Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → Users → Hoichael
| Year | LD | Theme | Game | Division | Rank | Ov | Fu | In | Th | Gr | Au | Hu | Mo | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 57 | Depths | Listening Winds | jam | 207 | 3.84 | 3.32 | 3.94 | 3.78 | 4.40 | 3.62 | 4.09 | ||
| 2023 | 52 | Harvest | 👥 | When It's Harvest Time | jam | 361 | 3.55 | 3.30 | 3.19 | 3.50 | 3.44 | 3.71 | 4.34 | 3.76 |
| 2022 | 50 | Delay the inevitable | 👥 | The Valley | extra | |||||||||
| 2021 | 49 | Unstable | 👥 | Sitter | jam | 913 | 3.40 | 3.00 | 3.65 | 4.32 | 3.67 | 3.60 | 3.92 | 3.57 |
| 2021 | 48 | Deeper and deeper | 👥 | DRIFTDOWN | jam | 929 | 3.50 | 3.47 | 2.47 | 3.93 | 3.68 | 4.02 | 2.43 | 3.61 |
| 2020 | 47 | Stuck in a loop | 👥 | Day in the Life of an Ordinary Turtle | jam | 1100 | 3.30 | 2.81 | 2.77 | 4.00 | 4.28 | 3.85 | 3.57 | 3.63 |
| 2020 | 46 | Keep it alive | 👥 | The Hum | jam | 812 | 3.65 | 3.00 | 3.11 | 3.84 | 4.20 | 4.15 | 2.66 | 4.11 |
| 2019 | 45 | Start with nothing | 👥 | Working Title | jam | 572 | 3.43 | 3.11 | 3.27 | 3.72 | 3.34 | 3.70 | 2.39 | 3.28 |
| 2019 | 44 | Your life is currency | 👥 | Stabman! | jam | 1122 | 2.52 | 2.40 | 2.28 | 2.86 | 2.47 | 2.89 | 2.56 | 2.67 |
| 2018 | 43 | Sacrifices must be made | 👥 | Nihilistic Nurture Navigation | jam | 704 | 3.20 | 2.88 | 3.16 | 2.97 | 3.02 | 3.50 | 3.00 | 3.08 |
| 2018 | 42 | Running out of space | 👥 | Star Skipper | jam | 1178 | 2.71 | 2.50 | 2.53 | 3.13 | 2.32 | 2.38 | 2.00 | 2.57 |
| 2018 | 41 | Combine 2 Incompatible Genres | 👥 | Medieval Melody Mayhem | jam | 939 | 3.06 | 2.77 | 2.83 | 3.04 | 2.93 | 2.35 | 2.20 | 2.43 |
| 2017 | 40 | The more you have, the worse it is | 👥 | Mother Earth: Failed Planet | jam | 1022 | 2.88 | 3.00 | 3.19 | 3.50 | 2.20 | 3.00 | 2.55 | 2.27 |
Cool entry, very unique atmosphere. You went with a similar interpretation of a "loop" as we did, and, funnily enough, a similar approach to breaking out of it ;) Aside from that, I found a bug (see img). At one point the game started supplying me with dough during the breakfast screen (accompanied by a 2nd floating, uncontrollable arm). Not sure how to reproduce it, sorry.asdf1234.PNG
Cool game! The core mechanic is simple, but also has enough depth to have kept me hooked for a solid 15 minutes. One minor criticism I have is that the player character swords obscure enemy projectiles. Of course, due to the sequenced nature of projectile behavior you can at anytime predict what position projectiles will be on the next tick (or determine where they are currently, based on their position on the previous tick) but I don't see any issues with rendering enemy projectiles above the player instead of beneath it as a quality of life improvement.
I really really really enjoyed this, hands down the best LD48 game I've played so far - which is even more impressive considering this is a compo entry. Great visuals (I particularly like the "glitchy" effect on the player sprite), great audio and excellent puzzle design. 5/5
Cool game! Well designed puzzles (even though a little too easy) and very appealing visuals, especially the curved distortion and level transitions.
Simple but fitting audio. Reminds me a little of steve reich, minus the compositional complexity ;)
However (as already stated by the other comments) it's a little frustrating that there is no option to restart a level and that dying (or messing up box placements, forcing you to reset) makes you replay the whole thing. There's no good reason for that since there isn't really mechanical skill involved in completing a level, so once you've solved the puzzles you don't really get anything out of replaying already completed sections. It's not that big of a deal considering the games length and difficulty but it does somewhat taint the otherwise great experience - but I know how easy it is to misjudge the importance of these things amidst jam stress.
Overall good stuff though, especially considering it's a compo entry.
Nice game, especially the presentation. My only criticism would be the balancing. The first 6 layers / 600 meters felt way too easy while the 7th layer suddenly threw 15 enemies at once at me. Not sure how I was supposed to handle them with the mechanics at my disposal. But I get that procedural generation (I assume the levels are procedurally generated?) takes quite a bit of time to balance so it's really hard to get these things right within the scope of a jam.
On another note, do the torches provide purely "visual" value by making areas outside of your direct surroundings visible or do they serve another purpose? sorry if it was explained and I missed it.
Overall i really like this. Creative use(s) of the theme, unique gameplay and solid visuals and audio.
You probably should have made it more clear (in the LD description or within the game itself) what the actual goal is. Upon finally reuniting the characters i was a little confused as to why the game isn't over and had to check the comments to realize that it had only just begun ;) But this isn't really a problem with the game itself, just a superficial communication issue. Unfortunately i wasn't able to finish the game after finding out about the actual goal but since I really like the concept I'll maybe revisit it at some point.
I would say that there are 2 main gameplay loops: exploration (the maze aspect, trial and error) and the navigation aspect (based in quick reactions and mechanical skill). My biggest criticism is that you probably should have committed to either of those, for example to the latter one by supplying the player with a map, effectively eliminating the maze aspect. It's definitely possible to have both gameplay loops play an important role (and I can see the vision behind that), but in its current form the game lacks the required polish to make it work - which is of course completely understandable, name a more iconic duo than game jams and overambition ;)
Yes, the game is hard, but imo not in a negative way (for the most part) since the frustration i occasionally experienced plays perfectly into the concept of trying to manage your two dummies and prevent them from running into their demise. But, while I really like the sprite and sounds of the ghost enemy type, I feel like in its current implementation it shouldn't be in the game. I think homing hazards are too hard on the player considering the control scheme.
As a minor nitpick, i think the visuals would greatly profit from higher contrast / stronger colors, but take that with a grain of salt since these matters largely come down to personal preference and maybe you deliberately went for this style.
wonderful game. I love the algorithmic problem solving aspect, the visuals are great too. The music drove me a little insane though :D
Great work. Not my type of game but the presentation kept me interested for quite a bit, I especially like the animated interior of the factory room. Great audio and UI design too, the latter is something people tend to underrate when it comes to presenting a coherent experience but you absolutely nailed it!
beautiful game, very atmospheric visuals. it's unfortunate that the audio from the repo didn't make it into the game as sound is essential for creating a tight atmosphere. If you make a post jam version including sounds, feel free to tag me and I'll check it out! :)
on another note: I got soft locked in the upper right corner of the level (see img) which ended up being a very strange situation as I was unable to move, but the fish was also unable to reach me because he apparently got stuck in a solid, so both me and the fish were just stuck, sitting still inanimately. Shortly after that I realized I could just shoot him so, to make it even stranger, the soft lock ended up gifting me a dirty, undeserved victory :Dasdf.PNG
I had a lot of fun with this. Took me a while to get the hang of the controls, but once I did, the gameplay had a very satisfying flow to it. The fast and responsive gameplay paired with the extensive upgrade system makes for quite an addictive gameplay loop. The combat + movement mechanics also have considerable depth to them skill wise.
The only real issue is that everything is a little janky. Some deaths I had made me feel like i got screwed over by misconfigured collision boxes, might have just been a miscalculation on my part though. Also I'm not sure if enemy projectiles should be able to pass through solids, considering how confined your available space is (even after digging it out a little). Then again, projectiles probably wouldn't really work at all if they weren't ignore solids, ALSO because of how confined the available space is... quite a tricky problem :D
Nice game over messages btw, really made me appreciate my failures ;)
Great work overall, feels more like a full blown jam game than a compo entry.
Really impressive game for a jam entry. Very well realized presentation, audiovisually coherent and great level design.
The movement took me a little while getting used to but once I did it felt natural and quickly executing a pre planned route became very satisfying. The whole thing kind of reminds me of the way n++ feels. The levels looping is a neat, economic solution to the time limitations of a jam in the context of content.
Fun game! Physics based jam games are often a little iffy to control (due to balancing / polish in the context of limited time) but this was very well executed. Neat presentation too, especially the outlines.
Great game and particularly impressive as a compo entry. The visuals are on point (especially the enemey designs and animations, really cool stuff) and the audio (minimalist but fitting) nicely ties the whole presentation together. All that combined with the high firerate of fast moving projectiles makes for some really juicy gamefeel.
The balancing seems a little "off", but that's a classic jam symptom :D
Also, I'm kind of split on the enemy hit particles (the white ones). They look really nice and definitely add to the feel of the game but I'm not sure if that's worth the additional visual clutter they cause (considering how chaotic the game is).
Overall, really cool game. Particularly the level of polish as well as the volume of content is very impressive for a compo game. Congrats!
Absolutely beautiful presentation, very unique too - like a hieronymus bosch painting came to life :D
The systems are, at first, a little cryptic. Not a big deal though as the time it took me to understand the mechanics was nicely bridged by getting lost in the audiovisual allure the game exudes. Really really really great stuff.
This is really cool. Certainly one of the more unusual / unexpected games this jam has produced :D
A little rough around the edges, but that's to be expected from a jam entry. Overall, fun game. Congrats!
Great game, particularly the presentation - clean, high fidelity rendering meets surreal design. The gameplay is minimalist but fits perfectly with the presentation and ties everything together nicely.
Congrats on this coherently designed and well realized entry!
@better-half Hey, thanks for the detailed feedback!
First things first, sorry about the mouse sens. The jam version actually has (very rudimentary) mouse sens options (Page Up/Page Down to increment/decrement) but it's never mentioned anywhere - I'm particularly sorry about that because the first comment we got actually touches on the mouse sensitivity issue and after reading it I simply forgot to add that piece of information to the LD description. I did now (apparently second time's a charm :P), so future players have you to thank for a somewhat manageable gameplay experience. So, yeah, sorry for that unnecessary inconvenience - trying to play this game on "incredibly" low sens sounds terribly painful :D
You're definitely right about the upgrade station being borderline unusable. The balancing in general is all over the place, in the end we just didn't have time to make everything work. On the time-stop idea: We're working on a post-jam version that employs a similar approach by structuring the game into waves, providing the player with some much needed downtime to tend to their upgrades.
And, to answer your question: Yes, the music is original! It was made by @williwiderstand - you can check out the soundcloud page linked in his profile for more of his work (including the soundtracks to our previous LD entries)
Wow, I really really enjoyed this. Super clean presentation, minimalist but adequate - all the visuals feel very polished because everything is stylistically coherent. My only nitpick is that the dead crops kinda look like crows, which cost me a crop once or twice (when things got chaotic) :D
Great difficulty scaling too - too slow for me to try another time after my first game over but probably the best possible difficulty scaling in terms of providing the highest amount of players with a satisfying experience.
Also, I found there to be a surprising and satisfying amount of depth to the gameplay - the trifecta of leading your shots to compensate for travel time, keeping an overview to prioritize certain enemies over others and trying to keep your character centered to reduce the average travel time really made for a skillful and rewarding experience during the later waves.
Also, I beat your PB :P cornscore.PNG
Congrats on this very well crafted entry!
Very impressive. Aesthetically, this game is absolutely top notch and in addition to that it's also a beautiful showcase of minimalist game design. The most important aspect of designing a jam game obviously is thinking economically, and having the gameplay systems build directly on the well realized visuals is a very elegant approach to that.
Great level design, too. Nice prop composition that further enables the photography mechanic in addition to the rendering, lush foliage, natural/tame elevation, fairly big map and despite all that super easy to navigate/keep track of where you are and what lies where - great use of landmarks and a well designed initial spawn point.
On a smaller note, I appreciate that there's a jump - many walking sims feel rather rigid and are littered with invisible walls - ironically I feel like that walking sims in particular really profit from a high degree of freedom in traversal. The jumping also works well in tandem with the accurate collisions of environment props - really adds to the immersion.
Now, if I was to be OVERLY critical, those would be my nitpicks:
Flipping through the book is very slow. A proper system using some form of input queuing would have been overkill for a jam game, but I feel like the animation itself could be played faster. The main reason the flipping anim feels slow / clunky is that (at least I would assume so) the pages turn all the way to the back of the book, but because of the perspective from which the book is viewed only the first half of the animation is actually visible - which feels like input is locked for a significant amount of time after the animation has "finished"
I would lower the near clipping planes of the camera (or maybe slightly increase the horizontal extents of the player collider?). Walking into solids regularly allows the cam to see through environment props which is probably not intended and would be very easy to fix.
Some additional sound effects would have been nice, like a page turning one for flipping through the book.
As others have already pointed out, binding quit to main (with losing progress) to tapping escape is a little dangerous :P A decent fix that's easy to implement would be binding it on hold instead of tap.
That's all :D Congrats on getting this amazing entry done in just 3 days.
Cute game, I especially like the character designs :D The main gameplay loop is solid, just a little confusing at first (as others have already pointed out).
I think decreasing the amount of veggie NPC's (or their spawnrate, not sure how exactly the system works) and having them deal damage to the player would add an interesting additional layer to the gameplay. The main systems for that are already in place (collisions, player health, etc...) so it probably wouldn't be complicated to implement. Right now, the NPC's just kind of exist :D
Overall cool game, congrats!
Really cool game. The mechanics are simple but work well. Nice idea having the "critical height" not be a straight line but form a circle - particularly elegant as the circular form doesn't just add additional depth to the mechanics/decision making but also coherently ties into the visuals - cool stuff.
Also, great music - which is where my only (minor) criticism lies. As the music is pretty intense it would heavily profit from a proper seamless loop that begins after the initial buildup of the track, instead of just looping the single track over and over again - but I guess you guys thought the same and just didn't have time to implement that, same thing is the case with our entry :D
Nice game, coherent gameplay + presentation which is already very solid entry for a first time participant. Also, even though the mechanics are very simple, it's surprisingly satisfying to just roll around and collect stuff :D
2 minor nitpicks:
- not sure what to do after collecting 60 canisters. I would assume that was supposed to complete the game but you had no time to implement a proper win state? Very understandable for a jam game of course.
- the player droid sprite looks like it's almost exactly the size of a one tile but can't fit through single tile gaps between environment solids. This is really not a big deal but details like these are always good to keep in mind since they do have "quality of life" implications (small ones, but still) and are usually easy to fix.
Definitely a great first time entry, congrats!
I have mixed feelings on this, but overall I definitely enjoyed it.
First things first, the presentation is great. The visuals and the writing (as well as the audio, to some degree) really create an atmosphere that's rare for a jam game.
I also really like the ending - it's simple, but fairly intense as it harnesses the atmosphere that has been built up.
It took me a while (a couple of minutes / retries) to figure out "what's going on" and how the mechanics work/correlate. Fundamentally, I think that's completely fine, I like "abstract puzzle games". But there is a difference between cryptic communication and no communication at all, and I really feel like some kind of feedback that ties the pieces of meat reaching a certain size and the player taking damage would have been really really important. Or, alternatively, the note on the wall could just spell it out - which would be the boring solution but probably still preferable to how it works now.
When I actually understood how the mechanics work, the gameplay loop of keeping an overview of the asymmetrically growing pieces of meat / trying to figure out the correct "sequence" of harvesting them and then quickly executing that sequence was actually really fun.
The difficulty level also felt good to me, but maybe that's just because I'm an FPS player so I'm used to precise/fast first person mouse and keyboard input.
The cycle of eerie downtime (reading the new note) and intense pressure (not dying to the meat) also accentuates the intimidating atmosphere. Great stuff.
Overall, really cool and unique entry - but a little rough around the edges
Really fun game, definitely a standout entry in terms of presentation. It's obvious you had a lot of fun working on this :D
Fun game! Upgrading your stats and getting better weapons makes for a very satisfying gameplay loop, despite the actual gameplay being so simple. Nice music too, I was playing for quite a while and it didn't feel repetitive at all.
My only criticism would be that holding the attack input isn't supported - that would make the game MUCH more comfortable to play. Oh, and the "farting" enemies made my game lag, especially in later waves :P
Overall, great entry. Congrats!
Really cool game. Rare to see a fully fledged point and click adventure with branching dialogue in a jam. Great writing and visuals (particularly the characters). Some elements of the game are a little cryptic, but honestly, that might even add to the overall atmosphere. Also, very unique setting. Cool stuff.
! ! ! SPOILERS AHEAD ! ! ! (I'll try to keep things cryptic as well :D)
On the ending:
I was expecting something like that due to the phrasing of the initial task. Still worked great as an ending! Out of curiosity, did you paint over the, uh, "elements", for "censorship" reasons / to tone down the intensity? Seemed a little off. Also, would have been cool to have the amount (and "likeness") of "elements" correlate to the amount of people you managed to convince.
Really cool entry. Well executed and unique in more ways than one. Congrats!
Great game for a first time participant! Sito already gave great feedback on how the game communicates its systems, I don't have anything to add in that regard. But, to provide additional feedback, I feel like the game would work better as a single screen game with a static camera. By increasing the camera size/downscaling the sprites/increasing the pixels per unit ratio (and maybe slightly changing the layout of the environment) you could easily fit all the important information in a single viewport. Having all visual information and all possible interactions available at all times would probably work better for the game. Congrats on your first LD!
Really neat game. Feels great to play and there are so many nice details like the audio-visual bounce when hitting the ground and ducking reducing the light range. I really like the latter one in particular as it's a great example of multipurpose design that harmonically covers multiple aspects of the game, as it's both an aesthetic element as well as a balancing tool to ensure that players use the duck reactively rather than just hold down by default.
Potential bug: Could it be that the whole level (including enemies) is always full loaded and thrown axes don't despawn off-screen? I didn't play enough to verify this, but I restarted a level once and threw some axes at the beginning just for fun and later in the level an enemy was missing that was there during the previous try.
Very impressive. Quite literally as polished as a 3 day solo project can get. Fascinating how the paradigms around limitations and time shift when overwhelming experience and routine are at play :D
@coyotethursday My bad, been a while since I last published something on itch and I forgot that newly created projects require manual publishing after saving the initial draft. Thanks for the heads up, enjoy!
@PopDaddyGames nowhere, congrats on reaching The Light. Sorry for the confusion, maybe I went a little too abstract with the "implicit" victory screen :P
@basekeet That's kind of the idea but yea, some sections are a little problematic to navigate. When it comes to limiting fundamental player senses like vision it's always treading a fine line between interesting and annoying. And, on the white room, well, see my reply above. Thanks for playing!
@art-alchemist Yep, initially the whole thing was stuck in draft lol, that was the problem. And yea, no browser version yet. I may or may not upload a WebGL build of the same version in the upcoming days, depending on how well different browsers handle the game.
To answer your question: Outline shader (any technique except inverted hull should work) + unlit flat color materials + flat color camera clear flags + short camera frustum + terrain environment.
The combination of short view frustum and terrain environment is particularly important. With this setup environment elements look like they gradually "grow" out of the ground as you approach them. This happens because the bottom part of terrain hills/bumps is closer to the camera than any part above (because its wider than any part above) and, bottom to top, gradually narrows with a curved shape. In contrast, symmetrical meshes consisting of large flat surfaces like cubes would instantly pop in and out of vision.
I hope that answers your question, thanks for playing!
@popdaddygames thanks, happy you enjoyed it so much.
@isayneigh hey, sorry about that. "LMB" as in Left Mouse Button, not keys on the keyboard. Maybe I should have written the full string rather than abbreviate it, to leave no room for ambiguity. It's a crazy coincidence that the L key just so happens to be the dedicated reload button for dev purposes. Oh well, glad you still enjoyed the experience, even with such a big part of the game missing. Thanks for playing!
Fun game. It's basic but covers all the fundamentals of bullet hell design and feels pretty satisfying to play, even without any sfx/vfx feedback.
Your octopus buddy blocking enemy projectiles and having them "stack up" on his body is a funny interaction but got hurt a few times, not sure if the collisions are intentional :D At some point the main player character stopped shooting, also not sure if that's intentional.
Also, makes sense that you had initially planned to have the enemies move around because in its current implementation with a static camera and static enemies you can just place the cursor over an enemy and basically ignore the whole mouse aim mechanic.
Good work for 11 hours!
Absolutely beautiful art, very unique style, particularly in conjunction with the whole physics angle. Contrary to some other commenters I appreciate the lack of overly explicit tutorialization. The fundamental systems are intuitive enough to quickly figure out just by observation which ultimately leads to a more satisfying experience.
There's definitely some "UX barriers" with actually utilizing said systems (like buildings instantly breaking for no apparent reason) but the overall vibes manage to make even the jank feel charming :D
That being said, I made my way through the game by shamelessly bug abusing and superjumping off the windmill which probably shouldn't allow for infinite jumps while in collision :P
Very accomplished on the audio-visual side of things, the presentation is super polished. The "announcer" (who kinda sounds like squidward, lol) is a nice touch.
Gameplay is great too. The core formula may be simple and common but it's well executed and the high amount of different mechanics you managed to squeeze in continuously modify the gameplay so it never feels stale. Also, good decision to not have all hazards be an insta kill.
Minor nitpicks on the "meta" side of things: For a game like this it takes a little too long to get back in the game after dying, especially since all the "delays" in navigating the menu don't really to the experience. Also, even more minor of a nitpick, the dash being listed alongside other controls that are available right from the start left me a little confused as to why click didn't do anything, initially making me think it was an input issue on my end. But maybe that's just me since no one else mentioned it :D
Really unique atmosphere and hypnotic in more ways than one, which is arguably a rhythm games most important quality :D
I think the difficulty is perfect, especially as its mostly optional considering the game allows you to engage at your own pace. Cool stuff all around.
fun game, gameplay feels a bit like slow motion downwell (in a positive way), more deliberation and strategy in pathing but still a good amount of room for mechanical skill expression, like min-maxing uptime of the dive attack to traverse the level as quickly/efficiently as possible. really nice & polished presentation too!
Short but sweet. Contrary to some of the commenters above I quickly understood how to utilize the crawl state to reach higher heights but that's probably because I have a background in games like Half-Life and Counter-Strike and this aspect of your game is basically crouch jumping from Source Engine FPS games :P For most people who aren't familiar with this way of hitbox manipulation this would probably pose a roadblock, a little hint in the description would maybe work as a simple remedy.
On a slightly related note, I don't think the "Z" key binding works particularly well for crouching as the game wants the initial press to happen while moving and shortly after jumping. This leads to some awkward finger acrobatics, the Left Shift key or a binding to be used by the right hand would probably work better. Maybe multiple bindings to cover all preferences :D
Also, I really like the opening cinematic. A proper opening does so much for setting the stage and giving the whole experience some structure and I always appreciate it when jam devs bite the bullet and are willing to sacrifice some polish for the actual "main part" of the game in favor of a strong opening.
Feels like a time capsule from an age that never was, a dreamt up chimera of early 3D style and late 2D design, and I mean that in the best way possible. Genuinely had a blast with this :D
Very solid all around, both the audiovisual presentation as well as the gameplay are well realized. The cartoony colors and the inverted hull outlines look great on the character models and the animations have a lot of charm.
I also really liked the funky sfx, but speaking of sfx, there's some clipping going on with the same sfx playing simultaneously. Unfortunately the problem gets worse as the game progresses due to the upgrade system scaling projectile amounts and such.
Pretty good replayability factor too due to the rouguelike upgrade system and the surprisingly high skill ceiling.
Great game overall, definitely something thats worth expanding on.
sometimes i get sad at how underexplored language is in video games (which is quite strange given the dynamic and inherently playful nature of language) so your entry made me very happy =) this game is basically a perfect execution of what it wants to be, on all fronts. really cool stuff.
Very enjoyable. Unique artstyle with a lot of intriguing elements, particularly the card names and illustrations stand out. Nice music, too.
However, I'm not sure if the time limit works well for this game as it basically punishes you for taking your time with each card. This seems a little antithetical as the main form of engagement is soaking in the card illustrations, thinking about how their effects modify the game state and getting amused by the labyrinthian implications they have for your hand size :D
Also, I agree with the other commenters on the whole card drawing feedback. In addition to improving functional clarity it would also lean into the games biggest strengths by enhancing the presentation, even just some simple sfx would make a big difference.
It's interesting how engaging a simple game with 0 meaningful decision making and very rudimentary "tactility" in its interfacing can be if the presentation is well executed. Everything comes together in a way that somehow manages to feel decently interactive.
Overall, really cool project!
Fun gampelay once I got the hang of the mechanics. Funky visuals too. There's some rough edges like the high frequency laser SFX being twice as loud as everything else but these things just happen in a time constrained jam setting. Cool game!
Playing this makes me feel like a kid again playing doodle jump :D The crazy part is that this game feels more professional than the actual doodle jump. Everything from gamefeel to art is super polished and there's a serious amount of progression mechanics and level design variety. The soundtrack is a banger too.
You could take this as it is, slap on tilt controls and put it on the android play store. I'd download it =)
Visually probably the coolest LD57 game I've played so far. The presentation excels at all aspects of collage, from interesting sample choices (dogtail grass, lol) to how they are put together, and the somewhat "brutalist" usage of fonts in the menu makes this artstyle genuinely unique.
Gameplay was enjoyable too but the timings did feel a bit too tight. Might be a visual communication issue though (no clear "line" / "cutoff point" representing the visual timing). Additional (minor) confusion arises from hit/miss indicators statically lingering. Would probably help if they floated upwards, or something like that, to make way for new ones and clearly communicate which indicators refer to which action/timing.
Overall really cool game!
Solid all around. Feels good to play, extends old ideas with new mechanics and, to complete the trifecta of arcade pillars, has a pronounced artstyle with a lot of strong, distinct elements that come together very cohesively. Especially the death sprites are a nice touch :D
Really nice audio-visual presentation. The way the camera, water vfx, ambience sfx and sluggish but satisfying ship movement come together conveys the "underwaterness" really well. Some nice details too, like the fishies. The gameplay is simple but I guess that's the point, it's quite relaxing :D
Minor nitpicks/notes: The drill sfx could use some filters to make it sound less sharp and more "underwater-y", feels a little out of place, especially because of how well the rest of the audio captures the setting. Also, is the upgrade menu screen missing some shaders/post processing? The water is white and super bright. Doesn't even look all that bad, just looks kind of unintentional, especially since it seems to be the same scene as the main menu where the colors look normal.