson by xeon06

The control thing was unique (but check out... um... a name I forgot, an indie game that was basically the same idea, really popular), but actually I found it really hard to use. I guess just that everything was so slow moving. I don't know...

Island Construction Malfunction by Benn

Nice game. I was stuck on the last level a while but got it down in the end. It's a good puzzle, and very original (well, to me... you probably cloned something and I don't know it!). I guess what you really need here are lots more levels, since that's the kind of game it is.

Kallista's Dream by zez

This sounds like from the other comments that it's not working right for me (but it's flash, surely it's the same?). I absolutely can't tell when I'm killing enemies, and I seem to dash right through them, and then die randomly. I can't even see the enemies most of the time. The whole thing moves at uber-light-speed, but also is jerky, and the movement jumps all over oddly. It feels super broken. It seems like on each level my movement got more erratic (but after writing and erasing this comment I did manage to pass the levels!).

The stuff I saw before playing was cool and interesting, but playing was... a mess. I think more to do with bugs than intent. I really liked the jittery glitch effects on the title (which I will assume weren't bugs...).

Island Survivor by shady1024

I won easily! I think it's because I happened to stumble across two canteens and a fishing pole in moments. That's one huge island. The thing I really didn't like was that the camera didn't scroll until you were about a millimeter from the screen edge. That was maddening.

Dreams of how we once were by Perrin

Really did not like that this was a huge mass of default unity things (like the palm trees, really integral parts of the artwork and you didn't make them. I drew my own palm trees!). The movement was also very bad. Really could have used some emphasis on making the experience smooth and usable, not just getting the 'art stuff' in front of the player.

Island of Bounty by Ashkin

I think this would've been cool finished, as the movement and shooting are good (nice implementation of the charge-fire). Nothing much going on as-is, but potential. Definitely your concept bit way too much off to chew. Three playables with assorted powers and upgrades? I even dropped the idea of leveling up my one character early on!

Island World by moltanem2000

This is super polished, and nobody ever has a big intro cutscene! I would say that really thoroughly explained the game, but once I played I had NO clue what was going on. I don't understand the other peoples' comments because they seemed to understand an awful lot more of it than I did. I read about shift, so I did get to sword some pirates, but other than that, all I could figure out how to do was vaporize as much as possible to obtain powerups (seemingly at random? I dunno), with which to vaporize more. Can the pirates ever be stopped? More seemed to come all the time, and night was extremely hard to deal with. Usually I just had to sit and wait because I couldn't see a thing where I happened to be when it switched.

But it's weird, because it's obviously quite cool and well-polished. I just can't figure out what the rules are.

Risky Island by Blackduck

I think I attacked my own land! Yeah, I think the rules needed some thinking on this one... probably not possible to obtain more than 1 or 2 lands. If I wait long enough while I type this, I think I'll get a third though! But by then all the other islands will have 30 guys, so oh well. Yay, I did it! And most lands appear to cap at 9, so I think if I watch a couple more tv shows, I'll end up being able to conquer my entire island. Sadly, I won't have any way to move onto enemy ones after that.

Floatation by madk

This is really good all around! There are definitely bugs (my first game the only thing I could unlock was the super battleship, but the second was much more interesting), and the clicking is horribly unresponsive, but aside from that it's really unique and pretty easy to understand and fun and whatever else would make it good.

One of the cooler surprises was that you actually took time to throw in random bonuses like the balloon and what I assume were evil air pirates (they hit the enemy island, lucky for me).

The Forgotten Isles by Tempest

I liked the really simple look and play... people keep mentioning camera issues, I bet the camera was rotatable and I didn't even know. I liked it a lot not rotating, just with the default angle the whole time. I actually felt the memories gave me reason to keep on trucking. True that just trying to get through a maze wasn't very interesting, but the story worked to keep me wanting to find out. And thankfully, they were really easy mazes.

Sheep are Flammable by someone

hmm... got the title, hit a key, stuff was getting loaded in the console window (right up to "streaming music... success"), then black screen which eventually became a grey screen and a Not Responding and a kill. Sad.

Invasive by TFernando

Really need dragging to place stuff... individual clicks at this scale is insane! I don't think the rules actually work as is. With one simple change - all creatures die after say 30 seconds without eating - it would be about 10x more interesting, since you wouldn't have to lay traps on every square inch of the island or wait 8 hours to finish off the glompers. Either way though, it doesn't work since the only strategy is to box in some kiwis and clean up (or with my new rule, wait). Under these rules, you have "absolutely never let glompers and kiwis interact in any way", which isn't much like reality. The game would've been pretty much the same if there was only one kiwi and one glomper (also, breeding via trees is useless, all it does is feed glompers! I did it for fun, though). If you had just gotten simulation rules that worked, this could've been really great. But without them, it's more of just something to watch. And then unleash the glompers for maximum destruction.

Island of Darkness by Parthon

There's actually a whole lot of content here! But yeah, not much to do in the content. I think it was running a lot faster than it was supposed to, because I was zooooming.

Eyelands by recursor

I really liked the waving of the palm trees when I noticed. This is pretty cool in a weird sort of way, it's like retromodern. I never actually survived the night, but mainly because my attention span wandered and I watched the TV a bit. It does make you wait quite a while after you have your fire ready. Could be nice to force night to begin as soon as you get the fire ready. I realize if I had survived, it would've gotten notably harder on future days with the more distant bamboo. A bit odd that you can waltz right through palm trees, by the way.

On an Iron Isle by L

Wow, for real, I couldn't get past the first room of badguys. I seem to be in good company on that. Best I did was to get to the last one. I think I hit him 3 times once, so close. The death was cool, though. Definitely a vote for turning down the difficulty. I've played Mega Man, and this sir, is no Mega Man.

Rocket Bike To Space by rik

More frustrating than fun... what it really could've used (besides getting rid of the agony of the bounce) is some stuff above you, so spending more than 1/8 second NOT jumping would be correct. What I mean is that you spend the entire game constantly jumping, which is really annoying. I'd rather have a second of driving and then try to time my jump right.

The graphics are awesome, and the music is good, and the whole thing is very peppy, and even kind of addictive (not sending me back TOOOoo far when I die, though I think I never got past the 3rd checkpoint). I just wish it was more forgiving and less constant with the jumping. Which probably mostly means easier.

LD16 — Exploration (24)

Gratuitous Battles in Space by 5parrowhawk

Even after installing the XNA junk for another entry, crash on startup.

Climbrunner by agj

Localcoder pretty much has my comments covered. Nicely done, but I never knew the point. You can't get the white things, and nothing changes when you touch them, so I assume there is no active goal in the game... is there? It's a clever idea, but as a game it just kinda makes tedium. And a whole lot of backtracking.

Come and See by TeamQuiggan

I see where you were going (Civilization!), but as it stands there's nothing to do really... I still had fun throwing down dozens of free 'improvements' (not sure what the term means, but I guess it's logging and such that generates money) and watching them deliver goods to the towns for a while. I probably would've really enjoyed it if you had just gotten those numbers in there so it actually cost things to build and there was some economy to deal with!

The lost shipwreck by laremere

The problem with this game (besides texture glitches where two panels were adjacent) is that it's a very accurate simulation of controlling an underwater robot. That is, it's painfully slow and awkward! I ended up stuck in a hallway because, for some reason, your turning can actually be impeded, not just your movement (again, realistic but painful). It looks good, and really gave the feel of lurking down in the deep, but all that realism means it isn't enjoyable to control.

Fuck Oregon let's go find El Dorado by crackerblocks

Really fun and really cool. There are plenty of games with this exact gameplay, but they don't have the ridiculous theme on top (and I suppose they don't have the food, life meters, and diseases to deal with!). I found El Dorado on my first try!

Forest by increpare

I get what it's doing, I just don't get why I would want it to do that. And is the screenshot a lie, or is there actually something visual somehow/somewhere? All I get is black. Maybe there's a goal and I didn't know that.

Sunday Hiker by matrin

Hmmm. I'm not sure what the mechanic is. Just that there are spots to click on and the guy walks to them? Definitely could make a great adventure game like that. You should!

Deep Field by Gilvado

What this game desperately needed was a display of your gear. You know, sails, drive, capacitor, etc. It was a cool game, though, very much Weird Worlds. I agree that the exploding points were fun.

derelict_ by stuckie

I thought I was getting somewhere, but I finally found an alien and discovered I had no way to shoot, apparently. Is there a trick to it beyond firing mode + enter on an enemy? I concur with whoever said the walls shouldn't be black... SO confusing that they are the same as unexplored space. It seems like you got overambitious - bunch of different classes with special skills to choose from was cool, but being able to properly control and play just plain old soldiers would've been better!

Massacre at Misfit Toy Island by sfernald

I'm trying this out on a brand-new Win7 install, and it crashes on startup. Since it's a fresh copy, and you don't say what this uses, I can't guess what I'm missing! I'll try it on my Vista computer when I get home sometime.

Adventure Quest by TenjouUtena

I actually installed that stuff... now I'll have to go back and play the other one I couldn't. If this had gameplay, it'd be really cool. It seems like it's the right idea and I love leveling up, it's just that there's nothing for the player to do right now. At all. In fact, I'm still "playing" it right now as I type this! I hear baddies dying. I would definitely play a game that looked like this if it went somewhere.

towlr: EXPLR by philhassey

You've managed to create a Towlr I don't even understand AFTER winning it. It is hard to rate a Towlr entry, especially when you don't know why you won or what purpose any of the game elements served.

TextAge 2: The Rise of His Majesty by madk

I couldn't get past the priest... I even went all the way back to see if the servant would give me what he needed, but either no, or I couldn't word it right (actually yes, but it doesn't count). I have to say that even once I understood the concept of how it would make you press enter and that the yellow line indicated it was actually command time, I still CONSTANTLY was typing ignored commands to my endless frustration. Some text adventure conventions would've been very nice, like the prompt meaning you can type things, and I for inventory, and the NESW movement. Nice artwork behind the text!

Lost? by retrogamer500

This is tons like mine! I really hated the ladders and how jumping off of them worked, but otherwise it was really cool. Well, the thing that actually made me quit (right about where you first meet guys that jump up in the air) was how you die and have to climb your way back up and all. Which my game also had, but it didn't have super slow ladders on the way!

I really liked it though. Maybe next time some pixel-doubling so it's not a tiny little 2-inch window on my screen?

Planetary Explorer by Selkie

A remarkably small window... maybe look into pixel-doubling if you can! Pretty fun. The space-flying part was way too fast to really control. I was basically only dodging, there was definitely no way to kill all or even most of the enemies, which felt more frustrating than pleasant, even though it's not required to kill them. I liked the planet exploring part (which is the part that actually fit the theme anyway!) much better.

Not sure I REALLY needed an "Are you sure?" when I clicked start!

The Wooden Fleet by weasel

Yeah.... too slow to be any fun at all, no diagonals hurts the brain. I think this is one that just got cut off before it hit the point of fun. It seems like it could get there with another day because it's certainly unique and different.

Asteroid Explorer by Akunate

Well, I got 6381 meters. I'm gonna call that a win. Really minimal, but it does work right.

Dungeon Explorer by arzi

Definitely could use some sound! Pretty fun to run around and learn where to go.

Legacy of HYDON by Arne

Interesting... I ran around with -60 HP for a long time.

So yeah, awesome artwork, although I was tempted to not 5 it just because there's no animation. Not tempted enough, though. Other than the art, painful gameplay. Maybe make 2 or 3 monster types and less terrain variety next time so you have time to make a game to play! Tapping the keys was pure murder.

Gravity by davecheesefish

I think this would've been better if it were just controlled like normal asteroids. I know pulling the ship along with a black hole is innovative, but it's just a layer of indirection over an asteroids control scheme (a crazy one that sometimes sends me rocketing at hyperspeeds and other times barely nudges me!). I would've enjoyed asteroidsing around to pick up these boxes and avoid the red things. Sometimes same-old same-old works better! Aside from the difficulty of controlling it, it's a solid entry.

EchoExplorer by refrag

I really like the visual sonar effect, with the black waves inside (very tired of the non-visual part of it though!). Like other people said, the music was really nice when you weren't screeching. I had to give up on level 3 though because the noise was too horrible and I just couldn't see enough.

Explorer Quest by Devlin

I really liked it, except that you have to go past all these guys who are lethal. After reading the walkthrough, I thought I'd give it another shot and when I got to the mountain I got one-shotted by a guy standing in the middle of the passage. I couldn't have avoided him! I want to see more of the game, but it's just too vicious.

I really like the graphics.

Would appreciate auto-repeat on the keys!

Bashplore by samel

Yeah... I'm gonna pass on installing some weird linux environment on my PC... sorry!

Cat Planet by chuchino

This was really cool. Got crazy crazy crazy crazy hard. The second to last room easily killed me 80 times (the credits were ridiculously fast, but I think it said 167 deaths, most of the rest in the room with 4 spinny firewalls). I'm really impressed with the sheer amount of content, with the different zones with different music and all. The controls were painfully floaty, I wish I had a whole lot more inertia.

LD14 — Advancing Wall of Doom (34)

Unknown by Zak_Spark

The #1 rule in LD, in fact the entire REASON for the contest, is that you create everything in the game yourself (during the weekend)! I'm giving you a 1 for sound, out of fear that the powers that be will forget to DQ you from that category, and others will give you high scores for the nice music you didn't make.

So, back to the actual game, it looks like you made the same game I did! Yours is a lot more polished of course... the hugely tall jumps are pretty obnoxious, but it all works pretty well, even if I have no idea what the ending means.

Unknown by X-0ut

That's an amazing achievement! I had real problems with the gameplay, mainly the issue of your facing not changing to where it should on travel. The flinging-out effect would probably be just fine if the facing thing was correct.

Not much on the theme, and the biggest minus is that you really didn't create anything your own design-wise. It's not just a portal clone, it's like the same levels basically (since Portal was pretty much a series of tutorials on how to use the portal gun, you were kinda stuck doing the same, I suppose. Of course you started at level 10 or so...). As something to pull off in 48 hours, it's awesome though.

Cat Protector! by viblo

The devil is after my kitties! This is very original and interesting use of physics. There's no real way to guess how much juice a given troll will take, a display would help there. It also seems like I always live the same number of stomps... I imagine there's a good strategy, but I don't know. There's not enough juice to make a pyramid of any kind, so it's just vertical stacks.

I never got a positive review at the end, what am I lacking!? This is hard. It could be more interesting with power growing faster, so you are more constantly trying to throw out new trolls.

Tsunami Warrior by tonic

Wayyyyy too slow feeling! I noticed in the readme that the items are based on the music, which is what I was going to comment - this is Rockbandish, you should really be making the music by collecting the dots. Hearing notes come from getting them would've been more satisfying than blurps that ended up being kind of contrary to the music, and out of time.

arcticum by Tenoch

I really liked it except that there was some tech problem with the ice breaking - a lot of fireballs would just have no effect at all, and I'd have to find a different place to shoot that would have an effect. The fireballs going up in the air and then lighting was a nice effect too. I didn't fire more than one of the big fireballs because the cursor was too annoying!

Mind Wall by SethR

It is awesome, the voters are right! If you don't port this to iPhone immediately (a place it would have a FAR better control scheme, and feel a lot more natural, and make you only slightly less rich than Mr. iFart), you are out of the club.

That said, it is indeed the keyboard control scheme that is a bad thing. Mouse would be way better, and I bet the challenge of implementing proper poly picking (potentially perhaps, pal) in 48 hours is why it uses this keyboard scheme. It was especially painful on the snake levels.

rollbak_LD14_BlackHoleComing.zip by lucasshrew

Hey, it's that one indie game I can't remember the name of! Same exact concept, but started from being small and worked up to the space stuff (in itself, a clone of Katamari, just with this top-down view). Or it's also a lot like Fishy. I don't know how I feel about the click-to-move thing. It's kinda good and kinda bad. You can sure move fast, though.

One thing you could really use is a more clear way of knowing how big you are. The size at which you could eat larger asteroids was really unclear, it didn't feel like "when you are bigger than them", but more just some arbitrary size (I pretty much knew I was ready once I had eaten all of the ones I could find at the size I was on).

Not so much with the theme, in my opinion. In fact, no walls at all.

Mines of DOOM by Osgeld

There didn't seem to be a real difference between Grandpa and Plain Insane - I know the fire's right on you on Insane, but either way you don't have enough time to take any wrong turns, so the only real difference is that on Insane, you can't accidently bump the wall more than a couple of times. That's my issue all around, since you can't make any mistakes, it's almost not a maze, more just a test of how cleanly you can take corners (and even on insane, you don't have to take them that well, I bumped a few). Of course, the maze could get confusing enough where you'd also have to look ahead and make smart choices, but then it'd simply be impossible! Sounds like that happened to Lonestranger by chance.

So in a nutshell, I think much more complex mazes and much slower fire, so that you could make some wrong choices (and how about some multiple paths, not just dead ends?), would make for much more of a game, not as boring and repetitive feeling. There'd be more thinking to it. Something else interesting might be if the fire took every available path at once instead of just the right one. That combined with multiple paths would lead to some interesting situations!

P.S. in the torrent, the start.bat doesn't work, it needs quotes around the filename.

Wall of Locust by ondrew

The hex picking was _painful_. There was one hex in the first level I just could NOT click on. A visible cursor would've been a big help.

The second level, I just couldn't figure out at all! But just now I see someone mentioning moving a windmill... you can move them!?

Bunny Press by Notch

I love what the wall does to the floor (or guts). Very cute looks in general. The lack of a restart button is bad... horrifying on level 10. Really good all around, though.

Die, you Stupid Hurdlers! by NiallM

Certainly an advancing wall of doom! I don't really know why one trap is better than another, or what is good to pick. Except for Biffo (which is about the highest one I got), they all just make the guy stop for a little while, just like moving a hurdle, but longer. Seems like it needed something different. And I'm not quite sure what Biffo does... makes them trip over every hurdle after? Two ideas for example: The ghost should've made the guy run backwards a little ways (scared) - same end result, but more interesting, and there could be something that makes a guy switch into his neighboring lane, making a great way to kill two guys instead of one.

Really hard to place things right!

Hello by mjau

Huh... so there's really just two locations, and two objects? That was not a tough puzzle for me (once I found the words it understood)! I guess you didn't have a lot of time to spend!

Extinguish by LunarCrisis

Real easy, but I wish the camera was way further forward - I don't need to look behind me, so why is 3/4 of the screen behind me? I barely got to see the stuff I was killing. I think this could be heading to something really cool with some real challenge and polish added. Like DrP says, you need to be stuck in the light a lot and take brief refuge in the darkness.

Wallcraft by lokijki

I exceeded my bandwidth limit and this seems to need another 80meg download! No can.

A thing! by Lerc

The slippery ship was just much too slippery... actually dodging through stuff just isn't an option with so much inertia, so the only hope was to hang back and keep the area very clear. It didn't stay clear long. I did get to fire missiles once, but that's my record! In another game, I got one ring and then none showed up until the screen was completely covered in blobs! Major slowdown as it built up, unfortunately.

Seems like a good idea that needed to be polished up (nothing like my rock-solid AAA release!).

Shifter by KareemK

Hmm... I like the music. I wonder if there's a framerate issue going on, because it was unbelievably fast, like a complete blur. There was zero strategy, just sit in one of the corners as your score racks up. The Qix moved so fast that it'd sometimes come into your corner and kill you, but it really didn't matter, since you couldn't move in time to avoid it anyway!

No advancing wall or doom here (I am sure you'd say the Qix is the wall, but it's not one, and it's not so much advancing as wiggling all over).

Evacuation by jsb

That's an amazingly dooming wall of doom. Very good representation. And cool game all around. You know, I think I really like little talk bubbles with icons in them. I have to do that next time.

As someone else said, more shorter levels would be better. This kinda felt like a slog sometimes, even though the basic functionality was fun. I would've liked to get powerups a lot more often (feel free to ramp up the difficulty to compensate).

And that was a horrifying screech when I won.

Crush by Jpfed

As a game, it seems pretty boring. As a product, it's really well polished, lots of options and stuff. I was glad when I finally discovered the space-to-skip feature. That made it feel a lot more exciting, but I think the rules themselves make it pretty dull too, just not a lot of smart choices to consider. I wonder how it would be if you could set as many moves as you wanted (as many as you could enter in the given time)... a lot more frantic! Probably not real thinky.

Fleedom Flies by HybridMind

Really addictive, definitely one of those 'just one more try' things as you try to catch up to Skalle. Which I can't. Great game! Good aliens too. I wish I had thrown those mochi scores into my game, sounds simple.

Snap To Grid by Hempuli

Wow, I watched your video and I am so glad I didn't keep trying to solve it! That's insane!

Nice concept... a good feature would've been the inability to drop an item when you're standing on another item. If you had multiple levels, and it started off with one that didn't require perfection, you'd really be rockin.

Happy Blob is Unhappy! by Fiona

Not much by way of theme (I get it, but... you know). Really hard! And rather frustrating. The first level with the yellow barriers was really overwhelming and took a lot of tries. It was 1 or 2 rooms past that where I had to give up.

The instructions lie, by the way! They say it's "click and you go shooting off in that direction", when holding is how it really works. Click, like a game of pool, could be quite interesting, and fits the idea of the pent-up kinetic energy better.

Stormwall by Entar

That is SO hard. I got around 28 seconds. It feels really smooth, but indeed is lacking sounds (somehow that seems more significant here, maybe because everybody loves an orbital laser). You know what else it could've used? Being a side-scroller, so that you could see much further ahead! There were about 1.2 nanoseconds between a mine showing up onscreen and it being on me. I needed more room! It would've also helped to have the storm further back, but that would've hurt the visuals, I'm sure.

The Attack of the Evil Unicycles of Doom LD14 by doohan

I got to something like the 5th level (where the unicycles go along the bottom and you have to give them stairs up to the yellow zone above them) and that I couldn't figure out. The controls were meh, but the concept worked well, and reminds me of Krusty's Funhouse (to throw in a reference that hasn't been named!). Nice music, and very little Wall Of Doom.

ethergrind by dstrysnd

Interesting two-way version of a side scrolling shooter. I definitely wanted more lookahead - in Defender and its ilk (was it Aquatron on the Apple II? That game was AWESOME), it does basically the opposite of what you've done. It puts you at the back of the screen, so there's always most of the screen in front of the direction you're looking. Would be very nice!

Total theme failure here, but a lot of good polish. Everybody loves a sine scroller and a... whatchamacallit... 3D box made of sprites. I remember there was a term for that kind of '3D'. Vector balls? Don't ask me.

tombed by dessgeega

Cool game with some absurd difficulty. The parts near the end where you had to hit 3 1-tile tall bits in a row just before being crushed (while standing on grey stairs) seemed like pure luck. I'm not sure what governs the 'reload' on your shovel, but sometimes she just doesn't dig that fast.

The Haunting by Covenant

Needs some dumb d3d DLL, sorry!

Uber Unmanned Wheelchair Deluxe by Cosine

One wonders why the wheelchair is going on this adventure, and why the black lightning wants to be its undoing.

Insane hardness that makes my game look like cake. I gave up on the level that opens with a string of saws. Everything in this game is just way sensitive. You can't jump if you're anywhere near an edge, tapping any direction sends you zooming, your hit box is huge, the wall moves incredibly fast and you are always a split-second from death (when you're not closer than that)... all just very touchy! My suggestion on this game is that it would be cool if the 'threats' in the level weren't actually harmful, they just held you up so the wall could catch you.

I liked the first level a lot better than the later ones - besides being way easier (merely super hard), it was like an actual journey with the beam on your tail (but oh, how I hated the jump sensitivity trying to get up that vertical bit), while the later ones were real short, just sort of specific tests, like levels in Portal.

In Another Realm by Comtemno

Seems unfair that the lava is in realtime and I'm turnbased... but that's okay because it's even more unfair that my success or failure is at least 98% chance! It seems like the game needs a smarter level generator to make the levels more fair.

Five in polish for having an extras menu with concept art!

Solar Lift by codekitchen

The way the blob works is really cool. I thought the point was that you had to eventually carve yourself a path through it somehow. I am disappointed to learn otherwise. But then again, there would only be one strategy in that case: fire at the same spot every time!

The need to go backwards is very confusing. It's fine in the gameplay, but since you don't see any planets initially, it's very unintuitive that you have to back up. Turns out there's a lot back to up, I discovered! Pretty cool once I understood it all.

Escape From Hell by callidus

I'm not python-capable on this computer right now.
(commenting to get you X'd off!)

DoomCake by Banni

Those teeth are indeed creepy. Pretty cool all around, just giving out an extra dose of what everybody else said on every topic.

AWOD by Arowx

I got defeated and I don't know why... weird game! Pretty cool, but the ability to zoom on the mousewheel is just really weird in comparison with playing it all on keyboard (and of course max zoom-out is always the only choice!). Maybe you're not supposed to be able to, and level 2 is just supposed to be really zoomed in!

The Great Wave off Kanagawa by allefant

I am not smart enough for this game... why isn't there a readme!? I can't figure much of anything out. I guess up is some kind of turbo boost with limited gas... but once I figured out how to actually get moving somewhere, I never could find a way to stop on the platform, which I assume is the goal. It's really cool conceptually, I just don't know how it works.

Anyway, I am expressing my absolute shock and disappointment at the venerable Allefant coming down with stolen art and sound! I don't know what LMMS is, but "the melody is from some .mid" sounds like stolen to me. Judging by the rest of the game, it would've been better anyway with your own art, more cohesive and still nice looking. Picking the colors is a great strategy.

[Wall Girl] by 5parrowhawk

No function.

LD13 — Roads (57)

Block time ninja’s by Zak_Spark

Well, it's definitely not finished, as advertised. It's an interesting concept, the way they are linked, though I have no idea how it could successfully be a game. Seems like it would always be unbelievably easy, since you get the better of the two results at every moment. Kind of a platformer, only easier. I also have not a clue how this pertains to roads...

Title by David Duarte

Well, assuming as it appears that any keypress exits it, and any menu option begins it, and there is no interaction... well, there you go. It's a car watching simulation. I like how the cars drive backwards on one side of the road! I really don't know where it was going, I wish you had provided some details on what your plan was.

The game by threeeffhex

Something very off with the physics here! The super floaty sideways movement when you jump is crazy, and the springs never seemed to do the same thing twice (or, more accurately, they'd be useful once, then after that they'd consistently send me about 2/3as high). Because of the spring stuff and general crazy difficulty, I never got past the third level! Red stuff hurts.

Unknown by Terry

Just putting a comment so this is Xed off in my list. Don't pull things out of the compo, that's just totally lame. You could've not done a final, if you really didn't want to submit. Lots of people finish up LD games, but that doesn't stop them from putting LD versions of the game up for judging.

Potholes by swergas

Yikes... 10 points is my record! Three lives just doesn't cut it in such a violent game (violent against the player, not containing violence)! It's a pretty cool idea (5 on theme!), and I like the pothole goo FX, but the controls and just overall challenge were nuts.

BLDR by SpaceManiac of Platymuus

Definitely lacking in levels... too bad. I think you were on to something and just needed a little more content to make it happen. Good concept, and it works well, it just needed some actual challenges to be made. Some time/roads used scoring would've been nice too.

Roads of Dare 1.0 by sol_hsa

Doing a board game is a fun idea, and it's well-done... but unless I'm missing something major, it just comes down to completely random rolls, like a less advanced version of Chutes & Ladders. I know there's the refueling, and the blocking of paths, but that doesn't actually seem to impact the game any. I only saw one path blocked in an entire game, and that was by chance. I like the cars and how they zip along though (apparently off-roaders!).

Calling it quits by jhauberg

I rated this fairly high! It's super cool! Okay, it's not a game, but it's cool. Somehow. I like defeating the shovel.

I have finish … by Sébastien Bernery

I kind of enjoyed doing the gear changing, but you do realize it's physically impossible to steer and change gears at the same time, right? Luckily, steering seemed completely optional, which left me to enjoy the gears. Without the delicious rrrr sound, though, changing gears was less fun than it should've been. Seemed like something was broken about it, too, but I couldn't be sure.

Submission: Roadate by crc

Why oh why are the controls so twisty? The directions just aren't what I expect them to be! I have to tap all 4 directions once each every time I want to move to remind me of what they are. I too took about 10 tries to get through level 1. Then on my first try I got about halfway through level 2, then died and discovered I'd have to try level 1 again and had to quit. A sound concept that needs massive user-interface repair!

Lone Racer by robot_guy

Hoping for a py2exe!

On The Road by ragnor

Apparently, this application's side-by-side configuration is incorrect. The front-to-back configuration must've been okay though, because it didn't mention that. Nonetheless, I couldn't run it.

Night Cruising by PsySal

I'm wondering how I earned "For a moment you almost forgot about her (+500)"! This is really nifty and makes me want to play more to find out what there is to find. It's really weird how it handles the events though. Like when you get gas, you can get it over and over for no reason, and (I think every time), when you return to the road, there's always another gas station right away. I think it's the same one, but it's confusing either way.

Really impressive and cool all around. I don't know if it's fun to play, but it's sure got a mood and evokes feelings.

LD Road Racer by psnake

drops dead for me after the title screen. I think an error message flashes by, I don't know for sure. Looking forward to a py2exe!

Lucid State Dreaming by policedanceclub

Well, yeah, it's surreal... Huge theme fail, because this same concept could easily have been done heavily focused on roads. Roads are a very deep philosophical concept (as witnessed in my own Two Roads, which is intensely artistic and conveys a serious message about man's inhumanity to man!).

Anyhoo... I didn't like it because there's no actual game, but I liked the style.

Final road : Bad Ass Frog Escapes from LA by pansapiens

Hey, did you know you can go backwards all you want from the start? It's a little weird. Otherwise, yeah, frogger clone. Lots of tech points for making it for such exotic and numerous platforms.

Bulldozer Blitz by Orangy Tang

Awesome! I wish there were no delays. It would be a lot more fun if you didn't have to wait a while to shovel a rock, and a little while to build a road, etc. If all that happened instantly, it would still be incredibly hard after a few minutes, but it would lose some of its frustration. Anyway, it's super fun at first, then after a couple of minutes when there are a thousand cars and the roads are just vanishing as soon as you lay them down, it's sheer torture. At that point I just sit back and let myself lose to get my score. If there was a way to win as well as lose, it would be much better. The endgame was very unpleasant each time, just watching it all fall apart and having no hope of keeping up.

I found Hard mode a lot more fun than normal, presumably because it moves a lot faster.

Super awesome all around, though - graphics and gameplay (sound would've been nice!).

Chopper vs. Trucks by ondrew

A Towlr point for the diabolical controls. Way too hard to play! Impressive 3D game (and yeah, what's with the change in explosions? I actually do like the square ones better, I think), but not playable. What it really needed more than anything else was massively reduced inertia on your rotation. Once you start slewing in one direction, there's no going back for the next hour or so.

(P.S. my game does rhyme, start to finish, no matter what path you take! Try writing down the entire path you get, you'll see it. It's not AAAA rhyme scheme, it has several verses with ABAB, or AABB, etc.)

Voyage, a puzzle game by nilsf

Put me in the very large anti-slide-puzzle camp. But it grew on me as I saw you play with the formula to do interesting things. The multiple paths was really cool. Then there was the level with limited gas. That really needed an indication of just how limited it was. I had to just guess. The level after that had some broken roads, and I wanted to see what the car would do when hitting one, so I hit space without a working path, and the game quit on me. I am sad because I was near Towlr Asylum (well, maybe not, but the sign suggested it).

So not liking the slide puzzles, but liking how you worked with the slide puzzles to do a lot of slightly different things. And I really liked the bouncing van.

a bit late, but done! by negativegeforce

I'm very confused... everyone else seems to have been able to play this. I get the game running just fine, but with no pedestrian! I can just watch trucks zoom by. Is it just me? I'm gonna leave most categories unrated so as not to drag you down on that basis. Apparently other people found a pedestrian somewhere.

Only Forwards by Jonathan Whiting

The sounds are awesome, and it does indeed feel like a real arcade game! It's kind of an annoying game, though, especially when the big slow guy just sits there circling the exit like a shark. It's hard to make turns sometimes, since unlike Pac-Man, you can't back up a bit and try again.

I has FAIL! by MrPhil

Well, you got the entire US map in there, anyway... with a city or two missing.

Tekicars4k by Morre

Level 6 just looked too daunting. I threw down a few things and then gave up. The two things I seek are the game continuing after a car crash so you can see further problems without running it all over again, and a speed up button so you don't have to wait so long in the first place! But it's a good puzzle.

Bullrushes by midwinter

Just not feeling the game here. It was a very good idea to do something very un-road-like that used the concept of roads, but like the others, I can't make the fireflies do anything. Also, anytime they got near the stump, they'd go inside and vanish, so I never had very many fireflies going at once either. And as someone else said, it was almost impossible to see 'activated' bullrushes.

Checkpoint racer by matrin

Picking up the sad-about-evolution checkpoints is extremely hard! You have to touch a very specific point. It wasn't until I got to my 3rd checkpoint that I happened to hit one and realized it was possible. You get an extra Towlr point for that.

The controls also leave a whole lot to be desired... it would've been fun, if it had smooth driving controls.

I like the cute little car driving around on the random maze of roads, I just wish I had good control of it (maybe the grass could slow you way down instead of stopping you dead!).

Crazy taxi puzzling game by mathias

I got stuck a few times, in a situation where a taxi was bouncing between two spaces, and I couldn't change either of the spaces, which I needed to do to get it somewhere else. Of course, that happened because I screwed up, but it was a sad place to end up!

Good puzzle, though. Got very tricky... I got to the first level with 4 cars, then when some got stuck I hit ESC to discover that is instant exit instead of retry.

It’s Done by Lorax

I like the characters a lot, and the holy water hose. But the gameplay leaves a whole lot to be desired, especially the controls. I also hit a bug where I started drifting to the left permanently... or wait, was the gate sucking me in? I don't know.

The Road to Troy (probably final) by Lerc

(illegal graphics of Troy=N/A graphics!)

Pretty marginal in terms of actually being a game, but I like the Credibility meter, and it is pretty crazy trying to drive that big tank around. I too am curious about the wheel color flashes.

A good achievement!

Final “Crossroads” by jovoc

Really nice. The theme is utterly tacked on, actually to the game's detriment - the car driving on your letters is really cute, but having to wait for it to get to the exit once you finish is just a needless pain. But a cool game.

I agree with others about the letters getting overwritten. It's a sad thing, I want those letters back (and force people to use up their Z's and Qu's!).

Also.... 800x600 is for laptops!? The full size version was too big on my 1280x1024 monitor! It was 1280x1024, it looks like. That's nuts. Of course, it would've been fine fullscreen, but sheesh.

Puzzle Road! by jlnr

I love the anime tutorializer. Like others say, the gameplay doesn't quite work. My problem was mainly how it would get going so incredibly fast so early, you really didn't have any time to make any clever plans. If there was no point bonus for getting a car to the top, just the penalty for failing, then you would actually be rewarding them for road length. You'd still definitely need to slow it wayyy down though. What I really think it needs is to be much much smaller, so that you have a lot more look-ahead. As it is, there are only like 10 tiles vertically, and that's just no time to work at all. I think the potential is there to be a really nice game!

Frog Rescue by Jerm

It's a really interesting idea that doesn't work... I think doing nothing at all will score you about the same as cleverly roadblocking. Part of the problem is the limited scrolling, having to slowly get around. If you could grab n' pan, that would sure help, as would arrow key scrolling. But I just don't think the roadblocks provide enough control over whether frogs get squished to make a difference. I'm not sure what you need. Maybe more tools, like frogbait. Then you could lure frogs away from an area where you had cars trapped. I guess it's the fact that frogs literally end up everywhere (a perfect circle expanded infinitely=everywhere!) that is the problem. No matter where you trap a car, a frog will be there eventually.

Very sad title picture.

Rara Racer by increpare

I'm doing N/A for graphics - the graphics aren't legal by LD standards! But that's alright, it's worth it for the end result.

I too will avoid spoiling things, but just want to comment on a unique element here. There's a distinct incentive not to die, which is really interesting. It's almost like the game is for money or something - you really feel like there's something on the line. Okay, not quite money, but it's interesting anyway. I should know, because I never even knew there was a 'cat event', since I had died just before it! I'm glad I checked again after people commented on it (so yay for mild spoilers!).

CoMuTor by HybridMind

I gave you a bonus Towlr point for the extremely ruthless scoring. Fun and cool game, except as others said, the scoring just makes it cruel and unusual. Once I got to around 50 cars crushed, the game became an endless stream of gas trucks with occasional cars interspersed. It was literally impossible to not land on the gas trucks! So, yeah, some balancing would be cool... and a way to win and/or lose instead of just endlessly heading deeper into despair.

Buffalo Road LD13 by greencow

This is a nifty game. It took me a while to comprehend buffalo catching. They weren't terribly threatening all around. Well, nothing was... it's an EASY game! But it's cool and fun. Really too easy though. In every level, you can just whip a line out and enwrap everything you need to win in one line with ease. Yes, I'm calling enwrap a word.

The audio needed some serious boost (except the crunch of road failure). It took about 5 levels before I realized there was speech hiding deep down under there! It's funny when you can hear it.

PizzaBitch by Sophie Houlden

Somehow this felt more like a polished and proper 3D game than any entry I've played before, even though at the same time it had a lot of serious issues that weren't so proper. The whole game felt very hyperactive, resulting in a lot of 'wall' collisions and death. My record was 1 pizza, for a total of 0 points (seems like it should've been worth more than that). The pop-in is crazy. I think this is one that needed nothing more than tweaking to be really tops. But it really needed that tweaking. Nice cutscenes!

Highwaymen by Gilvado

Hey, it's my poet starring as your road warrior! It's really an eerie similarity.

I love this game, I was very disappointed when I reached a point where I beat Strong Army every time. Left me nowhere to go! About halfway through I stopped giving commands entirely and just watched the battles happen. The couple of stragglers who got caught in rocks really didn't matter!

It is really hard to tell anybody from anybody else... a 3/4 view would've helped a ton - i.e. keep the top down view, just make the guys stand up like it was a side view. Would've looked really nice.

Really fun, fulfilling my drive for leveling up.

GBGames – Road LOCKDOWN! by GBGames

It's so unfair that I can't catch a guy when he's on the opposite side of the road... what, I can't cross the lines? That rule actually makes it extremely tricky to catch the guy! It basically can only happen at intersections. Definitely requires extensive use of roadblocks to succeed.

It's a little disturbing when I catch and arrest the guy before he robs anything. Thoughtcrime!

I Give Up by Frimkron

An ambitious project which went the way ambitious projects do! Looks pretty good, too bad you couldn't have objects and things and stuff and whatnot.

Sombrero Runner(s) by FourEyes

Good one... I don't know if I have anything interesting to say. It's fun to play and a real challenge to stay alive. Of course, that challenge is very haphazard with the random cars, and I'm sure occasionally impossible. But you keep trying! Not my favorite music ever...

DoctorTease by flgr

I get the zoom-in when you speed up, to make it hard... but yuck. It would indeed be a lot more fun the other way around! Playing it felt really arbitrary, with the evil red bikers randomly deciding to slam into me, and however fast or slow I went, I didn't have much choice in whether than happened. Too slow and I can't escape, too fast and I can't see them coming. Maybe there's a middle ground, but it didn't feel like it. Interesting and weird.

Left4Bread by Fiona

I think Erik completely stole my comments in every way. All the same good things, all the same bad. The splatters are perfect. Wish the car could move!

Extra Towlr point for the missing steering fluid in the car.

Roads to Nowhere by erik

It's cool that you made up a solid ruleset and then dished out a complete set of puzzles that employed it. It's not quite my kind of game, and it probably needs more feedback, so you're not constantly staring at the numbers in the corner of the screen. I liked it though, simple but tricky. Looked like a Jolle game to me!

First Settlers Of Catan-related entry I've seen. The two things Roads made me think of were that and obviously racing. So far I've only really seen one of each!

Soltcras by DrPetter

The sounds are creepily like people (or more likely Muppets) going "whooooaa". After playing it, I comprehend the title! Really an awesome game. I mean, I guess not awesome, in that it wouldn't really hold your interest all that long (but I bet some people spend an hour or so working on lap times), but you know, nicely done and 'catchy'. Also quite Towlr.

Emergency Bypass by dock

Well, it LOOKS really cool... the all-white visual scheme is nifty. And actually, if it were done it would be a pretty nifty game. The idea of snake with the ability to jump over your lines is kind of cool. Truly, for an LD game, it's not all THAT unfinished. If the reset button worked (doesn't for me, anyway), I think you'd pretty much be a perfectly finished LD entry! With a fairly low polish score, but not bad elsewise! I think you just expected too much out of 48 hours if you think this is a give-up scenario.

Interstate Trucking by Doches

I like the concept and all, and great music... but it's really hard to actually play! I'm not sure how it should be done differently, but there just really needs to be a simple clear way to compare prices between places and know what you can sell places and all that. More messages when the trucks actually do things would help, like instead of "Truck arrived for $413", "Truck sold 10 produce for a profit of $413" (not sure how much space the trucks have, it's obviously not 'one unit'... are different products different sizes too? Lots of info that's hard to get). Definitely my kind of game if it can be made very transparent.

Pot Holes! by Devon

Really nice graphics. But there's not much here BUT graphics! The gameplay... well, it pretty much doesn't work. It's weird how you can fill potholes from great distances (sometimes)! For me, this one goes in the valiant effort category - you came up with something unique and really got it done, but it didn't turn out to be fun. Maybe if the player just moved a lot faster, it wouldn't seem so dull. Although some effects could help too, like being splattered when a car hits you!

:: RoadZ :: A bucketful of nostalgia by dstrysnd

Everyone else has understated the impossibility of this game! Ouch!

I eventually passed the first level, once I found out how slow you can take it without running out of time (which isn't nearly slow enough!). But if that's easy, I'm not even gonna try the other levels! The one very simple thing this game needs is about 5x as much view-ahead. It really is pure memorization because you have no time to react to things. I think it would be fun if you were actually able to see what you were doing. Reminiscent of Chromadrome which is really fun.

High Towlr for making a game that destroys people.

all roads lead from home by dessgeega

Awesome game! It's the usual Irritating Stick thing, but with style. And remarkably easy, which gets props from me. My complaint would be that in the caves, you often get stuck on the walls and have to unjam yourself a little. I'm not sure what the blurring complaints are about, I had a nice clean 8-bit image all the way through.

Unknown by dertom

Well, yeah, it is full of bugs... I don't think it worked right for me. The cars reached a certain segment of my road and just vanished, even though it was built past there. But I like the landscape!

Done! With Zombies!!! by dave1

Serious ammo constraints! A lot of weird things about how this works... I just don't know. Sometimes it lets me get gas, but usually not. Very mysterious and odd game!

And it’s a wrap… I guess by Daid

I got stuck on level 5 like everyone else. I kind of wonder if it was backwards - did I need to get red before I got yellow? I thought that was how other missions were, but since it said "get all the data and deliver it", it seemed like yellow was the data, since there was a lot of it.

Really cool in every way except the controls. INSANE steering. If the steering was about 1/4 as fast, it would be a lot more fun. Of course, it would also help if there were some way to fail (I imagine the timed mission can be failed, I didn't want to find out!), but it was nice to just jam through cars with no repercussions, too... really cool all around.

Lost Roads by Comtemno

Got an error that killed the game on the first fight where enemies had guns (some kind of game maker error about an unknown variable).

This is an impressive work for 48 hours, with the different play modes and story and buying stuff. I think there are a lot of little bugs in there though. I had 15 guards on every fight, so once I realized that, I just dumped all 15 every time, and never had to even shoot. Also, I tried to buy a gun upgrade with less than $1000, and it just took $100 from me and did nothing. Lots of other similar small things (when in town, it shows Ammo instead of Guards, possibly only after buying an upgrade, since that's when I noticed it).

Like the others said, the repetitive fights really made it drag out. Scattering the mutant fights instead of one on every square would've been a big help. Very interesting though.

Rolling Down the Road by caturday

Can't install it, it just sits there trying to put in the .NET framework.

Road To Pain! by brandonman

N/A for art, you have to make all artwork within the 48 hours, and I'm not trusting that you got Chuck Norris to pose for you during that time. The audio also has to be clipped from SOMETHING, I'm not sure what, judging by the bits of music and whatnot in the background. So N/A there too, and I'd also like to point out that it's actually illegal to use these things without permission, nevermind the contest!

As for the gameplay, it seems to be really badly broken... the cars would all vanish sometimes, and the timing on kicks seemed random, I don't know. Doesn't work!

And one last huge complaint about the rules - you CANNOT change your entry after the 48 hours! If you want to submit a fixed version, make it separate. You have to leave the original one up, or obviously it's not a 48 hour entry.

‘0xF0’ by bluescrn

Very cool racing game. It's got some pretty odd physics to how the car works (like the air steering!), but not unpleasant, and quite learnable. Like everybody else, I find the unlocking quite excessive, but it sure makes it feel even more like a real game!

I don't need ghost racers, but some sort of goal to shoot for would be nice. As is, you could just pass every track by driving as slow as possible (not that it would be very fun). Some time goals maybe, something.

Epic. Failure by BloodKnight9923

Complete theme failure. It sounds like you intended to incorporate the theme somehow, but as it stands, it's a big flop in that regard.

It looks like this could be a good simple RTS with some updates. As it is, the enemies move too fast for your guys to actually hit!

Exproad, Improad, Reroad! by demonpants

Well, I was all set to write my "this game is way too easy" comment, when it suddenly froze for a second and instantly all my rice was gone! It was my email checking that did it, but ouch. Oh, I just remembered I was playing on easy, so it should be too easy, so good job.

I'm still not so sure about the two rockets though. It seems like the right way to play is simply to go left-right at a couple guys, then reload. There doesn't seem much point in the two missiles (other than cool effects), because you have very little chance to suck multiple guys into one wormhole, and you can't risk a guy getting by, so you always need to fire one for one. At least that's my theory. I would try a higher difficulty to check, but the load time was a couple of minutes the first time, I don't want to do that again!

I won't touch the ... more sensitive issues...

LD12 — The Tower (56)

Tower of Doom is Complete! :D by Yezu

I think this game made me ill. I had to stop after level 3. I didn't see any monsters in my few moments on level 4, though, so maybe I won.

It is pretty impressive to have set up the whole thing, but some pretty crazy controls and extremely confusing mazes made it rough. Also, the exit spot looked a lot like the various bumpy spots (what were those supposed to be anyway? Very odd and random), so even when you found it, it was hard to tell. And then if you hit it on accident, you don't even realize you've moved onto a new level!

Dark Tower by X-0ut

Okay, if it wasn't so ridiculously unforgiving, it could be super cool. You might've considered a maze about 1/4 the size... but the one-hit game over is really nasty. I haven't gotten past a scorpion alive yet.

Really cool though, and the easiest and most natural wall-jump I've ever dealt with (although on the other hand, the sprint is annoying and tricky to do - tap one time too many and you walk).

Crystal Towers Beta -Final- by wonderwhy-er

Very polished entry. It's not easy to make progress in this one because of how quickly you lose control of each piece (the instant it hits, as opposed to having some freedom to lock it in). I never got very far, but I got to see the various higher-up messages by holding down space!

Tower Construction Kit by wjordan

Stuff like this is impressive at first glance, then you think about it. Like "wow, this is like real physics!", then "wait, that means 90% of this was already written by someone else." It's sort of like someone using an MP3-playing library making a "game" where all it does is let you choose an MP3 from a list and it plays. Writing an MP3 player is extremely impressive... using one isn't.

Don't get me wrong, that's fine and allowed. I scored based on the merits of the game, it's just that you've created something that is in theory technically impressive, but you're getting a low Technical score from me, because I know the impressiveness isn't your doing. I have nothing against people using physics engines, and I encourage it because it allows cool effects. I just don't want people JUST using physics engines.

You have the bad luck of being the 3rd or 4th entry just like this that I've checked out in this contest, and it's just wearing on me. I think Junk Tower (although I question its credentials as a 'tower game') is a great example of taking the physics engine and instead of just making it run, adding something game-like to it. Cannon Hates Tower is similar, though definitely closer to the 'physics sandbox' side of the equation.

This theme has really just created an amazing flood of physics games and sandboxes. Am I the only one who decided to do a TD?! I wanna play some more of those!

By the way, woe be unto the next physics sandbox I come across. The ranting will worsen.

Treasure Tower by Wiering

Not much gameplay and no challenge. But it\'s really nice looking and has good controls. If there were just something (called owls) that were trying to stop you from getting the gems, I think you\'d have something!

6hour game: Part 3 by thedaian

As text adventures go, it wasn't much of an adventure... more of a book where you click "Next Page" a lot. I mean, there were a few choices, but not many! Until level 3, of course, where I randomly clicked for ten minutes until I hit the stairs up. Seemed remarkably silly how it would just keep closing off everything behind you. Especially in the secret passage, where for no reason at all, you always only had the option to go forward.

Now I wish I had done a PHP text adventure though. Would've been fun to make.

Owliver, space tower janitor by Tenoch

It was indeed super hard to zap the lightnings, but I eventually won. I have no idea how, since the last level practically rebroke as fast as I fixed it. I probably circled around it about 8 times.

Pretty cool overall, and I really like how the levels are all one put together. The rebreaking became really obnoxious toward the end... it would've been more fun without it, but on the other hand it was the only actual source of challenge, so not such a good plan.

Tower of Doom by Sulix

missing DLL!

Cannon Hates Tower by Sivart13

No question that it's fun! It's not a game, but it's fun! I like to smash. Like Edge said, to make it a game, you could have required scores to move on. And like other people said, I ended up 'losing' when I knocked the roof off the screen somewhere.

It's really fun that you can go full auto and cover the thing with cannonballs (that's how I made the roof go away).

Pfff – fin by jhauberg

Crash on startup. I don't know which parts I'm missing, probably something XNA related.

Commander Blunt by robut

Well, too buggy to really function at all, but I got to drop blocks and watch robots explode. Why would someone want an eye of sauron in their building? I mean, except maybe just one on top in the middle, for far-seeing.

Castle Attack by psnake

Failure on my computer like covenant - it started up and I saw a flash that looked like the screenshot, then it was gone. The _d one flashes a lot faster, don't even see anything but a window outline.

Junktowers by Papper

Winrar! I think this was stretching the The Tower theme quite a lot. But I like that it actually did something different with a physics game instead of just a random sandbox of shapes. It was fun and quite solvable, even if I did fail the T-jump at the very end of the last level and had to redo it all.

The Siege of von Danken Tower by pansapiens

Well... it's real cool to see it being true atari 2600 style, and with such a meaningful backstory. On the flipside, it's more like work than play, because as long as you just keep walking left and right, you never get hit and the tower gets built. I see others saying it gets hard at the high end, but I'm not sure what 'hard' means, because those bullets move too fast to have any chance to dodge! I think it would've been better off with a ton of slow falling bullets, so like dodging the rain of shots rather than just not being under the ship when it fires.

That's very nitpicky, but I like to share my thoughts! Consider them shared.

Steam Tower by Orangy Tang

I was having fun until the 3rd level when a fairly long drop made one end of my pipe end up stuck underground!

It's kind of reminiscent of Girlflash's NOM NOM NOM game with the demon. Anyway, it
s really cool, pretty fun, and a total theme failure. Tricky to control sometimes with the pipe-grabbing.

Breaking the Tower by Notch

Super cool. It's a pain to get guys to do what you want... I was always really short on one of the three things, but for no particular reason. The people just felt like doing something else. And 2/3 of my soldiers hung out on the wrong end of the island to be useful.

But it's really amazing and cool, one of my favorites so far.

Escape From The Tower of DOOM by nilsf

I really liked it, but like MrPhil, it was crazy hard. It was fun in that I kept learning a little more and getting a little farther, but then one bad jump ruined it. I too gave up before I could make it all the way down. Maybe 3 hit points would be nice? But it was really cool and stylish and funny.

Stacker by MrPhil

Well, you are next! Another game that's basically just a sample for a physics package. Disappointing indeed. It's actually sort of fascinating and I kept going to about level 6, but if you really try to win, it's trivial, since you are allowed to put the blocks anywhere (why didn't you limit it to above the line?). But no, just a physics sandbox with a win condition, and this one even only has one shape and one action. At least the others implemented grabby-hands (on the other hand, the simpler interface is more fun).

Towerball by Morre

Really hard and frustrating... the dual ball thing just makes it so tough to figure out what will happen, so I kept ending up back at the bottom. But it's well done in every respect, just very hard (and don't forget frustrating). My greatest victory was getting up to the last platform in the 2nd level, but I only had 2 power left, so all I could do was weakly gasp at the exit.

Final for “Choke Point” by mikejedw

Like other people, I found it to be lacking something: just clicking on more stuff every time there is room isn't a challenge at all (I won first try!). At first I thought I had to avoid landing two right at the same time, but that was fine. So I think it needs more to manage. Avoiding crashes, and/or only one landing at a time (maybe even no landing when something is trying to take off). It's a good concept that just comes up too simple at this point.

Tau by matrin

Wow, the hardest game ever made (extra hard considering most of the time it's literally impossible!). Two big fixes needed: fair enemies (no more situations where there is no right answer), and a much shorter jump! If those things happened, this game would be really cool. It reminds me of the Wario Ware skateboard game, which is a favorite.

Mr Blocker v1.0 by mariusz

Well, I'm not as down on it as others... the block drop rate is so slow that it's really a pain. I thought I was learning something about the disasters, which was kind of cool. I don't know how fire works, but spurred on by GBGames' comment, I think Lightning hits the tallest, and Earthquake hits the smallest in total size. Fire is just weird.

Of course, then the problem is, once you do figure it out, you just have to follow a plan by rote (like on the lightning level, I quickly built a single-wide tower one block taller than the required size, then got to work on my building with no fear). So it's flawed, but it seems like it ought to be interesting... somehow.

Tower by LoneStranger of LoneStranger Designs

My favorite thing was walking up and down the tower. Beautifully implemented. Then my next favorite was to be at the bottom of the tower with a really low angle and max power. Of course, when the arrows hit the ground from that angle it's quite odd.

And that looks suspiciously like Panda Express!

Cat Stacker (Final Entry) by lexaloffle

So hard! It seems a little too crazy for me to actually get a grip on in terms of physics. I never quite knew how the cats were going to act on impact. It\'s kind of fun to try to torque the whole tower around for a few seconds once you land one, though.
Definitely awesome looking. You DO know that owls could\'ve been made in this exact shape, right?

WeatherTower – Binary Build Done + Win32 Build! by kutani

I just couldn't get it... I mean, I guess I sorta do, you need to zap the trees... and let the town grow crops maybe? I don't really get it. I didn't understand the purpose of the two abilities well enough, and never had any significant mana.

Up! by keeyai

Good entry. The fact that you can't see the enemy tower is completely insane, though, makes the whole aiming process totally pointless. Also, why not mouse aiming? Switching to keyboard not only is bad control-wise, it's also too slow for the limited time you get to aim. I never could get the cannons set how I actually wanted.

My other complaint (sorry, I think it's actually quite good, but what comes to mind are the issues!) is that you can't really build a legitimate tower. You have to build a single skinny stick of blocks, because if you actually build in multiple columns and tie them together and brace it nicely, you can never get high enough to actually move on. The height limit should be way lower (probably would need more time too), and then killing the enemy tower would be more interesting too, because it'd be possible to inflict damage as opposed to toppling the whole thing.

Owl Tower Quest by kai

Man, quitting and restarting every time you die is murder (or did I fail to find the restart key?). Also, it's not really much of a game, since the only thing to do on the two levels is avoid one camera. I like trying to sneak around, but I think you need something more to make it interesting! Not necessarily more than sneaking, but even just more sneaking would help.

Darn, I didn’t make it so guests could download… by demize

Well, not bad for 2 hours... but not a lot of fun! It has amazing atari styling to it. I won on my first try, thanks to having read all the other discussion of it. Kinda cool that you got a sort of puzzle to it all.

I agree with the others on nothing that there is no difference between winning and losing!

Moonbase Defense by jovoc

I would agree that this has a lot of potential, but doesn't work as is. The interface is an absolute nightmare, and there are a lot more bugs than the ones that are supposed to be attacking. But it's really an impressive construction. I actually have Moonbase Commander, it's a cool game.

The Tower of You by jolle

I'm concerned about your health with the constant ingestion of nothing but toast. But kudos for the bowl of candy. I respect that. I haven't had chocolate in weeks...

I like hexes. I don't know how much the rules work out in practice, mainly because of the random landscape. You either quickly get ahead and surround the enemy and win, or you can't keep up and die. It might be very interesting to see a handmade balanced map (mirror image, towers placed by the mapmaker), and see what kind of strategies and tricks develop then.

Femme Tower by Jach

That was just wayyyy to hard. Mainly because it's almost impossible to actually hit anything other than the evil clouds (how come non-evil clouds can't be shot? What's so special about the evil ones?). Do the knights take several shots each? I am fairly sure I hit some sometimes and nothing happened, so I fear they do. Insanity. Good artwork on the owls.

Teenage Mathant Ninja Tower by greencow

The concept here is just too vague and messy to really do anything with. The combination of trying to fit in the pieces, along with hoping to get the exact numbers and symbols you need, along with being able to read the math in this messy way ("1++ 3+5 =9+7=" is correct... I think! Who can know that offhand?), makes for just really unplayable mush. It's not that this is badly made or looks bad or plays bad controlswise, it's just that the concept doesn't work!

As good as it gets by gjuggler

Well, it's not the only entry just like this that I've seen! It's always fun to play with physics, but it is kinda dull. Physics entries simultaneously impress me and disappoint me, because really someone else did all the hard work, building the physics engine. But on the other hand, the results are so nice.

Holy Pineapples by gadlor

I just have no idea, man. It was either cool or horrible, or most likely both. Definitely unplayable, though. For a while I tried pounding E and R and up, hoping I'd randomly get up somewhere, but that didn't work so well. Never made it more than about an owl's worth up. I'll never know what's behind the door of awesome.

Cutting it Fine by Frimkron

Really cool and pretty, but wow, that's a whole lot of falling a long way down. A safety net as requested elsewhere would be wondrous. The slippery controls combined with the long long falls makes for a whole lot of needless replaying.

The indoor/outdoor effect is really cool too.

Purple Reign – A love letter to awesome games by Fiona

yeah, vista failure here... Sure looked promising!

Tower Infinite by Entar

The slow slow recovery of fuel turned this into a long slow slog of a waiting game. If that wasn't happening, it would've been quite a bit of fun (the bullets could do with a lot of speed-up too, though!). Of course, then you'd need some sort of challenge, because you could just zip right up to the top.

Tower Collapse by Endurion

I\'m not sure what the \'rules\' are (the simulation, I guess). It was really fun throwing down explosives all over and watching them do their damage, even if I didn\'t know why. There was WAY plenty of money, so it didn\'t much matter how much I overkilled.

I think you\'ll raise some eyebrows with a level named \"Twin Towers\", and also, that level was INSANE. There\'s something odd or broken about it too - the \"other building damage\" was always at least 60,000, so there was no way to win. And that was even if I never scratched them, thanks to my handy wooden barriers (which sometimes don\'t seem to help).

Anyway, innovative and cool. Would\'ve loved more types and bigger power explosives (and a better interface for choosing them). And an understanding of why you do things. Awesome SFXR sounds.

TowerAssault0 by edwardoka

More than one chance is really just necessary... as it is, it's just endless guesswork. I started to learn what numbers reached what distance, but I gave up before ever actually hitting the tower. Started getting kinda close, though.

Control Tower by Edge

Really nice idea. I really wish you could drag the planes for less RSI. There's something very wrong with the lives counter, it went from blank to MISS, to unreadable, to game over.

Cool, fun, good graphics, needs sound.

Incoming Fodder Final drZool by drZool

Hey, I look forward to stealing your code. I saw many things of interest glancing at it.

Nice basic TD... I very quickly reached a point where I was in absolutely no danger and was just gradually covering the entire map with towers. Didn't quite finish before VICTORY happened, though. It's got a good control feel to it (except CTRL-Click as a rather awkward control choice... I guess Mac users are used to it).

Hooray for someone else doing a TD!

Quick and weak entry from me this time by DrPetter

I win! Of course, I read the code first. To be honest, I had a lot more fun reading than code than trying to guess the right words to actually play. Come on, "go down"? Whatever happened to "d"?

Falling Towers by devguy

It runs for me! However, it slows way down really quickly, and chunks of the clouds sort of sit around broken. It's very unique and interesting... I suppose no way to ever lose, other than your computer bogging down so bad it just stops. So anyway, an interesting idea that could've been made into something fun, but so far is real buggy and slow.

Demonic Tower by dstrysnd

I think I liked this game all around, except the interface was amazingly clunky and hard to deal with. I spent almost all the time with my eyes fixed on the current phase over on the side, so I could be sure of what I was doing. I still wasted several turns hitting enter past my move or attack phases. There's just a million ways that part should be better (step 1: automate the whole enemy phase, don't make me hit enter to get through it).

But the rest of it is really good. If I wasn't struggling so hard with that, it'd be really rocking. It's amazingly complete for an LD48! Just a whole lot of game. Mrfun expressed shock at my number of heroes, but you've got dozens of unique card effects here!

Unknown by Deepflame

I think this is one of the most impressive LDs I've ever seen! It's not the greatest game I've ever played in LD (wish the jumps were like 1/2 as high, for sure), but it's just an amazing achievement. Not only is the whole online thing there, which is incredible (can't try it with another person with my ping, but I did play myself as directed), but it's also got the fancy editor and stuff too. I've had a similar game idea for a long time, where two players make worlds for each other to compete in, so good job stealing from my brain.

Balkor FINAL [Platform independant] by Daz

Well, ran out of eggs shooting the owl and it seems there's no way out of the tower, so I just get to listen to this song for the rest of eternity. Even though I've already closed the window!

I agree with the rest of the tribal council on the horrible controls. Key repeat is not the way to go! If that one thing had been different, it would've been a great [unfinished] experience all around (until discovering that the music keeps going on quit).

Covenant – Brick Tower by Covenant

Way too ruthless and punishing for me. I quit with an empty board on the first level after having it wiped clean several times. That's mainly because I couldn't deal with the weird control scheme. As other people said, definitely just repeated clicks to change the color would be far better.

My by Codexus

Very impressive technically, and a good game. One of several this time that's a really fully-realized game with thought-out levels and content, a lot like Allefant's.

done for now by ashton379

Me too like those guys above. Popup and nothing after.

AkinTower Ready by Ariel Yust

Really awesome graphics, and cool effect on the arrows with ghosting. It was really hard to aim them though, they didn't really head quite toward the cursor, especially at the bottom end of the screen.

Real easy, I too had to quit at wave 21. I hope I didn't miss an amazing ending.

done by allefant

Really impressive to get such an intricately designed 'quest' going (meaning the jump distances and stones and all so that it's possible but not trivial), and the fact that you can talk to people! Now if only I could get past tunnel cat, I would be happy. But as others have said, it's really annoying to get cheated by the stones. I did that, and ended up coming up with a workaround to do all the stones from ground floor. That got me up to tunnel cat... I hope I don't need more stones to get past him!

Into the Sky by algorias

Notably similar to one of the other entries... the one where you can't have the same color touching as you build a tower. Neither one really does it for me... I don't know how I feel about this, I guess. It's pretty good, but not real fun for me.

Super Tower Ascent 2 by adamzap

N/A for audio for cheating. I hope you don't get ranked there. Remember the very simple rule: everything has to be your creation, within the 48 hours.

It was all flickery here (windows), like constantly skipping back a frame, so the owls jumped a bit. It looked almost intentional like an old movie, but really annoying!

Not much game play because you just don't have that much control over the nets. The best way I had to play was just constantly tapping space. The nets are too slow to actually aim for any incoming owls.

A unique idea, though, and surprising that a baby can climb the entire side of a building.

Tower of Abba!! Final!!! by abeck99

Ah, got the DLL. A good physics game because it's got a whole lot of game wrapped around the physics. It's a lot like Jenga really. Sound effects would've helped, for example I spent forever wondering why I couldn't remove bricks, but it was because I was trying to remove the occupied ones. I thought that was the goal until I understood more!

Nice lots of modes too.

Towlr – 2 Hour Game by PoV

Win! Cake in 5 tries. I think the + is a red herring.

Good sounds.

Final submission by GBGames

I like the mouseover control. I always think that should be a theme. I have lots of interesting ideas for controlling things without clicking.

Of course, on the other hand, there's no game. But it's fun to mouse over the archers.

LD11 — Minimalist (70)

Typoworm by XMunkki

That was very interesting... the first typing game I've ever played that punishes you for typing fast. You really have to develop the right tempo. I don't know... it's pretty nifty, really weird, and not much of a worm.

Unknown by Wiering

Yep, it's Qix. No innovation points for blatantly cloning! And Pekuja, you do make arbitrary boxes in Qix - it's Jezzball where you make lines. I love Qix! I was frustrated with how slow you moved in this one... it's not that it was too slow relative to the ball, I wish both were about 3x as fast (well, maybe 2x for the ball, I did die a LOT). That could be technical, I don't know how fast it was supposed to run. I missed the old speed button in Qix.

Castle Adventure by Viridian

I'm glad I found comments talking about a bow, or I would've given up. Pretty flawed in that you are doomed at first and then invincible once you have the bow! But it was still fun anyway. Reminded me so much of the old IBM games, back before they had numbers like 286 and 386. If only there had been PC speaker sounds (sfxr could do it!).

My favorite thing was "The monster curses its stubby little legs." Good game all around, despite the huge balance issue. Obviously could do with a few hundred more treasures and interactions, but you minimally covered them during this minimal compo.

final version of my game by triorph

I totally didn't get it at all until I spent some time reading comments, then some more time reading comments, and finally realized that those circles with letters in them weren't teleporting me, they were killing me.

The fact that this is all about gravity and such, but for some reason the ships are immune to it, is really weird, and a large part of the confusion. I only had one time where I was actually able to use the gravity properly, thanks to the computer staying still on the other side of a green well. It was a little too strong in general to really use. Any shot I tried to line up would just be sucked into a G, or blown offscreen by an A.

warrior by tonic

Awesome minimalist graphics, great sound. As for the game, one huge flaw kills it for me: in every rail shooter I've EVER played, you aim at where the cursor is, you don't use the cursor as some weird analog to rotation along the ground. That was totally confusing and really hard to get used to. Hated that. But it made for something very cool overall despite that.

Spacbattle is done-ish by tirpen

"Hooray" for Rapidshare. Holy crap, I have never seen a captcha that annoying. I already hate your game and it hasn't even finished downloading yet!

The windows version didn't include the readme, that I could find. And I'm not going back to rapidshare to get the other one!

Anyway, on to the actual game! I guess what I think is that I like it a lot, except I really hate how it actually plays. Steering the ships is crazy (and when they're heading down, it's very confusing). I got to the second battle (he had a cruiser, I didn't... sad), and it devolved into a whole lot of both of us going offscreen and popping back on for a moment before going away again, until he finally cruisered me away.

So I like the ships and having them battle it out. I wish there was a better way to make them do so.

http://blahwebstorage.googlepages.com/Game.html by threeeffhex

A tip to all the people above me - this game is in a MASSIVE window, and there are actually directions below it! I had no idea the first time I played, but I got very curious when I saw other people talking about buying things and not knowing how much they cost.

Man, I run 1280x1024, and I still can't get the entire game window onscreen (since it's in my browser), so I never saw the text at the bottom of it until I scrolled.

So, once I was able to play... well, not much success. It doesn't really work. The enemies have too much life and are too relentless, even the frigate barely put a dent in them (and they were whittling it down pretty quickly). And I didn't want to shoot at them anyway, knowing that doing so ate up my resources.

I don't know, more unfinished than minimal to be sure.

RPG Battle Simulation by thedaian

Seeing the numbers underneath Magic and Heal, I thought they might level up at some point... so first I played just bashing things to death (like others, once I finally got past the "dead in 2 hits" stage, I wailed on the buttons using level-ups to heal me, until the numbers covered half the screen. Fun for all the same reasons RPGs always are!), then I started over and tried it with only magic attacks. Total failure. They don't get any stronger. That was very sad.

Anyway, minimizing an RPG down is a fun idea for this minimalist contest.

The Butler Did It by Surrealix

Serious problems... crashing constantly, and when it did work, the font was virtually unreadable (scaled, without antialiasing, it seems), and then it crashed when I clicked the rolling pin. And Vista gave me a warning I've never seen about data protection, so I'm gonna protect my data and stop now. It looked really interesting, and I wanted to see how it went, but I just can't even judge this.

CGA Quest by SpindleyQ

I can't freakin believe I won! The second-to-last level was far and away the worst... seriously unforgiving timing! Mrfun missed out, because once you figure out what to do, level 5 is totally trivial! Although at first, I did discover that it's possible to move diagonally in trying to solve it. Probably not intended, since you don't need that to do so.

That was good... I don't know what else to say. I would've liked auto-repeat on the movement, and the timing was way too evil on the timing level. Other than that, I think I have nothing constructive or destructive to say.

Block Picker 1.0 – final, timelapse by sol_hsa

I don't know what game Tirpen was reviewing...

Anyway, this really was a bad theme, wasn't it? Ahh...

I like the log built into your timelapse, very helpful.

As for the game, minimal indeed. Fairly entertaining, and I liked seeing the new patterns showing up, I totally expected it to always be the same. SFXR is the best.

The white gazelle laughs maniacally by jhauberg

I don't know what tech I'm lacking for this, but crash on startup... I know have XNA stuff from previous compos, and .net, so I probably just don't have the latest.

Minimaze by shanecelis

Wow, that sure was short! Very original and nifty. I wish it would move slower, and of course that there were more levels. I see I am not alone on either count.

“Desktop Rox” by sgstair

Timelapse: best one! Video of you actually doing it is way more interesting than just a screen capture. Especially with the food piles. If only you had shaped them into messages before eating them. Watching your can zoom around the desk was fun too. And the status screen was very nice, as everybody said. I don't know how all you guys leave your monitors on all night... I shut everything down at bedtime, and my monitor shuts off if I leave it alone for 5 minutes. Poor thing needs rest.

The looks of the game are great, I was especially intrigued by the slight swaying of the title screen for no reason. And there's something really nifty about playing it over my desktop. But uh, asteroids is asteroids. Doesn't even get a capital letter, that's how much asteroids is asteroids.

Simple Dungeon by sfernald

I think everybody reporting a crash just died... I think I died fighting the Undead Queen (final boss?). I was just rushing because I saw how little my O dropped, and she was probably dropping my D a lot more than I expected. I put up with it a lot longer than I should have... the healing was absolutely murder. I figured out that the ? were good for that, and I'd rumble on them for hours recovering full O and D before each fight, but dealing with Engulfers (and to a lesser extent those incredibly vicious gargoyles) was just a massive strain on my fingers and my boredom.

Two things would've saved this and made it really fun for me: autorepeat keys, and (if that was in) holding down spacebar to stay on the space you're on (healing up rapidly without finger twiddling). There wasn't really any danger once you knew how doors and ?s worked, but the threat to your fingers could not be ignored. Definitely, monsters with a lot less life would've been nice.

Strong AI by SethR

Really cool... it has inspired my next LD entry - I will strive to create a narrative experience next time instead of a bunch of random levels to play!

Three disappointments:
1 - Respect the lefty. WASD is extremely awkward for me! I had a really hard time moving, ended up sort of crawling along carefully blasting each guy (no, I can't really explain why my left hand is the one that is no good at manipulating arrow keys... maybe decades of practice with the right hand?)

2 - The way the story was set up and proceeded (and hyped in the journal!), I was expecting a big revelation at the end, and other than the pictures, it was sorely lacking. It kinda went nowhere.

3 - On a related note, as Surrealix said, I wish you had done something original with the speech stuff. Borrow the style of, and make references to, Portal, sure. That's cool, but it was almost like this was a (very) alternate version of that game rather than another story.

It was hilarious and game-breaking how your firepower expanded to epic proportions. The last gun appeared not to do anything though, it should've upgraded to 3-way death beam for ultimate ridiculousness.

I felt bad killing my brothers, there should've been some penalty for that. Or bonus for killing them all (which I did!). It was fun to push them around, though. When I got to the first enemy, I tried shoving a robot out in front of him to see if he'd attack that instead of me. Didn't work, but would've been cool if it did!

redgate by scoopr

20 points for me! Have I mentioned how bad this theme was? Why am I having to reward people for making lame crap? It was kind of a wasted weekend in a way. No offense, this is good... a little addictive, like one of those reflex tests where you catch the ruler falling. It's just that the theme forced you to make something, well, minimal.

I'm still gonna play it one more time though. Bah, only 19 and I maximized it.

Space Stuff Trader by saluk

I just have to agree with everybody... the controls utterly ruin this game. I would've played this for hours if it just had nice clean asteroids control. It was cool enough that if I knew python, I'd probably hack it to do just that. But as it is, I couldn't stand it. I landed at Dumbville by tapping X really quickly as I rocketed over, then tried to get to Slinky to absolutely no avail.

I think simulation is not exactly a fair/realistic goal when your ship is 3 pixels. All you really did with the simulation was kill all of the fun of an otherwise really nifty game. And it doesn't make it remotely realistic anyway... I mean, I'm flying in 2 dimensions! And I can dock at 8000km/s, and when I undock I'm still flying at that speed. I just think there are better ways to add realism (not that I think you should, honestly) than to make it impossible to play.

Real spaceships are flown by experts with years of training. How about simulating that by making the controls simple for us normal humans? You could say you're the commander, giving directions to the pilot.

Anyway, I just rant because this game is ALL there and a total winner, except the totally horrible control.

Circle conquest by DanReyLop

Like everyone else, I had big problems selecting and ordering guys. One of my soldiers ended up stuck inside the enemy castle for the entire game.

It was very very easy to win, once I started out the game by taking land instead of flailing around figuring out the game (so... once I read the journal!). But the king was so mind blowingly slow, it pretty much guaranteed that the computer would build a soldier right on top of him while he was gradually waddling over the area where the computer makes soldiers. So I just keep making new soldiers after I sent him, ostensibly to be his guard, but sent them all into the enemy castle (best path to protect the king!), and they destroyed it long before he got there. Awe inspiring ending sequence!

Color eater by lucasshrew

I almost thought the game didn't work, because the readme forgot to mention you have to CLICK to move! Strangest control scheme I have ever seen. I was able to fly, though.

I guess this is minimalist, but only in the sense that LD48 entries usually are. I don't see a whole lot of the theme going on here.

Yeah, ThingGo is a go go! by robot_guy

Am I the only one for whom "Press Spacebar to Start" meant press enter? I was stuck for the longest time.

No innovation points for blatant clones (REALLY blatant when you even say so in the title!).

Works well, and I like the dice. No way I was ever going to get those diamonds together, I didn't even try. I agree with others that it starts off too slow. I quit before I got to these purported exciting levels.

Pixelman 3 by pymike

This is crazy fast! Yet somehow, I only rarely missed what i intended to do. Not sure how that's possible, but it seems to be. Still, I wish it ran about half the speed, because the main challenge in this game was my nerves and stress from expecting to fail (I'm assuming I'm playing it as intended, and it's not just running super fast on my computer). I did manage to win eventually, but level 4 was rough.

Anyway, it's a good job of being minimal, but it is just the basic platformer, so no innovation there. The graphics, black monsters on a grey screen, totally reminded me of the original Game Boy.

Just overall, a nice solid tiny game.

Origami Wars by piddlepup

Not rating it, invalid entry (no offense, just commenting to get it marked in my rating list).

The Pushers by phren

I definitely wished I got to actually do normal racing, but that wouldn't have been as unique. Really good polish having all those menus and 2 player mode, and even a nice selection of "cars". Of course, that makes only the control scheme minimalist, but you'll do well on polish and less well on theme (I gave you high theme anyway). Kind of an obnoxious theme in that respect.

win32.dll The Game by philhassey

Man, I only got 80,000 and I thought I had done really well!

I give you low theme points, not sure how this fits the theme at all... now, if you had made it a game of clicking the minimize button on various windows, you'd have my vote! Of course, you'd also be aiming for a mighty small target, and your taskbar would get pretty darn full. Maybe the windows keep expanding on their own (they're games, see, and you are distracting yourself with them), and you have to minimize them to get to work on your essay. The essay gradually types itself and you have to get it done before class starts.

Sorry, wrote you a new game there. Anyway, and people say my game causes RSI! I nearly died getting my lousy 80k score.

Tiny Hawk final release by pekuja of Polygon Toys

In the timelapse, it looks like you are playing the song on your keyboard. Speaking of the timelapse, your original detailed skater was cool! But it was right to make it minimal.

I'm a fan of this, I've made a ninja game very similar, right down to the wall-jumping. And it's minimal, and the name, and skateboarding is cool!

I had a problem with grinds failing, but not right when I hit the rail - sometimes they'd fail way towards the end. Probably after trying to throw in a kickflip, but I'm somewhat sure I recovered the button in time.

I would've liked sound and a bigger animation on the kickflip. The other thing that bothered me, that is very tricky to deal with, is that there are parts in the level where you have no choice but to lose your combo. It would be awesome if there were a way to always keep it going, but the easy path didn't keep it, you'd have to do some outlandish ninja skills to pull it off. Then, with that the case, change the max combo to 99x, and you've got a game with a serious high score challenge! The experts would be racking up 70x before getting their first gem, the normals would be unlikely to ever even reach 10x in the first place.

Mondrian by pansapiens

That is awesome... a completely original puzzle concept (as far as I know), that totally works, and perfectly models Mondrian paintings. And the sounds are just totally ideal. And the way you need no directions and discover it as you go is just more of the awesome.

I only wish they'd expand a lot faster, because it got tiring waiting for them to get where they were going. Of course, I was probably supposed to be soothed by the gentle chimes and slow movement while I waited.

On the other hand, I got to a level where I think the only solution is to click two beams super fast in succession. Only I can NOT do that. If there is a 'true' solution, I sure can't find it.

Other entries have been more fun to actually play, but this comes out as my favorite entry so far just for being *RIGHT*.

Unknown by NULL

I second consistency issues - if it's a mouse game, make a mouse menu!

It's SO hard to judge theme in this compo. This game, like almost every other, is only minimal in the sense that most LD48 games are. You only had 48 hours! So you get a middle score there.

There are some real issues with the movement/collision. I fell through the first level floor a few times, and one time that caused me to win (I presume because I got to the right side before I got to the bottom of the screen), and as someone else said, sometimes you can't jump.

The Minimizing knight by nikolaj

Waiting on that EXE...

Casey is ready to rock (kind of) by nfirvine

Waiting on somebody to magically Windowsize it... (just commenting to get it Xed on my list)

minimalist rts by negativegeforce

Well, good try... don't think you got a game there, though. I'm intrigued by what it was going to be, I like to make workers go to factories. I don't know how you were going for the theme, other than just that you didn't finish, though.

Battle Magic Done! by MrPhil

I too had no idea of any use for Piety or Luck. Maybe they were just there to waste some of your move slots. They are!!! I just peeked at the code and they do nothing! Crime solved.

I managed to beat the first 2 opponents, eventually, but the third killed me on the first turn. It was fun and strategerish, though very simple, of course. And yeah, no need for a next button.

Trivial Escape from Minimalist Island by mjau

Yeah, what they said. This contest theme has resulted in no lasting hits for the future, but more than one bit of ephemeral art to inspire and enjoy. Besides this bit of scratchboard myst, Pansapien's Mondrian game really stands out, and Mrfun's Mini-Portal, and a bunch of others I'm not thinking of right now. I think the theme was a triumph of style over substance, and while I wouldn't go for that regularly, it is kind of fun that we did it this once.

Framed! v1.1 Released by mikeware

It took me forever to realize that the supposedly advantageous action of removing same-size frames was actually DISadvantageous... you can only win by removing different sized frames! Otherwise the rogue ones never appear and you lose. Also, once all the rogue ones have popped up, there's no longer any risk - every pair is a 'match' at that point. That's in easy mode, I don't know how hard mode works. But it means that easy mode is simply a game of avoiding clicking matching pairs (and you only have to succeed at that occasionally to win it). Well, I guess you also have to avoid clicking pairs of rogues, but that's not exactly tricky.

In hard mode, it seems to be the same, only you can't see how many rogues there are. I really just don't understand this game... why am I trying to do a bad job at making matches? Yep, I was able to win Hard the exact same way - by making sure that I never made a match (until I ran out of rogues), and never clicked 2 rogues together. But even if I did that, it's easy to fix by just doing it again.

So really the only threat I faced in this game was getting past the instructions! Which I suspect I still haven't managed to do. I just don't get this game at all. I can win it, absolutely trivially... but I don't know why I should be doing that. This game is a mystery of minimalist art.

Unknown by Mike_W

I don't think this worked right at all. If it did, it really was impossible to understand what was happening. It started out with paper showing on the computer's side, so I figured scissors would be good (how nice of him to go first!), but that was "Winner is No One". So I figured okay, that was just a starting image, and then it shows what the computer picks right when I click. Only, it doesn't work that way either. I tried clicking Paper every single time, and it seemed right at first, but then it showed Scissors in his window, and yet still said (sometimes) "No One" won. I just don't get it.

Also, clicking on the buttons made it beep like it was an error. I don't know if that was audio or a problem.

Simple maze by matrin

I really can't rate this one high... nothing more annoying than the combination of controlling with UDLR instead of arrow keys, and having to hit enter after each letter! I didn't even stick with it long enough to see what would happen if I reached the exit. I'm sorry, I just couldn't! It is minimal, though.

entry – Minim Madness by mariusz

I don't think it's much for the theme, more like dodging the theme, but I liked it, with one big big caveat - I was almost totally incapable of drawing the minims. Without fail, it took me 3-8 tries each time to make one. Something about how the circles are(n't) recognized. And it always came out a little different than what I was trying, so after the first 2 levels, I just couldn't succeed at all. I'm a lefty, with shaky hands, and I failed the "draw a straight line" skill in elementary school, but I still stand ready to blame the recognition!

The most amazingly impressive thing with this game is the fully animated tutorial. The whole thing is really really complete and solid.

Mininode by LunarCrisis

Wow, that's certainly over already. It's not so much that there were few levels, many LD entries have very few, sometimes just one. But man, it took me at least 20x as long to download the game as it did to finish playing it (there was something very wrong with the download, took like 5 minutes).

I liked the visuals a lot, and wanted there to be something interesting to do, given that you had the elements all set up. Really the only thing missing is level design. But it sure is missing.

(T+48:48) Final Entry: BlockOut v0.LD48_11 by LoneStranger of LoneStranger Designs

All good comments preceding mine, and I will add that the bounce effect is very broken... I lost when I had a really thick wall, because the ball decided to instakill about 4 double-blocks, bouncing onto the other side of them as it went.

Looks like you were more interested in the backwards and defense themes than minimalist!

It's a cool idea, but it will take a major change to reach "fun" status. A first step might be to triple the ball and paddle speed, quadruple the rate you make money, fix the collision, and give it mouse control! Right now, as others said, it's very boring. Even though I made a big every time the computer dropped the ball, I didn't like it anyway, since it meant more waiting.

Kill ALL Life!!! by Kimau

Unfortunately, I don't really KNOW the rules of Life (in any sense of that sentence). So I pretty much had to place my spots randomly. The game ran at 10000x light speed when I wasn't freezing it, hope that was intentional. Probably not, since I think my end time was 14 minutes, and I played for less than a minute.

Anyway, the screenshot was very misleading, I thought I was actually going to get to see KILL KILL KILL on my screen. Big disappointment.

Final Submission by keeyai

Nice PIP on the timelapse!

My big complaint with this game was the lack of autofire. My arm hurts right now (I realized after a while that I had 2 fire buttons, so I was pounding them alternately with two fingers... your max fire rate in this game is insane if you don't mind losing the use of your arm).

It was fun to have it dawn on me that the more sides a shape had, the more powerful it was. Ultimately felt pretty pointless though, especially when I managed to max out and knew I was never going to die at that point (playing on easy). I tried hard and just never landed a hit, so that was about that.

The handy tips during play were nice, and lots of stats is always good!

Cowbell Hero by jovoc

Have you seen Cowbell Hero before? I saw the youtube video of it months back ( http://youtube.com/watch?v=QlqLLZQLNiA - but wow, there are lots of other ones there too!). I can't decide if you lose innovation points for that, I guess it would depend on if you conceived this individually or not!

Anyway, it's basically something that could be awesome if it did what it was supposed to... that would've been quite a technical achievement too! Scoring and proper syncing and patterns that make sense would've made it a winner you could sell to a world of cowbell-starved patrons.

There was one point in a Green Day song where it suddenly was just perfect, adding little counterpoint cowbells to each measure... but then it went way off track again. Still, a sublime moment.

Col-4 by jolle

Well, I'm afraid I must agree with the boring comments... it's really just very boring. I bet if you just made it about 5x faster, it would be a very intense challenge. But what you got here is insanely easy Columns, and the swapping doesn't come into play unless you are doing horribly, which isn't gonna happen with how easy it is (I too had to drop columns randomly to see it). And once it does, it just makes the game even easier, by giving you 4 top halves to work in.

Sometimes I lament the theme. It sure did make for a lot of weird variety though.

Unknown by john

Wow, lots and lots and loooots of waiting around. And then when you do catch a piece, you get 1 pixel of house. Looks like you need to catch 200 pieces to win. Given an average wait time of about 5 seconds, that's 1000 seconds or 16:40. Are you trying to claim you've actually played your own game to completion? I don't buy it. 16 minutes of waiting for those pieces! And very occasionally, two pieces fall at the same time, too far apart to catch both, so guaranteed death. Does it happen enough that you won't ever be able to finish? Quite possibly!

Speed the game up a few hundredfold, and we're talking!

Of Robots & Groglots by jlnr

Tons of very positive things to say here, and one huge negative: made me physically ill. I'm still reeling right now, and had to quit playing just because I didn't want to die. The combination of the spinning and the constant bobbing up and down is nauseating. And I am totally immune to motion sickness!

Polish is awesome, amazing to do all that in 48 hours, and the round world system is super cool. One of the most impressive entries I've tried so far. I did feel like it shouldn't have gotten so slow when you got in close. I know it would be a lot harder, but I got tired of waiting so long to go around. I'd rather have the challenge of zooming through.

Steroids by jamports

No mac for me!

There Is No Screwdriver by JamesDM

Well... disappointing to be left hanging, to be sure. And considering the title of the game, I am quite curious.

WHY WHY WHY do you make me capitalize every word? And not accept any shortcuts ("L" or even allow "get" instead of "take"??). This adventure has one of the worst cases of "guess the author's intent" ever, presumably because it was thrown together in 48 hours. Case in point: There's a lit cell to the North West. What do you do? Go NW? No. Go North? No. Go West! Then go North! Insane!

That combined with the ... not quite buggy, but glitchy perhaps, nature of it makes it really hard to actually play (and having to type those huge long commands with (im!)proper capitalization). Things like constantly being told I bridged the copper contacts each time I try to guess how to move on to the next room (turns out the door that was to the west is also to the east, and once you are 'in' the door lock, it's to the north!) are really weird and make it hard to follow.

So it seems quite interesting, but needs a lot of implementation help.

Divine Asteroid Showdown by jakbob

I didn't like the gameplay... I did truly horrific on the last few levels, yet I still got credit. I was literally just pounding on the WASD keys and swinging the mouse in circles and clicking, without any regard for what was on the screen. The real failing is that that seems to be the only workable strategy. Everything moves far too fast and planets far too close to the sides for any sort of thought to be put into anything.

But while I didn't actually like the gameplay at all, I really enjoyed the stuff around it. The instructions page was my favorite, both the format of it and the lovely scenery.

The Hunt for Pepsi Blue by Jach

I think I got to Louisville. I guess I'd have to say the gameplay is more obnoxious and frustrating than fun. But boy, was that a creepy level win noise.

MinMo LD11 by HybridMind

The random raising and lowering is dumb, because it makes your progress completely random. I also got killed by randomness - 2 S's were on me, I mo'd out on them, and they walked past, but when I changed back automatically, they were on me again since they had bounced off a wall.

The whole randomness thing totally ruins it. There really is no game because of that. If it weren't that way, it could really be something interesting. I liked the sounds the background made, and the changing back and forth (and using the changing to squish guys), although I really should've been able to stay Mo as long as I wanted... that would solve the unfair kills part.

Sailor by gustav

Definite bonus technical points whenever I can't figure out how something was made! I've done stuff with lots of interacting particles before, but sure couldn't do anywhere near these numbers at this speed.

Really awesome game, though I don't feel so much like I'm sailing as trying to make the most airtight submarine as possible. I wish it floated better initially, rather than always being half submerged, so that it really felt more like the cannonballs were punching holes in the bottom. As it is, holes in the top are almost as bad!

One of my favorites, wish it had more polish in terms of being a complete product - you know, the retry thing everyone else is saying.

Dot2doT by Sophie Houlden

Ha, I too got my highest score by holding an arrow down. But it was 860, so I am way better at holding down arrow keys than dgriff (also, I used the right arrow).

At first I thought it was completely random because of the limited view, but I started paying attention to the fields I was passing, and I'd find that in scooping up some oranges, I'd have learned of a giant purple field (and seen which way I could move in that field to not go over myself). So there's an interesting strategy there and probably some specific brain area it's good for, since you have to memorize what you're seeing and build a map in your head.

Still, I did better holding down the arrow than trying to find combos. I suspect it would seem much more strategic if you had 5x5 view instead of 3x3. But maybe I just have bad cartographic skills.

Good job being minimalist, though I would've liked to see pixel-land more than a color grabbing game!

GBGames presents Minimalist – the by GBGames

Wow, seizure-inducing indeed. It definitely needed a time limit, although the desire to escape the noise and lights was something of a time pressure itself. But it was interesting how that noise and sound made you feel really anxious.

Alternatively, it should've been way harder, given the lack of time limit. There was always a pretty wide path to the goal for me.

miniPals by fydo

I like 2:50 in your timelapse - "brb ice cream truck" and the music suddenly gets really ominous... it's okay, you can tell us what the ice cream man made you do for a Klondike bar. The whole timelapse was great, especially getting to see the other stuff you did, including WoW and TV (The Office?).

But you also made a game! I agree that the super slippery movement was unpleasant. It made sense for the ball and I wouldn't change that, but for the ... ball with legs it was just crazy. I liked the whole concept and it worked well, but really the very last level only just began to show the potential, by actually having you use all your abilities (and I had been waiting for the need to stand on the ball!). So I guess the other guys are right about needing more levels. Or just make the ones you have more 'serious' like the last one. All the ones before that were trivial.

WORLDMAKER by eugman

This is a Grow game in text, as everybody else also noticed, but what disappoints me, especially given that there are only 4 items, is that there are a lot of ways to win! I kept looking for the 'really good' ending, since I had gotten the 'good' ending so many different ways. I figured it couldn't be the best possible. But alas, it is if my scanning of the code is correct.

Certainly poetic, though.

dots by erik

Man, your pizza looks awesome, and I love Indian food, and we haven't had it in forever... ah, anyway.

59763, suckers. I thought the controls were really good, so I wonder if it's not running right on some computers. The power up really does make the difference - just when you think all is lost, you get revenge (but catching those formerly grey guys is insane).

Eventually it seemed like the game reset - the grey balls were a lot slower again, and the blue balls were worth hardly any points. Did I roll the machine?

It's one of the most fun entries I've played so far. Others have been interesting or amusing in one way or another, but for just real simple fun factor, this is doing it.

Exxon – The decontaminator by drZool

Wait, N is for nitro? How do I nitro? I thought those might be bits of net. Where are you people getting more information?

I didn't understand level mode at all, especially when I finally got all the Ns and it sent me to a blank blue screen with no boat.

But in the number modes, it worked great! I love those kind of pushy physics, and wrapping stuff up is always fun too. It was super easy (I guess it couldn't not be, what with no lose condition), but fun to control. I liked how to motor swung too.

Marginal Ungolf Spectacle by DrPetter

I won! A hockey stick, eh? I call that a golf club.

You really got good platforming feel, which is the most important to me. Too often people have really clunky moving and jumping and it kills the game completely. Other than that... well, that's really all you had!

Nice job getting a moving platform in there to add to the excitement, though.

MiniMall by doofer

Two issues I have: First, there's no way to win or lose (well, you can waste all your money without having built a valid shop, but that doesn't end the game), no reason to want to make money, and second, there's not a lot of progress in money making. I think that's because there are a fixed number of shoppers (shouldn't a better mall attract more shoppers?), so adding more shops barely makes any difference in income. Once you have ten or so shops, it never gets notably faster. That was sad, because I was having fun expanding my mall, but expanding was really slow, only adding one block every 2 or 3 seconds (I also think it lets you put floor on floor, so holding the button down wastes lots of money - not sure, though).

But it was fun, I kept cranking along until I had about doubled the mall size, and watched the mini-mallists do their thing and watched my money click up. I enjoyed it. Don't think you really did much with the theme other than mock it, though.

Unknown by dgriff

I won... did not expect that (or know what made it a win? Was it the end of the song?). I enjoyed it a lot when in super mode (and moreso in super-duper mode at the end), but really disliked it during normal mode. The controls are obnoxious, so grabbing guys in a combo of more than 2 or 3 is extremely unlikely. Until of course, super mode, when the screen covers with tons of them. I got an 88 combo there in super duper mode.

It did seem nearly impossible to lose with even a token effort. And once you had gotten through your first super mode, losing would be a virtual impossibility, I suspect. In fact, I think I will try to lose now, just to see what happens. Now I have seen it!

I liked the parallax!

Leap , at least it’s something… by Devon

I love the art, but uh, not so much the gameplay or lack thereof. It's very interesting to read where it was supposed to go, like a whole art thing. The first screen certainly suggests that.

I thought I was scoring points by making jumps, as I watched the numbers go by in the console window... then I got to the right edge and started heading back only to discover that was just my X coordinate.

Anyway, I'm glad you discovered the wonders of 48-hour developing. It'll teach you really quickly what matters and how to actually produce something instead of futzing around with things (incidentally, I am judging games right now to avoid working on my actual game project, so the lessons aren't particularly permanent).

Brainwave by Deepflame

I grabbed the power pill and tried ramming into walls to get myself back to Pac-Man in time, but I guess it ran out right before I got him, because I died (either that or that's not what it's for!).

It's a very unique game, that's for sure... I'm not sure it actually works, but you really stepped into left field to pull out the concepts!

Omnihunter by Dathgale

Doesn't seem to run for me. I know nothing of python, but I've downloaded it before, and I think pygame, and double clicking this just makes a console window pop up briefly. Py2exe please, for us non-snakey folks!

As good as it is going to get by creiht

It's totally weird how you get "you hit rat for 2 damage" messages, but no indication of actually KILLING the thing! And they don't seem to hit back, except I now have less HP, so apparently they do. There's a serious serious shortage of messages here, and it completely eradicates the game for me.

It's pretty nifty how it's realtime (not to mention, I think it's the first MMO ever in an LD48!), but it's totally insane what it doesn't tell you. I can only assume that's a bug, or messages not getting to me. But since I get all the hit messages and none of the got-hit or killed it messages, I doubt it's a connection issue.

Also, on a more real-game note (as opposed to 48-hour type issues), it would sure be extremely nice to see your stats on the same page you play on! Even if it was a command to view them, though it'd be nicer if they were in a side pane as you played.

Of all the entries, this one probably has the most potential to really turn into something for real (or is Facebook full of MUDs?) that could make you a millionaire as Facebook apps do. But right now, it's really really hard to play.

Things on Top of Other Things by chrisp

I like it! Smooshing the monsters was very satisfying. The style and sound were great. I did not like the last level... movement wasn't quick and responsive enough to demand that kind of timing. Lots of restarts there. The two levels that were mostly just hauling lots of boxes were pretty annoying too, but I at least sort of had to figure them out, so that was alright. On the first one, I tried building it one spot short to see if I could just grab the prize on the way down. Doesn't work, apparently you constantly teleport right to the ground rather than actually falling.

But I got the bow! Good ending too.

Too minimal for a name… by bluescrn

This is really fun and solid as a game. Reminds me a lot of The Flame Game, for both obvious and non-obvious reasons. I finished all the levels, though the second to last one was a killer. The last one took some doing too.

The one thing about these physics games that always bothers me is that the author really didn't create much of a game. Ignoring the fancy physics, this game is an utterly stupid journey to grab gems, kind of like Lode Runner with no enemies. Of course, that isn't fair, because WITH the physics, it is very fun and appealing. But you know what I mean? But it gets to me, like I could have the exact same fun in any game with a robust physics simulation, because the fun comes from the simulation, not really from the game at all. This was more of an exercise in coding (and not so much coding physics as learning how a certain library's interface works) and level design than it is a work of game design. I guess. That might be too extensive and serious a comment for this comment space, so I'll just say it was a lot of fun.

minimalist entry by allefant

I guess I need an exe... I didn't know which .py file to run (mini was my guess), but none of the 3 did anything more than briefly flash a window on my screen, so no luck. I probably don't have pyOpenGL since I can't recall explicitly getting it.

Game by alex

I didn't have lag issues, and I didn't really have a problem with the trails... go me! Of course, I got smashed relentlessly, so it's not like I was actually dodging things well. For how hard it is to hit a block with a yellow block, it seems like they ought to stop bouncing off walls if hit, and just go flying away never to bother you.

I got to a point where the blocks suddenly came raining down at intense speed, and that was about the end. Wish I had gotten a score for that! I saw a number during play, but I couldn't pay attention to it, and would've liked to see a "Last Score" on the title screen (if that was in fact a score).

This is an entry where I can actually see you using the theme clearly as opposed to just not finishing stuff. Thank you!

Unknown by AK47

I appreciate being entertained, and your entry succeeded at that more than most of the ones that interpreted "minimalism" to mean "half-finished crap".

No, it's not lasting joy, but for an LD game, that is a lot to expect. I doubt i will replay any of the others either, even the ones that were really fun to play!

I confess to not having downloaded it by the way. My programming skills are so vast that I can clearly visualize what playing it would be like just from reading the source. I'm like Neo.

Micro Macro by PoV

I got 730,008, so I'm in second place! It does seem that the closest thing to a strategy is to hold the gravity on the edge of a circle as it expands. Those purple shots make them grow fast! Other than using gravitate that way, there really wasn't any way TO use it, since you have to put it at the same place you are aiming... can't really twist your shots, since the aiming cursor is the same as the gravitate cursor.

Anyway, it's rather satisfying and cool, despite being sort of nothing at all. If you see what I mean.

LD10 — Chain Reaction (49)

Final Release by XMunkki

Amazing! Once you get past the technical requirements hurdle (something I was able to do for probably the first LD in history - hooray for my fancy new PC), it's one of the most solid entries I've ever seen. A full-fledged real game, with amazing technology behind it. Usually the tech ones have no gameplay at all. So far, this is my favorite gameplay of the ones I've played. A really interesting puzzle with a lot to it, and cute tennis balls on the cannons.

It's a shame that very few people will ever get to play it!

Unknown by X-0ut

Well, it's super polished and great graphics and sound, but I don't buy it for the theme (or innovation).

And way hard! There's just so much pressure on as you adjust the mirrors and try avoid feedback and hope you don't run out of energy, it's crazy. It's interesting that you have more angles than the usual mirror game.

Final entry, un by Wiering

Coulda been a contender... but as is, not so much.

I will disagree with Nyan and say that the duck does not go quack. I hope the first level isn't completable, because if it is, I'm very dumb.

Vector Chain Attack by wicked

One major flaw here - it actually seems to get easier as the snakes get longer! Much easier to hit their tails, then. The thing that killed me was just the fact that they appear in random places without regard to where you are. I walked right into one as it appeared!

Just too simple to really be much fun... basically fly in circles shooting inward forever. I'm not sure what more you could do with it, but it definitely needs a whole lot of something.

Snowroller by viblo

Can't run it... get that py2exe up!

Zanmato by Tivi

I agree with others... looks like it could've been pretty cool (but nobody who interprets this theme as a physical chain to which guys react is going to get much Theme score from me! Except Chain Pain). I like the style and the mouse control.

The Chain Fight 1.0 by TenjouUtena

This is a very very strange game. I discovered a winning strategy: build nothing but painters, ever. The red guys built the chains for me, and money came in so fast, I could just constantly replenish the few guys I lost to warriors and bombs. I fared much better with that strategy than I did trying to be smart.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to say on this one, because it's a weird old game. I guess I can't quite figure what the right strategies are, because it is very unique. It's cool that you've got a full AI opponent. Again, due to the weird rules, I just don't know if he's any good at the game or not, but he beat me most of the time, so that's good for him. The fact that your guys just move randomly (I think?) kind of limits the strategy involved, I think.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm not trying to say anything. Interesting game, but I guess I don't get it. Even though I know exactly what all the rules are and could explain them clearly, I don't know what to do with them.

Confusedly,
Hamumu

P.S. Also super cool that you put in a full tutorial, although a lot of times it got really hard to follow, with too many boxes and boxes going away too fast, and boxes that I wasn't sure what in the background they were referring to.

Reflex Battle, in by TeePy

I can see what you were shooting for. It's a good idea, and a good use of Chain Reaction. Reminds me of Dynasty Warriors Tactics (not that I've ever played it... I just got excited from reading the reviews!). It would've been really interesting to see in action.

sg’s entry by SteelGolem

I am suspicious that you stole your idea (which you then made about stealing ideas) from my journal! You combined two of mine and you are a THIEF!!! I quote:
"a guy with a chain who smashes enemies, sending them flying into other enemies for a chain-based chain reaction (but chain physics scares me). Another is something along the lines of pool, shoot out a ball that hits enemies, and they go flying and hit other enemies."

THIEF*! So anyway, awesome music. Gameplay's pretty much trivial if you just stand on the disk and hold the button down. If you limited it to 1 kick per second (maybe 1/2 second...) or something, it'd be really tricky, and you'd have to do a lot of moving around. Or for that matter, if the disk couldn't be sat on - then it would always be on one side of you or another, so you'd need to move around it.

It's fun, though, even if it's super easy. That may just be the music and sound, but it sure seems fun. Even Final Fantasy victory music. Nice.

Thief.

*I am kidding!

Partycle Popper 1.1 by sol_hsa

Seemed really pointless at first, until I tried some of the higher ranks of levels. It's a weird game... hard to say really. There's definitely gameplay there, but I'm not entirely sure what it does. Obviously you need to dodge bullets, but there's also the aspect of figuring out what to shoot. Strange...

It's got good polish, with all the fades and stuff, though I wouldn't have minded an automatic retry instead of constantly going back to the menu and clicking Continue (thanks for actually having a continue, though). I also would've liked a better control scheme, but it probably would be too easy then. Asteroids control isn't really suited to bullet hell dodging!

Skalle: Galectric by skalle

Hey, it's the same game Lerc made! And a lot like Rale too. I've only played a few entries... I wonder how many more are going to be this one too? I like the loose/fat cartoon style, although the 3D space station(?) doesn't match! It looks good, though.

The provided levels are awfully simple, and the random mode is... very bad. I guess it's just totally random, throwing items all over? But it is definitely cool that it's included, polish+ for that, even if random mode's not all that playable. I would've liked this more if it included levels with some challenge to them, or just more levels all around, but it's a good entry!

Unknown by jhauberg

The keyboard controls drive me nuts, but I don't know how they could've been good. Mouse is nice, though.

Not good use of theme, but good work on the entry. I like the subtle touch that it actually zooms out and tilts as needed to capture everything, and that you have ad billboards, and that, for no reason, the goals are springy.

Working Title: Ruckus by shanecelis

The artwork thing was cool, but you're definitely right that you should have done a white background with black art, to look like pencil sketches.

Not really a game, but I can see where it was going and it was a good idea. I wish it had worked right (but UDLR for the facing choices really sucked, WASD or something would've been far better).

A note to other people who play this: CTRL-D is how you exit the lisp interpreter.

Hero School by SethR

Very nice! I especially like the Duplicity level - exploiting holes/"features" in the code to make a new type of level (there are levels just like it that people made for Supreme With Cheese). I also especially like excessive profanity, and partial credit for corpses.

The idea of introducing tools level by level was good, except that the game is WAY easier once you have wire cutters. The levels before that are insane and unfair.

This is one of those entries where I feel like it meets the theme, but doesn't really go for it. It's not about chain reactions at all, though they do occur. I really prefer to see stuff that just jumps all over the theme.

Anyway, really fun and funny and excellent use of SFXr (which is making audio ratings tough this time).

Space Chaos by Samiljan

This felt really sluggish to me, but I don't know if it was running slow... it's just a slow-paced game. Or maybe it was running slow, and I'm wrong! It was REALLY annoying that the shots explode each other. I'm all for chain reactions, but you can't hold down fire (unless you fly backwards as everybody keeps enjoying), since that creates a stream of explosions coming back to you. Planting mines was more fun, but not particularly useful (and that definitely DID bog the game down after a couple dozen mines). Those badguys are just tough, they take a lot of beating, which kills the fun. If I could blast them away in a single shot that chains to kill some others, that would be awesome. Because otherwise, it feels good - flies smoothly and collides nicely (although the 'solidity' of the explosions was really weird).

Graphics are good - I think I heard on IRC that the asteroid was a rock from your yard, and I can tell. It looks really nice!

Next by saluk

Well... interesting idea, but it makes for a lame game. I didn't know what on earth was happening at first, but when I read the readme, the beams bouncing off of you until they matched you was clever. I like that idea, and if the combo scoring was in so you'd get credit for bouncing a laser before using it, that could be really cool (with huge bonuses for bouncing lasers of 2 different colors at once... I suppose 3 is impossible barring exceptional luck/timing).
Some explosion graphics would've made a big difference in understanding the distinction between dying and finishing a level, among other things.

Wacky idea, and good job reaching playability in 4 hours.

4 hours more… by RB0

I am assuming it's cool/non-harmful to do this, but I am giving all n/a's and posting to let you know I can't run it - hook us up with a py2exe!

Boostcraft by rale

I really liked this game except the minor detail that it wasn't fun. It was like a really good idea (and pure chain reaction!), but the shots moved so slowly that you can't plan at ALL. It felt like 99.5% luck (the 0.5% skill was aiming your initial shot to actually hit something, and picking a good one to click on). If the shots moved about 5x faster, then you could strategize like 'when this hits the triangle, its shots will go off in these directions, so that will do this'. You probably couldn't do it two levels deep, but you could at least make your first shot decent. Faster shots would also make the really dull waits at the end of levels go away, when you're sitting around until everything has left the screen.

You could even add in 'hold the mouse button down to slow time' (after you have clicked), so the shots move fast, but you can watch it in slow motion to plan for next time.

Very nice polish all around, with a really good level editor and great style. Although the first time I ran it, the screen came up in hideous orangey-pink colors, then was normal during play. It wasn't until I played and exited back to the menu that I realized the menu wasn't supposed to be hideous. Don't know what caused that!

There's a similarity to Peggle in this game, if you think about it. Though you might not want to.

THE CAVES OF INSANITY!! by philhassey

Everybody loves a game which involves leaving a trail of gunpowder! Level 3 really stumped me badly, but I finally did it. Then levels 4 and 5, fuggedaboutit! Never in my wildest dreams. I don't think I have the reflexes OR the mental capacity. It was fun just drawing and burning fuses though, I wish I had more easy levels to scribble on. Good original concept and gameplay, if only it weren't crazy hard. An extra Effort point for making the site!

Updated version of my game by Papper

Got the working version! But not entirely working. The keys wouldn't work really often, like I'd head down with space held, and then hit up to go back up and I'd just stop dead. Had to let go of all keys to get it going. This made it virtually impossible to play, and most of the boxes got away. But I got some of them!

I like the simple concept. I wanted the bombs to move forward more slowly, so I could accumulate a lot more of them. It always felt like I could only pop one small area of them instead of flooding the screen and blasting it all at once. I also wish they had a bigger blast radius, because it didn't feel right that my pile of bombs somehow managed to miss one of a set of 3 boxes.

I like the scrolly level intros, although I was so busy trying to get bombs out for the boxes, I couldn't really read them.

I like how it works conceptually... it's like being the Demoman in Team Fortress, except that lets you hide behind a wall and hit the button when you think it's the right time.

Aha, I figured out the key problem: if you push up while you still have down held (or same for left and right), you just stop. Even once you let go of the other direction, you don't move in the direction you still have held.

Marble Bomb by NyanNyanKoneko

I may be the winner of the "able to run this entry" contest! Worked fine, nothing even to install. I think that's because I installed stuff to run another XNA entry first. I don't think you knew what the theme was, though... it was completely absent here!

Also, as other people mentioned, the controls were HORRIFIC. I've played a bunch of these marble rolling games, and I've never seen one with a control scheme like this. It was absolute murder. Nice music and visuals, though.

Moonbase by noonat

I really liked the way the critters moved, and how their bodies exploded. It's really dumb that you can only shoot sideways, though I can see it's obviously for art reasons (forget the art, just let the bullets go in 8 directions anyway!). All the art is really cool, actually.

Definitely a totally pointless game. I played it right after wicked's game and it's the exact same experience (but bonus to you for having bombs to liven it up a bit) - just run in a circle with fire held down. This could become a good game, definitely, but there's really no reason to play it right now.

Basecamp Chain Reaction v1 by negativegeforce

Pretty unplayable... I managed to deliver one package on my second try before ending up face down on the planet. Same thing third try. I don't even really understand what the physics is that's pulling me around so much. Seems like when I am not holding a crate, I should have pretty good control of my facing!

Anyway, I didn't have fun because of that, and I can't really tell about the purported supply chain reactions, since I can't get more than one supply to the base. Gotta work on those controls!

GlobCombat: Final Entry (incomplete) by chaotikZA

Documentation has helped... some. I think this would actually be really tricky to play even if finished, because you'd have to memorize the interactions between elements, and it's really complex, not just a circular ring of 4.

Aside from figuring that out, it's a nifty chain reaction idea. I probably would've been figuring out the interactions if I had been trying to work through levels. If it were going to be puzzle-style, where you have a fixed set of runes and fixed enemies for each, retrying until you get it, that would be pretty fun and figurable. I just hope there'd be a chart onscreen to check the reactions!

Shrapnel by mjau

I blasted you on theme... I do see the chain reaction, but it's very rare and not really a meaningful part of the game (except that ONE moment where a bunch of guys come in tight formation). That could've been fixed entirely via level design, and it would've been really cool if this was a shooter where you could do awesomely by building up really good chain reactions. Ooh, then it could even score you based on the # of shots you fire, so the ultimate completion for each level is only firing like 10 shots at very specific strategic points. Maybe a combo multiplier that resets each time you shoot, so if you kill 100 guys with one bullet, you get a massive score.

Ah, but anyway, back to discussing your actual entry. It plays very nicely and the music is really good. If it wasn't unbelievably short, it'd be something I'd play a bunch just for fun!

Paramecium by midwinter

I read the explanations and IRC discussions, so I had an idea of what was happening... but that still didn't leave me any particular control over the outcome. Not very fun as a result. It controlled nicely, though.

As a a side note, you seem to have resurrected the Anti-Text theme from LD8.5! If only this had taken place on the moon.

Mr. Splode by lexaloffle

Awesome game that could easily become a real product, the action to Chocolate Castle's thinking. I wish the rockets didn't live as long as they do. I'm glad I retried a million times until I finally passed the evil 2nd level, because the levels after it really open up the gameplay with their "running from an exploding building" style. The 3rd level was a real experience.

The play control was excellent too.

Note to other players: R restarts the level, and you may end up needing it.

Boomshakalaka Done! by Lerc

Much too hard for me, but I like the concept (seen it in several other entries too!). I think it requires too much precision. So you tweak something by one pixel, then rerun the level and see it's off, and tweak it another. That's pretty tedious. I suppose it would be considered too wussy if it showed lines shooting off of the selected charge.

But I think it'd be a better game if the rotations were much more limited, like maybe 16 possible facings, or 32 at the outside. The puzzles would obviously need redesigning, but with that setup, you'd only be having trouble figuring out the puzzle, not lining up each shot. And the main thing for me, you'd be able to spot whether a pair of targets could be hit by this same target. A lot of shots in these puzzles didn't look possible to me (like "if I line up on that one, there's no way it could also hit the other one! Oh wait, it does"), so I didn't even consider that for the solution. Adding displayed lines would be one cure, limiting the rotation angles would be another.

Anyway, it's really hard, but nice looking, and good gameplay.

Unknown by jovoc

Yeah, what Fydo said.

ly by john

windows version get?

Cascade by Jay

What on earth is with the scores? I played for as long as I could bear it (that is the game over condition, right? Or is it when you run out of matches? Does that happen?) and only had 300 points. I can't imagine how long 17k took!

The lack of a highlight for the first thing you click on is seriously bad, as is the long delay before reac... oh WAIT. This is because I'm on satellite! AHA! Ignore my freakout about the scoring, because on my connection, it takes about 3 seconds for it to respond, so it's a very slow game for me. Okay, well the lack of a highlight for your first click is bad. And I still don't know how you lose.

It is a cool use of web tech, but it's not a good game. Bejeweled is a fairly bad game, and this is Bejeweled without most of the niceties. I would like to see this used for something interesting like a multiplayer board game or something.

Chain Pain: Final Submission by Jach

Very funny take on the theme. Mostly I don't like when people jerk the theme around, but that's pretty good. I'm rather concerned of what *specifically* my "two manlinesses" are, but I am so manly that losing them was effectively impossible. I let go of the keys around the 2 minute mark just so I could move on with my life.

So way too easy, and rather bad as a game (if I want to be doing that, I'll play Tony Hawk so I get to do flip tricks in between balancing sessions!), but a really funny entry.

Unknown by ha1f

I truly don't have any idea what happens in this game, and the readme doesn't explain it. WHY do the pops happen the way they do? One time I tried clicking a single blue one and cleared half the board. It just makes no sense to me. Maybe it's a puzzle, and the goal is to figure out what the rules are...

M3 – Molesting the Match-3 Market by gummikana

I like the concept, and it actually works quite well as a game - it's a match-3 that's pure strategy. But there's one huge flaw: the matches are found when individual columns hit the bottom, so a lot of big combos fail unfairly. You're "supposed" to let everything drop and then check for matches. Obviously, your game can have its own rules, but you get way better combos (and more intuitive ones, at least to me) if you delay the check. I also don't understand the definition of "chain" as this game defines it.

A cool game idea would be to take this idea, but give the player total freedom of level layout. So now, it seems trivial. But, you have a Player Satisfaction Meter (with a picture of a drooling idiot), and different things create different kinds of sparkles. So your goal is maximum satisfaction/sales, so you need to set up the level such that it gets, say, a 3 chain, then a star bonus, then a double combo, and so on (players like to see red sparkles followed by blue sparkles... and after you play this game for a few hours, you suddenly realize that it's making YOU the drooling idiot, just at a higher level, since you are trying to match up patterns to make it give YOU good feedback).

Just an idea! Good entry.

Rapid Polymerization of Free Radicals by greencow

I got an error about "side-to-side configuration". Weirdest error description I've ever seen. The EXE was only 20k, so I suspect it wasn't a working copy.

Ms Green’s lovely day by gimblll

I love this one!! Awesome use of the theme, and really cool style, and really good puzzles to solve. I don't have complaints other than no next-level button (or click on the end-level tally to go to the level select) and bug things.

Specific problems I noted: Droppers don't drop if triggered by the original laugher, only by other laughers. Jumpers can jump right through the big blocker blocks (but not through other walls, so that seems quite wrong). If you put two guys on top of each other, usually one will fall through the world.

Awesome entry.

Space Reactions by fydo

Okay, I really don't get this game... is it possible to lose at all? Well, I mean assuming you have control of your limbs. As long as you successfully hit the big planets with your rockets (which is hard not to do, thanks to gravity), the pieces will ALWAYS eventually hit the other planets. Hmm, I think I'll run it again to fail on purpose and see what that does! ...Wow, it took me 3 passed levels before I succeeded at failing (and I only failed that one by rapid firing as many missiles as possible - I barely avoided winning at the end!). But I got another cool guitar ditty for my troubles!

Great music and graphics, but I have to knock the fun rating. Maybe you should've made the game be to lose the levels, then it would be pretty hard. Seriously!

Catalyst by Frimkron

I had some HUGE problems with the controls. Lots of times when it would stop responding to clicks, or I was in a mode I couldn't quite cancel without frantic random clicking all over the place, or countries I couldn't seem to select until I clicked in the exact right place (or maybe I was just in one of those broken modes).

In your journal you say "the animation gets a little jerky when there's a lot happening", which makes me wonder if it's just running badly for some reason on my PC. Because the explosions on mine were maybe at 2fps max. It took a very very long time for missiles to fly to their destination. I thought that was really annoying realism, but maybe it was just a technical problem!

So anyway, as for the game, that was a clever usage of the theme, and a really interesting set of rules. I like how it works, but I wish you had much better information display. Besides the fact that it was so hard to click on countries, it was a pain to have to do so to keep track of the relationships. Similarly, the control scheme could be improved a lot. It was really clunky and a lot of clicks involved per turn.

So I like the game, and I'd be really intrigued with how it would work out in practice, but I wasn't too pleased with the implementation (possibly heavily influenced by how my computer handled it, for whatever reason).

Didn’t finish, got pretty far though… by Fiona

Holy crap... I think one of the bullet hell design rules is that you have to make there be somewhere on the screen where there aren't bullets at some point in time. Papper gave a very appropriate award.

I appreciate "Mans:". I wish the chain reaction element was stronger (and didn't come back and shoot me in the face so much) and more apparent, but it's definitely there. I really expected a flood of shooters kind of like this, but so far I've only seen a couple.

The control really needs to be tighter (mainly just slower) to make dodging more possible. On these kinds of shooters, usually your ship moves really slowly, so you can precisely place yourself between bullets. Of course, they also give you a really small hitbox, which is another lifesaver. I was flinging my big self everywhere here, and boom. Brutal.

Lastly: whoa, I can't believe even the 'helpful' chain reaction shrapnel can kill me. Guess I'll never know what weapon comes after 3 powerups! But hey, I finally finished the game (with 1 Mans left)! Hooray for me!

Chain Reaction: Detonator, the final? by Endurion

It's a good entry, but just like with Lerc's game, having to try and then redo with 1-pixel changes over and over was really tiresome. In this case it was worse, since the correct solution for some ball puzzles (or the one I found anyway!) involves the balls just BARELY tapping something, so they take about 10 seconds to actually get there before you find out if it works or not.

But don't let that fool you, it's a really good entry despite the frustration involved.

HeliChain by drZool

I had XNA stuff installed from the other entries, and I got them to work, but this one is a crash on start. Sorry! Down with XNA!

Final entry! I’m late! by DrPetter

Crashed on startup first try, but the second try worked, so I went with it.

First of all, secret trick: If you pound ground next to the water, so it's at water level, you can then floodfill that ground to erase all the water! This lets you go see the magical edge of the world, where stuff doesn't get erased.

This entry was WAY more fun than at least half of the actual game entries. Really good play control, and I'm glad you got the display worked out, it looks very solid. I don't know why you can floodfill (I guess that's the closest thing you have to a chain reaction...), but it's pretty fun to do. I also enjoyed raising land. I wish I could choose up/down, I got tired of running over somewhere to pound down in order to continue building my mountain.

The head is creepy.

Fairy’s Light by DraykDyna

Very weird and hard to understand. Technical problems: ESC locking the game up with no way to exit, and a crash on the 2nd level. I have no idea what some of those crystals ever did... one made noise, I guess.

It would've been very nice if the cursor was mouse controlled, but I guess that wasn't in the cards. I think you maybe got too ambitious - should've stuck with the core concept, like maybe left click=jump, right click=toggle laser blob. Then only have bricks, unbreakable bricks, and laser blobs. A lot of solid gameplay could've been derived just from that, and you would've had more time to polish it off.

Mission Accomplished! Or, as Confucius would say, To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short by Deepflame

I really liked this at first, but then later on it got SO confusing. The way you can sometimes put cords over a woodpile and sometimes can't, and things like that. It just didn't seem like I could consistently express to the game what I want to do. Kind of like a text adventure - part of the puzzle was figuring out how the game wanted it to be entered!

What I really would've liked would be freedom to lay pieces down wherever I wanted. I'd always look at the wood in my inventory and say "I want that right there..." but have to wait for my cord to be in place first. Then the ability to pick them back up to fix mistakes would truly improve my life!

If it weren't for the challenge of telling the game what I want, it'd be a great and original puzzle, that really takes a lot of thought to work out. The combo of fast and slow cords is an interesting touch, and gas clouds that get pulled to the exit is logical in a good way.

What I can't figure out is why this cave has multicolored walls.

Finally by BenW

I got 1:16. I think I comprehend the game... it's similar to Mr. Driller (but backwards mentally and sideways physically). I don't know if it's that exciting to me... I guess it's that it's much more tactical (responding to your immediate circumstances) than strategic (nothing to consider for the long, or even medium, term at all). Combined with the visuals and audio, that makes it a real zone-out game.

It's really original, really stylish, and I think it will be one of the top 'sticky' games of the compo, that people will replay and try to improve in.

TheCrawlyCrab by baggi

There's something totally broken in the controls here... I don't know if it's just on my computer, but the controls just don't respond 2/3 of the time, it's all clunky and broken. It's very weird. On top of that, the killer cone doesn't really seem able to hit guys. It's on me, and I can't overlap the crabs, so I somehow killed one with it, but then followed another around constantly attacking to no effect.

So I guess what I'm saying is the gameplay doesn't work at all (I also think the crabs are slow moving and hard to herd, but I'm not sure because I just couldn't move myself enough to really see). Too bad because it sounds good, and everything looks good.

Towers of Skye “tech demo” by Archwyrm

py2exe that sucka! Can't test it.

Unknown by allefant

There's an issue here where it completely freezes up visually when you set off a chain that has more than 5 or 6 bombs in it. If you wait out the explosion noises, it eventually shows you the results (usually just the next level, or that level restarted - was very tricky to solve the first megabomb level, since I had to guess what was killing me!).

The mechanism for triggering bombs is weird. I got it after a while, and I understand why it's needed... but it's weird!

I really think the music was illegal (nothing wrong with using public domain songs - but perform them yourself within the deadline! It's not like it's hard to copy down Jingle Bells from a million online sources), but I rated audio for the sound effects instead, ignoring the music.

Doesn't feel like a very original game, but it's a well-done implementation of one. I was most impressed with the design done on the final level! I had no idea that would happen.

Ramuh-Shmoo by Sophie Houlden

Total abject theme failure. But what an awesome game! Super fun, awesome graphics, story mode, profanity, chomping wires in your teeth (and just chomping your teeth freely whenever you wish!), time attack mode, nice play control, and wiggly wire physics.

I really want to learn flash.

LD2 — Construction/Destruction (40)

Bleten by illume

What an odd game. The devil sheep scared me very much, but I pressed on nonetheless. It's an interestingly sheepy game, but I don't think the gameplay really works (didn't actually play it against anyone, just theorizing here), because there isn't really strategy - you poop as much as you can when on your side, and eat as fast as you can on their side. I could be crazy though, and entire leages of eaters and poopers could pop up all around the world.

I like the stick animation for eating. I'm glad there isn't an animation for any other sheep activity.

Bleaters by sjbrown

I loved the sheep graphics! And some great sounds, including extra bonus for different sounds for each sheep type (and oddly, warcraft sounds out of the blue). It kind of reminds me a little bit of Insaniquarium in the gameplay department. Rather odd.

Royally painful to try to click on sheep when they were not interested in being clicked on (zipping along at 100 miles an hour!), and really frustrating when they couldn't figure out how to get where they were told.

The debug info in the console window was really helpful in figuring out how to play!

The way the sheep would partly disappear when sent into the shearing place was problematic, as was the occasionally missing selection markers and stuff.

Bug report: one time, on the second level, grass just stopped growing for good, so I eventually lost.

SheepCom by Slate

The wall-painting was cool, the onslaught was frightening, the lack of a goal or effect of sheep was disappointing, the limiting of the mouse to the upper bit of the screen was odd, and the graphics were cool. I'm really surprised how well it ran - after dumping 64 billion walls everywhere, the framerate was unchanged. Maybe I should try this ogre thing!

Onslaught! Sounds intriguing, no? by bugboy

Well, you get the award for being the first person to ignore the cosmetic theme as opposed to ignoring the gameplay theme! Which is an improvement over what we all did, to be honest.

I've been running around yelling "TIME FOR AN ONSLAUGHT!!!! AAAAA!!!" because it amuses me so. Though, to be more proper, your game could've used some actual meaningful in-game sounds. The not enough money sound also made me laugh.

The way the objects scoot out of each others' way when dropped is extremely cool, I don't even know how you implemented that. There's probably a cool game idea right there, just based around that mechanic.

It's fun to me to have a round of building up defenses and then see how they do (I even proposed it as a theme: Be Prepared!), so that was cool.

The amount of stuff you can build and/or the size of it is a bit much for the small screen, as are the big onslaughters trying to squeeze their way in. It gets to be quite a mess.

I like how the helicopter controls.

UPDATE: The updated version adds the earlier levels, where sheep did exist. They're not on level 3, hence nobody thinking the game had sheep. So 5 for cosmetic... if you put sheep in, you get a 5 from me. However, the new version locked up when I finished level 2, so I'm not THAT pleased with it.

Sheep Dome by LordCovenant

Strangely enough, the no-sound version didn't work (at all, not even the intro), but once I had installed it, the sound version DID (maybe because I had run the other version first? Whatever!).

It's really not playable, because the mouselook is INSANE (and capable of looking straight down or straight up, which is too far, makes you feel like a magical floating sphere), and of course lots of stuff either doesn't work right or isn't implemented (and it crashed out eventually, when I was firing the machine gun too much - I think there's a problem with the machine gun explosions, they slowed the game to a crawl when close up, and crashed it that one time). But, the overall technology, though it's as broken as the first release of Anarchy Online, is also really impressive. It's a full fledged 3D shooter, with the ability to create floating platforms as you go. I even got to shoot out the platform from under my opponent (too bad I couldn't also hurt him). I think this could be made into a complete game that would be really fun, played online like UT, people frantically making and destroying platforms and shooting at each other.

So it's simultaneously a fairly weak entry (very incomplete and broken, very bad controls), and a very impressive one (great potential, impressive technical achievement, lots of different items and sounds, great music- best of compo in music I think). Time to come up with some scores...

Attack Sheep by Zaphos

AWESOME idea. This is a super ultimate hyper cool game concept. It doesn't really work, mainly because the stuff you set up in your robot never goes away (kind of limiting the programming aspect), but it's so cool. So cool.

Program robot to solve puzzle...... hmm... Everybody keep an on the next release from Hamumu Software, it might be a little familiar.

Final by entheh

Pretty much unplayable. HOWEVER, it's really well made and solid and seems like a good game, it's just that the perspective makes it completely impossible to play. It's technically impressive, it looks nice (the sheep are good!), and it's a good game idea, with what appear to be some good physics when you can see what they're up to. Good music. Forgot the destruction.

Sheepers by crims

Yay, the windows one works (same problem as other pygames/SDLs for windows: occasionally big chunks of screen jump around). Now make up your mind: SHEEPERS, or SHEEPINGS. You can't have it both ways.

I'm not gonna give much credit on gameplay here, since, well, it'd be hard to do a more exact clone of Lemmings! But it works well, it's well implemented. There's some really important stuff missing though, like countdowns, indications of how many to save, stuff like that. But it was still quite playable, and solvable and all. It died on me in the fourth? (where you had to dig down) level, I'm pretty sure because one of my sheeperings went off the right edge of the screen (left edge occurred safely in previous levels, however).

Sound would've added a lot, as would the typical lemmings particle deaths. Another nice thing would've been speed-up mode.

Sheep Attack by SodoMaxx

Got it running now. I couldn't figure out the first mission for a while either... WAY too much open space there! But I finally got it. It's a cool game, I love the way the sheep unflock to you, it makes for some cool patterns (although they look more like cattle, with horns). It was fun and interesting smashing them into the building. Very cute rendered graphics. It could desperately use a mini-map or something like that, there's a lot of just plain getting lost involved. And of course... more levels!

sheep by Impossible

Wow, it shows screenshots now while we vote. That's neato!

The game ran okay for me, high speed, lots of sheep plowing by (not broken speed like I've seen other people mention though - it was quite reasonable). Not much of a game though... Even though all the sprites face sideways, I think it still would've been a much better game if you shot upward at the sheep coming towards you out of the screen. That way at least, you would know what's coming. As it is, very little clue when or where they are.

Funny that the guy's walk animation includes firing his gun, and he has no firing animation!

Plenty of destruction, no construction, and a whole pile of sheep.

Some bugs with regard to where you can walk (I went up a hill, hit the end, presumably the end of the world, then could only get halfway back down the hill).

World Domination: Sheep vs Wolves by ghowland

Always good geopolitical intrigue from geoffh. Except that he never finishes them, so they go nowhere. I think it would've been a fun game... I miss the cool battle scenes that he mocked up.

One gameplay problem I see, or think I do: I started in australia, filled that pan pacific region and moved into asia, at which point my pan-pacific troops were useless. You need to have a way to move troops to neighboring countries, so you can produce stuff and move it to the front (of course I can see other things like gameplay taking priority... just pointing out a possible design flaw). A game like this would be really fun to play, we used to play risk in my dorms. So fix it up!

Sheep Strike by PoVRAZOR

Really good for the theme! It's also a really good concept overall, but it's very unfinished. Took me about 15 rounds of sitting back and watching to get my wolves killed, once I had played a few rounds of defending, so it could stand to have a little bit of difficulty...

Cute graphics, especially the wolves. It has the same flickering problem my allegro game does. When will they release an improved version of allegro!?!?

48game valles by valles

Whoa. Wham. The most freakishly arbitrary arrangement of lines, letters, numbers, and symbols I've ever seen. I'm afraid I'm not big on modern art, so I can't rate this very highly.

SheepSiege by Kuja

Really really unfinished... or at least needs a serious readme if it's not, because I was very lost. Also seemed to be awfully random, building blocks in places completely different from where the cursor was, sometimes moving the screen, other times moving the cursor... just weird, I didn't understand what was happening.

I give good credit for writing something for GBA! And obviously if you can get that in 48 hours, I think you can probably make a real game given real time. Which is pretty cool. The rotating sheep were cute.

I'm only scoring the categories I can feel confident in...

Trans-Icelandic Express by jovoc

This game was super interesting and unique. It was DAMN hard to control though. If the control had been easier to use (mainly the camera issues, I understand why there was sliding, of course... although not why ice looks like multicolored stained glass), it seems like it'd be a really cool weird kind of skill/puzzle game. It's very unique.

Down theme points for ignoring destruction (mostly).

Union Jack - with by nonnus29

Side scroller can be fun... the sheep turning into abominable snowmen was extremely weird. The evil demon sheep was cool, I was very disappointed I didn't get to interact with it.

Weird technical problems - the first time I played, the other day, it ran great, but today it's in super slo-mo. Weird.

It would REALLY help if the grenades would detonate on impact. They're useless as it is, which is sad since they're the coolest weapon.

Anyway, few theme points from me, that's pretty darn tacked on.

Final submission of "Living Sheep" by mikedoty

Some weird iffy things like the instructions flying by, made me take a couple times through to start getting the idea (didn't know about rainbows at all until my second runthrough). Once I understood, it's a pretty cool game. The whole lemmings business is good, but it's sad that there's only one tool (for 48-hour reasons, I presume). I felt pretty clever when I finally figured out the last level, but it was also pretty darn annoying, since you have to keep waiting for the sheep to get close before you can build rainbows. I was going through this big process of moving forward a rear wall (to keep them from traveling too far each trip around) and gradually building up the stuff to advance their bridge a measly 2 spaces. Very time consuming, without adding anything to the game.

Bonus points for the level editor (much more full featured than certain other ones...). Good that it has all the menus and features and stuff, although "About This Game" doesn't appear to work. After trying out the level editor, I see that there are a bunch of other tools in there and working, too bad the included levels don't use those! I'm guessing level creation is where the time ran out on this one.

Good entry.

SoaringSheep final entry by LoneStranger

Aha! The readme should really mention (besides the fact that this game is not so simple!) that you need to reload your sheep by going to the bottom and hitting the fire button. I was very confused for quite a while.

When I did figure it out, it's cool, because it's a ballistics game, but there's a huge fatal flaw. Since the stacks of wool are affected by gravity, and there's no target other than the stack itself, there's almost no skill or technique involved in hitting it! That's a pretty serious gameplay issue...

But ballistics stuff is fun, and better so in real time so you don't have to wait for your slow opponent. And calling for repairs is nice too.

Sheep Pop! by Nate

Okay, it's cute and kinda fun, but could hardly be LESS theme related! Super simple game with cute graphics.

save the sheep by UberHaxor

I didn't have a lot of fun playing. I think it would've been more fun if the controls were smoother (i.e. not keyrepeat based, just let the player go... or better yet, use the mouse to move it for great control), and diagonal movement was allowed. Another negative was that there was no 'winning', just putting off inevitable death.

But the graphics were really good, and the little sheep were so well animated and smooth. Looked great. Good concept, very much fitting the theme.

Robo Sheep by mfassett

That is THE most eerily accurate cockroach simulator I have ever seen. It's like an Orkin ad. It's really kinda creepy! I love that it has the money aspect, and the flamethrower is great. Actually, the regular cannon looks cooler - those spinning bullets and explosions are super cool.

This was pretty good overall - big problems include: useless fences, it doesn't matter whether your grass gets eaten (and you can't die), and it's one of those games where you don't really have a major impact (there's no real way to make less grass get eaten... I bet if you moved much faster, you could have some say in the matter!).

But those aside, it's actually one of the cooler entries. Shopping for weapons is cool. So are triple flamethrowers. And of course combos.

Battlefield Sheep by Ufo Z

This one was pretty cool. Your sheep guy was really cute and funny. I presume the enemies were wolves, but they damn well looked like cats to me. The building of the turret and hopping in and then shooting it artillery style was cool - practically two games worth of work went into this! As someone else said, it could lead to a cool 2-player game (though it might need walls you could build to stop the bullets... hey, you could spend your metal pieces either on the wall, or on turrets!). I really like the pixel-precise landscape stuff, and it's also fun to smack cats with a stick. Funny sound!

Not too tough to get yourself stuck on the landscape though!

Sheeps R Us by Gutter

Good concept and cute graphics. There was a subtle thing missing about the gameplay though - you just were endlessly fighting against things, with no real goal. In the end, when I quit, it said how much money I had left, so I guess that's your point total, but I don't know, since you have to spend so much of it constantly to keep the wall up, I would've preferred an actual score as well (something as simple as how much money you've accumulated, ignoring spending, would be good). Or maybe it was just too easy to stay alive, provided you had the patience to keep slapping down new wall bits. In the end I just got tired of the constant wall-building and shooting, so I quit. So I think it's lacking a little something in that regard, something to make you want to keep going (maybe it's just too easy!).

But I like the idea, and it's well done. Really solid and good entry.

chicken by yq713

The construct/destruct gun is cool. Very innovative! I think it's really ironic though that the level is designed so that you don't need to use it at all. I was hoping I could destruct the chickens. I think there is a lot of cool stuff that could be done from this concept, although it would be nice if the shots would arc, so that you could construct in places other than where you have a direct side shot (and so you could build things up too).

Not much game there, but the story was great, the excuse was great, the music was... well, it had music. And the concept was really good.

Definitely would be nice if you could play more than once without restarting it.

Sheep O Rama by Bastian von Halem

Aha! Once I started to get the concept of how it works, it made sense (and figured out that by L-shift, the author meant right shift). It doesn't fit the theme, to me - there is construction, and I suppose destruction in a way (better than most entries!), but not really "gameplay about destroying and constructing".
This is one of those games that's kind of hard to feel like you're really having a big effect on the outcome. But it's got interesting gameplay ideas, like how you are planting grass to keep them from starving, and need to build walls to stop the wolves. And I always like being able to pick up critters in games. Didn't see much purpose to it in this game though, so I only did it a couple times at the beginning.

The farmer guy is cute looking too. Straight top-down people are hard to draw.

Sheep & Crates by elak

Awesome graphics. No destruction, some construction, plenty of sheep. It's actually fun against another person, despite how pointless it seems, especially if you start stealing crates.

HOWEVER... I don't know what the hell kind of keyboard the author has, but on my keyboard, the dash is NOWHERE near the comma and dot. This made being player 2 an exercise in confusion and brain rewiring. It was fun though. I'd recommend arrow keys for P2 - further from P1's keys, and much more guaranteed to be intact on every keyboard.

Another weird thing was the way the hooks worked. Sometimes after coming up from a miss or something you'd have to hit it a few times to make it pop open and shut before it'd drop again. Whatever it was, it seemed fairly intentional, but it was weird. Kinda frustrating when that happened.

Another thing: would've been nice if the keyboard could've done some of the things you had to click past (like title screen, winner screen), since you're on the keyboard to play the game.

The Sheep Wars by shang

This is a good idea, and in theory the graphics look very nice... but in practice, they look like total crap. It's something to do with clipping planes or the z-buffer (as someone else said, the sheep look like zebras, though there are problems with everything else too). The graphical problem aside, I really like the concept and gameplay. The problem is, it's way too hard! The control is difficult, and the computer is insane! With a weaker opponent, and some pathfinding or something (or probably keyboard control would be better), this would be a fun game, especially for two player competition. Good concept and all that.

Sheep Town by ShredWheat

I won it without cheating! The trick is first reading the readme, so you understand how shepherds work, secondly starting over many times until you realize you need to start with a shearer and 2 houses, and third, being willing to let a few sheep die of thirst or hunger. Another good trick is keeping your shepherds at just the right distance - then a couple pixels one way makes them 'away', a couple pixels back makes them 'home'. Very handy!

Which leads me to a complaint: When the shepherds pick the sheep to take, they happily take ones that are dying of thirst. So when you have a mix of hungry and thirsty sheep, SOMEBODY's gonna die. Should've just extended the algorithm a little to pick the hungriest, least thirsty sheep.

This game is awesome!! And has so much to it for 48 hours. The sliding interface thing is great, the little sheep are great, the sound is great, the whole thing is polished and complete.

I would've liked if after you won, you kept playing, since it is kind of all about micromanaging. Although, there isn't really enough to do for that to work out, so it'd need to be expanded more, and then, well, that's a complete game, not a 48-hour game! As it is, it was a great challenge to try to meet, my favorite so far.

Minus: The only entry I've played so far that actually forgets the DEstruction instead of the CONstruction!

Another semi-minus: It really would've made more sense simwise if there was just a button to send shepherds home or away. It's sort of more interactive the way it is, with the whole RTS thing, but since it's just symbolic anyway, it's needless complexity. But it makes it seem more lively and real though, so maybe it's best this way. It's quite unique!

A bug that happened sometimes was that it would suddenly at random start jerking - not in terms of play speed, but rather, it'd grab a big chunk of the screen and start plopping it way off to one side (and back, alternating in a seizure-inducing frenzy), sort of like insanely bad shearing (no pun). Maybe a bug with dirty rectangles? Would go away and come back occasionally, usually about once per game. THis is with the pre-compiled windows version (and thank you for that, I don't want to install python, so any other python entrants, listen up! Widen your audience! If you don't have windows, ask someone else to compile it for you, I compiled somebody's entry for windows! *note: it wasn't python though, I can't do that, since like I said, I don't have it installed. So ask someone else!)

Sheepenstein by drZool

Definitely an amazingly unfair game... nearly impossible for the constructor. Especially weird: why does the constructor have to wait so long before hitting the on button each time?

Great graphics though, and a good idea, to have someone destroy them and someone else try to rebuild (although it really forces the builder to hinge entirely on the shooter... he has nothing to do if the other guy doesn't shoot... releasing sheep is fairly pointless). Kinda slow-paced overall. Weird weird game.

Good sound too, and I love the way the sheep munch.

But I swear that on-button thing is a major bug.

Mut Shbin by Thenend

This is surprisingly good! I don't buy the construction aspect, common problem there, but the destruction is wholesale.

There's a big big problem with the hit detection on the sonic beeeee, which really hurts my enjoyment. I also wish you could completely finish off a building, instead of leaving it as a charred husk (especially so then you could walk through where it was).

I'm _extremely_ impressed with the sheep sprite... 8 ways, with animation! The rest was okay, but I'll definitely give it a good graphics score.

It would've been more fun if it was faster paced - too much slowing and stopping. Maybe being able to move while attacking or something.

I like giant-monster-destroy-city games.

Sheep Rescue by MattB

This is the most polished game I've played yet! What a manual! And an actual control configuration... can you imagine??? It's also extremely unique and innovative. I'm gonna try playing it with someone later and see how that goes (although I'm the only serious gamer in the house...).

I realize it helps you deal with all the constructing, but the super slow gravity was just weird. kinda like being underwater.

The whole building thing, and the sheep pushing, all very cool and unique. I like it a lot. Supremely annoying sheep noise.

Sheep Suckers by postalrat

This one was amazing to me! Technically very impressive, and a really unique and interesting game. It's frigging impossible for me, maybe I just don't get it... I'd have had more fun if I had a lot more money available on each level, so I could experiment with the suckers more.

I'm very impressed and liked it a lot, even though it was too hard for my meager brain cells.

Entry by DavemanInSeattle

I love the wolf... both the chainsawing and the munching. And actually the wandering around is amusing too.

However, like some others said, there's not much point, since he doesn't even slow down at fences! I realize the idea is to fence the sheep into a place where the wolf isn't, but... the wolf moves completely at random. So not much help there. Maybe I just don't know the strategy.

Also would be good if you couldn't build fences right on the sheep.

Great soundfx. Got construction, not destruction (for the player, anyway... well, you can blow up the fences... hmm... this theme just made no frigging sense). Got sheep!

Bathroom Teacher by mrfun

Wow, got to level 13 that time... That game is like a really hardcore version of House Of The Dead. Except you have to have masterful ribbon-recognition skills, which I certainly do not. It's a good game in a weird way. Considering the theme, I don't trust those to be mud balls I'm throwing, though.

Totally blew it on the theme like everybody... not quite sure how to grade the graphics. Amazing photorealism, how on earth did he draw such things!?! What an artist!!!!

BallerSchaf - Sheep of Death by Balooga03

Funny thing I just noticed: you can sorta steer your bullets. Is that intentional?

Pretty good... Most annoying music since 1942 (not the year, the NES game). Cool intro. Seriously lacking in a point, since it seems the explosions DON'T hurt your tank, and getting combos is very much a matter of luck (rare luck!), since the sheep are spread pretty wide. And I second the concern over just where these bullets are coming from!

Suffers from themitis like almost every entry (including mine): no construction!!

Cute style, cartoony. It's a pretty good job overall.

The Destruction of The Sheep by Jolle

This is good wicked fun. I got stuck on the single mine level, since that's the first level where you need your brain. After bouncing 500 sheep straight to hell just previously, my brain was in no condition to figure it out (you can't delete arrows, can you? ooh... I have a theory... too bad I have to go back over every level to get to that one again! Add a level skip cheat at least!).

Way too easy up until that level, most levels were just trivial fun, but that's okay, because the operative word is fun! Just because victory is inevitable doesn't mean it's not fun getting there. Good sound, good graphics, good theme, good gameplay. Good entry.

Killer Sheep, And A Cool Zombie! by Pintle

The intro was really good, and the graphics are really cute, and the fact that it's utter nonsense is interesting (good? kinda... I don't know). But I really deeply hated the basic concept of the gameplay - the 15 seconds you wait for a block to be made. That combined with the time limit meant you couldn't ever lose a block to the sheep and still pass the level, or be slow in building one. So you could effectively lose a level in the first 20 seconds, but still play it out hopelessly. Perfect fit to the theme, destroy things in order to finance construction!

SheepShifter by JM

Pretty clever puzzle game... still seems odd that you have pandas flying out of the cursor on the title screen, and a sheepdog as a main character.
(I am joking, I understand what they were intended to be)

The mines add an interesting element to the puzzle solving which I haven't seen before. I'm glad you added switches to see them, because otherwise, shee-esh.

Good and polished, fun (my wife was very determined to solve all the levels!), good graphics... easy easy levels... could use more than one sound effect....

Great game!

Biggest problem: totally nothing to do with the theme at all (okay, a SMIDGE, you get a 2). A very common problem.

Sammy The Sheep by Tybal

Too damn frantic for me to handle! I think if it wasn't at an insane pace (those jittering eyeballs are what really stress me out!), it would be pretty cool. As it is, I just can't handle it. The bridge ability is useless, since the platforms are so close, and your sheep is filled with helium, but that's actually a good thing, since there is NO time to mess around with barfing up bridges!

A good effort, but too much stress for me to take. I like my games calm and peaceful, like UT2003.

Sheep Massacre by Josh5231

Seriously buggy for me... the menu zipped around like crazy (had to very lightly tap the keys), bullets appeared out of nowhere heading crazy directions, sheep would come flying out of the side of the screen and bowl into other sheep, when I died on hard it went back to the title, only I couldn't choose play game again... just weird, not very polished or functional.

Good control on the main guy, and it's always fun to have massive full auto firepower. Impossible to really avoid or deal with the sheep in any way too. Not very themey, like most.